Frost Cataclysm Discussion [4.0 thread] - Page 24

Darguth · 11/30/10, 4:41 PM

[quote=Brainpower;1808863]

Originally Posted by Zeldyrr

OP has been updated, but as always I'm looking for more feedback. Changes:

-- Changed FoF proc rate from 30% to 20%. I left the text saying this was better than the 15% in WOTLK and eliminates the "forever without a proc" problem. But this text was written when the proc rate was 30%. Is it still a valid assessment or do people feel there could be long periods of frostbolt spam with a 20% proc rate?--

You may have long periods without FoF proccing but the thing is that now you also have BF proccing which is a 15% proc added to that 20%. Since you keep one FoF stack for BF and use IL at two stacks, you have a 35% chance to proc something and cast a spell different than frostbolt so it should be better than when you had the 15% chance.

Additionally there is now the opportunity to use cooldowns, namely Imp. Freeze and FFO, to generate FOF charges automatically (or nearly automatically), which should help to break large stretches combined with the increased proc chance.

Lhivera · 11/30/10, 5:39 PM

I believe Magegraf is not seeing the mana starvation after around 5 minutes that SimC is, so there's no reason to use Mage Armor. The question is why are they getting different results. So far I haven't found anything wrong with the way SimC is handling mana, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

♦ nathanbp · 11/30/10, 7:07 PM

Originally Posted by Lhivera

I believe Magegraf is not seeing the mana starvation after around 5 minutes that SimC is, so there's no reason to use Mage Armor. The question is why are they getting different results. So far I haven't found anything wrong with the way SimC is handling mana, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

What does the mana regen labeled mp5_regen by simulationcraft represent? I thought only healers get a base regen in combat now? It's equal to the 870 mp5 listed next to mp5 as a stat, but I'd think that's out of combat mp5?

Does simulationcraft know that Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild don't stack? Both of them are listed under Constant Buffs.

Althor · 11/30/10, 8:48 PM

Originally Posted by nathanbp

What does the mana regen labeled mp5_regen by simulationcraft represent? I thought only healers get a base regen in combat now? It's equal to the 870 mp5 listed next to mp5 as a stat, but I'd think that's out of combat mp5?

Does simulationcraft know that Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild don't stack? Both of them are listed under Constant Buffs.

All mana using classes have some base mp5 that they get while in combat. This is what SimulationCraft is showing with mp5_regen. The healers all have Meditation which gives them a percentage of their Intellect/Spirit based out-of-combat regen while in combat. This is separate and in addition to the base mp5 regen.

SimulationCraft does handle Blessing of Kings and Mark of the Wild correctly. You can only benefit from it once even though in the sim at present both buffs can be present.

Vontre · 11/30/10, 10:21 PM

Originally Posted by Zeldyrr

Glyph are indeed wrong. Lhivera has glyphs as:

Frostbolt
Deep Freeze
Frostfire

but he is running Mage Armor in his latest sims. Vontre has Glyphs as:

Molten Armor
Deep Freeze
Frostfire

but he is running Molten Armor not Mage Armor.

Is this agreed upon? Does Glyph of Frostfire beat out Glyph of Frostbolt? I know FFB does more damage but those are only occasional casts (and a lot of FFBs damage contribution comes from Ignite, which doesn't effect the glyph contribution). If this all accepted, I'll updated the OP.

I use Mage Armor now. When I did an actual mana analysis I found that it's not really viable to go without it. Could you do a swap? Probably, but I haven't calculated that.

Edit: Lhivera the answer is I usually don't even bother calculating mana values unless something gives me a good reason to. =p Magegraf doesn't actually run full simulations, I do targeted simulations on specific problems and use the results to build a theorycraft model. Most of Magegraf's simulation models will run a full set in under 10 seconds, but the live client never actually does this. Anyway I ignored Frost mana because you said it was a non-issue before, haha.

Edit 2: Glyph of Frostfire Bolt beats anything else for that slot, except for Deep Freeze, by a HUGE margin. Don't ever compromise on those two glyphs. Frostbolt and Molten Armor are both significantly weaker.

Lhivera · 11/30/10, 10:58 PM

That explains it! You made the mistake of listening to me and my junky sim! That'll learn ya! There must be something horribly wrong with my sim's mana model, but there's probably no point in trying to figure out what it is at this point.

And yes, we're in total agreement on the glyphs. The only question really was whether Ice Lance beat Frostbolt, and so far in both my own sim and in SimulationCraft, it does not.

You really can't compromise on Ignite at this point either. It was iffy to begin with, unless you were in quite a casual raid group, but now that it's correctly working with FFO, I don't think there's any way around it. The mitigating factor is that since we're switching to Mage Armor, we can recover two utility points from Enduring Winter. I was feeling pretty strongly this morning that at least one of those points should go into Reactive Barrier, now that it has about 75% less suck due to the change to its proc rules. I hear this evening that its absorption has been nerfed; if that's a leveling curve change, no big deal, but if it holds at 85, it might matter and make that point a more difficult choice.

