[Mage] 2.4 TC, aka Guys in Blue Dresses - Page 22

◊ manly · 05/15/08, 4:32 AM

Originally Posted by Alvira

Manly, Can I copy and paste your latest post on my thread? I would perfer to take the discussion there and post my reply to it there. Just wondering.

Sure, go ahead. Personally I think theses forums just give a baseline about how to play properly (and yes even for firespec). A lot of grounds are not covered about how to abuse every single nuance of mechanics in the game, but I think ultimately everyone has some learning process you learn along the way. Sometimes I get specific questions about how to stack cooldowns, but the truth is, every answer will depend on the situation at hand. I somewhat enjoy keeping tabs on my haste ratings and how it affects possible spell-chainings giving rolling ignites, but for all practical means for me its nothing more than a TC curiosity. I do try to abuse rolling ignites on movement fights, but thats about as far as 'abusing rolling ignites' go.

Kaboomafoo · 05/15/08, 4:59 AM

I think I broke the game.
I've been playing around with Rawr lately and decided to see if it's possible to actually make Pyroblast the mage's main-cast spell for dps. If this were to happen, you'd have to reduce the cast time to 3 seconds, like that of a talented fireball. Then you'd need a shadow priest or two to make up the mana cost difference. But I wanted to do it and remain hit capped. Here's where the fun began.

Rules I made for myself
1. Socket only haste gems to the maximum amount possible. I chose Quick Lionseye because they provide the most haste.
2. Remain hit capped or within .5% of the fire cap.
3. Use any piece of gear from any instance in any combination. If you're going all out, why not take down all the bosses in the game while you're at it.
4. If you cannot gain hit cap from gear, only then did I want to rely on an elemental shaman.

Here's what I got:
Helm- Hood of Hexing [3x Quick Lionseye] {Glyph of Power enchant}
Neck- Sunfire Pendant [Quick Lionseye]
Shoulder- Amice of the Convoker [2x Quick Lionseye]
Back- Shroud of the Highborne (MAXIMUM HASTE ON A CLOAK ZOMG) {Subtlety enchant}
Chest- Sunfire Robe [3x Quick Lionseye] {+6 stats enchant}
Wrist- Bracers of Nimble Thought {15 spell damage enchant}
Gloves- Gloves of Tyri's Power [2x Quick Lionseye] {15 spell hit rating enchant}
Waist- Belt of the Tempest [Quick Lionseye]
Legs- Leggings of Calamity [3x Quick Lionseye] {Runic Spellthread}
Feet- Boots of the Tempest [Quick Lionseye] {Vitality enchant}
Weapon(s)- Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents [3x Quick Lionseye] {Sunfire enchant}
Ranged- Wand of the Demonsoul [Quick Lionseye]
Trinkets- Skull of Gul'dan and Quagmirran's Eye

TOTALS WITH ONLY AI and MOLTEN ARMOR:
8203 Health
10736 Mana

22.32% spell crit (245 crit rating)
547 Spell haste rating
1198 Fire spell damage
164 Spell hit rating

Now with an ele shaman, you could use Blade of Twisted Visions and Heart of the Pit for more haste and change your glove enchant to damage.

I don't know the conversions of haste (1 rating = ??%) but I'm pretty sure 547 haste would be close enough to make pyroblast viable. Comments?

P.S. I'm not a math god, I'm horrible at theorycrafting. So any replies limited in math or with long, drawn-out explanations to the math wold be appreciated.

/EDIT: My spell damage math is off, I forgot to remove the Flask of Pure Death in Rawr. It should be 1118 fire damage. My bad.

Roywyn · 05/15/08, 5:15 AM

Originally Posted by Kaboomafoo

I think I broke the game.
I've been playing around with Rawr lately and decided to see if it's possible to actually make Pyroblast the mage's main-cast spell for dps. If this were to happen, you'd have to reduce the cast time to 3 seconds, like that of a talented fireball.

You realise that with a 3 second pyroblast, you'd have a 1.5 second fireball?
To make Pyroblast spam viable, it would need a 1 second cast time, which is ~7800 haste rating. Good luck getting there

And even then, Fireball still scales better due to 4T6, Pyroblast is still better due to the higher base damage though.

Alvira · 05/15/08, 5:17 AM

You might get there if your trinkets procced and you icy veined during blood lust. But it would only be for that short period of time only. The rest of the time, fireball would still be better.

• Astrylian · 05/15/08, 5:20 AM

Though that does beg the question... As fire, when you get quite alot of spell haste, and Bloodlust+IcyVeins puts your Fireball under 1sec by a significant enough margin that it'd be worth it to just save IV for after BL, would it instead be better to do stack IV with BL, but switch to Pyro instead? How much haste is that?

