[Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? - Page 74

koetjeka · 10/02/07, 9:02 AM

So, I tried AM spam again yesterdays farm raid (maulgar, gruul, void reaver and magtheridon). This time WITH shadow priest, I'm very pleased with the results

Wow Web Stats

I had almost no mana problems but I played a bit mana conserving (exept on magtheridon where I did a bit AB spam to empty my mana pool).

I'm wondering if [Wrath of Cenarius] would be vailable for AM spam. It has an internal cooldown of 15 seconds I believe. I'm not very good in theory crafting, especially because I don't know when the internal cooldown of the ring starts: at the start of the buff or when the buff ends.

I guess it would be something like:
132 * 2 * 1,45 = 382,8 (damage buff * 2 arcane missiles in 10 seconds)
382,8 / 30 = 12,76 dps (average AM's needed to proc the ring = 4, equals 20 seconds. 20+10 seconds from the buff itself = 30)

Andersnordic · 10/02/07, 9:02 AM

Originally Posted by Sancus

I don't have TLC(I use ashtongue + darkmoon:crusade) and as far as I can tell, AM spam is much, much better than AB spam + a rotation, even without TLC. I think MSD is the Big Thing for AM spam, and other than that, just do what you can.

TLC is certainly good, but I really don't see it increasing my dps by more than 5% or so, which is certainly great, but it's not night and day.

My point being, if you have Ashtongue + TLC (Or an equivalent value of AM gear to compensate for the lack of TLC) then its most likely better than AB spam.

You have the staff, ring and bracers (Total of 114 haste) to make up for your lack of a TLC.

This brings up an interesting point though.

If what you say is true; That you can outdps a mage that even AB spam for 50-90% of the fight with 2p T5) then for ppl that have Ashtongue but lack a TLC it would most likely require you to get between 40-90 spell haste (Preferably not the shoulders though) to make it worthwhile with simply AM spamming.

Frostie · 10/02/07, 9:07 AM

Originally Posted by koetjeka

I'm wondering if [Wrath of Cenarius] would be vailable for AM spam. It has an internal cooldown of 15 seconds I believe. I'm not very good in theory crafting, especially because I don't know when the internal cooldown of the ring starts: at the start of the buff of when the buff ends.

I am told it has no internal cooldown. But I do not have one of my own. With no internal cooldown, I believe it's worth roughly 70 passive spell damage depending on your spell haste and luck with MSD procs. Which makes it a very good choice if you are wearing kara rings and can take the stats hit. Once you get into BT/Hyjal, it's probably not worth the effort if you don't already have one. And it's worse than the haste rings. But until then, I'm putting a vote in for 'go for it'.

Rasmulde · 10/02/07, 9:33 AM

Considering an average value of an TLC bolt of 890 and a AM mage with around 33% crit (this is relativly easy to get with elemental shammy/boomkin in your group) then u would deal 890/3 =293,333 dmg on a crit. You would crit 1/3 of the hits u make. With no haste effects that would be 1 hit a sec or 293,333/3 =97,777 DPS, just for 1 trinket! Now the great thing about this trinket is that it scales great with AOE (boss+adds situation where trinket would hit boss. You would have multiple procs/cast), Crit and very good with haste. To use some of the statements earlier AM is on average 4,1 sec cast, with all the hasteitems. That would make TLC worth 293,333 dmg/crit * 1/3 crit/hit * 5/4,1 hits/sec = 119,2 DPS. Crusader would, with full raidbuffs, be about 48 DPS at its best. I know what i would use

This might not be the same as the WWS reports say. But if u look at those reports, and check out TLC hits and TLC charges those 2 numbers dont match each others, which suggests that the person parsing the WWS has been to far away at some points in the fights.

Cryic · 10/02/07, 10:32 AM

I apologize for asking this again, but I believe the post from last week got buried pretty fast with the new renewed interest in Arcane

Q:When TLC procs and crits, does that crit have a chance to proc procs that are based on you critting with spells? Like the t5 4p bonus?

In other words, the nature based lightning bolt that is sent out and crits, will that cause the t5 4p bonus to proc?

Cryic · 10/02/07, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by Rasmulde

This might not be the same as the WWS reports say. But if u look at those reports, and check out TLC hits and TLC charges those 2 numbers dont match each others, which suggests that the person parsing the WWS has been to far away at some points in the fights.

Not true. I've been using and parsing the TLC for a long time now, and the most common scenario where procs != hits is when the mob dies before the lightning bolt can land. Happens all the time on trash.

raveraa · 10/02/07, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by koetjeka

So, I tried AM spam again yesterdays farm raid (maulgar, gruul, void reaver and magtheridon). This time WITH shadow priest, I'm very pleased with the results

Wow Web Stats

I had almost no mana problems but I played a bit mana conserving (exept on magtheridon where I did a bit AB spam to empty my mana pool).

