Do I use Heroic Fear or Heroic Gaze as Frost Mage?

[BrainYtje]

I was wondering if I should use Heroic Fear or Herioc Gaze with my 4-tier piece and mage trinket.

My Armory
I see that some of the simulationcraft posts show gaze outperforms fear... but then I see many people use fear instead.

[Melody]

Personally I feel that prophecy of fear preforms better even though people say gaze is better for frost. So i'm staying with prohecy for now

[Braddahman]

I'm a 720 frost mage atm, and I personally prefer PoF. Gaze is really good for people who just want to focus on tunneling and are happy with their current dps imo. If you want to take your dps a step further, PoF is great, especially if you're stacking decent multistrike. You'll just have to make sure you're focusing whoever has the debuff on, and your icicles MS will hit them and do amazing damage. There are weakauras out there that can help you with that.

[Curnivore]

Let me semi-hijack this thread and make a very relevant question. Is it true that avoiding the class trinket and using those two together is higher DPS on multiple target fights? I heard that today but I find it hard to believe because the go-to approach appears to be to keep the class trinket up for the main target damage at least.

The thing is, it's quite difficult simulating multiple targets lately.

Well, Archimonde's first couple of phases might be able to..

[Seatoo]

I'm a 720 frost mage atm, and I personally prefer PoF. Gaze is really good for people who just want to focus on tunneling and are happy with their current dps imo. If you want to take your dps a step further, PoF is great, especially if you're stacking decent multistrike. You'll just have to make sure you're focusing whoever has the debuff on, and your icicles MS will hit them and do amazing damage. There are weakauras out there that can help you with that.

I swear I've seen in other threads that they've nerfed icicles proccing doom nova...have you tested? Also I was under the impression that multi strikes didn't proc the Nova as well...

[Laodi]

Let me semi-hijack this thread and make a very relevant question. Is it true that avoiding the class trinket and using those two together is higher DPS on multiple target fights? I heard that today but I find it hard to believe because the go-to approach appears to be to keep the class trinket up for the main target damage at least.

The thing is, it's quite difficult simulating multiple targets lately.

Well, Archimonde's first couple of phases might be able to..

Xhul and HFC: Yes.
All others: No. Even Archi is more 2 targetcleave then real 3-4 targetae. And for cleave the trinkets rocks.

@Braddahman: Icicles and MS dont activate MoD.

[Zelendria]

Gaze IMO.
A sim has PoF marginally behind Gaze so if you can somehow switch targets, and never miss a split second of every debuff in every fight as good as Robomage does it will still be worse than Gaze on average which in comparison requires no input from you at all.

Icicles pre release of 6.2 used to trigger MoD and had Frost beating Arcane on PTR. It never made it to live.

As for some people using PoF. They might prefer using it regardless of what a sim says or simply not have Gaze to switch it.

[Curnivore]

Simcraft's current script does not react to PoF. It treats it like a random unknown occurrence. In most practical cases that's realistic, especially with the weaving required with the archi trinket.

[Zelendria]

The script targets a target with MoD in the blink of an eye. That alone is something very few Mages can do.

Say for example FB procs MoD which is obviously followed by a IL. Robomage will have switched to the MoD target well within the GCD of IL.
The very next cast Robomage does will hit MoD every single time patchwerk or not, ST or multi.

Lets make it difficult for human players

How many human players in a multi target scenario, while in a movement phase or boss mechanic, can not only find the MoD target in a GCD of IL, but also be casting their very next spell on it?... I suspect not so many.

It seems to me that by using PoF as Frost you're making life unnecessarily difficult to not match Gaze even if you play it perfectly which most Mages can't do.

Maybe there is a better way to optimize PoF as Frost that the sim doesn't model....

[Curnivore]

Where is that done in the frost script? I only see references to the archi trinket.

[Zelendria]

I don't know. There has to be something somewhere that tells it to change to the MoD target.
In the Arcane APL is:
actions.conserve+=/arcane_missiles,if=buff.arcane_missiles.react&debuff.mark_of_doom.remains>2*spell_haste+(target.distance%20)

I'm not great with deciphering the APL, but I assume it means 'if you have an AM proc, cast it on the MoD target if there is more than 2 seconds remaining on the debuff accounting for missile travel time and your haste stat'.
However, I can't find anything about using AB on a different target with the debuff when there are no AM charges.
So either Robomage ignores a secondary target with MoD when it has no AM charges, and carries on hitting its primary target using conserve/burn rotation (I doubt this) or it's built into a line elsewhere about debuffs, but I can't find it.

[BrainYtje]

Gaze IMO.
A sim has PoF marginally behind Gaze so if you can somehow switch targets, and never miss a split second of every debuff in every fight as good as Robomage does it will still be worse than Gaze on average which in comparison requires no input from you at all.

Sooo I am missing something here. It matters to which target the trinket procs on? Please go into further detail cus I never pay attention to my trinket proccing.

[Laodi]

Gaze IMO.
A sim has PoF marginally behind Gaze so if you can somehow switch targets, and never miss a split second of every debuff in every fight as good as Robomage does it will still be worse than Gaze on average which in comparison requires no input from you at all.

Sooo I am missing something here. It matters to which target the trinket procs on? Please go into further detail cus I never pay attention to my trinket proccing.