EDIT: Nevermind, that's 1449 spell haste. Not gunna happen pre-TBC.

Battlemaid · 05/15/08, 5:33 AM

I have a haste-related question (spent some time reading this thread, but can't find the answer). Won't haste-heavy gear setup actually hurt fire mage's DPS due to going OOM fast?

The point is that ever since 2.3, I've being a haste adept in our guild, and on every good occasion try to tell ppl how good haste is for casters. The question I asked is an argument against haste that one of our guild's mages told me. Would be really great, if you adviced me how to counter this, or actually proved that I am being wrong. Sorry for asking possibly obvious things, but my main and only character is a shadowpriest and I know little to nothing about mages and their mana efifciency.

From a shadowpriest perspective (I'm an active participant of shadowpriest.com forums), there were lots or arguments against haste, with most popular being: ruining rotations and lowering mana efficiency. However, now both things are not considered to be a problem, and high-end priests are sitting at 200-300 spellhaste. Of course, haste stacking spawns some less obvious issues, e.g. 1 haste vs 1dmg usefullness ratio decay with increasing haste values, but these are unnecessary details in the context of my original question.

JaMMi · 05/15/08, 5:39 AM

I'm going to simply concede that my post sounded like I was prioritising DPS > doing my job, which I didn't intend and for which I'm sorry - what I need to do now, Manly, is bring up the whole "fire can't even spend its mana" comment I made ; which was misunderstood and I feel the need to clarify (Queue as short a quote session as I can):

Originally Posted by manly

All that matters is people not dying. Not the amount of decursing.

I like the way you've put this. Only addition I would make is that if you aim to decurse as much as possible, trying to beat all around you - then chances are if they for some reason get an issue, you will get the successful curse and the person has a higher chance to live. But irrelevant ; decurse is priority and I thought it was an assumption made by all regarding that fight, prior to b) staying alive by whatever means necesary and c) nuking your tits off when possible.

Originally Posted by manly

You clearly indicate that you spam decurse so that it is cast after you finish casting your current spell, which means you wait to finish your cast just as well as the fire mage.

I do yes, though I wonder whether I should interrupt my casting (especially on the slow as hell frostbolts...) to decurse sooner. I take on-board your point that the curses is announced but timers can be off, and I'd much rather have the option of interrupting or continuining a 1.5 second cast than a 3 second cast. I fail to see how being 1 second into a fireball and 1 second into an AB and having a curse land on your partner is anything other than MUCH better for the arcane mage. Half a second and I'm decursing, having cast ; there is much less of a decision? As fire I would walk out of the cast in this situation, probably.

Originally Posted by manly

If a fire mage loses a scorch stack (on archimonde), it means arcane is far more likely to lose AB stacks.

Can only agree with that - and I've said restacking AB is an issue - however - have u never had more than one mage had to bandage in a fight? (Risking scorch fall off) -- In world of theorycraft no the scorch debuff shouldn't fall off - and generally we have several fire mages keeping it up (yes this is lower over dps but only fractionally) ; but if it does, the dps loss while its stack and during the time its off, its a huge difference to anyone doing fire damage in the raid, not just the mages. The point remains that if AB falls off ; we can make up the difference because during the time we've been - getting a CR, getting bandaged, iceblocking to save our ass etc - we have regenned mana. Fire has no way to make up lost time - because as you have said many times ; you have no mana issues. Which means for every fight you will almost ever play as fire, you're chain casting the whoooole time. This means that if you get death and decayed, then have to bandage, then have to iceblock and somehow, through bad luck, the same has happened to other mages, and scorch falls off - a) you've got oodles more mana that you cannot use (arcane can) and b) dps loss caused by all mages hastily restacking scorch (x3 to be sure, x4 perhaps if they're looking at other things) is far outweighed by delay in restacking AB debuff, primarily because we can then make use of the regenned mana with more AB spam. (which on Rage isn't really an issue - altho with molten armor on Rage I still got outdamaged by a rogue so I need to work out how that happened)

Originally Posted by manly

Also, you seriously need to understand that "gives him more mana than he can spend" does not apply to fire. Fire does not like remotely have mana issues. The only time I use evocation is after phase 2 on Illidan and maybe* kaz'rogal if I don't get any resist. Fire does not have mana issues, and always has more mana than it can spend. Movement does not affects that.

Manly I have a lot of respect for you, so I'm going to blame the way that I have written it not anything else. But I do not know how you are misunderstanding me ; but I can only explain it better. When I say "gives him more mana than he can spend" I mean exactly that you do NOT have mana issues. Quite the contrary. I never used to need to evocate as fire, I never used to really need to remake my gems, I never used to really need to use mana pots on every CD (though I did perhaps due to poor SPs or lack of them). I even spent a day with Dr Boom a loooong time ago (back when I was only reading EJ and not posting in the middle of last year) having regemmed from crit to damage gems and back again, with molten and with mage - to see whether the mana returns from crit were worthwhile. I understand fire, and I know that you cannot spend the blue stuff. I have never, and until something drastic changes, will never think that fire has a mana problem.

