[FROST] Legion Beta Megathread

[ArchitechSK]

Word on the street may be whatever it wants, I have played frost in raid tests and done extensive dummy testings myself. Sure, you don't have to take my word for it, go test it youself. But I was consistently fighting for the last place on the dps meter (single target).

That was with full artifact as well, tried both obvious rotations (highly haste buffed ray of frost with rune each minute while weaving lances with high chain reaction into frost bomb or the long IV uptime though Thermal Void with frost bomb).

As for Glacial Spike vs Comet Storm, my guess it depends on how much haste you can have. But with so many procs coming in with ful artifact I found myself casting frostbolt really not that often, so Comet Storm was very close, depending on how you use it.

Can you describe for me your gear and rotation when you did the TV/FBomb tests please?

[Dracovian]

How much worse than Fire is Arcane's dps in Legion beta? I was considering using my 100 boost on a Mage but I really enjoy Arcane. Fire feels like I have too much to keep track of. Is Arcane better than the other caster spec in Legion aside from Fire?

[Cracked]

Can you describe for me your gear and rotation when you did the TV/FBomb tests please?

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MCI0

Jist of the rotation was casting frost bomb and then lining up 2-3 abilities that give fof in one rop, water jet / frozen touch / ebonbolt / frozen orb. Trying to have 3x chain reaction up when going into this "ice lance spam" mode (unfortunately refreshing it is rather unreliable), right after pull you can use so many ice lance procs, over a 4.5 minute fight, I had about 35% uptime on IV.

Outside of this rop fof window you spam frostbolts, saving 2 fof (use 1 when you have 3) for when you have 3x chain reaction, then frost bomb and unload. Use flurry to make frostbolt crit, requires some distance or shimmering.

As for gear, I used as many haste / crit pieces I could find (probably most of my gear).

One thing to note is that the +20% damage during IV trait is not prolonged by TV, it's just flat 20 seconds +20% dmg increase when you use IV.

https://gyazo.com/2fc7bc6fb39b06f46d2bd632a42bd6c5

Is the chain reaction uptimes in the first 4 minutes, there are huge holes, which I'm aware is something that could be worked on, even if it means wasting (some?) fof procs. Another thing is that you don't have chain reaction on pull and it could take substantial amount of time to build it up, so I went without it, though it may be dps increase not to do that.

As for my personal feelings about this playstyle - it felt a bit spammy, outside of cooldowns I was simply waiting for procs (though I have to admit it doesn't happen too often), maybe a bit boring when are literally swimming in fof procs, since all you are doing is throwing ice lances and generating more fof procs. I feel like frost bomb should be more rewarding.

Again, this is my experience. Someones may vary, but I have yet to hear about a frost mage that pulled off good (or passable at least) numbers compared to equally skilled people.

[Torian kel]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MCI0

Jist of the rotation was casting frost bomb and then lining up 2-3 abilities that give fof in one rop, water jet / frozen touch / ebonbolt / frozen orb. Trying to have 3x chain reaction up when going into this "ice lance spam" mode (unfortunately refreshing it is rather unreliable), right after pull you can use so many ice lance procs, over a 4.5 minute fight, I had about 35% uptime on IV.

Outside of this rop fof window you spam frostbolts, saving 2 fof (use 1 when you have 3) for when you have 3x chain reaction, then frost bomb and unload. Use flurry to make frostbolt crit, requires some distance or shimmering.

As for gear, I used as many haste / crit pieces I could find (probably most of my gear).

One thing to note is that the +20% damage during IV trait is not prolonged by TV, it's just flat 20 seconds +20% dmg increase when you use IV.

https://gyazo.com/2fc7bc6fb39b06f46d2bd632a42bd6c5

Is the chain reaction uptimes in the first 4 minutes, there are huge holes, which I'm aware is something that could be worked on, even if it means wasting (some?) fof procs. Another thing is that you don't have chain reaction on pull and it could take substantial amount of time to build it up, so I went without it, though it may be dps increase not to do that.

As for my personal feelings about this playstyle - it felt a bit spammy, outside of cooldowns I was simply waiting for procs (though I have to admit it doesn't happen too often), maybe a bit boring when are literally swimming in fof procs, since all you are doing is throwing ice lances and generating more fof procs. I feel like frost bomb should be more rewarding.

Again, this is my experience. Someones may vary, but I have yet to hear about a frost mage that pulled off good (or passable at least) numbers compared to equally skilled people.

Thanks for testing this out, on behalf of all lazy mages like myself that just went fire on the beta.

[ArchitechSK]

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/frost/MCI0

Jist of the rotation was casting frost bomb and then lining up 2-3 abilities that give fof in one rop, water jet / frozen touch / ebonbolt / frozen orb. Trying to have 3x chain reaction up when going into this "ice lance spam" mode (unfortunately refreshing it is rather unreliable), right after pull you can use so many ice lance procs, over a 4.5 minute fight, I had about 35% uptime on IV.

