◊ pewsey

Hi Alvira,

You're commenting on exactly what I'm noticing right now. I was 40/0/21 in 2.2, and switched back to 10/47/3+1 in 2.3. My single target DPS is much better (from looking at the WWS parses), but my AOE is substantially lower.

I was competitive with the other mages in AOE previously, now I'm about 66% of their AOE.

Having said that, I'm not convinced that building a spec particularly around AOE is that much value provided we have enough combined AOE in the raid to operate.

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

Rouncer

Why would you ever want to use AP with AoE?

You understand that all AoE spells are affected by a damage cap, right?

It means that the damage you can apply to mobs is limited to X amount and that amount is not increased by using AP or by popping trinkets or by anything except for haste for any AoE with a casting time or by crit rate since the damage cap is based on a spread of hits and crits are allowed to exceed the cap. The cap at your damage level is roughly 8-10 mobs so using AP just means that you are doing no additional damage for that cooldown if there are more then 8-10 mobs in the group.

Deep Arcane does have the best AoE but that is due to Spellpower and Arcane Impact, since one gives you bigger Arcane crits and the other makes those crits more common.

Stop wasting your AP on your AoE and save it for the bosses.

 

◊ pewsey

What do you think of using AP + AoE on Kael's summoned weapons ?

Pewsey has heard about tact and discretion, but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables.
Nemesis: "Pewsey is single-handedly turning around every guy in the BB that didn't want to have kids."
Viator: Because I had a baby so I'm better than non-breeders.

 

Rouncer

My comments are more associated with the AoE needed for Hyjal and....Morogrim is the other fight that always pops in my head when I think of AoE. I completely forgot about Kael and AoEing the weapons.

Kael is probably the only time that you would want to think about using AP with AoE. Although I personally think that the AP would be put to better use killing either the Axe or Thaladred after the weapons die. The AoE is extremely mana draining already and adding another 30% cost onto that seems a bit excessive. If the bow was able to be stunned in the middle of the AoE pack and the axe was being perfectly tanked just inside of AE range then I would probably pop AP but unless everything is in the pile I would probably want to save it for what comes right after the AoE is done.

 

Xei

I did notice during that farming session that sometimes the mob would appear on my screen to stop for a split second (as though it was trapped) but then continue on moving towards me. I just put it down to Australian latency (~500ms).

I might throw a post on the WoW boards and see if anyone else has noticed it as well. I might get a rogue to put on a skinnnig knife and stab me 900 times and see if Frost Armour is displaying a similar proc rate - though I did notice in an arena game versus two rogues that it proc'd often enough to kill them both after they ganked and raped my Hunter partner :p

"Being a leader is not a position of power. It is a position of service." ~ Barestomper

WTB Oceanic Horde PvE Players

 

Northerner

Well, I was arcane for Kael and Hyjal and honestly, AP-AE spam worked really very well for me.

We did a kill Bow then AE the rest for weapons and by wanding to full just before the weapons popped I had no issues sustaining mana through the full AE portion with a pot and gem and using AP. That also cheerfully had me well on top of damage dealt during that important phase. The Advisors I never really felt were nearly as much of an issue and given that we had weapons down before they popped or as they popped, I can't ever think of a time where the advisors were not dead well before Kael was even back up.

Hyjal it isn't quite as useful but it certainly never hurt. I'd cap out on the heavy AE work if I APed it but we'd tend to CC a couple of mobs, focus a couple and then AE. We never did bring a paladin in a tanking role so this helped keep threat a bit stable I suppose. Regardless, I'd AP-AE perhaps not on cooldown but certainly situationally and for ~6 targets it was ideal.

It certainly isn't a massive perk but hell, it's a nice tool to have.

 

galzohar

The thing is that non-MSD arcane specs with 2/5 T5 are the same, but fire/frost is better, making it less fruitful to spec AB. With 2/5 T5 doing AB rotations (with either AM+scorch or fireballs) you burn as much extra mana as before but don't really do any extra damage compared to 10/48/3 fireball damage (since the actual DPS is pretty close with my stats you may be a little different either way but it's really nothing significant considering the disadvantages). This also means having AB spam time is less useful as the extra DPS it does over fireball spamming is smaller...

Bottom line is, if you want to look at it in a simple way, that since AB specs with 2/5 T5 were already debateable wether they're better or worse than 10/48/3, with 10/48/3 getting a noticeable buff it pretty much eliminates it. Add T6 into the picture and you can completely forget about the arcane blast spell anyway.

 

macbeet

I could not agree with northerner more. I have been raiding with alle builds since 2.3 and Arcane is a very good specc as long as you are t5 level equipped and wearing 2t5. This fact is supported not only by my subjective feeling but also by the simulators presented here. It is also a very good specc for Kael if you are used an AoE tactic or learning the encounter.

