Self-buffs are kind of pointless other than adding flavour and feel to each class.
I disagree its the same for raid buffs though, obviously, by adding a good raid buff to each mage spec, each mage spec suddenly adds something to the raid (other than the pure dps, which, to be fair, is not enough to stay competitive imo, and havent been for ages, simply because Blizz will not let some classes have much more dps than the others (Their strategy clearly is to make dps vary among specs, not among classes, to let all classes stay useful for soloing, small grp content etc). You cant balance dps vs buffing in the game WoW has become.
Furthermore Blizz is obviously nearly trying to make each spec its own mini-class. They dont just want you to bring 3 shamans, they want to you to have very good reasons for bringing 1 resto shaman, 1 enhancement etc (arbitrary numbers). They arent equal, but desireable at least (would probably want the resto a bit more than the others...) just as current beta mages arent, as frost is by far much more desirable as no. 1 mage. But as long as frost isnt also the most desirable no. 2 mage, then its mission accomplished, from my point of view.
(and so on: If you brought a frost mage and a fire mage, then if perfectly balanced, the best spec a third mage could bring, would be arcane in this scenario)
For mages to stay competitive in that game, each spec pretty much needs to have some significant raid buffs too, since our specs arent as distinct in roles as the hybrids.
It doesnt work too well with Imp scorch being so easy attainable then, since fire (or arcane) will clearly be the looser in this 'spec game' then, depending on which provides the best dps.
Both imp scorch and focus magic should imo be deep enough (but not too deep) into fire and arcane to make them attainable by 1 mage, but require some reasonable sacrifice in dmg, and thus keeping some incentive for having 3 mages instead of 2, despite it being very unlikely 3 mages will turn out to be the best raid setup I assume. By making it easy to get the raid buffs for just 1 mage, you only make it easier to cut down on the number of mages in the raid, which, as a mage, shouldnt be something to prefer imo
Originally Posted by Zephriel
Fire and arcane builds can't stand on their own merits; a frost mage with WC is now a requirement for optimal mage DPS in WotLK raids.
Yes, but how is this really a problem?
The reverse is true too. An arcane or fire mage is now 'required' for frost mage to have optimal dps too (well, at least they would be if they threw imp scorch and Focus magic a bit deepr into the trees).
Just like a shaman or a shadowpriest is 'required' for mages in general to provide optimal dps. If 'everyone buffs everyone' all classes and specs are highly desired, although in the end you cant bring them all of course (which is why it would be a fair deal to make it possible for 1 mage to get 2 of the raid buffs from talents, but not 3, and only by sacrifizing some deep talents in their main tree, right now they might just be a bit too easy to get imo)
The problem with this is that all it does is add an artificial ramp-up time to that talent spec's dps.
But our existing DPS specs already feature ramp-up times, and they're reasonably well-balanced or otherwise not problematic. Deep frost can currently stack and maintain WC with just its main nuke, frostbolt. Deep fire requires scorch-debuff management, but rewards the fire mage with (in general) the best mage DPS against bosses. This is balancing Blizzard has, for the most part, done right.
The problem with the changes to Improved Scorch and Winter's Chill in WotLK is that they create additional dependencies. For example, fire mages will rely on frost mages to stack WC for +10% fire crit, and arcane mages will require the help of both fire and frost mages, or at least one deep frost/elementalist mage who picks up both talents and mixes frostbolt/FFB with scorch. Fire and arcane builds can't stand on their own merits; a frost mage with WC is now a requirement for optimal mage DPS in WotLK raids.
As long as it is possible for a deep spec to bring both debuffs, it is essentially mandatory for a deep spec to bring both debuffs, unless your raid attendance is insanely consistent and you can count on always pairing two complementary Mages. (The other option being respeccing depending on the night's attendance, of course, which is possible but undesirable.)
