Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide

[Peake]

I’m spending time wondering which way to go to step up the game for the last 4 bosses of SoO 10M HC.

Char:
eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmane/Peake/advanced
askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/frostmane/peake

I’m basically following Akrean’s Frost mixed Haste/Mastery build, opting for 14242 Haste. I’ve additionally opted to use the combination of Heroic Hood of Swirling Senses, Heroic Warforged Shoulderpads of Dou Dou Chong and Heroic Leggings of Furious Flame instead of using two Normal Tier pieces. It feels like increased output, but would be interested in getting your opinions.

I’ve also compared the log below from yesterday (3,8k from a ranking there? ) of the 10HC Malkorok kill with the ranked Deawyn log. I find that I’m slackier on refreshing bomb, but further input would be nice!

Log:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/3...?s=8522&e=8829

I have a feeling I deteriorate slightly on multiple target fights like Spoils, rather than on the more Patchwerk like Malkorok, but I haven’t found any good deeper tricks/guide post on how to tackle those types of fights. Anyone seen something good for that, more than bombs up on everything + Glyph of Splitting Ice + keep your fingers crossed!?!

I’ve been tempted to try out a switch to Fire (which I have seriously played the slight majority of the time over the last two expantion), and possibly also Arcane (which I’m loath to play, but was forced to pick up in parts of WotLK and for HC Spine). Honestly I like the Frost play style, but it feels like I need a slight step change, not only add gear to get better.

Basically: Should I stay Frost? If so, what to improve further? Any directions welcome!

[Libretto]

BF FFB is always worth more than ice lance to consume 2pc since it's a guaranteed crit.
Frostbolt gets debatable if full mastery (90%+), if the cast time is down to GCD or below due to meta / lust / etc.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Even in full mastery BiS, an ice lance is still better than a frostbolt+icicle.

Under normal circumstances, sure. But if you're sitting at 9-10 stacks of heroic BBoY and another int proc, you actually have enough crit that it's worth the gamble on average. A crit frostbolt == BF-FFB, if one's worth it, then the other is too.

BF FFB is always worth more than ice lance to consume 2pc since it's a guaranteed crit.
Frostbolt gets debatable if full mastery (90%+), if the cast time is down to GCD or below due to meta / lust / etc.

It's only worth it above 10200 mastery. Lance scales better with spell power, you need at least 10200 mastery to make BF-FFB break even.

Frostbolt's worth is crit based as well. Most of us have enough haste that the cast difference is going to be next to nothing.

[Libretto]

Hard not to have 10200 mastery in a raid with anywhere above ~560 ilevel nowadays I suppose.

If you do have 90%+ mastery (around 23k raid buffed), it's unlikely you're even at the 12.1k haste breakpoint unless you have near perfect BiS gear so your normal frostbolt cast time is still going to be relatively lengthy.

[Akraen]

Haha suppose that's true - I tend to forget about crit being a thing.

[Deleted]

To support the discussion i did some math in this boring tuesday with my gear.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...UUnVTM2c#gid=1

To have an accurate idea if frostbolt is worth it for frozen thoughts i sum (FB crit dmg)*crit+(FB non-crit dmg)*(1-crit)

Basically its not worth it to cast frostbolt with frozen thoughts. You will never do more dmg than ice lance as an average unless you have over 90% mastery and full procs. In the other hand FFB-Icicle does always more dmg than ice lance and the more int procs you have or mastery you have the bigger is this diference.
In my opinion the way to go is: after a BF proc, cast another frostbolt with FFB queued and hope that while we are on gcd another BF procs. This happens many times.
Hope this helps.

[voltaa]

You could use Theorycraft-o-matic and plug in your stats and slowly adjust mastery and see when FB+Mastery damage overtakes IL.
For example, after plugging in my stats, the priority for 2piece buff is BF+ Icicle > IL > Frostbolt+Icicle

However, it also seems like FrB+Icicle will never overtake IL no matter how much mastery i put it (within limits. I don't think anyone's getting over 100% mastery).

I could do some testing with it in game when I get home since I have well over 100% mastery. Did you get to a point in TComatic where it said FB overtakes IL?