OK?
Now ; the problem that you lot (and I will do when I hit 4xT6 and Sunwell progression) have is that you cannot make use of incoming mana. Arcane mages can. By potting, using evocation and gems productively, we can turn all the incoming mana into reduced threat damage. You cannot. If you finish a boss with half a mana bar - that is mana that an arcane mage would have been able to make use of. Whether you have done more or less damage than him is irrelevant for the moment. I was frustrated with ALWAYS having mana left at the end of a boss fight, and my instincts telling me that a mana dump such as AB could be put to use here.

Originally Posted by manly

Fire mages have trinkets, drums, molten fury (yes, this is a cooldown for all means and purposes), combustion, icy veins, bloodlust, flame cap and destruction potion. Thats a lot more than just combustion and icy veins. And on the contrary to your claim, I believe that fire mages are better suited to fit any situation than an arcane mage for the simple reason that we have a stronger and more flexible arsenal of spells. I'm talking {arcane blast, frostbolt and arcane explosion [EDIT _ JaMMi_ Arcane power, presence of mind, cold snap} vs {scorch, fireball, fireblast, dragon's breath, blastwave, arcane explosion}.
I am not denying that having a 1.5s cast time main spell has its advantages, but it won't magically make you the most flexible by virtue of having a short cast time. I am not arguing about threat - in my experience it has rarely been an issue save on eredar twins reverse order.

Now we're getting to the issue of how to spend that mana. Drums, haste on gear, heroism ; all facilitate the spending of that spare mana that we all agree fire mages have. In fact heroism to be honest is a hindrance to me because it gives me less regen time for the time same amount of damage. I mostly pop AB/trinket and frosbolt spam during heroism, with an AB thrown in to keep the debuff up, knowing that after the heroism I'll be back to having to manage the regen that for the rest of the fight I've been used to. Heroism is a dream to fire mages because it lets them spend the mana reserves they have. Without it, you are subpar. The same is not true of an arcane mage without a shadowpriest PRE-sunwell, PRE-4xT6.

Originally Posted by manly

What does it matter whether you can go 'nuts' only at the final 20% or on the entirety of the fight ? All that matters is final damage. And for what its worth, arcane is restrained to pop its cooldown during bloodlust, not exactly 'at any given time'. Which kinds of goes back to what I was saying: "what does it matter when you can go nuts?". Both fire and arcane depends on when bloodlust is activated.

Arcane is TOTALLY not restricted to popping its cooldowns during bloodlust. In fact the whole beauty and beast of the arcane spec is knowing when to popping cooldowns ; and believe me ; heroism is a kick in the face when they are not available and/or you need regen time. FIRE is the spec that must keep its cooldowns for heroism ; and must beg the shamans to do it significantly later into the start of a fight due to threat (which you never had an issue with, perhaps, but the rest of us do) OR at sub-20%.
Which basically says ; arcane is better for progressing with bosses because until you get below 20% we are subpar. Not once have I heard a raid leader say (Get him to 20% lads then its easy mode because the mages execute).

The fact is that I as arcane am constantly watching my mana and the raids mana - When i see the opportunity to AB spam with AP up - (SP is having a good day at the office and somehow my mana bar is staying fairly constant even though I'm AB spamming and have been since the start of the fight ; I know I've got mana pot and mana gem off've cooldown and I can afford to lose the mana from AB/AP/trinket spam with icy veins up) - I do it. This is rare. Mostly I will start AB spamming and watch my mana, then use icy veins (the first of two) with AP and trinket - and do something like 9:1 AB:FrB so that I can see how much my mana drops, whilst maintaining AB debuff, and also seeing how my mana bar drops. If heroism suddenly goes off ; I'll switch to something like 1AB:5FrB but again the ratio will change depending on how close I am to a pot cooldown.

I am wracking my brain trying to think of a way of process-flowing the way a true arcane mage manages the abilities he has available ; and I can only guess is something akin to the hunter timelines and squeezing abilities into certain time slots.

