The travel time is a fixed speed, so distance between you and the target wont matter, because as you cast faster, your fireballs will still hit in the same interval whether your 1 foot from the target or 41 yards.
I got quite confused with "Travel time is a fixed speed". For a moment I thought you meant projectiles will take a specific length of time to reach a target irrespective of distance.
Just to clarify what I think you actualey mean is: Since distance between caster and target won't change, travel time will remain constant.
Your argument is almost correct because ignite's timer is dependent on when the spell hits the mob and as such distance -is- important.
Take the following assumption: Say the target is 4sec fireball travel-time away. Irrespective of haste, by the time the second ball hits the last ball's ignite will be over already.
A resource we have, if its at all helpful to test with fireballs at this speed, is the caster mobs in ZA that buff themselves with haste. You'd have the choice of casting fireballs at a rate under the gcd, or pyroblasts under 2.0 sec, probably without needing bloodlust or icy veins.
Of course it would require a guild patient enough to wait around for the tank to generate enough aggro for your chain-pyro tests.
I also tested it with 2,01 second cast, havn't uploaded that picture but it did not stack at that point.
Edit: I think the fact that scorch crit less than 1,5 second after fireball crit also produced the ignite stacking, that the threshold is just 2,0 seconds, anything faster than that will roll it.
Edit2: Another observation is that crits more than 2 seconds apart seems to delay the ignite tick, so that it
'stacks' like we've been used to, it's only under the 2 second interval that it seems to roll ala pre TBC.
Also assuming berskering scales linearlly between 100% and 40%hps (confirm/deny?)
I can confirm that it scales perfectly linearly, you can get from anywhere to 10-30% zerking, no fixed points. *However* I seem to recall from the last time I did the testing (which has been a while) that it scaled with 40% of your hp, as in, from 60% to 100%.
My memory, and it's been about a year and a half since I did these tests, is that it scaled linearly from 10-30% based on your hp with 60% = 30% and 100% being 10%.
It shouldn't be that difficult to quickly figure out if its 60 or 40 though, I'd just try it a few times at different percentages.
Also, the missile travel time for frostbolt/fireball (definiately varies with different missiles) is *roughly* 35-40 yards per second. Meaning that at max range, they take almost exactly 1 second to get where they are going.
Another observation is that crits more than 2 seconds apart seems to delay the ignite tick, so that it
'stacks' like we've been used to, it's only under the 2 second interval that it seems to roll ala pre TBC.
That's not what I'm seeing there. Your scorch crit delayed you from getting any ignite ticks for a full 2 seconds. It kept your ignite going, so that you could try to roll it again with fireball -- but the key to actually "Rolling" it is to get 1 tick, and still have "2 more coming at the full value" so that the one tick you get is "bonus". You never got your one tick with the scorch, so it was "rolling over" but not really "rolling" if you get what I'm saying. Yes you can make ignite show you big numbers with a series of chain crits from scorch, but none of this damage will be bonus damage. Your two ticks will just keep getting delayed and bigger until you stop critting for long enough for it to tick.
That's not what I'm seeing there. Your scorch crit delayed you from getting any ignite ticks for a full 2 seconds. It kept your ignite going, so that you could try to roll it again with fireball -- but the key to actually "Rolling" it is to get 1 tick, and still have "2 more coming at the full value" so that the one tick you get is "bonus". You never got your one tick with the scorch, so it was "rolling over" but not really "rolling" if you get what I'm saying. Yes you can make ignite show you big numbers with a series of chain crits from scorch, but none of this damage will be bonus damage. Your two ticks will just keep getting delayed and bigger until you stop critting for long enough for it to tick.
But isn't that whats happening there? Isn't the "fireball tick" the bonus one? How else would he get two 4.6k ticks from a 1.5k scorch? If you could explain the math a little more it would be appreciated, because I don't understand where all the damage is coming from.
[edit] Nevermind, I didn't as Manly put it "pay attention to the timing". The first ignite is obviously not from the first visible crit.
