[Mage] 2.4 TC, aka Guys in Blue Dresses - Page 5

Rouncer · 04/19/08, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

Actually, on morogrim/solarian they die fast enough, not to mention a snare proccing on some fo the mobs but not all of them can split up the pack and cause more harm than good. On hyjal all the AOE trash generally gets tanked so slowing it down or freezing it doesn't really do much. Definitely doesn't justify lower AOE DPS (compared to arcane explosion) and lower DPS (compared to other specs).

Except that with Icy Veins and all the haste that is now available, Blizzard for a Deep Frost spec has very comparable (if not superior) dps to what can be obtained from Arcane Explosion from any spec of mage besides a 40+/x/x mage.

Hate Monkey · 04/19/08, 4:53 PM

Originally Posted by manly

With this said, I fear your strategy will not last too long for as long as you stay in the 2nd soak group. The better your gear gets, the closer you move to 5min (or shorter obviously). If you use the strat outlined above, you will be gutting yourself out of a set of 2min cooldowns.

Well this is all subject to change with how much passive haste you start stacking, and how much your rdps improves, and in my case, we've gotten shafted on drops so our rdps has not really improved. But I could always move to the first soak group and adjust my cooldown timing.

But it is to change when we are in full Sunwell gear and no choice of rotation on cooldowns will give us a 2s Fireball.

Roywyn · 04/19/08, 4:59 PM

Originally Posted by Rounced

Except that with Icy Veins and all the haste that is now available, Blizzard for a Deep Frost spec has very comparable (if not superior) dps to what can be obtained from Arcane Explosion from any spec of mage besides a 40+/x/x mage.

Arcane Explosion scales with haste too. It can crit, works with TLC/AToI, and even without crits it does twice the DPS of Blizzard due to AoE caps (3.6k/tick for Blizzard, 10k/cast for AE).

Blizzard is a cheap ranged AoE snare. I think it is very versatile and a great tool that no other class has.
It does however not provide good AoE DPS.

Oh, another random fact of the day.
4T6 is most likely not a 5% DPS increase, it seems to be additive with Fire Power (+10% damage), not multiplicative.
At least the spell book entry works that way. Fireball is base is 649-821, 746-945 with Fire Power + T6, which is a 1.15 multiplier, and not 1.1*1.05. (Playing with Fire is not reflected in the spellbook at all).

So, 4T6 is only a 4.54545% damage increase for Fireball. Not the first bug, not the last ...

Rouncer · 04/19/08, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

Arcane Explosion scales with haste too. It can crit, works with TLC/AToI, and even without crits it does twice the DPS of Blizzard due to AoE caps (3.6k/tick for Blizzard, 10k/cast for AE).

Play with the numbers a bit more before jumping to conclusions.

Running my stats through (but changing shoulders and gloves to T6 for the other 2 specs) I get

40/0/21 - 5627.05 dps on 8 targets with AE
2/48/11 - 4495.22 dps on 8 targets with AE
0/0/49+ - 4364.29 dps on 8 targets with AE

0/0/49+ - 4552.62 dps on 8 targets with Blizzard with Icy Veins active.

Which seems to me to imply that Blizzard would be competitive with Arcane Explosion for a Deep Frost or Deep Fire with Icy Veins. As for the AToI you can always use Flamestrike to prime it and then Blizzard to take maximum advantage of the haste proc.

After 8 targets the increased cap does push things in AEs favor but the snare does help out Blizzard's cause as well on packs that are that large.

dakalro · 04/20/08, 5:48 AM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

Oh, another random fact of the day.
4T6 is most likely not a 5% DPS increase, it seems to be additive with Fire Power (+10% damage), not multiplicative.
At least the spell book entry works that way. Fireball is base is 649-821, 746-945 with Fire Power + T6, which is a 1.15 multiplier, and not 1.1*1.05. (Playing with Fire is not reflected in the spellbook at all).

So, 4T6 is only a 4.54545% damage increase for Fireball. Not the first bug, not the last ...

