Sorry, to be clear, I wasn't advocating CoE should be applied over CoS outright. I always want E+S+R applied, at all times, and I tremendously dislike raiding with less than three warlocks, because someone's DPS has to suffer with two or less. At present though our Affliction lock is pretty much always assigned to (maledicted) CoS, and if our destro locks did decide to go fire, the Aff lock would probably switch to maledicting CoE. My general understanding of the 2.4 destro lock situation is that fire is expected to produce higher personal DPS, but at the cost of ISB uptime, which as you all know, has effects beyond DPS. How things pan out is something we won't know until Sunwell is live, but it's at least something to think about in the interim.
AoE does not proc any reflecting-type damage. You may test this with a druid with thorns on. Any damage that isn't specifically targeted at you (so spirit bolts on malakress is out) shouldn't proc it at all.
By and large, this change reeks of PvP ballancing, making Molten Armor able to proc an Impact on enemy spellcasters or hunters. Though with 0 dispell resistance, I wonder how exactly it is useful to start with.
Even so, I'd expect it to require at least 10 reflections for the damage to start being even remotely worth more than nothing; how often has an extra 1k ever made any difference? that's 13 reflections worth of damage. I'm not even sure it'll work on RoS P2.
AoE does not proc any reflecting-type damage. You may test this with a druid with thorns on. Any damage that isn't specifically targeted at you (so spirit bolts on malakress is out) shouldn't proc it at all.
By and large, this change reeks of PvP ballancing, making Molten Armor able to proc an Impact on enemy spellcasters or hunters. Though with 0 dispell resistance, I wonder how exactly it is useful to start with.
Even so, I'd expect it to require at least 10 reflections for the damage to start being even remotely worth more than nothing; how often has an extra 1k ever made any difference? that's 13 reflections worth of damage. I'm not even sure it'll work on RoS P2.
Ah, yeah that seems about right, doesent seem like its gonna be of any use for pve mages then.
Molten armor can however crit. I've seen hits for around 130dmg on attackers so unless its dispelled, that might atleast prove an annoying factor in pvp, not that I care about pvp at all really though.
I didn't stated that Prismatic Cloak is giving 4% dodge (the mechanic for physical dmg reduction is a flat -% dmg modifier).
The thing I was talking about is that magic dmg does not have this kind of mechanic and that what is listed on some sites isn't throughly correct and that is because PvP has a very different mechanic than PvE on the magic dmg part (best example is that mobs don't critically hit you with spells, except elementals that everybody agreed about them that they do have a different mechanic than the rest of the NPCs/mobs).
And so how would it be that you know a boss hits you with 4% less magic dmg? Comparing parses; but the thing is that most of the bosses magic hits aren't affected by amplify/dampen and here is what I was on about. If the magic ability isn't amplified/dampened then the prismatic cloak works as resistance (and basically reducing the number of hits because of no partial resists), if the ability is affected by amplify/dampen then it works as resistance again but is subject to partial resistance .
I do suspect that Prismatic Cloak is working in PvE (the magic part only) as a % to resistance. And yes I do know binary dmg coming from players is reduced with this (best way is to get a rogue that has Cheat Death), but I was on about PvE and that is the magic dmg coming from bosses has a different mechanic or similar but not the same as PvP mechanics.
I do think that it has a different mechanic because NPC's have different mechanic and for example: if you are mind controlled and use polymorph spell on someone in your group it'll last up to 50sec even though you are a player and you use it on another player, because you are considered to be a Pet and thus an NPC while you are mind controlled... (best way to see this is to go in BF with at least 2-3 mages at 1st boss on heroic difficulty). Though didn't have time to test this only in PvP. Also another reason to think there is another mechanic for magic dmg on NPCs is that when you are mind controlled you do alot more magic dmg (don't know about melee).
You need to present some proof or stop arguing this point, because the idea that a flat "4% magic damage reduction" turns into resistance is all sorts of crazy. Priest Spell Warding is worded similarly and I can prove it outright reduces magic damage by 10%.
