Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Hinalover]

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

With raid buffs, you should be aiming for 33.33% chance to crit. With the Shatter talent, this will cause all Deep Freezes, Ice Lance, and Frostfire Bolts to frozen targets (aka whenever Fingers of Frost is up) to crit 100% of the time.

[Swizzle]

With raid buffs, you should be aiming for 33.33% chance to crit. With the Shatter talent, this will cause all Deep Freezes, Ice Lance, and Frostfire Bolts to frozen targets (aka whenever Fingers of Frost is up) to crit 100% of the time.

Not quite. Bosses have an innate amount of Crit suppressions ranging between 2-3% (can't remember the exact amount), so you actually need between 34-35% Crit to be fully capped against skull level mobs.

[Hinalover]

Not quite. Bosses have an innate amount of Crit suppressions ranging between 2-3% (can't remember the exact amount), so you actually need between 34-35% Crit to be fully capped against skull level mobs.

Actually since cata there hasn't been any indication that crit suppression even exists. I know melee have a crit suppression of 4.8% however all I've read on Elitist Jerks is that they are up in arms in the answer if there is a crit suppression or not. I've talked to several members on that forum and the only clear answer is that there hasn't been a finalized answer if there is or isn't a crit suppression.

[jimmy valmer]

does this apply to 5 mans ? How well can frost do ?

[lhehitman]

we were doing the delegation quest line last night for our priest who got the branch by getting the shards off each boss then wiping so we could get the cinders from them so i decided to just dick around in my pvp frost spec. Wow is it so much more fun than fire and arcane. Maybe its jut because i havnt played it before but it was sooo much more fun to play. Definatly would consider playing if they didnt need my crit debuff :/

[Imnick]

does this apply to 5 mans ? How well can frost do ?

In five mans you're basically never going to have the 5% crit buff and 5% crit debuff so you'll need 33% crit on your gear

[Deleted]

Our Warlock left the roster and now its pretty annoying to play frost, because I had to "sacrifice" a lot of haste to reach the 33.33% cap. Added to this, the missing crit debuff is directly affecting our raid dps. I think i have to play fire for a while. I doubt Blizzard will fix this in future, because of pvp : / I´m pretty sad now.

[Max Rebo]

Our Warlock left the roster and now its pretty annoying to play frost, because I had to "sacrifice" a lot of haste to reach the 33.33% cap. Added to this, the missing crit debuff is directly affecting our raid dps. I think i have to play fire for a while. I doub´t Blizzard will fix this in future, because of pvp : / I´m pretty sad now.

Do you have someone else to bring the 3% damage buff? If not, then Arcane would be better. Depends on your situation, I guess.

Anyway, I'm in the same boat... I'm usually missing a lot of crit since we've been raiding primarily 10m. I tend to see too many non-crit DFs for my liking. Heck, if even one of them doesn't crit, it hurts.

[Swizzle]

Actually since cata there hasn't been any indication that crit suppression even exists. I know melee have a crit suppression of 4.8% however all I've read on Elitist Jerks is that they are up in arms in the answer if there is a crit suppression or not. I've talked to several members on that forum and the only clear answer is that there hasn't been a finalized answer if there is or isn't a crit suppression.

Last I read that thread, which was admittedly a few months ago, I know the debate was on how much suppression there was with the closest decimal percentage I found being 2.8%. If something's changed since then to say that there is no suppression, then that's great, but I know that when I run sims at 33.34% Crit (raid buffed including the 5% Crit debuff on the boss), my DF/IL crit rate is never 100%, usually being between 97-99%. When I push it slightly past 34% is when I get the wonderful 100% Crit chance.

---------- Post added 2011-08-10 at 05:12 PM ----------

On that note, it seems both Frost and Fire are getting a slight indirect nerd with 4.2.2 due to the reduction of the Mastery on Necromantic Focus from 480 to 440. It's not much, but it will lower the DPS ever so slightly to two specs that are not at the top currently. I suppose it could be due to high hybrid and Warlock scaling with the trinket, still sucks though.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

On that note, it seems both Frost and Fire are getting a slight indirect nerd with 4.2.2 due to the reduction of the Mastery on Necromantic Focus from 480 to 440. It's not much, but it will lower the DPS ever so slightly to two specs that are not at the top currently. I suppose it could be due to high hybrid and Warlock scaling with the trinket, still sucks though.

