Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Bombkirby]

There's a few instances in PvP where DFs damage component works (ie, vehicles in SotA). Blizzard tends to think in the 'big picture', which in PvP, is random/pug battlegrounds, not necessarily high end rated battlegrounds and arena. As for the resilience, I don't even bother with PvP gear in the majority figure of PvP because 4 piece T12 is absolutely retarded and I can pretty well destroy anyone that comes at me save from someone 2600 rated with every piece of the highest iLevel PvP gear... and I'm really not too great at PvP. :P

Yes and I acknowledged that. In fact it'd be a quick fix to make DF just stun Demos and etc.

---------- Post added 2011-11-13 at 12:12 AM ----------

That is not true. Frost was very strong on Cho gall, Magmaw, Omnotron (slow and freeze was very important for adds), Chimaeron and Nefarian. good on Valiona heroic, Top on Sinestra during P1 and P2.
In Firelands Frost was very strong on Shannox, Beth, Balo, Majordomo and Ragnaros.

4.3 no viable @ Yor sahj (26k DPS as Forst and 54k as Fire) and Hagara (24k as Frost 37k as Fire) heroic, weak on Morchok and Zon`ozz (35 yrds as frost) heroic. Didn´t had time to test the other heroic encounter.

The gap is huge : /

Is it REALLY that huge of a gap? I find that odd. Especially when some people were doing 30k . 4.3. Or so I've heard.

[citizenpete]

Well, I did the first run as frost (10 man random) and second as fire (10 man with guild). Yor sahj for example: Heavy movement and a lot of adds (if u´re lucky ). What I have seen, the gap is that huge.

[Bombkirby]

Hmm well if you say so. I wish FFB spec was viable (makes me still feel a little frosty!) but it looks like I'll be able to use my Fire spec on something other than Alysrazor since Frost is as far behind as you say.

[Dave131]

So if I have crit at 34% I will crit with every cast? o.O

Did I read that wrong?

[Bombkirby]

So if I have crit at 34% I will crit with every cast? o.O

Did I read that wrong?

Refer to your Shatter talent. Makes it so that frozen enemies have triple the chance to be crit. 33ish x 3 = 100ish chance to hit. The Fingers of Frost proc also allows you to pretend your target is frozen. So yeah. 100% in certain situations, just not all the time.

[Dave131]

Oh I got ya. Again, I am new to Mage so when I read that talent I understood it to mean that our crits do 3 times more damage, not 2 times(lol)

Thanks for clearing that up

[Styxz]

Don't ignore the most important part of the quote, "Note that the 5.0 talent design is partially to fix this specific problem, where specs have either higher DPS or higher utility".

Although it makes sense that this overhaul would make it easier for frost to be close to optimal, I don't buy the whole "5.0 will fix it" thing.

They literally said the same shit before Cat dropped. They claimed underpowered specs like bm, sub and frost would be perfectly competitive this xpac, and at first they were.

At this point frost is fine, but 4.3 will effectively break its dps, and Blizz's recent quotes are just making things worse. Acknowledging a problem (again) and telling customers "we'll fix it next xpac" (again) is a really cheap way of doing things in my opinion.

[citizenpete]

At this point frost is fine, but 4.3 will effectively break its dps, and Blizz's recent quotes are just making things worse. Acknowledging a problem (again) and telling customers "we'll fix it next xpac" (again) is a really cheap way of doing things in my opinion.

That is something I can only endorse.

[ray1892]

How much Crit Rating is needed for the 24% crit?

[ciaro]

How much Crit Rating is needed for the 24% crit?

depends on your int

[Zumzumzum]

You can use this if you want a precise value :
http://opendevelop.fr/shatter/Shatter.html

[ray1892]

You can use this if you want a precise value :
http://opendevelop.fr/shatter/Shatter.html

Gr8 thx for the link

[motuoche]

I added a link to this guide in the Index sticky.

[Freelong]

Nice guide!

[citizenpete]

Hey Kuni, how are you doing? Are you going to update your Frost Mage Guide? The first simulations may look a little bit "squishy", but they proof my impressions from the PTR.

http://simulationcraft.org/430/Raid_T13H.html

Playing Frost with T13 4p is absolutely no fun, no damage, no competion, no... nothing. I´m hesitating to update my german Guide at the moment, because of the remarkable cheekiness. It seems like Blizzard put no effort into our beloved frost spec. No, it seems like they haven´t even played the spec by themselves.

But hey, in 11 months, were getting a reworked spec with MoP - maybe! Thank you for nothing Blizzard.

[Zumzumzum]

Wow 10k less than Fire, seriously ? ...

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Honestly, I don't even know at this point.

[Bombkirby]

But hey, in 11 months, were getting a reworked spec with MoP - maybe! Thank you for nothing Blizzard.

Well you could say the same thing for the other specs. I can wait for MoP.

Personally I'm not at that gear level where I have T13 so its still all good. Fire actually seems to be doing a lot less than my frost spec on single target fights (the ooze guy though is way better with fire cuz there's a bunch of long living adds that you can combustion/living bomb spread to) because over time I (way more often than not) fall prey to bad RNG and it sinks me from 25k to 16k.

So yeah. Still rockin' Frost for as long as its still doing nice DPS.

[Steelangel]

So yeah. Still rockin' Frost for as long as its still doing nice DPS.

Frost will continue to do acceptable DPS until you hit heroic-level gear. I'm still in T12 4pc (normal) and still keeping up (barely). I'm interested to see how much I'll suffer with T13 4pc normal. My guild doesn't do this "heroic" thing.

I wonder - if We never EVER use Icy veins, we can keep the Stolen Time stacks indefinitely, right? Would that help? It'd feel weird to take IV out of play, but too much haste is too much haste.

[Zumzumzum]

I've done 7/8 with my Frost mage on our alt run yesterday. The fights are pretty good for Frost : close to no AoE, some movement.
From what I see on TopRealm I can keep up with the other "Legendary Mages" of my server for now, until we ditch T12 set of course