Soul

The problem being, of course, that many mages cheer or suggest nerfs so that these systemic issues can be addressed even though the nerfs clearly have a ridiculously detrimental effect on the class. For example, mages have issues fighting casters in general. In response to god knows what, Blizzard proposed making CS be affected by the global cooldown. It was a ridiculous suggestion that never should have happened, but it did, and a lot of mages were saying it was a good thing because we'd get so owned by casters now that Blizzard would have to do something about our caster defences. So of course, the change went through. In the meantime, Shadowfury got taken off the global cooldown for reasons that looked suspiciously like why mages would want CS off the global cooldown. Not one warlock protested this this change.

Which brings us to the question of why so many mages see ridiculous nerfs as a good thing. I mean, if Blizzard follows feedback from their classes, then it's no wonder they're so confused about the state of the mage. So many mages say "Nerf us, we're overpowered" when, in fact, that is not the case.

Witness the folks who think that Frostbolt snare should be put on diminishing returns. Who are these retards and where the hell do they come from? If I manage to crank off my 2.5s cast inferior damage nuke at someone, I'd bloody better well get my full snare duration out of the damn thing. If I manage to lock down three meleers with Rank one Frostbolts then good on me! I'd get shut down by mana burners or Fel Hunters in much the same fashion, so what's the big deal? Etc.

 

Muphrid

It's true, some people are under the mistaken belief or persuasion that they must have their bandaids removed first, the gaping wounds laid bare for all to see, before those wounds can be closed, even though we all know they must heal first before you would ever consider taking the bandaid off.

I must disagree about CS, though. CS was and is too much of a deciding factor in a mage's performance against enemy casters. Landing or missing can mean the difference between victory and defeat. How many other classes can put the pare the bulk of their contribution down to one spell? How many other classes lose much of their utility if this spell is misused or baited?

It wasn't being off the GCD that makes CS so critical, though. It's the length of the lockout and CD. It is the huge CD that makes CS a threat that can be forgotten once blown. It's the huge lockout time that makes it so devastating to enemies if it lands. It is the lockout equivalent of a PoM-Pyro, if you will.

 

Pintofbrew

I think this discussion is out-dated and pointless. POM-LOL mages haven't been serious in pvp since BC came out. Nobody with half a brain would seriously take a 3m spec to an arena past 1500 rating and expect anything out of it.

Just because back when we all had 4k HP one-button-kill spec used to be feared and loathed in equal amount, turn AP to 10% in PvP? Utter rubbish and a complete shut-down of the tree that is most useless in PvP as well as PvE.

You keep saying the problem is AP-POM. I beg to differ. In the last what? Four months? I haven't seen a single one post on either US or EU mage forums from clueless 13 year-olds going "zomg maeg so OP narf AP insta Frieball". Au contraire, it seems to be excessive "zomgomgz u spams instalance for 2.5k what can then frostbytes me and instalance agains!!!11"

10% dmg buff for a 31 talent? fantastic, because another nerf will pave the way to acceptable arcane talent tree modification...?

 

Sapphidia

To divert a little, a friend of mine (dedicated 61 point arcane even before she got the LC and the MSD) has recently been trying her usual Arcane Missiles spam with the "healer" meta gem of Insightful Earthstorm Diamond. That's the 12 int and 2% chance to proc a 300 mana restore.

It's confirmed that the mana restore can proc off all the ticks of an AM burst (had several double procs), and seeing as the first cast of AM counts as a sixth cast this should average out as 36 mana off the cost of every Arcane Missile flurry.

Admittedly for heavy raiding in a shadowpriest group the mana wasnt one of the major issues, but for mages working on more small scale stuff or wishing to spam AM rank 10 (rather than the much more efficient Rank 8 I know a lot use for longevity) then this meta might actually make the spec a little more balanced outside of the 25mans.

At the very least, it's an example of a gem/item that procs on spellcasts that can be "abused" by AM spam but is unlikely to get nerfed in combination with it.

