galzohar

Just for the sake of comparison, how much DPS do your rogues do?

 

◊ manly

I agree with the general sentiment that warlocks/mages don't get any use from elemental shaman 3% hit (using top end gear). But you can always swap extraneous hit ratings into more haste/dmg. I don't know about tempest/warlock offhand vs zhardoom if you count tempest of chaos as giving a flat 0 hit. For mages it's nearly the same (tempest vs zhardoom).

Still, my main point was that 2.1k dps from warlocks with just resto shaman / s.priest and no dps curse is something a mage cannot hope to get. The only way I can get that dps would be chain bloodlust and/or chain drums. And even then, I need to be somewhat lucky on my crits.

For sake of comparison, it is very hard to say about rogue DPS, it seems to vary a lot from week to week. They had no feral this week - I am unsure about the dps implications of this. I've also read on our private forums that it seems they had quite a few less buffs than they normally do. But I think it is safe to say it generally ranges from 1800-2100 (2200?). Keep in mind that we never had a legendary drop either.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

• Suggestive

I equate the complaints about CoE to a rogue complaining about lack of an enhancement shaman for example. That doesn't mean something is wrong with unleashed rage, that's a problem your raid has to solve. Not having CoE because you only have 2 locks is a problem with your raid composition, not the debuff. You either want the ability to have all 3 curses up or you don't. Ditto with having 3 locks in the raid and one being dumb enough to toss up a CoD. I just find it really odd people complain like the spell actually has some serious problem attached to it.

 

Flouyd

(sry english is only my 2nd language. I try my best)

Does such an arc/frost build use xAB/3FB rotations or FB spam? And would a frost & arc/frost team beat a fire & fire team?

 

◊ manly

As long as you agree with me that COR > COS > COE, you can agree that mages cannot hope to be competitive without having at least 3 warlocks in the raid. The problem isn't COE itself; the problem is that mages have absolutely no raid synergy, but yet, we don't have the DPS you would expect from classes that don't have any raid synergies.

There are many implications to this. Imagine for a second that shadow priest were the top caster dps class. The people would outcry and call for a nerf because the mana return and dps would make them universally too good to pass up. I don't know about you guys but I rarely see shadow priest topping meters on any guild that had t6 content on farm for months. I think everybody accepts it because in exchange for their 'poorer' DPS they give an insane group buff and misery/shadow weaving. I don't think anyone sane in their mind would not want 1-2 s.priest in their raid.

Now here is a list of raid synergies that mages have:
-fire vulnerability (+15% fire damage)
-winter's chill (+10% frost crit rate)

Is this really what would be deemed a compelling raid synergy ? Both of those buffs are solely good for mages alone.

We all know that warlocks give COR, COS, COE and ISB. If anything, if mages and warlocks had the same DPS, you would be better served, as far as raid synergy goes, by stacking more warlocks because they also buff their raid. If you have 2 warlocks and 2 mages in your raid, and you need to add 1 more of either of those class, you're always better served with a warlock. If anything, the 3rd warlock will give increased ISB uptime, which alone is worth the spot, but also increase the 2 mage dps by 10%. How can you pass on that? Oh and wait - theres more: If I asked the same question with 3 warlocks/3 mages and the next one to add, the warlock still wins. The 4th warlock increases ISB uptime, as well as being allowed to use COD/COA which will increase his personal DPS for 8-10%, making mages unable to compete with his DPS.

I am not asking for a DPS boost. I am just asking to make things equal. Heck, I am not even talking about the fact that I do gueninely believe that top end warlocks really do beat mages and there's nothing we can do about it. You will be extremely hard pressed to find me more than 5 parses of mages on WWS having more than 2k DPS on a non AOE, non gimmick fight. This is just how rare those cases are. On the other hand I can point you quite a few parses with warlocks in the 2.1-2.2k dps range. But see, I am not even trying to address this.

The problem is that COE is too narrow. In a realistic top end raiding environment COE is a mage-only buff. It has no other uses than for mages. Why does it takes an extra warlock in a raid to have mages be on par with the warlock COS ? If anything, I propose that COS and COE be merged into one curse. Possibly even add 10% nature damage, or even toss 10% holy damage if you really want to cover all bases. COE serves really no other purposes than just cluttering the available curses warlocks have for something arguably redundant. COE is extremely narrow and situational; to be worthwhile you need at least 3 warlocks in a raid and at least 2 fire/frost mages.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

◊ Vontre

Actually our calculations abandoned the infinite duration model months ago, most of my comparisons are based on 5 minutes with variance, which means a percentage of the cooldown time is granted to average out the high end and low end of cooldown uptime over encounters which average out to 5 minutes overall.

