Guess what, chicken butt? I use frost resist gear on Sindragosa, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!
But why?
Damage Reduction (Math? Ew.)
Wearing 2 pieces of frost resist gear last night, I took 1950 damage per tick of frost aura. A similarly-geared player without frost resist gear on took 2460. So that’s like a 20% reduction, eh? Something like that.
I didn’t look at other abilities. I’m incredibly lazy. I’m assuming they are frosty and would behave similarly.
Increased Health Pool
On Sindy, there were times when people were within a sliver of health. Maybe they stood in the bad. Whatever. The point is that the extra health does make a difference. Frost resist has nice stamina.
We don’t need no more stinkin spellpaur
Now that the Wrynn buff is at 30%, I have more spellpower than I know what to do with, and it translates into a lot of overheal. I can afford to lose some spellpower and still keep my healing at around the same level. For you DPS, the tradeoff isn’t as obviously beneficial.
How To Gear Frost Resist Smartly
Which Pieces?
First, you never want to replace your strongest gear pieces. I would almost never replace the chest, since likely you’d be breaking up a tier bonus and… well hell no. In my opinion, 1 pieces is nice, 2 pieces is really nice, but 3 is probably overkill. I’d go for the belt and/or boots.
Gem appropriately
Now that you have your frost resist on, take a look at the appropriate caps. Don’t just blindly gem your best stat. If I lose 50 haste on the transaction, I’d better toss in some haste gems so my timing isn’t totally thrown off. DPS, make sure your hit cap is still in the ballpark.
If you can’t keep your relevant caps with your frost resist gear on, maybe it isn’t worth it. Maybe you want to drop down to 1 piece of frost resist gear. Use your best judgment.
Also, keep an eye on your meta gem. If you lose your one blue gem in the swap, you’d better replace it with something in your frost gear… or gem a nightmare tear elsewhere in your gear. (I am guilty of forgetting this little issue.)
And remember, regardless of your gear, don’t stand in or get hit by the bad.
Definitely agree on the belt and, if needed, the boots. Both my last guild and my current guild have us wear at least the belt. Tanks use 2 pieces + Sindragosa’s Flawless Fang so they can eat Blistering Cold. Works out very nicely.
When it comes to FR, I absolutely agree that it’s worth wearing for Sin, but it’s also worth checking the numbers more exactly than just eyeballing it. The reason for this is the way that it works (now with handy chart!):
http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t44675-resistance_mechanics_wotlk/
There are certain FR ‘threshold’ numbers. Let’s say, for example, if you had Frost Resist Aura (from a pally) and Gift of the Wild from a druid, your baseline is 124. If you add one piece of gear to that, durr let’s say, the boots, that’ll bring you to 210. Versus a level 83 mob, you need just 9 more FR to get a 30% reduction. Below that, the threshold for 25% is 170, so effectively forty points of FR are “wasted” and aren’t providing a reduction. If you used the ring instead, you’d be at 192, but that depends on whether losing the ring or boots from your regular gear is better/worse, too.
For Heroic Sin, anyhow, our whole raid wears three pieces; as a moonkin I wear boots, belt, and the ring – we’re aiming for 340 resist for a 40% damage reduction. You’re right, the chest is never worth it – you just lose way too much (and for me it’s a tier slot, as well). We could be being dumb too though, since 275 is a 35% reduction (still v. good) and only takes two pieces to hit. I might suggest it at the next raid!
Sorry Zel, I couldn’t resist talking about a mechanic I actually understand! I didn’t mean to get the numbers and charts all over your blog.
Omg real maths! Â Run away!
Thanks for the heads up on that. Â I’m pretty lame when it comes to calculating caps and such, but I’ll try not to waste frost resist.