Updated 10/28

Our accuracy on evaluating these changes has improved, with both SimulationCraft and MageGraph now simulating some of these changes (hopefully with reasonable accuracy, but certainly better than my napkin math). Numbers assume a 5-minute encounter in best-in-slot T9 gear calculated for Frost by Rawr.


Current Numbers and Conclusions

The current cookie-cutter Frost spec is 18/0/53 with Brain Freeze, Spell Impact, and 1/3 SotM. It does about 79.6% of Arcane's DPS and about 82.0% of Fire's DPS. Waterbolt is responsible for about 7.7% of the total.

The new Glyph of Eternal Water looks like about a 6.8% DPS increase.

The Deep Freeze change, with assumptions explained below, looks like about another 4.2% DPS increase if you can use the proc reasonably consistently (see below).

Total combined increase is about 11.1%. Additionally, a couple of points are freed up; maxing out both Spell Impact and Student of the Mind in a 20/0/51 spec brings Frost to about 89.1% of Arcane and about 90.7% of Fire. The spec looks like this:

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=8&tal=00500503310003000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000523030311233100030152231151


Problems/Bugs/Suggestions for adjustments


Deep Freeze

- Currently consumes two charges of Fingers of Frost
- "Immune" message (from attempted stun) appears alongside damage; confusing


Enduring Winter

This talent is now pretty useless past the first point for both PvE and PvP builds. Remove the duration extension and replace it with something else.

Possible issues the change could improve:
- Dead before resummon cooldown is up
- Damage output
- Utility

Endurance used to be on the list, but was dropped due to the drastic reduction in Waterbolt's cost. I'm ruling out Utility, as I'm guessing that they don't want to add a whole new spell to the pet bar or a new aura to the elemental.

The most likely suggestion would therefore probably be something like:

- Increase Spell Power/Stam inheritance by X/Y/Z%


Glyph of Eternal Water

Instead of completely eliminating the ability to cast Freeze, what if the glyph allowed you to cast Freeze, but doing so sacrifices the elemental? It's still unattractive for PvP (you can only get one nova per summon instead of two) and it still involves a tradeoff in PvE (mana/gcd to resummon, and you're subject to the cooldown so you can't do it more than every 2.4-3 minutes), but it at least allows the option to have that utility on tap in an emergency.


Frozen Core

This change was dropped. It didn't work very well.

Glyph of Eternal Water

Simple and effective change; looks to increase DPS by around 6.8%. Endurance is not an issue; with Waterbolt only costing about 33 mana, the Water Elemental should be able to cast indefinitely when supplied with raid regen.

Note that this becomes more valuable if/when Haste and Crit scaling are added to pets.

Only one real issue remains following the reduction of Waterbolt's mana cost:

• Should Enduring Winter be tweaked? Affix tells me PvP Mages don't care much about the duration extension, and for Replenishment purposes, one point is adequate for both PvE and PvP.

Deep Freeze

Estimated DPS increase based on SimulationCraft is about 5.0%.

As for how the spell actually works, the following are estimates based on PTR testing:

• Base damage: 2369 - 2641
  
  
• Coefficient: 2.1429, or 7.5 / 3.5. I suspect that what they did here was modify the coefficient as derived from the cooldown instead of the cast time, much as was done with Arcane Barrage: 30 / 3.5 * 0.25.
  
  
• Average damage: Assuming a bug is fixed that causes Deep Freeze to consume two charges of Fingers of Frost, Deep Freeze will deal approximately twice the average damage of a Shatter Frostbolt.

You will want to cast the spell as often as possible.

Thanks Liv... looking good!

You should model FB+FB+IL on FoF procs, not FB+IL. I realize that's modeling based on a bug, but it is probably a bug that is here to stay.

edit: Also, when haste buffs are up and you're going to hit the GCD floor, at what point (if any) does it become a DPS increase to use FFB on Frozen Core procs instead of a Frostbolt?

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Q u o t e:
You should model FB+FB+IL on FoF procs, not FB+IL. I realize that's modeling based on a bug, but it is probably a bug that is here to stay.

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Yeah, I still live my life as if that didn't exist, and hope it gets fixed someday. Partly because I Just Plain Don't Like It 'Cuz It Smells Like Cheating, and partly because I can't do it reliably (damn fluctuating Comcast latency), and if you can't do it reliably, it's bad to try.

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Q u o t e:
Also, when haste buffs are up and you're going to hit the GCD floor, at what point (if any) does it become a DPS increase to use FFB on Frozen Core procs instead of a Frostbolt?

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I'm working on that, actually -- the buff is so significant that it's still going to be a DPS increase well after you've floored the GCD on the Frostbolt. I'll try to figure out where the tipping point is.

