Frost Mage spec help

Classes Mage
1

So I am working on this alt and I am struggling. Most of it is because I don’t have corruptions yet really, and my stat allocation is atrocious because of really bad luck with gear drops.

I am trying out what is the best way to play Frost until my gear/stats are better. I have been trying the No-IL build and it’s not working for me. I believe it’s because my haste/mastery/crit is just way to low that not casting IL for me is a massive dps loss.

I have tested this out on dummies, M+, and raids and in all cases casting IL is a big dps increase for me than waiting for Brain Freeze procs for GS.

On to the questions…
1.) Should i not waste time going Glacial Spike until I get more haste/mastery? Should I just use Thermal Void or Ray talent since I have to cast Ice Lance for damage right now?
2.) What haste% should I be aiming for?
3.) What crit% should I be aiming for?
4.) Since i have x3 Frigid Grasp should I use Vision of Perfection as my major over CLF?

I don’t have the azerite traits for Orb build so I am kinda in a very sucky place gear wise. Any help would be appreciated.

2

One HUGE key to the No-IL glacial spike build (which I run) is having 3x Flash Freeze Azerite traits. Without those you won’t want to be running No-IL. In No-IL you pretty much want to stack Mastery above all else (run Mastery 3 corruptions on everything you can).

I personally really like No-IL because the massive GS crits are ridiculously satisfying and it does very good damage up to M+ 15 keys

To your specific questions:

  1. As long as you get FF traits use GS, I don’t bother with the others
  2. Don’t need to prioritize in No-IL - Mastery is king
  3. Cap it at 33% (Shatter cap for guaranteed crits on frozen targets, but again Mastery is what you want)
  4. Unsure on this build, but I don’t love 3x Frigid too much seems like a poor man’s version of a combustion fire mage - would recommend searching for other Azerite gear to head towards either the Orb Build or Flash Freeze
3

I can’t view your armory, what talents are you running?

What’s your current stats? Do you sim yourself to see what is best? When you sim, if you’re running NoiL, type
rotation=no_ice_lance in the api to get an accurate sim of no ice lance usage.

I will cast ice lance myself, during a movement period. But it’s very low on my priority.

4

There’s no reason to Ice Lance in the No-IL build on single target, even with Fingers of Frost, except when you’re on movement filler mode and have no means of casting anything else (eg: no Ice Floes, Orb is on cooldown as well, etc.)

The justification behind this is it’ll always be more worth it to cast something that will generate an icicle for you, as this means you get closer to launching your next Glacial Spike. Once you talent into Glacial Spike, Ice Lance falls off greatly because it has no interaction with your mastery. But your gear, corruptions, and essences (Memory of Lucid Dreams major) all tie in with your Mastery.

The thing you would want to sim is 2 target cleave, because given your gear, Azerite traits, etc. you might find it a DPS increase to use FoF-Ice Lances on 2 targets.

If you’re not into NoIL build, the only other relevant PvE build is the Frozen Orb build. This build however is even more stringent on Azerite Traits. The NoIL build basically only demands 3 x Flash Freeze, and then leaves you with wiggle room on the other traits, but the FO build needs 3 x Packed Ice, 1 x Flash Freeze, at least 1 x Whiteout, and only leaves you with freedom on the very last choice.

The FO build is more Haste centric, and very true to Frost’s “whack a proc” style. It’s mobile due to its non-reliance on Ice Floes (even though it’s still a great talent), but it shines most with RoP due to its bursty nature, and it truly excels on consistent cleave/add fights./M+ keys. It falls slightly behind the NoIL build on single target since it’s more RNG reliant and Mastery scaling on the NoIL build is just through the roof. Still, it remains competitive due to your ability to burst with the Orb in short windows, to meet DPS checks at crucial moments in fights.

If none of these builds work for you, your only other option is to play around with your talents. Frost can be very passive or very button heavy depending on your talent setup, and you’ll have to shuffle around to see what works for you. However, no other talent setup is really competitive in PvE. For casual PvE you could try something a tad bursty like Ice Nova. Comet Storm is also great when your item level is low since you can always use it with 5 Incanter’s Flow stacks given its recharge time and use your pet’s Freeze with it to get some shatter “umph” moments.

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5

There is a small optimization that’s the exception to the rule. You can consume a FoF proc if it will cause your GS to land at 5IF rather than a lower stack.

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6

Thanks for all the responses. My biggest issue is I don’t have the azerite traits for FOrb build. For NoIL spec two of the three azerite pieces I have with the right traits are 450ilvl. For the FOrb build i have 465 azerite pieces but only two of them have packed ice/white out.

So in my potential FOrb gear i have 3 465 Item lvl Azerite pieces with x2 Packed Ice, x2 Whiteout, and x1 Flash Freeze. I am missing that third packed ice.

So I am not sure if it’s better to go Frozen Orb or stick with GS in the lower azerite gear?

Also my AoE as GS spec has been nothing short of trash in mythic+ which also has me considering switching.

7

Ok I can finally see your armory now. It looks like you are gearing as Forb, what’s your mastery as NoiL? Your aoe as noil isn’t ever going to be amazing, but that’s not what the build is for. You have other classes that excel at aoe. NoiL has amazing built in cleave, and you can burst out some high aoe dps when orb is up. If it’s a pack of 5 or 6+ I’ll open with Blizzard and Orb and focus GS on the highest HP target and let it cleave off to weaker mobs.

I’m at 63% mastery and I feel it’s still low. I have a Honed Mind 3 belt I’d like to put on, but that will throw me into around 60 corruption, so I’m just focusing on bringing my cloak down first before using that.

8

Are you using any good WA to track IF? The one I’m using seems to be out of date. Or do you just make your own.

9

I just made my own a long time ago, or stole it from Herusx’s wago io and resized it. It’s just an icon with a stack counter in the center. I don’t use anything particularly precise because the gain is minor, and the loss for scuffing it is similarly minor.