Some Frost tips in Nighthold from an okay Frost Mage

[Deportable]

I figured I'd create this post after seeing a few questions on discord and getting a few questions in game about dps in Nighthold. Especially with the reduction in Frozen Orb cooldown from Blizzard there are a few things I think can help in normal and heroic Nighthold. I haven't stepped into mythic yet but if anyone has any tips they can post them and i'll put them up top.

Everything in here is strictly my opinion and other mages might think otherwise. I'll update this as I feel more comfortable from boss to boss but as I said anyone can post things here and i'll throw them in the post.

Skorpyron:
Talents: BC/SI/AG/TV (This is what I run)
Try setting yourself up behind pillars to minimize movement. There isn't much to this fight outside of precasting blizzard when Call of the Scorpid is cast and saving FOrb if adds will spawn soon.

Chronomatic Anomaly:
Talents: BC/SI/AG/TV
-cast blizzard on cooldown when chrono is tanked by big add, but try and have blizzard precasted when big add has <5% hp left for maximum ticks on small adds
-If orb is coming off cooldown and adds will be spawning soon save orb for add

Trilliax:
Talents: BC/FT/UM/TV (I take icy floes for this fight, but I see a lot of mages stick with shimmer as well)
This fight is very rough with FOrb if you don't time it propery. Always keep an eye on DBM to see when Annihalation will be happening. if Anni is happening within less than 10 seconds i believe it is a bonus to save frozen orb for when he goes to middle so you can spam Ice lance while running around (Be careful with placing this orb as its very easy to shoot it past him), you don't always have proper timing for this to work so just keep an eye on your timers so you don't shoot an orb past his ass right as he transitions.

Spellblade:
Talents: BC/SI/AG/TV (This is another fight I run Icy Floes to help maneuver around people with debuffs)
This is another fight where precasting blizzard cant be a huge help. If you keep an eye on your timers and precast blizzard as either the adds come in or even right as the timer is up for them to spawn you'll get a ton of FOrb reduction. I also like to save FOrb if its coming off of CD and the adds will spawn shortly, as I believe its a dps increase to sacrifice a possible loss of icy-veins to gain a ton of splitting ice lances. (and I think the fact that LW is being run by a lot of people with high parses and low icy veins uptime supports this)

Star Auger
Talents: BC/FT/UM/TV (Some people run splitting ice on this, I think it may be because they're sitting on boss and not attacking big add to get cleave damage on the little dudes, either one works fine here)
I also take Icy Floes on this fight because if you get Fel Ejection with shimmer you're not going to be able to cast at all without making your healers want to kill themselves.
I cast Blizzard on cooldown in p3 because of the little guys on the boss, I think because of this it is probably a dps increase to use AG on this boss, but I haven't tested it yet.
If Icy Veins is coming up shortly before lust save icy veins for lust and prepot.

[Deportable]

This isn't all inclusive obviously and some of this might not be the "perfect" suggestion, but I wanted to get something up while there are a lot of people switching to frost because of hotfixes and disappointment with fire.

[nafuch]

interesting post thanks as i find it hard to get invites as a frost mage for Nighthold, but funny enough on one run on Trilliax i was in the top 3 for dps which was a nice surprise as i consider myself an average frost mage, i have tried arcane and fire but like playing frost

Hopefully Blizzard will sort of our issues out in the next patch !

[nirdana]

On trilliax i run play with BC/MI/SI/UM/TV. Mirros are doing great dmg even if you have to look after the small robots on the other side of room. And SI helps with cleaving those two adds.
As was mentioned in upper post when using FO in annhilation, you have to cast it immidiately when he is on the hind limbs.

[Renstar]

Trust me, try and experiment with Comet storm on Skorp. I'm 890 and can break 1m dps using Comet instead.
But Primarily, BLIZZARD should be your main damage in that fight so AG is a must



Talents taken for that fight. LW - Incanters - Splitting Ice - AG - Comet Storm

[Drozzy]

Star Auger
Talents: BC/FT/UM/TV (Some people run splitting ice on this, I think it may be because they're sitting on boss and not attacking big add to get cleave damage on the little dudes, either one works fine here)

