Frost Mage 7.3

[Anton 0]

Are Ray of Frost's channeling duration or number of ticks affected by IV and TW? Would it be possible to cast it during IV, after Frozen Orb or would you end up wasting procs? Does it just end up as something you can't align with your CDs? I assume that ideally you'd try to line up ROP with IV.

[Archimage 98]

Why recommend Frozen Touch instead of Ice Nova?

Using Frozen Touch and the 2 Ice Lances takes up 2 GCDs for (576% Spell Power) damage every 30 seconds. (1152%  Spell Power) damage because Fingers of Frost Ice Lances should always crit.

Using Ice Nova only takes 1 GCD and does (800% Spell Power) damage to the primary target AND (400% Spell Power) damage to enemies around the target.

You can use Frozen Touch about 2 times per minute, but Ice Nova can be cast about 2.4 times per minute.

Rough estimation is that Ice Nova does about 3 2 times more DPS than Frozen Touch.

Edited July 28, 2016 by Archimage

[Archimage 98]

3 hours ago, Anton said:

Are Ray of Frost's channeling duration or number of ticks affected by IV and TW? Would it be possible to cast it during IV, after Frozen Orb or would you end up wasting procs? Does it just end up as something you can't align with your CDs? I assume that ideally you'd try to line up ROP with IV.

If I remember correctly (from FinalBossTV's Frost Mage 2nd Pass Youtube video):

Ray of Frost ticks every 1 second for 10 seconds, and after the final tick, there is a partial tick for the amount of haste you have. So Ray of Frost ALWAYS lasts 10 seconds.

Haste will cause your Ray of Frost to tick faster, but Ray of Frost always lasts 10 seconds. Was able to get like 30 ticks under IV, TW and Beserking.

Another note: When you cast Ray of Frost, you gain a Buff called Ray of Frost. During this time, you can interrupt your Ray of Frost channel and move a bit, and rechannel Ray of Frost for the remaining duration.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Archimage

[Furty 51]

12 hours ago, Anton said:

Are Ray of Frost's channeling duration or number of ticks affected by IV and TW? Would it be possible to cast it during IV, after Frozen Orb or would you end up wasting procs? Does it just end up as something you can't align with your CDs? I assume that ideally you'd try to line up ROP with IV.

Ray of Frost works like a DoT - it gets more ticks but the max duration is unchanged by Haste.

10 hours ago, Archimage said:

Why recommend Frozen Touch instead of Ice Nova?

Using Frozen Touch and the 2 Ice Lances takes up 2 GCDs for (576% Spell Power) damage every 30 seconds.

Using Ice Nova only takes 1 GCD and does (800% Spell Power) damage to the primary target AND (400% Spell Power) damage to enemies around the target.

You can use Frozen Touch about 2 times per minute, but Ice Nova can be cast about 2.4 times per minute.

Rough estimation is that Ice Nova does about 3 times more DPS than Frozen Touch.

Frozen Touch is a lot more flexible, is much better for leveraging procs, and is guaranteed to critically strike if you are shattercapped. Ice Nova is only really useful if you need burst AoE, for example, to kill Mannoroth imps.

[Anton 0]

On 7/27/2016 at 10:15 AM, Archimage said:

If I remember correctly (from FinalBossTV's Frost Mage 2nd Pass Youtube video):

Ray of Frost ticks every 1 second for 10 seconds, and after the final tick, there is a partial tick for the amount of haste you have. So Ray of Frost ALWAYS lasts 10 seconds.

Haste will cause your Ray of Frost to tick faster, but Ray of Frost always lasts 10 seconds. Was able to get like 30 ticks under IV, TW and Beserking.

Another note: When you cast Ray of Frost, you gain a Buff called Ray of Frost. During this time, you can interrupt your Ray of Frost channel and move a bit, and rechannel Ray of Frost for the remaining duration.

Thanks for the info. I guess I should've finished watching that video before posting...

It does appear that you can move while channeling, but you loose ticks. The duration of the spell doesn't change (based on the video). 

It may be useful to clarify some of these things in the talents or spells section (for ex. that movement doesn't cancel the spell, assuming that's still the case).

[Miirsal 4]

Just wanted to say that it is true this spec underwhelms versus lots of adds and trash but I'm beating the pants off of arcane mages 10 ilevels higher than me and at least keeping even with fire mages on boss fights.  Your opening sequence done right is getting me easily over 100k on the opening seconds of most fights.  I have one other suggestion, however. It is that icy veins has a 3 minute cd, rune of power is 40 seconds, and ray of frost and your pot are 60 seconds.  I'm finding that the rune of power with ray of frost is my top DPS and so I always hold one of my runes if I'm within 20 seconds of my next ray of frost and then of course save my second pot for the 3 minute pot, rune, icy veins, ray of frost.  

