Maybe you were in BT shooting at the shieldwall using mobs?

Nope, only raided TK and HS since patch

Pardon my asking, but did you mean SSC when you said HS? I don't quite recall the moniker HS used for any raid in BC.

That being said, Hydross has a debuff he casts during his nature phase which basically cuts your dps in half.

Now if you meant Hyjal Summit, I honestly can't think of anything. None of the mobs there have any such debuff.

Welcome to the world of 75% partial resists.

I mean Hyjal Summit, sorry for being unclear about that

In theory, you could just use a weapon-switch macro to go from Zhardoom to Vengeful/Chronicle or something to make up for the lost hit.

Some testing with various button-spamming methods back on page 72 (when 2.3.2 was on the PTR) suggest this is true.

http://elitistjerks.com/570888-post1795.html -- post 1795
http://elitistjerks.com/570888-post1797.html -- post 1797

It seems as if the partial GCDs triggered by attempting to chain-cast too quickly have been removed. As a bit of anecdotal evidence, I was observing after 2.3.2 went live that I could watch my Quartz casting bar, deliberately button-spam "too early", and still chain fireballs flawlessly.

First I didn't even plan to go IV after I calculated that it's not worth stacking AP and IV. I then added proper handling of haste cooldowns to my LP solver and I found some interesting results that made me try it. Basically the conclusion I got is to AB spam on AP, AM spam with IV during heroism, rest of heroism and the rest of IV with ABAM spam. End result was about 1-2% damage increase compared to full arcane.

The biggest problem with partial resists is it dictates the base dmg that get's multiplied when you crit too.

Say you hit for 3000 normally, a 75% partial takes that to 750, then multiplied by 1,5 (I realize it's more if you have CSD) and you get those insanely low crits, 1150 fireball crit etc. It's really frustrating, it's especially noticable on Supremus or any other of those silly bosses with 200+ fire resistance.

Ah I didn't realize that the resist calculation occurred before the crit damage was worked in, thanks.

I'm a little confused as to what you're saying. It wouldn't matter in what order the resists were multiplied - it's multiplication.

Fireball hit * 0.25 * 1.5 = Fireball hit * 1.5 * 0.25

Unless I'm totally misreading what you've said - I would have thought it obvious.

One thing that was strange with the low crits that I noticed was that there was no (xxx resisted) in the combat log.

Well if its the Shield guys before RoS/Gurtogg, that explains that, there are always other mobs which have a damage reduction ability, but cant remember offhand where.

To my knowledge, even though the portion reported as resisted is lower than expected, the damage lost is exactly what you would expect.

In other words, a partial is 75%, 50%, or 25% of the damage you ordinarily would have done. It's not simple subtraction of 25%, 50%, or 75% of the base damage.

......?

The damage done is the same no matter what formula is use, Damage*crit*resist or Damage*resist*crit, the only number that varies is the logged resist number. The damage lost is *not* what matters, as you can see the game will do Your Fireball crits XXX for 1125 (2250 resisted) and not Your Fireball crits XX for 1125(3275 resisted).

And yes, it's calculated on base damage.

I'm saying that, though the combat log says 2250 was resisted, you actually did lose 3275 damage. That's all.

Would there be any drawbacks to the combat system if they changed they way it displayed a crit with a partial resist to the actual amount resisted? Right now it does resist before crit, any drawback to do crit before resist? Partials only, not full resist.

I would only say that having the partial resist message report the actual damage lost makes it easier for damage meter mods and combat log parsers to do their job. The order in which hits, crits, etc. are processed is really immaterial in terms of actual gameplay.

You're right, I didn't think it through, while it's the same the code seems to do it (hit*,75)1,5 as per what it displays.

Considering the fact that blizz devs use these forums like scavengers (For reference) we should try to reach some sort of consensus regarding what buffs we want (How to balance the mage).

I can safely say that I think most of us agree that we need better group buffs and/or some sort of synergy.

The following changes should be made in order to make the mage + destro lock equal;

1. Merge CoS + CoE
2. Add a haste aura (And/or create impr. INT - for a total of 79)
3. Create some sort of synergy between mages and the ele shaman.


Are you happy with our current situation or do you feel they need to up our group buffs? In which case what are your suggestions?

An Imp. AI talent will most likely end up being pretty bad.
Imp. Fort - any priest specs Inner Focus/Meditation, and gets Imp. PW:Fort on the way.
Imp. GotW - ferals usually don't take it because they need furor/naturalist/ooc/intensity, and have no more points for resto.

Imp. AI - it makes no sense in fire/frost. So, only arcane.
Raid builds are down to 2 points in arcane. So, either it has to be another tier 1 arcane talent, or someone has to gimp themself to take it.
Yay for mages rotating the imp.AI/amplify duty?

Haste aura sounds nice though - to replace the 50% int => armour talent. Has some potential, stacking or non-stacking, and gives group utility.

How about turning IV into a group buf instead of a self only buff?
Unlike some imp. AI buff in the arcane tree, IV is more accessible since more raid builds use it.

If ever it'll be implemented (which I highly doubt) groups with 2-3 mages would be great if those mages could stagger IV and keep the buff up for as long as possible, hey - even healers might start liking it...
But then we'll need that shadow priest and mana totems even more