[Archived] Frost Mage 5.4

[areanu 16]

See, mathematically (if I did not screw up something) it looks this way for me:

Bomb: Cast time| GCD| Period| Damage | DPS

NT_______0______0____12.04___139774__11609

LB_______0_ _____1____12.74___179005__13028

FB_____ 1.06_____1_____7.08___116331__12728

FB procs |Period| Ticks |Chance per tick| Ticks per second| DPS per FFB| DPS wise FB procs

NT ________12.04____18 ______9%_________ 0.13455_________150000____20183

LB ________12.74____ 6______25%_________ 0.11774_____________________17661

FB_________ 8.14_____1_____100%_________ 0.12285_____________________18428

Bomb |Overall DPS

NT 31792

LB 30689

FB 31155

13 631 haste, self buffs (ticks for bombs are with 5% haste buff though).

Thing is, this math does not work.

You have to move a lot, and instant cast bombs fit better, but most importantly — NT and LB are subject to snapshotting. That's what makes them so much more attractive.

I am very sure that when I apply NT at the very last seconds of Wush uptime, it blows FB out of the water.

Also, I'm already sitting at 1.06 FB cast time w/o raid haste buff, any haste increase will be wasted cast time wise.

________________

P.S. I just remembered SimC produced a little bit different bomb dps. NT was at 30k, and LB was 40k. Well, whatever.

Edited June 14, 2013 by areanu

[Oltier 471]

I don't really want to go into much deeper theories at the moment. The thing is, Simcrafts, best players in the leading guilds and the statistics show that LB pwns on single target, NT on 2-4 targets and FB on 5+ targets. Now.... We don't have any fights in ToT with 5+ targets for a long period time, apart from Tortos, where you will probably be assigned to turtles, where NT is much better ^^.

[EgoReaper 9]

Well, looking at the guide as a whole, For ToT, I'm going to need a lot of tomes... Glyph switches plus the talent swapping. lol

[EgoReaper 9]

Do you have any recommendations on how to manage Invocation, NT, and procs? I'm asking specifically about nether tempest because It seems hard to keep dps up while constantly switching targets to apply Nether Tempest. I use Bitten's Spell Flash for my dps addon and it just doesn't seem too good at managing it all.

Edit: Also wondering if there is a reason to having NT, for the Durumu fight. Is there a mechanic I'm not aware of that makes NT a little bit stronger?

Edited June 15, 2013 by EgoReaper

[Oltier 471]

Do you have any recommendations on how to manage Invocation, NT, and procs? I'm asking specifically about nether tempest because It seems hard to keep dps up while constantly switching targets to apply Nether Tempest. I use Bitten's Spell Flash for my dps addon and it just doesn't seem too good at managing it all.

Edit: Also wondering if there is a reason to having NT, for the Durumu fight. Is there a mechanic I'm not aware of that makes NT a little bit stronger?

Well, I personally use Weakauras for Invocation, ForteXorcist for my Dots. Mage Nuggets is also a pretty useful addon :)

Don't use any spellflash garbage.... Just memorize the priority given in the rotation list. It's really not much.

NT can proc Brain Freeze more frequently, which you will need on the maze phase.

[EgoReaper 9]

NT can proc Brain Freeze more frequently, which you will need on the maze phase.

Is that because of the DoT or because of the extra hit per tick? Not 100 Percent sure how it works, but I would think that the extra hit would be the cause of the extra proc chances.

Edit: I started to find that spellflash wasn't nearly as useful for those talent specs, very useful if you're going with frost bomb, but otherwise, very weak.

Edited June 15, 2013 by EgoReaper

[Oltier 471]

Is that because of the DoT or because of the extra hit per tick? Not 100 Percent sure how it works, but I would think that the extra hit would be the cause of the extra proc chances.

Edit: I started to find that spellflash wasn't nearly as useful for those talent specs, very useful if you're going with frost bomb, but otherwise, very weak.

