-----Edits in place now for 3.3.3------
OK, as the (as far as I can tell) resident Frost Mage guru, I feel I can write up an FAQ for 'em (I was only asked this like a month ago). Please forgive my unprofessional post style, and I'll try to clean it up as time goes on.
Introduction
So, you want to use frost for DPS in raids, huh? I'm sure you're already tired of people saying stuff like "you can't raid frost."
I'm not going to lie to you. Frost is now a competent raiding spec. We got a HUGE buff in the 3.3 patch, and another small buff in 3.3.3.
In a minimal movement fight, such as Festergut, my Mage pulls 7200+ DPS. I don't have BiS. I don't have the fastest computer. Your DPS will vary give or take a few hundred, following my advice.
Frost is about Utility, and the RNG. It's a VERY luck based spec, more so than fire. If I have bad luck in a fight, I can drop down to 6K DPS on a non gimmick fight. It's THAT bad. But, if you're lucky and the RNG favors you, you can see some huge numbers. My max is 8K in a 10 man, single target. Let's talk about specs, shall we?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talents / Spec
Frost works very well with Arcane. You want to spec far enough into frost to get Deep Freeze, and far enough into Arcane to get Torment of the Weak. Other important talents are Water Elemental, Improved Water Elemental, Empowered Frostbolt, Fingers of Frost... heck, almost all of the frost talents are 'necessary' for high DPS.
This is my armory. I suggest you go ahead and take a look at my spec, see what I'm running, see what I'm not. Here's why.
Frostbite: You need one point in this, because for reasons unknown, Fingers of Frost doesn't work too well without it.
Improved Frostbolt: Your DPS hinges on you casting Frostbolt faster.
Ice Floes: In a 5 minute boss fight, with Icy Floes, you can use Icy Veins twice. Without Ice Floes, you can use Icy Veins twice. No need to spec into it, unless you're on the Lich King fight and need every ounce of DPS in the long fight.
Ice Shards: Double damage on a crit is pretty valuable, with as often as frostbolt is going to be critting for you.
Frost Warding: Purely a PvP talent, the global cooldown wasted by casting Frost Ward kills your DPS.
Precision: Very valuable, as it keeps you next to hit cap even in sub par gear. One missed frostbolt is DPS in the Ret paladin wielding a shield range. I haven't found a gear level at which I can skip this talent yet (this still applies into T10).
Permafrost: This one is meh. It's not a great talent in that your frostbolt no longer chills the victim. If you don't have another Mortal Strike user and you're against an enemy that heals, it can be useful.
Piercing Ice: More damage is good.
Icy Veins: Another talent vital to your DPS. Again, fast frostbolts are core to you as frost, and this talent, properly timed, can make a HUGE difference.
Improved Blizzard: Since it causes Blizzard to chill your targets, it lets Fingers of Frost and Shatter proc off of them, making your AoE DPS among the highest (if not the highest) in the game.
Arctic Reach: Lets you stay out of AoE / Nova range during boss fights.
Frost Channeling: Combined with Precision, this talent is what makes Frost Mages last so dang long in fights without having to mana up in some way.
Shatter: Another vital part of your DPS. It makes it so that any frost attacks against a frozen target have 50% increased crit chance. As of 3.0, this does sync with Fingers of Frost to make it viable against bosses.
Cold Snap: Allows another Deep Freeze and Icy Veins to be used.
Improved Cone of Cold: Another PvP talent. It has situational usefulness in fights like Tournament Champions, but mostly it's a useless PvE talent. You could put the point from Permafrost in here if you want.
Frozen Core: Another PvP ability. You shouldn't be taking MUCH damage at all.
Cold as Ice: This talent saw a reduced amount of usefulness in 3.3. It used to be a core talent so you could summon Puddles more often, but now that he's permanent, it's not worth taking.
Winter's Chill: A very nice talent for PvE. It has two functions. The first is a base increase to the crit chance of Frostbolt. Awesome. Its second function is to apply a crit debuff to the enemy, which is the same thing as Improved Shadowbolt and Scorch. This allows your fire mages to free up their rotations a bit and do more DPS themselves. (Utility, that's your game, remember?)
Shattered Barrier: PvP talent, no practical use in PvE unless you like tanking.
