Shadow priest vs frost mage in TBC - Page 2

Z-Factor · 11/05/06, 8:08 PM

aye i agree, having played both classes to 60 in both those specs you've made some very poor choices of talents, and as you are talking specifically about 25 man instances you have to factor in how much a water elemental (or any pet) adds to a raid's overall dps. A water elemental is a far greater utility than Presence of mind if you have mages that heavily specced as they also get the targtable frost nova, which as i am sure we can all imagine is going to be useful for mass rooting in many situations in many dungeons, as opposed to an instant cast frostbolt every 3 minutes.

IrishMage · 11/05/06, 8:20 PM

Ok, since dps is clearly going to tweaked some more, the dps as it stands now is fairly irrelevent.

What would be interesting (although i can see possible bitchfights!) is where you *think* classes should come, in a typical raid tank n'spank. (sustained single target damage)

All specs below maximising PVE bonuses:

1: Rogue/Fire mage - Both fragile, non-hybrid classes with little/no support abilities.

2: Frost mage / Hunter / Dps Warrior / Warlock - Pretty Self-Sustaining, durable classes with no little/no support abilities.

3: Shadowpriest / Elem shaman / Feral / Enhance shaman / Moonkin -Durable hybrid classes with strong support abilities.

Is that a correct way to balance them? It's shallow, i dont normally go on pure tank n'spanks as being a benchmark of usefulness..but im bored.

Fair? Its late so i know i forgot a crapload :). Reason im putting healing hybrids below dps/tank hybrid (warrior), is simply because healing is such a powerful ability. Mitigation and threat generation, everyone has *some*.

Kir · 11/05/06, 8:26 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Why would a PVE Frost mage ever get Presence of Mind over Water Elemental?

I think it's more for the other deep arcane talents that are pretty ridiculous. The Mind Mastery talent alone adds like 100 spell damage in current mage gear. Your crits will be hitting for 250% damage with Ice Shards + Spell Power, Arcane Instability is a big dps boost itself. Arcane Potency seems decent, especially with the Ice Shards/Spell Power synergy.

Dunno if those talents are actually more damage overall then empowered Frostbolt/Water Elemental/Winter's Chill though. But, I'm guessing the reasoning is you gotta get a lot of non-dps oriented talents to get to them, whereas all the good arcane ones are grouped together and there's more of them.

edit: ah, I think you were referring to the OP, and I was looking at one of the other people's mage specs. I was thinking something like this http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10135010051050

• Snowy · 11/05/06, 9:45 PM

Isn't this discussion way premature, given that Blizzard has stated that they're still in the process of balancing everything?

Xunwael · 11/05/06, 10:28 PM

Originally Posted by Kir

...
Your crits will be hitting for 250% damage with Ice Shards + Spell Power...

Ice Shards + Spell Power makes out to 225% crits.

Kir · 11/05/06, 10:47 PM

It is? wait, how's it calculated then?

Eej · 11/05/06, 10:53 PM

Crit bonus = +50%

Ice Shards = 100% * 50% = +50%

Spell Power = 50% * 50% = +25%

100% (base damage) + [50% + 50% + 25%] = 225%

I have no idea why it works like that, when the Hunter crit bonus talents multiply.

• frmorrison · 11/05/06, 10:53 PM

Originally Posted by Kir

It is? wait, how's it calculated then?

When a talent tooltip says 100% or 50% extra critical strike bonus, it means just the crit bonus (i.e. the extra damage on crit) is increased. Since casters only get half damage added on crits, it is less powerful than Rogues get.

So if you just had the arcane talent, you would do 175% on crits, but with the Arcane and frost critical damage talents together, you get 225% on crits.

Edit: Beat to it by a few seconds

torrent495 · 11/05/06, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

Ask me again in a five to seven weeks how I feel about Shadow Priests vs Frost Mages. Mages have changed three or four times in the past two weeks. I've given up on trying to keep a simple spreadsheet updated, and am just relying on Blizzard figuring out where they want to slot each class.

Pretty much, yeah. I doubt things are going to change too much, though, vis-a-vis how things are in the current live game. Blizzard's been pretty consistent in their class dps balancing for the past two years.--which is, probably, unfortunate.

Xard · 11/06/06, 12:13 AM

Well I really think Blizzard has taken this huge change as a chance to balance out everyones dps more to their liking, and so that's why we're going to see (and have started to see) so many changes across the board.

Things as little as warlock pets not benefiting as much from spell power, all the way up to the hunter complete overhaul.