Searix

I dunno, there's still to many issues blizzard has left open, i fear that the ice block/mana gem change (assuming the gem change is minor) won't fix a lot of problems i've seen like...

PvE:
1) Dependance on CoE - Hammered throughout the thread
2) Immunity Fights - Why? (Fire for Illidan/Surpremus/Al'ar, Frost for Rage/Hydross/Vashj; How does this fit in the "We want all classes to stay with one spec" ideal)
3) Inability to use healthstones while lowest HP class - Resolved with Ice block change
4) Mana at cap - Only pure dps class (other than hunters) who has no spammable way to continue their main source of dps when all cooldown functions are exhausted.
5) Arcane tree - What's its purpose now?
6) Water elemental pet dieing. A lot.
7) Warlock aoe outdamaging ours (Debatable with TLC and arcane spec pre-patch, no contest post)
8) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s

PvP:
1) Reliability on 21 frost - Fixed with ice block change
2) Frost absolutely relying on crits to do it's damage, when resilience is prevelant
3) Abyssmal performance in the drain game
4) Ignite double dipping with resilience change, while being dispellable, and only gaining an extra 10% crit damage over warlock/melee crit co-efficient (a lot less than 10% with the resilience 2.2 DoT change)
5) Uselessness of Flamestrike and Blizzard in arena
6) Spellsteal, Slow mana cost in arena
7) Ignite, TLC breaking sheep
8) Impact proc delay
9) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s

I could list others but it felt good to get that out at least

 

Northerner

Destro locks should be looked at as fire mages are. IE if that lock has a spriest and ele shaman, how does that compare to mages wiith the same.

Anything else is silly.

Rogues are gods right now not because the class is godly, but because the class is the single best buff leverage class around and smart guilds get that.

 

Pintofbrew

Northerner you're wrong: A 0.21.40 lock will output almost identical DPS to a mage of equal gear -if he has to tap-. Given Spriest and non-reliance on his own life tap the dps they output, I'm sure you've seen, is much better than us. It only took me 2h with a 2.2PTR T6 lock which i adjusted to have almost identical spellpower hit and crit with my live mage to work out the same Dr. Boom dps was maintainable as long as you had life to feed the tap. If you took the tap out of the equation the numbers were unreachable by mage standards, barring the arcane silliness we're losing now anyway.

 

Vhad

That's not true either, destro locks scale much better with the raid than mages do. Shadow Weaving and the whole CoE/CoS thing coupled with ISB uptime means that they are doing far more damage than any mage of equal gear. I've seen destro locks in my guild do almost 2k dps on Rage without 4 set tier6 and he didnt have a spriest so he had to tap. Granted this is not the norm - he did use CoD over CoR which was a net raid dps decrease - I'm still not entirely sure the 2.3 coefficient change will make mages much more than just about equal destro locks for said reasons.

Edit: Bah, wanted to link to the WWS but it doesn't store for more than 15 days

What!?

 

Leialyn

Destro locks scale with other destro locks... thats why they are so overpowered... having two crit talents where mages have only one.
If you look at the base stuff ...

Fire Mage:
------------
- 115% on 3s spell = 38,3 spelldmg per second
- 10% more fire damage
- 3% more damage + 3% more damage taken

- 10% CoE
- 5% Misery
- 15% Scorch

- 20% more fire damage 20% of the time

- 5% more from T6

Destro Warlock:
------------------
105 on 2.5s spell = 42 spelldmg per second
- 15% more shadow damage with sacrifice

- 10% CoS
- 5% Misery
- 10% Shadow Weaving

- 20% more shadow damage estimated 70% of the time with 2-3 destro locks in raid

- 6% more from T6

Comparison:
--------------
They have 5% more from sacrifice, we have 5% more from scorch debuff. Thats almost equal, but whats not equal is this:
We have 3% more damage done, they have a shitload more regarding damage coeficient of shadowbolt. We have molten fury, they have imp shadowbolt.

