Waiting for FoF...

[Maniac2]

Its about frost pve, giving a shot to it...

Problem is proccing of FoF and Deep freeze being on CD .... I have only one FoF charge left and Deep freeze have 2-3 sek CD - what to do wait for CD to finish or just cast FB and waste 2nd charge?

All these mechanics of FoF - deep freeze feels a bit annoying:

1. You need deep freeze off Cd
2. you need FoF proc which have duration AND 2 charges
3. FoF procs quite rarely and it can take ages to get it and deep freeze just sits there waiting, doing nothing
4. During hero/BL, its highly possible u gonna spend both FoF charges on FB, if u count fast casting+lag+watching boss fight+getting bored waiting for it to proc

Played almost all classes, but none of them have such weird mechanic of proc behaviour.

Anyone got similar experience?

[Skarrd]

Never stop casting ever.

[nerfproof]

yea skaard is right. even though u think the dmg you will do from deep freeze will make up for the 2 or even 3 frostbolts u wont cast your wrong. just keep spamming frostbolts until the next time fof procs then use deepfreeze. i would tell you the same thing for bf procs but come 3.3.3 when we can use ffb instead of fb i would use ffb on the ghost charge of fof since ffb will have a chance to proc fof all over again.

[Tiga]

You should spend every possible moment casting. Deep freeze does a lot of damage for an instant cast, but if you waste any more time on it, it soon becomes DPS-neutral or even a loss. If I remember correctly, the talent was only a 3% or so increase in frost DPS when played perfectly, which means that even if you miss every single opportunity to cast it, you are only going to do about 3% less damage.

If mirror images is off cooldown though, you could spend one GCD popping up mirror images (it doesn't use FoF charges) and then cast deep freeze. This only works if you know you'll still have one charge left even after your current cast finishes, which isn't something you normally have.

If you are at any significant range, you will always be already casting the second FoF frostbolt when you actually see the buff. Fortunately there's a "ghost charge", which means if you buffer the deep freeze as soon as possible, it will also benefit from the second charge and you'll essentially get three spells on frozen targets per fingers of frost.

However...if you get a brain freeze proc one spell before fingers of frost, the timing usually becomes such that you have already buffed in the fireball (or FFB) when the FoF proc lights up and then there's no way to get the deep freeze cast out with that FoF. This is the most annoying part of frost DPS right now.

There are two solutions to it:

- Spec 3/3 frostbite, so fingers of frost procs on cast. The problem this causes is that if your second FoF frostbolt would proc another FoF, that proc gets lost (you hear the sound but never get the proc). Waste of talent points and an actual DPS loss, so I wouldn't advise this - just mentioning it because it does change the proc timing to be easier to handle.

- Play at close range to the boss. This works really well in some cases, but quite often ranged classes are required to stay at max range. You'll have a lot more time to react to the buffs because travel time is not an issue.

I've been tempted to try "frost cleave" on phase one of Lich King. The idea is to use cone of cold (possibly even spec into it) on the adds around the boss to get nearly guaranteed FoF and BF procs. This allows you to get the maximum benefit from the T10 bonus and deep freeze and a bit of extra crit chance for your frostbolts in between as well. The way we do it though, the boss moves every now and then and unless you time it exactly with the cone of colds and brain freezes, it could cause a DPS loss (plus, being close to the boss & adds carries some extra risk of getting hit). Phase 1 of the fight is pretty easy anyway, so it seems a bit pointless.

[nerfproof]

You should spend every possible moment casting. Deep freeze does a lot of damage for an instant cast, but if you waste any more time on it, it soon becomes DPS-neutral or even a loss. If I remember correctly, the talent was only a 3% or so increase in frost DPS when played perfectly, which means that even if you miss every single opportunity to cast it, you are only going to do about 3% less damage.

If mirror images is off cooldown though, you could spend one GCD popping up mirror images (it doesn't use FoF charges) and then cast deep freeze. This only works if you know you'll still have one charge left even after your current cast finishes, which isn't something you normally have.

