My guild has found these spells to be very beneficial. Our raid set up is a little dps heavy as we never seem to have more than six healers online, and dampen / amp helps make up the difference nicely.
We've been working through the end of the tier 4 / start of tier 5 content: we amp the whole raid on Gruul, dampen the whole raid save tanks on Magtheridon (amplify the tank after the adds are down), and we used them regularly when learning Maiden, and Curator, and Aran.
I was trying to put together an argument to convince one of our warlocks that he ought to be using CoR instead of CoD during the early growths of Gruul. While looking over our WWS report to construct said argument I noticed that the percent mitigation on melee attacks is already very low (~.2%).
During the encounter below, I believe CoR was kept on Gruul until the beginning of growth five. We finally took him down at something like growth 16. Am I missing something here (perhaps percent mitigation in the report is not indicative of the effect of the boss' armor?) or is the average percent mitigation for melee attacks already so low on Gruul that CoR isn't going to have an effect?
It is just reading a combat log, and doesn't have even remotely the set of information needed to know how much your attacks would be doing on a 0-armor target to compare the actual damage to, so the number definitely isn't that.
Has anyone actually done a statistical measurement of the AP-to-DPS and AP-to-instant conversion of bosses? There's a lot of suggestion that some bosses shouldn't have Curse of Recklessness on them due to increasing spike damage (MS from Broodlord is the biggest example), but I've never seen any actual numbers.
If it were just +135AP and it was the same 14AP->1DPS conversion as players, that would be just +15DPS and +50dmg on instants, which is a pretty tiny change, especially after mitigation. If people really are noticing a difference then it must be a significantly better conversion ratio. Does anyone have any actual figures, or perhaps a couple of combat logs with and without CoR?
You might want to search for the testings on Demoralizing Shout.
The mechanic is the same as CoR, only that it decreases the AP.
I don't know the exact results anymore and neither the thread itself, but the findings were no way near the 14 AP -> 1 DPS ratio IIRC. They seem to follow another ruleset.
While looking over our WWS report to construct said argument I noticed that the percent mitigation on melee attacks is already very low (~.2%).
WWS shows no information about melee attacks being affected by armor. Anyway, as armor reaches 0, it really a big help to melee (and threat generation), so CoR is a dps increase (assuming you have 5 phyiscal dps, which you do) over Curse of Doom (just remember to remove it around growth 8 or so).
You might want to search for the testings on Demoralizing Shout.
The mechanic is the same as CoR, only that it decreases the AP.
I don't know the exact results anymore and neither the thread itself, but the findings were no way near the 14 AP -> 1 DPS ratio IIRC. They seem to follow another ruleset.
Hadn't thought of searching for Demoralizing Shout! Found this thread:
Seems for a lot of mobs it's more like 2AP->1DPS intead of 14. I would hazard a pure guess that bosses are probably even more. CoR increasing AP by 135 would therefore increase incoming by ~68DPS and instants by ~223dmg before mitigation, which would start being noticeable. That's assuming of course that boss instants don't have some other massive multipliers.
Mobs and bosses having much higher multipliers than players can also be seen in their stamina->hp conversions if you read later posts in the thread (scorpid sting reducing stats and seeing the hp reduction). So mobs and bosses have normal stats and just higher multipliers depending on how big they are.
Another interesting thing in that thread is the reason why you can't reduce mob damage by more than 30% from attack power reduction - they simply run out of it. That's probably the neatest reason I've seen why CoW and DS don't stack. Just one is enough to reduce a mob/boss to 0 AP in many cases.
But anyway, there's some numbers to back up why CoR isn't a good idea vs any boss that deals significant "instant" melee damage.
It's been my experience that many tanks are somewhat paranoid of Amp. Magic if they're going to be taking any kind of magical damage. I tend to try and sneak it on them after the pull so they might not notice it to click it off, until I get caught and yelled at for it. The benefit of giving every healer that much extra +heal just helps so much. Tanks are cranky bastards though, and don't like to be educated sometimes. I keep it up on myself in any instance where the only damage I'm going to take is physical based.
