Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide

[Kmonski]

Hey, tad of an off topic question.

Do any of you top drawer frost mages use Weak Auras and have any awesome strings up your sleeves? I have a few just to track simple CDs and when bombs are about to drop off targets. Was intrigued to know if there are any other ones out there that could benefit dps at all?

If there is already a thread about this, my bad, could not find anything.

Cheers

Edit - found the weak auras thread (didnt look to hard!) Shows basic ones though and a bunch of ignite and combustion ones. Wasn't sure if there are more out there regarding frost?

[RickJamesLich]

Thinking about giving frost a spin - what's the haste cap for frost?

Edit: I read around and couldn't find any exact answers, but I'm assuming 53% haste cap is correct, and 28% for crit? Raid buffed, of course.

[Deleted]

actually, there isn't any haste cap. 53% is just the obtainable level but with 5.4 gear, it will go over this by far.
for crit, 23% is good. End it will be less than that in 5.4.

But all of this will certainly change in 5.4 because of the mastery change.

[RickJamesLich]

actually, there isn't any haste cap. 53% is just the obtainable level but with 5.4 gear, it will go over this by far.
for crit, 23% is good. End it will be less than that in 5.4.

But all of this will certainly change in 5.4 because of the mastery change.

So as of right now, if you can reach 53% haste, you should still stack haste over crit? And is 28% crit the actual cap? I'm at both caps right now, dumping into mastery since then.

[Libretto]

28% is the actual crit cap, but 23% is an arbitrary number people recommend switching into mastery after once you have obtained double RPPM trinkets, as their int procs cause you to go beyond 28% crit while they're up.

[jtmzac]

So as of right now, if you can reach 53% haste, you should still stack haste over crit? And is 28% crit the actual cap? I'm at both caps right now, dumping into mastery since then.

Once crit is at 23-24% raid buffed mastery becomes a higher priority. You can also just go mastery>crit once you get 530+ ilvl.

What to do at the 15,697.25 haste cap isn't something we ever came up with a definite answer for. Some of us continue to stack haste and others start swapping gems for more int. Not sure if anyone is going for mastery but there's probably someone doing it.

[Deleted]

Currently I`m forging haste to 15832 (19th tick of NT) then to mastery. But I´m considering to reforge full Int again, because me and a few fellows in my guild tested haste vs mastery (warlocks) or other secondaries. And the result was always the same: Trinkets don´t scale noticeable with haste. But as stated, there is no one around who would profess this or that is the best to go.

[Deleted]

Forward reflection for 5.4.
-- Some trinket will be with ICD. So we will be able to monitor them.
-- crit cap will depend on uptime and Icicle benefice from FB's crit and Amplification passive
-- haste value is increase by Icicle until FB reach 1s.
-- splitting ice glyph increase mastery value on Cleave fight

If we keep an huge uptime for Sinister, the 100% haste cap is at 53.846%, 15698 haste rating (15122 for goblin). rounded up.
With amp trinket (13%) : 13771/13265 haste rating

-- another factor could be BF-FFB damage being low. It crit for near half FoF-IL. It's only partially covered by T16's bonuses. It will keep haste value high but not as it was before.

Some of the things to test with SimC:
Icy veins with and w/o glyph
stat scaling single target and cleave target.

edit> rectification on amp trinket calculation

[RickJamesLich]

Once crit is at 23-24% raid buffed mastery becomes a higher priority. You can also just go mastery>crit once you get 530+ ilvl.

What to do at the 15,697.25 haste cap isn't something we ever came up with a definite answer for. Some of us continue to stack haste and others start swapping gems for more int. Not sure if anyone is going for mastery but there's probably someone doing it.

Thanks, I appreciate everyone's advice, i'm at like 547 right now - gonna try gemming for int I think.

[Mastamage]

Currently I`m forging haste to 15832 (19th tick of NT) then to mastery. But I´m considering to reforge full Int again, because me and a few fellows in my guild tested haste vs mastery (warlocks) or other secondaries. And the result was always the same: Trinkets don´t scale noticeable with haste. But as stated, there is no one around who would profess this or that is the best to go.

