Guide to Thermally Voiding your Enemies in 7.2.5

[Sambabwe]

How vital are legendaries to making this work? As a mage with zero legendaries, frost seems enticing.

Frost works fine without legendaries. My first two were Sephuz and Belo'vir and i did way more dps on frost than fire or arcane.

[Steelbane]

Hmm so my first night in Nighthold, it looks like classic Bliz development, all single target in EN, so now the standard over-correction, and its all AoE in Nighthold (well so far after about 5 bosses). The positive I believe is that it will explose Frost AoE in the rankings, which up until now, Blizzard have ignored, balancing classes on single target only imo is how they have done it...

So tonight.. a few fights in I just switched to Arcane to AE everything down, but I was hoping to stick frost.. some ppl are mentioning they think AoE is fixed with Frost, can you explain how you are doing it? Im finding I do about 30% the DPS of most classes in AoE.. I can see the sims place a lot of emphasis on Blizzard & getting Frozen Orb back up, but to me thats still not even remote ballpark.. I mean literally say 1.5mill dps as Arcane (pushing 1 button) to 500k on Frost.. working my ass off..and my frost weapon has 11% extra damage on it too.. plus the blizzard legendary, I mean you can talent for it and improve things.. but still nothing like the base aoe of others.

[Xinder]

I felt the benefit of the blizzarding and getting frozen orb back up is like on scorpyron you can the frozen orb the boss and the add pack and get loads of FoF. Which you can then throw in to the boss/red scorp if it's up and benefit from that to start climbing again. It's certainly not the on demand AoE that Fire or Arcane can get but I still think I had value in figuring out how to get the most FoF procs while spamming Ice lance into the boss. I climbed even further when he'd go into his weakened phase for example.

Arctic Gale could be a good talent for the added dmg and range especially if there's a lot of adds a lot of the time like scorpyron. I only got through 3 bosses myself in my guild but I think Frost can do what they can to be on the meters and not way down. I do wish blizzard was instant cast but that probably will never happen.

[Zotix]

What are your thoughts on the waist that increases the damage of Blizzard, Zann'esu Journey? I just picked that up today as my first legendary.

[Xinder]

What are your thoughts on the waist that increases the damage of Blizzard, Zann'esu Journey? I just picked that up today as my first legendary.

Combined with Arctic Gale and add heavy fights, I'd imagine it's pretty solid. I don't remember off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure it's a ST DPS loss still but with AG you could try simming it to see what the combo gives you compared to not taking AG and not forcing blizzard use in the Sim. Could come out on top.

[nickseng]

What are your thoughts on the waist that increases the damage of Blizzard, Zann'esu Journey? I just picked that up today as my first legendary.

Combined with Arctic Gale and add heavy fights, I'd imagine it's pretty solid.

See, this is where the belt is so counter-intuitive. With heavy add fight, you're going to be casting Blizzard/FO/Ice Lance pretty much all the time. The belt needs flurry to power it, which is generated by Frostbolt. And you don't cast frostbolt that much during AOE to generate any or much Blizzard buff stacks.

You get tons of Flurry during ST fight, but Blizzard is not really that good on ST fights, even on 5 stack.

So you see the problem with this legendary?

[Kivutar]

See, this is where the belt is so counter-intuitive. With heavy add fight, you're going to be casting Blizzard/FO/Ice Lance pretty much all the time. The belt needs flurry to power it, which is generated by Frostbolt. And you don't cast frostbolt that much during AOE to generate any or much Blizzard buff stacks.

You get tons of Flurry during ST fight, but Blizzard is not really that good on ST fights, even on 5 stack.

So you see the problem with this legendary?

I got this belt recently too and NH fights seem promising, as many fights are adds (usually in waves) with boss priority, so the flurry generation isn't really a problem - if your timing is good you get a huge pile of adds just as your stacks get high enough to blow them on a blizzard. This seems to be the strength with this belt, a situation where you can generate flurries for a minute or two and then drop a nice fat blizzard at the right time. It takes a bit of time to set up but if you have to wait for an add wave anyway, it works out nicely.

This is my only damage legendary so trying to adjust my playstyle to maximise useage of the belt will take a little practice, but I think it's not entirely crap in the right situations. I am glad to have it now in NH, instead of the largely ST fights we've had so far.

