When In Doubt, Turn to the Pros for Better DPS

[Relarius 0]

As a level 100 frost mage (newby), I'm turning to you pros for some help and advice to boost my dps in raids.  I've played as a hunter for too many years and understand completely the mechanics and rotations to stay at the top of the dps charts as a hunter.

With the WoD expansion, I rolled a frost mage and took the free upgrade thinking it would be a no brainer to do the same dps output that I was used to as a hunter, but this time as a frost mage. (Big mistake being cocky and thinking that.) 

Now, it seems no matter what I read and try to implement, the dps rating just doesn’t come out for me.  Only once did I hit 13K in one fight.  It must have been luck because I can't recreate it again and only average 7-8.5K dps per fight.  I'm not concerned about my ilvl.  That will improve as I get gear through raiding.  I need your help to get better mechanics.  I've read the introductory pages of Icy Veins and Noxxic for a frost mage, but I know there is more knowledge out there.  So, I'm turning to you pros.

As a side note, my desperation to get help from fellow frost mages came this last weekend when in one of the raids I was in, I was told that it looks like I have the mechanics down, but my dps sucks.  Embarassing.

Can you help? It's a waste of time to give you my opener because obviously, it isn't working.  What are you using for your openers and continuing rotations?  How do you get the FoF to pop more often?  How do you get Brain Freeze to double stack?  Macro ideas?  Talents used for trash v boss?  Help!

[TLTeo 29]

It sounds like you aren't using your cooldowns properly. Frost has absolutely insane burst capabilities when combining Frozen orb, Crystal, Icy Veins, Ice Nova and Mirror images. All these should be popped on the opener of a boss fight as well as every time you can on trash mobs.

 

Because so much of our damage is so tied to cooldowns, our sustained dps is quite lackluster, and after the burst period is over other classes will catch back up to you. This makes using cooldowns correctly a -lot- more important than with other characters.

[planetxerox 0]

Just for a little more context, are there any specific fights you're struggling with? how do you fare on the training dummies?

 

TLTeo is pretty spot on. A lot of playing frost mage is controlling cooldowns along with your burst using FoF procs.

 

Just to take a stab at the issue, since you seem like you've read all the guides and stuff anyway, are you struggling with movement? I haven't played hunter extensively, but in my experience it's easier to be more mobile as a hunter than with a spell caster. I find I have to really plan how to minimize my movement during boss fights and try to keep FoF procs when I know movement is about to happen so I can keep the dps going.

[Relarius 0]

TLTeo and planetxerox, thanks! With your help the dps is almost back up where I would hope it should be during dungeon fights.  (My I level isn't up to raid level yet, but with the improved dps, it should only be another day or two and then I will be able to get into WoD raiding.)  My dps can be better, but that is something I will have to work on for a while so that I can do the mechanics without constantly looking at my UI for which spell is hotkeye'd to what Nostromo/Razer button.

 

planetxrox, I am used to moving a lot as a hunter, but with Aspect of the Fox (bless us hunters!), Blink and Ice Floes, standing still to cast, when I have to, isn't a problem.  It is all a matter of raid awareness and know when to get out of the AOE.  And even for those times when you seem to always have to move, you can always find the right time to pause for a moment to cast, then move again.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Relarius

[Soffic 1]

Its all about how you use prismatic crystal and your other dps cool downs.  So,

 

1. Build your 5 icicles 

2. use pet water jet to build 2 fingers of frost and hopefully a frostfire bolt proc

3. pop any trinkets and glyphed icy veins that turns it from a haste buff to a multistrike buff

4. pop mirror images

5. cast frost bomb on boss

6. drop prismatic crystal 

7. use your fingers of frost charges and frostfire bolt

8. cast frozen orb

9. use your fingers of frost proc's

10. frostbolt the prismatic crystal and use any frostfire and icelance procs until it expires

 

usually at this point I am doing twice as much dps as anyone else, however they will catch up a bit until my next lot of cool downs

 

what I am trying to figure out at the moment is if I should wait for prismatic crystal to come off cooldown before I use my frozen orb or not, frozen orb has a 1 min cooldown but prismatic crystal has 1.5 min cooldown.

