If the elemental-as-mana-battery change survives to live, that may indirectly increase its survivability. As long as it is not being one-shot by AoE affects, healers may very well throw it some love if they're getting a bunch of mana back from it.
It may be worthwhile for a Disc priest to spend a GCD on a PW:S for the elemental, as they get mana back when the shield is consumed to the point of a full refund plus some extra.
It seems pretty sensible to me. Getting Spell Power now means you're not getting Fire Power, Molten Fury, Combustion, Pyromaniac, or Empowered Fireball. And in fact you'll have to leave 2 points out of Playing With Fire. There's no way you're going to build an Arcane/Fire hybrid now that can out-damage a deep Fire build using Fire spells, which is as it should be.
That's not really what I mean. I still feel that Burnout should be more powerful than Spell Power. That's really what I feel would justify its use. I can't help but feel that it's weaker unless the 5% mana is mitigated by the power it grants. Also, their obsession with keep Incanter's Absorption is rather silly. It's a bad talent, and pretty much everyone except the Devs seem to realize this. The "trades" you make for damage in the Fire tree just don't seem consistent; they need more "oomph."
The above is pretty much what I crafted as the "PvP Arcane" build. Arcane feels frustratingly bloated right now. Plus the reduction of the cost of Slow doesn't really justify it all that much more, even with 30% dispel resistance.
Fire's problem is that it depends almost completely on RNG to be effective, and while the following changes to the tree may help alleviate this, I still don't feel that Fire will be nearly as competitive as they might expect. Frost can also mesh well with Arcane for obvious reason, but neither meshes so well as to make one preferable over the other, since Cold Snap is no longer an option due to Barrage.
One of the problems I notice in general is that there's just not enough simplicity in the builds. It'd be much easier and more efficient to just make World in Flames do something along the lines of "All Area of Effect spells receive a 6% bonus to crit for three points." Beauty in simplicity and all that and I kind of feel the devs are getting bogged down under their own system, rather than allowing the simplicity of the system to "work" for them. Although, I am seeing this in stuff like the way they reworked Counterspell, so who knows what's ahead.
That's not really what I mean. I still feel that Burnout should be more powerful than Spell Power. That's really what I feel would justify its use. I can't help but feel that it's weaker unless the 5% mana is mitigated by the power it grants. Also, their obsession with keep Incanter's Absorption is rather silly. It's a bad talent, and pretty much everyone except the Devs seem to realize this. The "trades" you make for damage in the Fire tree just don't seem consistent; they need more "oomph."
What justifies its use is the fact that it's the only Crit Damage increase you can get for a Fire build that includes anything north of (or south of, depending on how you look at it) Critical Mass. Those are some mighty powerful talents. Having them all in your build is the tradeoff for having a "weaker" talent.
Note that it's not even, strictly speaking, weaker, because it amplifies Ignite -- anyone going as deep as Spell Power in Arcane is not building a hybrid build now, they're building a deep Arcane build, so while they can also get 245% crits with their Fire spells, that's not terribly relevant because they're not going to be casting many Fire spells. Those two points buy a deep Arcane Mage 175% crits, while the five points in deep Fire buy him 245% crits.
You really can't compare deep talents like this on a one-to-one basis (I realize I did that earlier with Empowered Imp, but that's a particularly absurd example). You need to compare everything the build gains and loses in the process of taking the talent.
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.
is looking really good for frost offensive. Frostbolt spam base, Fireball on-proc, WE at every opportunity (and CS for it ASAP), and on FoF you finish your current frostbolt then Deep Freeze. Could be good.
Last edited by PsyBomb : 08/07/08 at 11:48 PM.
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.
Well, the problem right now is that ffb killed deep fire (fireball).
The best deep fire (fireball) build is 0/50/21, which means a rather poor return from 21 frost points (for fireball).
FFB in contrast, using the same build, gets 10% more crit from winters chill (from another mage), 10% more frost damage from DKs, 100% more crit bonus damage, 6% more dps for frost, AND more mana efficiency (from frost channelling). Fireball spam in revenge gets only +15% spell damage and -0.5s on fireball cast time.
First, I will not stake my testicles on double-dipping bonuses with FFB. I leave that to the much braver Vontre. However, I will stake not one, but two pints of beer on it at the Big Time Brewery should you ever be in the Seattle area. It strikes me very, very much as not intended.
Second: Frozen Rune Weapon is gone. No more +10% damage from Death Knights. (My Frost calculations for the past week have reflected this change.)
