Terrible (frost) mage in need of help

[Deleted]

Hello good mages of mmo-champ. I come to you with a desperate plea. Can you give me a few tips on how to improve my dps as frost in ToT? I'm looking for any kind of advices, ranging from general tips to specific encounters. With that being said, I humbly ask you to take over my WoL and tell me what the hell am I doing wrong, because I just feel my DPS isn't cut it for the Ilvl I have.

Here is my armory http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Valesh/simple
And here is my WoL : http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/102794/

[Spazzster]

Hey, for your armory I would pick up the SP Assault ring when you can & glyph w/e instead of invocation. 10% heal is fun and all, but w/e dps while movement = well, more dps. Also, consider getting Icy Floes. I know blazing speed gets you somewhere faster, but you use a GCD, to spend a GCD running where Icy floes you pop it and cast for those 2 GCDs. But those are both small things. Oh, and roll a worgen.

For your logs - where are your pots? Pre pot and then pot again. That's all there is too it. Also, on the Jinrok fight you could get 2 3 min CD's. but you only used one. Use your CD's at the beginning, and they'll be up and ready for the last burn is what I'd say....but I'm sure someone's gonna tell me I'm wrong so w/e. But Pots. Use pots.

For Horridon - Use Pots. Try and time your on use CD's with Acceleration if you can. And you used Alter Time once. it's an 11 minute fight. Use it 4 times. And Multi Dot. Multi dot multi dot multi dot. up to 4 mobs. Nether Tempest can be as much as 40% of your dmg on that fight.

Tortos - Same as Horridon. Dot more, use CD's more effectively together. Also in general, find a way to use as many BF procs as you can (proc munch sucks, but it happens to even the best frost mages....try to minimize it nontheless) and watch you're not spammy on your Ice Lance.

Overall though, the pots, the stacking of CD's...pref with a one hit macro, and multi dotting where you can while not proc munching or being a spasm case will all add up to some better dps for you. That said, I don't see you as REALLY far off.

Oh last thing (and it looks like you're doing it however I can't tell for sure without crunching numbers which I'm not inclined to do atm) just ensure you're using every possible GCD you can to be casting something. Even moving. At the very least make it ice lance, one step up from that you could use Fireblast. Or, take the time to eat a cookie or something.

Hope that helps. Don't beat yourself up.

[Mastamage]

Haste haste haste haste haste haste haste.

[Wobe]

A good macro goes a long way. I'll get you started with an Alter Time Macro as it looks like your wasting 3-5 seconds just popping your cd's which could be done in a 1 second global, and this is a crucial part in your rotation as any time wasted is probably wasted time on trinkets, weapon enchant procs, and other things like that. The said macro is as follows:


/use 13/14 (if you have an on-use trinket, which I think you did, 13 is first trinket slot, 14 is second, so in your case use /use 14)
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Presence of Mind (1st tier talent is situational but for a fight with minimal movement, your going to use PoM, and if you dont use PoM, this won't hurt either)
/cast Alter Time


The Opener:

So on the pull your going to pre-pot, pre cast Frostfire Bolt, apply your DoT (Nether Tempest) immediately after your Frostfire Bolt Cast, pop you Frozen Orb (some people only do this if you don't have 2 stacks of FoF, what I like to do is actually use a Fingers proc at this point, then pop orb), stack your frostbolt to 3 on the target, and keep using Frostbolt until you have a Brainfreeze, 2 Finger's of Frost, and your trinkets are up, in your case only the 1 trinket will have to proc, which is good for RnG. After all this has occured you will want to hit that macro, which will pop all of your cd's for you with the touch of only 1 button! Amazing, I know! After hitting the macro, you will want to use your remaining procs (Brainfreeze and 2 Finger's of Frost, also remember you will have another Instant Cast Frostfire Bolt if you took PoM, so use this as well and make sure you don't accidentally waste it on a Frostbolt). The next part is controversial, some people like to hit the macro again at this point, which will end your Alter Time and replace all your procs immediately. From the insane amount of sims I have ran in my opinion it is actually better to just use start spamming frostbolt after you use your procs in Alter Time and let it reset itself. The reason I believe this is a DPS increase is as follows:

1. You have the chance to proc more Brainfreeze/FoF than just the original procs you went in with.
2. You extend your uptime on Icy Veins, even if it is just 3 seconds, over the course of a fight that you use this macro 3 times, it's 10 seconds more of Icy Veins.
3. The previous statement also is true for your trinkets, your just increasing your uptime on them with no penalty at all.

Of course there will be some times where you have to end Alter Time manually, this is simple done by hitting the macro again due to some type of fight mechanic, i.e. Lightning Whip on Lei Shen, but the only spec you should ever cancel your Alter Time early is Fire to stack your ignite.