The start of a fight I have mana pot cd, mana gem cd and evocate available = high mana useage mode.
As soon as possible, I use mana pot, then gem ; both of which ideally return me to approximately 99% mana (ish).
Within this time, depending on movement, (as you say it affects us, but not as MUCH as fire - Ill explain I hope), having to use pom while moving, having to avoid using AP due to risk of being feared / stunned / silenced etc - my mana regen could be very high (If SP hasn't had to move, im within range of totems, heroism hasn't been used etc) or it could be very low. If its very low, I will be in a situation where I have to consider the fact that I have no mana pot for a while, no mana gem for a while, and I don't really want to use evocate so quickly into the fight. I also have cold snap off cd and ideally I want it on cd asap so that it can come off again sooner. (Again iceblock being used adds weight to the use of cold snap early argument ; so the difference between getting incinerate at Teron, early on, makes the decision to use Cold Snap an easy one).

I'm going to try and think of a way to explain the arcane thought processes behind all this as I continue to raid using this spec. Education > all... And only when we're on the same page can we correctly debate it. At the moment you guys truly do not understand AB/FrB raiding ; and how it affects your gear choice (I recently swapped from +40 damage on weapon to +30 int ; not because rawr told me it did more damage, but because in the event of lacking an SP I want to know the regen is there, and when a SP IS present, I can easily convert extra incoming mana into damage. Also using intellect to boost by AB spam uptime reduces my threat overall. Using frostbolt fillers causes too much threat during AP/trinket/icy veins spam phases), which I'm sorry but you guys are really behind in your understanding.

I exist in a world where I get Anetheron's Noose drop, and though rawr tells me the higher dps gems for it are +12x2, I choose to use +10int and +10 spirit because they're second best (1.7 dps behind on the comparison chart) but with the former I get higher threat lower regen (more FrB uptime due to lower overall mana) and with the latter I get more regen (= more AB uptime, more regen during run phases [Supremus/Archi], more options available perhaps on the really arcane favoured fights [like Supremus] to use molten armor and have no mana issues] etc etc etc.

And ; to get back to the tongue-in-cheek baiting ; 3k dps on MH trash last night [10 million damage, 3k dps average] ; beat that fire boys! [Proviso ; Perhaps these pointless elements of banter merely serve to make me look like a plonker, and detract from the serious dicussion I'm trying to evolve and develop above.. however... I find myself unable to resist trying to elicit at least a wry smile from the mages who I've come to respect so much on these forums... Please.. just "lol" and ignore them :P]

Alcyon · 05/15/08, 5:45 AM

Originally Posted by manly

If anything as you clear the places for months after a while you'll get to see what I mean. It shouldn't take too long either (unless you have like really bad spriests). Sadly I am not sure what to add - firespec mana consumption should be close to brainless and rarely come into play.

Oh, I agree that the better a raid gets the fewer issues there'll be, I'm just worried that I see posts saying mages have no mana issues when I see raid leaders in WWS threads and such say "My mages suck! We throw them in with the hunters and they only did 1200 dps on our 8 minute Kaz'rogal kill! How can I make them do as well as these two warlocks in a lock/lock/ele sham/spriest/moonkin group or are they just terrible!?"

And of course, it's not that our spriests are bad - it's that we only have one at the moment and it tends to be healer priority (I especially like it when my druid girlfriend doesn't get the shadow priest and complains "oh no, now I'll have to pot... if I give my innervate to someone else.").

JaMMi · 05/15/08, 5:50 AM

Originally Posted by Battlemaid

Won't haste-heavy gear setup actually hurt fire mage's DPS due to going OOM fast?

No - actually its a significant boost.
If you regularly group with mage's that are fire (2/48/11 is what they should be) and would experience mana problems (mana problems for fire = being low on mana at any point really, except as Manly mentioned on Morogrim when they have to AoE [lacking clearcasting]) if they stacked haste ; then
a) You're not doing your job as shadowpriest [ let's assume you are because you're here asking to help them! = <3]
b) They are not using mana potions when they're off cooldown [ Which is a nice trade-off really ; Stack haste, use pot ; or don't stack haste and not need to -- basically its paying for pots, to do more damage]
c) They're not remaking their 3x mana emerald mid-fight. This has been said mulitple times to be the better option than using the lower rank mana gems.

That's pretty much it really.

As fire, mana is never really an issue. Haste is fantastic for a fire mage because it gives them the opportunity to turn spare mana ; into damage.

The only suggestion I would make, is that they do not simply re-gem to improve haste count; but create a new set with hasted gear items. If they stack haste as much as possible, and you're not available to raid, then perhaps, perhaps ( depending on how extreme they go) they might experience issues ; but I'd be very surprised.

Originally Posted by Alcyon

Oh, I agree that the better a raid gets the fewer issues there'll be, I'm just worried that I see posts saying mages have no mana issues when I see raid leaders in WWS threads and such say "My mages suck! We throw them in with the hunters and they only did 1200 dps on our 8 minute Kaz'rogal kill! How can I make them do as well as these two warlocks in a lock/lock/ele sham/spriest/moonkin group or are they just terrible!?"