Yes Pintofbrew, the 8k mana average will be gained in the long fights from SSC/TK whereas in MH is a whole different story with so short fights and MA will have a lower effect.
How on *earth* are you gaining 8K mana from a SSC / TK fight? What fight is there in tier 5 with numerous binary resist checks flying around for such a long length of time?
And with regards to Prismatic cloak - this has been explained before, and you have just brought the same inaccuracies up without reading what was posted. Goggles has posted a parse on the last page which proves what you are saying is completely incorrect, so please stop posting it. This is a theorycraft thread, and when something is proved, we don't keep going on about it. Magic Absortion is a terrible talent, it isn't a good filler for any spec, and it certainly is not providing 8K mana to anyone on a tier 5 fight.
Duravi: the 2.7% increase from Mal-CoS to the SP is negligible (your 300mp5 will go to 310mp5. Not particularly a selling point vis. the potentialDPS difference.). So is the point of mixing Shadow and Fire destro locks. Either one is superior or the other, there is no reasonable excuse (except ISB uptime) to mix the lock types.
To back up your point a bit more:
I'm looking at about a 200 DPS increase going from SB to 2.4 Incinerate with Flame Cap usage.
Let's say all your Warlocks have my gear. A single Destruction Warlock using Shadowbolt can manage 50% uptime on ISB, and any more warlocks added do not have nearly the same impact on ISB up time. If you have 3 Destruction Warlocks and 2 Shadow Priests, it would make sense to have one that spams SB and then have the others use Incinerate. If you only have one Shadow Priest though, how many Shadow Priests have you seen that would make up for the Warlock losing 200 DPS by gaining essentially 10% to his own DPS? If you have only 2 Destruction Warlocks and any number of mages, I'd skip out on CoS and have both Warlocks use Incinerate.
If your raid has an Affliction Warlock and any Destruction Warlocks, that single Affliction Warlock can maintain about 30% ISB up time for the Shadow Priests. The Destruction Warlocks using Incinerate and any Fire Mages will easily do more Fire damage than Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks can do Shadow damage, so you should be using Malediction CoE over CoS.
The gap between Fire and Shadow damage done by raids will be very wide, and there's really not going to be a a reason to prioritize CoS over CoE in a normal raid setup.
And so how would it be that you know a boss hits you with 4% less magic dmg? Comparing parses; but the thing is that most of the bosses magic hits aren't affected by amplify/dampen and here is what I was on about. If the magic ability isn't amplified/dampened then the prismatic cloak works as resistance (and basically reducing the number of hits because of no partial resists), if the ability is affected by amplify/dampen then it works as resistance again but is subject to partial resistance .
I do suspect that Prismatic Cloak is working in PvE (the magic part only) as a % to resistance. And yes I do know binary dmg coming from players is reduced with this (best way is to get a rogue that has Cheat Death), but I was on about PvE and that is the magic dmg coming from bosses has a different mechanic or similar but not the same as PvP mechanics.
Sure there have been some exceptions coded for diminishing returns in pvp - but once upon a time you really did sheep the other player for 50 seconds. When they changed that they didn't also recode fireball or any other game mechanics. You are talking as if the whole game works differently depending on whether you are targeting a player or a mob.
Bare in mind certain damage sources like Naj'entus bubble, Mala'kress' spirit-bolts or Al'ar's flame... thingummy are non-mitigateable. This means no modifier will prevent/alter them, including amp/damp magic.
Sorry for further derail, but Na'jentus Tidal Burst can in fact be mitigated with Frost Ward/Mana Shield and Malacrass' Spirit Bolts can be mitigated with SR gear. It's just amplify and dampen magic that often don't work with certain boss abilities. I've often wondered how this can be? Perhaps the boss ability specifically overrides the aura from those two spells or perhaps those abilities are marked as not being magic somehow. At first I thought those Spirit Bolts must be physical damage or something.
