[7.2] Frost Talents, Trinkets, Racials, Stats, Legendary

[Frosted]

Updated 03/27/2017

Below I've put together some basic information for people derived from SimC runs to help guide mages choices on how they want to play Frost mage.

All sims are done at mythic NH ilvl, with maxed artifact traits and 1 point in Concordance. (No legendary items used)

Sim conditions:

fixed_time=1
max_time=450
vary_combat_length=0.2
target_race=demon
iterations=5000
default_actions=1 (this doesn't work for the ring at the moment, manaully add the action)
race=orc

Table of Contents:
1)Single Target Talent Comparisons
2)Single Target Stat Weights
3a)Four Target Talent Comparisons
3b)Four Target Priority Target DPS
3c)Four Target Stat Weights
4)Frost Racials
5)Trinket Comparsions
6)Artifact Path
7)Legendary Items
8)Relics
9)Frequently Asked Questions

Single Target

[/size]




BOTTOM

Single Target Stat Weights

[/size]

Four target (stacked):

[/size]

TOP


BOTTOM

Four Target Priority Target DPS

[/size]

TOP


BOTTOM

Four Target Stat Weights

[/size]

Racials

[/size]

Trinkets (not upated for 7.2)

[/size]


Single Target:



AoE

Artifact Path

[/size]

Image courtesy of Zulandia


7.2 path

Legendaries!

[/size]

Single Target


4 Target AoE

Traits

7.2 trait comparison (1 point given to each)

Frequently Asked Questions

1) Enchants?



2) What's going on with Stat Weights?

Crit value has been raised significantly by the 7.1.5 buffs. As a result, it's valued highly over haste/int until you reach the shatter cap (~33%). After that, Crit declines sharply in value.



Here are weights right after the shatter cap. Crit has declined an Haste has taken over. However, haste does not remain the best stat. Because of large haste procs that are available in NH (Whispers/Metronome), Frost actually beings to GCD cap (100% haste) and FB cast time cap (166% haste) often enough for us to see a slow lowering of haste value as we add more haste. We're encountering haste DRing itself as the %time spend GCD/FBcast time increases with haste.

37.50% Crit
35.67% Haste


37.50% Crit
43.67% Haste


As we can see, haste is going lower and lower, and will eventually be passed by Vers. If we continuing to gain haste.

3) How do I use Freezing Rain? Do I blizzard on ST?

Use it on >1 target, not on Single Target.

[Thisgame]

Thanks Frosted. Was this data after the hotfix frost buffs yesterday?

[Frosted]

yup

[Rinoa]

Stickied.

[Architech]

The Purpose of this post is to provide some guidance to commonly asked questions regarding to gearing. What is presented would best be called rules of thumb. For your specific gear situation - You will most likely need to sim yourself.

All Sims in this post were done with the same set of gear used by Frosted in the above post - Thus these rules are really only valid for the 840~ item level range.

As a first thing, it is important to understand that "stats" get weird with Frost. Basically, Frost has an above average synergistic relationship between haste and crit. See below:


This image is a reforge Plot, swapping between crit and haste of the default frost profile. It shows the approximate DPS change if you where, for example, swap the default haste enchants to crit and so on.

What is being demonstrated is that there exists a Local Maxima for this gear set with a ratio of approx. 5566 Crit to 9800 haste. The location of this local max, has in my experience change gear-set to gear-set.

So bringing it home / what does this mean?

1) At any given time either crit or haste will be your best stat as frost, depending on your gear.
2) You need to sim yourself to find out the exact ratio that is optimal for your gear set
3) It is "safer" to err on having extra haste than it is on having extra crit
4) the advise in this thread is EXTREMELY narrow, and may completely not apply to your gear set

Question: Approximately How many item levels is a socket worth on a piece of gear?
Answer: First lets divide gear into Four categories
A) Trinkets
B) Jewelry (Neck, Rings)
C) Main Pieces (Chest, Helm, Legs)
D) Small Pieces (Wrists, shoulders etc)

Of these sub categories, trinkets are to complicated to deal with so "sim yourself". Each trinket scales slightly differently with item level so a rule of thumb is impractical.

Of the remaining categories, of note is jewelry does not have any intellect thus we see that on a Neck, a socket is worth approx ~35 Item levels (Which gem you choose depends on your current haste/crit ratio)


Sim done on Aug 28th

For a Chest, a socket is worth approx 15 item levels


Sim done on Aug 28th

For Wrists, a socket is worth approx 25 item levels


Sim done on Aug 28th

[Norrinir]

None of the Comet Storm profiles actually use Comet Storm, this shouldn't affect the top places of single target rankings that much, but it's a big deal on AoE. Especially considering that most of the TV profiles just run out of mana.