I'm wondering if [Wrath of Cenarius] would be vailable for AM spam. It has an internal cooldown of 15 seconds I believe. I'm not very good in theory crafting, especially because I don't know when the internal cooldown of the ring starts: at the start of the buff or when the buff ends.

I guess it would be something like:
132 * 2 * 1,45 = 382,8 (damage buff * 2 arcane missiles in 10 seconds)
382,8 / 30 = 12,76 dps (average AM's needed to proc the ring = 4, equals 20 seconds. 20+10 seconds from the buff itself = 30)

It has NO internal CD confirmed as I have it. Refreshed procs are quite common.

Frostie · 10/02/07, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Cryic

Q:When TLC procs and crits, does that crit have a chance to proc procs that are based on you critting with spells? Like the t5 4p bonus?

Nope

Sackobones · 10/02/07, 12:59 PM

Serious question time.

With 2/5 teir 5, 3/3 spellfire, teir 4 helm and the Darkmoon crusade/TLC combo, should I focus on a MSD and try the AM spam?

I haven't seen consistant JOW time on bosses but our mage group generally gets first dibs on shadow priests as 3 of us are arcane specced.

I enjoy casting Arcane missles for some wild reason and would enjoy spending a lot of time spamming it but thats only if I can sustain it without any complete mana breakdowns.

Logun · 10/02/07, 1:32 PM

Originally Posted by Sackobones

Serious question time.

With 2/5 teir 5, 3/3 spellfire, teir 4 helm and the Darkmoon crusade/TLC combo, should I focus on a MSD and try the AM spam?

I haven't seen consistant JOW time on bosses but our mage group generally gets first dibs on shadow priests as 3 of us are arcane specced.

I enjoy casting Arcane missles for some wild reason and would enjoy spending a lot of time spamming it but thats only if I can sustain it without any complete mana breakdowns.

I would If I were you. I'm currently AM spamming with pretty much the same gear and having great results. There is a good chance I'll pickup my T5 pants this week which will complete my T5 2 set.

I'm also considering respecing to 61/0/0.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
My reasoning is that PoM AB will get resisted 1% of the time vs. PoM Pyro 12%. Has anyone else considered this over 50/11/0 ?

Rouncer · 10/02/07, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by Logun

I would If I were you. I'm currently AM spamming with pretty much the same gear and having great results. There is a good chance I'll pickup my T5 pants this week which will complete my T5 2 set.

I'm also considering respecing to 61/0/0.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
My reasoning is that PoM AB will get resisted 1% of the time vs. PoM Pyro 12%. Has anyone else considered this over 50/11/0 ?

I'm respeccing to this tonight

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

my reasoning - Magic Absorption sounds like a great talent but from what others have shown the number of encounters where you get full resists is very low, even in capped resistences, since you really only get full resists from Binary spells. On the other hand not being able to hit anything beyond 30 yards could really cause a lot of issues. Flamethrowing is also great since a 26 yard fireblast - 31 yards with Arena gloves - is really nice for a lot of things.

Impact is also really nice for AEing since if you do pull some aggro there is at least a chance that some will be stunned from your molten armor and give you a chance to get away. I also use Slow for this, I make sure not to have anything targeted when I AE and then if I pull aggro I will automatically target whatever just shifted to me and then I can hit slow and blink away, giving the tank a chance to regain control without worrying about a completely loose mob. Frost nova being a very bad idea in many AE situations with multiple people in melee range since the root can kill if the rooted is OOR of the tank.

Aldric · 10/02/07, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Logun

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
My reasoning is that PoM AB will get resisted 1% of the time vs. PoM Pyro 12%. Has anyone else considered this over 50/11/0 ?

The resist argument for PoM'ing your AB instead of a pyro is a bit of a deceptive one, while it really stings those times when you lose your pyro to a resist the average damage is still going to be much greater using a pyroblast.

Rounced, on the issue of AoE aggro gain there are pretty much 2 AoE situations. The first is one like Solarian or Tidewalker where you're facing mobs that are not truely tanked and have very low life. While its ideal here to not pull aggro usually its better if you do to try to not take the mob with you at a run. Tough it out and hope that the burst AoE kills it before it kills you.

The second is the one where your blink slow strategy would come in useful but there is a better alternative. These are the Hyjal type wave situation where there are usually around 8 mobs that have much higher amounts of life and are actively tanked, but if they come after you they're going to kill you if you just stand around. In this case I find it best to turn blink and cast invis, you should drop the mob in the first second or two, then you can turn back, let the invis finish, then open back up with AE. At that point you have no aggro at all and can go totally nuts for the rest of the wave.

While you can only use the invis strategy every 5 minutes I find it preferable to start running and make sure that you have an exit path away from the raid, then you can FN just that one chasing mob making the tank have much less leg work than running after a slowed (but still moving) lose mob.

