Frost DPS | Cataclysm 4.0.6, This Is My Life - Page 2

Flin · 12/14/10, 6:33 AM

The presence of three or more mobs makes AoE optimal.

But the vast majority of the time on trash you won't be AoEing, because in heroics all but one or two mobs will be CC'd, and there are a VERY small number of bosses that require AoE in Cata.

Nahela · 12/14/10, 10:27 AM

It's worth noting that Mind Freeze is still considered a spell. If you're in a group where you're the core of kicking be aware that without Virulence or some significant swappable hit gear (trinkets mainly) there's a bit of an unreliability factor.

Essentially no group should ever be putting Frost DKs up to kick in a 25man scenario these days, but in 10s there often won't be a choice and that extra 5-10% chance to miss can be deadly.

zebrahed · 12/14/10, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by Nahela

It's worth noting that Mind Freeze is still considered a spell. If you're in a group where you're the core of kicking be aware that without Virulence or some significant swappable hit gear (trinkets mainly) there's a bit of an unreliability factor.

Essentially no group should ever be putting Frost DKs up to kick in a 25man scenario these days, but in 10s there often won't be a choice and that extra 5-10% chance to miss can be deadly.

Our 10m has the raid leader, a rogue, and me doing Arcanotron interrupts. I missed here and there every so often, as I dont have Virulence, and it became slightly jarring to our rotation.

Would removing points from improved blood tap/butchery to fill up Virulence be that big of a dps loss?

Also, would attacking Toxitron once to get the buff/debuff then AMS to prevent further stacks while still dpsing work? Seemed like a good idea in my head when I went over a couple of videos this morning, and realized what exactly his shield actually did :P

Griefpb · 12/14/10, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by zebrahed

Our 10m has the raid leader, a rogue, and me doing Arcanotron interrupts. I missed here and there every so often, as I dont have Virulence, and it became slightly jarring to our rotation.

Would removing points from improved blood tap/butchery to fill up Virulence be that big of a dps loss?

Also, would attacking Toxitron once to get the buff/debuff then AMS to prevent further stacks while still dpsing work? Seemed like a good idea in my head when I went over a couple of videos this morning, and realized what exactly his shield actually did :P

I ran into the same issue when I was interrupting on Halfus, eventually switching me out with a spell hit capped ele sham was the answer.

Switching out Butchery isn't a big deal, 2 RP per 5 is easy to calculate. Ends up being one free Frost Strike once every 80 seconds, ya its that bad.

On the other hand, missing out on Improved Blood Tap is pretty huge, having at least 2 Free Oblits every 30 sec, 3 or 4 if you are lucky, is pretty massive.

With that said, its not like you are trading those talents for nothing either, Getting to Spell Hit Cap will mean your Howling Blast will never be able to miss, a pretty significant portion of our damage.

Charybdis · 12/15/10, 3:00 AM

Originally Posted by Griefpb

I ran into the same issue when I was interrupting on Halfus, eventually switching me out with a spell hit capped ele sham was the answer.

Switching out Butchery isn't a big deal, 2 RP per 5 is easy to calculate. Ends up being one free Frost Strike once every 80 seconds, ya its that bad.

On the other hand, missing out on Improved Blood Tap is pretty huge, having at least 2 Free Oblits every 30 sec, 3 or 4 if you are lucky, is pretty massive.

With that said, its not like you are trading those talents for nothing either, Getting to Spell Hit Cap will mean your Howling Blast will never be able to miss, a pretty significant portion of our damage.

Switching the points from Epidemic to Virulence has the least impact since the added disease time really only means you need to apply FF/BP less often. Thanks to glyphing Howling Blast we don't have to worry about FF. Plague Strike will need to be used 12 seconds sooner, but due to RE procs it's really not too huge. It's a loss as noted in the OP, but having guaranteed interrupts is more important than the modest difference between an OB and HB+PS.

A slight note on RE and Frost Strike though: Instead of all six runes needing to be on CD, only one rune needs to be fully depleted to make use of FS's RE proc. If one can line the runes up right then fishing for the proc becomes pretty doable, especially if it means an OB right after.

Theodos · 12/15/10, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by Flin

The presence of three or more mobs makes AoE optimal.

But the vast majority of the time on trash you won't be AoEing, because in heroics all but one or two mobs will be CC'd, and there are a VERY small number of bosses that require AoE in Cata.

Considering this a forum geared towards endgame theorycrafting, I think the question about AoEing makes more sense if you put it in the raid setting. Unlike heroics, the first four easiest raid bosses (Omnitron, Magmaw, Maloriak, and Conclave) all require significant AoE. In most of these cases, you will have more than 3 mobs and need to execute your AoE rotation there.

Magmaw, you will likely be aggroing the adds with DnD and Howling Blast in Blood Presence.
Omnitron, you will likely be using HB and DnD on Toxitron's adds.
Maloriak, you will be using heavy AoE on adds in green phase.
Conclave, you will likely be DnD/HB on adds for Anhash.

Setting up your AoE rotation is just as important as executing it. Have all your death runes converted and up if possible. If you do still have a blood rune up still, DnD> Outbreak (on targeted add) + Pest > HB spam is most likely optimal for adds that have alot of HP (Maloriak, Magmaw). If you have an on-use STR or Mastery trinket, be sure to use it here, as well as keeping up ERW --- unless you are planning on saving it for burn phases or can use it twice throughout the fight.

