Blizzard and It's Reduction to Frozen Orb CD

[Vainamoine]

After the 7.1.5 update anytime blizzard does damage it reduces frozen orb cool down. I was wondering if this makes it more or less viable in my rotation against some of the newer bosses in NH. When does it become more harmful than good, or should it not be used at all?

Really, inexperienced with WoW in general and any input is appreciated.

[Zlimex]

From my experience with frostmage in 7.1.5, I think it is worth using blizzard if there are 2 or more targets up (If you ae using Artic Gale). In Nighthold, there are several bosses that have some sort of cleave involved, so I think artic gale will be very usefull in Nighthold.

Just personal opinions, have done no sims for it.

[Norrinir]

Blizzard is worth using on 2+ targets even without Arctic Gale. Against a single target, the cooldown reduction is not strong enough (if you have AG, it depends, sim for yourself to be sure).

When you reach 4 targets, you want to cast Blizzard as close to cooldown as possible.

[glasscannon]

How would getting Ice Time factor into ST rotation whether to use Blizzard more often, and talent AG over UM?

If you don't mind, could you list some example fights in NH that you would consider AG over UM?

[Drozzy]

From what I've seen, frost bomb and arctic gale are very close to each other in terms of 4 target situations. In this type of situation, you'd want 100% uptime on blizzard, regardless of whether or not you run arctic gale. I would personally recommend not running unstable magic in nighthold if you want to keep one set of talents for the whole dungeon. From my experience thus far, I've gone up through Krosus on heroic. Having fought Skorpyron, Chromatic Anomaly, Trilliax, Spellblade Aluriel, and Krosus. Out of those fights I've done, I would recommend either arctic gale or frost bomb on Skorpyron, Chromatic, and Spellblade (frost bomb will be more bursty, as well as synergizing better with Vash'j gloves. But arctic gale synergizes better with the flurry/blizzard belt on 2+ targets). I personally have the Vash'j gloves, so I'm running frost bomb over arctic gale. However, arctic gale gets much less punished by low hp adds and can make blizzard hit extra targets (bigger radius---very noteworthy for arcane adds on Spellblade). So on Skorpyron and Spellblade, I would probably prefer arctic gale, if I was going to swap talents every fight. (Worth noting that frost bomb performs well on single target, whereas arctic gale does not. So frost bomb is the better all around talent, but arctic gale is probably the better talent for fights that require aoeing down large groups of adds)

Regarding Ice Time, it's hard to say on pure single target fights if it's worth using blizzard, since Ice Time does effectively double the damage of every frozen orb (the frost nova hits about as hard as all the ticks of frozen orb put together). But, my gut would say no for a couple reasons. #1: Blizzard gives a bigger reduction on frozen orb the more targets it hits. On single target, it only reduces the frozen orb cooldown by a few seconds per cast. You'll probably only get 1-2 extra frozen orbs by changing your rotation (if you even get that much). #2: frozen orb isn't even that strong of a spell for us on single target, its only strong component on single target is the generation of fingers of frost. It's not one of our highest damage per execute times, flurry and ebonbolt generally take the cake there (even if frozen orb now does double the damage with ice time, it still probably doesn't surpass those, at best it might be about equal to them). #3 Frostbolt has a very good chance to give us brain freeze, which gives us flurry, which hits really hard. With 2pc, the chance is even higher. and both brain freeze and fingers of frost give us an ice lance cast. Our brain freeze procs are insanely powerful right now. In all of my logs on single target fights (no tier yet), flurry is doing as much total damage as frostbolt is (and that doesn't count the ice lance we get from winter's chill with flurry). So, my conclusion would be: Don't act any differently because of ice time, just use the same rotation. Arctic gale would get better with ice time, so I would try simming (or testing on dummies if you're really against sims) your single target dps with arctic gale and also with unstable magic (never casting blizzard with UM).

[Osinin]

Can't tell you Bomb v AG, but for when I planned on UM: Chronomatic, Trilliax, Spell, Star, Krosus, Guldan.

[Lammer]

Blizzard is worth using on 2+ targets even without Arctic Gale. Against a single target, the cooldown reduction is not strong enough (if you have AG, it depends, sim for yourself to be sure).

When you reach 4 targets, you want to cast Blizzard as close to cooldown as possible.

does "2+" include "2" or it means 3, 4, 5 etc?

[Norrinir]

It includes 2.

[Svar0g]

How is this synergy different if you have legendary belt? Do you still use on 2+ at every stack? Do you wait for 5 stacks? Does it outperform UM if you go AG+Belt+1 stack on single target?

[Norrinir]

You still use it on CD against 2+ targets. Not sure about the second question, probably not, but sim for yourself since AG Blizzard is sometimes worth it on single target, sometimes not.

[Svar0g]

If I'm reading Simc priority list correctly, for my char it shows:

Talents UM+TV with Belt: Target >1 + 5 stacks of Journey = 529k DPS
Talents AG+TV with Belt: Target >1 Blizz pretty much on CD = 523k DPS

[Sockets]

@Svar0g, That's interesting, using the legendary with /UM over AG whilst stacking gives you a better output, but what are the sims when stacking with AG?

[Norrinir]

As usual, sim for yourself. I'm getting slightly different results.



BC/IF/FT/x/TV, only legendary is the belt.

[Svar0g]

Sockets how do I force it to only use at 5 stacks?

[Norrinir]

Change this APL line

Code: Select all

actions.single+=/blizzard,if=talent.arctic_gale.enabled|active_enemies>1|(buff.zannesu_journey.stack=5&buff.zannesu_journey.remains>cast_time)

to

Code: Select all

actions.single+=/blizzard,if=active_enemies>1|(buff.zannesu_journey.stack=5&buff.zannesu_journey.remains>cast_time)