[Archived] Frost Mage 5.4

[Guest madcloud]

hey buddy, you're away mastery buffs our water elementals damage right? not sure how you missed that.

[Oltier 471]

I find this macro for frostbolt very useful. It makes it so i never cast it on my elemental, and every time i cast i get the targeting reticle for my elementals freeze spell.

#showtooltip frostbolt

/cast [harm,nodead] Frostbolt

/cast freeze

It is already mentioned in the macros page. :3

hey buddy, you're away mastery buffs our water elementals damage right? not sure how you missed that.

You are reforging everything out of mastery anyway...

Edited May 9, 2013 by Oltier

[Guest Belillie]

Hello,

I think the hit cap listed on the guide is not correct.

it says that mages need 5100 hit ( some may need because 4760 of a racial )

Now on my mage i see, unbuffed i have 4439 hit points and i have a 0.00% miss chance on a 93 boss.

Or am i missing something?

[areanu 16]

To guest: do you have any expertise? that counts toward the hit cap as well.

Question that brought me here: i used to think mastery is significantly below crit, especially in fights with a lot of movement, but i've recently changed suen-wo staff for venomlord wand (http://us.battle.net...Areanu/advanced), and — just to check if 528 wand + 496 OH is better than 522 staff — i've ran SimC on my toon.

What I've got was VERY surprising. Yes, wand is better (AMR is never wrong), but that's not what got me writing here.

For a very long time all SimC for my toon resulted in haste being >0.5, so I've been using haste gems for over a month (even before Blatty pointed it out; difference is tiny though), but that's not my point either.

_____________________________________________________________________

I've ran 3 simulations with options

Iterations: 50000

Lenght: 450 +-20%

Target level: raid boss

Num of enemies: 1 (added sims for 2 targets under P.S. section)

Player skill: good (I, umm, am probably "good" indeed: already ahead of the curve with lei-shen kill, but only starting heroic this week).

So, Sim 1 — patchwerk

Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 5.62 4.64 5.83 2.03 3.37 2.28

Normalized 1.00 0.83 1.04 0.36 0.60 0.41

Mastery > Crit!

______________________

"OK," — said I and proceeded with "light movement".

Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 5.58 4.53 5.72 2.00 3.29 2.26

Normalized 1.00 0.81 1.03 0.36 0.59 0.40

Mastery > Crit!

______________________

"Hmmm, it must be different during heavy movement... Crit is good during movement, right?"

Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 4.79 3.96 4.86 1.72 2.47 1.99

Normalized 1.00 0.83 1.02 0.36 0.52 0.42

And it was the same.

Now, i do understand SimC does not really measure it, and all movement simulations are twice inaccurate. Yet, it got me thinking.

Any comments are very welcome

_________________________________________________________________________

P.S. light movement, 2 targets:

Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 6.38 5.16 6.74 2.29 3.74 2.48

Normalized 1.00 0.81 1.06 0.36 0.59 0.39

Still the same

__________________

patchwerk, 2 targets

Scale Factors for Areanu Damage Per Second

Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 6.36 5.18 6.92 2.27 3.74 2.46

Normalized 1.00 0.81 1.09 0.36 0.59 0.39

Edited May 18, 2013 by areanu

[areanu 16]

And another question:

for a frost mage, haste mainly serves 2 purposes,

1) reducing cast time / adding ticks to nether tempest (+6 ticks at 45.88%, +7 ticks at 54.20% haste)

2) reducing GCD

I would assume GCD reduction is more important, as a lot of casts are instant (even more so with 4 piece t15 bonus).

But GCD can only be reduced from 1.5 sec to 1 sec minimum, and that happens at 50% haste, right?

So, it would be safe to therefore assume 50% haste is a soft cap, or that at least haste goes down in value after 50%.

As simulations in my previous post show, regardless of a fight type for my toon 2 haste > 1 int, so i use haste gems and find myself at 43-45% haste raid-buffed.

With heroic gear and 5.3 coming next Tuesday, i'll be sure to reach 50% haste, but there is not a single word about 50% haste anywhere, and even AMR does not provide an option for setting different values for haste <50% and >50%.

That puzzles me.