The ignite timer and if it will roll can be judged by your fireball DoT. At least that is what I have always used. Also, there has *always* been a delay on ignites *ticking* if you crit again under 2 seconds. While my mage was slightly undergeared, I was able to keep decent damage by stacking crit for awhile. Ignites and careful timing gave the possibility to create an ignite that would never end and continue to grow. I always kept my mouth shut about it and hoped that it wouldn't be nerfed. When I would take advantage of this and executed correctly I would get 1500~ DPS with fairly sub par gear.
I really had no clue that most of the old mage community didn't know this. *glares at Manly*
I guess that is what I get for spending my recent life on a game. :-(
P.S. Manly, what ever happened to Fenris?
Last edited by Hateires : 01/09/08 at 11:10 AM.
Reason: P.S.
Well, first thing first, as far as I know the behavior of Ignites changed in TBC. Here is how a normal Ignite behaves. Take particular attention at the timing
In short, each time you crit you further delay the next ignite tick. Pre-TBC it used to always tick at 2 seconds intervals. This means that if you were to crit every 1.5 seconds then yes you could legitimately end up with something like this:
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
I observed this rolling half ignite last night on najentus. I have 91 haste and IV + BL up at the time.
06:03'42.296 Cardynal's Fireball crits High Warlord Naj'entus for 6713 Fire damage
06:03'44.281 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 29 Fire damage (7 resisted)
06:03'44.531 Cardynal's Fireball crits High Warlord Naj'entus for 7050 Fire damage
06:03'46.671 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 38 Fire damage
06:03'46.671 Cardynal's Fireball crits High Warlord Naj'entus for 6802 Fire damage
06:03'48.562 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 19 Fire damage (14 resisted)
06:03'49.140 Cardynal's Fireball crits High Warlord Naj'entus for 6802 Fire damage
06:03'49.140 Cardynal's Ignite dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 5457 Fire damage
06:03'51.093 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 38 Fire damage
06:03'51.843 Cardynal's Ignite dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 4089 Fire damage
06:03'53.593 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 29 Fire damage (7 resisted)
06:03'53.968 Cardynal's Ignite dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 4089 Fire damage
06:03'56.187 Cardynal's Fireball dots High Warlord Naj'entus for 37 Fire damage
27,367 crit dmg done...meaning there should be 10,947 ignite dmg
13,635 ignite dmg = 50% ignite dmg...so a rolling half ignite as manly says.
The ignite timer and if it will roll can be judged by your fireball DoT. At least that is what I have always used. Also, there has *always* been a delay on ignites *ticking* if you crit again under 2 seconds. While my mage was slightly undergeared, I was able to keep decent damage by stacking crit for awhile. Ignites and careful timing gave the possibility to create an ignite that would never end and continue to grow. I always kept my mouth shut about it and hoped that it wouldn't be nerfed. When I would take advantage of this and executed correctly I would get 1500~ DPS with fairly sub par gear.
I really had no clue that most of the old mage community didn't know this. *glares at Manly*
I guess that is what I get for spending my recent life on a game. :-(
P.S. Manly, what ever happened to Fenris?
But what you describe isn't a real 'rolling' ignite, its a stacking ignite. A stacking ignite gives 40% of the crit damage, as expected, whereas a true rolling ignite gives more than 40%. If you just keep delaying your ignite damage by getting sub 2 second crits then this is what happens.
Fenris quit the game 2 months ago. He logged back yesterday. I think he ebayed.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Whatever the mechanics are, they are no where near as distorting as the old rolling ignite mechanic and not very noticeable in practical settings.
I checked WWS for last night and for 3 minutes after 370k damage, not a single error in ignite damage was recorded not to mention the end result total ignite damage was exactly 40% of total crit damage done. This is was including 2 uses of IV and one bloodlust.
Clearly theres something goofy going on, but I can't say it is nearly as big of a deal as the old rolling ignites were. I'm just glad that blizzard is still trying to get the mechanics right. I've been disappointed with how the mechanic change for TBC really backloaded damage during crit streaks, not to mention the overlapping crits losing ignite damage. I think theyd save a lot of headaches by simply changing it to a 2 second, 1 tick mechanic ... the interwoven crits are what is driving this entire debacle.
