Glacial Spike - Updated

[Razlopp]

Updated for patch 8.0, Still adding/improving.

What you will find here

• Below you will find a discussion of Frost Talent selection, Azerite rankings and priorities, and a discussion of stat weights

What has changed in 8.0?

• Mastery now determines icicles damage based on spell power and is generated on Frostbolt and Flurry casts.

Stat Weights/Priorities

• Getting Crit early on will be your main priority. The other stats are HIGHLY interchangeable depending on gear and will need to be simmed for exact weights
  
  Please sim yourself, I can't stress this enough. This spec is largely a balancing act around Crit.

Azerite

Each trait sorted by ilvl.

This sim information can be found here: https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#mage ... =patchwerk
TL:DR: Thunderous Blast is mainly from quest gear and Dagger in the Back isin't always ideal.
Ideal setup would be to aim for Tidal Surge, Rezan's Fury, and Unstable Catalyst



Trinket List [ilvl listed]

This sim can be found here: https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#mage ... =patchwerk
TL:DR: Most of the dungeon trinkets are super close just be sure to sim!
Make sure to be careful not to have 2 **ON USE** trinkets, it will decrease the value of one of them.
Try to get the world boss trinket if you can!

Sim yourself for other variations of trinkets, this is just a quick glance!

Racial Advantages


This sim can be found here: https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#mage ... =patchwerk


Talents
Tier 1 : Level 15

• Bone Chilling is the optimal talent, Water Elemental doesn't do too much but Lonely Winter doesn't buff Glacial Spike and more.

Tier 2 : Level 30

• Shimmer or Ice Floes choose your own fate.

Tier 3 : Level 45

• Incanter's Flow is the best mainly because rune of power doesn't give us much reason to take it.

Tier 4 : Level 60

• Ebonbolt is the go to with Frozen Touch being super close however, Ebonbolt pulls ahead slightly in the end.

Tier 5 : Level 75

• Whatever your heart desires

Tier 6 : Level 90

• Comet Storm is the go-to. Splitting Ice should be used when you can take advantage of constant cleave and cometstorm can't hit multiple targets..

Tier 7 : Level 100

• Probably Ray of Frost.... Glacial Spike

Rotation

Optimal Spell Usage

Opener

• (Pre-Pull) - Frostbolt
  (Cooldowns) - Icy Veins,Racials,Trinkets
  Frozen Orb
  Comet Storm

Standard Priority Rotation Begins

• (Example of spell usage)
  Ice Lance if Fingers of Frost proc is present. Or after flurry is used and have low icicle count (1-3).
  Glacial Spike if Brain Freeze proc is present (That means sitting on 5 icicles if you don't have a proc).
  Frostbolt ->until Fingers of Frost or Brainfreeze proc.
  Ebonbolt Is used only when looking for a Brainfreeze proc for Glacial spike.
  Example: At 5 icicles and no brainfreeze
  After reaching 3 or 4 icicles, you can hold your Brainfreeze proc for Glacial Spike

Changelog
8/17 - Updated for 8.0/WIP


If you have anything you want added or I could do better let me know

[Venno]

Boss. I'll need the how to play version at some point

[Arandomperson]

A couple of questions.

Can you shatter glacialspike into a flurry proc?
And is it worth doing over shattering a frostbolt? ( guessing yes)

[Katsumi]

1) Isn't the guy in the pictures playing with Thermal Void instead of Glacial Spike ?!
2) What does this thread add to the discussion in https://www.altered-time.com/forum/view ... f=5&t=3153 ?

[Ritterbecks]

1) Isn't the guy in the pictures playing with Thermal Void instead of Glacial Spike ?!
2) What does this thread add to the discussion in https://www.altered-time.com/forum/view ... f=5&t=3153 ?

1) Razzlopper = Ham hams. And no, he isn't.
2) Learning from the best GS Mage is somewhat desirable. It's understandable that he doesn't want to hijack another Guide.

On topic: Thank you for the updated APLs and looking forward to further insights.

[Katsumi]

Thank you for the clarification, looking forward to the updates.

[Steelbane]

How is GS working out in Nighthold? It seems like Single Target and even Cleave is not absolutely useless, but pails in comparison to sheer AoE requirements of most fights.

