[Archived] Frost Mage 5.4

[Damien 1,514]

It is not random. It generates one charge of FoF per enemy it hits, to a maximum of two. So if you are attacking a single target it will generate one charge only.

I've fixed the guide to be more faithful to the tooltip, although yesterday, when I checked, I generated 2 charges on a dummy in Stormwind (and I didn't hit any other). Maybe I hit critters and didn't notice :P

[scuac 0]

I've fixed the guide to be more faithful to the tooltip, although yesterday, when I checked, I generated 2 charges on a dummy in Stormwind (and I didn't hit any other). Maybe I hit critters and didn't notice

Probable. I did a round of testing on the dummies and when I looked at the log I saw that a rabbit, a bunny, and a rat received collateral damage.

[MichaelTheys 10]

dear damian,

How much crit points you need for 1%crit? and what's a good haste % for a frost mage? i was thinking at around 15% (20% with your haste buff on that's 25% when mage armor stacks with the one of spriests of boomkins)

greetz

Michael

[Damien 1,514]

dear damian,

How much crit points you need for 1%crit? and what's a good haste % for a frost mage? i was thinking at around 15% (20% with your haste buff on that's 25% when mage armor stacks with the one of spriests of boomkins)

greetz

Michael

Michael, I'd rather you make a thread in the Mage forum, so we can keep this thread for comments related to the mage guide :)

[Oltier 471]

As you might know, Frostbolt has a stacking buff.

Is it a good idea to have an opening rotation which is like

• Apply Frost Bomb
• Cast Icy Veins
• Cast Frostbolt x3,

then continue the normal rotation, thus the FoF charges granted by the Frozen Orb and Freeze will benefit from the Frostbolt buff? Edited September 3, 2012 by Oltier

[Damien 1,514]

As you might know, Frostbolt has a stacking buff.

Is it a good idea to have an opening rotation which is like

• Apply Frost Bomb
• Cast Icy Veins
• Cast Frostbolt x3,

then continue the normal rotation, thus the FoF charges granted by the Frozen Orb and Freeze will benefit from the Frostbolt buff?

This is a good suggestion and I made a mention of it in the rotation, thank you :)

[Damien 1,514]

dear damian,

How much crit points you need for 1%crit? and what's a good haste % for a frost mage? i was thinking at around 15% (20% with your haste buff on that's 25% when mage armor stacks with the one of spriests of boomkins)

greetz

Michael

There's no threshold of any kind (except maybe hitting the global cooldown, but good luck reaching it). Just get as much haste as you can.

[MichaelTheys 10]

There's no threshold of any kind (except maybe hitting the global cooldown, but good luck reaching it). Just get as much haste as you can.

thx for that i only saw that you don't have putted in your guide the macro for casting freeze from your pet and it's yust

/cast freeze.

[Guest Malkiah]

this may sound dumb to some people, but i found it incredibly useful for me while i got used to playing a frost mage in the last week or so.

/showtooltip#

/cast frost bolt

/cast freeze

this will make it so that your pet's freeze spell will pop up on your cursor (when it's off CD) when you cast frost bolt - and you can actually click the targeting ring to have your pet cast it while frost bolt is casting (the click to cast freeze won't impact the cast of frost bolt)

just a handy way to always have freeze firing on CD without having to watch it or hit another button - added bonus, since FB isn't in the aoe rotation, you won't blow it by mistake while doing AOE.

[Guest bbishan]

is mage armor better than frost armor?

[Damien 1,514]

this may sound dumb to some people, but i found it incredibly useful for me while i got used to playing a frost mage in the last week or so.

/showtooltip#

/cast frost bolt

/cast freeze

this will make it so that your pet's freeze spell will pop up on your cursor (when it's off CD) when you cast frost bolt - and you can actually click the targeting ring to have your pet cast it while frost bolt is casting (the click to cast freeze won't impact the cast of frost bolt)

just a handy way to always have freeze firing on CD without having to watch it or hit another button - added bonus, since FB isn't in the aoe rotation, you won't blow it by mistake while doing AOE.