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

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◊ Vontre

No, it was straight frostbolt spam. It is unlikely a frost & arc/frost team would beat a fire & fire team, on paper they are about the same but the soft factors are working against the frost mage.

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

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

◊ Vontre

In regards to CoE, dps, and all that jazz. Really, the essential mage balancing issue is that fire warlocks are completely undesireable, and CoR is too good. Mages would be completely fine (if they aren't already) if warlocks weren't still a fuck-broken class. Why does it always come back to warlocks? =p

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

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

macbeet

German servers can now download the 2.3.2 Testclient and copy their chars.... have fun to try the new stuff out!
Servers are sceduled to go online later the night.

 

Northerner

Hmm, another interesting change indeed. Icy Veins even seems like it will play nicely with actual encounters given that for most encounters a scorch times two (or whatever it takes with your raid makeup) followed by IV early should allow two uses always and most likely three with the last one during the 20% phase. Icon, Skull and HSH even nest neatly with it allowing use for two out of three with one use cleanly in the middle and combustion fits pretty perfectly if used immediately on entering the fight. Berserking even fits nicely! It certainly won't be a game-breaking dps boost but hey, a boost is a nice thing and any excuse to take seven more points into frost is not so bad either. Ironically the only downside I see is the loss of hit for arcane spells, although you almost never use them on 73+ targets of course.

Apparently all it took was me to retire for some fun changes to come along. (I kid, I kid!)

 

Prom

ive said this time and time again.
Warlocks were always meant to be great as a debuffing class. Its only logical that rogues and mages should excel at dps since they dont bring much to the raid. Having warlocks to 1900+ dps, plus debuffing the boss, and having 10k+health unbuffed makes them seriously imbalanced. I dont know what blizzard is thinking and why they havent adressed this issue in months and months.

 

Finkum

The new Icy Veins talent's placement begs the question of what first and second-tier talents you should pick up in the Frost tree (for a raid dps spec).

I'm guessing 2 points in Imp. frostbolt is a given, as Frost warding is so incredibly situational (does anyone ever use Ice Armor in a raid these days?). In the second tier, because you still do all your dps with fire spells, Permafrost, Frostbite and Ice shards all seem a bit redundant. Imp. nova is at least useful on any fight where AoE packs need to be rooted.

So, at least 5 points are pure filler (compare to 10/48/3, where arguably only the 3 points in Arcane Focus were purely filler points, and even then you could make a case that 2 points are still useful when you are AEing adds on top of a boss mob a la Hydross). It makes me wonder if a spec like 0/47/14 might not be a viable alternative: 2 points in Imp. Nova, 3 in Permafrost and 3 in Imp. Blizzard, to give maximum AoE control, although at the expense of pure dps.

 

• Suggestive

Hmm, i guess i get the gist of what you're saying. Fire locks actually being viable in some way would probably help, hell i recall being escatic about incinerate at first, but if i recall right there was a post somewhere with a blue pretty much saying no. Reversing that view would make mage/lock synergy a lot more appealing.

I'll just quickly say i disagree with increased benefits to stacking more than 3 warlocks. Unless the 4th warlock you add to the raid is a LOT better geared than the others in raid already, i.e more crit, he is actually going to drop ISB uptime. Even with a better crit rate, the increase to ISB uptime is pretty small. This will of course vary a bit with raid composition, but there is a very sharp DR on ISB.

 

Alvira

Icy veins seems very powerful. Its only just a bit less powerful than arcane power (in terms of raid dpsing), and it probably won't cost as much as how AP does. Plus cold snap can refresh it. Frost is getting buffed big time next patch.

 

Roe

They moved it lower in the tree, making it available to other mage spec's. It seems to imply they don't mind boosting mage numbers across the board a little. I have to think it's possible this idea has been at Blizzard for at least a little while, and probably some of the mage changes in 2.3 were polished/incorporated with this upcoming talent in mind.

I think it's exciting. Mages shouldn't be over powered though. I would never like to beat people in PvP then have them bitch the win is from the built in mechanic advantages (sort of like how I complain about warlocks :P ).

