very sad single target frost DPS, thoughts?

[masteryogurt]

Hey all, basically I'm very sad about my log rankings for single target encounters, Star, Krosus, etc. In fact so bad, that at item lvl bracket 893-895 on heroic Star Augur I had a measly 493k at a nearly 7min fight, putting me at 23% item level bracket. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be that great a player, but 23% is VERY low for me...in most aoe fights I'm hitting at least 60% or so, which I'm not happy about still, but it's nothing like 23% !!!

If anyone could give me a bit of help, would be super apprciated, I'm not hte best at logs, but here are links as well as a vid of the actual encounter, in case that could be used for analysis...

my log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vh ... e&source=1" target="_blank

someone elses log who did a decent job, same bracket, same fight length, and also they don't have any epic legendaries for this fight, which I don't either: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/6J ... &source=14" target="_blank

vid of the fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QUDOy3 ... load_owner" target="_blank


My analysis:
I can't find many flaws from the video. There was once or twice I could have handled procs better, but overall I can't find much wrong with what I did.
Log analysis:
Our frozen orb, ebonbolt, and blizzard casts are close in number of casts. Though interestingly, the other player's ebonbolt hit noticeably harder. Their blizzard and frozen orb hit harder, but not by much.
*I just noticed a big thing, I'm using water elemental, the other player is not. This seems weird, because previously logs showed all top %'s were using pets, but now I see on single fights Lonely Winter is the choice, so that may help me going forward.
-I had 111 frost bolt casts, other player had 149!!! Wow, big difference. Weird thing is, during my video, I can't see situations where I could have pumped out more casts. So I'm confused on that.
-Flurry, frostbolt, and esp. ice lance, all hit harder from the other player. Lonely Winter is probably the explanation.
-I had 122 ice lance casts, they had 93. I don't get why this would be the case, as I believe I'm hitting FoF correctly.
-Other player had double the flurry casts I had! Another strange difference.
-I've also noticed I chose frozen touch, they chose splitting ice. Average highest logs have frozen touch selected, but not by much, so they're both competitive it would seem.

**It would appear the largest reason for my poor performance is not selecting Lonely Winter for T1. Is this the only reason however? Other player had way more flurry and frostbolt, but I had way more ice lance, probably thanks to Frozen Touch.

Would appreciate any thoughts. Thank you very much! Hope to pull more weight single target wise soon.

[HominidSmash]

Damn, I am having a bit of the same problem, but you are like 19 ilvl higher. Shatter cap, I think maybe part of the issue in your case. But I'll leave that to some of the more enlightened Frost Mages here.

[masteryogurt]

if by shatter cap you mean crit cap, which I think is like 33%, I'm actually not even close. My character says 26%

[Drozzy]

Inspecting logs:
* You are munching your brain freezes. A lot. You had 45 procs of brain freeze throughout the fight. You only casted flurry 34 times. The other player got 65 procs, and casted flurry 61 times. You absolutely need to make sure you are not munching your brain freeze procs, its the most important thing to not proc munch, and we recently got a buff that makes it much easier to not munch procs. Play like this: Once you have a brain freeze proc, don't cast more frostbolts unless you intend to frostbolt->flurry->ice lance; with that frostbolt.

* You casted 122 ice lances and 34 flurries. 122-34 = 88 FoF ice lances. You got 92 FoF procs throughout the fight, so you're doing a good job of not munching your FoF.

* You didn't cast time warp to make use of shard. Looking through other fights, there are some fights where you make use of Shard. On Star Augur, your group lusted late so you never really had a chance to lust. You could talk to your raid leader and see if it's not possible for your group to lust 30-45s earlier (depending on if you need the lust for a specific mechanic), so that you could immediately follow the group lust with your own time warp. On Krosus, your group lusted at the start, and you never time warped yourself.

* You had 38% IV uptime, the other player had 32.5%. You are running bonechilling and he was not. Bonechilling is only competitive when it allows you to substantially raise the uptime of your icy veins, so I think your uptime is exceptionally low. Both of the prior points (using time warp and not munching BF procs), will significantly improve your IV uptime.