Thank you for this suggestion :) I added it to the guide a while ago, but I forgot to reply to you ^^

is mage armor better than frost armor?

Frost Armor :)

[polar 3]

I'm not so great with macros so I wanted to thank you guys from Icy-Veins for suggesting some - it's been a huge help so far.

Having Presence of Mind as a talent I tried to create a hybrid macro between PoM and elemental Freeze and wanted to see if I'm missing something as sometimes my Frostbolt doesn't cast right away

#showtooltip Frostbolt

/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()

/cast Presence of Mind

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()

/cast Frostbolt

/cast Freeze

Basically just added the /cast Freeze to your PoM macro. Sometimes it works like a charm - thanks to this I always use the abilities as soon as they're off CD. Let me know if I messed up somewhere or if you can make it better :)

[Filter 0]

Are there printable versions of the guides available anywhere? These sites are blocked at work, but I'd love to be able to read the guides during downtime.

[Guest Gnobody]

Do all of the bomb talents have the exact same change of triggering Brain Freeze? I say this since the spell itself states that it has a chance of proccing from damage/ticks. So, since frost bomb is a simple one time damage, does it have a higher percentage per damage tick to proc Brain Freeze?

[polar 3]

Do all of the bomb talents have the exact same change of triggering Brain Freeze? I say this since the spell itself states that it has a chance of proccing from damage/ticks. So, since frost bomb is a simple one time damage, does it have a higher percentage per damage tick to proc Brain Freeze?

I just switched from Living Bomb to Frost Bomb and like it a lot more. Regarding ur question - from my experience brain freeze procs every time Frost Bomb does damage.

[Guest Eleven]

I'm not really comfortable with your comment on the Talents page:

"There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents are now viable."

While basically having us "default" in nearly every tier.

Tier 1 is nearly always Scorch since Patchwerk type fights are about as common as you finding a world drop and there is no encounter that is specifically timed for you to move every 60 seconds or so.

Tier 2 you pretty much state that Blazing Speed should never be used since you have the other two and Blink basically handles the job. And, again, you tell people to "default" to Barrier (which I agree with, but still default is very easily going to be interpreted as -- this is the viable talent outside of very specific situations where the other choices may finally get a rare moment to be viable).

Tier 3 This is one of the few cases where we do pretty much have viability freedom, but only because of all the CC immunity or lack of its need in a lot of fights.

Tier 4 You basically tell people to just use Cauterize. The "though you will still get 30 second of Hypothermia" is a HUGE gotcha and should be a red flag that, again, another talent that isn't actually viable unless there is some static timing that specifically takes advantage of 2xIB (after 30 sec) better than the obviously superior Cauterize.

Tier 5 Like tier 3, this one does actually have viability freedom. Sure there is a damage difference depending on the amount of targets but it's not large at all and certainly constitutes a reasonable definition of viability.

Tier 6 In this case, your viability is simply based on the fact that Blizzard made all 3 mage specs viable. Once you pick a spec, tier 6 has no viability outside of one choice. Frost and Fire pick Invocation, Arcane picks RoP. I'm open to the possibility of being wrong about the ward, as you need to provide a large number of MoP examples where the ward is reasonably close benefit-wise compared to the talent you're supposed to pick for your spec.

Essentially you should not be using the term "most" but rather "a few" of the talents are now viable.

[Damien 1,514]

I'm not really comfortable with your comment on the Talents page:

"There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents are now viable."

While basically having us "default" in nearly every tier.

Tier 1 is nearly always Scorch since Patchwerk type fights are about as common as you finding a world drop and there is no encounter that is specifically timed for you to move every 60 seconds or so.

