[Mage] The Ultimate Guide to Frost

[Swizzle]

This question might have been asked before, but I was wondering if Orc's Command racial extends to water elemental attacks?

No, for some odd reason it applies to all pets but the Water Elemental.

---------- Post added 2011-01-03 at 03:54 PM ----------

4 words: "ghostcrawler will strike again!"

your days are about to end, mr icemage!
didnt know you actually need a guide to spam icelance :P

Ice Mages don't exist, Ice Lance is the weakest instant, and Mage DPS overall is getting buffed. Basically, you just epic failed on all counts of your post, well played, didn't think that was possible.

[Deleted]

A lot of effort put into this but i think it can easily be summed up in the following:
1. Spam Ice lance
2. Lol at yourself whilst you think you are good at the game by playing a 1 button win class

Am i right? >.>

I hate it when people are talking bout another class with a lack of knowledge about them.
If you truely think that when we would one button spam we would bring competive dps then you are -sorry for the word- an idiot.
Please don't come here to QQ that all we do is icelance spam, you and your unmaturity clearly don't know anything bout this class.

Nicely written guide!
Would have liked a bit more pictures though (personally), but thumbs up!

regards

---------- Post added 2011-01-03 at 06:03 PM ----------

4 words: "ghostcrawler will strike again!"

your days are about to end, mr icemage!
didnt know you actually need a guide to spam icelance :P

Another example of a person without brains, obviously knowing nothing at all about frost mages.
I could make a comment like that on each class...

[Monstercloud]

Just a small inaccuracy:



Actually, the veiled gem is both red and blue and thus is completely neutral towards obtaining "more blue than red gems". If you want that meta gem activated, there is no way around the pure hit gem.

That's not true. Green gems count as yellow/blue gems, so you do have options.

[Eec003]

I hate to say it but you really dont know frost as of 4.0.3 do you...

Wrong glyphs, wrong rotation/priority...and this guide won something? =(

[Laider]

I hate to say it but you really dont know frost as of 4.0.3 do you...

Wrong glyphs, wrong rotation/priority...and this guide won something? =(

I hate to say it but you really don't know reading as of 6 pages of this thread do you?

Constructive comments, arguments refuted... And this guide won something.

[Deleted]

I hate to say it but you really dont know frost as of 4.0.3 do you...

Wrong glyphs, wrong rotation/priority...and this guide won something? =(

Obviously you know nothing about frost then.
I wonder if you are level 85 yet....

[Debion]

Frost pve is amazing single target dps I whoop on Fire mages dps all the time as long as there is no aoe in the fight. For any fights with straight single target imo if you get to 20%+ crit and as much mastery as you can get your hands on you can easily pull 14-15k dps and I almost never see fire mages pull that single target without aoe. My mage is getting near 200k deep freeze crits with my mastery trinket proc. The point is frost is so new to pvp there are almost no good frost mages and hopefully we can break the stigma for pve :P.

[Deleted]

Fire is the best mage spec at the moment that only lags a few k behind the best single target classes, like Survival and Frost DK. Frost is mediocre, but still a lot better than arcane.

Welcome to Cataclysm.

Fire is? Nono my dear friend you have missed something. Fire is way too mana consuming to be the top dps spec, even though you might do good dmg for a while then when you've used your evocation + mana gem and you're at 5k mana you'll have a problem. Atleast this is what I think after trying all the specs, I like to play Fire, infact I like it alot but I just think it is way too mana consuming for the long fights that cata have brought into the game

[Imnick]

Fire is? Nono my dear friend you have missed something. Fire is way too mana consuming to be the top dps spec, even though you might do good dmg for a while then when you've used your evocation + mana gem and you're at 5k mana you'll have a problem. Atleast this is what I think after trying all the specs, I like to play Fire, infact I like it alot but I just think it is way too mana consuming for the long fights that cata have brought into the game

You have no idea what you're talking about I'm afraid.
You were just playing fire wrong.
If you play fire right then mana won't be an enormous concern, and sims say that it's the highest DPS (and world of logs agrees).

[Deleted]

That's not true. Green gems count as yellow/blue gems, so you do have options.

But those gems are not called "veiled" which referes specifically to the purple int/hit gem - the gem suggested by the guide for the meta activation. This was my major point of dispute.

It is of course true that you could use a mastery/hit or crit/hit gem, if you would - But I don't think you would at current hit levels found on gear.

[nemex]

There is a lot of spam and flaming going on in this thread. I do not want to lock it because it's on the front page. Any additional comments that are derogatory or non-constructive will be banned.

Keep your posts constructive, do not resort to flaming or trolling.

Though this guide may have several inaccuracies, it won a prize because of its writing and showmanship. If you're going to comment on the app, comment on how it is written and not necessarily the content. If you want an accurate Frost PvE guide, go to Kuni's here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Mage-PVE-Guide

[Steehl]

So you'd skip out on 15% extra flat damage and an extra dot in favour of 5% extra damage on our FoF-dump? Don't know about you, but FB-FoF-FFB clocks in as a clear 2nd for any of my fights, and hits for at least 10k+ more than FoF-IL

Besides, the T11 2p is absolutely useless for frost mages: We want to get to 33% crit anyway, at which point 5% bonus to Ice Lance it pretty inconsequential

Looking over my WoL reports, the most FFB has ever been for my total damage done was 11%. Ice Lance was 21%. I highly doubt buffing 11% of my damage by 15% will outweigh buffing 5% of my 21% damage.

