Ice Lance & some gear questions

[Skil]

Mod edit: Moved to appropriate forum

Hello fellow mages,

My DPS has fallen flat these last couple of weeks despite some progression into heroic content. I've been following Akraen's mixture build for a few months, and was happy with my output while in Normal gear, but haven't seen any real gains since upgrading some of my gear from heroic runs. I believe it's partly due to the fact that I've replaced some BIS normal gear with Heroic gear that no longer contains both haste and mastery, and one of the stats are replaced with crit instead. I'm also spending my weekly VP cap upgrading 1 new heroic item at a time, and at this point, some of my 4/4 Normal WF gear has better stats than my 566 items that are 0/4.

To be sure that I wasn't doing anything wrong, I looked up a few resources to see if I was doing anything wrong or if I could improve on anything. I have a couple of questions, if anyone would be able to help, I'd be grateful.

1- I was just reviewing the Frost mage rotation on another site and came across the note below:

Important note: there is no need to use Ice Lance when you reach 5 Icicles (from your Mastery: Icicles Icon Mastery: Icicles). When you have 5 Icicles, gaining a new Icicle will simply cause one of the stored Icicles to trigger and deal its damage, making room for the new Icicle.

I've been using my Ice Lances as FoF procs, preferably after I have a proc of BF. Per the note above, should I just stop casting Ice Lance altogether once I reach 5 Icicles?

2- I never see the ring from Normal Thok drop (heroic progression is until Malk at this point), so I'm stuck choosing between:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=103822" target="_blank (Petrified Pennyroyal Ring 561, 2/4 upgrade) or
http://www.wowhead.com/item=104859" target="_blank (Signet of the Dinomancers 548, 2/4 upgrade)

I personally prefer the Dinomancers ring, am I wrong?

3- Any other general pieces of advice?

- I just ditched Herbalism in favor of Tailoring, but I'm hesitant on switching Alchemy.

In my bags, I have the following heroic items that I haven't equipped:

- http://www.wowhead.com/item=104445" target="_blank (Shoulderpads of Dou Dou Chong 566, 0/4), have Normal Tier shoulders equipped instead (3/4 upgraded), in order to keep 2pc bonus.

- http://www.wowhead.com/item=104541" target="_blank (Toxic Tornado Treads 566, 0/4), have Normal WF Bone-Inlaid Sandals equipped instead (4/4 upgraded)

Thank you in advance for any help at all!

[durrtygoodz]

I've been using my Ice Lances as FoF procs, preferably after I have a proc of BF. Per the note above, should I just stop casting Ice Lance altogether once I reach 5 Icicles?

Just completely ignore icicles. Pretend they don't exist. I really hate the fact Blizzard wrote in the tooltip that Ice Lance shoots icicles, because now half the mages think they need to icelance at 5 icicles. I've never seen anyone ask if they should stop casting IL though. That's pretty new.

2- I never see the ring from Normal Thok drop (heroic progression is until Malk at this point), so I'm stuck choosing between:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=103822" target="_blank (Petrified Pennyroyal Ring 561, 2/4 upgrade) or
http://www.wowhead.com/item=104859" target="_blank (Signet of the Dinomancers 548, 2/4 upgrade)

I personally prefer the Dinomancers ring, am I wrong?

Your crit ring is higher ilvl so just use that.

3- Any other general pieces of advice?

Myself and some others here could probably write a novel on frost advice Ask for specific stuff and you shall recieve.

- I just ditched Herbalism in favor of Tailoring, but I'm hesitant on switching Alchemy.

In my bags, I have the following heroic items that I haven't equipped:

- http://www.wowhead.com/item=104445" target="_blank (Shoulderpads of Dou Dou Chong 566, 0/4), have Normal Tier shoulders equipped instead (3/4 upgraded), in order to keep 2pc bonus.

- http://www.wowhead.com/item=104541" target="_blank (Toxic Tornado Treads 566, 0/4), have Normal WF Bone-Inlaid Sandals equipped instead (4/4 upgraded)

Thank you in advance for any help at all!

Profession bonuses are removed in WoD so don't worry about that. Your boots will be an upgrade if you have VP to upgrade them to a higher ilvl. Never break 2pc for anything.