Do you just stick yo ur GS guns and just nail 1-2 targets constantly, or r u still throwing out blizzards etc?

[kobeathris]

When you sim with your gear, what does your DPET look like for GS, Ice Lance, and Flurry? I am much lower gear and I was finding Crit>Int>Haste>Ver>Mas from my sims, but everything except for crit and int was fairly close. I'm curious if there are some break points, or if it is just getting much more raw stats that makes the difference. I was seeing the damage from Glacial spike being higher when adding more mastery, but overall damage higher when ignoring it.

Also, why no Ebonbolt during Icy Veins? I am guessing because you want to double dip on the 20% increased damage, but is it not worth it for the Flurry and shattered frostbolt? On that topic as well, are doing FB to Flurry to Ice Lance? I am assuming yes, but you only list FoF Ice Lances.

[Razlopp]

How is GS working out in Nighthold? It seems like Single Target and even Cleave is not absolutely useless, but pails in comparison to sheer AoE requirements of most fights.

Do you just stick yo ur GS guns and just nail 1-2 targets constantly, or r u still throwing out blizzards etc?

GS has been great in NH, there is are some fights that are better than others but I find myself not having any problem.

Blizzard really isn't worth it unless there is constant AOE, 3 targets+. If that's the case you can roll with Arctic Gale.

[Marlernx]

Thanks for the post. I've been looking at possibilities for rerolling frost for better st. I initially just assumed GS was dead this patch and didn't bother looking into it, but after reading this thread and trying it out in sims and on dummy today I can see the potential, plus the playstyle is very fun. This also solves my grief regarding loot spec(can stay fire for the helm/aoe fights, since I have TW ring and prydaz for GS st). I will definitely be lurking this thread, good work.

[Razlopp]

Thanks for the post. I've been looking at possibilities for rerolling frost for better st. I initially just assumed GS was dead this patch and didn't bother looking into it, but after reading this thread and trying it out in sims and on dummy today I can see the potential, plus the playstyle is very fun. This also solves my grief regarding loot spec(can stay fire for the helm/aoe fights, since I have TW ring and prydaz for GS st). I will definitely be lurking this thread, good work.

You're not the only one, GS being dead this patch was just a meme people spread around. On logs you can barely find it anymore, hoping to spread the word

[automatix]

Hi, thank you for the post

I endorse the question of kobeathris about break points, what do you consider enough ILV?.
Apart from 33% crit, we must collect gear to reach concrete amount of vers, mastery, etc?.

[Ponkster]

Yo interested in this hugely.

Just a few things before you type up.

Ice lance is wrecking, do we cast this with fingers as priority over frostbolt or does there need to be two targets? Also during Icy-veins do we prioritise Frostbolt and glacials or can we still do icelances? Do we pre-cast ebonbolt?

Is frostbolt relic still top? Whats second.

I imagine 2-set really helps this talent build.

[Mage]

It is pretty insane how this build scales. My frost is long neglected, with only 35 traits, but 35-54 is 9.5%. Meanwhile, my 892 frost gear with "similarly" distributed stats as Raz, sims 170k DPS lower with this APL.
I mean, wow. I only have a (lol) 904 Ebonchill, but still...

EDIT: Frost Mage: Comet Storm damage increase went from 24% to 30%, and damage of most spells increased by 4%

Guess its time to grind frost to 54....

[Venno]

Nice updates. I'll definitely be trying this out once I grind out the AP.

[claytonmage]

Thanks for posting all this Ham! Really great stuff!

[kzn]

1) Isn't the guy in the pictures playing with Thermal Void instead of Glacial Spike ?!
2) What does this thread add to the discussion in https://www.altered-time.com/forum/view ... f=5&t=3153 ?

1) Razzlopper = Ham hams. And no, he isn't.
2) Learning from the best GS Mage is somewhat desirable. It's understandable that he doesn't want to hijack another Guide.

On topic: Thank you for the updated APLs and looking forward to further insights.

Every mage in the High Botanist Telarn image is shown as playing TV.

[Mage]

Isn't that the point?

[kzn]

I don't think so, but it's not really clear what the point of those images was.

[Razlopp]

I don't think so, but it's not really clear what the point of those images was.

Those images were to show myself playing Glacial Spike, and how it compares to mages playing TV.