Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Potato Bus]

Nice thread but.... fire is a bit better for PvE

I love these posts. Scroll up the page next time...

Kuni: Keep up the good work, my SPriest buddy keeps ragging on me to go frost full time over arcane and I keep messing around with it. It's fun, and I'd take the plunge if I wasn't on Rageface duty (frost just hasn't been able to break him off people reliably for me :[ )

[LaplaceNoMa]

Nice thread but.... fire is a bit better for PvE

Say hi to t11 bosses for me please. Looks like you're stuck somewhere in 4.0.6.

[Graedahl]

hi all i have played the game for a good few years but only now since the cata installment have i been able to be what i wanted a frost mage night elf as i hav a grasp of pvp i want to improve my pve yet i dont know what to focus on. I have focused so far on hit, haste and crit, with my main focus being int. But the most i hit in the new Zul dungeons and the dps coming with others dps counters is showing me doing around 10000dps so what am i doing wrong can anyone give guidenece as of what to do

Did you read the first post? It has all of the information you need, including stat priorities and weights.

[Swizzle]

I love these posts. Scroll up the page next time...

Kuni: Keep up the good work, my SPriest buddy keeps ragging on me to go frost full time over arcane and I keep messing around with it. It's fun, and I'd take the plunge if I wasn't on Rageface duty (frost just hasn't been able to break him off people reliably for me :[ )

Your Deep Freeze doesn't hit for more than 45k damage?

[Loevty]

Your Deep Freeze doesn't hit for more than 45k damage?

Last time I worked it out, DF wouldn't be up every Facerage, I might be wrong however but, Arcane will always get thoes big numbers to brake the channel.

[Swizzle]

Last time I worked it out, DF wouldn't be up every Facerage, I might be wrong however but, Arcane will always get thoes big numbers to brake the channel.

It depends, but I think you're right in it not being up for each one right off CD. However, Freeze should be, so even a FoF IL should be enough. The only spec we have that can have problems with Facerage is Fire, but who plays Fire on single target anyway?

[Potato Bus]

Last time I worked it out, DF wouldn't be up every Facerage, I might be wrong however but, Arcane will always get thoes big numbers to brake the channel.

This is correct, DF would be up for most, but not always and the unreliability of it (and gaming for a FoF IL/BF AND keeping the effing water ele in range) just wasn't cutting it. IIRC, Frostbolt crits weren't always breaking it off either; we were wiping on it for a night due to this and trap issues, whereas with Arcane it's no problem to break him off people and there's no travel time either on AB. And it's 10m too; we already have replenishment, so if I want to bring a buff to the table my best options are 3% damage or 5% crit (no lock, and I'm pretty spent on fire atm)... I may give it another try since I'm already Frost on Beth (spiderling duty with a hunter) and fire on Alys, but idk... my gear is set up well for Arcane, and if it's not broke, don't fix it...

yeah, just checked a log from that night and my avg FB crits were 30.2k (29.4k on all the wipes), and arcane was averaging 54k crits on our kill last week.

[DakotaFX]

I want to say I appreciate the existence of this guide and your taking the time to write it. However, I do have a couple questions which I may have missed the explanation for.

I looked at your current talent build and found that somethings could be tweaked and perhaps there are reasons why they are not tweaked in such a way. If there are reasons, I am curious to know them to find if I can better myself.


My build differs from your own for several reasons and this is how...

1.) I glyphed Ice Lance because I find myself using it more often (when I am on the move and fingers happen to be up is just one example). I had frostfire glyphed but the dps gain from it seemed to small to justify an entire glyph at the time.

2.) Ignite. In your build you've chosen this talent and maxed it. I simply cannot justify maxing a talent for 1 ability (i.e. frostfire bolt). Is there something I've missed here or was this an error?

3.) You mention that you cannot keep Molten Armor up throughout an entire raid fight, that you must drop it at times to regain mana. I find that your talent build could use the points from permafrost / ignite in other places to help w/those mana issues such as maxing out Enduring Winter to lower mana costs and Arcane Concentration to negate mana costs entirely 10% of the time. With those two talents I find myself hard pressed to be running out of mana and my up time on Molten Armor as a result has gone way up.

4.) Reactive Barrier I can understand. I just chose Invocation since I am not progressively raiding as hard right now.

5.) You put 0 points in Ice Shards which confuses me. If you put 1 point into Ice Shards then your Blizzard has a chill effect thus allowing fingers of frost.


Thanks for your time!

[Max Rebo]

1.) I glyphed Ice Lance because I find myself using it more often (when I am on the move and fingers happen to be up is just one example). I had frostfire glyphed but the dps gain from it seemed to small to justify an entire glyph at the time.

2.) Ignite. In your build you've chosen this talent and maxed it. I simply cannot justify maxing a talent for 1 ability (i.e. frostfire bolt). Is there something I've missed here or was this an error?

