I recall Blizzard asserting, in no uncertain terms, that they would not be implementing a spell queue.
I agree that these other systems are unwieldy kludges when compared to the elegance of a 1-deep queue, but that's what they've said.
Yeah they've also said a lot of other things and promptly turned around on it (i.e., "We are happy with the new Mage water being 2 per cast, this is intended and will not change."). So I'm hoping this is another one of those cases. It's probably false hope, but it's there all the same.
Last edited by ebbv : 10/24/07 at 2:42 PM.
Reason: Add quote and backup assertion
Why do you think so? Say, frost mage with Improved CoC, Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds has 1500 spell damage (quite high, to help AE which has better damage coefficient ).
And even without Improved CoC damage output for FN+CoC is still higher.
Also mobs are usually snared now, so if frost mage is really good, they have some troubles in squishing him.
This is a good example where it looks good on paper, but in practice 2x AE is better, mostly because you won't be able to hit everything with a CoC whereas you will with an AE. From personal experience the mobs are rarely if ever grouped enough to hit them all with a CoC. I mostly just save it to snare something that's trying to run away if my frost nova is still cooling down. I'll take 1600 dmg on every mob instead of 2056 on only some of them.
The other element is that, at least in my case, I typically use Rank 1 Frost Nova for the large mana savings rather than a high-rank Frost Nova that gets full +dmg value.
I could be wrong for doing this, but as the end effect is identical, it seems resonable to use Rank 1 as a general rule.
Let's be honest here, the difference between R1 and R5 nova is trivial now. Sorry, to be more accurate, the cost of R5 compared to mana-pool is so trivial that downranking it is not worthwhile. You might as well get the full (albeit small) +damage application unless you are soloing.
I cannot think of a single in-game raiding situation where the 100ish mana saved will allow you to apply more damage to the encounter than you'd get from max-ranking it. Of course we are now moving into the realm of theorycrafted min-maxing that becomes more OCD than practical though.
Well, usually you want full ranked frostnova to avoid your frostbite overwriting your nova, which happens on all ranks that aren't max rank. That's about it tho, and it rarely happens in pve context.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Well, usually you want full ranked frostnova to avoid your frostbite overwriting your nova, which happens on all ranks that aren't max rank. That's about it tho, and it rarely happens in pve context.
Well, you usually won't get a frostbite proc unless you hit it with a frostbolt or CoC. Either of which will most likely break the nova these days so that is really a non issue. Only other ways it could happen would be with frost armor which you wouldn't be using in pve anyway, or imp blizzard which doesn't work well for kiting with frostbite to begin with. For pvp, I have always used rank 1 as I am usually pretty tight on mana.
A) None of the Frost Novas have broken from another damge source in the 1.5 seconds before your CoC.
B) You are able to hit every target with your CoC (not impossible but a lot of times not possible.)
In the real world, 2x AE is better most of the time.
We are on game mechanics forum, after all. And my point is that you are probably underestimate FN+CoC pure damage potential, not that it is better for any situation. Surely a mage must use his brain and choose appropriate spells for an encounter. But numbers (and my personal experience, as well as experience of some other mages) says that "appropriate"!="2xAE instead of FN+CoC every time".
Originally Posted by ebbv
So, here's my results (this is still using the 2 false assumptions above):
.........................
Cone of Cold, Base Avg 429, Coefficient 0.13
............................
After Talents Total = 651
After Crit = 1035
Why your calculated damage for CoC on frozen targets is so low? CoC with Shatter, WC and 25% base crit will get 77% crit chance after FN (25% base + 50% shatter + 2% WC). So, average damage is 651*1.77=1152, not 1035, for total 1514 with FN. And yes, CoC+AE is even better scenario if you don't have Improved CoC. Of course, without Improved CoC profit is small, and also AE for typical 10/51 build can have higher hit chance if mage is not hit capped. It was just a side note.
It is usually easy to jump around and spam AE, while CoC requires right positioning, right timing and, sometimes, good kiting. But ability to use all class and personal skills at maximum potential is the key for really good frost mage, imo.
