[Frost] Little frustrated with low dps

[Valhella69 2]

So started doing Heroics finally
But seems my raid leader is not to happy with my low DPS as he puts it.

Armory Valhella

and here is one of the combat logs

 

My opening rotation seems fine to me i get some nice burst dps

but the problem comes down to keeping the dps side of things up where it needs to be.

 

I have had a look at some guides on mmo-champ and tried a few things here and there but nothing really seems to be working.

 

any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Sikkz 27]

I am not the best at navigating WoL (I'm more of a Warcraft Logs kind of guy), but here are a couple of things that I noticed based upon the logs and your armory.  Also, most of the things that I mention about your logs will be from your Iron Juggernaut kill.

 

1.) You should try and get rid of that cleave trinket as soon as possible.  I suggest replacing it with the trinket off of Kor'kron Dark Shaman, but the one off of garrosh works as well.

 

2.) I see that you use blazing speed quite regularly.  Blazing speed has some fantastic situational uses, but Ice Flows is generally the one you should be taking to maximize DPS.  By using Ice Flows properly, you don't waste globals when moving during a boss fight.  

 

3.) You used ice barrier six times during the encounter.  I don't want to discourage the use of your defensive abilities, but six globals on ice barrier is abnormally large.  I'm assuming that you are either trying to help out your healers, or you are messing up a lot and require ice barrier in order to stay alive.  I really suggest taking temporal shield, because it requires zero globals to use, and generally provides much more survivability when used properly.  

 

4.) Your itemization is probably a pretty big reason that your DPS isn't 100% where it should be right now, especially the trinket.  You have a lot of gear with critical strike, and because of this your haste and mastery rating are suffering.  Even at a 570 item level, you are still struggling to reach the 14242 haste cap, which is a red flag that itemization needs a little work.  Your helmet, bracers, first ring, and legs are the ones that stuck out.  Aim for items with haste/mastery/hit.  

 

I don't have a whole lot of time at the moment so I'm going to end my post here.  Those are the major things that stuck out to me, and I'm sure that the other experienced mages on this forum can go into more detail, and cover anything that I missed.

[Berlinia 168]

Hello fellow mage,

It might be true that I have recently abandoned the ways of the Frost mage to focus on a more... let's say Fiery aspect of the game, but I shall even so try to assist you the best I can.

As scotty already mentioned, your itemization is horrendous, so I would primarily recommend praying some more to the loot gods so you might see a better day. 

 

Point 1) Uptimes. Scotty did mention IJ and I saw you had excellent uptimes there. But then I went over to Sha of Pride. There your uptimes were 73% on Living Bomb and 81% on Invocer's Energy. That makes me think you are quite stressed during some more complicated mechanics that you do not really manage to uphold dps when doing other stuff (like soaking rifts). When i check your damage graph you see that every 1 minute your dps sees a very big spike which is the same timer on the rift debuff. This means you are not upholding dps on the move at all and you just run around searching for a rift. How to solve this you might ask? Have a WA for your debuff timer. Make it show under 10 seconds, and when you see it start moving towards a rift. Whenever you throw an instant cast make use of that 1.1 second to move abit. That way you don't have to go out of your way to soak something.

 

Point 2) Ice Floes vs Blazing Speed.
I would not take Scotty's advice. Whilst he is correct that Ice Floes is a dps increase, that is if used correctly. You do not seem to have the experience with the fights yet to make use of Ice Floes which requires preplaning your movement. That is perfectly acceptable, and not something you should feel bad about. 

 

Point 3) AoE

AoE damage also shows on the meters, and you can use it to pull more damage. Whereas this is scumbaggy in certain situations, it's perfectly acceptable in others. Such an example is Protectors. I see you use Living Bomb. Take Nether Tempest and apply to all targets. The DPS increase there should be enormous. Also use Cone of Cold (glyphed) instead of Glyph of Water Ele. You can use CoC for actual effective damage on: Fallen Protectors Sun phase or Rook phase if you stack all the bosses and adds together, Sha of Pride when the small adds spawn, Galakras when the adds appear and on CD if targets > 4, Slimes on shamans, Nazgrim if you stack adds and boss, Spoils if targets > 4, Thok on the bats in HC, garrosh adds if they are > 50%.

 

Point 4) Too few Icy Veins.

on TFP you could have casted Icy veins 3 times, yet you did that only twice.I also have the feeling you macro IV and Alter Time together, which you shouldn;'t do at all costs.

 

I think i covered most. I will review this when I got some more time. If you have any more questions feel free to ask them and I will reply, as Oltier is too busy playing his alpha (damn you)
CheerS

Berlinia

[Sikkz 27]

Valhella, strangely enough I was thinking about your post while flying across country today.  I remembered one thing that I wanted to mention to you that really helped me a lot a while back.  I think it's important for you to know that situational awareness is so astronomically important when it comes to being a good mage.  Our rotation is simple, so how we react to different scenarios in a raid setting is mostly what differentiates the skilled mages from the novice ones.  Two mages with identical gear and identical knowledge about the basic frost mage rotation can have massive differences in DPS because of this.  There is a thread right here on the mage forums that aims to help people improve situational awareness in SoO.  It helped me to immensely improve my play in a raid setting.   Here is the link, I highly recommend taking some time to read it through! https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/3037-siege-of-orgrimmar-mage-style/

 

 

Berlinia, how did you not get alpha access!?! Damn fools at Blizzard, I tell you.  We need you to get in there and give us the inside scoop on how mages are holding up

 

