Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Okay, with rough napkin math...FP would increase your DPS by 194.
Losing that 2% Haste means you lose FrB casts which drops your DPS by 277.
Net loss: 83 DPS

So...I guess it's close enough to not matter?

Well there's the matter of haste working with the GCD as well, so it's probably a tiny bit wider than that, but that is a lot closer than I figured it would be. I'll keep the guide 2/3 NP simply because RNG could screw you over a lot easier than 2/3 FP, but I'll add a note that it's essentially playstyle at that rate.

[Swizzle]

Well there's the matter of haste working with the GCD as well, so it's probably a tiny bit wider than that, but that is a lot closer than I figured it would be. I'll keep the guide 2/3 NP simply because RNG could screw you over a lot easier than 2/3 FP, but I'll add a note that it's essentially playstyle at that rate.

Well, you also have to keep in mind that I was running that with 2/3 Ignite instead of 3/3. Ultmitately...SimCraft needs to fix the bug blocking Frost from gaining explosions at 2/3 FP. I don't understand why Frost is the only spec that cannot gain explosions from it.

[Hinalover]

I don't understand why Frost is the only spec that cannot gain explosions from it.

I just did a quick search through SimulationCraft and there doesn't appear that anyone has posted a ticket about the issue. So if you feel it needs to be reported, log into your gmail account and post a ticket?

[dexx]

Apart from evocation and mana gems, does frost have a way to claw back mana?

[Imnick]

Apart from evocation and mana gems, does frost have a way to claw back mana?

Mage Armour
They provide Replenishment also

[Hinalover]

Mage Armour
They provide Replenishment also

It is only viable to use Mage Armor when your Evocation on cooldown and running low on mana.

[Imnick]

It is only viable to use Mage Armor when your Evocation on cooldown and running low on mana.

Well it's a way, I just want to provide an exhaustive list!
It probably would have been sensible to check the OP to see if my builds-old knowledge of Frost was still relevant though.

[Bombkirby]

Just a suggestion, but I think the OP should start out with an "introduction" section that just goes over some basic information. For example...

"Welcome to the frost pve guide...blah blah blah....

Frost is a interesting spec blah blah blah....with a interesting rotation blah blah blah....

It can pull X amount of dps in BiS gear. Compared to the other mage specs it fits in right here...blah blah blah..."

Just something short and informative. It simply starts out by telling the reader what spells to use and how to gear. A little introduction might spark people's interest if they notice "Oh....it says here that Frost ISN'T the worst DPS spec in the game! Who knew? I wanna give it a go! I'll read on and learn more about Frost!"

After seeing the hundreds of posters who have that mindset yesterday...I think it'd be a good idea. T_T

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Just a suggestion, but I think the OP should start out with an "introduction" section that just goes over some basic information.

...

After seeing the hundreds of posters who have that mindset yesterday...I think it'd be a good idea. T_T

Yeah, I'm thinking this would be a good idea. I'm going to try and pull something together that reads decently well in the next few weeks.

[Cryosa]

It is only viable to use Mage Armor when your Evocation on cooldown and running low on mana.

Good luck running without mage armor on AoE fights. Beth'thilac and Rhyolith require you to run mage armor.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Good luck running without mage armor on AoE fights. Beth'thilac and Rhyolith require you to run mage armor.

Depends on the job you're assigned to. In general though I agree. Blizzard is way too expensive that if you need it more than once every few seconds (Occu'thar), you're likely to be running mage armour. It would be best to flip back to molten for the actual boss phases of both those fights though.

[Deleted]

Hello.

I have recently created an account here on MMO-C due to some transmogrification questions.

However, for a long time I have been thinking of creating an account merely to say thanks to Kuni and the rest of the frost lords in here. Unfortunatly I had to bench my mage in the beginning of Cataclysm in order to reroll a resto druid (we've been having terrible luck with finding decent healers for our 10-man roster) in order to make sure we had the healers we needed in this xpac.

Anyway, due to real life time constraints, I have not been playing my mage as much as I would like to (stuck in 360'ish ilvl gear), but I have always hoped for the day that frost became a viable PvE spec, just figures that it happens when I decide to reroll
This thread really inspired me and gave me the help I needed to improve myself whenever I find myself playing my mage, so thank you for that.

I really find the frost community here admirable, despite the shitstorms we usaully get for playing a "sub-optimal spec" there are some people showing that frost indeed is viable - and do so in a proper manner. But, this post was merely meant as a pad on the back for some of the hard work going into simcrafting and so on, at least it helps people like me out

And who knows, some day I might get a chance to revive the mage and compete with some of you

Kind regards.

