Looking for Mage tips for Hodir Hard Mode

This seems like one of the harder hard modes to do, especially compared to deconstructor, which we one shot our first try, that was a joke.



Unfortunately for me, the weapons in the game I crave the most are the staves that drop off both 10 and 25 man hodir hard mode in ulduar.


Staff of endless winter is better overall across all mage specs, but for arcane, which is what I usually raid as, the haste on the icecore staff is actually the better itemization choice, so even though the item level and spellpower is a TINY bit lower, it is still VERY close in terms of its dps increase to the staff of endless winter.

I REALLY want the icecore staff, and to do that, Hodir MUST die in under 3 minutes.



So I come to you mages, to tap your collective knowledge about being more efficient at the fight.


I am sure frostfire is one of the better specs for this fight, went as arcane and went oom to often trying to dps heavy.  But then there is the issue of threat management, and worrying about the tank, and what about raid comps that would gel best with one mage.


I need more tricks.

What/who is the best person to keep the toasty fire debuff up on the boss once stacks are high?

moonbeams are self explanatory, but the crit buffs are harder for me to spot in the chaos, and in that chaos looking for it I lose dps time, that is my biggest issue, losing dps time due to trying to get the right buffs and not going overboard on aggro, it's a mess.


I am NOT a clueless mage or bad at dps, but multiple targets and massive aggro concerns and buff syncs slow my dps down a great deal, I need more practice I know, but for those that have taken this guy down, how did you improve?

I think it would be a great boon if raid icons did not reset, but anyway, need help.