Mythic Spellblade: Mark of Frost

[Polarthief]

I feel like everyone is crazy and not listening to me regarding Spellblade's MoF, but I'd really like some insight on this. If I'm wrong, I don't mind being wrong, I just want someone to explain this better.
- Raid Lead claims to have done research and found everyone doing the first marks at 4/10 and second (replicated) marks on 5/10
- I counter this by saying first Replicate happens RIGHT AFTER 4th pulse (like .1-.2s after 4th pulse) and it's easier to just do 3 stacks instead of 4. If you break on 3 stacks, you have a much larger window for first marks popping. The replicate mark breaking on 5 first is fine (honestly that number can be adjusted to whatever; 5 just maximizes the time between marks exploding).
- I also point out that MoF pulses every 1.5s and lasts 15s. Because of this, shouldn't you pop marks on 11 so the other group you're bouncing to doesn't still have Frostbite?
- Raid Lead also assigns 8 ranged to the 8 points for MoF. I point out that assigning people to all 8 points is worthless since the front points are reserved for first marked/first replicated marked players (why assign people when the marks thrown on players are RNG?). He said that everyone else is doing this.
- I point out saying "why not just assign ~4 people to left and 4 people to right?". This way, first marks/replicate don't matter and whoever just happens to get the first bounce now becomes the back right/back left.

[Vurrin]

We did first set of MoF to 12, Replicate set first swaps @ 5, then all other swaps @ 10. This allows 4 people per side to handle it, although everyone should still know what to do, swap if all 4 marks are on 1 side, and position to keep it out of melee etc. This also gives you a good detonate timing such that you have time to position both before and after. And also generally means you don't swap MoF during Animate and give it to the tank( as often).

After 1st Arcane phase the timings for detonate are a little worse ( i.e. you get 10 stacks immediately after detonate rather than a few seconds after), but not so much worse that its worth changing significantly.

TLDR: You're mostly right, and tbh its a serious compositional hurdle to "need" 16 ranged/healers. All told if you wanted some 6 on each side set up and more frequent swaps to reduce the healing burden that's understandable, but it just introduces more errors/confusion/melee(tank) MoF issues. Better in general to just get healers used to healing MoF targets and using Cooldowns when charge+ MoF overlaps.

[Deja Thoris]

You're over complicating this.

Marks go out. 2 people go left with them.
It gets replicated, 2 people go right with them.

Each of the 4 people with a mark now gets a buddy. Total 8 people. Break them when you want as long as frostbitten has fallen off or it can spread to undesired people. Job done.

[Mefistophelis]

[1A]---[F]----------[F]---[2A]

[1B]---[F]----------[F]---[2B]

My guild killed Mythic Spellblade on Thursday for the first time using the above setup for marks of frost. 1A and 1B are the first recipients, 2A and 2B are replicates and F are filler ranged and/or healers.

Detonates go in between the filler groups for easier pickup of adds from our tanks.

We broke all marks at 11 stacks and in between pulses to reduce oneshots. First replicate break is at 2 to 5 stacks or you risk weird detonate positioning.

[Kirbypro]

I feel like everyone is crazy and not listening to me regarding Spellblade's MoF, but I'd really like some insight on this. If I'm wrong, I don't mind being wrong, I just want someone to explain this better.
- Raid Lead claims to have done research and found everyone doing the first marks at 4/10 and second (replicated) marks on 5/10
- I counter this by saying first Replicate happens RIGHT AFTER 4th pulse (like .1-.2s after 4th pulse) and it's easier to just do 3 stacks instead of 4. If you break on 3 stacks, you have a much larger window for first marks popping. The replicate mark breaking on 5 first is fine (honestly that number can be adjusted to whatever; 5 just maximizes the time between marks exploding).
- I also point out that MoF pulses every 1.5s and lasts 15s. Because of this, shouldn't you pop marks on 11 so the other group you're bouncing to doesn't still have Frostbite?
- Raid Lead also assigns 8 ranged to the 8 points for MoF. I point out that assigning people to all 8 points is worthless since the front points are reserved for first marked/first replicated marked players (why assign people when the marks thrown on players are RNG?). He said that everyone else is doing this.
- I point out saying "why not just assign ~4 people to left and 4 people to right?". This way, first marks/replicate don't matter and whoever just happens to get the first bounce now becomes the back right/back left.

1. MoF debuff expires from other people when you have 10 stacks, its guaranteed so you can safely break at 10 or higher. Usually break at 10 to decrease the dmg healers have to heal.
2. First marks, I suggest breaking at 11 because this way detonate occurs around 5-6 stacks for people who get the jumped marks so they have time to drop detonate and then get back into position.
3. Replicate marks, first break at 4, to allow enough time to place detonate.
4. Go with two soakers for first mark and two soakers for replicate, having more assigned is pointless b/c of rng.

------

5. Now the difficult part, correctly handling mark RNG is not just up to the raid leader, you need ideally one person on the first mark to make calls, and one person on the replicate side to make calls. What calls you ask, lets go over several scenarios.

a. First marks go out, doesn't go to soakers, everything is fine
b. Replicate goes out, goes on a replicate soaker, one person needs to call for an extra soak on replicate side

a. First mark goes out, one goes on first soakers, one person needs to call for extra soak on first mark side

a. First mark goes out, one goes on first soaker, one goes on replicate soaker, both sides need to call for extra soaks

See what I mean, you just need to assign two people on each side that will call out the RNG and how to handle it.

[Nitros14]

We assign eight people to it so that we can make the people best suited to it do it. The people who get it randomly move over to the box, steal someone's spot for a moment, break on ~4 (this number isn't too important) and then move out and leave it to the assigned people who break on 10, frostbite will fall off always has for us.