I'm saying that Imp. WE as is probably can't stay as is. Why wouldn't you have your first two mages spec Imp. WE? The first one takes the first two minutes, the second takes the third and fourth, the first takes the fifth, you have a minute gap, the second takes the sixth and so on. You're looking at the equivalent of a spriest in every party in the raid. Even if you couldn't get imp. scorch and Imp WE in the same build, I'm not sure that 10% damage to your two mages and one of your two locks can compete unless having two Imp. WE turns out to be overkill.
As for respeccing depending on the night, there are rumors floating about being able to swap between two specs without respeccing, so that might not be too bad.
I didn't keep that data set around, but I'll snag a new one and edit it in this post.
With +1199 Frost. Hits
Min: 1536
Max: 1674
Crits coming.
Note: Getting numbers for a spell with a 24 second cooldown is a bit annoying.
Is this with both Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds?
Originally Posted by grayrest
As for respeccing depending on the night, there are rumors floating about being able to swap between two specs without respeccing, so that might not be too bad.
It's not bad if you only care about expense. It's completely unacceptable if you care even a little bit about the RPG in MMORPG. Spec-swapping should be available for people who want to play that way, but if the talent trees are designed in such a way that spec-swapping becomes mandatory for acceptable raid performance, that's most definitely not OK.
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 just sat down and ran a lot of numbers on arcane blast + mana shild + incanter's abs. Long story short: IA CAN be a DPS upgrade if you have high haste and relatively low spell power. At reasonable gear levels the damage loss of 1 GCD versus the damage gain is quite small, costing you maybe 400 damage at the higher end for using a mana shield (assuming you actually take enough damage to break it before it times out).
I've assumed at least 33% haste to allow a mana shield without dropping AB debuff. I've also assumed the GCD spent putting up a mana shield is directly eating into DPS time, although we all know that realistic encounters offer plenty of dead time where you can throw up a shield for lack of better options. In this situation IA is a pure damage gain (and the mana cost offsets the mana gained from losing AB). Even in fights that involve more focused nuking, having a mana shield up before you go in will offer a good damage buff that is quite above what you would get from blowing a trinket.
To sum up - its a situational tallent, but from what I can see it holds its own adeqautely in situations where it can be used.
Things i've not mentioned, or calculated for: shields from external sources. Proc'ing an IA just before hitting AP. The fact that you take less damage and therefor are less of a burden on the raid.
Is the Arcane Blast rotation you're talking about
a) sustainable
b) where are you going to get 33% haste except from really excellent gear? You can't keep Icy Veins up all the time.
No, I avoid all damage modifying talents when getting numbers like this.
You're a gentleman and a scholar.
Your high crit confuses me. If Ice Shards isn't working, then your 2603 crit should represent a hit of 2603 / 1.5 = 1735. However, this gives a difference between your min (1536) and max (1735) of 199 points, and the base damage range is only 164 points. By any chance are you wearing a CSD? That would make for a hit of 2603 / 1.545 = 1685, which would fit the damage range.
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.
Your high crit confuses me. If Ice Shards isn't working, then your 2603 crit should represent a hit of 2603 / 1.5 = 1735. However, this gives a difference between your min (1536) and max (1735) of 199 points, and the base damage range is only 164 points. By any chance are you wearing a CSD? That would make for a hit of 2603 / 1.545 = 1685, which would fit the damage range.
It's not bad if you only care about expense. It's completely unacceptable if you care even a little bit about the RPG in MMORPG. Spec-swapping should be available for people who want to play that way, but if the talent trees are designed in such a way that spec-swapping becomes mandatory for acceptable raid performance, that's most definitely not OK.
That depends. I certainly accept the RPG aspect since I retire the mage if Arcane isn't viable. I don't, however, see how making the two talents deep solves the problem. Unless your raid attendance is extremely stable, someone is going to respec if min/maxing involves taking both. The difference is that if they're shallow, you have people swapping 0/18/53 <-> 11/0/60 or 53/18/0 <-> 51/3/18 while you have people swapping primary trees if they're deep. I certainly don't have a problem from a RPG point of view to switch minor trees.
