The tribute run has not been disabled, but you no longer get the special buffs when completing it if you are level 70. Also, you don't need to complete a full tribute run; you only have to skip Stomper Kreeg, which is very easy to do as he is conveniently located off to one side of one of the earlier courtyards, well out of aggro range for 70 characters.

OK, so I've been wondering about this, and hoping that someone has the numbers to back it up.

I see alot of people talking about the 48/13/0 spec. -->Spam AB w/POM-AP-Pryo. What about using IV? Maybe a 50/0/11? or even 40/0/21? Is it worth losing the Imp AM (main filler spell right now) to get the Cold Snap? And is it worth the pretty quick drain in mana to spam AB through a, IV?

Essentially what it comes down to, is Pyro or IV?? Which will net the best DPS over a long fight (7-10 minutes). This is assuming the obligatory 2 piece T5.

Sinless I'm curious, are you really competitive with Frost? Illidan aside, I didn't expect Frost to be able to duke it out with Fire at this level of raiding, how are you finding it? I'm waiting on a Skull to make the plunge to fire (and the gem vendor) but I'm wondering if perhaps there's any chance at all that Frost will be competitive enough.

Hey Pint, thx for asking

Well, first, to answer your question, yes I feel very much competitive with Frost for the fights I have done so far in BT. I have a lot of experience with arcane for these fights (the last 4 months or so) but I was still able to come close and even exceed my previous parses.

As I said in the post, this was my second week of trying out this spec (first full week really) and I haven't done any of the Hyjal fights with this spec yet. But I can talk about most of the fights in BT. On our first night of BT, where we cleared the first 6 bosses upto Mother, I died prematurely on Najentus, Supremus and Teron.

Wow Web Stats - This one is for Shade. Yes, it is a very gimmick fight and all, but check out how little the difference is when it comes to burst. Kavan pops AP/trinket/IV along with heroism but frost is almost up there with time for only a single elemental. Now if this lasted 1:30 instead of 50 seconds, frost would have higher burst.

Wow Web Stats - This one is for Gurtogg. I died when I got the Fel Rage and was dead for a whole 40-50 seconds before I got a Brez.

Wow Web Stats - This one is for RoS. I was stealing most of the shields, so it doesn't show a lot. But just for the sake of completeness.

Wow Web Stats - Mother. I like this one. Yes, Kavan got an FA but check out how many fire vulnarability buffs she is getting. Even then frost pulls ahead against Atabulus (our fire mage) who also didn't get any FAs.

Wow Web Stats - Council. I like this one, too. Kavan was tanking the mage, so the only real comparison is between the other two mages. In this attempt, my dps has improved about 2-300 over my best attempt as arcane for this fight. Yes, it is a very long fight and definitely doesn't favor arcane, but it was refreshing to spam away frostbolts without looking at your mana bar once.

Wow Web Stats - Illidan. Again, doesn't mean much but for the sake of completeness. Kavan definitely spent more time on parasites and the fire mage is tainted by phase 2. But the point is I was ~50dps short of my best attempt as arcane for this fight, a fight which I think is tailor-made for arcane with controlled burst periods.

To top all this, you can see I am still learning how to manage my elemental. It should account for 10% of my damage on a typical fight yet it is only around 5-6% even on relatively safe fights.

Overall, depending on fight duration it is an extremely viable and competitive spec. My trash dps suffered a little but not much and I am still using AE for AoE with all the talents I put in arcane. Most importantly, even though farmed bosses can get really boring after a while, I started to have some serious fun again !

I hope these help.

Edit: I wanted to add a couple more things. I know that individual parses in general do not prove/disprove any argument including whether or not a spec is competitive for raid dps. But I can see from my own experience that, depending on fight duration and whether or not you can make full use of your water elemental, frost is a competitive and enjoyable spec. I still have a lot to learn regarding timing my cooldowns (I keep forgetting to use cold snap as soon as I burn WE and IV for example), using destro pots, etc.

Frost may not be the highest raid dps in a 6 minute, tank-and-spank fight but we rarely have such fights these days. I am looking forward to next week's Hyjal and BT clears, this time with ~70 more spell haste, mostly thanks to my new, shiny, beloved [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] !

