Halfway to Cap: Up to Level 74

As good a time as any to take a break and post some thoughts...because I'm now clueless where to go and am slightly bored/tired.

I've spent the whole time playing as full frost in s3/s4 gear. I have no PvE gear which prohibits me from playing the other specs to the same extent as I can play frost. No complaints though as Frost is quite powerful and perhaps the best spec for the leveling process. Frost is obviously very strong when it comes to five mans (hi2u shatter), pvping while questing and grinding, and generally just being very good at doing good damage with so-so gear.

That's all pretty generic and obvious and yeah. That's because it sort of is. The frost playstyle is entirely unchanged. Deep Freeze is clumsy and generally unnecessary. Yes, you can extend the end of a nova into even more damage, but rarely is that necessary in PvE.

Deep Freeze is currently the most important talent in frost tree -- it is a failure at this point. On a successful Freeze, you are guaranteed two frostbolts and an Ice Lance. Assuming nobody touches you or interrupts you or you have no casting speed debuffs. It does help in setting up damage if you land it, but it doesn't guarantee it as much as people are claiming.

The problem is, and it's a bit specific, strong players will never get hit by it. I dueled Sonydigital, who was quite easily able to not only pummel my IV+mind quickening poly on the opener, but also spell reflect the IV+mind quickening deep freeze I tossed out soon afterwards. (I anticipated this, but was NOT expecting that I would be deep frozen even though I had no frost root on myself -- this is actually a pretty big deal; I can't wait to see a war reflect this on a mage and see the war's DK or Mage teammate destroy)

Let's face it. Reacting to a 1.5 second cast is pretty easy. Reacting to one when you know it's coming (HEY IM FROZEN BRO) is fucking trivial. The best you can hope for is a frostbite proc and then popping IV and hoping he misses the interrupt. In theory, you can do shit like: IV+Trinket -> Frostbot - > Pet Nova - > Deep Freeze - > Bolt -> Bolt -> Lance. (Shatter Trap)

In practice, you'll never be landing shit like that on top players. They WILL interrupt it. Or dispel your root. Every class can do either. In multiple ways. Good luck with that.

As a five second CC, Deep Freeze's value as a CC isn't amazing high. The only situation where it has any value as a CC is on a nova'd healer or as a way of extending a nova on a melee. Generally, it's not possible to do either and you're going to be using DF for it's damage. (setup)

For this spell to be where it needs to be, I really think DF needs one of the following:

• Half second cast. No global. This would make it very hard to interrupt and would honestly be perfect. Only with a casting speed debuff and very careful attention could you prevent this. DF would become a flexible offensive and defensive tool but it still is "given away" by needing to root your target first. (Or hope for a Shatter Shield nova or frostbite)
• Remove the second frozen check. This would mean removing the root effect midcast would not avoid the DF and you would HAVE to interrupt it. I think this is incrementally a reasonable buff, but even with this change, DF's use is somewhat limited.
  
• Remove the whole "requires frozen" aspect of the ability. Target takes 30% less damage while frozen. Makes the spell much more defensive.
  
• Or make it do a billion dmg instantly and suck your dick and swallow and gargle that shit like it's Scope Winterfresh.

Okay, back to telling baddies they're bad.