Frostfire 101

What is a frostfire spec?
A frostfire spec is usually a deep fire spec with some points also in frost (though deep frost specs also exist).  The frostfire spell benefits from buffs to both fire and frost (as the name suggests), which explains the lack of points in the arcane tree.  The spec I currently use to raid is 0/53/18, with the point break down as follows:
FIRE: 2/2 Improved Fire Blast, 3/3 Incineration, 5/5 Ignite, 3/3 World in Flames, 2/2 Flame Throwing, 1/1 Pyroblast, 2/2 Burning Soul, 3/3 Improved Scorch, 3/3 Master of Elements, 3/3 Playing With Fire, 5/5 Fire Power, 3/3 Pyromaniac, 1/1 Combustion, 2/2 Molten Fury, 3/3 Empowered Fire, 3/3 Hot Streak, 5/5 Burnout, 1/1 Living Bomb
FROST: 2/3 Frostbite, 3/3 Ice Floes, 3/3 Ice Shards, 3/3 Precision, 3/3 Piercing Ice, 1/1 Icy Veins, 3/3 Frost Channeling.
Or you can look at it all here.

In which PvE situations does frostfire do best?
Frostfire is a very strong single-target damage dealer for raid bosses, especially if the boss does not require a lot of movement.  Frostfire mages also deal some of the strongest AoE damage available in the game.

In which PvE situations does frostfire do worst?
Because the cast for frostfire bolt is so long, fights that involve a lot of moving around or canceling casts for any reason (example: decursing) can really cut a frostfire mage’s DPS.  Frostfire mages may also have trouble in fights where a boss/mob dumps threat periodically, because the damage from the frostfire spec can spike very quickly due to its proc-based nature.

Is frostfire spec viable in PvP?
Not really.  The main nuke (frostfire bolt) is too long.  Though it does slow the target like a frostbolt, it just gives other players too much time to silence/stun you while you’re casting for 3 seconds.  With some tweaking, the spec I described above can be changed into a more PvP-friendly spec (by adding Blastwave and Dragon’s Breath, and getting rid of Precision).  If you plan on being frostfire specced for PvE (but you still like to PvP), I would recommend purchasing dual spec.

What is a good rotation for frostfire PvE?
BOSSES: Living Bomb -> Stack Scorch (x5) -> Refresh Living Bomb -> Frostfire Bolt (x3-4, depending on your haste) -> Refresh Scorch (x1) -> Refresh Living Bomb.
One of the most important things for your DPS as a frostfire mage is to use Hot Streak whenever it procs.  Hot Streak is a talented move that gives you an instant pyroblast (but not free in mana terms) whenever you critically hit twice in a row with a fireball, fireblast, living bomb, scorch, or frostfire bolt.
SINGLE TARGET TRASH: Living Bomb -> Frostfire Bolt -> Refresh Living Bomb as needed.
If you have the glyph for improved scorch (which applies all 5 debuffs in one hit) you may consider scorching trash – I don’t play with this glyph, so I reserve scorch stacking for bosses.
AOE TRASH: Highest rank Living Bomb on one target -> Second highest rank Living Bomb on another -> Blizzard

Always try to put your living bomb on the mobs that have the most life in an AoE group, so that the mobs live long enough to explode.

Edit: I don’t actually apply two Living Bombs in my rotation because it generates too much threat, tanks can’t keep up, and I usually end up dead.  A friend has told me recently that this no longer works.  I will double check and update as needed,

**Spending time with your friendly neighborhood target dummy is a great way to get your rotation tight.**

How should I gear as a frostfire mage?
The most important thing for any DPS class is to be at (or very near) hit cap.  For the spec I described above, the hit cap is 368.  Some people may disagree with me on this, but I think that the strongest stat after hit cap for a frostfire mage is critical strike rating, because we receive mana back from crits and crits can proc Hot Streak.  Closely following critical strike rating is spell power, which will increase the base damage of all your spells.  After critical strike and spell power, you should be looking for gear that has spirit (will add more crit, but not as much as critical strike rating), haste (will decrease the pesky long cast time, but has no other real benefits), and intellect (who doesn’t want a bigger mana pool?).  In last place comes Mp5 – mana as a frostfire mage is controlled more by procs, consumables, and spells than by your mana ticking up.  Currently, my relevant stats self-buffed are as follows: 942 stamina, 1008 intellect, 646 spirit, 1773 bonus damage, 369 hit rating, 37.65% critical strike chance for fire spells, 25.68% critical strike chance for all other schools of magic, 206 haste rating, and 343 mana regen (171 in combat).  I am mostly Naxx 25 geared, with 4 or 5 pieces from Ulduar.  Fully buffed in a 25-man, I have around 50% fire spell crit and can pull around 5,000 DPS on a single-target stationary boss, such as Patchwerk.

