Would it be viable to spec 51/9/11? Something like this? It's obviously completely dependent on having two other Mages in the raid doing Imp Scorch and Winter's Chill, but if you're the third Mage I think this would be very good.
Basically you'd alternate casting Arcane Barrage and Frostfire Bolt. Whenever Missile Barrage procs you cast your Arcane Missiles and then go back to alternating. Missile Barrage is VERY powerful with spell haste, at least if current mechanics are maintained, because it's a buff that reduces cast time. So spell haste will apply to the base 5-second cast of missiles, and then 2.5 seconds are subtracted from the result.
I assume Torment the Weak works with other classes' slows like Thunderclap or Judgments of the Just, not just the Mage spell Slow.
This seems to have a lot of benefits:
- You never miss an Ignite tick with two consecutive crits.
- You have 150 base resist all at level 80 with Mage Armor, which can't be bad.
- You can provide 50% improved Amplify/Dampen and Focus Magic.
I certainly wouldnt agree that Arcane or Fire can deal more burst dmg than Frost. Of course burst is all relative to a specific time frame. The disadvantage with Fire/Arcane is that you can be cc'ed while using your CDs(if theyre not dispelled), whereas with frost you can just reset and start fresh with cold snap.
Furthermore with Frost your opponents have to deal with 2 entities, you and your pet. That means that if they go to cc one of the two you gain an advantage. Frost dps is also very respectable outside of shatter combos in PvP and it can last for a long time.
Of course with Frost you have even more advantages, i.e. many more cc abilities. Reduced cooldown on Nova and of course they very powerful ranged nova of your pet.
As if this is not enough, with frost you have much better survivability with 2 IBs and IceBarrier absorbing significant amounts of dmg. It gives you the advantage in PvP because your opponents may opt to go for another opponent instead of the Frost mage and give you the opportunity to cc/dps.
But I guess your probably right, after all its not like 2k+ rated teams with Mages are 90%+ specced Frost. Oh wait....
1.) We are discussing WotLK here. Not TBC. No one here has a perfect overview about all new talents, spells and changed abilites. All you are doing is pure guesswork on no real basis. TBC is over soon. Cards will be mixed anew just when it went from vanilla WoW to TBC. Similar to the fact that no one fwas able to orsaw such a change for fire in PvP no one can guess what it will be like in WotLK. In fact many believed that deep Fire will continue to be a premiere PvP build.
2.) No one has the faintest clue what the items will look like at 80 and how classes, their talents and spells will profit from them.
3.) Arena isn't the only type of PvP
4.) WE is 2 shot by most DPS classes and 3 shot by most healer classes.
5.) Coldsnap is a (8) 6 minute CD. Guess you frost mages are 6 minute mages then. Arcane can specc for 2 minute CDs in Invis, PoM and Arcane Power which is quite short. Fire CDs are generally very low anyway.
6.) Lower CDon FN is easily available for most builds if thats any real worth.
7.) Just because most people as usual go the easy way doesn't mean there aren't any 2.4k rated Arc/Fire mages. But I guess you are a real expert here I guess.
8.) So what if I can be CCed while my popped my CDs? It's not like WE is a serious threat on its own. Scorch + Fireblast = dead WE. Heck when I am lazy I just PoM+Pyro it.
9.) We will see much mor Anti CC from other classes. Enjoy your FNs and Slows while they are immune to it.
1.) We are discussing WotLK here. Not TBC. No one here has a perfect overview about all new talents, spells and changed abilites. All you are doing is pure guesswork on no real basis. TBC is over soon. Cards will be mixed anew just when it went from vanilla WoW to TBC. Similar to the fact that no one fwas able to orsaw such a change for fire in PvP no one can guess what it will be like in WotLK. In fact many believed that deep Fire will continue to be a premiere PvP build.
2.) No one has the faintest clue what the items will look like at 80 and how classes, their talents and spells will profit from them.
3.) Arena isn't the only type of PvP
4.) WE is 2 shot by most DPS classes and 3 shot by most healer classes.
5.) Coldsnap is a (8) 6 minute CD. Guess you frost mages are 6 minute mages then. Arcane can specc for 2 minute CDs in Invis, PoM and Arcane Power which is quite short. Fire CDs are generally very low anyway.
6.) Lower CDon FN is easily available for most builds if thats any real worth.
7.) Just because most people as usual go the easy way doesn't mean there aren't any 2.4k rated Arc/Fire mages. But I guess you are a real expert here I guess.
8.) So what if I can be CCed while my popped my CDs? It's not like WE is a serious threat on its own. Scorch + Fireblast = dead WE. Heck when I am lazy I just PoM+Pyro it.