Splitting ice adds 5% damage to your ice lances as well as icicles. With mag bracers especially, this extra ice lance damage can offset the small increase in FoF procs you'll get from running frozen touch. Frozen touch is also more RNG reliant. Players who have 2/4pc, and especially if they have gloves, get a lot of guaranteed ice lances already, and usually a lot of brain freeze combos. All of these benefit from the bonus damage from splitting ice. Frozen touch just means more FoF, in general, on average. But it's not a large increase in generation. It's about a 5% higher generation chance, per spell tick. Frozen touch is very lackluster as is. Even sims show this. Single target: frozen touch and splitting ice are very similar in strength. I've found from my own experiences that I do less damage during icy veins if I run frozen touch, but slightly more damage outside of it. On a fight like star augur, where icy veins uptime is going to be about as high as you can realistically get it, splitting ice has felt stronger to me (and simmed higher!). But I can have absurd icy veins durations at times. The cleave from splitting ice is an added bonus, but splitting ice is capable of outperforming frozen touch even without cleaving. As we always say, sim yourself.

Chronomatic Anomaly:
Talents: BC/SI/AG/TV
-If icy-veins is coming off of cooldown and the boss will be transitioning to fast phase soon save icy veins for fast phase

This doesn't actually help. The way anomaly's timescale effect works, it also increases the speed at which your buffs fall off. Here's how it works: The speed at which time passes for everything is modified by the same amount. If your GCD/cast time is 30% faster, your cooldowns will pass by 30% faster. icy veins won't last 20s (real time) anymore, it'll fall off 30% faster. The only mechanics that game this timescale change are mechanics that have a static amount of time, and aren't affected by the timescale modifier. The ONLY mechanics I know of thus far which this applies to are Lady Vash'j Grasp gloves. They generate a FoF every 10s during icy veins. This 10s is REAL TIME 10s. So icy veins is actually strongest on anomaly during SLOW phase, if you have the gloves. Because the duration of icy veins will reduce by less than 10s, for every free FoF your gloves give you. Icy veins with gloves is weaker during faster phase, because you're getting proportionally less FoF from your legendary gloves than you would normally. Frost mages perform so well on anomaly (especially mythic) because if you manage to maintain icy veins until the slow phase (and you're wearing the gloves), it becomes much easier to continue to maintain your icy veins while that slow phase lasts. This effectively gives you higher icy veins uptime, which translates to higher dps.

[Norrinir]

This doesn't actually help. The way anomaly's timescale effect works, it also increases the speed at which your buffs fall off. Here's how it works: The speed at which time passes for everything is modified by the same amount. If your GCD/cast time is 30% faster, your cooldowns will pass by 30% faster. icy veins won't last 20s (real time) anymore, it'll fall off 30% faster. The only mechanics that game this timescale change are mechanics that have a static amount of time, and aren't affected by the timescale modifier. The ONLY mechanics I know of thus far which this applies to are Lady Vash'j Grasp gloves. They generate a FoF every 10s during icy veins. This 10s is REAL TIME 10s. So icy veins is actually strongest on anomaly during SLOW phase, if you have the gloves. Because the duration of icy veins will reduce by less than 10s, for every free FoF your gloves give you. Icy veins with gloves is weaker during faster phase, because you're getting proportionally less FoF from your legendary gloves than you would normally. Frost mages perform so well on anomaly (especially mythic) because if you manage to maintain icy veins until the slow phase (and you're wearing the gloves), it becomes much easier to continue to maintain your icy veins while that slow phase lasts. This effectively gives you higher icy veins uptime, which translates to higher dps.

They actually fixed this in the past week or so, the time stuff now works with Vashj gloves.

[Deportable]

Hey @Drozzy, I'm not entirely sure how to quote properly on here so i'll just type it out. In response to Icy Veins being stronger by gloves during your long phase this was correct as Norrinir pointed out, and although it was at one time easier to maintain Icy Veins Chilled to the Core only lasts for 20 seconds, and if you have metronome/whispers and lust in fast phase its impossible (for me at least) to keep up with the amount of FoF procs generated when you launch your orb/water jet in the start of fast phase with hero if you don't have icy veins.

This does generate some issues with spells being under the GCD but I find this to be a little less of an issue than munching FoF procs due to not being able to cast fast enough, but I think that being able to get all of your cds and fof procs out of them during the 20% damage buff is a huge bonus because without Chrono's speed buff the latter half of your fof generation falls after chilled to the core has expired.