* Just run splitting ice, frozen touch is BARELY worth it in absolutely pure single target. Almost every fight has opportunities for cleave, which all push SI far ahead of FT. (It's 40% multiplicative, so basically a +5% increase to the proc chance of FoF)

* The other player has substantially better trinkets than you.

* You are not shattering your ebonbolts. You can see that 25% of your 8 ebonbolts crit. The other player had 100% of his 8 ebonbolts crit. You shatter ebonbolts by doing ebonbolt->flurry->ice lance at 15+ yards from the boss (rather new buff we received). The flurry you cast after ebonbolt can use the BF proc that ebonbolt gives you, or a BF proc you already had. Both of them work, neither of them wastes a proc.

* The other player running lonely winter and you running bonechilling is the reason for a large part of the gap between your # of frostbolt, flurry, and ice lance casts. He doesn't have water ele, so he doesn't get water jet. Without water jet, he doesn't get those FoF. So he's instead casting more frostbolts, and less ice lances. And those 'more frostbolts' mean more brain freeze procs.

He had 149 frostbolts and 65 BF procs, 65/149 = 43.6%. He has a 31% proc chance with his gear.
(2% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You had 111 frostbolts and 45 BF procs, 45/111 = 40.5%. You have a 33% proc chance with your gear.
(10% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You were both very lucky with brain freeze procs, but you munched a ton of your procs, wasting them.

Remember, every munched brain freeze is not just a lost flurry cast, it's also a lost ice lance cast. In addition, it's a lost shatter on a frostbolt, which is a possibly lost crit + lost stack of chain reaction and......... big damage. Brain Freeze is incredibly important. Can't stress this one enough. You munched 25% of your brain freezes in your log. He munched 6%.

*Last Note: he had 4 more traits in his weapon than you, so he would do a base 2% more damage than you (as well as him having better gear/better itemization)

[masteryogurt]

Inspecting logs:
* You are munching your brain freezes. A lot. You had 45 procs of brain freeze throughout the fight. You only casted flurry 34 times. The other player got 65 procs, and casted flurry 61 times. You absolutely need to make sure you are not munching your brain freeze procs, its the most important thing to not proc munch, and we recently got a buff that makes it much easier to not munch procs. Play like this: Once you have a brain freeze proc, don't cast more frostbolts unless you intend to frostbolt->flurry->ice lance; with that frostbolt.

* You casted 122 ice lances and 34 flurries. 122-34 = 88 FoF ice lances. You got 92 FoF procs throughout the fight, so you're doing a good job of not munching your FoF.

* You didn't cast time warp to make use of shard. Looking through other fights, there are some fights where you make use of Shard. On Star Augur, your group lusted late so you never really had a chance to lust. You could talk to your raid leader and see if it's not possible for your group to lust 30-45s earlier (depending on if you need the lust for a specific mechanic), so that you could immediately follow the group lust with your own time warp. On Krosus, your group lusted at the start, and you never time warped yourself.

* You had 38% IV uptime, the other player had 32.5%. You are running bonechilling and he was not. Bonechilling is only competitive when it allows you to substantially raise the uptime of your icy veins, so I think your uptime is exceptionally low. Both of the prior points (using time warp and not munching BF procs), will significantly improve your IV uptime.

* Just run splitting ice, frozen touch is BARELY worth it in absolutely pure single target. Almost every fight has opportunities for cleave, which all push SI far ahead of FT. (It's 40% multiplicative, so basically a +5% increase to the proc chance of FoF)

* The other player has substantially better trinkets than you.

* You are not shattering your ebonbolts. You can see that 25% of your 8 ebonbolts crit. The other player had 100% of his 8 ebonbolts crit. You shatter ebonbolts by doing ebonbolt->flurry->ice lance at 15+ yards from the boss (rather new buff we received). The flurry you cast after ebonbolt can use the BF proc that ebonbolt gives you, or a BF proc you already had. Both of them work, neither of them wastes a proc.