How did you get the numbers with 4T6, afaik the last time I used Blizzard default UI it didn't use stuff like set bonuses. That would mean the calculation is being done by a mod which may or may not be correct. It's true though, % based increases to your own damage, from talents, stack additively (SM + Demon Sacrifice f/e for warlocks). No idea at this time about set bonuses but ... might be the same since it's a self % increase.

Vhad · 04/20/08, 8:07 AM

He equipped the items, I just did it to verify.

Roywyn · 04/20/08, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by dakalro

How did you get the numbers with 4T6, afaik the last time I used Blizzard default UI it didn't use stuff like set bonuses.

A lot of gear bonuses are actually shown. Range increases (PvP gloves), cooldown reductions, Arcane Blast mana/damage (2T5). Buffs are usually only shown if they change cast time/mana cost.
I'd guess that for warlocks, Emberstorm and 4T6 damage change the damage displayed but Demonic Sacrifiec does not.

For mages, the Spellbook adds 5% for 4T6, 10% for Fire Power (talent), 15% for both. Playing with Fire (3% to all spells) is not displayed, and I don't remember Arcane Instability.
It may also be that it's calculated in yet another way and the spellbook display is totally wrong (and not just incomplete and mostly meaningless).
The 10-million-damage eploit would be handy to actually test this, damn.

Rounce, your numbers seem okay (I'd get slightly more for AE), but why do you compare Blizz+IV to AE without IV? It doesn't really make sense as every about every mage spec has IV.
In your example with 8 mobs, Blizzard is at the AoE cap, while AE is at ~50% of the cap. And Flamstrike-Blizzard rotations with AToI, I'd love to see the numbers how that works out really.

You've shown that Blizzard during IV is a bit better than AE outside of IV when dealing with 8 targets.
That still makes AE the better AoE DPS spell during IV, outside IV, and especially when going against more targets.
The utility of a slowing ranged AoE is great though.

Updated the mana compendium!
http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

Going OOM is pretty bad. Scorching to avoid OOMing is even worse.
Fire Blast would be quite decent if it didn't cost 3-5 talent points and Ignite wouldn't bug and there was no latency or delay and you'd always be in range.
It's still nigh-worthless for exactly those reasons.

Keldarn · 04/20/08, 12:57 PM

Demonic Sacrifice is a castable buff, not a passive effect. That's why it will never show up in the spellbook.

Zalbo · 04/20/08, 2:09 PM

Here is a link to me on wws for gorefiend, as arcane/frost spec with 4 points in magic absorption(I need to adjust it i know): Zalbo - WWS

(I seem to recall manly asking about a WWS of an arcane mage doing over 1600 dps on gorefiend, although that might have been before 2.4, and I did get a power infusion).
Gear is the same as on armory, except [Shroud of the Lore`nial] in the chest slot.

Looking at the buffs and debuffs, I had 8 magic absorption tics. Looking at the damage recieved, I fully resisted only 2 doom blossom shadow bolts, and no full resists on the immolate. Partial resists don't add up either, 7 on shadow bolts and 2 on immolate. I had a look through the log on WWS and it has magic absorption a few times with no reason for it. Looking at the log file the WWS was generated from yielded the same results.

Is this a log file problem, not recording something I resisted, or am I missing something? I had a look at my hyjal logs from and there where was only one case where the number of procs(5) didn't line up with the full resists(4), for kaz'rogal, but I think thats a wws problem, as there where people who had 5 marks, and I had none.

I remember back when we still killed Tidewalker I would get resist messages from watery tomb even if I was out of range, I never had magic absorption for that, but perhaps it would have proc'd off of that. Could it be the case that some mechanic of the gorefiend fight that players cannot see is proc'ing magic absorption? Or does it somehow work differently?

thomar · 04/20/08, 4:49 PM

is there a consensus that POST 2.4 arcane fire is still greater DPS than a 2/48/11?

Jarlyn · 04/20/08, 4:54 PM

From page 1 again...

Originally Posted by Jarlyn

To state it again (as has been done a ton of times in previous threads), 40/0/21 is perfectly viable for Sunwell provided you have 2pc T5. Depending on group comp and debuffs it's at least competitive if not better than deep fire. But once you have access to Sunwell gear in every slot (say, Twins+), the sheer stats difference from Sunwell gear versus T5 pretty much puts 2/47/11+1 back on top. But presently as we're only just starting to have access to those levels of gear, it's disingenuous to call either spec "better" - it depends heavily on you, your guild, and your playstyle.

