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  1. #1

    [Frost] secondary stats - crit reliability

    My feelings on crit as a frostmage are that although technically haste sims stronger, crit's benefits outweigh the slight average dps gain

    - You won't get a string of bad luck- you'll never have a bad RNG burn phase which can make a big difference in pushing a difficult part of an encounter
    - You can reliably kill time-sensitive targets - sparks on elegon are a clear example of this
    - Critting is fun


    For reference I had some top 10 ranks in firelands and hit 90 on my mage the other day (4th alt) and ranked on the one MSV boss i killed in a pug the other night at ilvl 465, so I'm not just some schmuck. I'd like to discuss the pve viability of crit capping.. or more precisely near-crit-capping such that with buffs and procs you hit approximately the cap.

    Personally I run crit reforges and molten armor, and I think some crit hybrid gems although i cant armory myself at work and my gear is so bad atm it doesnt matter much.

    I feel like when it comes to secondary stats people blindly follow the sims, ignoring that the differences are fairly minor.

    Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) for the *in-game* viability of reforging all haste? We know it's good in sims, obviously, but for example are there any mages who have tried both methods and what was your experience. How do you (the mage community) feel about haste - do the increased FoF procs and shorter casts times feel good? Has anyone tried reforging mastery and if so how did it perform? Personally I see mastery as being the least viable secondary stat since it gains you no particular utility.



    Discussion of both in-game experiences and theorycrafting welcome here - If your evidence is anecdotal please provide some sort of proof that you know what you're talking about, preferably logs. I'll be posting my own logs once I get some real raiding under my mage's belt.

  2. #2
    Mechagnome jtmzac's Avatar
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    I have no evidence but I always felt crit has been undervalued since finding out that haste was preffered over the crit cap. Coming from frost pvp probably has influenced me somewhat.

    The amount of damage done by frost is mostly fingers of frost and brain freeze procs so it's not hard to see why more crit makes sense. On the other hand haste increases frostbolt's cast speed, makes your bomb tick faster and evocation channel quicker.

    Haste vs crit cap is certainly something I've thought about. It would be interesting to see some information about what the difference is really like instead of just numbers from sims.

  3. #3
    well speeding up frostbolts means more chances to proc FoF so FoF is still a big portion of your damage, just more hits for less damage each

    its going to be hard to find any information aside from the sims, given that most of the 'elite theorycrafters' (dont know how else to better phrase it) derive nearly 100% of that theory from sims/math.. but yes more anecdotal evidence will be interesting. I'm almost wishing I had made my mage my main this expansion

  4. #4
    Mechagnome jtmzac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    well speeding up frostbolts means more chances to proc FoF so FoF is still a big portion of your damage, just more hits for less damage each

    its going to be hard to find any information aside from the sims, given that most of the 'elite theorycrafters' (dont know how else to better phrase it) derive nearly 100% of that theory from sims/math.. but yes more anecdotal evidence will be interesting. I'm almost wishing I had made my mage my main this expansion
    Frostbolt isn't the only source of FoF procs which lessens the value of faster frostbolts causing more procs. The problem with going with real info from raiding is you lose accuracy without lots of data to average. Not to mention that you would have to intentionally go for crit heavy gear which means a fire mage would probably be more suited to testing.

    I just did some sims and using my gear on a patchwerk fight I get:
    80600 dps haste prioritised
    80030 dps crit prioritised

    It's closer than I expected but be mindful I'm not that experienced with simcraft. I'm not sure what you would get in a more movement based fight where scorch is used a lot more. I would guess it would go back to haste being better until scorch hit the gcd. That said with scorch being weaker then frostbolt the extra damage from guaranteed crits might even it out a bit.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by jtmzac View Post
    Frostbolt isn't the only source of FoF procs which lessens the value of faster frostbolts causing more procs. The problem with going with real info from raiding is you lose accuracy without lots of data to average. Not to mention that you would have to intentionally go for crit heavy gear which means a fire mage would probably be more suited to testing.

    I just did some sims and using my gear on a patchwerk fight I get:
    80600 dps haste prioritised
    80030 dps crit prioritised

    It's closer than I expected but be mindful I'm not that experienced with simcraft. I'm not sure what you would get in a more movement based fight where scorch is used a lot more. I would guess it would go back to haste being better until scorch hit the gcd. That said with scorch being weaker then frostbolt the extra damage from guaranteed crits might even it out a bit.
    That's definitely acceptable variance to where I would be comfortable doing it purely because I prefer it.

    I've seen the math on scorch for fire but how is it for frost? Frost's mobility isnt too bad as long as you don't have to constantly run - there are plenty of instant GCDs to shuffle around with. Scorch has the same chance to crit as fire so the same chance to proc HU per cast, whereas as frost it has a lower chance to proc FoF than frostbolt AND it does significantly less damage. Icy floes just seems... bad.

  6. #6
    Mechagnome jtmzac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    That's definitely acceptable variance to where I would be comfortable doing it purely because I prefer it.

