Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide - 8.1.0

[Deleted]

Still hoping for a reduced CD on CmS - i had loads of fun with CmS in WoD (multistrike says hi with PoF)

And yes, our current mastery is crap.

[noimawizard]

Still hoping for a reduced CD on CmS - i had loads of fun with CmS in WoD (multistrike says hi with PoF)

And yes, our current mastery is crap.

CmD had a longer CD in WoD. Comet Storm needs a buff though, ice nova does a lot more dmg in M+ overall by quite a bit. Doesn't make much sense since it's a 100 talent losing to a 60 talent.

[Deleted]

No CmS was also 30 sec CD in WoD. But yes, it needs some tweaking either way.

[ZombiexCat]

You're my savior, Kuni. Thanks man

[D3athsting]

Is it just me or does RoF build outdps BC? I can safely stay above 320k on st with RoF but i can barely touch 300k with BC (keep in mind i still miss 3 frostbolt dmg artifact points)

[Deleted]

Is it just me or does RoF build outdps BC? I can safely stay above 320k on st with RoF but i can barely touch 300k with BC (keep in mind i still miss 3 frostbolt dmg artifact points)

You may well find it does, even if BC sims higher for you than RoF.

I find that on high but predictable movement fights RoF is better since you can plan ahead and front load your damage into your RoP/RoF window allowing more room for error in keeping up Chain Reaction stacks, with BC you can get unlucky with mechanics that are unavoidable, drop CR, BC stacks and cause you to drop IV early which is very punishing and time consuming to build back up.

If movement is less predictable or i know it will be too much of a risk to consistently get off RoF for the whole channel during RoP, then BC will always be better and concentrate on good use of icy floes charges.

Also yes if you are missing 3/3 icy caress, then it is going to impact your performance with BC as FB will be a far larger percentage of your damage than using RoF.

[Jhoira524]

Kuni,
Just wondering if you still suggest crit to cap and then haste rather then full haste, I noticed on your gear you seem to be going all haste. I know you say to sim yourself and I definitely do Im just not sure simcraft will tell you if theirs a breakpoint you need to hit Ive never seen it. Any help would be appreciated thank you!

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And im def simming haste>int>vers>mastery>crit, which makes no sense at all, wheres Kuni's suggestion makes perfect sense. Have no idea what to do

[FrostyButt]

Kuni,
Just wondering if you still suggest crit to cap and then haste rather then full haste, I noticed on your gear you seem to be going all haste. I know you say to sim yourself and I definitely do Im just not sure simcraft will tell you if theirs a breakpoint you need to hit Ive never seen it. Any help would be appreciated thank you!

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And im def simming haste>int>vers>mastery>crit, which makes no sense at all, wheres Kuni's suggestion makes perfect sense. Have no idea what to do

What I have found is that you don't want to stack too much haste at the expense of critical strike. I managed to get my Haste to 47% unbuffed, but my critical strike suffered and sat around 23%. I changed around some gears and pushed my Critical Strike to 28%, but lost haste and now sit around 43% haste. I sim higher DPS with 28% crit and 43% haste by about 3,000 DPS.

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If movement is less predictable or i know it will be too much of a risk to consistently get off RoF for the whole channel during RoP, then BC will always be better and concentrate on good use of icy floes charges.

I suck so much balls at using Icy Floes.. I always forget that I have that ability and am like "Damn, I could have used Icy Floes there" I guess since I use Shimmer mainly to move myself around while still casting, I tend to forget I have other things. lol

[pbalsniper]

[QUOTE=FrostyButt;43634879]What I have found is that you don't want to stack too much haste at the expense of critical strike. I managed to get my Haste to 47% unbuffed, but my critical strike suffered and sat around 23%. I changed around some gears and pushed my Critical Strike to 28%, but lost haste and now sit around 43% haste. I sim higher DPS with 28% crit and 43% haste by about 3,000 DPS.

I run an absurd amount of sims, and for me the sweet spot for crit has been around 27-28%.. altho will obviously vary depending on the amount of haste on your gear as it currently stands.

