Are they serious with the new Arcane Potency, increasing crit by 30% while clearcasting or while Presence of Mind is active?
I guess Arcane Missiles won't consume the PoM-Buff, neither will Arcane Barrage.
Would that mean you could get permanent +30% crit for a 1x Arcane Barrage - 1x AM Rotation? Oo
This was adressed earlier, and yes, it is a permanent +30% crit for instants and channeled spells. However, still not that good.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Arcane is shaping up rather nicely, but I would like ABar to be tweaked so you want to cast it as often as you can. Back to the old coef and keeping MBAM procing of it. Having the arcane 51 pointer shaped like this makes the top talent desierable and gives argane a bit diferent casting style. Further I would change AM, either I would alter Imp AM and couple of mid tree talents to make AM worthwile to hard cast. Simply give it enouge talentboosting to be a viable main nuke. If designed this way I would also make AB a proper manadump while ramped up and give it some pushback so you could reliably dump mana with it when you decide to. I would also make AB with zero stacks a good DPM spell but better damage than fire frost spells (boosted with less than 20 points.) Option two regarding AM would be to design AB more as a main nuke and replace imp AM with something else. Possibly 100% pushback for all arcane spells since that would make for both a nice pve and pvp talent. This ofc means that arcane is labled as a cast on proc spell only. Oh and I would bake Focus Magic into the magic attunement talent so that talenting them is what allows you to cast them at enemies, same for mana shield, talenting it lets you cast a weaker version on enemies. And the 11 pointer of arcane could be made a range talent with some nice bonus perk (since its an 11 pointer).
Fire next. To start fixing this tree I would try to resurrect pyroblast, give pyroblast a reason to exist for anyone but pom mages. I would leave it as the 11 pt talent it is tho, but I would alter imp fireball and empowered fireball to also affect pyro, then I would change fiery payback to grant damage and crit bonuses (as well as its damage reducing component) simply making anything a firemage does at low health more dangerous. Finally I would scrap living bomb and make the 51 pointer of fire a super empowering talent for pyro. Reducing its casting time and increasing its damage enouge to make it surpass fireball as a nuke and make fire competetive with arcane anf frost raid DPS. Plain simple concept, all mages have fireballs, but deep firemages have huge friggin fireballs.
Frost Im not sure I would do an awfull lot about frost. I like the design on brain freeze since having it proc fireballs makes sure you dont waste the instant cast cause its the same as the spell you´re normally chain casting.
Making sure WE gets good AoE avoidance and +hitrating scaling (and over all scaling with all your stats. it would make good sense to me if a raiders WE regens mana better than a pvp mages WE).
And a note about Arcane Potency: If its intedeed to give channeled and instant spells an indefinete +30% crit bonus and two of those spells make for 2/3 of the arcane schools bread and butter nukes and the last of the three spells on top of that isnt suposed to be spamable...well that doesnt pain a very pretty picture of arcane to my eyes. The more I think about it the better I think it would be to make AM worthwile on procs only and give AB some pushback protection so that AB+ABar is the standard rotation for arcane DPS. That way Arcane potency can be kept the way it is and you can pop it on a MBAM proc and do a sequence like this: ABar, MBAM, ABar and then finally consuming PoM with AB. (a nice burst combo with some satisfactory complexity and 15% chanse to proc another MBAM).
Anyone considered that nice little *glitch* in PoM, Arcane Potency and AM.. Combine that with the improved MoE which gives 30% mana back for ANY spell crit... Sustainability?
Btw, how much mana would a AM regenerate if lets say 3/5 missiles crit, and you have 3/3 MoE?
Would it regen only 30% of the original cast, or 90% of the cast( due to 30%+30%+30%)?
Edit: ( Ty Mr. Mod -.-) Why is Blizzard included in the talent description of World in Flames, since Blizzard can't crit?
Anyone considered that nice little *glitch* in PoM, Arcane Potency and AM.. Combine that with the improved MoE which gives 30% mana back for ANY spell crit... Sustainability?
Btw, how much mana would a AM regenerate if lets say 3/5 missiles crit, and you have 3/3 MoE?
Would it regen only 30% of the original cast, or 90% of the cast( due to 30%+30%+30%)?
Edit: ( Ty Mr. Mod -.-) Why is Blizzard included in the talent description of World in Flames, since Blizzard can't crit?
