[BFA 8.1] Frost Mage M+ Guide

[Herus]

A quick note on Frost Bomb: I've been running this for the last week (Bracers with Soul of the Archmage, thanks to op) and found it to vastly outperform Arctic Gale. My overall DPS throughout the dungeons went up considerably, maybe someone could confirm my findings.

The sequence Frost Bomb>Frozen Orb>Blizzard>IL does crazy amounts of AOE damage, helps to focus down the priority target and gives you the same orb reset time. Frost Bomb will be up for the entire duration of T20 2pc and Soul of the Archmage will give you more than enough procs to pull ahead of Arctic Gale.

Plus, and that's what I like most I think, you get to press an extra button!

So here's my thoughts on Frost Bomb, the extra GCD/cast to get Frost Bomb going just isn't worth it. Not even regarding damage, the utility that arctic gale gives over frost bomb vastly outweighs frost bomb's benefit. Also here's some sims



5 min test, 5 targets

[Katsumi]

Those are some interesting results. If you don't mind, could you see what happens if you assume a fight length of 30-60 seconds, without IV and TW? I assume this is a case of sim vs. reality.

The issue here might be that Blizzard gains DPS value from its ability to reset the orb while Frost Bomb does not. However, Frost Bomb benefits much more from orb uptime than Blizzard does because it utilizes the generated procs to do damage, which in turn benefits from T20 2pc again. Consequently, Blizzard has high value on continuous fights such as the one you simulated while Frost Bomb benefits from a relatively high orb uptime compared to total fight lenght, which is more common in M+ dungeons with frequent breaks of different lengths between fights.

The relative DPS value of Blizzard over the course of a full dungeon compared to Frost Bomb declines when some of the orb reset time happens out of combat, which is not considered in your sim. As targets die one by one, orb reset time also gets longer.

Both of these effects seem to point in favour of the more bursty Frost Bomb playstyle if the two options are this close in a simulation already.

[Norrinir]

You're forgetting that Arctic Gale also increases Blizzard's radius, which is huge for M+.

[Herus]

Those are some interesting results. If you don't mind, could you see what happens if you assume a fight length of 30-60 seconds, without IV and TW? I assume this is a case of sim vs. reality.

The issue here might be that Blizzard gains DPS value from its ability to reset the orb while Frost Bomb does not. However, Frost Bomb benefits much more from orb uptime than Blizzard does because it utilizes the generated procs to do damage, which in turn benefits from T20 2pc again. Consequently, Blizzard has high value on continuous fights such as the one you simulated while Frost Bomb benefits from a relatively high orb uptime compared to total fight lenght, which is more common in M+ dungeons with frequent breaks of different lengths between fights.

The relative DPS value of Blizzard over the course of a full dungeon compared to Frost Bomb declines when some of the orb reset time happens out of combat, which is not considered in your sim. As targets die one by one, orb reset time also gets longer.

Both of these effects seem to point in favour of the more bursty Frost Bomb playstyle if the two options are this close in a simulation already.

Sims aren't going to tell the full story here. You're forgetting the value AG gives you in a dungeon. It's not just the pure DPS gain from AG at this point, it's the increased radius for blizzard ticks which is extremely valuable. Especially with T20.

Also to comment on your results, since I don't know how you came to your conclusion I can only make assumptions. BUT I'm going to assume you only tested it in a handful of dungeons with various ranges of mob count and key level. Given that you're not going to get accurate results to compare it to Arctic Gale. Unless you ran the same exact dungeon with the same exact group multiple times.

Regardless of that the truth is the current iteration of Frost Bomb is not a viable option if your goal is to push keys or rather even do keys appropriate to your skill/key level. It may outperform Arcitc Gale on lower keys, but that's not the point of this guide.

[Katsumi]

Guys, please.

I must have accidentally deleted a sentence in my editing process that outlined the impact of the radius reduction, for which I'm sorry. However, there isn't really one. If your tank stacks well the reduced radius is still plenty to hit the full groups, except that you have to place it correctly. If the groups move substantially, Frost Bomb is superior because it stays on the mobs.

Other than that, my main point was precisely to highlight that sims are not telling the full story here, which you tried to imply by posting them. Your argument is based on a patchwerk fight simulation, not mine.