 

Lhivera

It seems likely to me, given the +25% chance to freeze chilled targets built into Icy Veins, that it will have 3/3 Frostbite as a prerequisite.

 

Finkum

If this turns out to be the case, then that rather puts a crimp in my proposed 47/14 spec. It would also be annoying for raiding frost mages, as I gather that frostbite is more of a hindrance than a help there - randomly frozen mobs will of course aggro onto anyone in their melee range.

Taking a step back, it seems an odd decision on Blizzard's part to include a 11-pointer (i.e. very obtainable) talent that is a non-trivial dps buff to any mage spec and place it in a tree that is otherwise very school-specific (elemental precision aside). As I outlined earlier, the 10 points normally put in arcane are useful for any mage spec (although arcane focus is so so marginal), so it would make much more sense if they replaced the craptastic Arcane Fortitude with this new talent (suitably renamed), and put something more frost-centric in the frost tree.

 

Frah

wow! Looks like it could be a nice buff for some extra raid dps.

At the moment the top 3 gems with clearcasting will give about 9,000-10,000 mana over a 9-10 min fight (using the mage SSC trinket). With the same trinket and these new gems but without clearcast you will gain 9,000 mana

If you do not have big mana problems or run with a Spriest alot then dropping clearcast for this 20% cast speed talent could up your dps quite a bit.


Something like this spec where the frost nova and frostbolt are just fillers to get the IV. Also leaves you 3 points to put anywhere.

 

Finkum

Some further quick napkin math regarding the new mana gems and Arcane Concentration:

Currently using the three top rank mana gems will return, on average, 3200 mana. The buffed multi-charge gem will return 7200 mana on average, for a net increase of 4000 mana.

Modelling Arcane Concentration as a straight up 10% increase to your net mana usage(by which I mean, the total amount of mana you have available over a fight, including evo/gem usage/s.priest etc.), any fight (without clearcasting) where you use less than 40k mana in total will result in you having more mana post 2.3.2, any fight where you use more will result in less. 40k mana is sufficient to spam 100 fireballs (or 5 minutes of back-to-back casting, unhasted), FWIW.

 

Lysara

Anyone noticed how the buffed Mana Gems can be a buff to our survivability as well?

One of the problems Mages always had was that since Mana Gems gave back so little mana, we were forced to use Mana Potions as well. Obviously this caused us to not be able to use Healthstones or Healthpots when we needed to (DoT from Leo's WW, falling roof at Magtheridon, exploding shield at Naj'entus).

But now the Mana Gems are essentially equal to a Super Mana Potion, and even exceed them with [Serpent-Coil Braid] (the Mana Gem buff actually makes the trinket more desirable as well, now that I think about it). Will this leave our Potion cooldown free for a Health Potion when we need it? And if we'll be using much less Mana Potions life for a raiding Mage will be cheaper as well.

All in all, I'm excited.

 

Andersnordic

As for the latest changes. The only potential nuisance I can think of with 2/47/11 is for the mage tank on the Council fight. When you use your sub par stam gear you will lack a serious amount of hit not having 5/5 Arcane Focus and we will get more resists when spellstealing;p

Its a great buff in any case and well deserved.




CoE

I also totally agree on the idea of merging CoE + CoS. It would solve our biggest problem atm (Not allways having 3 locks).

We are having the same problem btw. CoE uptime the last few weeks has been less than 20% as we often have only 2 locks. We also have to "re-create" the consensus among the locks to keep CoE up. At the same time we have about 80% uptime of +13% CoS.

I am arcane atm. because of the above factor + that im 1 piece away from 4 set T6 (So I still have +20% AB dmg). I am awed by the fact that 90% of raiding mages have “blindly” embraced fire as the one and only raiding spec without fully understanding all implications though.

This brings me to the next issue however that only applies to 2.3;




If 2-3 arcane mages would make your guild clear BT/MH quicker than having 2-3 fire mages, wouldn't that make arcane superior to fire?

There is one issue that has been totally ignored when determining the consensus of the best raiding mage spec. As this issue is relative to if you have BT/MH on farm or not and that I'm a creature of logic ill share my view on this (As I clearly feel Arcane spec can be the ultimate mage build for guilds that clear BT/MH).