Read the thread. Blizzard can crit now and has been doing on beta for at least a week.
As far as AM + MoE goes, its currently bugged and doesn't return any mana on MoE... If they fix it to give 1/5th effect per proc then its no better or worse than any other spell. If it ends up giving 100% effect per proc then AM (and ABAM procs) become a potent mana batery.
Anyone considered that nice little *glitch* in PoM, Arcane Potency and AM.. Combine that with the improved MoE which gives 30% mana back for ANY spell crit... Sustainability?
Btw, how much mana would a AM regenerate if lets say 3/5 missiles crit, and you have 3/3 MoE?
Would it regen only 30% of the original cast, or 90% of the cast( due to 30%+30%+30%)?
Edit: ( Ty Mr. Mod -.-) Why is Blizzard included in the talent description of World in Flames, since Blizzard can't crit?
Manly just tested this and channeled spells no longer get the benefit from PoMed Arcane Potency, e.g. using PoM then fire away +30% crit chance AMs. Channeled spells do retain the normal Clearcast proc -> Arcane Potency (+30% crit) if they proc the Clearcast effect. Means it's currently "bugged" and this should be done so that the spell that consumes the Clearcast proc to get the 30% crit chance.
JonIrenicus meant the talent Elemental Precision is no longer giving 6% hit to Frostbolt (it was established in 2.3, if memory serves, that Frostbolt gets double the benefit from EP because it is a binary spell) and so the change from binary to normal means a -5% dmg lost due to partials on top of the currently "bugged" EP. So from TBC to WotLK Frostbolt looses 5% dmg due to partials and 3% hit, due to no longer being a binary spell.
Please read so we keep the thread clean and only news get in, not old info that was already discussed.
Manly just tested this and channeled spells no longer get the benefit from PoMed Arcane Potency, e.g. using PoM then fire away +30% crit chance AMs. Channeled spells do retain the normal Clearcast proc -> Arcane Potency (+30% crit) if they proc the Clearcast effect. Means it's currently "bugged" and this should be done so that the spell that consumes the Clearcast proc to get the 30% crit chance.
No, what Manly specifically said was that Clearcasting does not give a benefit unless AM is what procs clearcasting, that cast gets +30% crit. I reread his post and saw nothing about PoM and when I tested it on saturday it was also giving me 30% on the spell (didn't save logs but it was over 50% critrate from the 100 or so missiles I cast that session with PoM up).
So in conclusion: PoM gives +30% to all spells while active. Clearcasting gives +30% to any spell except channeled spells when they are cast free with clearcasting, Channeled spells only get +30% crit if they proc clearcasting.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
From a PvP standpoint I hope they view the PoM 30% Bonus as a Glitch for non PoMable spells getting the 30% critical strike chance.
It could get pretty ridiculous....
Yes Praest I stand corrected, don't know why I thought he was talking about PoM... when he actually only mentioned clearcast.
In that case, arcane mages will run around with PoM activated and have a perfectly viable ranged aoe spell, Blizzard. If they are to invest in frost to get Ice Shards and in fire to get World in Flames it could have the best AoE potential.
Yes Praest I stand corrected, don't know why I thought he was talking about PoM... when he actually only mentioned clearcast.
In that case, arcane mages will run around with PoM activated and have a perfectly viable ranged aoe spell, Blizzard. If they are to invest in frost to get Ice Shards and in fire to get World in Flames it could have the best AoE potential.
The perma-crit is a bug, so don't count on it.
But if you wanted the best ranged AoE potential and still be extremely viable for single target DPS, deep frost appears to be the way to go.
85% slow for 4s (Chilled to the Bone + Permafrost + imp Blizzard), frostbite and shatter could easily make this viable even with poor AoE tanks such as warriors. The only downside would be losing some utility spells in either arcane or fire.
85% slow for 4s (Chilled to the Bone + Permafrost + imp Blizzard), frostbite and shatter could easily make this viable even with poor AoE tanks such as warriors. The only downside would be losing some utility spells in either arcane or fire.
This is a good point but it still really irks me that in order for mages to have effective AoE, we will be required to have an AoE spec that hinders our PvE single target dps. Blizzard, Arcane Explosion, and Flamestrike are all fairly weak w/o talent points to support them.