Outside of this rop fof window you spam frostbolts, saving 2 fof (use 1 when you have 3) for when you have 3x chain reaction, then frost bomb and unload. Use flurry to make frostbolt crit, requires some distance or shimmering.

As for gear, I used as many haste / crit pieces I could find (probably most of my gear).

One thing to note is that the +20% damage during IV trait is not prolonged by TV, it's just flat 20 seconds +20% dmg increase when you use IV.

https://gyazo.com/2fc7bc6fb39b06f46d2bd632a42bd6c5

Is the chain reaction uptimes in the first 4 minutes, there are huge holes, which I'm aware is something that could be worked on, even if it means wasting (some?) fof procs. Another thing is that you don't have chain reaction on pull and it could take substantial amount of time to build it up, so I went without it, though it may be dps increase not to do that.

As for my personal feelings about this playstyle - it felt a bit spammy, outside of cooldowns I was simply waiting for procs (though I have to admit it doesn't happen too often), maybe a bit boring when are literally swimming in fof procs, since all you are doing is throwing ice lances and generating more fof procs. I feel like frost bomb should be more rewarding.

Again, this is my experience. Someones may vary, but I have yet to hear about a frost mage that pulled off good (or passable at least) numbers compared to equally skilled people.

Thanks for testing this.

If you are willing, I would ask you to try this

Gear haste (do not go above 8.5k) > crit >>>>>>>vers/mast

play BC / IF / FT / Fbomb / TV

play style of -> ignore BC and chain reaction, just dont do anything with them

Use FoF procs asap
dont save any CD's for any reason, use orb asap
use water jet asap, after a frostbolt and when you have no FoF stacks
make sure frostbomb is up before you send in any icelances

Use flurry immediately after a frostbolt and follow up every flurry with a lance

and comment back?

[Krazzorx]

How much worse than Fire is Arcane's dps in Legion beta? I was considering using my 100 boost on a Mage but I really enjoy Arcane. Fire feels like I have too much to keep track of. Is Arcane better than the other caster spec in Legion aside from Fire?

Doesn't matter "that" much at this point because they always do a tuning pass like 2 weeks or so after 1st raid releases.

Iirc from Arcane thread though, the APL isn't truly known yet so it's hard to tell what Arcane's ceiling is.

[Cracked]

Thanks for testing this.

If you are willing, I would ask you to try this

Gear haste (do not go above 8.5k) > crit >>>>>>>vers/mast

play BC / IF / FT / Fbomb / TV

play style of -> ignore BC and chain reaction, just dont do anything with them

Use FoF procs asap
dont save any CD's for any reason, use orb asap
use water jet asap, after a frostbolt and when you have no FoF stacks
make sure frostbomb is up before you send in any icelances

Use flurry immediately after a frostbolt and follow up every flurry with a lance

and comment back?

I would, but I don't actually have full frost artifact, and no Nighthold testing is planned, likely til the end of beta at this point.

[gallamann]

Flurry mana cost reduced by 75%.

LMAO, like that was causing any problems or was ever going to!

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Flurry mana cost reduced by 75%.

LMAO, like that was causing any problems or was ever going to!

It was causing the sim to OOM at 10k haste. 9.6k here:



BC also increased to 8s from 6, which means GS/Ebonbolt don't drop stacks.

Overall good changes. TV needs to get the shit kicked out of it or GS buffed to account for 40k DPS but hey, it's a start.

[Deleted]

Anyone going Frost in legion? Even fire seems so OP when I read about the spells/talents/artifact traits.

[Deleted]

Anyone going Frost in legion? Even fire seems so OP when I read about the spells/talents/artifact traits.

Well I definitely enjoy the frost playstyle a lot more than fire, so I'm planning to just play frost in Legion. Blizz will prolly still tweak the numbers during the expansion (like they always do), but it might take a while before frost gets close to fire. So in the end it's a matter of "play the spec you enjoy" vs "play the spec with the highest dps" (although those aren't mutually exclusive to many)

[Staargasm]

I'm not going to get into raiding until somewhat mid Legion, just going to play casual, some Mythic + dungs, so i'm going Frost as MS. I just really enjoy the playstyle much more, Fire is nice and all, with insta procs and mega dmg, but i feel like it can get boring, really fast..

[gallamann]

It was causing the sim to OOM at 10k haste. 9.6k here:

BC also increased to 8s from 6, which means GS/Ebonbolt don't drop stacks.

Overall good changes. TV needs to get the shit kicked out of it or GS buffed to account for 40k DPS but hey, it's a start.

It literally makes no difference without going to extremes, 95%+ of fights are over before 8 minutes. Then even when a mechanic sucks you down to OOM, within a few secs you are back on track as frost.

Your graph doesn't show mana hitting zero, nor does the scale help show what the mana level is. I threw a millimeter ruler up on screen (I know very crude), 0-median is 1 cm, lowest mana looks to be 3 mm, or roughly 30% of median, meaning roughly 100k of mana left in that chart, which is ample mana.

