[Mage] TC after 2.3 - Page 52

manly · 11/21/07, 3:14 PM

Sweet shizzle, I can finally drop clearcasting and get something worthwhile.

2/48/11 will be clearly the pro build.

Sackobones · 11/21/07, 3:15 PM

There are a few nice improvements we're making to the mage class in patch 2.3.2 (a small patch that will be on the public test realms soon) and we wanted to share them with you. First, we'll start out with two changes affecting all mages. Ice block will become a core ability, trainable by all mages at level 30. Additionally, conjure mana (rank 6) will restore 1800-3000 mana and will now have three charges, meaning you can use it three times before having to create a new one.

To be sure we're clear here, yes, the same cooldown will still apply between usages. :P

Cold snap will be moved to Ice block's position in the talent tree and its cooldown will be reduced. As a side note, it will no longer reset the cooldown on fire ward. Moving in to Cold snap's spot will be a brand new ability called Icy Veins. This new ability will decrease casting time for all spells by 20% and increases the chance that chilling effects freeze the target by 25%. It's an active ability, lasting 20 seconds and has a 3 minute cooldown.

Hmm. The new talent seems interesting. 2 second frost bolts for 20 seconds. The secondary effect seems nice for pvp.

I love the mana charges. Thats a great improvement. Anyone want to tackle the dps simulations for frost with that talent added to the tree? Math seems to be a talent that dodged me.

Max · 11/21/07, 3:15 PM

Wow...that's a fairly nice buff for frost. Vontre, update the spreadsheet!

Vontre · 11/21/07, 3:17 PM

I dunno how big this will be for sustained dps, I already ignore combustion and AP in my spreadsheet >.>

I need to start working on that web app again.

Nurru · 11/21/07, 3:17 PM

Originally Posted by Sackobones

Hmm. The new talent seems interesting. 2 second frost bolts for 20 seconds. The secondary effect seems nice for pvp.

I love the mana charges. Thats a great improvement. Anyone want to tackle the dps simulations for frost with that talent added to the tree? Math seems to be a talent that dodged me.

Shatter still is worthless for raid dps (so the 25% is negligible) and Fire gets the 20% haste as well. Probably won't change much unless I'm missing an important detail somewhere.

Sackobones · 11/21/07, 3:20 PM

I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.

manly · 11/21/07, 3:20 PM

But that's the thing, its not really buffs for frost, but rather buffs for all specs. Arcane/fire gain iceblock and icy veins becomes the new de-facto standard staple pve/pvp talent for every spec.

Thing is, take any tree, if you max them out, you have 47+ points in the maxed tree at most. There are always left-over points. The 11-points fill an incredible niche for every build in that respect. It's clearly a lot more interesting than clearcasting. The only build that would want clearcasting is arcane, and arcane doesn't have to spend 10 points to get clearcasting, since he will pick up the talent regardless in order to get arcane potency.

Everyone wins.

EDIT: now we just need to get COE fixed and potentially merged with COS.
EDIT 2: Well, the only build that loses out with this change is the craptastic 33/28/0 and 40/18/3. Hopefully now people will finally stop using those terrible builds.

Nurru · 11/21/07, 3:21 PM

I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.

It specifically says "all spells" in his post.

manly · 11/21/07, 3:32 PM

The interesting question in all this will be knowing the dps impact of cold snapping icy veins.

Sackobones · 11/21/07, 3:32 PM

Id say it would be a great 11 point talent, I am just not sure they want to make the seperation of fire and frost PVE effectiveness get that much more distant. Fire getting this talent would be a nice boost and maybe thats the plan from blizzard. Get all mages up a bit with the talent.

Maybe its just there to bring some completion to the frost mage pve dps.

We will see, heck the way blizzard is it may end up entirely different and be unusable.

aznxk3vi17 · 11/21/07, 3:32 PM

We'll need some extensive testing on these awesome changes.

For one thing, we don't know the cooldown on the new Cold Snap - I'm guessing it'll be 5 minutes. With two incredible PVE talents now for use on a Cold Snap, will Frost edge out Fire in shorter fights? Granted, popping Combustion with Icy Veins will allow for a great amount of dps, but again, with Cold Snap in the equation, any idea what the numbers might turn out?

Aldric · 11/21/07, 3:32 PM

Originally Posted by Rounced

Why blastwave? Lhivera's original concept had the buff being utilized by Ice Lance, Fireblast and Cone of Cold. Blastwave wasn't anywhere on the list.

I read that out of one of Pintofbrew's posts, clearly a mistake on both our parts.

But, thankfully, speculation over, absolutely amazing changes. All that's really left is to find out of cold snap will clear the timer on Icy Veins... it could provide some very interesting results.

Sackobones · 11/21/07, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by manly

The interesting question in all this will be knowing the dps impact of cold snapping icy veins.

Yeah, that is a thought, so not only double casting your WE but 2 shots at 20% speed increases.

Also, would it impact blizzard. Blizzard as an AOE spell is very lacking and having the channeled speed increased to tick faster might be just the answer in those limited burst aoe dps moments over trying to use AE. Blizzard just needs so much help without being able to crit or really amp up the damage. Its DPS is just not up to snuff.