    I've seen the math on scorch for fire but how is it for frost? Frost's mobility isnt too bad as long as you don't have to constantly run - there are plenty of instant GCDs to shuffle around with. Scorch has the same chance to crit as fire so the same chance to proc HU per cast, whereas as frost it has a lower chance to proc FoF than frostbolt AND it does significantly less damage. Icy floes just seems... bad.
    I have no idea of the math but using scorch feels like a dps loss. Scorch has a 9% chance to proc FoF vs frostbolts 12% chance. Since the servers down I tried to do the math but I don't know how to normalise the different bonuses from spellpower each of the spells get so that it scales properly. My maths skills aren't great.

    Off the top of my head frostbolt does about 30k for me and scorch does about 20k. It's not as huge a difference as it might seem. Yeah it's a lot to a theorycrafter but once you factor in the fact you have no option to use frostbolt when moving the resulting dps might not be that different.
    Last edited by jtmzac; 2012-11-06 at 07:04 PM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    That's definitely acceptable variance to where I would be comfortable doing it purely because I prefer it.

    I've seen the math on scorch for fire but how is it for frost? Frost's mobility isnt too bad as long as you don't have to constantly run - there are plenty of instant GCDs to shuffle around with. Scorch has the same chance to crit as fire so the same chance to proc HU per cast, whereas as frost it has a lower chance to proc FoF than frostbolt AND it does significantly less damage. Icy floes just seems... bad.
    I use ice floes, what seems bad about it.

    Frost already has many insta-casts you can use, and then if all those are gone you can get 2 more casts while moving I really like ice floes.
    Gamdwelf the Mage

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  8. #8
    Mechagnome jtmzac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gamdwelf View Post
    I use ice floes, what seems bad about it.

    Frost already has many insta-casts you can use, and then if all those are gone you can get 2 more casts while moving I really like ice floes.
    I don't know wether ice floes has problems with my 200ms latency or it's just bugged but when I used to use it I only ever got one charge out of it and the second charge never seemed to work. It always seemed more practical in DS then in current content to me. I think that tier of talents works as it was probably designed. PoM: little/no movement fight. Ice Flows: a bit more movement. Scorch: a lot of movement.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by jtmzac View Post
    I don't know wether ice floes has problems with my 200ms latency or it's just bugged but when I used to use it I only ever got one charge out of it and the second charge never seemed to work. It always seemed more practical in DS then in current content to me. I think that tier of talents works as it was probably designed. PoM: little/no movement fight. Ice Flows: a bit more movement. Scorch: a lot of movement.
    you're probably hitting it accidentally at the end of your last cast, burning the charge on that last few milliseconds and then only getting one more cast while moving

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 02:45 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Gamdwelf View Post
    I use ice floes, what seems bad about it.

    Frost already has many insta-casts you can use, and then if all those are gone you can get 2 more casts while moving I really like ice floes.
    its too long a cooldown for only giving you ~4 seconds of movement, and actually requires additional skill unlike scorch spam

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 02:46 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by jtmzac View Post
    I have no idea of the math but using scorch feels like a dps loss. Scorch has a 9% chance to proc FoF vs frostbolts 12% chance. Since the servers down I tried to do the math but I don't know how to normalise the different bonuses from spellpower each of the spells get so that it scales properly. My maths skills aren't great.

    Off the top of my head frostbolt does about 30k for me and scorch does about 20k. It's not as huge a difference as it might seem. Yeah it's a lot to a theorycrafter but once you factor in the fact you have no option to use frostbolt when moving the resulting dps might not be that different.
    I didnt feel like those were the numbers I was seeing but I'll revisit this and try to get some more hard info

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    you're probably hitting it accidentally at the end of your last cast, burning the charge on that last few milliseconds and then only getting one more cast while moving

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 02:45 PM ----------



    its too long a cooldown for only giving you ~4 seconds of movement, and actually requires additional skill unlike scorch spam
    but i feel like the reward is worth it
    Gamdwelf the Mage

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  11. #11
    Scorch for Frost is a good question. Frostbolt gets 125% spellpower, but that gets buffed 15% from FB stacks. Frostbolt also gets buffed by glyph of icy veins, but I will assume the glyph is not in use.

    Frostbolt: 125%*1.15/2 = 72% spellpower/second
    Scorch: 83.7%/1.5 = 56% spellpower/second

    Frostbolt: .12/2 = .06 FoF procs/second
    Scorch: .09/1.5 = .06 FoF procs/sec

    Overall Frostbolt should be around 25-30% more DPS than Scorch.

  12. #12
    Mechagnome jtmzac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tickspoon View Post
    Scorch for Frost is a good question. Frostbolt gets 125% spellpower, but that gets buffed 15% from FB stacks. Frostbolt also gets buffed by glyph of icy veins, but I will assume the glyph is not in use.

