Kuni's Frost Mage PVE Guide (Cataclysm)

[Deleted]

The only reason I even considered it is the fact that there's a good chance we'll drop ice lance except for movement, and because of it, haste devalues just ever so slightly since more of our DPS is coming from our instants which benefit a lot more from mastery than haste. Lhiv's sim, however flawed it might be, has a near 100% uptime on the mastery proc trinket which means FFB is ticking constantly. It wasn't even modified to account for the extra procs in relation to FoF. So uptime is of no issue, it becomes a matter of when breaking blizzard for 2 GCDs for effectively a ~10-12s minor DoT and a 4s major DoT becomes a good idea.

I guess the instants coming from the t12 4 piece? So I'd guess, once you get the 4 piece go mastery and not haste?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I guess the instants coming from the t12 4 piece? So I'd guess, once you get the 4 piece go mastery and not haste?

The 4pT12 bumps brain freeze up to a 30% proc chance. This is now 10% more than fingers. Without accounting for the rotation change, Lhiv's simulations are showing FFB our second largest damage source now, above both DF and ice lance. Change the action list around to give BF-FFB priority when you get it will probably only push that even further. The hard math needs to be done for sure, but I'm putting my bets on mastery being the better stat between the two come T12 itemization.

[Holtzmann]

I think I'll have to give this new AoE idea a miss and just stick to Blizzard. It sounds like it would require a lot tighter timing than my latency allows. :/

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I think I'll have to give this new AoE idea a miss and just stick to Blizzard. It sounds like it would require a lot tighter timing than my latency allows. :/

There's no promise it'll even work, I'm just considering toying with it in practice once I get my 4pT12 to see how it works out and posting it here as I know there are people who progress a lot faster than my guild will. Not to mention the fact it basically requires a dedicated single target and dedicated AOE spec due to the loss of 2/3 NP. Cataclysm took away a lot of the fun mix builds, so to see one pop up is intriguing to me.

[Swizzle]

The 4pT12 bumps brain freeze up to a 30% proc chance. This is now 10% more than fingers. Without accounting for the rotation change, Lhiv's simulations are showing FFB our second largest damage source now, above both DF and ice lance. Change the action list around to give BF-FFB priority when you get it will probably only push that even further. The hard math needs to be done for sure, but I'm putting my bets on mastery being the better stat between the two come T12 itemization.

Meh, I'd still think they'd be neck and neck, since you want haste to lower your GCD to get those instants out. Keep in mind our gear already has 2,200 haste on it, so going for that Mastery might be a pain.

[Ninetyseven]

There is one thing here id like to point out, you say in your rotation that you shuld cast FFB regardless if you have FoF buff up or not.
Basicly I allways have 1 fof active all the time so that i can use it on a FFB or DF. and if my elemental is off or close to getting off cd il use it on ice lance and have 2 new up where the first one is going to DF/IL then save last one for a ffb proc. Having FFB critting all the time makes u sertan of getting those tics off ignite. Just a little point id like to share.

Also, the spec your using is slightly dps loss with having 3 points in clearcasting instead of last point in ignite as you wont reach the complete starving point of mana in most fights anyways. And i wouldnt say piercing chill is better than cone of cold freeze. Usually most of the time i get choosen to be frost instead of fire/arcane is to help out with CC (freezing adds etc) so having CoCfreeze is much more usefull in my opinion.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Meh, I'd still think they'd be neck and neck, since you want haste to lower your GCD to get those instants out. Keep in mind our gear already has 2,200 haste on it, so going for that Mastery might be a pain.

And you want haste to throw frostbolts faster to make said procs show up, yes. I'm just thinking given that they were pretty much on par already, and haste seems more generic on our gear at a glance, which could tilt the favour to mastery ever so slightly, if only by virtue of having too much haste relative to mastery. Given the nearly absurd spike in damage that FFB makes up for our total damage this tier due to 4p, this is my gut feeling. I may very well be wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. Lhiv's sim with the strange gear options has them neck and neck, so you could very well be right, and they'll just sit there.

I'm also curious to see if going for crit cap is something we're required to get, cause that's 5% crit to pull out of haste/mastery while maintaining hit where it is. That is a fair bit of stats, nearing 900 crit rating for that 5%. I haven't looked too closely at what our stat totals are in the BiS set, nor what I could reforge around with, but it's another thing to add to the list.

---------- Post added 2011-06-21 at 06:29 AM ----------

There is one thing here id like to point out, you say in your rotation that you shuld cast FFB regardless if you have FoF buff up or not.
Basicly I allways have 1 fof active all the time so that i can use it on a FFB or DF. and if my elemental is off or close to getting off cd il use it on ice lance and have 2 new up where the first one is going to DF/IL then save last one for a ffb proc. Having FFB critting all the time makes u sertan of getting those tics off ignite. Just a little point id like to share.