Now that I think about it, I think Blatty suggests NT, because on HC more there are ice walls during maze phase, where NT cleave damage is huge.

If you are on normal/LFR, you are good to go with LB.

[EgoReaper 9]

Thank you for the addon recommendation. I've found that I love Mage Nuggets lol. I can perform my rotation without any outside help with that alone. Weak auras seems to be my best option for the invocation though. I kept forgetting about it before I got weak auras up. I find that forteXorcist isn't that useful, I rarely look at it.

On a side note, Professions! I see in the guide that Engineering is number 1, but I've leveled that before and I know that I am sure as heck not going to touch it again. I'm going with tailoring on my mage, what would you think would be next to that? I'm thinking inscription.

[Oltier 471]

Thank you for the addon recommendation. I've found that I love Mage Nuggets lol. I can perform my rotation without any outside help with that alone. Weak auras seems to be my best option for the invocation though. I kept forgetting about it before I got weak auras up. I find that forteXorcist isn't that useful, I rarely look at it.

On a side note, Professions! I see in the guide that Engineering is number 1, but I've leveled that before and I know that I am sure as heck not going to touch it again. I'm going with tailoring on my mage, what would you think would be next to that? I'm thinking inscription.

I use ForteXorcist, because it can track my dots on every bosses, which can be useful on Council especially. Multidoting for the win :33 :D

But really, it's personal preference. MageNuggets does the same stuff, but ForteXorcist does in a more seeable way imo.

If I had to choose I'd go for Blacksmithing, because that is the best spec for Fire and Arcane after Engineering, just in case you would like to ever switch professions. It is also good for Frost in case you can reach the haste cap by that profession. :)

[Vladamyr 169]

If I had to choose I'd go for Blacksmithing, because that is the best spec for Fire and Arcane after Engineering, just in case you would like to ever switch professions. It is also good for Frost in case you can reach the haste cap by that profession.

How's that? Am i missing something? (and yes i probably am)

[Oltier 471]

How's that? Am i missing something? (and yes i probably am)

Umm yeaa.. I was pretty incorrect. Don't answer to posts when you are drunk... :D

Soo, for arcane and frost, tailoring and engineering are mentioned as the best professions. However, for fire mages based on Vykina's guide from Method which actually makes much sense to me

Blacksmithing and Engineering are the best professions for a Mage's DPS, Blacksmithing allows us to add two extra sockets to our gear, giving us +640 Crit and we can use our new ability Alter Time to gain extra duration on our Synapse Springs tinker. Tailoring is an alternative to Engineering, we can also get extra seconds out of this proc, however it gives us less benefit via Alter Time and it is harder to time after the first use.

This +640 crit would be +640 haste for frost mage, making it possible to reach the "magic number" that was discussed a lot if you remember it.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1302459-Frost-Haste-Caps-amp-You-Quick-Guide

Blacksmithing could be useful to you Egoreaper, since you have said you already have a Mining character. But if we base your decision on this, you could go for Jewelcrafting as well, which is a pretty good moneymaker profession on a realm where there are actively raiding guilds.

Inscription is a good choice as well, if you have a herbalist already. ^^ But I'd still go for Engineering/Tailoring or Blacksmithing/Tailoring.

[EgoReaper 9]

Thank you for going a little more in depth.

I will probably go with Blacksmithing simply because that is the only profession I don't have on my realm. Also, being that I have a good number of high level plate dps, the profession could become useful to me in the near future. Thanks for all your help.

[Guest Briala]

Does anyone take trinket procs into consideration when choosing when to Alter Time? Up to this point I've going with the guide's suggestion of using it to extend/copy Icy Veins + Brain Freeze + 2x Fingers of Frost. My concern is that 1) depending on luck I can end up waiting a long time for Brain Freeze, I've had 24 second waits a lot more often than I'd like; and 2) T15 trinket procs have scaled to the point where they are very significant, I'm thinking perhaps even more than the BF/FF procs; and 3) since I often end up using the Orb to force the FoF procs, I may not really be getting a "free" copy since the Orb may very well have given me those same additional procs anyway. Anyway would love to hear thoughts on this.