9.) We will see much mor Anti CC from other classes. Enjoy your FNs and Slows while they are immune to it.
ofc were discussing WotLK here which is why I explained how strong Frost currently is and how the new talents in Lich King make it even stronger.
I'm sorry but Water Elemental in PvP gear is not a 2 shot, and if a dps class wastes even 3s trying to kill it, it's a very significant advantage. But yeah you go ahead and have your healer kill it instead of having him heal you.
You mentioned something about items @ 80. Well, we all have a very good clue of how PvP gear will look like. As for how they will look like and how classes will profit from them, why don't you explain it further. Because it just seems to me like a very random and arbitrary comment with no essence.
What I am just saying is that it doesn't matter how much burst you deal in PvP if you're dead very soon; a frost mage has numerous skills at his arsenal to defend himself, while dealing significant dmg when he's attacking, something that the other trees are not as good at.
I skipped Shatter, but you can easily max it (if going with a DK or frostmage). Basically it's Scorch spam with FBlast, FFB when possible (not that hard with IV and you can cast it after DB every time). You have great control on the target, however, you completely rely on your partner(s) to control the other(s). This build packs an insane burst with good timing: Combustion+IV+under 35% --> DB-FFB-(pyro while FFB is in the air)-BW-FFB-FB-pyro, while Living Bomb is ticking, and it's hard to counter.
Frost Warding + Molten Shields: great fire and frost protection, minor mana battery. Defense is horrible, so I think it's best to team with a healer (PM, RMP).
Much depends on final values, as Scorch alone is a very weak spell. FB, DB and BW must hit hard, Living Bomb must scale well. I have no doubt about FFB having ridicolous criticals, so that's OK. Vs melee-heavy setups you can switch to Frost Armor with Frostbite.
This offers greater protection against casters and a better Mana Shield + Imp. CS. Obviously, you can get PoM and drop Living Bomb if it sucks.
I have a major complaint. Every kind of deep Fire build is based on DB and BW. Once you used them, there's a 20 second timeframe during which you're practically useless. Arcane can deal significant damage on the move by ABar-Slow/lance-Abar-FB + MBar rotations and it has a completely independant, unparalelled burst. Not to mention it has an escape move and better AM (to counter LoS abuse). I beleive Fire's effectiveness largely depends on Living Bomb. If it can provide us time to act every 12 seconds and "confuse" dispellers, while doing real damage, it might work.
Would you mind going into a little more detail here? Why the "wait"? Is it to hit FiBl as soon as it is off cooldown? That is worth using a normally sub-optimal Scorch?
Upthread...the idea is that with hot streak, once you get three crits, if you cast fireball, scorch, fireblast and they all hit the target at the same time (or leave your hands before the fireball hits) all 3 of them will get the guaranteed crit bonus, and since it's three spells, you'll have another hot streak proc. You can repeat this process indefinitely.
So spell haste will apply to the base 5-second cast of missiles, and then 2.5 seconds are subtracted from the result.
From what I read earlier (haven't tested myself), the haste is applied to the 2.5s, not the 5s. So it's basically like Improved Fireball/Frostbolt but as a shorttime buff.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I don't like that you omitted Magic Absorption, which seems like a big no-no. Unless penetration is mandatory on a lot of PvP gear I'd consider 2/2 Absorption essential for every PvP spec. Like you, I'd avoid shatter simply because 5 points would be wasted on a situational bonus that is likely outshadowed by Fire's already high crit rate. With at least 7 into Arcane I can't see going more than 13 deep into frost being worthwhile, so Living Bomb would be worth it for at least some sort of passive damage and dispel protection (Affliction locks + Fire mages will create a lot of havoc for dispel-heavy teams).
I'm simply not sold on FFB in PvP. 3 seconds is regressive for PvP spell design. We need shorter casts not longer. It will be favorable for long range nuking if you dip into ice shards for the burst, but I just can't see it being used enough with a 3 second cast time especially if it continues to lock out both frost and fire trees when interrupted. The devs could easily reduce it to 2.5 seconds, reduce the coefficient accordingly, and leave the scaling unaffected for PvE... it would make FFB a lot more attractive for PvP which is what it seems intended for.
However, speccing into always using FFB over Fireball allows you to avoid a hefty 10 talent pt investment in fire for other PvP talents.
Despite how bad the talent seems in general, I'm intrigued by the possibility of Firestarter in PvP simply because as any Mage who PvPs knows every instant cast you can get helps. The mana would be the major drawback, it would be really nice if the talent was changed to make the Flamestrike cast mana-free at which point it would definitely be worth it for PvP.
