Gumibear

Look at the spreadsheets from the class mechanics forums. Leulier's spreadsheet can show you what adding a Shadow Priest to a group of Warlocks can do to their life tap frequency. A 1500 DPS shadow priest can reduce my need to life tap to 40% of what it would be without the benefits of VT.

 

Starfire

Well. I hope your raid is bringing an iDS priest. And after kings, that 54 spirit is really worth +6 damage/healing.

Still, I am going to assume there are some "idle" times in fights for mages, no? Like say Vashj, transition from phase 1 to phase 2, that's a good time for OFSR spirit regen, no?

May I ask a question? Assuming your were wearing these new pieces, and had iDS/MotW/Kings and you were human, how much spirit would a mage have?

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

Yes I agree the current PTR implementation is broken and doesn't properly address the problem. However you sort of missed the point I was making. Yes, it returned 1 mana for 1 health. However, before BC one mana cost less item value than one health. One mana was 1/15 of an item point, while one health was 1/10 of an item point. So you traded in 1/10 of an item point for a return of 1/15! The cost was higher than the reward, but still worth it when running out of mana.

Come to BC, and the item value for Stamina was changed. On BC items, one health is 1/20 of an item point, while mana remains 1/15! Suddenly, Life Tap is giving you 1/15 of an item point for every 1/20 you spend. This completely reverses the original relationship and design intention of the ability.

Which I guess does suggest an obvious solution. Rather than having the health cost of Life Tap be equal to the mana returned, it needs to equal a multiplier of mana returned. It seems like "2" is the obvious choice, but I'm not sure that actually works out and may be too harsh in any case.

 

Bibdy

If they do plan to change the amount of mana return, they had better keep in mind and do something for Destruction in PVP and quick. Right now I drop 1500 health for 1800 mana. Next patch, or with a 2:1 multiplier, I'll be dropping 2k health for 1k mana in the most mana inefficient spec in the entire game. The amount of lifetapping a Destruction Warlock needs to do compared to Affliction and Demonology in PVP, whether alone or in a group is nothing short of criminal.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

orcsgotbooty

As long as one spec of a class is viable in arena it doesn't seem that blizz cares all that much. ex - Warriors-Arms and Druids -resto

 

• Playered

Resto Druids have no possible option to make agility useful, we do not have a talent or spell which has the option to convert it without being a Hybrid spec, previously you had Evocation(made into a base ability than requiring Arcane tree) / Meditation and then you got Mage armor instead of Evocation in the end which got spirit scaling removed.

No matter how much you dislike spirit there is a function available to ANY mage spec to utilize it - the problem is that it's not good enough rather than it does not exist.
The issue is slightly compounded after changing Evocation away from spirit and not reverting it with the regeneration buff because you would only need to channel 2 ticks to get a pretty decent chunk of mana from it in 2.4 (1500% regeneration before ja? a single tick could restore over half your mana pool with that in 2.4).

T6 Mage in 2.4 (Raid Buffed - 650 Int / 400 Spi generalization) gets 140~MP5 from Mage Armor FYI, roughly half of a SP regeneration.


You have Gems, Evocation and Mage Armor all available to you at all times but you also have flat instant DPS enhancing options available instead which you choose to do (Flamecaps, Not Evocating, Molten Armor), you have choice which obviously is too much for you to handle in your obsession.

I will point out Hunters who share your ability type of Aspects vs Armors; Aspect of the Hawk can be compared to Molten Armor as both provide a set DPS gain, there is even has a talented version which makes it even better than the base spell which I believe both SV and BM will spec into for raiding.
Hunters have 1 choice to regenerate mana where you have 3, and yet I see them using their sole option (Viper) far more often than I see a Mage using theirs (Mage Armor) and not crying about it nearly as much as Mages do.
Im not comparing how much mana is consumed and how much is regenerated from each, no doubt Mages score higher on both consumption and regeneration from Aspect/Armor (in 2.4) and im sure someone can give out specifics of Viper.


The question is really how much crying will Mages be able to do untill there are no more tears left?
What will it take to make the mana issue acceptable? remove Evocation, Gems, and Mage Armor? eliminate spirit from gear? and give your spells 0 mana cost?
Being constructive about how to change the options to be more viable is a better responce than saying you have no options because that is flat out bawling for the sake of it, "woe always mages" - we get it.

Shadow Priests are perhaps the only class which require mana to DPS which can end up on a sustained cycle, but both Hunters and Locs have the same concerns as you just different ways about fixing it - neither of which they will say is optimal.
Note upon this that SP also have the lowest DPS (sans Afflic Locs...) of the other 3 classes to compensate for their regeneration mechanic.


Im going to ask however; how much MP5 will Mage Armor need to give to equal Molten Armor (Yes I know right now it gives you around 10MP5? from the 3% crit on MoE) in terms of benefit? ignore having a SP or Shaman in this.



nb: sorry for the seeming rant, it.s just annoying to see something stated as completly without function when it does exist.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

Hmm, I've done some math and 2 was the wrong multiplier for sure! Also you're misunderstanding my suggestion; under my suggestion mana returns would be unchanged from what they are on live, but the health cost would be higher to match the old item value relationship.

