1. #1

    Icicle mastery for Frost Mages. How would one gem/what armor to use?

    I've been on the PTR a bit playing around with frost but it's quite laggy for me as I don't have it fully downloaded or the best internet.

    So, I'm wondering if our "build" is going to be the same for 5.4 as it is in 5.3. Lots and lots of Haste or is Mastery getting better because of Icicles? I read somewhere that crit over the 28% "cap" was becoming better and better.
    Would it be wise to maybe go straight haste and use Mage armor for the mastery increase?

    What is everyone's thought on this?




    Thanks!

  2. #2
    If haste > mastery using mage armor doesn't make sense.

    From what I've read the value of mastery varies based on the fight. ST fights with lots of frostbolt/FFB usage increases it's value, while fights that demand lots of NT/LBing and IL spamming heavily degrade it's value. I don't think I've seen any math on it (probably because there will be # tuning so it's pointless now), but from what I can remember of posts from Pete and the like haste will most likely still be better than mastery.

    My gut says crit won't be good to stack past the "cap". Could totally be wrong though.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    It will be really easy, until last change (that aren't on PTR) stack haste until 53.85% with frost armor then go for mastery with Crit around 23%-25%.

    The last change will surely change the breackpoint after witch mastery>haste but I don't think it will be under 45%.

  4. #4
    1 point of mastery costs 600 rating. 1% of crit costs 600 rating. 1 point of mastery increases waterbolt, frostbolt and FFB damage by 2%. Because of crit soft capping, crit doesn't increase the crit chance of FOF/ice lance or BF/FFB beyond a certain point, so in that respect you could say that it only affects a part of our damage. So essentially beyond crit cap, it costs twice as much, but has the same problem as mastery that it doesn't affect all spells. If mastery was less effective (lower multiplier) or crit affected more than twice the damage as icicles, then it might be competitive.

    Crit is better in 5.4 than on live because the crit-capped spells do a smaller portion of our total damage.

    Mastery (assuming no more changes) is better than on live because the spells that it affect are a larger part of our damage than the spells on live (not a huge difference, but an improvement).

    Mastery may become better than haste once we're hopelessly haste-capped - especially now that the RPPM trinkets have been changed. At that point, haste will be like crit in that it will have a soft cap, so you reforge and gem up to it and then use the rest on mastery. If you play in a group that doesn't always bring all buffs, you might use frost armor when the group doesn't have a spell haste buff and mage armor otherwise. In a group that comes with all possible raid buffs, the armor you use will depend on how you reforged and gemmed.

    I think that the defensive benefit of mage armor is more likely to be helpful in a raid encounter than frost armor, so given the choice to reforge and gem for a soft haste cap, it may be beneficial to go all the way to the one that makes you use mage armor. Back when we were on Garalon, I used Molten Armor at some point and it didn't put me too much over the crit cap. I also used Molten Armor on our heroic Tortos kill this week because the healers seemed to be struggling and I'm doing the shell kicking anyway, so my damage isn't as critical as my survivability in a tight spot. The decision between mage armor and frost armor may become similar. (Out of all three armors, I would say the defensive benefit of molten armor is the best and mage armor is second best.)

  5. #5
    Deleted
    How, on raw scaling, all 3 stats are a lot better. More on par with Fire (5.3) number.
    The things is that Mastery isn't good enough. Losing Frost armor for mage armor is a too big shift: you will need 4k more haste to reach the breakpoint.

    Armor switching depend on some rare fight situation. For your information, Frost armor don't have any defense bonus so there's no point to compare. Because survival > dps.

  6. #6
    I know I still have some way to go before I'm done with haste. I don't think the patch is going to cause any changes to my reforging, gemming or armor use.

    I think WoW players are generally reluctant to trade any DPS for survivability, so even though the difference between 3000 haste, mastery and crit rating isn't staggering, mages generally just pick the armor that gives the best DPS. It's a bit like spirit is supposed to be for healers: once you have enough survivability, you should focus on output. As far as I know, mage armor only reduces the duration of dispellable magic debuffs (at least that's what it was like in Cataclysm), so if the debuff is really dangerous, it's going to be dispelled and if it's not that dangerous, it doesn't seem like it's worth much to reduce the duration by a little bit.

    I think the last time I remember using mage armor is in Ulduar for Auriaya.

