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IDP, We Hardly Knew Ye.

Jul 23rd, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
1 comment

It’s official.

Not that we weren’t expecting it – with Blood being the tanking tree, and the presences being changed accordingly so that you’re not in the Blood tree in Frost presence tanking, it would only make sense that they’d remove the threat multiplier for Icy Touch in Frost Presence.

Still (though *ahem* I’ve yet to get my beta invite. Hint.) I’ve been hearing from other DKs that we are hurting for threat tools tanking in Cataclysm, and taking away a popular one that fits in our rotations can’t be helping.

Admittedly, what we need is some kind of AoE taunt. Death and Decay is great, but the cooldown is just too long. Often, I’d barely keep threat on a group with DnD, Howling Blast *and* Blood Boil. And there are times that the DPSers have been so outrageous – I’m thinking certain highly geared hunters mostly, but mages and locks as well – that even single target it takes Empower Rune Weapon and IDP spam to  keep the mob.

We’re having threat issues as it is. I don’t think taking threat tools away is going to rectify this.

But, still, we knew it had to happen. Farewell, Icy Dickpunch. It was good while it lasted.

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Obligatory RealID/Forums QQ Post. [Updated]

Jul 7th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
1 comment

At first, I didn’t really mind RealID.  What with the not sleeping or eating, we deathknights have time to kill (to coin a phrase) and firing up a WoW client on the steam-powered gnomish computing device lets me see what the World is like to those outside it. And RealID gives me the chance to keep a  line of communication open with my raid leader no matter what server or faction I’m alting on.

So, when I heard that the official forums were going to go to RealID, and  display the poster’s real first and last names, I thought that the answer was simple – just don’t use the forums.

Then I thought about it. And I talked it over with my guild. And one of my guildies, Kaels, had this to say:

They’re basically cutting off the following populations from forum access:
- All women
- People who have reason not to use their legal name socially (trans people, people with embarrassing or intolerable names)
- All stalking victims
- All victims of abuse, past or present
- All public figures
- Anyone with reason to think a current or prospective employer may Google them
- Anyone who’s financially dependent on someone who disapproves of WoW (college students, etc)
- Anyone who is or may ever be in a divorce or custody dispute
- Anyone who’s ever let information slip in game that could endanger them (LGBT identity, age, certain jobs)
- Anyone who has concerns about the mental/emotional stability of anyone they’ve interacted with in the game
- And anyone with privacy concerns who just doesn’t want their real name linked with WoW.

But still, you don’t have to use the forums, right? Unless, of course, you’re beta testing or you have a technical issue or something. And the Blizzard employees have the same exposure…only maybe not.

And what’s this about RealID integration with Facebook? That would make me sick to my stomach, if I had one.

Apparently Bashiok has already had his privacy violated when he posted his real name in an effort to show that it was all okay. Maybe the experience will teach them something.

Or, maybe, we’ve found the real WoW killer – RealID. I know if the Facebook integration shakes out like it’s sounding it will then, well, I’ll miss you all terribly.

And don’t you have some Federal law – COPA – about sharing children’s identities? I know that a lot of my guildies have or *are* kids. How is that going to work, again?

I can’t believe that Blizzard hasn’t put thought into this. I’m forced to conclude that they have, and they either don’t understand the issues (likely) or don’t care.

A lot of people claim that they’re already public and that it’s no big deal. I note that very few of these people are – or think they are -  on Kaels’ list.

[UPDATE] I think I’ll portray this as “came to their senses” rather than “backed down”, okay? Still keeping RealID disabled, though.  Looks like all the concerns I had when I was agonizing to sign up in the first place had some justification.

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Thoughts on Healing

Jun 25th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
3 comments

As Level a Healer Month draws to a close, I’d like to share five things that I’ve learned as a low-level shaman healer.

1. You have more mana than you think you do. Seriously.

I usually start asking for mana when my Xperl raid warning goes off at thirty percent.  For many instances, however,  “mana plz” is PuG for “Keep going! Bigger pull this time!”.  I’ve had a tank pull a huge group when I was at 20 percent mana, have the patrol jump in and start beating on me (see #3) when I was at five percent, and still keep everyone standing. How? I have absolutely no idea.