P.S. Blizz does understand this, as Ghostcrawler commented in an interview at totemspot that haste soft-cap for a frost mage will be removed (whatever that means), but that's unlikely to happen until next expansion or at least 5.4

Edited May 18, 2013 by areanu

[Tarazet 144]

P.S. Blizz does understand this, as Ghostcrawler commented in an interview at totemspot that haste soft-cap for a frost mage will be removed (whatever that means), but that's unlikely to happen until next expansion or at least 5.4

They could make it so that haste also reduces the duration of your DoTs in addition to speeding up the ticks, so that it will just continuously scale higher with increasing Haste with no breakpoints.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Tarazet

[Oltier 471]

Areanu, I think (I emphasy I THINK)

The reason for Mastery overtaking Crit is, as you get closer to the 28% Crit cap, mastery becomes more valuable. And I am pretty sure that Simcraft is showing this. Just for curiosity, I reforged everything to Mastery instead of Crit (where I couldn't into haste ofc) and I got slightly worse results than with crit reforge. (like 1k DPS loss)

[areanu 16]

Tarazet,

nice idea indeed, but it does not deal with GCD minimum of 1 second. Besides, since it's frost mages thing, there's only one DoT, nether tempest, even though it is very damaging (20-30% of total damage).

And if haste increases NT damage by also reducing the time within which those ticks will happen, that's like +"haste value in %" increase to damage, right? So if on certain fights like Horridon i'm getting 30% of my damage from NT, it'll become 45% of damage from NT, therefore one button for half the job. Hence, argueable.

To Oltier:

"Diminishing marginal utility" principle at its best.

I ran figures for my toon:

1 target, 450+-20%, 10000 iterations, patchwerk / light movement / heavy movement (90% skill, so 90% of damage as well):

full crit VS full mastery

181,303 — 181,127

177,535 — 177,433

152,843 — 152,743.

Aaaaaaand bingo! theory confirmed: mixed crit / mastery reforging yeilded in 181,433 patchwerk, more than solely crit or mastery.

Difference is tiny, but I like to discover new things about my spec, and this one is pretty interesting

So, that's how stats probably look for t15n:

hit = int > SP > haste (~0.5 of int) > crit (less than 0.5 of int) > mastery (less than 0.5 of int), but you might occasionally want to throw in a mastery reforge or two

Edited May 19, 2013 by areanu

[Oltier 471]

Yes, that mixed value was exactly my idea as well :D Interresting, indeed. It's worth a few tries for me in raid environment ;)

[areanu 16]

Honestly, it's unlikely that any difference can be noticed. We are talking about ~0.5% percent here (or less), and dps range is — according to SimC as well — significantly more than that, at least +-3%.

Obviously, in real environment it's even higher from pull to pull, so there's no way to correctly interpret the results. It might work, but RNG was not in our favor, and less FoF / BF / trinks procced, and overall dps was lower, or vice versa

Could not hurt though

Edited May 20, 2013 by areanu

[Guest Joshua]

How much longer until we get a definitive answer on LB vs. NT?

[Oltier 471]

How much longer until we get a definitive answer on LB vs. NT?

If you can reach about 12684 haste, have t15 4pc bonus, meta gem, RPPM trinkets and unglyph icy veins, you should go for NT. This will yield a bit more DPS on single target, while it will be significant difference on multi-dotting.

Otherwise, you should go for LB on single target and NT on multiple target.

[Guest Ati]

Lately, i find that as reforging, i am really close to gettin the 23% crit cap due to the high ilvl around. Can you please specify the exact number of crit needed to get the 23%? Im having some trouble finding that and it would be really usefull.

[Damien 1,514]

Lately, i find that as reforging, i am really close to gettin the 23% crit cap due to the high ilvl around. Can you please specify the exact number of crit needed to get the 23%? Im having some trouble finding that and it would be really usefull.

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/303-combat-ratings-at-level-90-in-mists-of-pandaria/

[Guest Comrade Penguin]

I'm a little confused by the new multi-target advice. I was under the impression that only the most recently applied mage bomb procs Brain Freeze. In what way does multidotting with NT give you a tremendous amount of procs?

[Oltier 471]

I'm a little confused by the new multi-target advice. I was under the impression that only the most recently applied mage bomb procs Brain Freeze. In what way does multidotting with NT give you a tremendous amount of procs?

Yes, that is exactly the case. If I said that NT gives more procs I was mistaken and sorry. But yes, only the last NT gives procs.

[Guest Egoreaper]

Looking at the Cooldown Macros, wouldn't it be more Ideal to time your Alter Time shortly after your Icy Veins to get the procs as well?

[Oltier 471]

Looking at the Cooldown Macros, wouldn't it be more Ideal to time your Alter Time shortly after your Icy Veins to get the procs as well?

It should be much more ideal, indeed. ^^ Although, you can also wait for the procs, to come first, and THEN use the macro. :) But I feel taht this is a bit of a waste, and with Icy veins used, you have higher chance of procs...