What buffs, consumables, and glyphs should I be using?
BUFFS: Arcane Intellect and Molten Armor.
CONSUMABLES: Flask of the Frost Wyrm (flask, increases your spell power by 125 for 1 hour, persists through death), Spicy Blue Nettlefish (food, increases stamina and crit strike rating by 40), Mana Sapphire (conjured), Runic Mana/Health Potion (if needed, always good to have a few in your bags), Arcane Powder (reagent to summon mage tables and to buff the entire party with Arcane Brilliance), Rune of Teleportation/Portals (to port yourself and your friends to cities after a raid).
GLYPHS: Major Glyph of Frostfire (increases initial damage dealt by frostfire bolt by 2% and increases its crit chance by 2%), Major Glyph of Living Bomb (the tick damage can now critically hit), Major Glyph of Molten Armor (20% of your spirit is now translated to critical strike rating), and Lesser Glyph of Slow Fall (gets rid of the reagent requirement).

How should I set up my bars to play frostfire?
This is just my personal preference, but I thought I would include it in case anyone needs a jumping off point:
1 – Living Bomb
2 – Frostfire Bolt
3 – Cone of Cold
4 – Ice Lance
5 – Frost Nova
6 – Blink
7 – Mirror Image
8 – Blizzard
9 – Ice Block
10 – Arcane Explosion
– – Pyroblast
= – Scorch

What are some useful macros for frostfire mage?
It can be useful to macro your combustion, icy veins, and on-use trinkets to frostfire bolt, especially if you’re the type of person who forgets to use those things whenever they are up.  Don’t think of those spells/uses as “oh shit” buttons, but as another part of your DPS rotation that, when used well, can really increase your damage.

How do I deal with mana issues as a frostfire mage?
Frostfire is one of the least mana-intensive mage specs.  Just be aware of your mana gem cooldown – if you know you’re going to be fighting a boss for the next 10 minutes, make sure to use your first mana gem early on so that it is available for use again later in the fight.  Evocation is another option to regain a large amount of mana back, but it takes a toll on your damage due to its long channel and may by broken by periodic damage dealt by mobs/bosses.  If you are a blood elf, you can also use Arcane Torrent as a way to get mana back.  Runic Mana Potions are another option, but keep in mind that they can only be used once every fight.

How do I deal with threat issues as a frostfire mage?
As I said before, frostfire spec can deal some very big spikes in damage that can generate a large amount of threat in a short amount of time.  The best policy is to give your tank as much time as he/she needs to get threat.  When in doubt, count slowly to twenty before beginning to DPS.  Mages also have several moves they can use to manage threat:

MIRROR IMAGE: will make you “invisible” threat-wise to the boss for a period of time.  Once that period is over, threat will be re-established wherever you were before.  Always be aware of when this buff will end, because you may be ahead of the tank in threat and not realize it.

Example: You have 10 threat and the tank has 10 threat.  You activate Mirror Image and continue to DPS, and reach 25 threat by the end of the buff.  If the tank does not have more than 25 threat at this point, you will be highest on the aggro list and will be attacked.

ICE BLOCK: makes you immune to attacks and drops your threat.  Once the block wears off, threat is re-established.  Also removes most debuffs.

Example: You have 10 threat and the tank has 5 threat, so the mob is running toward you.  You use Ice Block and lose threat while blocked.  Once the buff wears off, the tank must have more than 10 threat in order for the mob not to attack you.

INVISIBILITY: makes you invisible, dropping all your threat permanently even after the buff wears off (similar to vanish or feign death).  This move can also strategically be used if your group is wiping – when timed correctly, you can be invisible when the boss resets and leave combat.