 

[iltete 1]

^ you shouldnt frostbomb the crystal? or is that less dps than having the boss frostbombed?

[Berlinia 168]

@Soffic only difference with what I do is the first phase. You want to cast as many spells during Trinket procs, so build up FoF instantly and then unload. That's assuming proccing trinkets/buffs

[Icyviens 0]

1. Build your 5 icicles 

 

2. use pet water jet to build 2 fingers of frost and hopefully a frostfire bolt proc

3. pop any trinkets and glyphed icy veins that turns it from a haste buff to a multistrike buff

4. pop mirror images

5. cast frost bomb on boss

6. drop prismatic crystal 

7. use your fingers of frost charges and frostfire bolt

8. cast frozen orb

9. use your fingers of frost proc's

10. frostbolt the prismatic crystal and use any frostfire and icelance procs until it expires

 

 

 

Make sure to prepot! My opener is a little different and I agree with Berlinia that I would burn the FoF procs from pet opener. Dont need to save them. Most of the time Frozen Orb generates enough FoF to last most of the Crystal duration. Also I would not drop the Crystal before I cast Frozen Orb. Your ranged, you should be at range from boss, hence orb will take time to travel. Thats enough time to set your crystal after and not worry about wasted over capped FoF and not waste 1 second of Crystal uptime. I also do not use Frost Bomb. Ice Nova is my prefference because we are already a frontload dps Nova is the hardest hitting spell we got and is instant GCD aoe. Trick is learning how to fit Nova's into crystal uptime and cast it without risking FoF to stack over 2.

[Fatchearja 0]

I feel like this was written for me lol. Can I ask the "pros" a question about stats. I know mutilstrike is first but its the shatter effect confuses me. If u guys could put it in lamen terms for me plz. Thanks

[Berlinia 168]

You get crit from gear.That gear gets translated to a certain %.
When the shatter effect takes place, which is with Fingers of Frost, Brain Freeze OR when the target is actually frozen, these spells that have the shatter effect have an extra effect to crit.
Assume for example you have 10% crit.
With shatter your spell will have (10%)*2+50% = 70% chance to crit.

[Fuzada 0]

Its all about how you use prismatic crystal and your other dps cool downs. So,

1. Build your 5 icicles

2. use pet water jet to build 2 fingers of frost and hopefully a frostfire bolt proc

3. pop any trinkets and glyphed icy veins that turns it from a haste buff to a multistrike buff

4. pop mirror images

5. cast frost bomb on boss

6. drop prismatic crystal

7. use your fingers of frost charges and frostfire bolt

8. cast frozen orb

9. use your fingers of frost proc's

10. frostbolt the prismatic crystal and use any frostfire and icelance procs until it expires

usually at this point I am doing twice as much dps as anyone else, however they will catch up a bit until my next lot of cool downs

what I am trying to figure out at the moment is if I should wait for prismatic crystal to come off cooldown before I use my frozen orb or not, frozen orb has a 1 min cooldown but prismatic crystal has 1.5 min cooldown.

I couldn't disagree more with this opener. Far from a pro, but these are my thoughts.

1. As was mentioned, in raids there should be a prepot. Our cd cycle is 3 minutes, so this works well for us. Dungeons obviously not worth it.

2. MI should go off prior to pull with the prepot. MI updates dynamically, so popping after cds is pointless and you're losing a gcd.

3. There is some debate as to whether you build 2 fof with waterjet. On one hand yout get the cd rolling and will have 2 fof and maybe a ffb when you pop crystal. On the other hand you very slightly delay your crystal and orb cds and, more importantly, will need to use a gcd casting orb when crystal is up. I am water jetting into crystal right now, but this may change with 2pc t17. I could still see an argument delaying orb as you're still getting water jet on cd and youll come out of crystal with fof procs.

