Frost Mage Discussion [Cataclysm] - Page 5

Jaypie · 02/09/11, 9:52 PM

Originally Posted by Anubisblack

Why wouldn't Critical Mass be multiplied by Shatter? Can someone please confirm that?

Shatter takes your critical strike chance on the current target and tripples it, so it is logical the 5% increased critical strike chance on the target will be also used in the calculation. Otherwise we won't be looking for the 33.34% cap, but the 36.67% cap (95%/3= 31.67%). Also, you can see on the Rawr stats tab that your critical strike chance is 5% higher with Critical Mass ticked and the optimizer works around 33.34% cap.

A german GM just gave me the confirmation that the 5% Debuff crit WON'T be trippled by shatter.
So you need 31,7% crit for the soft cap

Nathyiel · 02/10/11, 3:20 AM

An absence of crit do not means that you are at 100% if you don't cast a big amount of spell, like a thousand. It's because of RNG. It's easier to see with recount/Skada if your at 70% instead of 80% than 95% versus 100%.

If you want a good way for testing it on a Dummy:

Lower your crit to ~20% (60% with Shatter)
Make a test without Debuff to have ~200 Ice Lance with FoF.
Make the same test with the debuf on the Dummy.

So if you have the ~60% and ~65% rate on Recount/Skada, it's not multiplied by Shatter. If you have ~60% and ~75%, it's multiplied.

edit:
I have only 93 Ice Lance so it's a bit short to have a good result. I have made the test on a Dummy level 85 because it seems that the boss Dummy have critical resistance, or something like that.

With my 19.69% critique:

Without 5% Debuff, Ice Lance have 58.8% critique (97 critique / 68 Hit) for 59.07% in theory.
With 5% Debuff, Ice Lance have 78.5% critique (73 critique / 20 hit) for 74.07% in theory.

So, the 5% critique debuff is multiplied by Shatter.

MalaclypseTY · 02/10/11, 3:21 PM

I just noticed something in simcraft (entered a bug).

I did an import of my current gear as fire and frost

chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta (fire)
chardev 8 - Cataclysm Beta (frost)

I noticed in the stats section that my mastery was the same for both frost and fire at 11.8 with a mastery rating from gear of 682.

I'm not sure if this is just a visual bug under stats and the simulation is correct or whether the simulation is also wrong which would result in Frost being higher than it should.

Any one know?

Edit: Got confirmation of a bug fix in simcraft (issue 467). They didn't say whether it was just a visual error or if it affected the actual value of mastery in the simulations.

Noshei · 02/14/11, 4:11 AM

I just wanted to add a bit more data here as well.

I did 82 Ice Lances with 5% crit from a warlock and 19.79% crit on my stat sheet.

I had a 73.2% crit (90 crit / 22 hit) with 74.37% crit rate in theory.

I would have to agree that the 5% crit debuff is currently being multiplied by shatter. I'm wondering at this point if this is intended or a bug.

Originally Posted by Nathyiel

With my 19.69% critique:

Without 5% Debuff, Ice Lance have 58.8% critique (97 critique / 68 Hit) for 59.07% in theory.
With 5% Debuff, Ice Lance have 78.5% critique (73 critique / 20 hit) for 74.07% in theory.

So, the 5% critique debuff is multiplied by Shatter.

ladesso · 02/16/11, 8:23 AM

I'm not sure this is really worthwhile, but I haven't seen any macro on this post.

I use two or three macro to help myself during the fight, since there are lots of button to press while moving.

The most important it's the one on the main nuke; both Deep Freeze and Water Elemental Freeze have the same cooldown but don't share the GDC, so you can use on the same button and spam it a bit.

#showtooltip
/use 11
/cast Deep Freeze
/cast Freeze

The /use 11 it's just if you are an engineer and use Synapse Springs - Spell - World of Warcraft
This way it get use every two Deep Freeze.

This macro cast deep freeze if you have a FoF proc or let you have two of them casting the freeze on a foe.