[Sethaya]

Today I tried Frost in normal Nighthold. At most bosses it worked good. However, Im not really happy with my DPS. Maybe some of you can help me to improve it abit. Because i plan to play Frost as my Mainspec.
Here are the Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cd ... pe=summary" target="_blank

[Drozzy]

Today I tried Frost in normal Nighthold. At most bosses it worked good. However, Im not really happy with my DPS. Maybe some of you can help me to improve it abit. Because i plan to play Frost as my Mainspec.
Here are the Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cd ... pe=summary" target="_blank

A few things I'd note from a fairly quick comparison between your logs and similar frost mages (similar talents and legendaries). Your Sephuz up-time is quite low. You could definitely optimize your dps a lot more by using pet freeze as much as possible, since this procs Sephuz. Also make sure to interrupt when you can (don't cancel a cast just to interrupt unless you have to). Off the top of my head, these adds in boss fights are vulnerable to pet freeze: Skorpyron: the smallest skorpid adds. Chromatic: The set of 4 mini-elementals that spawn. Star Augur: The little void adds that spawn constantly in the last phase. Botanist: The plant adds. Tichondrius: Bats. Add in interrupts on fights and you could get a lot of value out of Sephuz.
Next thing I'd note is your icy veins up-time. You should be able to reliably get 40+ second icy veins, but you're tending more near like 30-35s. This will probably get better with time, that's just how frost is. Once you get used to a fight, you'll learn how to minimize your movement and that'll mean more frostbolts->more flurries->more ice lances. Pet freeze will also help some with this (it can give 3 FoF if it roots 3 targets). You also have low flurry damage; this is possibly due to lack of 2pc, but make sure not to munch brain freeze. Anytime you get brain freeze: Burn FoF w/ice lances->flurry->ice lance, and then return to rotation.
Last Thing: Personal experience, but I find that arctic gale is outstanding in Nighthold. There are only a few fights where its not worth casting (trilliax, krosus). On other fights, arctic gale is worth casting at 2+ targets. Frost bomb sims very well, but logs poorly because its really bad for target swapping...

Final little note: You could try out a Ray of Frost (RoF) Build. You have good legendaries for it. (RoF builds stack haste, last I remember) I've seen good RoF sims and logs, but I've never ran it, so I can't tell you much here.

[oneeyedhobbit]

Mod edit: Merged into "Guide to Thermally Voiding your Enemies in 7.1.5"

Hey guys,

I'm having a hard time extending icy veins much beyond 40 seconds/maybe a minute if I am exceedingly lucky on procs. I do not have the legendary gloves, unfortunately. I'm curious if there is a "best" way to maximize TV uptime post-7.1.5. Prior to the patch I would usually prioritize lower CD abilities (Water Jet, Frozen Touch) over orb because it seemed easier to maintain TV in a bad luck streak to get them back up.

Post patch I usually try to use Water Jet prior to even popping icy veins (I did this pre patch, too) to get the CD rolling. I then dump my FoF charges, ebonbolt, flurry + lance, and drop orb. The reason I've been doing ebonbolt before orb is to avoid munching a FoF proc from the orb after casting the guaranteed flurry from ebonbolt, but maybe I'm missing something there. I can almost always play this until at least 1m if not 2m water jets, but its rare (barring a fight where I can spam blizzard) that I get orb back up.

Is anyone having substantially better luck able to comment with any optimizations they've found?

I see that frosted's sims are now putting RoF as the top single target DPS talent for a TV build. My own sims show the same, but I'm unsure of how to play it in conjunction with TV. Usually when I've used RoF in the past it has been in M+ when I was using comet storm, so it was a no-brainer to stack it with IV (and RoP if in play). With TV, it seems like wasting 10 seconds of IV duration to channel a spell that can't proc FoF is too much. Does it seem appropriate to just cast RoF outside of IV, or are there better optimizations one might make?

Cheers for any feedback you guys have!

[Arandomperson]

I actually incorporated blizzard into my rotation even on single target for the orb cd reduction, that way you can get your 2nd frozen orb in IV. My opener would be frostbolt precast waterjet frostbolt blizzard frozenorb icyveins and start dumping. if you get 3 fingers of frost after the waterjet you will do icyveins lance orb. keep casting blizzard on cooldown and you will most likely have your 2nd frozen orb before your icyveins runs out.