According to older Blizz posts, that nerf has been in effect since about a week into patch. The values on the tooltips never changed, but the nerf was applied in what was actually applied to mastery rating. Course I doubt we were simming the changed value.

[Swizzle]

True, I'm going to rerun my Frost and Fire sims running the new values to get closer results.

---------- Post added 2011-08-10 at 07:52 PM ----------

Just as I thought, both Fire and Frost lost ~100 DPS due to the NMF change. Huzzah!!! 4.2 BiS List has been updated to reflect the changes.

[Hinalover]

SimC and Rawr both have the changes in place as of right now (live). I actually changed Rawr's database shortly after SimC did to theirs. The heroic numbers (besides the Necomantic Focus which someone over on SimC was able to confirm 3 weeks in or so) were guesstimates.

Edit: I know Rawr's changes were done back on July 10th. so SimC's changes were at most a week prior to that.

[Molly702]

World 4th on Shannox normal

1st on Beth'tilac normal

http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/play...5N/Frost_Mage/

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...C3%BF/advanced

[Garnier Fructis]

I recently picked up Theralion's Mirror to replace my Alchemist Stone, and I'm starting to think that it was a pretty bad trade after considering what mastery does for Frost Mages. Now passive mastery isn't all that bad but this trinket has mastery as the proc. As it could proc and be mostly wasted (few FoF procs), would it be a good idea to recreate the Alchemist Stone?

[Deleted]

I recently picked up Theralion's Mirror to replace my Alchemist Stone, and I'm starting to think that it was a pretty bad trade after considering what mastery does for Frost Mages. Now passive mastery isn't all that bad but this trinket has mastery as the proc. As it could proc and be mostly wasted (few FoF procs), would it be a good idea to recreate the Alchemist Stone?

Well, frost in general is really RNG, TM just increases that RNG, it could be very powerful (lots of FoF procs maybe coupled with Brain Freeze) or just really bad. At the start of the fight though, assuming it procs (which it probably will), it's gonna be really powerful because you'll be having 2 FFOs up. I'm assuming you're talking about TM normal and not heroic, cause choosing between alchemist's stone and TM hc is really a no brainer.

[Raynfal]

While leveling my frost mage, I just picked up a point in Ice Shards. Now, the guide says that the Ice Shards slow no longer procs FoF as of 4.0, but I could have sworn while AoEing the crap out of BRD I had FoF and BF proccing left and right. I don't -think- it was my usage of Freeze on some of the AoE pulls (I certainly didn't use it EVERY time I used Blizzard), but I'll check again later when I'm home from work.

Oh, and side note, getting 100k FFB crits at level 58 against the BRD Molten War Golem makes me happy inside.

[Zireael]

While playing my frost mage alt, i found myself in big troubles with mana. If there is aoe in fight it becomes even worse.
(My dps is rather low too, but thats something for me to fight with alone )

I start with molten and switch to mages rather soon in fight and am almost unable to regen enought mana to switch back. I tried the new molten/evo tactic too, but i run out of mana really fast.

Imputed my char to SimulationCraft, i get little over 18k using molten/evo, and mana timetable drops to zero for part of fight. With mage without switching, over 20k dmg. (Running 6% sp and no crit debuff, only crit buff presented)
I am not aware of any deviation from standard spec and gear is more or less so-so. Can somebody experienced point me in right direction please?

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...risha/advanced

[Taalyn]

http://worldoflogs.com/rankings/play...0N/Frost_Mage/

22! Thanks Kuni. Maybe next week I'll actually flask, use a pot, and completely ignore all of the dragons.

[Garnier Fructis]

Well, frost in general is really RNG, TM just increases that RNG, it could be very powerful (lots of FoF procs maybe coupled with Brain Freeze) or just really bad. At the start of the fight though, assuming it procs (which it probably will), it's gonna be really powerful because you'll be having 2 FFOs up. I'm assuming you're talking about TM normal and not heroic, cause choosing between alchemist's stone and TM hc is really a no brainer.

It's normal. I don't seriously raid on any character besides my rogue so anything I pick up for my mage will be from trade pugs.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Now, the guide says that the Ice Shards slow no longer procs FoF as of 4.0

Blizzard no longer WORKS with FoF. It still procs it. In Wrath, blizzard would consume and generate FoF charges, making the subsequent AOE crit storm amazing. This is no longer the case.