Ice Barrier: Semi-useful in PvE. It puts up a damage absorption shield which absorbs a minimal amount of damage. In ICC, where the raid takes lots of damage, this talent is a bead of sweat a healer doesn't have to form. In Saurfang, if a beast attacks you with your shield on, it doesn't give Saur blood power. In Festergut, it can take a couple of ticks of the Gas Cloud. In Rotface.... you get the point. It's damn useful now. Not worth the GCD during your rotation, but if you're moving and don't have either a Deep Freeze or Brain Freeze proc waiting, go ahead and pop your shield.
Arctic Winds: Another great talent, it adds even more damage to your attacks.
Empowered Frostbolt: Not only does it shave even more time off of your FrB cast, it gives it a damage increase which -scales with gear.-
Fingers of Frost: Another ability core to high PvE DPS. Often misunderstood and under-appreciated, I'll go into depth on this ability later.
Brain Freeze: This ability also saw a Renaissance in 3.3.3. Previously, it allowed you to cast a free, instant fireball. Now, it allows you to cast a free instant Frost Fire Bolt. FFB, unlike Fireball, gains bonus damage from all of your frost talents which increase frost damage (such as arctic winds, for example). There was a small internal cooldown added so that Brain Freeze can not be procced within .5 seconds of using it, so that FFB doesn't just proc it again. This cooldown could be busted, pending further tests.
Summon Water Elemental: This guy is your best friend. He's worth around 12% of your DPS in his current form.
Enduring Winter: Double winner. Increases the amount of time Puddles is out, and adds the replenishment effect if you don't already have a person applying it.
Chilled to the Bone: Flat increase of the damage done by Frostbolt, FFB, and Icelance.
In the Arcane tree, there are only TWO important talents to us.
Focus Magic: If there's other mages, set up a FM rotation so you all benefit from the added crit twice. If not, cast it on a resto shammy or pally, they crit every time you blink your eyes. In the rare event that you don't have any casters, hope for a Hunter or a DW melee. They don't receive any benefit from it, but you sure do.
Torment of the Weak: This one's sort of confusing. Because of the way Frost Mages glyph, we can NOT activate this ourselves in our normal rotation. We rely on other classes to add a slow (just about every other class can add a slow, it's rare that we're without TTW. However, I MUST add, that your target dummy DPS is going to be LOW because of this!)
EDIT! FFB procs TTW.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glyphs
We now have only one acceptable set of glyphs.
Glyph of Molten Armor: More crit is good.
Glyph of Frostbolt: Though it removes the snare effect, it increases the damage of your primary ability. This is THE glyph you can NOT go without for PvE.
Glyph of Eternal Water: Gives you Puddles at all times. You have to resummon him a lot. He despawns when you: Hearth, enter an instance, change 'floors' in an instance (teleport from lower to upper spire).
Theory: It's possible that with the low(er) amount of spirit on gear now, and with crit not meaning -as much- to a frost mage, that the Glyph of Molten Armor could be replaced by the Glyph of Frostfire to see a higher DPS increase. This literally JUST occurred to me as I was editing for modern mages, and I'm yet to test it out at all. Try at your own risk.
Next: Rotation, aka Mashing your face against the frostbolt key.
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:28pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Jan 15th 2010 3:10pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Mar 24th 2010 12:57pm by jaysgsl
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- Frost PvE FAQ
Frost PvE FAQFollow
Rotation
Ignore the previous comment, you'll be doing a little more than that.
Not much though.
Frost mages have a delicate rotation, and actually have two different rotations depending on the person.
If you KNOW your connection, you KNOW your latency, you KNOW your computer, and you HAVE Quartz or a similar addon to show latency IN your cast bar, use the following rotation. If not, just mash frostbolt, and use Deep Freeze as soon as it lights up. From here on, the guide / FAQ gets much more in-depth, so if you were looking for the basics, Section 1 has about all you need.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cooldowns, and Fingers of Frost Ghosting
Use of cooldowns is the biggest deciding factor in how well you do. There's other stuff that will put you back or forth by 500 or so DPS, but cooldowns will make or break you.
Icy Veins: Use it at the start, with your OTHER COOLDOWNS. We work best if we get to use things a few times.
Mirror Image: Use this AFTER Icy Veins and AFTER trinkets / T7 gem.