Example: You have 15 threat and the tank has 17, but you feel like you will quickly gain on them.  You activate Invisibility, and as soon as you are invisible, click it off.  You now have 0 threat and the tank has 17.

Example #2: The group is wiping, the tanks and healers are down and the boss is running loose killing all the DPS.  You Ice Block, dropping your threat momentarily.  Once the mob runs toward another group member that is far from you, you cancel Ice Block, blink away from the mob, and continue to run while activating Invisibility.  Hopefully you go invisible before the mob gets to you!  Note: It’s a good idea to let group members know you are doing this – if they live past your invisible buff, you may still be in combat and the mob will come and kill you.

What am I expected to do as a mage?
Buff the group with Arcane Brilliance, drop tables for food, ranged DPS, and occasionally crowd control using Polymorph.  You may also be expected to decurse group members during fights, kite, or silence using Counterspell.
**Always talk to other casters in the group to figure out who is doing what.  If there is more than one fire specced mage, agree on who will be stacking scorch.  If there is a warlock with improved shadowbolt, do not stack scorch, as it will get randomly consumed when the warlock move procs.**

What are some useful mods for frostfire mages?
DECURSIVE: makes decursing easier, ’nuff said.
PORTAL BOX: creates a screen for portals, so you don’t have them cluttering up your action bars.
OMEN: a more comprehensive way to look at threat than the built in Blizzard system.
DEADLY BOSS MODS: gives important information about what is going on during raid boss fights.
SCORCHIO: helps you keep track of debuffs on your target.

What should my damage meter look like?

Any questions?  Let me know!

**EDIT** Since a lot of people have asked me, yes, I did write this post myself.  🙂  If you’re going to use it on any other website, please credit me/this blog.  Also, feel free to link this to any friends you think might benefit from it.  Thanks!

You Lack Discipline!

I hope everyone knows that title as a classic Arnold Schwarzenegger meme, and if you don’t, you know it is now!  ….Go look it up, kiddos.  ANYWAY.  I’ve been up to a lot recently, thus my lack of posting.  I decided to switch mains, away from my elemental shaman and towards my new priest, Vellem.  Vellem is now a level 72 Discipline priest, quickly leveling up to 80.

I knew I wanted to heal with my priest…Resto shaman got boring in TBC, and I am really starting to hate Taurens and their hugeness and ugly hooves.  The gear on them also looks bad.  Have you seen a Tauren in level 80 blues and purples that arent tier sets?  Really ugly.  The caster shield from Mexxna doesn’t help either, with its primary color scheme and shiny center.  Taurens also sit on drake mounts as if they’re about to fall off, which annoys me after flying around for awhile.

All this led up to my eventual switch back to priest.  My first level 70 in TBC was an undead priest, and I healed up to ZA with that character as holy.  It is an undead…and the reason I switched from that character to the shaman was because of how badly the gear looked on undead.  I’m sorry, but if I spend weeks farming for an item, or get some lucky drop in an instance, I want to see all of it, not just part of it, and my bones for the rest.  Must every item I get have custom holes cut out for my arms and back hump?  Just cover that back hump with a cloak, I dont need to rip it so I can see 4 vertabre when I hobble around. /rant

So as you can see from the picture, I rolled a Blood Elf, and leveled all the way back up to 70, and now beyond.  The gear, while sometimes has a stupid model, looks great on the Blood Elf.  No bones are showing, my shoes completely cover my feet, and im not overly huge so nothing is streatched out.

I decided to go discipline this time around.  I’ve been reading about priests and have seen that discipline are really good single target healers.  Their shields can soak up a lot of damage, and their crits can apply a new shield, Divine Ageis (if specc’ed for it, which you really should be).  Discipline priests gear/gem more for Spell Power, Crit, Haste, and Intellect, since both the increased mana pool and increased crit chance are both great.  Discipline priests also benefit most from actually health points regained, as opposed to overhealing.  We have talents in our tree that regenerate mana back for each health point returned to the target via our heals, so if we are actually restoring health to say, the main tank, we will get mana back.  Holy has a similar talent that works the exact opposite.  Serendipity, which is far down the Holy tree, regenerates mana back to the priest for each point of overhealing done.

