Frost Mage 7.3

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Frost Mage guide for Legion.

[Jhoira524 0]

if crit and haste are the go to stats now why are so many mastery trinkets at the top of the list?

Edited July 19, 2016 by Jhoira524

[Furty 51]

1 hour ago, Jhoira524 said:

if crit and haste are the go to stats now why are so many mastery trinkets at the top of the list?

The gear section hasn't been updated, just the main talents and rotational stuff so far.

[Guest captworgin]

having problems with the frostbolt freeze macro now. Weird it worked on ptr and on live until now. so it used to be you can cast frostbolts while the freeze reticle was hovering and you didnt have to use it right away. Now if you use that macro it will only let you cast one frostbolt and you cant cast until you drop the freeze or cancel it :( damn i loved that macro because i could then decide if i want to use the freeze or switch to water jet.

[Guest Funeralhate]

Hi thanks for the guide!

At the viability in the current patch is said, the frost mage is the weakest dps mage spec (i've tested it and its true).
Do you think it will change with the help of the artifact weapon?

 

Thanks

[Furty 51]

3 hours ago, Guest Funeralhate said:

Hi thanks for the guide!

At the viability in the current patch is said, the frost mage is the weakest dps mage spec (i've tested it and its true).
Do you think it will change with the help of the artifact weapon?

 

Thanks

Most likely it will be in a similar situation unless they change the tuning itself.

[Guest Guest18]

This guide claims that Frost isn't viable but my friend, with a 714 item level, is competing quite nicely with mythic-geared fire mages in his guild. He used Incanter's Flow instead of Rune of Power and started messing with the talents to see what he could do. I just think it's unfair to say it's not viable when it clearly is. 

[Furty 51]

9 hours ago, Guest Guest18 said:

This guide claims that Frost isn't viable but my friend, with a 714 item level, is competing quite nicely with mythic-geared fire mages in his guild. He used Incanter's Flow instead of Rune of Power and started messing with the talents to see what he could do. I just think it's unfair to say it's not viable when it clearly is. 

Ultimately everyone has their own personal definition of what "viable" means to them and to their raid. In my guides, it refers to how strong the specialization is, objectively, to its sister specializations and to the entire class spectrum as a whole. If you take a player capable of playing all 3 Mage specializations at a high level and have them perform that specialization on an average boss encounter, Fire pulls pretty comfortably ahead. Not viable to me means that a specialization is outclassed in every aspect by one of its sister specs, which is  the case here.

[Guest Kryso]

I believe there is a mistake in the guide.

 Lonely Winter is good for solo content. The Water Elemental has a little bit of ramp up on short lived targets, and  Water Jet and  Freeze are a little underwhelming while leveling, making this an excellent choice for bursting down world content quickly.

However, Lonely Winter does not allow the elemental to be summoned.

 

[Guest Gaelya]

hello in first sorry if i dont speak very well english , if you take   Lonely Winter  you ll dont have the water jet who give you a charge of fingers of frost.. then your dps ll shut down isnt it ? 

 

[Furty 51]

12 hours ago, Guest Kryso said:

I believe there is a mistake in the guide.

 Lonely Winter is good for solo content. The Water Elemental has a little bit of ramp up on short lived targets, and  Water Jet and  Freeze are a little underwhelming while leveling, making this an excellent choice for bursting down world content quickly.

However, Lonely Winter does not allow the elemental to be summoned.

 

That's not a mistake. The sentences explain that Freeze and Water Jet are underwhelming and that the Water Elemental's ramp up makes it a weaker choice, and therefore, playing with no Water Elemental (Lonely Winter) is a good choice.

[CptDraco 0]

Something is missing from this guide. I don't mean to presume to know the class better than a pro, but I can find no mention of a very important mechanic. Every time I hear of someone with low dps as frost I find they do not do the following:

On Brain freeze proc, do NOT immediately cast Flurry. Instead, first cast a Frostbolt. Because of the travel time of Frostbolt, if you then immediately cast Flurry, the Flurry will impact first. Follow this up with an immediate Ice Lance. The end result, if done correctly is that all 3, the Frostbolt, Flurry, and ice lance, will benefit from the Shatter effect. It mentions the follow up ice lance, but not the leading Frostbolt. You are missing out a guaranteed crit. it takes practice, but hitting with all of these almost simultaneously to benefit from Flurry's effect, which only lasts for 1 second, is crucial. this is similar in practice to Firemages casting a Fireball with hot Streak before Pyroblast to double up hits and have more chances for more Hot Streaks. I may be wrong, but I am starting to believe that people missing this part is the reason that so many feel Frost is not viable, while we see a few outliers that perform so well. Try this out on a dummy. Again, it takes practice, but in no time you will see a dps increase.