So what needs to be done:
------------------------------
- The damage coefficients of all "empowered" talents (emp fireball, emp frostbolt, shadow and flame) need to be adjusted so they are based on the cast time. So lets say we take 5% per second, then emp fireball gives 15% more for a 3sec spell... what it does atm.
But Shadow and Flame should then only increase it to 12-13% (12.5 if you take it exactly) but not 20%.
And maybe add 8% more for Scorch, since fire mages have to use it quite often.

- imp Shadowbolt vs molten fury ... yeah, imp shadowbolt definetely needs to be lowered somehow. And well, our Molten fury once was 30% more, no clue why they changed it. So maybe 30% Molten Fury and 10% improved Shadowbolt would be a bit closer to be fair.

- T6 Bonus... well, nothing to say

Did I miss anthing?

Edit:
- AoE: They should imho change the damage and casttime of SoC to be more like Flamestrike: 3s casttime and ~800 base damage (1100 is way too much) but instead let it explode instantly (maybe no traveltime) and the aoe also hit the target the seed is casted on... and it no longer uses up corruption.

 

hypetech

I plugged in my unbuffed stats as 10.48.3 and at 400 int, 174 spirit, 1038 fire damage, 164 hit, 303 crit and 0 haste I got back:

1.00 Damage: 1.56 Crit Rating, 0.94 Haste Rating
1.00 Hit Rating: Additional Hit Rating will not increase DPS
1.00 Crit Rating: 0.64 Damage, 0.60 Haste Rating
1.00 Haste Rating: 1.06 Damage, 1.66 Crit Rating

 

koetjeka

Hey guys

I was wondering what the haste rating formula was to calculate the % haste because I wanted to know how much I need for fitting 2 Arcane missiles in 6.5 seconds (3x ab, 2x am).

thanks in advance!

 

Northerner

I think you misunderstand me Pintofbrew. I am not saying at all that destro warlocks are presently balanced against fire mages. I am saying that when comparing classes and abilities it is key to do so in a setting where both are getting equal raid buffs.

I would say that it is a given that non-optimized destro warlocks are already competitive with fire mages. The point would be that optimized ones are clearly superior in a raid setting and LT is essentially a non-issue with proper group composition.

 

ReignConfused

Haste is a lot of personal playstyle.

Against it you have the major argument:
It doesn't actually raise your DPM, all you're doing is spending what you have quicker. (Same basic argument I throw against AP all the time)

Due to the above argument, it doesn't scale at all. I mean the more dmg you have the more haste is going to increase your DPS, but you're not technically throwing out more overall damage unless you have excess mana.

For it we have the major argument:
It helps you cast quicker, Lower cast time gives you more opportunity to move around and react. We've all cast a fireball for 2 seconds to have Rain of Fire on us and we had to cancel & blink before that .5. And it raises your DPS, we've all HAD that fight where we can't spend our mana fast enough.


It's situational and preferential and no equation you can EVER run will accurately tell you anything beyond stand and shoot, which I'm pretty sure you won't be seeing much of.

 

alvinrod

The difference in this case is between passive and active stats.

You could calculate AP as being at least a 2.5% increase in damage by taking the amount of damage increase it yields against what percentage of the time it's in use. Now the question is whether you'd rather be able to have that 2.5% as static damage or be able to selectively use it. (It does increase the rate at which you use mana, so the damage increase isn't free, but I'm ignoring that just for the sake of argument.)

Passive damage is great because I dont' have to worry about doing anything, it's just there. However damage from activie abilities allows me more control. Maybe the boss has a phase where it's taking 200% damage for 20 seconds. Using the AP at that time nets me additional damage.

Spell haste is just another passive stat in my mind and since mages have finite mana pools and most encounters are of sufficient length that I will be close to empty by the end of that fight without spell haste, I see very little reason to pick it up in great quantity on my gear. Something like the trinket from Illidan where I can actively control when I use that spell haste (most likely in addition to a spell damage trinket) I feel that it's more wortwhile.