There are also some issues with Shard of the Exodar, not necessarily limited to Frost. The action:

Code: Select all

shard_of_the_exodar_warp,if=buff.bloodlust.down

will TW at pull and then the mage receives another raid Bloodlust regardless.

The bigger issue is that it seems that Bloodlust and SotE TW stack. Buffs during the first 40 sec:

Code: Select all

bloodlust, blood_fury, bone_chilling, fingers_of_frost(2), icicles, icy_veins, rune_of_power, chain_reaction, shard_time_warp, mark_of_the_claw, potion_of_deadly_grace

Just by looking at the cast times, everything during Bloodlust + SotE TW is 69% faster. In game, they don't stack. Casting SotE TW while Bloodlust is active just refreshes the duration to 40 sec, it doesn't give you second buff (same thing happens when you SotE TW first and then Bloodlust).

Code: Select all

actions+=/shard_of_the_exodar_warp,if=buff.bloodlust.down&time>5

works at the moment. It also produces nice dps boost, because even though Bloodlust and SotE TW stack in SimC, you waste a lot of the haste by going over GCD cap.

[Frosted]

I fixed the CmS issue. default_actions=1 should work now to generate a line to use it. I'll look into shard here shortly.

[Frosted]

I pushed a kind of hack-ish fix to this for the time being since legion is out like, now. I'll have to re-visit the problem of Bloodlust/Shard-lust when I have more time. But for the time being, just use the time>5 work around.

[Norrinir]

Pulled and compiled, looks like everything works just fine. Cheers.

I did some testing in regards to Zann'esu Journey.

On single target, I was getting the best results with

Code: Select all

actions+=/blizzard,if=buff.zannesu_journey.stack>3

Doing it at lower stacks was slight dps loss (even with infinite mana to prevent Blizzard spam making you OOM).

On multiple targets (or with Arctic Gale), you want to use the buff as soon as possible. Best results on 2 and 3 targets were with

Code: Select all

actions+=/blizzard,if=buff.zannesu_journey.stack>0

I compared it against "no Blizzard", Blizzard at 1+, 2+, 3+, 4+ and 5 stacks, but I sadly forgot to include "always Blizzard". Launch is around the door, so I can't redo the sims at the moment.

Right now, the latest update to Blizzard logic makes the mage use Blizzard at 1 stack, since the condition

Code: Select all

buff.zannesu_journey.remains>cast_time+1&buff.zannesu_journey.react

will almost always be fulfilled when buff.zannesu_journey.react holds. I think the intended line was

Code: Select all

if=talent.arctic_gale.enabled|active_enemies>3|buff.zannesu_journey.stack>4|(buff.zannesu_journey.remains<cast_time+1&buff.zannesu_journey.react)

(flipped comparison).

Enjoy Legion launch!

[nathyiel]

It only confirm one things : Frost rely way too much on Finger of Frost.
Lonely Winter don't work that good because it remove both control (survival) and FoF (damage).
But as soon as Chilled to the core is unlock, Thermal Void build can't really compet as synnergy are too good.

[kooriaisu]

Im not sure if this is the right place to talk about this but I have 2 questions. the first is, I went towards the black ice path first and am heading towards chilled to the core. how boned am I for doing this? and second black ice only empowers icicles as they launch off so glacial spike cannot be affected by it right? So I probably do not want to be using GS in dungeons ?

[MagusMaximus]

Im not sure if this is the right place to talk about this but I have 2 questions. the first is, I went towards the black ice path first and am heading towards chilled to the core. how boned am I for doing this? and second black ice only empowers icicles as they launch off so glacial spike cannot be affected by it right? So I probably do not want to be using GS in dungeons ?

Black Ice states it empowers Icicles, increasing damage done by 100%. It doesn't necessarily state it only empowers extra icicles after you have 5 stored. If it empowers your stored icicles as well, then it would still greatly enhance GS.

Does anyone have any clarification on how this trait works? The description isn't exactly 100% clear it does or doesn't effect GS.

[Gryphoon]

Does anyone have any clarification on how this trait works? The description isn't exactly 100% clear it does or doesn't effect GS.

I've seen Black Ice increase damage from running dungeons where some Glacial Spikes from others are doing quite the different damage (heavy outliers on max hit compared to minimum damage), so it does seem to work perfectly fine. If it didn't Blizz would have done something like with "Lonely Winter" and "It's Cold Outside" I'm sure because that would be too obvious of a miss.

On that note though, I'm guessing the sims for GS don't account for this or do they? And if they don't, how much better are they placed?

[nathyiel]

On Black Ice : it's a must have.
1- empowered Icicle leave a black trail.
2- proc rate look around 20% (more?) as I have one or more with 5 Icicles.
3- it increase GS damage.


