1. #1

    [Frost] Mid-combat Armor swapping

    So I'm currently sitting on just above 15k haste which means that Frost Armor doesn't grant Living bomb an additional tick nor does removing the armor decrease ticks. My frostbolt cast time during bloodlust is less than a second which feels like a waste (too quick for latency, especially when meta procs during) and I'm almost 10 percent below the 28% crit chance you want as Frost.

    This got me and my friend thinking about swapping from Frost armor to Molten armor for the duration of bloodlust. Since there is a Glyph that removes the cast time from armors completely and Glyph of Cone of Cold really isn't mandatory for everything it might yield better results than what I can produce now.

    I don't pretend to be some expert on mage stuff but it feels like there could be something here, and therefore I'm making this thread asking Akraen and other experienced people what you think about this and how I should deal with my dilemma.

  2. #2
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    I can't think of any fight in SoO where Living Bomb is the ideal choice above 15k haste.

    I think you may gain some damage for the spells during your heroism, however you'll lose effective DPS, or DPM, for the cast time of the armor switch.

    If there was any armor switching I'd advocate, it would be to pull with mage armor on then cast frost armor in the last .1-.5 sec of heroism if you hero on the pull.

    I don't think I'm going to ever do that, though. Best scenario is having 2pc. Next couple raids I'm going to be removing glyph of icy veins again to try to get more BF procs. I'm all about the Brain Freezes now and you get a lot more of those with NT than LB.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Akraen View Post
    I can't think of any fight in SoO where Living Bomb is the ideal choice above 15k haste.

    I think you may gain some damage for the spells during your heroism, however you'll lose effective DPS, or DPM, for the cast time of the armor switch.

    If there was any armor switching I'd advocate, it would be to pull with mage armor on then cast frost armor in the last .1-.5 sec of heroism if you hero on the pull.

    I don't think I'm going to ever do that, though. Best scenario is having 2pc. Next couple raids I'm going to be removing glyph of icy veins again to try to get more BF procs. I'm all about the Brain Freezes now and you get a lot more of those with NT than LB.
    Interesting, and thanks for the fast response.

    Personally I've prefered Living bomb over Nether tempest simply because of the global cooldown reduction and partly because I haven't properly figured out how many times I should use the ability in a multidot situation since living bomb handily restricts me to 3. It always feels like I'm either doing it too much or too little.

    Now that I have your attention, what exactly is the point in such excess stacking of haste anyway? Should I just ignore the fact that my frostbolts are ridiculously fast because I know my NT is doing so much more damage and in the end I will have gained multiple more FFBs? I can't even imagine the speed with high end gear and not having Icy veins glyphed.

    Also, why Mage armor over Molten armor when I'm in such a dire need of crit and I'm using atleast one frost orb (ie more lances than normal).
    Last edited by Strafir; 2013-09-21 at 10:52 PM.

  4. #4
    Warchief Akraen's Avatar
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    Excess haste because of BF procs and RPPM. We don't scale well from the green stats, so influencing RPPM is helpful. More haste more procs more procs more damage.

    The more ticks of NT you cram into a cast (1 GCD = x ticks), the greater frequency of BF. Comparing some logs I see myself gaining up to twice as many Brain Freezes as frost mages using LB. You'll miss some of course, but that's okay-- twitch play at its finest.

    I don't see how you could be in dire need of crit. Crit doesn't help proc anything. Only thing crit does is makes a bigger icicle, but haste is going to speed up icicle generation so it's a wash in comparison. Also, you'll be at your shatter cap just from gear, then when you get int procs, you're so far above shatter cap it's a wash again. Crit is something to avoid at all costs whereas mastery provides some good burst and buffs most things.

  5. #5
    After toying around with ideas I've come to the conclusion that armor swapping was perhaps a too extreme way to deal with my 'problem' and started looking for other options.

    I've come to the conclusion that completely switching to casting glyphed frostfire bolts during meta proc/bloodlust ultimately yields the best results because I miss less brain freeze procs (since I don't have to react) and because of the high haste the cast time is 1.04 so its more latency-friendly while barely missing any Icicles.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Strafir View Post
    After toying around with ideas I've come to the conclusion that armor swapping was perhaps a too extreme way to deal with my 'problem' and started looking for other options.

    I've come to the conclusion that completely switching to casting glyphed frostfire bolts during meta proc/bloodlust ultimately yields the best results because I miss less brain freeze procs (since I don't have to react) and because of the high haste the cast time is 1.04 so its more latency-friendly while barely missing any Icicles.
    While it is minimal, a gcd capped FB will generate more icicles than a hardcast FFB @1.04 under meta/lust.

    There's no way to "miss" an Icicle. If you have 5, continue your FB spam, fire them as you get FoF procs (they fire on their own if you don't release them anyways). It's a passive bonus that requires you to do nothing extra.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastamage View Post
    While it is minimal, a gcd capped FB will generate more icicles than a hardcast FFB @1.04 under meta/lust.
    This is what I meant, that because I use FFB as a filler ther than FB I will eventually lose a some icicles because of less casts, but in the end I will end up spending more brain freeze procs which justifies the loss.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Strafir View Post
    This is what I meant, that because I use FFB as a filler ther than FB I will eventually lose a some icicles because of less casts, but in the end I will end up spending more brain freeze procs which justifies the loss.
    If you're mid-cast of FFB, you'll be spending less BF procs, should they come up mid-cast. 1.04 < 1.00. You should not be wasting time hard-casting FFB during lust/meta.

  9. #9
    FFB and FB do the same exact damage last I checked, there is never any reason to cast FFB except for BF, no matter how GCD-stuck you are with FB, it will always be the better cast if FFB Isn't under 1sec cast.

  10. #10
    This thread can be closed. I just realized it was about armor swapping for Frost and got off track. It's been answered.

  11. #11
    Indeed the thread has been done and dusted, but if you feel that something is an issue, report the post rather than post about it in the thread.

    Anyways the thread is now closed.

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