Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide

[Targonis]

I was under the impression that Haste was more important but I can't really argue with the results, might give it a try.

I ran an LFR today using both sets of stat weights / reforging on my gear. Going heavy on crit and moving away from mastery while leaving haste alone (for the most part) was the most effective DPS gain for myself in current gear.

Damn this whole not being able to post links yet thing... I'm Targoris - US Turalyon on the armory if you want to do a gear comparison / look at reforging and gemming.

[scuac]

I ran an LFR today using both sets of stat weights / reforging on my gear. Going heavy on crit and moving away from mastery while leaving haste alone (for the most part) was the most effective DPS gain for myself in current gear.

Damn this whole not being able to post links yet thing... I'm Targoris - US Turalyon on the armory if you want to do a gear comparison / look at reforging and gemming.

What armor do you use?

[Targonis]

What armor do you use?

I've been using Frost Armor in Frost Spec, the additional haste you gain from it is a necessity when stacking your gear to try to reach Crit cap of 28% - 28% is the magic number that you need to have 100% chance to crit against bosses with Shatter. Even stacking as much crit as I am I'm sitting at almost 19%, but that puts me at 91% chance to crit against bosses instead of the mid 70's percentage I would have stacking haste. I've seen and logged better results with crit to 28% > haste today.

[scuac]

I've been using Frost Armor in Frost Spec, the additional haste you gain from it is a necessity when stacking your gear to try to reach Crit cap of 28% - 28% is the magic number that you need to have 100% chance to crit against bosses with Shatter. Even stacking as much crit as I am I'm sitting at almost 19%, but that puts me at 91% chance to crit against bosses instead of the mid 70's percentage I would have stacking haste. I've seen and logged better results with crit to 28% > haste today.

Would using Molten Armor instead be an option to more easily reach 28% crit? I mean, if your strategy is to prioritize crit it seems you would switch armor then, or why not?

[Targonis]

Would using Molten Armor instead be an option to more easily reach 28% crit? I mean, if your strategy is to prioritize crit it seems you would switch armor then, or why not?

Good question, you still need an average amount of haste to keep your proc rates up, which you will drastically lose on gear. Frost Armor provides me with 7% additional haste keeping my proc rates steady, while my gear has me over 90% - approaching 100% with shatter crit rate. As with all stat weighting it's always a healthy balance. I'm playing the spec as intended, with Frost Armor and Frost Bomb for Brain Freeze procs and gaining the extra crit I need from my gear. You'd get almost the same result prioritizing all haste on your gear then tossing Molten Armor on if you wanted to do the same thing the opposite way. Going straight to the 28% crit cap so you always crit will hurt your proc rates to the point where it would almost even out anyway, or may even hurt your DPS. After testing in LFR today and getting the rankings I have (I ran with 2 different stat weighting options on gear alone this morning) I've found that the best balance is:

Int > Hit to 15% > Crit to 28% > Haste > Mastery - Using Frost Armor to boost your haste and Frost Bomb for Brain Freeze Procs

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 08:09 PM ----------

I still can't post links as soon as I am able to (maybe a moderator can lift this restriction) I will post up the log links and current armory.

[Imnick]

Correct me if I'm wrong but can you not just write it like www. example .com and ask us to remove the spaces?
Don't go too mad on inserting characters, I think you only need to space out the www. and the .com

[Targonis]

You'll have to add the www and the us to the armory one.

Crit Cap Weights (Current Armory) - worldoflogs.com/reports/eoo2jcdh4wk5psqx/
Haste Weights (Mr. Robot Frost Suggestions) - worldoflogs.com/reports/21balxpx1zs0iv37/ (Ignore Gara, I died a minute into the fight and stopped logging)

Here is my armory - battle.net/wow/en/character/turalyon/Targoris/advanced

As you can see I did better with the stacked dogs on Stone Guard with the Haste Weights, but I just want to make sure everyone realizes that on the first report using Crit Cap weights I did not have a Time Warp on Stone Guard at all, while using the Haste Weights I had a Time Warp at the beginning of the fight with the rest of my cooldowns. Time Warp only gained me 2k DPS, and it should have been much much more. I would say crit wins based on these results, in current item level gearsets.

[huth]

Definitely not for single target, though I'm not sure there's many people who have run numbers for multi-target.

Since it only affects when the bomb goes off, it won't have any effect unless your targets die to fast for the normal wait.

[Elegiac]

Since it only affects when the bomb goes off, it won't have any effect unless your targets die to fast for the normal wait.

Brain Freeze procs regardless if the target dies with the bomb active or not.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Fascinating. I was actually seeing a fair amount of RNG tonight based on if my procs crit or not, so I could believe it. I wonder why the weights don't show up in simulation...