I'd also have to look at how much spell haste costs in terms of item budgets. A single point of spell haste is worth more than a single point of spell damage once you have a lot of spell damage, but if Blizzard makes the cost of one point of spell haste equal to a certain value of spell damage, it's no longer worthwhile to pick up some items simply because I'll still get more value from something with more spell damage on it. If we're trading crit for spell haste then I'm more inclined towards spell haste since spell crit seems to have such a horribly expensive cost.

With all the new ZA loot out, it's probably easier to get a good idea of what spell haste costs in terms of itemization points. I haven't really done much research into though so perhaps a blue post has clarified some of these questions or someone already has calculated some good estimates for the itemization cost of spell haste. Personally, I don't like spell haste, but if it's a clear cut winner I'd make sure to pick up an appropriate amount.

 

Sancus

Ratings all have the same cost, that's why they have different values for giving 1% of their respective stat. That's also(the main reason, at least) why hit > haste > crit, because it takes 12.6 hit for 1%, 15.7 haste for 1%, and 22.1 for 1% crit.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Pintofbrew

Koetjeka: There is little point to stacking the undoubtably massive haste you need to get 10sec to compact into 6.5sec, because you'd be losing signifficant benefit from making 2 of the 3 AB you're casting hit GCD wall and the third one come close to it. You'd be essentially increasing AM DPS signifficantly, but doing nothing at all to AB.

I doubt it would be worth it, but with low hitrate req perhaps there is value to be had from all that dmg/haste gear in ZA and a rotation spec. Looking like a pipe dream as far as I can see, but if anyone is willing to come up with numbers I'd be interested to see.

Northerner: As always, you are correct.

 

Taja

PvP:
1) Reliability on 21 frost - Fixed with ice block change
Not true, I feel more that having a water elemental is currently the most important because that pet is just to good to pass on. On any serious resilience level fire/arcane spec are subpar. Not because of no iceblock but lacking PvP talents overall.

2) Frost absolutely relying on crits to do it's damage, when resilience is prevelant
Frost damage relies on shatter > fb > icelance > coc/fb and nova/lance. All classes get hurt by resilience, I dont see frost getting the worst of it.

3) Abyssmal performance in the drain game
Agreed.

4) Ignite double dipping with resilience change
Agreed

5) Uselessness of Flamestrike and Blizzard in arena
You cannot have every spell usefull in Arena, a long cast small radius AoE with high mana cost. How exactly do you make that viable. Without PoM its not doable. Second of all blizzard is usefull it just requires 1 point in imp blizzard to make it work properly. AoE-ing from under the bridge in Blade edge, using it on the starting area in RoL.

6) Spellsteal, Slow mana cost in arena
Spellsteal suffers from the problem its totally random what buffs it get, making it pretty much useless in 3vs3 or higher. In 2on2 vs warrior/pala is about the only time you can use it all the time. By making it cheaper I dont see me spamming it all the time because of the insane amount of gimmick buffs on everyone. No idea about slow, it get hurts more by being able to be dispelled then the mana cost.

7) Ignite, TLC breaking sheep
Fixed

8) Impact proc delay
Thought this was fixed ages ago.

9) Spell haste and Instants/1.5s
PvP gear has no spellhaste.

Mages definately have issues in Arena but the ones you type out are hardly the issues we face. I think our biggest thing currently is LoS abuse (together with hunters/elem sham). This does not show well in 5on5 since there are usually lots of burst moments there, but in lower brackets its hard to get frostbolts off. Combine LoS issues with interrupts on every non instant spell and you are forced to rely on instants mostly. Resulting in the mana problem.