The good news with a firelock would be we could always count on having CoE up heh. A question I have for you Manly, or really anyone with some experience on Sunwell bosses on PTR, is range a factor in any fights we have seen (or school resistance/immunites) up this point? I don't like to underestimate how much encounter design factors into speccing,
The first 4 bosses or Sunwell don't really involve range at all, with the possible exception of Felmyst (it could be a bit an impediment to nuke Felmyst during his air phase with 30 yards, but I really doubt its a big deal).
The resistances, I'm not sure. When we did PTR testing we didn't even have a working damage meter. We don't have the tools to make use of the new 2.4 combatlogs. Kalecgos has a bunch of spells that I think are binary and that I think you can resist, but the fight is easy enough that it doesn't really matter. Your goal is mostly to apply '1-min DPS bursts', and another DPS burst once you reach 10%. And all through the while you need to constantly decurse (well, not exactly constantly, but you get the idea). The arcane dmg stack is probably binary, and constantly applied in the main room. I think 20-25 application per fight is realistic, but the spell is arcane, so don't expect much resists. You can't resist the curse, so thats another ability out. Then I am not sure which spells are binary in the room #2, but if I were to guess, I'd say none of the dmg you receive is binary. In other words, you should be casting 100% of the time, but you could regen mana in the main room, and it would be fine. As long as you have the mana in room #2 and at 10%.
Brutallus is a 6-min tank-n-spank with a very thorough dps/hps benchmark. The meteor slash can be fully resisted as far as I know. I am not sure about Burn though. Absolutely 0 DPS interruption. So you get 3 meteor slash per rotation, 4 if your tanks gets unlucky with taunt resists (unlikely). I doubt you'll get more than 3-4 ticks at most per fight. And that might be an exageration.
Felmyst is a bit messy to explain. In fact, I won't really attempt it, as I know I will forget details. I believe he constantly refreshes a 1000dmg/tick magic debuff (like every 5 seconds) when you are 'in range' (ie: when hes on the ground, not during air phase ?). However, I have no idea if that can be resisted. If I ever resisted it, it got reapplied right after. So its hard to tell. Then he casts another magic debuff that you can't resist that will wipe you soon enough if it doesn't get mass dispelled ASAP. Think like, a full raid wipe within 5-6 seconds if no dispell is done. He can also encapsulate players, which can be resisted (arcane school), however it is really unlikely that 1- you get targetted (1/25) 2- you resist an arcane school. And its not casted all that often (thanks god). I don't think theres any debuff/spells during the air phase that you can resist. The fight has like 3 possible dps interruptions -- namely at the end of air phases. Ideally you would still be nuking felmyst while hes in the air, but you might have to run after him constantly. So possibility of regenning mana there.
The twins have like a bunch of abilities. Unfortunately my experience with the fight is obtusely limited -- we pulled it the first time to see what would happen, then I immadiately got OMEN ERROR SPAMMED to death. I couldn't play or do anything. I proceeded to download bugsack and restart wow, but the login server was down. Then the server shut down afterwards. The fight does not seem to have any possibilities of DPS downtimes from what I was hearing on vent/from what I saw. Somewhat funnily, the fire twins has a spell stealable +35% fire dmg buff. I am unsure if this is some fire bias or if this is intended to have fire mages tank it. (or use warlock tank but make fire mages happy??).
In any case, I think this gives you a bit an idea. The fights don't really favor any spec.
<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
Has there been any TC or PTR testing done on how the new talent Molten Shields will benefit us?
Im referring to these changes and more specifically the changes in bold.
* Improved Fire Ward has become Molten Shields.
* New Talent: Molten Shields will cause your Fire Ward to have a 10/20% chance to reflect Fire spells while active. In addition, your Molten Armor has a 50/100% chance to affect ranged and spell attacks.
Have heard very little about this talent was working on the PTR. (Yeah, I don't doubt it's of dubious value for PvE raiding, but the chance to proc impact on a hunter or caster in PvP is at the very least amusing.)
