My educated guess at Mage, mostly Frost DPS (Please read)

[MrWiki]

Before you all read this post, i was not in Beta, nor have i watched any 4.0 mage videos, but i do have an 80 troll mage, and now a 60 Night Elf mage who shall become my main in a week.
But, all introductions aside, I was bored while waiting for a friend to catch up to me so i started some amateur theorycrafting, just thought i'd come here for criticism.

First off, I refuse to believe in Arcane being the only end-game viable spec with any expansion. If I wanna play Frost i will play Frost and I will make it work. So, that said here is my preliminary spec for 85.

wwwxwowheadxcom/talent#oZfcbZffR0sIszMo:Rma
Replace the x's with . so you can properly view, I cant post links yet.

Some talents i picked, and they might not be good, but from what i can gather and infer are:

Piercing Chill = More chilling effects on multiple mob fights.
Fights like Lich King Phase 1 when you would DPS the horrors or Onyxia with the whelps, The frostbolt cleave would give more Fingers of Frost procs, and thus more DPS.

I only put one point in improved cone of cold, because honestly in a Raid environment, if something is attacking, my first move to hit would be Frost Nova, and hopefully witihin the duration of it the tank will have grabbed the loose mob back, if not 2 seconds is enough time to get away from the mob and get healed, if you have attentive raid healers.

I got the 3 points in ignite for Brain Freeze FFB, I have not done any calculations but Brain freeze already hits harder than Ice lance, and mastery and Frost Specialization, and the Glyph, you got a pretting hard inta-nuke to use. Not only that, but it has the sweetest projectile based graphic in game, imo.

I got 2 points in Fire Power because i am not sure if FFB benefits from it or not, but the explosion on Flame Orb would be a nice DPS increase for free.

My Rotation would go like this.

Open with Frostfire boltx3 (to get the dot going)
Frost bolt spam.

Brain Freeze procs, ignore it.
Fingers of Frost procs.
Frostfire bolt.

I have not done any math, but i'm pretty certain that ignoring a solo Brain Freeze proc will result in a dps increase, because Frostbolt nearly hits as hard as Frostfirebolt. I'd rather not waste a global on an instant when i can chain Frostbolt for just as much damage without a certainty of a crit.

Fingers of Frost procs, and stacks to two. (No Brain Freeze)
Ice Lance if deep freeze is on cooldown

I would save a stack of fingers of frost for a sudden brain freeze proc. unless its just about to run out. 3 seconds left or so. Deep freeze, unless its on cooldown, otherwise Ice Lance

Managing Mana/cooldowns
I suspect that if your mana pool does not last four minutes (cooldown of Evocation) it would be more beneficial to use Mage armor, over Molten Armor, even if your under Crit soft cap.
IMO: Extra spells > 2% extra of them to crit.

For my cooldown burst, i would start by.
Lifeblood (Im an herbalist)
Ice Veins. I would not macro these because 20% of haste would be more with the lifeblood buff active, to my knowledge.
Trinkets.
Mirror Image, with full scaling of pets, i assume these get your current haste so i would would cast these last, so they get the most benefits from my stats.
Cold Snap at my next 2 stacks of FoF, then Deep Freeze, Cold Snap, Deep Freeze, even if Brain Freeze is up.


I would wait to pop cooldowns till i get A brain freeze and 2 Fingers of Frost procs.
Cast FFB then Deep Freeze, then continue my normal Rotation.

As soon as i get my second Brain Freeze 2 FoF proc. I will pop LB,Icy veins again.

And that's my guess, criticism?

[Meijnrr]

If you came up with just by guessing I'm actually don't think it's all that bad, but for all things Frost Mage please just read this - http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t104774-...sm_discussion/ . Right now it seems Frost, contrary to previous assumptions, is having major mana problems past 6 minutes (no Cataclysm boss is that short of a fight) so I will think the spec that I'd use with Mage Armor to have basically infinite mana - http://www.wowhead.com/talent#o0bZfcZffMhsuszMo:aRM . Oh and since that front page of the discussion doesn't tell you the opening burst rotation I will quote it here.

Prepull A - Mirror Image prepull
Prepull B - Volcanic Potion prepot

1 - Icy Veins + On-Use Effect (Trinket, Engineering Gloves)
2 - Cast "Freeze" then immediately -> Deep Freeze (Save the other FoF Charge for now)
3 - Frostfire Orb
4 - Cold Snap
5 - Frostfire Orb (2 Frostfire Orbs will be up simultaneously now)
---
6a - Deep Freeze again immediately (Using the FoF charged you saved from the first "Freeze")
6b - "Heavy Ice Lance Spam" (Due to the 2 Frostfire Orbs being up simultaneously, will be mostly Ice Lance Spam for the next 15 seconds
---
7 - Icy Veins (As soon as the first one expired)
8 - Normal rotation

[DeathDefier]

Frost doesn't have any issues if you switch to mage armor and replace the molten armor glyph with frostbolt or ice lance (not sure which one is more benefitial).

