Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Deleted]

[i]The current best in slot equipment set simulation shows that crit capping ice lance only, using the set bonus, and then putting your stats into haste instead is better DPS than hard capping all three spells. Keep this in mind should you have your T11. If you have it, then the priority becomes:

I'm in tier11x2 still weapon, offhand, wand and shoulders in blue, would you recommend going into this solution geared like that, or is that only a tier11x4 solution?
thanks for guide

[yjmark]

I've tried modeling that, it's just awful. The points are better spent in fleshing out netherwind presence. 3/3 ignite and 2/3 netherwind is still the best despite the change in brain freeze usage.

Awesome. Thanks for the explanation.

And thank you so much for this guide. It's really helped me out a ton.

[Burlacher]

i have a question about some talents

supposably fire spec is slightly higher overall dps than frost spec right now. so unless you are replen supplier, why would you not spec into it and play a "lower dps" spec?
this was brought up to me in my guild and my only defense is really id rather have the permafrost and someone else is supplying replen.

so my question is, what do people think about playing frost without specing replen if fire is superior?

btw, i love playing frost and i will not switch to fire at this time

[yjmark]

i
so my question is, what do people think about playing frost without specing replen if fire is superior?

btw, i love playing frost and i will not switch to fire at this time

You answered your own question Since Fire is not ahead by much, you might as well play what you enjoy more. Personally, I spec both. If high AoE is critical, then I'll go Fire. If not, then I'll stay Frost.

[Burlacher]

so it shouldnt matter too much if i dont spec for replen? besides, there are alot of add fights in current content so frost helps

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I'm in tier11x2 still weapon, offhand, wand and shoulders in blue, would you recommend going into this solution geared like that, or is that only a tier11x4 solution?
thanks for guide

Yeah, that's for 2p and better. You're fine to use it now.

so my question is, what do people think about playing frost without specing replen if fire is superior?

Depends on who's in the raid as you said. I personally play 1/3 replen and 3/3 permafrost. More than 1 point in replen really isn't required unless you're hitting mana problems and could use the 7% mana reduction.

Most people who raid frost will do it regardless of position on DPS charts, simply because we'll play what we enjoy.

[Deleted]

Yeah, that's for 2p and better. You're fine to use it now.
Most people who raid frost will do it regardless of position on DPS charts, simply because we'll play what we enjoy.

Yes, this, but also I'm _speculating_ that Frost is gonna receive some kind of buff at some point. When I have a flame orb up and receiving tonnes of FOF procs _THAT'S_ when I really feel I'm really doing competitive damage, everything in between is sorta RNG. A buff to % FOF proc chance would be lovely, and warranted, I think.

PS. This really is such a great guide, and thread, so good to have it

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Yes, this, but also I'm _speculating_ that Frost is gonna receive some kind of buff at some point. When I have a flame orb up and receiving tonnes of FOF procs _THAT'S_ when I really feel I'm really doing competitive damage, everything in between is sorta RNG. A buff to % FOF proc chance would be lovely, and warranted, I think.

PS. This really is such a great guide, and thread, so good to have it

We got a blizzard buff! Yay AOE that depending on how the 70% is implemented, could make it quite powerful again. Usually when something gets a buff like that from the datamined notes, it gets an equivalent in the coefficient as well. If my 2 AM math is right, and there's a great possibility it's not, it should be about 700 damage added to non-crits unbuffed for me. So that SEEMS like a nice buff, I've been cursing at blizzard the spell/company for the state of frost's AOE.

Anyway, we had 30% on FoF for a while there, double orbs literally drowned you in charges that you couldn't - even spamming ice lance - possibly use them all. 25% might be better, who knows.

-Rant, feel free to skip-
I still think we need a spell for single target with a bit of AOE on it, sorta like living bomb, but more of a comet or something. Something that is slightly delayed between cast and hit so it won't work for PVP because people will move. Cast on a target, not another ground target AOE. This spell needs to do a fair bit of frost damage but also lower the cooldown on DF/IV/FFO or give a buff that lets your other spells do so by a set amount for a set amount of time. Cooldown in the 8-10 second range. Don't make it hit massively like DF though, just frostbolt/ice lance crit damage. Long enough a delay we can't chain freeze someone into it unless they're really not paying attention.