3.) You mention that you cannot keep Molten Armor up throughout an entire raid fight, that you must drop it at times to regain mana. I find that your talent build could use the points from permafrost / ignite in other places to help w/those mana issues such as maxing out Enduring Winter to lower mana costs and Arcane Concentration to negate mana costs entirely 10% of the time. With those two talents I find myself hard pressed to be running out of mana and my up time on Molten Armor as a result has gone way up.

4.) Reactive Barrier I can understand. I just chose Invocation since I am not progressively raiding as hard right now.

5.) You put 0 points in Ice Shards which confuses me. If you put 1 point into Ice Shards then your Blizzard has a chill effect thus allowing fingers of frost.

I can try to answer these...

1) Even though you use IL frequently, Glyph of IL has been shown to come out under FrB and DF in terms of dps. Plus, if you use Glyph of Frostfire, you'll see more from FFB via Ignite (i.e., bigger FFB crits will yield bigger ignites).
2) Ignite is actually a significant portion of your damage, so maxing out the talent, plus using Glyph of FFB is well worth it.
3) It's a dps gain to use Molten Armor as long as you can. Switching to Mage Armor at 30-ish% (can't remember the precise value) can save you having to use an evocation, which is an overall dps gain when compared to taking all the other mana-saving talents.
4) You're losing out on dps talents in the other trees here. Don't put more than 2 points into the arcane tree (for NWP).
5) You can put one point in Ice Shards for a bit of extra range on IL. However, FoF doesn't interact with Blizzard the way it used to, so you won't see a dps increase during AoE situations with this talent. Kuni indicated that you could spec into Ice Shards for utility for the extra chill (slowing) effect during aoe situations.

Since you are not progressively raiding as you mentioned, I'd say play how you like. However, the talents and info in this topic are aimed at maximizing dps in a raid environment. Thus, if you plan on raiding at all, the build and info provided by Kuni are strongly suggested.

[Swizzle]

1.) I glyphed Ice Lance because I find myself using it more often (when I am on the move and fingers happen to be up is just one example). I had frostfire glyphed but the dps gain from it seemed to small to justify an entire glyph at the time.

You may use Ice Lance more, but it has a lower spellpower coefficient than FFB. Throw in the fact that the glyph not only boosts the damage of our second hardest hitting ability but it also adds a DoT (which comes out to approx. 2-3% more damage per cast depending on frequency of procs) and you have a much stronger glyph. By the by, Ice Lance is a Frost Mage's weakest glyph next to Molten Armor. FrB, FFB, and DF glyphs all provide more DPS.

2.) Ignite. In your build you've chosen this talent and maxed it. I simply cannot justify maxing a talent for 1 ability (i.e. frostfire bolt). Is there something I've missed here or was this an error?

It procs from FFB, but it is essentially free damage. You already have to spec 5 points into Fire to max out Burning Soul and Master of Elements, why not get something that just gives you free damage?

3.) You mention that you cannot keep Molten Armor up throughout an entire raid fight, that you must drop it at times to regain mana. I find that your talent build could use the points from permafrost / ignite in other places to help w/those mana issues such as maxing out Enduring Winter to lower mana costs and Arcane Concentration to negate mana costs entirely 10% of the time. With those two talents I find myself hard pressed to be running out of mana and my up time on Molten Armor as a result has gone way up.

2/8/31 is the optimal Frost build in terms of raiding, and includes the full gamut of mana reducing/refunding talents. Regardless, you do need to drop Molten Armor on occasion anyway, and Crit is your weakest secondary stat, so it's not a huge loss to use Mage Armor. Rather, using Molten Armor a bit more equates to higher gains (think of your DPS with Mage Armor as your default DPS).

4.) Reactive Barrier I can understand. I just chose Invocation since I am not progressively raiding as hard right now.

If you went that far into Arcane, you're doing it sorely wrong.

5.) You put 0 points in Ice Shards which confuses me. If you put 1 point into Ice Shards then your Blizzard has a chill effect thus allowing fingers of frost.

When on Earth do you actually stop to spam Blizzard where the bonus FoF procs are worth it? If you're AoEing, the FoF procs serve no purpose and if you do it to fish for procs, you're going to waste mana and munch procs, all of which lowers your DPS.

Thanks for playing.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

1.) I glyphed Ice Lance because I find myself using it more often (when I am on the move and fingers happen to be up is just one example). I had frostfire glyphed but the dps gain from it seemed to small to justify an entire glyph at the time.

2.) Ignite. In your build you've chosen this talent and maxed it. I simply cannot justify maxing a talent for 1 ability (i.e. frostfire bolt). Is there something I've missed here or was this an error?

3.) You mention that you cannot keep Molten Armor up throughout an entire raid fight, that you must drop it at times to regain mana. I find that your talent build could use the points from permafrost / ignite in other places to help w/those mana issues such as maxing out Enduring Winter to lower mana costs and Arcane Concentration to negate mana costs entirely 10% of the time. With those two talents I find myself hard pressed to be running out of mana and my up time on Molten Armor as a result has gone way up.