* The other player running lonely winter and you running bonechilling is the reason for a large part of the gap between your # of frostbolt, flurry, and ice lance casts. He doesn't have water ele, so he doesn't get water jet. Without water jet, he doesn't get those FoF. So he's instead casting more frostbolts, and less ice lances. And those 'more frostbolts' mean more brain freeze procs.

He had 149 frostbolts and 65 BF procs, 65/149 = 43.6%. He has a 31% proc chance with his gear.
(2% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You had 111 frostbolts and 45 BF procs, 45/111 = 40.5%. You have a 33% proc chance with your gear.
(10% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You were both very lucky with brain freeze procs, but you munched a ton of your procs, wasting them.

Remember, every munched brain freeze is not just a lost flurry cast, it's also a lost ice lance cast. In addition, it's a lost shatter on a frostbolt, which is a possibly lost crit + lost stack of chain reaction and......... big damage. Brain Freeze is incredibly important. Can't stress this one enough. You munched 25% of your brain freezes in your log. He munched 6%.

*Last Note: he had 4 more traits in his weapon than you, so he would do a base 2% more damage than you (as well as him having better gear/better itemization)

Thanks so much for this incredibly helpful response Drozzy! Digging through it now. This is awesome.

[Venno]

Jeez drozzy, are you available for some coaching? I get a lot out of your advice posts.

[masteryogurt]

Inspecting logs:
* You are munching your brain freezes. A lot. You had 45 procs of brain freeze throughout the fight. You only casted flurry 34 times. The other player got 65 procs, and casted flurry 61 times. You absolutely need to make sure you are not munching your brain freeze procs, its the most important thing to not proc munch, and we recently got a buff that makes it much easier to not munch procs. Play like this: Once you have a brain freeze proc, don't cast more frostbolts unless you intend to frostbolt->flurry->ice lance; with that frostbolt.

* You casted 122 ice lances and 34 flurries. 122-34 = 88 FoF ice lances. You got 92 FoF procs throughout the fight, so you're doing a good job of not munching your FoF.

* You didn't cast time warp to make use of shard. Looking through other fights, there are some fights where you make use of Shard. On Star Augur, your group lusted late so you never really had a chance to lust. You could talk to your raid leader and see if it's not possible for your group to lust 30-45s earlier (depending on if you need the lust for a specific mechanic), so that you could immediately follow the group lust with your own time warp. On Krosus, your group lusted at the start, and you never time warped yourself.

* You had 38% IV uptime, the other player had 32.5%. You are running bonechilling and he was not. Bonechilling is only competitive when it allows you to substantially raise the uptime of your icy veins, so I think your uptime is exceptionally low. Both of the prior points (using time warp and not munching BF procs), will significantly improve your IV uptime.

* Just run splitting ice, frozen touch is BARELY worth it in absolutely pure single target. Almost every fight has opportunities for cleave, which all push SI far ahead of FT. (It's 40% multiplicative, so basically a +5% increase to the proc chance of FoF)

* The other player has substantially better trinkets than you.

* You are not shattering your ebonbolts. You can see that 25% of your 8 ebonbolts crit. The other player had 100% of his 8 ebonbolts crit. You shatter ebonbolts by doing ebonbolt->flurry->ice lance at 15+ yards from the boss (rather new buff we received). The flurry you cast after ebonbolt can use the BF proc that ebonbolt gives you, or a BF proc you already had. Both of them work, neither of them wastes a proc.

* The other player running lonely winter and you running bonechilling is the reason for a large part of the gap between your # of frostbolt, flurry, and ice lance casts. He doesn't have water ele, so he doesn't get water jet. Without water jet, he doesn't get those FoF. So he's instead casting more frostbolts, and less ice lances. And those 'more frostbolts' mean more brain freeze procs.

He had 149 frostbolts and 65 BF procs, 65/149 = 43.6%. He has a 31% proc chance with his gear.
(2% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You had 111 frostbolts and 45 BF procs, 45/111 = 40.5%. You have a 33% proc chance with your gear.
(10% likelihood of getting this good of RNG)
You were both very lucky with brain freeze procs, but you munched a ton of your procs, wasting them.

