I'm really bad at math, and I wouldn't even know where to begin figuring out item budgets, so I'm going to pose a question to those that are more gifted:

Let us assume Equal Item Budgets (4pc T5).

(x) being the number of Arcane Blasts in the rotation, at what point does (x)AB/AM/Scorch >= (8)FB/Scorch rotations? And what is the DPM difference? Can any of that DPM difference be mitigated by the improved mana regeneration talent and the improved shaman mana springs?

I'm not entirely sure as to what the thesis of your post is, even as a response to Manly's post, but reading it incited me to develop an opinion on the matter.

The 'problem' with MSD and TLC is not that they are items with asymmetric effects. In fact it is likely arguable that the effects of the two items are entirely symmetrical. What IS asymmetrical is arcane missiles as a spell. All of the single target spells (namely fireball, pyroblast, scorch, frostbolt, arcane blast, fire blast, and icelance) essentially have a 1:1 damage instance:cast ratio. TLC and MSD are largely uninteresting here. TLC gets interesting when looking at its behavior with AoE spells (CoC, frost nova, arcane explosion, flamestrike, dragon's breath) as these spells have an X:1 ratio. The essential quality that makes AM an abberation in comparison to the other spells in a mage's arsonal is that it is essentially a single-target AoE. That is, unlike the other spells that have a single target, AM is, at heart, six 'spells' packed into one 'cast.'

What mages have been enjoying (and likely other classes bemoaning) since the 2.2 patch are not broken items, but the maximization of a broken spell. Assuming for rhetorical sake that I know the intentions of Blizzard's designers, frostbolt and fireball are both subject to the same intented effect when used with MSD: 5% of the time, the next spell with a cast time outputs double the standard DPS. Because of the mechanics of AM, MSD essentally reads: 26.xx% of the time, the next six spells output double the standard DPS, because, as we all know, AM is really just six spells tied together.

If Blizzard decided to change MSD in the 2.3 patch SOLELY because of its interactions with the AM spell, the best fix* is to recode AM such that if a 'tick' triggers MSD, then the next 'tick' would resolve itself in half the time and consume the buff. This would result in AM gaining the same percentage DPS increase as all the other spells.

TLC is another animal. MSD was 'broken' because a particular spell checked six times as often, and extended the haste bonus to six times as many spells as any other. TLC is 'broken' because the DPS that it accounts for is a linear transformation of crittable damage sources per unit time. When combined with a spell that outputs 1.2 casts per second, this trinket puts out an amount of damage that accounts for more damage as a percent of total damage output than the developers feel should come from a Karazhan-level (possibly any-level) item.

TLC is seen as pernicious not because it's damage is a cast time scalar**, but because it can turn a spell that WoW-economists would otherwise consider unusable into a powerhouse simply (read: ONLY) because of its casts per minute. I would imagine that items are developed with a certain value-added metric in mind (nominal DPS added for DPS classes, some survivability metric for tanks, etc). If Blizzard only intended for TLC to add DPS in the range from X to Y, then the 'fix' we see in 2.3 is a correct one* in that it tightens the range between X and Y and thus reduces the variance of the average of this range.

If these two explanations are not proof enough that AM is really the thing that we should be calling asymmetric, it should be pointed out that if it didn't exist, Blizzard would likely not believe that any changes to 2.2 MSD and TLC were warrented. MSD would have the exact same marginal effect on all mage nukes. Without AM around to skew the range of DPS-added that TLC provides, the best use for TLC on a single target would be with scorch spam, and it is quite obvious that even here, TLC is not enough to make this a viable strategy in any situations where scorch spam is not already optimal.

That is my AM/TLC/MSD thesis. Stop reading now if you don't want to read about magery that is unrelated to the post I am responding to. If permitted, I would like to make an aside about the nature of a large portion of discussions I have encountered in these threads.

* My conclusions about 'the best fixes' for TLC and MSD are obviously opinion based, but I think they are clearly justifiable as ways to push the functionality of the two items towards what the designers seemed to have in mind.
** 'Scalar' might not be the right word here. I think I might want to say 'scales with', but I am not sure if that would be using the phrase in a manner that most on this forum use it. I don't know.

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I would like to start off by saying that my writing is generally in the stream-of-thought style, which may be harder to read for some, but I hope that my theses are understandable (and I also apologize in advance for being long-winded; I have ADHD). Secondly, the ideas that I put forth in this aside are admittedly based on opinion, as they are a consequence of my way of looking at the world. As is true for many opinion based expositions, mine is likely to be controversial. If a moderator or equivilent finds that this part of the post is in any way inappropriate for how discussion on this thread has developed (warranting deletion), or is better suited for being posted in a different place, I will gladly comply. I just thought that my two cents might shed some light on a pervasive matter.