I was curious if anyone knew how this worked with DoTs. Loathing warlocks as I do, I'd love it if they took 75 dmg for every tick of their DoTs. , but I assume at best we'll probably get a single Molten Armor tick when we first get hit by the DoT, but not thereafter. Can anyone confirm/deny/clarify?
Also, any idea how the damage affects channeled spells like Mind Flay? Can the Molten Armor proc cause spell pushback or interrupt the channeling?
For the warlocks the effects of improved shadowbolt greatly depend on the crit rates of your warlocks, their specs, how many warlocks and how many shadow priests. Changing any of those (especially removing/adding 1 class) would change your ISB contribution by non-neglicible amounts (in comparison to DPS you could possibly gain/lose by swapping specs). If you're considering fire you'll have to look at lieuler's spreadsheet using your own standard raid as a baseline - anything else and you will never stop arguing about which spec does more raid dps due to the fact the answer is simply "it depends". In other words, you can't average it out or make any generalizations about warlock specs unless you can agree what a normal raid contains in terms of both SP/warlock numbers, warlock specs and warlock crit chances.
It procs off of:
Direct damage spells, melee hits, and ranged hits.
Direct timed DoTs (Initial application only, this includes Gas Nova)
Targeted AoE (Meteor slash)
It does not proc on:
DoT damage ticks
Non-Target aoe (Mass dispel, Blast wave, Felmyst DoT (which btw is unresistable))
Curiousities:
It procs impact even if you aren't targetting the person, aka a warlock dotting you
It procs and shoots off lightning capacitator in the same way.
Does not seem to have an internal cooldown.
Untested: If it causes spell pushback on channelled spells, at the very least it can interrupt drain life.
Edit: I found one small mistake. AM mana cost with Improved Arcane Missiles is not 720, but 784. Changed the numbers accordingly.
Ok, I did some very basic testing on Dr. Boom. These are non-raid buffed so results might be slightly different in a raid environment.
61/0/0 /w Improved Arcane Missiles:
Missiles hit for 720 and crit for 1280 on average.
40/0/21 Frostbolt:
Bolts hit for 1720 and crit for 3900 on average.
However, what we are more interested in is the DPM values for these spells. In a raid environment, things will be different.
Frostbolt gets one tick of while-casting mana regeneration. I will assume, the mage has 300 mp5 while not casting, 200 mp5 while casting. Which means, frostbolt's mana cost can be assumed as 272 - 100 = 172.
Thus, frostbolt => 2267.5 / 172 = 13.18 dpm
Now, for AM, things are a little complicated. In a typical AB/AM/AB/AM... rotation, AM receives 2 while-casting ticks of mana regen but the next AB spell will receive 1 tick of while-not-casting mana regen. So I will include the extra mana contribution of 1 while-not-casting tick in AM's dpm calculation.
764 - 100 - 100 - 50 = 514 mana per AM
Thus, AM => 4300 / 514 = 8.36 dpm
So, it seems, we have frostbolt as the higher dps and higher dpm spell. WIN-WIN situation, right? Not necessarily. There are 2 key factors.
1) Is CoS up?
2) Is JoW up?
JoW will reduce the mana cost of AM by an insane amount => 74 * 5 = 370
JoW will reduce the mana cost of FB only by 74.
CoS will increase dps and dpm of AM by 13%
CoS will do nothing for FB.
Now, if both CoS and JoW is up, let's see what happens to new DPM values.
Also with CoS up on a boss, but not CoE (which is usually the case for our encounters), then AM dps gains a 13% boost => AM dps with CoS = 971.8 compared to FB dps at 907. Which puts AM as the clear winner with higher dps and an even higher dpm.
My question is, have I done anything wrong in these calculations? Because, if my calculations are correct AM is hands down better than FB for AB cycles. So, why does people think 40/0/21 will be the better arcane spec, come 2.4?