If I could also request a multiple target section.  I'm really struggling in trash and multiple add fights.  I've started runing, blizzard, frozen touch, ice lanceX2 frozen orb, ice lance those and Freeze or Water Jet by which time I can refresh rune and blizzard if there's still some adds up. However, I'm also thinking of taking ice nova. I think if I can frozen orb, ice nova, ice lance the frozen targets, ice nova and ice lance again that I'll really ramp up the damage. But not sure how much I'll lose on single target. Regardless, any suggestions on multiple targets is greatly appreciated.

Great post!

[Synadrasa 0]

On 7/20/2016 at 3:43 PM, Furty said:

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

What make you think classes are tuned?

[Furty 51]

On 7/30/2016 at 11:32 PM, Synadrasa said:

What make you think classes are tuned?

What do you mean? 

 

On 7/30/2016 at 0:25 PM, Miirsal said:

Just wanted to say that it is true this spec underwhelms versus lots of adds and trash but I'm beating the pants off of arcane mages 10 ilevels higher than me and at least keeping even with fire mages on boss fights.  Your opening sequence done right is getting me easily over 100k on the opening seconds of most fights.  I have one other suggestion, however. It is that icy veins has a 3 minute cd, rune of power is 40 seconds, and ray of frost and your pot are 60 seconds.  I'm finding that the rune of power with ray of frost is my top DPS and so I always hold one of my runes if I'm within 20 seconds of my next ray of frost and then of course save my second pot for the 3 minute pot, rune, icy veins, ray of frost.  

If I could also request a multiple target section.  I'm really struggling in trash and multiple add fights.  I've started runing, blizzard, frozen touch, ice lanceX2 frozen orb, ice lance those and Freeze or Water Jet by which time I can refresh rune and blizzard if there's still some adds up. However, I'm also thinking of taking ice nova. I think if I can frozen orb, ice nova, ice lance the frozen targets, ice nova and ice lance again that I'll really ramp up the damage. But not sure how much I'll lose on single target. Regardless, any suggestions on multiple targets is greatly appreciated.

Great post!

The Rune + Ray combo is mentioned several times in the guide, and you're absolutely right, it is best to overlap these whenever possible. There isn't much to talk about with respect to multi-target as there isn't a true AoE rotation - instead, you spec into talents that grant additional cleave or AoE (such as Ice Nova or Splitting Ice) and make use of them when appropriate :) Frost in general is more adept at sustained cleave rather than sustained AoE.

[Guest Chocolatebar]

It seems that there is a mistake with the t18 2 pieces, as the bonus actually doesn't reset frozen orb but gives an instant flurry instead (like it used to work with the frostfire spell before the pre patch).

Am I missing something ?

[Guest Guest =D]

Hi there :)

On 23.7.2016 at 7:37 AM, 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!

In Legion, the damage and healing isn't calculated on cast anymore, but at the moment of impact.

 

And do you really think that even in Legion frost is one of the easiest specializations to play? Actually there are many buttons to press and you also have to get the timing right, so I wouldn’t say that it’s that easy.

[Furty 51]

On 8/1/2016 at 0:09 PM, Guest Guest =D said:

Hi there :)

In Legion, the damage and healing isn't calculated on cast anymore, but at the moment of impact.

 

 

 

And do you really think that even in Legion frost is one of the easiest specializations to play? Actually there are many buttons to press and you also have to get the timing right, so I wouldn’t say that it’s that easy.

 

I think that's unique to Frost but I could be wrong, obviously missed that blue when it was posted :O That would be very troubling for gameplay as it makes little sense for it to work that way, hoping that they address that ASAP! 

[CptDraco 0]

On 8/2/2016 at 8:00 PM, Furty said:

I think that's unique to Frost but I could be wrong, obviously missed that blue when it was posted :O That would be very troubling for gameplay as it makes little sense for it to work that way, hoping that they address that ASAP! 

It is only for frost mages. that is what I was talking about in my early post. I made a thread on the official forums to see if anyone knows about this. I linked the blue post above, and on beta it still works this way. it is a real game changer. I do not understand why this did not go live in 7.03.

[Tutonik 0]

I step into this realm with fear and trembling.  The stat priorities confuse me a bit. Haste over Crit. Then Crit. to 36.33%.  How much Haste before I stack Crit? Then Versatility, Mastery and then again Crit over 36.33%.  The Crit is clear. What are the proportions of the other stats? How much Versatility and Mastery before I stack Crit again.

Thanks.

 

[Shurn 0]

I believe there is a typeo in the Frost Mage 7.0.3 guide for talents where they talk about Cauterize.  

•  Cauterize causes fatal damage to instead bring you to 35% of your maximum health, then burn you for 28% of your maximum health over 6 seconds and reducing movement speed while burning by 150%. This ability has a 2-minute internal cooldown.

should it not read:

•  Cauterize causes fatal damage to instead bring you to 35% of your maximum health, then burn you for 28% of your maximum health over 6 seconds and increasing movement speed while burning by 150%. This ability has a 2-minute internal cooldown.