So, I would also suggest not using that macro.

[Guest Egoreaper]

I know that most guides have always selected Nether Tempest as one of the highest DPS selections for the Tier 5 talent point. In my experience (in LFR at least), Frost Bomb seems to get me closer to the top spots than any other mage. My gear on my mage isn't spectacular being that it barely qualifies for the ToT LFR wings. So, my question is, What is the variation on frost bomb to the other 2 talents? With higher haste, I would think that Frost bomb might be a better option with the shortened CD being that it hits like a truck.

[EgoReaper 9]

I sent this before I made an account on the site but I guess it didn't go through or something, idk.

Looking at that talent selection page of the guide, Frost bomb isn't really mentioned there with the exception of what it does. I find that I pull pretty strong dps in gear that barely allows me into the ToT LFRs while I use it.

What are the number differences between frost bomb and the other 2 options? How is that specific talent tested in relation to the others? Wouldn't frost bomb be better if you have the haste to get it closer to the GCD in cast time? I would think that because Frost Bomb hits so hard that it might be an option to think about when considering the Tier 5 talents.

If anyone could help me out with this it would be much appreciated.

Edit: Thank you, Oltier, for answering my earlier question.

I'm sorry for the double post, my original post hadn't shown up on my screen yet when I posted this new question.

Edited June 13, 2013 by EgoReaper

[Oltier 471]

Hey, Egoreaper.

I apologize, but my computer's screen stopped working today it would be long to reply from mobile phone. I will answer you tomorrow as soon as possible.

Actually, please have look at this topic. If the posts there doesn't answer your question, let me know again. :)

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2163-mage-bombs-53/

[EgoReaper 9]

Hey, Egoreaper.

I apologize, but my computer's screen stopped working today it would be long to reply from mobile phone. I will answer you tomorrow as soon as possible.

Actually, please have look at this topic. If the posts there doesn't answer your question, let me know again. :)

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2163-mage-bombs-53/

That sucks that your screen stopped working =(.

I'm not sure if I'm either pulling the dps because of higher skill, better reforging, or because I actually try to pull top numbers even if it is LFR. That being said, LFR may not be the best place to judge my current progress.

I DL'd simcraft today and have been messing with it. With player skill set to elitist, the max DPS potential for frost bomb is at about 95k, I'm sitting at approx. 80-85k. Now, I haven't gotten the chance to test LB and NT yet but those sit right around the 99k mark for my current gear.

I'll have to try out the other two options to be sure, but if simc is right, then switching to NT/LB will be a minor yet large enough difference to make the switch. Thank you for the helpful link.

[Oltier 471]

In addition, you might want to check out Blatty's (one of the best mages around the world, who's playing in Method) suggestions for mage bomb choices on different bosses.

https://www.icy-veins.com/frost-mage-wow-pve-dps-spec-builds-talents-glyphs :)

[areanu 16]

Please allow me to respond to questions with a short answer (I think Oltier will later enlighten it much more thoughtfully):

FB is easy to watch and exteremely easy to manage and time FB procs.

NT and LB are none of these things, as you have to both watch it carefully for 100% uptime (something only elite players can achieve, but even 9*-ish per cent uptime is good) and be swift with managing FB procs to avoid wasting them (especially with NT).

My gut feeling is that NT and LB produce more FB procs and scale much better with high haste values.

Also, quoting Akraen, "I would rather die than pick a bomb that has a cast time". Or something like that.

Edited June 14, 2013 by areanu

[EgoReaper 9]

Please allow me to respond to questions with a short answer (I think Oltier will later enlighten it much more thoughtfully):

FB is easy to watch and exteremely easy to manage and time FB procs.

NT and LB are none of these things, as you have to both watch it carefully for 100% uptime (something only elite players can achieve, but even 9*-ish per cent uptime is good) and be swift with managing FB procs to avoid wasting them (especially with NT).

My gut feeling is that NT and LB produce more FB procs and scale much better with high haste values.

Also, quoting Akraen, "I would rather die than pick a bomb that has a cast time". Or something like that.

When I had really gotten down to it and started thinking about each option, that is where the main difference is, the simple number of procs. Frost bomb has the quicker "Cycle" as I'll call it, being that you refresh it roughly every 10 seconds (in about 485 gear) as opposed to every 12 seconds from LB and NT but it can only create 1 proc as opposed to the other options which can create more, but can also cause error with missed procs due to not being able to dump them fast enough. But, it's Risk = Reward. Risk the lower dps through missed procs for a higher dps potential.