tedv

The melee should have had [Purification Potion] on them for situations like this. Besides, melee are centrally located for all decursers. Someone with fear trinket active should have handled that decurse. If you have both fear breakers down and don't have tremor totem, you need to be far away from doomfire when a fear is coming up, curses be damned.

 

Cardynal

I always throw a resto druid and holy paladin in the melee group...both of them with tremor totems if possible. The resto druid does the majority of the decurses for the melee, but the mages that are grouped to the north and south of them decurse as well without really getting into a dangerous spot for doomfire.

These 2 healers also help with melee getting air bursted into fire.

 

◊ Vontre

Or you could just have ice block and not worry about it. You guys should stop using the term "need" because it's misleading, as if you're implying that there's some baseline survivability beyond which additional survivability is useless. That's not how it works, and that's not how it works for dps either. You don't need to do more than 1000 dps for most any boss in BT either, but it's fucking stupid to not do more if you can because that makes things easier.

You never need ice block, if you absolutely needed it then everyone would spec ice without question. But once again it's stupid to ignore a rather obvious advantage that's going to make things easier on you. That's the entire point of optimization. You can do Archimonde as fire and win, people do it all the time, but it's incredibly obvious that ice gives you the best tools to beat the encounter, much like fire gave the best tools to beat Patchwerk (a dps race with no other concerns).

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Tyrian

The best tools to beat the Archimonde encounter are strong guild strategy and player skill. Player spec can play a role, but its very small in comparison and only noticeable if your strategy (or skill) is somewhat lacking as it will visibly compensate for their shortfalls. The above poster had a strategy shortfall and his spec compensated for it - improving the strategy would eliminate the original problem and thus negate any extra use that spec wouldve had in the first place for that situation.

Im not sure if it was your intention, but your quote implies player spec is the most important tool - and thats just wrong.

 

Shocktar

I think you and Manly are both missing the idea. Even a perfectly executed raid, with all superstars on vent, on their 47th Archimonde kill would never have this kind of control with all their decursers. Can anyone seriously imagine in the midle of the last boss of Hyjal saying "Oh I'm sorry, I can't decurse, my trinket is down in case we get feared, who can?", then three other people checking their trinket status, one volunteering, and getting the curse off? Nobody could hesitate like that. In situations like this, it's common to just act, as that's nearly always the best course of action, and frost helps buffer these rare times when it wasn't.
That said, if we're talking strictly about minmaxing, shouldn't everyone spec arcane with 4 shadowpriests and just AB spam all day? Haven't we all agreed that's higher DPS than fire, so long as you can spare the mana? Granted, that's hyperbole, but we don't do it. Why? Fire's way more efficient, at a cost of some DPS. Frost, continuing the same logic, is more efficient than fire (save Master of Elements, but Vontre's sheet says I can cast for way longer as frost), plus it adds significant survivability and utility, at the cost of reasonably around the same DPS loss as going Arcane->Fire.
Manly, I'll also disagree that we can debate which is the most DPS. I'm frost and I love it, but I totally think Fire's more dmg, so you're completely right there.

Edit: Totally Tyrian. I've always said it's the player, not the toon.

Gear is how hard you hit. Skill is how often you hit.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...tealth5325.png

 

Cardynal

4 Shadow priests + 1 AB mage would be lower raid dps than 1 shadow priest and 4 fire mages I believe. =)

 

Shocktar

Yes, that's true, but I'm just extending the minmax idea to the (absurd) Nth degree.

Gear is how hard you hit. Skill is how often you hit.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...tealth5325.png

 

◊ manly

Every fight will cater to certain specs so that their very innate difference will help your dpsing or not. For example, range can increase your dps. Not often, but on some fights it can. Theres an infinite number of possibility or boss encounters/mechanics vs possible specs. We can argue at length that fire beats frost on vashj because of range, but then someone points out some tangential example that frost can iceblock a silence on gruul and then I can counter that in revenge firespec doesn't suffer pushbacks and then you reply that 2pct4 can bring frost upthere in pushback prevention. Its an endless circle. We can discuss it forever and it won't lead us anywhere except possibly that everyone will maintain their personal opinion on the matter until they are shown repeated WWS parse to prove the contrary.