It would be interesting to math out how the Arcane specs (without CoE with missles and without CoE with Frostbolt) for multiple mages stacks up when accounting for a warlock who's able to put up an additional doom rather then CoE. I'd suspect that mage frostbolt makes the damage worth a CoE, but if we're able to blast the majority of the time due to high regen, might not be worth it to have warlocks CoE when they could do DPS themselves.
I currently have frozen shadoweave for my chest, and had an opportunity to get Robe of shadow council.
I am obviously frost specced, and I was insistently told that this was an upgrade for me but honestly I just disagree.
I never have mana issues during a raid, so the stats do not mean a whole lot to me. I lose out on 18 + damage, and gain 25 crit. What are some mages thoughts on this?
Addons aren't a crutch, they're tools to be abused by skilled players to increase performance. Like a carpenter using a hammer, a fisherman using a lure, or Xi using curse words.
Sorry for further derail, but Na'jentus Tidal Burst can in fact be mitigated with Frost Ward/Mana Shield and Malacrass' Spirit Bolts can be mitigated with SR gear. It's just amplify and dampen magic that often don't work with certain boss abilities. I've often wondered how this can be? Perhaps the boss ability specifically overrides the aura from those two spells or perhaps those abilities are marked as not being magic somehow. At first I thought those Spirit Bolts must be physical damage or something.
Tidal Burst damage is not mitigated, it is absorbed. The full amount is assigned, it's just not assigned to your hitpoints in the example you pose. I may have been mistaken on Spirit Bolts, I never bothered much with it, however you're correct in that amp/damp don't affect it.
Tidal Burst can not be reduced in damage size and neither can a number of boss abilities. Stance, talents, whatever. Absorption is not the same as mitigation or resistance.
So, why do* people think 40/0/21 will be the better arcane spec, come 2.4?
For starters, I don't know why you find it surprising that AM is a competitive filler spell when you give it ideal conditions as compared to frostbolt (CoS, JoW, no CoE). If you regularly raid with both CoS and JoW but not CoE, then yes, AM is a viable filler.
Secondly, you haven't accounted for the impact of Icy Veins/Cold Snap/Icy Veins in your calculations. Obviously IV's impact on your DPS varies depending on fight length and how you manage your cooldowns, but it is a non-trivial boost, especially if paired with AP (I've lost track of whether this is still possible or not in 2.4, I wish Blizzard would just decide one way or the other).
Assuming AP and IV still stack after 2.4, if AM does work out as a better filler spell for your raid conditions, then you might want to consider a 50/0/11 build.
Lastly, although the DPS/DPM values you have used may show that AM is superior for you, with your current gear, is the same true if you add 100 spell damage? Or 100 haste rating? Saying "hey with my gear Arcane > Arc/Frost, therefore Arcane always > Arc/Frost" is not a convincing argument.
JoW can be assumed to have a proc rate of 50%. I'm not sure how to calculate the chance that you'd get all five waves of AM to proc (0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5^0.5? Gives me 5% for all procs, which seems to make sense), but we can say it's likely not going to happen every time.
The average return would be 2.5 procs, or 185 mana. Since we can't have half procs, this is AM with various proc levels:
Now, AM will get a scorch afterwards, but I don't know Scorch's DPM offhand, but it looks like AM is capable of much more DPM, but it relies on getting all five procs. Frostbolt only has to get all three procs for its 23.13 DPM, which is a bit easier to get (0.5^0.5^0.5 = 15% for all three procs?). Faulty Math aside, I guess easier to roll all 1's (zero to one, one being a proc) when you only have to roll three times versus five times, but it's also easy to roll all 0's.
If I'm right, AM has to get 2 JoW procs to keep up with Frostbolt's zero proc DPM, so I think Frostbolt may be a bit better, but it's going to depend on luck. Ultimately, I think it's just a playstyle preference. Does this seem right?
Another thing playing in favor of Frostbolt is level-based partial resists. On a level 73 AM gets the 6% penalty while Frostbolt does not. For AM variants Scorch really only works in 0 haste setup. With anything more than that Frostbolt takes the role of Scorch in IV builds.