However, what I should have made clearer is indeed how I reached my conclusions. Firstly, I ran simulations of 5 target patchwerk fights to find out about the theoretical difference between the talent sets for fights of different length. Then I ran about a week of M+ dungeons between 16 and 20 to find out how the prediction compares to the actual data. I also ran the same dungeon with the same group a few times to make sure that I'm not talking myself into something that's not there. Then and only then I made my argument because the results seem to be outside of what I'd consider a normal RNG range between runs.

[Herus]

I'm curious what dungeons and what level key and what comp were you running?

[Katsumi]

I believe I added your answer in my revision of the previous post. Since we don't disagree about simulated DPS it would be great to get some more feedback from live-testing. I cannot fully rule out that the increase in my overall DPS is due to external factors, which is why I posted here in the first place.

[Lahrast]

i did some +15 upwards testing lately regarding Soul/Bracer vs. Belt/Bracer and found the difference negligible tbh, the dps from the ring is arguably more useful tho. (I'm playing GS most of the time)

[Norrinir]

With T20 2pc, getting Frozen Orb resets is by far the most important factor on AoE. Even if AG only gains you one extra tick per target, the contribution to FO reset already makes it way ahead of Frost Bomb. You'd need to go down to about 2 ticks without AG (on average; out of 8) and 3 with AG for Frost Bomb to beat AG... and how often do you get only 2 ticks of non-AG Blizzard?

[Katsumi]

You assume that AG gives you extra ticks compared to not having it if the mobs move, correct? The last part I don't follow, I'm afraid you have to give a few more details to make your explanation understandable.

What happens if you get the same amount of orb cooldown reduction? I play with a DK tank who stacks very well, making it easy to hit everything even with the smaller Blizzard.

[Herus]

You're giving us too many variables for Frost Bomb's viability. AG literally adds no variance to our rotation and doesn't require a swing of luck for you to do DPS. While Frost Bomb is way more susceptible to bad RNG. You'd have to run thousands of runs and iterations for me to believe Frost Bomb is better overall than AG. Either way this guide isn't forcing you to run AG, but I still don't see why Frost Bomb would ever be better than AG.

[Norrinir]

You assume that AG gives you extra ticks compared to not having it if the mobs move, correct? The last part I don't follow, I'm afraid you have to give a few more details to make your explanation understandable.

What happens if you get the same amount of orb cooldown reduction? I play with a DK tank who stacks very well, making it easy to hit everything even with the smaller Blizzard.

If everything is stacked, then AG just wins.

[Katsumi]

I'm afraid at this point I have to ask - have you both actually playtested the gear/talent combination I am talking about here? Not that I'm trying to make you, but it might help you to understand where I'm coming from.

My intention was not to engage in theoretical analysis, but to get reality-checked feedback. Thank you both for your replies.

[Norrinir]

I don't really use Soul of the Archmage, I run M+ with a pet so Sephuz's is just better. But yeah, I did try Frost Bomb recently (and I played with it almost exclusively roughly for the first half of Legion).

[Herus]

I have tested frost bomb, not extensively, but in an actual dungeon albeit it was only a 16. From what I tested it just wasn't worth taking imo. The reliance on FoF procs to properly utilize frost bomb meant a spikier distribution of dps and the loss of AG made me lose more orb casts throughout the dungeon. Although it might be worth taking in some cases, it's not worth the extra effort and expertise needed to make it better than a passive.

[Makkish]

Great guide. Perhaps the mouseover macro to Blizzard would be usefull to some ppl.

#showtooltip Blizzard
/cast [@cursor] Blizzard

[sawbossnl]

howgood is a arans ruby in m+? i got one 910

[Herus]

Definitely do not take arans for frost

[Paigey]

For AOE how do you handle "Bursting" it seems like we don't see it too often but I've seen it at least once in the last few months and the ele shaman in the group could not control his AOE.

[Xinder]

For AOE how do you handle "Bursting" it seems like we don't see it too often but I've seen it at least once in the last few months and the ele shaman in the group could not control his AOE.

You either don't pull giant packs or you don't immediately start blowing up the giant pack that is pulled. It's mostly on Tanks to pull reasonably if they know what the healer can handle. Asking pugs to not AoE is like asking the sun to not come up.