SpartAdept · 11/30/10, 11:34 PM

My biggest concern is still with frost, and why there is such a difference between SimCraft, and Magegraf.

Same stats from Simcraft, plugged into Magegraf.

Frost;
Simcraft; 22,962
Magegraf; 24,137

Only thing I could really tell from simcraft, is that there are 21 water elemental-freeze's listed, 300s (fight duration) / 25 (CD on pet freeze) + 1 (initial pet freeze off the start) = 13 * 2 (FoF charges per pet freeze) = 26.

Obviously there's no logical way that you can get 21 pet-freeze's in during that short period of time, so I assume thats just the bonus FoF charges listed in Simcraft?

Even if you did add the extra 5 FoF charges from the water elemental, im not convinced if that would make up the gap. To be honest, I don't even know if Magegraf is including trinket procs either, which would skew the answers even more. So one of you has to have some more serious information incorrect, yea?

Edit; Added in the "unbuffed" stats to Magegraf, results came out;
Simcraft; 22,962
Magegraf; 20,399

Which would be fairly close, if my assumption that trinkets arent included as you can't exactly select them on Magegraf. However, that skews the hell out of fire between the two.

Simcraft; 26,093
Magegraf; 20,476

Not that my results should merit much thought, as I didn't record any scorch data before beta closed, nor did I get the opportunity to gather any information on glyphed FFB as frost either.

But without including Evo into frost Im getting the two spec's a little closer together (related more towards Magegraf), but dps counts much higher (closer to Simcraft)

Same stats from Simcrafts gear I have;
Fire; 25,940
Frost/Ignite Spec; 25,053

If that makes anything more complicated for you, sorry. All my answers also have even amounts of spells casted, as opposed to 56,4 Frostbolts, I have 56, etc etc.

Lhivera · 12/01/10, 12:02 AM

I don't think you're reading the Freeze results right. I show 9.2 Freeze casts under the Count column. It's not casting on every cooldown, because it's waiting for all charges to be burned. An improvement in logic would be to use Ice Lance to burn the charges to zero as soon as the Freeze cooldown comes up, but at the moment it doesn't appear that the sim permits action conditions to be based on the status of pet spells. I'll see if someone can help me get that implemented.

SpartAdept · 12/01/10, 12:08 AM

9.2 charges in 300s defiantly seems low, would be wasting nearly 4 pet freezes

Lhivera · 12/01/10, 12:47 AM

Yeah, that could represent a 15-16% increase in FOF charges. I don't know how to implement a way to check another entity's cooldowns in your own priority list, so I'm dropping a note to the group to see if anyone can fix it.

Vontre · 12/01/10, 3:21 AM

Originally Posted by SpartAdept

Which would be fairly close, if my assumption that trinkets arent included as you can't exactly select them on Magegraf. However, that skews the hell out of fire between the two.

Simcraft; 26,093
Magegraf; 20,476

Yeah, I don't have the trinket procs implemented yet. If they keep up with the standard fare that should be fairly quick once I get a list of relevant items. As for the discrepancy, first thing to make sure of is if that simcraft result is for single target only. Aside from that it could be a difference in the way we estimate combustion usage, but can't be sure. Magegraf lets you link a results page directly, so if you could just paste the link you used to get that result all the relevant information will be here for everyone to scrutinize.

Nathyiel · 12/01/10, 4:43 AM

I've been reading the last result of Lhivera's sim and I have found that your not crit capped. I wonder why. Is it because of not using Molten Armor ? Is it because of the T11-372 not have enough stat to reforge to crit ? Maybe the choice of BiS item is not quite good.

If I studies a little more :

Ice Lance is crit cap (98.8%) because of 2pT11's bonus (I exclude "move" fight").
Deep Freeze is at 84%, so it's 5% below soft cap.
FFB is at ~70%. It's means that you cast a lot of it without FoF (I exclude "move" fight").

Naqaj · 12/01/10, 5:30 AM

If FFB becomes a substantial part of a Frost mages damage, does that make Firepower a possible talent choice? Does it also affect Frostfire Orb?

Lhivera · 12/01/10, 7:21 AM

FFB is definitely not being cast without FOF; the Damage per Resource is 0, which means it's never consuming mana. There's something wrong with the crit calculations. FFB's direct damage is missing 5% crit somewhere, and its ticks are critting at the same rate, where they should be critting at the same rate as Frostfire Orb. I'll ask folks to look into that.

The FFB crit issue and the pet cooldown conditional issue could represent a pretty significant chunk of DPS between the two of them.

Edit: Scratch that. It's partly a priority list issue. Before switching to Mage Armor, I started letting FFB cast whether FOF was up or not to try and conserve a bit of mana. That's not necessary anymore.

Edit 2: Priority list change gives the expected crit rate, but no DPS increase -- the extra crits are balanced by the fewer casts. Guess you may as well use the proc when it arrives, since you're banking an FOF charge anyway and it'll usually be up. Will let you go a little longer before evocating.

There's still a problem with the ticks, though -- they're critting at the same rate as FFB.

Cartical · 12/02/10, 3:49 AM

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