Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Kuni Zyrekai]

That`s why your thread is my first shelter. Just a small additional question.

In your first line you`ve stated Spell Haste %=(Haste Rating/128.125). So my actual casting time without any cooldowns like icy veins must be:

2 / (1 + (25.55 / 128.125) = 1.668s on frostbolt`s default and 1.251s GCD, right?

But "Quartz" shows me 1.56s casting time with 15,55% raid buffed + 10% T11 4pb

The first one is just percent haste from rating, I should have been more clear. Using it I can derive that you should have, assuming you have the 5% haste buff, 967 haste rating and 1608 if you don't run 5% haste raid buff. Little margin of error, but that should be right within a few points either direction?

The second one is actual cast time change, it would be 2 / (1 + (25.55 / 100)) = 1.593 for frostbolt and 1.5 / (1 + (15.55 / 100)) = 1.298 for the GCD, as that does not benefit from the set bonus.

I am unsure as to why Quartz is off as I don't use it, but these numbers should match up to tooltip cast times unless the set bonus is being applied in a strange manner.

---------- Post added 2011-04-13 at 02:13 PM ----------

I'm just curious if you've ever had SimCraft give you back simulations where it's basically having you chain cast FFB? I'm not exactly sure why this happened. I haven't been tinkering around with the settings or anything, but since I got DMC: Volcano and now my 2 piece T11, it often gives me parses where ~40% of my damage is FFB instead of FB.

If someone wants to check out my armory link in case someone wants to test it and see if it's just me, my character is Kylnor on Alleria. Unfortunately MMO won't let me post links yet

I have quite honestly never had it do that. All I can think of is that you accidentally removed the conditional for casting it only during brain freeze somehow. Your character sims properly for me.

[bg0702]

I have quite honestly never had it do that. All I can think of is that you accidentally removed the conditional for casting it only during brain freeze somehow. Your character sims properly for me.

After you said that, although I was sure that I hadn't tinkered with the priority list, I went back to check anyway. The conditional for brain freeze to be cast with brain freeze is there, but going down the list, at M it has frostbolt cast conditionally with Early Frost and then the next priority spell is FFB. I'm not sure how this happened. I even went back and redownloaded SimCraft and it still gave me the same issue. I guess I'll need to go in and change it back to frostbolt.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

After you said that, although I was sure that I hadn't tinkered with the priority list, I went back to check anyway. The conditional for brain freeze to be cast with brain freeze is there, but going down the list, at M it has frostbolt cast conditionally with Early Frost and then the next priority spell is FFB. I'm not sure how this happened. I even went back and redownloaded SimCraft and it still gave me the same issue. I guess I'll need to go in and change it back to frostbolt.

OH! You're using the frost-centric FFB spec. Not too sure how it's grabbing that out of your spec, but that's the default priority for frost-FFB. There's no early frost conditional for frost itself.

[bg0702]

OH! You're using the frost-centric FFB spec. Not too sure how it's grabbing that out of your spec, but that's the default priority for frost-FFB. There's no early frost conditional for frost itself.

Hmm, is there a way to set the spec manually? At first I thought it might be because I'm still rocking the Glyph of Molten Armor for dungeons and the occasional raid, but even after I switched to Glyph of Frostbolt it was still running it that way. Short of moving the two points from Permafrost to Enduring Winter our specs are identical =(. Sad panda.

[FYSthunderskeet]

I've got an issue that maybe you guys can help me out with. Maybe I'm missing something.

I've got 17.30% crit with food and flask. I've been assuming that all the following stack up: 5% raid buff, 5% boss debuff, and 5% 2pc on IL. So that's essentially another 15% making my crit change 32.3%, correct? I know that's about 1% under the IL crit cap but would that really cause me to only crit 66.7% IL? Also, I guess that 1% would translate into 3% with of shatter but still, seems like a big drop.

Now if the above is correct and possible, could I just replaced my 208 haste cog for 208 crit cog to boost me up to 33.45% IL crit chance?