Remember, every munched brain freeze is not just a lost flurry cast, it's also a lost ice lance cast. In addition, it's a lost shatter on a frostbolt, which is a possibly lost crit + lost stack of chain reaction and......... big damage. Brain Freeze is incredibly important. Can't stress this one enough. You munched 25% of your brain freezes in your log. He munched 6%.

*Last Note: he had 4 more traits in his weapon than you, so he would do a base 2% more damage than you (as well as him having better gear/better itemization)

Drozzy, or for anyone who may have some answers here to this, I reviewed the video I posted above of the fight which I also provided logs for.

Watching myself interact with BF I'm noticing a few things:
-When you get a BF, it's going to be towards maybe 1/4 of your cast of your next bolt, because obviously you pre cast your next bolt always towards the end of a given bolt. By the time that bolt lands, you may get a BF, but your next cast will be already channeling. I think what I've been doing detrimentally, is then letting that second FB land, THEN a pause later hitting BF. Instead, what I'm guessing I should do is hit BF immediately after that next frost bolt is cast, so it hits the target before the next bolt, preventing over capping. One potential issue I see however is if the target is less than 15 yards from you. In that case, I think that second FB is going to hit the target first, which could potentially over cap. The only solution then, would be to cancel the given FB being channeled after you see your BF proc pop up on your screen. However, I think this would be worse DPS wise to stop casting. Am I correct? The solution then is, stay more than 15 yards from given target, and when you see BF pop up (as your next FB is being cast), IMMEDIATELY Flurry after that cast goes off. Of course there are situations you have to be close, such as phase 1 Star. I guess there may be a few over caps naturally in this phase.
-I am also noticing a bit of laziness on my end from time to time, where I'll hit an extra FB out of habit, where I could have cast a flurry. So that's an obvious thing to fix, just be more on top of it.
-Last thing I noticed, let's say i cast FB. Towards end of that FB I cast another (which is the ABCz of playing). Just got a BF proc, and at this point I'm maybe 1/4 through the FB cast. But now I also get a FoF proc. What should I do in this case? If I don't hit the flurry immediately after the FB cast finishes, I could re proc, which is a waste. BUT, if I do do that it also nullifies the FoF proc I have, because I'd case a frozen ice lance anyway after the flurry. Not sure what to do in that scenario.
-This same scenario I'd apply to something else Drozzy mentioned in regards to proper use of ebonbolt. It was mentioned to "ebonbolt->flurry->ice lance at 15+ yards from the boss." What happens though mid ebonbolt if you hit a FoF? With this scenario I think the solution isn't an issue, just dump FoF, then flurry the BF. Or, perhaps even better, after the FoF dump, FB, and right at the end of the cast BF, so the bolt gets the buff from BF/flurry. (I believe bolts benefit from it as well).

And I agree with everything else you've mentioned Drozzy, thanks again. Hugely helpful. Will be experimenting with it all.

[Drozzy]

-When you get a BF, it's going to be towards maybe 1/4 of your cast of your next bolt, because obviously you pre cast your next bolt always towards the end of a given bolt. By the time that bolt lands, you may get a BF, but your next cast will be already channeling. I think what I've been doing detrimentally, is then letting that second FB land, THEN a pause later hitting BF. Instead, what I'm guessing I should do is hit BF immediately after that next frost bolt is cast, so it hits the target before the next bolt, preventing over capping. One potential issue I see however is if the target is less than 15 yards from you. In that case, I think that second FB is going to hit the target first, which could potentially over cap. The only solution then, would be to cancel the given FB being channeled after you see your BF proc pop up on your screen. However, I think this would be worse DPS wise to stop casting. Am I correct? The solution then is, stay more than 15 yards from given target, and when you see BF pop up (as your next FB is being cast), IMMEDIATELY Flurry after that cast goes off. Of course there are situations you have to be close, such as phase 1 Star. I guess there may be a few over caps naturally in this phase.

