Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

**Valanna** · 2011-01-28, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Everius

Atm with Rawr : After reaching the crit cap, It makes you reforge mastery to haste. I would agree with everything above (haste = more FoF)

Now in the next patch, any idea how the haste vs mastery dilemma is going to turn out ?

About the guide : Did anyone point out soft haste cap on FFB ? (1 extra tick at 13.5 % with 2/3 in netherwing presence) (I know its very minor)

Rawr isn't reliable yet. It values mastery very wrongly. Just load your normal gear and look at the EP values. According to EJ, you want to keep haste and mastery rating on an even level, while rawr suggests haste being twice as valuable.

**Fractoman** · 2011-02-07, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by Kuni Zyrekai

Yes, it is entirely an option to use molten armour but it is a fair bit more work and frankly, I don't feel it's a safe way to play for most people. This is pre-DF glyph, so ignore the glyph choices, but that molten is not sustainable for the fight lengths. Now given that Tyrian in the first link actually managed to do it, yes, it is an option. It is however something I feel that most mages, especially ones coming here for help, might not be able to manage quite as well as using mage armour and grabbing all the DPS talents. I'll add a note in the guide about it though.

From personal experience with this issue I merely use mana gems, usually evocate only once, and even if the boss fight does drag on long enough for me to get down to 20% mana after evocating I simply SWITCH ARMORS over to mage armor. My mana actually GOES UP after doing that allowing me to dps without regard for mana, at all. Admittedly this is only in lengthy fights, and some people are lazy and don't like to deal with taking care of their mana usage and just like to pew pew, but I see it as until I'm at 33.34% crit with raid buffs, using molten armor, even for the first 6-7 minutes of a fight, increases my dps significantly off of all the retarded crits I get. That's just me though.

BTW after reading this, I ran with a Fire Mage on Halfus and did literally the exact same DPS as he did, even though the guy has a BiS epic main hand and Power Torrent (both of which I'm lacking, since I haven't had the good luck to see the dagger drop off the second boss in BoT and don't feel like spending 8k gold on an enchant for a blue). Just to add icing to the cake, I out dps'd him on the second boss(es) in BoT by a full 2.4%. And this guy ain't no slacker, neither.

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-07, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by Fractoman

From personal experience with this issue I merely use mana gems, usually evocate only once, and even if the boss fight does drag on long enough for me to get down to 20% mana after evocating I simply SWITCH ARMORS over to mage armor. My mana actually GOES UP after doing that allowing me to dps without regard for mana, at all. Admittedly this is only in lengthy fights, and some people are lazy and don't like to deal with taking care of their mana usage and just like to pew pew, but I see it as until I'm at 33.34% crit with raid buffs, using molten armor, even for the first 6-7 minutes of a fight, increases my dps significantly off of all the retarded crits I get. That's just me though.

I think this might be a mana pool thing, because frost is not mana-positive with mage armour up at my gear level. Using simcraft and forcing it to mage armour for the duration has given a very small DPS increase most of the time, although this could be due to both my crit rate and the BiS gear set stats. What's your raid buffed total mana?

For example, the default mage behaviour modelled in simcraft is "mage_armor,if=(mana_pct*6)<target.time_to_die", being if your mana percent times 6 is less than the estimated time to die of the boss in seconds, then switch to mage armour. This kicks in about 20 or so spells into the sim, and has mana slowly decline from there with periodic boosts via mana gem. Removing that line and defaulting it to mage armour shows much the same graph, minus the initial sharp decline. Both ways usually end around 60% mana remaining after 500 seconds. Your method is different again, but involves not getting evocation interrupted and a lot more attention paid to your mana. I'm not entirely sure how to model that correctly and my mana won't hold out for it to work for me personally. I'd be quite interested in a comparison.

Now with the patch upon us tomorrow and armour swapping then only costing a GCD, it's up to you if you want to swap them mid-fight. The difference is literally simulated out to under 10 DPS in my gear and the BiS list on both live and PTR tests. Download simcraft and test for yourself with your own gear, find out which is better for your specific situation. I'm personally still an advocate of mage armour for the duration. My hit gear is not all that great but I've managed to hit very close to crit cap without molten.

Originally Posted by Fractoman

BTW after reading this, I ran with a Fire Mage on Halfus and did literally the exact same DPS as he did, even though the guy has a BiS epic main hand and Power Torrent (both of which I'm lacking, since I haven't had the good luck to see the dagger drop off the second boss in BoT and don't feel like spending 8k gold on an enchant for a blue). Just to add icing to the cake, I out dps'd him on the second boss(es) in BoT by a full 2.4%. And this guy ain't no slacker, neither.

Yeah, frost is in a fair place right now. I've yet to be beaten by fire mages who are not massively overgearing me in the limited raiding I've done so far. Mages as a whole could use a buff, but the inter-spec balance is quite nice at the moment/after patch, and I'm quite happy with how frost has turned out. We could use some help in niche situations, such as our complete lack of sustainable AOE damage related to other classes, but hey. Frost's viable and in some cases competitive, and that's all we asked for.

