Blizzards & criticals

[LochnarITB]

Heh ok, I guess I'll abandon the notion of an AE Frost Mage in the style of cow-herding D2 Javazons for now

Not that I think it might not be there hidden somewhere but I'm having trouble seeing a strategy from what seems to be an awesome talent tree supporting a dismal spell selection
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From what I can tell, the snare is checked only once, at the beginning of the spell, and not again for any succeeding waves.  Anything outside the AoE when you cast it will not be snared.
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I just went back and checked to make sure I wasn't remembering something that wasn't there. The spell does check for the slow each wave. Baddies entering the blizzard zone after the first wave will still be slowed. They also have the chance to be frozen if you have invested in that talent.

There are a couple problems with using blizzard. As stated earlier, at this time, blizzard does not crit. This reduces its damage output. There is also the problem of getting adds to go through the area of effect. If you cast it at distance, there is a chance that adds will not path through it. If you cast it close to you, the baddies are going to be on you in a few steps anyway. The slow effect does not slow their attack speed, just movement. Blizzard combined with frostbite also suffers with the random number generator. It can be very streaky. This means that you will often see an entire group frozen but you will also see none frozen at other times.

That being said, frost build is viable, particularly combined with points in arcane. Using blizzard on groups you can get two ends of the spectrum. If the entire group is frozen, you have time to approach and use improved arcane explosion a time or two before they break. IAE does crit and can do more damage than blizzard. In the case that none freeze, they are still slowed. You can pull away from the group and blizzard again. For singles, you can pull with frostbolt. With the reach talent, you have the range of the fireball. It won't do as much damage as a fireball, but it will slow so you can usually get off an extra shot. When they get in your face, the points in arcane will allow good damage with arcane missiles.

Also, if you do go to the top (bottom?) of the frost tree, you get the fun spell, ice barrier. Even against the hardest hitting bad guys, it gives you a short time to catch up on your reading or do your nails or anything else that needs doing such as bandaging or evocation or a couple uninterrupted damage spells. It also gives a nice little bubble graphic and a frost fog trail when you run around. B)

Frost build can work. You will have to be more patient. Fire and arcane do more damage so they kill faster. Frost also seems to be less cookie cutter if you, like me, like to do things a little different than the masses. I love my frost mage. I find myself drawn back to play him all the time, even with the frustrations I am feeling with WoW in general. If you want to give frost a run, it only costs a little gold to respec if you aren't happy with it.