Edit during a raid: I'm starting to think that counting on the 5% debuff to be up all the time is not a good idea considering that they could be dead, not keep the debuff up, or just not be in the raid. Wondering if I should just reforge my crit back up to 23.33

[bg0702]

Edit during a raid: I'm starting to think that counting on the 5% debuff to be up all the time is not a good idea considering that they could be dead, not keep the debuff up, or just not be in the raid. Wondering if I should just reforge my crit back up to 23.33

I've found this to be especially annoying with warlocks. Fire mages, short of dying, tend to keep the 5% debuff all the time. However, depending on the spec of the Warlock, I find that they sometimes let the buff drop off. I believe Demonology in particular requires the Warlock to be within 10 yards of the boss to do certain attacks to keep up their 5% debuff and sometimes that's just not possible. Because of this, I tend to keep up Molten Armor for most fights as long as I can and use the mana gem to supplement my mana. If I can evocate without much of a dps loss then I will and go on, or just switch to mage armor at that point. This pretty much ensures that I'm going to be able to stay crit capped (or close to it) for most of the time and still gives me a bit of a dps increase because of the increased crit chance for Frostbolt and helping out with DF and FFB.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Hmm, is there a way to set the spec manually? At first I thought it might be because I'm still rocking the Glyph of Molten Armor for dungeons and the occasional raid, but even after I switched to Glyph of Frostbolt it was still running it that way. Short of moving the two points from Permafrost to Enduring Winter our specs are identical =(. Sad panda.

I honestly don't know. I've never had it throw that issue at me before. Your best bet would be to copy the action list out of the frost BiS list, modify it to your playstyle, import your character and replace the action list. I'm not aware of any way to automatically force detection of frost over frost-FFB.

I've got an issue that maybe you guys can help me out with. Maybe I'm missing something.

I've got 17.30% crit with food and flask. I've been assuming that all the following stack up: 5% raid buff, 5% boss debuff, and 5% 2pc on IL. So that's essentially another 15% making my crit change 32.3%, correct? I know that's about 1% under the IL crit cap but would that really cause me to only crit 66.7% IL? Also, I guess that 1% would translate into 3% with of shatter but still, seems like a big drop.

Now if the above is correct and possible, could I just replaced my 208 haste cog for 208 crit cog to boost me up to 33.45% IL crit chance?

Edit during a raid: I'm starting to think that counting on the 5% debuff to be up all the time is not a good idea considering that they could be dead, not keep the debuff up, or just not be in the raid. Wondering if I should just reforge my crit back up to 23.33

If you're lacking the debuff, then sure, go back up to 23.33%. Just that in 25 man you would hopefully have at least one warlock alive that isn't aff-drain. In a 10 man for sure you'll have to adjust based on what you have available to you. But for the most part, if you have a warlock or a fire mage, they SHOULD be holding the debuff up for the duration. Scorch, pyro and shadowbolt all apply it, there should be one of them up for the duration of the fight at all times if you have the class/spec in your raid. Missing 1% should only drop you down to 96-97%.

Related: I miss Winter's Chill.

---------- Post added 2011-04-13 at 11:09 PM ----------

I've found this to be especially annoying with warlocks. Fire mages, short of dying, tend to keep the 5% debuff all the time. However, depending on the spec of the Warlock, I find that they sometimes let the buff drop off. I believe Demonology in particular requires the Warlock to be within 10 yards of the boss to do certain attacks to keep up their 5% debuff and sometimes that's just not possible.

Warlock 5% is from both incinerate and shadow bolt for 30 seconds. It should be up regardless unless they're using drain life as their filler for a subset of afflic. Demo especially, as even in demon form you should in theory get a molten core proc which you would want to use to close the gap of the 30 second duration of the transform.

Course if there's any demo locks out there who would correct me, my knowledge is only from reading, not playing.

[FYSthunderskeet]

10man raids, no fire mage just a warlock.

