My apologies, it wasn't intended to be an insult, just a statement of fact. I once raided TK and killed Kael with gear roughly equivalent to yours, and at that point I would have and did call my own gear bad. I generally consider anything that isn't the currently available maximum to be "bad", because that's where I'm used to being. Again, sorry though :/

You can also do the same thing with Flame Cap on your HS cooldown and use Mana Pots instead of gems, though. Flame Cap and Destruction Potions add a similar amount of average damage(Flame Cap are actually slightly better, in fact).

Mind posting WWS to prove it? Fireball and Fireblast critting at the same time has resulted it Fireblast's ignite since forever for me, just respecced to Fire 2 weeks ago and it has been that way.

CSD requires getting the Tier 5 helm (or better). I don't have access to Vashj yet.

To get 35% crit with mage armor, you have to be stacking crit at the expense of hit and damage gear; I use the word "expense" advisedly as doing so will certainly gimp your damage output. Nobody at Tier 5 level would do that in PvE, at least not for long and maintain a raid spot. So, 3% crit is worth more like 2.8% damage. Lhivera suggests that Fire mages will benefit by 2.77% from IV. The trade off is patently not worth it. If you do the maths.

Note that my 2.77% figure assumes that I'm correct about it being 20% haste and not 20% casting time reduction (which is 25% haste). That's how it looks to me from the thottbot data, but it's always possible the mechanics of the buff differ from Heroism's.

While your prognostications have always been better than mine, I note that Eyonix explicitly says cast time reduction rather than haste.

Since Thottbot has no more access to the PTR than you or I do, I suspect that the Thottbot listing is a data entry error.

He did indeed. However, ever since Blizzard standardized haste mechanics, the talent as described by Tseric would be an aberration. It's possible that it is an aberration, of course, but I'm finding it more likely at the moment that the talent is simply misworded. It's not like it'd be the first time it happened.

If it turns out to be 25% haste (20% casting time reduction), then so much the better.

The PTR client is available for download, and contains the spell database.

You talk like stacking spell crit is not viable. It certainly is, though not as good as stacking spell damage, spell hit or spell haste, at least for Fire. A 35% crit figure with Mage Armor is easily achievable with an Elemental Shaman/Moonkin group, possibly a Ret Paladin in the raid.

Well, since I'm stuck at work on Thanksgiving (giving the techs a shift off since I rarely work in the office), I've messed with the Theorycraft-o-Matic a bit. Added some spells calculations with IV and with IV averaged to Frost and Deep Frost, and added a Fire/IV build. There could be errors, this is really preliminary, but right now I'm showing, with 568 int, 368 Spi, 0 Haste Rating, 164 Hit Rating, 300 Crit Rating, 1345 damage to all schools, CoE, Misery, and Mage Armor:

Burst DPS
2,117.50 Fireball w/Icy Veins (< 20% health only, 2/47/11+1)
2,000.28 Arcane Blast / spammed (< 20% health only, 10/47/3+1)
1,916.32 Frostbolt w/Icy Veins + Waterbolt (on demand)
1,766.35 Fireball w/Icy Veins (on demand, 2/47/11+1)
1,666.90 Arcane Blast / spammed (on demand, 10/47/3+1)

Avg DPS
1,552.35 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV averaged (2/47/11+1)
1,514.40 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged (10/47/3+1) (about 2.51% behind Fire/IV)
1,475.19 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (about 5.23% behind Fire/IV, 2.66% behind Fire)

Avg DPM
16.66 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/Molten Fury averaged (10/47/3+1)
16.58 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (10/0/48+3)
14.72 Frostbolt w/IV + Waterbolt / Averaged (0/0/48+13)
14.69 Fireball x8 / Scorch x1 w/MF+IV averaged (2/47/11+1)


I've done nothing with the other specs yet.

Fire still comes out way on top for burst < 20%, but Frost does have the advantage of having higher burst available on-demand.


Here's an interesting thing: in fights where AOE DPS matters a lot, Icy Veins changes the best AOE DPS spell from Arcane Explosion for all specs to Flamestrike for 2/47/11+1 and to Blizzard for Frost mages. Given the vastly superior DPM of these spells over Arcane Explosion for their respective specs, that's welcome news.

Edit: Increased +damage to a more reasonable raid buffed value

I would not think that Frost against a non-freezable target has higher potential burst once you factor in popping Combustion IV and trinket(s) at the same time versus WE IV and trinket(s). It's also a bit silly to call 2/47/11+1 the de facto Fire dps build when Flamestrike is almost always better from standpoints of DPS, DPM and chance-to-pull-aggro. Those 2 points are better spent elsewhere, most likely as 0/50/11 where you can really put the hurt on with Improved Flamestrike.

Edit: Failed to mention WE.

I may have been confusing with my AOE statement there. Arcane Explosion is currently the best AOE DPS for any spec. With Icy Veins, Flamestrike surpasses Arcane Explosion for the Fire/IV build, and Blizzard surpasses Arcane Explosion for the Frost builds, but Arcane-spec Arcane Explosion still tops the charts.