4.) Reactive Barrier I can understand. I just chose Invocation since I am not progressively raiding as hard right now.

5.) You put 0 points in Ice Shards which confuses me. If you put 1 point into Ice Shards then your Blizzard has a chill effect thus allowing fingers of frost.

Others have answered this already, but whatever.

1. Ice lance glyph is horrible. We use ice lance more, but 5% on a weaker spell versus effectively 18% on a stronger spell, plus the ability to keep necromantic focus rolling, which is one of our BiS trinkets now. Our 4pT12 plays off of this as well, and increases the value of the glyph even higher. Frostfire bolt's glyph is a higher DPS increase than frostbolt's as well, even without T12.

2. No mistake here. Frostfire orb and frostfire bolt will both proc it. Simulations are showing ignite itself as a 2.5k DPS contribution. Again, 4pT12 plays off of this and increases the value. I just finished a heroic, ignite was 6% of my overall damage.

3. In theory you could dump reactive barrier into enduring winter, but there's no real way to grab clearcasting without dropping DPS. Given how much shit is flying around in firelands, I much prefer reactive barrier.

4. Again, you can't grab this without hurting your DPS fairly hard, but up to you in the end.

5. Procs on blizzard doesn't do me much good. I've got another frost mage in the guild who runs it for the chills on adds, but that's all it's useful for.

[Swizzle]

Wait, FFO procs Ignite but FO doesn't? Or did I miss something in the 4.2 notes that let both of them proc it (to note, FO stopped proccing Ignite for me when 4.1 shipped).

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Wait, FFO procs Ignite but FO doesn't? Or did I miss something in the 4.2 notes that let both of them proc it (to note, FO stopped proccing Ignite for me when 4.1 shipped).

No clue about FO, but FFO sure does, and has for a while now. It was proccing ignite before it was proccing brain freeze.

[Sflame]

A little curious to try out Frost once for a week just to see how it goes. I heard talk that you should cast FFB when it proc's even though FoF isn't up. Does this still apply or should I wait for FoF?

[Imnick]

A little curious to try out Frost once for a week just to see how it goes. I heard talk that you should cast FFB when it proc's even though FoF isn't up. Does this still apply or should I wait for FoF?

I believe this is only when you have the four piece T12, as the increased proc rate then means that you are likely to munch stacks if you don't cast it on proc.
Before you have 4T12 you should only cast it with FoF unless it is about to run out.
Could be wrong here though.

[Hinalover]

I believe this is only when you have the four piece T12, as the increased proc rate then means that you are likely to munch stacks if you don't cast it on proc.
Before you have 4T12 you should only cast it with FoF unless it is about to run out.
Could be wrong here though.

Actually it's better without FoF. If you look at the SimC's T11 action priority list, you will note that they did take out FoF bit for FFB.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...rost_T11H.simc

Line 30

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Actually it's better without FoF. If you look at the SimC's T11 action priority list, you will note that they did take out FoF bit for FFB.

http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...rost_T11H.simc

Line 30

So apparently I wasn't imagining results when I tried that back on page 20 or so. Neat.

Edited guide to reflect.

[Deleted]

I have played a little as frost now on majerdomo and ragnaros. Have around 372 ilvl equipped. Can't Link armory since I'm on My phone. In a guild called Icore on Jaedenar EU if anyone is interested in wol or armory.

Well to the topic. I think I'm gonna change to frost now as my mainspecc, before I get My t12 4set. My reason for that is that frost is very good indeed, on majerdomo I even beat the arcanemage. But now for the part that I feel is frosts weak point. Is frosts Aoe really bad? Arcane and fire is way better. I can as arcanemage put up Aoe that's almost as good as fire. But as frost I can't do anything. Are frost really bad at doing Aoe dmg or does anyone got a tip?

Regards
Aranthar

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Frost AOE

I haven't done those fights, but frost's AOE burst is fairly reliant on being able to freeze the mobs in question. You can get a good 30-40k going if you can freeze them, but it doesn't work if you can't, and you just become weaker AOE than a holy priest using mind sear, because for whatever reason it hits almost twice as hard as blizzard while holy/disc.

If able to freeze the mobs, throw ring of frost so the edge is under them, flamestrike, blizzard, then after the first tick or so of blizzard, pet freeze them. You can get some fairly impressive numbers doing this but is admittedly reliant on a couple of cooldowns, one of which is used in your single target rotation. The reason for ring is to get a couple more freeze points during blizzard so it will benefit mastery. In all honesty they should make blizzard consume FoF procs when they're up, much like the shatterstorm we had in Wrath. At least then we'd have a decent AOE.

[Hinalover]

Well if it means anything Frost dps does do decent to competative damage on Rag 25. Last night's kill with 18.6k dps on him (ranked 3rd as frost but 110th overall)

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/3...13423#Delritha

and before anyone says anything the Arcane mage in the raid had most of the fire traps spawn on his side of the platform (I had 1 or 2)