Is this something you have been working to have Blizzard change? If so, thank you. Otherwise why post a sim, when any human would immediately change their play to account for mana issues (and probably report it as a bug)?

Posted before they updated hot fix notes, and yes the Bone Chilling buff is nice. However that tier is still going to be Ray. Hell not even sure Ray should be a talent, it probably should be part of our core kit. Just not seeing a passive ever competing with Ray as an active, and Lonely Winter removing Welly is a non-starter as it removes FoF generation.

The whole "buff GS" should have been the answer weeks ago instead of nerfing Frost Bolt, Ice Lance and indirectly Icicles. Instead you said those nerfs were justified to prevent mastery from scaling GS out of being used. Those nerfs probably should have instead been to Ray and buff GS (there are several ways they could go). Instead now you hope they nerf TV or buff GS, man that is hard to swallow.

Also have come to believe they probably should have just removed Brain Freeze when they removed Frostfire Bolt.

Seems to me the people making decisions are getting lost in the weeds and missing the big picture because of that.

Thank You Kuni, writing this post has brought me clarity on spec choice, and that is much appreciated.

[Krazzorx]

Anyone going Frost in legion? Even fire seems so OP when I read about the spells/talents/artifact traits.

I'll certainly try. If Frost gets buffed to be close to Fire, in our guild's current comp, for me Frost would probably come out ahead during progression due to having 4 frost relics vs 11 Fire. Weapon ilvl difference could push it ahead for me if it's within 5%.

- - - Updated - - -

I would assume bone chilling would come out ahead when the important part of the fight has aoe as Ray doesn't impact aoe while bone chilling does.

- - - Updated - - -

Any chance of a frost guide for 110 coming soon?

[Deleted]

It literally makes no difference without going to extremes, 95%+ of fights are over before 8 minutes. Then even when a mechanic sucks you down to OOM, within a few secs you are back on track as frost.

Your graph doesn't show mana hitting zero, nor does the scale help show what the mana level is. I threw a millimeter ruler up on screen (I know very crude), 0-median is 1 cm, lowest mana looks to be 3 mm, or roughly 30% of median, meaning roughly 100k of mana left in that chart, which is ample mana.

Is this something you have been working to have Blizzard change? If so, thank you. Otherwise why post a sim, when any human would immediately change their play to account for mana issues (and probably report it as a bug)?

Posted before they updated hot fix notes, and yes the Bone Chilling buff is nice. However that tier is still going to be Ray. Hell not even sure Ray should be a talent, it probably should be part of our core kit. Just not seeing a passive ever competing with Ray as an active, and Lonely Winter removing Welly is a non-starter as it removes FoF generation.

The whole "buff GS" should have been the answer weeks ago instead of nerfing Frost Bolt, Ice Lance and indirectly Icicles. Instead you said those nerfs were justified to prevent mastery from scaling GS out of being used. Those nerfs probably should have instead been to Ray and buff GS (there are several ways they could go). Instead now you hope they nerf TV or buff GS, man that is hard to swallow.

Also have come to believe they probably should have just removed Brain Freeze when they removed Frostfire Bolt.

Seems to me the people making decisions are getting lost in the weeds and missing the big picture because of that.

Thank You Kuni, writing this post has brought me clarity on spec choice, and that is much appreciated.

Aren't you giving too much credit to what happened? It was a minor bug, but a clear bug, and it was fixed. No reason to make a big deal out it.

The most likely scenario here is that they just don't look into tuning at this very moment. The updates are very infrequent for all specs.

[Krazzorx]

In a theoretical sense, how effective COULD frost bomb aoe be? Is it just a matter of tuning or is there a mechanical red flag to frost's ability to have a semblance of aoe?

[Gaaz]

How much worse than Fire is Arcane's dps in Legion beta? I was considering using my 100 boost on a Mage but I really enjoy Arcane. Fire feels like I have too much to keep track of. Is Arcane better than the other caster spec in Legion aside from Fire?

Have not done testing myself. But people that did extensive testing in the beta have the impression that Arcane can even beat Fire in certain fights. Like for example Spellblade Aluriel or Krosus. No idea of the exact numbers though. Might be as little as 1% for all I know. Fire is still the go to spec overall. It would not be very productive sacrificing fire DPS to arcane for a few niche fights, unless you are thriving for world's 1st kill and have a bench of mages to exchange depending on a fight.

[Krazzorx]

I think your post wound up in wrong thread?

[ttylol]

Any chance of a frost guide for 110 coming soon?

Cracked's post last page sums it up, even without Frost Bomb. One charge of Rune of Power for Ebonchill + Frozen Touch/Waterjet and the other charge for Ray of Frost. I think people are just waiting on sims to see which cooldowns are/aren't worth delaying?

[Reachie10]

Word on the street is that frost is much better than theorycrafters thought at first after some fixes done on simcraft last week, but the details escape me.

Any more info on this?

Really want to play frost when Legion is released! Fire is just so strong right now.