There is a lot of information in this thread, to the point where I don't know where to begin heh.
Basically, my guild is 1 boss into TK and 2 bosses into SSC and I am doing VERY well with the MSD and arcane missles. If from what I am reading is true then arcane will basically be the lowest raid dps spec out of the 3 main ones (being either deep fire, deep frost or deep arcane) and to be honest, after raiding as fire since the start of AQ40 I am tired as hell of 8:1 fireball to scorch spam rotations so I suppose my questions go as follows:
With 2pc T5 will ab spam/rotations still be viable?
Will Frost finally be PvE viable? (Assuming WE stays alive etc etc)
Will I once again be Pigeonholed into lolfireball spam?
And I know "any spec is always viable" but I am more thinking in terms of ACTUAL damage output. I went to Gruul/Mag/VR today with 14% hit 35% crit and over 1k spell damage as fire, and for all intents and purposes, I had my shit pushed in. So I went back arcane to stay raid viable (in my opinion) I just don't know what to do for the next patch. I'm just rambling on at this point so I'll turn it over to you more progressed mages. What should someone in SSC/TK start thinking about? Hasted Frost?
p.s I would love to raid as frost again if you haven't noticed :>
Last edited by C-2 : 10/25/07 at 7:10 AM.
Reason: for clarity
By Vul'jin's third leg! What is it today? Everyone seems to post "hi i'm new here, can you summarize all the posts into a <spec X rotate Y-Z spells> post for me plx?"
Read the last five pages of this thread, of [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? and TBC Mage Theorycrafting and draw your own conclusions. Going too far back won't help much, and neither will reading them from the start. Try 5 pages from the end and if you don't get the info you require go 10 pages back.
As for your final statement, no, "any spec is NOT always viable". This mentality is fine for W.O.W. Forums US and EU, for Kara and Gruul. In EJ forums, 95% of the time we are talking in terms of "ACTUAL damage output" as you name it, thankyouverymuch.
I don't know why you seem so hostile. I've read the entire thread and I am more asking for advice rather then asking "hay guyz lol i m nu 2 mage cn u hlp plz" And as for the final statement, yes I realize there are some quite shitty specs I only said that in an attempt to not be patronized (which obviously failed). Yes I read these forums a hundred times more than I post, and yes I realize these aren't the WoW forums thank god for that. I am not asking for spell rotations, or gear choices or anything resembling that (from my perspective). I am more asking the much further progressed mages what their opinion is LOOKING BACK with their 2.3 options seeing as how from my PoV looking into the future is much more foggy. Hindsight is 20/20. But you are right about one thing I am talking about actual damage output.
I am terrible (READ: TERRIBLE) with math so have a heart :< and I will read over those threads again but my question still stands. If you had to go back and do it all over again in 2.3, what would you change?
Sorry for being so twitchy in that case, there seems to be a flood of "run my numbers" posts lately. Consensus seems to be that:
Fire will do even better than it is doing now
Frost with elemental alive will be second best
Arcane will be worse than either, but better than Frost with no elemental
Unless I'm mistaken, the only way it's looking now for arcane is 2T5 and ABx3,AM,Sc rotation. Nobody seems taken with the idea of AM spam anymore and most posters are begrudgingly returning to fire or gleefully hoping frost will work enough to be acceptable.
Sorry for being so twitchy in that case, there seems to be a flood of "run my numbers" posts lately. Consensus seems to be that:
Fire will do even better than it is doing now
Frost with elemental alive will be second best
Arcane will be worse than either, but better than Frost with no elemental
Unless I'm mistaken, the only way it's looking now for arcane is 2T5 and ABx3,AM,Sc rotation. Nobody seems taken with the idea of AM spam anymore and most posters are begrudgingly returning to fire or gleefully hoping frost will work enough to be acceptable.
Having followed all of the EJ Mage theorycraft over the last few months, I think thats pretty much the picture post 2.3.
Been Arcane (using the AB rotation w/o 2*T5) for a good while and am doing pretty good damage. Of course since I got a meta helm I've been on the AM spam train.