 

Vhad

It's beyond me why people think what I'm saying is praising Blizzard for their nerfs as we artificially 'deserve' it. It's not what I'm saying and if anything I'm more frustrated about this than most people posting here, as I've been/geared for arcane since shortly before our first Vashj kill ages ago.

Arcane is 'competitive' and 'balanced' in 2.2 right now IF and ONLY IF you posses 2 or 3 magic items, these items are the only reason the spec is viable and competitive now. I didn't mind it because it was more or less evident that it was how Blizzard wanted it to work with the MSD changes combined with AM when 2.2 was released, however it can't be that hard to understand that 2 items like TLC and MSD being the Making or Breaking of a spec is far from the optimal.

2.3 hits and Arcane will most likely be dead for all intentions and purposes, all we can hope for is WotLK changes, but trying to excuse that MSD/TLC should exist in their current implementation is out of whack. Arcane scales badly, TLC and MSD won't make it scale better.

What!?

 

Frenzi

From when I checked before with a 13/0/48 spec and with 2xT5 I had to do 5xAB, 3xFB to even break my DPS only using frostbolt. It isn't really worth it.

 

Pintofbrew

I disagree. You state that Blizz initially intended the spec to work with gimmicks, yet I see no such evidence: In W.O.W. there have been less than four occasions when any spec has been viable as a gimmick and I for one think that is a good thing. Diablo 2 LOD was full of them, and finding the synergy between ability-sharing items and strange blanket abilities like "ignores all armor" or "-%enemy resist" caused some game-breaking unballances. I can see that blizz tried to make AM more viable by allowing it to check per pulse, I do not think they specifically changed it to work only with MSD in mind. Indeed I believe if they had seen it would get so out of hand they'd have thought twice about it.

MSD had it coming, it was about time, and so did TLC. Idiotic game-mechanics abuse like the shaman shock-trooper spec shouldn't exist in a game, let alone break it.

This of course has no bearing on the fact that arcane still needs work...

 

Vhad

We don't know, but it was clear that the changes had AM in mind one way or the other. We don't know about their intentions, and speculating about it won't get us anywhere. We all agree Arcane needs alot of loving and help.

What!?

 

Guaicow

Sorry about my ignorance but i googled "G15"... is it actually a logitech keyboard?
For me to have a maximum possible output I'll have to buy a new keyboard? damn that sucks
: /

 

Rouncer

Actually I really wish you or Vontre would take a minute and post the theorycraft in the Suggestion forums on Arcane-2.2 dps at T5 and T6 gear levels as well as the hypothesized dps for 2.3 Fire/Frost with the damage tax removed at the T5 and T6 levels. Then show what the Arcane damage will be with the new MSD and TLC so that there can be no argument that the problem was not brought to Blizzard's attention in the forum they asked it to be placed in.

Personally I'm just going to make 3 skyfire diamonds (MSD is pure crap with that cooldown imo) now in preparation for the patch and start planning to go back to Frost spec. I can always throw 2T4 on for Essence or any severe Pushback fights and at least then I won't have to plan on respeccing to deal with Illidan every week.

 

Tyrian

I want to respec fire but my main apprehension is im not sure how consistent I can get Curse of Elements.

If we have 2 locks in the raid it would probably be Shadow+Reck. Unfortunately, as I play a caster - I have no idea how valuable Curse of Reck is for all the melee combined (on a balanced raid group without class stacking) compared to the value Curse of Elements would have for 3-4 mages combined.

So I dont feel very qualified to say 'You should put up elements instead of Reck' - but id like to...! Can anyone with knowledge on how much CoR affects melee help shed some light?

 

Vhad

It's not as easy as saying CoE is 10 or 13% more dmg for Fire mages. Since the value of -armor is based on the armor value already on the boss.

[RAID] Boss armor values

This thread has some information you could use, but generally it's between 5-10% if I'm not entirely mistaken.

What!?

 

Dustwhisper

-Armor, COE and spells? I don't quite see the connection.

 

Goggles

It's a reply to the post before it (#461) and it does make sense.

Not actually a member of Refusion on Burning Blade.

