[Mage] TBC 2.1 Fire or Frost? - Page 2

thebuddha · 04/18/07, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

10/48/3 Disadvantages
-Threat issues

Hmm, while of course Fire is more threat than arcane, I wouldn't necessarily say it's an issue that would affect your decision on spec choice. Are you referring to 5 mans mostly or raiding?

Starting off with a few scorches and dropping an invis if you're worried should be plenty to make sure you're way behind the tank. The only times I have aggro problems is when I'm being reckless which would be the case for any spec (especially Arcane Power :P)

Vontre · 04/18/07, 3:29 PM

You all are forgetting that a good arcane build will get over half, usually more, of its damage from arcane blast. Dropping mind mastery points for critical mass does not get you 6% crit, it gets you 6% crit to fire spells.

Testing I've done has indicated pretty clearly that hybridized builds are not useful for raiding dps, 41/20 and 10/48/3 are the clear winners for raw damage, deep ice has its place as well in some odd situations. And this was calculated after patch 2.1 changes, so no, arctic winds is not going to make ice the new bees knees or what have you.

Tempestra · 04/18/07, 3:47 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

hybridized builds are not useful for raiding dps

Are you talking about hybridized builds that use arcane cycles or elemental spam? 33/28 isn't a cycle-based build..

If you're talking arcane cycles for 33/28, yeah I'll agree. However, on Gruul and Mag, my DPS went up when I switched from 10/48/3 to 33/28 fireball spam... are we're testing different fights?

Vontre · 04/18/07, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by Tempestra

Are you talking about hybridized builds that use arcane cycles or elemental spam? 33/28 isn't a cycle-based build..

If you're talking arcane cycles for 33/28, yeah I'll agree. However, on Gruul and Mag, my DPS went up when I switched from 10/48/3 to 33/28 fireball spam... are we're testing different fights?

Nah I just go with what the spreadsheet says. My gear is nowhere near good enough to do actual tests at that level of spell damage.

Just how much did your dps increase by testing? I do recall some odd "sweet spot" or crit/damage that would make 33/28 acceptable but I wrote it off because almost every other scenario would make it strictly inferior. For an individual your dps can vary largely due to anomalies of crit and hit, especially in a non-static encounter (mostly all of them) like Gruul where cave-ins and such can impact your overall dps. On our attempts with my scrubby pvp ice spec, my dps usually varies by an order of 100 or more simply based on how the fight goes (I only consider the attempts that go on for 50% of his hp or more).

Yes my guild wipes on Gruul. I'm still good at math =p.

Groglox · 04/18/07, 4:37 PM

On Gruul I have found I do much better with full frost than fire. Being able to iceblock to remove the movement speed debuff and get to a safe spot and continue frostbolting along with having an elemental being able to do dps while I still have to move is invaluable. Maybe it is just my playstyle, but I always seem to do much better with frost. Im just dreading hydross.

Tempestra · 04/18/07, 4:39 PM

My own observations are pretty lame in that I keep track of my performance by % of raid damage instead of DPS. On the 2-3 weeks of Gruul where I was 11/47/3, I was at around 9-10% of raid dps on both attempts and kills. With 33/28/0, I've finished anywhere from 9% to 12.3% overall (the latter being a pretty big fluke, had 2 elemental shaman and a shadow priest, so double totems of wrath, wrath of air, tranquil air, and mana spring, along with double heroism... and only 1 cave-in on me -- pretty much the most fun I've had on a boss ever!). Typically the next highest is another mage who has similar gear and runs 10/48/3 at ~8-9% and an affliction lock who doesn't have a shadowpriest or elemental shaman at ~8-9% as well.

Just to clarify, we always bring 8 healers and we only have ~30 people in our guild, so % of raid damage isn't a bad tracker in that we have the same number of DPS and typically the same people. Empirical data is always shoddy but there you have it, that's my experience running a hybrid build with a fireball x 5-7 : 1 scorch rotation.

Raid buffed and potted/flasked I'm at around 1400+ fire damage (with wrath of air), 250 crit rating and 130 hit rating. Tailoring is a wonderful thing. I also have blade of wizardry and quag's eye, so I'm abusing the hell out of spell haste while I still can.

***
Edit: The two screenshots I could find were from last week's Mag/Gruul. I was 9.2% overall damage sustaining 875.3 DPS on Gruul (next highest was the 10/48/3 mage at 8.2%). On Mag, I did 11.5% sustaining 1024.9 DPS (next highest three non-clickers were at 9.5% 10/48/3 fire mage, 8.6% shadow priest and 8.3% fire mage - all in my group with an elemental shaman). Elemental shaman + shadow priest + full potting = pretty awesome.

Editx2: Again, this is all pretty meaningless, but the other mages were 10/48/3 with almost similar gear (maybe ~3% less spell hit and ~50 less spell damage) and in the same group as me. It doesn't mean 10/48/3 is worse, but it certainly means 33/28 is viable.

Zene · 04/18/07, 5:18 PM

Originally Posted by Tempestra

Are you talking about hybridized builds that use arcane cycles or elemental spam? 33/28 isn't a cycle-based build..

