hypetech

With the trinket's internal cooldown, you'd be better off just using a +dmg trinket to get more overall damage out of your flamestrike.

 

Tyfon

Damn, I'd forgotten about the internal cooldown. I was having visions of MH trash proccing shadowbolt-volleys.

 

◊ manly

Am I off or scorchio 2.4 is back to not working at all since yesterday's patch?

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

hypetech

I've noticed this too, whatever changed yesterday seems to have pretty much bricked it again.

 

aznxk3vi17

Did you update via Wowace updater? I can't convince the mages in my guild to install Scorchio + the fix, but does Wowace do any kind of checksum comparison? By using the modified core.lua, does that prompt Wowace to see the mod as "outdated," thus re-downloading the borked version? If this is true, then that's probably what happened.

If not though, I really can't say much. Nowadays I just use NECB and assume none of the mages are scorching, keeping my own rotation as if I'm the only mage (sadly, I'm mostly right - scorch always falls off when my NECB timer ends ).

 

galzohar

I agree that when you're threat capped crit becomes less powerful in comparison to other stats, but the actual effect in a reasonable-length fight is quite tiny, and also crit will never actuall lower your DPS. As in no matter how threat-capped you are, having 1% more crit will never be less DPS than having 1% less crit, and the reduction to crit value when being threat capped should be extremely small when you're casting a lot more than just a few spells.

In other words your average DPS lost due to the chance to get all your crits early and no crits later on, hardly increases by increasing the crit chance, and therefore stat equivalence points while taking this chance into account should be so close to the stat equivalence points you would currently get while ignoring threat that it'll be pointless to take it into account.
On trash this neglicible chance goes a bit higher, but since nobody really cares about a small difference to trash DPS on a small % of the trash mobs that threat-cap you...

Since you can never cast a spell if it critting would get you killed, regardless of your crit chance, having more crit will not get you killed more often.

 

◊ manly

I know what you mean, but no, WAU will not overwrite your modified file unless a new version from your last download is up. I tested it many times over.

This is really a major frustration.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

◊ manly

Err, I think I found out why. Since Omen kept breaking yesterday, I did a 're-install all addons' in WAU, since it fixes most mod issues. Needless to say I am pretty sure that reinstalled that lua file. Probably a false alert.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Vulkaire

You can set WAU to ignore Scorchio. I believe that you just right click it on the add-on list and you will get the option to do so. I am at work so I can't check for sure.

 

Rustyshrapnel

Yep, confirmed...just right click on the "scorchio" in your WAU and select "ignore." Ran "update all" again and it skipped over Scorchio. Right as rain!

 

coldfusion

I have been trying to find on here some information about spell haste and mages.

My assumption is that Spell Hit > Spell Haste > Spell Damage > Spell Crit for mages.

Is this true? I know I read that somewhere in Elitist Jerks, but I cannot find the post.

Thanks for your help.

 

Nurru

A reminder people: The TC thread is supposed to be about new/interesting Mage mechanics, post all your cluebie handout questions to the "Help Me Please" thread.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

jula

[quote=taciturn;695697]I am now using this:
0:00 - pull
0:40 - cap + combustion + hex
1:00 - IV + skull + destruction pot
2:40 - hex
3:00 - skull + destruction pot
4:55 - cap
5:15 (or 19%) - combustion + hex
5:35 - IV + skull + destruction pot

basically:
A. delay the first cd activations a bit to let tanks build more aggo. as long as you pop your first trinket before 1:15 it does not matter. You can even wait for a ring proc if you want.
B. Should always prefer to hex and not skull with combustion.
C. Flame cap lasts 1min so use it with your first trinket activation regardless of what you prefer to activate first.
D. While hex's activation is stronger than skull's activation, it does not help promote the synergy with destruction potion. So i prefer to use skull during IV.

The most simple way to do it is make two macros
one for cap + combustion + hex, lets call it macro 1,
and the second macro for everything , lets call it macro2.
Then it looks like this:
0:00 - pull
0:40 - macro1
1:00 - macro2
2:40 - macro1
3:00 - macro2
4:55 - cap
5:15 (or 19%) - macro1
5:35 - macro2

 

Hate Monkey

Been watching you guys talk about this trinket shit for a while now for Brutallus, and I keep noticing that everyone is using, in my opinion, a horrible Flame Cap + trinket timing.