My point wasn't a matter or 'what spec can do best' but rather that the intangibles or every spec will play the numbers in a way that arguing on this won't lead us anywhere.

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.

 

Guaicow

sorry about suddently changing the subject but i've looked around and couldn't find the added CD on TLC i've seen mentioned previously in this thread.
can anyone enlight me?

 

Roywyn

Hm, could you put that ever recurring subject of survival talentsbeing needed/helpful/a useless crutch into another topic?

There are two opinions, two sides, both with their pros and cons. Yes, we get it.
And there is no ultimate truth that everyone believes in, nor will there ever be.

I think most of what can be theorycrafted on survival vs. damage has been said, now it's just down to obviously varying personal preferences.


===============================================================


Going back to theorycrafting, can anyone with the [Chaotic Skyfire Diamond] on the PTR say for certain (via abilities that do fixed damage) if this meta works by multiplying the final total crit damage by 1.03?

Or does it work like the RED in it's first version?
I.e. a crit that was (100%+50%*(1+crit_talents)) becomes (100%+54.5%*(1+crit_talents))?


Edit:
Check the normal WoW mage/PTR forums, or the 2.3 changes thread here.

You currently cannot get any charges for 2.5s after shooting a lightning bolt. It's now junk for nuking (always was), for AoE (due to CD), and AM spam.

 

Rouncer

Nope, I was boned plain and simple.

Full Life at almost 12k (gotta love PvP gear when you aren't there for your dps) and I literally was feared along the doomfire and I died with time to go on the fear, I was literally spamming the Healthstone button but didn't matter.

 

Nadiar

I'm not talking about slackers, slackers are usually evident, as they have better gear, but are doing less damage than their compatriots. I'm talking about the approximate 10% less damage Frost does compared to Fire. The slackers will be showing at the bottom, and there will be a distinct difference between the non-slackers and the slackers.

Theorycrafting can work out a lot of details, but it can't tell you if Ice Block is more or less useful than 10% DPS. 10% works out to what? About 2 pieces of better gear? Better trinkets?

Lets use Lurker Below as an example. If the Mages doing the most DPS get ambushed and get shot from another ambusher on another platform, chances are they're dead. With one of them down, its going to be really hard for the other one to finish killing the other one, which potentially leads to a cascade failure that is more important than just the loss of 1000 dps.

Do you need Ice Block to survive encounters like that? Of course not, you could just make your healers do a better job and keep everyone alive. You could just have awesome paladins ready to bubble you the second you're not going to survive long enough for a heal. Successful raiding happens when risk is minimalized. Rogues can't run around with 6000 HP, or they'd die every time the mob turned a little too far and cleaved them in half. The solution to that question isn't "Make the Tank keep the mob locked in place." But how much, exactly, does Ice Block add to survivability? Does this increase in survivability add up to more than 10% damage? It is virtually impossible to test that. Claiming that a Frost Mage isn't viable because its not an absolute min/max spec points out a lack of understanding of the term "viable."

 

Rouncer

Sorry you responded before I edited it, I meant moved towards the melee not into melee range. I moved from my normal 30-35 yard range on him to about 15 yards which is the range at which the doomfires spawn. The person I needed to decurse was on the opposite side of Archi which is why I had to get that close and normally it would have been done by other decursers but they weren't doing it for one reason or another. I don't know why they didn't get him, all I knew was there was a skull on the opposite side of Archi and I needed to decurse him, so I moved into range and decursed and then the doomfire spawned and the fear went off. Since I was full life I wasn't worried about getting doomfired - I figured it would run me through it and I would be fine but instead it ran me along the path (the same way you try to die when a wipe is called) and I died before the fear broke.


Our stragedy is fine. Which doesn't even have anything to do with the point I was trying to make. If I thought there was an issue with our stragedy I woulda been ASKING for help with it.