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.
What justifies its use is the fact that it's the only Crit Damage increase you can get for a Fire build that includes anything north of (or south of, depending on how you look at it) Critical Mass. Those are some mighty powerful talents. Having them all in your build is the tradeoff for having a "weaker" talent.
Note that it's not even, strictly speaking, weaker, because it amplifies Ignite -- anyone going as deep as Spell Power in Arcane is not building a hybrid build now, they're building a deep Arcane build, so while they can also get 245% crits with their Fire spells, that's not terribly relevant because they're not going to be casting many Fire spells. Those two points buy a deep Arcane Mage 175% crits, while the five points in deep Fire buy him 245% crits.
You really can't compare deep talents like this on a one-to-one basis (I realize I did that earlier with Empowered Imp, but that's a particularly absurd example). You need to compare everything the build gains and loses in the process of taking the talent.
While you're correct, I'd still question the logic of that as well. Since I'm assuming Burnout's going to work with Frostfire Bolt, what justifies Burnout as an independently fire based mechanic? The crit itself is not something that justifies Fire (i.e., exclusively Fire-based rotations), if anything it creates more arguments for Elementalist builds that aren't really Elementalist (being either deep Frost for Winter's Chill or deep Fire for Burnout).
Second: Frozen Rune Weapon is gone. No more +10% damage from Death Knights. (My Frost calculations for the past week have reflected this change.)
While NYI, Blues have said the a Frozen Rune Weapon-like runeforge enchant will be available. I just wouldn't count on it, unless it's really damn good for the DK.
First, I will not stake my testicles on double-dipping bonuses with FFB. I leave that to the much braver Vontre. However, I will stake not one, but two pints of beer on it at the Big Time Brewery should you ever be in the Seattle area. It strikes me very, very much as not intended.
Second: Frozen Rune Weapon is gone. No more +10% damage from Death Knights. (My Frost calculations for the past week have reflected this change.)
They said they're looking into bringing it back in the form of a runeforging enchant though. Since we can only see talents from next builds, it's hard to tell if it's actually coming back and in which form, but well that's what was said when they removed the talent.
What justifies its use is the fact that it's the only Crit Damage increase you can get for a Fire build that includes anything north of (or south of, depending on how you look at it) Critical Mass. Those are some mighty powerful talents. Having them all in your build is the tradeoff for having a "weaker" talent.
Note that it's not even, strictly speaking, weaker, because it amplifies Ignite -- anyone going as deep as Spell Power in Arcane is not building a hybrid build now, they're building a deep Arcane build, so while they can also get 245% crits with their Fire spells, that's not terribly relevant because they're not going to be casting many Fire spells. Those two points buy a deep Arcane Mage 175% crits, while the five points in deep Fire buy him 245% crits.
(snip)
True indeed. To note, the position of Ice Shards in the Frost tree would probably suggest that a deep "Fire-Elementalist" mage would put out superior DPS with FFB as opposed to a more even point split between Fire and Frost.
It would be the same as FFB builds with Spell Power, Ignite, and Ice Shards, except have all the talents in deep Fire to really bump up the crit chance. Getting a Hot Streak going with FFB in a build like that (deep Fire with Ice Shards) is more valuable than getting a Hot Streak with Fireball in a deep Fire build I surmise.
Warlocks got to crazy land with the % modifiers to their damage output (specifically with Demonic Sacrafice), that's been toned down. Warlocks should never be able to out DPS a Mage with no pet out. Alike a Hunter, their pet should factor into their total damage output. Warlocks that sacrifice pretty much all utility talents should come very close to Mage DPS, but those who invest in group/raid utility should be lower.
The changes made to the fire tree so far wasn't bad; but like many said it could still use some more improvements. For example, it would be nice to see Flamestrike getting buffed somewhat outside of talents and pyroblast could still use a little bit more help. I suspect eventually the single target stuff will be handled.
First, I will not stake my testicles on double-dipping bonuses with FFB. I leave that to the much braver Vontre. However, I will stake not one, but two pints of beer on it at the Big Time Brewery should you ever be in the Seattle area. It strikes me very, very much as not intended.
Indeed, if they leave that in...it's just silly. There's nothing inherently disproportionate about it, but it's just...silly. It makes a lot ride on the multipliers you can stack, more so than for other spells.