Regarding Ice Flows vs. Blazing Speed, I agree with you to a certain extent.  If he uses Ice Flows improperly, it could potentially warrant a DPS loss.  However, we were all in his position once, and we all had to learn how to use it.  We could have just stuck with Blazing Speed since it's the more straightforward talent, but we practiced and mastered Ice Flows because we know that it's undoubtedly the best talent from a DPS perspective in the vast majority of situations.  I just don't want the OP to think he should ignore Ice Flows completely, and the only reason for which being that it takes a little practice to use.  My intention here is not to challenge your opinion, but to spark a little further discussion regarding Blazing Speed vs. Ice Flows so that the OP and anyone else reading this has access to the explanations behind the advice given to them.  I have a feeling we share an opinion on this topic, but just a little misunderstanding going on.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Scottylol

[Berlinia 168]

You are indeed correct Scotty that we have the same opinion. I apologize if I came out as if I was bashing you xD
I just feel that even though Ice Floes is a potential dps increase I prefer having Blazing Speed over Ice Floes due to the ease of using it. Personally I use Blazing Speed as Frost due to it being the best for me. I tend to be in oh shit i got to move situations so blazing speed is what I prefer. 

[Berlinia 168]

 

Berlinia, how did you not get alpha access!?! Damn fools at Blizzard, I tell you.  We need you to get in there and give us the inside scoop on how mages are holding up

 

You know who we blame for such unfairness.... always. blame. Celestalon!

[Valhella69 2]

Thanks for the assist here guys

 

Much appreciated.
and i will be doing some reading up a bit more :)

[Valhella69 2]

with regards to re-forging some of my items
what would your suggestions be for gems and what should i reforge into.

 

I see in the first post that it should be Haste / Mastery...
at the moment i am in my 2nd spec which is fire so looking at my armory would be an issue of sorts.

[Berlinia 168]

For Haste at your gear levels, I can suggest this build.
Go for the first cap which of the top of my head is 12700 in Haste and all the rest dumped into mastery. I wouldn't suggest going for Haste > Mastery > Crit

In Amr I would set up things this way
Haste to 12700: 3.50

Mastery: 3.30

Crit to 26.5%: 3.10

Haste post 12700: 2.80

Crit post 26.5%: 2.10

 

From what I saw you were going for Haste > Mastery > Crit, resulting in you struggling to reach the cap of 14242 effectively "wasting" (take this word with a pinch of salt) your stat potential.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Berlinia

[Valhella69 2]

Thanks

 

will try it out sometime this week and see how it goes :D

[Berlinia 168]

Post logs on this same post and I or anyone else will assist you :)

[Sikkz 27]

You are indeed correct Scotty that we have the same opinion. I apologize if I came out as if I was bashing you xD

I just feel that even though Ice Floes is a potential dps increase I prefer having Blazing Speed over Ice Floes due to the ease of using it. Personally I use Blazing Speed as Frost due to it being the best for me. I tend to be in oh shit i got to move situations so blazing speed is what I prefer. 

 

It was just a misunderstanding, absolutely no problem:)  Well I hope Celestalon really comes around soon, because I'm beyond excited for frost mage in WoD.  Three FoF charges!? YES. 

 

Valhella, I would do a full clear SoO, or at least wing two and three of flex and log it all with WCL.  Berlinia and a few others on this forum are really, really good at analyzing logs and can usually pinpoint any errors you are making with incredible detail.  Just try your best when logging, so we know what your best play looks like, and more accuracy can be achieved when letting you know of any issues.  Best of luck to you:)

Edited June 25, 2014 by Sikkz

[Valhella69 2]

I will post a little later this week.

i was messing around with my Pally and priest so did not get much raiding in ^_^

 

But changes made and reforging etc done.
I see my haste is at +47.41% ( 16.049 )

so hopefully this is better than before  :)

[Berlinia 168]

Hey Valhela,
You want a rating of 14242 to be at 50% Haste when raid buffed. Does your raiding team have the haste buff available or?
Cheers

[Valhella69 2]

Yea we do have it.

[Berlinia 168]

Hey,
Then you have overreforged to haste.
You want to reach 14242 Haste and dump rest to mastery. 
you know of Ask Mr Robot and how to set the weights up, or want me to elaborate upon this?>

[Valhella69 2]

Yea please a little more info on mr robot
i logged on yesterday and put in the weights then reforged it all etc

 

perhaps i missed something lol

i feel like such a nub atm re-learning my mage ^^

[Valhella69 2]

here is a new log from 25man HC we did last night.

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l8lxtm5c4ma4njop/sum/damageDone/

 

The reforging etc might be out of whack coz i reforged after one of the fights and forgot to go buy gems etc

But it does feel like i am getting there.

 

with raid buff my haste was up @ 55%.

 

Regards,

[Valhella69 2]

Made it to ilvl 571 finally :)
here is an updated log from last night.

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/8trdkr1cabi4zzrp/details/0/

 

seems to me that playing last night it seemed a lot smoother in terms of spells going off when they needed to etc
Prio on certain spells could probably have been handled better i think. so need to work on that a bit more.

also would it make that much more difference to get the full 4pc set?
or should i keep going with the 2pc set atm...

[Berlinia 168]

I can only add to the 4set discussion as my mobile phone can in no way handle wol.

I have been having an inkling that if you do not have HC WF offpieces 4set is a tad better on single target. Nothing overly significant. Due to the multy target nature of HC SoO id say stick with 2 set especially if you have HCWF offpieces. Generally just go with ilevel and whatever has better stats.

Also seriously consider moving over to Warcraftlogs!!!

Cheers

Berlinia