If you make both talents shallow, then you're left with the problem Manly keeps bringing up: your first Mage must be Deep Frost, because only that spec can bring Improved Scorch and Winter's Chill and Improved Water Elemental -- and Improved Water Elemental is a lot better utility than being really good at AOE.
As long as it is possible for a deep spec to bring both debuffs, it is essentially mandatory for a deep spec to bring both debuffs, unless your raid attendance is insanely consistent and you can count on always pairing two complementary Mages. (The other option being respeccing depending on the night's attendance, of course, which is possible but undesirable.)
I would move Playing With Fire to Tier 4, Blazing Speed to Tier 5 and Improved Scorch to Tier 6. If that isn't deep enough to solve the problem, you're now set up for an easy swap of Pyromaniac to Tier 6 and Improved Scorch to Tier 7.
Low End
Min Coefficient: (1536 - (1018 + 15)) / 1199 = 41.95%
Max coefficient: (1536 - 1018) / 1199 = 43.20%
High End
Min Coefficient: (1674 - 1182) / 1199 = 41.10%
Max Coefficient: (1674 - (1182 - 15)) / 1199 = 42.29%
1.5 second coefficient: 1.5 / 3.5 = 42.86%
Conclusion: It's probably a standard 42.86% coefficient. The slightly lower 42.29% max on the high end test is easily explained by the rounding errors that tend to plague Blizzard's engine.
Thanks, Nurru!
Originally Posted by grayrest
That depends. I certainly accept the RPG aspect since I retire the mage if Arcane isn't viable. I don't, however, see how making the two talents deep solves the problem. Unless your raid attendance is extremely stable, someone is going to respec if min/maxing involves taking both. The difference is that if they're shallow, you have people swapping 0/18/53 <-> 11/0/60 or 53/18/0 <-> 51/3/18 while you have people swapping primary trees if they're deep. I certainly don't have a problem from a RPG point of view to switch minor trees.
The difference is that if they're deep, there's no reason to swap primary trees, because the difference to the entire raid between +10% crit and +10% damage is much, much smaller than the difference between bringing just one of those and bringing both of them. (Note that this may also require weakening Imp. Water Elemental, either by making the tick happen every 10 secs, or reducing it to 2 points for +7/15 secs and 1/2% regen per 5 secs.)
So, I don't know which is the better choice. Neither of them really solves the problem of 1 mage bringing both debuffs.
Might be Winter's Chill also needs to be bumped a tier deeper, but it's a lot harder to find a talent that deserves to be moved shallower in Frost. In messing around with the problem myself (and also trying to add some spirit-using talents for Fire and Frost), I came up with this: War Tools :: Talent tree WotLK Trees a la Lhivera
Last edited by Lhivera : 08/10/08 at 1:58 AM.
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.
So, I don't know which is the better choice. Neither of them really solves the problem of 1 mage bringing both debuffs.
The other potential option is to just make both of them obsolete (weaker, basically) and as the devs have frequently said, "bake" them into other abilities deeper in the trees. Burying them in the trees doesn't really seem like an optimal solution, though they did bury Spell Power, so who knows.
Might be Winter's Chill also needs to be bumped a tier deeper, but it's a lot harder to find a talent that deserves to be moved shallower in Frost. In messing around with the problem myself (and also trying to add some spirit-using talents for Fire and Frost), I came up with this: War Tools :: Talent tree WotLK Trees a la Lhivera
To fix the "problem" the way you propose, both Imp Scorch and WC would need to be at least 35 points deep (Tier 8). This would also only solve the problem for WotLK. Come next expansion they would need to be bumped another Tier deeper.
I honestly don't think that's the answer, but heck if I got a better one.
P.S. Lhiv, my linked talent trees from the previous post should be 100% up to date for build 8770. If you're looking for a starting point for your tinkering.
Originally Posted by Talbain
The other potential option is to just make both of them obsolete (weaker, basically) and as the devs have frequently said, "bake" them into other abilities deeper in the trees. Burying them in the trees doesn't really seem like an optimal solution, though they did bury Spell Power, so who knows.