Frostie · 10/02/07, 2:30 PM

61/0/0 is fine and I wouldn't fault anyone for speccing it. It's just that the 11 extra points in arcane wouldn't gain me very much in terms of raid performance, in my opinion. The 11 points I have in fire is more for trash. And I figured I might as well pick up pyro because it'd be 1 more point so why not. Fun to use in world pvp too.

I picked up magic absorption, not because it's overall a good ability, but because it's situationally a good ability. Which I think describes it fairly well. Someone else in the guild picked up magic attunement so I don't need to get that. So my choices end up being wand spec, improved blink, improved CS, improved mana shield and prismatic cloak. The best of those choices for raiding is prismatic cloak and it was just not that enticing to me. I'd rather have a situationally awesome talent that an all-around average talent. And I recently dropped points in fire to get more points in arcane. So I don't see the point in putting points back into fire.

Edit: Oh, about the AoEing thing, you pretty much should use the same strategy for every type of aoeing situation. Make sure a frost trap is down. Strafe run in a circle around the perimeter of the trap while keeping all the mobs in aoe range. If you pull aggro from one or two, just keep strafe running around the circle. With frost trap, they shouldn't hit you more than once or twice. Their damage on you will be very low if any. If you pull aggro from more than one or two mobs, have aggro on two mobs that are spread out or get dazed even though you were strafe running, blink to the other side of the trap, hope you get stuff pulled off you, group up what you have left on you, and continue your strafe run circle.

The idea is that you're never standing still, everything is slowed, and if you get hit, you hopefully don't get dazed. So you hopefully won't ever take more than one melee hit and have plenty of time to react/adjust.

Logun · 10/02/07, 2:52 PM

Aldric, you'd still hold to this even when the PoM AB would have a higher crit chance (6%), 2set bonus (+20% damage), 1% chance to get resisted, 40% less threat, and 266 less mana?

I'd really like to see some math because getting my PoM Pyro's resisted is the suck. I understand that mages with higher end gear than myself don't have such a large gap in +hit and this probably isn't a problem for them.

manly · 10/02/07, 2:54 PM

Or alternatively, ask for Tranquil Air totem and aoe your hearts out without danger of pulling aggro.

I guess this is very debatable.

Frostie · 10/02/07, 3:04 PM

Meh. Tranquil air is 20% threat. And it's all multiplicative anyway. So it's really like a 10% threat reduction. Which is cool and all. But when you're aoeing hard, it's probably not going to stop you from pulling aggro since threat meters don't really mean anything. You know you're reaching the threat caps when you start to see stuff targeting you. And you need some sort of plan for when that happens. Unless you're really timid about aoeing. Then it probably won't matter.

Tyrian · 10/02/07, 3:04 PM

I picked up magic absorption, not because it's overall a good ability, but because it's situationally a good ability.

I went 61/0/0 (from 49/12/0) - finally dropping pyroblast with the reasoning, 'its nice, but I dont really need it'. Was also getting sick of the high resist rate my pyroblasts had , being a full arcane mage

While we learnt Azgalor recently ive been in ~290 sr gear, and resisting quite a few of Azgalors howls every 20 seconds provides a very nice stream of mana to continue your arcane blast spam. Also, resisting the aboms aura on the hyjal trash (when standing on 2-3 aboms) is common and a nice way to restore mana, pending whether your healers are fine with slightly more healing on you needed.

All in all, magic absorption certainly isnt needed- but as people said - it can be situationally good and is fun. Everyone loves passive +manarestore procs, especially arcane mages!

It's just that the 11 extra points in arcane wouldn't gain me very much in terms of raid performance, in my opinion

Spending those last 11 points is somewhat amusing. Improved blink, prismatic cloak, arcane fortitude... lol. Having to choose between them makes me ache for the new lvl 80 talents when hopefully we have better stuff in the tree to spend points on.

manly · 10/02/07, 4:01 PM

Originally Posted by Frostie

Meh. Tranquil air is 20% threat. And it's all multiplicative anyway. So it's really like a 10% threat reduction. Which is cool and all. But when you're aoeing hard, it's probably not going to stop you from pulling aggro since threat meters don't really mean anything. You know you're reaching the threat caps when you start to see stuff targeting you. And you need some sort of plan for when that happens. Unless you're really timid about aoeing. Then it probably won't matter.

In my experience, TA gives just enough threat reduction so that I can go all out on aoe without pulling aggro or having to hold out. Without it, I do have to stop aoe from time to time due to an abomination that turns around.

Aldric · 10/02/07, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Logun

Aldric, you'd still hold to this even when the PoM AB would have a higher crit chance (6%), 2set bonus (+20% damage), 1% chance to get resisted, 40% less threat, and 266 less mana?