Whatever the mechanics are, they are no where near as distorting as the old rolling ignite mechanic and not very noticeable in practical settings.
I checked WWS for last night and for 3 minutes after 370k damage, not a single error in ignite damage was recorded not to mention the end result total ignite damage was exactly 40% of total crit damage done. This is was including 2 uses of IV and one bloodlust.
Clearly theres something goofy going on, but I can't say it is nearly as big of a deal as the old rolling ignites were. I'm just glad that blizzard is still trying to get the mechanics right. I've been disappointed with how the mechanic change for TBC really backloaded damage during crit streaks, not to mention the overlapping crits losing ignite damage. I think theyd save a lot of headaches by simply changing it to a 2 second, 1 tick mechanic ... the interwoven crits are what is driving this entire debacle.
I hope you understand that my theory also explains why overlapping crits cause a dps loss. I did not say this directly, but should I be right it would explain the 4th combustion crit behavior amongst other things. And also overlapped ignites (ie: fireball/fireblast).
Maybe they aren't a big deal right now, but the true goal of this thread is to gear and play specifically in a way that you take advantage of them. It could lead to something of much greater interest.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
The problem with trying to gear yourself specifically towards trying to get constant half rolling ignites would be that there is no haste + crit gear. It's all either dmg + crit or dmg + haste. You could get yourself to that level of gear with a large haste set...but your crit rating would be horrible...which would prevent you from doing any sort of rolling unless used with combustion.
So basically, in order to roll them they have to be consecutive crits of <2s casting time?
Pre-BC you could still miss with one crit and as long as the next one crit you could keep the stack going.
But even at 40% crit rate raid buffed, its hard to expect this to be a significant DPS boost unless used with Combustion.
At 2s cast speed with Bloodlust/Icy Veins (Actually 1.92s) you are going to get 10 casts w/in your Icy Veins duration.
So we are talking about a 20 second window of rolling ignites per fight.. unless you can get more than one Bloodlust, which, judging by my damage with 1 Bloodlust per boss last night vs. 3 Bloodlusts for the melee group, mages may be better off with the stacked Bloodlusts now!
I'm 0/45/16 (Illidan friendly spec) and I had no mana issues at all lastnight lacking Arcane Concentration. Obviously did have a shadow priest.
I didn't even need to mana gem or pot, so I believe Fireball spam with multiple Bloodlusts is definitely sustainable.
But anyways, getting back on topic..
If this is all true, it would be better to extend that window of possible rolling ignites.
So to make the most use out of these things, we want to find the best combination for them all. For instance, lets calculate the amount of passive haste needed to achieve 2s fireballs with Bloodlust alone.
Therefore, to optimize this window of possible rolling ignites by making your fireballs 2s or less, Icy Veins should be popped outside of Bloodlust, and with Skull, and with a passive 245 haste rating.
So.. is 65 seconds of possible rolling ignite worth what you give up by popping all your cooldowns in the same window?
EDIT: And is it worth it by stacking 245 passive haste?
The problem with trying to gear yourself specifically towards trying to get constant half rolling ignites would be that there is no haste + crit gear. It's all either dmg + crit or dmg + haste. You could get yourself to that level of gear with a large haste set...but your crit rating would be horrible...which would prevent you from doing any sort of rolling unless used with combustion.
You would be fairly surprised. And regardless, haste point for point is a better dps stat than crit. And BTW, if I take my gear for reference and swap like footpads of madness I still have 40% raid-buffed and potted crit rate, which is plenty. I should probably also swap in shroud of the highborne come to look at it.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
I pretty much said the exact same numbers on the first post...
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
If you want to test the travel time of a fireball, grab a shaman with the mod 'enhancer'. It has a built in range finder for totems so you know if you're in range or not.
step 1) get the shaman to cast any 2 minute totem.
step 2) get the shaman to get exactly 10/20/30 or 40 yards from his totem.
step 3) duel the shaman
step 4) stand directly on top the shaman and cast the fireball at his totem.
with this you should be able to go into either combat log, (Time fireball is cast - time fireball hits totem) - cast time of the spell. This should yield you a flat rate.