[Lammer]

Ty for the guide, 1 important question conecrning priority of FoF/BF procs

if you have 3 procs of FoF and 1 proc of BF, what should I do:

scenario 1. IL + IL + IL (here we spend all FoF procs so that not to munch them later) and after this we do Shatter combo: Frostbolt + Shatter + non-FoF IL to use the Shatter debuff bonus

scenario 2. We start the Shatter combo from the very beginning despite being at 3 FoF procs. We do Frostbolt + Shatter + non-FoF IL and only after this we spend our left 2 FoF procs.

the drawback of s.2 is munching of FoF procs as we release Shatter combo being at 3 FoFs, but there are opinions that s.2 give more DPS than s.1 because it grants crit Frostbolt and crit IL due to Shatter debuff and less munching of BF procs. in short: BF proc is more valuable than FOF

were these scenarios simcrafted and which of them is better?

[Tiga]

I suck so much balls at using Icy Floes.. I always forget that I have that ability and am like "Damn, I could have used Icy Floes there" I guess since I use Shimmer mainly to move myself around while still casting, I tend to forget I have other things. lol

I used to have this problem when I had it bound on the 1 key. For Legion, I put Ice Floes on mouse wheel tilt left, blink/shimmer on mouse wheel tilt right. I have always had toggle autorun on mouse wheel click, so it felt like a natural extension. I went from almost never using the ability to sometimes ending up having it on cooldown. I'm very unhappy about the potential 7.1.5 talent changes that force you to choose between Ice Floes and Shimmer. Either I have to come up with a new use for tilt left or drop Shimmer.

[Divr]

Re-posting this here for Frost. Is this a Glacial Spike build buff and TV nerf potentially? (are these new changes or things I've just missed previously in past iterations of ptr)

Live: Glacial Spike (750% of spell power)
PTR: Glacial Spike (1000% of spell power)

Ebonbolt:
Live: Ebonbolt (900% of spell power + 2 fingers of frost)
PTR: Ebonbolt (1100% of spell power + brain freeze)

Chain Reaction:
Live: Chain Reaction (20% increase to ice lance per stack)
PTR: Chain Reacion (10% increase to ice lance per stack)

Also dont forget about this:
Frost Mage: Apply Aura: Modifies Damage/Healing Done Value: + 12%
- This affects Frostbolt as well as a few other spells.

[Rascal Bob]

Re-posting this here for Frost. Is this a Glacial Spike build buff and TV nerf potentially? (are these new changes or things I've just missed previously in past iterations of ptr)

Live: Glacial Spike (750% of spell power)
PTR: Glacial Spike (1000% of spell power)

Ebonbolt:
Live: Ebonbolt (900% of spell power + 2 fingers of frost)
PTR: Ebonbolt (1100% of spell power + brain freeze)

Chain Reaction:
Live: Chain Reaction (20% increase to ice lance per stack)
PTR: Chain Reacion (10% increase to ice lance per stack)

The chain reaction change is just because it was one of the strongest traits even though its not even a golden one. To achieve the same damage output ice lance has been buffed. You'll probably won't notice too much of a difference in damage although its a bit more forgiving to let your stacks drop.

Glacial spike was buffed, frostbolt is nerfed. I don't really know how the math goes with the GS build but I think it won't matter too much.
Currently from what I've seen you'll have enough FoF procs so the change on ebonbolt no longer giving you 2 FoF procs isn't that bad.



Now of course this is a patchwork fight so you can't take it too seriously, but if you take a look at his gear he is entirely running the wrong stat optimization for the spec he is taking. Not shatter capped or decked out with haste, still he pulls some nice deeps if you ask me. Now you'll notice he isn't playing rune of power, which you'll probably still use if you go with RoF but your perfectly fine to go a build without it. Not sure which build will pull ahead but I don't think its a GS build, it's most likely the BC or RoF build. If you check out one of the other videos of the same youtuber I posted above you'll see that the GS build is viable as well.

Chances are you'll be running TV next raid tier as well, of course this can still be changed. I wonder if fire can come even close in singel target damage, and how arcane is doing atm. I'll probably stay frost though

[Anheart]

Ty for the guide, 1 important question conecrning priority of FoF/BF procs

if you have 3 procs of FoF and 1 proc of BF, what should I do:

scenario 1. IL + IL + IL (here we spend all FoF procs so that not to munch them later) and after this we do Shatter combo: Frostbolt + Shatter + non-FoF IL to use the Shatter debuff bonus

scenario 2. We start the Shatter combo from the very beginning despite being at 3 FoF procs. We do Frostbolt + Shatter + non-FoF IL and only after this we spend our left 2 FoF procs.

the drawback of s.2 is munching of FoF procs as we release Shatter combo being at 3 FoFs, but there are opinions that s.2 give more DPS than s.1 because it grants crit Frostbolt and crit IL due to Shatter debuff and less munching of BF procs. in short: BF proc is more valuable than FOF

were these scenarios simcrafted and which of them is better?