What remains to be worked out is the correct multiplier. Two is far too high. I guess 1.5 is actually the correct multiplier. 0.1 / 0.06666667 = 1.5. (That's the old 1/10 of a Stamina = 1/15 of an Intellect formula from before BC). If you were to gain 1500 mana at the cost of 2250 health, 2250/1500 = 1.5.

So, under my suggestion, you would not spend 2k health for 1k mana, you'd spend 2.25k health for 1.8k mana (with your talent).

 

Bibdy

Actually your suggestion is infinitely smarter because the amount of mana gained is directly related to the amount of health lost and not this nonsense change of insanity where neither are linked in any way whatsoever that they put on the PTR.

Simple truth is, if they're going to take more health away from me for a life tap, I DEMAND to get more mana back for it.

I can deal with a nerf to bring it into balance, but I'm not going to sit here and accept a change where they're suddenly going to make my most important stat detrimental to my efficiency in PVE and survivability in PVP and PVE and suddenly make a stat which is non-existant on PVP gear and much lower than the other on PVE gear become one of my most important.

I mean, what would it do to Warriors if stacking Strength or Attack Power suddenly lowered the amount they get healed by and Spirit brought it back up? That'd fuck things up pretty good.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

• Snowy

That unlimited mana that they have comes at a hefty cost. A destro lock that has to constantly life tap is losing a significant part of their DPS. It's funny that mages will talk about how they need a shadowpriest because they can't afford to use evocate or mana gems or mage armor and that logic is accepted as perfectly good, yet when warlocks turn around and claim the same thing in essence, they're told to shut up and lifetap more in essence. Not necessarily aiming this at you, but just the attitude in general toward warlocks and mana. When you have a class that can put out 2.2k+ DPS, the last thing you want them to be doing is NOT casting their primary nuke.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Bibdy

Thinking about what they're trying to achieve from this, I can conclude that it can't even remotely be trying to reduce the damage of 0/21/40.

If they wanted to do that they could just change the Imp and Succubus buffs from Demonic Sacrifice. It really would be that simple, since 0/21/40 is the only spec that even uses it.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

◊ Cathela

Unless I'm missing some subtlety of the math, I think you've got this wrong. In BC, one point of stamina costs 2/3 of an item point, so one point of health is worth 1/15 item point.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Rouncer

Maybe they are trying to focus on the scaling of how spell damage is currently affecting a stat that doesn't scale to the same degree, mana, and they don't want to have to revisit the issue in WoLK when people have twice as much spell damage?

The other side is this allows them to rebalance the itemization values for stats for warlocks at the same time and give them more of a reason to want to have more intellect on their gear.

 

◊ Kyth

Snowy nails it with a far politer post than I was writing.

Exactly.

Your mages lose 3% crit but won't put on mage armor for some extra regen and complain about the 8 seconds of evocate and how it destroys their dps to sit with their thumbs up their asses (quote from a mage on another board last night.)

Your warlocks are lifetapping every 10-13 seconds, losing 1.5 seconds each time with zero dps in there. That's far more than what a mage loses, but raidleaders all over WoW just say "oh, you can lifetap, you're fine."


On a five minute fight (and i don't know that a mage even uses evocate on one, but if they do it's only 8 seconds), a warlock loses *34.5* seconds to lifetap. That's well over half a minute where they're sitting there doing zero dps, doing absolutely nothing but actively regaining mana.

That's basically a 15% tax on our damage and scaling -- one you can minigate (but not fully remove) if you are smart about raid groups, but which most raid leaders don't do because they pretend lifetap takes no time to cast. Your mages on most fights are just using the spriest to avoid pots, and maybe an evoc -- your warlocks, if they're good, are already slamming mana pots on every cd and will continue to do so even in the spriest group.

With an 8k mana pool, your warlocks run OOM in 47.5 seconds. After that point it's lifetap once per every ~5 nukes. (every 3 after this change.)



As to all the posts here and on the wow forums about how awesome it is to force warlocks to stack int....: you *can't* stack int. It's not like stamina where you can pvp or pick up the odd item on raids. There isn't gear to "stack" int. And even if you could (via gems), the return per point is terrible.

And even if it wasn't, warlocks cannot "go with less stamina". Even at only 15% per lifetap, I still need enough HP to survive 1-2 lifetaps plus an AE right after that, something mages never have to deal with (they just need enough HP for the AE's.) Yes *technically* it gets healed up, but let me tell you, it's amazing how the mobs on Council can time their AE's on me for right after lifetap. Or how dicey it is in a high-damage situation like Kalecgos to realize you need to tap and just hope that the healers have enough gcd's to throw one your way (the issue isn't usually the mana, it's the gcd. We're not clumped up like the melee on every fight so chain heal is less effective.)


You're better off just sucking up the dps loss and lifetapping once every 8 seconds.

