Frost Mage Gear, Caps ect.

[Tequatl]

Hello this is my first time posting on the forum so.. hello i'm Tequatl aka Freds

I am having some trouble with my frost mage, i haven't been playing the game for long (started half way through this expansion) so i have limited knowledge on caps and what gear i should set my sights on in heroic.

I'm currently going for 14424 haste for the gcd cap on instant casts and throwing whatever else into mastery and this was working fine for me but i can never seem to get past 250k at the end of a boss encounter, now that i have a good amount of heroic gear to play with i'm not sure what build i should be using, stick with what i'm currently doing or to move into a more haste heavy build. I will list the items i have in my bank which you can not see on my Armory below.

Spoiler:

Flameslinger's Fiery Cowl HC 2/4
Untainted Guardian's Chain HC 0/4
Mantid Vizier's Robes HC 0/4
Sha-Seared Sandals HC 0/4
Leggings of Furious Flame HC 0/4
Bracers of Broken Causation HC 1/4
Robes of the Tendered Heart HC 2/4
Toxic Tornado Treads HCWF 0/4
Frenzied Crystal of Rage HC 0/4
Juggernaut's Power Core HC HC 2/4
Arcweaver Spell Sword HC 0/4

And my Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/n ... l/advanced" target="_blank

I will also attach some logs of me in my most recent heroic raid, be aware i pretty awful at what i do and the contents may shock you.

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/XJ1 ... =3&fight=3" target="_blank

I have recently looked into how i should be timing my AT and IV with my trinket which i hope once i test this will improve my dps, i tend to struggle with what to click next and have mini panics when we pull the bosses.

If you have any advice for me on topic or not please share.

Thanks for reading and helping me out.
Teq

[Soggs]

To cover the basic stuff:
- 408 Fingers of Frost procs vs 505 Ice Lance Casts -> too many; Ice Lance without proc is lost dps.
- Living Bomb Uptime could be improve just below 80% is too little aim to be over 95%
- 424 Brain Freeze procs vs 355 Frostfire Bolt Casts -> too little; you wasted BF procs somewhere
- Your Invokers Energy uptime is also sub 80%, should be over 95%

Other people can probably tell you more indepth stuff but you should start at those points as these are easily fixed and will net you substancial dps gain.

[Sikkz]

Aside from the information that can be pulled from the logs, I just wanted to mention that you have a substantial amount of gear that's really poorly itemized for frost (helm, shoulders, bracers, first ring). You currently have a high amount of crit, to the point that you are actually over the soft cap with raid buffs. To put it in perspective, your character is a couple item levels above mine, but I still have about 12% more mastery than you just because of itemization differences in our gear. Keep an eye out for gear that can replace those pieces I mentioned (Helm from Galakras/Garrosh, bracers from Norushen/Spoils, shoulders from Nazgrim/Protectors, ring from Thok/Paragons).

I understand what you mean when you say that you tend to "panic" during a boss fight. It surely is different than practicing on a training dummy! I found that, when done for long enough, it will just become second nature...so my advice for you is practice. Head into a flex run and practice your rotation/use of abilities for each boss in a more laid back environment, and the same setting that your actual heroic raids take place in with *almost* identical mechanics to obey. In addition, I'm going to provide you with a link to a forum post on Icy Veins that I always suggest to mages who are looking to better their play. It gives many tips and tricks that you as a mage can use to better your DPS, survivability, and utility in SoO, and it's broken down boss by boss.

I'm sure more people will post with additional advice for you, but I hope this helped a little! Best of luck.

Mage Tips & Tricks for SoO: http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/3 ... age-style/" target="_blank

[Kver]

To be perfectly honest, excess crit isn't that bad, especially on longer fights or fights with multidotting(!).

The basic points covered by Soggs are the most important ones. Itemlevel always helps, but the actual allocation of stats is generally less important than proper gameplay. The loss of Brain Freeze procs and low uptimes are particularly painful, so it would be wise to(if you have not) change your UI to make these things easier to keep up with.

At the end of the day it is all practise. Raiding consciously will make you improve a lot, so that is what I would advise doing.

Also, seeing an unupgraded HWF PBoI breaks my heart twice.

[Tequatl]

Thanks for the replies guys i appreciate it.