I'd really like to see some math because getting my PoM Pyro's resisted is the suck. I understand that mages with higher end gear than myself don't have such a large gap in +hit and this probably isn't a problem for them.

For sure consider if during AP your AB hits for 2800 and pyro for 3500 (maybe more if you have imp scorch and such), at a 30% crit rate

(2800 * .36 * 1.75 + 2800 * .64) * .99 = 3520
(3500 * .3 * 2.45 + 3500 * .7) * .89 = 4470 (plus DoT damage, something like 700) 5170

The delta dmg / delta mana isn't great (around 6dpm) but you should be able to come up with 266 extra mana every 3 minutes. As to threat, the rest of your damage is all coming from arcane (.42 threat modifier after salv) so if your tank is pushing a meager 800 tps you'd have to be pushing 1900 dps to ride the edge and have to start worrying about threat.

manly · 10/02/07, 4:37 PM

Truth be told, I don't think it is adviseable to drop pyro. Not because pyroblast is that awesome, but because the alternative talents are just such lacklusters. Arcane spec will still have 245% fire crits. You might have 8%-ish chance to miss, but when you do crit you crit for a lot. As I said earlier in the thread, the playstyle I have elected to do for AM spam can be resumed down to this simple rule of thumb:

AM spam
focus -> AP -> AM
if clearcast procs during AP, then POM->pyroblast
if AP is about to end, and clearcast didn't proc, then POM->pyroblast anyway.

The 30% more crit to pyroblast in addition to free mana cost will make a small difference. I will not lie that I am fully aware that overall it won't affect the numbers much at all. And that you have a significant chance not to have clearcast proc during AP (and worse: have clearcast proc without having focus up), but I still enjoy my pyroblast.

Kulehan · 10/02/07, 5:03 PM

Aye, I agree with Manly, though when I respec to arcane again in a day or so (pvp frost atm), I'll most likely go 60/0/0 just to try it. Imp Blink has always looked interesting, but I had that reliance on fire talents before with AB rotations, so I couldn't take it. However with the points essentially "spare" to throw wherever seems somewhat usable, I'll give some of those arcane talents a shot. The extra mobility from being able to blink without completely ruining my mana pool could certainly prove useful, along with the other arcane talents that I could grab.

Dryssa · 10/02/07, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by manly

The 30% more crit to pyroblast in addition to free mana cost will make a small difference. I will not lie that I am fully aware that overall it won't affect the numbers much at all. And that you have a significant chance not to have clearcast proc during AP (and worse: have clearcast proc without having focus up), but I still enjoy my pyroblast.

That's just the thing though. POM-pyro won't give you more than a few thousand damage over a boss encounter. I'd much rather have improved Amplify Magic, which in my opinion improves the chances of the tank living and boss dying, especially on learning encounters. Other talents such as Magic Absorption and Prismatic Cloak give you, in my opinion, more sustainability and survivability than a boss dying a split second faster.

manly · 10/02/07, 5:51 PM

Well, I assume opinions change when you have the game on farm. I think we all agree that pyroblast won't change numbers much. I do believe that whatever spare talents are taken in the arcane tree won't either. I think it comes down to taste. If arcane had a talent to reduce further threat by another 10 or 20% for 5 point I would probably go for that. This is just how subpar I believe the talents are. I don't need reduced threat, but I could definately see a use for it for aoe. I'd still like to take my 11pt in fire because I do enjoy the 41 yards nuke on some random occasion such as supremus or thaladred, but that's about as much mileage as it gives me.

Praanz · 10/02/07, 6:34 PM

After the first night raiding with MSD and this spec - I'd say I haven't had this much fun since rolling ignites.

This WWS is the end of our 3rd night of tries.

Convince your paladins to put up JoW is all I can say - JoW Results 542 760 mana returned wich would be 181 Super Mana Potions hitting for max.

Vulkaire · 10/02/07, 6:59 PM

Originally Posted by Praanz

After the first night raiding with MSD and this spec - I'd say I haven't had this much fun since rolling ignites.

This WWS is the end of our 3rd night of tries.

Convince your paladins to put up JoW is all I can say - JoW Results 542 760 mana returned wich would be 181 Super Mana Potions hitting for max.

While JoW is good, your raid is incredibly imbalanced which skews that number somewhat. You only have two melee, and one of them is a shaman which also gets benefit from JoW.

I'll be testing AM spam out tonight for the first time. Have all but the 4pc t6 for it. My gems are a little weak since i had been just matching socket bonuses with a RED meta due to lack of Spinels in our guild. Had to just add in a purple gem to make the MSD work. Will most likely have a shadow priest, but JoW probably won't be up most of the time. Not sure if I should go with mage armor or molten, but we are doing BT which is fairly short fights pre council so I should be fine with molten I am guessing.