Frostfire Bolt with Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost...

[da7id]

I am confused by something. The description of the Brain Freeze talent states that Frostfire Bolt, when instacast, should benefit from Fingers of Frost. Does this mean that if Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost have both procced and I Frostfire Bolt the target, the damage is doubled? The Fingers of Frost talents only says that it makes Ice Lance act as if the target was frozen, so if the same is applied to Frostfire Bolt, then Frostfire Bolt would act as if the target was frozen, but according to the Frostfire Bolt tooltip, it doesn't matter whether the target is frozen. Should the damage be doubled if DF and FoF are both procced? If BF is procced but FoF isn't, will Frostfire Bolt do the same damage as though you were casting it normally, just be instant and mana-free? Can anyone clarify this?

[Deleted]

Brain Freeze makes Frostfire Bolt instant and free of cost. It deals the same damage as usual.
Fingers of Frost makes your Ice Lance, Deep Freeze or Brain Freezed Frostfire Bolt act as if the target was frozen. Ice Lance deals double damage against frozen targets, Deep Freeze only works on frozen targets, but Frostfire Bolt has no other effect on frozen targets. However, Shatter (multiplies your critical strike chance by 3) works on all spells cast on frozen targets, thus affecting Ice Lance, Deep Freeze (on stun-immune) and Frostfire Bolt when Fingers of Frost is up.

[Aurinax]

"Benefitting" from fingers of frost means it acts like the target is frozen. The only thing different about FFB'ing a frozen target as opposed to a non-frozen target is that it gets the extra crit chance from Shatter, and any Mastery you have will be applied.

The double damage against frozen targets is specific to ice lance only.

[Deleted]

Forgot about the mastery, but yes, that too. :P

[Deleted]

The only difference between instant casting FFB on a Brain Freeze proc with or without FoF is that the FoF proc triples the crit chance. However, this is precisely why Frost Mage crit soft cap is 33.33%. At that level of crit chance, all spells are guaranteed to crit on a Shatter and subsequently DF, IL, and FFB (from BF proc) do the same on FoF. (Ice Lance actually doubles and THEN crits.)

All that to say, the difference is that by itself the FFB from BF proc has the same crit chance that you do "sitting," and with FoF up that sitting crit chance is tripled or 100%, whichever is less. The crit chance is the only difference. So, like you said, without FoF it is just as if it is normal cast but instant and mana-free.

Like others have said, the FOF charge ALSO allows FFB to benefit from mastery, thus hugely increasing the damage. I for one never use a BF proc without FoF up as well.

[takolin]

On a side note: you should not cast FFB without a FoF proc specially if you spec for ignite assuming you're crit capped.


You should probably so something like this:


1 FoF proc => keep casting frostbolt until

1: BF procs => use FFB
2: A 2nd FoF proc => use IL asap
3: if FoF will off in 2-3 seconds, cast IL in order to not waste it.

Though monitoring FoF procs will be needed by lets say power auras classic with a timer and stack count.

[bigjohnburger]

I am confused by something. The description of the Brain Freeze talent states that Frostfire Bolt, when instacast, should benefit from Fingers of Frost. Does this mean that if Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost have both procced and I Frostfire Bolt the target, the damage is doubled? The Fingers of Frost talents only says that it makes Ice Lance act as if the target was frozen, so if the same is applied to Frostfire Bolt, then Frostfire Bolt would act as if the target was frozen, but according to the Frostfire Bolt tooltip, it doesn't matter whether the target is frozen. Should the damage be doubled if DF and FoF are both procced? If BF is procced but FoF isn't, will Frostfire Bolt do the same damage as though you were casting it normally, just be instant and mana-free? Can anyone clarify this?

ya i've been having this same problem. I reported it to blizz. If you get fingers of frost and brain freeze and use frostfire bolt before ice lance it takes away the proc from fingers of frost and doesn't do double damage.

[Deleted]

oh rite! XD ive been leveling a mage and wasting FoF on a FFB sucks when u dont have mastry.

[deepr]

dunno about you guys but it seems to me Brain Freeze still consumes 2 Fingers of Frost..... solution is to use ice lance before BF, but stil...

[bigjohnburger]

ya, i made tickets on this. It would be sick if frostfire did double damage but it doesn't, so it's a wasted bug that needs fixing. you guys should all make tickets 2 so the hotfix gets done faster.

[Deleted]

dunno about you guys but it seems to me Brain Freeze still consumes 2 Fingers of Frost..... solution is to use ice lance before BF, but stil...

It doesn't consume 2 stacks for me since 4.0.3. It works as it should I believe.

[Deleted]

It does work fine doesn't consume 2 charges and does benefit from mastery with BF and FoF for me

[UMassJ77]

ya i've been having this same problem. I reported it to blizz. If you get fingers of frost and brain freeze and use frostfire bolt before ice lance it takes away the proc from fingers of frost and doesn't do double damage.

This is still a bug for me, When i proc FoF, IL and BF if I use FFB it consumes my both my FoF and DF. So the only way to get around this has been for me when I proc all 3 is to consume by DF first as always when off CD, then FFB(BF).

But if DF is on CD, then I will always 2 IL, then FFB(BF) otherwise I will lose my FoF proc if I am to use FFB when FoF and BF is up.

I haven't tested it in 4.0.3a but I need to see if they fixed it since.