I'm sorely intimidated by such a giant in the industry Faxmonkey. But wouldn't a fire heavy elementalist build have the best AoE damage? Shatter wave was a favorite in BWL and AoE fights in AQ40 if I remember correctly. It might have just been me as well, but I've been noticing massive DPS bursts in the AoE department making a switch from arcane to fire on Kael.

I don't know if it's the fact that in an AoE fight you can easily stack your gear to favor heavy crit, but I would imagine that a crit heavy mage, blast waving, would show a significantly higher amount of damage than a frost mage with TLC, throwing a nova and CoC or Blizz out. I'm not saying you're wrong on paper. I'm saying you're wrong when 6 other people are AoEing and you're subject to a GCD. Unless all your AoE is mage based, which I'm seeing a lot of warlocks in my raid. Maybe there's no single target breaking your novas, which I'm seeing a lot of rogues on those weapons. Tanks and the like too (the bastards!) You're not going to recieve that full 50% from shatter. If you're cool and good, and stacked with frost mages maybe 25% but then again fire has an extra 25% on it's crit over frost, not to mention more base damage.

I'm just saying... 5% dmg trade off for more burst damage? That's a loaded statement. In a perfect world. With no interrupted casts and no moving around and sitting perfectly still. Cool. But every time you and your elemental move, both of you lose your burst. Every time a fire mage pops his burst and then says Uh oh. His combustion is still up. You might still be right but honestly I think the burst damage is comparable, not to mention that it's not really burst damage. It's just both of you maximizing your overall damage. Every theorycrafting I see on the damn subject involves people assuming that you pop combustion or water elemental on the mark every time. So what sort of burst damage is that. The kind that the raid leader calls for it but it's on CD cuz you had a threat free zone there? We all know that's not how it works.

Burst damage periods are very short and very furious, and I can usually unload my Combustion with a hefty amount of burst in 15 seconds, even if your burst is a little more sustained 45 seconds and. *gasp* a little weaker.

Odd that fire should be a more forgiving spec in terms of needing to gtfo. Ice block is a good spell though, i'm never going to argue that one. I think you would be better off assuming a rather more significant dps loss than 5% though, and really your only gain is Ice block, which isn't survivability persay, but a nifty way around things. Yeah yeah, it's my Oh shit button, or my omg garrote button. But Blizzard with the exception of one fight I haven't seen yet, hasn't done anything that makes it req. for a mage to have.




I do love frost to death, and every mage should know how to play it, but I'm tired of hearing silly statements like "more burst dps" and "a good mage will use cold snap to maximize his elemental timing and blah blah blah blah" It's nonsense. One or the other. Burst dps is worthless when you do it every time it's up to maximize your over all dps, it's not worth arguing it. And if you're saving it FOR the burst dps, which like I said fire tends to trump that anyway on the fast and furious burning sessions (GENERALLY not always, sometimes you have long burn sessions) (then again now that I think about it, a fire mage combusting on a mob that usually needs bursting under 20%, would scale way way way way way past a frost mage no matter the gear you have) I dunno I'm just saying, one or the other, not both.

While your statement is technically true, something I would note is that while most add-phases are freeze/shatterable, it is often preferable not to use Frost Nova/Freeze simply due to to the unstable aggro mechanics.

e.g. Morogrim, while all the Murlocs are indeed able to be Frost Nova'd, we generally do not allow our Mages to use Frost Nova as it is far more reliable just to allow the Paladin to tank them without the risk of them getting Nova'd closer to one of the AoEers or the grave healer nearby. They are instructed only to use their Nova if the mobs get free and are heading away from the Paladin.

As CoC has scaled very poorly in its trip from 60 to 70 (highest rank is level 65?! What was Blizzard thinking?) I'm not really sure Frost has that huge of an advantage over Dragon's Breath/Blast Wave, as most AoE cycles last a very short period of time.

I am typically able to beat our Arcane Mage in AoE phases as Fire simply due to the fact that most AoE phases are not long enough for him to use his slightly higher crit rate on Arcane Explosion to catch up with the higher initial burst damage from DB/BW.

As a long term Frostie I have to agree with shatter being virtually useless in every raiding scenario. Apart from the fact that frost novaing mobs will most likely get some one killed in a general AoE fight you would be lucky to get more than one AoE effect on the mobs due to the changes to FN because of PvP and ice lance.