[chilblane]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a Weak Aura or other addon that tracks how long the current Icy Veins buff has been active? I am currently using an uptime aura adapted from my frost death knight for Icy Talons, which tracks uptime % and outputs to chat that value after combat. For an active cooldown like Icy Veins, however, the uptime % is less useful than seeing the current length of time of the active buff.

EDIT: I just realized that %t exists to track the total uptime of a buff, so that's great. I'd still like to output that to the chat afterwards, but that's not as crucial.

[pleblius]

I actually incorporated blizzard into my rotation even on single target for the orb cd reduction

I've started doing this if there are add spawns and the fights are long enough. (Most of Nighthold and most high-level M+ bosses). I don't feel like it's worth it on strictly ST fights, especially with 2-piece. But if there's going to be an add up at any point, I use Blizzard on CD.
My logic is that the few reduced seconds on FO CD that you get from Blizzard on just the ST becomes much more important if you can hit some adds at some point before IV falls off. If you can't hit adds, I've found it's harder to hit FO before IV falls off using Blizzard.

[Lesterfromva]

Two questions:

1. Is Lonely Winter worth the damage increase vs. Bone Chilling?
2. I've noticed that sometimes I'll get two Icy Veins buff icons, both with a timer (ex. 9s and 14s) but both of these timers are ticking down at the same time. It doesn't feel very efficient so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, any tips to maximize my Icy Veins up time?

[Xinder]

Two questions:

1. Is Lonely Winter worth the damage increase vs. Bone Chilling?
2. I've noticed that sometimes I'll get two Icy Veins buff icons, both with a timer (ex. 9s and 14s) but both of these timers are ticking down at the same time. It doesn't feel very efficient so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, any tips to maximize my Icy Veins up time?

1. You really need to sim yourself to find out. After 7.1.5 when sims were saying LW was best it was based on the base T19 profile that has the 4 pc set. When I simmed myself BC was best for me and currently still is best for me.

2. If you look at your artifact there's a golden trait called Chilled to the Core. This increases frost dmg by 20% while IV is active. That's one of the IV buffs you see. This only applies for the base 20 secs of IV and not any extra you get from extending it using Thermal Void.

As for maximizing your IV uptime, make sure to use your pet water jet correctly so you get 2 charges of FoF, use Frozen Orb on CD and make sure you're using your BF proc before casting Ebonbolt or another frostbolt so you don't munch the BF proc. The BF proc should be consumed as Flurry > Ice lance if IV is about to fall off because Flurry causes the Icelance to shatter which will keep your IV buff going. Alternatively, if you have time and IV won't run out in the time it takes you to finish the casts needed, you can Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice lance. If you're 20yds or more away your frostbolt will crit and your Icelance will crit. Frostbolt critting reduces your IV CD and gives you a stack of chain reaction which helps the Icelance hit harder. Then the Icelance critting extends the IV haste buff.

[Lesterfromva]

Ah, that makes since with the Chilled to the Core buff. It was confusing me at first, the icons are the same (or at least very similar at first glance).

Thanks for the info!

[pleblius]

Alternatively, if you have time and IV won't run out in the time it takes you to finish the casts needed, you can Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice lance. If you're 20yds or more away your frostbolt will crit and your Icelance will crit. Frostbolt critting reduces your IV CD and gives you a stack of chain reaction which helps the Icelance hit harder.

Wasn't the consensus to try to avoid this? Now that Chain Reaction is weaker and our BF proc rate is higher I can't imagine we'd still want to do this.

[Xinder]

Alternatively, if you have time and IV won't run out in the time it takes you to finish the casts needed, you can Frostbolt > Flurry > Ice lance. If you're 20yds or more away your frostbolt will crit and your Icelance will crit. Frostbolt critting reduces your IV CD and gives you a stack of chain reaction which helps the Icelance hit harder.

Wasn't the consensus to try to avoid this? Now that Chain Reaction is weaker and our BF proc rate is higher I can't imagine we'd still want to do this.

I think if you have 2 pc it's not a good idea but if you don't have it yet I don't think it's awful. I believe I remember reading it's DPS Neutral, so really yeah I shouldn't have recommended it. I've been in the GS mindset which is Frostbolt > Flurry > Lance because it makes that icicle that forms from Frostbolt that much stronger.

[pleblius]

Well, it doesn't matter anymore, lol.

Dat hotfix buff.

[Zotix]

So we should always be frostbolting>BF> IL? It just seems like you are losing time during IV if you do that. I can see outside of IV.