4. If you water jet I think it's best to hold iv until you finish frost bomb cast on crystal, but some may pop on first fb cast to fish for ffb procs. Note your first bomb should be on crystal, not the boss (my guess is this was just a typo). Unsure which is optimal. I am personally popping on use whenever I use iv.

5. I've never heard of anyone building 5 icicles. I would advise against doing this, but I'm not 100% sure on math. Given pre pot this would seem to be a terrible waste of however long it takes you to build 5 crystals. Using water jet you're potentially wasting fof procs too. Even without seems like a lot of delay for minor gain, but would depends on total fight time / time spent. Really unsure on this point

So order for me is

1. Prepot and mi at 2.5s on tank count down.

2. After mi gcd start frostbolt cast.

3. Halfway through fb (i.e. at tank pull) use water jet.

4. Fb again to get second fof from water jet.

5. Prismatic crystal.

6. Frost bomb crystal.

7. Pop iv and all cds at end of frost bomb cast

8. Unload fof / ffb procs if you have any. Always do an fof first then the ffb so you have room for the ffb to proc fof.

9. If the ffb doesn't proc a second fof I cast frost orb, if it does I fof again (frost orb on one fof charge). If exceptionally close I might frost orb on 0 fof charges.

10. Spam fof charges. Fill with fb if there aren't any. Cast ffb when up. If I've had to hard cast fb twice I'll use ffb on proc even with 2 fof. Timing here is huge because if you put a fof or ffb into a crystal that is gone before it lands you're losing a lot of dps.

11. When crystal is down or about to drop I frost bomb boss, unload procs, and begin a normal rotation.

Also, I've been told to use frost orb on cd same as prismatic. The second prismatic just trying and save fof / ffb procs. You do this so that your orb stays timed to come up with your third crystal/iv. If the fight is going to end before you benefit from a third cast of frost orb you should obviously save it for prismatic crystal (as long as the fight is lasting long enough for a second crystal).

One min on use trinkets are popped on frost orb. One and a half on crystal. 2 min on use are best used on cd if fight is 6m20s+. If the fight is shorter than that I would suggest saving for the 3m mark and second round of full cds, but actual best answer would depend on total length of fight.

Anything above could be terribly wrong. I am far from a pro and this is all mu opinion, but wanted to share none the less.

Lastly, the above example states shatter gives 2x crit % + 50%. Current tool tip says 1.5x crit % + 50%. Unsure which is right, but thought I'd point that out.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Fuzada

[Soffic 1]

^ you shouldnt frostbomb the crystal? or is that less dps than having the boss frostbombed?

you frost bomb the mob, not the crystal

[Soffic 1]

I couldn't disagree more with this opener. Far from a pro, but these are my thoughts.

1. As was mentioned, in raids there should be a prepot. Our cd cycle is 3 minutes, so this works well for us. Dungeons obviously not worth it.

2. MI should go off prior to pull with the prepot. MI updates dynamically, so popping after cds is pointless and you're losing a gcd.

3. There is some debate as to whether you build 2 fof with waterjet. On one hand yout get the cd rolling and will have 2 fof and maybe a ffb when you pop crystal. On the other hand you very slightly delay your crystal and orb cds and, more importantly, will need to use a gcd casting orb when crystal is up. I am water jetting into crystal right now, but this may change with 2pc t17. I could still see an argument delaying orb as you're still getting water jet on cd and youll come out of crystal with fof procs.

4. If you water jet I think it's best to hold iv until you finish frost bomb cast on crystal, but some may pop on first fb cast to fish for ffb procs. Note your first bomb should be on crystal, not the boss (my guess is this was just a typo). Unsure which is optimal. I am personally popping on use whenever I use iv.