And of course, it's not that our spriests are bad - it's that we only have one at the moment and it tends to be healer priority (I especially like it when my druid girlfriend doesn't get the shadow priest and complains "oh no, now I'll have to pot... if I give my innervate to someone else.").

We could almost do with an assumption sticky thread saying thing like :
"We assume that prior to posting on this forum you are professional enough about raiding to pot whenever it is off cooldown, or without worry for the money used in doing such a deed. That you are prepared to farm for the best consumables and use them on every fight. We also assume that you are fully repaired, and don't have red items without telling anyone. We also assume that you are not afk itching your ass during the pull, or other such afk antics."

I'm glad we don't though.

Pintofbrew · 05/15/08, 9:07 AM

Originally Posted by Alcyon

Sorry to take you away from the unending Arcane vs Fire arguments, but I've seen you say this before, Manly, and I'm interested to know what you assume to make this judgment. The reason I ask is that my guild killed Illidan for the first time a month ago (so we normally do better than the examples I'm about to give) and I ran OOM on a pretty poor Teron kill last night that went for over six minutes. This is clearly not a regular lasting Teron fight but I potted twice, gemmed once, used a full 10 second evocate and used a flame cap near the end (before everyone started dying and we limped through to a kill - of course I had planned for a shorter fight and ended up OOM 30 seconds before the kill due to the flame cap). I did not have a shadow priest or a resto shaman, only a moonkin. The mana issues were hardly isolated to this fight - on Naj'entus I gemmed twice, potted twice, and got half an evocate during a shield with a shadow priest and still OOMed a few seconds before the end. This fight lasted a little over 5 minutes.

That's all you need to know as your answer to the question of "how can you say you have no mana issues?".

Fire is clean cut and simple in that it (a) either has an SP and does not have a mana issue or (b) does not have an SP and can't cope or (c) has some other mana source that isn't an SP and barely copes, but has to select some form of regen over some form of dps, depending on occasion (ie, gems over caps, pots over d-pots etc.)

As for the gentleman who came up with "I see many mages on WoW forums and this one" could you please amend your oppinion to "many morons on wow forums, and some who nobody cares about on this one". Manly correctly identifies: You're all going amok about arcane-hating, which doesn't exist in EJ, and then spewing any and every excuse you can find to "defend" it against some immaginary assault.

This thread is starting to feel like getting on the bus and seeing a man with a chainsaw and a crazy look sit opposite you going "I'ma readeh for yeh". The only people worked-up and seemingly inexhaustibly aggressive are the pro-arcane posters fighting their crusade against a non-existent threat, while the vast majority of us not only acknowledge arcane as viable and preferential, occasionally superior to fire in certain aspects, but moreover DON'T CARE for comparing the specs, because largely IT'S IRRELEVANT. We can all perfectly well see Pushback, CD stacking, OO5SR, Range and all the other bullshit that we keep seeing mega-posts about our selves, thanks.

Kaboomafoo · 05/15/08, 12:30 PM

Back to the pyroblast discussion.

Okay, we've thrown out pyroblast spam completely. Now how about using all the gear listed above and doing the normal scorch/fireball rotation until Bloodlust or IV and then spamming pyroblast? I'm not sure on the math for this one, either, but if you stack both of them, you'd have maybe a 1.7ish cast time on Pyroblast compared to the GCD-locked fireball. Wouldn't it be that the base-bonus damage of pyro would outweigh the fireball?

And don't use the 4T6 argument, since it's irrelevant in this gear set-up. I'm asking if you were actualy crazy enough to stack this much haste and compare the two.

P.S. Alliance mages can stack up to 570 haste gear and remain hit capped with a draenei ele shaman. Horde cannot, sadly.

• Astrylian · 05/15/08, 12:52 PM

Kaboom, you missed the S4 weapon with like 220 haste. Regardless, the point at which Fireball gets GCD-locked with BL+IV is 1449 haste. Not even close.

◊ manly · 05/15/08, 1:05 PM

Originally Posted by JaMMi

stuff

Ok so, in short, you're telling me that arcane wins out whenever its doing something that isn't dps because it regens more mana and has more opportunity to take advantage of that. Well, I knew that. Again, all that this is saying is 'all specs work differently, arcane does a better job when not dpsing [than the other specs]'.

Also, all specs are reliant on bloodlust, for the simple reason that bloodlust increases your DPS and DPM. It increases DPM indirectly by virtual of allowing more casts while under other cooldowns, such as hex shrunken head, or molten fury. As such, arcane is reliant on it. Good luck proving me wrong on that. (I mean it)

A minor detail:
"EDIT _ JaMMi_ Arcane power, presence of mind, cold snap"
Those don't apply. POM is not flexible because it is on cooldown, and AP/CS doesn't affect the flexibility of your spells. If you were to include those, I would include combustion since technically its an awesome AOE tool, but it doesn't really help at all my flexibility.