Edited July 23, 2016 by CptDraco
typo

[Furty 51]

35 minutes ago, CptDraco said:

Something is missing from this guide. I don't mean to presume to know the class better than a pro, but I can find no mention of a very important mechanic. Every time I hear of someone with low dps as frost I find they do not do the following:

On Brain freeze proc, do NOT immediately cast Flurry. Instead, first cast a Frostbolt. Because of the travel time of Frostbolt, if you then immediately cast Flurry, the Flurry will impact first. Follow this up with an immediate Ice Lance. The end result, if done correctly is that all 3, the Frostbolt, Flurry, and ice lance, will benefit from the Shatter effect. It mentions the follow up ice lance, but not the leading Frostbolt. You are missing out a guaranteed crit. it takes practice, but hitting with all of these almost simultaneously to benefit from Flurry's effect, which only lasts for 1 second, is crucial. this is similar in practice to Firemages casting a Fireball with hot Streak before Pyroblast to double up hits and have more chances for more Hot Streaks. I may be wrong, but I am starting to believe that people missing this part is the reason that so many feel Frost is not viable, while we see a few outliers that perform so well. Try this out on a dummy. Again, it takes practice, but in no time you will see a dps increase.

Hey there! Spell buffs & debuffs are calculated on cast, not on impact, so that actually doesn't work! That said, it wouldn't really alter the viability of Frost in any way as Frostbolt itself is an extraordinarily weak spell and Brain Freeze procs are fairly uncommon. Creative idea though!

[Guest Viima]

One question: now that Blizzard is a short cast spell that does pretty hefty amount of damage (even more when talented), I've found it a very noticeable damage increase already at 2 targets. In fact, with the talent, it's so high damage it's almost usable on singe target. Or am I just imagining things?

[CptDraco 0]

2 hours ago, Furty said:

Hey there! Spell buffs & debuffs are calculated on cast, not on impact, so that actually doesn't work! That said, it wouldn't really alter the viability of Frost in any way as Frostbolt itself is an extraordinarily weak spell and Brain Freeze procs are fairly uncommon. Creative idea though!

You may wanna see this then. Blue Post

[Furty 51]

10 hours ago, Guest Viima said:

One question: now that Blizzard is a short cast spell that does pretty hefty amount of damage (even more when talented), I've found it a very noticeable damage increase already at 2 targets. In fact, with the talent, it's so high damage it's almost usable on singe target. Or am I just imagining things?

Nope, there's actually an edit going in soon updating the overview of that talent! It's actually quite good in situations where sustained and even damage is important. If you do use it on any fight you should also be using it in your single target rotation!

[fr4x 1]

First off - thx for the guide, just thought I'd drop off some suggestions on improving readability of the rotational part. What I noticed is that - at least in the case of a frost mage - priorities are formed in patterns. I'm just summarizing my "patterns" which might be suboptimal because I just started playing this spec, but its more about the concept of patterns, rather than what the patterns actually are.

The Ray burst:

1.  Ray of Frost

Glacial Spike burst (requires 5 icicles):

1. Glacial Spike
2. Ice Lance until frozen debuff is removed (I can squeeze three in)

Shatter Combo (requires Brain Freeze proc):

1. Ice Lance to dump Fingers of Frost
2. Frostbolt
3. Immediate Flurry
4. Immediate Ice Lance

The Frozen Touch burst:

1. Frozen Touch
2. Ice Lance x2

Waterjet burst:

1. Frostbolt + (while casting frostbolt) Waterjet
2. Frostbolt
3. Ice Lance x2

Fishing for procs:

• Frozen Orb (if off CD)
• Frozen bolt until Fingers of Frost proc
• Ice Lance

I noticed I only ever break the "fishing for procs" pattern. In all other cases I finish what I started, because it is likely that I would otherwise have wasted time AND lost damage (most damage is typically done at the end of the pattern).

