Lower Parses, Need Help

[GrumpyGamer]

Thanks for viewing. Before I start, let me say that I've tried my best to improve my parsing/dps on my own (although I just recently was informed of this forum). I have read some posts and some of what I'm going to ask may be covered on the forum elsewhere. If it is, please link it and I'll read it. I would read the entire forum and search keywords if I had time... but I work a M-F day job and have a family at home, so time is something in short supply for me. I enjoy the frost spec since I started my mage in Wrath, although I played a little arcane before quitting just before Cata dropped. I came back to WoW last August and have been working pretty much on my own to improve the best I can since then.

Ok, now that I have went over those facts, here's some links for logs and such and will be asking specific questions related to these numbers:

Armory Link: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/chara ... oon/ignane
WCL Parses: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/ ... oon/ignane
Recent guild WCL: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4pqbBj9cN1vKr8RT
Heroic Kin Wowanalyzer: https://wowanalyzer.com/report/4pqbBj9c ... )/6-Ignane
Heroic Var Wowanalyzer: https://wowanalyzer.com/report/4pqbBj9c ... )/6-Ignane

I can pull more logs at request, if it will help explain things I could improve on.

So, let me get down to what I need help with.

• Obviously, I need to work on things like pre-potions (still working on figuring out how to track these, maybe a WA setup?... I always tend to forget the potion.).
• I almost always get the issues with not extending thermal void to that 40 second mark they recommend (I normally hover between 32-36 seconds). Is there anything I can do to help with that? I try to only cast icy veins if I have frozen orb available, but never seem to get to that 40 second mark.
• I nearly always forget to TW, although sometimes we lust very late in the game and I'm not able to benefit from the 2nd TW. Is there a WA I could add that would remind me to TW after I'm afflicted by exhaustion (after we lust once?)... obviously I want to try to have icy veins and frozen orb up when I do it, but that may not always be possible. I have a lot of gear available to me in the event some other legendary may be more beneficial in those situations... I'm having issues understanding when to use which legendary based solely off guides (like from wowhead or icyveins). I sim higher (raidbots/high move sim/weekly patchwerk) with the head leggo than I do with the bracers, although the numbers are close. In real world, I seem to pull more damage with the head piece. I'm up for suggestions and would be glad to run some different setups. I have all 6 pieces of T21 gear available to me, nearly all heroic items, so there's plenty of combinations to work with.
• I spec into Shimmer as I find it beneficial for moving around, but I think sometimes I may be missing out not being able to cast on the move (frostbolt) when I have no procs available and I'm throwing ice lances without shatter. I tried to work Ice Floes into my rotation, but I find it difficult to remember to cast it before starting to move... I normally messed up the cast by moving before casting, so it kind of made the talent useless. Is it something worth working on, or should I be doing something else while on the move?

I'm always trying to improve my playstyle, and based off of WCL parses I should have a lot of room to make improvements. On average, I'm 500k DPS less than what I should be if I was at the top of the chart. I want to do everything I can to get as close to that mark as possible... and I think I've about hit my limit with what I can achieve on my own without some guidance. I only have so many hours in a day to read and watch videos hoping to learn that one extra thing to make my DPS better.

If you might feel like helping out, and maybe aren't comfortable explaining on the forums, please reach out to me privately. Here's my contact info:

Battle.net: GrumpyGamer#11838
Discord: GrumpyGamer#8110

Again, thank you for taking the time to read this, and any input you have I will take and try to implement. Some things work, some don't... I just hope there's something big (or little) I'm missing that's going to make a world of difference to me.

[DiabolisCZ]

Hello

Firstly I would say that most of the things you are describing (pots, second BL etc.) will get better with practice. As for the legendary combo, generally is in the single, cleave and multitarget scenario winning 2pt20 + 4pt21 + wrists + lust ring. Head + lust ring is close enough for single, but is loosing in cleave and multitarget.

I have looked at your varimathras logs as varimathras is perfect boss for practising good dps. The most obvious thing is that you have casted blizzard several time. This is DPS loss - never* cast blizzard on single target. You also casted a lot of unshattered ice lances which is also dps loss. In varimathras scenario it is possible to delay ebonbolt or frozen orb slightly (few seconds) in order to ensure you have proces for the time of movement.

*exception is when you need to reduce cd on frozen orb for a specific phase etc.

[nickseng]

[*]I spec into Shimmer as I find it beneficial for moving around, but I think sometimes I may be missing out not being able to cast on the move (frostbolt) when I have no procs available and I'm throwing ice lances without shatter. I tried to work Ice Floes into my rotation, but I find it difficult to remember to cast it before starting to move... I normally messed up the cast by moving before casting, so it kind of made the talent useless. Is it something worth working on, or should I be doing something else while on the move?
[/list]

I might be reading it wrong, but you do know that shimmer is castable while casting, right? If you;re casting frostbolt, and something poops on you, you can shimmer and still be casting the frostbolt.

[4eyes99]

You should probably try to pick up 2pc T20 from ToS if you can, 2pc provides a big damage boost, Heroic drops at 915 ilvl so it should be sufficient and you can possibly get lucky and have it titan forge to 930 which would be ideal. Aim for either Cloak/helm or gloves helm. The helm drops from Demonic Iquisition, the gloves from Hajatan, and the cloak from Desolate Host.

Looking through your logs, your Ice lance crit % is too low for the crit levels you're boasting. It should be roughly 95%+ which means you are casting non frozen Ice lances which is a big no-no. You shouldn't really focus keeping your icy veins at 40s just focus on your rotation and making sure you're getting the FB>Flurry>Ice Lance combo down. The length of IV will vary depending on the amount of procs you get during the frozen orb windows. You probably need to have some WAs to track the cooldowns of IV and FO if you can't do it manually, It is mostly possible to line up FOs with IV but don't worry if you can't get them to line up perfectly. Realistically, you want to aim for them to be within 20s of both coming off. You also shouldn't cast blizzard on ST not even during the insta cast windows.

I would think the main reason why your head currently sims better than the wrists is because you don't have your 2T20 set bonus which gives an extra 20% crit damage during frozen orb windows so that should be a priority in terms of gearing. I described above which pieces you should go for.

You can use shimmer while casting so it should be the talent of choice on all but a few fights. Memorize, the distance it covers so you won't misjudge your blinks and die. Same deal with ice floes you can use it while casting so just make sure its bound to a key that you can remember easily. Frost damage can be heavily induced by RNG so don't fret if you did everything right and the damage was below prefect. Just make sure you are following the spell priority.

[Zafu]

Using shimmer effectively will be a huge increase for you - learning where movement is required in fights and planning to have a charge ready is really valuable. Obviously play reactively with it to a certain degree - if you have a ton of FoF procs to throw out use that opportunity to move pre-emptively if the fight allows.

Also, for Varimathras specifically, use Ice Floes - it lines up nicely with movement for Fissures and you can hold two charges in case you get Plague. Bind it to an easy-to-access key and practice moving between two dummies in the class hall beforehand!