Spending seven talent points on shatter simply isn't effective for a raiding frost mage these days. I put the points back into arcane and went to 13 so I could get Arcane Impact which is a much better DPS increase while AoEing. I have never used CoC to do damage, it is used as a strong snare combined with permafrost and I will sometimes open with it just so whoever pulls aggro on the AoE has a bit more time to adapt to them pulling a mob.

While we're on the subject of AOE: Shatter is indeed a lot of points to add just for AOE; If the true only reason you're speccing Shatter is AOE wouldn't you be better served with 6 points in the hugely-slowing blizzard? Rank one on the pala pulling agro on morrogrim, an ideal opener to linearize damage intake when they hit him. I also hear imp blizz is utility well needed in BT though I can't say from personal experience.

Secondly: What's the point of comparing DPS in AOE? Comparing it in single target, I understand, but AOE? So what? You AOE 12% more in X spec than Y, AOE is not a race, as is DPS sometimes, it's a utility. It just has to be done. I've never heard anyone respec just to AOE and I've yet to see a mage spec which can't AOE adequately. I'm willing to be corrected on this.

Some poster said above that they don't allow Fnova on Morrogrim. There are some issues at hand with what pertains the application of AOE and AE in specific: Many mages misunderstand and charge in to the pack of mobs, Nova, then AE. This is bad karma. If used efficiently, the Nova will stick the murlocks while some of them are next to the pala, some are just in range of his consecration and some aren't near anyone at all. Then start AE, while remaining out of range of their melee. Clearly, a frozen mob next to anyone with 1 agro will hit them if that's the only target they can see, but if done correctly you should be in the clear. Mage Nova rotation will pop the next nova as soon as the 1st one is broken and that way, by running along the "coast" of the mobs melee will never be an issue and they'll be boxed in. We’ve found this method to be optimal in terms of control and with nova staying put for most of the duration of the encounter it makes for very safe warlocks, bless the dears for pulling agro off us.

The ideal scenario is:
1)Warlocks have agro, and after them, the pala. Mages should be last in agro
2)Mages control the mobs so they’re in melee range of only the pala
3)Mages and warlocks do roughly equal damage. This indicates the locks aren’t slacking or being coy due to agro.

Depends on how you do Morogrim, we have never used a Pala and AoE the mobs on top of Morogrim so FN is out of the question for our tactic.

Morogrim is just one boss as well, you can't possibly use FN on Solarian, infact only place I am willing to pop a FN is on Hyjal trash generally and only if a mob starts beating on me.

Well, I considered respeccing from fire to arcane for Hyjal trash waves, because handling the waves there is almost half of the job done. FN and CoC will never be as good as PBAoEs, because you never hit all the mobs you want (same for morogrim and solarian).
With Fire you can burst aoe all 3 Minutes with combustion, if you stack it to 4 or even higher (single casts until 2 crits) and then unload it with flamestrike + blastwave/db hitting in the same second and both getting the critbonus from combustion.
But generally for hyjal trash waves, arcane will perfom better, because fire aoe has only burst and then cooldown and arcane is more linear aoe damage. And with arcane subtlety you almost never draw aggro.

@Pint: The Ideal Scenario is
- Tanks (Pally, Warri, Druid) have aggro from aoe mobs and pull em together
- Warlocks throw seeds on several mobs (not morogrim)
- Mages start with Flamestrike and then an instant aoe after that, prefarably blastwave
Then all AoEs almost hit at the same moment, Seeds explode and the mobs are almost dead... if they aren't then they are slowed by blastwave or coc or disoriented by DB and can easily be finished by Arcane explosion.

We don't FN we have a Tank taunt rotation, FNing means spreading out when you are better off to have everyone grouped in the center so you get maximum effect from your AoE.

It really depends on every guild's strategy as we use FN on solarian and even on morogrim too

From my experience in hyjal as deep arcane vs deep fire vs deep frost, I have to say I prefer deep fire, simply because it combines 2 great spells, DB and BW, but also because they can both be used to buy time for tanks to pick stuff back up.
In the end the 3 specs pretty much always end up spamming AE anyway. As arcane AE is all you got but you got it good. As frost you have shatter but its usualy broken before your GCD is done, but you have iceblock if aggro is on you... But a mob usualy returns to a tank or another dpsers while you're iceblocked, if you snare a mob with BW then DB him when he reaches you while running around the pack spamming AE, chances are better that a tank will see it and pick it up

As for frost dps... sure it can be great in tank and spank situation, but for illidan for example(which is the fight i spec frost for heh), i find that my WE often dies the moments i want him the most... twin blades phase, shadow demon phase, even to agonizing flames sometimes. Iceblock and Ice barrier is pretty priceless on that fight tho

A lot of what you said has already been addressed but I'll take the time to do it again since you brought it up again.


