Cool, also that's not what I said.

Frostfire is gaining more than any other mage spec in WoLK. Not frost, or fire, but frostfire. Elementalist. FFB alone would make that happen due to the nature of the talents put in place, but the changes to imp scorch and winter's chill along with the 10 additional talent points make that plainly obvious. Also keep in mind that the only nerf FFB-elementalist builds have seen since the original beta talents were released was the removal of WG, which was a broken mechanic that needed to go anyway.

Arcane had a lot of promise and will be decent, and you are right that deep fire and deep frost really aren't gaining much, but you have to admit that deep arcane has really been hurt over and over in the last few beta builds. Missile barrage was changed from a 1.5s AM to 2.5s, the AB debuff was changed to be strictly worse for dps but better for dpm AND changed to not be sustainable without an ungodly amount of haste, ABar's coefficient was dropped from the 0.8571 modifier to ~0.62, MM was nerfed to 15% of int to sd... etc etc.

I just get the feeling that while they're making specs like deep fire, deep frost, and deep arcane okay and having them provide specific utility, they're really making 0/34/37 FFB the primo spec and doing so intentionally.

Blizz calculators on their site have all been updated to current, that may be what they meant. I hope not, but still.

Building a raid with mage specs

First of all, we need Winter's Chill in the raid.
The highest DPS specs that bring WC to a raid are 0/30/41 and 0/18/53, both also bring Scorch.

Now, for Tri-specs, the best you can get is 11/18/42, which is a 6-7% DPS loss roughly from the specs above.
It is a pet spec, and thus also loses only personal but not pet damage from applying Focus Magic in it's current form.


Alternatively, we can bring a second mage for Focus Magic. The best spec for that is 33/38/0.
(I'm disregarding 51+ at the moment because everything there gets changed back and forth and 51+ Arcane needs to use part time Blast(3) spam for competitive DPS which would be interdisrupted by Focus Magic applications.)

So, what options do we have then:
1) A 0/30/41 mage and a 33/38/0 mage for FM.
2) A 11/14/42 mage for all 3 debuffs and something else.

Option 2) most likely means "Fire Destruction Warlock with CoD" which blows option 1 away by ~13% of one DPSer at high gear levels (and even way more on low gear levels).
Now Fire Destro is broken, but even if we use a Shadow Destruction Warlock who are oh-so-nerfed and oh-so-terrible, we barely break even at high gear levels (and lose ~6% on low gear levels with a 2nd mage).

3) Option 3 would be one 0/30/41 mage and ignore Focus, but that is currently less RDPS than a 11/18/42, even at high gear levels.
4) Option 4 would be that Blizzard finds that FFB double dipping is working as intended and thinks that Frostfire Bolt outdamaging Fire Warlocks by 5% okay.
I don't anyone think double-dipping is intended though, so that option is unlikely.


So, what does that mean?

First of all nothing, since every talent is changed and rebalanced every other day.
Second, there is very little reason to bring a second mage. You get a second sheep - nice for Sunwell trash, but that's it. There is no second totem/shout/aura/curse/etc. that you'd miss without them.
In most situations, you're bound to lose (or not gain) DPS as well - that part can be tuned by simple numbers though.

A second mage does in most cases add "2/2 Amplified Magic". This talent has so far not been worth the DPS associated with it.

So, to justify a 2nd mage in the raid would require more Raid DPS by tweaking buffs/debuffs or more personal DPS by tweaking numbers.

I'm not sure whether some non-DPS utility would cut it, especially when the placement in the trees could make it go from "nice" to "nice, but not worth it".

I was pretty sure Koraa meant that some actual changes beyond those we already knew about yesterday were going in (he posted late last night). The calculator updates so far are all related to the changes made over the past few days, I think, as opposed to new information. (And I'm pretty sure stuff is still just plain wrong, reverted to older versions, such as Spell Impact showing crit rather than damage.)

I just wish they would give us some specific talents/spells they are going to be changing soon, and a little info on the reasoning behind the change. Did you guys see the huge amount of ability specific changes that were just dropped on the hunter beta forum?

I've decided to stop trusting "The Official WotLK Talent Calculator" as it is rarely more than 75% correct at any one time.

I've had a question that I have wanted to ask since I saw some of the new arcane talents.

Focus Magic (now called Focus Mind on the official calculator). How does it's 'charges' interact with dispel mechanics?
I.e Does each charge count as 1 dispel? Or does 1 dispel get rid of the entire spell and so all charges? (similar to a priest's Inner fire) If the former is the case, then I think the talent has secured its place as one of the strongest PvP talents in the Arcane mage's arsenal since it has essentially secured the fact that slow will be on the target constantly.