I posted this elsewhere but I figured this was a good place to put this: Enduring Winter currently provides 5 seconds per talent point, capped out at 3 points, for your Water Elmenetals duration. Is this talent going to be adjusted knowing the fact that any and all pve Frost Mages will be using an unlimited duration pet? It seems redundant for a Mage specing into Enduring Winter who is also doing PvE to have a talent really do nothing for them because their pet is permanent. (Besides offering replenishment)

Thoronos, it is at least theoretically possible that a frost mage runs with a comp that has no replenishment, and therefore they might want to take enduring winter for that reason.

As a practical matter, however, the ubiquitous retadin has that covered, and pve frost will skip enduring winter, yeah.

Added to second post:

When does it stop being a gain? You don't want to give up more than about 60% of a Shatter Frostbolt (I'm adding a bit of padding to account for slightly reduced crit rate). That's going to happen at about 85% haste:

Ice Lance costs you: 1 second (floored)
Frostbolt w/o Buff: 2.3 / 1.85 ~= 1.25 seconds
Frostbolt w/Buff: 1 second (floored)
Cost of casting the Ice Lance: 1 - 0.25 = 0.75 seconds
Percentage of unbuffed Frostbolt: 0.75 / 1.25 = 60%

So you still want to execute the combo if you have one active haste buff on you (at pretty much any obtainable haste level). If you've got doubled-up haste buffs, spam Frostbolts.


Deedre:

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Q u o t e:
Thoronos, it is at least theoretically possible that a frost mage runs with a comp that has no replenishment, and therefore they might want to take enduring winter for that reason.

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I'd take one point. 33% chance on a sub-2-second cast is more than enough to keep the buff up. Two points freed up for Frozen Core right there.

More interesting perhaps is the question: is Enduring Winter useful for anyone beyond the first point? Affix tells me most PvP Mages just take the first point. If that's the case, then perhaps the talent needs a look.

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Q u o t e:
So you still want to execute the combo if you have one active haste buff on you (at pretty much any obtainable haste level). If you've got doubled-up haste buffs, spam Frostbolts.

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Should you avoid using Icy Veins during Heroism, so you can continue with the lance rotation? Or does it make sense to double them up and FB spam?

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Q u o t e:

Should you avoid using Icy Veins during Heroism, so you can continue with the lance rotation? Or does it make sense to double them up and FB spam?

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Now you're asking complicated questions :(.

It probably depends on whether waiting on the Icy Veins makes the difference between getting another use out of it before the fight ends or not. I think I should do some real work now (he said, not ducking the question AT ALL), but I'll look into it later.

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Q u o t e:
# Should Enduring Winter be tweaked? Affix tells me PvP Mages don't care much about the duration extension, and for Replenishment purposes, one point is adequate for both PvE and PvP.

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With the time extension becoming irrelevant or unnecessary in both PvE and PvP, I do think the talent could stand to have a different passive bonus to go with replenishment. With the new WE glyph, the talent is effectively just replenishment.

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Q u o t e:
Probably vastly premature.. but since we're looking at DPS in T9......... wouldn't these changes sort of put frost's scaling in the gutter? What with how high shatter-critrates are, and with hasted frost-bolts GCD capped fairly easily?

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It doesn't really make crit scaling any worse -- we're soft-capped now, and we'll still be soft-capped in 3.3. Personally, I'd like to see them drop the 3% crit from Winter's Chill and replace it with something else (a small coefficient buff, perhaps, like a mini-empowered talent); this would put Frostbolt and Ice Lance at the same crit rate, and drop us a wee bit below the soft cap.

It does reduce our haste scaling a bit, because haste gear is now devalued anytime an active haste buff goes up. I suspect that just shifts our gemming preferences a bit.

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Q u o t e:
Probably vastly premature.. but since we're looking at DPS in T9......... wouldn't these changes sort of put frost's scaling in the gutter? What with how high shatter-critrates are, and with hasted frost-bolts GCD capped fairly easily?

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I hazard a guess that it will take some gearing adjustment. Gemming should probably be *entirely* spellpower because crit ratings and haste ratings are going to get naturally high. This is also a spec that is going to favour trinkets with an equip spellpower effect. In short, you're probably going to have to dump any crit/haste trinkets and gems.

Bump for rational discourse, and factual numbers.

Alert: I badly miscalculated a couple things. Fixing, will update shortly.

This is the basic build, I'm looking at right now:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage#_uiDez7dkntT2K,IJN,10571

The question is where to put that past point... Spell Impact for another 2% on the ice lances? Enduring Winter in case there's no replenishment in the raid at all?

Enduring winter should be redesign with these changes, only pve mages take it and the self bonus is negated by the glyph.

I think a good and fair pet scaling talent, master to pet stat increase would suffice?