Challenge mode trash cleave

[Chisato]

I've been watching some videos of challenge modes and notice mages doing insane trash cleave. I couldn't find most of their armoury pages (character moved or renamed) and tried contacting a few others with no luck.

I figured they must be stacking mastery to take advantage of shatter with Frozen Orb so I put together a challenge mode set of gear for my frost mage favouring items with mastery. I'm using Relic of Yulon and Light of the Cosmos trinkets, a mishmash of my best itemized gear, old meta gem.

I experimented with switching between mage armour and frost armour, trying icy veins glyph for cleave while Frost Orb is down, swapping around trinkets, and I still am unable to even remotely reach the numbers by the frost mages on the top world challenge mode videos.

I'm really at a loss of how else to gear, reforge, and gem myself for good trash cleave. I'm not out for world firsts for challenge modes but the leader of my group (a tank) is giving me a hard time about not doing better cleave damage. I would be happier in general if I felt more useful by doing bigger numbers since mages are capable of it, as seen in the videos.

Thanks

[Polarthief]

You don't necessarily need Mastery or a specific stat, unless you're going for Realm/World First in time. (You can easily get Gold as long as you iLevel cap)

Frozen Orb is an amazing source of damage, but the best is actually using Frost Bomb mixed with a Freeze ability (Frost Nova, Pet Freeze, L45 Talent [Frost Ward actually works well if your tank is chainpulling]). Shattering a Frost Bomb does tremendous amounts of damage because of Shatter and Frostburn (Frostburn being nerfed in 5.4 though, so you better hurry!)

What are you going for, anyways? Just 9/9 Gold, or realm/world top times?

[Chisato]

Just trying to finish out 9/9 golds. I'm currently 4/9 and we've had no issues clearing so far but the tank still gives me a hard time about my damage on every run. He mentions watching videos where a frost mage completely carries the DPS and says I should be doing that too. Our group has a shadow priest geared for clearing trash, ele shaman or hunter, me, paladin tank, and shaman or disc healer.

I switched to Frost Bomb and enjoy the cleave damage from it but even with the mastery build, Frost Bomb, etc I'm nowhere near the damage from those videos. I hadn't thought about using Frost Ward so maybe that's the missing link. Also should I be trying to make certain DoT tick haste points for challenge modes?

I dunno, I'm just becoming very frustrated to still be doing only slightly more than the shadow priest and ele shaman (I can easily outdps the hunter) when mages are 'supposed' to be able to carry the entire group's DPS? Am I terrible or is he exaggerating or maybe a bit of both?

[Polarthief]

Just trying to finish out 9/9 golds. I'm currently 4/9 and we've had no issues clearing so far but the tank still gives me a hard time about my damage on every run. He mentions watching videos where a frost mage completely carries the DPS and says I should be doing that too. Our group has a shadow priest geared for clearing trash, ele shaman or hunter, me, paladin tank, and shaman or disc healer.

I switched to Frost Bomb and enjoy the cleave damage from it but even with the mastery build, Frost Bomb, etc I'm nowhere near the damage from those videos. I hadn't thought about using Frost Ward so maybe that's the missing link. Also should I be trying to make certain DoT tick haste points for challenge modes?

I dunno, I'm just becoming very frustrated to still be doing only slightly more than the shadow priest and ele shaman (I can easily outdps the hunter) when mages are 'supposed' to be able to carry the entire group's DPS? Am I terrible or is he exaggerating or maybe a bit of both?

Were you shattering said Frost Bombs? What are you doing when Orb/Bomb doesn't need tending to?

I actually find it funny you can outDPS a Surv Hunter and Ele Shaman (the other two specs that own CMs), but your leader is still giving you shit.

If you're orbing on cooldown (on large packs, of course), shattering Frost Bombs, and throwing ILs on FoF procs, FFBs on BF procs and Blizzarding when you can (Of course, all of these are super-low priority below Orb and Bomb), then tell your leader to fuck off because you're playing perfectly. Your damage is GOING to be lower because of the scaled down stats/iLevel. Also, if they're giving you shit for Single Target, let them know that you're INTENDED to be pretty low on bosses. You rape on trash, which is 90%+ of the dungeons.

[Wuga]

In addition to using frost bomb, you should glyph cone of cold and shatter it along with the bomb. If you time it right you can shatter both with the same freeze (pretty easy with pet freeze/ice ward, harder with frost nova). You should also pot on cd (as appropriate) if you aren't already. 4k int is a huge dps increase at that ilvl and as a mage you never need to invis pot.

I personally don't think mastery gems are worth it, trash should die very quickly regardless and your boss dps will be absolute shit if you gem mastery.

How much damage are you actually doing? If it's very low (like <100k) you're probably not shattering the frost bombs properly. With frozen orb you should be able to do at least 200-250k+ on most trash packs (say 4-6 mobs) provided your other dps aren't awful and if you shatter all the coc's as well you can spike to 400k+.