Progression wise I'm at 6/6 SSC and 1/4 TK. Second piece of T5 will be mine the next time Kara decides to drop them. However having looked at all the forums and dabbled on the PTR, come 2.3 I'll be back to Fireball spam. I believe that 2*T5 AB rotation with my gear will be very close to Fire DMG output, but the dependencies seem to high (SP, un-interrupted rotations etc). And I'm sure that when the Bosses hit 20% and I can chug Destruction Potions and Flame Caps instead of Mana Pots, Fire will really shine
Let's be honest here, the difference between R1 and R5 nova is trivial now. Sorry, to be more accurate, the cost of R5 compared to mana-pool is so trivial that downranking it is not worthwhile. You might as well get the full (albeit small) +damage application unless you are soloing.
It's more of an issue in pvp, where getting mana burned / viper stinged to exactly 0 mana is not rare. And then its kinda helpful if you are able to Nova after only a single regen trick when a ROgue or Warrior is on you.
I'm not entirely convinced that AM spam will entirely be useless in 2.3 with a MSD. The amount of extra damage your getting every 45 secs is still significant, and by far greater than the 3% extra crit meta gem over the same period of time.
I'm not entirely convinced that AM spam will entirely be useless in 2.3 with a MSD. The amount of extra damage your getting every 45 secs is still significant, and by far greater than the 3% extra crit meta gem over the same period of time.
Do you have any calculations to back this up? (no, not that oversimplified calculation from the other thread). Please dont do claims like this unless you have something to back it up. Untill you provide that I will stay with what Kavan said earlier in this thread
I thought you claimed AM spam with a MSD was still viable in 2.3, but you where only comparing MSD and CSD with AM spam.
That means you are right, but you would do more damage with an AB rotation (or fire/frost) no matter what metagem you use , so this entire discussion is pointless.
Well.. Using my average dps with Arcane Missiles.. Crit pulse 1750 and normal pulse for 1000. On average critting 2/5 every AM.
In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to cast 9 Arcane Missiles and generate an aproximate 31500 critical damage of which 3% is only 945 damage.
In 45 secs of AM spam i'd expect to get at least one proc every 45 secs.. resulting in haf a free missile every 45 secs or in my case 3250 damage.
I stand by my made up conclusions :P
I haven't done a lot of the calculations with arcane anymore since the spec is being put into the closet by blizzard. So it may still be the Meta of choice for Arcane.
From what I've seen with my personal calculations with fire...they're within a couple dps of eachother.
In a real encounter however, I believe the MSD would give higher dps since there are times when you're not casting and the meta could be on cooldown. The CSD would be easier on mana, since it does have the 12 crit on it and haste is always harder on mana.
Do you have any calculations to back this up? (no, not that oversimplified calculation from the other thread). Please dont do claims like this unless you have something to back it up. Untill you provide that I will stay with what Kavan said earlier in this thread
Well, Lhivera did some calculations in the WoW mage forums showing that the MSD will still be a 4.7% increase in damage (napkin math verifies that easily enough) if you were only spamming Arcane Missiles. The issue is that since AM spam will be crap dps in 2.3 in comparison to everything else the only way to make Arcane Viable will be to use 2T5 and rotations and since the MSD doesn't play well with AB rotations it becomes a bit of an issue to use it properly.
You could conceivably recode one of the Mod timers to track the cooldown of the MSD so that when it is available you switch to AM spam until it procs and then return to a rotation but even then your dps will pale in comparison to what you would see with a Deep Fire (or even a Deep Frost) rotation, even with using 2T5.
That also says nothing about the mana issues you are putting up with to do that subpar dps. More mana for less dps is not a very good deal so I would just plan on getting the CSD meta so you can more easily switch between Deep Fire and Deep Frost depending on what encounter your raid will be doing. Unless you have 2 helms available so you can keep the MSD for when you are Fire and then switch to the CSD when you are Frost.
