Frost Mage Discussion [Cataclysm] - Page 8

Light4 · 05/14/11, 9:13 AM

Has anybody else noticed, that Blizzard does not proc trinkets or enchants? I submitted a bug report ingame, but I did so in 4.0.6 as well and nothing changed. Maybe someone can report it on the US forums.

Nathyiel · 05/16/11, 8:45 AM

It's time for some preliminary thinking on the upcoming patch.

Actually, we know only 2 things: the legendary staff will be awesome and the T12 bonus will be interesting, especially the 4 piece. If the 2pT12 is on the same type of all 2pT12 bonus for caster, the 4pT12 will change a lot of things for our frost spec.

more Brain Freeze proc means a better mana consumption and a better uptime for Molten Armor
we will have a better Ignite uptime
on Cleave situation, BF proc will be around 53% chance with a 38% crit for FB
we will cast FFB without FoF charges and FoF-IL will be cast only while moving

So, our standard rotation will be:

FFO
Deep Freeze + Pet's Freeze
FFB
spam FB

FoF will be save for enhancing FFB

From what we know about the new stuff, we can assume that Intellect will be around 6k on 378 and 6.5k on 391. With, we can calculated what will be the soft crit cap:

		w/o MA	MA	MA+glyph
intel	crit	20.34%	17.34%	15.34%
6000	9.25%	1989	1451	1093
6500	10%	1851	1313	954

piercing ice (3% crit) include

My conclusion will be on the glyph choice and teh relative stat values. I think that the DF/FFB/FB glyph choice will remain because the soft crit cap will be somewhere between 1300 and 1450 crit witch can be easily obtainable. So, our choice will be Haste versus Mastery.

It's to note that we need 646 haste (with 2/3 NP) for the +1 tick with FFB.

Nathyiel · 06/08/11, 8:53 AM

This time, I have made two tables with the numbers of cast for knowing the impact of the increased proc chance on Brain Freeze.

without 4T12 on a 300s fight

		BF 15%	FoF 20%	%dps
Freeze	12		24
FFO-tick	90	13	18	3%
DF	11			12%
FB	155	23	31	40%
FFB	36		7	19%
IL	44			19%
Ignite-tick	72			7%
		36	80

with 4T12 on a 300s fight

		BF 30%	FoF 20%	%dps
Freeze	12		24
FFO-tick	90	27	18	3%
DF	11			10%
FB	155	46	31	35%
FFB	73		14	33%
IL	14			5%
Ignite-tick	146			13%
		73	87

I made choice like having the shatter crit cap for FFB and having FFB only cast with FoF.

We can see:

The numbers of Instant cast is globally the same but the part of FB in the DPS is 5% below. We can conclude that Haste will be a little less interesting.
The part of DPS of the spell cast with FoF (indirectly for Ignite) is 5% upper. Mastery will become more important.
On 372 stuff, It's more than a 10% DPS upgrade.
When compared with SimC, we have 5% to 10% of proc refreshed. Maybe, we will have to delay the second FFO of the open phase.

edit: It's a first attempt for testing T12 set bonus. It can change very quickly. For example, if you include FFB's Dot, the impact can be very huge and depend on the number of stack that can be obtain (1 or 3). We will have to wait for SimC to have a more precise result.

citizenpete · 06/09/11, 4:17 AM

Keep in mind, our Mage will lost the 4T11 10% Haste bonus within the next tier. Trinkets without secondary stats to reforge, will "slow down" furthermore. I´m happy about the enhancement of mastery, but I´m still skeptic.

Nathyiel · 06/09/11, 2:08 PM

It's only a first approach. For extrapolation purpose, the table without 4t12 is without 4t11 either. It's why there is a little difference between this table and actual result.

On the trinket reflection, there's actually only 3 trinkets available: Rune of Zeth, Necromantic Focus and Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor.

Rune of Zeth will be the first we can obtain, the use effect is on the same CD that FFO and it have passive Crit. But, it's unknown if it can be upgradable. We will have to know (RAWR and SimC) if it's better than Volcano.
Necromantic Focus will come early in raid. Between Ignite and FFB's Dot, we can assume that the mastery stack will have a good up-time.
Pulse Capacitor will drop on Ragnaros but the proc on Crit is what Frost is made for.

Hinalover · 06/09/11, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Nathyiel

Rune of Zeth will be the first we can obtain, the use effect is on the same CD that FFO and it have passive Crit. But, it's unknown if it can be upgradable. We will have to know (RAWR and SimC) if it's better than Volcano.
Necromantic Focus will come early in raid. Between Ignite and FFB's Dot, we can assume that the mastery stack will have a good up-time.
Pulse Capacitor will drop on Ragnaros but the proc on Crit is what Frost is made for.

As item dev for Rawr I know that The Rune and the Necro are in place and can be tested in the current Rawr release. Just when adding the items, make sure to select the PTR checkbox in the Add item UI. I just tested all three and there is two bugs I noticed that I'll get fixed later today. the Rune is currently importing with a 90 second cooldown, however this can easily be changed in the item edit menu. So you can at least test the first two items. The Pulse Capacitor, there is a bug that is not showing the data correctly, and I should have that fixed as well before the next release.

