Frost Cataclysm Discussion [4.0 thread] - Page 14

Tyrian · 10/26/10, 12:17 PM

It looks increasingly likely the 'standard' Frost build will be: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Just awaiting final confirmation for Firepower VS Netherwind Presence values. The only other potential choice you have, is to potentially swap that point from Icy Shards into 2/3 Permafrost. As everyone has suspected for a while, there's just too much DPS value for Frost mages in Tier 2 of the fire tree. Consequently, the 'fun' last handful of points has been sucked away - and replaced with the 'obvious' talents to pickup, right down to the last point.

Blizzard could opt to simply move Hot Streak and Improved Hot Streak to Tier 2, keeping the tied prerequisite - but in a horizontal fashion, instead of vertical. This would mean Firepower and Ignite get bumped into their old positions. Since Pyroblast is a Fire only spell, Frost will have no benefit or desire to subspect into Tier 2 of the Fire tree. If Blizzard did this, the standard Frost build would loosen up and free up a couple points which can be allocated to the 'fun' talents.

jak3676 · 10/26/10, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by eduh

I'm assuming its the 5% crit raid buff, or is there no such thing anymore?

There is both a 5% crit buff and 5% chance to be crit debuff - I believe they both apply so may have up to a 10% raid buff. I'm just curios as to which, if any, may have been included in the math as that will impact when we start hitting the first "soft cap" for crit.

+5% Crit
Feral Druids (Leader of the Pack)
Elemental Shaman (Elemental Oath)
Subtlety Rogues (Honor Among Thieves)
Fury Warriors (Rampage)

+5% crit for spells only - target debuff
Fire Mages (Critical Mass)
Destuction Warlocks (Shadow and Flame)

Nathyiel · 10/26/10, 12:32 PM

About the frostfire bolt glyph, I have put-it on my 85 mage and FoF is proc by FFB like previously.

I have tested 2/3 Ignite - 3/3 Fire Power (WoW Talent Calculator - Sigrie):

FFB's DOT do not appears separately on Skada but show properly on target
Frostfire orb explode for 2.5k non critique damage. It don't proc Ignite.
FFO don't proc Ignite. It ignore Shatter.

I have also tested Frostfire orb in my fire spec. It scale with crit rate, Fire Power can crit and Ignite proc from the crit.

Incoherent · 10/26/10, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Tyrian

It looks increasingly likely the 'standard' Frost build will be: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I have not confirmed this, but the major part of the benefit of Fire Power comes from the exploding FFO. To me it looks like one or two points are far less valuable, per point, than three. Which raises the question, is that enough to justify dropping one in Ignites? Or is it even better than NP?

Originally Posted by Nathyiel

[*]Frostfire orb explode for 2.5k non critique damage. It don't proc Ignite.

Do you have any idea of the coefficient and base damage for the Explosion? It's basically how much that hits for that determines the relative value of this talent. I see it needing to be over ~3000 to be worth it. It doesn't spread a chill does it?

Zeldyrr · 10/26/10, 1:26 PM

Originally Posted by jak3676

On the other hand Enduring Winter may be pretty pointless if someone else in the raid is already bringing replenishment. Even if we lock ourselves into a 2/8/31 build, that means we have 4 points to spread between Imp CoC, Permafrost, Ice Shards, Enduring Winter, a 2nd point in FFO, and Shattered or Reactive Barrier. That's not a lot of choices, but if you take Enduring Winter out of the calculation you can probably get what you want from the other options.

You have to spend the 2nd point in FFO. The chill effect procs FoF (and maybe BF) and Lhivera has calcualted it at a significant DPS increase--on the order of 3-4% for the second point I think.

Early indications from beta is that fights have lots of things that cause unavoidable pushback. If you add the need for Burning Soul + the fact that MoE is twice as effective for frost than EW is + the fact that 3 points in Ignite is about 5% dps and I think people are stuck with 8-10 pts in the fire tree.