[zjadow]

Hello expert Frost mages - just the other day i stopped being stubborn and playing fire in t12 (except for rhyolith/alysrazor... just no idea if i should be speccing frost for rhyolith as well?) and was inspired by this guide to spec frost for pve . (I absolutely loathe arcane, i don't know why.. ) And i come here to get a "verification check" if i'm doing things right. My armory (can't post links yet) is eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/shadowsong/Iraya/advanced.

Here's our latest WOL - (sadly only Shannox/Rhyolith heroic attempt) worldoflogs.com/reports/5rpj10iwnddnuhiv/sum/damageDone/?s=10784&e=11184

I must say i enjoy the spec very much, but i have a bit of issues occasionally to get decent dps; especially on shannox for raids when i have to chase the dog. - more in 5-man's then in raids tho, in raids i do acceptable dps/damage usually.

I've read through your guide for the most part, and i'm just looking for tips here and there or if i'm doing something completely wrong, i'd love to hear about it .

(Btw Kuni, awesome job on the guide, very understandable and a good read )

[Kimpan]

Think you linked the wrong log as you linked a log of Kuni :P You also need to change your crit to get 100 % crit use this site for that

http://opendevelop.fr/shatter/Shatter.html

[zjadow]

Wops; had the wrong copy/paste >_> Apologies! worldoflogs.com/reports/wtp0lmabhhs1bj8h/ and thx for that link

[Kimpan]

Wops; had the wrong copy/paste >_> Apologies! www.worldoflogs.com/reports/wtp0lmabhhs1bj8h/ and thx for that link

Get shatter crit cap is my suggestion and change frostbolt for molten armor glyph and use molten more

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/g...e=1843#Kimpaan

a log from my last shannox so you can compare if you want etc (When I compared quickly, you can easily see that my frostfire bolt useage is alot higher then yours, dunno why yours is so low.. just spam it when it procs!)

Dont use ice lance unless youre moving.

[zjadow]

Hmm; Thanks for that! According to the site you linked earlier it seems i'm at the shatter crit cap just by changing glyphs; a little over even. And thanks for the WoL! Very helpful all

About the "Dont use ice lance unless youre moving."; I was under the impression that it was on a higher priority then frostbolt if you got fingers of frost up?

[Deleted]

hello.
atm i am at the work and cant run sims so i figured i should ask maybe someone was trying to look into this:
at some fights with AOE e.t.c. its hard to keep molten armor up all the time so we are forced to switch to mage armor. so i wonder when reforging
it would be better to aim to soft critt cap w/o molten armor? or just assume i should be using molten armor and just aim at 17% critt (my personal soft critt cap,
i am at 18% atm though).
because from recent updtates as far as i understand now its considering optimal to sit with molten armor up all the time and use evocation( before it was sitting with molten armor untill like 10% mana and then just switch to mage armor untill fight ends).

[Deleted]

I have updated http://opendevelop.fr/shatter/Shatter.html with two new options that were missing :
- Worgen racial 1%
- Alchemist profession ~0,136% thanks to the 80 intellect added (80 * 1.05 * 1.05 / 648.91)

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Wops; had the wrong copy/paste >_> Apologies! worldoflogs.com/reports/wtp0lmabhhs1bj8h/ and thx for that link

What I can see at first glance is you're not using some procs as quick as you could. Didn't use cold snap to double deep freeze/icy veins/orb.

The best technical way to use ice lance is sitting on the last charge of fingers of frost until it has 1 second left, or when moving. Actual damage differences are fairly minor, and if you end up munching or losing I believe it is 9 charges over a 5 minute fight, it's a DPS loss.

I'm still of the belief that reforging for shatter cap and using glyph of frostbolt is the higher DPS gain, as the math supports that. But to each their own. If GoMA works for you better, then use it.

hello.
atm i am at the work and cant run sims so i figured i should ask maybe someone was trying to look into this:
at some fights with AOE e.t.c. its hard to keep molten armor up all the time so we are forced to switch to mage armor. so i wonder when reforging
it would be better to aim to soft critt cap w/o molten armor? or just assume i should be using molten armor and just aim at 17% critt (my personal soft critt cap,
i am at 18% atm though).
because from recent updtates as far as i understand now its considering optimal to sit with molten armor up all the time and use evocation( before it was sitting with molten armor untill like 10% mana and then just switch to mage armor untill fight ends).

Adds very often don't have full crit debuffs on them, and you don't worry too much about shattering on AOE, so molten armour/crit cap in an AOE situation is fairly pointless. Blizzard doesn't work with fingers of frost these days. If you're on spiderlings on Beth or adds on Rhyo, go for mage armour to keep your mana up for the AOE. Just switch back to molten for the actual boss phase. Fights like Occu'thar though, where you only need to AOE essentially one blizzard every almost minute, then you can probably afford to keep molten up the entire fight.