Also, I'll have an update to the item cache either next release or, if the next release is within the next week or two, the one after with every item from 4.2. The only items I'm currently missing right now is where tier tokens are going to drop from and 95% of the Ruthless (Season 10) PvP gear.

Fröstler · 06/10/11, 9:59 AM

I am also a little bit confused about rawr results.

Out of the box, with all enabled raid buffs i got the stat priority of Haste > Crit > Mastry. (~26k dps with reforging)
With enabled Boss Handler i got Mastery > Crit (on 33.8%) > Haste. (~24k dps with reforging)

And on the end to be really confused. I switched on the Mage Armor with enabled Boss Handler and got 400dps more without reforging to crit. Also the Stat priority changes to Haste > Crit > Mastery.
With reforging/regem/reglyph it is about 600dps more on the end.

How can it be that the boss handler has so sigificant different results then the default configuration?
And how can it be that the mage armor is far better then the molten armor?

Hinalover · 06/10/11, 10:39 AM

Part of that is because Rawr's "out of the box" defaults to a 5 minute fight. When you switch it over to the Boss Handler, it would evaluate it at the berserk length of the fights (10 minutes generally). It just means you would not survive the full 10 minutes with molten armor. One other thing is that the Frost spec is getting some loving come next release of the program so I wouldn't suggest using it until then (we are hoping to get it released this weekend sometime). And just a quick update, we are trying to figure out the best way to model the Pulse Capasitor, since it is a reverse modeling than what the previous two versions were. But we should have something ready in the next release.

Nathyiel · 06/20/11, 3:37 AM

I'm reading the last Lhivera simulation with 4T12. Here

It's showing a lot of refresh on both FoF and BF. I'm wondering if we will have to change our priority list for casting BF-FFB even if FoF have no stack.

The new priority list can be:

FFO, on cooldown
Freeze, when Deep Freeze will be up
Deep Freeze, on cooldown
FFB, when Brain Freeze is up
IL, while moving
Frost Bolt

Another question, don't you think that, on the open sequence, we will have to cast FFO one after the other, not the two at the same time. With 2 FFO, we will be at near 60% proc on BF without casting. We have no stack for BF so we will lost a lot of proc.

Nathyiel · 06/27/11, 5:36 AM

I did some test to compare the open sequence (FFOx2) with a open sequence without overlapping FFO.

With the follow change, I have obtain +327 dps.

actions+=/frostfire_orb,if=target.time_to_die>=12&!ticking

And with this, you can add another +15 for a total of 34824 dps (+343)

actions+=/molten_armor,if=mana_pct>45&buff.mage_armor.up

I think that the second line can be improved a lot.

edit: I have tested race change.

race	dps	delta
Undead	34608	0
Troll	34825	217
Goblin	34843	235
Worgen	34848	240
Orc	34993	385

Draeneï isn't tested but it can be estimated to be a little under Goblin.

Troll is under Orc because of mana consumption. Molten Armor uptime is 75% with an Orc versus 73% with a Troll

Lhivera · 06/27/11, 7:28 AM

Thanks, implementing those changes. Probably worth retesting the races for Fire and Arcane as well.

Nathyiel · 06/27/11, 10:00 AM

The same result but on an HelterSkelter fight. It's only 10k iterations.

It's important to note that we have 86% up-time for Molten Armor. Mage armor generate around 55k mana. It's between 3 and 4 ticks of Evocation.

race	PW		HS
Undead	34608	0	27919	0
Troll	34825	217	28044	125
Goblin	34843	235	28111	192
Worgen	34848	240	28090	171
Orc	34993	385	28169	250

edit: Before it was asked, the Worgen and the Goblin is not optimized.

Light4 · 07/01/11, 4:25 AM

After some testing at the dummies in SW yesterday I can confirm that Blizzard now properly procs Theralion's Mirror and Stump of Time (and I assume other trinkets as well), but still does not proc Lightweave Embroidery and Power Torrent enchants, which still hampers frost AoE dps.

Kyrilon · 07/07/11, 11:32 AM

Has anyone else noticed that the Water Elemental is back to staying engaged when you pop Invisibility? This happened to me on several Shannox attempts Tuesday.

Also, on at least 3 occasions Deep Freeze crits did not break Face Rage. Could this be a similar problem to the Fulmination issue with shamans?

Light4 · 07/07/11, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by Kyrilon

Has anyone else noticed that the Water Elemental is back to staying engaged when you pop Invisibility? This happened to me on several Shannox attempts Tuesday.

Do you mean he does not become invisible at all or becomes invisible, but continues casting so to reengage again? If it is the latter, this has happened pre-4.2 as well, you can add /petpassive into your invisible-macro, which will fix this behaviour. I used that macro before and after 4.2 and did not notice any difference, but I haven't raided as Frost lately, since I found it easier to get 45k+ hits on Shannox's add with arcane spec.