2. You don’t learn healing from the good groups.

Nothing makes me happier than to get a PuG that works together like a well-oiled machine. The tank has the right gear and spec, the warlock manages his own damn health, the mage and hunter manage their aggro, and I just have to throw the occasional Lesser Healing Wave on the tank to let him know I’m still awake. LOS? Huge pulls? Charging ahead? No problem, because everything will be fine by the time I get there. Arthas, I can disconnect and everything will be fine.

These, enjoyable as they are, are not the instances that teach me how to heal. The ones that teach me how to heal are the ones I hate – with tanking hunter duelling for aggro with DPS ret pally, a warrior in dps gear and spec queueing as tank, and a mage that Blizzards everything that moves. Druid tanks that don’t swipe. Hunters that don’t feign. Rogues that don’t stealth. And I have to keep them all standing, to a chorus of “shammy heal fail”. I loathe these instances, but that’s where I learn the limits of what I can do.

3. Dead healers don’t heal.

If I’m surrounded by mobs and taking damage, I won’t be healing you, I’ll be trying to stay alive. I will generally fail, but I’m trying to give you time to get aggro off me so that I can get back to healing. This, by the way, is why I’m trying not to heal myself either – to keep from making the healing aggro worse. Eventually I will give up and heal myself, or I will give up and die.

Corollaries are “A healer with zero mana can’t heal”, “A healer without LOS on you can’t heal”, “A healer that has to get out of the ground effects can’t heal”, “A healer too close to the stunning mobs and flat on her ass in the corridor can’t heal”  “A healer two turns back, healing herself up from 15% of health can’t heal”, and so on. I’m paying attention to what is happening to you. Sometimes, as in many of the cases above, with bitter amusement as it becomes obvious you’re not paying attention to me.

4. Tanks want to die.

You ever wanted some thing so badly you’d do anything to get it and only physical restraints would prevent you from achieving your desire? Because tanks want something this badly. All of them. And what they want is to die.

They know the moment you’re not paying attention to their health bar – whether you’re gratzing a guildie, adjusting your headphones, or typing an answer to the question the tank just asked you. They can sense that brief instant when your concentration slips, and are quick to take advantage, pull, and die. If they overpull and it takes everything you have to keep the group standing, and all that’s left at the end is the tank, the tapped out healer, and three dead bodies begging for rezzes, this tells them the next pull needs to be bigger still.

Yes, tanks want to die. They will use every trick in the book – line of sight, over pulling, ground effects, witty repartee in party chat, anything to distract you so they can die. It’s your job to prevent this. If you must, say “Hello” at the very start, if you think you can get away with it. Otherwise your attention needs to be locked on the tank  for every moment until the instance is done – no talking,  looting or Arthas forbid gathering or dungeon quests. Because that is just the opening your tank is looking for to die.

5. If the warlock soulstones you, the warlock gets heals.

‘Nuff said.

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The Return of Level a Healer Month.

May 28th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
2 comments

We’re running short of healers four our four ICC 10 progression groups, so we’re going back to Level a Healer Month.

Looks like after the holiday weekend I’ll be dusting Shamwowloner off and trying to level her up as heals some more. I do have the new UI with Grid which should be making healing a lot easier. On the other hand, the low level dungeon finder healer queues were getting as excruciating as the dps ones in my last attempt, and this will make it harder to get Magey up to 80 before Cataclysm.

But we need a healer, and frankly what instance healing I’ve done I’ve enjoyed. It’s good to have things not my fault for once, and at this level it’s a lot less stressful than progression DPS or, Arthas help me, tanking.

So, suggestions for a low-level Shaman? So  far I have a brain-damaged-monkey Enhancement spec, but I can level Resto if it gets me healer training, or go with a standard Enhancement leveling spec. Suggestions? Also is Alchemy/Herbalism a good healer proffession combo?