5. I've never heard of anyone building 5 icicles. I would advise against doing this, but I'm not 100% sure on math. Given pre pot this would seem to be a terrible waste of however long it takes you to build 5 crystals. Using water jet you're potentially wasting fof procs too. Even without seems like a lot of delay for minor gain, but would depends on total fight time / time spent. Really unsure on this point

So order for me is

1. Prepot and mi at 2.5s on tank count down.

2. After mi gcd start frostbolt cast.

3. Halfway through fb (i.e. at tank pull) use water jet.

4. Fb again to get second fof from water jet.

5. Prismatic crystal.

6. Frost bomb crystal.

7. Pop iv and all cds at end of frost bomb cast

8. Unload fof / ffb procs if you have any. Always do an fof first then the ffb so you have room for the ffb to proc fof.

9. If the ffb doesn't proc a second fof I cast frost orb, if it does I fof again (frost orb on one fof charge). If exceptionally close I might frost orb on 0 fof charges.

10. Spam fof charges. Fill with fb if there aren't any. Cast ffb when up. If I've had to hard cast fb twice I'll use ffb on proc even with 2 fof. Timing here is huge because if you put a fof or ffb into a crystal that is gone before it lands you're losing a lot of dps.

11. When crystal is down or about to drop I frost bomb boss, unload procs, and begin a normal rotation.

Also, I've been told to use frost orb on cd same as prismatic. The second prismatic just trying and save fof / ffb procs. You do this so that your orb stays timed to come up with your third crystal/iv. If the fight is going to end before you benefit from a third cast of frost orb you should obviously save it for prismatic crystal (as long as the fight is lasting long enough for a second crystal).

One min on use trinkets are popped on frost orb. One and a half on crystal. 2 min on use are best used on cd if fight is 6m20s+. If the fight is shorter than that I would suggest saving for the 3m mark and second round of full cds, but actual best answer would depend on total length of fight.

Anything above could be terribly wrong. I am far from a pro and this is all mu opinion, but wanted to share none the less.

Lastly, the above example states shatter gives 2x crit % + 50%. Current tool tip says 1.5x crit % + 50%. Unsure which is right, but thought I'd point that out.

The OP is talking about a 5 man situation, not a raid, making most of what you said irrelevant. Yes in a raid you pre-pot, yes in a raid you pre-cast mirror images but trying doing that in a pug 5 man and watch you cooldowns go to waste.

Build your icicles by not using them from the trash mob before the boss pull, use the trash to build those 5 icicles.

also depending on the boss, you want to drop prismatic crystal before using your frozen orb otherwise you are missing out on potential fingers of frost procs.

[Fuzada 0]

Only thing in my post I don't do for 5 man's is prepot. I'd still use mi pre fight, that point isn't invalidated in the slightest. As far as when to use frost orb I did say use it during crystal, but acknowledged there are two lines of thought for this.

He does reference "raids" in his post and does not mention 5 man's, although I can see how you would interpret as 5 mans given current content.

On icicles, my point was more you shouldn't care or emphasize this. You didn't provide that additional context in your post, so someone unfamiliar with the rotation, like the OP seems to be, might take your statement as "hard cast fb until 5 icicles"...

Seriously though, other than pre potting I do everything in my post in 5mans. A consistent opener now will breed good habits later.

[Berlinia 168]

If it's a Challenge Mode I wold highly advise you do pre-pot!

[Tayschren 0]

Hey guys, reviving this thread as I think this is the best thread for the few questions I have and don't feel it's necessary to open a new one. Please bear in mind all of these questions will be aimed at Highmaul HC (and mythic coming up) encounters, not 5 mans.

 

So couple of things:

 

First of all, delaying vs not delaying Frozen Orb to be aligned with Prismatic Crystal. I got some conflicting messages and I would like to clarify things. What I am currently doing is casting both on CD, as then they meet up at pull, 3 min, 6 min and if fight takes longer also at 9 min. Is that a correct way to do this?