If however, it is the latter case (as I am quite sure it will be once someone tests it), then still all is not lost, since we can still use the rank 1 version of the spell to be a very nice "dispel buffer" (aka winters chill stacks). That, along with the inherent 35% chance that our spells are not dispelled, is in fact, a very powerful solution to the arcane mage's problem in pvp, that being, almost all his control (through slow) is useless since it is so easily dispelled.

Either way, can some helpful beta mage confirm the mechanic for me?
Greatly appreciated

I totally agree. I didn't roll a mage because of its awesome synergy and ability to help others. I rolled a mage because it was supposed to be one of the premier single target dps classes. All this synergy will help you get raid spots but if this kind of synergy is really what you want wouldn't a warlock be a more appropriate class for you to play? Mages should get invites to raids because of their dps. Our CC and any utility we bring should be secondary. BM hunters are a perfect model of this: Amazing single target dps is why you bring a BM hunter. MD and FI are just nice added bonuses. The dps is what earns their spot, not some stupid gimmicky debuff that really doesn't even fit with the design of the class.

Edit: As lhivera said before on the wow forums i really just wish they would let us know what their intention is for the mage class. Are we supposed to be primary dps? Utility+dps? CC+dps? Just what exactly do they want us doing in wotlk and where do they want our dps to lie.

Also to Lhiv i understand that balancing a class soley around dps seems strange but that is exactly what they have done with rogues. BM Hunters are another amazing example of a class that is brought for its dps. I really don't see why this works for rogues and hunters but can't work for us.

Minor nitpick but none of these change will help fire. Sure, 5% haste instead of 3% crit, and more useless mana regen. It would be a nice buff, but ultimately, all it does is yet again boost arcane even more.

Making imp scorch apply on fireball would make scorch totally useless. Why would you ever cast scorch?

Deep fire needs a lot more than just making burnout give 50%. For fireball, heres what it means:

0/50/21 fireball (25% burnout) - 227.5% crits
0/50/21 fireball (50% burnout) - 245.0% crits

Basically, the impact of burnout that is twice as potent, for fireball spam, is nothing more than increase crits from 227.5% -> 245%. Crits which account for roughly 35-40% of your dps. In other words, it doesn't do much to help deep fire.

However,
0/50/21 ffb (25% burnout) - 315% crits
0/50/21 ffb (50% burnout) - 350% crits

Vontre pointed this out; basically Burnout sucks because of the very reason listed above. FFB has forced burnout into sucking. Basically, FFB has shaped firespec out of the picture. The real way to fix it would be to have burnout not affect the crit multiplier, because that is what makes FFB broken.

Can someone go over the passive haste we're getting from raid buffs again quickly, i.e. 6% netherwind presence, 20% Icy Veins, 3% ret pally, 10% Wrath of Air

So about those more involved casting mechanics, what about this:


"Your Scorch criticals also have a 33%/66%/100% chance of reducing the casting time of your next Pyroblast Spell by 0.4 seconds per application of the Scorch Debuff" - Add this to Improved Scorch.

"Your Fire Blast spell deals 10%/20% more damage while your target is under the effect of Pyroblast" - Add this to Improved Fire Blast.

The whole idea would be to make use of Fire Blast and Pyroblast for Single-Target DPS. It would also increase the usefulness of Scorch (besides the annoying Debuff-Refresh). Numbers could be tweaked as necessary of course.

I can't remember this being asked anywhere, but do Cone of Cold and Dragon's Breath still share a forced cooldown?

Fair enough, I hadn't bothered to do the math but the general idea is sound; boost deep fire single target DPS, give deep arcane a purpose and buff an armor's PvE stats. The 51 pt fire talent could have a lot of PvE impact, so the deep fire viability in PvE could sway on that note instead of just on Burnout, which needs a giant buff as well.

That is why I specifically mentioned Burnout being exclusive to Fireball/Fireblast/Scorch or other spells of the sort to exclude FFB, since the crit modifiers do get out of control if is included.

Tag onto that a tallent that causes your fireball to refresh the duration of the pyroblast DoT and you're onto a winner. Just slap it on empowered fireball.

Agreed. I am a weirdo in the BC who actually really enjoys the fire tree PVP stuff (impact+molten shields+blazing speed) as opposed to the frost stuff.

At the level I play (which is admittedly low, especially in arena play, but decent in battlegrounds) I do some things better than the usual frost mage spec, some things worse, but overall I actually contribute in a pretty similar way.

We both polymorph, frost nova/ice lance, fire blast, blink, arcane explosion, ice block, icy veins etc. I can proc an impact more often than he can proc a frostbite, but each has its own advantages, and impact doesn't give me an extra burst Dps like frostbite does. I've got better burst AOE options, he's got cold snap to make more use of his defensive stuff. I've got built-in pushback resistance to my scorches, he's got a second icy veins and ice barrier.