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Because I Haven’t Updated in a While:

May 3rd, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
3 comments

It’s been a while. Here’s some catching up:

I tried a Blood tanking spec for a while. Was asked to go back to Frost before I could update my spec here. And I’m OK with that.

While I really think I should be learning Blood tanking for Cataclysm, face it I like Frost tanking, and I’m going to miss it. It’s going to make relearning my class in Cataclysm harder, but it’s more enjoyable now. And hey, maybe with all the Tauren Paladins there won’t be such a call  for tanks. Yeah. I crack myself up.

My guild is moving the ICC 25 to Wednesday temporarily. They’re trying to get me in, and I really appreciate it, but it could be that I just won’t be able to negotiate a time that other people can handle. It upsets me, but I’m not upset at my guild. I really want to kill Arthas before Cataclysm. I don’t necessarily want the gear or the title – though it looks like the difficulty in getting into the progression raids has cost me a slot on the list to get Shadowmourne, and that upsets me more than I care to admit. Not enough to start loot drama in the guild – the people that are on the list are good guildies and solid raiders, and deserve it every bit as much and more.

Also, I may have more stories rattling around. I’ll inflict them on you when I must.

Speaking of Cataclysm, I’m guardedly optimistic about the raid changes. I think it will be much easier to gear up with 25s and 10s being equivalent.  And with more and shorter raids, there should be enough to go around. I’m not as sanguine about the Dungeon Finder change, as I have no idea where half the instances are to begin with, but I also hear that unlike Wintergrasp Tol Barad won’t automatically flag you PvP unless there’s a battle going on. That makes me feel a little better about them routing a quest hub there.

What else? Still at 4T9, though my DPS kit is ICC 25 ready. Saving up Frost emblems to buy 2T10 at once, though that war token trinket is very tempting. Leveling a mage, because it’s occurred to me that I haven’t leveled someone from 1 to 80 since WotLK dropped. And after Dancing with Runes and Six Seconds of Terror playing a mage is a vacation :)

That’s the highlights, pretty much. I’m ignoring Children’s Week as much as I can, despising once again being “encouraged” to PvP. That, last year, would be about when I realized I’d never get the “Long, Strange Trip” achievement or drake.

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All I Will Say about the Celestial Steed:

Apr 17th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
6 comments

My two cents about the Celestial Steed:

“Hello healers, tanks, look at your death knight, now back to me, now back at your death knight, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using Army of the Dead on trash pulls and learned his class and spec, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on the boat to Stormwind with the death knight your death knight could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s that epic loot drop from Icecrown 25 you need with the last two Frost emblems you’ve been grinding heroics for. Look again, the Frost emblems are now Primordial Saronite. Anything is possible when your death knight smells like Old Spices and not fail. I’m on a horse.”

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Cataclysm: Death Knight Preview.

Apr 9th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
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So, for the few of you who haven’t yet seen the Cataclysm death knight preview, with some analysis by Zarhym and Ghostcrawler. go look now. I’l wait.

Back? Good. I’ve slept on it, and thought about it, and I’ve come to the surprising conclusion that this is in fact a buff.

“What?” you may ask. “That’s crazy, Moody! They’re slowing our attacks? Two of our tanking trees are vanishing! How can you possibly call this a buff?”

Bear with me. As has been explained, our abilities in Cataclysm will work a lot like rogues do. Instead of us having to burn runes madly to keep up, we’ll have slower, harder hitting rune abilities to burn runes and generate runic, interspersed with free strikes and runic-burning abilities.

In short, instead of playing like we do now, our rune strikes seem to be powered like rogues’ abilities but will hit kinda like warriors’. Our runic abilities will be powered by using our rune strikes and fill in the gaps. And we’ll be able to set up our rotations to keep runes in reserve.

Let me repeat that. We’ll be able to set up our rotations to keep runes in reserve.