Water Elemental: He's always out in an instance now, much like a Warlock or Hunter pet. He receives every buff you do. He gains stats dynamically so no need to worry about stat munching.
Trinkets: Just pop them at the start so they cool when IV / Puddles cool.
Tier 7 2pc Mana Gem: This was actually an important part of my rotation for a long time. Use it like a trinket whenever you pop your other cooldowns if you still have T7 2pc.
Cold Snap: I generally use it after Puddles despawns and Icy Veins wears off the first time. If there's heroism, use it after IV wears off during heroism.
A note about Heroism / Bloodlust: If you KNOW when heroism / bloodlust are going to be used, time your cooldowns for that. If it's within a minute and a half of when a fight starts, wait for it. If it's going to be two minutes or more, just pop cooldowns at the start as normal. If it's near the end of the fight (Use heroism at 20% situation), save Cold Snap.
(I guess I can place the above in a different place later)
Your core rotation is frostbolt. However, WATCH YOUR BUFFS. If you get a Fingers of Frost buff, act quick. Cast your first frostbolt as normal. As your second frostbolt is casting, have Ice Lance, Deep Freeze, or FFB ready. Cast the third spell as SOON as your cast bar hits your latency timer. Another way to say it is "Cast a split second before the second frostbolt launches" but that is using guesswork which is not accurate.
Frosbolt has an insanely high crit rate. I see around 60% crits on frostbolt. This technique WILL burn the FoF charge on the IL / DF / FFB, meaning it's not going to affect the frostbolt. My IL crits for around 5K, my FB for around 11K.
If you are MOVING and you have a FoF charge, check to see if Deep Freeze is on cooldown. If not, use that then a FFB (if you happen to have a Brain Freeze up. Here's a hint: You do). If Deep Freeze IS on cooldown, use an IL and the FFB.
Note on Cooldowns: During Icy Veins, DO NOT GHOST FoF CHARGES. It murders the GCD for your hasted frostbolts.
Note on reliability: You need to be able to ghost your IL 90% of the time, or it's a DPS loss.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gearing / Stats
Spell Power > Spell Haste > Crit
This is a general mantra to follow considering the following conditions.
1. You are hit capped including talents
2. You have enough haste to make your frostbolt cast in exactly 2 seconds.
At this point, during a combination of Heroism and Icy Veins, you're at a 1.3-1.5 second cast.
Further haste after this both reduces the cast time, and lowers the Global Cooldown to one second.
Until those two conditions are met, haste and hit are more important. See Gemming for details.
*Pending picture chart*
Basically, when looking at gear, see first if it upgrades your spellpower. If so, or if the spellpower is equal, move on to the next step. If not, does it have more gem slots than your current piece? If so, move on to the next step. If not, it's not an upgrade.
Second, do you lose any haste, and how much? Remember, you want to hover around a 2 second dry cast. This occurs at around 500 haste. If you drop below 2 second FB, it needs to at least be 60 SP stronger than your current piece to be acceptable. You must NEVER EVER EVER go above a 2.2 second frostbolt cast. That's the point at which a frostie benefits more from haste than spellpower.
Third, do you lose any crit? If you lose more than 2% crit, carefully evaluate the first two steps. Don't forget to figure spirit into your crit amount! You share a LOT of gear with healers, considering the stats you value, (just not when they're around if you can help it). This means that a lot of gear your looking at probably has spirit.
Set Bonuses:
There is much discussion on the usefulness of set bonuses from Tier Gear. I'll try to break it down per set to see how valuable each bonus is to YOU, the frost mage.
T7, 2pc: This is a very nice bonus for us, as that spellpower scales with talents. If you have this bonus, use it every cooldown burst.
T7, 4pc: This is useful, but not useful enough to skip other tiers for.
T8, 2pc: You're casting frostbolt, and you're casting it often. This is a very valuable bonus.
T8, 4pc: Worthless for us. Brain freeze is almost always active regardless.
T9, 2pc: Extra crit, but not enough to drop another set bonus for.
T9, 4pc: Slightly useful, more crits is good, but cirt isn't terribly important to us because of how many talents boost it.
T10, 2pc: Game changer. This bonus means you'll be using Brain Freeze as SOON as it procs. The bonus haste you receive only lasts a few seconds, so if you can chain them, good.
