Challenge Mode question

[Quill]

If one runs Challenge Modes as Frost, could it potentially be advisable to stack Crit (over haste) until you get as close to the 23% softcap as possible, due to the importance of aoe pack damage (rather than single target)?

Or would Haste still be king?

[Shangalar]

Not answering your question coz I don't do Challenge Modes, but I just wanted to let you know that I changed the title of the thread as we usually use the shortcut CM for Critical Mass.

[jtmzac]

I think someone said stacking mastery actually works best.

Also the crit cap is 25% for level 90, 26% for level 91, 27% for level 92 and 28% for level 93.

[Bopcommander]

I would assume haste is still king. Do you normally raid as fire/frost/arcane? I personally don't like frost, and its play style, but the AOE burst is massive and can be hard to beat from any class in my opinion. I run mastery arcane/rop during raids. So that's what I ran for our challenge mode golds. I felt most comfortable with it. The AOE cleave from barrage + Flamestrike and Living Bomb was still great enough to plow down the trash. And my single target dps couldn't be touched still doing 100k+ with lust on every fight. But if you have a good group, and execute what needs to be done for a gold score, I don't think it matters which spec you play.

[Quill]

This is for an alt actually. We're still working on our first run, SH. We're 30 seconds off the gold pace, I have been tanking them and we typically have a Rogue/Hunter and then whatever the hell we find online for the 3rd dps (the biggest challenge it seems, is finding people).

I feel like we'd have had it last week if we had the int/5% crit/hero. I'm developing this toon in case another capable tank appears for us, since I'm sick of losing due to comp reasons. I do enjoy Frost though, and since it's an alt, I'll probably just dps as Frost all the time since I'm not under pressure to min/max this toon per se. I'm working on obtaining the 5.1 Rep trinket that would line up with Frost Orb (1min CDs).

JTM's observation might just have me go for 20% (+5% from AI), I'm concerned with bringing the most 4-5 pack damage I can as I believe that's where the most opportunity to shave time off the run as a Mage resides.

[jtmzac]

Trash in challenge modes are level 91 so you would need 26% crit. Also you get crit from intellect so getting the right amount might be tricky.

Crit is a safer option and removes the rng from shatters with frost bomb but mastery will increase the damage the shatter does.

[LET JIMMY RAID]

I've only done one gold (GotSS) challenge mode, and I did it as frost with haste stacking (I was playing haste-arcane, so didn't regem/reforge). Recently, I switched to mastery stacking arcane, and am curious how mastery stacking frost will do...

[Deleted]

I personally did challenge modes as Frost with fire reforges, made pretty much every dungeon with time to spare.

[spaace]

Gear same way you do for a raid.

In CM you get scaled down.... so the better you're itemized, the better the down-scale works.


I gem int when I gear arcane, so it transfers to frost for CMs very easily.

[Intervir]

The real challenge is the trash, the best tip I can give you is to take frost bomb and learn to freeze the mobs when it gonna explode (shatter). The gear I`ve used was filled with hit and sockets, try to get every piece with sockets and hit. I did priorize haste (faster invocation), but i think crit should be fine..

[Adonix]

Quill, I don't think you should obtain 5.1 rep trinket, because it is of the scaling. Proc trinkets works fine so with haste build frost you will be just good.

[mulvita]

I am reforged and gemmed pure haste and so far have 3 golds and a silver after about 3 consistent weeks. Both work. Mastery benefits your Ice Lance while haste your dots, Fbolts casts and evocation. Basically being a frost mage rocks rocks for challenge modes. I was curious on stats priority too and just went with haste and run haste/arcane in raids. I got tired of reforging and I care about challenge modes more now until 5.2

[Rinoa]

I did them all as Frost with full Arcane reforges (mastery) so it probably doesn't matter that much. If you really want to minmax though, it's probably best to go haste.

[SpaceDuck]

completed challenge modes with all out haste to maximise frost bomb damage and spend less time invocating. although its all really about the skill and co-ordination between the tank and healer that really shines in a challenge mode

[beingmused]

completed challenge modes with all out haste to maximise frost bomb damage and spend less time invocating. although its all really about the skill and co-ordination between the tank and healer that really shines in a challenge mode

I've read people suggesting going with incanter's ward over invocation, and that feels right to me in the few challenge modes I've done.

[Alphamage]

I've read people suggesting going with incanter's ward over invocation, and that feels right to me in the few challenge modes I've done.

I agree with incanter's ward use over invocation. The 5+ seconds you need to cast a full Invocation each time are way too much time lost. On the other hand, there are a lot of times that you take damage and will favor incanter's ward plus you have a precious and fast heal when needed(15% on first second) through glyphed evocation. I used to run challenge with invocation but I saw a lot of difference when started to use incanter's ward.

[spaace]

We shine on trash
So hope your tank is good.

Incanters is really nice.
Pretty good uptime, and lets you free up for blazing speed.

[Deleted]

I don't think your reforges matter too much when doing the Gold runs. I did all of them with arcane gemming/reforging (mastery) and had no issues whatsoever. Also helped some other people do a couple of runs as arcane which works aswell, like someone mentioned earlier the trash dps is slightly lower but your dmg on bosses is amazing. Whatever tickles your pickle I guess.

[Deleted]

I don't think your reforges matter too much when doing the Gold runs. I did all of them with arcane gemming/reforging (mastery) and had no issues whatsoever. Also helped some other people do a couple of runs as arcane which works aswell, like someone mentioned earlier the trash dps is slightly lower but your dmg on bosses is amazing. Whatever tickles your pickle I guess.

First i would like to say have done 0 challenge modes on my mage

But will mastery build be stornger on trash, haste better on bosses and crit the middel way good on both?
if this is true, then it all abount what u need for the challange mode u are facing.

[Deleted]

I ran mastery-arcane build on 1 challenge mode I've done so far and it sucked. Aswell as Arcane spec overall on trash. Yea the boss-damage is insane, good, steady, raid-boss-damage. But Arcane/Fire is useless on trash. I tried dotting up and spread with Fire but it didnt work, Inferno Blast has way too long CD, so does Combustion, you don't have any viable abilities to use on those trash mobs at all, every massive AoE mage ability is weaker than for example Howling Blast.
I tried going Arcane with Nether Tempest, tried to dot up with nether tempest and run Arcane Explosion + Barrage - same crappy results.

So I suggest going Frost is the best choice for Challenge Modes. Once you get that crit cap, go all crazy with haste and win. I'm about to try it out myself at the end of the week as we've only done Silver and I was Arcane so far.