If you're talking arcane cycles for 33/28, yeah I'll agree. However, on Gruul and Mag, my DPS went up when I switched from 10/48/3 to 33/28 fireball spam... are we're testing different fights?

I do not want to derail the thread, although it's seems obvious that even though the frost tree got some love in 2.1, Fire is still the higher DPS tree. (and arc/fire if you're lacking the gear)

That being said, I too have been messing with a 33/28 build. From my understanding, this is a scorch crit build. The talent choices evolve around increasing your crit, specifically fire crit, although AB or AM can be used to add a little bit more efficiency/aggro control at the cost of DPS. The point I'm trying to make is that your gear choice will reflect on how effective this build will be for you. For example, if you go stack all +spell crit gear and try 33/28 you'll probably have better results than if you stack all +spell dmg gear. Of course there is a line of how much spell damage you'll sacrifice for crit, you still want tons of crit but not if you're going to be running around with 400 spell dmg.

The other point I wanted to talk about which is more theorycrafting and should perhaps be made in the other thread, is about spell haste with a scorch crit build. This comes in part from reading some of the Moonkin theorycrafting threads that have been popping around. Scorch like wrath are similar in that they both have 1.5s global cooldown. Scorch is also a 1.5s cast. Would this not mean that builds centered around scorch would not really gain much from +spell haste effects such as Quag trinket proc or shaman's bloodlust?

Thanks

PS I just noticed you said fireball spamming in 33/28. I have not tried Imp Fireball with the 33/28 but am curious now and that would then answer my spell haste question.

Tempestra · 04/18/07, 5:24 PM

Yeah I only use scorch to build up the debuff and then maintain it every 20-25 seconds.

Scorch is pretty nice, especially with the capacitor, but it can't touch fireball (even with the imp fireball nerf).

I tend to shy away from scorch when I know haste effects are coming - such as having shaman in my group, or using wizardry/eye. I've gotten "this spell is not ready" sometimes, and sometimes not... too unreliable and when fireballs are going off at a <2 second clip (proc + heroism), the comparison is moot.

The only way I've changed my gear going from 10/48/3 to 33/28 is to make sure I have a healthy amount of spell hit. My two other 10/48/3 mages are running with ~60-70 hit rating, when I'm almost always over 120 to compensate for the lack of elemental precision. I still stack spell damage heavily and usually don't have my crit rating over 275.

Edit: As Copernicus said below, deep fire is pretty simple. I'm usually in charge of leading raids or at least doing a lot of the in-fight decision-making. The last thing that should be on my mind is where I am on an AB cycle =).

Copernicus · 04/18/07, 5:37 PM

Originally Posted by thebuddha

Hmm, while of course Fire is more threat than arcane, I wouldn't necessarily say it's an issue that would affect your decision on spec choice. Are you referring to 5 mans mostly or raiding?

Starting off with a few scorches and dropping an invis if you're worried should be plenty to make sure you're way behind the tank. The only times I have aggro problems is when I'm being reckless which would be the case for any spec (especially Arcane Power :P)

5-mans and Karazhan trash mostly.

When I was 40/21, I never cared about my aggro and could always cast almost instantly on the pull. With a 10/48/3 build, my eyes are glued to KTM.

---

The other large advantage I missed with an arcane build is maximizing DPS in a heavy-drinking enviroment... that is, trash and 5-mans. An Arcane specced mage can blow through their entire mana pool with AB spam, as long as they have 30-45 seconds to drink up for their next pull. And if they don't, they can drop down and use effecient AB/Scorch rotations to DPS while conserving mana.

And the big, gigantic, most important advantage I missed with a deep fire build is that it's really simple to use. It really depends on the fight and the amount of stuff that a player needs to be dealing with, but I've found for myself that Fireball spam frees me up for paying attention to positioning, the stuff going on in the raid, interrupts, etc.

Jayde · 04/19/07, 4:47 AM

Originally Posted by Groglox

On Gruul I have found I do much better with full frost than fire. Being able to iceblock to remove the movement speed debuff and get to a safe spot and continue frostbolting along with having an elemental being able to do dps while I still have to move is invaluable. Maybe it is just my playstyle, but I always seem to do much better with frost. Im just dreading hydross.

While this may be a valid point, I would point out that with a Fireball build you can easily secure a "safe" rock postition and still be in range of Gruul if he is tanked in the center. This means you can DPS through the shatters and never move the entire time. I'd say that's a bit larger of a benifit on that particular fight than Ice Block.

Copernicus, I do agree with your notes about having to worry more about threat with a Fire build (clearly, a 40% reduction on Arcane comes in handy) but half of the reason is that I think I do substantially more damage now compared to an Arcane Build. I mean, it's hard to deny that when you get multiple 3.6-4.2k crits in a row in a 5-man, you will pull aggro.

Fliz · 04/19/07, 6:38 PM

Originally Posted by Tempestra

Are you talking about hybridized builds that use arcane cycles or elemental spam? 33/28 isn't a cycle-based build..

If you're talking arcane cycles for 33/28, yeah I'll agree. However, on Gruul and Mag, my DPS went up when I switched from 10/48/3 to 33/28 fireball spam... are we're testing different fights?