Originally Posted by JaMMi

And only when we're on the same page can we correctly debate it. At the moment you guys truly do not understand AB/FrB raiding ; and how it affects your gear choice (I recently swapped from +40 damage on weapon to +30 int

Originally Posted by JaMMi

And ; to get back to the tongue-in-cheek baiting ; 3k dps on MH trash last night [10 million damage, 3k dps average] ; beat that fire boys!

Is your goal TC or trolling ? I don't like trolls much, neither does maniq.

Rouncer · 05/15/08, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by JaMMi

does anyone else feel severely hampered by the new spell queue system? I do not trust it especially during times of excessive haste (close to, on, or below the 1 second gcd) and rather than be duped into thinking I'm casting 1 second casts and actually (through the magic of server/client confusion) be given 1.05 or 1.1 second casts - I'd rather switch to other spells that avoid getting the "That spell is not ready yet" error. I never like to let my client think for itself, and hence still use quartz (and for some things like ice lance, for farming) a stopcast macro.
Or.. conversely... from some decent testing... has it been shown to correctly work in all scenarios and actually be the basis for a caster revolution in terms of not needing quartz/stopcasting?

The mechanic is not actually a spell queuing system, per se. How it works is they unlocked your client to be able to send cast messages to the server all the time without any interference of the GCD or the client limiting when the messages could be sent. This means that using /stopcasting is most likely a loss of dps since you get a better effect by merely spamming the button near where Quartz shows your latency to be and you get the exact same result that /stopcasting used to give without the possibility of interrupting a cast before it completes.

If you want to time your casts you can always do so but, and this especially true when hasted near the 1.0 second cast time, you are better off doing the spam thing since then your message is more likely to be at the server the moment the server determines that it is eligible to cast the next spell.

They did seem to add a small amount of leeway to the system as well where it does not count as a queue but where the server will accept messages a little bit prior to the actual end of the casting time, but that is more about smoothing out the mechanic for people who prefer to hit the button once as opposed to spamming it. This leeway is probably in the realm of 50ms and as far as I know has never been definitively tested for or proven but is more anecdotal in existence, based on a post from the UI developer and just from how seamless the system currently functions under most circumstances.

◊ manly · 05/15/08, 1:18 PM

Originally Posted by Rounced

They did seem to add a small amount of leeway to the system as well where it does not count as a queue but where the server will accept messages a little bit prior to the actual end of the casting time, but that is more about smoothing out the mechanic for people who prefer to hit the button once as opposed to spamming it. This leeway is probably in the realm of 50ms and as far as I know has never been definitively tested for or proven but is more anecdotal in existence, based on a post from the UI developer and just from how seamless the system currently functions under most circumstances.

As far as I know there is no spellqueue. However, I did see some apalling results pointing towards having one of sort. If only there existed one sure-fire way to test this. Maybe someone with 10-15ms connection and a G15 ? In any case, if there is a spell queue, the window of opportunity for chain cast value is set rather low, probably around the 50ms you have hinted (which is somewhat stupid when you think about it -- thats faster than most players press keys).

JaMMi · 05/15/08, 1:34 PM

Originally Posted by Rounced

This leeway is probably in the realm of 50ms and as far as I know has never been definitively tested for or proven but is more anecdotal in existence, based on a post from the UI developer and just from how seamless the system currently functions under most circumstances.

I think that this is consistent with what I've been seeing. I'm still not 100% I trust it though. For example today I walked out of a cast to pom sheep something and it took a ridiculous amount of time for pom to register. It was like the server/client conversation went something like this (again in Jam language):
"I want to cast arcane blast"
"Ok well, have a gcd"
"Please wait towards the end of my arcane blast I need you to accept my next spell ; oh wait I've cancelled - await further instructions"
"Ok so you want me to wait at the end of your arcane-"
"POM please"
"No wait hold up what did you say before? Oh you cancelled your arc - ohhh you want to POM"

Very annoying. I'm not sure if I prefer the old system to the new one to be honest.

On a different note - (One which if they have to fix one of these two issues I'd rather they fix this one first...)
I definitely am getting frustrated with the stacking bug. In heroics I find myself just frostbolting for the purity of knowing your next cast isn't going to cost more mana than it should relative to the cast time. I suppose I can only hope that the Dev's do see it as a genuine bug and can look to rectify it shortly.
A simple work-around they could use would be to get the client to send the message, when AB is cast, "haste all subsequent spells by <insert relevant AB haste factor here> ; if the next spell you receive is not AB ; initiate a suitable delay before permitting the next cast. ie ; the AB debuff becomes a global haste / global delay function... and if you for some reason get a hasted scorch (or whatever) as a result - then you simply get a delay after it has registered and your next cast is permissable.

