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Brew Disciple
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| | Bored at lunch! So that means random posting of theory or whatever else. Today: the silly arcane-frostfire bolt speec http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0Vfk0hzxGuMxedfVZbI Basically do the arcane barrage - frostfire bolt rotation Goods: (1) nom nom nom crit damage bonus on frostfire bolt - arcane mages have the same crit bonus to all spells from talents that fire mages get to just fire. (2) no mana-penalty for critting with frostfire bolt compared to deep fire frostfire (3) fully buffed up arcane blast is available as a mana dump (4) basically keep all the relevant regeneration talents from arcane - depending on gear can move points out of arcane mind into student of the mind depending what nets you better overall regeneration (5) insane arcane powered 90%+ crit to a pom frostfire bolt (6) more mana-efficient than using a talented fireball! (compare 16% to 21% of base mana) Bads: (1) no pushback at all on frostfire bolt - weak (2) no threat reduction on frostfire bolt = dangeresque (3) no pushback for missile barrage (4) really wish there were 2 more points so you could squeeze in maxxed out spirit-based regeneration Questions remaining!: (1) is it better to just spam frostfire bolt and completely forget about arcane barrage? - ie: picking up pyroblast and dropping arcane barrage (2) how does missile barrage stack up against 50%+ crit rate and insane 315% base damage criticals? (3) is fire going to come out better if fire can use molten armor + master of elements with all of the raid regen being based on total mana? Glyphs: frostfire bolt (2% more front end dmg, 2% more crit), Arcane power (3s more arcane power 'up' time), mage armor (20% more regen for 80% total) Eh, who knows - it's an interesting alternative to the cheese deep fire frostfire builds out there.
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Parissa - 80 Mage
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Brew Disciple
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Last Login: Today @ 9:07:00 AM
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| | here is the "typical" frostfire buildhttp://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVzbRhIuVubhstbIccoc Basically the arcane build can match everything with a few exceptions Fire: Firepower (10% dmg), Hot Steak (pyro-slinging), Combustion, Improved fireball (+115% spell damage instead of 100%), suffers from ignite munching bug. Arcane: 15% of int = spell damage, arcane blast mana dump, OP missile barrage, arcane barrage, PoM So then really it boils down to comparing the lists and how well you're able to stack cooldowns around arcane power (do you use seeds, what activating trinkets are there in wotlk, what 'proc' trinkets are around and on what internal cooldown)
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Parissa - 80 Mage
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Brew Disciple
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 9:59:41 PM
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| Shadowflame -- We ultimately decided to keep the cone and the dot component, but just the damage. We compared Shadowflame's damage to Cone of Cold, but the latter benefits from a pretty sweet talent and is arguably a little weak-feeling without the talent. Shadowflame has no equivalent talent, so we buffed its damage by about 75%
So lets make sure warlocks have every ability mages have, and then make sure they do as much/more damage. And hey, this doesnt have a talent, so lets make it better than the mage spell because you cant use talent points on it. Oh whats that, almost no mages get imp CoC, and there's almost always better things to use your talent points on? Well I guess we just gave warlocks a superior spell lol. Dang, wonder how that keeps happening.
yarr |
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Brew Disciple
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| | I'm a bit disappointed in the justification for that "buff." Isn't comparing X to Y what blizzard speaks about when saying "we don't compared classes to each other"? Inc waterfall of mage angst. ;p i also agree, blizzard developers have a very strange conception of what a "good" talent might be...
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Parissa - 80 Mage
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Pilsner Prophet
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| Mathron (10/8/2008)
i also agree, blizzard developers have a very strange conception of what a "good" talent might be...
Well, there's a gotta be some way to differentiate between good players and not good players...
Besides gear choice, of course.