Take your distance from the totem and divide it by the time it took the fireball to hit the totem and voila, you have your velocity. (At least theoretically)
For all intents and purposes, I would repeat this a few times to find a statistical variation, as lag and shit will matter. Ohh, and only use the mage's combat log for recording the times for consistency.
At least I think, this way you could technically change your distance from the target to ensure the 2 second refresh for example by standing a specific distance away from bosses.
If you want to test the travel time of a fireball, grab a shaman with the mod 'enhancer'. It has a built in range finder for totems so you know if you're in range or not.
I think the problem is the combat log, or at least mine, maybe there are others out there... only shows data to the nearest second... not milliseconds which is what we need.
So thats really not going to tell you anything... otherwise you could do the same thing just by nuking Dr. Boom.
I would guess that at 41 yards the travel time is 0.5s just based on my experience casting rank 1 frostbolts in PvP.. seems the same.
I'm not familiar with WWS parses, but don't they go to milliseconds? The mod I use for tracking deaths goes into milliseconds, and is [tag] encoded. Go to the mod forum here on EJ and look up Assessment for more info on that, you could probably make your own module for tracking fireball timers.
If you can wait for 2.4, the combat log is receiving a HUGE overhaul to how it functions for more accurate statistic tracking.
With the ignite change back in Pre-TBC, Blizzard seperated the ignites per mage so every mage in a raid is not feeding the ignite roll. Keeping this in mind, I think the ignite mechanic has not changed. Before haste gear and IV, the probablity of a One mage rolling his own ignite long enough was not possible. But now with IV and Haste gear we are able to roll our ignites little bit more obvious, hitting numbers 5k - 6k even 12k on certain fights. Any thoughts?
Except that's not how this is working, the bonus ignite damage is only happening if you crit right as the ignite ticks, which is every 2 seconds.
Sorry im kind of confused - why doesn't my theory work? Instead of ignite ticking every two seconds (as done with a rank 3 fireball) if there was a "travel" time of a whole one second, then what i mean is you can potentially extend that to three seconds.
This is because every time you crit - the ignite stack "refreshes" back to zero, and the conditions have been met to roll the ignite (the ignite ticks during the fireball travel time, thus being a "free" tick)
Ok, maybe its pushing it to say that there is a 1 second travel time, but even a 0.5 second travel time would mean you only need <2.5 second casts.
I'm not familiar with WWS parses, but don't they go to milliseconds? The mod I use for tracking deaths goes into milliseconds, and is [tag] encoded. Go to the mod forum here on EJ and look up Assessment for more info on that, you could probably make your own module for tracking fireball timers.
If you can wait for 2.4, the combat log is receiving a HUGE overhaul to how it functions for more accurate statistic tracking.
Look at my post above showing a rolling half ignite...it goes down to the MS...and yes it is from wws from the night before.
And to Evice
Yes that is correct...but it would be rather difficult to see 12k ignites as that would take quite a few crits in a row during IV or bloodlust. 5-6 K is more reasonable as you'll see one in my log above. However the actual single tick of the ignite doesn't matter quite as much...just the % dmg done. I'd like to see logs of someone critting at around 2.0 seconds more than 3-4 times in a row to see if you gain over 50% ignite dmg.
Look at my post above showing a rolling half ignite...it goes down to the MS...and yes it is from wws from the night before.
And to Evice
Yes that is correct...but it would be rather difficult to see 12k ignites as that would take quite a few crits in a row during IV or bloodlust. 5-6 K is more reasonable as you'll see one in my log above. However the actual single tick of the ignite doesn't matter quite as much...just the % dmg done. I'd like to see logs of someone critting at around 2.0 seconds more than 3-4 times in a row to see if you gain over 50% ignite dmg.
In searix's screenshot on the first page he appears to have done 62% more damage over intended ignite damage. That was with a 4 crit streak.
01/09/08, 7:30 AM
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