Edit: So I did a little bit of messing around on the training dummy sitting at 104.4% mastery, no external buffs, and from the results I'm getting, at this mastery point you wouldn't want to even use Ice Lance at all if your meta or lust was up (in a raid situation). My max icicle hit is nearly as high as my max IL hit.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

My max icicle hit is nearly as high as my max IL hit.

*grabbyhands*

[Libretto]

I suppose there'd be a gear point where there'd be merit in glyphing armors to open with mage armor pre-pull on bosses you pull with lust, then switching to frost armor afterwards. Maybe on juggernaut where ice lance and WE glyphs are useless so you'd have the free glyph slot.

[nickseng]

I could do some testing with it in game when I get home since I have well over 100% mastery. Did you get to a point in TComatic where it said FB overtakes IL?

Edit: So I did a little bit of messing around on the training dummy sitting at 104.4% mastery, no external buffs, and from the results I'm getting, at this mastery point you wouldn't want to even use Ice Lance at all if your meta or lust was up (in a raid situation). My max icicle hit is nearly as high as my max IL hit.

Well, it took around 184% mastery before FrB+Icicle overtook FoF Ice Lance, but I kept my haste static, i.e. no haste procs. I suppose it would take less mastery with haste procs since IL stop benefitting after 50%, but FrB still does.

[Mastamage]

Well, it took around 184% mastery before FrB+Icicle overtook FoF Ice Lance, but I kept my haste static, i.e. no haste procs. I suppose it would take less mastery with haste procs since IL stop benefitting after 50%, but FrB still does.

Test it with meta/lust

So I did a little bit of messing around on the training dummy sitting at 104.4% mastery, no external buffs, and from the results I'm getting, at this mastery point you wouldn't want to even use Ice Lance at all if your meta or lust was up

[maizensh]

I've made some graphs to check when FrB's dpet is higher than IL's and came up with this.
If you're above the appropriate line you should FrB, otherwise IL.


Assumes that haste and mastery are raid buffed. The graphs are with 22% crit in mind (two trinket procs will place you well above 30%).

Basically, if you're well geared (can reach ~80% mastery with 50% haste), then when meta procs you should use FrB on single target fights.
Major intellect trinket procs improve FrB's situation even further, and make it beneficial to FrB over IL even if you have ~72% mastery.

On cleave fights you need to be at over 100% mastery with int procs, or 110% without for FrB to be better. Infeasible for most people. So in this cases still use ILs over FrB.


EDIT: Stacked the graphs together

[durrtygoodz]

Some really interesting info here. How did you reach the conclusion that your graphs show?

Looking at this has made me rethink my whole play style at my current mastery, which is just about 80% raid buffed now but will push higher once I get the last 3 heroic items I need. It has opened up a couple of questions though:

What you said about Int Trinks - Just for clarification you mean that without meta/lust, one int proc pushes ice lance into the "don't press" category right?
I'm curious how BF+2 set fits in on all this. I'm guessing that during those int proc/meta/lust, Frostbolt is still better than Ice Lance as well.

Also I was thinking about the opener. It's actually wouldn't be worth casting Ice Lance at all, even with Frozen Orb up, until Alter Time. Then during AT use procs as normal, because mastery is essentially useless at this point. Icicles gained during AT are replaced by the ones you had when you pressed the button.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay so, did a little test on the dummy. I only have about 72% without the raid buff so dps results are irrelevant - I was just trying the playstyle. What I have to say is, that from a mana PoV, this is sort of harsh. I was oom with about 15 seconds left on Invokers, sometimes less or more depending on procs ofc. But yeah, felt kinda weird.

Now, obviously, the amount of fights where you 1. Don't cleave and 2. Don't move, are pretty low. Even on Malkorok heroic, which is as close to what I just described as you can get, has IL cleave opportunities. And Sha of Pride, you don't cleave but you're gunna wanna icelance on the move. But still, mana is perhaps something to consider.

[maizensh]

Some really interesting info here. How did you reach the conclusion that your graphs show?

By using mage's 1040 rule it's relatively easy to remove the dependence on spell power and see when average dpet of FrB+icicle > average dpet of FoF-IL.

What you said about Int Trinks - Just for clarification you mean that without meta/lust, one int proc pushes ice lance into the "don't press" category right?
I'm curious how BF+2 set fits in on all this. I'm guessing that during those int proc/meta/lust, Frostbolt is still better than Ice Lance as well.