I was thinking that as well, but if you "bake it" into other abilities you have the same problem with 1 mage bringing both. If they really want to do that, and stave off having to overhaul them again next expansion. They would have to push them to Tier 10 like Spell Power.
Last edited by aikiwoce : 08/10/08 at 2:13 AM.
Reason: wow missed a "don't" that really changed my meaning there
So, I don't know which is the better choice. Neither of them really solves the problem of 1 mage bringing both debuffs.
argh, more people suggesting PVE-based changes while completely ignoring the pvp aspect.
If you're going to suggest moving imp. scorch, move it to the empty place on the tier. Moving blazing speed is a bad idea for hybrid PVP spec arena balance.
There really isn't an empty spot on the tier. In general, you can't just subtract 3 points from one tier and add 3 points to another; at most, you could perhaps increase or decrease the number of points on a tier by one, but there's at least a degree of consistency in the number of points per tier. Pyromaniac can't really go down to Tier 5 (there's already a crit talent on that tier).
Of course what it really comes down to is that, yes, I completely ignore the PvP aspect, because it ranks somewhere below Fishing for me; I'm much more interested in suggesting solutions to the PvE problems (or at least pointing out the problems themselves), and letting Blizzard worry about solving any PvP ramifications that may arise.
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.
That's exactly what we don't need (Blizzard making arena decisions on their own). They've already made some really boneheaded decisions regarding Mage arena specs (ie moving Spell Power, making Imp Blink an RNG talent, Fiery Payback as a whole), we don't need more of them being made because of minor PVE implications.
I was kind of overstating the impact of moving Blazing Speed down -- It's a nice buff that would further improve a possible elemental PVP spec as it would free up points to get Arcane Subt for the dispel resist AND give you 2 more points in Frost so that you can pick up Subtlety, Brain Freeze and then have 2 more points to put elsewhere. Currently you can't spend 2 points in Arcane if you want full Brain Freeze for more mobile damage, so its a somewhat significant change, but it would be a welcomed buff, in my opinion.
So while this change isn't exactly groundbreaking, at least throw a glance at how arena balance may be affected before making suggestions -- sometimes something will be overlooked and completely invalidate the proposal.
Then again, Blizzard obviously forgot to do that when they moved Spell Power.
edit: To clarify, I've read so many suggestions on the beta forums that have PVE-only bias written all over them. Blizzard looks at both sides of the coin (usually) and a lot of well thought-out suggestions from the beta forums have probably been made pointless simply because they have such a negative impact on arena balance and the author of said suggestion didn't even put one second of thought into it to adjust their idea accordingly.
This probably isn't the place to whine about that, but while this place is PVE-centric, it's kind of stupid to think of a big suggestion that you take a lot of time to come up with and present only to have it be worthless.
edit 2: Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
My (and others' on the EJ forums) suggestion would be to leave it at 2 charges, but instead reduce the duration of the buff to 5 seconds, to be in line with the time Frostbite actually stays up. After all, FoF is at its heart trying to fix the fact that Frostbite/Shatter doesn't work in raids.
Yeah that may allow for varied rotations in PVE, but it halfway breaks the talent for PVP. This essentially makes this talent "you cast 2 ice lances or maybe blow a quick deep freeze cooldown as quickly as possible when this procs and if you're out of range or have LOS well tough luck buddy. try again next time you get a good dice roll!". The 10 second duration allows for the mage to set things up, get correct positioning and perhaps time a burst combo with one of his teammate's cooldowns without having to mindlessly blow globals just because he got a proc of a spell.
Nightfall wouldn't be nearly as good of a PVP talent if it had a 5 second duration instead of 10. High level arena matches with warlock comps are often won by planning a burst around a nightfall proc + skillcoil interrupt.
The difference is that if they're deep, there's no reason to swap primary trees, because the difference to the entire raid between +10% crit and +10% damage is much, much smaller than the difference between bringing just one of those and bringing both of them.
