Drjayfisto's Frost Gearing Philosophy

[Drjayfisto]

Hey guys.

Since I got asked frequently in the last weeks about the gearing of my mage I'm going to sum up my thoughts here for you. Please keep in mind that my mage has an itemlevel of 589, what you will read will only be suitable for mages with higher itemlevels (around 584-589). My lines of thought result from my experience and a lot of Simcraft calculations.

eu.battle.net/wow/de/character/blackhand/Drjayfisto/simple

Unbuffed Stats :

Intellect : 31236 (With Engineering / Tailoring)
Hit : 5106
Haste : 15862
Mastery : 19217
Crit : 4100

There is not only 1 BiS - Gear for Frost Mages in this content.

In SoO you will face various situations with a different amount of targets. The stat scaling varies depending on the amount of targets you're playing against. The more targets you have, the harder intellect will outscale the secondary stats. That being said you are forced to make a decision about your gear if you want to perform on the highest level : Either you go for regem / reenchanting / reforging before every fight or you decide to build up a gear that is able to perform properly on different situations (I prefer to only have 1 gear without doing the effort to regem / reenchant / reforge, so im gonna explain how i got to my stats) :

- In single target situations you want to have at least 14242 Haste (50% GCD Cap), with higher itemlevel I recommend you to get 15697 Haste for the Frostbolt Hard Cap. Besides reaching that Haste cap you want to maximize your Mastery while having at least around 20% Crit (20% because you want to hold a balance between your crit, mastery and intellect stats).
Use pure mastery / haste Gems on yellow, exp + mastery / haste on red, hit + mastery / haste on blue.

Haste (Until 15697) > Mastery = Crit (until 20%~) > Crit (over 20%~) > Haste (over 15679)

- In situations where you tank at least 2-3 targets together you're going to play with Nether Tempest. Because of that, you will try to reach the 15832 Haste Cap of Nether Tempest. With more targets your Crit Scaling will raise. Against 2 targets it will be around the same scaling as mastery, against 3 it will be stronger than Mastery. Haste will outscale both against 3.

Fights with 2 targets :
Use pure mastery / haste Gems on yellow, exp + mastery / haste on red, hit + mastery / haste on blue.

Haste (Until 15832) > Mastery = Crit > Haste (over 15832)

Fights with 3 targets :
Use pure haste Gems on yellow, int + haste on red, hit + haste on blue.

Haste > Crit > Mastery

After taking these situations in consideration and maybe fights like Malkorok, Siegecrafter, Split-tanked Shamans where you go for single target DPS with add waves you have to decide how you build up your gear.
The main questions are :

- How much Haste do you want in your gear? Getting the 15832 Haste Cap is trivial, since you want 15697 Haste for single target situations. In single target situations you're going to overcap a minumum of 135 Haste, which is a ridicolous amount of DPS loss (0,1%). In Nether Tempest fights (In my raid I play with Nether Tempest in 4 fights) you will get a DPS gain of 3-5% by reaching the cap.

- Do you use Hybrid Exp/X or Hybrid Int/X gems on red sockets? Using Int/X gems are trivial. In single target situations youre going to lose around 0,5% - 1,5% DPS, since secondary stats are stronger. But I dont recommend you to build your gear around 1 fight in SoO. Using Int Hybrid gems will lead to a considerable higher DPS on fights with Nether Tempest or on fights like Garrosh / Siegecrafter / Shamans, where you have the option to AoE.

tl;dr Version : Haste (until 15832) > Mastery = Crit (until 20%) > Crit (over 20%) > Haste (over 15832) while using Int hybrid gems

Feel free to argue about it.

Sorry for my bad English.

Greetz Drjayfisto

[Komma]

Welcome aboard Drjay! Great to have you share your thoughts here.

I split your post into a separate thread, because that one was mainly for discussing Akraen's chart, and I didn't want to derail the thread.

Regarding your gearing idea, most of it is more or less what I had in mind while building a set as well. My onyl question is...by 20% crit, what exactly is the goal? Are you aiming for 28% crit after buffs (ie. shatter cap)?

[Drjayfisto]

Welcome aboard Drjay! Great to have you share your thoughts here.

I split your post into a separate thread, because that one was mainly for discussing Akraen's chart, and I didn't want to derail the thread.

Thanks Komma, I was wondering why my post disappeared

Regarding your gearing idea, most of it is more or less what I had in mind while building a set as well. My onyl question is...by 20% crit, what exactly is the goal? Are you aiming for 28% crit after buffs (ie. shatter cap)?

