Roywyn

Heroism is 30% haste for 40s. 40s*30% = 12s. What it effectively does is giving you 12s extra cast time for free.
In a world without clickies and cooldowns, it wouldn't matter what you do during heroism, and what you do before/afterwards.

It takes a bit to grasp it, but it really doesn't matter how you spread your casts.
A 40s fight is a 40s fight. A 40s fight under heroism is effectively a 40s*130% = 52s fight concerning your mana and casts.
Heroism gives you 12s free cast time.
And in a long fight (300s), Heroism does the same. It gives you 12s free casting, and it doesn't matter for the total damage whether you spam AB or your DPM thing* under Heroism.

I did the calculation with the data from before (300s fights, a few posts above), and both models - AB spam, or rotations during Heroism - yielded the same damage and mana use.


Of course, this changes with cooldowns. Stacking cooldowns gives you more then alternating, using Heroism under Arcane Power effectively gives you 19.5s of Arcane Power, your trinkets are amplified, etc.

And of course, with 30% haste you'll have to use another DPM rotation because the AB debuff wouldn't run off.
And it's easier to just spam AB and know that you don't use anything doing so than changing rotations on the fly and most likely mess them up.



Edit:Yes, I should have been clearer on that. If you just use 2 rigid rotations, it doesn't matter when to use heroism.

But as soon as it dynamic, you should stack your cooldowns and blow them on whatever gives you most scaled damage.

Thanks for pointing that out. Nothing hurts more than renewing scorch with a full bar of buffs ticking

 

Baruk

Has anyone evaluated yet the dmg loose for 2/48/11?
Or the influenced on the "optimal" CD stacking for that spec than?
Anyhow that probably belongs into the "Mage Cooldown Management " thread...

Per Aspera ad Astra

 

Cardynal

So much for fire raiding in the sunwell if that IV/BL change stays. I really don't see how it's going to compete with AB/FB as it wasn't that far behind in the first place. This will hit fire much harder than arcane/frost since you wouldn't want to pop both of them at the same time in the first place. It would take you to below the GCD for AB spam.


Vontre, let us know when you update your simulator. I'd like to see the affects on your model.

 

tedv

While that might be true for arcane, it's not true for fire because the improved scorch buff doesn't wear off 30% faster. It turns your 8:1 or 9:1 rotation into a 10:1 or 11:1 rotation. You get 12 extra seconds, but all 12 of those will cast fireball (as opposed to normal cast time, which only fireballs 95% of the time). That's not a huge difference, but it's worth noting.

 

Doroteasenjk

And that item makes my pocket shadow priest cry. When he cries, my mana suffers. Personally, I would prefer to see the damage multipliers for warlock damage reduced to something sensible before seeing this.

 

galzohar

Seems I was looking at the numbers wrong. It does seem a little wierd though, although it does mean mana is not *that* much dps for arcane, probably due to the low mana->dps conversion, and intelect just scales much becuase it adds a little crit, a little spell damage *and* a little mana which adds up. I need to find the time to look more into it though.

Yes, but with only 40s worth of mana regen still. So it's less than a direct 30% dps increase.

As for stacking AP with BL/IV, unless I'm missing something AP increases your AB spam efficiency and doing so during BL/IV would actually allow more "efficient" ABs to be cast in the fight, doing more DPM, which would result in more DPS.

 

◊ manly

Yes, this is what merged logs do. See the same spell got recorded twice (unless you somehow...hit for the same amount, which seems dubious considering the copy of information from the above/after data). This is why I have been decrying people from not using merged logs - at all - we just don't know if spells are in there twice or what else got 'merged'. I suggested Vontre to put a 'merge logs' button in his simulator that would randomly add possibly a fireball or 2 in your dps (within the same time frame), and you can press the merge log key as often as you like. Of course, I said it jokingly, but that is exactly how I feel about merged logs. And unfortunately they recently removed the display of 'from whom the logs come from' so I can't tell apart if the logs are merged or not, so I can't know anymore whats legit from whats not.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Sancus

Honestly, as much as I love to hate that we have to use complex and shaman-dependent cooldown management to keep up with Warlocks, nerfing Warlock damage is not a buff to Mages, it's just a nerf to Warlocks.

