As has been noted elsewhere, there is a macro that the warlocks discovered that can be a rather large boost to frost’s DPS.
I found a thread here, Lhivera talks about it here, and krizzlybear goes into great detail here.
The jist of this whole crazy thing is that you macro your water elemental’s attack (/use waterbolt) into your frostbolt. This forces the elemental to cast more often than it otherwise would. It is always a DPS increase to do this, though the increase itself can vary greatly.
It is very important you do not macro /petattack! If you macro that, it will constantly interrupt your elemental’s cast. Putting in /use waterbolt simply forces it to cast all the time, which it doesn’t do by default. For some reason. I don’t know why the elemental suffers from latency. This seems very odd to me.
I cannot imagine this being intentional. It feels like some inscrutable issue with the pet AI that some poor newbie programmer is going to spend weeks smashing his head into. Good luck, newbie programmer. Bring redbull.
I do not expect this issue to be fixed for quite some time, even the great “will fix every issue in the game ever” Cataclysm probably won’t fix this. In any case, frost needs every DPS boost it can get, so even if it is technically broken, a DPS boost is still a DPS boost.
Speaking of that, so how’s about that T10 guys?
To put it bluntly:
The T10 2piece set bonus means casting Fireball as part of your normal DPS rotation is a net DPS gain.
I hope that answers everyone’s questions. The usual caveats follow.
It is a net DPS gain, assuming that the gear you would otherwise have access to are on the same footing as your tier gear. For instance, when comparing the 251 tier gear to non set pieces that are also of 251 caliber, the tier gear wins out. But compare the 251 tier gear with 264 pieces, the 264 gear wins out.
Of course if you have ready access to 264 gear, you also have ready access to your 264 tier gear, meaning with the 2piece bonus the tier gear is better again, and so on.
To try and avoid as much math as possible, once you have 2pT10, the little haste boost you get in conjunction with 3/3 Brain Freeze is going to bump your DPS by roughly 300. This requires that you make full use of the five second duration, which means you have to be chain casting for those five seconds to get the full benefit.
Brain Freeze, without the 2pT10, is still a small DPS loss. I’ve heard claims otherwise, but I disagree.
Read this post on MMO-Champ by our dearest Armond for a whole crapton of math on Fireball. Sorry, Armond, I’m picking on you today. Essentially he says (if you are, in fact, a she, too bad) when confronted with a singular GCD, using a BF fireball will give you more damage for a given GCD than a frostbolt will, bearing in mind the frostbolt is going to take more than one GCD (time wise) to cast.
The primary reason why using a GCD on a procced fireball instead of a frostbolt is largely frowned upon doesn’t really have too much to do with the damage those spells deal. Obviously it matters, yes, but that is not the primary reason why frostbolt is the superior spell. Frostbolt is better because it can proc Fingers of Frost whereas fireball cannot.
Every GCD spent on a fireball is GCD spent not proccing FoF, thus delaying the use of huge frostbolt crits and Deep Freeze. It is an overall DPS loss when considered against a fight that lasts minutes.
I must stress, however, that these differences in DPS are extremely small, as in less than 50. To try and put it as roughly as possible, about 226 iLevel (iLevel here basically just meaning average spellpower/crit/haste values) and below using BF as part of the standard rotation is a DPS gain, roughly 232 iLevel gear it doesn’t really make a difference either way, and with 245+ iLevel it’s a DPS loss. Until you get 2pT10, at which point it’s a significant DPS gain.
I could be wrong, feel free to argue. I raid arcane after all, not frost. This is all theorycraft from my perspective.
I feel free to not argue.
Hence, I propose that the Brain Freeze proc allow you to cast a Frostfire Bolt instead of a Fireball. One, Frostfire Bolt is boosted by all of the frost damage talents whereas Fireball isn’t, and it also allows you to proc Fingers of Frost, which makes it so much more viable.
@Krizzlybear
That’s just too smart. How about having the Brain Freeze proc allow you to cast a manaless, instant Port to Stonard?
And about the pet casting issue – I figure blizzard originally intended it to be a bonus to players who micromanage well. Turns out, macrospamming works much better.