I'm testing a 50% haste build with Int stacking this lockout to compare results (I've been tooling with arcane for the past few weeks and need reliable dps for heroics, so frost it is).

[Deleted]

Yeah, I definitely want to have a reforge plan for 5.4. I really hope my own conclusion will be Int > 2 haste > Mastery > Crit even with all the RPPM on my gear. It all depends on PTR changes, but we don´t have a decent multi target scaling. Our bombs are still too haste heavy and Ice Lance will cleave 50% of our Frostbolt and Frostfirebolt mastery.

Concerns: Frostfirebolt and Frostbolt damage are pretty low on PTR and FB has only a crit chance of ~25%. 2 Frostbolt hits will not have the same mastery addition as a frostburn IL on live has. On top of that, there are maaany IL spam situations, especially with frozen orb. I don´t know why Blizzard is focused on 2 Spell and Waterbolt, but I wish they would let more spells benefit from mastery (IL, AoE and maybe bombs).

Right now, it looks like the new mastery is a PvP band-aid and not an overall one. That would mean, frost will not be viable for heroic progression 5.4. But I don´t want to judge too early, we have still a few weeks to go on PTR.

Would be nice if you let me know how your experience was with an Int build Mastamage.

[Deleted]

100% agree, like always ^o^

In cleave situation, Mastery value will be increase by near 50% and subsequently crit value too.
I don't think they want to add IL to mastery because it would create very big Icicle than could be problematic in PvP. They don't want to buff BF-FFB because it could lead to an increase in the haste value. But they can reduce IL's damage to prevent it to be too big.

[Deleted]

I don't know if it was found but frigid blast (4pT16) can Crit but the proc rate feel more around 10%. need more cast for confirmation.

[Deleted]

Already did some test with BF and T16 4p

132 Frostfirebolts 100%
36 Frigid Blasts 27.27%

Overall damage Frigid Blast: 1.8%


Are you on Brill Nathyiel?


----------------------------

Update: Did a second test with full Mastery and Multistrike Trinket and without IV Glyph

Haste 8.953 (21.07%), Crit 7.427 (27.93%), Mastery 17082 (63.82%) & Mage Armour

110 Frostfirebolts 100%
30 Frigid Blasts 27.27% (again o_O)

Overall damage Frigid Blast: 1.4%

Without IV Glyph and full Mastery, Multstrike was 4.0% (was 3.1% with IV Glyph and full haste build)

[Deleted]

Ok, I tweet it to expect some confirmation. (Sorry, I will go to sleep soon but yes, I'm on brill)

[Deleted]

Did you do some Trinket test yourself Nathyiel? I´m concerned about the fact, that Arcane has 3 decent trinkets (still need to do some tests with the AoE trinket), Fire 4 - 5 (AoE trinket looks pretty decent on council fights) and the multistrike need some more testing with fire.
Frost has just 2 (Wrath and Amplification), but they both are not pretty valuable, because Frost scaling isn`t pretty good (as we all now) and Wrath stacks pretty slow outside of frozen orb (did reach last stack with only 3 - 4 seconds left very often with a full mastery build) and with Arcane I did reach last with 15s left very often. This is a huge difference!

[Deleted]

Did you do some Trinket test yourself Nathyiel? I´m concerned about the fact, that Arcane has 3 decent trinkets (still need to do some tests with the AoE trinket), Fire 4 - 5 (AoE trinket looks pretty decent on council fights) and the multistrike need some more testing with fire.
Frost has just 2 (Wrath and Amplification), but they both are not pretty valuable, because Frost scaling isn`t pretty good (as we all now) and Wrath stacks pretty slow outside of frozen orb (did reach last stack with only 3 - 4 seconds left very often with a full mastery build) and with Arcane I did reach last with 15s left very often. This is a huge difference!

I did some a few build ago. I need to redo them.

The problem with Amp is that the passive increase the difference in scaling. The gap between a spec that scale very good and an other that scale not so good will only increase with this trinket, by 14% for being exact.
For example, the mastery.
Arcane -- very good. So it will be even better.
Fire -- not really interesting. It won't be changed.

