You're not looking at the big picture: The new Arcane Blast spell could potentially be a very good source of damage. A mage with only 600 spelldamage will have his Arcane Blast spell do roughly 960 damage a cast, and the cast time will go down with each successive spellcast. Throw in crit damage multipliers and and a mana reduction talent to reduce the effect of the progressive mana increase, and you have yourself a pretty interesting mechanic. On top of that, toss in a lot of added utility talents like traditional mana regen/increased mana pool talents from the current tree, along with threat reduction, more armor, clearcasting etc. Then add in PoM and Arcane Power, furthmore throw in a talent to reduce total damage taken by 5% and a spelldamage modifier tied to your intellect. Then, throw in a 41 point talent that is absolutely huge, and if it's castable on raid bosses would be almost required.
I can see myself speccing more than 41 points in Arcane if the new Arcane Blast spell ends up being anything worth writing home about. You get a decent direct damage spell for once, along with a lot of handy utility talents and goodies. It won't have the burstiness of fire or the survivability and consistency of frost, but Arcane in the expansion will certainly be a lot more viable than it currently is.
EDIT: And people are making pretty big assumptions in thinking that just because current gear de-emphasizes intellect that TBC gear will do the same. I think we're definitely going to see much, much larger mana pools in the expansion, along with substantially larger spelldamage pools. Keep in mind that 60-70 is supposed to be roughly the same power gain as 1-60.
Admittedly, I entirely forgot about Arcane Burst when I made the prior post. That ability could change a lot, but something tells me it won't make it through the end of beta in its current incarnation.
edit: and good point about Slow. I just assumed it wouldn't work on raid mobs, but considering Thunderfury and Thunderclap do then there's probably a good chance it would be raid viable.
If you look at the description for Surefooted and Enchant Boots - Surefooted you can see that Hit Rating 10 is basically 1% hit and it should apply for other such bonuses. Although having bonuses such as 1.4% crit seems a bit weird.
Perhaps I'm jaded, but even with the new talents in the Arcane tree I still feel the tree is largely lackluster. Improved Counterspell and Presence of Mind remain the reason I would ever spec more than 10 points into the tree for Clearcasting. Slow can almost be accomplished via just tier 2 frost talents and Mind Mastery is far too deep in the tree. If you get MM you give up a large amount of utility in other trees, much like Arcane Power. At least Imp Blink gives another place to dump points I suppose.
Arcane
Tier 5: Improved Blink (2): Reduces mana cost of blink by 25-50%
Tier 6: Arcane Potency (3): Increases the critical strike bonus of your Arcane spells by 33-100%
Tier 7: Student of Magic (3): Reduces the mana cost of all arcane spells by 5-15%
Tier 7: Prismatic Cloak (5): Reduces all damage taken by 1-5%
Tier 8: Mind Mastery (5): Increases spell damage by up to 5-25% of your total intellect.
Tier 9: Slow (1): Reduces target's movement speed by 50% and attack/casting speed by 20% for 15 seconds.
All of Arcane comes down to Arcane Blast. If the spell is reasonable DPS and DPM, people will spec a ridiculous amount into Arcane. After 9 seconds to ramp it up, it's an instant-cast nuke. Something that would be incredibely valuable for the current PvE mass movement raiding. Arcane has a higher hit% talent than Frost/Fire and the talents at least compete with Frost/Fire on a theoretical basis.
But we won't know how to rate the Arcane tree or Arcane at all until Arcane Blast's DPS, DPM, and +dmg scaling is known.
I mean, I knew it was coming and all, but is there really any point in giving us upgraded Greater heal, flash heal, etc...? Unless they do away with/change the +heal mechanic, those spells will never/hardly ever be cast.
Heal rank 2 spamming only works because amount of tanks relative to healers is very low and endurance and efficiency are more important than throughput. One example would be encounter where you have 3 warriors, 3 paladins and 3 druids tanking, while having only 3 priest and 3 shaman healing. In situations like that lower rank healing wouldn't just have throughput to keep everyone alive, and it is already happening to lesser degree in 20 man raids when using non-epic geared tanks.
As long as +heal exists in this game, priests will not be casting thier max rank spells, except on specific fights where mana is no a concern at alll. On 20 man raids, i'm casting gh1(for renew) or heal2. If anything, we may bump up to using gh3ish range because of increased hps and less healers, but the only way a gh7 is going to get used is if the tank tanks very rare spike damage, but in that case, the cast time makes using it prohibitive as well.
But we won't know how to rate the Arcane tree or Arcane at all until Arcane Blast's DPS, DPM, and +dmg scaling is known.
I have a feeling your +dam coefficient won't go down as the cast time reduces, that would be cheap and silly. If it's anything like current +dam implementations then a 2.5 sec cast time (I think) will get 71.4% contribution from spelldamage.
I'm surprised that no one has made any mention about Jewelcrafting figurines yet. Jewelcrafting = the new engineering?
Truesilver Crab - Reduces melee damage taken by 20 for 20 sec.