Aye, and that is the technical higher DPS method, but a lot easier to screw up. The guide was originally written from a point of view of getting people new to the spec into it and doing more or less decent DPS, as I was raging pretty hard at some people who accidentally threw points into a tree vaguely resembling my favoured spec, but seem to have ignored tooltips all over the place. They had accidentally all of frost. It was quite infuriating.

Also, the spec your using is slightly dps loss with having 3 points in clearcasting instead of last point in ignite as you wont reach the complete starving point of mana in most fights anyways. And i wouldnt say piercing chill is better than cone of cold freeze. Usually most of the time i get choosen to be frost instead of fire/arcane is to help out with CC (freezing adds etc) so having CoCfreeze is much more usefull in my opinion.

I don't condone the mana talents, but that was the original method in which to actually keep your mana going at time of writing. Heroic modes weren't down for most and mana problems everywhere. This was also pre-clearcasting change to 40% but ICD instead of just straight 10% random it used to be. On CoC/Piercing, this is a pure frost raiding ideal. You would in theory take Piercing for the chill/proc cleave over CC or other utility as it provides more DPS.

As is, I'm in the middle of re-writing it as people won't be coming here in blues and barely scraping heroics, they'll be getting T11 from JP and starting off where we are now. There are many things that have changed as the nerfs/buffs came through and some opinions that have changed. You'd have to have read the entire thread up until now to make sense of it all, which is why the re-write is required. I'm waiting on 4.2's stats to come through as well as a side project to finish to assist frost mages.

Edit: I REALLY hate this new posting/editing window.
Edit 2: ... I have no idea if I was just seeing shit now or if report post just removes it from view, but this was posted twice due to edit failing.

[Swizzle]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the new system either, but it's w/e, I didn't like the redesigned site either but it's grown on me. Anyway, our gear has 1,339 Crit rating on it with Dragonwrath and 1,588 Crit rating with the Ragnaros staff, whereas the current BiS has 1,249 Crit rating before reforging/enchanting/gemming. So we go up by...less than a percentage point in terms of pure Crit rating? I suppose the higher allotment of Haste/Mastery means more reforging, coupled with the increased Int gains to raise it as well. I wish either WoWhead or Chardev would update with the 4.2 gear so I can play around with it already.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the new system either, but it's w/e, I didn't like the redesigned site either but it's grown on me. Anyway, our gear has 1,339 Crit rating on it with Dragonwrath and 1,588 Crit rating with the Ragnaros staff, whereas the current BiS has 1,249 Crit rating before reforging/enchanting/gemming. So we go up by...less than a percentage point in terms of pure Crit rating? I suppose the higher allotment of Haste/Mastery means more reforging, coupled with the increased Int gains to raise it as well. I wish either WoWhead or Chardev would update with the 4.2 gear so I can play around with it already.

Wow, I knew the gear was lacking crit, but that's... Mildly depressing how little the change is. So that puts us around 20% without accounting for the int increase, which means potential cap with focus magic, judging by how much int the new gear has.

Edit: Considering with Dragonwrath, of course. We are discussing BiS after all.

[Ninetyseven]

You would in theory take Piercing for the chill/proc cleave over CC or other utility as it provides more DPS.

"as it provides more dps" well, theoretically it doesnt provide any dps at all =P but it spreads the chill effect to nearby enemies wich would help a kiter with slowing etc (3 adds on last boss in brc =P) but other than that both piercing chill and CoC provides no extra dps for single target boss purposes as their immune to freeze and wouldnt benefit from the 2 sec shatter. But ofc if you have no need for freezes or slow those 2 points could just aswell go into permafrost or Ice Shards.

[Swizzle]

"as it provides more dps" well, theoretically it doesnt provide any dps at all =P but it spreads the chill effect to nearby enemies wich would help a kiter with slowing etc (3 adds on last boss in brc =P) but other than that both piercing chill and CoC provides no extra dps for single target boss purposes as their immune to freeze and wouldnt benefit from the 2 sec shatter. But ofc if you have no need for freezes or slow those 2 points could just aswell go into permafrost or Ice Shards.

The chill effect grants an increased chance to proc FoF for each additional spread, so the talent is a DPS increase, much more so than Imp CoC or Permafrost.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

"as it provides more dps" well, theoretically it doesnt provide any dps at all =P but it spreads the chill effect to nearby enemies wich would help a kiter with slowing etc (3 adds on last boss in brc =P) but other than that both piercing chill and CoC provides no extra dps for single target boss purposes as their immune to freeze and wouldnt benefit from the 2 sec shatter. But ofc if you have no need for freezes or slow those 2 points could just aswell go into permafrost or Ice Shards.