40/0/21 is better than 48/13/0 imo, just because the filler spell, Frostbolt, scales better than AM. Also IV is just another cooldown you can stack with your other cooldowns, and as a mage stacking cooldowns is where its at. I have no +int gems and I have no problem with spamming AB the entire duration of my cooldown stacking, IV+AP+HSH+SCB.

I have never had a boss fight 7-10 minutes long but i would bet that 40/0/21 would be better, with a shadow priest and shammy in my group i gain mana while casting frostbolt.

Hey Saizul. Kavan is 50/0/11 and he uses AM as filler, so he doesn't have access to cold snap IV. He did use a trinket as you can see from his buffs gained (ZA trinket) and there is no reason to pom frostbolt here because AB hits as much on average and is already at GCD. The only thing he didn't do is to pop a destro potion, but remember, I haven't done that as well.

Yes, frost and fire can never compete with arcane on Shade, which is purely a gimmick fight. That wasn't my point. My point was you cannot beat but come quite close to simply the burst dps spec in game on a very short fight.

You are right in the sense that it will probably not compete for a #1 spot in your typical world first guild, with world class dps, pushing their limits. But I feel quite competitive in my friendly guild just starting Sunwell .

Thanks a lot for sharing your ideas. I wonder what Pint thinks about this stuff.

I'm positive I can sustain AB spam through one IV, but if I cold snap and hit it again, I'm not sure I could do a full 40 seconds of AB spam without nerfing my long term dmg by having to use fillers for too long. Is there anyone who has numbers to support this? I've scoured every site I could find, and I've found no solid evidence leading to either. It's almost as if it really comes down to a personal preference. Assuming that 40/0/21 is a higher dps spec than 48/13/0, would it be a benefit to have BOTH the AM and the IV by going with a 50/0/11 spec? Again, any numbers to back this up would be appreciated.

Well, I'm still trying to decide whether or not to always try & time the trinket with IV + WE. I use Icon + Q's eye. I wasn't lucky enough to score a ZA trinket yet.

Anyways, the first pop of IV + WE, sure, I pop the icon along with these. However, I'm at a loss as to what I should do when the icon is up again.

The icon lasts 20 seconds. If you pop it everytime it's up, with no cooldowns, it's about a 155 * 20 / 120 ~ 25.83 damage increase.

If you pop it with IV + WE, it's about; (180 now because of 3 min cooldown on IV and WE)

a) 155 * 20 / 180 * 1.2 ~ 20.66 damage increase from IV

b)Water elemental has a 0.25 spell damage coefficient, so it will gain 155 * 0.25 = 31 spell damage per frostbolt. For the sake of simplicity, let us assume it is added to the caster's 0 haste frostbolts instead. With 91.43% spell damage coefficient for frostbolt, it is roughly equal to another 34 spell damage for the caster.

34 * 20 / 180 = 3.77 spell damage

a) + b) => 20.66 + 3.77 = 24.43 still less than 25.83.

I know, these are very insignificant figures, but still, I guess the best way is to pop the trinket whenever it's up. If it coincides with IV or WE, it's great, if not, who cares.

You're right about Elemental, it doesn't take into account activated cooldowns except Heroism, it takes all passive buffs/debuffs and procs though. It's on the list of the many things that could use some refinement.

Could you add an option to model "Waterbolt" as a 3 second cast?
Even when just standing still and feeding mana (mana spring/tide, shadow priest), I couldn't get more than 14 casts until it disappeared.
It has little delays between its casts, and seems to average 3 seconds between each cast/hit.


I'd gladly take counter evidence of someone who actually got the full 18 casts from it too

Now that my guild has managed to down the T5 content except Vashj and Kael and thus 3 T5 pieces for 2T5 is in my reach, I was wondering which 2 pieces to take. I searched this thread to find Roywin's answer that one should take mantle + X with X being anything except leggings (which limits my choice at the moment to gloves)

Now I understand why one should take the mantle but I'd like to ask why not the leggings because they seem to make better use of item budget to me with hit/crit/dmg and one socket than gloves with only crit/dmg.