Are we talking for an individual mage or for the raid as a whole? Both debuffs are going to be in a reasonably min/maxed raid since I can't see Frost outdamaging fire by enough to ignore 10% more damage for your two mages, fire locks, and moonkin. I see two options, both assuming Focus Magic or its replacement will stop being terrible in comparison to Imp. Scorch and WC.
One option would be that Blizz picks one raid damage buff per spec of roughly equal power and balances assuming two of the buffs are in place. Doing this would require the buffs to be deep enough in the trees that one spec couldn't pick up two, preventing two mages from covering all 3. The appeal of this idea is that you won't have all your mages in the one true raiding spec of the patch and that the trees are less homogenous. The downside is that if you have two people that like the playstyle of a particular tree, then someone doesn't get to play what they prefer if you care about min/maxing. You essentially 'force' BOTH mages to pick the #1 and #2 specs in terms of raid dps. You then have mages doing more dps than they're balanced for if you bring a third mage.
The other is that Blizz moves all the raid buffs to the first 3 tiers and balances assuming that all 3 buffs are in place from 2 mages. This has the advantage of everybody getting to play the tree they prefer, if not necessarily the exact spec, and being easier to balance. It also means that the three buffs + overall tree dps don't have to be blanced as finely. The disadvantage is that an individual mage is probably going to spec to take 2 of the raid damage buffs unless you can count on the other mage covering for you, limiting your choices for deep tree talents, and that you're going to have flavor-of-the-patch builds.
I favor the second since it gives a much greater probability of one tree (Arcane at the moment) not being the gimp tree due to a relatively poor raid buff and prevents people from having to take the martyr-spec tree (think Survival) just for the raid buff. I'd have no problem with either of the above two options, but for the first case, I don't see Blizz as balancing it finely enough to make all 3 equally desirable. WC shallow also provides a pvp benefit to a weaker pvp spec, which I consider a bonus. I don't particularly expect to see Arc getting enough dps for Arc + Focus Magic to be equal to Fire + imp scorch and Frost + Imp WE + WC. If, on the other hand, they buffed Focus Magic at it's current location, they'd 'force' everybody to go 11 into Arcane.
One unknown is which raid buffs these effects will and won't stack with. The revelation that CoE/CoS and Ebon Plague don't stack, for example, suggests that one or more of these buffs may not stack with something else.
Edit: While I obviously favor Arcane, my goal is not to buff the Arc tree but rather to allow people to play the tree they like without feeling like they're gimping the raid. I strongly desire to see all the trees offer comparable damage contribution, within 5% when favorably buffed. I have no real remorse about 'forcing' a min/maxer to spec a certain way because there will always be a min/max build that is the one true way and the hardcore min/maxer forces that build on himself. My desire is to see the conscientious raider able to play as he likes without regret. Tier 6 Arc vs Fire in 2.4 before SWP is pretty much my ideal.
Yes, but how is this really a problem?
The reverse is true too. An arcane or fire mage is now 'required' for frost mage to have optimal dps too (well, at least they would be if they threw imp scorch and Focus magic a bit deepr into the trees).
Just like a shaman or a shadowpriest is 'required' for mages in general to provide optimal dps. If 'everyone buffs everyone' all classes and specs are highly desired, although in the end you cant bring them all of course (which is why it would be a fair deal to make it possible for 1 mage to get 2 of the raid buffs from talents, but not 3, and only by sacrifizing some deep talents in their main tree, right now they might just be a bit too easy to get imo)
The "everyone buffs everyone" approach is troublesome to mages because it significantly increases the burden on raids to bring mages of specific specs to optimize DPS. Let me clarify:
Current (Burning Crusade) cross-school needs: Arcane: Winter's Chill (+10% frost crit--minor; AB is arcane's main nuke) Fire: None Frost: None
Referencing Roywyn's spec rundown back on page 164, the implications of the current WotLK debuffs are:
Originally Posted by Roywyn
1) Someone has to have Imp. Scorch.
