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Chains of Ice

Chains of Ice

1 Frost	30 yd range

Instant
Requires Death Knight
Requires level 58

Shackles the target with frozen chains, reducing movement speed by 60% for 8 sec, and infecting the target with Frost Fever.

Buff

Spell Details

Duration

8 seconds

School

Frost

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

Normal

Cost

1 Frost

Range

30 yards (Medium)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

1 second

Effect #1

Apply Aura: Decrease Run Speed %
Value: -60%
Mechanic: Snared

Effect #2

Dummy
Mechanic: Snared
Server-side script

Effect #3

School Damage (Frost)

Guides

Warlords of Draenor Death
Knight Changes

Comments

Comment by d3nyd

The way I'm reading this is the target is considered Frozen for the entire duration of the snare after the initial root. Can anyone confirm this?

Edit: After playing around with this ability, I have come to the same conclusion as most other Death Knights - we don't have enough Frost Runes. This ability costs 1 Frost and 1 Unholy. That means you can choose to either Frost Strike, Howling Blast, or Icy Touch. The only real choice is Howling Blast because of the triple damage, but after you use these, you have no Frost runes to work with for 6+ seconds, and that's a real killer if you're Frost spec. This or some other abilities need to be free of cost or changed to a low Runic power cost if Frost is to be viable in PvP.

Comment by Commissar

will this ability work on bosses for the sake of making them be considered frozen?even if it doesn't actually stop their movement. Just trying to plan a tanking spec and I am concerned as to whether or not it is possible to freeze a boss for bonus frost strike damage.

Comment by manicmania

100 gold says its the same animation as a hunters freezing trap >.<

Comment by GuuD

So, if one will regain 10% of movement speed per second in pvp you will need to reapply it every 5 seconds. Since you have only 2 frost runes every 10 seconds you will need to use both of them every CD just to keep snare up. It means no icy touches, no obliterates. And you will have to spec deep frost, just to make this spell cause frost fever. This all makes sence only if you try to be one and only melee in team, things are much easier if you are paired with warrior/rogue.

Comment by Vaerondis

Note: Mobs immune to frost damage are immune to this spell.

Comment by madac

Anyone else think this needs a cd? I couldn't even catch a Death Knight that was recasting this on me even while on an epic mount.... I donno just an opinion.

Comment by Rattja

The fact that you can cast this without facing the target, and still be on the run, make this a really powerful escape tool. Combine it with Unholy presence, and you can fire off two fast while running at increased speed.

Comment by Killacoal

Chain of ice is very good for PvP

Chain of ice Glyph + Endless Winter (in frost talent) would help alot.

Comment by Genericusername

This is currently bugged and overpowered, many classes/races escape from snare abilities do work on this.

Comment by rares81

The thing I am wondering about is if the target is considered frozen, in such a way that frost mages can benefit from their shatter talent?

Comment by faia

-WARNING-Beware of Spell reflect ! or you will get chained! -Warning-

and if you chained vs a warrior you in deep $%^&

Comment by Chk177

Give this ridiculous spell 30 sec CD at least...

Comment by meandog

Why in the world this talent is NOT susceptible to diminishing returns is beyond me. Nice job Blizz!

Comment by GhostFlight

Spells annoying and needs nerfs

Comment by MagicbEonar

Shackles the target with frozen chains, reducing their movement by -95%. The target regains 10% of their movement each second for 10 sec.

The tooltip on wowhead actually states it increases the movement speed by 95%, as a reduction of something negative will become something positive.

Comment by Flashtoorules

I'd like to say that the info on this spell is incorrect.
It says that the spell will reduce the target's movement speed with -95. That means that it increases the movement speed by 95%, as the sum of 100 - -95 will always result in 195.

Comment by Mitear

many baddies and retards in this "thread".

Comment by Thyrane

There's no Warriors in arena silly.

Too old.. Too false.

Comment by ryknow69

FF will be applied even if target is immune to the snare effect

Comment by ArMeDSuRvIvOr

Hm, with the new patch (4.0.1) this ability seems a bit useless... Costs 1 Frost rune (which is VERY expensive, considering the new rune system) and lasts 8 seconds (down from 10) and no longer roots when it is applied. Yeah, it's a constant 60% snare now, but in my experience this isn't an improvement overall. You also have to take into consideration that most PvP specs will have some sort of snare time reducing talents, which would bring CoI to a laughable duration of 6 seconds.

Desecration in the Unholy tree is MUCH better than this, and Chillblains in the Frost tree should have to be improved, since it only lasts 10 seconds and reapplying Frost Fever costs 1 Frost rune... So yeah. It's not much of a nerf for Unholy, but for Frost this is just... meh. You could always subspec into Desecration as Frost... but that would be a work around, not an improvement!

Consider this: Death Grip and Plague Strike, Desecration is up. Excellent snare right there. Lasts 20 seconds, is AoE and as Unholy each Scourge Strike procs it (SS costs only 1 Unholy rune, so spam away!).

I don't know why it was nerfed (maybe forum QQ? Who knows). Add the new rune system and you got an awful snare.

I have some ideas to fix Chains of Ice:

-Make it cost no runes while adding a cooldown. (Maybe a talent in the Frost tree?)
-Make it cost Runic Power.
-Make it cost some other type of rune, maybe blood? (Although it wouldn't make much sense :P)
-Leave it as it is and buff Chillblains. Add a snare component to Frost Fever if you spec into Chillblains, perhaps?
-Make Howling Blast (or a melee ability, like Obliterate or Frost Strike?) refresh the duration on Chains of Ice.
-Make Runic Empowerment (45% chance on Frost Strike or Death Coil to refresh a random depleted rune) to give a temporary buff which removes the rune cost or make it strictly refresh a Frost rune.

As for the last idea, I know Festering Strike increases the duration of diseases and CoI by 6 seconds, but that cripples us Frost DK's, since it uses a Blood rune (which would most of the time be a Death rune, which can then be used for Obliterates) and A FROST RUNE! The timing of this ability, given the 6 second time window, lag and the constant movement, snares and CC in PvP would make it really hard to pull off, and deny us our hardest hitting ability, Obliterate. So this could work:

-Talent in Frost tree that makes Festering Strike cost only 1 Blood rune and change Frost mastery to also include said strike. This would improve the usefulness of the strike for Frost, since it is only used by Unholy.

Before you downrate me because you were one of those who cried and raged over this ability, think how it affects us Death Knights objectively, and look at the possibilities I've listed on how to improve it.

Edit: Already being downrated, really? Try to be objective, guys...

Comment by loik

Aham...

And, this ability will be the more powerful snare in Cataclysm, I think...

Comment by Noix

Any DKs that used to use this on Valks for a slow during LK P2, your better off just burning em down now instead of trying to slow. If your taking Desc(and you should), that's all your gonna end up using. The 10% difference between Chains vs Valk Buff is a total waste of a Frost Rune-and doesn't even appear to be affecting them even at that. The 1 sec Snare it had Pre-patch was what gave this skill MAJOR power during this fight. Without it, this skill loses 90% of its power; pve and pvp wise.

Comment by Nurinet

While this is dispellable, the debuff it applies is not dispellable, basically making it an undispellable snare

Comment by sorsa

Note that while Chains cost a frost rune to cast and last 8 seconds, Festering Strike also costs a frost rune to cast and adds 6s to the snare
in addition to 150% weapon damage.

Chains of Ice

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