T10, 4pc: This is just a nasty *** DPS increase. Since you pop Mirror Image along with your other cooldowns, this (in theory, I don't have it to test it) equates to approximately a **** ton of DPS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gems
Spellpower is your bread and butter gem. That would be Runed [Insert gem here].
The ONLY time you want to gem for a socket bonus is if the bonus would grant more spellpower than the gem loses you. As an example, a rare quality SP gem is 19 Spell power. A rare quality SP / Haste gem is 9 spellpower. You'd need a socket bonus of 10 spellpower to make up for it.
For a meta, Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. Added crits, and added crit bonus damage are nice, and there's not a better gem that I've found for the slot. It does require 2 blue gems, I suggest Spellpower / Spirit. Stick them in blue sockets to make the bonus since you have to use them anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enchants:
Head: SP / Crit from Kirin Tor rep
Shoulders: The highest level SP / Crit you can buy from Sons of Hodir.
Back: Haste, the highest level you can afford for the piece.
Chest: The chest enchants in the game suck. Go for +Stats.
Wrist: SP
Gloves: SP
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Pants: SP / Spirit
Boots: Tuskarr's Vitality (I think that's the one that increases movement speed). Icewalker is acceptable if you're somehow low on hit.
Rings: SP
Weapon: As of 3.3, Black Magic is the most powerful Mage enchant. The uptime on the proc is good enough that you can rely on it being there during cooldowns.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flasks / Elixers: Flask of the Frostwyrm.
Food: Willing to accept advice donations, I always use the Fish Feast.
Combat Potion: Use Haste pots if you have them, if not save the cooldown for a mana pot if needed. Save haste pot use for BL / Heroism.
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:22pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Mar 24th 2010 1:07pm by jaysgsl
Ignore the previous comment, you'll be doing a little more than that.
Not much though.
Frost mages have a delicate rotation, and actually have two different rotations depending on the person.
If you KNOW your connection, you KNOW your latency, you KNOW your computer, and you HAVE Quartz or a similar addon to show latency IN your cast bar, use the following rotation. If not, just mash frostbolt, and use Deep Freeze as soon as it lights up. From here on, the guide / FAQ gets much more in-depth, so if you were looking for the basics, Section 1 has about all you need.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cooldowns, and Fingers of Frost Ghosting
Use of cooldowns is the biggest deciding factor in how well you do. There's other stuff that will put you back or forth by 500 or so DPS, but cooldowns will make or break you.
Icy Veins: Use it at the start, with your OTHER COOLDOWNS. We work best if we get to use things a few times.
Mirror Image: Use this AFTER Icy Veins and AFTER trinkets / T7 gem.
Water Elemental: He's always out in an instance now, much like a Warlock or Hunter pet. He receives every buff you do. He gains stats dynamically so no need to worry about stat munching.
Trinkets: Just pop them at the start so they cool when IV / Puddles cool.
Tier 7 2pc Mana Gem: This was actually an important part of my rotation for a long time. Use it like a trinket whenever you pop your other cooldowns if you still have T7 2pc.
Cold Snap: I generally use it after Puddles despawns and Icy Veins wears off the first time. If there's heroism, use it after IV wears off during heroism.
A note about Heroism / Bloodlust: If you KNOW when heroism / bloodlust are going to be used, time your cooldowns for that. If it's within a minute and a half of when a fight starts, wait for it. If it's going to be two minutes or more, just pop cooldowns at the start as normal. If it's near the end of the fight (Use heroism at 20% situation), save Cold Snap.
(I guess I can place the above in a different place later)
Your core rotation is frostbolt. However, WATCH YOUR BUFFS. If you get a Fingers of Frost buff, act quick. Cast your first frostbolt as normal. As your second frostbolt is casting, have Ice Lance, Deep Freeze, or FFB ready. Cast the third spell as SOON as your cast bar hits your latency timer. Another way to say it is "Cast a split second before the second frostbolt launches" but that is using guesswork which is not accurate.
Frosbolt has an insanely high crit rate. I see around 60% crits on frostbolt. This technique WILL burn the FoF charge on the IL / DF / FFB, meaning it's not going to affect the frostbolt. My IL crits for around 5K, my FB for around 11K.