There has been some hatin’ on Discipline priests, saying that if a priest wants to heal they should go Holy, but I think most of those people are misinformed.  Holy priests are better for multi-target/group healing, but they lose on their single target abilities.  Priests are unique in that they are the only class with two completely different healing trees to work with.  It is almost like having a holy paladin and resto shaman at a whim.  Once I get to 80 and start doing heroics/intro raids, I’ll write about how end game Discipline is.  So far, for both soloing/questing and 5-man dungeoneering, Discipline is really working out great.  It is definately a spec that cannot compensate for the rest of the group if they suck, but when the whole group is doing the right thing, this spec really shines.

Here is a link to my leveling spec. I am currently filling out Spirit Tap in the Shadow tree to help me regenerate mana faster while soloing.  Otherwise, work down the Holy tree as you move from 72-80.

~Nick Fox

Wrath of the Bitch King… Or How I Came to Hate World of Warcraft’s Second Expansion

I should have known something was wrong when I first saw the cinematic trailer for Wrath of the Lich King.  My first response: “Where the hell is the catch phrase?”  My second response: “There was not enough epic dragon roaring.”  It’s not that I hate how much talking the Lich King’s dad (the narrator) does, but damn!  Where is my “YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!“?

But it was okay, I let it go.  I let myself get excited for the expansion.  I went to the local mall for the midnight opening and even had a funny moment singing numetal in the car on the way back around 1am.  Installed the expansion.  Played a little that night.  Wasn’t really impressed with Howling Fjord, but I just accepted that as stemming from my dislike of forest-y zones in WoW.

It’s been a few months now and I still don’t like this expansion, especially when I compare it with The Burning Crusade.  First let me say a couple things that I like about the playing now, so I don’t sound like a complete psycho bitch:

1. Reputation grinding is less painful now with the Tabard system.

2. Heroics are easily pug-able and they are the correct difficulty.  There was nothing more irritating in TBC than the fact that you needed Karazhan+ gear in order to run heroics.  The rewards in WotLK heroics adequately prepare players for the first tier of raiding.

3. The phasing stuff allows for more interesting questing and more inclusion of lore.

Okay now that I sound fair and balanced (haha), let me complain about what sucks:

1. There are not enough aliens.  I love aliens and demons and I remember being totally amazed by new models in TBC like those weird ravagers.  A slightly reworked model of a wolf I saw in Silverpine Forest?  Not so impressive.

2. The zones all look the same.  In WotLK you can choose between a snowy zone (Dragonblight and Storm Peaks), a foresty zone (Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills), or an lichy zone (Zul’Drak or Icecrown).  I know a lot of people hated the transitions between zones in Outland, and I admit that it seemed a little implausible that you could go from Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh in a few short steps, but at least I wasn’t bored to death!  And just an aside: I don’t play with game music on very often, and I blame the viking soundtrack in Northrend.

3. Dalaran sucks unless you have an awesome computer.  If you have an awesome computer, Dalaran still sucks, just a little less.  Making Dalaran such a clusterfuck (for lack of a better term) was a really bad move on Blizzard’s part.  I’m not even going to complain about feeling like I’m in a more glowy Stormwind when I’m there, because I can deal with that.  But why couldn’t the game designers make the city just 1.5 or 2 times its size right now so that I’m not having to load 100 characters every time I go over there?  When I first heard about this city, I was excited because people told me that Alliance and Horde would have their own separated areas.  This could have been much more present, I feel like we are barely separated at all, which just adds to my lag.

4. The gear is ugly and repetitive.  I’ve made posts about this in the past.  It’s enough to say that there are not enough unique models for gear, especially when you’re leveling.

5. The gear reset was too soft.  I will preface this point by acknowledging that 90% of people will disagree with me on this.  I loved when I stepped into Outland and suddenly the quest greens were better than the blues and purples I had been working so hard on before.  It was fun to replace all of your stuff, even if it was very colorful and admitedly a little ugly.  The feeling of being in a new world was totally awesome.  Arco (my hunter) came into Northrend wearing a mixture of gear from Zul’Aman, Hyjal, Black Temple, and some crafted items.  I did not get to replace one piece of gear on her until level 77, if I remember correctly (I might have replaced a trinket at 75, not sure).  Even Eau (my mage), who was wearing mostly crafted and Karazhan gear, didn’t really get to replace items until 73 or 74.  I know that some people are very attached to their tier gear that they worked so hard towards, blah blah blah.  I can only agree with those sentiments if I’m staying the same area.  If I got a whole new expansion, I want gear that looks good and new and fun in the first few levels!