I haven't found an easy way to just drop/gain 5% crit depending on if if we have a warlock or not short of switching to glyphed molten armor (trading out frostbolt glyph i think) and I suppose that can't be a bad trade off since i'd lose 5% fb crit and gain 5% crit for all. Although I will miss my mana-carefree play I originally played with molten armor and managed my mana pretty well but lately i've been using mage and it's kinda nice. But anyway, if I just permanently kept myself at 23.33% crit regardless of the warlock debuff could that hurt my dps? All I can see it affecting is 5% wasted IL crit assuming the debuff is kept up but in return I'd have (theoretically) guaranteed 100% IL crits and an extra 5% crit for all my other spells.

Kinda off-topic...askmrrobot is suggesting that i drop my hit to 16.85%...I dont think I will

[Kuni Zyrekai]

But anyway, if I just permanently kept myself at 23.33% crit regardless of the warlock debuff could that hurt my dps? All I can see it affecting is 5% wasted IL crit assuming the debuff is kept up but in return I'd have (theoretically) guaranteed 100% IL crits and an extra 5% crit for all my other spells.

If you kept yourself at 23.33% and the warlock keeps it up 100%, you've lost as much DPS as the wasted 5% tier bonus but gained crit for FFB/DF/frostbolt. I'm not sure the uptime on the debuff vs loss of DPS for said uptime break even point would be at though. But if you can't rely on him to keep it up for a reasonable percentage of the fight, then you probably should stick your gear towards 23.33%. You can swap armour mid-fight if he's doing his job, but you've then lost a glyph's bonus. It comes down to if you think the warlock can keep the debuff up or not and if you're comfortable with the extra mana management.

---------- Post added 2011-04-14 at 01:08 AM ----------

I`ve tested it tonight and the result really surprised me. Now I´m ranked #1 (Frost Mages) by using BF whenever its ready Oo

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/5z9rw...d/?s=731&e=982

Your spot is safe for another week, I died at 21%. I had you if I didn't.

[Deleted]

Haha, let the games begin : ) I´m really surprised how weak the top 20 Frost Mages are. I´ve logged Argaloth with a pug yesterday, and reached first place. The fight lasts 191 Seconds and thats way to much time for a good DPS orientated try. Don't get me wrong, I don´t think I´m the best Frost Mage in the world, i know there is much room for improvement and I still see myself as an "apprentice".

All i want to say is, can´t wait to compete with you : ) To sad we never will play in a pug together : /

PS I think i get the whole cooldown thing. They are nearly match to what Quartz shows me.

*Edit* top 20 frost mages 10 man, sry valanna : )

[Valanna]

Join the real men in 25 man, I'm feeling lonely.

http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/58934/rankings/players/

[Deleted]

Very impressive! I would like to play 25 man, just because of all the missing buffs (good bye lack of crit) . You and your guild really play the encounters like they should have been played.
They let you nuke Magmaw! I´m relly jealous ^^ I´m in charge of the Lava Parasites by spamming blizzard and frost nova.

[FYSthunderskeet]

Haha, let the games begin : ) I´m really surprised how weak the top 20 Frost Mages are. I´ve logged Argaloth with a pug yesterday, and reached first place. The fight lasts 191 Seconds and thats way to much time for a good DPS orientated try. Don't get me wrong, I don´t think I´m the best Frost Mage in the world, i know there is much room for improvement and I still see myself as an "apprentice".

All i want to say is, can´t wait to compete with you : ) To sad we never will play in a pug together : /

PS I think i get the whole cooldown thing. They are nearly match to what Quartz shows me.

I have never not been #1 in all the Argaloth pugs I've been in. I have also yet to be out dps'd by a fire mage. Granted they are pugs and maybe all the good players run it with their guild. I don't think frost mages are given enough credit. But all the "lol frost mage" comments stop when the fight is over

Another askmrrobot comment: Do we know what armor it assumes we're using?

[Deleted]

I really hope i didn´t offend anyone! I´m happy for everyone who did well or has a very successful raid. Im very serious about this. I like the frost mage community because they treat each other with respect and always beeing helpful (my experience so far).

Another askmrrobot comment: Do we know what armor it assumes we're using?

Hm, if you ask me i would say Molten, if you ask Kuni hey will answer Mage. I think it depends on gear, setup and playing style. But as already mentioned, im just "the apprentice"

[Valanna]

Another askmrrobot comment: Do we know what armor it assumes we're using?