I'm reading a lot of posts in this forum that look like a debate between whether the 2.3 changes that make the AM spam strategy economically inferior are warranted. I.e.: Is what Blizzard is about to do 'good' or 'bad'? The reason that people complain that whatever group they are a part of is underpowered or overpowered is really a psychological one. The group can be something like mages as a whole compared to rogues as a whole; or slightly more specific like version x.x frost spec vs fire spec. I personally think that there there are two flavors of this complaint that appear on these forums. One flavor is warranted, the other is not:

The warranted complaints about group imbalance are the result of the imbalance that arises when Blizzard adds new material to the game. WoW is obviously a complex network of formulas and variables, but given a strong enough computer it is solvable (by this I guess I really mean balanceable). The Blizzard developers are not 'computers' that are capable of this, however, and it would be completely unfair for us to expect them to be. The introduction of things like the new spells for each class in TBC tipped scales of class balance, which caused discussion of possible solutions to these new imbalances, and eventually results in 'fixes' to rebalance the game (usually patches).

The unwarranted complaints about group imbalance, I believe, are generally-speaking, derivatives of natural human greed. As humans, we begin to identify with the group(s) that we play, especially since we spend so much time playing them. It is therefore natural that we desire the best for our group, the same way we desire the best possible for our children. People that don't belong to the 2.2 arcane mage spec group are likely to complain in this way because their group might be seen by others as inferior by comparison. When 2.3 rolls around, people that have grown to identify themselves as AM mages are going to complain in this way because the MSD and TLC changes are going to make their strategy look inferior for the same reason. These types of complaints are, in my opinion, a complete and utter waste of time and forum space. This is because these types of discussion arise from failure to agree on the values of each of the abilities of a group.

To understand this concept, I feel I should explain how I understand the concept of balance between groups. Balance, as I see it, is a state of affairs that describes the comparative value of all of the groups involved. The most talked about type of balance is class balance, that is, the balance between classes or specs of classes that serve the same role (DPS/tank/healing). Balance or imbalance as a state of affairs manifests itself when raid leaders decide who they want to take to a raid. Rogues and mages would be seen as perfectly balanced if the raid as a whole would benefit exactly the same by taking the rogue as by taking the mage. Each class has a slew of factors that add value to a raid. For mages its things like the value of keeping a CC'able trash mob sheeped, the value to the raid of providing the scorch debuff for warlocks, and the value of the DPS numbers they can put up on a boss.

The important result here is that everything that a given class can do in a raid that is any way valuable must theoretically has some sort of value metric associated with it (a number that can be used to compare the value of one ability to another). When the values of all of the raid-relevant abilities are summed up and added to the value to the raid of DPS, class balance is achieved when each class has the same final number.

The thing that irks me is that DPS is directly responsible for 99% of the whining about imbalance that I hear in threads, while at the same time not accounting for anywhere near 99% of the value added to a raid by most classes.*** Imagine there was a class that had a skill- and spell-set that did nothing other than single target DPS. It is not hard to see that claiming class imbalance would be justifiable if there was second class also exists that provided equal or better (and even slightly less) DPS than the first class, while also being able to sheep (or banish, or shackle, etc). But as the contribution of DPS to the total value of a class/spec in a raid setting moves away from 100%, claiming balance or imbalance becomes less meaningful, as that sort of conclusion is more and more dependent on a metric that none of us are equipped to calculate.

Long story short: Whether we know how to do the math or not, being able to iceblock/icewall during a boss encounter has a value associated with it that is in a unit of measure that allows for direct comparison to DPS. Some people value the bells and whistles associated with deep-frost highly enough to make is a more valuable spec than deep-fire, despite the DPS loss. On the mage vs non-mage level, I have heard that 2.2 AM spec is balanced because it makes mages competitive with other DPS classes. I have heard that it is unbalanced because it utilizes game mechanics to pervert MSD and TLC into items that improves damage output on the scale of hundreds damage per second. Both stances are defendable, but, at the same time, both stances are completely meaningless and out of place in a thread about theorycrafting (which as I understand it is supposed to be about min/maxing) as this judgement of balance/imbalance is dependent almost entirely of your personal valuation of non-DPS abilities.