I do think there's simply no way Blizzard can get away with leaving the crit bonus talents as they are, though. The talents need to be normalized, or else crit will be all over the place in terms of value.
I do think there's simply no way Blizzard can get away with leaving the crit bonus talents as they are, though. The talents need to be normalized, or else crit will be all over the place in terms of value.
Do you mean for different specs (ie: Fire gets more value out of crit or something), or do you mean crit will not be scaling smoothly?
Do you mean for different specs (ie: Fire gets more value out of crit or something), or do you mean crit will not be scaling smoothly?
The former. And not just for different specs but for whole classes. This whole expansion spell crit rating has underperformed compared to most other caster dps stats. I'm concerned that, other than the "stack crit bonuses like crazy" spec, that will continue to be the case in Wrath of the Lich King.
Lhiv, with the changes to Arcane, if you don't mind my asking, but do you have any estimates for where the Mage will fall in relation to Fire and Frost (and Frostfire Fire heavy, Frostfire Frost heavy)?
Lhiv, with the changes to Arcane, if you don't mind my asking, but do you have any estimates for where the Mage will fall in relation to Fire and Frost (and Frostfire Fire heavy, Frostfire Frost heavy)?
Deep Arcane doesn't really change at all (talents were moved around, but not changed, and you'll still take them all). I put Arcane, Fire and Frost all really close to each other at this point, within a very few percent. Vontre's results are coming out differently for Fire, not sure why yet. Frost is still somewhat in question, because until FoF works, nobody can test Deep Freeze on a target that's immune to stun to see if it's a viable DPS spell on a second FoF charge.
I haven't done any math on Frostfire yet, because I just haven't felt like taking the time when the mechanics are so much in question. I mean, I know how I think it'll turn out, but with Vontre doing all that work for me on Magegraf, I'm too lazy to mess with it myself until I'm more certain.
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.
Impact is pretty much why I tend to mix a lot of fire into my PVP build. This change opens up a lot of tactical possiblities even with the deepish fire PVP build i play now, leaving aside the possibility of a more traditional
deep frost build dipping into fire for this talent and getting chances for both frostbite and impact to proc.
I am likely still going to start by experimenting with a deep fire AOE oriented PVP build, at least for soloing and battlegrounds. For arena play, something more elemental-oriented has definite possibilities. I might take a
frostfire raiding spec and tone down the talents oriented around 3 second nukes and spend those points on
frostbite and impact and see where that takes me.
Personally if I were a pvper I'd take some true consideration in arcane barrage + impact and particularly missile barrage + impact. then of course, theres always ice lance.
<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
Deep Arcane doesn't really change at all (talents were moved around, but not changed, and you'll still take them all). I put Arcane, Fire and Frost all really close to each other at this point, within a very few percent. Vontre's results are coming out differently for Fire, not sure why yet. Frost is still somewhat in question, because until FoF works, nobody can test Deep Freeze on a target that's immune to stun to see if it's a viable DPS spell on a second FoF charge.
I haven't done any math on Frostfire yet, because I just haven't felt like taking the time when the mechanics are so much in question. I mean, I know how I think it'll turn out, but with Vontre doing all that work for me on Magegraf, I'm too lazy to mess with it myself until I'm more certain.
It may be possible to test this via PvP. You could go to the arena area in Nagrand, or Gurubashi, where you're flagged for either faction. You'd need 2 rogues, and something that can heal itself, preferably with high armor, like a paladin.
-rogues stun the paladin until diminishing returns causes him or her to be immune to stun.
-Nova followed by Deep Freeze.
Personally if I were a pvper I'd take some true consideration in arcane barrage + impact and particularly missile barrage + impact. then of course, theres always ice lance.
Missile Barrage is worthless in PvP right now. If you're playing a mobile spec, you're going to want to never stop moving. If you have to stop moving for something like that, you're asking to get gibbed. Arcane just doesn't have enough defense to get off spells with casting time. With the dispel resistance given to Arcane, it will be even easier for Frost to be dominant due to Ice Barrier being extremely difficult to take away. Arcane Missiles just isn't bursty enough to justify PvP use.
I feel the biggest change made in this last build for PvP was definitely the change to Impact. That changes the whole field for Arcane and Fire. For the better, for once.
Unfortunately, Impact can also easily be reached by Frost builds, meaning that Frost could potentially seek that route for not just better Fire damage, but dispel resistance and Impact procs on Frost abilities. Very powerful.