[Skil]

Thanks for the quick reply, durrtygoodz. Maybe I was reading it wrong, but that comment I saw caught me off-guard:

Important note: there is no need to use Ice Lance when you reach 5 Icicles (from your Mastery: Icicles Icon Mastery: Icicles). When you have 5 Icicles, gaining a new Icicle will simply cause one of the stored Icicles to trigger and deal its damage, making room for the new Icicle.

[Sarm]

Ooooh. That's actually referring to a common question where people wanted to know whether or not to cast a regular Ice Lance (with no FoF proc to consume) in order to fire off the icicles, since they don't realize that the icicles don't get wasted when you generate a 6th.

[Skil]

That makes perfect sense, and what I was hoping to confirm - thank you, Sarm!

[Kver]

If you get a 6th icicle, the 1st stored icicle will fire automatically. Ice Lance makes all stored icicles launch at one(For more burst, I guess?). It can be quite hard to distinguish between the two tooltips. In general though, you never use ice lance without a fingers of frost proc.

I do wonder if we need to put a giant warning somewhere that this isn't necessary, and maybe give Blizz some feedback on it :p

[Skil]

Thanks Kver, it's pretty much what I've been doing. I might let the occasional IL with no FoF fire off if I'm clicking too quickly though. About to upgrade my Heroic WF KTT tomorrow, so I'm hoping to see a little boost in DPS!

Since I use the AMR build suggested in these forums for the mixture build (set Crit to 1.0), I've found that I've had to sacrifice either Haste or Mastery in most of my Heroic upgrades so far, and replacing it with items that have Crit.

Between replacing the Flex ring from Thok, and hood from Garrosh, I've lost 1,839 Mastery with my Heroic upgrades, and that's after reforging and such.

[Soggs]

Crit is not as bad as it might seem from most guides. Until the shatter cap of 23% crit unbuffed it is quite good and after that it is still decent, though not as good as mastery. In combination with the higher intelligence on the heroic items it will definitely be a dps increase.

[Skil]

Thanks Soggs - I've been setting crit values in AMR to 1.0 for the longest time, so I apologize if it's been answered, but what are the correct values then if I'm trying to reach the Shatter cap? With all this extra crit coming from my new gear, maybe it'll be good to make use of it!

Here's what I'm currently using as reference (image attached).

[Komma]

Thanks Soggs - I've been setting crit values in AMR to 1.0 for the longest time, so I apologize if it's been answered, but what are the correct values then if I'm trying to reach the Shatter cap? With all this extra crit coming from my new gear, maybe it'll be good to make use of it!

Here's what I'm currently using as reference (image attached).

If you're trying to reach the shatter cap, usually you'd value crit above haste beyond your breakpoint. You can probably set crit to 3 or 3.1, and drop haste beyond BP to 2.8, although results are unlikely to change much. I wonder why you're using 13629 as a haste breakpoint though.

Don't worry too much about shatter crit cap. At your gear level, getting a healthy amount of haste and improving your play is going to make the biggest difference to your DPS

[Skil]

Thanks Komma, for your response. I'm at 13629 because I'm goblin, which is my 14242!

Should I be aiming for a higher breakpoint with this gear?

[durrtygoodz]

No, just stick with that.

[Komma]

Thanks Komma, for your response. I'm at 13629 because I'm goblin, which is my 14242!

Should I be aiming for a higher breakpoint with this gear?

Is Goblin haste additive? If it's multiplicative like spell haste buff and frost armor, I think the number is 13681 or 13680 instead:

((1.5 / 1.05 / 1.07 / 1.01) - 1) * 42500 = 13680.517918280479583338841227247....

Which would explain why AMR is saying your cap is 49.86% instead of 50.00%.

[Skil]

Ahhh, I got the number from Arkaen's guide at: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11" target="_blank
(says goblin 13629).

After posting my last reply and before seeing yours, Durrtygoodz, I tried to see what things would look like with 63.50% haste (18737 goblin). I'll see if that changes anything and switch back if I don't see much improvement.

Thanks for your assistance guys!

[Akraen]

Doh, my fault. I didn't double check the numbers that kind little goblin from mmoc ran for me.

Actually it's payback for destroying Azshara and Stonetalon.