Scaling can get out of control quickly. Upping base values is like adding a fixed amount of +dmg (to school), more scalpel than A-bomb.

While I agree that simply upping base values is rather boring, (Is your damage purple, red or blue?) it is very static and easy to predict for balance purposes.

At any rate, I believe it is as simple as a flawed pre-made creation.

The question that begs to be asked is "Are they using max ranks on the internal server for testing balance?". If so, we got the short end of the stick.

The problem with fixing base spell values is, how do you make something competitive in T6 and in the future Sunwell content without making it overpowered in T4 content? I'd rather my damage scale slowly and steadily as I get gear upgrades rather than scale badly with gear upgrades with a few huge new rank upgrades here and there.

Think of a linear formula for scaling:

Damage = scaling factor * gear + basic damage

Now arcanes problem is that the scaling factor (read: the talents) is underpowered compared to fire and frost. Therefore it performs ok for bad to medium equipped mages at level 70, but falls behind later on. A perfect scaling will put the corresponding functions for all major Speccs on top of each other for all gear levels. Of course this is not a perfect linear function, but then again, as long as they remain the same to a certain extent, all spccs will be considered "viable".

Now if Blizzard were to adjust the talents in the arcane tree, it might become necessary to lower the basic damage to avoid the problem you metioned.

The "main" problem with arcane is that it lacks a role. It has been the "shadow-priest" dump mana spec (pre 2.3 arcane and t5 fireball/arcane blast combos), but as time has passed it's simply just "there". Fire is the dps tree, frost is the survivability tree (and maybe even leading dps tree with 40/0/21), and arcane lacks any purpose.

I just don't get it with blizzard, what is the purpose of talents? Why are some trees specifically made for PvP (Arms, Demo), some are made for PvE (Fire, Destruction, Feral), some that do "ok" at both but you need to respec still if you want full efficiency (Frost, Restoration, Holy (Paladin)), and some that just plain excel at both (Beast Mastery).

Anyways after getting that rant out my point remains, arcane currently doesn't have a function. If it's the leading dps tree all it does it make PvE mages respec to it and then fire becomes the gimp tree. I think blizzard realizes this and have thusly nerfed arcane until they find a suitable role.

It may seems like arcane got nerfed, but there was no nerf to arcane tree itself. The only nerf comes in the form of a CD added to Mystical Skyfire Diamond (which was the biggest nerf to arcane through itemisation). In fact, arcane received 15% more mana regen.

Arcane was supposed to be the number 1 burst DPS tree, which was true until T6 levels when other classes can do much more sustained DPS which can even rivals AB spam. The biggest problem there was that arcane failed to scale. 2x T5 was required to make AB viable, and AM spam is still way underpowered.

(And the TLC nerf.)

What makes this tree the burst dps tree? PoM? Frost combo does the same damage on 1/8 the cooldown. Which leaves it to it's PvE burst where shatter combos don't work, why/when would you need a burst dps talent? I'm talking 5-8 seconds vs. 20 seconds, Combustion + cools + fire talents makes up for AP PoM's burst after 20-30.

Let me ask you this, if you were given empowered arcane missiles and 20% arcane blast free, say as part of the 2 peice t6, would anyone still spec arcane?

It looks like the fireball/frostbolt ranks are indeed a mistake.

Quote from: Hortus
Edit: Source: WoW Forums -> [BUG?] Rank 14 fireball / frostbolt

Sadly the issue is always with both. If you fix the "scaling," as you term it, then you invalidate the balance of spells at lower gear levels in favor of higher gear levels.

What is important is the relative DPS gap between specs and spells. We often speak of deep Fire, for example, out-DPSing deep Frost by, say, 5%. If the two specs have good scaling and balance, then that gap should always be 5% as gear levels increase.

One cannot increase only the scaling of Arcane without considering whether this keeps the DPS gap the same from one gear level to the next or causes it to shrink or grow. Whether it shrinks, grows, or stays the same is intimately tied to the base damage.

Oh humbug.

It's actually pretty much entirely tied to the scaling coefficient. Talent builds can tell us how each spell scales up with a point of 'stat', which is generally spell damage. If the scaling coefficient is exactly the same for each build, they will keep their comparative value from 0 spell damage all the way to 10000 spell damage.

Mind Mastery does not scale at all, which is a huge problem for arcane. Intellect is not a viable progression stat. It would be kinda neat if it was. Assuming, of course, they changed drinking to recover a percentage of mana. =p

when there is another mage specced deep frost (18/0/43 or something like that) putting up Winter's Chill right? because without that, that spec blows.

What makes Serpent-Coil Braid that much more powerfull now? At a full T6 level, the hit provided by the Braid is wasted, the crit is very minimal, and the use of the gem provides less damage than the Hex trinket.
_____

Well heres the problem with such effects, 2min/3min cooldowns, whether to stack or use on the cooldown, as fire. For frost, there are other inhibitors that need to be factored in along side, pushback, supported WC.

When your raids dps gets better, your chance to use consumables goes down.
I'll take Teron Gorefiend for example, as fire.

At about a 23,000 raid dps mark, you lose the ability to use the 3 minute cooldowns at the start of the fight and have them up at the end. At a 28,000 raid dps mark, you start to push the use of a 2 minute cooldown at the start and have it up at the end.

The highest dps gain for consumables for fire is when paired with a bosses health sub 20%. No matter what your usage is before 20%, if you do not have cooldowns or consumables up for a 20% burst, you have failed to maximize your dps.

For Frost, you need far more testing, testing that Dr. Boom cannot provide to conclude.