Course this all assumes people will move the hell away from the thing under their feet in PVP, and as we've all seen of ring of frost, that's not going to happen. So bake the functionality into a talent. Ice lance crits with fingers up lowers (a) CD timer(s) by X seconds. We don't need more burst, we need the ability to take some of our massive initial burst and make parts of it happen again quicker. Piercing chill should do half damage to secondary targets while I'm wishing for a pony. Or add a mechanic that allows FoF ice lance crits to bounce to secondary chilled targets from that talent.
-End Rant-

[Chronostasis]

Hi Kuni/everyone,

I recently read through your thread and I was wondering if, in these calculations and simulations, the variable for a Frost Mage moving while casting FoF'd Deep Freezes / Ice lances is accounted for, as opposed to being completely stationary?

I've been valuing mastery far higher than I have haste, and I'm wondering if I am wrong to value 150 mastery over 160 haste, for example. I move and cast FoF'd DFs and Lances a lot, especially in fights like twin dragons. In fights like Chimaereon I am stationary most of the time with the odd blink, and the odd FoF'd spell is tossed in while running to and from Chim- even then, I deal good damage, topping my guild's 10 man meter over a Moonkin with far more gear than I had.

Any clarification and advice would be great, thank you.

[Valanna]

Hi Kuni/everyone,

I recently read through your thread and I was wondering if, in these calculations and simulations, the variable for a Frost Mage moving while casting FoF'd Deep Freezes / Ice lances is accounted for, as opposed to being completely stationary?

I've been valuing mastery far higher than I have haste, and I'm wondering if I am wrong to value 150 mastery over 160 haste, for example. I move and cast FoF'd DFs and Lances a lot, especially in fights like twin dragons. In fights like Chimaereon I am stationary most of the time with the odd blink, and the odd FoF'd spell is tossed in while running to and from Chim- even then, I deal good damage, topping my guild's 10 man meter over a Moonkin with far more gear than I had.

Any clarification and advice would be great, thank you.

You have to take into account that haste increases your dps on the move as well, because it lowers you GCD until you reach the cap of 1 second or 50% haste if you will. Given that without CDs (that shouldn't be up while moving anyway) you don't have to worry about it. What I'm saying is that it's a false assumption to think haste is badly valued for high movement fights.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

You have to take into account that haste increases your dps on the move as well, because it lowers you GCD until you reach the cap of 1 second or 50% haste if you will. Given that without CDs (that shouldn't be up while moving anyway) you don't have to worry about it. What I'm saying is that it's a false assumption to think haste is badly valued for high movement fights.

This. Any time you have to cancel a cast to move out of fire before the GCD is up, you're back casting faster when you stop. You're back casting faster after a blink. Haste is very nice even while moving.

[Chronostasis]

This. Any time you have to cancel a cast to move out of fire before the GCD is up, you're back casting faster when you stop. You're back casting faster after a blink. Haste is very nice even while moving.

My next question is, is movement and haste's usefulness in movement included in simulators or your calculations?

Thank you both for the prompt reply and clarification.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

My next question is, is movement and haste's usefulness in movement included in simulators or your calculations?

Thank you both for the prompt reply and clarification.

Yeah, it'll be accounted for. To be fair though, movement sims are far from perfect. Sometimes you get lucky and don't have to move at all, other times you have to move every couple seconds. No fight has movement for the whole fight at evenly spaced intervals.

[Chronostasis]

Yeah, it'll be accounted for. To be fair though, movement sims are far from perfect. Sometimes you get lucky and don't have to move at all, other times you have to move every couple seconds. No fight has movement for the whole fight at evenly spaced intervals.

I've searched around but I can't quite find a chart that shows me how much haste I need to reduce GCD by .1, do you have any information on this?

[Valanna]

I've searched around but I can't quite find a chart that shows me how much haste I need to reduce GCD by .1, do you have any information on this?

50%.

10 characters.

[Chronostasis]

50%.

10 characters.

Thus 10% for .1?

Thank you for the information, it is greatly appreciated.

[Deleted]

You have to take into account that haste increases your dps on the move as well, because it lowers you GCD until you reach the cap of 1 second or 50% haste if you will. Given that without CDs (that shouldn't be up while moving anyway) you don't have to worry about it. What I'm saying is that it's a false assumption to think haste is badly valued for high movement fights.

I'd actually say haste has a slight disadvantage in movement fights (though reducing the time blinking takes is a major advantage) - as your GCD is shorter, you will spend, say, those 2 FoFs faster and thus will need to stop earlier to get back to Frostbolting, while Mastery would've just boosted the damage you get out of those GCDs without reducing their duration. If you can't stop yet at that point, you'll be wasting time or casting unboosted Ice Lances. Though, if you have to do a lot of that, then haste, in turn, gains a bit compared to mastery (as you can squeeze more lances in that long movement period).