Tyfon · 04/20/08, 5:26 PM

Originally Posted by thomar

is there a consensus that POST 2.4 arcane fire is still greater DPS than a 2/48/11?

still? it never was. read the other threads, or even the first page of this one.

Ahramis · 04/20/08, 7:56 PM

Originally Posted by Finkum

TL;DR: With no group support in a tank-n-spank fight a 18/0/43 build is optimal; but with only minimal support arcane meditation quickly becomes superfluous.

I have to say this comment is almost right on.

I used the 18/0/43 spec for the Illidan fight (and still do for it's benefits besides it's DPS). What I noticed in application of the spec was this: With an elemental shaman and a shadow priest in your group the mana efficiency is almost excessive while wearing mage armor. I selected the spec at first because I predicted this excessive mana generation.

I used the arcane meditation + mage armor to its full advantage for the fight to allow use of my healthstones, and destruction potions. During heavy raid DPS phases I was able to even use mana shield in combinations with fire ward and ice barrier to avoid most raid-wide damage during the duration of the fight, not to mention being able to HS up just in case it really got heavy.

Sample Illidan Kill: Wow Web Stats. No those are not pretty meters by any standards and certainly not my own.

The overall DPS produced for the fight was far from impressive in regards to what I have generated in other specs (47/11/3, 40/0/21, 6/44/11). If your goal is to min/max for DPS this spec is not for that. The applications of it are truly few and far between, being that I would find it preferential in perhaps, one fight so far in all the MH/BT content.

Ahramis · 04/20/08, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Zalbo

(I seem to recall manly asking about a WWS of an arcane mage doing over 1600 dps on gorefiend, although that might have been before 2.4, and I did get a power infusion).
Gear is the same as on armory, except [Shroud of the Lore`nial] in the chest slot.

If you want an arcane mage DPS report for Gorefiend, without PI, post 2.4 here's one from the 10th of April, so long as the only criterion is that it surpasses 1600 dps (despite the pushbacks on that fight): Wow Web Stats

Acoro and I were using the arcane spec that I started using since summer of 2007 (47/11/3) up until last week when we started trying 40/0/21 for kicks.. I'm not present in this WWS because I usually sit for Teron Gorefiend and the only one I have with me in was from the 17th of April where I was 40/0/21 but I was also the first ghost so the report is unreliable.

It's quite easy to pass 1600 dps on any fight in arcane even though I have yet to grab a piece of T6 to boost that damage. Plus, there's always fights like RoS that are especially fun in arcane due to the threat reduction =). WWS from this week's shows 5095 dps on Essence of Anger which is always a blast!

Nurru · 04/20/08, 8:25 PM

I might be missing something, but why are we cheering over parses where I see mages lingering around 1500-1600 on Teron when Manly and other fire mages were breaking 2100+ months ago on that encounter without CoE?

Antiphonal · 04/20/08, 9:33 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

I might be missing something, but why are we cheering over parses where I see mages lingering around 1500-1600 on Teron when Manly and other fire mages were breaking 2100+ months ago on that encounter without CoE?

Let's not forget Fireangel's stunt: Wow Web Stats

I am also confused about the interest in the 1600dps WWS parses.

EDIT: Ahhh, I missed the whole thing about Magic Absorption. Yeah, that is very odd behavior.

Zalbo · 04/21/08, 12:58 AM

Uh sorry, it was just something I remember Manly asking about a while back, was probably pre 2.4, didn't mean for it to be a major talking point. (I should point out fireangel got 2 innervates in that however)

It was just an aside from the main point of my post, which was the strange behaviour of magic absorption during that fight, 8 tics with only 2 full resists that I could see.

aikiwoce · 04/21/08, 1:45 AM

Originally Posted by Zalbo

Uh sorry, it was just something I remember Manly asking about a while back, was probably pre 2.4, didn't mean for it to be a major talking point. (I should point out fireangel got 2 innervates in that however)

It was just an aside from the main point of my post, which was the strange behaviour of magic absorption during that fight, 8 tics with only 2 full resists that I could see.