Black Diamond Crab - Reduces melee damage taken by 35 for 20 sec.
Dawnstone Crab - Reduces melee damage taken by 50 for 20 sec.
Truesilver Boar - Summons the Truesilver Boar to fight for you for 30 seconds.
Felsteel Boar - Summons the Felsteel Boar to fight for you.
Jade Owl - Restores 30 mana every second for 12 sec.
Emerald Owl - Restores 60 mana every second for 12 sec.
Talasite Owl - Restores 900 mana over 12 sec.
Dark Iron Scorpid - Every swing poisons your foe for 15 damage over 10 sec.
Ruby Serpent - Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 100 for 20 sec.
Living Ruby Serpent - Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 150 for 20 sec.
Black Pearl Panther - Increases attack power by 90 for 12 sec.
Nightseye Panther - Increases attack power by 320 for 12 sec.
Golden Hare - Increased speed by 30% and prevents new snares from landing on the user for 12 sec.
These activatable effects are in addition to the Equip: bonuses you get from wearing these figurines in your trinket slot. Oh boy, Warriors can get Aspect of the Cheetah combined with Free Action Potion.
Oh man, those look cool. They're not going to be bind on creation, are they? I'm certainly hoping they are tradeable, otherwise that's a pain in the butt. I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere and I vaguely recall something to this effect being answered, but I'll be damned if I can recall it right now.
Given the kind of opportunities that is creating I'm going to guess that they are Jewelcrafting-specific trinkets.
I do remember reading somewhere in the past thread of priest praying spells whereas a buff is in place as long as the priest is channeling. I only saw one that applied to armor but I expect they'll throw in a handful of different abilities.
so far, looks like raiding priests are going to be takeing it on the chin the most from the expansion.
-usless spell upgrades (who here even uses gheal rank 5, much less going to use rank 7!?)
-and probably the worst grind anyone will have to endure.
i do hope we get the new smite/SW:P/mind blast sooner than that post said.
Well I dont think so, the expansion promises to be more instanced based, and the grind will be longer so you'll have more people in your level range to group with at any point from 60-70. But that's not what this thread is about.
Creates a holy Lightwell near the priest.
Friendly targets can click the Lightwell to restore 2360 health over 10 sec.
Being attacked cancels the effect.
Lightwell lasts for 10 sec or 5 charges.
I think they mean:
Creates a holy Lightwell near the priest.
Friendly targets can click the Lightwell from any distance to restore 5000 health over 12 seconds.
Lightwell lasts for 60 sec or 10 charges.
If they want priests to give a damn.
Of course, light well may become as assumed as holy nova if the later talents in holy aren't ass compared to the late discipline talents.
Oh man, those look cool. They're not going to be bind on creation, are they? I'm certainly hoping they are tradeable, otherwise that's a pain in the butt. I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere and I vaguely recall something to this effect being answered, but I'll be damned if I can recall it right now.
Given the kind of opportunities that is creating I'm going to guess that they are Jewelcrafting-specific trinkets.
Yes, Bind on Acquire trinkets. So, sucks to be you if you don't have Jewelcrafting in the xpack (hence my comment about the new Engineering). While some of the trinket effects don't seem too hot, the Golden Hare and Nightseye Panther look like they have really good activatable effects. The Dark Iron Scorpid could potentially be good for outright dps if you carry that around and put Instant Poisons on both your weapons and have 41 points in Combat.
Then again, we have no idea what the passive bonuses on these trinkets are, for all we know the Living Ruby Serpent could be a Nelth Tear with +150 Spell Damage on use.
Then again, we have no idea what the passive bonuses on these trinkets are, for all we know the Living Ruby Serpent could be a Nelth Tear with +150 Spell Damage on use.
In other words, Restrained Essence of Sapphiron. :V:
But yeah, I figured as much. They're not all too spectacular but they're still incredible for crafted items. The real limiting factor would be cooldowns.
EDIT: But what the hell, screw Herbalism I'm going to go Alchemy/Jewelcrafting and have the most powerful tradeskills in the game.
Oh man, those look cool. They're not going to be bind on creation, are they? I'm certainly hoping they are tradeable, otherwise that's a pain in the butt. I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere and I vaguely recall something to this effect being answered, but I'll be damned if I can recall it right now.
Given the kind of opportunities that is creating I'm going to guess that they are Jewelcrafting-specific trinkets.
Yes, Bind on Acquire trinkets. So, sucks to be you if you don't have Jewelcrafting in the xpack (hence my comment about the new Engineering). While some of the trinket effects don't seem too hot, the Golden Hare and Nightseye Panther look like they have really good activatable effects. The Dark Iron Scorpid could potentially be good for outright dps if you carry that around and put Instant Poisons on both your weapons and have 41 points in Combat.
Then again, we have no idea what the passive bonuses on these trinkets are, for all we know the Living Ruby Serpent could be a Nelth Tear with +150 Spell Damage on use.
Those trinkets are rather nice, it makes me regret even more having enchanting and tailoring with too many rare patterns to give up :(
Creates a holy Lightwell near the priest.
