[Frost]Akraen's Comprehensive Guide to 5.4 Frost(Advanced)V.2

[Pyromelter]

So do Frozen Orb and Mirror Images update dynamically or not?

If they do, makes it a lot better using a macro including Icy Veins, Alter Time and then an Ice Lance.

My understanding is that frozen orb snapshots (does not update dynamically), and mirror images do update dynamically (all pets/guardians do this).

[Aoeina]

So I know that crit is to be avoided I was just curious how bad is crit, I mean it it worth going into stat weights in AMR and setting crit to very low or is it just a case of making sure its below mastery and haste.

Also I could have sworn that Kuni said earlier that frozen orb does not snapshot but I could be wrong.

[Mastamage]

My understanding is that frozen orb snapshots (does not update dynamically), and mirror images do update dynamically (all pets/guardians do this).

Frozen Orb is dynamic...Link to a discussion about it: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...and-Frozen-orb

[happyraven]

Hi Akraen

I see u have gemmed for more of a mastery build. If i remember correctly, werent u fully haste gemmed and re-forged? How are u finding ur current build atm?

[Akraen]

Hi Akraen

I see u have gemmed for more of a mastery build. If i remember correctly, werent u fully haste gemmed and re-forged? How are u finding ur current build atm?

1) I've said many times, don't look at my armory. I experiment and change things a lot. For example, this week I'm going to use frost bomb.

2) My ilvl grants me a lot of haste. Like, a lot. Last week I was going with a 14242 haste floor (1s gcd) and putting the rest into mastery. Currently I'm 14365 haste / 17215 mastery

3) It's impossible at my item level to use the mastery build. I would not be able to remove that much haste. I am a high haste mixture build no matter how you look at it

[happyraven]

1) I've said many times, don't look at my armory. I experiment and change things a lot

LOL and hence in my question i asked u "how are u finding ur CURRENT build" I am gonna try the mix build tonight as have been full haste

[Akraen]

That depends what "full haste" means to you :P

14365 haste / 17215 mastery is a good "do everything" ratio. I don't personally enjoy it as much as rolling with 21k haste. Numbers are the same, honestly. I can't seem to get any real world parses to reflect a damage difference among the spec builds. Boss kill times, latency, or just my own mood at the time seem to make a far bigger difference than my stats.

[Ponkster]

That depends what "full haste" means to you :P

14365 haste / 17215 mastery is a good "do everything" ratio. I don't personally enjoy it as much as rolling with 21k haste. Numbers are the same, honestly. I can't seem to get any real world parses to reflect a damage difference among the spec builds. Boss kill times, latency, or just my own mood at the time seem to make a far bigger difference than my stats.

Can't get any different results either, seems both are as good as each other

[Akraen]

Okie dokie gang, I ran some numbarz.

BIG DISCLAIMER: If you are below ilvl ~578 or have vastly different gear than I do, these numbers will not be achievable and the balance of stats will be too hard to obtain. This is for the high-end, but feel free to use it as a "goal"

What I wanted to do was to get the infos for each spell down based off 3 profiles. Remember these profiles are pretty flexible because I could swap out off pieces, put on tier, swap trinkets, and get all different ratios of stats.

(all stats raid buffed)
Profile 1: Maximize Mastery (14242 haste cap)(if you want to check), 83.7% Mastery; 50.38% Haste; 51943 Spell Power
Profile 2: Maximize Haste, 72.04% Mastery; 61.12% Haste; 51458 Spell Power
Profile 3: Maximize Intellect, 70.67% Mastery; 52.36% Haste; 53787 Spell Power

Note: It is nonsensical to go below 14242 haste at a high item level, I would not bother make a profile that does that

Here is the data:


Here are comparison visuals by spell:


Okay now it gets weird.

I decided to come up with my own "sim" and I expect to get corrected here. I wouldn't bother post it but for the illustration of how bombs behave. This is why I'm going to run frost bomb on all fights this week to really see how it plays out. I wanted to know, above all else, if I am running frost bomb even on single target, whether I should prioritize haste, mastery, or intellect. Looks like even with such a weird spell, I need to keep my initial idea, of Haste to 14242, then mastery.

Since even in this extreme scenario the best results are 14242 haste -> mastery, I am going to go with this as my official recommendation.

