So blizzard on arctic gale does almost twice the damage of frost bolt if all 8 ticks land, at same cast time or instant during frozen orb. It also reduces cooldown on frozen orb providing great synergy for ToS set bonuses.
I’ve target dummied both with and without blizzard extensively, and always come ahead using blizzard, at least by a little. Every simulation I’ve seen with blizzard reports a dps loss.
Simulations do the testing that we cannot do ourselves! For something that is close like this, you would have to test on a dummy for hours and hours, days probably.
You miss the opportunity for a brain freeze proc also, which is a non negligible opportunity cost.
Hey vized,
As Swol said, if you only cast Blizzard you miss out on BF and IL procs. I did some simulation testing to test your theory here are my results.
Casting Blizzard on CD without FO up - Not Available
Casting Blizzard only when FO is up - Not Available
Not casting Blizzard ST - Not Available
That is nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, heh, but still sub-optimal to be casting those blizzards.