[Oltier 471]

Does anyone take trinket procs into consideration when choosing when to Alter Time? Up to this point I've going with the guide's suggestion of using it to extend/copy Icy Veins + Brain Freeze + 2x Fingers of Frost. My concern is that 1) depending on luck I can end up waiting a long time for Brain Freeze, I've had 24 second waits a lot more often than I'd like; and 2) T15 trinket procs have scaled to the point where they are very significant, I'm thinking perhaps even more than the BF/FF procs; and 3) since I often end up using the Orb to force the FoF procs, I may not really be getting a "free" copy since the Orb may very well have given me those same additional procs anyway. Anyway would love to hear thoughts on this.

I always wait for trinket procs before using Alter Time. The RPPM trinkets should usually proc very early in the fights, and you can get extra 6 seconds on them by AT.

However, as you go deeper in the fight, you cannot really predict if your RPPM will proc soon or not. My suggestion would be that, if your RPPM trinket proc has faded a few seconds before you want to use Alter Time, you should not wait for the trinket, because the chance of a next proc is pretty low and you might waste DPS by delaying the usage of Icy Veins with Alter Time. :)

[Guest Kody]

I just finished reading over your suggestions for an opening rotation. For the part of the guide that discusses opening rotation, you only list a rotation for Nether Tempest and Frost Bomb (and, if I understand correctly, Frost Bomb isn't really viable for Frost spec PVE Mages?). Is that a typo on your end or did someone just forget to include an opening rotation for living bomb?

 

I just found it peculiar that you would suggest using either Living Bomb or Nether Tempest for the single-target rotation (depending on the # of adds you're dealing with) and yet Living Bomb isn't even mentioned in the opening rotation. And, to the best of my knowledge, I cant change Nether Tempest/Frost Bomb back to Living Bomb once I am in combat.

 

I am just really confused as to which bomb I'm leading in with for my opener and which one I'm sustaining during the fight.

 

Any explanations / help is greatly appreciated. Still trying to wrap my head around this Mage thing.

 

[Oltier 471]

We have already answered your question in this topic.

 

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2163-mage-bombs-53/page-2

[Guest Tronski]

ive always gone with the gems yous say to use but noxxic says to use int, int/haste and int/hit., and most mages i see are doing it the noxxic way. so i decided to try int gems and gave it a go on a dummy and was hard to tell, somtimes was up but others down, and then had a look what ask mr robot would say and it was all for the int gems.

 

Intellect

 

  Spell Power

 

  Spell Hit(to 15%)

 

  Haste

 

  Crit(to 25%)

 

  Mastery

 

  Crit(25%+)

 

 

So i decided to have a look at what my simdps is with the int gems on  wowprogression and my my simdps went up 4k dps to 174796 dps.

So im thinking you's migtht have the gems wrong now? maybe something changed, i dont no, i just though id let you's no,

[Oltier 471]

The problem with Noxxic wowprogress AMR that they rely on Simcraft and only do simulations for patchwerk fight when you don't move at all etc.

 

Haste gemming is preferable as long as you are under 40-45% haste rating.

Once you reach that level, you can switch to int gems.

[icyhott 6]

The problem with Noxxic wowprogress AMR that they rely on Simcraft and only do simulations for patchwerk fight when you don't move at all etc.

 

Haste gemming is preferable as long as you are under 40-45% haste rating.

Once you reach that level, you can switch to int gems.

 

I used to use noxxic all the time, then found icy veins and have been using them since. I didn't see a thread about this so I decided to post it here. I am curious about stat weights for frost in 5.4. Noxxic puts mastery above haste for frost and icy veins says its updated but still puts mastery as the lowest stat. Icy veins and noxxic are usually the same whenever they list stat priorities, but this time both are completly different. I am planning on MS arcane for atleast the begining and having frost as an OS for different fights. But I hate having to reforge and gem if I wanna frost because of the stat priority difference. I was excited when I saw noxxic list mastery so high because of its value to arcane as well. But when I got on here it was totally different. SO does haste still take priority over mastery or are they around the same priority? Just curious if anyone has tested these and seen the difference in value between one or the other.