Flin · 12/15/10, 5:24 PM

'VERY small number of bosses' is meant to include both raids and heroics. From the heroic standpoint, virtually none, and from the raid standpoint:
BWD:
Magmaw
Omnitron
Maloriak

BoT:
Wyrmbreaker
(unknown on Sinestra)

TotFW:
Conclave

5/12 isn't all that significant. I'm not questioning the usefulness of AoE. I'm just saying that knowing what you're doing on single target is more important. Also, the original question was questioning when it is appropriate to AoE, to which I was (correctly) replying that it is almost never really used, whether inside or outside a raid.

zagor · 12/16/10, 4:44 AM

When 41,66% raid bosses require aoe, I wouldn't say it's not all that significant. We want do be delivering max dps possible.

In a week or two heroics will be old news and putting heroics and raids in same bucket should be avoided.

Nev · 12/17/10, 5:35 PM

I am aware how basic this question is, but having played a mage for all six years of my WoW experience I am slightly confused about what the hit/expertise caps are. You say these stats are second only to strength in added dps "until cap." For expertise, is the cap 0% chance to dodge, or 0% chance to parry?(Yes, I know bosses cannot parry when attacked from behind; from this, I would guess that it is only to 0% dodge) And for hit, is the cap 0% on specials or on white hits? (Yes, I realize it is basically impossible to be fully hit-capped on white attacks, but I wonder if I should still be stacking hit after I am capped for specials).
Additionally, I noticed a couple of discrepancies in your guide. In your rotation section, you say

If Rime is up, then you obviously want to use it. There's no need to worry about KM: Rime neither benefits from nor consumes the buff any longer. You never want to Obliterate back to back without having used a Rime procced by the first – and if you’re following this priority, that won’t occur anyways, so not a worry.

However, this is simply not true. If you have both rime and killing machine procced, according to your priority you would obliterate (as long as diseases are still up) regardless of the fact that this essentially wastes a rime proc. Is this intended? I have mentally moved rime up to the front of the list in terms of priority, but I haven't seen a significant dps change (outside the std dev, I mean). Which is the correct priority?

And, as Charybdis recently posted,

Make sure you're not Frost Striking when you don't actually have all six rune on cooldown, as if you only have three, they'll be recharging, and thus RE takes a hit.

is also slightly misleading. Only one type of rune needs to be completely on cooldown in order for FSing to be useful; RE procs always pick the least-regenerated rune, so if both frost runes are on CD it will regen the completely-empty frost rune and you will not lose any regen time.

Finally, I had a question about priority. It often happens that both my blood runes (and blood tap) are on cd, and I have just enough runes to obliterate. I cast ob, it procs KM, but I would have a 2-3 second wait till I can cast obliterate again. I tend to frost strike in this situation, because I have an aversion to doing nothing. Is this a bad idea? I realize it doesn't utilize the proc as effectively because of its lower damage but it seems wrong to be waiting for runes to come up when I have fairly high RP.

LKratos · 12/18/10, 2:53 AM

Originally Posted by Nev

Additionally, I noticed a couple of discrepancies in your guide. In your rotation section, you say
However, this is simply not true. If you have both rime and killing machine procced, according to your priority you would obliterate (as long as diseases are still up) regardless of the fact that this essentially wastes a rime proc. Is this intended? I have mentally moved rime up to the front of the list in terms of priority, but I haven't seen a significant dps change (outside the std dev, I mean). Which is the correct priority?

If you obliterate and rime procs, look at blood runes. If both blood runes are up, blood strike. If KM has procced again, use up the rime before you OB again. As long as your first OB runes are on CD, you aren't wasting anything by using the rime first.

Nev · 12/18/10, 12:10 PM

If you obliterate and rime procs, look at blood runes. If both blood runes are up, blood strike. If KM has procced again, use up the rime before you OB again. As long as your first OB runes are on CD, you aren't wasting anything by using the rime first.

That is essentially what I have been doing, but I was just pointing out that the current priority in the post does _not_ say that. If that is what is intended, perhaps the priority should be updated with a clause after the diseases that says something like "If both KM and Rime are procced, Rime."

SwiftFox · 12/19/10, 5:57 PM

Runeforges

Dual wielding will use Rune of Razorice on their main hand, with Rune of the Fallen Crusader on their offhand, as they always have. 2H will simply use Rune of the Fallen Crusader.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was just wondering about this back in the 3.3.3 dps thread it was MH-Rune of fallen crusader and OH-Razorice but since the cataclysm threads its been reversed and says its always been this way. I was wondering is the most recent MH/OH correct or the older threads correct?

Kaejin · 12/19/10, 6:45 PM

Razor MH has always been correct, the 3.x thread was just never updated to reflect that after it was discovered.

jameasson · 12/20/10, 1:39 AM

Wouldn't heroic crushing weight be better than license to slay for DW frost? I know that haste isn't the best stat for DW frost, but 2178 haste for 15 seconds combined with the 363 strength makes it 2nd BIS for DW frost.

Tyhma · 12/20/10, 1:40 AM

Hi everyone,

I noticed that i was reaching my expertise cap with only 790 expertise rating. Is this something that anyone else noticed?

It could come from the fact that i'm playing a gnome character, but i'm wearing a sword in my OH, and i'm seeing 29 expertise for this hand, while 26 with my MH (using a mace).