Frost mage giving bad times... dps problem

[calil 1]

Ok, I need help.

I am an old school wow player.

Played as holy priest at Classic, shadow priest at BC, elemental shaman/mage at LK.

Stopped playing at LK as mage and came back in MoP as mage.

I used to be arcane/fire mage at LK.

Nowadays all specs are viable.

I like arcane more, but I am playing as frost by my guild's request.

 

Looks like I am missing something because mages with same gear with me, in average, are doing much more damage than me.

I am not sure if there is a problem with my talents or my rotation or my cd usage or dot/buffs up time or my behavior in the fights.

I am here to ask to anyone who is willing to help, to check my gear, check my data from warcraftlog and give me any feedback at all to help me improve.

 

My armory link is: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/azralon/Calyl/advanced

My guilds data in warcraft logs is: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/guilds/6863/ there is few logs from this week bosses we fought.

 

 

Thanks!

[TLTeo 29]

Taking a quick look at the logs (it would be easier if you could post a malkorok parse):

 

1) i'd say your biggest issue is your LB uptime. You currently are between 70-90% ish, you really should consistently be over 90% uptime and as close to 95+ as possible. Invoker's energy uptime is decent, but that might be a touch better too on some fights.

 

2) It also looks like you are casting a lot of icelances without Fingers of Frost, which you shoudl try to avoid as much as possible. On some kills you cast as many as 20 like that, which feels a little too high for phases of forced movement. I'm not entirely sure on this though.

 

3) You usually dont pre pot or use a second pot during the fight.

 

4) Swap between Living Bomb and Nether Tempest depending on the fight. Also, not related to dps specifically, but on all fights except Malk Temporal Shield>>>Ice Barrier. You dont seem to be casting your barrier, but using that talent is really helpful for your healers and raid in general.

 

5) Gear wise, i feel like you could probably stick to the 14242 haste cap and then go for mastery, instead of going full haste. Lower haste builds are considered easier to execute, so that might help you.

[calil 1]

Taking a quick look at the logs (it would be easier if you could post a malkorok parse):

 

1) i'd say your biggest issue is your LB uptime. You currently are between 70-90% ish, you really should consistently be over 90% uptime and as close to 95+ as possible. Invoker's energy uptime is decent, but that might be a touch better too on some fights.

 

2) It also looks like you are casting a lot of icelances without Fingers of Frost, which you shoudl try to avoid as much as possible. On some kills you cast as many as 20 like that, which feels a little too high for phases of forced movement. I'm not entirely sure on this though.

 

3) You usually dont pre pot or use a second pot during the fight.

 

4) Swap between Living Bomb and Nether Tempest depending on the fight. Also, not related to dps specifically, but on all fights except Malk Temporal Shield>>>Ice Barrier. You dont seem to be casting your barrier, but using that talent is really helpful for your healers and raid in general.

 

5) Gear wise, i feel like you could probably stick to the 14242 haste cap and then go for mastery, instead of going full haste. Lower haste builds are considered easier to execute, so that might help you.

Thank you very much for you help.

I will set up addons to help me keep the dot/invoker uptime higher.

[Kver 65]

Yep, there are way too many Ice Lances on IJ without FoF, definitely stop doing that. Ice Floes should be all you'll ever need and more. There's also not really a way to play full haste without snapshotting, let alone sub-par Living Bomb uptime.

 

Get an addon such as TellMeWhen and read the snapshotting guide in the FAQ. I'd also advise dropping to 14242 haste until you've mastered snapshotting.

[Ulkjin 4]

it also seems like you are not using pet freeze or cone of cold. these may seem like small things but glyph of improve Cone of cold is good 3+ adds and amazing with anything higher. Pair that with pet freeze shatter combo and you can get like 1 mill crit with 1 GCD on fight like sha of pride, galy, protectors, gary, spoils.

 

also pet freeze is amazing by it self. being a mage is all about being cheesy to boost are effective dps. pet freeze is the best tool for this goal. freezeing gives you FoF procs which is always good. But the pet freeze shatter combo is also one of the best way to find more effective dps. it also GREAT for pad but i don't want to encourage that.   