@Soggs, Lets start with the Fingers of Frost, i believe the over use of ice lance may stem down to me spamming my ice lance button when i should only really click it once and on many occasions it will shoot another out straight away, i will try not spamming the button from now on to see if i can lower the amount of wasted FoF procs.

My living bomb up-time is actually alot less than what i would normally have, i am usually sitting around 90-95% but i will install an addon that can help me with this as clearly i am not doing a good job on tracking that.

Now onto my Brain Freeze procs, i think the main problem for me with brain freeze procs is i tend to finish off a mid cast Frostbolt before i shoot out the proc and in the short time i'm waiting i miss another proc, would you recommend i cancel the Frostbolt for the Brain Freeze proc or continue to carry on with my Frostbolt and use the proc after?

My Invokers Energy is something i am also working on and with such a long time on this buff there is no reason to not have 95%+ uptime, i will also add this into the addon to easier tracking, the main reason for downtime on this buff in my opinion is either boss tactics which involves alot of moving or not preparing to use evocation until its to late and having to wait for a mechanic to finish or to use procs that have just come in.

Thanks for helping me narrow down some of the key points to my dps loss, on Sunday i will have a Malk log to post, hopefully i will have improved.



@Sikkz, Thanks for touching on my gear set-up as this is my main concern at the moment due to not knowing what i should upgrade as my valor is very limited at the moment, i actually own a few of the items you have suggested (as shown in my spoiler) so i will customize to see if i can gain any more mastery in expense of crit without dropping below the cap obviously.

I will check out the information of the page you have linked also as i may learn some nice tricks that can help me in my raids, thanks for the help.



@Kver, Hello Mr Admin, as for the point you made about extra crit being good for the longer fights and multi-dotting, i tend to multi-dot alot in fights where i am able to and my guild is still doing progression so fights can tend to take quite some time (close shaving with berserk timers) so i will try play around with that in my mind, as for the trinket i actually only received that trinket last night and had to go off pretty much straight away after my raid so i didn't get time to upgrade it, so you can rest your heart knowing that when i get home it will be an 8/8 trinket .

Thanks for all the replies guys i really appreciate it and if anyone else has any other helpful points to lead me into the right direction of becoming an acceptable Frost Mage please by all mean share them as i will be monitoring this thread closely, thanks again.

[Soggs]

Get a castbar and something that displays your GCD near the center of your screen. To cast a second non-FoF-IL you need to spam that button more than a second straight. Simply put: If you hammer IL, see your GCD trigger up and your FoF consumed you fired an Ice Lance.

At Brain Freeze Procs: Practically only NT can potentially proc BF multiple times during one cast of Frost Bolt. (Unless you Akraen with 28.4k haste.) You use LB for most of the fights in this log and miss ~15% of your BF-Procs. It is highly unlikely that is soley due to reproccing mid cast. Finish your current cast and then queue an FFB immediately after that. BF in its current form comes down to reaction speed mostly. Never interrupt your Frost Bolt for a BF-FFB. Cast it afterwards.

Both are by the way things you could easily train on a target dummy. If you have idle time in game, just hammer the dummy for a while and get used to the rotation. Muscle memory helps a lot.

[Tequatl]

Hey Soggs, I downloaded an addon last night before i went off called Castbars, this addon adds cast bars but also adds a little thin bar with a light that goes from left to right which i had no clue what it was, apparently i now know what that is. (Feeling embarrassingly stupid right now)

As for my Brain Freeze procs, after thinking about it i would have to agree with you, there is no way Frostbolt cast timer alone is the only thing responsible for this so a mixture of not prioritizing my procs over other spells and having slow reactions are also major factors.

I will try to get some practice in on the dummies when i can, i will be fighting Malk on Sunday so i will get some practice in on the dummies and see if it makes a difference in the fight.

I have a quick question for yourself and anyone who may stumble across this question, what macro combinations do you use for your cooldowns and do you use different macros with the same spells for different parts of the fight? (like combine potions with macros for pull only while having the same spells without the potions for further into the fight)

I appreciate you taking your time to help me.

[Soggs]

Personally I do not macro any CDs together. Prepull there is enough time to line everything up and after that it gets so situational, that macros do not suffice.