If they nerf both of us, we still both end up further behind Hunters(who are insanely overpowered) and Rogues, which is not good for the caster section of the raid at all. Blizzard needs to rethink this nonsense of nerfing casters when we are already typically behind in terms of dps.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Ztorm

/agree

The only reason warlocks are able to produce such high DPS is because of ISB. If ISB were to be nerfed, even if it is restricted to single warlocks, it would still be a nerf to overall raid dps because shadowpriests would lose much of their synergy. This in turn results in less mana - which will become significant if mages go back to arcane.

 

Nytro

I agree for the most part, Pintofbrew said it on page 119:

This would be amazing for mages if something like this went live and help bring some cross class synergy to mages since they would benefit from Improved Scorch damage boost while likewise we would benefit from the Incinerate boost.

One thing I would like to change with Improved scorch is how the bonus damage component directly into fireballs works, such as Winter's Chill does for Frostbolt which would reduce initial ramp up times needed with multiple fire mages in a raid. Do the numbers back this at all as a small boost or just 1 less button Ezmode for mages?

3X mages stacking Scorch (spell cast + GCD) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

3X mages starting Fireballs (with Improved scorch built into fireball) = __ time for first buffed fireball ?

There would be a small offset since there would be no breakage in a fireball rotation to toss in a single Scorch once the initial stacking was complete.

EDIT:

Should also add with the above question that with a comparison of the 2 with a 1min fight duration as a example and static damage of a fireball, which will provide the most damage in that time frame ? First glance would tell me, fireball with Improved Scorch.

 

tedv

Since Mages have three trees focused on doing damage, I'd love it if at least two trees had a non-stacking raid damage buff like Misery, and the third tree was the highest solo damage. Then you'd actually have incentive to bring all three mage specs to a raid. Winter's Chill could be that damage buff if it affected all spell (at a reduced rate). Same concept holds for Improved Shadow Bolt. The less spell school restrictions there are, the more encouragement there is for class/spec diversity. I mean, it's not like physical damage classes have one kind of armor penetration for rogues and another for hunters. Why should casters have some things for shadow damage, others for fire and frost? Misery and Judgment of the Crusader are the only buffs I can think of that benefit any spell regardless of school. Oh and Improved Faerie Fire, but even that's not enough to make most guilds bring a moonkin.

 

Inoko

Scorch with three mages is: 4.5 seconds (unhasted at all) for the first fireball, if the mages worked out before hand who was doing what.

0.00 all three mages cast scorch.
1.50 3x stack of scorch is up.
1.50 two mages start casting scorch.
1.50 one mage starts casting fireball.
3.00 5xstack of scorch.
3.00 two mages start casting fireball.
4.50 first fireball lands.
6.00 the other two fireballs land.

Fireball that applies a debuff given the same unhasted-ness.

0.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
3.00 all three fireballs are cast.
3.00 3x debuff (technically 4.0~ or so for fireball flight time)
3.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
6.00 all three fireballs are cast.
6.00 6x debuff -- only 5x applied, one is essentially "wasted" debuff wise. (technically 7.0~ or so)
6.00 all three mages start casting fireball.
9.00 all three fireballs are cast.

The fireballs cast at 6.00, assuming all are cast from the same distance at exactly the same time, will apply the debuff simultaneously and none will be effected by the last two stacks. The fully stacked fireballs will start hitting at 9.00.

The loss in initial DPS would be 3.5 fireballs (3, since half a fireball can't actually be lost) at a full stack, but is offset by having (3fireball-3scorch) damage added on the first cast, and (3fireball*3debuff-2scorch*debuff) on the second cast. or...

3 Fireballs * 1.15 versus ((3Fireball*1.0-3Scorch)) + ((3fireball*1.09)-(2scorch*1.09))
3.45FB || 3FB -3SC + 3.27FB - 2.18SC
3.45FB || 6.27FB - 5.18SC

Very bad napkin math for you there, but your 6.27FB - 5.18SC has to be >= 3.45 FB for the second one to be more damage. Or, 2.82FB have to be worth 5.18SC. I think. My brain isn't fully on, and I expect someone to come by and tear my math to pieces by pointing out an obvious flaw.