[spaace]

CM should be base gearing.. Int > haste > mastery for frost, IMO. Single target we aren't that good.. but its the aoe/trash where we destroy.... like polar said.. 90% of the dungeon is clearing trash effectivly.

[Polarthief]

Honestly, there aren't too many tricks you need for 9/9G. I got it pretty effortlessly just making sure I Frost Bombed like a boss and shattered as many as possible. My tank/healer were also exceptional to the point where we could pull most sections between bosses (e.g., Jade Serpent we pulled everything to the first boss; everything after an invis pot on the second, everything on the third).

If you're doing Bomb shatters just fine, you're not doing bad by any means. Perhaps the tank should be looking at the other 4 members of the group (themself, the healer, and the other two DPS).

[Chisato]

CM should be base gearing.. Int > haste > mastery for frost, IMO. Single target we aren't that good.. but its the aoe/trash where we destroy.... like polar said.. 90% of the dungeon is clearing trash effectivly.

Why do you take haste over mastery for CMs? I was originally going with my junky frost raid gear (this mage isn't my main anymore), which was set up for haste and my damage was supposedly low, which started this entire ordeal.

In addition to using frost bomb, you should glyph cone of cold and shatter it along with the bomb. If you time it right you can shatter both with the same freeze (pretty easy with pet freeze/ice ward, harder with frost nova). You should also pot on cd (as appropriate) if you aren't already. 4k int is a huge dps increase at that ilvl and as a mage you never need to invis pot.

I personally don't think mastery gems are worth it, trash should die very quickly regardless and your boss dps will be absolute shit if you gem mastery.

How much damage are you actually doing? If it's very low (like <100k) you're probably not shattering the frost bombs properly. With frozen orb you should be able to do at least 200-250k+ on most trash packs (say 4-6 mobs) provided your other dps aren't awful and if you shatter all the coc's as well you can spike to 400k+.

Would you mind explaining exactly how you shatter your bombs and cone of cold? Maybe I'm doing something out of order, I dunno. I admittedly don't play my mage much anymore since switching mains so maybe I'm just forgetting something?

My DPS spikes up to 200-300k with Orb but if the trash isn't dead by the time Orb runs out then I usually fall to 150k or so. Maybe I'm messing up shattering my bombs after the initial Orb and FL spam.

I'll try switching my gems back to haste as well. I gemmed mastery then tested mage armour for trash and even more mastery and shatter damage then switched to frost armour to bump my haste back up a bit and test more of an even haste-mastery build.

Would you recommend re-gemming for haste then possibly using mage armour for mastery boost during trash only, switching to frost armour for bosses?

Should I switch my gear back to sets favouring haste as well? I'm not really sure what the balance should be stat-wise.

[foxHeart]

Would you mind explaining exactly how you shatter your bombs and cone of cold? Maybe I'm doing something out of order, I dunno. I admittedly don't play my mage much anymore since switching mains so maybe I'm just forgetting something?

You pet freeze or frost nova immediately before a frost bomb goes off to get the crazy shatter bonus on as many mobs that surround your bomb's target. You can also glyph for cone of cold having the 200% more damage and use that ability immediately after you freeze the group, as well. This damage alone won't cause the root to break and they'll still be hit with frost bomb for shatter damage. It can be tricky to time, especially with other players aoe'ing, but it's sexy damage.

So basically throw your bomb on target, pet freeze (off the gcd) then cone of cold immediately before the bomb goes off.

[Chisato]

You pet freeze or frost nova immediately before a frost bomb goes off to get the crazy shatter bonus on as many mobs that surround your bomb's target. You can also glyph for cone of cold having the 200% more damage and use that ability immediately after you freeze the group, as well. This damage alone won't cause the root to break and they'll still be hit with frost bomb for shatter damage. It can be tricky to time, especially with other players aoe'ing, but it's sexy damage.

So basically throw your bomb on target, pet freeze (off the gcd) then cone of cold immediately before the bomb goes off.

Thanks! I think my timing has been off with using pet freeze to trigger that, since everyone else is AoE'ing at the same time. The nova breaks quickly so I don't think I'm actually getting the shatter damage. I'll start practicing with it more.

[Nish77]

Frost bomb frozen orb and pet freeze all together tons of damage. The pet freeze sticks around a bit so frozen orb on top of it is all shatter damage. If you have a timer for the bomb exploding you can time a frost nova too but it's like .5 sec time generally or it gets removed from damage.

[Polarthief]

Frost bomb frozen orb and pet freeze all together tons of damage. The pet freeze sticks around a bit so frozen orb on top of it is all shatter damage. If you have a timer for the bomb exploding you can time a frost nova too but it's like .5 sec time generally or it gets removed from damage.

Which is why you time a freeze with around .5s left on bomb.

