[BFA] Battle for Azeroth Frost changes overview

[Savke]

Nope nothing, just nova cc

[Julia]

Does the mage pet have any use?

The freeze ability is the only active you get out of the pet. It allows you to shatter two glacial spikes (with splitting ice) on some fights where there are adds or in dungeon content.

[Castalina]

Great job! Thank you so much

[spud]

Thanks Julia ... do you think Freeze will be a thing? What's the chance of freezing adds and not being hit by other players while you cast GS?

[nickseng]

Thanks Julia ... do you think Freeze will be a thing? What's the chance of freezing adds and not being hit by other players while you cast GS?

You could just cast Freeze (it's off your GCD since it's casted from your pet) just before GS hits the adds, reducing the chance they will break too early.
That's what we used to do previously to shatter stuff.

[Julia]

Thanks Julia ... do you think Freeze will be a thing? What's the chance of freezing adds and not being hit by other players while you cast GS?

Freeze has a protection window (0,25s) in which even if the damage is exceeded the root remains. This gives you more than enough time to align it with GS without ever failing.

[Savke]

Hmmm I got a question for legy? If we hit 120lvl , are the legy bonus still active? And can we still equip them ? I mean bracer boni is still nice

[Julia]

Hmmm I got a question for legy? If we hit 120lvl , are the legy bonus still active? And can we still equip them ? I mean bracer boni is still nice

Legendaries are disabled par level 115

[Ataraxey]

Does the mage pet have any use?

The freeze ability is the only active you get out of the pet. It allows you to shatter two glacial spikes (with splitting ice) on some fights where there are adds or in dungeon content.

For splitting two glacial spikes with SI, do you mean freeze the 2 enemies so you get a double crit vs a single crit w/ flurry?

I imagine that won't be very helpful for anything but adds in raids too, so that might be mostly for dungeons.

[Julia]

I meant that both your main cast and the cast from SI will shatter. And like I already said, it will be used in dungeons and some boss encounters mostly. Theres a ton of boss encounters with adds in Uldir.

[Rexx]

Thanks for putting this information together! I have a question regarding when to hold brain freeze procs. This guide states "in Legion you started holding your Brain Freeze procs at 4 Icicles, in Battle for Azeroth you keep up with this trend." In bfa casting flurry also generates an icicle, and it feels incredibly strange to be at three icicles with a brain freeze proc, and cast frostbolt, flurry, icelance, which puts you at five icicles without a brain freeze proc for the now available glacial spike. Of course 25% of the time (or 30% with frozen touch talented) the frostbolt gives you another brain freeze proc and it works out perfectly, but it feels so terrible the other 75% I just wanted to make sure that's the correct way to play it.

[Julia]

Thanks for putting this information together! I have a question regarding when to hold brain freeze procs. This guide states "in Legion you started holding your Brain Freeze procs at 4 Icicles, in Battle for Azeroth you keep up with this trend." In bfa casting flurry also generates an icicle, and it feels incredibly strange to be at three icicles with a brain freeze proc, and cast frostbolt, flurry, icelance, which puts you at five icicles without a brain freeze proc for the now available glacial spike. Of course 25% of the time (or 30% with frozen touch talented) the frostbolt gives you another brain freeze proc and it works out perfectly, but it feels so terrible the other 75% I just wanted to make sure that's the correct way to play it.

Good morning Rexx,
At the start of alpha we were actually holding at 3 stacks. This changed when the sp scaling of GS was nerfed. Holding at 3 stacks also resulted in a huge amount of procs being munched, up to 30%. So that munching plus the sp nerf made it so we hold on 4 stacks again. Dont forget you have ebonbolt to shatter ondemans with.

[Oshtamage]

After toying around quite a bit on beta, granted I'm only 117...in a dungeon setting FR seems much more powerful than is being considered. FR smooths out the trash packs, allows a lot more orbs, and if we are stacking mastery more than previously, I feel like its only uphill from there. Maybe others aren't having similar results, but in manor I've ran with FR/SI/CS and my overall data is heavily skewed towards FR. This could just be the pacing the tanks are taking, as well as missing shatters on CS, but I really feel like FR feels the best in dungeons.