If you are MOVING and you have a FoF charge, check to see if Deep Freeze is on cooldown. If not, use that then a FFB (if you happen to have a Brain Freeze up. Here's a hint: You do). If Deep Freeze IS on cooldown, use an IL and the FFB.
Note on Cooldowns: During Icy Veins, DO NOT GHOST FoF CHARGES. It murders the GCD for your hasted frostbolts.
Note on reliability: You need to be able to ghost your IL 90% of the time, or it's a DPS loss.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gearing / Stats
Spell Power > Spell Haste > Crit
This is a general mantra to follow considering the following conditions.
1. You are hit capped including talents
2. You have enough haste to make your frostbolt cast in exactly 2 seconds.
At this point, during a combination of Heroism and Icy Veins, you're at a 1.3-1.5 second cast.
Further haste after this both reduces the cast time, and lowers the Global Cooldown to one second.
Until those two conditions are met, haste and hit are more important. See Gemming for details.
*Pending picture chart*
Basically, when looking at gear, see first if it upgrades your spellpower. If so, or if the spellpower is equal, move on to the next step. If not, does it have more gem slots than your current piece? If so, move on to the next step. If not, it's not an upgrade.
Second, do you lose any haste, and how much? Remember, you want to hover around a 2 second dry cast. This occurs at around 500 haste. If you drop below 2 second FB, it needs to at least be 60 SP stronger than your current piece to be acceptable. You must NEVER EVER EVER go above a 2.2 second frostbolt cast. That's the point at which a frostie benefits more from haste than spellpower.
Third, do you lose any crit? If you lose more than 2% crit, carefully evaluate the first two steps. Don't forget to figure spirit into your crit amount! You share a LOT of gear with healers, considering the stats you value, (just not when they're around if you can help it). This means that a lot of gear your looking at probably has spirit.
Set Bonuses:
There is much discussion on the usefulness of set bonuses from Tier Gear. I'll try to break it down per set to see how valuable each bonus is to YOU, the frost mage.
T7, 2pc: This is a very nice bonus for us, as that spellpower scales with talents. If you have this bonus, use it every cooldown burst.
T7, 4pc: This is useful, but not useful enough to skip other tiers for.
T8, 2pc: You're casting frostbolt, and you're casting it often. This is a very valuable bonus.
T8, 4pc: Worthless for us. Brain freeze is almost always active regardless.
T9, 2pc: Extra crit, but not enough to drop another set bonus for.
T9, 4pc: Slightly useful, more crits is good, but cirt isn't terribly important to us because of how many talents boost it.
T10, 2pc: Game changer. This bonus means you'll be using Brain Freeze as SOON as it procs. The bonus haste you receive only lasts a few seconds, so if you can chain them, good.
T10, 4pc: This is just a nasty *** DPS increase. Since you pop Mirror Image along with your other cooldowns, this (in theory, I don't have it to test it) equates to approximately a **** ton of DPS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gems
Spellpower is your bread and butter gem. That would be Runed [Insert gem here].
The ONLY time you want to gem for a socket bonus is if the bonus would grant more spellpower than the gem loses you. As an example, a rare quality SP gem is 19 Spell power. A rare quality SP / Haste gem is 9 spellpower. You'd need a socket bonus of 10 spellpower to make up for it.
For a meta, Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. Added crits, and added crit bonus damage are nice, and there's not a better gem that I've found for the slot. It does require 2 blue gems, I suggest Spellpower / Spirit. Stick them in blue sockets to make the bonus since you have to use them anyway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enchants:
Head: SP / Crit from Kirin Tor rep
Shoulders: The highest level SP / Crit you can buy from Sons of Hodir.
Back: Haste, the highest level you can afford for the piece.
Chest: The chest enchants in the game suck. Go for +Stats.
Wrist: SP
Gloves: SP
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle
Pants: SP / Spirit
Boots: Tuskarr's Vitality (I think that's the one that increases movement speed). Icewalker is acceptable if you're somehow low on hit.
Rings: SP
Weapon: As of 3.3, Black Magic is the most powerful Mage enchant. The uptime on the proc is good enough that you can rely on it being there during cooldowns.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flasks / Elixers: Flask of the Frostwyrm.
Food: Willing to accept advice donations, I always use the Fish Feast.
Combat Potion: Use Haste pots if you have them, if not save the cooldown for a mana pot if needed. Save haste pot use for BL / Heroism.