The point was that Shit Happens and IF the dps is comparable then having Ice Block in your bag of tricks is not something to be looked down upon.

Dead mages do no dps, and right there I was definitely a BONED mage with no chance of survival. If I had been Frost I would lived and who knows maybe we would killed Archi that attempt instead of calling the wipe and having to kill him on the next go around.

 

Nadiar

Ugh, due to work there were a lot of posts between when I started to reply and when I was actually able to reply. I'm not saying you shouldn't maximize your spec. If you want to be a Frost Mage in 25 man content, you should have the talents to back up your Frost Spec. Trust me, people running around with Arc/Frost spec's in 25 Man content drive me crazy. There is some point where shifting some points around can be 'better' for 25 man content, or better for 10 man, or even better for 5 man content (Frostbite isn't going to be worthwhile in 25 man content, but in 5 man content it can be incredibly useful).

Currently I'm specced for KZ, and am neglecting a respec due entirely to 2.3. I kind of have my points balanced so that I can PvP if I choose, but this consideration came after I was finished getting talents for 5 and 10 man content.

 

◊ Vontre

The difference is waaaaaaaay less than 10%. 10% is the difference between 2.3 fire and nerfed arcane, and why arcane is so terrible. If frost was 10% less damage I wouldn't even be considering it. It's around 2-3% at most.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Vhad

I don't get your point, he had 6 focus procs, you had 20. Quite sure that has nothing to do with so called skill.

Edit: Doh, raiding and reading doesn't mix. Was a reply to Cardynal

What!?

 

Nadiar

Its around 10% without using the pet at all from my testing. With the pet it depends on the length of the fight, but should be reasonably close. (+/- 5% for longer fights). WE damage doesn't show up on most Damage Meters though, which is what I was trying to refer to

 

Muphrid

I should belatedly reply to this: you're absolutely right. The problem has never seriously been the MSD or TLC procs themselves. The problem has always been Arcane Missiles and its funky mechanics. It's how AM interacts with procs in general that causes many balancing problems and could be seen as why AM is artificially held down.

The problem is that if AM were put on a tick-based mechanic, it wouldn't crit unless Blizzard relents and allows periodic effects to crit. While this would be highly advisable for making balancing easier, I find this even less likely to happen than an honest buff to Arcane.

 

Keyne

AM already crits on a per tick basis...

 

Copernicus

Mind Flay or Drain Life would be the tick-based mechanic that Muphrid is referring to. I believe they act like channeled DoTs for most purposes.

Arcane Missiles is the one of the very few ways to generate more than one cast per 1.5 seconds or more than one crit every 1.5 seconds. Which is why anything that is "balanced" for a typical spell becomes unbalanced when used by Arcane Missiles. So the options for Blizzard are to throw random cooldowns onto every single item that procs off of cast/crit, or to fix Arcane Missiles so it acts like most other spells in the game.

 

◊ Vontre

Water Elemental doesn't show up on retarded damage meters, WWS includes them and so does every other one I use except (sometimes) Damage Meters, funnily enough. How is that relevant at all? You are still doing the damage, even if it doesn't show up on the meter.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Shocktar

Really Vontre? Do you know of a way to split water elemental damage in WWS so it can account for multiple frost mages?
</derail>

Gear is how hard you hit. Skill is how often you hit.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...tealth5325.png

 

Nadiar

Err yeah, I was just about to ask that same thing :p Also, from what I've seen either the Frost mage has to run the WWS, or the person running it has to manually add Water Elemental as a mages pet.

Damage Meters are much the same way, as long as they're syncing, your pet will show up as your data, but some people don't allow syncing.

 

Shocktar

I've done both Nadiar, and all I get is one actor, "Water Elemental", and no way to see who's elemental did what.

Gear is how hard you hit. Skill is how often you hit.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...tealth5325.png

 

Vhad

I think Lossendil posted on the WWS boards that they were going to add pet's synced with their masters. No idea how they are doing it, but it would be nice, it's really annoying to check your actual dps on WWS when there are other frost mages with pets too..

What!?