[Julia]

After toying around quite a bit on beta, granted I'm only 117...in a dungeon setting FR seems much more powerful than is being considered. FR smooths out the trash packs, allows a lot more orbs, and if we are stacking mastery more than previously, I feel like its only uphill from there. Maybe others aren't having similar results, but in manor I've ran with FR/SI/CS and my overall data is heavily skewed towards FR. This could just be the pacing the tanks are taking, as well as missing shatters on CS, but I really feel like FR feels the best in dungeons.

Fr is always going to feel the best since it removed cast time from one of your main, and long cast time, spells. Problem is that it's fairly weak right now. In a mastery heavy setting you'd probably gain more value from it but the initial burst from CMS or sustain from SI is just too good, SI esspecially when running GS.

[burningflame75]

I am wondering if it is ever appropriate to cancel a frostbolt cast.

The specific situation I am wondering about is when you are sitting on 5 icicles and EB is off cd, and you're casting several frostbolts in a row waiting to get BF proc. You finally get it, but if you are starting your next cast ASAP, you have started casting frostbolt, and either do FB (with active BF proc already up)->GS->Flurry OR Cancel FB Cast->GS->Flurry.

Thanks for setting up this guide. It has been an extremely valuable resource, and I havent found anything quite this detailed for any other class/spec

[Julia]

I am wondering if it is ever appropriate to cancel a frostbolt cast.

The specific situation I am wondering about is when you are sitting on 5 icicles and EB is off cd, and you're casting several frostbolts in a row waiting to get BF proc. You finally get it, but if you are starting your next cast ASAP, you have started casting frostbolt, and either do FB (with active BF proc already up)->GS->Flurry OR Cancel FB Cast->GS->Flurry.

Thanks for setting up this guide. It has been an extremely valuable resource, and I havent found anything quite this detailed for any other class/spec

Cancelling that frostbolt cast on ST, Cleave and AOE results in a damage decrease / increase within target error. This means the gain or loss is so low that SIMC is unable to determin this. (To put this into numbers for you, the gain or loss is less than 5 dps)

For this reason I'm going to say do not cancel that cast because thats been the general rule of thumb in legion

Images:
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input: https://pastebin.com/raw/LeuMDZBK

[burningflame75]

Thanks!

Followup, I'd assume there's a cancel scenario for EB, yes? That is, if you are on 4 icicles and no BF and EB is off CD, you would frostbolt (5th icicle) -> EB -> GS -> Flurry. However, if you happen to get BF on your fifth icicle frostbolt, then it would be a waste of your EB CD to cast ebonbolt. Yes, you could consume the first BF to make EB shatter and avoid munching, but that's not how EB is supposed to be used anymore...

This would essentially be the same as if say, you queue EB as it comes off CD while sitting on 5 icicles, but the final frostbolt you cast gets you a BF proc, but you've already queued EB.

[Julia]

Thanks!

Followup, I'd assume there's a cancel scenario for EB, yes? That is, if you are on 4 icicles and no BF and EB is off CD, you would frostbolt (5th icicle) -> EB -> GS -> Flurry. However, if you happen to get BF on your fifth icicle frostbolt, then it would be a waste of your EB CD to cast ebonbolt. Yes, you could consume the first BF to make EB shatter and avoid munching, but that's not how EB is supposed to be used anymore...

This would essentially be the same as if say, you queue EB as it comes off CD while sitting on 5 icicles, but the final frostbolt you cast gets you a BF proc, but you've already queued EB.

apologies, i made a mistake in the expressions of the sims and Norrinir corrected it.
If you are fast enough (200ms within the cast of your 2nd fb) its worth to cancel but really just take the risk of munching and don't cancel.

the gain is minimal and its fairly tricky to do.
For Ebonbolt it's a different story. Ebonbolt yields a larger amount of damage compared to Frostbolt and is guarenteed to give a BF proc. This makes it so shattering the Ebonbolt and then using the delayed proc for the Glacial spike as the best way to play.
EB > Flurry > Il > Gs > Flurry > Il
Ebonbolt cancel sims:

[burningflame75]

Thank you so much. Not what I would have expected

[Rumpeltilzky]

I would first like to say that I don't know how to thanks the effort you guys are doing for the mage community! You are a legend!

I have a question that it's possible that someone asked before but... It would be necessary to wear 4 pieces T-21 and 2 T-20 in pre patch? I always have the feeling that frost mage are stucked and we are not scaling the same way other classes and specs. Maybe with this new build I will start feeling better with the spec. It's just my feeling...^^". Thanks in advance!