If said manaless, instant portal to Stonard could be cast directly onto a party member, I would run heroics as frost.
seconded, especially if said port to stonard was cast on an alliance party member, and vice-versa for horde member (theramore).
the lols alone will be worth the 1-2k difference between frost and fire/arcane.
I’m left wondering what the max allowable pre-cast time is for adding something to the spell queue, will clicking frostbolt again .5 seconds before current cast finishes still work, or is it .2, .1 ?
The reason for this line of thinking is to add the following line to Macros for Frostbolt, Fireball, Deep Freeze and Ice Lance! (Yes i know, but i still like using it when the mob is on his last legs to see if the ghost lance will finish him)
/use [@pettarget,exists]Waterbolt
If i add this and without specifically trying to manage the elementals spell queue directly (via quartz or similar) i’m guessing my normal rotation of button hits will ensure at least an improvement in waterbolt frequency using this new technique?
Thanks guys, looking forward to trying this out
You can speed up casts by timing when you pull your finger off the key–this is when the cast starts. For example, when doing AB X 4, I have my AB key depressed already and lift finger as the previous spell finishes. This smooths out throughput nicely.
Addressing the first part, I think that the Mage pet is not so much broken as it is incompletely implemented. It has *never* been as smart as a Hunter or Warlock pet, for example, and stays out when you mount up. This leads to all sorts of hilarity when you’re trying to fly over the enemy’s camp.
Given that Squirtle was incomplete from Day One as a “pet”, I suspect that they’ll need to redesign and reimplement before all his little kinks are worked out, since the original planned implementation is probably stale.
Don’t expect to see him done before 4.0, if even then. He’s been in this state for, what, two years? Yeah, they’ll get right on it.
The good news (for frost mages) is that this exploit (and I really think it is one) probably won’t be addressed until 4.0, either.
(If it’s addressed earlier, the change will be so clunky that we might see a mass /ragequit by mages to rival the Warlock Migration of 3.0.)
Thing is, Warlock pets work the same way (at least the imp, who has a casr-time spell, does). For the warlock, it’s not much of a dps gain, but instead is more chance to gain our auto-crit talent.
@figworth – I’ll concede that the Elemental was implemented the same way that Hunter and Warlock pets were originally done, this is true. But where they were enhanced to go away and reappear with the mount, the other combat pets did not get that treatment. That’s probably more accurate.
Regardless, the implementation at this point is not on par with state of the art for combat pets. The glyph simply provides more opportunities for that to be noticed.
@Fig – oops replied to the wrong one. DOH!
@Grimmtooth – The Water Elemental WAS implemented correctly from Day One. Temporary pets don’t vanish when you mount, and never have (see Ghost Wolves, Treants, Ghouls, Infernals, and Doomguards).
The Glyph is really where things mess up. Once it is Glyphed, the WE SHOULD start acting like a permanent pet. I have a strong feeling that the Glyph of Eternal Water will turn into a talent in 4.0 (like the DK talent) so that Blizzard can code things correctly.
@dorgol – I’ll concede that the Elemental was implemented the same way that Hunter and Warlock pets were originally done, this is true. But where they were enhanced to go away and reappear with the mount, the other combat pets did not get that treatment. That’s probably more accurate.
Regardless, the implementation at this point is not on par with state of the art for combat pets. The glyph simply provides more opportunities for that to be noticed.
As a Frost Mage currently slapping /use Waterbolt on Frostbolt, Fireball, and Deep Freeze and wearing 2piece T10, I completely agree with anything you’ve posted.
The macro makes a big difference (and even a visual one: if you have Quartz turned on, you’ll notice that the Waterbolt cast bar will go green and disappear for a split second if you aren’t using the macro).
2pT10 has definitely made Brain Freeze useful. Of course, no where near Missile Barrage or Hot Streak, but it doesn’t pain me to put in the points anymore. I’m able to get in three hasted Frostbolts consistently with it, and four during Icy Veins. I ignore it when Heroism+IV is up (already at haste cap).