Obviously, fire can generate more dmg than arcane on some bosses (And you cant really argue against parses;p). That is if you have CoE uptime. If you have unstable CoE uptime or none at all you have to compare to the fact that you could have gotten up to 13% CoS for arcane. Also, it also boils down to which logic you are using to judge “what is superior”. Parses doesn't show how long your guild will spend clearing an instance...


MH

My definition of superior is what makes the weekly BT/MH grind use the least amount of time. As 70-80% of the content you are nuking in MH is related to Arcane Explosion an arcane mage would be superior to a fire mage simply by that fact alone (The added value of arcane spec AE decreasing the amount of time spent on waves substantially).

If you can clear MH faster with 2-3 arcane mages than with 2-3 fire mages, wouldn't that mean that bringing arcane mages would be the most logical thing to do? Wouldn't that make arcane spec superior to fire spec for MH?


BT

Supremus + Illidan who clearly favours arcane (The dps loss from these two bosses alone would be greater than the added dps gain you would get from the other bosses (Unless you have 100% CoE uptime, even if you did, it would be close)).

A fire mage could probably do better damage on Najentus + Teron (Fire would do slightly better, even though he would have pushback).

RoS as I see it favours Arcane as you can AB blast 100% during P1 + P3 (Yes, use the 2p T5:p) with AP right under the tank threat for P3. A fire mage is capped by tank threat as we know.

Fire would be better for Akama, Bloodboil, Mother and Council.


But from an overall assessment, considering you lose ALOT of dmg on Supremus + Illidan as fire + there are alot of packs you can AE, it wouldn't surprise me if 2-3 arcane mages would make a BT clear faster.



In any case, I really have mixed feelings about the fire vs arcane issue atm and I know alot of mages that feel the same way. Simply saying that arcane mages – “gogo respec!” is a relative truth with MANY modifications;p.

Because if your guild want to make the BT/MH grind as short as possible then arcane is still the way to go;p

In any case, If we knew we would have 100% CoE uptime it would be so much easier to fully embrace fire (As it would be more logical to spec it than it is today)

As for next patch though, thats a whole different story;p

Washupgloves

 

Runkett

Its only the first steal that really matters, you have enough time to cast it about 27 times between when he re-buffs and your current buff runs out, so really its just an extra 6% chance (if you don't have more hit gear) to fail on the pull. Even still, with reasonable stam / shields / heals you can prob get away with taking one full hit.


Id like to think Arcane is viable still, as its my favorite spec to play, but even if it breaks even on dmg due to no CoE you still have the headaches of needing at least a spriest and probably a shaman too (often available, but you suck balls when their not). Some fights it may win on, but mostly you will end up wasting 20% of a raid slot.

 

Andersnordic

Yea, its obvious that I was referring to the first pull, as the problem for the later spellsteals wouldn't matter. And since he can hit you for 12,950 to 15,050 arcane dmg, surviving the first bolt would be based on luck. When we use our max stam gear we will have a problem getting more than 6-8% spell hit without the arcane talent so we would have about 8-10% chance to get a spellsteal resist (4-6% if you have ele totem + heroic presence).

Why would you say they were wasting 20% of a raid slot per arcane mage when a MH/BT clear is 5% faster + with 2-3 arcane mages compared to 2-3 fire mages?

Can you please explain that?

Washupgloves

 

Runkett

Ok, so my 20% figure may not have been derived from complex cross referenced WWS reports... but I doubt your 5% speed increase is either. Even with the curse advantage, and the addional support classes required to keep casting, the arcane mages are unlikley to win overall, and adding a lock instead is always going to be a massive gain.

One of your primary reasons for arcane over frost/fire is the AoE work in Hyjal, which yes, arcane is good for, but blizzard (for example) does almost as well (can start much earlier), and provides additional control if you have points in it. The same frost spec will go on to do more damage on every boss except the first one (due to resists). Just because arcane aoe may be 5% higher, doesnt make the run 5% quicker - you lose any time you gain with slower boss kills or any other time you have to single target.

 

Sancus

WoW Forums -> Mage Improvements!

Looks like the new highest dps raiding build is 47 points in Fire and 11 points in Frost, since none of the Arcane talents we currently take have any effect on dps, but this new talent will be 20% haste for 20 seconds every 3 minutes, which is pretty damn powerful combined with combustion, Skull of Gul'dan and Icon/Hex Head.

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