 

Pintofbrew

A few pages back the G15 auto button spam was discovered to not work. Current spell-casting mechanics on 2.3 ptr indicate if you do indeed send multiple messages to cast a spell the first one will triger a GCD if it's too early thus making the G15 spam needless.

 

◊ manly

Unfortunately I don't think it will result in anything good. The core of the issue is that we don't know how classes are balanced. We ask them openly to rebalance an entire tree, and while we do have an idea of the impact it will have on the other trees, we still don't know how they came to conclude the way they were right now is balanced. (And to be honest I am still at a loss how they could possibly pretend mages were DPS KINGS pre 2.2 - I'm sorry but that was pure hogwash.), And this is why I don't think we will get any kind of answer from them -- they would have to admit their balancing procedures and that would open them to a cesspool of people asking for nerfs with this new gleaned insight.

For example, lets assume for a second that classes are balanced using some predetermined stats (keep in mind here that gear is made far after class balance was created, so we must rule out the fact that they used stats that match what we can get from gear/set bonuses/trinkets). Let's say they put 400 int, 1000 dmg, 300 crit, etc. Now if you think about it, this means they balance things without taking procs or trinkets into account (still assuming here that my theory is true). Its probably another guy that makes those. If that is how they balance classes, then that means if they reply to my post illustrating scaling issues and that they indirectly confirm that what I say is true, then next thing you know this means lots of people will report every single trinket as bugged (since scaling did not take them into account) or unbalancing the game as a whole. If a mage with bland stats has a DPS perfectly in line with a rogue DPS using bland stats, and they are unwilling to make changes, because, to them, everything is, in fact, balanced, then we hit the problem that the next logical step for me, a mage, is to go visit every single trinket from the other classes and get them nerfed because thats the only way I can get my dps back in line. I sure as hell don't expect blizzard to balance classes by creating new items specifically for that purpose. Likewise, I do expect that new items can create unwittingly class imbalance because ultimately scaling doesn't take those into account.

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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.

 

Muphrid

Trinkets are part of gear, though. The most common trinkets--passive damage stat and an on-use effect--are really no different from other items. It's only the "interesting" items that come into play; procs with asymmetric effects like that of the Lightning Capacitor, like that of Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which, to be fair, was in part result of the funky nature of Arcane Missiles).

I've always felt that items should not be valued based on some fuzzy idea of "item value" or level, one that Blizzard bases on an algorithm completely unrelated to balance, but on maximum potential value to a class/spec. With this principle in mind, it becomes clear that, for any "equal" item level, every class should be able to see the same increase in capabilities--not that they should from the same item, only for some pair of equally valued items. It is also this principle of maximum potential value that demands proportional scaling and, indeed, exponential scaling.

 

Kir

That's.. not really what I asked. I think it was shown that 40/0/21 is mostly inferior to x/0/51+ frost if the WE lives, even assuming someone else stacking WC. I was asking if an abx3/frstblt x2/3 rotation was putting out higher dps then x/0/51+ and/or 10/48/3. Some of the above tests suggested it was, but they did not state if they were using 2pc T5 for the tests, and the same gear for the frost/fire builds. I.e. at a T4/T5 level that spec may do well, but as you enter into T6, it scales worse. Or, if they were putting out higher numbers even in T6, was what I was curious about.

It's being discussed because fully stacked AB is still highest dps in the game, no? Especially with 2pcT5. It's just horrible dpm. Since you can grab some of the frost dmg talents early in the tree, and most of the arcane talents that help AB, it's at least worth an inspection to see if that spec is now viable. Previously you went ABx3/AM/scorch or ABx3/Fireballx2 or something like that, with fire spells as filler generally.

Automatically assuming a spec is no good is why it took awhile for people to catch onto arcane in the first place. I wasn't saying some AB rotation is optimal, but some of the numbers people posted above were somewhat surprising. Hell, the numbers you posted seem kind of high for 40/0/21 compared to other posts. I'm hoping to just go full frost, it offers the most utility and 'fun' for me. But, I prefer to spec highest dps first, so I'm trying to make sure there isn't an alternative that I'm overlooking.