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:22pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Mar 24th 2010 1:07pm by jaysgsl
About the Water Elemental
With the Glyph, Puddles only has one attack. Normally, he has two, but the Frost Nova he has is removed in favor of his permanent-ness. He DOES use mana.
His attack is on a 2.5 second cast, with no cooldown. He is immune to most aoe attacks, as well as tail swipes. He is a RANGED pet, so the rare attacks that do get across (Immune is misleading, he has a 90% immunity) don't normally hit him. He has a very long range, approximately 45-50 yards.
He benefits from stat buffs and haste buffs, and he gets a VERY small amount of your own haste. He's affected by your hit, as he can have misses on his attack table.
He's also the only pet (currently) that follows you around on your mount.
I suggest picking up the vanity pet for reading all the Dalaran books, they go great together ^_^
Addons
There are a few addons which will REALLY make your life easier. Here's the ones I use, and why.
Quartz: A cast bar addon which allows you to see your latency as a red portion of the cast bar. Where the red bar starts is where you cast your IL (I spam it for a couple presses afterward, the addon can be off by a few millies.)
Debuff Filter: Simply named addon which puts a nice row of debuff icons anywhere on the screen that only shows debuffs that YOU specify. Works for buffs as well. I personally have it show Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze. You could also put Icy Veins on there.
Rating Buster: This addon takes the stats you see, and converts them (on the tooltip for gear) into the stats you USE. It shows just how much crit you get from Intellect and Spirit, which is helpful with as much spirit as you're going to end up with.
Decursive: It's rare that we have to decurse, but when we do, it's nice to have a little UI set up to make it as easy as clicking a box.
As a final note, I'd like to thank you all for your patience while I finalize and 'purty-fy' this FAQ. If anyone has any advice for the formatting of the guide, I'm open to it, as well as any advice on frost mages in general. I don't claim to be an expert, just an insane fool that raids with one :)
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:12pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Mar 24th 2010 1:10pm by jaysgsl
With the Glyph, Puddles only has one attack. Normally, he has two, but the Frost Nova he has is removed in favor of his permanent-ness. He DOES use mana.
His attack is on a 2.5 second cast, with no cooldown. He is immune to most aoe attacks, as well as tail swipes. He is a RANGED pet, so the rare attacks that do get across (Immune is misleading, he has a 90% immunity) don't normally hit him. He has a very long range, approximately 45-50 yards.
He benefits from stat buffs and haste buffs, and he gets a VERY small amount of your own haste. He's affected by your hit, as he can have misses on his attack table.
He's also the only pet (currently) that follows you around on your mount.
I suggest picking up the vanity pet for reading all the Dalaran books, they go great together ^_^
Addons
There are a few addons which will REALLY make your life easier. Here's the ones I use, and why.
Quartz: A cast bar addon which allows you to see your latency as a red portion of the cast bar. Where the red bar starts is where you cast your IL (I spam it for a couple presses afterward, the addon can be off by a few millies.)
Debuff Filter: Simply named addon which puts a nice row of debuff icons anywhere on the screen that only shows debuffs that YOU specify. Works for buffs as well. I personally have it show Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze. You could also put Icy Veins on there.
Rating Buster: This addon takes the stats you see, and converts them (on the tooltip for gear) into the stats you USE. It shows just how much crit you get from Intellect and Spirit, which is helpful with as much spirit as you're going to end up with.
Decursive: It's rare that we have to decurse, but when we do, it's nice to have a little UI set up to make it as easy as clicking a box.
As a final note, I'd like to thank you all for your patience while I finalize and 'purty-fy' this FAQ. If anyone has any advice for the formatting of the guide, I'm open to it, as well as any advice on frost mages in general. I don't claim to be an expert, just an insane fool that raids with one :)
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:12pm by jaysgsl
Edited, Mar 24th 2010 1:10pm by jaysgsl
Good work, Jay.
I will go ahead and get it linked into TGMPE. I find that just bolding/italicizing/etc and separating the areas works pretty well.
I will go ahead and get it linked into TGMPE. I find that just bolding/italicizing/etc and separating the areas works pretty well.
THAT's what I was going to do. Good thing I came in here with that haste info.
One more question if you don't mind. How do you get a link to show the tooltip?