I'll need to test.

[Targonis]

These fights contain movement components that I think simulation can't account for. My theory is basically that in a Patchwerk style fight Haste would beat crit because you literally unload into a training dummy, the more casts you can get off the higher your damage will be, period. However with mechanics such as moving with Jasper Chains etc if you're properly managing your procs these are the times when you will have your fingers of frost / brain freeze procs ideally to use, which will fill in the time you spend moving, and have a far more likely chance to crit each time they are used (the difference between 79% and 91% crit with shatter is no joke). I'm not an advocate of change here or anything, I've just had better results with a new set of weights that are "against the norm" if you will. I'd love to see someone else put some testing/sim together and either verify or debunk what I've found.

[huth]

Brain Freeze procs regardless if the target dies with the bomb active or not.

I was more thinking of AE targets dying before the bomb goes off.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I'm not an advocate of change here or anything, I've just had better results with a new set of weights that are "against the norm" if you will. I'd love to see someone else put some testing/sim together and either verify or debunk what I've found.

As I said, I'll look into testing when I can. I doubt you could sim the dogs well enough to make a case in either direction.

I can believe you're getting at least better consistent results the way you're gearing, though. I had a few pulls the other night on H Feng where I just wouldn't crit, 50% crit rate on FFB and such, my DPS was fairly abysmal. Then I'd have a pull where everything crit, especially during CDs up, and I was up around in the top 5. Closer to the crit cap will lower the DPS range in which you'll be, but I think it'd be overall lower than an average pull with haste favoured weights for most fights. Stone Guard, as you said, is possibly a decent fight for crit favoured builds, since you're running around a fair bit. There is a significant portion of the fight where you're not running though.

I have a hunch that haste will win out, and crit cap will just be a side-effect of gearing up in later tiers. Sad, but likely the case. But it will be an interesting thing to try regardless.

[Deleted]

Thank you for the guide, especially the Water elemental fix!

[Wickedsage]

this has been major help to me thank you kuni

[Pyrion]

As I said, I'll look into testing when I can. I doubt you could sim the dogs well enough to make a case in either direction.

I have a hunch that haste will win out, and crit cap will just be a side-effect of gearing up in later tiers. Sad, but likely the case. But it will be an interesting thing to try regardless.

Can you please post detailed results and not just which ones wins? I have a feeling would've done this anyway but I'm asking because I'm really interested. (I.e. DPS variance with crit favored build, dps differences etc).

And also Thanks for this awesome guide

[Deleted]

Trinket choice have to be taken into account.
Blossom of Pure Snow is giving 4.7% crit every minute. It can be used every Frozen Orb, reducing the crit to 23.3% during 15s (21s with AT).

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Can you please post detailed results and not just which ones wins? I have a feeling would've done this anyway but I'm asking because I'm really interested. (I.e. DPS variance with crit favored build, dps differences etc).

Trinket choice have to be taken into account.

This is why I can't throw details. I can look into it and run it a few times when I'm not busy, but as it stands, there's way too many variables. Not to mention since I'll just be personally testing it, not simulating it, throwing the specifics would be both difficult to produce, and near pointless to analyze. There's a reason simulations run 10-50k iterations, so RNG is ironed out and you get an average that is in decent confidence. Me running LFR a few times, with changing circumstances, isn't a decent confidence for details like that.

I'll be looking for, at best, stability in DPS or massive increases in DPS when reforged one way or the other. Although this might take me a bit to get around to, I've been fairly busy, both in and out of the game. Between challenge modes and heroic progression, my game time is a bit stretched thin for chain running LFR.

Challenge modes are surprisingly fun, though. Do go and give them a try.

[Deleted]

Hi Kuni, i'm sorry if this have been asked before but i see in every guide to use PoM to get an extra frostbolt, but wouldn't it be better to use a insta-frosfirebolt instead?
And which would you choose, Vision of Predator or the mithril stopwatch??

[Imnick]

Hi Kuni, i'm sorry if this have been asked before but i see in every guide to use PoM to get an extra frostbolt, but wouldn't it be better to use a insta-frosfirebolt instead?

"The Brain Freeze effect causes your next Frostfire Bolt to be instant cast, cost no mana, and act as if your target were frozen for 15 sec."

A BF!FFB benefits from your mastery and Shatter, thus allowing it to deal a fairly substantial amount of damage.
A PoM!FFB on the other hand gets no mastery benefit and only your base level of crit rating.
Frostbolt will refresh your Frostbolt stacks on the target (a fairly important part of your DPS) and has a chance to proc Fingers of Frost.

That said, I think FFB's damage coefficient is still higher? I haven't actually tried PoM!FFB out, I'm running with Scorch just because it's easier and the damage increase from PoM is fairly minimal.