This is a good point but it still really irks me that in order for mages to have effective AoE, we will be required to have an AoE spec that hinders our PvE single target dps. Blizzard, Arcane Explosion, and Flamestrike are all fairly weak w/o talent points to support them.
For the last year most of us have simply used Arcane Explosion with nothing more than 2 points in subtlety. The spell itself is fine (especially as we add haste), the issue is more our mana consumption vs a seeding Warlock on longer fights. Most WWS parses will show Mages above Warlocks on an encounter like Felmyst because we have the time to regen some mana, get innervates, evocate, etc. The problem is that a lot of aoe encounters don't have this sort of relaxing downtime period to get our mana back in order. Bear in mind that due to aoe caps any talents increasing aoe damage are likely to be wasted on larger numbers of mobs (case in point: Felmyst again). Arcane Explosion probably will remain just as useful in Wrath as it has been, so long as they fix this annoying bug where aoe spells sometimes hit nothing.
Blizzard being able to crit coupled with Elementalist Mages having shatter could be interesting if we specced Frostbite, but I really don't expect that in a standard raid build due to the sacrifices you would need to make.
This is a good point but it still really irks me that in order for mages to have effective AoE, we will be required to have an AoE spec that hinders our PvE single target dps. Blizzard, Arcane Explosion, and Flamestrike are all fairly weak w/o talent points to support them.
Yeah, but it's not likely to hinder your single-target DPS by much. It's not anything like the sacrifice deep Fire needs to make.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
This is a good point but it still really irks me that in order for mages to have effective AoE, we will be required to have an AoE spec that hinders our PvE single target dps. Blizzard, Arcane Explosion, and Flamestrike are all fairly weak w/o talent points to support them.
Yes, but going deep frost w/ imp Blizzard does not hinder your single target DPS anymore than deep frost/arc or frost/fire builds. All you get out of arc or fire with deep frost is utility such as clearcasting that does not affect your DPS.
For instance, currently, 0/0/61 will do the same damage as 18/0/43, just slightly less efficiently. I do not see any evidence of that changing, so a spec such as 0/7/63 would be perfectly viable for both AoE and single targets.
Min/maxing for single target bosses is not always optimal, and I forsee massive amounts of AoE necessary in lvl 80 raids.
Just to be clear, I didn't mention POM because you get in fact +60% crit if you have POM up and clearcast procs. Its just that you can't get +90% crit rate if you cast AM with clearcasting and that that AM procs clearcasting. It stops at 60%.
<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
But if you wanted the best ranged AoE potential and still be extremely viable for single target DPS, deep frost appears to be the way to go.
85% slow for 4s (Chilled to the Bone + Permafrost + imp Blizzard), frostbite and shatter could easily make this viable even with poor AoE tanks such as warriors. The only downside would be losing some utility spells in either arcane or fire.
"Warriors need to be better AE tanks without eclipsing paladins. Thunder Clap is a good place to address that problem. If Shockwave becomes the ultimate tanking ability than we're concerned nobody would want to run a 5-player dungeon without it. That's not the goal. We don't want to hand out Consecrate to every tank, but we want you to be able to tank groups better. "
2. AE based encounters will never require an AE spec, if only one or two talent trees have that option. Blizzard can never balance encounters based around the idea of a specific spec being in the raid. If every talent tree gets enough AE boost to have an AE-spec option, then it might become a raid requirement.
Frost got a fairly massive buff this past build. Cold as Ice 2/2 reduces the cooldown on it by 20%, bringing it from 3 minutes to 2:24. 3/3 Improved Water Elemental brings it's duration up from 45 seconds to a minute. Translation is 41.6% WE uptime, and with all the splash mana going around we don't really need to worry about it running out. Also don't forget that, even if it does not scale at all with anything other than our Stam and Int, hit mechanics have changed such that it will be 8% more effective (against bosses) than in live.
I'm no mathematician, but I don't remember seeing this in the calculations earlier.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
Frost got a fairly massive buff this past build. Cold as Ice 2/2 reduces the cooldown on it by 20%, bringing it from 3 minutes to 2:24. 3/3 Improved Water Elemental brings it's duration up from 45 seconds to a minute. Translation is 41.6% WE uptime, and with all the splash mana going around we don't really need to worry about it running out. Also don't forget that, even if it does not scale at all with anything other than our Stam and Int, hit mechanics have changed such that it will be 8% more effective (against bosses) than in live.