I'm sure that Frost will continue to be the heavily favored PvP spec simply because of Ice Barrier and the WE, Deep Freeze/FoF being a cherry on top, but some semblance of viability of Fire/Arcane specs are absolutely crucial for all Mage PvP simply from the perspective of removing the total predictability factor that currently exists in PvP, i.e. whenever you see a Mage on live you know immediately what to expect because the Mage is frost.
Also, pending the coefficient/scaling, it will be really interesting to see how Living Bomb develops for burst damage in PvP. At first glance it seems like the perfect spell for the start of an arena match where you can cast it on a target, revert to defensive CC for the first 6-8 seconds, then switch to the target for burst damage timed for when Living Bomb explodes for extra burst off the GCD.
ofc were discussing WotLK here which is why I explained how strong Frost currently is and how the new talents in Lich King make it even stronger.
I'm sorry but Water Elemental in PvP gear is not a 2 shot, and if a dps class wastes even 3s trying to kill it, it's a very significant advantage. But yeah you go ahead and have your healer kill it instead of having him heal you.
You mentioned something about items @ 80. Well, we all have a very good clue of how PvP gear will look like. As for how they will look like and how classes will profit from them, why don't you explain it further. Because it just seems to me like a very random and arbitrary comment with no essence.
What I am just saying is that it doesn't matter how much burst you deal in PvP if you're dead very soon; a frost mage has numerous skills at his arsenal to defend himself, while dealing significant dmg when he's attacking, something that the other trees are not as good at.
What are you talking about? I have done it many times two shotting the elemental and with the recent changes for +dmg on +healing gear healers can dispatch it quickly. I am not speakign purely from stupid arena PoV but looks like you are doing.By the way with PoM Pyro I can one shot it.
I was talking in theory that even a healer can easily CC or 3 shot it and your pathetic DPS is laughed at by Disc Priests and Druids and even Paladins and Shamans aren't really threatened of they play clever.
But go kid yourself with thinking that you got any clue as to how PvP will evolve in WotLK like many did pre TBC. Fact is you don't have any but nice seeing you trying so hard pretenting.
Also have fun with more Anti CC abilities I am sure you'll get a lot of Shatter Combos through. And anyone claiming frost does any serious damage outside of Shatter combos really deserves a hearty laugh in his face.
Ever since I saw the first talents for the expansion I've been looking at Arcane. I've been trying for a couple weeks now to find a decent build that will be adept to my play style. I'm really only planning on experiencing solo, 5-man, and 10-man content.
I have some reasoning behind it, but it's all just speculation, and I can't crunch the numbers like you guys can. But I figure running around at level 80 with 120 base resist is a good thing. I've seen several posts regarding partial resists, and I don't know how it affects players, but doesn't seem like it should be neglected if I have the opportunity.
I think the three points in Incineration go without say. Arcane Blast may be part of the filler rotation including Arcane Barrage, but it seems viable.
For the frost tree Frost Warding and Ice Floes seem like a common sense pick. I don't have any idea how true this is, but I'm assuming in an expansion based on an artic continent that we'll have the opportunity to absorb some Frost damage, and more Mana for me is not a bad thing. Also, with the DK's little niche being tanking casters, and the influence they're putting on AoE content it seems it may work well. Went with IV and Ice Shards. Ice Shards is sort of filler, but the ability to pop out a nice Ice Lance in solo play at least seems worth while. I'm not sure how well it would work in any sort of constant rotation.
Just curious if cookie cutter ideas are shaping up like this, or if I'm way off track.
One thing I'd like to theorycraft once I get home to my spreadsheets is how much DPM and DPS an Arcane mage actually gets from damage absorbed by Mana Shield with full Incanter's Absorption plus full Arcane Shielding. I especially want to see how much of the mana lost by absorbing damage is "regained" in the form of extra damage.
I don't for a second think it will be a positive DPM gain, of course, but I wonder if it won't be good enough to make Mana Shield comparable to Ice Barrier defensively.
I did some figuring based on some helpful tests a guy ran for me, and came up with the water elemental getting:
~30% of your stamina, and 7.5 health per point of stam
~30% of your intellect, and 5 mana per point of int
~40% of your +frost damage gear, modified of course by the 2.5 second cast time
These values were able to predict the elemental's health, mana and damage range with various gear and buffs (buffs to mage and/or elemental) with pretty good accuracy.
(apologies to Lhivera for the necro-quote)
Do these coefficients still hold true? Is there a "base" intellect/mana (similar to how players work) in addition to the stats inherited from the Mage?
