Frost Mage PvE

[positiv2 953]

This thread is for comments about our Frost Mage Shadowlands Guide.

[Guest Randron]

Fire Blast did not make it into the rotation?

[Guest Former Hunter Main]

I am confused about whether we hold Fingers of Frost procs for Winter's Chill in single target?  The proc management section says to use Fingers of Frost procs as they come, but the rotation section says to cast Ice Lance when there are charges of Winter's Chill on the target, and does not list Ice Lance anywhere else in the priority list.

[Kuni 28]

6 hours ago, Guest Randron said:

Fire Blast did not make it into the rotation?

Fire Blast is not cast in rotation. It can be used as a dead last priority while moving (after proc usage, Ice Floes/Shimmer/Blink), but the gain is incredibly minor.

 

4 hours ago, Guest Former Hunter Main said:

I am confused about whether we hold Fingers of Frost procs for Winter's Chill in single target?  The proc management section says to use Fingers of Frost procs as they come, but the rotation section says to cast Ice Lance when there are charges of Winter's Chill on the target, and does not list Ice Lance anywhere else in the priority list.

Good catch, my bad. Editing from no-IL and missed re-adding that. Fingers of Frost should be cast before Flurry ideally, as Winter's Chill acts as frozen and casting Fingers of Frost into it is an overall loss.

[Guest sock]

Blizzard only on 5 targets? Really?  I find that hard to believe considering how high damage it is.

[Guest noob mage]

Im confused. Focus magic says nothing regarding the intellect buff.

[Kuni 28]

On 10/15/2020 at 1:44 PM, Guest sock said:

Blizzard only on 5 targets? Really?  I find that hard to believe considering how high damage it is.

Mm, right. Getting rid of those toggles killed that cleave note. I'll get that fixed, thanks. It is on 2+ targets, for what it's worth.

 

42 minutes ago, Guest noob mage said:

Im confused. Focus magic says nothing regarding the intellect buff.

The talent's tooltip was never updated after they added that effect to it. Just like Frozen Orb's tooltip says 160 damage regardless of gear. It's just another inaccurate tooltip bug.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-mage-class-changes/490704/47

• Focus Magic now also grants the caster 1% Intellect, stacking up to 8 times when their Focus Magic target critically strikes.

Here's the relevant note.

[Guest Azymyth]

I had a question about the recommended gems and enchants for frost.  This guide recommends mastery for both gems and enchants. However in the stat weights section, it lists mastery as the second lowest stat (just above crit past the shatter cap).  Why would I want to use mastery gems and enchants if it is one of our lowest stats?

[Kuni 28]

7 hours ago, Guest Azymyth said:

I had a question about the recommended gems and enchants for frost.  This guide recommends mastery for both gems and enchants. However in the stat weights section, it lists mastery as the second lowest stat (just above crit past the shatter cap).  Why would I want to use mastery gems and enchants if it is one of our lowest stats?

That... Huh. I know I updated that. I wonder if it got lost when I split it for pre-patch. Sorry about that, I'll get that fixed.

[Drvn 0]

The Essence "Vision of Perfection" as a major will no longer trigger Rune of Power when procced to activate Icy veins, Bizzard changed the essence on October 20th.
 

[Kuni 28]

22 hours ago, Drvn said:

The Essence "Vision of Perfection" as a major will no longer trigger Rune of Power when procced to activate Icy veins, Bizzard changed the essence on October 20th.
 

True. Didn't change that it's still strongest, but I'll remove that note.

[Guest Momo]

We should ignore Brain Freeze procs in AoE rotation? Is that accurate?

[Kuni 28]

7 hours ago, Guest Momo said:

We should ignore Brain Freeze procs in AoE rotation? Is that accurate?

At 5+, supposedly. There hasn't been a lot of AoE optimization as of yet, though. Also consider that most focus of sim development is on expansion launch itself, and how things interact at max level.

I'll admit, pre-patch is a bit of a guessing game due to the lack of interest in optimizing for what should have been 2-3 weeks. Re-optimizing an APL for such a short duration wasn't high on anyone's priority. It's quite likely that BF procs being left out is just an oversight in a world where AoE functionally boils down to "spam Lance while Orb's active otherwise keep Blizzard on cooldown and hit AE."

That said, I'll toy with it and see if there's any gain to be had.

[Guest S.R.]