The 20% crit are an approximate value i got from different calculations in Simcraft with Itemlevels between 584-589. Since you go for 15832 Haste, you want to keep a balance between Intellect / Mastery / Crit. The number 20% has nothing to do with any cap, it is only about the balance of the named stats.

[Akraen]

<Akraen seal of approval>

[Kver]

<Akraen seal of approval>

Doing it wrong, scrub.

[nathyiel]

I approved the seal of approval ^o^

[Akraen]

Amazing how many drawings/pics of Akraen are out there. I forgot about that one, it's from my druid days.

[Sikkz]

I was looking over this thread for a question that I have, but I don't see it answered so I'm going to ask it here. I'm interested in pursuing this new 15832 haste ---> Mastery build. I'm wondering how to accurately configure AMR to reflect these stat weights. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Skrabble]

I was looking over this thread for a question that I have, but I don't see it answered so I'm going to ask it here. I'm interested in pursuing this new 15832 haste ---> Mastery build. I'm wondering how to accurately configure AMR to reflect these stat weights. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Akraen]

omg <3 your avatar skrabble

[Skil]

Scrabble, Are these the correct AMR settings for all stats or just displaying where to set the haste cap?

From what I see in the original post, crit to 20% should be set to a higher weight (and your screen cap still has 25% crit)

Thanks

[Skil]

Apologies, I was on my iPad earlier. Here's the way I've set up AMR according to Drjayfisto's original post, can someone please confirm that it looks good?

EDIT: The haste cap you see in my screen cap is because I'm a goblin

[Komma]

Minor nitpicking: Goblin NT BP is 15255, not 15254. ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... a0E#gid=39" target="_blank and http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/haste/magearcane" target="_blank )

Just in case you somehow land exactly on 15254 and miss the breakpoint!

[Skil]

Thanks, Komma!

[Sikkz]

Alright. So. I'm not saying this new build is the reason for it, but my damage was significantly higher tonight in my heroic SoO farm clear, specifically on protectors, norushen, and Sha. Like....ridiculously higher. Here is a link to the rankings/logs.

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/re ... #boss=1598" target="_blank

Nothing about tonight's clear was different than it has been the past couple weeks. Didn't do anything differently rotation/mechanic wise, and my gear is virtually the same as it's been for weeks as well.

I'm really curious how much this new build is contributing to my massive spike in damage, or how much of it is just luck/better game-play. So, point being, you have my thumbs up for this build...because it seems to be working wonderful for me so far.

[Komma]

Well dang. That's a pretty darned impressive TFP parse.

TFP and Noru, especially if you're running NT, should in fact see noticeable differences though. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a repeat performance.

[durrtygoodz]

dat tfp rng

[Mageski]

Damn, I felt good about 532k haha. (Granted, haven't had a good pull with the new build yet, been sitting out for farm to help people get gear)

Overall I've felt really strong with the new build though. This was my first night at 15832+ http://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/re ... Jph#boss=0" target="_blank

[Sikkz]

Well dang. That's a pretty darned impressive TFP parse.

TFP and Noru, especially if you're running NT, should in fact see noticeable differences though. I wouldn't be surprised if you get a repeat performance.

Thank you very much! I sure hope so, I guess we will see. It looks like the benefit from a higher haste build is really showing, at least in some form, but at what cost to single target DPS? I ask this because depending on how big/little the single target loss is, I'm definitely interested in going to a higher haste build.

Damn, I felt good about 532k haha. (Granted, haven't had a good pull with the new build yet, been sitting out for farm to help people get gear)

Overall I've felt really strong with the new build though. This was my first night at 15832+ http://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/re ... Jph#boss=0" target="_blank

Some very nice parses, especially Malkorok. He just never seems to leave me alone during that fight. Definitely seems that this build is helping. How much so is questionable, but beneficial nonetheless.

After last nights parses, I'm tempted to go for the 19.3k haste build and see what kind of damage is possible on those multi-target fights like TFP/Noru/Spoils. And if that reaps benefits......maybe even more haste. The haste addiction is setting in...you did this to me Akraen.

dat tfp rng

It's......it's beautiful.

[Verraine]

Apologies, I was on my iPad earlier. Here's the way I've set up AMR according to Drjayfisto's original post, can someone please confirm that it looks good?

EDIT: The haste cap you see in my screen cap is because I'm a goblin

Skil, how did you come up with the 2.83 weight for your secondary haste?