Here's my own spreadsheet "sim" - don't yell at me:



I have to get some parses to see if this truly is how frost bomb will behave. If any mages out there wish to join me in this test, please run as many fights with frost bomb as you can this week and post your logs. I will come up with some sort of aggregate analysis next Monday or Tuesday if people give me some data. Otherwise you'll just get analysis based off my data.

[Doji0412]

Id like to help you Akraen, my itemlvl is only at 565 though, would that even help you?
My char would be Doji on EU-Mal'Ganis, cant post links yet :/

[Akraen]

Oh yeah anyone can run frostbomb. I just want lots of parses with frostbomb at any item level.

The calculations assume you cast frostbomb each time it comes off CD. I think the reason that people are still down on it is that they can't do that. It's why people call it 'clunky' - managing a 6 to 7 sec cooldown is tough especially when our upkeep buff is a channeled spell.

But I'm thinking the potential here might be amazing if played properly and can give everyone a chance to drop the multidot playstyle for a while.

[Ponkster]

Sadly, can't always cast frost bomb either due to movement, maybe swapping out blazing speed is a good option for this particular playstyle.

[Pulski]

I'm not sure exactly when it changed, but something in my gear made the 14242 Haste breakpoint start pulling ahead of 12684 in my sims. (It wasn't gradual, it was just suddenly better to go that much higher). Still trying to figure out what change caused it. I did get my 4p then, but with how little DPS it does, I don't see how that would shift my weights.

Either way, I agree. 50% haste is the way to go at higher ilvl Frost.

[Deleted]

Would this approach be valid at lower gear lv (555).
Currently I am using Mastery build (9522 Haste) and have 70,95% full raid buffed mastery (13306 Mastery from gear).

I am able to achieve 14242 Haste but than my Mastery would drop to 58,04% raid buffed (9434 Mastery from gear).
I would keep same level of Intellect/Spell Power.

Would this approach be viable for me?
In way of going this way should Frost Bomb be bomb of choice (as above test show) or still to go LB/NT?
I was never really huge fan of LB/NT as to me DoTing is Warlocks job and actually Frost Bomb does act like - Bomb, not some DoT like LB/NT
So, it would be really refreshing to change play-stile a bit and use Frost Bomb as part of rotation ))

[Akraen]

Frost Bomb may only ever exist in theoryland, or at super high item levels, or only with heroic warforged trinkets. I just don't know that yet. What I do know is every time I ran numbers previously, at lower item levels, LB was ahead. Now mysteriously at ilvl 578, frost bomb is ahead for me by quite a bit, too.

If I was playing your toon, I would go 14242 haste, 9434 mastery is fine. Others may disagree with that but /shrug

[Dizzeeyooo]

Hello Akraen

I've been alternating between the 18960 and the 19347 bomb caps (seemed silly to stop at 18960 when the cap with meta proc is so close and meta is up so often) and having great results with both. from reading some of the more recent posts in this thread I was considering trying the 14242 cap to see if there's any difference, but atm with my current gear I can't force my haste below 15751. would you still say try it with this haste or should I wait a week so I can upgrade the normal heroic Immerseus head + the heroic tier chest?

My armoury is eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/sylvanas/Dizzeeyo/advanced - any other comments are welcome my reforging is a bit off atm but I was just waiting for valor to be able to upgrade the gloves as well before I fix it for the 19347 cap.

[Akraen]

I'd say try it! Nice part about being so geared is you will always make the most important caps, and all the extra is just fun to play around with and you -know- it's all viable. So you pick what suits you best and gives you the best results.

My frost bomb hunch and calculations is going to be the real clincher for how I play the rest of this expansion though. I can't wait to raid tomorrow and see how it goes.

[Coldvibes]

At what world/home ms does the Haste build start underperforming compared to Mixture/Mastery build? To me it feels like at above 100ms or above, I can't keep up with the snapshotting and BF overwrites and thus defeats the purpose of going haste.

Am I wrong in thinking this?

[Akraen]

I think it's around 100ms as well.

[Pulski]

Just to add to the data, my sim puts Frost Bomb at 328k vs 340k with Living Bomb in my gear. 563, 48.28% Haste, 59.24% mastery (Was tinkering around with Arcane so I'd moved a few hundred points of haste over to mastery)