    Frost armor technically has a defensive function. If you get aggro on an add that doesn't one-shot you, the snare that it applies may allow you to get away from it and kite it to a tank. You can of course use cone of cold to get a snare or just blink/blazing speed away without applying a snare. Not much value in boss fights as far as I remember.

    So I think it's really usually like this: survival > dps > helping out healers

    Mind you, I use Ice Barrier quite a bit instead of when I absolutely have to.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by gambitpma View Post
    I read somewhere that crit over the 28% "cap" was becoming better and better.
    Doubt that would ever be a thing. If anything, Crit's even worse now because the base spells are weaker than before (and Icicles cannot crit, though their damage is doubled on Crit FB/FFBs)

    I'd still say Haste > Mastery, until the Haste GCD cap. Keep in mind that Mastery only affects FB, FFB, and WellyBolt whereas live, it affects Ice Lance instead of FB (unless you got a freeze on your target), and it's also 2% per point now. I don't see why the sudden change from IL to FB, coupled with a nerf to the base spells (which makes little to no sense to me, but whatever) would make Mastery suddenly better.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  8. #8
    Herald of the Titans Racthoh's Avatar
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    use simulators.

  9. #9
    I don't think as Icicles as a separate spell that can or can not crit: it's almost like a mastery-based damage multiplier that affects 3 spells: Frostbolt, Waterbolt and Frostfire Bolt. Waterbolt & Frostbolt benefit from crit rating without caps, but BF/FFB is probably hard-capped for crit for nearly all raiding frost mages.

    The only time when this isn't true is when we don't get to use an Icicle before it melts (unable to hit the boss for ~10 seconds). Having said that, I think they should reconsider the 15 second duration and maybe increase that back to 20-30 seconds. I wouldn't have an issue if adding a new icicle refreshed the duration for all of them, but apparently they are all on their own timers, so any sudden break in being able to hit a target may cause Icicles to melt before they are used.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    just cast a normal IL in this case.

  11. #11
    Frost armor is worth considerably more than 3000 rating - more like 4000. Unless you need the debuff reduction, it is always better to reforge/regem to Mastery than switching to mage armor.

  12. #12
    Upon getting close to the Haste cap, you gem from 2 Haste > 1 Int to 1 Int > 2 Haste. After reaching GCD cap, you would gem 1 Int > 2 Mastery (replace Reckless [Int+Haste] in your Yellow sockets with Artful [Int+Mastery])

    Absolutely zero stat weights change with Icicles, unless they buff them pretty massively in the next builds.

    Also, you would never swap out of Frost Armor unless you're significantly above the GCD cap. It gives you so much Haste and makes all your other Haste gains worth more (because Haste stacks multiplicative, not additive)
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    With what did you make you're stat weight ?
    SimC clearly show a drop around 53.85% (FB cap with meta proc).

    For the buff, we want from a mastery that weight for 0.3 (1.8) to a stat that weigh for 0.42 (3.6). I have add absolute value in parenthesis and in the same time, intel & crit absolute value have increase too, more in line with actual Fire number. It make the spec scale largely better.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post
    With what did you make you're stat weight ?
    SimC clearly show a drop around 53.85% (FB cap with meta proc).

    For the buff, we want from a mastery that weight for 0.3 (1.8) to a stat that weigh for 0.42 (3.6). I have add absolute value in parenthesis and in the same time, intel & crit absolute value have increase too, more in line with actual Fire number. It make the spec scale largely better.
    I'm not using SimC because it's been out of whack this entire expansion. I'm using some base logic.

    TBH I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say with the numbers (that damned language barrier ), but here's what I can tell you:

    - Frostbolt has been nerfed quite hard (it hits harder on Live with ZERO stacks compared to PTR), but its damage from Mastery has been changed for the better for PvE. Rather than never benefiting it on raid bosses, since you can't freeze them, Mastery will increase Frostbolt's damage by 2% per point in the form of an Icicle.
    - Ice Lance has been buffed significantly, but no longer benefits from Mastery at all.
    - Frostfire Bolt damage has been unchanged. The only difference is the Mastery isn't directly added to FFB damage and is in the form of an Icicle. Either way, Mastery increases FFB's damage by 2% per point, live or PTR, so, mathematically, there is zero difference between Frostburn and Icicles.
    - WellyBolt has been buffed due to losing the Frostbolt stacks but is completely unaffected by the Mastery change. Both Live and PTR increase our WellyBolt by 2% per point of Mastery. There is no freeze requirement for live, and WellyBolt no longer generates Icicles.