**Sangheiili** · 2011-02-07, 09:45 PM

So, Kuni, straight off the top of your head answer.

Frost PvE comparison to Fire after 4.0.6, I'm curious of your thoughts.

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-07, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by Sangheiili

So, Kuni, straight off the top of your head answer.

Frost PvE comparison to Fire after 4.0.6, I'm curious of your thoughts.

Having seen the sim results, on par if not an impact gimmick fight.

**daniyyel** · 2011-02-08, 07:57 AM

Thank you for this guide. I'm having fun in PvE with my frost mage for the first time in a long long time.

**Fractoman** · 2011-02-08, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Kuni Zyrekai

I think this might be a mana pool thing, because frost is not mana-positive with mage armour up at my gear level. Using simcraft and forcing it to mage armour for the duration has given a very small DPS increase most of the time, although this could be due to both my crit rate and the BiS gear set stats. What's your raid buffed total mana?

For example, the default mage behaviour modelled in simcraft is "mage_armor,if=(mana_pct*6)<target.time_to_die", being if your mana percent times 6 is less than the estimated time to die of the boss in seconds, then switch to mage armour. This kicks in about 20 or so spells into the sim, and has mana slowly decline from there with periodic boosts via mana gem. Removing that line and defaulting it to mage armour shows much the same graph, minus the initial sharp decline. Both ways usually end around 60% mana remaining after 500 seconds. Your method is different again, but involves not getting evocation interrupted and a lot more attention paid to your mana. I'm not entirely sure how to model that correctly and my mana won't hold out for it to work for me personally. I'd be quite interested in a comparison.

Now with the patch upon us tomorrow and armour swapping then only costing a GCD, it's up to you if you want to swap them mid-fight. The difference is literally simulated out to under 10 DPS in my gear and the BiS list on both live and PTR tests. Download simcraft and test for yourself with your own gear, find out which is better for your specific situation. I'm personally still an advocate of mage armour for the duration. My hit gear is not all that great but I've managed to hit very close to crit cap without molten.

Just check out my Armory (can't link a URL yet because I haven't posted enough). I'm Fractoman on US-Mal'Ganis. Not much in terms of BiS raid gear at the moment since I really have only been able to get any kind of meaningful raiding done in the past two weeks (I did get my Power Generator Hood though

).

The climb in mana I'm seeing is a very slight one, it's not huge enough to be considered the replacement for evocation, but once I switch my Armor over to Mage Armor at around 20% mana I'm shored up enough from the regen that I require absolutely no other mana regeneration and my mana will actually go up about 5% every 20-30 seconds. This is without CD's popped burning through my mana by casting at the GCD, but none the less, between one evocation and a couple mana gems, I can very easily maintain Molten Armor in my current gear-set and put out between 16-22k dps situationally.

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-15, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Fractoman

The climb in mana I'm seeing is a very slight one, it's not huge enough to be considered the replacement for evocation, but once I switch my Armor over to Mage Armor at around 20% mana I'm shored up enough from the regen that I require absolutely no other mana regeneration and my mana will actually go up about 5% every 20-30 seconds. This is without CD's popped burning through my mana by casting at the GCD, but none the less, between one evocation and a couple mana gems, I can very easily maintain Molten Armor in my current gear-set and put out between 16-22k dps situationally.

Interesting. I still can't figure out why you're mana positive with mage armour for the life of me. At any rate, if molten is working for you, go ahead and use it!

Unrelated: Guide is 4.0.6 updated.

Deleted · 2011-02-15, 12:19 PM

Nothing that can't really be found by searching EJ or various sites, but good to have collected together.

Not going to dispute what you've said, it's all pretty much correct - still, Frost just doesn't seem viable anymore since the changes. Iv'e been rawkin' Fire since 4.0.6 and I definitely favour it, I hugely dislike Frost due to the strange stat balances - as soon as you're shatter capped you have no other option to gear towards other than Haste and Mastery, both of which have a co-efficient of 1.48 roughly if i'm not mistaken.

Frost is Frost, it rawks early game due to the low ceiling, but starts to be greatly outstripped by the other speccs as the gear starts to pile on.

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-15, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by hawt09

Nothing that can't really be found by searching EJ or various sites, but good to have collected together.

Not going to dispute what you've said, it's all pretty much correct - still, Frost just doesn't seem viable anymore since the changes. Iv'e been rawkin' Fire since 4.0.6 and I definitely favour it, I hugely dislike Frost due to the strange stat balances - as soon as you're shatter capped you have no other option to gear towards other than Haste and Mastery, both of which have a co-efficient of 1.48 roughly if i'm not mistaken.

Frost is Frost, it rawks early game due to the low ceiling, but starts to be greatly outstripped by the other speccs as the gear starts to pile on.

