Maledict

Yes, will be interesting to see how it ends up in the long run.

TBH, I still expect to see a lot of changes - mostly nerfs now. If the trees look playable and fun, then something has to be wrong with them... :)

I definitely think that for raiding, frost is now the way to go. It's DPS isn't far off fireball, and mana efficiency wise it's in a league of its own. I suspect I'll go 31 ice 20 fire or something, to get Master of Elements because it looks fun and to get Impact + Incinerate + Improved Fireblast + Ignite, as a cheap way to increase my DPS on ice resistant mobs. I've also heard that Impact is quite handy with scorch in various parts of AQ40 (Sartura, Cthun tentcales), so having scorch and fireblast able to proc that will be handy.

 

• Thrillho

I foresee spending lots of money respeccing over and over after the patch goes live.

 

• Navaash

ignore this my web proxy is fucking with me again

 

dfinberg

I was looking at 33 frost/18 fire with my mage (mix of T1, T2, and non-set). I'm a little worried about master of elements though, you think we are going to get the typical aggro from the mana refund? That could be pretty grim for aggro sensitive fights.

Even in my mishmash of gear I'm typically unconcerned about mana, I'll lose arcane mind from my current build, but that's it, so that seems well within reason. Oh noes, maybe I chug a pot or two. There's still plenty of goodness in frost for pvp/grinding beyond 33, so maybe dump MoE and add some more frosty goodness.

1 year old twins means no WoW for me. But you just wait, as soon as they get a little older it will be my own stable of gold farmers.

 

• frmorrison

Currently, mana returns in game give a bit of aggro. I don't think it would be an issue with the -aggro talents.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

• Thrillho

The tier 2 resist/mana regen talent in arcane looks absolutely insane for fights with auras. 5% on every resist of a flame buffet? Damn, skippy.

 

ex-Hagakure

http://www.wowhead.com/talent/?kf0E00fZxgM0fcht

The more I think about it I’m honestly not sure why this spec wouldn’t work out very well in PvE, sure no IB or PoM but over all it seems pretty solid for pure PvE and hell in group PvP and / or long range sniping it would still be pretty powerful.

The only two points that have me questioning it right now are these:

1) I can’t honestly see the viability of working Pyro into this build without imaging you’ll always be using 8/8 NW and the reality is it’s going to be very quickly 2 item tiers behind when 1.11 goes live. The set was amazing when BWL first when live and even today it enjoys quit a reputation with it’s incredible proc but even full tweaked out (head, legs, and shoulder ZG enchants) the set alone clocks in at a fairly ‘meh’ level of damage, crit, and hit. Long term it’s honestly not a crutch I’m going to attach myself too for PvE, though for current level PVP from 1.11 to the expansion I will probably pick it up at some point along with PoM because two back to back instant Pyro’s is a nearly unbeatable combo.

2) I’m still not sold on the longevity of fire in long term consistent damage dealing fights (Ouro, C’thun, etc.) where mana has already become an issue. Hell on C’thun the other day I used something like 40k+ mana total with spirit regen, mana potions, gems, NDB, and evo all worked in and that was using the most efficient spell we have. Master of Elements is designed to help this but I still have my doubts…

(Not going to factor in regen or all talents right now because I’m lazy)

6597 mana (my mages base) works out to be about 23 (rounding up) frostbolts, double that number assuming your raiding and used evo plus gems to regain a 100% of your mana over the course of the fight. With 46 cast and a 15% crit rate you’re around 7 crits total from 200% of your base mana pool, assuming 1k average hit (that’s pretty common these days right?) and 2k average crit that works out to be 53k total damage.

Now for Fire

6597 mana works out to just at 16 fireballs, again double that number and its 32 total from 200% of your base mana pool. Given the nature of fire we’ll assume a 21% crit rate (basically directly adding 6% based on critical mass) which equals out to around 7 total crits, this nets back another 2 fireballs with the Master of Elements talent thus giving us a total of 27 hits and 7 crits. Averaging a 1.5k normal hit with a 2k normal crit (honestly pure theory here, haven’t played fire in months) you’d come up with 40.5k non crit damage and 14k crit damage, totaling 54.5k damage.

There is a hell of a lot more things to take into consideration here for a real comparison but this is basically the math I was kicking around this afternoon. I’ll probably work back though it all with talents and everything spec’d right tonight but the picture that’s being painted seems clear to me. Frost gets the damage up front and gets it done faster (.5 seconds faster cast, talented and un-talented) while fire banks on a higher crit rate and more total mana regened over the course of the fight.

As a side note I don’t personally see the scorch build option as being a reasonable comparison to either frostbolt or fireball because of the scaling issues involved with a 1.5 second cast spell and diminished returns on plus damage gear. However in the short term with Master of Elements and the improved scorch talent you might be able to work out an extremely efficient build leading up the expansion.