Officer of <Fusion>
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Stapler

I think the issue for sensible mages is that we have no need to use mage armor in 90% of encounters because we can sustain our dps without mana issues whilst using molten armor, so long as we have a shadow priest. The spirit on our gear is therefore useless for the vast majority of fights assuming sensible raid setups - it is akin to moonkin having AP on their tier sets so they can melee back mana faster. A lot of the complaints about bad itemisation also stem from mistrust around the very puzzling decision to put spell penetration on the tier 6 shoulders; it kinda makes you question how much thought is put into it.

By no means do I expect spirit to be rerouted into spell damage/crit/haste, as I assume that the devs are reasonably happy with mage damage being what it is, even if the more teary members of my class disagree. It would be nice if some of it could be reallocated into some stamina however, as having extremely low health combined with taking 3% more damage from spells (which make up 99% of incoming raid damage on boss encounters) makes me a burden on my healers.

 

Spoonman

You also realise that warlocks need 38 more hit than mages to be hit-capped, right? So that's 38 damage that you gain..

 

Taima

This is an interesting choice of words. Surely a demand requires a point of leverage. Are you saying that you'll cancel your subscription if 2.4 goes live with this lifetap change? That seems to be the only ultimatum that we, as players, can offer to Blizzard.

 

rochan

With the new change it's likely giving warlocks a shadow priest will produce higher raid dps than giving one to mages. So for a smart raid group, this is actually going to be a nerf for mages (and possibly hunters). Having to lifetap every 10s without a shadowpriest vs every 30s with one is just a dramatic difference. Mages will have to use Mage Armor/Evocation.

 

UnholY_Prince

I think the biggest thing people fail to realize with Mage itemization is that Blizzard does not create items with a specific group makeup in mind. The Spirit on Mage gear is supposed to make up for the fact that not every Mage is going to have a Shadow Priest, it's to be self-sustainable in all those raid situations where you might have to be accountable for your own mana. Maybe it is naive on their part to assume that in raid situations, nowaday Mage's will not have a Shadow Priest, but I can understand the fact that they tune the gear to overcome Mage's natural mana problems in some way. Whether the community embraces it or not(due to them finding a much better bandage, Shadow Priests) is a different story.

 

• Playered

Blizzard cannot itemize gear on the "but I will have <x>, <y> and <z> classes to make up for <A>, <B> and <C> in my group" mentality, just think about it?

Should you be unable to spell hit cap because you'll have an Elemental Shaman anyway giving you 3% hit?
Should they ignore hit rating on Hunter items because they can just pick up rings/necks/cloaks/trinkets with hit and a Moonkin can keep IFF up?

Group/Raid buffs are a 'bonus' they are not a standard. This is where one of the problems with SP come from because no one can really say "no I have enough mana and can do fine without it" without doing less than they would be able to with one.

 

Krazen

This is especially true with the direction that blizzard is taking fire locks. Currently, we get 'free' lifetaps during movement as there is nothing else we can do at the time. But as fire spec, Conflag becomes an option during this time, and lifetapping now costs dps.

 

Liar

I think the real gripe the Mages had was not that they had to use Evocation and Mage Armor on longer fights but the fact that their gear got Spirit itemized on it while the Warlock's gear didn't "waste" stats on that. If you are just complaining about Mages being too selfish to not Evocate and such, then yes, you are right. This is more a "OMG Warlocks will outscale us because they gain more offensive stats than us because we have Spirit taking up itembudget on our gear!" problem.

Cathela, you are right. Stamina got 50% cheaper not 100% (compare [Solid Star of Elune] / [Brilliant Dawnstone]).

 

epiphenom

Nonsense. You can't realistically argue that they're tuning Brutallus, for example, on the assumption that no class is synergizing with any other. Raid gear is meant to be used in raids; I think assuming for some group synergy isn't out of place.

 

• Playered

Do you honestly think that (for example) Brut is going to be tuned around your raid having a Moonkin in giving 3% extra physical hit? or around the 2 Destro-locs getting an additional 3% crit/hit from an Elemental Shaman in their group?

He will be (or rather is) tuned around your raid being able to produce <x> RDPS for <y> duration and nothing more, you can synergize or brute force your raid however you want but in the end its only the (HP/Time) factor which is the defining point assuming you can understand the mechanics of the fight.

 

rothomp3

Oh, OK. Well, that doesn't change the concept, just changes the needed multiplier. It still represents a fundamental alteration of the nature of Life Tap compared to its original design, it's just not as bad as I thought it was.

 

◊ manly

Ok, just why are people whining about gear itemisation in tiered pieces ? There is no way blizzard can make one set of gear, for mages, to cover all specs. The reason is really simple:

fire/frost mages

• Want lots of spell hit rating
• Spell crit is 'ok'
• Don't want any spirit

arcane mages

• Don't want any spell hit rating
• Want to avoid spell crit whenever possible
• Wants spirit

For as long as there will be just one tiered set for mages the gear will never 'make sense' for all specs.

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