 

Dustwhisper

I'm pretty sure someone has done the math on this, where is the breakpoint between when Fireblast is a dps-gain contra a DPS-loss? As in 2xfireball-fireblast rotation instead of fireball-spamage.

Regarding 2p/t5 AB spec, I don't even see the justification of the mana-dump either. Yes you can dish out AB spam in a pretty darn fast mana-dump but at the same time I never have any problems dumping all my mana as a firemage, actually I oom quite often chainusing gems, pots, ele shaman or sp and using evoc.

 

marloz

Source? If I remember correctly the cap is only applied if the amount of targets exceeds 10.

Area of Effect - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

 

Searix

Roughly when fire blast does less than half the fireball's damage.

 

Dustwhisper

This is also a tad on the outside of Mage but I'm also wondering on the benefits of bloodlust on a mage and even a warlock contra melee. Our GM DPS warrior has asked for all BL to be chainused on our main melee group which in most fights are top DPS. Now before our Teron kill I thought the idea to be somewhat selfish since I could usually keep up with our melee rather fine but after seeing myself only hitting 1500-1600 dps max on Teron and seeing two of our rogues over 2k with one hitting 2.2k my view drastically changed. I of course only had 1 bl whilst melee had 2-3, haste potions and what not. Is the synergy of increased swings/speeds so much better for melee than it is for us casters? At least when I'm not littered with proc-items that is.

 

Pintofbrew

Being littered with proc items won't make nearly as much difference on BL as you think. The problem I suspect you're encountering is that the rogues are on the warglaive treatment and that's your problem right there: Their proc doesn't have a CD and with haste it goes berserk.

I can't recall if a 45sec CD is inc or has been implemented yet; Either way, the only really safe way to tell is to experiment over a week with giving no BL to melee and all BL to casters, and compare parses for that.

 

Leialyn

Sorry, but this is nonsense ... the AoE Damage Cap is applied if there are more than 12 mobs getting hit by an aoe spell at once. And Hyjal Waves only consist of 12 Mobs, so you can't exceed the cap if you kill all waves properly.

And even IF there are more than 12 mobs, then the damage you would do on 12 mobs is summed up and divided by the number of mobs getting hit by the aoe. So popping trinkets or using Arcane Power WILL increase the damage. AP is 30% and percent are percent, no matter what happens! If you would do 800 AE damage on a single mob before the cap ... and you have lets say the double amount of mobs, 24 mobs... then you do 400 on each mob. If you use Arcane Power, then its 30% more... no matter where you put those 30%: ( (800 * 1.3) * 12 ) / 24 is the same as ( (800 * 12) / 24 ) * 1.3 = 520.

And your hint, to save AP for bosses ... I cannot agree on this. If your only goal is to be top on dps meters on morogrim for example, then you get more damage from bombing one murloc pack with AP AoE (if you can survive it ) than using it within those 15 seconds single nuking on the boss. Surely it depends on the number of aoers but it should still be better. If you have a Shadowpriest in your grp, then its no problem.

 

Dustwhisper

Our melee's doesnt have warglaives since we have only been in BT 4 nights or so and only have Teron down. But it did seem to have a bigger effect on melee (eg Dragonspine trophy etc) than it did on casters. But ye I think i'll try to test this more extensivly in the future.

 

Maledict

That's not how it works at all. The cap has nothing to do with the number of mobs you are hitting. The cap is a set damage amount - each AE spell can only do so much damage, and no more. If you had enough spell damage gear, you could hit the cap hitting *one* mob. (Obviously would require thousands and thousands of + to spell damage).

Whether or not Arcane Power allows you to go over the cap is something I haven't tested, but the cap itself isn't related to the number of mobs. Sadly enough, the better your gear, the easier it is for you to hit the cap.

 

Leialyn

Melees mostly have more procs than casters and maybe melees profit more on teron because caster spells can get interrupted (by clouds) and melee attacks can't. Or does Concentration Aura add to the talent anti interrupt bonus making it >= 100% ? Back in 2.2 with missile spamming and chain procs on msd and atoi and two heroisms I was one time able to outdamage the rogues on teron, but nowadays I doubt a mage can achieve that, especially not against warglaive rogues.

And for other bosses there's mostly one group (casters or melees) that gets more bonus from BL/Hero, on Supremus and Illidan P2 its ranged who have advantage, on other bosses where casters can get interrupted or have other stuff to do (counterspell, etc) its melees who profit most.

 

Dustwhisper

No that's never how it was made nor intended. The cap was introduced to prevent mages AOE farming a too large number of mobs, aka Faxmonkeys stupider magetricks that showed how to solo whole scourge invasioncamps (yay revered in 3 hours <3 ). The cap was 10 mobs I thought (where 12 came from I have no idea) which simply capped off the dmg done when the AOE would hit over 10 mobs.