 

◊ manly

The issue is deeper than that. I just gave a simple example. Let's say they balanced classes using DR BOOM style mob and with actual endgame gear. Every class 'falls in line' according to blizzard (ie: rogue>mage>hunter/lock/shamans>...). But then, my complain would still apply just as much - are group buffs taken into account ? Is balancing done using the most commonly used group compositions? If so, that means we can be boned, or any class for that matter.

Lets say mages are balanced around having an elemental shaman in their group (assuming here they balance DPS and not DPM, thus why I am ignoring here spriest). Then that means, looking forward, mage dps will never compete without a shaman in their group. Imagine now that rogues are balanced around having WF + feral druid. If such a group comp gives them a DPS in-line with blizzard expectation, that means ultimately rogues are boned to require those for their group comp in the future. Maybe blizzard views mage DPS as requiring moonkin + elemental shaman to compete with rogue DPS. Maybe blizzard never imagined that mage can have serious mana issues without a shadow priest, or that they didn't expect shadow priest mana returns to be beyond absurd to a point where they've allowed the most terrible DPM spec (AB rotations) to be workable, We don't know. Its probably better that we don't know too.

But then, lets say we break common grounds, blizzard and the community, about what are the expected group comp for every class and that things are balanced that way. What happens if someone figures out that - waitamin - what if all 5 players in the group were leatherworkers and chain popped drums? And that this could imbalance a class to a point where it scales absurdly its dps beyond the point of expectation? This can go on for a long time.

I don't think we will ever see any response from blizzard assuming someone would detail well the problem of arcane scaling, simply because I doubt blizzard can elaborate on class balancing mechanics.

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

 

Cardynal

It is, but as soon as you mix in anything and let the 3rd stack drop, the dps goes to crap. I'm showing 2050dps spamming AB with no ramp time...but that's only 100-150 dps better than I could get Fireball to show.

 

Sackobones

With all the mana concerns, chance to mess up your cycle, latency making 1.5 second casts odd, and the coefficient unnerfs with the new patch I think Arcane becomes a support tree again. Sad though, the How can Arcane Damage Work thread was amazing. Tons of theory crafting and min maxxing, 120+ pages of discussion. We all know how to dps frost and fire.

I think in the end, the discourse on spec benefit and strengths with the new patch is what I will miss.

My ulitmate goal is to go frost and put up winters chill and have a few support talents for AE spam and mana endurance. If it lags too much ill go back to fire.

 

Qbert

You make excellent points and highlight the exact reason I was up in arms warning them during beta not to make Pyro have a 170% coefficient up front. I was booed, insulted, chastised and torn to shreds by other mages when all I was trying to do was help with a little foresight. If the 170% coefficient went live we would still be swarmed by a bunch of nerf threads about AP+POM+Pyro... except rather than complaints of 6k crits they would be 9k crits because of the ridiculous scalability of an instant 170% upfront coefficient.

Sometimes the best thing for your class in the long term can be the worst thing for your class in the short term. Does this apply to arcane and itemization issues? I don't know but if you were hoping for an arcane tree buff I'm willing to bet that you are a lot more likely to see one post-2.3 than you are pre-2.3.

 

Lhivera

Doesn't one of the totems give +3% hit?

 

Lhivera

Hm, perhaps the +5% hit effect was left in Empowered Frostbolt? Be interesting to compare a 40/0/21 mage with a deep Frostie.

 

sambjo

I'm pretty sure that it's elemental precision adding an extra 3% hit.

Here's some frostbolts from me as 10/0/51 for a night of illidan attempts:




I didn't have an ele shaman or a draenei in my group. By the looks of this I was getting 3% extra hit from somewhere.

Now last night we did SSC and someone brought their alt mage who is 0/5/56. He has all the same frost talents of me except one: ele precision. He was well below the hit cap and he was getting the proper amount of resists. While he didn't really throw 1500+ frostbolts his miss rate was right where it should be without ele precision.