Setia

I did some more tests for the interaction between Spellpower/Ice Shards and the CSD. It looks like the old (advantageous) formula is back.

On a test with 36 crits, 171 hits, I had a crit multiplier of 236,35%.

This means the "critmultiplier after talents*1.03" is out, because it would give a 231,75% multiplier, which is outside my 95% confidence range of my experiment (lower bound: 232,6%).

And my results are really near the expected 236,25% multiplier of the "((base crit multiplier*1.03)-1)*talent multiplier+1", so it's probably the one now used.

 

◊ manly

Of course it does. Everytime you do a keypress the game must play the 'spell is not ready' sound. It needs to send the audio file info to the sound card. It needs to call the appropriate classes and send the message to mods that the event 'spell is not ready' has occured. Mods will probably execute LUA code to handle this (mods like errormonster). Then the message 'spell is not ready' needs to be shown on the UI. I think the biggest hit on system performance will be sending multiple audio stream to the sound card, if I were to make a guess. Not to mention that the sound card has a limit to the number of sounds it can play at the same time. If you set the value too high it could be very well possible that you start losing other sounds in the game because all the audio channels are taken.

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.

 

Setia

Comparing Fireball/Frostbolt specs...

Ignoring DPM, hit rating, haste rating, and the T6 4-piece bonus, I get the following DPS numbers with my personal spreadsheet:

10/48/3 Fire (5 fireballs-1 scorch) : 1514,8 DPS
33/28 Arc/Fire : 1483,6 DPS, or approximately 1485,3 with Lightning Capacitor replacing a trinket
40/21 Arc/Fire is worse than 33/28 in every respect
x/0/43+ Frost w/ WE and Codl Snap used on CD: 1450,8 DPS
40/0/21 Arc/Frost (with WC stacked by another mage) : 1455,2 DPS **Corrected: a mistake in my formulas gave 1580**

Assumptions: Top-level equipment, all buffs, an elemental shaman, a CSD using the old formula, 80ms delay between spells, 6% of Fire DPS lost to partial resists (which hurts a lot), 100% Water Elemental uptime, Combustion = 2,3% crit, Molten Fury = +3% damage, Arcane Power = +2,5% damage, full stacks of Winter's Chill and Scorch at all times. CoE, Misery ignored.

I didn't get the AM numbers, as they're a bit more difficult to model and they went down the drain with the MSD nerf (as you get about one proc per 10 AM now instead of 1 in 4).

I'd really like to see Vontre's results, though, as his spreadsheet is much more fleshed out than mine.

*edit: horrible mistake in my spreadsheet made Frost/Arcane to appear much better than it is. I kept counting the bonus damage part of Empowered Frostbolt for 40/0/21. Corrected, and I apologize.*

 

Firefly

Setia, why didnt you calculate with 8 fireball/1 scorch? That should improve fire a bit or?

 

Cambriel

So for purposes of a frost mage in tailor/kara gear such as myself, which is a more effective use of a meta-slot, MSD or CSD?

- C

 

Pintofbrew

Setia: You say top level equipment, can you be a little more specific? I've seen cases on armory where I Lhiverae'd that given a monstrously hight crit rate (36+) 40.0.21 is infact ahead of x.x.43 but you need to be a lot more specific when designating gear. Giving DPS values to the 5th significant figure and then stating "replacing TLC with another trinket" and "top equipment" is dulling the sharpness of your research.

 

Rouncer

Deleted

 

ainav

Still the problem for me remains from what I see curently on the PTR is that you cannot avoid the effect of lagg without useing stopcast macro + quartz, mashing the key does not help for sure

 

Sapphidia

Hmm. So what's the verdict regarding the MSD in the current patch? If you were a dedicated 61/0/0 mage with no inclination to change spec, and have the lightning capacitor, what's now the best option?

Is MSD with AM spam still the highest damage option for the meta (albeit less than pre-2.3), is it better to go back to more standard AB/AB/AM type rotations using the new Crit meta, or is it worth trying something weird like AM spam with stacked passive haste and an Insightful Earthstorm Diamond for the int boost and a regular 300 mana proc that can hopefully proc off each missile?

Has the nerf meant the end of the MSD, period, or is it still by far the best Metagem that an arcane mage can use?

 

Kavan

Here's my analysis of options for full arcane build in 2.3. This is for 2/5 T5, TLC progression level (750 int, 1450 dmg raid buffed). Test parameters used were 10 min fight, 70% dps time, 50 ms effective latency, shadow priest (175 mp5), el. shaman, cos, no jow.

Here's the results for the meta gem options:

MSD: 1636 dps
IED: 1643 dps
CSD: 1661 dps
CSD (adjusted to meet gem requirements): 1660 dps

So from this I'd say that if you plan to stick with full arcane you should go for CSD. It's back to the AB rotations. In the above scenario the spell selection would be ABx3+AM+Sc 80% of time, AB spam 20% of time, AB spam on AP.

One interesting thing is increased value of int. In the above scenario we get:

2.08 int = 2.69 spi = 2.34 dmg = 2.45 crit = 1.83 mp5 = 3.09 haste

Regarding gem options this means that dmg still wins ahead of int, but going to anything 8 min or shorter int gem wins.

 

Alvira

Can I get some confirmation about haste rating? This is rather important to arcane spec.

From what I understand, 1% reduction given by haste equals to 1% reduction in casting time (or channeling time). Is this correct? Because if this is so, then each 1% reduction in haste boosts AM dmg by 2%. This would make haste rating more desired by arcane mages than any other stat.

How did I arrive at this?

Consider this. Why is MSD so powerful? Because it reduced our channeling time by 50%. During a 2.5 second cast, our AM dps is effectively doubled (increased 100%).