Please take care when you use the term "viable." It is not the same as "possible" or "feasible." With the raid stack as you describe, shaman, moonkin, ret pally, and mage armor, you could reach 35%. It is not as good as hit, haste and damage, as you say. You will do less damage than if you stack stats the "right" way.

Is it viable to raid as Frost? Yes. Is it viable to raid as Arcane/* without MSD/LC/2xT5? Yes. Is it viable to raid as high-crit/lower damage Fire? Yes. But if you are creating a fire build, there is little reason other than the thrill of the frequent crit to do less damage than you could.

That was not my point. My point was that 3% to crit from Molten Armor was more damage than an extra amount of mana from Mage Armor. I see nothing in your response that addresses that point.

well even dropping pyro/BW/DB, you'd still need at least 41 pts in fire to get all the good talents even if you don't take playing with fire. Though there are more than enough AoE situations in MH and BT such that it makes 2/47/11 superior for raiding in most everyone's eyes.

It'll still be interesting how well coldsnap and IV will stack for frost though depending on what they end up doing with cold snap cooldown.

Pardon me? I think you underestimate mage armor.

Let us use a very, very conservative amount of spirit: 146 is the number I shall use, which is the spirit a Gnome like me has.

Mage Armor is then worth 5.51 mana per second (146/8*.3). With a 2.2% figure, you put net mana per second usage at over 200 mana per second, which is, well, absurd. Even a base Fireball, with nothing but Imp. Fireball, uses just 142 mana per second.

At this very conservative value, you're looking at more like 4% longevity increase. And this is with nearly no gear or buff spirit.

I assumed you were saying 2.2% came from the longevity increase due to Mage Armor? Or was it something else?

I believe the 2.2% came from IV's DPS increase.

What we were essentially arguing was whether a fire build would be better going Arcane Concentration and then using Molten Armour, or going Icy Veins and using Mage Armour.

It was pointed out that IV equates to around a 2.2% DPS increase, but that Molten armour is around 3% (slightly better when you factor in MoE, 210% fire crits, etc) so trading away arcane concentration but then using mage armour to make up for it doesn't really make sense (from a DPS perspective, assuming you aren't having horrendous mana issues).

The exact mathematics behind whether mage armour or arcane concentration save more mana may change the worthiness of the choice, but I think most mages will likely just spec IV, use molten armour and pot, if they have to.

I think that even without popping IV, Flamestrike might be better than AE when comparing a 2/47/11+1 build to a 0/50/11 build.

With 3 points in Improved Flamestrike, you can expect the crit rate to be around 50%. AE would have a crit rate of around 26%. The threat difference is somewhat negligible as with Improved Flamestrike you'll be standing far enough away that you'd need to surpass 130% threat on all of the mobs whereas with AE, you'll be close enough to some mobs that you'll pull agro at 110%.

You could also use TLC with Flamestrike because even with IV, your minimum cast is still above 2.5 seconds. Couple the fact that TLC can gain multiple charges provided they occur at the same instant and a 50% crit rate from your Flamestrike and it's well possible that you could see it proc as often as twice per cast.

According to the caps from Inoko's post AE caps out at 6730 damage and Flamestrike at 7830. I'm not positive but I'm assuming that the DoT portion of Flamestrike isn't counted against this. I'm not sure which percentage of your spell damage goes towards the DoT component, but I think that more would be better since it's probably fairly easy to cap out when using it on Hyjal packs. Crit damage also isn't calculated against the cap, making Flamestrike even better since it crits more often and harder.

If the DoT comes out high enough, it may be better to spam Flamestrike with TLC since it will proc like crazy. It's more mana efficient as well considering you're very likely to crit against at least one target.

Anyone who has the exact information on how much Flamestrike's DoT gets out of spell damage want to crunch the numbers?

Before we get too excited about hasted Flamestrike, remember that it has a very small radius compared to AE, and that the DoT doesn't stack with itself (I seem to remember someone claiming that using different ranks of Flamestrike caused stacking DoTs, but I doubt the damage loss from downranking is offset by this, even if true). Those caveats aside, it does sound as if imp. Flamestrike + IV could be a nice dps boost.

After looking at the changes to come for mage, I was wondering how a 0/40/21 build do in dps. From looking at it you'll lose dragon's breath, (1 point in either empowered fireball or pyromanic), 2 point in incinerate, but you'll be able to gain cold snap which results in being able to do 2 cycles of icy vein when mob is below 20%. As a result you'll be able to gain an additional 2 fireball below 20%. Would these 2 fireball be worth losing arc sub and the other fire tree talents?

Not a very good chance of that being worth it over the course of a 5-10 minute fight, but on a shorter fight, possibly.

However, there needs to be less speculation about what could be the best, and whether to use it or not. We still don't have the confirmed numbers for IV, and don't know what affects what as of now.

This all looks good, but there is still the problem that for a deep fire spec, no clearcasting, which makes crit that much better now to get more MoE procs.

