Frost mage usage of Nether Tempest vs Frost Bomb

[Mageisty 4]

I have experienced some frost mages using NT and thought nothing of it until a mage 10+ ilvls lower than me did more damage. I did more DPS but couldn't figure out why their dmg was higher until I looked at recount and saw the highest dmg spell used by this mage was nether tempest. The fight was Maegera in ToT which involves ranged dps hanging back at the limit of our range except during rampage when we all stack near the head being dps'ed.

This got me thinking : Should I make the change to NT from FB ? Why should I live with higher DPS but lower DMG? It doesn't make sense. DPS is nice but it's the total amount of DMG that kills the boss and get's loot out to people and advances your guild's progression march.

So, to the point... I know there are certain trinks that proc off of DoT ticks (living bomb, nether tempest) and there are trinks that don't require DoT ticks. There are also conditions where FB will shine and those where NT will shine. i.e., FB will shine when there are 4-5 or more mobs grouped that can be frozen and NT will work better where there is a lot of movement and the mobs are not necessarily bundled up in a nice tight group.

In ToT boss fights, there's a fair amount of movement which I've used Ice Floe's to mitigate and allow me to keep casting FB and Frost Bolt but it doesn't CD soon enough to allow me to avoid interruptions due to having to move in all situations. i.e. there are times in each fight where I have to lose casting time.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/ysera/Mageisty/advanced

(thinking of swapping talisman out for LFR Cha Ye's). With my haste level and non-DOT trinks, does switching make sense or will I see a DMG increase by switching regardless of trinks ?

Even knowing that certain situations call for FB, I'm thinking I should switch (and talent select) Nether Tempest since I'm all about raiding ( no PVP ) and achievements. What do you think ?

Edited June 4, 2013 by Mageisty

[Oltier 471]

I have experienced some frost mages using NT and thought nothing of it until a mage 10+ ilvls lower than me did more damage. I did more DPS but couldn't figure out why their dmg was higher until I looked at recount and saw the highest dmg spell used by this mage was nether tempest. The fight was Maegera in ToT which involves ranged dps hanging back at the limit of our range except during rampage when we all stack near the head being dps'ed.

This got me thinking : Should I make the change to NT from FB ? Why should I live with higher DPS but lower DMG? It doesn't make sense. DPS is nice but it's the total amount of DMG that kills the boss and get's loot out to people and advances your guild's progression march.

So, to the point... I know there are certain trinks that proc off of DoT ticks (living bomb, nether tempest) and there are trinks that don't require DoT ticks. There are also conditions where FB will shine and those where NT will shine. i.e., FB will shine when there are 4-5 or more mobs grouped that can be frozen and NT will work better where there is a lot of movement and the mobs are not necessarily bundled up in a nice tight group. I'm currently iLvl 518, 29,074 Spell pwr, 7,174 haste, 7,169, crit, hit capped (15.07%), with 23.44% mastery. I use LFR wushoolay + Volatile talisman(+4) = 526. (thinking of swapping talisman out for LFR Cha Ye's). With my haste level and non-DOT trinks, does switching make sense or will I see a DMG increase by switching regardless of trinks ?

In ToT boss fights, there's a fair amount of movement which I've used Ice Floe's to mitigate and allow me to keep casting FB and Frost Bolt but it doesn't CD soon enough to allow me to avoid interruptions due to having to move in all situations. i.e. there are times in each fight where I have to lose casting time.

Even knowing that certain situations call for FB, I'm thinking I should switch (and talent select) Nether Tempest since I'm all about raiding ( no PVP ) and achievements. What do you think ?

Could you link your armory and maybe some world of logs link?

Your haste looks way too low to me compared to your item level. :)

[Mageisty 4]

Edited original post to include armory. It seems invocation talent might be better than Incanters Ward ? I'm pretty good and keeping IW up when I know i'll take dmg but I don't alway take DMG... So I may be losing out there. I don't have any logs as I've never done it yet but I will now. My next raid is on reset day this week (tomorrow).

I basically followed the Ask Mr. Robot recommendation.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/ysera/Mageisty/advanced

Edited June 4, 2013 by Mageisty

[Vladamyr 169]

I would definitely recommend Invocation as your talent choice along with Living Bomb for every single target fight. The other talent I would personally recommend is Blazing Speed. There is enough movement in ToT to warrant it's use over the others, as it can be used almost as a second blink.

You said in your original post that you had more DPS but the other mage had higher damage. This simply means he had better uptime casting on the boss. If you could provide us with a log, we could hopefully provide you with a little bit more advice.