If you are at any significant range, you will always be already casting the second FoF frostbolt when you actually see the buff. Fortunately there's a "ghost charge", which means if you buffer the deep freeze as soon as possible, it will also benefit from the second charge and you'll essentially get three spells on frozen targets per fingers of frost.

However...if you get a brain freeze proc one spell before fingers of frost, the timing usually becomes such that you have already buffed in the fireball (or FFB) when the FoF proc lights up and then there's no way to get the deep freeze cast out with that FoF. This is the most annoying part of frost DPS right now.

There are two solutions to it:

- Spec 3/3 frostbite, so fingers of frost procs on cast. The problem this causes is that if your second FoF frostbolt would proc another FoF, that proc gets lost (you hear the sound but never get the proc). Waste of talent points and an actual DPS loss, so I wouldn't advise this - just mentioning it because it does change the proc timing to be easier to handle.

- Play at close range to the boss. This works really well in some cases, but quite often ranged classes are required to stay at max range. You'll have a lot more time to react to the buffs because travel time is not an issue.

I've been tempted to try "frost cleave" on phase one of Lich King. The idea is to use cone of cold (possibly even spec into it) on the adds around the boss to get nearly guaranteed FoF and BF procs. This allows you to get the maximum benefit from the T10 bonus and deep freeze and a bit of extra crit chance for your frostbolts in between as well. The way we do it though, the boss moves every now and then and unless you time it exactly with the cone of colds and brain freezes, it could cause a DPS loss (plus, being close to the boss & adds carries some extra risk of getting hit). Phase 1 of the fight is pretty easy anyway, so it seems a bit pointless.

lol spec into frostbite for pve? you would get lol'ed outta every raid.

[Maniac2]

Ok, i guess are right about this - waiting for FoF and DF cd to match isnt way to go

But i got some more questions:

1. Does DKs Rune on razorice also buff frost mages dmg or only DKs dmg?
In 3.3.3 patch many Dks will go DW frost spec with Rune of Fallen crusader on MH and Rune of razorice on OH. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53343
I know tooltip says "has a chance to increase vulnerability to your Frost attacks", but debuff on boss says "Frost damage increased by 10%".

2. Ghost charge - isnt that removed in last patch by making FoF proc on-cast and not on-hit?

[Tiga]

1. Does DKs Rune on razorice also buff frost mages dmg or only DKs dmg?
In 3.3.3 patch many Dks will go DW frost spec with Rune of Fallen crusader on MH and Rune of razorice on OH. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53343
2. Ghost charge - isnt that removed in last patch by making FoF proc on-cast and not on-hit?

1: Razorice was nerfed in patch 3.1, so it only affects the damage from the death knight.
2: The patch notes for 3.3 are incorrect and FoF still procs on impact. The patch notes reflect an earlier PTR build, but the change was reverted because it resulted in FoF proc munching. You still get ghost charges regardless of when FoF procs. In PvP (with frostbite 3/3), FoF procs on cast. In PvE (with frostbite 0/3), FoF procs on impact.

To Nerfproof: maybe you should read more than just the first few words of each paragraph?

Frost mages are LOLed out of most raids no matter how they spend their points. It's not because the damage is bad on an absolute scale, but because it isn't the highest DPS mage spec and mages are supposed to spec for DPS only. If it wasn't for OP arcane, frost wouldn't be perceived as all that bad. WOTLK has been a nightmare expansion for frost PvE. Despite all the buffs, my raiding career may be ending soon...probably because of how the spec is perceived as weak and because logging sites aren't merging pet data with the mage anymore (SPELL_SUMMON events went missing in 3.3).

[Maniac2]

Ok, how exactly that ghost charge works? And is it possible with 250+ latency?

[Tiga]

Ok, how exactly that ghost charge works? And is it possible with 250+ latency?

I can do it on the PTR (~300 ms latency), but it's not quite as reliable. However, it's not 100% reliable on my normal server either and things get worse when the server is overloaded.