These bursts can then be prioritized. My guesstimate:

1. Ray burst
2. Glacial Spike burst
3. Shatter combo
4. Frozen Touch burst
5. Waterjet burst
6. Fishing for procs

We then add the buffs to the mix: Icy Veins and/or Rune of Power can be applied to buff any of the patterns, where we can distinguish between "Worth postponing until buff is available", "Always buff if available" , "Only buff with RoP when nearing cap", "Never buff". This combination of buff strategy and patterns determines how you will plan your actions.

BTW: I tried to test the theory of CptDraco, but currently it doesn't work yet. When it is implemented and you are going to add this trick to the guide, it is worth noting that at relatively close range, the flurry doesn't manage to catch up with the frostbolt (thus making it miss the shatter proc).

[Furty 51]

2 minutes ago, fr4x said:

We then add the buffs to the mix: Icy Veins and/or Rune of Power can be applied to buff any of the patterns, where we can distinguish between "Worth postponing until buff is available", "Always buff if available" , "Only buff with RoP when nearing cap", "Never buff". This combination of buff strategy and patterns determines how you will plan your actions.

I'm glad you got this takeaway after reading the guide. Few things to clear up for you though :) For starters, the Glacial Spike freeze doesn't work against raid bosses, which is why it isn't mentioned in the action priority list (exactly how Deep Freeze used to work). Glacial Spike is also fairly low priority as the icicles aren't going anywhere as long as you don't cast a Frostbolt and overcap, as the action priority list describes. Anyways, I'm glad you've found a way to break the spec into more palatable portions!

[fr4x 1]

2 minutes ago, Furty said:

For starters, the Glacial Spike freeze doesn't work against raid bosses, which is why it isn't mentioned in the action priority list (exactly how Deep Freeze used to work).

*facepalm* that's what you get for using only practice dummies... Might actually be worth mentioning in the guide then, because it puzzled me why it was so low on the priority list when it seems so good.

4 minutes ago, Furty said:

Glacial Spike is also fairly low priority as the icicles aren't going anywhere as long as you don't cast a Frostbolt and overcap, as the action priority list describes

It makes sense now :P Just as long as you cast Glacial Spike before you cast a frostbolt you're good. Still, I wander where it would fit the priority scheme when thinking in those "patterns" I gave?

Speaking of which: I'm still curious about your thought on the patterns: do they represent a correct reinterpretation of your priority list, am I right that you basically never "abort" a pattern?

[Furty 51]

33 minutes ago, fr4x said:

Speaking of which: I'm still curious about your thought on the patterns: do they represent a correct reinterpretation of your priority list, am I right that you basically never "abort" a pattern?

Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. The priority list is designed to give you a straightforward overview that can apply to any encounter of any length, whereas these burst windows you've outlined are a good way of providing context for where the important damage comes from. You can then rearrange or plan these burst windows in a way that best fits the context of the encounter you're currently involved in.

[NicholousCulberson 0]

disregard found the answer in another thread thanks

 

Edited July 24, 2016 by NicholousCulberson

[Guest some lad]

As a ice mage, Mirror image uses frost bolt and so gives you icicles.

Meaning, use mirror image,spam ice glacier(lv 100 talent thingy)

[Furty 51]

56 minutes ago, Guest some lad said:

As a ice mage, Mirror image uses frost bolt and so gives you icicles.

Meaning, use mirror image,spam ice glacier(lv 100 talent thingy)

It still doesn't pull ahead of either of the other options, but an interesting note.

[Guest HeroFS]

Should the Crit cap at stat priority not be 33.33%? As Shatter increases crit by x1.5 plus an additional 50%; will lead to 100% crit. 33.33%x1.5=50%+50%=100%

[Furty 51]

55 minutes ago, Guest HeroFS said:

Should the Crit cap at stat priority not be 33.33%? As Shatter increases crit by x1.5 plus an additional 50%; will lead to 100% crit. 33.33%x1.5=50%+50%=100%

Boss level mobs have 3% crit suppression, meaning that you need an extra 3% crit to hit shattercap.