This trinket is good because it increase all stat value by a same amount (14%), even Crit if it's cap.
So even if they all receive the same bonus (14%), it won't change the gain from this stat.
example:
before : Fire gain 3 per crit and 1.6 by mastery and haste; Frost gain 2.5 by haste, 1.8 by mastery and 1.5 by crit. Total: 6.2 & 5.8 / -0.4
after : Fire -- 3.42/crit, 1.82/haste & 1.82/mastery; Frost -- 2.85/haste, 2.05/mastery & 1.71/crit. Total: 7.06 & 6.61 / -0.45 (~12.5%)

It's all false number and stat value & rating have to be taken into account but the conclusion will be the same.
good scaling will be better and less good scaling won't become good.

What's about frost?
-- crit being capped for a big part of it's damage so crit rating (& intel) won't increase damage by a lot. So Crit's damage increase will be good but more crit won't change this a lot.
-- mastery is affecting only part of our spell (less than before).
-- haste, the more is stacked, the less it usable. Is value decrease !!!!



How do you want Frost scaling to be good when haste decrease in value with stuff, and crit & mastery only affect par of our spell. And some spell isn't increased by any of this stat !!!

[Deleted]

This is exactly what I have in mind Nathyiel. The amplification and Multistrike trinket both scale with gear and stats and that is one of frost´s biggest issues. As long as we keep this kind of weird mastery (only affecting 2 - 3 spells) scaling will not be fixed and therefore trinkets like that are less valuable as for other specs/classes. This will have a negative influence to our gearing progress, because who will give this trinkets to a bad scaling frost mage, if another class will have a way better benefit?
Waterbolt and Icicles not stacking Wush 2.0 is a thing that need to be adressed, otherwise you get those trinkets just from bonus roll or if every other caster in the raid already has 2 decent trinkets.

Anyway, as it looks at the moment, frost seems not to be a viable progression spec in 5.4, just because of scaling. Sure, they can adjust numbers by buffing base damage and/or SP coefficients (would make frost ridiculously overpowerd with lower gear), but I´m not willing to start progression with a medicore spec that will end up bottom mid heroic progression. I´m @ 525 on my mage twink right now with no 4p and no meta, but the difference between a 525 and a 551 frost mage not that huge - just compare fire 525 to 551 for example.

I know we have to treat raidbot numbers with caution, but this gives an idea how bad frost scaling is:

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...00000000000000
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...00000000000000

[Akraen]

This is exactly what I have in mind Nathyiel. The amplification and Multistrike trinket both scale with gear and stats and that is one of frost´s biggest issues. As long as we keep this kind of weird mastery (only affecting 2 - 3 spells) scaling will not be fixed and therefore trinkets like that are less valuable as for other specs/classes. This will have a negative influence to our gearing progress, because who will give this trinkets to a bad scaling frost mage, if another class will have a way better benefit?
Waterbolt and Icicles not stacking Wush 2.0 is a thing that need to be adressed, otherwise you get those trinkets just from bonus roll or if every other caster in the raid already has 2 decent trinkets.

Anyway, as it looks at the moment, frost seems not to be a viable progression spec in 5.4, just because of scaling. Sure, they can adjust numbers by buffing base damage and/or SP coefficients (would make frost ridiculously overpowerd with lower gear), but I´m not willing to start progression with a medicore spec that will end up bottom mid heroic progression. I´m @ 525 on my mage twink right now with no 4p and no meta, but the difference between a 525 and a 551 frost mage not that huge - just compare fire 525 to 551 for example.

I know we have to treat raidbot numbers with caution, but this gives an idea how bad frost scaling is:

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...00000000000000
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overa...00000000000000

It's sad when looking at frost that I can pick out the days you, me, Boxed, Kuni, or a few others killed a boss.

I'll still be frost next tier. If our progression suffers use me as an example.

[Kenbud]

It's sad when looking at frost that I can pick out the days you, me, Boxed, Kuni, or a few others killed a boss.

Why do you constantly compare yourself to these guys? They consistently and considerably out preform you?