2) With at least 3 Fire/Frost/Arcane users, one mage has to spec Winter's Chill (0/30/41 or 0/18/53).
If there is more than one mage, 50/3/18 would offer the highest DPS for them (IF it turns out sustainable).
Your first mage must take Improved Scorch. Your third mage must take WC. This implies a reduction in spec flexibility which Blizzard could prevent by buffing/tweaking talents within each tree to achieve its target DPS without relying on debuffs from the other schools. For example, instead of balancing fire and frost against Focus Magic, why not simply buff Empowered Fireball and Frostbolt coefficients? Instead of forcing arcane and frost into dependence on Improved Scorch, why not grant them (particularly arcane) those +10% damage (or similar) modifiers through talents for their own schools?
Not only would this approach free mages to stick with the schools of their choice in WotLK raiding, it would be inherently easier to balance. The absence of cross-spec dependencies wouldn't imply a reduction in any spec's value, either. Even with each school being responsible for its own DPS, arcane would still specialize in terrific burst damage, fire would excel in AoE, and frost would still contribute significantly to raids' mana regen. All of these will surely be wanted by WotLK raids at one time or another.
They should just be using the same thought pattern for us as hybrids, make it passive in some respect.
Frost spells get winters chill and scorch gets imp scorch as basic part of the spell.(Though I would honestly prefer that any fire spells tacked it on) Than throw in a talent called enhanced scorch and enchanced winters chill, that brings them up a little in strength. If we have the basic form and only gain a little by specing for it, it isn't all that big of a deal if your mage of spec X can't make the raid. (i.e. Default frost spells stack winters chill up to 3 stacks and enhanced up to 5 stacks)
If only one mage is in the raid, he will certainly pay a personal dps price if your raid wants both debuffs up. With every mage you add (to a limit) you gain more dps due to the first and second not having to gimp there dps to maintain off-school debuffs. (Can you even imagine the dps of one mage trying to maintain both debuffs?)
Basically the same as CoE and malediction CoE. You can live without the malediction version, but it is certainly nice to have.
You're extremely simplifying the issue. And particularly not viewing it from all the angles. Let me break it down.
A group with only 1 mage has already arcane as non optimal as it is. The first mage, as things are now, is always going to be a deep frost mage because of the utility of the massive raid-wide MP5 as well as the ability to stack both scorch and WC without doing deeply sub-optimal rotation (read: without having to cast, for example, ice lance, frostbolt or FFB as deep arcane as a way to stack WC). Whether or not you move both scorch/WC to 18 points or to 28 points, you will still favor deep-frost. Thats because as things are, the dps difference between deep fire and deep frost is extremely small, to a point where I don't see why anyone in their right mind wouldn't go deep frost first for mp5 (being the first mage in a raid).
A group with only one mage already has arcane as non-optimal as it is (because there exists a spec where you could get both the scorch debuff and WC). If you refer to my original post, you will see that I did not argue against that. I will also agree that deep frost is the natural choice if there is only one mage in the raid, I didn't argue against that either. It is about as bad, or good, as how we get to raid with the obligatory 0/48/11+2 spec today (the consequences will typically be more significant in the WotLK case, but my point is that choices will be limited in both cases in a min-max situation). And being able to get both scorch and WC may or may not be problematic.
If arcane is non-optimal as it is, then they should be trying to fix that, not make it worse. Pushing scorch deeper means that arcane will have neither the scorch debuff or WC, and so will be unfeasible even if there's already a deep frost mage in the raid (the second is in effect forced to be deep fire).
But all I was arguing was that two of the specific suggested changes, of pushing scorch deeper into the tree, and making the two debuffs the same and non-stacking (I don't think you argued for the latter, but it was discussed upthread), wouldn't solve the problems, and would bring with it new problems.