As for Dampen... I use it on myself on any fight where I'm going to be taking a good bit of secondary damage from magic (Najentus comes to mind) as it helps offset the 3% increase in damage I'm getting from those effects thanks to a talent. Good use of Dampen Magic and Fire/Frost Ward can make mages alot less squishy than we seem to be.
I am trying to understand the mechanics as they relate to Gruul specifically. Does anyone know how much armor he has so that I'd know how much CoR is going to boost our melee DPS? Also, does CoR also boost hunter dps?
I feel we tend to be a bit short on DPS for this fight and am trying to find ways to boost things. I'd be willing to try CoR for say eight growths if it makes sense but we only have three locks so I'd like to have numbers to show that it's a worthy alternative to curse of doom or curse of agony from a pretty well geared warlock.
I am trying to understand the mechanics as they relate to Gruul specifically. Does anyone know how much armor he has so that I'd know how much CoR is going to boost our melee DPS? Also, does CoR also boost hunter dps?
I feel we tend to be a bit short on DPS for this fight and am trying to find ways to boost things. I'd be willing to try CoR for say eight growths if it makes sense but we only have three locks so I'd like to have numbers to show that it's a worthy alternative to curse of doom or curse of agony from a pretty well geared warlock.
It's hard to estimate these because the real benefit depends in large part on who is under performing. CoR will increase melee DPS by 4% to 7% on most fights, I believe. That will be awesome if your rogue and hunters are performing well and the "weak link" in DPS is your team of casters. But it's terrible if the reverse is true. The best thing to do is post the WWS parses in the WWS thread. People are generally good about noting missing curses.
It seems to stand to reason that exactly one out of Amplify or Dampen would be ideal on any person in nearly any situation.
I don't think this is true. The benefit and drawback to using one or the other is not identical -- you can easily imagine fights where the drawbacks of both buffs would outweigh the advantages of both buffs.
Am I wrong in thinking that dampen doubles my HP on fights with all magic damage.
No idea where you get your numbers, but Dampen reduces magic damage by a fixed amount, and maxes at 50% if the magic damage is low enough. It is better to get the full healing, unless your healers don't like to heal non-tanks.
Towards the question with CoR on Gruul, it depends on the number of melee/hunters, and their skill level to see if it worth it instead of Doom. My rule is if there are 5physical dps that are doing 600+dps (around 200 dps added), it is better than Doom (around 140 dps), plus tanks will have more Rage.
Not meaning to be too destructive (de-constructive?), but I had a play around with that Mitigation mod that was mentioned earlier, with some testing on random mobs. I found it to be totally unreliable - either the armour values it calculated would not stabilize, or they would stabilize at a totally unrealistic value, or they would stabilize at a plausible value, which I would then find out to be wrong testing with Hamstring.
Summary - You're probably going to get a much better feel for a mob's armour/mitigation through hamstring or pummel, or any other attack that does fixed damage (taking into account talents and buffs of course), and then reverse engineering the armour value from there.
There appears to be a cap on AP reduction to mobs. Mob damage is a function of AP plus a base dmg value. 1/5 imp Demo seems to reduce the AP portion to zero, so there are no benefits from improving it. However, if you have a warrior with 5/5 imp demo shout, you can put up CoR without adding any net AP to the mob.
Heres a thought for you, is it more beneficial to get the 1.5 second reduction on fireblast or go ahead and get improved amp/dampen magic and put just one point in there?
Heres a thought for you, is it more beneficial to get the 1.5 second reduction on fireblast or go ahead and get improved amp/dampen magic and put just one point in there?
For raids, you need only 1 point in Improved Fire Blast for a FBlast/2*FBall rotation (you have a 1.5s GCD after every blast), and having someone in the raid with improved amplify/dampen can be handy in several encounters. I guess it's also nice against magic burst in PvP.
It may sound a bit stupid, but just go with what you have right now and think after every day how much you would have benefitted from a lower cooldown, then decide.
