Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Max Rebo]

All fine and well they don't want everything to devolve to AOE fests. The problem comes from the fact that they put a fair few AOE pulls in 5 mans, and raid encounters such as Magmaw (with stupid groups not kiting/tanking them), Beth'tilac, Rhyolith, and Occu'thar. They're designing AOE fests.

Blizzard scales so poorly because of the AOE damage nerf AND the fingers interaction nerf. A holy priest, not in damage chakra, can out-damage a frost mage on an AOE pull with mind sear spam. The issue is that because blizzard is so weak now, it's not worth using until you have 5-6 targets around, and even that's debatable because single target with piercing chill might very well out-damage that until a few more adds are thrown in. You can't rely on ring of frost to be up or the adds to stay on the ring border, nor can you rely on freeze during a boss fight as you're using that almost on CD anyway. So the AOE burst we can produce between two fairly long cooldowns is pointless, as when it matters there's a really good chance we can't produce it.

Another example. Arcane, the top single target DPS build for mages and historically the weakest AOE spec in the game, now has an AOE that's actually fairly potent when specced into, and a stronger AOE than frost even when not taking advantage of the interaction with arcane blast. Healer specs have a stronger AOE than we have. Blizz has shown that they enjoy making AOE part of fights, they've also shown apparent interest in maintaining frost as an actual DPS spec. The easiest fix to our AOE is FoF interaction put back on blizzard.

You may have misinterpreted my post. I was saying that Blizzard may not have wanted AoE-fests (even though we do have a good bit of AoE in various instances), but at the same time, Blizzard AoE needs a huge buff, as you indicated. I totally agree with you.

Many other specs have strong AoE and Frost needs to be better. It doesn't have to be the best, but *at least* having it work with FoF would be great.

Here's to hoping for results in future patches.

[Deleted]

World 4th on Shannox normal:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Firelands/Shannox/25N/Frost_Mage/?page=1

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5502&e=5856

[takolin]

It's really easy to get to the critsoftcap.

I'm even reforging out of crit to haste/hit because I have too much.

[yjmark]

For 10-man raiding, the 2 x 5% crit buffs are quite variable in my guild. Sometimes you have 'em both, sometimes only one, and sometimes none. Is it worth gearing for "not having" them, and then having a bunch of excess crit when you do? Or would I be better off gearing for having them, and then not quite be at the crit cap if we don't?

Or, is it pretty much "best practice" to carry some extra gear so that I can adjust as needed?

[Deleted]

No, don´t go for excess crit, that`s a complete waste! Go for 28.34% (29%). That´s what I´m doing at the moment (still have the T11 4p) and what I will do next week (with the T12 4p). I would really appreciate a 5% frost mage debuff for more constancy.

[mostlyharmless]

World 4th on Shannox normal:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Firelands/Shannox/25N/Frost_Mage/?page=1

Nice job! It's kind of interesting to click/compare the fire mage, arcane mage results though, I'm surprised arcane parses are several thousand dps higher. It's probably just a matter of the top geared mages all going arcane. I can see why fire is close to arcane that fight, I bet fire would be the potential top spec due to multiple targeting, lucky ignite combustion spreads, and finally MF for boss once the ads are down.

[Imnick]

Nice job! It's kind of interesting to click/compare the fire mage, arcane mage results though, I'm surprised arcane parses are several thousand dps higher. It's probably just a matter of the top geared mages all going arcane. I can see why fire is close to arcane that fight, I bet fire would be the potential top spec due to multiple targeting, lucky ignite combustion spreads, and finally MF for boss once the ads are down.

All three dogs are basically never going to be close enough together to get combustion on all of them, riplimb will only be close in the few seconds it takes for him to pass over the spear.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Edited in an update to reflect current evocation/armour usage.

[Zurb]

World 4th on Shannox normal:

Not too shabby. I am surprised that my #1 lasted this long.

[Video Games]

Anybody know if rune of zeth is better than heroic tm? I just switched to frost again since I don't have sow and I'm trying to get shit set up for tomorrow.

[takolin]

Anybody know if rune of zeth is better than heroic tm? I just switched to frost again since I don't have sow and I'm trying to get shit set up for tomorrow.

Well I haven't done any math but here's some thinking.

Assuming you're not an engineer the rune can be lined up with every FFO and every other DF so the burst you get from a FFO will be amplified.
The crit can be reforged in other useful stats like haste/hit if you're above the crit cap.


Statwise the rune comes out a lot worse than the mirror, but you should sim it to see if the CD stacking can outweigh the mirror's raw stats.


TM: 363 int - 435 mastery (assuming a 20% uptime)
Rune: 383 crit (reforgable) - 319 int (using on CD)

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Anybody know if rune of zeth is better than heroic tm? I just switched to frost again since I don't have sow and I'm trying to get shit set up for tomorrow.

Almost certain H TM is better. The intellect works out far in favour for it, unless you're far enough below hit cap that the reforge would push Zeth above effective DPS of H TM. Given you were raiding prior to now, which was apparently enough time in Firelands that you have access to Zeth and probably most of T12 gear, I doubt this is the case. At least not to the extent it would sway the decision at any rate.

Usual disclaimer, sim it yourself to be sure, gut reactions, all that good stuff. I'm voting H TM.

[Video Games]

Almost certain H TM is better. The intellect works out far in favour for it, unless you're far enough below hit cap that the reforge would push Zeth above effective DPS of H TM. Given you were raiding prior to now, which was apparently enough time in Firelands that you have access to Zeth and probably most of T12 gear, I doubt this is the case. At least not to the extent it would sway the decision at any rate.

Usual disclaimer, sim it yourself to be sure, gut reactions, all that good stuff. I'm voting H TM.

Kewl, thanks. And yeah I am doing firelands hardmodes so I have a bunch of shit to choose from and trinkets have always been hard to calculate for me, besides the obvious op ones.

[Deleted]

For me, I will always raid as frost. I won't mind another AOE then Blizzard.

[Deleted]

Anyone knows whether Hc Bell is better than DMC:V ?

[Deleted]

Ormeru > http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/tichondrius/Ormeru/advanced
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/1c89h...=13993&e=14315
Looks like your forgot to activate your Rune of Zeth during your Baleroc down
Or you had another trinket, but I don't see any trinket buff except Volcanic Destruction.
Your Deep Freezes average crit damage look a little weak (mine do 10k more with 700 less intel ), but maybe it's related to your lack of trinket.

On my mage alt (ilvl 368) I do 27k on Baleroc (10man), looking forward to having the 4pT12 to spam Frostfire Bolt yay

[Kyorii]

Question, how good is Frost AoE compared to Arcane? Do you keep FS debuff up while Blizzarding or just Blizzard?

[Deleted]

Great Guide

[Ormeru]

Ormeru
Looks like your forgot to activate your Rune of Zeth during your Baleroc down
Or you had another trinket, but I don't see any trinket buff except Volcanic Destruction.
Your Deep Freezes average crit damage look a little weak (mine do 10k more with 700 less intel ), but maybe it's related to your lack of trinket.

On my mage alt (ilvl 368) I do 27k on Baleroc (10man), looking forward to having the 4pT12 to spam Frostfire Bolt yay

Hrm. That's interesting. I could've swore everything was working correctly. I have Rune of Zeth macro'd to Deep Freeze so that I get as much damage as possible from it. I'll try it again this week. Thanks for the response! =D

[Him]

Does anyone know the number for the % of crit we should be going for?