Classic Shaman Naxxramas: Sapphiron Frost Resistance Guide
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Special thanks to NiJannon for his input in making this guide.
All the possible slots to equip Glacial crafted gear are Glacial Cloak, Glacial Vest, Glacial Wrist and Glacial Gloves. There is a further quest reward for Glacial Leggings from the quest, The Only Song I Know..., and two Naxx drops for Glacial Headdress and Glacial Mantle pieces. These pieces rated in priority based on cost benefit value are:
Tier 1: Glacial Leggings
Tier 2: Glacial Mantle, Glacial Gloves and Glacial Vest
Tier 3: All other piecesThere are three possible consumables that will benefit your Frost Resist. They are: Greater Frost Protection Potion, Juju Chill and Flask of Chromatic Resistance. There is also the world buff from Darkmoon Faire, Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Resistance, and the Shaman Fire Totem, Frost Resistance Totem. For Week 1 Naxx progression the ideal FrR setup is as follows:
Week 1 Sapphiron FrR
SLOT Item FrR Head Helmet of Ten Storms +10 FrR Back Enchant Cloak - Greater Resistance +5 FrR Shield Enchant Shield - Frost Resistance +8 FrR Trinket 2 Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6 +10 FrR Consumable Greater Frost Protection Potion 1,950 - 3,250 Frost Damage Absorption Consumable Juju Chill +15 FrR World Buff Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Resistance +25 FrR Totem Frost Resistance Totem +60 FrR TOTAL 31.7% - 38.9% (factoring GFPP) 133 - 163.4 FrR (factoring GFPP) If you are an Engineer you may substitute Gyrofreeze Ice Reflector for Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6 gaining an additional +5 FrR. This will give you 48-53 FrR from your gear and a Juju, and up to 133 FrR with DMF buff and FrR Totem. That comes out to 31.7% FrR from Resist. If you have Elemental Warding that will up that figure to 41.7% - 48.9% FrR overall. The equation for Resistance is as follows:
Number of Resist / 420 = % Resistance (Ele Warding applies another 10% after resist is calculated)
To find out how much FrR Ele Warding is equivalent to, simply:
0.1 * (420 - Number or Resist) = Ele Warding Resist Value
If you have Shard of the Scale and are expecting an encounter 3 minutes or longer you may elect not to use a FrR trinket. I would not recommend using an On-Use trinket during progression on this encounter.
One Greater Frost Protection Potion averages to 2,600 Frost Damage mitigation every two minutes, or 21.7 damage reduction per second. Converted into a raw resistance value in relation to Sapphiron's Frost Aura at 300 DTPS, a GFPP's FrR value would be 30.4 on average over the course of two minutes.
(2,600 / 120) = 21.7 || (21.7 / 300) * 420 = 30.4 FrR
Obviously this does not take into consideration the front loaded nature of the consumable but gives a rough overall value in terms of resistance for this item. This figure is useful for considering what FrR items you can replace Greater Frost Protection Potion with on farm content if your goal is to cut down on gold epxense. The Week 1 FrR requirement is also the highest performance set up; so if you aren't looking to save gold on consumables, this will be your week to week loadout for Sapphiron.
What piece of Glacial gear you want to use on farm will depend on the gear available to you. Here are some good rules to consider when selecting Glacial pieces.
- If you have Helmet of Ten Storms rotate it into your gear set to maintain T2 3pc
- If you have Empowered Leggings then use Glacial Mantle
- If you do not have Empowered Leggings then use Glacial Leggings
- You can run T2 Helm, Bracers and Boots to pick up Glacial Gloves
- If you do not have Robes of the Guardian Saint then use Glacial Vest
Once on farm you only need one piece of Glacial gear to replace the use of Greater Frost Protection Potion. What piece you select will depend on what I outlined above. It is inadvisable to use more than two pieces of Glacial or to stray from the four ideal pieces of Glacial gear outlined above in Tier 1 and Tier 2. All of the pieces listed are extremely competitive with each other when considering their trade offs and complete gearset when equipped; however, the Glacial Leggings should be the easiest to obtain and they gain additional benefit from applying the Ice Guard FrR leg and head enchant quest reward from The Ice Guard.
For Naxx farm the likely FrR setup you will run is as follows:
Sapphiron Farm FrR
SLOT Item FrR Head Helmet of Ten Storms +10 FrR Head Enchant Ice Guard +10 FrR Back Enchant Cloak - Greater Resistance +5 FrR Legs Glacial Leggings +40 FrR Leg Enchant Ice Guard +10 FrR Shield Enchant Shield - Frost Resistance +8 FrR Trinket 2 Frostwolf Insignia Rank 6 +10 FrR World Buff Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Resistance +25 FrR Totem Frost Resistance Totem +60 FrR TOTAL 36.4% - 42.4% (with DMF Buff) 153 - 178 FrR (with DMF Buff) In this setup, if you don't want to bother with DMF buff, you can swap Sayge’s Dark Fortune of Resistance out in exchange for Glacial Mantle enchanted with Chromatic Mantle of the Dawn which should be the absolute extent of FrR trades you make for normal gear. If you make that trade you would not use a FrR trinket and will have 181 FrR for a total of 43.1% Frost Resist. Obviously as before, stacking Elemental Warding will increase any of the above values by a flat 10%. To figure out how much FrR that would be worth you can follow the simple formula outlined above.
Once you get Eye of the Dead I would not advise using a FrR trinket.
Although it was not mentioned in either of these two FrR setups, Flask of Chromatic Resistance is always an option; however, mana will be important on this encounter. It is recommended you use Flask of Distilled Wisdom as well as Major Mana Potions off CD. This will likely mean, unless your active time is very low, that you will not be able to chain Greater Frost Protection Potions beyond your initial pre-pot. Keep this in mind when approaching the encounter.