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Frost doesn't have any issues if you switch to mage armor and replace the molten armor glyph with frostbolt or ice lance (not sure which one is more benefitial).

Frostbolt.

Do read that thread linked from EJ though, and read when things were posted! Changes have happened since the end of the beta and simulators have been refined. Mage armour is the way to go.

[Rogabr]

6b - "Heavy Ice Lance Spam" (Due to the 2 Frostfire Orbs being up simultaneously, will be mostly Ice Lance Spam for the next 15 seconds

I lol'd

nice design blizz

[DeathDefier]

Frostbolt.

Do read that thread linked from EJ though, and read when things were posted! Changes have happened since the end of the beta and simulators have been refined. Mage armour is the way to go.

Yeah I just went back and read it after I posted.

I'm looking at the new simulations he added with the 359 gear and (yes I know they aren't complete and are probably not anywhere near finished) I'm going to assume we aren't going to be able to be frost on every fight if we want to do optimal dps. This got me thinking about how to gear up in the beginning of cata for having fire as an offspec for fights that are add/movement heavy. Would stacking crit/hit gear and switching reforging from mastery to haste with frost ---> fire be the best considering both specs want a lot of crit (and frost wont hit the shatter cap that easy in the blue gear)?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

This got me thinking about how to gear up in the beginning of cata for having fire as an offspec for fights that are add/movement heavy. Would stacking crit/hit gear and switching reforging from mastery to haste with frost ---> fire be the best considering both specs want a lot of crit (and frost wont hit the shatter cap that easy in the blue gear)?

Honestly I couldn't tell you. I've not cared about fire for any of the beta nor have I paid the spec itself any attention other than a basic outline of how to play it. I'm frost and I know the spec like the back of my hand. I'll raid with it regardless of where it stands for DPS.

Any fire mages out here know the answer to this question? Sounds solid to me, last I heard fire's mastery wasn't all that great.

[Deleted]

It's interesting you put 2 points into Fire Power instead of Netherwind Presence. I, like you, have the 5 floating points to split between Fire Power, Netherwind Presence and Ignite.

Anyone got any idea how much Flame Orb explodes for? And the best allocation of 5 points between Fire power (3/3) Netherwind Presence (3/3) and Ignite (3/3) ?

[takolin]

It's interesting you put 2 points into Fire Power instead of Netherwind Presence. I, like you, have the 5 floating points to split between Fire Power, Netherwind Presence and Ignite.

Anyone got any idea how much Flame Orb explodes for? And the best allocation of 5 points between Fire power (3/3) Netherwind Presence (3/3) and Ignite (3/3) ?

Math says:

3/3 ignite and 2/3 netherwind presence.

[Deleted]

Math says:

3/3 ignite and 2/3 netherwind presence.

Cool, ty. Kinda disappointing though, was hoping to have exploding frostfire orbs

[MrWiki]

Lol, me too, I thought the Explode would be a nice touch on the Orbs.

But if Netherwind Presence has theorycrafting to support it i will spec into that.

EDIT : Also, Would someone please explain what benefit Permafrost has for raiding? i don't see it, why do i need 10% more slow and healing reduction, or healing my pet, i have healers for that.

[zephid]

or healing my pet, i have healers for that.

Healer mana will be a lot more limited in cataclysm compared to wrath, so everything that makes their job easier is welcome.

[takolin]

Lol, me too, I thought the Explode would be a nice touch on the Orbs.

But if Netherwind Presence has theorycrafting to support it i will spec into that.

EDIT : Also, Would someone please explain what benefit Permafrost has for raiding? i don't see it, why do i need 10% more slow and healing reduction, or healing my pet, i have healers for that.

Healing reduction => some bosses heal, having a healing debuff helps.
More slow => sometimes you need to kite junk, applying a better slow helps.
Healing pet => healers have limited mana, keeping your pet alive helps.

[Meijnrr]

Healing reduction => some bosses heal, having a healing debuff helps.
More slow => sometimes you need to kite junk, applying a better slow helps.
Healing pet => healers have limited mana, keeping your pet alive helps.

Yeah those are the basic reason why you'd put points in Permafrost, but really you could easily get away with 1 point cause of your Pet's 90% AoE damage reduction.

[Deleted]

.... Oh and since that front page of the discussion doesn't tell you the opening burst rotation I will quote it here.

Errm just one thing about it...are u sure Cold Snap would reset Frostfire Orb..since even after it's transformed i'm pretty sure it'd still be considered fire spell ?

[takolin]

Errm just one thing about it...are u sure Cold Snap would reset Frostfire Orb..since even after it's transformed i'm pretty sure it'd still be considered fire spell ?

Beta says it does reset it.