 

Pintofbrew

Interrupt resist effects do not stack, they are multiplicative. So 70% from talents and concentration aura does not give 100% it gives 79% interrupt resist. This was a big thing back when shamans where whining about a weird talent they had that gave 20% additional interrupt resist and that silly neck from heroic blood furnace, they argued they should be having 100% interrupt resist yet were still getting pushback. Multiplicative nature of the roll is why.

Edit: Both the neck and the talent were later changed to -20% silence duration (will not stack with additional effects of this type).

 

Leialyn

Ok. One more argument for giving melees Hero/BL on Teron, RoS, etc ...

@Maledict: Humn... ok, another example of how Blizzards screws the game by making stuff a fixed value and not scaling (Same as bonus threat on warrior spells, etc).
But in the thread on the official forums, Zaldinar states, that Curse of Elements/Shadows does maybe not count towards the cap. So maybe the damage with the cap is calculated BEFORE buffs and debuffs are taken into account and then AP would increase AoE Damage.

I myself was bombing trash waves in in Hyjal doing about 1000-1100 noncrits with AP AE on more than 7 mobs, and that would exceed the damage cap of 6730 for arcane explosion.

 

Dustwhisper

Hence why I have told our mages to bring a long 2p t4 for ROS next time to see.

 

Pintofbrew

While I don't agree with maledict (I was under the impression the aoe damage cap was a divisor to stop aoeing too many targets) I'll have to poke you about "blizz screwing the game". It doesn't take a genius to see Faxmonkey's Stupider Mage Tricks where he aoes 91 mobs in one go solo, using slow mechanics clever positioning and huge skill. Having the capacity to AOE an unlimited amount of targets is plain stupid and I for one was happy that this was implememted.

Though the concept that maledict proposes that AOE cap has nothing to do with number of targets I think is wrong: if you believe that, feel free to go Stratholme before engaging barron, or in fact after Herod in SM, wait for the hordes of mobs to swamp your screen, hit one AE and see if it kills them or not: Their sheer volume of them divides your damage and any qualms you had as to whether or not AOE dmg cap exists and is it related to number of mobs are put down.

 

Tryst

I think the problem with interrupt resistance and pushback resistance is one of terminology. I myself have not had pushback on RoS phase 2 with a paladin in my group and the 70% pushback resistance to shadow bolt, nor have the mages I group with a paladin for this phase on fireball. The neck from Blood Furnace and the shaman talent worked against spell interrupts, such as counterspell, spell lock, pummel, et. al. Earth Shield and Healing Focus combine to make 100% pushback resistance and that's 70+30. If it's 79% and not 100%, then my gf is the luckiest shaman ever. The same can be tested with paladin Concentration Aura and Spiritual Focus. Just do a big aoe pull and put on conc aura and cast without interruption.

 

Maledict

I think people are getting confused with the idea behind the cap and the mechanics behind it.

The idea behind the cap is to stop people AEing too many mobs at once. Blizzard don't want mages able to hit 40 mobs at once.

The mechanics behind it were simple (and the reason the 10 mob number comes up). Each spell gets a maximum damage cap, based on the theoretical amount Blizzard wants it to hit on 10 mobs. If you hit more than 10, then your damage starts to go down because you are still capped to that fixed damage amount.
However, the cap is nothing to do with the number of mobs you are hitting - 10 was simply the number Blizzard used to determine the caps. As you get more and more spell damage gear, the damage of your AE goes up, and so you start to hit the cap at 9 mobs, or 8 mobs, or whatever. This is where the question of Arcane power / Curse of elements comes in - I don't think anyone has ever tested whether or not these allow you to exceed the cap, i.e. whether the cap is calculated off your base damage or not.

Pintobrew, the example you give for stratholme doesn't really make much sense, as I don't see how it can prove the issue either way. The easiest way to test this is to find the number of mobs where your current AE hits the cap, then add one more mob to the mix. The damage dealt should go down across all mobs so as to keep the same total damage done.

There was at least one thread on EJ about this when it was introduced, I'll have a look round and see if I can find it.

If this is true then I'm the luckiest player alive, as I've never had a fireball interrupted if I have a paladin in my group with Aura of Concentration on. They do stack in an additive fashion.

 

Pintofbrew

Perhaps I am mistaken on the interrupt stacking, it's been a while since the shaman talent and neck were changed to a different function and perhaps I remember them wrongly.

Maledict: The wording of your first post confused me. While your latter post clears it better I'm still not sure I understand a few aspects.

Say AE base spell deals 120 damage. Call it x10 for the arbitrary number blizz came up, does that mean the damage cap of AE is 1200? What if, vs 1 mob, my AE hits for 200 due to gear, is my cap still 1200? (ie. I can fully damage up to 6 mobs without experiencing damage size reduction)

Or is it a case of 120(base)+80(gear)=200, 200x10=2000 = dmg cap per cast?

As for the example, it was under the (false) assumption you stated that damage cap limits spell-damage size in damage-per-target but not in number-of-targets. A missinterpretation on my behalf, I took your "cap not related to number of targets" wrongly.