So, by proportion, doesn't it mean that 1% reduction in cast time = 2% increase in DPS for AM? Can someone confirm this as what I understand correctly? Or did I get it wrong somewhere?

 

Kavan

That is not correct. Haste is % increase in number of attacks per time interval. The actual reduced cast time is base cast time / (1 + haste).

 

Alvira

Can give example? I don't quite understand. >_<

Nevermind, I got it now. Got an example in the other thread.

 

Setia

The gear used in my calculations, is the wish list I had pre-2.2 when I was Deep Fire:

Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
Wand of the Forgotten Star
Band of the Eternal Sage
Ring of Ancient Knowledge
Cloak of the Illidari Council
Robes of the Tempest
Leggings of Channeled Elements
Cowl of the Tempest
Hellfire-Encased Pendant (okay, slight error there, I kept the same stats for non-Fire builds, but the Translucent Spellthread Necklace is not that different)
Mantle of the Tempest
Anetheron's Noose
Slippers of the Seacaller
Bracers of Nimble Thought
Gloves of the Tempest
Skull of Gul'dan
Sextant of Unstable Currents

Counting sockets (orange and purple ones to follow the socket bonuses), buffs, consumables, enchants (+40 spell damage on weapon instaead of Sunfire/Soulfrost) and the average values of procs (as calculated for Deep fire, but as only the Sextant and Hyjal ring have procs here, Forst would proabbly get even more out of it due to higher crit and spells per second), we get an average spell damage of 1556, 625 int and 370 crit rating. I ignored spell haste and spell hit in the calculation.

Counting Winter's Chill, Totem of Wrath, Brilliant Wizard Oil, and Arcane Potency, this gives 40/0/21 an amazing 48,7% crit rate, which is where the power of the build resides. It has a 35,7% crit rate before WC and ToW... It may be improved if we replaced a trinket with the Ashtongue one (can the proc last for 3 frostbolts? I don't have it yet, so I can't test). Regarding TLC, I replaced the Sextant with it.

I feel really weirded out that Frost appears to be the top DPS spec. Which is why I'm interested in knowing if someone else gets similar results (I'd hand out my spreadsheet, but it's quite messy and in French). * edit: with good reason, as it appeared higher because of a mistake *

I took 5 fireball/1 scorch because it's closer to what I actually do in raids - with transitions, etc. I tend to do a little but more scorching than the minimum in order to make sure the debuff stays on. Pure fireball spam with 10/48/3 gives 1543 DPS, still below 40/0/21 Frostbolt.

An assumption I forgot to give - I didn't calculate Misery/CoE, since they have the same effet on all fire/frost specs.

 

Dustwhisper

Pre 2.2 a 18/0/43 or similar build was always higher dps for us than a 40/0/21 type of build though >_< I never managed to get good numbers with the Arcane frost one.

 

Setia

And you'd be right, too. I made a horrible mistake. 40/0/21's number in my calculations should be about 4 DPS above full frost (1455 vs 1451 - vs 1514 for 10/48/3). They were probably below before, as the tax removal affects all of Arc/Frost's damage, while there's a 10% from full frost it doesn't affect (the Water Elemental part).

 

◊ Vontre

Sure I'm not the only one who will want this, so, I don't see that directory path in my WoW directory. Do we have to create it? No way to know if it works until the patch comes out, but I'd like to be prepared.

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

 

Dustwhisper

I guess that with a rather crit-centric build that a 40/0/21 build might surpass a deep frost seeing as a 33/28/0 build with 48% crit or whatever that inner sanctum mage had was insane dps. Problem with the deep frost one of course is WE getting smacked in the face. Now these are not actually TC'd opinions, more "estimates of past experiences and employing the 10% reduction removal" =D

 

Neuromaster

Yeah, just create that path and it should work.

 

◊ manly

I'm sorry to say but high crit rate does not equal high DPS.

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.

 

Pintofbrew

Manly: while I'll have to agree, given huge crit arcafrost is ahead of full frost. Granted, this discussion does nothing for comparison with either fire or arcane spec, but if you check The World of Warcraft Armory and run numbers, he does in fact lose dps by speccing full frost with his gear.

I'm not advocating this spec, nor do I think it's any good by any means, but it -is- and example where arcafrost is superior to frost, and it does nullify what was the commonly thought that "arcafrost never passes frost, even with WC debuff, even with pet 0% uptime"

 

Dustwhisper

Of course it doesn't but stats synergise differently with different talents. A talent-spec that synergises highly with crit will gain more from crit than a spec that does not.

 

koetjeka

In general you want to be hitcapped first, then get haste rating and then critrating. But isn't this somehow related to your spec?

For instance someone is hitcapped, has 9% haste and only 12% crit. Would he benefit enough from lets say Ignite?

 

Beska

Refering back to manly's fire wishlist in the [Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work? thread, he's chosen to use [Anetheron's Noose], [Ring of Captured Storms], [Band of the Eternal Sage] and [Cuffs of Devastation] over their haste alternatives.

What would be better? A mix of haste and crit/hit items or full haste? Or infact no haste items at all?

 

Roywyn

Cap hit, then get the weighted maximum of damage, crit and haste. (Doesn't hurt to repeat the mantra.)

Due to how item level works, items with spread stats and items with sockets get you more benefit than those without. Noose > Infinity because the latter is so badly designed, it's not even funny (take Blasting to cap hit). The proc of BotES should make it the best ring available, RotCS is great if you use it to cap hit, RoAK is a stats upgrade if you capped it before. I'd take Nimble over Devastation, it's not a huge difference though.

Just don't equip junk just because it has haste.