I'm 33/28/0 and I made the switch from 10/48/3 as Fireball spam wasn't cutting it. My DPS for a typical boss encounter in Kara increased ~15% using Scorch primarly with only fireblast during AP "go-time!".

Raid buffed, I'm in the 850+fire range depending on how much gold I care to burn. 32% crit and 140ish hit rating. Massive mana efficiency and longevity with the Arc talents + MoE (2pts). Ignite is ~30% of my DPS on fights > 2mins - all from scorch crits in the 1400-2k range depending on debuffs, AP, PI, etc.

Spell Power + Nexus Horn is the key to the build and as many already know, it's a crit build and it works fabulously. The biggest hurdle for many to overcome is the "if I'm fire, I MUST USE FIREBALL" paradigm. I'd strongly suggest you check it out and experiment. After the 10% coefficient nerf, Fireball really lost some oomph. I'm hoping to get a good side-by-side comparison with a 10/48/3 mage soon to see where I'm really at.

Tempestra · 04/19/07, 7:02 PM

A couple points:

While 33/28 is nice, it's certainly not a 15% increase over 10/48/3.

Also, spamming scorch is nice but it suffers terribly from casting lag. Think of it as though you're casting 1.75 second scorches vs. 3.25 second fireballs. Fireball pulls away even more when a flat cast time is added to both. The improved fireball nerf certainly hurt fireball spam as 33/28, but it's still better than scorch (for Raw DPS).

One thing that pushes scorch builds even closer, however, is using nexus + capacitor. Food for thought if you're set on sticking with scorch spam.

10/48/3 is pretty much optimal for a fire mage, assuming your gear is tailored correctly. Mine wasn't (130+ spell hit... making 3% elemental precision and 4% hit from totem of wrath/draenei aura much less effective), which prompted the switch. Once I fix my gear problem (even more dmg, hopefully crossing the 1000 unbuffed threshold soon, more crit and 20-30 less spell hit), I'll probably switch back to see how I do. At high levels of +dmg, empowered fireball looks pretty tasty.

(the reason fire mages use fireball is because it's our best dps spell... =) hehe)

Vontre · 04/19/07, 7:43 PM

Originally Posted by Fliz

I'm 33/28/0 and I made the switch from 10/48/3 as Fireball spam wasn't cutting it. My DPS for a typical boss encounter in Kara increased ~15% using Scorch primarly with only fireblast during AP "go-time!".

Raid buffed, I'm in the 850+fire range depending on how much gold I care to burn. 32% crit and 140ish hit rating. Massive mana efficiency and longevity with the Arc talents + MoE (2pts). Ignite is ~30% of my DPS on fights > 2mins - all from scorch crits in the 1400-2k range depending on debuffs, AP, PI, etc.

Spell Power + Nexus Horn is the key to the build and as many already know, it's a crit build and it works fabulously. The biggest hurdle for many to overcome is the "if I'm fire, I MUST USE FIREBALL" paradigm. I'd strongly suggest you check it out and experiment. After the 10% coefficient nerf, Fireball really lost some oomph. I'm hoping to get a good side-by-side comparison with a 10/48/3 mage soon to see where I'm really at.

Fireball absolutely dominates scorch. Scorch does however the second best hit frequency of any spell - trumped only by arcane missiles. It hits a lot of times for small damage instead of hitting once for large damage. This concept is extremely important in pvp (which is why scorch is the best pvp nuke... arcane missiles would, if you could get mana refunded for an early channeling-break), or for trash mobs and adds. The lower the amount of time on target you get, the better hit frequency becomes. On very mobile fights scorch could be much, much better because it allows you to be more mobile.

The correct solution, however, is to use fireball whenever your window of opportunity is guaranteed 3 seconds or more, and use scorch to fit in gaps, like right before you have to move. Scorch spamming is the easy-mode way of doing this, but the results over a long duration are unimpressive.

Assuming you get double the number of nexus-horn procs, I'm not sure how much that would make up for it. If nexus-horn procs are making scorch spam actually better, then the correct answer once again is to switch to fireball during procs so you don't waste dps while the horn is cooling down.

Teenee · 04/20/07, 3:29 AM

A thing I've been milling over in my head lately is the whole "frost/fire" debate. As a raider, we're all min-maxers to some degree. I have to admit I'm deep fire, *mostly* because it's a high DPS spec for when it counts (boss fights).

Most TC also shows that deep fire will pull ahead of say 40/20/0 at around 800-1000 spelldmg (dependening, and ignoring frost for now). With tailoring and a few Karazhan epics+heroic epics, I'm basicly sitting at that now.

But secretly, I do prefer 33/28/0 (or possibly 4x/2x/0 in some variant, haven't tried that yet), simply because the addition of a decently hitting AB makes things that much more interesting from a PvE nuking PoV.

BUT, given that we can no longer trivially boost our dmg by as much as 262 (which for me would be around a 30% boost, and that was just a quick number, I'm probably missing out on certain buffs), does anyone feel they are revising their supreme choice of deep fire, simply because the insane buffing will not be present during the raids that count?