If I gain a stack of Frost Fingers or Brain Freeze while casting Frost Bolt, should I stop casting FB and use the FF or BF proc or finish the FB?

[Kuni 28]

On 11/6/2020 at 11:26 AM, Guest S.R. said:

If I gain a stack of Frost Fingers or Brain Freeze while casting Frost Bolt, should I stop casting FB and use the FF or BF proc or finish the FB?

Finish the Frostbolt. FoF has a second stack for this reason, and BF has anti-munch mechanics in which if you fire Flurry immediately after the Frostbolt, the next BF proc will be granted 250ms after the cast end.

If both procced, it's questionable which to use first, and changes with certain gear setups. I believe last check was actually Flurry first, and munch the Fingers of Frost, due to Brain Freeze's anti-munching delay and 30% proc chance. Practical difference is pretty small, however.

[Guest Nihila]

With the nerf to some of the Frost talents suggested in the build, would it make sense to go into Bone Chilling, Ebonbolt and Glacial Spike?

Although it's benefits could only be reaped once per AOE pull, since you need to cast Frostbolt to generate Glacial Spike, it seems like a good burst AOE in tyranical, non-bolstering, affixes.

[Kuni 28]

10 hours ago, Guest Nihila said:

With the nerf to some of the Frost talents suggested in the build, would it make sense to go into Bone Chilling, Ebonbolt and Glacial Spike?

Although it's benefits could only be reaped once per AOE pull, since you need to cast Frostbolt to generate Glacial Spike, it seems like a good burst AOE in tyranical, non-bolstering, affixes.

GS is still ridiculously far behind on single target, and that's even with my own gear having a Flash Freeze still.

[Guest Fusion]

The talent page direct me to the M+ page for M+ talents and there it directs me back to the talents page xD

[Kuni 28]

10 hours ago, Guest Fusion said:

The talent page direct me to the M+ page for M+ talents and there it directs me back to the talents page xD

Looks like that got added by an admin at some point, since I didn't have it due to that exact reason. I'll re-remove it as I gear this up for launch. Looks like they typoed "Mythic" too, on the talent side.

[Juce 0]

Quote

 Flurry if you have  Brain Freeze and you have just cast  Frostbolt.

If I get both procs at the same time or close after another (which is more likely with Mirrors of Torment) and I use that Fingers procc with an Icelance, do I still precast a Frostbolt if that Brain Freeze proc is already up?

I get that I just ignore the Fingers if both proc on the same frostbolt and i don't do it inside the 3 Mirrors of Torment proc to get all of them in time, but what about the last one when there is no automatic follow up Brain Freeze?

Normally I'd use the Brainz Freeze directly after that Icelance, or is it better to cast frostbolt to create an Icicle for that Flurry?

e.G Event could be

Frostbolt -> (Finger Procc) -> IceLance -> (Brain Freeze Procc through MoT) -> ???

[Guest Just a guy]

A suggestion: make the covenant choice a radio button instead of checkbox, makes more sense in this case ;) 

[Kuni 28]

On 11/27/2020 at 7:20 AM, Juce said:

If I get both procs at the same time or close after another (which is more likely with Mirrors of Torment) and I use that Fingers procc with an Icelance, do I still precast a Frostbolt if that Brain Freeze proc is already up?

I get that I just ignore the Fingers if both proc on the same frostbolt and i don't do it inside the 3 Mirrors of Torment proc to get all of them in time, but what about the last one when there is no automatic follow up Brain Freeze?

Normally I'd use the Brainz Freeze directly after that Icelance, or is it better to cast frostbolt to create an Icicle for that Flurry?

e.G Event could be

Frostbolt -> (Finger Procc) -> IceLance -> (Brain Freeze Procc through MoT) -> ???

MoT itself you ignore the preceding Frostbolt and just Flurry>Lance>Lance, as it says under MoT in the rotation section. MoT's just too many BF procs too quickly to do the full combo, especially with a 30% chance to munch BF.

Quote

Cast Mirrors of Torment.

• You should ignore the pre-cast Frostbolt for these Brain Freeze procs, and just Flurry > double Ice Lance. You will not have enough time before the next proc if you do not ignore the Frostbolt.

 

As for normally generated procs, you're looking more at a scenario like:

Frostbolt (procs BF) > queued Frostbolt due to reaction speed, acknowledge you're going to Flurry next GCD (procs FoF) > Flurry > Ice Lance (munched FoF) > Ice Lance.