No. You don't want to do it without meta/lust, haste procs are the ones that make the difference in favor of FrB. After the haste proc, if KTT and PBoI proc that's about 11% extra crit, so you're way over the crit cap, this helps FrB (because it doesn't cap) to be better than FoF-IL which is already capped at 25%, but this is a difference of a much lower order than the one from haste.
In short, don't do it without haste procs

Also I was thinking about the opener. It's actually wouldn't be worth casting Ice Lance at all, even with Frozen Orb up, until Alter Time. Then during AT use procs as normal, because mastery is essentially useless at this point. Icicles gained during AT are replaced by the ones you had when you pressed the button.

Thing is, most fights have cleave opening, IL is still better on those. If it's a pure single target fight I even think that delaying the orb until after AT is probably best. Though I don't know really, my guideline is to try to use it more for generating FoFs after haste procs ran out.

Okay so, did a little test on the dummy. I only have about 72% without the raid buff so dps results are irrelevant - I was just trying the playstyle. What I have to say is, that from a mana PoV, this is sort of harsh. I was oom with about 15 seconds left on Invokers, sometimes less or more depending on procs ofc. But yeah, felt kinda weird.

Mana gem

[durrtygoodz]

Alright cheers for clearing that up. In my dummy test I was ignoring FoF during int procs, that's why I had mana issues. So yeah that point is moot now.

There are a lot of fights with Lust at the start that don't have cleaves right away. On Malkorok for example if you were saving Frozen Orb for after lust, you could potentially: A. lose a frozen orb usage in the fight and B. Your first Frozen Orb won't benefit from trinkets at the start.

[nickseng]

I've made some graphs to check when FrB's dpet is higher than IL's and came up with this.
If you're above the appropriate line you should FrB, otherwise IL.


Assumes that haste and mastery are raid buffed. The graphs are with 22% crit in mind (two trinket procs will place you well above 30%).

Basically, if you're well geared (can reach ~80% mastery with 50% haste), then when meta procs you should use FrB on single target fights.
Major intellect trinket procs improve FrB's situation even further, and make it beneficial to FrB over IL even if you have ~72% mastery.

On cleave fights you need to be at over 100% mastery with int procs, or 110% without for FrB to be better. Infeasible for most people. So in this cases still use ILs over FrB.


EDIT: Stacked the graphs together

Nice Analysis.
Though for normal raiders, this wouldn't really be something we'd need to worry about since it's hard to push to 70% mastery while maintaining 50% haste.

[maizensh]

There are a lot of fights with Lust at the start that don't have cleaves right away. On Malkorok for example if you were saving Frozen Orb for after lust, you could potentially: A. lose a frozen orb usage in the fight and B. Your first Frozen Orb won't benefit from trinkets at the start.

Yeah, it'll require some testing (which I haven't even started yet) to figure out how these new findings really alter our way of playing.
I remember a similar topic being an item before IL buff, but somehow after the buff no one really bothered checking if it was enough.

Nice Analysis.
Though for normal raiders, this wouldn't really be something we'd need to worry about since it's hard to push to 70% mastery while maintaining 50% haste.

Well, you can use BBoY and reach 80% even in normal gear, but yes, this is mostly intended for hc gear.

[Deleted]

Ok this might be an obvious question for some, but please tell me What haste cap I should go for. I like the playstyle of a haste build, but I don't exactly know what haste cap I need to aim for.
I am currently sitting at 52.27% (17983 rating) haste and 40.31% (7292 rating) mastery self buffed.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...r/Vmp/advanced

Any help would be great.

[durrtygoodz]

Haste build = all out haste regardless of breakpoints

Signifcant ratings:

14242 = gcd cap
15832 = extra NT tick
18960 = NT + LB tick

I find going higher than 15832 a waste personally. I go 15832 sometimes to rank higher on NT fights, 14242 all the time if I'm lazy.

[Ilir]

God I understand nothing of the previous posts.

Anyway.

I'm just starting playing my frost mage and I have to say... god... it is awful at low gear level. Should I stick to it or am I a masochist ?
Why is the level 90 talents so boring and annoying ? Oh you have to cast/channel a thing every minute... so fun ! Btw, any chance there is an addon or anything else that can track the buff for me ? I use evocation and sometimes i forgot that the buff is gone :/

And the guide is still correct ? hit cap > haste > mastery ?