By your own argument, pushing the scorch debuff to 28 points, frost will still be the most obvious choice for the first mage. Then what is solved? All you achieve is that the second mage is forced to spec to spec fire. By your argument that the water elemental is too good to miss, then all mages apart from the fire bitch would then be forced to spec frost. Then nothing is gained, there will be no more choice involved than there is now. If, like you say, the water elemental in itself is enough of a deciding factor to spec frost, then the real problem is obviously the elemental. Either it is too good and needs to be nerfed, or the other trees lack something of similar value. If, say, a deep arcane spec can still get Improved Scorch, then at least the second mage can spec arcane without too much of a loss, instead of this being impossible, and doing so would get whatever people find worth it spec'ing arcane for, such as improved mobility, mana regeneration, instant invisibility, resistances etc. (if there is no compelling reason to spec deep arcane, or deep fire even improved scorch and WC aside, then Blizzard have failed on a deeper level of balancing the trees).
If you make scorch and WC a 18-point talent, then you enforce the fact that your first mage is a deep-frost raid in a raid. If you make both 28 point talents, then deep frost needs to lose 1/3 imp WE, 5/5 chilled to the bone and deep freeze to attain scorch (0/28/43). By comparison, deep fire still (0/43/28) needs to sacrifice burnout to get WC. Both deep fire and deep frost can get the other tree raid buff, at a cost high enough to allow it an option, but make them feel the sacrifice.
I don't think you get it. As things are now, your first mage will always be frost whether or not scorch/wc is 18 OR 28 pt talents. Imp WE is raid synergy. You always favor deep frost first regardless.
Give me 1 good reason that arcane should be allowed to stack only imp scorch and not WC.
No you don't. You just make the first mage a deep frost mage in that case. Imp WE is that good.
If there's one frost mage in the raid already there is no reason for the subsequent mages to keep up WC. The alternative you are looking at if you push scorch deeper is that the arcane mage will be doing neither improved scorch or WC, an undeniably worse situation. Are you saying that because arcane has the problem of not being able to get WC now, no harm is done by also denying improved scorch to them? If arcane is non-optimal as it is, then they should be trying to fix that, not make it worse. Blizzard is in a situation where they can fix it now, I think it's in their interest to at least try to make each try to make each tree viable.
Mages, warlocks and druids lose 10% crit. So what. If you give 10% more damage to all the dps classes, you have done nothing. The balance has not changed, at all. Hell, I'd much rather have neither scorch or winter's chill exist, and have our damage based on them not being there (read: increase our base damage by the amount those would bring), but that would probably break PVP.
Raid synergies give an incentive to bring people of varying classes and specs, which is a good thing in my opinion. The 10% crit gives an incentive to bring a mage beyond the first person, apart from personal dps. Most of the classes bring something apart from their personal dps or healing, and mages will suffer for it if they are the only class that doesn't. Yes, they could make our personal dps sufficiently higher than anyone else to justify taking us along just for that, but nothing suggests that this is a route they want to take (for good reasons I think, if one class is too far ahead in personal dps, it makes them too stackable, and has pvp/soloing/small group implications).
having the same talent in both tree being a boring design; well, I don't know what to tell you other than 'have a deep look at spell power and burnout and come back to me when you're done.'
I am not sure what you are arguing here. That there is another talent that may be boring cut-and-paste work or not, isn't an argument for doing the same somewhere else in the trees, is it?
..other than 'have a deep look at spell power and burnout and come back to me when you're done.'..
..No, what YOU don't understand..
That I have a different opinion than you doesn't mean that I don't understand, or don't know what is in the talent trees, like you seem to be insinuating, so if you would turn down the overbearing attitude, it would be appreciated, for the sake of having a civilized discussion.
No, what YOU don't understand here is that currently theres no good reason to invite a fire mage over a frost mage. Deep frost has both the imp WE utility as well as WC. If things were to be moved to 28 pt, then at least deep fire utility would be 10% more damage. Its still worse than deep frost. But at least, now it becomes the utility, a reason to invite a fire mage. With what you propose, you're making fire mages extinct.