Tier 2 you pretty much state that Blazing Speed should never be used since you have the other two and Blink basically handles the job. And, again, you tell people to "default" to Barrier (which I agree with, but still default is very easily going to be interpreted as -- this is the viable talent outside of very specific situations where the other choices may finally get a rare moment to be viable).

Tier 3 This is one of the few cases where we do pretty much have viability freedom, but only because of all the CC immunity or lack of its need in a lot of fights.

Tier 4 You basically tell people to just use Cauterize. The "though you will still get 30 second of Hypothermia" is a HUGE gotcha and should be a red flag that, again, another talent that isn't actually viable unless there is some static timing that specifically takes advantage of 2xIB (after 30 sec) better than the obviously superior Cauterize.

Tier 5 Like tier 3, this one does actually have viability freedom. Sure there is a damage difference depending on the amount of targets but it's not large at all and certainly constitutes a reasonable definition of viability.

Tier 6 In this case, your viability is simply based on the fact that Blizzard made all 3 mage specs viable. Once you pick a spec, tier 6 has no viability outside of one choice. Frost and Fire pick Invocation, Arcane picks RoP. I'm open to the possibility of being wrong about the ward, as you need to provide a large number of MoP examples where the ward is reasonably close benefit-wise compared to the talent you're supposed to pick for your spec.

Essentially you should not be using the term "most" but rather "a few" of the talents are now viable.

I think I'll stand by my statement. The only talent tiers that really have an impact on your performance are Tier 5 and Tier 6. In Tier 5, you can use any of the talents. In Tier 6, you Arcane can use Rune of Power and Incanter's Ward, and Fire/Frost can use Invocation and Incanter's Ward. So, there's plenty of choice here, so I think there really is no default talent built.

[Vladamyr 169]

I have had a terrible time keeping up in AOE situations with virtually every other dps class until I tried frost last night. Frost Bomb followed by Flamestrike followed by a Frost Nova was giving me great AOE burst. Having every target frozen right before Frost Bomb explodes is tremendous dps. You have to have a filler though or your groups dps will break the nova before the Frost Bomb detonates.

[Damien 1,514]

I have had a terrible time keeping up in AOE situations with virtually every other dps class until I tried frost last night. Frost Bomb followed by Flamestrike followed by a Frost Nova was giving me great AOE burst. Having every target frozen right before Frost Bomb explodes is tremendous dps. You have to have a filler though or your groups dps will break the nova before the Frost Bomb detonates.

Thanks, that's a nice tip. I've included it ;)

[Guest Matt]

Why isn't Frostbolt first in the rotation? You can get more damage in with less interruptions to casting if the enemy is slowed.

Or is that rotation in relation to raiding?

[Guest Matt]

Also..

"Your only viable choice of armor is Frost Armor."

This isn't true if you're levelling and want to AoE.

[Zagam 1,982]

Also..

"Your only viable choice of armor is Frost Armor."

This isn't true if you're levelling and want to AoE.

The guides the write are for PvE content, mostly geared towards dungeons and raids. Leveling is a whole different monster, and depending on the mobs you pull, speed of questing, or how many others you are playing with, strategies change and as such, armor choice.

[Damien 1,514]

Even for leveling, Frost Armor is pretty good. It slows down mobs attacking you, making it very easy to get out of their range.

[wissky 0]

Light of the Cosmos

I was just wondering why this would be considered BIS for a frost mage? Is this under the assumption that we always pick living bomb? Or am I missing some other damage over time we have?

[Guest Behdirah]

Haste does sim for the highest damage in simulationcraft at the moment, However, if you sim helterskelter or multiple targets (think gara'jal, spirit kings) crit will be valued a lot higher. For fights with a lot of movement i suggest going with crit reforges instead of haste reforges, worked great for me at least.

@wiskky

It definitely looks like the best trinket you can get for frost for now. When we get acces to terrace of endless spring you can get a better trinket from the last boss. Passive int and a very juicy haste proc.