Freezing Arrow and you
by Mike Schramm 
Dec 18th 2008 at 6:00PM
Aspect of the Hare has a great post up about "Freezing Arrow for non-Hunters" -- of all of the new Wrath abilities, Freezing Arrow seems right up there with Death Grip as a game changer during instance pulls. But as great as it is (a Hunter can now trap a mob at a distance, which means trapping casters is much, much easier), there are drawbacks that you other group members need to know about, hence AotH's post.First and foremost, chain trapping is out. On a normal trap, a Hunter can lay down a trap early, and get past the extra 10 second cooldown on getting the trap up again, which means they can have another trap pick up the same mob when the first one finishes its duration. But pulling with Freezing Arrow means you can't lay down the trap early, which means that the 10 second cooldown will always be in effect: there will be ten seconds after the trap comes up before the Hunter can Freezing Arrow again.
There are loopholes, as AotH says: Resourcefulness can help Survival Hunters with the cooldown a bit, and Readiness means a Hunter can throw out two Arrows in a row (but no more than that). And of course positioning helps a lot -- if a Hunter can lay down a Freezing Arrow early and then kite a mob into it, chain trapping is theoretically possible (though with casters, it's going to be really tough, just because you have to move so much to get them to move after you). But non-Hunters beware: Freezing Arrow is good for trapping a mob for about 20 seconds. After that, you're on your own.
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Instances, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Lunchbox Dec 18th 2008 6:13PM
Survival Hunters can chain trap with Freezing Arrow, I've done it myself in Heroic Oculus.
Resourcefulness does reduce the cooldown, up to six seconds off with 3 points, I believe. Reducing the cooldown to 24 seconds.
Trap Mastery increases the duration of the trap itself to 26 seconds....more that enough time for a SV Hunter (who's paying attention) to chain trap.
cheef Dec 19th 2008 1:33PM
You guys still use CC? heh
Itsnoteasy Dec 18th 2008 6:29PM
"Aspect of the Hare" is the name of the blog, "Pike" is the name of the blogger. Saying the blog made the post is non-sensical and a little creepy.
Artemizz Dec 19th 2008 2:32PM
Not really... I refer to wowinsider all the time as, "WoWInsider had a post up the other day...". It's more nonsensical to have said, "Mike Schramm had a post up the other day...", as more people can relate to the website than the individual bloggers.
Itsnoteasy Dec 20th 2008 11:01AM
That's true, but Aspect of the Hare isn't a conglomerate; it's a single blogger. If it was a news site or something, then it'd be cool, but it's her personal blog.
Gharbad Dec 18th 2008 6:26PM
A survival hunter can indeed chain trap with it (I've done it many times), However, in the current dungeon mechanics, CC of any form, much less non targetable cc, is rarely used. Further, it suffers from the arming delay not starting until the trap hits the ground wherever you are shooting it. So more than once, I've shot it to cc a mob only to have the tank pull the others and watch my 'targeted' mob run right over the trap on the ground and not set it off. Frustrating, very frustrating.
Also, any reference to this ability, whether in pve or pvp as a 'game changer' makes me shake my head. Anything you can accomplish with it was able to be accomplished before and often with better and more accurate results (silence shot caster to trap, los pull caster to trap, kite pull caster to trap, et cetera).
Frankly, the one thing I have found it truly useful for is cheap lock and load procs. Fire this into an aoe group, tank will break it almost immediately, but I get two free explosive shots. Too bad that it doesn't work on bosses.
Rob Dec 18th 2008 6:42PM
Hey, you gotta be kidding? Game changing? Doubtfully. The new 80 skill freezing arrow is far from efficient and far far away from being anything game changing. While it is a nice option to fling our traps out, its by far lack luster.
Traps: all share cool down, arming time, chance to resist, big "dont stand here noob" animation, break on damage (FA and FT anyways), long cool down, cant be targeted, and with FA there is an additional flight time. All for either some mediocre damage or 20 seconds out of game.
Traps suck. Freezing Arrow does not make them suck any less. Sticking crappy skills onto an arrow and calling it good does not in fact make it good.
While traps have a lot of downfalls, they are useful in pve, trapping mobs is fairly easy without FA, and is not really needed. It does not remove chain trapping, but makes it more complicated.