First, I will not stake my testicles on double-dipping bonuses with FFB. I leave that to the much braver Vontre. However, I will stake not one, but two pints of beer on it at the Big Time Brewery should you ever be in the Seattle area. It strikes me very, very much as not intended.
Second: Frozen Rune Weapon is gone. No more +10% damage from Death Knights. (My Frost calculations for the past week have reflected this change.)
I realise now my mistake. I wanted to specifically avoid mentioning double dipping since I am not assuming it stays in. However, I was working under the current assumption that WC only affects frost (which is the case in wotlk).
Currently on wotlk scorch, coe and EP double dip. WC probably would, but it only affects frost.
With this said, considering the WC change (for 3 schools) and possible removal of 10% frost damage from DK, then I think it is fair. If nothing else, it would open up the option for a 0/50/21 build to do fireball spam if there is no WC mage around (or if he dies).
Last edited by manly : 08/08/08 at 1:59 AM.
<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
I really think that's OK. In a perfect fight, a deep Frost Mage should be able to achieve closer to 60% uptime. In a really terrible fight, it might be entirely unusable, but that'll be less common than the perfect situation. Somewhere in the 40-50% range is likely to be the average, so they can balance around that.
My basic point is two-fold.
1. A mana battery is taken into account when total DPS, buffs, and debuffs are run through the final calculator. All else being equal, Deep Fire/Arcane should do more DPS than Deep Frost, if Deep Frost can give out shadow-priest equivalent mana raid-wide.
2. If there's a situation where the mana battery dies quickly, the Frost mage takes a huge hit in power (because they now do much less DPS and don't bring the raid buff).
I guess we just have to see how pet survivability works in PvE situations. But seeing so much raid utility tied up in our pet scares me... mostly because I remember having to spend so much time making sure the water elemental didn't stand in the fire the few times I specced frost.
---
And well, the other reason I don't expect it to stay is that it sure is a lot of mana and it's a lot of mana across the raid.
1. A mana battery is taken into account when total DPS, buffs, and debuffs are run through the final calculator. All else being equal, Deep Fire/Arcane should do more DPS than Deep Frost, if Deep Frost can give out shadow-priest equivalent mana raid-wide.
2. If there's a situation where the mana battery dies quickly, the Frost mage takes a huge hit in power (because they now do much less DPS and don't bring the raid buff).
I guess we just have to see how pet survivability works in PvE situations. But seeing so much raid utility tied up in our pet scares me... mostly because I remember having to spend so much time making sure the water elemental didn't stand in the fire the few times I specced frost.
---
And well, the other reason I don't expect it to stay is that it sure is a lot of mana and it's a lot of mana across the raid.
I hate to say this but... nerf Ice Shards, buff Pet.
Missile Barrage is worthless in PvP right now. If you're playing a mobile spec, you're going to want to never stop moving. If you have to stop moving for something like that, you're asking to get gibbed. Arcane just doesn't have enough defense to get off spells with casting time. With the dispel resistance given to Arcane, it will be even easier for Frost to be dominant due to Ice Barrier being extremely difficult to take away. Arcane Missiles just isn't bursty enough to justify PvP use.
I feel the biggest change made in this last build for PvP was definitely the change to Impact. That changes the whole field for Arcane and Fire. For the better, for once.
Unfortunately, Impact can also easily be reached by Frost builds, meaning that Frost could potentially seek that route for not just better Fire damage, but dispel resistance and Impact procs on Frost abilities. Very powerful.
I kinda like the way the talents are positioned atm for PvP Frost builds. There's definitely going to be some tough choices.
Do you go for some extra survivability vs Casters w/Magic Absorption at the expense of range or damage?
I'd love to have a Blizzard (that crits now!) with 85% speed reduction, 10% chance stun and with 15% chance to root (w/30% dispel resist), but what do give up?
I realise now my mistake. I wanted to specifically avoid mentioning double dipping since I am not assuming it stays in. However, I was working under the current assumption that WC only affects frost (which is the case in wotlk).
Currently on wotlk scorch, coe and EP double dip. WC probably would, but it only affects frost.
With this said, considering the WC change (for 3 schools) and possible removal of 10% frost damage from DK, then I think it is fair. If nothing else, it would open up the option for a 0/50/21 build to do fireball spam if there is no WC mage around (or if he dies).
Assuming 3000 damage and a 50% crit rate (really simplified here, not going to account for DOT damage or multipliers that affect both spells):
08/07/08, 11:15 PM
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