You're making the mistake of saying 4% longevity is as good as 4% DPS increase. The truth is that is FAR from correct or accurate. Longevity (or "time till oom") and DPS, even when you know these 2 values (and only those), it is impossible to judge which setup is better unless the fight duration is shorter than the "time till oom" of both specs, in which case the higher DPS setup is always better. If the fight lasts longer than the "time till oom" of the "less longevity, higher DPS" spec there is absolutely no way of telling, by these values, which spec will do more DPS in that fight.

Here's what you're missing:
After oom you're still regening (very roughly as accurate values don't matter for illustrating my point):
100 mp5 from pots
200 mp5 from shadow priest
50 mp5 BoW
50 mp5 JoW
50 mp5 mana spring
I won't include but possibly another mana tide and evocation which would make it even more extreme.

Total mana that you can use after you're oom is 450 mp5. Adding 50 mp5 to that via mage armor means that AFTER BOTH ARE OOM, the mage armor does ~11% more DPS, or 8% if you reduce the ~3% DPS from crit.
Then when the molten armor is oom and the mage armor is not, the mage armor is doing full DPS while the molten armor is doing "oom" DPS (the DPS you can do with the 450 mp5, which is far from 0).
Of course you have to remember that the main (of full) portion of the fight in most fights is the time when both setups aren't oom, so you have to count the relative value of the fight in which both setups are not oom, the part where 1 spec is oom and the other is not and then the part where both specs are oom.

All these calculations are not easy to do, but show you that "4% more longevity with mage armor is better than 3% (or 2.3% or whatever) more DPS" is far from realistic. Not only with a good shadow priest people seem to hardly run oom, even when you do run oom you need to be oom for a very significant portion of the fight in order for mage armor to be better. And in those cases, if they even exist, you'd probably be better off bringing a lock or a rogue anyway. But TBH I never heard somoene, when playing in a realistic non-crappy raid setup, saying he felt the need to even check if mage armor was worth using.

Easier way to look at mana vs dps is to say "if time>longevity DPS=DPM*mana/duration" where mana is ALL mana you get in the fight from all sources, though you need to take into account that, say, an evocation on the last minute of the fight won't really get full effect. Much easier than figuring out your "non-oom DPS", "oom DPS" and the relative parts of the figth where you'll be doing those values.
Remember people are also reporting, from all levels of play (except very low ones where the SPs suck or are non-existant or fights are getting messed up and take a lot longer than they should without reaching an enrage timer, or they simply lack a lot of other required buffs), that they're not managing to run oom. Neither do I. Remember when calculating "time till oom" you have to also take into account the "DPS uptime", as in what % of the fight you're actually capable of casting anything. If the boss becomes immune, or is reflecting, or you simply have to move etc, you're still getting at the very least a noticeable portion of your mana regen (mp5 is ticking, potions are cooling down etc, *sometimes* SP DoTs still runnning or even his full DPS). Fights that force you to have a lower % of DPS time will greatly increase the theoretical "time till oom" value, as we all know a small amount of extra mana / less mana usage causes a big increase to longevity time, even though it really doesn't mean a big increase to actual DPS even in those long fights where longevity becomes an issue.

Bottom line is if you want to save yourself a lot of work just use vontre's spreadsheet, I think it can take all those factors into account for you, just make sure you put realistic values in it

the thing that I find interesting about a deep fire/IV spec is the potential of getting imp. blizzard and permafrost, thus letting fire mages reliably aoe with blizzard in parties without the normal worries of having all the mobs swarm you and both run out of blizzard radius and also smack you.

I havent tried using imp blizzard without the other supporting frost talents, so I don't know how effective that would really be, but it seems to be a viable alternative if you are not getting clearcasting anyways.

My error in phrasing. 3% crit (hence 3% DPS) from Molten Armor (lost when switching to Mage Armor) was being compared to 2.2% DPS from Icy Veins. I used the word "damage" when I meant the phrase "damage per second".

I'm not really concerned about the OOM condition at the end of a fight, as that is always a struggle to scrape. I've even sacrificed my pet turtle, but I got no mana back I want to reach the end of the fight at zero mana; think converging lines.

To recap: my decision, as for many raiding mages that aren't in Tier 6 content, is whether I can afford to go 2/47/11+1. Here are the factors:

1) Can I scrape another 4500 mana out of a 10 minute fight? I believe I can, with the Serpent Coil Braid. I only occasionally get a shadow priest in my group, as he is a rare and wonderful thing (former mage, btw) but I could make a case to my raid leader that it would be worth it. I can also use Fel Mana potions, for their guaranteed, larger return.

2) Do I prefer Arcane Explosion for AoE? If Flamestrike would not pull aggro, and AE did the same damage, then AE won't pull aggro even in melee range because of the threat mitigation factors. AE also benefits from greater mobility, and a larger radius.

Ignus has a point, particularly with fully imp blizz, at least 2/3 permafrost and frostbite, popping IV (with it's added 25% to frostbite and faster tic-rate) with Blizz would certainly make Flamestrike a lot more viable for the fire-mages: They can tag all the agro they like, because the mobs won't be moving anywhere. Not only that, bt it'll be easy to coralle them into place and keep them on the Flamestrike DOT.