I'm no mathematician, but I don't remember seeing this in the calculations earlier.
The WE will definitely account for a more significant percentage of Frost Mage DPS...assuming it can survive raid conditions. The addition of high levels of avoidance to all Warlock pets and Hunter pets (not free for Hunter, pets, but very accessible) make it pretty clear that pets will need such avoidance to be raid-viable, so unless the WE gets similar defense against the raid environment, I fear these changes won't be as useful as they first appear.
Approximate IV/WE uptimes for various fight lengths up to 10 minutes should be:
1 minute: 100% WE, 67% IV
2 minutes: 100% WE, 33% IV
3 minutes: 67% WE, 31% IV
4 minutes: 65% WE, 25% IV
5 minutes: 60% WE, 20% IV
6 minutes: 53% WE, 22% IV
7 minutes: 60% WE, 24% IV
8 minutes: 63% WE, 21% IV
9 minutes: 56% WE, 21% IV
10 minutes: 58% WE, 20% IV
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
Frost got a fairly massive buff this past build. Cold as Ice 2/2 reduces the cooldown on it [water elemental] by 20%, bringing it from 3 minutes to 2:24. 3/3 Improved Water Elemental brings it's duration up from 45 seconds to a minute. Translation is 41.6% WE uptime, and with all the splash mana going around we don't really need to worry about it running out.
Just a minor note that with cold snap the uptime for the WE more than 41.6%. Lhivera was already using 50% uptime and that was before the reduced cooldown to 2:24. My quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows:
0:00 WE, Cold Snap
1:00 WE
2:00 WE ends
3:24 WE
4:24 WE ends
5:48 WE
6:24 Cold Snap
6:48 WE
7:48 WE ends
8:00 Fight Ends
Fight Length 8:00
WE Alive Time 5:00
WE Uptime 62.5%
Edit: Grrr, beaten to the punch as usual by Lhivera. *shakes virtual fist* At least our numbers agree.
Thanks for the rapid responses, I see the lines I missed earlier. could someone in the beta do me a favor and summon a water elemental without wearing any equipment, and list it's HP/Mana and your level? Even better would be doing this at several different levels. Blizzard has shown that it is aware of the difficulties of using pets in raids, and speaking from a warlock's perspective they all seem to have gotten much tougher (not even including Avoidance). The extreme example here is the Imp pet, which saw it's health pool nearly triple.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
Most WWS parses will show Mages above Warlocks on an encounter like Felmyst because we have the time to regen some mana, get innervates, evocate, etc. The problem is that a lot of aoe encounters don't have this sort of relaxing downtime period to get our mana back in order..
We beat locks on Felmyst due to movement not mana. Locks have to stop casting seed while we can spam AE on the run. The only way to keep up with seed is to spec arcane and use the BT rep trinket. Then, of course, we are limited by mana. However, the only encounter in TBC that would test your mana severely is M'uru if you were assigned to AoE, and AE is highly impractical for that fight. I am looking forward to having a decent ranged AoE for situations like that where being in AE range is a bad idea.
We beat locks on Felmyst due to movement not mana. Locks have to stop casting seed while we can spam AE on the run. The only way to keep up with seed is to spec arcane and use the BT rep trinket.
It really depends on your strategy and raid composition. I rarely see Mages AE while moving on the encounter because because they weren't necessarily cluster enough while running for a breath to be worth AEing (and never had to do it when I did it). But anyways, that wasn't my point. He was saying we have to spec in talents for any of our aoe abilities to be worthwhile and that just isn't true. The Seed vs AE/Blizz/etc discussion is more a throwback to the continuous Warlock vs Mages arguments.
just wondering how mages are shaping up versus the other classes. not to ring any alarms, but when I'm seeing videos of ret paladins hitting white+yellow for 6k and feral druids mauling for 4k by lvl 73, i'm a bit unimpressed with our current dmg level.
is there still hope for us out there? how are we looking compared to other classes single target dps wise?
i'm mainly posting for some reassurance that mages will be competative in this expansion pack, hoping that our theorycrafting versus these other classes is shaping up to be that way.
08/04/08, 7:59 AM
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