 

Leialyn

Have you all tested, that Ignite is influenced by resilenced?
I didn't, but Ignite is no "normal" dot, its damage is fixed (2*20% of crit damage) and its not influenced by damage amplifiers (scorch debuff, etc).
(Back in old classic days, Ignite got "double bonus" from damage modifiers because the spell itself got modified and Ignite got modified as well, like Thaddius for example)

The fire spell is already lowered by resilence and therefore ignite should not be.

 

Pintofbrew

It is a known fact that ignite gets reduced according to DOT resilience reduction even after the original fire crit has been reduced for crit size reduction.

Not that it particularly matters, if you're fire spec in arena you're either mooching or in such a low bracket that there isn't any resilience anyhow.

 

Cardynal

It's somewhat of a moot point to compare 2.2 fire mages and destro locks. By removing the 10% dmg nerf...blizzard has admitted that the fire mages are not where they're suppose to be in terms of DPS.

 

Pintofbrew

That is wrong Cardynal, you read too much into Blizz's moves. The removal of the damage tax is an admission that the damage tax is unfair and unjustifiable. The fact that we get the tax removed means nothing else aside of that; you make it up like some massive damage increase is heralded by it when we have no such indications. Au contraire, the only thing we know is incoming imminently is a new 21st (or 11th) talent for frost, IB for all, and "looking into" managem and "mana issues".

Of course there is point in comparing lock to 2.2 or indeed 2.3 fire mages. We need to understand what is it that makes them the mathematically superior choice to us, understand it, evaluate it, and decide whether it's a case of (a) they have too much synergy (hence they need a nerf) or (b) we have too little synergy/scaling (hence our synergy/scaling needs to be looked at).

The only announcements pertaining where "mage damage" should be I can recall are the infamous "mage dmg=zomg" and the Blizzcon announcement that we're the "kings of aoe" which by extrapolation means we aren't the kings of DPS, as before BC there was argument on whether mages or rogues should have that title.

Whether or not these statements are true (we are in fact, neither Zomg in damage nor by reasonable margin kings of AOE) is irrelevant. We're talking Blizzard's intentions and I see no indication of incoming DPS buffs past 2.3.

 

cbags

Is there any set time frame for the trainable IB? Is it a definite 2.4 change, or is it a WotLK change...if it is the later it seems to have no bearing currently as to where blizzard feels the Mage class is currently...seeming only like a "We realize you guys are whining, we'll get to it eventually, you'll love us then!"

When I think it's been described here fairly clearly, that IB is a zero sum change on endgame content, correct? The 21 point replacement for it would have to be something totally nutty for it to have an effect on the end game raiding specs, that would give Frost specs the power to compete with the Fire.

This is the Theorycrafting after 2.3...but seeing as 2.4 and beyond are essentially pipedreams and promises...ignore them until there is something substantial to work with. Just my .02, but I am nothing yet.

I will say I have learned more about my class in the 2 months reading this site than any other though.

 

Cardynal

Like i said...this damage comparison has only been done in 2.2 from what I've seen. Once 2.3 goes live...we'll have to see what kinds of numbers mages are putting out in comparison to destro locks. It is a decent damage increase...i'm seeing at least 6% more damage on fire after the 10% is returned in theory. You make it sound like 10% is nothing and not even worth taking it into consideration.

I would like to believe that a Multi-million dollar company does take more time in development and research than to simply pick nerfs/buffs out of a hat. I'm sure many people feel that they do...but they know a lot more about the direction of a class than we do.

How do we even really know that we will need another dps buff after 2.3? The only 2.3 testing i've seen done is Dr. Boom tests and theory crafting.

As far as raid synergy goes...I do see your point that mages bring little to the table as far as buffing other's damage (unless you actually have a fire destro lock). But on the same note, rogues bring VERY little as far as synergy. They are simply the consumders of raid buffs.

And on another note...how often do you actually see 3 destro locks in a raid? And even if they are destro...a lot of the time they're going to be required to have their imps out to increase the raid's HP. I always have at least 1 of the locks in the Tank group for the imp...