..I'd say you don't need to take movement into account when comparing Haste and Mastery. Both's advantages and disadvantages pretty much even it out, and it's all very minor.

[Chronostasis]

I'd actually say haste has a slight disadvantage in movement fights (though reducing the time blinking takes is a major advantage) - as your GCD is shorter, you will spend, say, those 2 FoFs faster and thus will need to stop earlier to get back to Frostbolting, while Mastery would've just boosted the damage you get out of those GCDs without reducing their duration. If you can't stop yet at that point, you'll be wasting time or casting unboosted Ice Lances. Though, if you have to do a lot of that, then haste, in turn, gains a bit compared to mastery (as you can squeeze more lances in that long movement period).

..I'd say you don't need to take movement into account when comparing Haste and Mastery. Both's advantages and disadvantages pretty much even it out, and it's all very minor.

That makes quite a lot of sense, but I just don't know if the hard math really shows frostbolt, the majority of your damage in almost every fight, as benefitting very much from haste thus improving your DPS quite a bit more than mastery would.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Thus 10% for .1?

Thank you for the information, it is greatly appreciated.

7.143% haste for 1.4s GCD.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Spell_haste and the fact that 1% haste = 128.125 rating at 85.

((1.5/1.4)-1)*100

---------- Post added 2011-03-13 at 03:30 PM ----------

I'd actually say haste has a slight disadvantage in movement fights (though reducing the time blinking takes is a major advantage) - as your GCD is shorter, you will spend, say, those 2 FoFs faster and thus will need to stop earlier to get back to Frostbolting, while Mastery would've just boosted the damage you get out of those GCDs without reducing their duration. If you can't stop yet at that point, you'll be wasting time or casting unboosted Ice Lances. Though, if you have to do a lot of that, then haste, in turn, gains a bit compared to mastery (as you can squeeze more lances in that long movement period).

Yeah, but then you have to account for the amount of extra frostbolts between movement sets as well, as long with how much time gained from the GCD reduction.

..I'd say you don't need to take movement into account when comparing Haste and Mastery. Both's advantages and disadvantages pretty much even it out, and it's all very minor.

Pretty much this. A large part of a movement fight is knowing exactly how far you have to move to get out of danger. No more, no less. Quite often this is only a couple of steps.

---------- Post added 2011-03-13 at 03:33 PM ----------

That makes quite a lot of sense, but I just don't know if the hard math really shows frostbolt, the majority of your damage in almost every fight, as benefitting very much from haste thus improving your DPS quite a bit more than mastery would.

100% of your damage casting faster, no matter how small, vs ~50% of your damage hitting harder. Download simcraft and check the stat weights for your gear. It's the only way to be sure what you should gear for at your current gear.

.. Speaking of I should really put the modified simc priority up that I use...

[Deleted]

Kuni, I was checking your armory for tips and pointers. Your mastery is at 580 and your haste at 1500. Did your advice to keep both stats equal change? I notice you've even reforged some crit into haste though I see you're at 19% and have the 2p (23% raid buffed + 2p = 18% for softcap).

I'm a big big fan of fast hits instead of big slow cannonballs, so frost suits me. How much of a nerf is it to go for the quick casting instead of bigger ice lance crits? I have only raided a pug once with my gal, and being my first time I had some mana problems (I run with molten armor), I suppose those problems would only be exacerbated by running with a focus on haste which would mean more casts and more mana being spent.

The lure of ignoring having a mana bar is quite strong tbh, but so far I've not had much trouble with doing my opener, pop a mana gem immediatly, continue casting. When the CD of the gem is up I'm usually at 40% so I hit it again. Once I reach like, 20% I Evocate and then things get iffy. Or at least they got iffy in that raid pug, my mana was down and the gem hadn't recharged yet so I had to switch to mage armor. We were at the last 10% or so and the whole raid was messy (no one had flasks, no one ate, DPS was low). In my actual guild in 25 man I'm not sure there would be that much trouble considering there would be more buffs/totems/etc.

As it is I'm starting to not be sure if the 100% crit chance instead of 95% outweights a couple GCDs for mana gem popping plus the 5 seconds of Evocation while assuming the later does not get interrupted.

Right now, un-forged, self-buffed (with Molten) and in pre-raid gear, I sit at 21.57% crit and 16.54% hit. With a spot of reforging I should get close to the soft cap if I keep Molten Armor.