I hope this helps, proper cooldown usage and a strong openor is one of the main parts of doing good dps with every class and doing this correctly will yield you much better results than your seeing currently. Good luck, and may all your hits be crits!!!

[Deleted]

Hey,

Whats ur basic rotation and priority list ?

How do you use icy veins and alter time ?

[Deleted]

so for the gear question, askmrrobot.com is a good start.

then the issue with the CD macro, e.g. mine is as follows:
#showtooltip Alter Time
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Presence Of Mind
/cast Lifeblood (i'm herbalist)
/use Potion of the Jade Serpent
/cast Alter Time
/cast Frostfirebolt

i don't have any on use trinkets btw;
this makro means, i pop up all CDs and i ill instantly cast a frostfirebolt, then i use the 2 fingers of frost proccs and the brainfreeze proc, and cast another frostbolt or maybe use an incoming proc; then either alter time ends and i hit my FFB for casting an instant or i hit the macro again to cast the instant FFB.

This is troublesome if you dont use PoM every time with AT, since you will be hardcasting the FFB which is a dps loss when infight. so you can also do it without the last line.
the opener is nicely described in the post above.

for the bosses: at jin'rokh: try to use your CDs when you're in the water pool; Horridon: i use frostbomb because it's a huge dps increase when in the add phase (which is the harder part of the fight imo); council: try to keep Nether Tempest an all 4 of them.
In general: keep the frostbolt debuff active on your main target (e.g. horridon, tortos, the corrupted one at council etc.)

[Mastamage]

so for the gear question, askmrrobot.com is a good start.

then the issue with the CD macro, e.g. mine is as follows:
#showtooltip Alter Time
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Presence Of Mind
/cast Lifeblood (i'm herbalist)
/use Potion of the Jade Serpent
/cast Alter Time
/cast Frostfirebolt

i don't have any on use trinkets btw;
this makro means, i pop up all CDs and i ill instantly cast a frostfirebolt, then i use the 2 fingers of frost proccs and the brainfreeze proc, and cast another frostbolt or maybe use an incoming proc; then either alter time ends and i hit my FFB for casting an instant or i hit the macro again to cast the instant FFB.

This is troublesome if you dont use PoM

PoM is a horrible choice for Frost.

[Deleted]

No enchant on weapon and bracers? Hit cap is also terrible, fix the basics at least.

[Hasufer]

I'm curious
Why on earth would u ever

pre cast Frostfire Bolt

NmesuzBL? it hits for less than fb, and doesn't apply a 5% dmg increase stack - furthermore it takes almost 0.6 sec more to channel than a fb, which means over ½ sec of your pot wasted on less dmg (to go into small details)

Or am I missing out on something here?

And as Rastamage points out, pom is horrible for all fights cept gara'jal or something the like - go with ice floes if u wanna increase your dps on "realistic" encounters.

[Deleted]

I would like to add: Enchant & gem your gear better

Staff & wrists need enchants, you also have too much hit & green gems!

[Deleted]

PoM is a horrible choice for Frost.

yeah ik, in the last few raids i tried blazing speed and i kinda love it. t1 talents heavily depend on situation i think...if one does not like PoM as frost (i only use it for that macro) you can easily drop it. the macro itself stays pretty much the same anyway.

[Deleted]

@NmezusBL Never ever pre or hardcast Frostfirebolt as Frost. If you choose PoM, then use also Frostbolt (check your tooltips)

[redbaronz]

My opening rotation:

Evocation to refresh invoker's energy.
Prepot
Cast mirror images
Precast frostbolt as tank pulls
Nether tempest
Frostbolt
Frostbolt (to get 3 stacks on boss)
Frozen orb
icy veins

Now try to get as much procs as possible in the next 14 seconds. 2 FoF and a brain freeze proc.

Then POM, alter time and use up procs, instant frostbolt and refresh nether tempest if needed. Then cast frostbolt until alter time runs out and do it all again.

[RickJamesLich]

A few tips from me:

1. It's worth saving on to frost orb for a bit if know 15 or 20 seconds later there will be more adds for you - this is especially true for horridon, council, and tortos, being patient can bring a big increase to your dps with ur CD's.
2. Have an idea of which adds you can use deep freeze on, besides helping out the tank those ice lances are definitely worth it.
3. Multi dot, but make sure you aren't going to dot something that may end up dying very soon anyways, just be smart about it.
4. If you know you will have to move a lot, try to save at least a fingers of frost (or possibly orb of frost) for it, will definitely save you some dps. With frostfire bolt procs, it's best to use them very quick, as you can often get the proc overridden by a new proc which leads to lost dps.
5. Any fight where improved invis or temporal shield are useful, always go with them, they will net you a little bit more dps generally.