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:29pm by jaysgsl
One more question if you don't mind. How do you get a link to show the tooltip?
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 2:29pm by jaysgsl
Good question, quick test:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=40211
Okay, that works. Go to the item in question, you should see a bunch of flags on the item's page. I right click/copied the link that the flag leads to and just pasted it here. There may be an easier way, but that is what I just did.
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 6:47pm by Anobix
http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=40211
Okay, that works. Go to the item in question, you should see a bunch of flags on the item's page. I right click/copied the link that the flag leads to and just pasted it here. There may be an easier way, but that is what I just did.
Edited, Nov 23rd 2009 6:47pm by Anobix
Thanks again, I'll edit tonight when I have more time.
Great guide, only thing I would change (maybe it is just me) is having so many words in capitals. I know you are trying to stress your points but it can be offputting (although I did read it to the end hehe).
I loved my frost mage in BC and was a little disappointed when the DPS was so much lower than the other specs. Arcane is growing on me but I don't have enough chances to play on him.
I loved my frost mage in BC and was a little disappointed when the DPS was so much lower than the other specs. Arcane is growing on me but I don't have enough chances to play on him.
Only thing I would change is finding a way to distinguish between the talents that you have described. Be it with bullet points, coloring, separate lines, something.
Jay should get premium so he can make bullet lists. 
Heh, I'd love to, but atm, I can't even afford game time, so that's a bit out of the question. Starting up college at the age of 25 is rough on the wallet >.<
It was easy on my wallet. I didn't have to include my parents info on the FAFSA and I get a full ride of financial aid for college with mostly grants and a little bit of student loans. Me thinks ur doin it wrong. =x
Quote:
It was easy on my wallet. I didn't have to include my parents info on the FAFSA and I get a full ride of financial aid for college with mostly grants and a little bit of student loans. Me thinks ur doin it wrong. =x
How did you get out of listing your parents? O.O;;
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
There's lots of ways actually. Most people have to wait until they've been 24 for an entire year, and then you're deemed independent of your parents at that age and don't have to declare their income.
If you've served in the military, are married, have a kid, and a few other things that I forget, they don't make you declare their income either.
If you've served in the military, are married, have a kid, and a few other things that I forget, they don't make you declare their income either.
I'm not even close to any of those criteria. >.<
Gay, so no army for me.
Gay, so no marriage for me.
Gay, so probably no kid for me.
And 19.
:/
Gay, so no army for me.
Gay, so no marriage for me.
Gay, so probably no kid for me.
And 19.
:/
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
Yeah, I'm just old. =x I turned 26 in August. I should graduate this summer though, so at least I'll finally have my B.A.
Pfft I'm 28 and about to be a freshman.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
Looking forward to your input, Filter
Quote:
Pfft I'm 28 and about to be a freshman.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
If you need a roommate... ;)
You didn't get any additional education during the army? Is it only the National Guard that does that?
The government is paying for it at least, no?
[EDIT]
You may want to change the color or boldness of the talent names. It's just really hard to read the list, even with the names in italics.
Also, you may want to link to an actual build or two, instead of your armory. That way, if you end up changing for something really specific, reset your spec to do testing, respec to experiment with something new, etc. then you won't have to worry about people getting no/misinformation.
Plus, if they make changes where, your stats change the specs, then you'll only be linking one of them.
Here, I'll do it for you:
Main Spec
Based on talent choices, I'm assuming the second is a PvP spec? Resist->Mana talents, imp Counterspell, Magic Attunement, Brain Freeze?
Edited, Nov 26th 2009 9:55am by idiggory
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
Yes, the second spec is a PVP spec, and I can take ZERO credit for it as I pulled it off a website.
My frost spec is all me though ^_^
My frost spec is all me though ^_^
Out of curiousity, why pop Mirror Image at the beginning of the fight? Is that something you do just generally Jay, or is there a specific reason you should do that as frost?
PigtailsOfDoom of Future Fabulous! wrote:
Out of curiousity, why pop Mirror Image at the beginning of the fight? Is that something you do just generally Jay, or is there a specific reason you should do that as frost?
There is no real reason not to pop it as any spec, it allows you go pop all cooldowns and go all out right from the beginning.