Other macro just implement the /stopcasting for a quick reaction and cast on proc; since I spam my frostbolt usually I get the castbar already running when I realize I got both BF and FoF on.
I usually wait for the castbar got red (from quartz addon) and the press the FoF macro.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Frostfire Bolt

Do you use anything else?

Thusly · 02/16/11, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by ladesso

#showtooltip
/use 11
/cast Deep Freeze
/cast Freeze

A few corrections to make here. The command to use your gloves is "/use 10". Deep freeze and freeze do not share the same cooldown; Freeze is 25 seconds while Deep Freeze is 30. On a fight longer than two minutes you will start to miss out on potential fingers of frost procs. Additionally, it's a good idea to cast both frostfire orb and deep freeze when strings are up, since they both have very high co-efficients (thought this can't be done with a single button press).

Originally Posted by ladesso

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Frostfire Bolt

?

I've always been under the impression that you never want to cancel a cast under any circumstance except unexpected forced movement. The proc will still be there when your frostbolt finishes, and you won't have wasted ~.5 seconds of dps time casting a spell that you're about to cancel. The only time you will ever get a second BF proc mid-cast is if frostfire orb is running.

DrRumpus · 02/16/11, 10:32 AM

I'm using this to summon my WE, if it's not up and cast Freeze if it is. ! before Freeze so that I can spam it and shift modifier in tooltip so I can check on the summon cooldown.

#showtooltip [pet, nomod:shift] Freeze; Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/cast !Freeze

Also I use this, so that my pet starts casting when I cast MI prepull (I usually start 3s prepull with MI, then FFO + Pot + IV, then DF)

#showtooltip
/cast Mirror Image
/cast Waterbolt

ladesso · 02/17/11, 2:41 AM

Originally Posted by Thusly

A few corrections to make here. The command to use your gloves is "/use 10". Deep freeze and freeze do not share the same cooldown; Freeze is 25 seconds while Deep Freeze is 30. On a fight longer than two minutes you will start to miss out on potential fingers of frost procs. Additionally, it's a good idea to cast both frostfire orb and deep freeze when strings are up, since they both have very high co-efficients (thought this can't be done with a single button press).

Sorry, typing on memory. Anyway when I use Freeze before Deep Freeze, as to snare adds, I usually end up without a FoF proc for Deep Freeze and I have to wait for it. I wonder if that is not a loose in DPS.

I've always been under the impression that you never want to cancel a cast under any circumstance except unexpected forced movement. The proc will still be there when your frostbolt finishes, and you won't have wasted ~.5 seconds of dps time casting a spell that you're about to cancel. The only time you will ever get a second BF proc mid-cast is if frostfire orb is running.

Probably depends on your connection, but even with 120ms of latency I got some red castbar where it's good to stopcast to cast an instant.
While chaining FB it doesn't matter since I spam the button furiosly; but when I see a proc I just wait my castbar get red to stopcast and FFB.

Originally Posted by DrRumpus

I'm using this to summon my WE, if it's not up and cast Freeze if it is. ! before Freeze so that I can spam it and shift modifier in tooltip so I can check on the summon cooldown.

#showtooltip [pet, nomod:shift] Freeze; Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/cast !Freeze

I macroed the summon of the Water Elemental in the FB, so even if I haven't it out or if I got combatressed it get out at the first cast. In the same macro (I don't remember it right now) I cast the waterbolt.

Ominyx · 02/25/11, 11:14 AM

I just wanted to mention it since I've been doing it in raids for the last 6 weeks or so, even before mage armors were free to cast. Use Glyph of Molten Armor at the start to burn down mana, use mana gems and or evo, switch to mage armor, and then for burn phases or phases with bonus damage switch back to glyph of molten armor for the extra crit.

Especially on bosses like Atramedes where movement is inhibiting your dps p2, there is no reason not to switch back to mage armor and get some mana back. Burn phases on Magmaw or Ascendant council are also good times to make sure you have the mana for molten armor.

There is no reason not to manage your mana as frost the same why firemages do, in regards to us getting the extra crit from molten armor.