Depends greatly on what you call viable though. We never wanted frost to be top DPS. We wanted to be within 1% of fire, so the option was there. It's still there for single target. But hey, no one can force you to play a spec you don't enjoy.

On scaling, we should be away from the standard that frost has set for the past three iterations of the game due to Blizz finally getting rid of cast time/3.5 for coefficients. They've finally gotten around to making them flexible and not based on cast time. So if frost's scaling starts to fall behind, we'll more than likely see an increase somewhere. That was the only reason frost fell behind, was that even talented it still was only 95% coefficient on frostbolt, opposed to fireball's 115% talented.

Deleted · 2011-02-15, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by Kuni Zyrekai

Depends greatly on what you call viable though. We never wanted frost to be top DPS. We wanted to be within 1% of fire, so the option was there. It's still there for single target. But hey, no one can force you to play a spec you don't enjoy.

On scaling, we should be away from the standard that frost has set for the past three iterations of the game due to Blizz finally getting rid of cast time/3.5 for coefficients. They've finally gotten around to making them flexible and not based on cast time. So if frost's scaling starts to fall behind, we'll more than likely see an increase somewhere. That was the only reason frost fell behind, was that even talented it still was only 95% coefficient on frostbolt, opposed to fireball's 115% talented.

I'm convinced that Blizzard intend to destroy Frost's viability for PvE as time passes, purely from their nerf to Deep Freeze. It was completely unnecessary when they were supposedly acting under the motivation of PvP balancing - considering Frost (and mages in general in certain cirumstances) are somewhat UP, it doesn't seem like there's any other logic behind such a move.

Somewhat silly in my opinion, though it does make some sense that a spec with arguably the greatest utility in the game shouldn't be on par with the other DPS speccs.

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-15, 01:11 PM

Originally Posted by hawt09

I'm convinced that Blizzard intend to destroy Frost's viability for PvE as time passes, purely from their nerf to Deep Freeze. It was completely unnecessary when they were supposedly acting under the motivation of PvP balancing - considering Frost (and mages in general in certain cirumstances) are somewhat UP, it doesn't seem like there's any other logic behind such a move.

Somewhat silly in my opinion, though it does make some sense that a spec with arguably the greatest utility in the game shouldn't be on par with the other DPS speccs.

No arguments from me that mages in general need a buff. But I can somewhat see the logic behind the DF nerf honestly. I was seriously able to take out any 1-200k HP adds nearly instantly, and any tank who wasn't ready for that sort of burst would lose aggro. I could pull off a tank about 2.5 minutes into a boss fight because of the burst it provided. From a pure mechanics point of view, we lost about 2% DPS. Our BiS model was fixed up a bit though, and we're still right on fire's ass for theoretical best DPS of the two specs.

We'll see what the future holds.

**Sacha** · 2011-02-18, 03:25 AM

Thanks for making the entire thread. It's nice to have someone competent using frost.

I have a few questions if you wouldn't mind answering them:

Wha haste level/percentage am I looking to be?

Currently I'm at 8.79% with NWP. I was attempting to hunt around for the "soft cap" but I was unable to find anything. Also, I'm not sure I quite understand the concept of the soft cap regarding haste. Would you mind giving a run down for me?

I reforged mastery to haste where I could last night and gained around 2.5% haste which I believe upped my damage a bit via the daily heroic I did.

With mastery being less important (ie garbage), what balance should I strike between the two?

I'm at 7.82, currently. I just dropped Herbalism for Engineering and plan on getting the Engi helm so I can slot hit/haste along with the glove bonus. I'm wondering if I trade out about 200 pts of mastery for 200 pts of haste, would I see an increase of dps or not.

For the order of priority for stats regarding 4.0.6, I'm don't quite understand the "Ice lance crit cap for tier" portion along with the Deep Freeze crit cap part. I have the 2 piece bonus so far which ups the Crit 5% via Icelance, obviously. I also have the Fbolt glyphed for 5%. What gear or part am I missing specifically for the Deep Freeze crit cap to increase? Also, what is your opinion on dropping the crit rating down by 5% to put in haste > mastery due to have the +5% bonus for FoF and Fbolt.

Here's me currently:

us.battle.net/wow/en/character/the-venture-co/sach%c3%a1/simple

Crit is 33.34% at full raid/flask/food.

Hit is as close as I can get currently to 17% without going over. So far the other alternatives put me at around 17.25% which taking away from crit/haste/mastery. Any advice to improving my dps would be greatly appreciated.

One more thing regarding our trinkets. I have the Stump in the bank and currently use the DMC:V and the Vibrant Alchemy Stone. The mastery on the DMC:V is of little use to me now due to 4.0.6. I was thinking that if I reequip the Sump, reforge the hit down to haste and reforge other pieces towards haste, that I would have a possible DPS increase. Any thoughts on this? Also, I believe that Thera's Mirror would also be a dps increase over the Alchemist's stone due to the proc despite having a small intell loss between the two. Any ideas?

**Kuni Zyrekai** · 2011-02-18, 04:49 AM