Edit: I don't think you gain anything at all from 2/3 or 3/3 Improved Fireblast, only 1/3 does something for you:
0.0 - cast Fire Blast; 7.5s CD on FB, 1.5s GCD
1.5 - cast Fireball (just as GCD is up); 6s remaining CD on FB
4.5 - cast Fireball; 3s remaining CD on FB
7.5 - cast Fire Blast, the cooldown just came up again
With 2/3 or 3/3, the cooldown would come up with Fireball 1.0s or 0.5s before it completes. Nothing that help you, or would allow you to fit in a scorch.
Mind you that Fire Blasting is a small DPS increase at a high mana cost. As a non-arcane mage, use molten armour first to convert mana to damage.
Improved dampen/amplify is a decent boost. You (or someone in the guild) should pick it up unless it makes you loose other essential talents.
For raids, you need only 1 point in Improved Fire Blast for a FBlast/2*FBall rotation (you have a 1.5s GCD after every blast), and having someone in the raid with improved amplify/dampen can be handy in several encounters. I guess it's also nice against magic burst in PvP.
It may sound a bit stupid, but just go with what you have right now and think after every day how much you would have benefitted from a lower cooldown, then decide.
I keep looking at it, and yeah I lose out on about 8k damage on a 10 minute fight (this is stating I cast it everytime its up, which does NOT happen due to being in the middle of a cast), so in reality its definately less than 8k in loss. During that time however the tanks are getting significantly more heals. Id rather the tanks stay up then me get an extra % or so damage. None of the other mages left points for it and I really feel every raid deserves one mage to have it.
As for Dampen... I use it on myself on any fight where I'm going to be taking a good bit of secondary damage from magic (Najentus comes to mind) as it helps offset the 3% increase in damage I'm getting from those effects thanks to a talent.
Well, first time I visited Najentus last time I obviously thought of Dampen Magic to mitigate the Tidal Burst frost damage but sadly, and to my surprise, it doesn't help any as my combat log reported the same 8.500 dmg taken with or without it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems only frost ward (and mana shield) helps there.
I am trying to explain the ROI(return on investment) to our raid squad in relation to Dampen Magic on VashJackson...the best way i have come up with is that with the raid receiving less damage all the time on the lightning and poison bolt damage, which gives the healers the opportunity to be more efficient healing the raid.
The payoff off for Dampen magic is that you receive less damage every magical attack, the healing penalty is paid only when you get a heal...which means that you should only be paying a penalty equal to or less than the initial gain of less damage taken over several magical attacks.
The additional gain is that healers will have more time to decide when and how to heal the 5 or so peeps getting hit for 2-3k lightning damage.
In my opinion, there should be an opportunity for Amplify Magic or Dampen Magic in 90%+ boss fights. They are definitely under utilized!!! And they are there for something......also the mana cost would lend to thinking they are worth more than players think.
I saw someone say that they would use Amp magic on almost all fights, I am wondering if p3 RoS would be one of those fights. Would the scream do more than the usual 8640 damage? I am thinking it would be considered magical damage, and make it a bad idea in my mind, but has anyone played around with this to be able to let me know if this would be a bad idea or not?
I was against using Recklessness for some of the harder hitting bosses for awhile.... yet we tried it on Archimonde just recently and the difference in damage was so negligible since he hits so hard already. As long as it doesn't make the difference between him taking 3 hits to kill me and 4 hits to kill me, I'd use it.
Still wouldn't dare consider using it vs Az'galor though for obvious reasons. Haven't really bothered with it in Illidan either since our phases time up really well.
I have to admit I always forget to use amp magic, except on fights where we amp the whole raid, like gurtogg. Seeing this thread made me realize I should pay more attention to keeping it up on the tanks
I dont think using dampen on bosses like aran, najen'tus or vashj is a good idea. Dampen is only worth it when the damage ticks are less then 50% of the average heal you get (including hots). For najen'tus or Vashj that means the average heal has to be bigger then 5 k (toxic spore, forked lightning and needle spine all hit around 2.5 k) and for aran even bigger.
Ofcourse dampen can save you from getting instagibbed on najen'tus or aran, but it is also very possible you get to low hp, get a few small heals which are reduced by dampen and then get killed by a second spike, which you would have survived without dampen
07/26/07, 6:02 AM
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