[Furty 51]

On 8/8/2016 at 8:26 PM, Tutonik said:

I step into this realm with fear and trembling.  The stat priorities confuse me a bit. Haste over Crit. Then Crit. to 36.33%.  How much Haste before I stack Crit? Then Versatility, Mastery and then again Crit over 36.33%.  The Crit is clear. What are the proportions of the other stats? How much Versatility and Mastery before I stack Crit again.

Thanks.

 

It's just a priority list, i.e. prioritize the higher value stats before others rather than aiming for specific breakpoints. In Legion Critical Strike pulls ahead from my findings so the priority will shift to Crit being the best stat at all times.

2 hours ago, Shurn said:

I believe there is a typeo in the Frost Mage 7.0.3 guide for talents where they talk about Cauterize.  

•  Cauterize causes fatal damage to instead bring you to 35% of your maximum health, then burn you for 28% of your maximum health over 6 seconds and reducing movement speed while burning by 150%. This ability has a 2-minute internal cooldown.

should it not read:

•  Cauterize causes fatal damage to instead bring you to 35% of your maximum health, then burn you for 28% of your maximum health over 6 seconds and increasing movement speed while burning by 150%. This ability has a 2-minute internal cooldown.

Good catch, must be a typo! 

[Guest radix]

The rotation guide for frost mage mentions Winter's Chill, but I can't find any information about that talent. Seems that it's in need of updating?

[BrightBrown 4]

Not sure how relevent it is post 7, but it sure was pre. Crit is more important for Frost than many make it out to be. For a good part of WoD I raided with another Frost Mage who was right around my level. I log all fights, so I was always wondering why he seemed to out dps me (save for the odd Heroic Tyrant Velhari fight where I would barely top him every now and then). Looking at a lot of logs I found my answer. We have remarably similar number of casts for all ablities, most of the time. The difference was in the crits. His Ice Lances consistantly hit for more damage per hit than mine, leading to better damage and dps. Looking deeper, he was running 65-85+% crit for Lance while I was doing 50-60% ish. Somehow, by gearing, he had 6-7% better crit rating than I.

[Furty 51]

On 8/27/2016 at 0:28 PM, Guest radix said:

The rotation guide for frost mage mentions Winter's Chill, but I can't find any information about that talent. Seems that it's in need of updating?

It's not a talent, it's a passive from Flurry. Read tooltips :) 

On 8/27/2016 at 1:25 PM, BrightBrown said:

Not sure how relevent it is post 7, but it sure was pre. Crit is more important for Frost than many make it out to be. For a good part of WoD I raided with another Frost Mage who was right around my level. I log all fights, so I was always wondering why he seemed to out dps me (save for the odd Heroic Tyrant Velhari fight where I would barely top him every now and then). Looking at a lot of logs I found my answer. We have remarably similar number of casts for all ablities, most of the time. The difference was in the crits. His Ice Lances consistantly hit for more damage per hit than mine, leading to better damage and dps. Looking deeper, he was running 65-85+% crit for Lance while I was doing 50-60% ish. Somehow, by gearing, he had 6-7% better crit rating than I.

Interesting, in Warlords there was literally zero point in going above the listed 36.7% crit because your FoF spells were guaranteed to crit at that percentage. In Legion crit is the best stat regardless of percentage because the artifact has many traits that scale with crit value.

[Guest iorwerth]

good guide, just a small mistake thought the loot competition table seems to be for an agi. dps.

 

[Furty 51]

On 8/31/2016 at 3:14 PM, Guest iorwerth said:

good guide, just a small mistake thought the loot competition table seems to be for an agi. dps.

 

Will fix when I have some time!

[Guest Bungle]

I have checked your maths on your Frost best in slot page and the stat weights you have used to calculated weather the boots in your upgrade example do not match the weights on your Frost stat priority page.

[Damien 1,514]

1 hour ago, Guest Bungle said:

I have checked your maths on your Frost best in slot page and the stat weights you have used to calculated weather the boots in your upgrade example do not match the weights on your Frost stat priority page.

Thank you for the report! Haste had its weight changed 2 days ago and we forgot to update the values on the gear page as well. It's fixed now :)

[AllianceFTW 0]

I almost feinted with joy when I moused over that link for Flurry and saw 100 yd range.   Holy toledo, i'ma let you finish, but that would make frost the most powerful spec of all time.  

alas, the actual range is only 40 yd.   knew it was too good to be true.

[Furty 51]

3 hours ago, AllianceFTW said:

I almost feinted with joy when I moused over that link for Flurry and saw 100 yd range.   Holy toledo, i'ma let you finish, but that would make frost the most powerful spec of all time.  

alas, the actual range is only 40 yd.   knew it was too good to be true.

I'm sure the PvP players would love that. American Sniper Frost Mage edition.

[Rann 0]

Great guide! I just wanted to point out that Mirror Images does have some use in solo / leveling content, as the mirror images seem to taunt enemies off of the mage. (It's made leveling a lot more survivable for me!) Either that or it includes a Misdirect mechanic to the images, something like that.