[Damien 1,514]

I used to use noxxic all the time, then found icy veins and have been using them since. I didn't see a thread about this so I decided to post it here. I am curious about stat weights for frost in 5.4. Noxxic puts mastery above haste for frost and icy veins says its updated but still puts mastery as the lowest stat. Icy veins and noxxic are usually the same whenever they list stat priorities, but this time both are completly different. I am planning on MS arcane for atleast the begining and having frost as an OS for different fights. But I hate having to reforge and gem if I wanna frost because of the stat priority difference. I was excited when I saw noxxic list mastery so high because of its value to arcane as well. But when I got on here it was totally different. SO does haste still take priority over mastery or are they around the same priority? Just curious if anyone has tested these and seen the difference in value between one or the other.

That's a complex issue and I am going to try to reply to it. I believe my order is the proper one, but that doesn't necessarily mean Noxxic is wrong.

Haste > Crit > Mastery is valid for all gear levels. There are two soft caps you need to worry about.

• At 50% haste, you start hitting the GCD with Ice Lance and Frostfire Bolt (under Brain Freeze). I do not mention it in the guide, because it's kind of implicit and hard to reach. That said, with full T16 gear, you get close to it, so the relative value of haste starts decreasing to the point that Mastery may be better.
• At 28% critical strike chance, you hit the crit soft cap, and with full T16 gear, you reach it easily.

So, here is my opinion. If you have enough haste and enough critical strike chance, then mastery indeed becomes the best secondary stat, but that doesn't work in the general case. If you stack Mastery Rating and forsake Haste Rating or Critical Strike Rating, chances are you won't be competitive.

The default SimC profile for Tier 16 Mages has 12304 Haste Rating, 8798 Mastery Rating, 4602 Critical Strike Rating. If I run it, I get 291800.8 DPS and the stat weights are Crit=3.92(0.29) Haste=3.87(0.29) Mastery=3.99(0.29).

Now, if I go for 4304 Haste Rating, 18798 Mastery Rating, and 4602 Critical Strike Rating (so -8000 Haste Rating / +8000 Mastery Rating). This time, I got 286520.8 DPS, but the weights are as follows: Crit=3.62(0.30) Haste=6.32(0.31) Mastery=3.07(0.30). As you can see, in this case Haste is a lot more valuable than Mastery.

The value of Haste simply cannot be overlooked. There are probably things to test regarding Crit and Mastery, but we need to keep in mind that the Icicles mechanic is all new and may not be properly implemented in SimC, giving Mastery an inflated value.

[Guest Whatwasthat]

Heres a question for yall. Yall say to use mrrobot but atm it goes counter to what yall have for stat priority. it has hit > haste >mastery >crit. Before 5.4 I was easily crit and over crit cap while in a raid. Due to the changes of what mrrobot says im now around 7% under crit cap maybe less with procts since its started reforging out of crit and into mastery. My question is this Has there just not been enough time for yalls sim craft to not test what the dps is both ways of either crit or mastery being after haste with the former being last?

[icyhott 6]

Heres a question for yall. Yall say to use mrrobot but atm it goes counter to what yall have for stat priority. it has hit > haste >mastery >crit. Before 5.4 I was easily crit and over crit cap while in a raid. Due to the changes of what mrrobot says im now around 7% under crit cap maybe less with procts since its started reforging out of crit and into mastery. My question is this Has there just not been enough time for yalls sim craft to not test what the dps is both ways of either crit or mastery being after haste with the former being last?