Clearly Blizzard seems to think that the scorch debuff and ability to polymorph, among the other things that a mage can do in-game, are worthwhile enough that they dont want the AM spec to be able to push out DPS numbers comparable to rogues and hunters. If you want to argue about that, or if you want to argue about deep-frost vs deep-fire, that is fine, just don't do it in a thread about TC.

*** My defense of this statement is that, if my theory of class balance is relatively accurate, we would see little difference between the DPS of classes with abilities that are significant in raid settings (mages with poly and imp' scorch and 'locks with banish and curses) and those without (rogues and hunters, who appear to me to be DPS classes in the purest sense).

The frost hit rate issue shouldn't be too hard to test. Someone could just run around killing level 70 mobs with 0 talent points allocated and without any +hit gear. You should see a 4% resistance rate. Then put 1 point in Elemental Precision and run the test again. See if it goes to a 2% or 3%resistance rate.

If it's 2%, then Elemental Precision gives frost 2% per point.

I was lazy last week and used my AM-spec in a 3v3 arena team. We played in the 2100-2150ies and i scored a personal 10-6 record there. It was admitedly harder to kite warriors, and when there was a rogue in the opponents team that focussed on me it got VERY rough (they still had to figure out my spec though). But playing 3 caster teams with that spec was insane, and obviously not b/c of AP/PoM-Pyro but actually for MSD abusing AM-spam. I would go so far and say, that such a spec can be better vs. specific setups, but i still wouldnt want to play it in general, and esp. not in 2.3 after the MSD nerf.

What was your hit, what exact talent layout did you have? What was his hit, and what exact talents did he have? Without that information you're kind of just reiterating what we already know... Assuming its something native to the spell, EP Mages still need 125 +Hit Rating, and non EP Mages still need ~164 hit rating (I'm lazy and not doing math, someone can feel free to correct this). He didn't have EP, so he had 8 talents that you didn't already have, but I can't really guess which ones. I'm hoping you have the info, because it will definitely help in the testing.

The evidence seems pretty reasonable on this... I'm going to mod elemental precision in my spreadsheet update. Has anyone gotten to do first tests yet?

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Be interesting to see what happens if you drop another 25 hit rating (I know that may not be possible). If it's still pegged close to the 99% hit area, that could indicate an extra 5% hit at work from Emp. Frostbolt.

That's an interesting data point as well. One thing's for sure: this is weird.

Our Illidan kill and some wipes.
Wow Web Stats

Most frostbolts were against Illidan or Flames of Azzinoth. I shot maybe 2 on Shadow Demons (Blizzard spammer mostly) and Parasitic Shadowfiends got Ice Lance'd.
We all had Elemental Precision and Empowered Frostbolt. No shaman/totem of wrath.

Diffindo - 7.37% hit on gear, 9.63% resist before talents. 181 hits, 102 crits, 10 resists.

[top]> 3.4% resist rate (303 casts), Elemental Precision may give 6%, and the data would fit.
If Empowered Frostbolt gave 5%, I should have had 1.6% resists, but I had "significantly" more.

Expelliarmus - had 11.65% hit from gear, 5.45% resist before talents. 3 resists, 118+69+3

190 casts.

[top]> 1.6% resist rate. If Elemental Precision gave 6%, he would have been capped. 1.6% can probably be seen as "capped".


Lumos - hat 10.38% hit from gear, 6.62% resist before talents. 3 resists over 151+82+3

236 casts.
=> 1.3% resist rate. If Elemental precision gave 6%, he would have been capped. Seems to fits.


Conclusion from a 303 cast data set - my best best would be that Elemental Precision gives 6% hit.
This data set has about no statistical relevance, it's just an indication at best.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
My hit rating's shown in the second picture, the spec's also in my armory.

Like I said, he was pvp spec'd deep frost so he had every pve talent I had except for ele precision. His hit rating was low (mostly pvp gear) and his resists were right where they should have been.

Pvp talents such as imp cone of cold and permafrost. Nothing that affects frostbolt.

Next time he's on his mage I'll see if I can get a bigger sampling size and some screenshots and/or wws parses. He was only around for 2 bosses and there was trash between, so our sampling size against level 73 targets was less than 200 frostbolts rather than the 1500+ I had for my night of Illidan wipes.

I may have missed it somewhere, but with all this evidence pointing towards elemental precision giving frost spells +6% hit, has anyone checked to see whether it is doing the same for fire? It would seem strange that it would have separate coding for fire and frost spells, since according to the tooltip, it affects both schools the same. Or is there other non-related evidence elsewhere that fire does indeed need 164 hit to be capped?