That way you can usually ensure people who you don't want doing mark of frost aren't stuck doing it. (lets your best healers focus on healing, or lets dps good at killing the icy adds focus on that depending on what you need, or even lets you assign dumb people to not doing it)

We assign specific positions so that people can get into their box on the pull and there's no confusion of who's going where in the second go round.

Looks like this for us if it helps. First kill so kinda messy at times.



We break on 10 and frostbite always falls off in time as you can see.

[Deleted]

[1A]---[F]----------[F]---[2A]

[1B]---[F]----------[F]---[2B]

My guild killed Mythic Spellblade on Thursday for the first time using the above setup for marks of frost. 1A and 1B are the first recipients, 2A and 2B are replicates and F are filler ranged and/or healers.

Detonates go in between the filler groups for easier pickup of adds from our tanks.

We broke all marks at 11 stacks and in between pulses to reduce oneshots. First replicate break is at 2 to 5 stacks or you risk weird detonate positioning.

We're doing this tactic basically, we break the first debuff at 3 and every other one at 10, to avoid confusion when to break which debuff.
We have world marks for detonate position so the tanks can collect the adds easily without getting a debuff by accident. Hunters also help with collecting the adds.

We don't have assigned people to take the mark of frost - this maybe took us a few tries more during progression (we downed the boss after 70 wipes in the week just before 7.2 hit), but since every single ranged and healer in our roster knew and knows how to handle the marks at every point during the phase, we don't have any problems switching people out. If you have assigned people and 3 or 4 of them are missing you're going to reprogress the boss.

[ThePants999]

I counter this by saying first Replicate happens RIGHT AFTER 4th pulse (like .1-.2s after 4th pulse) and it's easier to just do 3 stacks instead of 4. If you break on 3 stacks, you have a much larger window for first marks popping.

Totally agree - 3 is very sensible, creating a clear gap between that and the replication.

The replicate mark breaking on 5 first is fine (honestly that number can be adjusted to whatever; 5 just maximizes the time between marks exploding).

No, it's not just that - 5 is ideal for timing with respect to Detonate. The people who pick it up after 5 know that they need to immediately position for Detonate, but have a good amount of time to do so.

I also point out that MoF pulses every 1.5s and lasts 15s. Because of this, shouldn't you pop marks on 11 so the other group you're bouncing to doesn't still have Frostbite?

10 works. I personally feel 11 is more sensible, as we often had an issue where people would accidentally break on 9 while trying to break on 10, and that causes chaos as the intended recipients still have Frostbite and it jumps elsewhere.

Raid Lead also assigns 8 ranged to the 8 points for MoF. I point out that assigning people to all 8 points is worthless since the front points are reserved for first marked/first replicated marked players (why assign people when the marks thrown on players are RNG?). He said that everyone else is doing this.
- I point out saying "why not just assign ~4 people to left and 4 people to right?". This way, first marks/replicate don't matter and whoever just happens to get the first bounce now becomes the back right/back left.

I'm in a minority here, but I wouldn't assign people at all. People always have to pay attention to who's got the marks, since there's a possibility that the person assigned to a given job gets given the first mark instead. So I'd just put everyone in an order, and when buddies are needed, you're one of them if everyone higher than you on the list is already dealing with marks.

[Deleted]

[1A]---[F]----------[F]---[2A]

[1B]---[F]----------[F]---[2B]

My guild killed Mythic Spellblade on Thursday for the first time using the above setup for marks of frost. 1A and 1B are the first recipients, 2A and 2B are replicates and F are filler ranged and/or healers.

Detonates go in between the filler groups for easier pickup of adds from our tanks.

We broke all marks at 11 stacks and in between pulses to reduce oneshots. First replicate break is at 2 to 5 stacks or you risk weird detonate positioning.

What we do is similar to this, first break at 4, first replicate break at 6, all other breaks after the 10 stack pulse. You get plenty of time for the detonate as well.

[Dilemma90]

hmm i sort of forgot about frostbitten.

that's probably a good reason why some our marks would go missing.

.... To op though.

The other reason why you are breaking at certain points is due to detonate. I believe when you do it correctly, the front group should be the ones dropping the mark of frost for the tanks to pick up the adds by just stepping a few feet foward.

At this point of progression, you can just side step a few feet and have a hunter misdirect towards the tank.

Assigning players... We just assigned 4 total (two on left, two on right) as well as 2 backs up(or perhaps 4 if need be) and you just ask "Back up on blue, backup on green" if your guild can't follow that, then you go about having 4 back ups where you need to micromanage them more

[Cheze]

there's little reason to stack the mark over 10; delay in the first tick means that frostbitten will have fallen off the original two mark targets at 10 stacks, and taking it to 12 just makes it more likely that somebody takes fatal damage due to circumstances.

we do 3/10 stacks for both the mark and the replicate, but you could probably do four if you wanted to. Wrangling the adds isn't really a concern anyway if you have a misdirect.

we only assign two soakers to each side, and then the people who get the marks form the four person groups. The more people you assign the more re-arranging you have to do on the fly, but again this more a matter of preference than anything.

tbh at this point you don't even really need to do the two-square soaking strategy; you can just form your ranged/healers into a semi-circle and have the marks run to the middle to break at 8-9 stacks. The virtue of making the boxes was really to maximize dps uptime by controlling mark movement, but with all the nerfs spellblade has gotten it's not really necessary anymore and may be more coordination than it's worth.

- - - Updated - - -

further w/r/t assigning soakers, the reality is that everyone needs to know wtf to do anyway. Everyone must understand how the mechanic works, if only so that they can deposit their mark where it's supposed to go (and if they understand how to do that they might as well just soak it the whole time.) Assigning a healer on each side or ranged with strong survival (affliction warlocks, etc) may be worthwhile but ultimately your whole raid will have to learn what to do.