Vontre · 11/21/07, 3:49 PM

From the simulator, because I built it so awesomely that I had it stacking icy veins against every timer under the sun with 15 minutes work:

Before Icy Veins:

Fire | fire1: 1593.74
Frost | frost1: 1543.21

Fire | fire1: 1640
Frost | frost1: 1590.26

Comparison done with hit cap, 1000 spell damage, 330 crit, CSD, Icon, Sextant.

I didn't consider cold snap affecting icy veins. I'll try to model that soon.

Falorian · 11/21/07, 4:03 PM

Over the long term, Icy Veins should be a 2.22% dps increase (1 out of 9 20 second periods in 3 minutes, 20% increase).

2.22% = 1/9 * 20%

Pretty close to what you got Vontre. Cold Snap would add about one additional Icy Veins cast over a boss fight. For a nine minute fight, that is 1/27 * 20%, or an added .74%.

So, the new talent is about a 2.22% or 2.96% dps increase over a nine minute boss fight, depending on Cold Snap's effect.

(If my math is right on a day off).

chase · 11/21/07, 4:20 PM

I would assume the next logical question is what effect if any would Icy Veins have on the water elemental?

If it works for fire and can be cold snapped (don't see why not) this is a pretty well thought out design.

Soul · 11/21/07, 4:25 PM

I wonder if Icy Veins will be affected by Ice Floes too. That would be nice.

manly · 11/21/07, 4:30 PM

Follow-up question:
will ice floes affect icy veins?

arch · 11/21/07, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by Sackobones

I would be amazed if that 11 point talent ended up working for fire to be honest.

I would assume it will be frost spells only. But if not fire seems to be the new pro build.

It HAS to affect fire, else frost will surely surpass fire, and then you have one superior PvE tree with best survivability/dps. That alone is way too imbalance, plus, you'd have the best PvP tree in the same tree as well, but that's not really of any importance in this case.

[DRF]Solmyr · 11/21/07, 4:54 PM

Lhivera brought up an interesting point, will it be 20% reduced cast time, or 20% haste?

Vhad · 11/21/07, 4:59 PM

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird how arcane receives no love at all? Surely the mentioned 33 28, 40 18 3, 40 0 21 should be more viable than they are?

Lhivera · 11/21/07, 5:04 PM

The questions I have now:

- 20% casting time reduction = 25% haste. Is that really what he meant? Seems too good to be true. If it's 20% haste, it's a 16.67% casting time reduction. Either way, it's still very good.

- This talent is accessible to both Combustion and Arcane Power builds. Combustion seems a non-issue, but will AP and IV put each other on a short cooldown? Or can you use them together? If you can use them together, then Vhad -- there's your Arcane love, because that's some serious burst right there. Even if you can't, a build with the various deep Arcane DPS talents + IV sounds to me like it'll be competitive, but I'm waiting to work on numbers until some of these questions are cleared up.

- What is the new Cold Snap cooldown? Is it still affected by Ice Floes? The DPS implications of this for deep Frost are quite interesting, as we will be cold-snapping both IV and the WE.

- Do all mana gems have 3 charges, or only the new Rank 6 gem? If I can carry one Emerald and one Whateveritscalled and get six charges, that's pretty hot right there.

Airea · 11/21/07, 5:09 PM

EDIT: now we just need to get COE fixed and potentially merged with COS.

I was just going to put in the exact same suggestion with the addition of adding Nature as well.

How do most guilds handle CoE? The locks in my guild will only put it up if there's at least 2 fire/frost mages.

Oh, looks like 2.3.2 is going up today on the PTR.

WoW Forums -> 2.3.2 PTR Patch starting today (Nov 21st)

Worthe · 11/21/07, 5:16 PM

Might the lowered cooldown on cold snap also enable a frost mage to utilize their elemental more often?
0:00 Summon elemental
0:45 cold snap, summon again
3:45 elemental has cooled, summon
4:30+ cold snap(depending on the reduced cooldown), summon again

Perhaps I'm missing something, but for longer fights, it's a decent buff for a frost mage that can make effective use of their water elemental, right?

(WTB the addition of nature damage in one form of another in a unified curse to replace CoS and CoE. I'm switching to my elemental shaman for main.)

manly · 11/21/07, 5:17 PM

COE is the worst curse because its the most narrow curse.

COR > COS > COE
COR gives 5-7% dps to all melee. This typically means, at least, the 1x MT, 2x rogue, 1x hunter, 1x enh shaman, 1x dps warrior, 1x offtank (war/feral). For us its usually 2-3x rogue and 2-4x hunter tho. And sometimes 3-5 warriors.

COS is good for warlocks and s.priests (and arcane mages that should respec asap). For us this typically means 2-3x warlock, 1-2x s.priest.

COE is good for mages. This means 2-3x mages.

The problem with COE is that it's too narrow. It would be a very very good buff if spell resistance were actually part of the game in any meaningful way in a pve context. But since it isn't, that makes it solely good for mages under realistic scenario. Merging COS and COE is something I recommend, but truth be told any fix that makes COE less narrow is just as good.