[BFA 8.1] Frost Mage M+ Guide

[Deuterio]

Great guide, thanks a lot!

I'd like to point out that if you run Glacial Spike, Sephuz is of outstanding value for trash at least.

Glacial Spike will freeze any mob that's stunnable. This will result in a high uptime of Sephuz without any other action needed, saving Counterspell for strategic use.

[Herus]

Yea GS has some amazing synergy with Sephuz, granted there are going to be times where you want to use Frost Nova to proc sephuz as well as using Nova to double shatter your GS hits. But given that, GS is still really fun in M+. Although I wouldn't necessarily count on it too much. Personally the dps loss from GS isn't worth it over TV especially on ST, for the keys that I run.

On a lower level key or farming 15s, GS is probably a lot more enjoyable to play than TV.

[charlie01]

What extra talent do you use with the legendary ring?

[Xinder]

What extra talent do you use with the legendary ring?

You would take Splitting Ice if you're using the Archmage ring since that gives you Frozen Touch for free. Honestly even if you're not using the Archmage ring you should take SI.

[alia]

Hey Herux! I'm just seeing this and want to say -- what a fantastic write up! I've just started looking at doing more than my weekly +15/16 and this has been very informative. Thanks for the work and formatting +1

[Skolodac]

Hello,

at first I want to thank you for great guide! I have finally created mythic+ eq setup and it's really promising! But I have few, maybe stupid questions.

1) If there aren't mobs which cast anything, is it worth to keep bracers+sephuz due to 2% haste bonus or I should equip bracers+soul?

2) If I don't need shard (I don't need tw at this boss or I want keep tw for next boss or I can't use tw because of cd), should I use bracers+sephuz if I can interrupt boss?

3) And last question with same sitation as before (I don't need shard), but now I can't interrupt boss. Should I use bracers+head (I don't have this legendary yet, so I will use sephuz probably) or keep sephuz instead of head, due to 2% haste bonus?

Thank you.

[nickseng]

You can trigger sephuz by freezing stuff, i.e. Frost Nova.

[DeathStyle]

I think you can do great DPS with the harjatan trinket since it increases IL proc with frozen orb and increases Blizzard and Frozen Orb's damage also you can still move with blink with this trinket and if you really need to move the trinket will keep stacking after you stop moving and the damage is on demand

[DeathStyle]

also not using soul of the archmage since I aint got it but I have harjatan trinket and sephuz equipped with leggo bracers and frost bomb doing 4% more damage

[Norrinir]

I think you can do great DPS with the harjatan trinket since it increases IL proc with frozen orb and increases Blizzard and Frozen Orb's damage also you can still move with blink with this trinket and if you really need to move the trinket will keep stacking after you stop moving and the damage is on demand

How does it increase Frozen Orb's FoF proc rate and damage?

[DeathStyle]

I think you can do great DPS with the harjatan trinket since it increases IL proc with frozen orb and increases Blizzard and Frozen Orb's damage also you can still move with blink with this trinket and if you really need to move the trinket will keep stacking after you stop moving and the damage is on demand

How does it increase Frozen Orb's FoF proc rate and damage?

well haste increases ticking damage of any spell like blizzard and frozen orb and frozen orb has x amount of chance to generate FoF (I believe it's 12%) so with more haste frozen orb+blizzard tick faster do more damage and increases the generation of FoF you can see the exact same effect of haste in similar spells like ele shaman's earthquake

[Norrinir]

Haste does nothing to Frozen Orb. It's 20 ticks over 9.5 sec, no matter what your haste is.

[Veígar]

I'm a 924 ilvl frost mage and I've only done a few 15's on time and completed some 16's. I'm trying to get better at M+ so I have a bunch of questions so I can understand the mentality of higher keys/what I'm missing cause I feel sometimes my DPS is on the lower side.

1. Are the trinkets listed in any specific order (i.e. is the best to worst from top to bottom)?

2. I'm running 915 Tarnished Sentinel Medallion and 895 Whispers. I also have a 935 Tome of Unraveling Sanity and an 880 Arcanocrystal. Do you generally swap gear a pack before the boss is pulled to make sure that the 30 seconds pass before the boss pull? Is Tome of Unraveling Sanity still good even if you're at crit cap because of the second effect, or is it mostly used for the first effect for the damage? Do I just sim which trinket combinations are better?

3. As far as Sephuz goes, is there any way to proc it other than frost nova, GS snare (which I won't be using anyway), or interrupts? I believe spellsteal doesn't count as a dispel. I don't know how comfortable I want to rely on frost nova for the Sephuz proc because it can cause aggro to change from the tank, or if the tank is pulling a pack I'd have to wait for him to stop first. I'd consider not using Sephuz during skittish week.

4. Edit: In your WA, the Lust Tracker tracks your teammates' temporal displacement as well right?

5. Is there any description of the dungeon specific WA or can I just rely on DBM?

6. How many mobs are considered AoE? Blizzard is used on cd at 2+, should I only equip ST trinkets prior to bosses?

[Skolodac]

I would suggest you to sim yourself using simulationcraft or raidbots.com which trinket is better, but for me ToUS+TFB sims higher dps than other combinations.