Thanks for the info on the spell relationship since 2.3 though.

Roywyn · 05/15/08, 2:12 PM

Originally Posted by Kaboomafoo

Back to the pyroblast discussion.

Okay, we've thrown out pyroblast spam completely. Now how about using all the gear listed above and doing the normal scorch/fireball rotation until Bloodlust or IV and then spamming pyroblast? I'm not sure on the math for this one, either, but if you stack both of them, you'd have maybe a 1.7ish cast time on Pyroblast compared to the GCD-locked fireball. Wouldn't it be that the base-bonus damage of pyro would outweigh the fireball?

And don't use the 4T6 argument, since it's irrelevant in this gear set-up. I'm asking if you were actualy crazy enough to stack this much haste and compare the two.

P.S. Alliance mages can stack up to 570 haste gear and remain hit capped with a draenei ele shaman. Horde cannot, sadly.

http://elitistjerks.com/553923-post2.html
Your setup has 1118 fire damage. Makes ... 1358 raid buffed?
Fireball/Pyroblast both scale with 115%.

Fireball thus does 735+1.15*1358 = 2297 damage, Pyroblast does 1065+1.15*1358 = 2627 damage.

If Pyroblast is to be better than Fireball, Fireball will have a 1.0s cast time limit (the GCD) doing 2297 DPS (before modifiers), and Pyro thus has to cast faster than 2627/2297*1s = 1.1437 seconds.

So, Pyro is only useful if you drop below 1.15s cast time for it, which requires +422% haste.
With IV/Bloodlust, you'd need +235% haste from gear, or around 3680 haste rating. Enjoy collecting

Rouncer · 05/15/08, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by JaMMi

And ; to get back to the tongue-in-cheek baiting ; 3k dps on MH trash last night [10 million damage, 3k dps average] ; beat that fire boys! [Proviso ; Perhaps these pointless elements of banter merely serve to make me look like a plonker, and detract from the serious dicussion I'm trying to evolve and develop above.. however... I find myself unable to resist trying to elicit at least a wry smile from the mages who I've come to respect so much on these forums... Please.. just "lol" and ignore them :P]

First off the tongue-in-cheek baiting is completely unnecessary and really does make you look like a "plonker". It doesn't elicit a wry smile, it elicits an annoyed groan and really frustrates any attempts to take what you say at all seriously.

Secondly I was Arc/Frost for long enough to have gone through MH that way and to see every fight up through the Twins as that spec and in regards to the AoE trash in MH the key to topping the meters (as if it really mattered anyway) was not being Arc/Frost but more about who did the first AE. I was the only Arc/Frost mage running with 2 Fire mages and during trash we all alternated around the top 5 spots but none of it mattered anyway.

There are only 2 real advantages to being Arc/Frost. That's it, only 2, and they are not the shorter casting times, not freedom to move more, not being able to drain your mana faster, the only advantages whatsoever that it brings is that it doesn't require 3 debuff slots per mage to do it's dps and that it doesn't require CoE to be truly competitive.

That's not a small advantage, btw, in an already crowded aspect of the game not needing COE and not using any debuff slots gives other classes opportunities to apply more debuffs and that gives the spec it's validity. Ask the rogues how much they like having to pull off deadly poison to conserve debuff slots. Too bad so many mages are limited to looking at the meters to see how their personal performance is not how they are aiding the raid as a whole.

So then it comes down to a determination of which is more important, properly supporting the Arc/Frost mage by giving him the mana to be competitive and then making use of the debuff slots freed up, or having a mage that doesn't require anywhere near the same amount of support to be viable but who uses up 3 precious debuff slots to do their dps. As for what is better at that point in the discussion is completely between the individual mage and their raid leader and the raid as a whole.

Final note, there is a new Arcane mage TC thread, discussions of Arcane viability should probably be moved over to there.

ossi · 05/15/08, 3:57 PM

Good day to all,

As an avid reader of those boards i would like to remind you of the influence you guys have over the mage community. It might not be my place to say this, and i know this post has nothing to do with TC but I think it is still worth reminding all of you.

Most of us, will not see the content you guys have on farm, for that matter most of us don't even have the resources necessary to get there, you are the elite of the raiding community. So when you guys say the fire spec doesn't have mana issues, or that it is the best raid dps spec bar non for high end raiding the people that read these boards forget that all those calculations are made under close to optimal circumstances and roll with that. It then trickles down to the wow mage forums and into the forums of various lower guilds and all the nuances you guys take for granted are forgotten.