 

Ztorm

Rogues are purely consumers and can get away with it because they can out-dps the next highest class by a good 10-30%. The problem with mages is that the amount of utility and raid synergy we provide is not enough to justify our lower DPS. Warlocks currently bring better DPS AND raid utility/synergy. I mean, look at the benefits of adding additional warlocks to a raid compared to mages:

Raid Benefits from Additional Warlocks
-Additional curse to increase raid OR their own DPS
-Extra healthstone (up to 3) if properly spec'd
-Improved shadowbolt, which increases damage of other warlocks and shadow priests. Increased SP DPS results in greater mana return for the raid.
-Extra fear/banish
-Imp buff to increase party survivability (if affliction)
-Shadow Embrace to reduce damage on tank(if affliction)

Raid Benefits from Additional Mages
-Extra sheep for CC
-Faster application of fire vulnerability or winterschilll, mostly increase damage of other similar spec'd mages

If you think about it, unless you need the extra CC, you can get by in most raids with only bringing one mage and putting destro-locks in the SP/shaman group. In order to make mages more viable, our DPS or raid synergy has to be increased. I think this is a perfect opportunity for Blizzard to add definition to our Arcane tree by making it the raid utility/synergy tree. Design the tree so that the farther we go down the arcane tree, the less damage we do but the more utility we provide. For example, they can include a misery-like debuff early in the arcane that increases damage taken by the target by 5% and an improved version farther down the tree. Make the debuff stack-able so there's a reason to bring multiple mages to a raid (ie: one mage will provide 5% and a second mage will make it 10%).

 

Tyrian

I love the idea of mages being buff consumers in raids - that can soak up lots of class buffs to make their own dps stronger, like rogues. Unfortunately as everyone else mentioned.... if we can soak up all these class buffs and still be 'average at best' on DPS - something does indeed seem very wrong.

As the above poster put it, warlocks bring more to the raid. period. Either magedps or synergy needs to be increased for sure. I dont understand the point of mages now. We soak up all these buffs like a rogue but simply cant do anything amazing with them.

 

Cardynal

I agree that we bring less than warlocks...and if we always did do less damage, I would agree with you there. But I hardly ever see warlocks beating mages on meters in 2.2 as arcane...and fire in 2.3 is supposidly suppose to do the same damage as arcane in 2.2 if not more.

For example....look at the top DPS guilds on Teron...

Teron WWS

On almost every fight...the AM mage is decently over any warlock.

One reason that you don't see them going over mages on a stand still fight is that they do have to use curses for other things than damage. Mages take more of the stance that rogues do...being a consumer of raid buffs and doing more damage than the provider of the raid buffs. Now if we do enough damage as a buff consumer...i'm not sure. I feel there should be some improvement since there really are not that many fights that take advantage of the AE damage that mages put out in Hyjal/BT. In fact...you only use AE on trash...

And do remember that I personally feel that no class should ever be compared to rogues with warglaives, as they cannot be touched and shouldn't be atm.

I hold off any real judgement until we start seeing some 2.3 WWS

 

Muphrid

Ah, but is it justified when you consider 1/11 of that mage's damage is coming from the Warlock?

 

macbeet

well its called a "buff" for a reason^^

And surely rogues gain more from a warrior in the raid than 1/11!

 

Ztorm

To be honest, I'm not seeing a huge distinction between mages and destruction locks on these parses. WWS parses are also kind of biased; they do not accurately reflect player roles in the encounter and they do not account for group composition. For many of these fights, the destro lock may be in a hunter group or the tank group while the arcane mages are almost always in the SP/shaman group.

More importantly, Teron isn't the best fight to assess warlock DPS. Our warlocks generally have a soul-stone rotation on the fight, which takes significant time away from their DPS. In addition, with AM spam, arcane mages are not subject to the spell pushback caused by death blossoms and incinerates. Destro locks only have 70% pushback prevention with talents. But like you said, it's going to be hard to judge until patch 2.3.