I'm just going to give a quick lesson in spec mechanics that are not intuitive at all and you kinda just need to know how they work to know how they work. Because our spec has some really weird aspects
-Frostbolt has a chance to generate FoF and BF when your cast finishes, NOT when the spell lands/does dmg
-Water Jet generates FoF when the frostbolt lands/does dmg
-Frozen Orb generates FoF when it first reaches the target (honestly I don't know if it's on first damage, the ability is very buggy)
-Frozen Orb then has a chance to generate FoF every time a wave of damage goes out (It does damage every ~.5s, haste variable and lasts 10s [regardless of haste, I think]). The chance to generate is the same regardless of the number of targets damaged. If a wave deals damage, it has a chance to generate a FoF, if it doesn't deal damage, it can't generate
----- So those are the weird ways we generate procs... and you basically just need to remember them because they don't generate in the same ways

-Lastly, I want to bring up a spec mechanic that is unique to frost, because it somewhat ties in. Frost mage spec is the only class/spec in the game where our damage is calculated when our spells land. We were specifically changed in Legion to make this happen. They did this because shattering rooted targets didn't make sense with the old system (what every other class has). The old system calculated everything when the spell-cast finished. This made it so ice lancing a targeted that was rooted would make it shatter, even if the root broke before your spell landed. Now, we have the most intuitive system, our damage calculates when it deals damage. This lets us do a number of things that no other spec can:
*We can root targets after we've casted a spell and it will shatter (freezes are guaranteed not to break for .5s after they're applied)
*We can gain damage buffs while our spells are midair (We can use icy veins after our precast ebonbolt, and the ebonbolt will still benefit from Chilled 20% dmg bonus)
*Your ice lances benefit from your Chain Reaction stacks on landing, not the CR stacks when you casted the IL
*Other things of this same nature

Okay, so notes after that mini-rant:
-You often will generate a FoF + BF from a frostbolt where you correctly queued up another frostbolt immediately after. I have read that GS mages are saying it is worth wasting the FoF to shatter the frostbolt. For TV mages, I recommend never wasting any FoF if you can help it, while TV is up. I can guarantee there are other high level frost mages who will say the opposite, and say to make sure you never take the ~33% risk of munching a brain freeze. The spec is still being figured out. That said: It is still worth Frostbolt->flurry->ice lancing even though 12% of the time you will waste a FoF that you dynamically generate. Shattering ebonbolt with flurry IS worth losing a FoF for, if you cannot avoid it. As I have gloves, I do my best to try and avoid this happening (everyone should do things such as never casting ebonbolt while frozen orb is out).

Sorry if I missed anything, just point them out to me here or in a pm and I can answer them, I gotta leave for class and can't really double-check my post

Jeez drozzy, are you available for some coaching? I get a lot out of your advice posts.

Not really specifically, but I'm always willing to help out others when I have time. I generally check Altered-time between classes during the week, but when someone in-game asks for my advice, I usually take a few minutes to answer their questions and offer advice. If you want my help, I will gladly offer it, just know that I might not be the most timely about getting back with you... lol

Oh, and it seriously means a lot to me that you say that. Very very much in fact. I put a lot of time and effort into the game and helping others and it feels great hearing that other people appreciate it.

[masteryogurt]

Thanks for the response Drozzy. Copy that.

I may try to digest all this info, then go against a dummy and check out how I'm doing, may post logs and see how I'm doing single target wise after these adjustments. If you ever write a guide or anything like that, I'll be checking it out! Thx

[Venno]

Thanks Drozzy, as always.

[masteryogurt]

First off, a big thanks again to Drozzy, Thingy, and these other top notch frost mages explaining the more complex aspects of the spec for simple people like myself. I'm getting better.

Posting a "5 min against a dummy" patchwerk result here, well technically it was 4:30, I stopped right as Icy Veins came back up a third time. My single target has for sure improved. This current encounter I hit 584k, which was the highest 5 minute test I conducted. Average test was probably at 550k, with the worst being just below 500k, there is a degree of randomness of course going on with procs and thermal void uptime.
*I didn't buff at all, no rune/pot/flask/food. My simcraft showed me being at like 620k or 630k, so I think I'm pretty pleased with a 584k result.