It's actually fairly easy to do once you get the timing down. Latency lets the freeze stay on for about 0.75s when it should only stay for about 0.25s

[Chisato]

OK I made some Chardev links with my gear sets for Challenge modes. Chardev doesn't support item upgrades and seems to be off in the mastery calculation as well so my stats are a bit off so in reality I have more mastery and hit cap.

Here's my current and recently redone mastery set. I went for any items in my possession with mastery on them.
- http://chardev.org/profile/57959-chi-cm1.html

Here's my previous set built mainly around haste. Edit: The hat would have an old burning meta gem instead of the legendary. Forgot to update that on Chardev.
- http://chardev.org/profile/57962-chi-cm2.html

These are pretty much the only items in my inventory I have to work with. I do have a few other pieces but they are mainly crit gear. I also have a few ToT LFR trinkets but read that RPPM should be avoided so I went with Light and Relic.

Should I go with the solid mastery build with mastery gear and gems and mage armour, the solid haste build with haste gear and gems and frost armour, or a mix like mastery gear with haste gems or haste gear with mastery gems with either armour?

[Nish77]

Yeah, my point was make sure you have 'pet freeze' for your frozen orbs along with the frost bomb shatter. The pet freeze will not break from the frozen orb and that's a lot of damage.

---------- Post added 2013-06-24 at 05:31 PM ----------

OK I made some Chardev links with my gear sets for Challenge modes. Chardev doesn't support item upgrades and seems to be off in the mastery calculation as well so my stats are a bit off so in reality I have more mastery and hit cap.

Here's my current and recently redone mastery set. I went for any items in my possession with mastery on them.
- http://chardev.org/profile/57959-chi-cm1.html

Here's my previous set built mainly around haste. Edit: The hat would have an old burning meta gem instead of the legendary. Forgot to update that on Chardev.
- http://chardev.org/profile/57962-chi-cm2.html

These are pretty much the only items in my inventory I have to work with. I do have a few other pieces but they are mainly crit gear. I also have a few ToT LFR trinkets but read that RPPM should be avoided so I went with Light and Relic.

Should I go with the solid mastery build with mastery gear and gems and mage armour, the solid haste build with haste gear and gems and frost armour, or a mix like mastery gear with haste gems or haste gear with mastery gems with either armour?

Because you can't freeze everything I'd probably go haste. I never really messed around with mastery > haste too much while doing my challenge modes for time but I would imagine you might be able to swap in a mage armor between bosses for more damage. I haven't tried it myself.

-Nish

[Chisato]

OK here's my new gear build. I focused on haste first, mastery second.

http://chardev.org/profile/57970-chi-cm3.html

I'll try timing shatters better with Frost Ward and my pet Freeze so hopefully this works out better.

Thanks everyone for the advice!! I might be going into Scarlet Monastery CM soon so I'll post the results if the group gets together.

[Deleted]

I've done on my mage 9/9 gold. Haste then crit for stats. Frost Bomb -> Blizzard -> Pet Freeze just before Bomb explodes -> Bomb -> Blizzard -> Blazing Speed into the pack for Frost Nova just before 2nd bomb explodes -> Frozen Orb -> spam icelance. Depends a lot of procs, having the good ToT trinkets helps a lot for those insane dps spikes.

[Aquamonkey]

I got CM golds in my fire gear. How you gear isn't nearly as important as how you line up shatters.

[spaace]

Why do you take haste over mastery for CMs? I was originally going with my junky frost raid gear (this mage isn't my main anymore), which was set up for haste and my damage was supposedly low, which started this entire ordeal.

Mostly because you're scaled to what? 480? or whatever... Basically, you can just stack haste/mastery on gear, be hit capped and you're laughing either way.. You just need to make sure you have somebody else who can deal damage too..

I got CM golds in my fire gear. How you gear isn't nearly as important as how you line up shatters.

Like what was said... aslong as you're over ilvl cap you can do fine

[Keiyra]

You better push for those golds now while you can if you are doing so as Frost. The proposed 5.4 change to frost mastery will take a bit of the oomph out of shatter combos on trash (mastery will no longer increase damage on frozen targets). Not a sky is falling issue, but still, something to consider.

[Trigunflame]

The repeated recommendation for blizzard from a lot of you concerns me heavily.

Have none of you ever actually tested out the DPS? It's lower than Arcane Explosion by a good bit - especially true at lower ilvl (CMs) with less haste - regardless of whether you're doing it on dummies, in 5-man or in a raid.

Point being - Don't Blizzard unless you need the AoE slow or aren't able to efficiently (quickly) get in melee range, ever.

Also, single target isn't that bad compared to other classes @ 463, it's actually near the top due to how bad Frosts scaling is (thus comparatively good base at lower ilvls).

You should be pulling ~70-100k easily on bosses (lower with bad rng, higher with good rng or mobs to freeze for FoF procs).