 

Then a second question that currently feels like my own problem as I have not seen it asked anywhere else - the interaction between Prismatic Crystal and Water Jet. Currently, I am casting the water jet with /clickpetbuttonX macro bound to one of my keys. The problem is, it just doesn't seem to work on prismatic crystal! Whenever I have PC up and try to cast Water Jet on it, the elemental doesn't react at all, just continues firing waterbolts on the boss (he even stops firing them for a while as if he thinks about the command and then says 'screw it'). Is there any way to make water jet work on PC and also to make elemental fire water bolts at PC while it is up?

 

Third, about the trinkets. Currently I have Coagulated Genesaur Blood, Draenic Philosopher's Stone equipped, with Ragewing's Firefang as backup + all the other ilvl630 HC trinkets in bank. Askmrrobot says that the Philosopher's Stone is better then all of them besides the Genesaur Blood. At the same time, the trinket doesn't seem that awesome to me. Question is, where can I find upgrades for trinkets, besides the crafted ones (cause I don't have Inscription and I also don't have gold at all)?

 

Thanks for any reply, mainly the 2nd question is really important for me!

[Oltier 471]

Hey guys, reviving this thread as I think this is the best thread for the few questions I have and don't feel it's necessary to open a new one. Please bear in mind all of these questions will be aimed at Highmaul HC (and mythic coming up) encounters, not 5 mans.

 

So couple of things:

 

First of all, delaying vs not delaying Frozen Orb to be aligned with Prismatic Crystal. I got some conflicting messages and I would like to clarify things. What I am currently doing is casting both on CD, as then they meet up at pull, 3 min, 6 min and if fight takes longer also at 9 min. Is that a correct way to do this?

 

Then a second question that currently feels like my own problem as I have not seen it asked anywhere else - the interaction between Prismatic Crystal and Water Jet. Currently, I am casting the water jet with /clickpetbuttonX macro bound to one of my keys. The problem is, it just doesn't seem to work on prismatic crystal! Whenever I have PC up and try to cast Water Jet on it, the elemental doesn't react at all, just continues firing waterbolts on the boss (he even stops firing them for a while as if he thinks about the command and then says 'screw it'). Is there any way to make water jet work on PC and also to make elemental fire water bolts at PC while it is up?

 

Third, about the trinkets. Currently I have Coagulated Genesaur Blood, Draenic Philosopher's Stone equipped, with Ragewing's Firefang as backup + all the other ilvl630 HC trinkets in bank. Askmrrobot says that the Philosopher's Stone is better then all of them besides the Genesaur Blood. At the same time, the trinket doesn't seem that awesome to me. Question is, where can I find upgrades for trinkets, besides the crafted ones (cause I don't have Inscription and I also don't have gold at all)?

 

Thanks for any reply, mainly the 2nd question is really important for me!

Hey!

 

Regarding trinkets, here is a topic of the BiS items where you can even add your items! Also the best was to decide which trinkets are specifically best for you is simcrafting :)

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/6943-general-wod-item-lists/

 

I've got the same issue with WE. In PC description, it says, the crystal is only targetable by the mage. You WE is not you (not the mage) thus, it cannot target it. It might be a bug, or intended, nontheless it's worth reporting to Blizz.

 

On single target, delaying FO is a big nope! Just use both on CD. That being said, if FO is still on CD and PC is not, then delay PC a bit! :)

On multible targets, when FO can potentially proc enormous ammounts of FoF that you can spend on the PC, you should line them up!

[TLTeo 29]

MI and WE not targetting PC are intended by Blizzard i believe.

 

I'm pretty sure that Komma and the others at AT figured out that delaying FO is actually a dps increase. Relevant post: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=749&start=80#p8369

[Oltier 471]

Nice, thanks for the link. I'm pretty fallen behind with infos at Altered Time, sigh.