The way it works is that you cast the deep freeze so that it arrives on the server just before your frostbolt finishes casting. There's a roughly 200 ms period during which the server will not give you an error, but it will instead hold the spell you cast and cast it as soon as the previous one finishes casting. Either the two spells (frostbolt and deep freeze) will cast in parallel (so they both benefit from the single fingers of frost charge remaining) or there's a tiny bit of latency in clearing the fingers of frost buff. Whatever the case, the second charge of your fingers of frost will apply to both spells.

If there's a latency hickup, your deep freeze will either arrive early (you get an error message that you were already casting another spell) or too late (the fingers of frost is already gone, so you get the "you can't do that now" error). The average latency doesn't matter much, but the range of your latency does. You'll also run into problems when the cast time of your frostbolt is so close to the GCD that the game client doesn't allow you to queue up new instants due to the GCD lockout.

[nerfproof]

I read ur post Tiga. And I'm sorry if the guild your in is full of elitist and prob give you a hard time about raiding as frost. I personally enjoy raiding as frost in my 10man group every now and then just to change it up. I'm still pulling 5k on bosses as frost, and my trash dps is always 9k-12k depending on FoF procs. If you are in a guild that only wants their mages using the top dps spec, and you really dont want to be arcane, then maybe you should find yourself a casual raiding guild that wont mind you raiding as frost.

[Tiga]

It's not all black and white. I think I do reasonably well as frost. Not everyone sees it that way and I suspect the officers may have had arguments about it. There has been more tension recently, which is probably because we can now start hard modes in ICC25 and they probably scare a lot of people in the guild. Personally, I think frost is great for learning encounters. Once you learn the proper execution for a fight, brute-forcing it with overkill DPS isn't necessary.

Just today, Ghostcrawler has been writing about the value of survival tools in raiding. I know a lot of people disagree with his ideas about what the role of DPS should be in a raid, but I agree with a lot of it.

[nerfproof]

Hey my 2 specs currently are TtW/Fire and Frost. I enjoy both very much and I've always said on these forums that this game should be more about enjoyment than who downed who first. And I agree with Ghostcrawler also, however elitist out there will always disagree with the old saying "A dead dps is ZERO dps." Me personally I will always enjoy raiding as Frost.

[Skarrd]

Hey my 2 specs currently are TtW/Fire and Frost. I enjoy both very much and I've always said on these forums that this game should be more about enjoyment than who downed who first. And I agree with Ghostcrawler also, however elitist out there will always disagree with the old saying "A dead dps is ZERO dps." Me personally I will always enjoy raiding as Frost.

I'm not sure how the dead dps line fits in with the rest. Do you "enjoy" being a dead dps or something...?

[nerfproof]

I'm not sure how the dead dps line fits in with the rest. Do you "enjoy" being a dead dps or something...?

Lol you obviously didn't read it right. There has been talk about mages speccing into more "survival talents" for hardmodes. But some mages out there feel like picking up these talents is a waste. So the "A dead dps is ZERO dps" means you can use the straight cookie cutter dps spec to try and pump out the most you can, but since you have no survivability, all that dmg wont mean much once your dead.

[Tiga]

I think one example would be a person posting "the best frost raiding spec" and not including ice barrier in it.

Magic absorption vs. student of the mind is also something that separates the glass cannons and those who care about survivability. (Especially for fire/TTW builds.)

What's the cost of taking ice barrier? If you go from an arcane build to frost, then the cost is pretty high, but if you already spec into frost, ice barrier really doesn't cost you any significant DPS talent points.

[Baabinator]

yea skaard is right. even though u think the dmg you will do from deep freeze will make up for the 2 or even 3 frostbolts u wont cast your wrong. just keep spamming frostbolts until the next time fof procs then use deepfreeze. i would tell you the same thing for bf procs but come 3.3.3 when we can use ffb instead of fb i would use ffb on the ghost charge of fof since ffb will have a chance to proc fof all over again.

They added a small inner cooldown to prevent this.

[nerfproof]

They added a small inner cooldown to prevent this.

Uh I'm not so sure about that. I saw a buddy of mine get FoF procs off of FFB on the PTR's