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UV - 80 Night Elf Priest
Entling - 70 Night Elf Druid
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Brew Disciple
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Last Login: Today @ 9:07:00 AM
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| | General rules of thumb for arcane mages and haste As for basic breakdown of arcane (3.0s spells could be, for example, untalented frostbolt, talented fireball, frostfire bolt) up to 50% haste: arcane barrage + 3.0s spell - weave in Missile barrage arcane missles + fireblast for 3.0s spell over 50%: use arcane barrage + 3.0s spell + arcane blast - weave in missile barrage for 3.0s spell or arcane blast, if for fireball use above two spells over some other silly high haste percentage: arcane barrage + 3.0s spell x2 under 33% total haste mana-efficiency: arcane barrage + arcane blast - weave in arcane missiles for arcane blast Mana conservation notes: Arcane is going to require a ton of shifting rotations depending on several things 1) long fights will mandate use of the mana-efficiency rotation, with two heroisms and only 6 minutes of mana-gem time life isn't so good. the mana-conservation rotation is sustainable without mana-gems, the max dps one is not 2) don't ever....ever...ever get screwed out of being able to fully evocate - it will totally bone you. 3) Will druids actually be willing to innervate a mage? Yeah, laugh all you want, but innervating Mathron with current gear and level 70 3.0 spec nets in excess of 7200 mana, that's only 500 mana less than evocation without the 2 piece T6 bonus and better still I don't have to spend 10 seconds doing nothing. Also, use of innervate is a massive dps boost in longer fights - a 51-10 mage will be able to increase dps by 10-15% over the efficient rotation with use of an innervation and destro pot over....arcane damage + using a mana potion. Boring statements of fact AoE is completely and totally unsustainable for any decent amount of time unless there are changes. Warlocks, enjoy being top damage in Hyjal or other AE heavy encounters because a mage can only spam arcane explosion for about 90s assuming all of the mana regeneration I spoke of earlier. Mage professions in WOTLK: almost certainly will be herbalism and jewelcrafting. Period. Being able to swap out a 32 damage gem or 27 haste gem in place of some purple 12dmg/15sta gem is huge. Not to mention you can pick up socket bonuses that other mages won't be able to get. Fire seeds are crazy OP and unless there is a ton of damage going around or it's a resistance-based encounter they're so amazingly good it's not funny. Especially for arcane mages being able to stack arcane power with a fire seed all the time. All of the max-min stuff going around in a little bit scary. If everyone takes all that too seriously, then you're going to force damage-classes into a situation like this: "hey, you need to get scorch/demondamagebonusthing/surivivalybuff" and the rest of you go play this spec - while hybrids actually have 3-4 distinct specs with different roles in a raid. It bothers me a bit because - I don't really want to be forced into fire to play pve because it's that much better than frost/arcane. At least now if you're frost you can go "HEY, I have replenishment" and bring the same raid-wide buff. Arcane brings a distinct and strange ability as well (though at 80 everyone can get it and probably will be forced to get it unless you're frostfirebolt spec) - but it only affects 2 people - ack. So what happens if the fire/frost mage dies? Everyone yells at the arcane mage for not giving everyone 10% crit - so I am pretty concerned about that. Then again, if Beth & Wade live then this isn't something to care about.
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Parissa - 80 Mage
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Brew Disciple
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| Mage "Armors" discussion
1)Definitely not a "keep this on and don't think about it"
2) Swapping armors mid-fight is good? What?
3) think for a second: it's a good idea -mage gets loaded up with full manahits molten fury/arcane power and is ready to dump some mana to be oom right when the boss dies.
So basically just need to figure out the following: what % extra damage is a critical strike? Deep Fire/Arc-Fire is sitting at 245%, Arcane 175%, Frost 200%. So then you're adding 1.45x spell's damage per crit, .75x spell's damage per crit, and 1 spell's damage per crit. Then see what your universal cooldown is - let's say you're baller and have 33% haste. 1.5/1.33 = 1.278. So then plus in some numbers and there is a point where you're better off mana-dumping with molten armor as compared to using mage armor!
Unfortunately, everyone's chosen to bitch and moan about how mage armor is so required and they'll "have to waste a glyph slot" on imp mage armor. I beg to differ - think for a moment and realize that fights are dynamic and "dps spreadsheets" are just monkey smashing a keyboard for a certain amount of time. Oh whatever, modeling molten fury is just some simple arithmatic to figure out the overall average dps increase from 12% more damage for 35% of the time.
That's why you've yet to see a good arcane mage model/spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can't take things like phase changes into account or being able to modify rotations or spell selection in a fight depending on your circumstances.
Yet - people QQ like crazy when they see huge enormous fire mage damage or warlock damage numbers and automatically think they're either sustainable or realistic. Example: like a player can really stay under 20% health as an affliction lock - like a fire mage will actually be able to use a living bomb rotation with molten armor for an entire fight. I mean, come on, if mana wasn't a problem for mages, sure fire does a lot if you can use fireball and not scorch as a main nuke. Then again, I'd like to see someone beat an arcane mage in a 18 second dps race. Everything is situational.
These changes are great - everyone will be able to quickly identify the monkey slappers. Other problems are players not accepting change to their beloved playstyle.
/begin rant
Arcane mages are so hooked on spamming Arcane Blast and playing with the debuff they miss the fact that in a 51-10 build using the proper rotation is ACTUALLY MORE DAMAGE than arcane blast spam. Nah, arcane blast got nerfed!! revolt!
Fire mage are flipping out - they should be able to use their best dps rotation for an entire fight. It's so totally not fair that I have to actually account for....a mana pool!
Frost mages are annoyed, but mostly pvp complaining about their 51 point talent. Oh, and dude, an insta cast zero mana fireball?? QQQQQ I want it to be a frost spell? Um...this one time I looked at the fire tree and saw some cool talent called ignite and you can put some points there at level 70 even when you take all the good raid frost talents?
/end rant
Love it.
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Parissa - 80 Mage
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Pilsner Prophet
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Last Login: Today @ 5:59:00 AM
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| Mathron (10/8/2008)
Other problems are players not accepting change to their beloved playstyle.hey!...i resemble that remark! 
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