I have a recent wws parse without a single full resist listed, but 7 ticks of magic absorption. Something is up.

I've recently switched to 40/0/21 as my raid spec, and I have seen a marked improvement in my dps. You can see the sad state of my guild's dps on this parse. I've all but given up on most of them.

Gnomeagg · 04/21/08, 3:33 AM

Magic Absorption is behaving strangely in every fight recently
i have been getting 1-3 ticks on The Eredar Twins every try at what seemed like random proc by looking at combat log (i didn't have any full resist, don't think its even possible in that fight)

And there was some other places i noticed it just proccing without getting any full resists.

WWS for the Twins Gnomeagg - WWS

chase · 04/21/08, 4:36 AM

Originally Posted by Gnomeagg

Magic Absorption is behaving strangely in every fight recently
i have been getting 1-3 ticks on The Eredar Twins every try at what seemed like random proc by looking at combat log (i didn't have any full resist, don't think its even possible in that fight)

And there was some other places i noticed it just proccing without getting any full resists.

WWS for the Twins Gnomeagg - WWS

Could you put up the combat log(s) somewhere? I would be interested in searching through it. (WWS inspection of the log is very cumbersome)

Selun · 04/21/08, 5:16 AM

Strange Magic Absorption procs happen at Zul'jin in the Eagle phase, but it's not only because of the twisters hitting you, just random procs. I don't have WWS for it unfortunately and so if anyone can confirm this too with a report that would be great.

Pintofbrew · 04/21/08, 8:33 AM

This is fantastic news from a TC perspective. Could anyone with multiple Mag Abs procs please report said events with relevant WWS. Bugs can be the root of all happiness and I for one would love to see Mag Abs increase in use due to this bizarre resistance of nothingness.

I'm curious. Do these fantom-resists only occur on Twins and possible Zul'jin or is it encountered elsewhere in other content? I recall T5 as not producing any amount of mana that I did not expect but have not specced it since entering T6.

Edit: I just noticed Mag Abs gained a " one second cooldown" in it's description. When did this slip in undocumented?

Maledict · 04/21/08, 9:30 AM

It's always had that Pintofbrew, to prevent any sort of strange AE madness or something similar.

AS for the cause of the phantom resists, it's clearly linked to some mechanic going on behind the fight that we don't see - perhaps a mob targetting system? (As we know that targetting both Zul'Jin and the Twins fights). Mobs that use alternative targetting systems often "cast" something to determine the target (such as RoS fixate in phase 1). Possibly that's going on here, but it's being hidden from the players.

And just to fourth or whatever the Teron Gorefiend parses - we had mages at 2300 before they picke dup their Skulls of Gul'dan, without flasks or destruction pots. 1600 to 1800 really isn't very good nowadays - proper cooldown stacking shoudl push you much higher.

Pintofbrew · 04/21/08, 10:59 AM

Yea the rational behind the CD makes sense of course, but I was under the impression it was recently implemented, perhaps I just wasn't observant enough when I was playing around with my talents.

My main wonder is however, how many fights have these mysterious undocumented targettings and how many one can resist. Given arcane mages always raid with Mage Armor, GotW and (for the sake of this experiment) at least 3/5 magic abs, how many bosses can one generate mana from, at what frequency, and does the fight lend it's self to more mana flow? For example, a high-mobility fight costs an arcane mage many AB debuff drop-offs, meaning mana-dumping may not be a veritable option. Typical of this is Illidan past P2: High mobility and phase-changing means merry Christmas trying to dump mana with AB. This means that even if this boss has some invisible resists it wouldn't do much at all for us. If however, Brutallus seemed to do the same, different story.

Gnomeagg · 04/21/08, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by chase

Could you put up the combat log(s) somewhere? I would be interested in searching through it. (WWS inspection of the log is very cumbersome)

I don't have them anymore, but i will save it next week and pay attention to any other places i get procs without any full resist because i'm sure it wasn't just on twins.