[durrtygoodz 60]

Never given a post a like before but, gotta give a like for proper pet freeze usage 

[calil 1]

Ok, I changed some things I would ask you guys to check it out again.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/azralon/Calyl/advanced

I am now 15% hit, 50% haste, 28% crit and the rest is everything in mastery (included mage armor).

I had sha heroic kill last night and the data is in the logs.

I would appreciate if some could look at it and see what went wrong.

Thanks.

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/RZK8xL3fyCGMrzTt#type=damage-done&sourceclass=Mage

[durrtygoodz 60]

You're at a really bad haste rating, it's giving you nothing. Either reforge up to 18960 or wiggle all the way down to 14242 but don't stay there.

 

Your Arcane Explosion dmg is..... absolutely insane. How are you getting 30% of your dmg done from that ability on Sha?? Adds only come every minute or so. I was able to get pretty good aoe on them this week and got good dps but only had 1.5% AE dmg. I think you spam it way too much. Maybe when there's too few targets even to make it a dps gain.

 

Also your CoC dmg is non existant. You need to roll with the glyph for this fight, freeze the adds as soon as they spawn and hit them with a CoC. Preferably with 2 pc if you was able to time it right.

My frozen orb dmg is double yours in a fight half the length. You should have got 1 or 2 more casts off for starters. Proper use of FO on this fight is basically just using it when the "small add" timer on BigWigs hits 0 so they all spawn on top of the orb and you start AoEing them.

 

Living Bomb 67%. That, single handedly, is throttling your dps. Before any thing else, actually just forget everything I already wrote, cuz you need to fix this basic thing before working on anything else. Your Invokers as well is only 80% which just ain't good.

 

Here's my dmg break down and uptimes for some reference http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/1RbHTtNcaPLdjvDx#fight=6&type=damage-done&source=12

[calil 1]

You sure about these haste points?

TLTeo just said to me that and I followed his tip. Based on easier playstyle (slower casts gives me more time to think).

As I said I am 15 hit, 50 haste, 28 crit and +60 mastery (with mage armor).

http://postimg.org/image/8viv3co7h/

 

My arcane explosion is high because I am jumping at the boss feet and AEoing everything there as soon as they are pulled to the center of the room and keep aoeing until See less than 5 targets alive, then I move away and get back to the frost mage rotation.

 

I am not a big fan of CoC, just cant see that thing hitting stuff or just cant imagine in my mind the area that coc hits something.

I went with water elemental glyph, icy veins and splitter ice ones.

 

I will try time my FO when the adds spawn.

 

I will try to keep up my LB uptime higher too.

 

This fight is pretty intense in movimentation, you have the prision, the pac man phase, the chase for rifts, the pools that spawn in your feet and so on.

 

Kinda need learn to do all that and DPS too.

 

Thanks for you insight!

Edited April 24, 2014 by calil

[Akraen 230]

I don't see the purpose of Arcane Explosion, but if it gets you the kill alright. Blizzard beats it out in every way, it's just more annoying to use obviously. 

 

DG is correct about his haste breakpoints, no need to doubt him-- he's probably the most experienced with experimentation to maximize on any given fight. In this case real experience and spreadsheets both indicate the same thing: either 14242 or 18969(19347) would be recommended. You can also try something new I've been experimenting with on AMR, which is to maximize the x% scaling from PBoI. The idea is you just basically set haste=mastery and let AMR try to maximize both relative to PBoI.

 

DG pointed out yesterday that his best results were at 15.9k or so haste. Unfortunately we got stuck in a flurry of other arguments but what I wanted to bring up is something I already discussed with Kver-- if you get AMR to maximize your secondary stat amplification you end up around 15.8-17k haste and 15-18k mastery, depending on your itemization.

 

It's quite possible that while we can calculate stuff all day long and make charts/graphs showing DPET relation to stat gains, that it all is truly overshadowed by amplification itself and that means the answer truly is to just maximize the sum of your secondaries rather than focusing on any one in particular. (i.e. haste might be better in theory, due to DPET gain @ 19347; but in reality 9% PBoI amplification gain on a haste=mastery build might equal ~500 more secondary stats which eclipses the DPET gain of a haste breakpoint).

 

So if the above is true, I've been diving into the wrong rabbit holes all along.