And the tier bonus would only be "useless" if we already had 33% crit, which most people currently do not.

Another thing, I have seen my Ice Barrier proc while casting. It happens during Omnotron during Security Measure.

[Erekoze]

Looking over my WoL reports, the most FFB has ever been for my total damage done was 11%. Ice Lance was 21%. I highly doubt buffing 11% of my damage by 15% will outweigh buffing 5% of my 21% damage.

You'll be surprised...
0.11*0.15=0.0165 > 0.21*0.05=0.0105

One question about frost: is frost viable on heroic fights, where frequent dps bursts are required (like with portals in Halls of Origination)? I've found, fire can't compete with arcane on such fights, but I don't know about frost.
I don't want to abandon fire: too good for aoe and scales really good with encounter-specific haste-buffs. Oh, and all those explosions ^_^ Right now I consider specing off arcane to frost for various reasons (closer stat priorities with fire, better survivability, nice bubbling sound, ability to easily pull aggro from tank...).
Oh, where is my triple-spec >.<

PS sorry for me Engrish ^_^

[Deleted]

Hey, excellent guide! After I read it, it seemed to me that I was following it almost fully before it was even written (or posted here anyway). But to the point, I am still little confused about the glyphing of frost mage. I am currently at 346/359 gear (more 359s though), hit capped and almost crit capped with glyphed molten armor and raid buffs. (19.79% without any buffs, 24.79% with molten armor and 29.79% with 5% crit bonus from warr/cat/hunt).

Currently, I am using glyphs of molten armor, frostbolt and deep freeze in raids. Deep Freeze glyph is obvious. I don't have to switch to mage armor in raids if I don't have to AoE (so only Magmaw and Maloriak, on Cho'Gall I am only on boss), so Molten Armor glyph is used to its fullest. Glyph of Frostbolt because frost mages are doing most damage with Frostbolts in raids and their most casted spell is Frostbolt again. But there is also excellent Glyph of FFB. Should I switch it? What are the numbers behind glyphing saying? I tried to play with it, but I personally think Brain Freeze doesn't proc often enough to always keep 3 times stacked FFB dot on target. Thanks for any suggestions!

[Kuni Zyrekai]

One question about frost: is frost viable on heroic fights, where frequent dps bursts are required (like with portals in Halls of Origination)?

It's quite nice for fights like that but you should save DF for those specific bursts. I can personally solo one of the two adds on the last boss in Grim Batol with no problem before he even gets out into the room itself.

[Karrok]

I've gone ahead and updated various parts of the guide with people's feedback regarding gems, glyphs, and hit capping. No overhauls or big changes, just some asides or cleaning done.

To those of you who have given me constructive criticism and thoughtful discussion, I thank you. Healthy debates is what makes the cogs of EJ turn and is what made my previous guides on the official wow forums (start laughing) and Stratfu so successful. I agree with Kyth's sentiment that more guide-type content, even when covering the same subject, can always be beneficial to the community as it provides second opinions, cross-referenced facts and input from more players. I'm still open to any ideas you guys throw at me and I'm still looking at several posts in this thread that I haven't answered yet.

For the lolicelance people, level 80 DKs, and twelve-year-olds without reading comprehension...well, the mod said it pretty well.

[orsraunia]

nice guide

the damage from frost is very close with fire atm. we have fire, frost and arcane mages in our guild, raiding guild. fire is no1, followed very very closely by frost, even with lower gear, and arcane is in the last place, far-far away.

The difference between fire and frost is small and thus depends on RNG and individual encounter mechanics that can benefit one spec or the other. In general, Fire will show its potential (compared to Frost) in fights that last 6min or more.

[AndrewDoK]

lol frost pve

yeah, and wait... ret is actually good for dps now? i thought pallys just heal.. oh wait, things change.

[Apexis]

I want to say that I found the guide to be informative and whether it is concise or not I will leave that up to other folks to decide. I like playing my Mage, but sadly he is not my main. I have been looking for a decent general guide to steer me in the right direction or give me some sort reference point to learn how play my mage better.

Really people all a guide should be consider to be is a place to start, not an end means or end all to a class or a spec. Its intended purpose should be use to steer a person in a general direction on the what's, where's, why's and how's to play a particular class and spec.

As a side note here. While many of the post in this thread were very constructive. I would have to agree with the Moderator, there was a alot of spamming and flaming going on here. Belittling people; instead of giving constructive feedback on how to make improvements to the guide, seems rather counterproductive to the community at large.

My only question to the Moderator would be. Why, did you not put and end to the nonsense, before waiting make a post 5 and half pages into the thread?

To the idiots of this thread that gave no constructive thought into there posts, my question to you is.... Where are your guides for us to read? Seems to me, if know so much about the class we should be forwarded the opportunity to critique your guide.

[Deleted]

"A pet. It follows you, and makes that bubbling sound."