I think claiming that rogues and hunters are classes without 'raid significant non-dps abilities' is a fallacy to begin with. Misdirection alone is used far more often and to much greater effect in boss encounters than polymorph or remove curse.

I'll agree that this is totally off-topic though so I won't persist in this line of argument!

Let's be dead honest. AB spam is not and never has been the best dps in the game. It is the best dps a Mage of a certain spec and gear standpoint can bring to a single target but I've seen Rogues beat it out of course. It also doesn't scale with haste or bloodlust as well. Notably it also has zero pushback protection.

I tested it in the spell rotations section of Vontre's spreadsheet. This tested with full raid buffs and a shadow priest and I did several different spell rotations to see at what point the AB cycle took over the pure frostbolt cycle.

Interestingly at that gear level I could spam pure frostbolts using evoc, crystals and pots in the raid for 57 minutes, it may sound a bit extreme but I would consider it accurate as it is rare that I use evocation in a raid and tend to chug destro potions over mana pots.

Agreed. It's worthless with haste gear and effects AND loses 20% without T5 (another item dependency I'd like to see absolved). It's a weak spell which was good when it was conceived. i.e. Before BC came to bear. Back then when haste was something that didn't happen and Bloodlust was a distant concept, yes AB had the birthmark of a good spell if hugely situational. As things turned out? Abysmal. If AB ramped with increased damage instead of decreased cast time, it'd be a lot more usable, but as it is now, the only thing it is "best in game" at is draining your manapool at over 400mana/sec. Only thing that's more mana-draining is chain-arcane brilliance, though that's slightly less dps.

I have no idea how you guys do it, you must have the most insane manabatteries. On al'ar with frostspec i ran OOM with chainpotting, chaingeming and evocating.

There isn't a single fight in SSC/TK with the exception of KT I don't go OOM on with shadowpriest, chainpotting, geming and evocating with spiritstick and for good measure I've also had a Shaman and still oom. This is with 10/48/3.

Checking the DPS sheets etc I'm still quite confident 10/48/3 will be the most stable contender though, will be interesting to see exactly what changes stay how when 2.3 is launched.

As frost it has got to the point now where if I see a healer going OOM then I suggest they replace them with me so they get a shadow priest and I just use pots instead and evocate.

It may be that your DPS as a whole is lacking in your raids, this could be due to a bad raid setup or maybe you are doing content a bit to fast and your gear hasn't caught up yet. These are big assumptions ofcourse, but anything that extends your DPS time will make your chance to OOM more likely.

Yea I am well aware of the dps synergy creating longer/shorter fights etc. You can take a look at my armory, not much better gear I could have after just killing KT in my opinion.

Our raid DPS might be lacking at times but we do get VR down with 3-4 min left on enrage, we did get Leo down with 1.5 min left, hydross with a couple min etc. So it ain't horrible, but i agree it is at times to low and fights to long. Only fight we really do very high dps on is KT.

Finnally, someone who has the same issues as me. Even with a spriest and shaman and chainpotting/gemming from the bat I will run oom. Chugging a destruction potion hasn't even occured to me since i'm so low on mana. At first I figured it was our spriest not returning that much but in my current guild (who are at Vashj) the mana drain just keeps up. Even with the higher raid Dps.

Lack of mana seems really odd. You might wanna check s-priest up time on VT or if they are slacking on DPS.
With a S-priest I didn't have to mana pot really untill we hit Hyjal/BT (except Kael maybe and maybe 1pot or so on Vashj,) and even in here I often use Flame Cap. Saving pot cd for that occasional aoe dmg that loves to kill us dpsers nowdays, but a heroism surely will make me pop Destro pot+Flame cap.
What I've noticed works good is I go full burn 2fireball+fire blast and not eating mana consumables to get first Evocation used ,as it returns full mana with spirit weapons, then after that start mana gems+pots, often having Major/unstable mana pots as enough and in most cases still got spare mana for Flame Cap at Molten Fury range.
My specc is classic 10/48/3 and fight expeirence is Hyjal cleared and Mother Shazz almost dead.

edit: Realised one more thing, mentioned before but just giving more examples, how many healers/dps/tanks do you usually run with? We normaly take three tanks, 7-8 healers and rest dps. Sometimes two tanks and letting dps warrior(s) off tank, depending on where we're going.

Maybe make those lazy palla's put JoW up then

Not that ours do

I use Evocation as a last resort, it's just such a waste of time, when I do use it I tend to cut it off after two ticks. Really looking forward to getting my 2 set T6 bonus I can tell you :P