Frost Talents, Stat Weights, Racials, Trinkets, FAQ

[ryuja]

on the trinket list I'm guessing Insignia is the pvp trinket? Is it the 660 or 620 version?

[Tiaitchsi]

Nice job with the trinkets!

I'm currently running Philosopher's Stone and Ragewing's Firefang, these are the ones to go for besides the crafted ones, or am I reading it wrong?

[jimme]

Hey, thanks for doing this work for us.

Can you post scale factors for the 2 and 3 target situation as well, if it's easily doable that is.

I'm somewhat intrigued that a combination of FB and thermal void seems to rule 2+ targets, and was wondering if that talent combination also was prefering haste over multistrike.

I am also a bit surprised that coment storm is so strong on 3 targets. It should be devalued for each target but seems to be better for 3 than 1 target. I can see some play around coment storm with IF that if you use it on 4 or 5 stacks, which is easily doable with the long recharge time it could be very decent if these numbers hold true. Same with ice nova. If you make sure to use it on 4-5 stacks it might rival fost bomb on more targets.
Does this sim cast it on CD or does it prefer to cast it with higher stacks of IF?

Trying to figure out what talents are best for CMs since you can change them after you start.I've been running with PC and IN but i'm seriously considering dumping PC since you can't actuelly help kill a "skull" in i grp with more than one target since you will be targeting your PC.

[smartys]

nice work! And now more love for arcane

Sry for my impatience

[oomy]

Sorry if i'm wrong but why is the glyph cone of cold being used when cone of cold is never cast? Would it effect the sims to use the water elemental glyph?

[Frosted]

No, it wouldn't. And when we do movement sims (at least when I do them) there is an option to force only the players to move, so things like pets will not be effected, which I turn on.

Odds of me doing anything Arcane related are nill - I have no interest in the spec, and generally leave it to Komma/Soggs. Sorry . Once Fire gets some love (aka when people start caring about it) I'll extend the sister thread of this one in the Fire forums to contain more content.

I don't remember if I had the scale factors calculated for the 2 and 3 target sims or not. I'll let you know when I get home from lab, and if I don't I'll run them this evening.

On CmS being good on three targets: My bet is that it's actually NOT CmS, it's Fbomb carrying CmS dead weight along with it to the top! Notice how as we increase #targets, Fbomb begins to dominate the top ranks more and more.

[Frosted]

When running IN_MI_TV, glyphed IV is superior.

[Frosted]

At some point this week I'll update the OP with a simple rotation guide - outlining standard play, dealing with the opener, and how to work around PC to have procs/nova charges up for it.

[Israfael]

Have you checked 615 trinkets? It seems they weren't nerfed at all, at least those that you can get from the followers missions.

[Frosted]

No, but they have so much more int than the 630 ones I'd be surprised if they were not better.

[mdiym]

I'm a bit confused as to why these numbers are so different from my own experience, so maybe someone can elaborate on exactly how to use power crystal. Do you want to frost bomb the boss and the crystal? Frost bomb on boss, frozen orb, crystal, bomb on crystal, spam ice lance? Or do you only need it on one? Also, when is the best time to orb in this situation? I'm not entirely sure on the interaction between frost bomb and the splitting ice lance glyph.

I've been seeing way higher numbers on single target using thermal veins, I've been able to keep my icy veins up for close to the entire duration of bloodlust. Using the crystal on a single target fight seems like a very minimal damage increase since it only gives 10% extra, however you lose some damage on the global it takes to cast, and then another global to put frost bomb on your crystal.

[Komma]

I'm a bit confused as to why these numbers are so different from my own experience, so maybe someone can elaborate on exactly how to use power crystal. Do you want to frost bomb the boss and the crystal? Frost bomb on boss, frozen orb, crystal, bomb on crystal, spam ice lance? Or do you only need it on one?

You can only have 1 active Frost Bomb at a time. The logic is usually:
Can you guarantee every ice lance on PC will cleave the boss? If yes, cast FB on Boss before PC. If no, cast FB on PC after you summon it.

Using the crystal on a single target fight seems like a very minimal damage increase since it only gives 10% extra, however you lose some damage on the global it takes to cast, and then another global to put frost bomb on your crystal.

Crystal is strong not because of the multiplier, but because of the cleave. Frost Bomb, Ice Nova, Splitting Ice cleaves all contribute to why it's 10% instead of 30%.

[Petfood101]

How exactly do i use TV? Is it to make the icy veins last forever or just increased by some time? And one the first chart why is MI+TV not better than RoP+TV?

[mdiym]

Ah I see, thanks for the reply.

In your simulation, how do you handle the staggered cooldowns of frozen orb and PC? Whats the optimal way to use these two?

Lets use an example of a 3:15 fight, obviously you use both on the opener, then 1 minute in your orb comes back up. You could use it there, and then at 1:30 into the fight have a comparatively weak power crystal since there's no orb to guarantee you can spam lance. Then at 2 minutes you get another frost orb, then at 3 minutes you get to use them both again. Alternatively you could use frozen orb as if it had a 90 second cooldown, and only use it with PC. Have you run any tests on which one is better?

[Frosted]

How exactly do i use TV? Is it to make the icy veins last forever or just increased by some time? And one the first chart why is MI+TV not better than RoP+TV?

You glyph IV and forget about infinite IV right now, that's how you use it.

Because RoP+TV does more damage?

[voltaa]

And one the first chart why is MI+TV not better than RoP+TV?

I can see where your logic on this comes from, but to give it a little more explanation than "it does more damage" it's about how certain talents intwract with eachothwr and how certain buffs/CDs effect each other, MI has no bearing on your IV damage but RoP does, they mesh well together.

[smartys]

Odds of me doing anything Arcane related are nill - I have no interest in the spec, and generally leave it to Komma/Soggs. Sorry . Once Fire gets some love (aka when people start caring about it) I'll extend the sister thread of this one in the Fire forums to contain more content.

I don't remember if I had the scale factors calculated for the 2 and 3 target sims or not. I'll let you know when I get home from lab, and if I don't I'll run them this evening.

no problem I'll try to do it myself

[Tyddus]

does anyone notice a difference with frost/other mage specs today? hotfixes over night and the suspense is killing me.

[Frosted]

No changes to Frost spec were made.

[Petfood101]

The Ice Nova / MI / PC seems very dull outside of cooldowns. The dps seems to plummet to say the least. Any pointers? Do i save the IN for double? Do i save the PC for FO? Its pretty confusing. None of the tests seem to yield proper results for me . #fail