0:00 min - pull
0:10 sec - Flame Cap
0:30 sec - Skull+IV+Combustion+Destro Pot, rolling Ignites possible. (Berserking if able)
0:50 - Icon/Hex
2:30 - Skull+Destro Pot
2:50 - Icon/Hex
3:10 - Mana Gem
3:30 - IV, Berserking CD up, SAVE THEM
4:30 - Skull, Destro pot CD up, SAVE THEM
4:50 - Icon/Hex up
5:00 or @ 20% - Flame Cap+Blood Lust+Skull+Destro Pot+IV, Berserking too
20s later Icon/Hex

The difference between rotation and the one in the post above this, is this rotation allows for max consumable usage (mana gem), and more able to get lucky with rolling ignites.

Using Skull+Combustion will prove more easier luck to obtain a rolling ignite, which will provide higher dps overall than using Icon/Hex with Combustion.

And if you're in the boat I'm in with Hyjal ring and still using it, do not wait for procs, and it is actually a dps downgrade to other rings available.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

 

Wueste

What do you mean with rolling ignite. As far as I know, there is no extra damage from rolling ignites. Missing ticks are simply added to following ingites.

5.000 crit
Tick für 1.000
next crit for 5.000
Ignite: 1000 + 500
next crit for 5.000
Ignite: 1000 + 750
Ignite: 1000 + 750

I can't see any advantages from using Combustion with haste, instead of +damage trinkets. The only reason could be, that you want to see higher numbers with your ignote dots.

Or did I misunderstand this?

 

Pintofbrew

There's a whole thread dedicated to rolling ignites. They were possible in 2.3 and there's no evidence to prove they're not in 2.4. In order to manage this you need a lot of haste as the specific timing of when the spell lands with respect to the previous Ignite DoT is critical. Read up on it.

As for using Comb with haste, it's (1) to force rolling ignite (2) to combine with Desto Pot.

 

Prom

I would go for Flame cap + hex at around 10-15s into the fight.
Enough time for your tank to build up threat and then pop IV+combustion+destro+bersecker as soon as you can.
Then basically use hex whenever its up, Skull + destro whenever its up and mana gem when available. At 20% pop everything and profit

 

ainav

With all my respect, but I don't see how you are going to pop your cooldowns at 20(drums + flame cap + hex) and then at 40(comb+IV-Skull-destro pot) without making overaggro.

I seriously want to see Manly cooldown menagment for Brutallus, as from what I see in the WWS he is making way more dps with way less buffs than the other fire mages I have seen in WWS.
Only possible explanation for me is that he is hiding some imba-secret from us.

Last night I made 2k DPS on brutallus beeing full frost.
No elem. shaman 3drums 1 destro pot 1 heroism! Nothing special I just needed to say it!

 

Seferis

Actually the the relation of Crit and being threat capped is very simple. What will get you killed is a large variation in outgoing damage or to rephrase it "damage spikes". For this purpose it does not matter if the large variance is due to high spell damage in combination with a single (albeit unlikely crit) or several smaller crits.

However, you want to tackle it from this point of view, having around 50% Crit is the worst case, since it has the most unpredictable behavior. Going towards 100% Crit or 0% Crit has the same effect of "smoothing" out your damage output.

 

galzohar

Nothing in threat capping will get you killed. That's what omen is for - if you die to threat it's not your gear's fault and it's not the dice's fault - it's your fault for not watching omen.

What you do lose when having higher damage variance is DPS due to the very small chance to roll all your crits early and then no crits later on, resulting in threat capping early and then being far from threat cap towards the end, while if you had no DPS variance you could've been riding the threat line for the whole fight doing more damage. The actual difference between different (realistic) crit chances that this is causing is extremely small due to what actually needs to happen in order for you to lose DPS becuase of your DPS variance and how small the effect changing your crit chance has on it.

While crit rating would get slight devaluation from this in reality it should be neglicible enough to completely ignore.

If you're watching omen your average DPS on a given fight will never go down as crit increases, either.

 

◊ manly

Personally, I am somewhat amased to see that many people don't agree on cooldowns. I started the whole 'fire spec is all about cooldown timing' meme on the wowboards because I was pissed at how grossly ineducated the people were there.

To me, theres an unspoken principle that I have always used for cooldown stacking. I never thought it was worth mentioning, since it felt rather obvious to me. Every cooldown, ignoring synergies for a second, have a relative worth. Not all of the cooldowns are made equal. Some are better, some are worse. A fire mage has a total of 9 possible cooldowns, namely, in order from best to worst, ignoring duration of cooldown, and ignoring cooldown stacking (ie: no cooldowns are stacked):

1. bloodlust (+30% haste =~ +23.08% dps)
2. molten fury (+20% dmg = +20% dps) --> (yes, this is a cooldown, for all intent and purposes)
3. icy veins (+20% haste =~ +16.67% dps)
4. drums of battle (+5.1% haste =~ +4.85% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
5. skull of gul'dan (+11.15% haste =~ +10.03% dps (or less depending on base haste rating))
6. hex shrunken head (+211 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
7. destruction potion (+120 dmg/+2% crit =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
8. flame cap (+80 dmg =~ +?? % dps (figurative number))
9. combustion (this spell sucks - At 40% crit rate, it gives you 10%, 20%, 30%, 32%, 22%, 9%, 1.4%, 0.1% crit (on average) for casts 1 to 8. Help me please? )