    While Mastery is now a bit better since Frostbolt accounts to more of our ST damage than Ice Lance (Ice Lance obviously being higher damage in any scenario due to cleave, even with Icicles splitting too), it's not going to overvalue Haste off the bat, though it could be equal to/better than Haste at an earlier point (such as Elemental Shamans having a low Haste threshold then Mastery being equal to it), which I think that might happen.

    Still though, we won't be using Mage Armor EVER because it doesn't stack multiplicative with the rest of your Mastery, unlike Frost Armor/Haste. You simply get more points out of using Frost Armor (do note that if there's a fight in SoO that will significantly benefit you from having 25% less duration on Magic Debuffs, Mage Armor could see some use). In addition, 2 Mastery is still under 1 Int, so gemming will completely revolve around when 2 Haste isn't better than 1 Int anymore and when you have too little Haste, enough Haste, and too much Haste (or at the point where Mastery is > Haste):

    1. Need more Haste: Red = Int+Haste, Yellow = Haste, Blue = Haste+Hit
    2. Have enough Haste: Red = Int, Yellow = Int+Haste, Blue = Int+Hit
    3. Too much Haste or Mastery > Haste: Red = Int, Yellow = Int+Mastery, Blue = Int+Haste (Your Glove enchant also becomes Mastery instead of Haste)
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  15. #15
    Deleted
    We tell globally the same with an exception: gem/enchant is part of the global optimization that you gem then reforge or that your reforge then gem is the same. Globally, the breakpoints seem to be around 53.85% haste (~15k).

    In your understanding, you forget something: Icicle can cleave and because it have a biggest base and then same rating, it value increase compared to live.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Nathyiel View Post
    In your understanding, you forget something: Icicle can cleave and because it have a biggest base and then same rating, it value increase compared to live.
    The fact that Icicles can cleave does nothing on ST fights, but I will admit it significantly increases FB and FFB's damage on cleave fights. That said, it also reduces Ice Lance's damage on both Cleave and ST fights because Icicles don't affect Ice Lance, while Frostburn does.

    It's still not something we'll be gemming directly for, but when it is better than Haste (May or may not be earlier than GCD cap due to it being better than live; need more time and data), only our yellow sockets will have half Mastery instead of half Haste, in addition to having our glove enchant be Mastery over Haste. Other than that, nothing really changes. We still do Haste > Mastery for the majority of our gear, but anyone who already has mostly heroic gear can easily GCD and Crit cap, you'll just be shooting for Mastery, but not over Intellect, myself included. (Hell, I hit the GCD and Crit caps back when I had about 1-2 heroic pieces when I was still Frost with my old guild. Now that I have all [but one] Heroic pieces, Mastery is definitely better valued).

    Btw, because it's been about two months since I heard the numbers, does anyone have the exact rating numbers for the GCD cap?

    *- GCD cap Haste Rating with Frost Armor and Raid Haste
    - GCD cap Haste Rating with Frost Armor and Raid Haste, and Meta proc OR Time Warp active
    - GCD cap Haste Rating without Frost Armor, but with Raid Haste
    - GCD cap Haste Rating without Frost Armor, but with Raid Haste, and Meta proc OR Time Warp active

    The first being the most important, but just for knowledge/seeing if there's a point of Haste we can get with gear alone that makes Mage Armor worth getting, I'd like the third. The second and forth are to take into effect the legendary procs.
    Last edited by Polarthief; 2013-08-18 at 12:24 PM.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    When I speak of %, it's always with 5% buff + Frost Armor. Divide it by 1.01 for Goblin ^o^
    All haste rating abd % number are rounded up.

    The GCD cap (50% haste) is at (w/o Frost Armor & haste buff):
    19.05% with IV (no glyph).
    33.51% passive -- 14243.

    The frostbolt cap (53.85%) under BL/meta is at:
    36.947% without Frost Armor and buff -- 15698
    35.579% for goblin -- 15122

    The GCD cap & FB cap* with Amplification 7% (553) and 8% (561)
    14243 -> 13313 & 13188
    15698 -> 14672 & 14536
    15122 -> 14133 & 14002

    *: while verifying the exact % of the trinket, I found out that value shown in the tooltip are rounded because I have found some result with an error of :
    +/- 0.005% for Mastery (less rounding)
    +/- 0.5% for Haste (a lot of rounding)

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