As an example i would like to mention a recent argument I had with another mage from my guild recently (3 bosses dead in MH and BT). He was arguing that i was wasting my time with arcane/frost because i could do more damage with fire and he started to quote these boards and sent me various links to your discussions and so on. But what he failed to realize is that for almost all of you guys 4 pieces of tier 6 is a given as well as a SP and COE not to mention bloodlust at 20% and the list goes on. But for a guild like ours who only has 1 elemental shamman and a single SP reserved for healers as well as 2 semi-selfish locks (cor and cos only) things are not optimal and the edge a fire mage gets with all of these vs an arcane one is lost. Even worse he ends up going oom more often than i because he can't go into mana preservation mode but I can so he ends up having a better dps but i end having more damage done when that happens.

So please keep that in mind when you guys duel over which spec does what, i know there are various help pls threads for the mage noob, i read them all, but isn't it customary when you publish results from researches to describe under what circumstances those findings were obtained?

Jarlyn · 05/15/08, 5:55 PM

Going back to gear choices, this robe dropped off M'uru this week. Based on this drop and the Amice of the Convoker drop from Twins, it would make sense that there will be an equivalent caster helm (ie. non-spirit) from Kil'Jaeden. I couldn't be happier, really.

◊ manly · 05/15/08, 6:03 PM

As long as it doesn't looks as bad as T6 or that horrible arcane annihilation helm, I'm all for it.

Also, I'm undead and randomly chose the face/skin just to 'play the game'. Playing with no helm shown is not an option. Also, why did I not pick troll.

--- edit
to add a little more, it would be quite interesting to have a real significant alternative to t6 helm/sunfire gloves (or tyris).

Jarlyn · 05/15/08, 6:53 PM

Originally Posted by manly

As long as it doesn't looks as bad as T6 or that horrible arcane annihilation helm, I'm all for it.

Also, I'm undead and randomly chose the face/skin just to 'play the game'. Playing with no helm shown is not an option. Also, why did I not pick troll.

No kidding. My choices at present consist of "show horribly ugly Illidari Highlord helm" or "show horribly ugly undead face/hair."

If only deviates were still cheap on my server

Elut · 05/15/08, 7:03 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

http://elitistjerks.com/553923-post2.html
So, Pyro is only useful if you drop below 1.15s cast time for it, which requires +422% haste.
With IV/Bloodlust, you'd need +235% haste from gear, or around 3680 haste rating. Enjoy collecting

That's not exactly true. This is the number you would need for Pyroblast *spam* to be effective, so you get no DOT ticks. With this level of spell damage, you would get a DPS boost if you could get Pryo to about 1.4-1.5 sec cast. The trick would be to pyro, then fireball until the pyro DOT runs out, then pyro again. So you only need about ~2500 haste + IV/BL to for Pyroblast to have a use in raids.

Comedy aside, Pyroblast is just a stupidly designed spell. It should have a base cast of 4.5 and probably also a bigger scaling on the DOT damage (35%, up from 20%). Then it would occasionally make sense to rotate it in with your fireballs and let the DOT. It wouldn't break anything since the rare situations in which it is useful now (POM, Zul'jin phase 3, pulling a mage tank target, pulling when solo/leveling) are the ones in which cast time is pretty much irrelevant - it would hardly get better in these circumstances.

It is in no danger of ever being spammable. Even with both of my changes, Pyro rotation just barely beats fireball spam if you get a full run of the DOT *and* your spell damage is not too high. And, no, this does not change for any possible amount of haste.

Kaboomafoo · 05/15/08, 8:17 PM

So I assume it's safe for us to say Pyroblast should never be used in a non-arcane mage's raiding cycles. A shame Blizzard made it suck so badly, it would really be an amazing spell if it were a shorter cast time.

Oh well. Going back to the gear set-up above (Sorry to keep dragging you guys back to this), how's it stack up against 4T6? I don't exactly know the math, but I've read a few times that haste = ~1.25 spell damage. So if you swapped out all the Lionseyes to Reckless Pyrestones, couldn't this set-up possibly be comparable to 4T6? Or no?

Basically: Haste vs 5% increased spell damage on your main cast. Who will win in the battle of the titans?!

ainav · 05/15/08, 8:35 PM

I can mention 1 place for witch pyroblast is extreamly useful in my own opinion and this is M'uru.
Haven't seen many mages using it on this encounter, but isn't this a huge buff to your dps (4 instant pyros)???

Ofcourse you will need to lose 4%crit on scourch and 1% from playing with fire but still, isn't the dmg gain from all those instant pyros a huge buff to a mage dps ? Saying this because we are keeping the caster mobs there alive and kill them last only so the mages can spellsteal as many times as possible and increase their overall dmg on M'uru.