Ahramis

In regards to AB spam uptime I have to admit I've just started playing with 40/0/21 this week out of curiousity (just reverting from 47/11/3). I noticed that in alot of fights I took part in through Hyjal and BT last night my AB uptime was very high.

Here's a WWS parse from Az'galor and please ignore the dps, that's not the important part here, my gear isn't where I want it to be yet, the purpose is that if you look at my spells used during the fight you'll note that the majority of casts (95% actually) were arcane blast despite the mana consumption. My group build for tonight was me + 1 other arcane mage, 1 holy pally (conc aura was nice I guess...), 1 ele shaman, and 1 shadow priest.

Az'galor WWS Loading...

I realise that Az'galor has periods of down time for us shorter ranged dps during which I had some pretty good mana regen. Most fights I've had so far have been skewed toward arcane in terms of mana regen breaks (Supremus and Najentus were great ones for instance with nice regen breaks between high DPS periods

Naj WWS Loading...

Supremus Wow Web Stats

Later this week when I see Illidan I should have a good assessment of more facets of the spec but so far I find it at least as fun as 47/11/3. I'd like to see it once I have more gear.

BTW this spec is not for those who are short on cash, I blew 24 super mana potions in tonights raid chain potting to keep the AB spam up, but I'm used to farming about 100 a week in my older arcane spec =).

 

Ahramis

Well actually one may not necessarily put the 3x FB 1x AB rotation into use due to one of my favorite features of the 40/0/21 spec: Haste. Untimely heroisms might make the rotation counting too complicated and it may be more benificial to simply spam frostbolt.

Spell haste isn't really that awful for arcane anymore if you get into 40/0/21 you would cap out (hit 1.0s AB) at approx 263 haste rating with IV up. You could lower this imaginary "cap" if you wanted to account for Bloodlust/Heroism as your 1.0s AB mark. The only "bad" part about the haste is that it is a percentage gain and short cast spells (3 debuff arcane blast spam) get less of a cast time reduction than long cast spells (fireball). On the other hand, with 263 haste rating you will hit 1.0 seconds on arcane blast while using IV, which I find somewhat enticing in regards to experimentation. Ultimately with enough of the new T6 pieces and offset sunwell gear one could hit that "cap" reasonably without nerfing too many other stats.

Rigid rotations lose the benefit of dynamism, while the most enjoyable and powerful thing about the arcane spec is the challenge of managing your mana to hit 0% when the boss hits 0% and also to be able to mana dump when it's time to crank out massive DPS in a short amount of time.

 

galzohar

While longer cast time spells get more reduction per spell per point of haste, they also take longer to cast. The DPS increase is the same as long as you're not hitting the minimum 1s global cooldown.

 

Ahramis

Oh yes, duh. Percentages. Sorry 'bout that.

 

◊ manly

Surely, you missed the part where debuffs are applied late, which makes it so that chain casting AB will give {2.5, 2.5, 2.2, 1.8, 1.5} cast times, but will cost you {2.5, 2.2, 1.8, 1.5, 1.5} in terms of how much mana is consumed. Rotations out are a good thing - don't use em.

 

Raencloud

Neither of the rotations we were discussing involved casting 2 ABs in succession, so this isn't a concern at all.

As far as haste's effect, that would definately cause a small problem. I believe you will start running into trouble when you achieve aboive 160 haste rating (~10% haste) because then 3 FrBs and 1 AB will be less than the 8 second debuff. You could, however, begin throwing in a scorch at the end of the 3xFrB and then AB after that, and I think that would fix it, and that seems like it would still likely be better than simply frostbolt spamming while keeping AB stacked until your mana is higher.

 

MyrddinE

I'm a relatively poorly geared mage. Some Kara/Gruul/Mag gear, and a piece or two from TK and SSC, where my guild is in progression.

One thing I noticed is that I had a much harder time keeping mana up than most TCers discuss... with lower int/spi due to poorer gear, and usually no Shadow priest (we have only one Spriest, and the healers get it). After the first time we did Solarian, and my horrible ability to keep mana up, I took another look at my spec (which was 10/0/51 at the time). I went up through the frost tree picking only DPS talents, with very little mitigation or CC. That left me 19 points for Arcane, to get 3/3 Meditation (and a bit more). So my new spec (available from the armory link to the left) is 19/0/42, and if we are to believe Rawr.Mage, it's better than any of the standard specs for my current gear.



That is despite me wearing [Inferno Waist Cord] on a frost spec! (yes, I have no better... waiting for the armorer to be unlocked on my server). With a more frost-appropriate waist, the difference is even more notable.

So my whole point is that perhaps this spec, or a similar one based on 18/0/41+2, should be recommended for pre-T5 gearing? It's mana efficiency is tremendous, which is important when you're in older gear and lacking a Spriest. Though, even if I give myself a 150mp5 shadowpriest, Rawr.Mage still shows this spec as best, with my current gear.

Is this a failure of the Rawr.Mage TC, or is this a valid spec?