I've seen people throw out a rather wide range of value for WE-related mana regen. It would be nice to have TC behind those numbers so that we can extrapolate for WotLK gear.
I presume Torment the weak isn't in beta yet, but when it gets in can someone test the following:
What classes as a slow? Movement slow, attack speed slow, casting speed slow.
Furthermore, does the target have to be affected by the slow or can the debuff simply sit on a target without actually affecting it (slow/CoT/CoEX/MF on raid bosses).
If only the mage spell 'slow' counts, then this is a terrible PvE tallent because refreshing slow costs you way more DPS than the 3% you get on this. If, however, the mindflay and thunderclap debuffs (and maybe frigid deathplate... is that the DK tallent that slows attacks?), if those count as slowing effects, then the tallent is a flat 3% damage increase in raids. Not bad considering its place in the tree coupled with the fact that PVE builds generally had a little filler around that tier anyway.
One thing I'd like to theorycraft once I get home to my spreadsheets is how much DPM and DPS an Arcane mage actually gets from damage absorbed by Mana Shield with full Incanter's Absorption plus full Arcane Shielding. I especially want to see how much of the mana lost by absorbing damage is "regained" in the form of extra damage.
I don't for a second think it will be a positive DPM gain, of course, but I wonder if it won't be good enough to make Mana Shield comparable to Ice Barrier defensively.
Even if the +damage from incanter's abs works out to be quite high with mana shield, it doesn't change the fact that you blow a GCD to use it which looks like it'll work out to be worth ~2500 damage itself. It might be worth entering a fight with one up but unless you have a disc priest shielding you regularly, it looks right now like there are simply better places to put the tallent.
Absorption is another 5 points that's hard to get from anywhere, besides, I'm not sure 120/140 all res would have any impact, considering you can already get ~100 penetration easily, and I don't think you should have to sacrifice any stats in WotLK to get 150.
FFB: has a huge adventage: 70% passive pushback res. I'm not even sure Arcane will be the support tree of deep frost for high-end arena. You drop Imp. and Emp. Frostbolt and spec (2)-(12-18)-5X, you have all the benefits of Deep Frost, but now you have a main nuke with better crit damage and pushback res. Depending on the setup, it could be much more important than Imp. CS + Absorption.
For a deep fire build, FFB clearly beats FB with it's snare and crit. (175% vs 225%), and you don't have to waste 8 point to empower Fireball.
Firestarter: I planned to include it, I also think 45% chance on the 2 key spells is solid enough, even if they only proc a weak Flamestrike
Even if the +damage from incanter's abs works out to be quite high with mana shield, it doesn't change the fact that you blow a GCD to use it which looks like it'll work out to be worth ~2500 damage itself. It might be worth entering a fight with one up but unless you have a disc priest shielding you regularly, it looks right now like there are simply better places to put the tallent.
I don't really want to see how it compares as a pure DPS increase, I'm more interested to see how it compares with Ice Barrier. I still think the key feature is that it prevents damage to the mage (and therefore saves healer mana), I just want to see how much Arcane Shielding and Incanter's Absorption's DPS/DPM boost bridge the absorption/mana gap between Ice Barrier and Mana Shield.
3% damage for 3 points versus a target requiring a situational debuff is simply bad to begin with, I think they might just be adding it to test the mechanic. 3% damage for 3 points is not very good even if it was simply passive. Talents like PWF are only taken since there are no other options to boost DPS, because with respect to value-per-point 1% damage is not a good value. Tack on a slowed requirement and it just goes rotten.
3% damage for 3 points versus a target requiring a situational debuff is simply bad to begin with, I think they might just be adding it to test the mechanic. 3% damage for 3 points is not very good even if it was simply passive. Talents like PWF are only taken since there are no other options to boost DPS, because with respect to value-per-point 1% damage is not a good value. Tack on a slowed requirement and it just goes rotten.
I agree that it's unworkable in its current state, but if it turns out to be a raid-wide 3% buff instead of self-only, do you still think it's underpowered?
If they somehow make this work against bosses, 3% raid damage for 3 points is pretty crazy. However, in its current state the talent has all sorts of issues with boss immunity and dispels.
3% damage for 3 points versus a target requiring a situational debuff is simply bad to begin with, I think they might just be adding it to test the mechanic.
TotW only makes sense to me as a raid debuff for targets with Slow on them. Compare 3% all with an expensive refresh every 15 seconds to imp. scorch at 10% Fire/Frost/Arcane requiring stacking and a refresh every 30. Roughly guesstimating, the raid contribution looks comparable. Otherwise, the talent can be completely ignored unless it can be dispeled and then arc pvp mages will go 1/3.