[Mageisty 4]

thanks for the advice. I had already spec'd in Invocation and Nether Tempest and tried a MV LFR to work out the rotations. I'll definitely need something like weak auras as keeping track of DoTs is a hassle. Frost bomb was easy in comparison: cast on 1 target and wait for it to pop.

It's interesting you recommend LB over NT. In reading the tool tips for bot in my talents window NT deal 50% of 104,672 dmg to a random target within 10 yards with no limit specified on the # of targets you can cast while LB deals 124,500 dmg to target over 12 secs and 12,450 dmg to ALL enemies in a 10 yard radius with a limit of 3 targets. So it seems you can get more dmg out to enemies with less casts of the DoT when using LB which consumes casting time.

I'll work out how to get some logs and post them.

[areanu 16]

Please have a look at following topics:

http://www.icy-veins...-mage-bombs-53/

http://www.icy-veins...ck-yulongevity/

http://www.mmo-champ...You-Quick-Guide

That's plenty of new info, math, ways to socket and treat haste/int and general advices.

Personally, I'm giving a go to mastery over crit (as I'm at 21% crit with a lot of Int procs happening during the fight: both trinks, jade sprit and tailor cloak embroidery) and NT with haste value of 13,400.

Not sure if I like it — just to show that once you understand the general ideas behind stats and talents, you can try to adjust strategies for your toon.

Edit: Invocation and Blazing speed go without saying, imo. Invocation is best for most fights and close-to-best on those rare occasions (like Councils where you can dump your IW in sand), and Blazing speed sacrifices very minor dps cooldows for much better mobility choices.

Edited June 4, 2013 by areanu

[Oltier 471]

Yeaaa, I could basically just repeat what people before me said.

For now, you should stick to LB on single target fights (It got a huuge dot buff in 5.3 and a huge aoe nerf), and NT if you have more than one enemies, stacked up. ie: just look at my damaging abilities, what did the most damage on council...

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/eyx9piyk8f6unf3x/details/2/?s=5694&e=5976

[areanu 16]

Repeating what was said is a good idea. You, along with many other bright frost mages, have written tens or even hundreds posts worth reading, and those 3 threads are a good example.

Everything is there: talents, bombs, RPPM trinkets versus non-RPPM trinkets. Hooray mage forum

[Tarazet 144]

I'll bet you that mage was using Nether Tempest on both heads on Megaera. This way you get more Brain Freeze procs, which will increase the damage you do on the head that's focused as well as some number-padding from the NT ticks on the head that isn't going to die.

[Oltier 471]

I'll bet you that mage was using Nether Tempest on both heads on Megaera. This way you get more Brain Freeze procs, which will increase the damage you do on the head that's focused as well as some number-padding from the NT ticks on the head that isn't going to die.

Lol you just gave me a good idea... :D

[Vladamyr 169]

I'll bet you that mage was using Nether Tempest on both heads on Megaera. This way you get more Brain Freeze procs, which will increase the damage you do on the head that's focused as well as some number-padding from the NT ticks on the head that isn't going to die.

Very possible, but it would be way better to use Living Bomb to do so. The range is too far for the Nether Tempest Cleave.

[Zagam 1,982]

WARLOCK INVADING MAGE FORUMS

Anyways, how did all of you miss the biggest question possible?

This got me thinking : Should I make the change to NT from FB ? Why should I live with higher DPS but lower DMG? It doesn't make sense. DPS is nice but it's the total amount of DMG that kills the boss and get's loot out to people and advances your guild's progression march.

WHAT IS THIS SORCERY? If you're both alive throughout the entire fight, then higher DPS = higher overall damage ALWAYS. The only way this can't be seen on the logs is if someone quit casting to do something. But even if you have DoTs rolling while kiting an Ice Beam, you're still logging activity meaning you're doing effective DPS. I'm not real sure how anyone does less overall damage, is alive the entire time, but has higher DPS.

[Vladamyr 169]

You said in your original post that you had more DPS but the other mage had higher damage. This simply means he had better uptime casting on the boss.

Sorry, I glossed over that a little. What Zagam said is 100% correct. I'm assuming the OP is using a meter like skada or recount. If I remember right it (one or both of them) only count dps while you have active dot's or damage going. Which means that the OP probably had a bad uptime on the encounter (for some reason).

[Mageisty 4]

I haven't dropped this. I'm just waiting for approval to post logs for guild runs. In world of logs, you have to ask for approval by 'joining the guild' in world of logs dialogue window. Since then, I've tried all 3 bombs, in LFR's and in ToT normal. Call me crazy but my overall DPS 'seems' higher with Frost Bomb + invocation talent. I know.. I'm just a stats noob and what do I know ? I realize this. just communicating what my senses are telling me. I realize the logs will tell the truth. ( long time Unix admin here ) More to come.

