Icy Rays

xtraordinary91 · September 2014

So with this coming from Crush and in the patch notes today:

terramak wrote: »

Classes and Balance
Control Wizard: Icy Rays: Control Strength and Resistance will now properly affect the duration of the immobilize from Icy Rays. To compensate for this, the base root duration has been reduced to 1 second when hitting two targets, and 1.25 seconds when hitting a single target (down from 1.5 and 2 respectively).

gentlemancrush wrote: »

I want to reiterate, Icy Rays *definitely* can be dodged. I just did it here locally in a test environment. However given how fast the activation is I realize that it might be practically unlikely to do it on purpose in a live environment since the activation and flight time are fast enough to make the immunity frames hard to time. Icy Rays is *not* getting a change at this time, and the PVP landscape will probably not undergo any more large changes UNTIL the cleric rework and trickster rogue buffs make it to Preview at least.

Thank you all for your continued feedback!
Chris "Gentleman Crush" Meyer

It looks like Icy rays has been reduced in Effectiveness in PvP by .75 of a second (Before Control Resist Stat and Tenacity is applied).

It is nice to know that the way that Icy Rays is currently funcitoning is Intentional and is not broken, Crush stating that it definitely can be dodged. It would be interesting to know what the immunity frames for this actually is. ( I am thinking its probably tied to the split second of the activation of the ability).

Now to the point of the post:

To sucessfully land an Ice Knife on opponents in PvP 9/10 times they need to be rooted by Icy Rays. Discuss thoughts on this change and how we will need to adapt to suit.

abecassis · October 2014

If you cast ice knife before chill strike lands it works pretty well, if its in the middle of a dodge, they will dodge the chill strike but not the ice knife.

You can ice knife off entangling. Which can be a bit risky at the moment, because of tenacity and so so much cc resist it might be that they get out of entangling and dodge before ice knife lands.

But im sure the root on rays will be long enough for ice knife to land, i would not worry too much about it. Just be a bit faster on the trigger then when you were from before i guess.

Other then that its back to the good old counting dodges

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For me i never ice knife when opponents are only rooted. I always do it from entangling. If they are only rooted they can counter it with so many things, almost every class has a counter. And its pretty easy aswell since the long cast time on the knife.

against HRs we can now basically get on our knees. There is nothing we can do anymore. The duration on rays was short enoguh against hrs imo. but dont worry, their nerf will come in 2015, maybe.

magiquepurse · October 2014

You offset some of the nerf with Wisdom. Should be around +7% with a PvP CW. The enemy of course will have Tenacity, Wisdom and maybe CC Resist too.

The key in that post is "Control Strength and resistance will properly affect IR Root". It seems that previously IR didn't take CC modifiers into consideration.

Overall its duration might be a bit lower, but most combos will require you to chain an Entangle off IR/Freeze anyway.

I'll test it on Preview later on though and get back.

davecheese · October 2014

I think these changes probably make Orb of Imposition even more required than before.

jayrad8 · October 2014

gentlemancrush wrote: »

Additionally, the Icy Rays change is to make it respect Orb of Imposition. With Orb equipped at R3 you will actually have a slightly longer base root (2.1875 seconds) that your foe can now resist correctly. This is one of the central reasons for the adjustment to the timing on a single target. Hitting two targets is even more beneficial for that control. This also means that Tenacity will properly act on it and make the difference between Wizards who use Orb of Imposition and Wizards who use two damage features feel more obvious and differentiated.

I don't expect a huge impact from this change, except for that if Crush is saying the root was previously unaffected by control bonus and resist, the control duration may not have been affected by deflect either and I assume it now will be.

If the base root had been left as 2 secs, but fixed to be affected by control bonus/resist, you'd easily be able to root others for 3+ secs which would be a little extreme for a CC that is difficult to dodge.

So, before the change you were essentially getting a guaranteed 2 sec root regardless of control bonus/resist (not WAI), and now there is a potential for increasing the root beyond 2 sec (better than before) at the cost of a lower base.

You'll still have the potential to land Ice Knife with only the Icy Rays root, just not without some form of CC bonus. Freeze, Entangling, and Shard are also viable ways to land it in addition to catching them between a dodge. You can always cancel your IK if they're going to dodge it now too. I'm sure a GWF or GF can lend you a hand with their 3 sec stuns

seeing someone IK'd while in mid-air from Bull Charge is a beautiful sight

lady808 · October 2014

So rejoice! IR had it's time nerfed down! Because... You know.. It was sticking people in one spot for all of like what? A split second in PvP? Due to all the Tenacity running around, my IR normally holds a decently geared PvP target all of a split second. On the flip side... This was also true for other people using it on me. Now though, I'll be able to move much sooner after getting struck with IR! Yay!

rashylewizz · October 2014

Sad day when the devs chose to nerf Icy Rays before Piercing Blades.