 

galzohar

My guess would be that you took a short fight which helps double elemental+iv, and that your low crit and hit also make the water elemental more viable.

This doesn't mean you should use this spec, but rather means you need to fix your gear. You have an enourmous amount of available upgrades that can be achieved without stepping foot in a raid instance (and some without stepping foot in *any* instance for that matter). Heck your weapon and bracers are enchanted with intelect... Fixing your gear will up your dps with *any* spec by a considerable amount, and probably help fire spec dps more than it helps frost making you better as fire once your gear is fixed.

 

Tyfon

Um, unless I'm very confused, Smith Hauthaa does not sell any cloth belts.

 

Duodecimal

Any level 70 +dam green on the AH would be better for Frost than the Inferno Waist Cord.

 

galzohar

If only that was the only problem with his way of gearing...

 

MyrddinE

Yeah, whoopsie. I was saving it for the [Scryer's Blade of Focus], and I just assumed there'd be a new belt too.

Actually, I have it set for 600 second fights (which is pretty normal for us, since we're still progressing, and everyone is undergeared... we're fighting the enrage timer on some bosses, like Void Walker). I'm well aware that frost spec is overvalued for any fight close to the 90 second mark (2xFrost Elementals).

I can get better gear for several slots... but that does not mean the spec is useless. At some point, no matter where you are, you're gonna be passing through about my level of gear... whether you've got thousands of gold to burn on mats, patterns, and primals, or whether you're entering Kara for the first time on progression with your guild... at some point, you're gear is going to suck, and I think this spec is a notable improvement over the standard specs that are listed.

That said, let me put some better gear on in Rawr... replaced my weapon, bracers, and belt with badge gear (of which I'm actually about 80 badges short to get all 3)... put on my Kara chest [Robe of the Elder Scribes] (which I normally don't wear because I need the +hit and haven't spent the cash to buy all the [Veiled Noble Topaz] I'd need to make up for it), and pretended I ran Heroic Slave pens until [Quagmirran's Eye] dropped, then had Rawr regem me with rare gems using Optimize... and my spec is still higher DPS than the standard ones.



So with all my gear pretty good for my current progression, 18/0/41+2 is still doing very well for me... as long as you trust Rawr. This is without a Spriest, but assuming raid buffs of course. Even if I add a 125mp5 Shadowpriest the spec remains tops in Rawr.

This is either a valid point that this spec is worthwhile and valuable for pre-T5 geared mages, or it's indicating a significant flaw in Rawr's TC. Perhaps someone who is better with the numbers could validate it?

Edit: Try this... outfit a mage with all T4 level gear... full T4 set, badge loot (bought with all the Kara/Gruul/Mags runs needed to get a full set), and whatever heroic items you think will fill it out. Top it off with whatever rare gems you like. And see if 18/0/41+2 does better DPS. So far, I've been playing with it, and I'm still finding it coming out on top.

 

Roywyn

Try to get 4 HoDs for [Bracers of Nimble Thought], and get a [Belt of Blasting] crafted. Both beat the badge loot, are arguably best-in-slot untill Sunwell, and all mats are tradeable and reasonably farmable. Saves you badges to spend them on something else.
That is if your server has crafters, and a guild selling HoDs.


That does explain something. You should reduce that time, or reduce the DPS time from 1 to 0.75 perhaps.

With some T4 gear, no SP and 10 minutes straight nuking, Fire/IV has 3 minutes of AFKWanding, Fire/CC has 2 minutes. Frost/CC has 90s and Frost/Medi still has 65 seconds of wanding.

For total damage done, it's Fire/IV < Frost/CC < Fire/CC < Frost/Medi in that gear.
With a 10 minute/no outside mana fight, a mage is pretty screwed due to mana.

Most fights that take so long in T5 also have some downtime during encounters. Hydross/Leotheras/Lurkeer transitions, Void Reaver/Al'ar/Lurker/Karathress/Morogrim running.
When I reduce the DPS time to 0.75 (75% of the fight), fire pulls ahead again because the mana is there to actually fight.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput
This assumes Rune of Razorice and Slow for Torment unless noted as "No TtW".
More detailed at http://elitistjerks.com/923110-post2775.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.

 

galzohar

Yeah there is no fight in the game that I know that can last 10 minutes and above while maintaining 100% DPS uptime, no matter how much mana you have - bosses would simply die way before the 10 minute mark if you actually had 100% DPS uptime. So yeah if you're going to model 10 minute fights model much lower DPS uptime. Like said above, it's probably modeling you going so deeply oom and wanding that the mana efficiency of water elemental (which is very high DPM but on a cooldown) becomes a significant DPS increase. Of course if you'd model a reaslistic scenario (shorter fight or lower DPS uptime), you'll find the water elemental's DPM a lot less valueable.

As for the gear, a dedicated player will probably not even zone in to a raid instance (with possible exception of kara which is extremely easy and is a badge farming source) with that kind of gear, as he'll easily get the better gear. Farming a couple thousand gold doesn't take all that long (to be honest, farming DKP and learning bosses with a raid that takes people with that kind of gearing mentality takes a lot lot longer and gives inferior gear).