Thanks to thoughts from Drozzy, I made the following changes to improve my single target:
-Switched to Lonely Winter and Splitting Ice. (in fact I'll probably be rolling these in almost all encounters in NH). *Note I don't have the grasp legendary gloves, which might change priority.
-I prioritized BF a lot more, in fact in this example fight I think at max I maybe munched like 1 proc or so. Now this had one casualty, I had more FoF "munches." For ex, there were several times where I'd be into my next cast of FB and I'd get a BF and FoF proc. Previously, I'd let the bolt go out, then ice lance, then flurry. Well, based off feedback, it would seem priority is the flurry, so I'd flurry and then just ice lance, negating the one FoF charge. I guess you can't have it both ways. But based off feedback, I believe I'm handling this situation correctly.
-Lastly, I wasn't shattering ebonbolt previously. This time I always: ebonbolt-->flurry-->ice lance.

It would be awesome if anyone wouldn't mind taking a look at the data quick, seeing if there's anything else I'm screwing up here. I've definetly improved, could be possible there's something else I'm doing wrong of course.

Video of the encounter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMu58_3 ... load_owner" target="_blank
Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/YP ... e&source=2" target="_blank
**Note, when I log against a training dummy in my class hall, it seems a bit bugged, showing I only started combat like 2 minutes in, and also showing my dps as lower as skada showed. In this rare case, I trust skada more:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/77598212@ ... ed-public/" target="_blank
https://www.flickr.com/photos/77598212@ ... ed-public/" target="_blank

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/i ... non/simple" target="_blank

***I did do some further analysis (note I'm not great at logs), and did discover I had 43 BF procs, and 38 flurry. Which means there were 5 unused BF. And I had 38 FoFs, and casted 63 ice lances. Factor in that 38 of those ice lances were from the flurry combo, this leaves 25 that should have purely been from FoF. Actually, I re watched the vid and noticed I think once I accidentally hit ice lance, so lets say 24. That leaves 14 FoFs that aren't accounted for, BUT, I'm not surprised at all because as I stated, I'm consciously munching that FoF proc I get when I get a BF proc at the same time. So in conclusion, it's unfortunate I had 5 unused BFs, but I reviewed the entire video again and couldn't find a place where I screwed it up. So, not sure what that's about. Is it possible that when doing the...frost bolt first and immediately BF, the bolt hits first? I mean 5 unused BFs isn't a huge amount, but it would be nice to discover the reason.
***There have also been times I've considered saving CDs to line up with thermal void a bit more. For ex, I may delay a cast of ebonbolt or orb if say it's up like 5 seconds before icy veins. But having watched strong mages play, they don't seem to "save" these CDs to line up with thermal void, so I don't either. Obviously the thinking is, over the course of the fight, by saving, you get less casts out, which is a loss overall.

Cheers.
-Wilson

[Dyalia]

There have also been times I've considered saving CDs to line up with thermal void a bit more.

The only cd you want to line up with icy veins is frozen orb. You could save ebonbolt too and do the opener again midfight (EB -> IV -> Flurry -> IL -> Orb). But note that you dont want to save it to long though. The timeframe is very situational though, for example "Can i cast blizzard to reduce the cd(if there are adds up) or do you have to wait out a certain mechanic (e.g. Krosus puddle soak).

With the rest i'm pretty much on par with.

[masteryogurt]

There have also been times I've considered saving CDs to line up with thermal void a bit more.

The only cd you want to line up with icy veins is frozen orb. You could save ebonbolt too and do the opener again midfight (EB -> IV -> Flurry -> IL -> Orb). But note that you dont want to save it to long though. The timeframe is very situational though, for example "Can i cast blizzard to reduce the cd(if there are adds up) or do you have to wait out a certain mechanic (e.g. Krosus puddle soak).

With the rest i'm pretty much on par with.

Thanks for the response Dyalia. I suppose this is quite logical, as the 1 min CD for frozen orb will line up just fine with icy veins.