Why is this a big deal? Often, when I’m in the middle of flailing away and things start to go pear-shaped, I’m forced to drop what I’m doing to fix it. If I’m lucky, I have the runes available. If I’m very lucky, what I need to do doesn’t burn the runes, runic, and/or global cooldown necessary to keep doing my job. If I’m DPS, my damage plummets. If I’m tanking, we wipe. I call this Dancing with Runes, because for a large part, I don’t have any real control over what I can do when it’s not in my rotation.

In Cataclysm, Dancing with Runes looks like it will be lessened if not outright negated. I can burn reserve runes in case things go bad. I’m not so tied to global cooldowns that missing one spells disaster. And did I tell you that Haste affects how quickly the runes refill?

That got your attention.

Also, they point out that it seems that our strikes are weaker and we have to use a lot of them to get anything done. This has been my experience in PvP or Unholy tanking, where by the time I can ramp up to use my FU strikes, I’m dead or, well, the healer’s down and we wipe.

With our revamp, we can open with hard-hitting, rune-costing strikes, the new Necrotic Strike to absorb healing, and the new Outbreak to replenish diseases. I can see, right now, Outbreak + Pestilence + Howling Blast/Blood Boil/DnD being an opener for PvP. Ow! And this Dark Simulacrum thing screams PvP – but though no boss has a reflectable ability, what about adds?

And offtanking? Remember, in Cataclysm we get uncrittable by stepping into our tanking presence. Tanking presence + DPS  spec/gear = emergency offtank – reminiscent of early DKing when one of our threat tools was an ass-ton of DPS. For fights like Grand Widow Faerlina in Naxx, where you just have to keep the adds busy? Congratulations, you’re done. You won’t have as many of the tanking tools as a Blood tank (unless you dip into Blood as a subtree, and we’ve yet to see if that’s worth doing) but you should still have DG and Dark Command.

Look, a lot of this will change around by Cataclysm, but we do know that we’re getting a tanking stance, a tanking tree, and a revamp so we play more like rogues and warriors. I think, in the end, it will be a buff.

Of course, the problem is I’ve never played a warrior. Or, for that matter, a rogue.

So far, I’ve gotten feedback from one other DK, Nashiira. As I have her permission, and as she’s much more the Frost DK than I am, I’d like to share her take with you as well:

I must admit, my first reaction was to freak out once I heard about the changes to death knight tanking. Since the release of WotLK I have been frost and only frost. In fact only once in that time have I delved out of frost and tried my hand at unholy, but even then it was just to try out in a dps manner. Imagine my shock then when Ghostcrawler drops the blood bomb on us. Outrage! Foul!

Then I slept on it. Nope, still raging here!
I then slept on it another night. There still remains a little fire of disbelief but things will likely be better. See, we really don’t know what is going to happen. My brain’s initial actions are to place the changes into WoW how things are now here in patch 3.3.3. I don’t have a single clue how the Blood tree works now could tell you more than what a 1/4 of the tree does. Come Cataclysm things are going to be drastically different and we likely won’t recognize much of any of the three trees. I’m sure some of the major talents of each tree will be there like Howling Blast, Gargoyle and… whatever Blood has. In the end I’ll probably be doing much of what I am now but with a modified rotation. Plus it emphasizes 2H weapons which, in my opinion, looks way better than trying to look like wannabe rogues that Blizzard has tried to shove down the frost tree with duel wielding.
As for the rune changes and new abilities, preliminarily I think think they all look great. Then again back on the PTR for patch 2.4 I liked Magister’s Terrace <cough>. I, too, hate how if something goes wrong in a situation I have to hope to Morgraine that I didn’t just use up a rune elsewhere or be forced to wait up to 6 seconds to be able to make up for something I just did. “Oh? More than one mob got away and I’ve used my taunt and Death Grip? Better hope I have an Unholy and Frost rune AND didn’t just use Howling Blast elsewhere.” With the changes to regen I’ll likely have Icy Touch available for a couple of uses.
All in all I’m happy with the changes and to anyone still freaking out, please try to stay calm until we see the new talent trees. That’s when you can freak out a little bit more.

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The New Icy Touch in Frost, or, Show Me On The Doll Where The Death Knight Icy Touched You

Mar 25th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
8 comments

You may get the feeling, from the title, that I’m impressed with the change to Icy Touch.

