Frost Guide for BRF?

[Latonius]

There's a nice guide for BRF on the General Discussion forum but they didn't bother including Frost mages. Now, I plan on switching to Arcane/Fire myself but I need the gear first before I make the switch. Any solid Frost players want to share tips and tricks? We're working on Slagworks tomorrow. My guild is semi-casual and we don't even bother with Mythic progression. We run Heroics only.

[Kams]

Don't too worry about the gear, play the best spec for the fight. I would say Fire is the best spec for The Blast Furnace if you need overall dps. If you are struggling on Elementalists damage or boss damage at the end try out Arcane and save your burst for them. Frost will still do alright damage but its in an awkward place right now where it's aoe is overshadowed by Fire and its single target by Arcane. Arcane's single target gets pretty crazy when you have Arcane Orb and lots of adds.

Mod: Please keep on topic. The OP was asking for Frost specific tips for BRF. Saying to swap specs based on what is needed by the raid team does not count as a Frost tip.

[Latonius]

You're right. I'm gonna slowly work on a mastery set considering I have a few crafted epics and I got some Mastery gear as it is. Gonna switch on over to Arcane and work on the rotation. Frost is a bit more forgiving on progression fights and movement in particular so there's some pressure. However, raiding with Highmaul has given me a decent grasp on mage mechanics so it shouldn't be too deep of a learning curve.

(Thanks for the reply. Just followed you on Twitter. Any other mages you recommend I follow?)

[Iceshatter]

I don't think there's anything specific for Frost mages in BRF compared to all the talents and choices we learned to take in HM. Frost with its light cleave is perfect for many fights and there's plenty of AoE-capable classes/specs out there. You might not top DPS meters on fights like Operator, but there are no "council fights" anyway (with the exception of maybe Maidens).

[Iceshatter]

Gruul: Single target nuke on boss
Oregorger: Single target nuke on boss and crates with some AoE if these are stacked
Beastlord: Single target boss, orb into adds or stacks of spears.
Hans and Franz: single target; try not to orb when either Hanz or Franz are away.
Firecaller: single target, orb into boss when wolves spawn, single-target wolves
Operator: AoE when adds spawn, focus artillery and boss.
Kromog: single target boss, AoE during hands, single target dps your hand down then help others.
Blast furnace: Although doesn't look like it, this is basically a single-target fight. Target whatever the RL tells you, orb into packs when they spawn. This fight is orb heaven.
Maidens: not there yet
Blackhand: single-target boss

[Breaktheice]

+ Gruul - nothing specific for Frost mages here.

+ Oregorger - You probably want to glyph Water Ele on Oregorger because when he rolls around in phase 2, sometimes your Water Elemental can get stranded from you depending on how you move. Occasionally what happens is when you come out of phase 2, your ele is not close enough to Water Jet and you're just standing there like Also I haven't spent much time on this boss but Evanesce doesn't seem to stop the roll damage, but you can cheese it with Greater Invi and Ice Block.

+ Hans and Franz - From a Frost mage PoV cleaving is hard because of the hit boxes of the bosses. Ask your tanks to stack them super close if they can. Other than that, it's pretty much avoid bad and DPS. Blazing Speed and Ice Floes are both equally good here, but I find Blazing Speed better.

+ Firecaller - You can solo soak a meteor via Greater Invi or Ice Block. Nothing really Frost mage specific in this fight, except Splitting Ice will help you cleave boss + wolf if they are close enough (but note that most of the time ranged DPS are on the other wolf)

+ Operator - Blizzard when there are lots of adds to reduce the remaining cooldown on your Orb. Do not Orb right away when adds are in a line in front of you. Wait till they are stacked. Splitting Ice. Cone of Cold glyph can shine here too.

+ Beastlord - your pet can hit the small adds with Freeze to generate FoF for you. Orb into the adds is a bonus, but not an absolute necessity if your focus is the boss and other classes are taking care of the adds. Frozen Orb hits spears, so be careful to not launch it into a spear shielding the boss and the adds (though, if your focus is the spear itself to break out a pinned ally, then go for it). Thermal Void/Splitting Ice/Cone of Cold are all good talents and glyphs for this boss. Blazing Speed can help you quickly move out of a spear. Ice Block can remove the disorientation debuff of you. Greater Invi can also help you remove the fire DoT off yourself (the one the chimera applies).

+ Kromag - be careful of Water Jet on this boss. Your Frostbolt has to travel to Kromag's head in order for you to get the FoF proc from it. Therefore you need to learn how to time your Water Jet properly because the transit time of Frostbolt in this fight is longer than what it usually is on every other fight. You ideally want to start Water Jet late into a Frostbolt cast, so the Frostbolt is already in transit when Water Jet starts. This saves the rest of Water Jet to land just 1 more Frostbolt on the boss.

Haven't done the rest myself.

[Skayleef]

Just to dig a little deeper on some of the aoe fights as frost, as that's where I'm having the most trouble because not having to use frost bomb much in hm. On operator am I supposed to hold cool downs for aoe cleaving off of frost bomb? Like am I holding frozen orb, not using it on cd and not using veins on cd? I don't know optimal cd uses on train fight. Any other fights where cd useage might not be straightforward to be optimal for aoe?

[Breaktheice]

Rule of thumb on AoE fights is you don't want to delay Frozen Orb. Why? Because on any upcoming mass AoE phase, your Blizzard perk helps you quickly reset the cooldown on your Orb.

With regards to Icy Veins, if you delay it and miss a use, it's an overall DPS-loss. Since on most AoE fights you run Thermal Void anyway (because it scales better on said fights over PC and Comet), you need not worry so much about your Icy Veins and just go for it on cooldown.

What I've found most raid leaders doing is asking Frost/Arcane mages to DPS on choice targets in AoE fights (for example: the Operators on Furnace). As such, though your numbers will not be high, you will be taking down key targets. It may make sense to just maximize single target DPS in such a scenario (for example: Mirror Image). You will fall off the meters but you'll be doing a specific task that's crucial for success in the encounter.

With regards to Operator, you don't want to delay anything. The wolves aren't up for long (because if they are, and the boss reaches 100 energy, it's probably going to kill you guys as the wolves will also channel the Fire spell the boss does), and therefore there isn't even much need for Frost Bomb. You can just Ice Nova and go about your single target rotation. In fact depending on how your group positions the boss and wolf you may not even get to cleave with Splitting Ice, especially since ranged are almost always in charge of killing the wolf that fixates people, which is far away from the boss.

[Nicholasmage]

With 6.1 coming soon the splitting ice fix should make for much better cleave. But I'm wondering with the 94% increase to Comet Storm if on heavy add fights like Operator if it might be viable for once.

[Komma]

With 6.1 coming soon the splitting ice fix should make for much better cleave. But I'm wondering with the 94% increase to Comet Storm if on heavy add fights like Operator if it might be viable for once.

With the split damage mechanic, CmS will never a top choice on AOE fights, for which TV will always be the strongest. On the other hand, it'll probably be a top choice on fights such as Blackhand.

That said, this post is off topic and we already have a thread discussing 6.1 changes. http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1130" target="_blank