Oh well, at least they fixed GF's KV.

aulduron · October 2014

I never even noticed that it had a root.

xtraordinary91 · October 2014

magiquepurse wrote: »

You offset some of the nerf with Wisdom. Should be around +7% with a PvP CW. The enemy of course will have Tenacity, Wisdom and maybe CC Resist too.

The key in that post is "Control Strength and resistance will properly affect IR Root". It seems that previously IR didn't take CC modifiers into consideration.

Overall its duration might be a bit lower, but most combos will require you to chain an Entangle off IR/Freeze anyway.

I'll test it on Preview later on though and get back.

I do have 7% control strength from Wisdom, however, With the majority of PvP players sitting on the 19% tenacity mark, thats not a great difference...

Was this patch live over 10 hours ago? If so, I didn't feel a great difference...

davecheese wrote: »

I think these changes probably make Orb of Imposition even more required than before.

EoTs and Storm spell still offer greater returns on Burst and Dps. Dead opponents aren't contesting, and as a Cw you should be rotating to clear nodes.

jayrad8 wrote: »

I don't expect a huge impact from this change, except for that if Crush is saying the root was previously unaffected by control bonus and resist, the control duration may not have been affected by deflect either and I assume it now will be.

If the base root had been left as 2 secs, but fixed to be affected by control bonus/resist, you'd easily be able to root others for 3+ secs which would be a little extreme for a CC that is difficult to dodge.

So, before the change you were essentially getting a guaranteed 2 sec root regardless of control bonus/resist (not WAI), and now there is a potential for increasing the root beyond 2 sec (better than before) at the cost of a lower base.

You'll still have the potential to land Ice Knife with only the Icy Rays root, just not without some form of CC bonus. Freeze, Entangling, and Shard are also viable ways to land it in addition to catching them between a dodge. You can always cancel your IK if they're going to dodge it now too. I'm sure a GWF or GF can lend you a hand with their 3 sec stuns seeing someone IK'd while in mid-air from Bull Charge is a beautiful sight

Oh I know man, and I love seeing someone IK'd mid air of a bull charge as well. I guess it comes down more to: Do we need to adjust rotations of CC again in order to sucessfully land the knife. Especially against other PvP players who know how to play. I'm not worried against Pugs.

rashylewizz wrote: »

Sad day when the devs chose to nerf Icy Rays before Piercing Blades.

Oh well, at least they fixed GF's KV.

I'm pretty sure the PB fix is coming down the line soon as well. I don't think its a nerf as such, as it wasn't working as intended. If anything, IR still provides the best burst available to Cws outside of IK at the moment.

lady808 wrote: »

So rejoice! IR had it's time nerfed down! Because... You know.. It was sticking people in one spot for all of like what? A split second in PvP? Due to all the Tenacity running around, my IR normally holds a decently geared PvP target all of a split second. On the flip side... This was also true for other people using it on me. Now though, I'll be able to move much sooner after getting struck with IR! Yay!

It shall prove to be interesting thats for sure.

aulduron wrote: »

I never even noticed that it had a root.

Against Pugs, yes, I never noticed it had a root. In premades, or competitive matches, it should be used to assist your Melee train to focus down one target.

magiquepurse · October 2014

xtraordinary91 wrote: »

I do have 7% control strength from Wisdom, however, With the majority of PvP players sitting on the 19% tenacity mark, thats not a great difference...

Was this patch live over 10 hours ago? If so, I didn't feel a great difference...

Yes. I only did a GG and I am unsure what to say. It seems to work normally. Which it should IMO, as our behinds depend on IR/sure strike CC a lot, as evidenced by the disaster of a fight that GF vs CW is now, and it's all because of their Shield Immune spam, coupled with good CC and great damage too. Previously balanced, but take away chill stacks and IR root, and CW is irrelevant to a good GF.

xtraordinary91 · October 2014

magiquepurse wrote: »

Yes. I only did a GG and I am unsure what to say. It seems to work normally. Which it should IMO, as our behinds depend on IR/sure strike CC a lot, as evidenced by the disaster of a fight that GF vs CW is now, and it's all because of their Shield Immune spam, coupled with good CC and great damage too. Previously balanced, but take away chill stacks and IR root, and CW is irrelevant to a good GF.

I did a bunch of matches and it still felt fair functional.

Cws are irrelevant to half decent GFs...

kweassa · October 2014

Control Wizard: Icy Rays: Control Strength and Resistance will now properly affect the duration of the immobilize from Icy Rays. To compensate for this, the base root duration has been reduced to 1 second when hitting two targets, and 1.25 seconds when hitting a single target (down from 1.5 and 2 respectively).
Then I wasn't imagining. Elven enchantments really don't have any effect at all against IR.

Icy Rays

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