Also note that I would be shocked if balance manages to bring the specs within 5% of each other, averaged over the differing encounters. Ignite could be the difference between frost being raid viable from an EJ standpoint or not. (EJ level definitions of balance are likely to be much more strict than what GC considers acceptable.)

Lhivera · 10/26/10, 2:22 PM

Yes, the +10% crit from buff/debuff are included in the results but not the stats. Sorry for the confusion.

I doubt that Fire Power is very useful at all. The explosion is fire damage, not Frostfire damage. It is modeled in my sim, I just didn't run it. I'll kick off a run now.

jak3676 · 10/26/10, 2:37 PM

You have to spend the 2nd point in FFO. The chill effect procs FoF (and maybe BF) and Lhivera has calcualted it at a significant DPS increase--on the order of 3-4% for the second point I think.

Sorry, but I've looked and I'm not seeing it - source? I don't see how a FoF and BF proc on a 1-min cd can be worth 3-4% dps.

@Lhivera - can you list the build glyphs and raid buffs you used in your sim runs? I suspect you may still be well over 33% crit if you're including raid buffs/debuffs. That probably means some crit can be reforged into other stats as well, although maybe not enough to cause rebalancing issues.

Metaskie · 10/26/10, 2:39 PM

As I understand it, each beam from the FFO can proc FoF, allowing nearly continuous IL spam for its duration.

Lhivera · 10/26/10, 2:43 PM

Yes, that's correct. FFO has up to 15 chances to proc FOF on every cast.

Nathyiel · 10/26/10, 3:28 PM

Originally Posted by Lhivera

I doubt that Fire Power is very useful at all. The explosion is fire damage, not Frostfire damage. It is modeled in my sim, I just didn't run it. I'll kick off a run now.

In my test on Beta, Ignite and Fire Power with FFO is pretty bugged. In my test, I have no Ignite from FFO or Fire Power (i had report it as a bug).

Incoherent · 10/26/10, 4:22 PM

Originally Posted by Lhivera

Yes, the +10% crit from buff/debuff are included in the results but not the stats. Sorry for the confusion.

Are you sure?
I have entered your gear values into my sheet and am getting this (23.62%) crit rate with Glyphed MA and PI included.
4086/648.91 + 0.9063 +1509/179.28+10 (Edit. + 10% more for raid debuff and buff. I am comprehension challenged)

I am getting pretty much your values for everything except Crit. I am very rough at the moment however, but as a crosscheck...
+250 of each giving:

	Int	Haste	Hit	Crit	Mastery
360 sec	4.30%	1.54%	2.57%	1.99%	1.26%

+10% Crit
360 sec	3.96%	1.52%	2.57%	0.80%	1.33%

Lhivera · 10/26/10, 4:41 PM

I'm also getting 23.62%. But that doesn't include the 10% for the raid crit buff and debuff. That's enough to hit 100% crit on your FOF casts, which means adding more will only affect Frostbolt, Waterbolt, and FFO.

Incoherent · 10/27/10, 12:41 AM

Originally Posted by Lhivera

I'm also getting 23.62%. But that doesn't include the 10% for the raid crit buff and debuff. That's enough to hit 100% crit on your FOF casts, which means adding more will only affect Frostbolt, Waterbolt, and FFO.

Got it, now I understand thanks. Added a new row to my post above.

Lhivera · 10/27/10, 12:45 AM

Starting with a spec that includes Ignite and Early Frost, I then ran numbers with 2/3 Netherwind Presence and again with 2/3 Fire Power.

2/3 Netherwind Presence increases DPS by about 1.4%
2/3 Fire Power increases DPS by about 0.7%

In my 6-minute runs, it produced an average of 4.19 explosions with damage averaging 3534.20. The 2% increase to FFB and Flame Orb was also included.

ETA: Of course, that's single target. Get more than two targets, and Fire Power should beat NP. So it's a question of how often that happens, and which you prefer to be better at.

Incoherent · 10/27/10, 1:47 AM

So Fire Power is out for single target.
Out of interest Lhivera, what value are you using for the coefficient and base damage? I can't find anything anywhere about this and don't have Beta access to check it.