6. The expansion was released with too few raids.  Let’s be honest: Blizzard didn’t even make a raid for the release of WotLK, they retooled a raid (Naxxramas) they had already made for vanilla WoW.  The other raids currently in the game are only encounters (Malygos, Vault, and Sartherion).  People had Naxx on farm within the first week of the expansion.  Within a month, less hardcore players were pugging both 10 and 25-man Naxx.  I was in a 25-man Naxx pug last night that had no trouble downing any of the bosses, even though many of the players were there for the first time.  I am not complaining about Naxx being too easy – Kara was frustrating and broke up a lot of the more casual guilds in early TBC that couldn’t get past Moroes or Curator – I’m just saying that, if Naxx is going to be this easy, there needs to be something else to move on to.  I know that Ulduar is coming out soon, and it’ll be interesting to see how well they tool the difficulty and gear jump.  A lot of people that aren’t in raiding guilds have been pugging Naxx 25-man and will (in theory) be geared for Ulduar.  Are we expecting to see a lot of Ulduar pugs too?  If so, is Blizzard coming out with new content soon after Ulduar?  I feel like they could have delayed the release of this expansion a few months and included a more fleshed out raiding environment.  In TBC, we started off the expansion with Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, Magtheridon’s Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern, and Tempest Keep –  and people weren’t even progressing past Kara and Gruul’s that quickly!  Blizzard needed to realize that by making the entry-level raiding easier, they would need more content.

7. The achievement system is an excuse to make less raiding content.  This point also requires a preface: I like individual player-based achievements.  I like doing Loremaster because it shows me quests and zones that I had skipped.  What I don’t like is that people seem to think that Blizzard’s lack of content is excusable by the large amount of achievements associated with heroics and raids.  First of all, achievements are predictable.  I was joking around today with Nick that if there had been achievements for Kara, there would have been one to kill Curator without killing any sparks, or to kill Moroes and all of this guests within 5 seconds of each other.  This doesn’t bother me that much, but it is kind of annoying.  What bothers me more is that Blizzard is trying to just recycle content and make it seem newer and more challenging by just adding some small reward, like achievement points that get you nothing but bragging rights.  They are encouraging people to do content in the most stupidly difficult way for the same gear rewards (the exception to this is Sartherion with 1, 2, or 3 drakes up).  A solution to this would be to maybe make certain raid encounters “unlock” once people have done certain achievements, but even then I wouldn’t like it because it’s just giving a new name to attunements.

8. There are too many dailies.  Again, I am not interested in doing the same unchallenging and boring content over and over again.  There were too many dailies in TBC too, so this is just a general gripe with all of WoW.  Dailies are unecessary!  There I said it!  Once you have your flight skill, you don’t really need that much gold anymore.  Blizzard added so many money sinks into this game (like super expensive mounts, pets, spells) that people are focusing more on doing some rotation of the same 50 quests in order to get a toy train set.  I already do that in real life – I save money to buy things that are actually real.  Do I need to spend hours earning and saving virtual money so that I can have a mammoth in a game?  I don’t think so.  You’d be better off not doing dailies and working a part time job in real life.  Then you can buy your own real life mammoth and pile your low level friends on it.

9. Arena rewards are too good.  I don’t know that much about Arena or PvP, but why the hell would you ever give PvPers the first frost wyrm?!  Enough said.

Brown/Green Death

I’ve been complaining about this ever since the Wrath of the Lich King beta: the gear is SO UGLY!

As I puruse the Auction House here, I am simply horrifying.  I’m sorry to all the patrons who lost their vision this morning, and to all the readers who are experiencing a burning feeling right now.  But seriously, Blizzard, what were you thinking when you made this gear?  I know you wanted to be all artic and nortic when you were creating the gear for Northrend, but did you really have to go this far?

