#0 - Nov. 18, 2009, 4:01 p.m.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20432626969&sid=1
But I wanted to bring it up outside that thread because it's kind of an odd issue, and I'm hoping perhaps some other classes can shed some light on it.
The Problem
Fingers of Frost is a talent that (at 2/2 points) has a 15% chance to proc a buff on the Mage that allows him to treat his target as if it were Frozen. In a raid environment (which is what we're talking about here), this currently simply means that his next two Frostbolt casts have a +50% chance to crit.
In 3.3, however, it becomes more important, because the proc allows us to cast Deep Freeze on the boss for a large chunk of damage.
The proc is linked to Frostbite -- they share a roll. For example, if you had 2/3 Frostbite and 2/2 Fingers of Frost, you would have a 10% chance for both to proc and a 5% chance for only Fingers of Frost to proc. If you had 3/3 Frostbite and 2/2 Fingers of Frost, they would always proc together. This is sensible for balance, I mention it only to clarify part of the problem I describe below.
Fingers of Frost has a couple of odd behaviors:
1) No charge count is displayed. I would expect it to behave like (for example) Lock and Load: when it procs, it displays two charges, your next cast reduces it to one charge, your next removes the buff.
2) Its proc time is inconsistent. If you are specced for Frostbite, and Frostbite procs, then Fingers of Frost procs on cast. If you are specced for 3/3 Frostbite, Fingers of Frost will always proc on cast, because it will always proc with Frostbite. However, if you are not specced for Frostbite, or if you're partially-specced for Frostbite and Frostbite doesn't proc but Fingers of Frost does, then Frostbite will instead proc on spell hit.
Besides being kind of weird, this second oddity causes a problem with the new Deep Freeze change. You see, Frostbolt's cast time is so short that it is not uncommon for it to be shorter than the spell's flight time -- especially when you take precasting (usually with Quartz) into account.
My own cast time in a raid, for example, is generally around 1.85 seconds. I can generally start precasting about 0.2 seconds before the cast ends, meaning my window from actual cast time start to next button push is about 1.65 seconds. Frostbolt's travel speed is about 21 yards/sec. At max range, that results in a travel time of about 1.71 seconds.
The result (verified on the PTR) is that we often wind up with a situation where we have already begun casting the Frostbolt that will consume the second Fingers of Frost charge when we are notified of the buff. This means we either need to cancel the cast, or we miss out on the Deep Freeze cast.
The problem is of course exacerbated when we have active haste buffs up.
Fingers of Frost was changed in an earlier PTR build to always proc on cast, to address this problem. Unfortunately, this introduced another problem, which we had experienced until Patch 3.1(?): proc-munching. In either of these scenarios:
Cast 1: FoF procs
Cast 2: FoF procs
Cast 1: FoF procs
Cast 2
Cast 3: FoF procs
...the second proc is lost, rather than refreshing the charge count. Since there's a 27.75% chance that FoF will proc on either cast 2 or cast 3, that's a non-trivial problem in terms of lost buff uptime.
(Correction: proc-munching can happen with or without Frostbite.)
In the latest PTR build, that change has been reverted, which puts us back where we started in terms of lost Deep Freeze cast opportunities.
So what I'm curious about is whether there are other procs with similar problems:
- Are there any other self-buff charged procs that don't display a charge count?
- Are there any other self-buff charged procs without an internal cooldown?
- If so, do any of those procs proc on cast?
- If so, do any of them suffer from similar proc-munching problems?
I'm hoping that if similar talents can be identified and parallels drawn, maybe it'll help illuminate whatever's going wrong with Fingers of Frost in this respect.