Spellstealing does work but I'm not sure if it works even without any spellstealable buff, but I would say it doesn't. Maybe you should try to run double Frost Nova talent if you would used too early or missed interrupt or nova (I should try it aswell).

[Herus]

1. Are the trinkets listed in any specific order (i.e. is the best to worst from top to bottom)?

The trinkets listed are not in any particular order. They are however a selection of the top trinkets you can get for M+.

2. I'm running 915 Tarnished Sentinel Medallion and 895 Whispers. I also have a 935 Tome of Unraveling Sanity and an 880 Arcanocrystal. Do you generally swap gear a pack before the boss is pulled to make sure that the 30 seconds pass before the boss pull? Is Tome of Unraveling Sanity still good even if you're at crit cap because of the second effect, or is it mostly used for the first effect for the damage? Do I just sim which trinket combinations are better?

When it comes to trinkets for ST its just like simming for raid. Just use the best results. If it's an on use trinket like Owl or Tome, just swap to them 30 sec before you puoll a boss.

3. As far as Sephuz goes, is there any way to proc it other than frost nova, GS snare (which I won't be using anyway), or interrupts? I believe spellsteal doesn't count as a dispel. I don't know how comfortable I want to rely on frost nova for the Sephuz proc because it can cause aggro to change from the tank, or if the tank is pulling a pack I'd have to wait for him to stop first. I'd consider not using Sephuz during skittish week.

There are 4 ways of proccing http://www.wowhead.com/item=132452/seph ... bonus=3570 (excluding talents):

• http://www.wowhead.com/spell=122

• Successful dispel with http://www.wowhead.com/spell=30449

• http://www.wowhead.com/spell=2139

• http://www.wowhead.com/spell=118

4. Edit: In your WA, the Lust Tracker tracks your teammates' temporal displacement as well right?

That just tracks your Lust buff uptime, I track party sated debuff through elvui.

5. Is there any description of the dungeon specific WA or can I just rely on DBM?

There's no description sorry. I would definitely not use DBM, go get bigwigs.

6. How many mobs are considered AoE? Blizzard is used on cd at 2+, should I only equip ST trinkets prior to bosses?

2+. You could use ST on whatever you want, but I only put ST trinkets on if it's a specific mob that needs priority.

[Veígar]

That just tracks your Lust buff uptime, I track party sated debuff through elvui.

I've been meaning to try out ElvUI but I didn't really want to revamp my whole UI. I'll look into it sometime. Problem with default blizzard one is sometimes the temporal debuff bugs out and I have to click people manually to see it.

There's no description sorry. I would definitely not use DBM, go get bigwigs.

Any reason for choosing Bigwigs over DBM? I've always heard it's more personal preference. Some say DBM is more annoying but I don't really mind it.

2+. You could use ST on whatever you want, but I only put ST trinkets on if it's a specific mob that needs priority.

So do you just swap ST trinkets and put Shard on for bosses, and use Sephuz/AoE trinkets basically everywhere else?


As for chain reaction, am I supposed to build up stacks before casting orb, or should I try building stacks while using my third proc of FoF in between frostbolt casts to munch as little as possible?

[Herus]

Any reason for choosing Bigwigs over DBM? I've always heard it's more personal preference. Some say DBM is more annoying but I don't really mind it.

The timers for DBM in dungeons are all off or non existent. Lilwigs/Bigwigs has it all there.

So do you just swap ST trinkets and put Shard on for bosses, and use Sephuz/AoE trinkets basically everywhere else?

Pretty much, maybe swap in Owl here and there for a miniboss.

As for chain reaction, am I supposed to build up stacks before casting orb, or should I try building stacks while using my third proc of FoF in between frostbolt casts to munch as little as possible?

I generally stack as I go. I try to get Orb/Blizzard out ASAP.

[charlie01]

I have been running helm/bracers and swap to helm/lust ring on bosses when I have the ability to lust again if not I continue using helm/bracers. I've noticed the overall dmg increase is significant to strictly running ring and bracers or ring belt.
That's just my experience. Now if I could just get some Glaives.

Also- someone on wiwhead mentioned that glaives dmg is reduced if you are a ranged class? Any truth to this?

[Vaxah]

Will polymorph always put you in combat with the thing you polymorph? I feel like I often poly something out of combat, skip that mob and a minute later that thing comes back to me angry as hell

Don't forget: you can even polymorph critters! On EoA I always do it at 4th boss if party don't pull the snail or if they prefer to clear the room.
Frost nova doesn't work on them because the Freeze effect is applied after the damage, and it obviously kill critters.

[Katsumi]

Will polymorph always put you in combat with the thing you polymorph? I feel like I often poly something out of combat, skip that mob and a minute later that thing comes back to me angry as hell

Don't forget: you can even polymorph critters! On EoA I always do it at 4th boss if party don't pull the snail or if they prefer to clear the room.
Frost nova doesn't work on them because the Freeze effect is applied after the damage, and it obviously kill critters.

That's actually a cool insight. Any idea on which other bosses you can do this? After all it's a free trigger for Sephuz...