Absorption is another 5 points that's hard to get from anywhere, besides, I'm not sure 120/140 all res would have any impact, considering you can already get ~100 penetration easily, and I don't think you should have to sacrifice any stats in WotLK to get 150.
2 tallent points to completely negate your oponent's penetration is nothing to be smirked at. Any resistance buffs you gain on top of this tallent will actually mean something now. Thats ~70 to all from GotW or 120 from paladin/priest/shammy buffs. Its a solid defense against caster-heavy teams.
Re; Torment the Weak
3% damage for 3 points versus a target requiring a situational debuff is simply bad to begin with, I think they might just be adding it to test the mechanic. 3% damage for 3 points is not very good even if it was simply passive. Talents like PWF are only taken since there are no other options to boost DPS, because with respect to value-per-point 1% damage is not a good value. Tack on a slowed requirement and it just goes rotten.
This is why I was asking about what counts as slowed in my post. If its only the 'slow' spell, its not worth spec'ing. If, however, anything that says 'slow' in the tooltip counts, then its effectively 100% uptime anyway since every boss in the game should at least have a melee slow on them (assuming your warriors arn't brain-dead). Theres also at least 2 movement slowing debuffs you can put on bosses (Slow and Mind-flay). It doesn't actually slow them, but the debuff still comes up.
I struggle to see why such a shallow tallent in arcane would completely depend on such a deep tallent in arcane and not be linked to it. The only remote thinking that could lead to that is 'if you have a deep arcane mage in the raid, other mages have the option to pick it up in a hybrid spec'.
If ToW is indeed 3% raid damage, but is only up when Slow is on the target, I'm going to go ahead and not tell anyone I raid with about it, for fear of having to spam Slow every 15 seconds. It's placement is puzzling, one would think that it might work with any snare affect, but that would relegate it to PvP only - except for slow. Which again, is terrifying.
3% self damage for the displeasure of having to spam slow is not worth it, imo. Huge mana dump.
If TotW is indeed supposed to work with Slow the spell rather than generic slowing effects, then it has to signal a major change to the Arcane active talents, with Slow probably moving to the 11-point slot and Focus Magic moving deeper...either switching places with Slow, or moving to 21 or 31 points and bumping POM and/or AP deeper. That seems somewhat unlikely given the new Potency dependency on POM.
So we could see Focus Magic get a big improvement at the Tier 9 slot and Slow, perhaps toned down, in the Tier 3 slot. Or alternatively, maybe TotW is just a weak talent that applies to any target with any snare applied.
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.
I agree that it's unworkable in its current state, but if it turns out to be a raid-wide 3% buff instead of self-only, do you still think it's underpowered?
I hadn't considered it as a debuff, which would potentially redeem itself as long as bosses could be affected by slows without requiring a tedious mana-hungry Slow re-application rotation. It definitely requires clarification. I don't plan to raid as Arcane, but for Arcane Mages' sake I hope it doesn't suggest they cast slow every 15 seconds in PvE.
Like Lhivera said, the talent being so early in the tree before ever being able to reach Slow implies a major flaw if it is intended to apply only to Slow. The spell duration would also be a major issue requiring attention.
If TotW is indeed supposed to work with Slow the spell rather than generic slowing effects, then it has to signal a major change to the Arcane active talents, with Slow probably moving to the 11-point slot and Focus Magic moving deeper...either switching places with Slow, or moving to 21 or 31 points and bumping POM and/or AP deeper. That seems somewhat unlikely given the new Potency dependency on POM.
So we could see Focus Magic get a big improvement at the Tier 9 slot and Slow, perhaps toned down, in the Tier 3 slot. Or alternatively, maybe TotW is just a weak talent that applies to any target with any snare applied.
That's what I said yesterday. Well I was more hoping that Focus Magic would go away, and arcane would get a completely new 21, 31 or 41 point talent instead.
I think the web team caught the developers midway through another overhaul of arcane. Ghostcrawler said in the DK forum that the web team basically takes a snapshot of what the Devs are currently working on. Here's his quote:
Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler
Lol.
We test a little, change a little, test a little, change a little.
The option for the web team (and the beta builds for that matter) is to wait until things feel pretty stable (which could be ...?) or just take a snapshot of everything at that current moment, knowing it will quickly be out of date again. I think they figured (and probably correctly given the number of hits) that fans would just as soon see a reasonably updated calculator than wait for a perfect one. They work with us pretty closely.
It won't be final until we ship. Maybe not even then.
08/08/08, 9:59 AM
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