Oh of course. Don't get me wrong, it's situational at the best of times. But the point remains, it's a trash, Omnotron, Maloriak depending on what you're doing with adds, Conclave with a DK kiting, Al'akir P2, and Halfus DPS increase. It's literally the frost mage version of cleave. You have a secondary target and you gain a second roll for FoF/BF. In and of itself it's not the most spectacular kiting talent as it relies on crits, you'd be better off with permafrost if the target can't be out and out frozen. I personally run a spec that runs 3/3 permafrost and 2/2 imp.CoC and 1/2 piercing chill if I'm on kiting duty.

But back to the core point, it is our cleave. It is a DPS increase as soon as multiple targets, of which there are plenty of fights in this tier, are put into the equation. If you're kiting, then it's a different story, but that's not a raw DPS build, that's a build for a specific need. Situational DPS outweighs utility in most pure frost builds. Having 8 talent options that provide literally 0 DPS bonus on a single target fight tends to mean you have to put points in what would give you the most bang for your points, even if only for a couple fights. There are only 24 points you can spend, a 25th is forced on you to get the last, that are pure DPS for single target in frost. One could in theory make the argument that a molten armour swapping version would need 3 more for the mana reduction, but you're still only hitting 28.

[Deleted]

Has there been any estimated DPS increase/loss between having the 4p bonus and not having it? I might have missed it while I've been looking through this.
To me it sounds like this could end up being a rather big increase in DPS, considering it's just a set bonus.

..And while I'm at it, when it comes to T12, Are they adding two parts or such for valor points like they did with T11?

[Ninetyseven]

The chill effect grants an increased chance to proc FoF for each additional spread, so the talent is a DPS increase, much more so than Imp CoC or Permafrost.

I actually totally forgot about that, this changed my look at that talent by far =), thanks for clearing that out, my bad =P

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Has there been any estimated DPS increase/loss between having the 4p bonus and not having it? I might have missed it while I've been looking through this.
To me it sounds like this could end up being a rather big increase in DPS, considering it's just a set bonus.

..And while I'm at it, when it comes to T12, Are they adding two parts or such for valor points like they did with T11?

I know there was an estimation for arcane, but I'll be damned if I can remember where I read it. Results were for arcane, until you had 4pT12, you held onto 4pT11. Frost could be different given there's not even half our damage comes from frostbolt, but 10% casting speed is admittedly a really good set bonus, to the point I could see holding on to it like you would for arcane.

Same spread as T11. Gloves/chest/legs from VP, shoulder/hat from Firelands. The assumed token holders are Staghelm and Ragnaros for shoulder and hat respectively. The VP costs are reduced due to the reduction in the VP weekly cap, ~1200/1600 iirc instead of ~1600/2200.

Edit: Unless you mean having 4pT12 and using off-pieces. In which case 4p wins hands down. 30% brain freeze proc is amazing. Haven't done the math on it but it threatens to remove ice lance from our single target rotation unless moving.

[Deleted]

With the 4pT12, Haste and Mastery are pretty even, imho. Do not forget the 10% Haste loss by undress our 4pT11. According to Lhivera simulations, we will cast our T12 FB with approx 22% Haste instead of 31%. Thats a lot slower!

[Hinalover]

Same spread as T11. Gloves/chest/legs from VP, shoulder/hat from Firelands. The assumed token holders are Staghelm and Ragnaros for shoulder and hat respectively. The VP costs are reduced due to the reduction in the VP weekly cap, ~1200/1600 iirc instead of ~1600/2200.

Really!?!?!
*gets onto the PTR*
Nope, it's still running 1650/2200 on the PTR.

You almost gave me a heart attack having to change all the VP point amounts in Rawr

[Deleted]

Kuni are you still maintaining that using Mage Armour and not speccing into Enduring Winter is a good idea ?

[Swizzle]

Kuni are you still maintaining that using Mage Armour and not speccing into Enduring Winter is a good idea ?

There's no reason not to spec into Enduring Winter, there's nothing else you can pick up that will increase your DPS as much as it does while trying to max out the tree. As to Mage Armor, if memory serves, you are supposed to run Molten Armor during your burn phase only, switching to Mage in between.

[JP1o]

There's no reason not to spec into Enduring Winter, there's nothing else you can pick up that will increase your DPS as much as it does while trying to max out the tree. As to Mage Armor, if memory serves, you are supposed to run Molten Armor during your burn phase only, switching to Mage in between.

What exactly would you classify a burn phase for frost? I'm guessing using all your cooldowns, deep freeze orb veins depending if you have BL up or not and ofcourse cold snapping to reset them all, using these on a phase like magmaw heroic when his head his down for the last time before you decide to push him into the next phase or something along those lines?