    Frostbolt: 125%*1.15/2 = 72% spellpower/second
    Scorch: 83.7%/1.5 = 56% spellpower/second

    Frostbolt: .12/2 = .06 FoF procs/second
    Scorch: .09/1.5 = .06 FoF procs/sec

    Overall Frostbolt should be around 25-30% more DPS than Scorch.
    You can use your percentage of damage numbers from a fight or simcraft to get some more info out of this. It's more math than I have the head to do at the moment but something along the lines of: Work out how much of FoF procs are from scorch or frostbolt then factor that with the percentage of total damage from ice lance plus the percentage of total damage from frostbolt and you'll have a pretty good comparison of scorch vs frostbolt. It would probably work well as a formula too.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    Discussion of both in-game experiences and theorycrafting welcome here - If your evidence is anecdotal please provide some sort of proof that you know what you're talking about, preferably logs. I'll be posting my own logs once I get some real raiding under my mage's belt.
    Why not post the log when you ranked in MV?

    One thing I will say is that your test was likely on Stone Guard. Ice Lance will behave as if targets are frozen all the time. Glyphed IL hits both targets. Because of this, Crit will have an inflated value compared to a single target fight.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Pulski View Post
    Why not post the log when you ranked in MV?

    One thing I will say is that your test was likely on Stone Guard. Ice Lance will behave as if targets are frozen all the time. Glyphed IL hits both targets. Because of this, Crit will have an inflated value compared to a single target fight.
    http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-s8...?s=2887&e=3209

    I just hit 90 and joined a pug so its nothing special
    I would have ranked on elegon (different pug) if we ever got a kill, we wiped on the phase transition to p3 every time..
    My ilvl was and is (at the time of this post) 465

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by dennisdkramer View Post
    http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-s8...?s=2887&e=3209

    I just hit 90 and joined a pug so its nothing special
    I would have ranked on elegon (different pug) if we ever got a kill, we wiped on the phase transition to p3 every time..
    My ilvl was and is (at the time of this post) 465
    For that gear that is impressive. I had a frustrating night on Elegon this week myself and losing out. (Making it into the last phase already at ~130k on every pull, then doing 112k on the kill FTL)

    In that log, Ice Lance was 37% of your damage, Critting 97 out of 108 times. Since you have the glyph cleaving, Crit is helping your DPS a lot more here than it would on another fight. There's definitely something to be said for having more Crit in a situation like that but I still question the viability single target. I'll have to try out Frost with my Fire reforges, then compare to swapping to haste. (Current reforges put me almost exactly at the Crit Soft Cap)

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Pulski View Post
    For that gear that is impressive. I had a frustrating night on Elegon this week myself and losing out. (Making it into the last phase already at ~130k on every pull, then doing 112k on the kill FTL)

    In that log, Ice Lance was 37% of your damage, Critting 97 out of 108 times. Since you have the glyph cleaving, Crit is helping your DPS a lot more here than it would on another fight. There's definitely something to be said for having more Crit in a situation like that but I still question the viability single target. I'll have to try out Frost with my Fire reforges, then compare to swapping to haste. (Current reforges put me almost exactly at the Crit Soft Cap)
    Yeah obviously stone guards isnt the ideal fight to weigh my dps. I did about 60k on feng LFR but it was no flask/food/pots and 6 people got locked out of the beginning of the encounter so it took forever, had a horrible AT cuz i wasnt paying attention to temp buffs.. plus I wasn't logging and stuff. Anyway point is I hesitated to post my stone guards log in the first place because it isnt very relevant. I'm about to do the second half of LFR so i may get a parse worth sharing there, we'll see.

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 07:07 PM ----------

    LFR spirit kings
    died during the last guy - i appear to have killed myself with cowardice :x didnt realize it actually did any meaningful damage on LFR lol
    http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1439&e=1842

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 07:40 PM ----------

    LFR will and elegon werent statistically significant; though I did rank on both my dps was awful so apparently not many good frost mages are going in there or something..

  17. #17
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    LFR will and elegon werent statistically significant; though I did rank on both my dps was awful so apparently not many good frost mages are going in there or something..
    yeah most guys play fire, get used to ranking every single fight

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Question for dennisdkramer (or anyone that may know): On the fight you linked http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1439&e=1842 when you look at the damage done per spell section.. you have Icelance (5M damage done) ... frostbolt (4.8M) and frostfirebolt (3.8M). Then further down.. you have Icelance again (1.3M), FrostfireBolt again (0.9M) and frostbolt again (0.3M).

    Where do these 2nd entries come from? Cause that's about the difference between your parse and my own parse.
    Last edited by mmoc2b766d484d; 2012-11-07 at 03:19 PM.

  19. #19
    That's a very good observation - those appear to be the glyph of ice lance cleaves, but what's interesting is that there are so many of them. The vast majority of the fight is single target only so I can't imagine why they're firing off..

  20. #20
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    I also have the icelance glyphed, but they don't show up like this. Also doesn't explain the frostfirebolt and frostbolt extra entries. I'm interested to see if anyone can explain these, cause they seem to be a nice dps boost

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