By you own arguments, the first mage will be a frost mage in any case. If there's a frost mage already, then there is no reason why the second one can't be a fire mage, apart from the water elemental. Bringing the fire mage would have some small advantages, in that the fire mage will lose less dps on doing the scorches because they are spec'ed for fire, and it frees the frost mage from spec'ing 18 points into fire, without any loss. If the water elemental is good enough to make frost the one and only choice even with all else being equal (same dps, both keeping up debuffs), then the elemental is the issue, fire should have something equally valuable to contribute (slightly higher personal dps might be suitable). It is not fixable only by rearranging the two debuff talents, because the problem still remains when there's another number of mages than 2.
Not to mention, you give no justification, at all, as to why scorch should be given access to all specs but not WC.
You give no justification why I should give a justification for that I don't think it follows from the circumstance that I was arguing against pushing Improved Scorch deeper, or making WC/Imp Scorch non-stacking, that I would want to defend every idiosyncrasy in the talent trees. I voiced the opinion that the current trees seem to be a fairly reasonably balanced compromise, because you have to make some sacrifices in order to have both debuffs (you at least have to spend 18 talents in fire that could be spent in your primary tree, and it costs dps to keep up the scorch debuff). A reasonable compromise, not the only possible one, not perfect. Could Improved Scorch be 28 points and Winter's Chill 18? I don't see why not. Both 18? Probably, it might be the preferable choice for all I know.
I think theres a number of possible ways to fix it. Off the top of my head:
1- Make Scorch / Winter's Chill only apply to their respective school, like it used to be. I'd prefer see scorch back to 15% along the way but it really isn't about that. This would also happen to fix double dipping issues with FFB. Of course, it doesn't address the fact that COE and Elemental Precision would double dip with FFB, but I think elementalist spec could use the help. If not, well, that makes double dipping easier to fix either way.
2- Make scorch not stack with WC. For this to work, both WC and scorch would have to do the same effect. This would be a nerf to fire spec indirectly since it gets better mileage from crit. This alone would not be enough for the simple reason that even if you do that, you still have the problem that you favor non-deep-fire specs because scorch is easily accessible to both deep-arcane and deep-frost. You would still have to move either scorch or WC in the talent trees. If all of this were not enough, you also probably need to tone down imp WE because scorch/WC give the same buff, which means frost has a pure extra utility on top.
3- The problem that kinda plagues the way the trees are now is the fact that frost brings imp WE in addition to raid buffs, which, simply put, kills off fire spec as an incidental effect. If you made WC less good, like 5-7% for example, then if you had to decide which mage to bring (assuming here frost can't stack scorch on its own), then you get to decide between 2 more equal bonuses, namely: [+10% damage] vs [+5-7% crit, +imp WE].
I'm still somewhat amazed they made scorch going form 15% fire damage to 10% to all school, but WC didn't lose anything in exchange to get its 2 extra schools.
-- edit: also, FWIW, I do think the imp WE utility is kind of too good. Problem is, its hard to make a good assessment of it until we see how it goes in raids with everything else. It does look to be headed that way. Also, the more I think about it the more I think WC should be closer to 5%. I think the choice should be whether you want +10% damage vs [whatever frost offers], which is probably far more in line with 5%. Either nerf WE or lower WC.
Last edited by manly : 08/10/08 at 8:46 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
There's also the option of getting rid of them entirely and baking them into later ranks of certain spells. At least in this way, you don't have to worry so much about Frostfire Bolt making your older spells obsolete (the fact that we're debating on Mages getting into raids for debuff x or y is really not a good direction for Mages to be heading anyway). The entire slate seems to continually be wiped with every new iteration, and regardless of whether it's intentional or not, the PvE and PvP Mage doesn't look like it's going to come out even somewhat the same in Wrath. In particular, Frost will probably see a round of nerfs in the same way that Arcane saw a bunch of jumbling and some nerfs in the recent builds.
08/10/08, 1:00 AM
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