A few examples:

First: Everything looks the same.  Take a look at the drop lists for Naxx.  Now look at every plate helm that drops.  See a pattern?  IT’S THE SAME MODEL HELM FOR EVERY PIECE OF GEAR!  Okay…maybe Blizzard was just feeling lazy and called in sick on the plate helm making day…thats okay, lets look at the mail helms, I’m sure there all differen……THEY’RE ALL THE SAME LOOKING TOO!!!….. Wow, well, maybe the make plate helms and mail helms on the same day, you know, to cut costs or something…surely the leather helms wont be the sam….ALL THE LEATHER HELMS LOOK THE SAME!

Now, I’ve heard some people say how Blizzard is working so hard and that they have actually exausted their creative staff to the point that they can’t think of anything unique….I’ve also heard the notion that it’s not the look of gear that matters but the stats.  I will now attempt to react to both of these schools of thought:

Are you really trying to tell me, that in only 3 game sets (vanilla, Burning Crusade, and WotLK), Blizzard, a huge juggernaught of a gaming company, would completely run out of ideas, having to stoop to reusing the few unique ideas they had?  Whats going to happen on the next expansion?  It probably won’t be set someplace cold and norticy, so are they just going to reuse norticy gear and call it something different?

And of course the look of gear matters: We’re not playing a text-only RPG, or a pen and paper RPG.  Since there are graphics involved in the first place, obviously visual attractiveness is part of the gaming package.  Otherwise, there would just be stat modifying items that dropped and allowed you to tweak your stats, while staying visually the same.  It would be a lot less work on the already creatively strained workers over there at Blizzard HQ.

I am very vocal about this, as you maybe can tell.  I recently replaced some crappy green shoulders with a nice pair of blue shoulders that dropped out of heroic Utguarde Keep.  They had the same exact model.  I was pissed.  And now, our guild on Burning Blade (MAN THE HARPOONS) is starting to run naxx…and even though there are no hunters, I fear that I’m going to look like every other hunter and shaman (regardless of their spec, no less) once I step out of the instance.  That is something I’m really not looking forward….perhaps I’ll keep wearing cloth, just to set me apart.

~Nick

Gear in Wrath of the Lich King

So I have one major complaint about this expansion: why does all the gear look the same, have no shinies (I like shinies!), and look like crap even at 80?!

Maybe I got too used to looking leet in my “sweet epix” in TBC, but Arco is level 80 (and wearing 3 heroic epic pieces  even!) and still looks like she just rolled out of a metal recycling plant where rust was a major issue.  Is this just a problem with mail gear?  I am starting to think so…  Every deathknight I see looks pretty sweet in plate and even my 74 mage looks more respesctable than my hunter.  Check it out:

Be honest, doesn’t Eau look twenty times better?

To be fair, Druids look pretty bad too, but that’s always been true…  Then again, people who play druids kind of did that too themselves by choosing to play something so nature-ish!  😉

Now give me my sweet hunter loot back, damnit!

New gear!

Today in ZA I was able to get Tuskbreaker aftet months and months of wanting it and never having it drop for my hunter.  I know the cross bow from badges is better, but I don’t care – I love this thing.  I also changed out some of my gear because I was over the hit cap because of some new boots I got on Hyjal a couple nights ago.

The items I changed into:

Chest – Arrowfall Chestguard – This was already in my bank, but I decided to experiment a little more with haste now that I’m using the Tuskbreaker.

Hands – Gauntlets of Rapidity – Badge reward I decided to get; I was saving the badges for the cross bow, but changed my mind.

Finger – Angelista’s Revenge – same explanation as hands.

Feet – Quickstrider Moccasins – the ones I got in Hyjal, they’re pretty sweet and have skulls on them if you look hard enough! Haha!

In related news, ZA has been massively nerfed and we have all been massively buffed.  It’s not even challenging in any way anymore.  I’ve practically demoted it to Kara-farm status in my mind.

In other related news, hunters are way OP now.  I’m not calling for a nerf, but I feel one coming.

In completely non-related news, a made a new character on the Moonguard server – a Draenei Shaman named Xunni.  I’m thinking of leveling her elemental and yes, I know, I’m a masochist.