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Frostfire and Fireball Spell Choice and Rotation
Effective Spell Arsenal
Frostfire Bolt or Fireball, Scorch, Living Bomb, Pyroblast and Fire Blast. Fireball or Frostfire Bolt are your primary nukes, depending on spec. Scorch is critical for applying the fire vulnerability debuff, but much lower dps than fireball or frostfire bolt. Fire Blast is an inefficient use of mana, but is an instant attack, giving it special use at certain times and while moving. Living Bomb is a powerful dot that should be re-applied after every time it explodes, and should additionally be kept up on all mobs that need to be killed. Pyroblast is for use on Hot Streak procs only.
Casting Method
Basic casting method is to maintain the Scorch debuff if needed, react to all Hot Streak procs and reapply Living Bomb after each time it explodes. Do not ever overwrite Living Bomb as this is a major loss of damage due to its backloaded explosion.
It can be a good idea to get a DoT timer to track Living Bomb and a mod that will alert you to Hot Streak procs. Missing either one of these opportunities is a significant loss in dps.
In general, timers should be popped immediately as long as agro isn't a concern, and used again immediately whenever the cooldown is up. The effect of stacking timers with mismatched cooldowns is negligible, however stacking a significant number of powerful timers can have a great effect, and be worth saving your cooldown. Bloodlust/Heroism should be saved for the end of the fight so that it can stack against Molten Fury. It's advantageous to save other timers such as Combustion, trinkets and Icy Veins to stack against this powerful combo, but don't save them for so long that you miss an entire cooldown cycle. When in doubt, burn everything immediately.
Frostfire build is not much different from Fireball build other than using Frostfire Bolt in place of Fireball.
Frost Spell Choice and Rotation
Effective Spell Arsenal
Frostbolt, Fire Blast, Ice Lance, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt. Frostbolt is the primary nuke, providing the best dps all around. Fire Blast is a mana inefficient nuke, but is useful as an instant attack. Ice Lance is useless damage against anything that's not frozen, but will refresh the winter's chill debuff if it hits.
Casting Method
Frostbolt. Know it, love it. Cast fire blast during movement, but otherwise frostbolt constantly for best dps. Frostbolt will apply the winter's chill stack on its own, and maintain it, but keeping it up for an entire fight can be difficult due to its 15 second duration. An ice lance hit will immediately refresh the stack, and can be useful while moving or otherwise unable to deliver a full frostbolt. Do not use ice lance to put up the initial stack of winter's chill, the massive difference in damage makes it unwise to ever use ice lance when a frostbolt could be used in its place.
It can be a good idea to get a mod that will alert you to Brain Freeze procs. It is always a good idea to use your free Fireball.
Fingers of Frost is still being studied, however there is currently a small timing oddity that allows you to get 3 spells from the 2 charge buff. Using a frostbolt->ice lance combo for the second charge will cause both spells to gain the frozen status from the buff. This is a very, very slight dps increase. If your latency does not allow you to reliably use the combo, don't even try.
Timing the water elemental is crucial to maintaining good dps. As frost, the water elemental should account for upwards of 10-15% of your overall damage, possibly more. However, the water elemental has extremely low health. If possible, time water elemental summons to maximize the chance that it will stay alive for its full duration. Remember that water elemental bolts benefit from winter's chill, so it's a good idea to wait until winter's chill is applied before the first summon. Stacking timers against the water elemental is overall not important, with the major exception of bloodlust. Summon a water elemental right before Bloodlust is activated, it will not get the effect unless the pet is active while the spell is cast. Be sure to use cold snap to summon an extra water elemental at some point during the fight.
Arcane Spell Choice and Rotation
Effective Spell Arsenal
Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage. Arcane Blast is the highest dps spell in the game when ramped fully, but has terrible mana efficiency. Conversely the first (and only the first) cast of Arcane Blast has the best mana efficiency of any spell. Each stack of the Arcane Blast debuff will greatly increase the damage of your next arcane spell as well. Arcane Missiles is a weak primary nuke with a high rate of fire, however due to its long channel time and incredibly high damage per cast it is extremely powerful when comboed with Arcane Blast correctly. Arcane Barrage is a high damage instant attack, but has a 3 second cooldown.
Casting Method
Arcane has a few viable cycles depending on the situation and available mana. The primary arcane rotation is [Arcane Blast]x4 [Arcane Missiles]. It is also possible to continue spamming Arcane Blast beyond the 4-stack until a Missile Barrage proc is ensured, increasing dps slightly, but this can be extremely hard on mana. The goal of Arcane damage rotations is to cast as may 4-stacked Missile Barrage'd Arcane Missiles as possible; when fully ramped during a Missile Barrage proc, Arcane Missiles can hit for over 16,000 dps. Being aware of your cycles can be extremely valuable for burst phases. It is more valuable to use a high mana rotation and Evocate than it is to use a mana efficient rotation, but only if dps continues for another two minutes after Evocate is used.
Arcane Barrage should be used for movement, and only when your Arcane Blast stack is at 1 or less, or about to drop. For short movement, it is more beneficial to save your Arcane Blast stack for a Missile Barrage than to reset it on an Arcane Barrage.
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