 

However, either way. Your LB and IE uptimes are the reason your DPS sucks. Solely. Frost theorycraft is maybe +/- 3% dps at most, and only noticeable if you're already 99%+ on your uptimes. There's no point even learning the finer points if you can't improve uptimes, harsh reality.

[durrtygoodz 60]

I think TLTeo meant 50% buffed haste which is 14242 rating, what you have is 50% unbuffed. We usually speak in ratings because they always stay constant rather than % which fluctuate with buffs.

 

Fair play to you if you're able to get that much AE off, I'm jealous, I get about 6 gcds on them in my raid (if im lucky) :D

 

Glyphed CoC does take practice to use but it's a good thing to get using because it really does hit like a beast.

 

It will take a lot of practice to maximize dps whilst moveing and doing mechanics but it's very satisfying when you do, keep at it :)

[TLTeo 29]

Yeah my bad, i meant breakpoint not cap.

[calil 1]

Those stats i said I could achieve, 15 hit, 50 haste, 28 crit and 63 mastery (with mage armor) are RAID BUFFED.

It is not unbuffed or self buffed, it is raid buffed.

 

I just did some research at warcraftlogs and saw that the best build for 25h and with the best gear is arcane, sometimes fire shines, but almos all fights if not all mages are arcane, the majority of them are arcane.

 

But this not my point, i then selected "show me all frost mages" and all frost mages I checked in warcraft log and then sent its profiles to AMR, all of them go for 15 hit, 50 haste, 28 crit and averate 80 90 mastery.

 

I guess this is not wrong persue those magic numbers (15 hit, 50 haste, 28 crit and the rest in mastery (lower 77 max 93).

 

These were the profiles I checked

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/kazzak/ruskin

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/elune/nirnr%C3%B8%C3%B8t

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/chamber_of%20aspects/frenikk

http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/dun_modr/critikalx

 

These guys are the top frost mages dps on the 1st 4 fights in SoO.

 

PS: At which iLevel you guys thinks worth switching from frost and going to arcane?

Edited April 24, 2014 by calil

[Akraen 230]

/sigh kver or oltier get this or I'll get in trouble

 

You're peeking down the rabbit hole. I jumped in months ago. There's too much wrong for me to type right now.

[Frostedmages 3]

He is correct, top parses favor Arcane / Fire over Frost on pretty much every fight from a DPS standpoint.

 

The question of "Which spec has the highest potential?" is pretty easy to figure out. It's harder to figure out which spec is best during progression, using progression strats, and progression kill times.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Frostedmages

[calil 1]

He is correct, top parses favor Arcane / Fire over Frost on pretty much every fight from a DPS standpoint.

 

The question of "Which spec has the highest potential?" is pretty easy to figure out. It's harder to figure out which spec is best during progression, using progression strats, and progression kill times.

 

For progression I would say frost, based on mobility with little dps loss you have if you can manage your procs and cast them while moving.

 

When you master the fight, knows where to be, when and how long, arcane will excel, based on all logs in WCL.

[Frostedmages 3]

Fire similarly loses little DPS on the move.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Frostedmages

[Elro 47]

My advise is, play whichever spec you can perform the best in. That being said, Frost and Arcane can share a set of gear quite nicely, where Fire does not. All 3 specs are perfectly viable, as long as you can play them properly. 

 

I got your back, Akraen, don't have an aneurysm on us :P

[calil 1]

Malkaroc parse.

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/3nqRcpNt6d7PGa8F#fight=22

[durrtygoodz 60]

This is a private personal log belonging to another user. You cannot view it.

[Kver 65]

Fire similarly loses little DPS on the move.

Mobility is not mobile DPS. Frost has better mobility than Fire, but because it doesn't have Scorch it won't always be as good with mobile DPS.

 

Anyway, that's a lexical discussion, please don't go down the "play [x] spec" road again.

[calil 1]

New log, with all fights i did last night.

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/FX8zTwPbMh9y1vRr#fight=1

Edited April 25, 2014 by calil

[Akraen 230]

Wow you have the strangest raid comp I've ever seen.

[calil 1]

Wow you have the strangest raid comp I've ever seen.

Blame on blizzard....

The ETA for WoD made all our raider core quit playing or freezed the account until WoD launch.

[Ceraius 34]

I feel you, man.