Like someone else mentioned, its nice for Lock and Load, however your wasting a trap, mana, and damage by using it that wasy if the trap is just ment to be broken. It would be better to just run into the aoe mob and drop explosive trap and then disengage back out. This way you are at least getting damage for your mana.
Peace
Lyraat Dec 19th 2008 9:54AM
Agreed. Freezing Arrow is not game changing. Perhaps it would have been pre-Wrath, back when we needed cc in dungeons. I only use Freezing Arrow for fun, not because we need cc. Any tank can hold aggro on 3 to 5 mobs now without much difficulty. And now that every dps class has an AoE, why cc? Group them together, burn, rinse, repeat.
The only time Ive seen Freezing Arrow be mildly useful was when a mob had aggro'd onto a healer during Gluth. Another hunter--who was kiting--dropped a Freezing Arrow on the mob before grabbing aggro on it. He took some damage from aiming it, but it saved the healer.
gundamxzero Dec 19th 2008 11:44AM
My sentiments exactly, not only is this no different than laying a trap but it still has the arm time and is limited to one trap. I really feel like we have the most worthless level 80 spell, while alot of other classes got really cool ones.
It would at least have better funtionality if we could choose which trap we were shooting off, or if it didnt have an arm timer.
I am a little underwhelmed by masters call as well, the fact that we have to have a pet up at all times and have to target ourselves cast it, and hope our pet is in range. Not fluid at all.
Nick S Dec 18th 2008 6:47PM
Despite all of that, Freezing Trap is still safer, more reliable, and chainable.
Allen Ibrahim Dec 18th 2008 6:55PM
such an awesome looking spell!
Vlatch Dec 19th 2008 9:37AM
It is an awesome looking party trick.
Perderedeus Dec 18th 2008 7:13PM
As a hunter, I hate that I have something that is supposed to help my group... yet it has so many inane caveats that it requires a warning label just to use.
"It has an arming time, guys." "Oh and it can be resisted just like a regular trap." "Oh and it has a 30 second cooldown." "No I can't use it on the fly and then chain-trap." "If you break it, it will probably still be on cooldown for me." etc, etc.
Clunky trap mechanics persisting into Wrath is just ... depressing. So many other CCs have become more flexible (Sap, Repentance, the addition of Hex)... yet traps have not.
Plastic Rat Dec 18th 2008 9:34PM
Heaven forbid hunters have to use a bit of skill to get their abilities to work!
Can't they just give us unlimited ammo, no need for an ammo pouch so we can get our bag space bag and take away the need to feed a pet entirely, I mean currently the pet feeding system is vestigial at best.
Or.. I could just go play a mage or warlock.
(...or I could just learn to use my abilities and enjoy the fact that it takes a bit more skill to do properly..)
Shevaresh Dec 18th 2008 7:14PM
I don't have a hunter, but my guild was discussing ways to pull bosses in interesting ways the other day, which brings to mind a question:
If you misdirect a tank, and fire a freezing arrow at a boss - will he get the aggro, or does the hunter?
Briggs Dec 18th 2008 7:27PM
Why would you use Freezing Shot after MDing the tank? Bosses, as a whole, are immune to CC. Far better, I would think, to MD the tank and then dump on your best damage dealing abilities to pump the tank's threat up.
Nick S Dec 18th 2008 8:24PM
Freezing Arrow generates no threat other than "hey I'm here" threat.
Justout Dec 18th 2008 7:57PM
Game changing? Please, keep the brown-nosing to a minimum. Adam Holisky won't let your readers forget that the higher-ups read WoW Insider... but game changing? Freezing arrow sucks. As others have already mentioned, trapping in general isn't worth its salt, unfortunately (and I say this as a Survival hunter). Traps still break on ANY damage, ffs.
Moktana Dec 18th 2008 7:41PM
Hardly game changing. In fact I hate that this is my level 80 skill. When I look at other classes level 80 skill most are pretty useful. This is lame. The way to make it a cool skill would be to let us throw any trap of our choosing. This would make it a viable pvp and pve skill. For pvp this is borderline useless. In pve, so many classes have a CC now that freezing arrow is pretty much the last resort way to go. Plus in most of the instances I've done in WotLK no one really utilizes CC like they used to since it is easier for tanks to tank multiple mobs. IMO give us back camouflage.
vazhkatsi Dec 19th 2008 3:15AM
yes, demonic circle is much, much more useful! so many ways i can use it. like reseting raids when we screw up and.... um,,,, confusing people. yeah......