First @Zelendria: We are speaking about Frost not arcane.
Second @BrainYtje: MoD can proc from your IL-cleave so it could go on a secondary target. If this is happening you should change target to the MoD-target to get the most out of it. If there is a prioritytarget then stay at this ofc, thats also one of the reasons imo PoF as Frost is bad. It procs often times (personal feeling) on a secondary mob and in most cases on the imp with 5% live... -.-

[Curnivore]

thats also one of the reasons imo PoF as Frost is bad. It procs often times (personal feeling) on a secondary mob and in most cases on the imp with 5% live... -.-

What would you do on a dilemma of 721 PoF vs 710 Sethe?

[Zelendria]

First @Zelendria: We are speaking about Frost not arcane.

Obviously we're talking about Frost.
He asked me to point out where it switches target in the Frost APL which I can't. The only reason I've brought Arcane up is because of how important the trinket works with the spec. Important enough that there is a line dedicated to it for AM. However, where is the line about switching when it doesn't have that proc? Which relates entirely to his question.
Arcane under this circumstance is exactly the same as Frost. 'Hit X target with Y debuff using Z profile' or words to that affect.
Otherwise what exactly is Robomage doing with the debuff when it's on a secondary target and it's sat in Frost without AM at it's disposal?...

[Seatoo]

thats also one of the reasons imo PoF as Frost is bad. It procs often times (personal feeling) on a secondary mob and in most cases on the imp with 5% live... -.-

What would you do on a dilemma of 721 PoF vs 710 Sethe?

Or a 716 Gaze vs 715 PoF

[Zelendria]

Or a 716 Gaze vs 715 PoF

That's an even easier decision. Currently
710 Gaze with 436 Int beats 715 PoF with 456 Int

So it won't come as much surprise that a WF Gaze that trumps the PoF on Int with 461, and has a stronger proc is also better.

The way I see it when they sim almost identical DPS

A PoF proc can be royally f**ked up. Clicked the wrong target, took too long to find it wasting part of the timer. Accidentally moving interrupting your cast. Had to cheese a mechanic and used IB, GI etc.. They all waste precious PoF proc DPS throughout a fight.
A Gaze proc has nothing to search for, it doesn't care if you interrupt it. It either goes off on completion of a cast or it doesn't. It sure as hell doesn't proc on a 1% HP mob rendering the entire MoD gone, or Iskar himself as he's about to fly away....

[Wilderness]

The script targets a target with MoD in the blink of an eye. That alone is something very few Mages can do.

Say for example FB procs MoD which is obviously followed by a IL. Robomage will have switched to the MoD target well within the GCD of IL.
The very next cast Robomage does will hit MoD every single time patchwerk or not, ST or multi.

Lets make it difficult for human players

How many human players in a multi target scenario, while in a movement phase or boss mechanic, can not only find the MoD target in a GCD of IL, but also be casting their very next spell on it?... I suspect not so many.

It seems to me that by using PoF as Frost you're making life unnecessarily difficult to not match Gaze even if you play it perfectly which most Mages can't do.

Maybe there is a better way to optimize PoF as Frost that the sim doesn't model....

Generally when talking about sims and trinket rankings you're talking about single target or 2/3 target cleave. Any mage who is not asleep can switch targets during a global in those situations. You're vastly exaggerating the added "difficulty" that PoF brings to the rotation on most fight conditions you'd find throughout HFC.

[Wilderness]

A PoF proc can be royally f**ked up. Clicked the wrong target, took too long to find it wasting part of the timer. Accidentally moving interrupting your cast. Had to cheese a mechanic and used IB, GI etc.. They all waste precious PoF proc DPS throughout a fight.
A Gaze proc has nothing to search for, it doesn't care if you interrupt it. It either goes off on completion of a cast or it doesn't. It sure as hell doesn't proc on a 1% HP mob rendering the entire MoD gone, or Iskar himself as he's about to fly away....

You're being very selective in your analysis. Gaze's value drops too if you have to IB/GI or otherwise deal with mechanics during a fight, because you're casting less during a fight than robomage. Gaze's procs in sims always hit all the targets up, but that's not always the case during a raid either. You can kill a low health add and waste Gaze's proc too.

I'm not saying PoF is better than Gaze, assuming they are equal, because its not. I'd be using Gaze as Frost if I had the Mythic version. But you're being overly pessimistic and there's no need for it. You can't talk about wasting a proc on Iskar while not mentioning how you can get a double proc on Archimonde and a deathcaller and how sweet that is. RNG works both ways. And overall, PoF's RNG works out to a bit worse than Gaze, that's it.

[Zelendria]

If you just procced Gaze and then sit in IB you're doing nothing, but the proc worked, it did its damage and that's pretty much it.
If you just procced PoF and sit in IB you're doing nothing, the proc has done 0 damage so far, and it's wearing out.

Yes Gaze can hit a single target instead of a pack in the same way MoD might go on a low HP mob, the difference being is that one of the trinkets procs 5+ times a minute approximately and the other 1.5 a minute.

A Gaze proc on a crappy target has not nearly the same impact as a wasted MoD. How much damage does a single MoD do used properly in comparison to a single Darklight Ray hit? 5x? 10x? More?...