Regarding star augur, since I've made this post I've had a lot more experience running SI in single target, and i'd agree at this point that FT is barely even noticeable over SI, and on fights with easy to maintain IV uptime I think it's arguable it might be better to run SI.

quick edit: I'm not advocating putting off using your icy veins by any considerable amount, i'm saying if its coming off very shortly I think it might be better to save it for like <10 seconds.

[Drozzy]

The chilled to the core buff ALSO has its duration affected by fast phase though. Since everything is being effected the same amount by the speed bonus, Nothing actually gets stronger benefit. Everything just HAPPENS faster in real time. You're not getting any extra benefit. If the gloves have been fixed, then there is essentially no real effect of the timescale change. It purely affects how we play. There is no way to use the speed mechanics to gimmick it for a dps gain. Literally all that it does is change the amount of time you get between actions. Since everything is affected by the speed change the same amount, nothing is affected. The only thing that isn't affected, is real time, and so the only things that change are things that happen in real life time, like making decisions and reacting to things.

[Venno]

The chilled to the core buff ALSO has its duration affected by fast phase though. Since everything is being effected the same amount by the speed bonus, Nothing actually gets stronger benefit. Everything just HAPPENS faster in real time. You're not getting any extra benefit. If the gloves have been fixed, then there is essentially no real effect of the timescale change. It purely affects how we play. There is no way to use the speed mechanics to gimmick it for a dps gain. Literally all that it does is change the amount of time you get between actions. Since everything is affected by the speed change the same amount, nothing is affected. The only thing that isn't affected, is real time, and so the only things that change are things that happen in real life time, like making decisions and reacting to things.

Not trying to disagree, just wondering if I've missed something:
If you do the same damage in less time, isn't that increasing your dps? 1m damage in 10 seconds is 100k dps. 1m damage in 5 seconds is 200k dps.

Am I missing something?

[Oshtamage]

In terms of tips for Krosus: what is everyone doing with their elemental when using BC/IF/FT/UM/TV?
I almost never get double procs during water jet, and sometimes it even seems to glitch and give me zero procs. That's one fight I can't seem to get right. I hit 578k on heroic tonight (889 iLvl), and think I would have been able to hit 600 if I got my water jets correct.

My only idea is re-positioning my elemental to always be close to Krosus. Anyone else have an idea for this?

[nirdana]

In terms of tips for Krosus: what is everyone doing with their elemental when using BC/IF/FT/UM/TV?
I almost never get double procs during water jet, and sometimes it even seems to glitch and give me zero procs. That's one fight I can't seem to get right. I hit 578k on heroic tonight (889 iLvl), and think I would have been able to hit 600 if I got my water jets correct.

My only idea is re-positioning my elemental to always be close to Krosus. Anyone else have an idea for this?

The elemental isnt the problem. The flight time of the water jet is instant. it only has the 0,5s cast time(maybe more dont know). The real problem is the distance between you and the boss. It makes your frostbolts hit too late.
The solution is to cast water jet while the frostbolt is in the air. (you gotta try perfect timing for different ranges)

[Norrinir]

Not trying to disagree, just wondering if I've missed something:
If you do the same damage in less time, isn't that increasing your dps? 1m damage in 10 seconds is 100k dps. 1m damage in 5 seconds is 200k dps.

Am I missing something?

That is correct.

Also, unless they hotfixed it this reset, Blizzard is only getting 6 ticks in fast phase and 10 ticks in slow phase. It's also possible that Ray of Frost suffers from the same problem, but I didn't get to check this.

Another thing I'm not sure about that I'd like to test eventually is cooldown reduction. If you are in slow phase, where your cooldowns are 30% longer, you'd expect Frozen Veins or Frozen Orb CD reduction to also be 30% more effective.

[Drozzy]

Another thing I'm not sure about that I'd like to test eventually is cooldown reduction. If you are in slow phase, where your cooldowns are 30% longer, you'd expect Frozen Veins or Frozen Orb CD reduction to also be 30% more effective.