Final note - sure more dps on AE is an advantage to Arcane Spec BUT all the AE I've seen so far is Trash and who really cares about an extra 100dps on trash. If you can't get through it then your guild ain't killing the boss anyway and that xtra 100dps on the trash (if your single target is subpar) won't help when the boss spanks your raid.
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.
W/O Buff : 1896 dps
W/ Buff : 1740 dps
Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.
W/O Buff : 1896 dps
W/ Buff : 1740 dps
Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
Erm... could we get a little more explanation on this?
Final note - sure more dps on AE is an advantage to Arcane Spec BUT all the AE I've seen so far is Trash and who really cares about an extra 100dps on trash. If you can't get through it then your guild ain't killing the boss anyway and that xtra 100dps on the trash (if your single target is subpar) won't help when the boss spanks your raid.
Huh? The only AoE I do is on bosses, or rather boss adds. Arcane Explosion alone is usually 35%+ of my damage on Hydross/Morogrim/Solarian. Particularly if you're having trouble with those fights (we wipe to Morogrim like it was going out of style) this is a very valid reason to go somewhat deep into arcane.
I did a quick calculation for the Mad Alchemist caster "buff" that is reported. I simply assumed the 20% longer was after haste was applied to fireball...and that the 10% damage was applied after crit/non-crit were averaged together. I know this is a somewhat rough assumption.
W/O Buff : 1896 dps
W/ Buff : 1740 dps
Nice job blizzard...I wonder if you can get normal alchemist elixir buffs instead of the 4 that were reported.
You are referring to the vibrant/black/glowing blood debuffs linked on mmo-champion, that are suspected to be Mad Alchemist's Potion side buffs?
Those are debuffs that are already in the game, cast by mobs in Zangarmarsh. I highly doubt they will become those potion side effects too.
Edit: Mmo-champion states that that debuff isn't even confirmed. And someone in the 2.3 thread said they used 23 potion and had no effect yet. No one else linked anything yet with that potion.
And I'm sure they would post a screenshot of something new.
It just makes no sense whatsoever that someone now randomly claims that some debuffs that have existed since beta are now the potion side effects.
My personal guess is that it's just not in yet.
Also, those are magic debuffs. They'd be removed faster than you can blink in a proper group/raid by your local cleansebots.
Brings up nice memories on Arcane Blast when it was dispellable
I think he means this effect vibrant blood, which is supposedly one of the four possible effects of the mad alchemist potion (and the only one which has any positive effect for casters at all).
Clearly the downside outweighs the positive effect for fireball spam, as he said.
Huh? The only AoE I do is on bosses, or rather boss adds. Arcane Explosion alone is usually 35%+ of my damage on Hydross/Morogrim/Solarian. Particularly if you're having trouble with those fights (we wipe to Morogrim like it was going out of style) this is a very valid reason to go somewhat deep into arcane.
Sorry, I haven't been to SSC in months but even when we were going there it was more about controlling the AE mobs then the specific application of dps (ie with the AE cap in place being able generate 100 more dps then a different spec is moot since the AE is capped anyway).
Back then I was Deep Frost for awhile to help control the murlocs on Morogrim and honestly my AE dps was still roughly equal to every other mages and that was before they increased Blizzard's coefficient.
AE stuff dies fast cause it's supposed to die fast. The issues with AE are about controlling the mobs not maximizing your individual dps.
If you are wiping to morogrim then skip going deeper into arcane and spec Deep Frost and control the mobs so that your warlocks seeds are more effective. Deep Frost spec Blizzarding the mobs when they are all bunched means everything dies nice and clean and you will win that fight. Sure your dps will suffer on Hydros (but if that is on Farm status does that really matter anyway) and a little bit on the other fights (this is arguable in 2.3) but if it gets your raid through Morogrim it is well worth the personal epeen sacrifice.
10/24/07, 2:29 PM
And my point is that you are probably underestimate FN+CoC pure damage potential, not that it is better for any situation. Surely a mage must use his brain and choose appropriate spells for an encounter. But numbers (and my personal experience, as well as experience of some other mages) says that "appropriate"!="2xAE instead of FN+CoC every time".
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