This has nothing to do with what you responded to. Yes we all do place a lot of emphasis on what's the highest DPS, that has nothing to do with the fact that the original post was slanted to make Frost look better than it is.

Yes, *almost* every is not every. As you said, we place a high emphasis on what performs best. Optimal means optimal. Not almost optimal.

Shatter does not make up for the difference between Flamestrike Spam and Deep Frost's crummy Arcane Explosion. Regardless, as I have said before, you almost never should be casting Frost Nova on a big pile of mobs. The damage you lose by wasting a GCD on Frost Nova is not regained via the subsequent Shatter.

No. Water Elemental sort of makes up for Frost lacking as much raw damage boosting as the Fire tree does, it doesn't make up for the base Fireball scaling being much better than Frostolt's. Frost has to overcome having less Damage increase via talents (11% vs. 13%), less crit via talents (since Frostbite doesn't work on 90%+ of bosses), lower crit (200% vs. 210%), Winter's Chill being worse than Improved Scorch, Empowered Frostbolt being worse than Empowered Fireball and of course Fireball scaling better than Frostbolt to start with.

Can you honestly say to me you think Water Elemental makes up for all of that? I mean, I'm as big a fan of the little guy as anyone (I peed myself a little when the Mage 41 pt talents were revealed), but he's not THAT good.

This thread is called "TC after 2.3", thus everything -- at least that I said -- is in that context.

There is no amount, Fire scales better, period. Frost will not be competitive PvE DPS until the Frost tree is buffed or Fire is nerfed.

So based on your reasoning, would you say that zhar'doom is better for arcane than the tempest + chronical simply because of the Ashtongue? Or is it because damage scales better for fire...which would mean that haste scales relative to damage better for arcane.

From playing with your spreadsheet, zhar'doom gives better dps for arcane and the tempest + chronical gives better dps for deep fire.

I've actually been a fire heavy elementalist build (with shatter and iceblock) for solarian and morogrin, and yeah, it beats every other spec i've seen for aoe. That said your single target dps bites so its pretty pointless, aside from having a laugh, or if half your other mages and warlocks have the plague for an aoe boss.

That said my guild is only 3/4 tk 5/6 ssc so I couldnt talk about hyjal trash waves, but we definately have frost nova on solarian and morogrim. To be fair, the morogrim fight isn't a normal one, since the aoe mobs are meant to be fully tanked (at least for us with our prot pally) and hence if you know how long to give him for agg, you have basically have a no gcd flamestrike. I regularily beat a full fire mage spamming flamestrike (his MOE return was hilarious, as was mine) with flamestrike + FN + blastwave + coc. That said to avoid pulling agg I generally didnt get to AE much after I used my cooldown aoes, since I didnt want to take much damage from pulling agg + the dot. The lack of reduced agg that arcane AoE has is a factor here worth mentioning, if the mobs lasts long enough it might make up the difference.

As for shatter being weak, my blastwave critrate was about 60% and cone of cold 50%, AE was ~25% from the 3 or 4 morogrim kill WWS's, if memory serves (i'll see if i can dig them up, the arcane has a smaller sample size also). Now my listed fire crit rate was around 35% and frost was a bit less, so you certainly dont get the full benefit, but you can't write it off either. I can't speak of the use for improved blizzard outside of these fights, but if you arent trying to kite them it's going to loose value, especially when you have several frost novas/blastwave/coc/db/earthbind etc to help with aoe pack control.

As for a frost build in 2.3, its being buffed(as is fire), which is certainly handy, and remember it gets a unmentioned ~4% more theoretical dps than fire and arcane since it gets no partial resists on bosses for frostbolt (water ele can still get partials though, from what I recall). It doesn't make up for the damage difference, but for me at least, ice block is enough of a reason to have 21 frost at the t5 level, over full arcane (fire is out since alar is still a new boss for us).