The cooldown reduction from frozen veins: I can confirm that it works that way. The cooldown reduction reduces the 'base cooldown' by 1.5 (assuming no relics) seconds. The slow/fast phases don't affect the cooldowns or durations of anything, it affects the speed at which time passes. During slow phase, 1.5 seconds of fighting is actually 1.5x1.3 (=~2)seconds of real life time. An easy way to see this is through weakauras. Weakauras are showing the dynamic (calculated entirely as if the current speed of time is the permanent speed of time) real life timers for cooldowns. So if you were during slow phase and you got a frostbolt crit, your cooldown aura for icy veins would reduce by ~2 seconds (with no relics). I would assume that blizzard impacts frozen orb in the same way, because I can see no good reason why it wouldn't, but I haven't actually paid attention to it in order to know for sure.
I still stand by the fact that there is absolutely no benefit to holding cooldowns for fast phase, but for anyone who doesn't understand how the timescale equally impacts all elements yet, I don't know how else to describe it (without going through lots of complicated math describing the passage of real life time).

[Deportable]

@Drozzy I understand how it works, but I would make the argument again that since you're gaining FoF procs at an insane rate during fast phase, especially if you frozen orb, being able to unload those procs instantaneously is a huge benefit to saving icy veins (again for a very short time <10 seconds), because if you have whispers or metronome and IV during fast phase your FoF generation is difficult to keep up with without almost being under the GCD. Being able to IV/Orb/WJ at the start of the fast phase allows you to unload a TON of FoF in that last few seconds the boss is alive that you wouldn't other wise be able to do because your haste isn't high enough. It's probably a horse a piece though honestly, this is just my experience. Again, I'm not advocating holding these cooldowns for an extended period of time, I'm saying if theyre coming up in <10 seconds, being able to unload the entirety of your FoF generation within Chilled to the Core due to having higher haste and your fof generation off orb being faster is, in my opinion, a benefit because you wont munch as much as you typically might with the increased speed of FoF generation.

[Norrinir]

But if your time is slowed down, your Chilled to the Core also lasts longer (as far as real seconds are concerned). Time doesn't really change anything about this.

(There are some minor things like Frozen Orb's tick time not being affected by the time stuff, which means you generate FoF procs slower in fast phase and faster in slow phase - probably too fast sometimes).

[Deportable]

yeah this is true, it appears to be more of a feel thing for me, I'll update the OP to reflect it.

[Illeriia]

Figured I'd drop this in for a few fights. (Using Bracers/Gloves) http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/s ... med/simple" target="_blank

Mythic Scorpyron: BC/IF/SI/AG/TV - I didn't run CMS on this fight on mythic due to the importance of killing the larger scorpion adds vs the smaller on, and considering the cleave that the rest of my group was going to do for this fight.

Mythic Chronomatic Anomaly(Haven't killed): BC/IF/SI/AG/TV - The only reason I haven't switched to hard single target on this yet is because of the aoe that you need to do to the smaller adds, which my group seems to struggle on in some pulls.

[adunazon]

Trust me, try and experiment with Comet storm on Skorp. I'm 890 and can break 1m dps using Comet instead.
But Primarily, BLIZZARD should be your main damage in that fight so AG is a must



Talents taken for that fight. LW - Incanters - Splitting Ice - AG - Comet Storm

I mean, this is pretty much useless pad damage. It's probably better to let any fire mages in the raid get another living bomb off or let people with better AoE handle it. Frost is great at singletarget damage and you're dropping TV or GS and thereby reducing your ST significantly, to kill adds that will pretty much die anyway while instead letting the boss live longer. If blizzard is your #1 damage ability on skorpyron then most certainly you're not doing damage to the boss itself optimally.

[Pkm]

Trust me, try and experiment with Comet storm on Skorp. I'm 890 and can break 1m dps using Comet instead.
But Primarily, BLIZZARD should be your main damage in that fight so AG is a must



Talents taken for that fight. LW - Incanters - Splitting Ice - AG - Comet Storm

I mean, this is pretty much useless pad damage. It's probably better to let any fire mages in the raid get another living bomb off or let people with better AoE handle it. Frost is great at singletarget damage and you're dropping TV or GS and thereby reducing your ST significantly, to kill adds that will pretty much die anyway while instead letting the boss live longer. If blizzard is your #1 damage ability on skorpyron then most certainly you're not doing damage to the boss itself optimally.

When you got so many adds like on scorp then id say its pretty normal to have a high blizzard damage. I mean, its not like you spam the ability, you just use it every few seconds to keep it up.