I think you also need to consider if you have any stack of Chain Reaction at the moment when looking at these scenarios.

I don't do much sims, so this is just from my experience doing raids with frost spec.

For me, the full benefit of doing a FB + BF-Flurry + IL combo is not only getting a shattered FB and IL but also getting a stack of Chain Reaction from the FB crit.
So I'd only consider going with s.2 when I have no Chain Reaction up and when I can be far enough from the target (23+ yards) for the combo. Most of the times I'd just go with s.1

But I'd also like to know if there is any sim result to say s.2 > s.1

[Deleted]

So I'd only consider going with s.2 when I have no Chain Reaction up and when I can be far enough from the target (23+ yards) for the combo. Most of the times I'd just go with s.1

While we're on this subject, can anyone recommend a range helper addon to help with this? Can addons even perform a function like this since the changes that forced the removal of the range maps in the bossmods?

[Lammer]

this guy from the video above has a cap of FoF = 4. how?

[Deleted]

The further nerf to FB is a clear indication that they are chipping away at the GS build to keep FoF procs relevant to the spec, as on live you just ignore them. This is fine, but what pisses me off is the easier solution is to let our mastery interact with ice lance.

That or they need to re-think how we generate procs, as currently frostbolt has far far too many things attached to it i.e FoF procs, BC stacks, icicle/GS generation, CR stacks, brainfreeze, IV cd reduction, FoF generation via water jet.

I mean fuck me, does any other spell in the game come close to the amount of modifiers attached to one spell??

I know i keep harping on about it, but our mastery needs to go back to the old frostburn mastery, now we have separate modifiers for pvp, frost should be built around the shatter mechanic, that is what is iconic with the spec, big snappy bursts. Not this wanky icicle pish that causes nothing but problems due to it not affecting core abilities like icelance.

[bowchikabow]

disregard post, was corrected on next page

[Deleted]

nerfs to TV rolling and buffs to GS build. read below



This is obviously a stand alone buff, I am not sure why it needed it though. GS damage was all ready strong unless there was something I didn't notice. I consistently roll pretty devastating GS's even in 860's gear range.

Yes, the something you didn't notice was the severe nerf to frostbolt, which generates the base damage of glacial spike, so not a buff but an equalizer.

Unless they are buffing Flurry I don't see how this will help us. I need to look at the full list of frost ptr changes cause I am starting to get a bit confused with some of the changes. I get they want us using other abilities, and flurry is often under-represented, but this looks more like a direct nerf to TV rolling.

This change is to reduce the uptime of icy veins, it doesn't help us, but what it does is allow damage to be redistributed elsewhere in the spec and stop us being so reliant on high IV uptime and CR IL crits.



This is just a blanket ice lance nerf. Since Ice Lance is consistently one of our top damage abilities (look what they did to pyroblast.. same concept I think). The glacial spike buff might be the compensation for this.

WRONG. Ice lance was buffed baseline considerably in compensation, this is a very good change since it makes the spec far far less susceptible to bad rng streaks, and puts far less emphasis on maintaing CR stacks and ergo makes the spec far less punishing for dropping said stacks, which was one of the main weaknesses. Good Change.



It softens the nerf to Chain Reaction, and gives a secondary boost to GS. increases FB damage, which then increases IL damage and GS.... Ok, I will shorten this to say: These are all, in sum: Balance change. reducing TV rolling/power, increasing GS power.

That is a PTR only adjustment to give the dev's numbers that they can tune around, only.

That is how it looks to me.

Mate, as much as it would appear that i am trying to shoot you down in flames, i'm not, but i inadvertently have purely because your post is based on the last PTR data mined information, without taking into account or considering and including the changes from the four previous builds, therefore your assumptions are wildly inaccurate due the the fact that they are not factoring in many other changes that have already happened before this build.

Please do not make knee jerk posts like this without first being properly educated in the current evolution of the PTR as it causes adverse reactions from players who look to forums like this for accurate information, especially this thread considering who the author is.

Thanks.

[Pioza]

Is there a soft break point for haste %? I'm at around 36% or so but can't seem to be keeping up Icy Veins at all.