I have to say, why blizzard didn't make frostbite work like arcane potency is beyond me, they can be so similar in function if your chain casting a mob that can be frozen, but arcane potency is a self buff, so its not broken by the other people hitting the mob. Frankly its everything frostbite should be in raids.

I just noticed the shaman 2 piece tier 6 bonus was changed (-10% mana cost to chain heal, instead of lesser healing wave). I really wish we could somehow get Blizzard to think of a better bonus than the current + 2 seconds to evocation one.

Evocation is already being nerfed next patch (for raiding mages) after the changes and getting the tier 6 bonus... will barely break it even again. I dont think its exciting, innovatative.. or really even that useful. Surely we can get something a little better

Well the 2 piece bonus in 2.3 will be an extra tick of 15% so ~1500 mana for a Fire mage, bit more for Arcane (if there still are any.) That's equivalent to -10% off about 37.5 Fireballs, so very lackluster by comparison.

The big downfall of Evocation is the whole requirement to stop DPSing for 8 seconds, and the set bonus only makes it worse. I'd really rather have seen it be like, +5% chance to clearcast, +5% to Arcane Meditation and +5% to Master of Elements. That might be a bit much, but something along those lines.

But this does not affect the different speccs in different ways. I agree to you, this bonus is not very spectecular. Looks uninspired somehow, especially when you look at some other bonuses

I'm not sure how you mean any of the other T6 2-piece bonuses are somehow more "inspired." Most of them are centered around a resource saving perspective (cheaper abilities, mana returns, etc.). The mage 2-piece is no different, it's purely a generic way to give the mage more mana regardless of spec. We certainly could have done worse (more mana back from aspect of the viper) or better (5% holy light crit, although pallies don't only spam holy light).

I agree that it isn't a great set bonus, but you have to agree it is in line with the theme Blizzard went for with T6.

Not Tier6, look at the tier 5 bonuses for example. they are all way more (call it) "inspired" in my eyes

Are you certain about this? I have probably less than 1/10th the amount of time raiding as frost in TBC as you do, but I think Vashj killed my water elemental with forked lightning many many times. I don't think he's immune to nature at all, but rather immune to poison effects specifically (like all elementals)

I'm not paying 100g to test this, but would be extremely easy to do with a shaman or druid friend.. (actually, if I remember tonight I'll do it on PTR)

The 2 piece bonus is more of an annoyance now than a bump imo. If blizzard really wanted to stick with a evocation change (sigh, totally uninspired) why couldnt they make it such that evocation fully channeled in only 4 seconds or was more potent on each tick.

Thats a neat idea, if they really want to stick with the same bonus theme. Its certainly better than just a 'lets make evocation longer' option

Correct

Is there a consensus yet on the new meta gem vs. the new MSD? So far I know that it works like the 2.1 crit gem, but I'm not sure if it out performs the nerfed MSD for firespec. There is also the possibility of using a focused evocate on something like hyjal trash to increase aoe dps. Without a major 2.3 release for the mage spreadsheet, I'm just sitting here on an Illidan helm and my napkin math.

The new MSD is not going to be bad for Fire but it is definitely iffy. Current best guess is 15% proc rate with a very reliable tested 45sec internal cooldown. At that rate you should see a proc just under once a minute spamming Fireballs. Not exactly earth shattering.

OTOH, the CSD is going to be boosting the damage of every crit. With 35-40% crit rate raid buffed, that's a bit more significant. In the approximately 1 minute you're waiting for your MSD proc the CSD will have boosted the damage of roughly 6-8 Fireball crits.

Perhaps just as importantly, it's a boost without any cost to mana efficiency (I like using Destruction Potions.)

Again this is speaking strictly for 10/48/3.

Enfuego's post made me stop lurking here for once in my life and put in my 2 copper.

I'm probably one of a handful of mages that went with an MSD when 2.2 came out, but stayed 10/48/3. Mainly because of a lack of the Lightning Cap and no Tier 5 gear...MSD was nice while it lasted, but I wasn't even exploiting it fully as deep fire. I suppose that's why Im not very upset about it getting the nerfbat.

I'm very much looking forward to going with a Chaotic meta come 2.3 for the same reasoning that Enfuego presents. A half cast fireball every 45 seconds seems to pale in comparison to the added critical damage you can obtain with the Chaotic meta. Especially if you enjoy popping Combustion/Trinket/Destructo-pot when the boss gets to 20%. Heh.