On a side note, the effective damage from the proc on robes of the elder scribes added to its base stats is still not really enough to even color it purple...

 

Cornelium

To make it short, you're using the lowest mana consumption spec in game. For fights when you'll run OOM after some time, it's pretty normal for lowest mana usage specs to shine. It's not a flaw with RAWR, but a flaw with the usage of it

Make love, not war!

 

Pintofbrew

It's a myth that Frost is a lot more economical than fire. It's DPM is good if and only if the WE has a high uptime and is a significant % of your overall output. Even so, later on in the game fire out-performs both on DPS and on DPM terms simply because empowered fireball and master of elements increase it's efficiency beyond WE and empowered frostbolt.

However, swapping from molten to mage as frost is generally more beneficial (doing so as fire drops the MoE return from the 3%crit), and propensity for fireblasting often either as part of a (usually harmful) rotation or as a shot-on-the-move makes fire feel more inefficient. Add in frost getting more interrupts (further lowering consumption) and it's easy to mistakenly assume it's more efficient.

 

galzohar

It's not about frost's low mana consumption, it's about the fact that water elemental does insanely high damage per mana, which is very good when you're absolutely out of mana and the fight is still going, but is not significant enough in any real fight. In other words the water elemental does high enough DPM that you can say that the he "keeps going after you're oom". But you're not really going oom in any real fight so in reality the mana efficiency of frostbolts+elemental is rather similar to the mana efficiency of fireballs, with fireballs unloading that damage faster and therefore being better (on any fight that is long enough for double elemental+IV to not be good enough).

 

◊ manly

Well, you're overlooking the fact that this was only true for 10/48/3 vs 10/0/51. For 2/48/11 the numbers changed a bit due to the loss of clearcasting giving frost the slight DPM advantage. Not that it makes a difference really to be quite honest.

 

MyrddinE

I don't really think it's a flaw in my usage... it's highlighting an important point. For progression, with lesser gear, mana efficiency is more important than any other stat.

When we fought Void Reaver, I had a total of 12 OO5SR ticks the entire fight. I don't stop DPSing, and when a bomb is falling on me, I usually blink out. My DPS over the course of the fight was much higher with this spec than with my previous 10/0/51.

Now, I'll admit that TK helps highlight the benefits of this spec... there's a lot of AOE, and 18 points in Arcane lets me buff up my AE. Void Reaver (for us) is a long fight, where I'm burning mana the whole time. Solarian is also a mana intensive fight, despite the short breaks before AoE waves. And Al'ar (who we haven't touched yet) is hostile to fire specs. So overall, it's pretty much ideal for this spec.

I'm not saying that this spec is better at DPS than the standard specs everyone knows... I'm saying that its mana efficiency is so high that it highlights an important gap in the specs... a gap that really should be filled, and has an important purpose, that of allowing lesser geared mages to continue DPS an entire fight while progressing through T5 content. I think there are a lot of mages out there that look to EJ as gospel truth and follow all the recommendations here. They're using the given specs and not realizing that if they traded off some raw DPS for mana efficiency, they'd make up for it by quaffing destro pots instead of mana... by DPSing instead of Evocating.

Myrddin

 

Kavii

Unless Rawr is modeling something incorrectly, I'm showing that a fire/coldsnap build can surpass a 2/48/11 build from a DPS standpoint even with my current gear under certain scenarios. For example with the raid setup we use for Brut (SP, Elemental Shaman, single Innervate, JoW), it's showing me that double IV during Molten Fury range pushes it 27 DPS ahead of 2/48/11 spec with my current gear.

If I model Brut with my target endgame sunwell gear and assume Brut kill time drops to 5 mins (reasonable assuming a decked out sunwell raid), the DPS improvement of 0/40/21 over 2/48/11 is 36 dps. It's not a huge difference and is reliant on mana being able to support double IV while bloodlust is up.

 

Austin

MyrddinE/Katikk,

Come see me and I'll make you a Belt of Blasting if you can obtain the materials, if you need any of the cloth transmutes I can do both of them. I can also make the Bracers of Nimble Thought, and I believe that I have a shoulder pattern in our guild bank. Your gear is getting better, but as a tailor I would seriously look into making the Frozen Shadoweave if you're going to stay frost, as well as making the Spellstrike Helm(I can make this too), I used this until I picked up the helm from the Hex Lord, only to pick up the T6 helm 2 weeks later. I'd also look into picking up the Studious Wraps from the badge vendor.

Austin, 70 Mage - Austen, 70 Rogue - Talros, 70 Feral Druid - Talsor, 70 Resto Druid

 

galzohar

Of course you'll get more dps with 17/0/44 than 10/0/51, the 10/0/51 doesn't really gain any dps talents in the frost tree anyway. But you'll still do more DPS as fire. Remember to use gems and pots as soon and as often as possible and only blink when it's the only way to avoid death - the mana cost is probably not worth the time saving (the time you save by blinking in practice is very small), unless you're already not going oom while using destruction pot