Are you asking which armor askmrrobot assumes is on during its simulations, or are you asking how armors should be handled according to askmrrobot?

How I do it, is: On encounters where I make good use of every global, for example, never have to be on the move so much that I am forced to use un-empowered ice lances, I use mage armor the whole fight. I also have crit soft cap for all empowered spells, not only ice lance, so molten is less powerful for me. It works well, even though you end all fights on around 100% mana (:P). You could possibly win a few dps points by using molten the last portion of a fight, if timed very well.

On fights where not every global is well-used, I switch. Say, Atramedes or Chimaeron. On Chimaeron switch back and forth when you get the hit debuff, as spells cast during that time are unlikely to be valuable, get molten for whole phase 2 if you wanna help your raid as much as possible. On Atramedes, use molten on ground phases, and mage armor on air phases. Because on air phase, you won't be able to keep casting frostbolt and empowered spells, without insanely dumb luck.

To summarize, and to hand the moral of the story to you on a silver platter: Determining which way to use armors by simulating a Patchwerk fight is useless. A thing like this requires much more thinking and adapting to fight mechanics, it isn't finite on a piece of paper. According to some sims (it seems), armor swapping might result in an increase to dps. Given that there are both yay- and nay-sayers, it's likely to be somewhere in the middle. What can we draw from this? If you can armor swap without wasting dps, then it's profitable for sure. On Patchwerk fights, mathematics might keep having a brawl.

[Max Rebo]

To summarize, and to hand the moral of the story to you on a silver platter: Determining which way to use armors by simulating a Patchwerk fight is useless. A thing like this requires much more thinking and adapting to fight mechanics, it isn't finite on a piece of paper. According to some sims (it seems), armor swapping might result in an increase to dps. Given that there are both yay- and nay-sayers, it's likely to be somewhere in the middle. What can we draw from this? If you can armor swap without wasting dps, then it's profitable for sure. On Patchwerk fights, mathematics might keep having a brawl.

On most fights, I've been starting out with molten armor and switching to mage armor when mana gets to about 30-ish%. Once I regen enough mana and I think I'll have enough for the rest of the fight, I may switch back to molten, but I don't know how much of a difference it would make by switching twice. At any rate, the main reason I switch is in hope of avoiding an evocate. Sometimes it's not possible for me, though.

Here's my mage: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...i/klunk/simple
Our raid progression has been rather slow, however. Attendance issues, not enough healers, etc.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

All i want to say is, can´t wait to compete with you : ) To sad we never will play in a pug together : /

Yeah, it is a shame. Anyway the both of you will probably only see me run BH25 via pugs as my guild is 10 man only sadly. Any 25 placements you see will be me in a pug.

Another askmrrobot comment: Do we know what armor it assumes we're using?

I believe it's following SimC's formulation of starting out on molten and then swapping to mage at mana percent*15<time to die until 60% when it swaps back to molten, but I could be wrong.

As to what you should do, it comes down to playstyle. Everyone here has posted a valid way to do it. The guide is written for mage armour from an ease of use standpoint given most people looking for help will likely prefer the simpler mana until they adjust to the spec. As was stated though, I love mage armour. The resists are priceless in quite a few fights.

[Deleted]

I have no problem switching armors if needed. But latest runs on the PTR showed me, that there is no way to benefit from the +70% Blizzard buff combined with my current playing style (molten, gems, short evo, switch to mage). That´s the only thing im asking for: The 1600 Mana Frostbolt.

Oh! And a 200k mana shield for tanking

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Oh! And a 200k manashield for tanking

You and me both. Roll the crit protection from molten into frost and let us queue as tanks imo.

OH! You're on PTR. I meant to ask since I can't get on: Blizzard buff, what's the scaling work out to now? If you could tell me what it ticks for, non-crit, with no buffs as well as telling me the character's spell power, that would be wonderful!

[Deleted]

Hit:

Min: 2084
Avg: 2435
Max: 2508

Spellpower: 6394

Hope that is what you have asked for. If not, I`m going to feed you with more numbers : )