About crit vs mastery vs haste: With the mastery nerf, crit is best up until cap, and in almost full 359 and 4 piece, my ice lances still aren't capped in raid (very close though to 33.3%, with food and flask and t11 2 piece) so it's not an issue until you're into heroic content or maybe not at all. Every stat point of crit is worth more than haste because it is worth 3x (shatter) on everyone of our spells except frostbolt and orb. FFB IL and DF. At least 50% of our fof procs come from pet freeze, so haste is marginal for creating fof, and too much haste combined with time warp, icy veins and other haste buffs would just put us under the gcd and lose value as well.

• Wizeowel · 02/25/11, 1:51 PM

Originally Posted by Ominyx

... my ice lances still aren't capped in raid (very close though to 33.3%, with food and flask and t11 2 piece) so it's not an issue until you're into heroic content or maybe not at all.

You also want to take crit depression into account, so the icelance cap on bosses is around 34%.

Nathyiel · 02/25/11, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Ominyx

Use Glyph of Molten Armor at the start to burn down mana, use mana gems and or evo, switch to mage armor, and then for burn phases or phases with bonus damage switch back to glyph of molten armor for the extra crit.

I only can assume that you use the glyph of Molten Armor and that you switch to Molten Armor for each burn phase. Do you have the glyph in place of the frostbolt glyph?

Gold3n · 02/25/11, 7:46 PM

Originally Posted by Ominyx

About crit vs mastery vs haste: With the mastery nerf, crit is best up until cap, and in almost full 359 and 4 piece, my ice lances still aren't capped in raid (very close though to 33.3%, with food and flask and t11 2 piece) so it's not an issue until you're into heroic content or maybe not at all. Every stat point of crit is worth more than haste because it is worth 3x (shatter) on everyone of our spells except frostbolt and orb. FFB IL and DF. At least 50% of our fof procs come from pet freeze, so haste is marginal for creating fof, and too much haste combined with time warp, icy veins and other haste buffs would just put us under the gcd and lose value as well.

I'm just wondering where you got this from?

Inputing your character into SimC gives me same results as BiS Gear as well as my own gear with Mastery & Haste pretty equal and crit way behind. Since you're not using the DF glyph your crit weight is a bit closer to Mastery & Haste.

Your Factors:

? Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 2.3630 1.8909 1.9586 0.7935 0.9094 0.9098

Normalized 1.0000 0.8002 0.8289 0.3358 0.3849 0.3850

Mine:

? Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery

Scale Factors 2.3556 1.8451 1.7470 0.6941 0.8916 0.9163

Normalized 1.0000 0.7833 0.7416 0.2946 0.3785 0.3890

Rawr seems to favor Haste more then Mastery; however, it still values Mastery over Crit.

Nathyiel · 02/26/11, 4:29 AM

Make caution please with the scale factors!

The results depend on your gear, race, etc. For example, I have run SimC to compare my goblin with troll and it result on a drop of the hast weight. That means that you have to equilibrate your stats with your mages and not to make a Copy&Paste with the BiS. It's just an objective.

Actually, the optimal stats (raid buffed) is around this:

Hit - 17%
Crit - 30%
Haste - 18%
Mastery - 7 to 9

And the 4.1 is on the road with a lot of the stuff!

Ominyx · 02/27/11, 3:14 AM

My evidence is anecdotal, In World of Logs the top "scoring" Frost mages that I have looked at reforged for crit, but that is not sufficient evidence considering SimC does 10000 iterations vs very few. My apologies.

Mangara · 02/27/11, 3:34 PM

After the patch, Rawr ranks my glyphs as Glyph of Molten Armor =~ Glyph of Frostbolt > Glyph of Deep Freeze =~ Glyph of Frostfire >> Glyph of Ice Lance. This means that players using Molten Armor should now replace either Glyph of Deep Freeze or Glyph of Frostfire with Glyph of Frostbolt. It would be nice if the first post could be updated to reflect this change.