[Pimmeh 0]

According to my line of thought, Frost Bomb is cast timed, and has to have 100% uptime to be effective.

Other dots have to be up 100% as well, but it's much easier on living bomb and nether tempest, seeing as they are instant.

Invocation is better than any other talent for frost mages, that's for sure, but Frost Bomb WILL lose the fight vs Nether Tempest or Living Bomb against bosses where you have to move (which is almost every boss)

[Mageisty 4]

I've not had any response to my World of Logs guild request so I've just created my own 'phantom' guild and will upload the logs of my next run.

Until then, I'm using Living Bomb spec. I have a question about the trinkets in my inventory and which is best for DoT spec'd mage and why Ask Mr. Robot is giving me an unexpected Best In Bag recommentdation.

I have :

LFR Wushoolay's Final Choice (iLvl 510)

LFR Cha Ye's Essence of Brilliance (iLvl 510)

LFR Breath of the Hydra (iLvl 502)

LFR Unerring Vision of Lei Shen (iLvl 502)

Volatile Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assualt (iLvl 526)

Ask Mr Robot's Best in Bag list for me has Wusholay's + Volatile Talisman on it. This is perplexing being that the Breath of the Hydra has Haste and a DoT proc on it and I would have thought this to be preferred for a NT or LB spec'd mage. Is it a problem with AMR or is the 1,400 Int on Volatile Talisman actually better than the haste enhanced 6k Int procs on Breath of the Hydra ?

And what about Cha Ye's ? It's got an int proc too, albeit not DoT proc'd. It's BiS so why is AMR not listing that ?

http://us.battle.net...geisty/advanced

Edited June 13, 2013 by Mageisty

[Oltier 471]

I've not had any response to my World of Logs guild request so I've just created my own 'phantom' guild and will upload the logs of my next run.

Until then, I'm using Living Bomb spec. I have a question about the trinkets in my inventory and which is best for DoT spec'd mage and why Ask Mr. Robot is giving me an unexpected Best In Bag recommentdation.

I have :

LFR Wushoolay's Final Choice (iLvl 510)

LFR Cha Ye's Essence of Brilliance (iLvl 510)

LFR Breath of the Hydra (iLvl 502)

LFR Unerring Vision of Lei Shen (iLvl 502)

Volatile Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assualt (iLvl 526)

Ask Mr Robot's Best in Bag list for me has Wusholay's + Volatile Talisman on it. This is perplexing being that the Breath of the Hydra has Haste and a DoT proc on it and I would have thought this to be preferred for a NT or LB spec'd mage. Is it a problem with AMR or is the 1,400 Int on Volatile Talisman actually better than the haste enhanced 6k Int procs on Breath of the Hydra ?

And what about Cha Ye's ? It's got an int proc too, albeit not DoT proc'd. It's BiS so why is AMR not listing that ?

http://us.battle.net...geisty/advanced

Long story short. In another topic we had the same question, I did many Simcrafts.

I can remember clearly that if you can only choose from these, go for Breath of the Hydra (Upgrade it!)+Volatile Talisman and use Nether tempest/Living bomb.

Cha Ye's is actually pretty bad compared to the other trinkets base on my simcrafts. If you are deeply interested, please have a look at this older topic. :)

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2240-frost-mage-trinket-pick-yulongevity/#entry24358

The reason behind BoH being better than the others, is taht we have huuge number of haste. So that, especially with Nether tempest that scales even better than LB with haste, we have very high chances to proc RPPM trinkets.

[Vladamyr 169]

Volatile Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault (526) & Wushoolay's Final Choice (510).

If you had the Breath of Hydra (510) instead of (502) then it would be Volatile Talisman and BoH

(edit) I got in just after Oltier. and yes if you can upgrade Breath do that!

[Mageisty 4]

excellent. thank you both for the information. I will update my BoH trink on Tuesday ( i used all my valor this week to update Cha Ye and some other gear). Wish I had read Oltier's other post before I did that... /cry Oh well, there's no more PVE valor gear I need anyway so live and learn. Hopefully, I'll get the 522 version of BoH or Wushoo next week.

[Oltier 471]

excellent. thank you both for the information. I will update my BoH trink on Tuesday ( i used all my valor this week to update Cha Ye and some other gear). Wish I had read Oltier's other post before I did that... /cry Oh well, there's no more PVE valor gear I need anyway so live and learn. Hopefully, I'll get the 522 version of BoH or Wushoo next week.

That's what I'm hoping for 4-5 weeks now... XD