Edit : and it dhould be taken into account for SimC

On Survability: Ice Barrier is very tricky at 3/3. It's to the point that not having it up means dying quickly. And pack of small mob (tiny rat/spider) are as deadly as caster because of sad AoE damage. (Solo questing do no tank and Unstable Magic).

Edit : correction

[nathyiel]

Another idea :
Precasting Flurry instead Frostbolt with Bone Chilling. Even without, it can be good as it's a 3 hit spell. Better chance for trinket proc.

[Gryphoon]

How does the nerf to the Heirloom trinket affect it? I know it did well even if the target wasn't demon, but now it gives 500 less of every stat when it procs. I assume you should replace it with any mythic trinket you find now pretty much? (Too bad I've thrown away every since they simmed worse).

[nathyiel]

It's a 2 in 1 questions.

Against demon, the 10% damage increase is still pretty solid.
In other case, it's only a 815 trinket.

edit> I just loot Magtheridon bracer
With a good timing, it can be possible to keep the buff at 6 stack form dropping but it require the 3rd charges from Icy Hands.
The main idea is to always keep 1 charges of FoF active and to use it to refresh the buff duration. but it's not wot=rth casting an Ice Lance without FoF.
Of course, it work better without Lonely Winter as it result in less FoF proc.

[Norrinir]

Inspired by the Dantalionax fight in BRH, I've been looking into versatility/damage buff breakpoints where the rotation 5x Frostbolt -> Glacial Spike starts to beat everything else. I think I have found a bug in SimC while doing that.

It seems that Icicles do not properly benefit from versatility.

Code: Select all

log=1 fixed_time=1 vary_combat_length=0 max_time=20 mage="Mage_Frost_T19P" level=110 race=orc role=spell position=back talents=0020002 spec=frost actions=rune_of_power,if=time<5 actions+=/glacial_spike actions+=/frostbolt,if=buff.rune_of_power.up gear_intellect=2675 gear_crit_rating=50000 gear_haste_rating=5000 gear_mastery_rating=12755 gear_versatility_rating=20000

This profile has exactly 50% versatility, 10000 intellect, >100% crit and almost 100% mastery. Running the above through SimC, I obtain the following log (removed irrelevant parts):

Code: Select all

2.675 Mage_Frost_T19P frostbolt hits Fluffy_Pillow for 89910 frost damage (crit) 3.916 Mage_Frost_T19P frostbolt hits Fluffy_Pillow for 89910 frost damage (crit) 5.153 Mage_Frost_T19P frostbolt hits Fluffy_Pillow for 89910 frost damage (crit) 6.391 Mage_Frost_T19P frostbolt hits Fluffy_Pillow for 89910 frost damage (crit) 7.629 Mage_Frost_T19P frostbolt hits Fluffy_Pillow for 89910 frost damage (crit) 9.164 Mage_Frost_T19P glacial_spike hits Fluffy_Pillow for 1684890 frost damage (crit)

Expected damage:

Code: Select all

(89910 * 5 * mastery + 10000 * glacial_spike_coef) * (1 + versa) * (1 + rop) * (1 + crit_dmg) = (89910 * 5 * 1 + 10000 * 7.475) * 1.5 * 1.5 * 2 = 2359350

SimC damage:

Code: Select all

1684890

I think SimC is doing this:
SimC Icicle contribution:

Code: Select all

89910 * 5 * mastery / (1 + versa)

I checked in game to be sure and Glacial Spike indeed does its damage according to the "expected damage" calculation.

edit: Whoops, I used confusing value for versatility. If both versatility and RoP give 50% bonus, it's hard to tell which is not working. Try with gear_versatility_rating=40000 and then it should be obvious that RoP is not the issue.

[Norrinir]

In fact, it seems that part of the Icicle damage is determined on impact. You can use this profile to confirm:

Code: Select all

log=1 fixed_time=1 vary_combat_length=0 max_time=20 mage="Mage_Frost_T19P" level=110 race=orc role=spell position=back talents=0020003 spec=frost actions=rune_of_power,if=time<5 actions+=/glacial_spike actions+=/use_item,name=custom_trinket,if=buff.icicles.stack=5 actions+=/ice_lance,if=buff.icicles.stack=5 actions+=/frostbolt,if=buff.rune_of_power.up trinket1=custom_trinket,use=40000versatility_120cd_1dur gear_intellect=2675 gear_crit_rating=50000 gear_haste_rating=5000 gear_mastery_rating=12755 gear_versatility_rating=40000

First 5 Frostbolts crit for ~120k, then versatility trinket is used and Icicles are fired via Ice Lance. First two hit for ~180k, which should be impossible with <100% mastery.

[Frosted]

Added EN trinkets, updated things generally to Heroic Raid ilvl.