Friendly targets can click the Lightwell to restore 2360 health over 10 sec.
Being attacked cancels the effect.
Lightwell lasts for 10 sec or 5 charges.
I think they mean:
Creates a holy Lightwell near the priest.
Friendly targets can click the Lightwell from any distance to restore 5000 health over 12 seconds.
Lightwell lasts for 60 sec or 10 charges.
If they want priests to give a damn.
Of course, light well may become as assumed as holy nova if the later talents in holy aren't ass compared to the late discipline talents.
If you didn't notice, theres no cooldown listed on it. If they changed current lightwell to 10 seconds uptime instead of 3 minutes, but removed the cooldown altogether, i'd be specced lightwell. There wouldn't be much need for more than 1 lightwell priest in a raid, but it'd be a much more efficient and powerful means of keeping up spot healing, and you wouldn't need a damn emergency monitor or addon that targets most injured people.
If you didn't notice, theres no cooldown listed on it. If they changed current lightwell to 10 seconds uptime instead of 3 minutes, but removed the cooldown altogether, i'd be specced lightwell. There wouldn't be much need for more than 1 lightwell priest in a raid, but it'd be a much more efficient and powerful means of keeping up spot healing, and you wouldn't need a damn emergency monitor or addon that targets most injured people.
You're not looking at the big picture: The new Arcane Blast spell could potentially be a very good source of damage. A mage with only 600 spelldamage will have his Arcane Blast spell do roughly 960 damage a cast, and the cast time will go down with each successive spellcast. Throw in crit damage multipliers and and a mana reduction talent to reduce the effect of the progressive mana increase, and you have yourself a pretty interesting mechanic. On top of that, toss in a lot of added utility talents like traditional mana regen/increased mana pool talents from the current tree, along with threat reduction, more armor, clearcasting etc. Then add in PoM and Arcane Power, furthmore throw in a talent to reduce total damage taken by 5% and a spelldamage modifier tied to your intellect. Then, throw in a 41 point talent that is absolutely huge, and if it's castable on raid bosses would be almost required.
I can see myself speccing more than 41 points in Arcane if the new Arcane Blast spell ends up being anything worth writing home about. You get a decent direct damage spell for once, along with a lot of handy utility talents and goodies. It won't have the burstiness of fire or the survivability and consistency of frost, but Arcane in the expansion will certainly be a lot more viable than it currently is.
EDIT: And people are making pretty big assumptions in thinking that just because current gear de-emphasizes intellect that TBC gear will do the same. I think we're definitely going to see much, much larger mana pools in the expansion, along with substantially larger spelldamage pools. Keep in mind that 60-70 is supposed to be roughly the same power gain as 1-60.
Does anyone know how long you have before Arcane Blast reverts back to a 2.5s cast? It would suck if you would have to chain cast it to keep it as an instant attack and then have to blink away for some reason and then begin reacasting again.
"Doubt is the thief that often makes us fear to tread where we might have won.” —William Shakespeare
Does anyone know how long you have before Arcane Blast reverts back to a 2.5s cast? It would suck if you would have to chain cast it to keep it as an instant attack and then have to blink away for some reason and then begin reacasting again.
Blasts the target with energy, dealing 463-538 Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the casting time is reduced while mana cost is increased. Effect stacks up to 5 times and lasts 8 sec.
If you didn't notice, theres no cooldown listed on it. If they changed current lightwell to 10 seconds uptime instead of 3 minutes, but removed the cooldown altogether, i'd be specced lightwell. There wouldn't be much need for more than 1 lightwell priest in a raid, but it'd be a much more efficient and powerful means of keeping up spot healing, and you wouldn't need a damn emergency monitor or addon that targets most injured people.
There are no cooldowst listed for any of the curse-gaming abilities.
But we won't know how to rate the Arcane tree or Arcane at all until Arcane Blast's DPS, DPM, and +dmg scaling is known.
I have a feeling your +dam coefficient won't go down as the cast time reduces, that would be cheap and silly. If it's anything like current +dam implementations then a 2.5 sec cast time (I think) will get 71.4% contribution from spelldamage.
Many spells break the rules for +dmg scaling. Pyroblast, Cone of Cold, Arcane Missles, Mind Flay, and Frostbolt are some off the top of my head.
The basic point is that an entire tree is resting on one spell. And until full knowledge of how Arcane Blast works, it's very difficult to discuss mages in the expansion.
Of course, I wasn't denying that. I just don't think the coefficient will decrease because of the cast time reduction mechanic, that would defeat the whole purpose of having that cast time reduction anyway in a PvE setting if the overall damage the spell does decreases along with it.
Looking at a lot of these rogue/warrior things and that 30% speed trinket...
Unless they have something major planned for hunters to get back out of the fucking dead zone beyond fd+freeze trap I am completely and utterly fucked against melee classes. Period. Deterrence is my only hope. :(
How can you help?
I can shoot things and then make my pet move toward them.
08/28/06, 12:14 PM
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