On the battleground, some fights really favor my talents, some his. In the arena, I've actually ended up one vs one on mages of my (crappy) skill level and usually win, all else being equal. The water elemental is a pretty big edge in those encounters, but so is the fact that all of his ranged attacks risk proccing impact (and that I can aoe the elemental down really, really fast if he's foolish enough to be near it). At my level the novelty of fighting a fire mage in arena probably makes up for the spec's deficiencies that would be ruthlessly exploited by better players.

I am actually looking forward to tweaking my "fire PVP" build to the BC changes - those AOE things will be huge on the battlegrounds and situationally useful in arenas. It will also probably be a pretty strong leveling spec. My raid spec, I have no idea what that's gonna be like, but my character always was always fairly fond of fire and frost, and not so much arcane, so a frostfire build will probably get taken for a spin.

My point of these rambles is..I want to see a PVP arcane spec, a PVP fire spec, a PVP frost spec, and some hybrids of those that try to cherry-pick stuff from multiple trees. That's a lot more interesting than every single mage is frost or he sucks. At top arena play, some spec or other will likely win out, just as the raid specs will settle into a few focused on different things. But at the battleground/5man/10man level I suspect a whole lot of specs will be viable, moreso than in BC.

Where are these numbers coming from and with what kind of gear&buffs? Not that I doubt you, but the warlock thread doesn't really have definite calculated DPS-figures at least from recent builds (new backdraft, fire&brimstone) and I don't recall seeing them here either.

Tree differences should be manifest in playstyle, rotations, art and feel. Not viability. Don't forget that you are playing a role-playing game, here.

More than that, really, because your crit rate's going to go up by around 13-14% between Winter's Chill and Hot Streak. At 50%, it's better than an 11% DPS increase for 5 talent points when you factor in that crit rate increase. Any more than that and it'd be a broken talent.

But no, it's not enough by itself. One of the AOE talents needs to be stripped out, with a deep talent (tier 8 or 9, or tier 11 replacing LB) to increase single-target DPS replacing it.

As previously suggested, making Burnout spell-specific, like the corresponding tier 10 Arcane and Frost talents, would fix that problem handily. Limit it to the pure Fire spells.

Show me where roleplaying is explicit in what we are playing and Ill show you a 10 eared donkey.

MMORPG's lost the Roleplaying aspect when 700 prepubecent boy's started hitting on female avatars in old english style speak in ultima online. These games are less roleplay than most FPS shooters.

This game like all of them is about having fun, taking on challenges weather they are pvp or pve challenges, and getting gear to make your avatar more powerful. Its really complex gi joes for people to play.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose though? Why not just take Spell Power, which affects all spells?

The way I see it is that Blizzard didn't like class stacking in favour of raid progression.

The fact that almost every guild ran with 4-5 shamans on first M'uru kills (if not all of SW first kills) is something that they clearly want to change.

Turning certain abilities into raid wide abilities instead of group buffing abilities, is a measure to fix this excessive stacking.

Concerning pure DPS classes it's clear that they are attempting to even out the differences between trees so that there's more than 1 viable raiding spec for each class, and I think that's great!!!!
I love raiding as fire. Don't know why but I just find it much more amusing. Frost comes next and Arcane is BOOORRRIINGGG. But that's just my view. And the way I see it, Mages will have 2-3 viable raiding specs in Lich King and not just 1.
For now they're just testing skills and abilities, the number adjusting will come way later.

How do these changes affect our end-game raiding?
Well for one, it gives the raid leader(s) with far more choices. Given that more than 1 class/spec will be able to do the task and given that almost every class will have raid buffing abilities, there will be far more many choices for raid filling.
What this means for the rest of us is that we won't get a guaranteed raid spot.

Most guilds in TBC, usually ran set amount of warlocks & mages for example. This could very well change in Lich King.

I'm happy so far. We've been promised a buff to Mage dps so that we're not lagging behind other classes and it seems that we will have a choice of more than 1 useful raiding spec in Lich King. You get bored of one, no problem change to the other

Oh ok, that perfectly explains to me the throngs of arcane and ice mages who relentlessly stick to their identity regardless of consistent evidence that fire is a better raid spec in almost every way. It certainly has nothing to do with self-identification imposed onto the game and the character's they play, no not at all. No one ever gets attached.

Talk to me again when you learn something about game design.

*chuckles* Vontre, I'm not sure if the issue you're discussing is game design so much as branding, but you are correct that it certainly does exist. I certainly want to be an Arcane mage forever.