Frost Rotation Question

[guttz157]

Ok so im wanting to have some fun going Frost PvE spec while im not raiding on the weekend. Im a little confused on what the rotation is. Ive heard just spam frostbolt and ive heard someone talking about casting Deep Freeze on a ghost charge. What is a "ghost charge"?

[Raegon7]

I don't know what a ghost charge is, but you should cast Deep Freeze on your Fingers of Frost procs.
Other than that, it's mostly just frost bolt spam.

[Skarrd]

Ah young mages, so naive.

Ghost charge is your "third" finger's of frost charge. Casting an instant spell right after your second frostbolt will still give it the benefit of shatter since they are both cast before you drop your FoF buff.

[Taalyn]

The "Ghost Charge" is when you get off an instant spell immediately after you cast your second spell when Fingers of Frost is active.

For example:

0:00 Rahdik gains Fingers of Frost
1:50 Rahdik casts Frostbolt
3:00 Rahdik casts Frostbolt
4:50 Fingers of Frost fades from Rahdik
4:50 Rahdik casts Ice lance

The Ice Lance got the benefit of Fingers of Frost even though you already cast 2 spells to consume the 2 charges from the buff. This is the "ghost charge".

To my knowledge however, you cannot cast Deep Freeze on the ghost charge because Deep Freeze already recognizes the target is no longer considered frozen immediately after the Frostbolt finishes casting, meaning you can't use the ability. Ice Lance can be cast regardless of the target being frozen.

As for a rotation for PvE Frost, it's Frostbolt spam, using Deep Freeze every chance you can. Ideally you would want to do Deep Freeze -> Frostbolt -> Ice Lance to use the ghost charge but unfortunately the way Fingers of Frost works is you will already be midcast into a frostbolt when it procs, so you would have to stop casting then Deep Freeze, which would be a bad idea. So you will likely always Frostbolt -> Deep Freeze -> Frostbolt spam, and Ice Lance may never be used.

[Skarrd]

To my knowledge however, you cannot cast Deep Freeze on the ghost charge because Deep Freeze already recognizes the target is no longer considered frozen immediately after the Frostbolt finishes casting, meaning you can't use the ability. Ice Lance can be cast regardless of the target being frozen.

Ghost charge has everything to do with latency. I've used deep freeze on the ghost charge in pvp all throughout wotlk. It has the same latency requirement that ice lance does, except ice lance will still cast and just do non-frozen damage. When i dps'd as frost on the PTR I always used deep freeze on the ghost charge and it always worked.

[Eleventyten]

Depends on if you've specced into Brain Freeze - some say it's a DPS loss to cast Fireball instead of spamming Frostbolt, but this, along with using Ice Lance for FoF procs can be handy for mobile fights.

If it's a stand still and spam then it's mainly just Frostbolt. What can be very nice for burst however is if you time your cold snapped Icy Veins with an FoF proc and Deep Freeze twice in a row.

The "Ghost Charge" for Deep Freeze is very difficult to pull off due to the ability just not working if you've lost the FoF buff. As the guy above said, it's all down to latency.

[nerfproof]

Not using the ghost charge is a waste. As long as ur latency is good, u should be hitting ur deep freeze button when the 2nd frostbolt is about 90% casted. MSCT and Dominoes it makes it much easier to learn how to time ur ghost charge usage.

[nekobaka]

What rotation with frost, o shits blizzard making stuff hard. Hmm theory about "ghost charge" very interesting.

[Tiga]

Ghost charges work less reliably in 25 man raids than elsewhere. There's so much combat traffic between the client & server that it makes your effective latency fluctuate a bit more than in PvP (wintergrasp would be an exception...try ghost charges in prime WG lag). I'm pretty sure I miss at least one or two ghost charge deep freezes every raid, but with FoF proccing on spell impact, it's the only way to cast deep freeze without interrupting a frostbolt (I'm assuming you are not standing at the boss and have some range).

[Nillo]

It's more of a priority list than a rotation:
Deep Freeze (Ghost Charge preferred if you can handle it) > Ghost Charge Brain Freeze > Frost Bolt spam > Brain Freeze (do not use) > Ice Lance (never not even as a ghost charge)

[rathofvol]

I may be wrong because I don't pay much attention to frost pve but once you get 2p t10 I believe Brain Freeze will be mandatory.

[Nillo]

I may be wrong because I don't pay much attention to frost pve but once you get 2p t10 I believe Brain Freeze will be mandatory.

2p t10 requires a decent raid atm
frost is bad atm
=> noone will use 2p t10 as frost for a long time.

[Skarrd]

2p t10 requires a decent raid atm
frost is bad atm
=> noone will use 2p t10 as frost for a long time.

One of the mage's in my 10 man (me and another) may end up running frost in my 10 man runs, depends how we split up our raids this patch though. Replenishment and stuff, at least they buffed frost so it's actually a viable option now.

[Tiga]

I'm getting my Sanctified Bloodmage Robe this week...maybe tomorrow if we can get a 10 man ICC going late on Christmas Eve (might be tricky). I have done three 25 man clears of the first wing. Frost is sensitive to lag, so my performance on the Tuesday raid (our second 25 man group last week since EU raid reset in Wednesday) was better than tonight after the reset when the instance server load was higher. Two or three more weeks and I should have the second piece.