Anobix, Hero of Northrend wrote:
PigtailsOfDoom of Future Fabulous! wrote:
Out of curiousity, why pop Mirror Image at the beginning of the fight? Is that something you do just generally Jay, or is there a specific reason you should do that as frost?
There is no real reason not to pop it as any spec, it allows you go pop all cooldowns and go all out right from the beginning.
Yep. Especially useful when rage based tanks start the boss fight with no rage. They can often catch up to you and pass you before the MI ends, and if not, invis real quick and then they have a really good lead.
Okay, that's what I thought. I went ahead and added it just to save myself the trouble when I get my 4 piece T10 bonus. 
Baron von Filterspawn wrote:
Pfft I'm 28 and about to be a freshman.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
Good write up dude, a few small things I noticed as I was reading that needed to be addressed, but then I got done and can't find them, since it's late :( I'll read it again tomorrow.
Stupid freshmen, always thinkin they know better.
Have fun at school man. The real freshmen will **** you off, they are so young and well... inexperienced in the various subtleties of life. Don't know a better way to say it that isn't offensive. I was 24(?) when I was a freshman in college. Your girlfriend has every right to be worried. ;)
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Yes, the reason for MI at the beginning is two fold. Trinkets, cooldowns, and various abilities all have different wait times before you can use them again.
Popping MI at the beginning also means you've popped your trinket of choice and Icy Veins. Frost mages are now a three cooldown game with Puddles being permanent (which is, indeed, a HUGE DPS increase!), and those three cooldowns being popped out of sync will destroy you.
The second benefit is threat. While the images are up, your threat is split between you and all three mages. This gives tanks TONS of time to pick up threat. The second before my images die, I preload an Invis, so that if the tank hasn't picked up threat, I'm already a step ahead of getting rid of threat.
Update coming soon to migrate the information from "Upcoming" or whatever the heck I named it up to "The meat."
Edit: While reviewing, I thought up another nugget of information that I'll stick into the FAQ. It's here at the bottom for anyone reading over the notes.
Puddles DOES actively gain buffs from you. Therefor, it is perfectly acceptable to just pull him out at the beginning of the instance and leave him out, he'll get the buffs. He even has a visible buff bar now.
The mirror images, however, do NOT actively gain buffs. Mirror images should be the last cooldown you pop for maximum DPS. For example, I have IV on Sh-9, my new Pit of Saron trinket on Sh- -, and my MI on Sh- =. That allows me to just roll across to pop all the cooldowns in order. In truth, though, I'm thinking Trinket -> IV -> MI is a more optimal route for DPS, since it gives me around 1.2 seconds more IV usable uptime (I have to research if the trinket blows the GCD or not. In the past I was never a HUGE theorycrafter, but I like to assume people may rely on this guide at some point in time ^_^)
Edited, Dec 11th 2009 2:43pm by jaysgsl
Popping MI at the beginning also means you've popped your trinket of choice and Icy Veins. Frost mages are now a three cooldown game with Puddles being permanent (which is, indeed, a HUGE DPS increase!), and those three cooldowns being popped out of sync will destroy you.
The second benefit is threat. While the images are up, your threat is split between you and all three mages. This gives tanks TONS of time to pick up threat. The second before my images die, I preload an Invis, so that if the tank hasn't picked up threat, I'm already a step ahead of getting rid of threat.
Update coming soon to migrate the information from "Upcoming" or whatever the heck I named it up to "The meat."
Edit: While reviewing, I thought up another nugget of information that I'll stick into the FAQ. It's here at the bottom for anyone reading over the notes.
Puddles DOES actively gain buffs from you. Therefor, it is perfectly acceptable to just pull him out at the beginning of the instance and leave him out, he'll get the buffs. He even has a visible buff bar now.
The mirror images, however, do NOT actively gain buffs. Mirror images should be the last cooldown you pop for maximum DPS. For example, I have IV on Sh-9, my new Pit of Saron trinket on Sh- -, and my MI on Sh- =. That allows me to just roll across to pop all the cooldowns in order. In truth, though, I'm thinking Trinket -> IV -> MI is a more optimal route for DPS, since it gives me around 1.2 seconds more IV usable uptime (I have to research if the trinket blows the GCD or not. In the past I was never a HUGE theorycrafter, but I like to assume people may rely on this guide at some point in time ^_^)
Edited, Dec 11th 2009 2:43pm by jaysgsl
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