When they devalue the mana from Int down to 1, boost the Int on items like they did with stam, and nerf the mana gains of VT to a static value, or to a much lesser value, the quality of Int will go up, effectively making the talent a much more beneficial gain.

Have you heard of this being planned, or is it just educated speculation (either is fine, just curious)?

Speculated as to make the Mind Mastery talent give more meaning.

Sounds good. I'm hoping for an overhaul of the arcane tree, not necessarily just individual talents. I'm tempted to agree with the thought stated earlier that arcane is a "filler" spec, until Blizz finds a use for it, but rationality says that arcane will be broken for a good, long time.

No, I fear you miss my point.

Let us imagine, for the sake of example, that at some gear level, Arcane builds deal 800 DPS and Fire builds 900.
DPS gap: Fire deals 12.5% more DPS

Let us imagine that both builds receive +1 DPS for every +1 spell damage after all modifiers and buffs.

Now let's consider adding 200 spell damage. Arcane deals 1k DPS, Fire 1.1k.
DPS gap: 10%

A dwindling % DPS gap favors Arcane. Even though both receive the "same" DPS benefit from spell damage, the scaling is inherently unequal.


Now, the stat that increases the most with increasing gear level is +spell damage by far, which means scaling in relation to spell damage is the most important figure involved in determining the scaling of builds, but other stats should not be forgotten. Mind Mastery scales with crit and hit, for example.

It is exactly in response to this complicated mess of stats scaling each other and the complete and utter lack of uniformity between items of equal item level and maximum relative benefit (in other words, item points are spent based on an arbitrary formula and not in a manner related to how useful they are) that I have suggested massive modifications to the system.

Edit: it's easy to see, though, that the reason Mind Mastery doesn't scale is because +spell damage is the primary stat of every piece of gear at every level of gear. When's the last time you saw an item without +spell damage? That's right, never. This very quickly devalues the benefit from Mind Mastery: the most +spell damage you have, the more it takes for an equal percentage benefit.

If, instead, item points were more evenly distributed between the primary dps stats, Mind Mastery would be no different than talents that give percents of crit or hit, which do not lose percentage benefit due to increases in +damage. Instead, all of these stats would devalue at roughly comparable rates.

It is, however, rather telling that Mind Mastery, for all its flaws, is one of the biggest DPS increasing talents mages have available, certainly at low gear levels, but increasingly eclipsed at high gear levels by flat percentage multipliers.

It is my opinion, though, that a talent that decreases or increases in potency relative to other talents is a bad talent and not well designed. But then again, I apply this philosophy to the entire scaling system.

Using all but the Sword from Archimonde, and the Skull from Illidan, and the ring from ZA, using an inferior wand, with an elemental shaman, I'm a a total of 15.5%~ hit, which can be seen with my armory. A perfectly built mage will have 166 hit rating. A not-so perfect mage will have even more due to different pieces of gear- cloak, boots, and belt for a lesser geared mage all provide hit. So at the T6 level, if you're using those gears, the braid is a complete waste, and even at the t4 level, its highly unusable to the alternative pieces. This may make sense or not if my thoughts are clear through my sickness.

We don't have an elemental shaman, so that is 3% hit down the drain I need to get from gear instead. I assume it is the same for Searix. Ironically I have too much hit right now, but that is because I have nearly all of the sup-optimal pieces with a lot of hit, replace one of those and I will have to plug some +hit gems in (or braid if I had it) till I get the skull.

An ele shaman is atleast something I and I'd say most mages cannot build their gear around, not to mention warlocks have superior scaling with an ele shaman (more ISB uptime, better scaling of SB over fireball, no hit talent etc etc).

With Icy Veins i think we might be above warlocks, dunno.

As to my gear, in terms of hit:
Head: Tempest, 27
Neck: Translucent, 15
Shoulders: Tempest, 0
Cloak: Illidan healing, 0
Chest: Tempest, 13
Bracers: Nimble, 0
Gloves: Spellfire, 0
Belt: Spellfire, 0
Legs: Tempest, 20
Feet: Blue Suede, 18
Ring1: Exalted Hyjal, 0
Ring2: Haste ring, 0
Trinket1: Braid, 30
Trinket2: Skull, 25
Weapon: Zhar'doom, 0
Wand: Tirisfal, 12

12.7% hit, just under hit cap, but using blue suede, tirisfal, and translucent. (Yes working on upgrading spellfire peices).

Unless i'm mistaken, the perfect set has braid in it, could be wrong though

I highly doubt it. By definition, warlocks do more damage than mages, given the same gear level. This is a multitude of reasons, but judging from the t6~ gear level, it basically revolves around succu + shadowpriest giving 30% damage, plus ISB(+20%~), and shadow and flame being 20% coef, aswell as the fact SB is 3 second base cast (so bane and shadow and flame have an increased effect) meaning that there is not a chance that a mage will ever outDPS a similarly geared destro warlock.

An extra 1-2% damage from veins isnt going to change that.

Braid is 12 hit, and 30 crit.

Anyway, I'd imagine the "perfect" set would cap out like this (leaving out zero-hit slots)

Head: Cowl of the Illidari High Lord (35)
Chest: Tempest (13)
Gloves: Tempest (20)
Legs: Tempest (20)
Trinket1: Skull of Gul'dan (25)
Weapon: Tempest of Chaos (17)
Off-hand: Chronicle of Dark Secrets (17)
Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Star (11)

That's 158 rating, and you can pick up what's left with a Veiled Pyrestone somewhere, or any kind of shaman on a regular basis in your group. A Zhar'doom setup picks up any two out of Belt of Blasting (23), Translucent Spellthread Necklace (15) and Ring of Captured Storms (19) to cap out. I don't think the Braid is needed at any point.