[Edit: in a one minute fight, the theoreticaly fireball that applies debuff would save you one to two scorches, depending on how perfect your ratio is -- probably two, since most mages will err on the side of caution for the debuff in MF range.

 

Etherealz

As of the last PTR push - they have taken all stamina off of the new tier 6 pieces

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...estregalia.jpg

I believe our hit problems are solved.

 

Hate Monkey

Good change in that we got our hit, bad news is that we still kept our spirit, and lost our stam. Lets hope for one more change.

EDIT: Fuck that previous reply wasn't there when I clicked reply!

 

Ztorm

Seems like Blizzard is trying to prevent a case where players can use both the 4-piece T6 and 4-piece gladiator at the same time.

 

Koosha

Yeah I really hope the t6 stays this way. Manly and I just did this math, now that we don't have to use the staff for hit, and we can use the MH/OH, you will definitively be able to have 366 haste rating before drums. Pretty amazing.

 

Sancus

And using a bazooka to do it instead of a scalpel. For fuck's sakes, there's a hundred thousand more elegant solutions than bringing us back to 7k hp mages.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Koosha

Skull of Gul'dan is also not stacking with Hex Shrunken Head right now, idk if thats a specific item bug or if its for icon too

 

◊ manly

Fixing tierred gear to not make it good in pvp is god damn simple. Make tiered gear have a load of hit rating. And cut some stamina. And cut some dmg/crit too to give more hit. Not many mages would have complained on it, as long as you don't push it much (ie: arcane/frost doesn't really need much hit rating). Removing stamina alltogether does seem like a bold move, but hey I'm not going to complain.

On a different note, the new 3 t6 gear pieces are effectively a full extra tier level above their intended level thanks to this change. If this can put into perspective how good this is.

As Koosha pointed out, from the known gear currently, using optimum pieces for fire spec on all slots, you should have 366 passive haste without any gems. Were talking 23%+ passive haste (!). I didn't even bother checking the other stats; I don't expect to gain much boost in the other stats except maybe some dmg from the socket bonuses. This will be a very sizeable dps buff. Now the real question is -- how will destro locks scale, and I almost fear the results.

EDIT: just tested -- indeed, skull of gul'dan triggers a cooldown on all other trinkets. Well, another indirect nerf that affects more mages than destro locks. Who knew.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

rautrix

Skull is not stacking with Icon either. They are now proccing cooldowns on each other.

However, if you pop Skull and use a mana gem with Serpent Coil Braid, you still get the dmg buff from the SCB.

Edit: One of our mages hit exalted and we are testing [Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen]. Neither of us have a TLC so can't test to see if they share a cooldown with each other.

Avg non-crit on the bolts is ~350 dmg and the bolts can crit; appears to be a 45s internal cooldown.

The Arcane Bolt's dmg is affected by target debuffs, so COS will push that up. But the Arcane Bolt is not affected by your spell dmg.

 

taciturn

Bleh, so this patch is really taking out basically ALL CD stacking eh?

Not sure how the best way to use them is now, I just just whenever they come up and try and stack both trinkets sequentially during hero with flame cap, drums, destro pot, seems to take all the fun out. It might be a bit of a pain to juggle them all to have them up at the right time.

 

Grai

*edit* stupid

Mods please delete

 

◊ Vontre

Anyway, for the results. I updated magegraf.com so IV and BLoodlust never stack, and fixed up the logic a bit to just pop IV whenever. The result is a 1% dps loss for top-end mages (that means Manly) over 5 minutes.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Pintofbrew

The current wording of Emberstorm is "Increases dmg dealt by YOUR FIRE SPELLS" so you're right in that it's a wording change. However, it does not include any descriptor of the gain. I'd expect any scorch-like effect to read:

"Emberstorm: Increases lalala, and your X SPELL has a Y% To cause the Z DEBUFF on target which Increases All Fire Damage Taken By N and lasts M Seconds"

I don't think "damage of all fire spells" really means it's the new lockscorch. More than likely a case of bad vocabulary selection.

 

Grai

Yea, I caught myself, but not before you could read it Pint.

The wording was weird, and the odd nature of the change made me wonder if that was indeed the case. After thinking about it more I just decided I was stupid and looking for buffs. I suspect that the base mechanic of their spell will eventually be extended for the other ranks as well though.