For those unfamiliar with the change, Icy Touch now does roughly seven times more threat while the DK is in Frost Presence. Combine this with the doubling of threat from Frost Presence itself, and Satorri at Tankspot estimates that it gives fourteen and a half times more threat.

Fourteen. And a half.

“That’s crazy-talk” you think, because that’s exactly what I thought. So, this morning, I volunteered to tank a random heroic for guildies, and found out for myself.

We did end up pugging a DPS, a paladin who kept trying to tank the instance in dps blues.  We tried to offer help, thinking low gearscore = newb, but in this instance it was more like low gearscore = asshole who can’t get their guild to run heroics due to foul mouth and stupidity.  But I’m not bitter, as the douchebag-caused wipes allowed me to dial Icy Dickpunch back from “bulletproof and OP tool for all occasions” to “valuable single-target and pulling tool” which is probably where the designers meant it.

That said…

That said, I’ve noticed that while I still have some problems with groups, having that railroad spike of threat came in handy for pulling things off the healer. I had one of our top mages and one of our ICC 25 hunters going mad on bosses, and by using IT to refresh diseases and saving HB for Rime procs I easily kept aggro. When the mage mirrored, I laid into IT, empowered rune weapon, laid into it again, and she didn’t come close to pulling off me. And if I’m using this spec in a fight like Rotface or Saurfang when I need to taunt and disease without AoEs, IT is an Arthas-sent blessing now.

Tanking, which is a misery and a tribulation unto me, is now fun and exciting.

I give it till the weekend before the inevitable nerf.

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Let’s Talk Specs

Mar 19th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
13 comments

With 3.3.3 coming out soon, there’s going to be a few changeups in specs.

For Unholy DPS, I’m seeing 0/17/54 suggested for the new cookie-cutter spec. Looks like the Frost goodies scale better with gear than the Blood does, though Elitist Jerks is talking about a 10-100 dps difference, which I find trivial. Still, might change up.

I’m not noticing any more news for Frost DPS other than “dual wield”. The current baseline Frost DPS spec is still 0/54/17.

Blood looks like two main specs, both 51/0/20, depending on if you glyph Dark Death or Disease.

Tanking? Looks like they’re building the dual-wield Frost tanking spec.  I don’t know if it’s official that you’re going to have to DW to be Frost, but that seems to be what everyone’s thinking.

So, thinking about ditching my snap-aggro Frost 5-man tanking build and going with a Blood tanking spec or back to my Unholy comfort zone.

Let’s have some discussion, DKs. For one thing, I have no idea where PvP builds are going for 3.3.3.

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Guest Post: Nashiira Talks Frost Tanking

Mar 11th, 2010
by MoodylonerDK.
3 comments

I was discussing Frost Tanking with a fellow DK, Nashiira. and she emailed me with some advice she gave to some upcoming DKs regarding Frost Tanking. I liked it so much that, with her permission, I’m posting it here:

First off, you are doing pretty well and appear to have a good grip on what talents to get. For some general advice, as soon as you are able I would switch the rune on your weapon to Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. I believe it is a level 72 ability. The benefits of stamina outweigh trying to build up dodge or parry. Also, as tank gear starts gaining slots while you approach 80, just gem for straight stamina.
Abilities
Make a set of macros for Obliterate, Howling Blast and Icy Touch that read like this:
#showtooltip Obliterate
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Obliterate
#showtooltip Howling Blast
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Howling Blast
#showtooltip Icy Touch
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Icy Touch
These macros will cast Rune Strike whenever you have the Runic Power to do so so that you do not have to babysit the Rune Strike button. Rune Strike is an awesome threat tool that helps you get aggro if you dodge, parry or are missed. Putting it to a macro with your abilities saves you one more button press. The side-effect however is that sometimes it may cause you to not have Runic Power to cast Anit-Magic Shield or Icebound Fortitude when you need it.
Talents
Everything is looking fairly good here. You went straight for Howling Blast which is our super awesome tanking ability in conjunction with Glyph of Howling Blast.  For your next four game levels I would point talent points into Bladed Armor (first talent in the second row of Blood). This is a nice threat boost!
In the drive to get down to Howling Blast we unfortunately have three talent points that feel “extra” if we go the two-handed route with Frost. You have them in Runic Power Master (top middle) and just below that Icy Reach.  You can place those just about anywhere really. My preference is Endless Winter (free Mind Freeze because DPS rarely want to interrupt any more) and Deathchill (that I always forget to use =) ). This isn’t saying where I suggest placing them, just stating what I do. I move them periodically.
Glyphs
Minor glyphs are good! We don’t have a lot of great choices there.  As for major glyphs I would consider changing Glyph of Rune Strike to Glyph of Frost Strike. When you hit 80 add Glyph of Obliterate.
Rotation
Here’s what will make or break things. One thing I see a lot of practicing death knights do is to use Death and Decay on every pull they can. That’s great for pulls with multiple mobs but never use it on a single mob. It uses up too many runes and has such a long cooldown untalented. Hopefully you will reach a point where you feel comfortable enough to not use Death and Decay but only Howling Blast for multiple mob pulls. However even now I rarely do this with my gear level as pugs are just crazy and lazy.
Until patch 3.3.3, always open with Howling Blast whether it’s single target or multi-target. This applies Frost Fever which not only does a tiny amount of damage over time but makes your Obliterate more powerful.
After using Howling Blast, this next step is where I change things up depending on if it is a single pull or multiple mob pull. If it is a multiple mob pull I typically use Blood Boil twice. Not only does this get you some nice aoe threat (more since they have Frost Fever), it uses up your two blood runes to activate Blood Barrier (last talent in first row of Blood) to make you take 5% less damage.  If it is a single mob pull start smashing Obliterate. The idea behind hitting Obliterate is that using Obliterate while you have the Rime talent (which you do) has a chance to let you cast a free Howling Blast. Yay! If you ever get a Rime proc, always smash Howling Blast as quick as you can. It’s free, does nice aoe damage, and also refreshes Frost Fever. Continuing the single mob thing, I use Blood Strike to use up the blood runes for the 5% less damage. It is also great for your e-peen to see Howling Blast crit every mob around you! Timing the Killing Machine proc (talent that you have) with Howling Blast is a wonderful and glorious thing!
At this point you will likely have no runes up. This is when you use up your spare Runic Power and smash Frost Strike until you have no more Runic Power.
From here it’s all about Howling Blast -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Blood Strike. Howling Blast has highest priority over anything followed by Obliterate. Hope to Elune graces you with Rime procs often for free Howling Blasts. I do flail a bit when it comes to using Blood Strike over Frost Strike. If I see my blood runes aren’t on cooldown (for the 5% damage reduction) I try to use that ability. If I have a full Runic Power bar I often smash that.
One thing you’ll notice is that I don’t use Plague Strike at all. With frost you there apparently is little need for a two-disease rotation. Since Howling Blast spreads Frost Fever we don’t need to use Pestilence… ever! Which made me just notice that I have the glyph for Pestilence! Must fix! I’ll probably choose Glyph of Raise Dead to replace it. We don’t have much when it comes to minor glyphs. (You also have Glyph of Pestilence.)
A few notes for the future of the frost tree. In patch 3.3.3 Blizzard is making Icy Touch cause a lot of threat when you have Frost Presence up. I’m not sure if this will change much for OUR rotations but may for Blood and Unholy tanks. May have to find out the verdict from the number crunchers after a time. It could turn out more useful than Howling Blast on single targets.
Another thing Blizzard is doing is trying to make the Frost tree completely dual wield. As others can tell you (Moody hasn’t heard the end of it) I hate dual wielding. Not because I don’t think it’s capable but believe it doesn’t fit death knights well and looks absolutely silly tanking that way. ANYWAY I won’t bore you with a larger rant on the issue but it in the future using a two-handed weapon as anything frost-based may wind up being a bad idea.

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