It also makes movement even less painful for Frost: you can toss out the Fireball while running and have a couple hasted Frostbolts ready when you stop. Brain Freeze always seemed to be ready on Rotface this week whenever I had to move for the spray/explosion. Great fun.
My only issue with it is that I’ve lost Deep Freezes because of Brain Freeze. A few times, I’ve queued up a BF Fireball onto the end of a Frostbolt, had the previous Frostbolt hit the target and proc Fingers of Frost, and then the new Frostbolt and queued Fireball consume those charges before I could slap in a Deep Freeze.
One thing that I’d like adressed with the 2piece bonus is the discrepency in uptime between the specs. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m assuming Arcane is enjoying very high uptime. I’ve played Fire for all of 20 minutes, so I can’t even guess what their uptime would be at the moment.
[warning: napkin math incoming]
Frost has a 15% chance to proc Brain Freeze (as opposed to Arcane’s 40% for MB) averaging to about 13 seconds between procs at 1000 haste (unbuffed). This is opposed to Arcane’s 7 second “rotation” of 4AB before being ready to proc again (I’m a bit behind on Arcane, so if this bonus has shifted us towards 3AB or MB whenever it procs, my apologies).
It would be nice (though we’ll never see it happen) if the bonus allowed Brain Freeze to increase your haste by 12% for 8 seconds, while Missile Barrage stayed at 5 seconds.
@dorgal
Don’t bank on Eternal Water becoming a talent. Blizz made a decision to make the water elemental permanent for PvE by disabling the nova. It will remain a glyph to determine whether a player is using it for PvP or PvE.
@Endario
You shouldn’t have the issue with BF procs stealing FoF. Since Blizzard made FoF proc on the cast and not the hit, you should have time to queue a deep freeze instead of a fireball. And while the proc uptime may be higher for arcane, arcane is the spec that is least likely to use it’s proc immediately upon proc. Arcane has to wait until 4 AB or 0 AB to use missiles, while fire will always use a pyro and frost will use BF assuming FoF isn’t up.
Has anyone tested 2pt10 to see if the haste applies to the proc spell? If it doesn’t, arcane would have to wait for arcane missiles to finish before using the extra haste.
Blizzard changed FoF back to proc on hit just before 3.3 went live, even though the patch notes say it will proc on cast. The only way to get it to proc on cast on live realms is to spec 3/3 into Frostbite.
And no, the haste bonus does not apply to the Arcane Missile that procs it. Also note that it’s the 5th tick of AM that procs the buff: if you cut off AM early, you won’t get the buff.
And back to the differences of uptime between Frost and Arcane 2piece:
Even if arcane “holds onto” the proc until the 4th AB is cast, you’re STILL looking at a 7-8 second time in between 2piece procs. Frost AVERAGES at 13 seconds in between: sure you could get two procs 5 seconds from eachother, but you’re just about as likely to have to wait 20-30 seconds for a proc.
But like I said, I can’t see Blizzard doing anything about it. They really have enough on their plates right now.
I’ve always felt that Brain Freeze, in and of itself, should give us more than just a free fireball. It simply doesn’t compare as a talent to Missile Barrage or Hot Streak. Even the Fingers of Frost proc seems really low, though I can see why, for PvP purposes, they wouldn’t want to increase that too much more.
Something I think would be nice for PvE is, if in the encoding for Deep Freeze dealing damage, they also added something like “If Deep Freeze deals damage to a target, then your spell haste (or critical strike, or spellpower, or some combination of the above) is increased by x% for x seconds (I think x=15 is a nice number).” Not too overpowered because it can only happen at most once every 30 seconds, but would be a nice buff for frost mages. It makes the class a bit more management heavy, but not over-complicatedly so.
Just a thought though. I’m definitely going to try to figure out the Water Elemental thing though.
The title. It burns. @_@
I actually do play (in PVE, mind you!) as frost, where I faithfully link my BF procs to my frostbolts. Should I not do so? I never pick them over my FoF procs, I swear!
I am indeed male. Thank you for addressing this; it makes me feel less bad about never getting around to finishing that spreadsheet.