Hmm, I completely forgot about 50% proc chance on JoW. This changes things a little bit. Statistically speaking, the effect of JoW on AM and FB will be -37 * 5 and -37 mana respectively.
Thus, for FB with no CoE the DPM will be;
2267.5 / (172 - 37.5) = 16.86dpm
And for AM with no CoS the DPM will be;
4300 / (514 - 185) = 13.07dpm
Now, this puts things into a brand new perspective. Let's have a look at the effect of CoS,
AM DPM = 14.77dpm, still less than FB DPM !!!
If there is no JoW, the difference gets bigger in favor of FB.
Hence, my conclusion (so far) is;
Any combination which includes a CoE or does not include a CoS-> Frostbolt is better DPS and better DPM.
CoS (no CoE) but no JoW -> AM is better DPS at much less DPM.
CoS (no CoE) and JoW -> AM is better DPS at slightly less DPM.
Now, let's not forget the effect of double dip icy veins with frostbolt during a full duration heroism and it is making more sense to me how 40/0/21 might pull forward.
Assuming AP and IV still stack after 2.4, if AM does work out as a better filler spell for your raid conditions, then you might want to consider a 50/0/11 build.
As long as you're not in serious mana trouble it's best to stack 3 blasts, pop ap and your other cooldowns and spam blast until ap wears off. Missiles + AP = bad
Frostbolt is currently not proccing JoW, that is correct. A Retadin should realistically have JoW up for a very significant fraction of the fight. If not 100% then at least over 85%, after all the only way he'll drop it is two missed Strikes in a row or a phase-change or whatnot which will mean he has to forgo one. In which case you're probably not casting either.
I have not seen any evidence that the Fbolt-JoW issue has been resolved in either the PTR test notes or the PTR it's self.
While I advocate and do dearly love the calculations you're all bringing forth about Arcane variants, it seems rather odd we're all ignoring specifics we've discovered in this very thread recently:
AB has been proven to ramp incorrectly and incur a DPS and DPM loss via casting at a lower rank but costing at a higher. Would you all like to redo your calculations assuming AB mistakenly starts casting at the wrong speed and re-evaluate your positions?
Either that, or start working on a AB/Fbolt/AB/Fbolt/AB/Fbolt*3 rotation instead of a AB*3/Fbolt*3, because until this is resolved it's looking slightly grimly in favour of 50/0/11 if only in terms of game mechanics.
As a side note: Blink/Slow/Spellsteal seems to have had it's cost increased again. I seem to recall it at circa 224-245 mana on PTR some days ago yet last night I checked and it was 334-360 mana. Looks like they settled on 50% live cost rather than 33% live cost.
Also, ambling back to the old Magic Absorption issue: Improved Blink will make a perfect partner for it: Blink through some ambient AoE and increase your chance to proc mana-back by 25%, a non-insignificant amount. It is however, still under-par as you're wasting a GCD and chewing up the first two ranks of the talent's worth of manaregen in the process of the evasive manoeuvre.
This means it's more a "happy side-effect" than deliberate mechanic. I'd say for those of you speccing over 40 in arcane, spec imp blink and 1/5 magic absorption, wait 2-3 weeks and check WWS for how much mana it made you before considering speccing deeper into it. In my view if you must spend talent points for defensive talents I'd rather they were Prismatic Cloak or the new and not-so-shite Arcane Fortitude. Even improved Mana Shield will be more worth it with the "gains 50% from spellpow" change.
Edit: It also just struck me that I-Blink is possibly one of the most fundamental talents for AoE survival; an Arcane mage with no Tranq Air totem will be teetering on the verge of agro-gain as it stands now, let alone what happens with a AToI-IV-AP-AE spam in 2.4 with the increased cap. Picking up stray mobs will be almost a certainty and given Nova isn't generally an option, so Blink will be the new must-have. I'm even starting to like Arc-Fort; it'll be almost as much armor as Ice Armor.
03/05/08, 10:47 AM
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