<keep in mind, theses values ignore cooldown stacking. some of theses cooldowns will multiply far better than others when coupled together, such as bloodlust/molten fury/icy veins. If you have the 3 previous cooldowns stacked together, then the relative worth of skull increases dramatically. As such, the list above should be doubled and have another list that shows the values of all cooldowns when stacked.>

Imagine for a second that there were no synergies issues and that combustion didn't suck. And that drums didn't eat a GCD when you activate them. Your goal is quite simply to stack whichever cooldown has the most dps increase together, or if you prefer, to stack from 1 to 9 in that order (assuming we all agree with the order I gave above). That means quite simply that your priority is always to stack cooldowns from top to bottom; or to give a more thorough example, to stack cooldowns on bloodlust and not on molten fury if you had to chose.

All of this implies the following. Again, assuming there is a concensus on the 'priority list' above, it means the optimum way to stack cooldowns is to pop all cooldowns with skull of gul'dan, minus combustion. Needless to say, pop drums of battle first, because the eaten GCD really sucks. Then once those are done, you are left with hex/combustion.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Thesappster

Hello all,

Been looking through the mage posts trying to find some info and have been unsuccessful so far: so here is my question.


With the new spririt buff in 2.4 and assuming at least 2T5, is Arcane/Frost a good dps spec now? I have heard rumors that 40/0/21 can be one of the top dps specs.

Thanks for any/all input/help!

 

Muphrid

I'm curious; why do you list the % DPS increases as less than the haste values?

 

chase

I assume it is because 30% haste is not 30% increase in cast speed.

1-1/(1+haste)

 

Roywyn

Minor nitpicks - Icy Veins is +20% DPS (-16.67% cast time), Bloodlust is +30% DPS (-23.08% cast time), both regardless of current haste.

For the other cooldowns:

Using my character, I'm have 1541 fire damage raid buffed (shaman group).
Fireball base damage is 735, 1 DoT tick is 21. Since it can't crit and Fireball crit rate is 40%+, we assume a 14 damage tick. (735+14)/115% = 651. So we can pretend that fireball has 0 base damage and we have 651 more +fire damage on our gear.

That means our spell damage with 0 base damage of Fireball would be 651 + 1641 = 2292.


That means Hex is 211/2292 = 9.2%, Icon is 155/2292 = 6.8%, Desto Pot is 120/2292+((2%*1.163)/(1+40%*1.163)) = 5.2%+1.6% = 6.8%, Flame Cap is 80/2292 = 3.5%.

Combustion isn't actually that bad. For the first 6 casts (fits into a 18sec window, 15s with IV up or SP gear haste), you get 0%+20%+30%+32%+22%+9%.
(The only way not to lose the bonus of the first cast is using drums or invisi or something else with a GCD between your last spell and the Combustion afterwards. That's why 0% on the first cast.)
So, thats 113% crit over 6 spells. Or 18.9% crit over 18 seconds, which is a (18.9%*1.163)/(1+40%*1.163) = 15% increase over 18s. You have to keep the actual mechanics in though, that it lasts for 3 crits.

That means it doesn't benefit from haste modifiers at all, only from damage modifiers. Which is why it kind of sucks for stacking cooldowns.


TLDR
Hex = 9.2%, Icon = 6.8%, DP = 6.8%, FC = 3.5%.
Comb = 15% for 18secs, not scaling with haste, only with damage.



How to stack the cooldowns at 20% then?

Flame Caps and Bloodlust will be up. You pop IV, Destro Pot. Choose a trinket. And use Combustion now or wait and use it with the other trinket.

A)
MF+BL+FC+IV+DP(15sec)+Skull for 20s
MF+BL+FC+Hex+Comb for 20s

B)
MF+BL+FC+IV+DP(15sec)+Hex+Comb for 20s
MF+BL+FC+Skull for 20s

Are our two options. A) has Destro+Skull and IV+Skull synergy, B) has Destro+Comb and IV+Hex synergy.
Comb will remain a bit better than Skull (for DP synergy), and Skull will remain better than Hex for IV synergy - even at high-end SP haste gear, assuming you pick up some of the damage upgrades as well.


Both options are close enough that I couldn't tell which one is better.
Would have to make a sheet for it, because Combustion is so annoying to model. And DP reduces the value of Combustion too due to the 2% crit. Too much headache for me right now.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.