If say, Orb procs a FoF while you're still casting Frostbolt with BF active, and you have time to acknowledge it, you're still going to cast Flurry. Flurry is worth a lot more per-proc due to it being a shatter Frostbolt, Flurry's damage itself, and 2 Lances. It also has a 30% proc chance off Frostbolt, so casting Frostbolt and not casting Flurry immediately afterwards is a very likely chance to munch the proc, and be a bigger loss than losing the FoF you tried to salvage.

[FrostyMage 0]

I wonder how is it that WowHead has release BiS list for frost mage thus far, and you say it's too difficult to determine at this time. Don't make them my favourites please ... 

[Valks 2,375]

16 hours ago, FrostyMage said:

I wonder how is it that WowHead has release BiS list for frost mage thus far, and you say it's too difficult to determine at this time. Don't make them my favourites please ... 

BiS lists in their own right don't really make much sense anymore. Stat priorities and weights are extremely variable and, due to this, a BiS list can essentially end up being wrong 99.9% of the time. Look at it this way:

Gearing no longer functions in the way of, this is your best item for that slot, you get that item, and you're sorted. Instead, your priority will change depending on the amount of other stats that you currently have. For example, if every single piece of gear you have has Crit/Haste, your personal sims will probably tell you to start looking for Vers/Mastery gear, despite them being lower priority, due to a massive amount of Crit/Haste already being present.

If you ignore personal sims, but basically just focus a BiS, you are completely ignoring the fact that your stat priority can change. This means that, every time a piece of gear drops, you may be turning down a potential upgrade, simply due to it not being on the BiS, but it is actually an upgrade according to your own personal stat weights.

In theory, you could go an entire patch and never get the piece of gear you want, but turn down multiple potential other improvements, whether by combining different "non-BiS" pieces of gear to achieve a better overall ratio of stats, or just a same-item-level piece of gear with "worse" stats, but that works out better for you due to your current balance.

Kuni also raises a completely valid point in the guide that highlights another issue with BiS - it assumes you have the absolute perfect item level of every item. At the moment, a BiS list is written with full Mythic gear in mind. The likelihood of you getting every single slot, with the correct item, from Mythic+0 dungeons is so tiny, that it is completely worthless to recommend this setup of gear. You can't use a Heroic piece of the same item, because it isn't the same thing. It doesn't have the same amount of stats on it, which throws the balance of stats, and derails the gear setup.

You are always going to be better off simming your gear and finding your own best upgrades with Raidbots rather than trying to follow a BiS. 

We ask our writers to implement BiS lists because we know that some players like to see them, but we also allow our writers the freedom to say no to adding one, because it simply does not work for their class.

I hope you understand why there isn't a BiS list for Frost from the information given above and, once he sees the comment, I'm sure Kuni will elaborate if necessary.

[Kuni 28]

16 hours ago, FrostyMage said:

I wonder how is it that WowHead has release BiS list for frost mage thus far, and you say it's too difficult to determine at this time. Don't make them my favourites please ... 

Because whatever list is put out is inherently inaccurate. For instance, Wowhead's pre-raid BiS doesn't have a legendary, and if you add a legendary you shuffle a bunch of gear to make up for the fact you have a 190 crit/haste piece instead of 184. SimC's pre-raid profile runs a legendary and a bunch of different gear for that very reason.

To go a bit further than Blainie did, if I give you the mythic raid BiS profile, this doesn't give you anything of use if you haven't got mythic Denathrius on farm. Shatter throws things off in a way that other specs don't really see. Scaling the ilvl down doesn't really work, because for any given secondary stat total value for your gear, the best available changes to re-balance around how much crit is available. The balance point is almost impossible to pinpoint as well, for very much the same reason. More haste/versatility will throw the equation because there will be a point where critting spells marginally less often, but playing the odds, and hitting harder/faster is worth more. There's no hard and fast "get x% crit and throw the rest at haste", because that percentage will change due to how stats react to each other.

BiS is an outdated thought process, and I have personally never included it since taking Icy Veins's Frost guide over, or even back when I maintained my forum threads. This goes double now that you can literally pull a simulation for any newly obtained piece of gear within minutes. I could very easily throw down any given SimC profile into the guide, but since it's inherently inaccurate and a lot of people will pass on intermediate upgrades because of it, it seems like a poor decision overall.