 

Honetly, Mr. Robot seems to not be doing what we need it to do by default now. I go in and set my weights to custom and put a soft crit cap in for it to reach. You need 28% crit buffed as a frost mage for max crit. I have tested full mastery and full haste builds in actual raids (dont trust sims) and they are not very far from one another.

 

With a mastery build you do not gain as many BF procs, but your icicles are hitting like a truck. On Iron Jug, icicles was my top move one pull. Another thing you can take into account is your legendary meta. If you recast your bomb with this up, you will get the haste you need for the procs. Just recast it when it comes up, and recast before it expires. This build also doesn't favor burst as you sometimes cant build up your icicles.

 

With haste build you get more BF procs but icicles dont do as much. Still consistent DPS and I personally feel that this is the build that pulls ahead. But if your meta procs, well your haste is just ridiculous; especially is under lust. But you do get more burst from this.

 

I personally play full mastery build, but I play arcane with frost OS. I decided on this so I can actually switch specs and still have a stat that is useful for that spec. Unlike last tier when I played fire, if I wanted to switch I had to much wasted stats cuz of crit. So I play arcane for most of the fights, but like for Naz I will go frost because of the add control. Most fights in this tier are suited for arcane anyway so I like it. But with the mastery build, I can be a viable dps in my OS as well as hitting like a truck in my MS

 

SO if your going to stay frost, heres what I would do IMO. Since most fights you will using living bomb, I would shoot for around 38.52% haste buffed. This is where you will gain +2 ticks on LB. You dont gain an additional until 63.47% haste. Nether tempest is different, BUT LB should be default choice. More casts = more ice lance so you could go more haste if you want, but TBH I still get a good amount of ice lance procs in my mastery build that sits around 30% haste or so when I am buffed with frost armor. So my recommendation is hit 15%> crit 28% (crit suppresion on boss will bring to 25%)> haste 39%> Mastery.   I just feel this gives the best of both worlds. I DO NOT have numbers to back this up, just personal experience in the raids that I have done. I would experiment some to see what you like and go from there. Sit on a target dummy or jump in a flex with both ways and go from there.

[Vladamyr 169]

Hit to 15% >Haste to 48% > Mastery > Haste > Crit is the most common build right now.  However, Akraen (one of the top frost mages) goes full haste (Hit to 15% > Haste > Mastery > Crit) with no haste cap.  His playstyle requires snapshotting procs to refresh his Nether Tempest and is based on multidotting for most of his damage.

 

I would make sure to get haste to at least 48% then decide on which playstyle fits you better.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks. Atm ive been going by Mrrobot. Ill probably stay frost just since at least for the first time since vanilla its a really viable raid spec that's not a bottom of the pits thing. Currently my mage has a SP of 32502 ( kinda weird since pre 5.4 it was at 36k +) 15.55

% crit  14.99% hit 34.16% haste and 45.84% mastery unbuffed. Ive been stacking haste with out a cap also. Going by wowprogress.com it says by their sim im at 236219.1 dps. one thing I don't understand is while I don't expect that kind of dps in actual fighting is why im losing more than 50K dps in SoO. Any clues would be helpful. ( I do still find my self having to break my self of wanting to stack 3 frostbolts for the old buff that we don't get now at times)

[Damien 1,514]

Thanks. Atm ive been going by Mrrobot. Ill probably stay frost just since at least for the first time since vanilla its a really viable raid spec that's not a bottom of the pits thing. Currently my mage has a SP of 32502 ( kinda weird since pre 5.4 it was at 36k +) 15.55

% crit  14.99% hit 34.16% haste and 45.84% mastery unbuffed. Ive been stacking haste with out a cap also. Going by wowprogress.com it says by their sim im at 236219.1 dps. one thing I don't understand is while I don't expect that kind of dps in actual fighting is why im losing more than 50K dps in SoO. Any clues would be helpful. ( I do still find my self having to break my self of wanting to stack 3 frostbolts for the old buff that we don't get now at times)

 

This thread is for comments on the guide itself. For guidance, it's better if you make a new thread in the mage section ;)