FoF is still a self buff and has been that way since Winter's Grasp was renamed. Not sure why people keep thinking otherwise. We can't test it because it simply doesn't work still as I mentioned in my post a bit up.
Well I don't think otherwise...it just the text of the talent description suggests the self buff would only apply to the target that proc'ed FoF. As far as I know the only mechanic that follows that pattern are combo points from rogues/kitties (as Lhivera points out, above). So it's possible they coded a buff like this but just because it is so unusual, it bears testing once it is implemented properly and it is possible to test.
They call me mad, but I'm still expecting that this buff will only work against the target you actually procced it on. I realize there's not another buff in the game that works this way, but if they can track combo points by target, they can certainly figure out a way to track buffs per target as well...in fact, this could explain why it's taking so long to get it working.
That kind of brings up the question of what in the world do you do when you don't proc this against a specific target ie will it just not function at all with Blizzard or Cone of Cold? Will it pick your current target? What if you are targeting a friendly when it goes off? etc etc.
Combo points are only generated by specific abilities which HAVE to have a target.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
That kind of brings up the question of what in the world do you do when you don't proc this against a specific target ie will it just not function at all with Blizzard or Cone of Cold? Will it pick your current target? What if you are targeting a friendly when it goes off? etc etc.
Combo points are only generated by specific abilities which HAVE to have a target.
Mmm, yeah, someone pointed that out to me before, and I forgot all about it. Maybe you'll just have to find the right target...or maybe it just won't work with AOE. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. At first blush it seems like being able to proc on one target and turn around and Deep Freeze another is overpowered, but given the 4-second time limit, perhaps not.
So I believe Frost DPS is now going to look something like:
...which frankly is probably going to be overpowered -- the FoF proc rate may need to be reduced a bit.
The solution to this is easy. Remove the abomination that is Brain Freeze and deep frost mages boosting dps and mana efficiency by slinging fireballs.
And by overpowered are you suggesting that that rotation above will beat Arcane? Or are you still in the camp that frost damage must do inferior damage because of the dreaded utility specter?
Well, yes, I do think that more of certain kinds of utility, two of which Frost has, should result in a reduction in DPS compared with a spec that doesn't carry as much of that utility. However, my comment wasn't so much regarding the final DPS as it was the value of the talent points.
If your Frostbolt crit rate without Shatter/FoF is 39%, then the above casting cycle increases it to 50.11%, more than an 11% increase -- and allows for the follow-up Deep Freeze or Ice lance on top of that. Whether you count it as 2 or 7 talent points, it's quite a lot of bang for the buck.
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.
Well, yes, I do think that more of certain kinds of utility, two of which Frost has, should result in a reduction in DPS compared with a spec that doesn't carry as much of that utility. However, my comment wasn't so much regarding the final DPS as it was the value of the talent points.
If your Frostbolt crit rate without Shatter/FoF is 39%, then the above casting cycle increases it to 50.11%, more than an 11% increase -- and allows for the follow-up Deep Freeze or Ice lance on top of that. Whether you count it as 2 or 7 talent points, it's quite a lot of bang for the buck.
Well you have to count it as 7 pts right? I mean FoF without shatter wouldn't give any benefit.
Except if you're going to go that deep into Frost it's kind of a given that you'll get Shatter. It would be nice to see that kind of synergy between talents in the rest of the talent trees for Mages.
I doubt that Blizzard has hard-and-fast rules for an individual talent point's 'Item Budget' e.g. the power of each point of Empowered Frostbolt will more than double and that is already a strong DPS gain per point. Talent tuning is generally reactive rather than predictive; the talent(s) will be tuned if Blizzard perceives Frost's DPS to be out of whack, not because it requires 2 points or 7 or some weighted combination of the two to achieve an additional X% crit.
Well yeah. Blizzard has a long history of quickly nerfing drastically anything 'abusive' and being especially slow at buffing underperforming classes. This only leads to player frustrations as buffs are slow to come, yet nerfs are swift. If you're in the middle ground, then you better stop waiting, because its pretty much hopeless.
<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
Well I think it would definitely be better for the game overall if tuning was predictive (based on theorycrafting with good computer models and simulations) rather than reactive, but I'm just calling it how I see it.
Well yeah. Blizzard has a long history of quickly nerfing drastically anything 'abusive' and being especially slow at buffing underperforming classes. This only leads to player frustrations as buffs are slow to come, yet nerfs are swift. If you're in the middle ground, then you better stop waiting, because its pretty much hopeless.
Like how corpse explosion went from godly to worthless in Diablo II?
Though, as much as I was annoyed at the balance rollercoaster Diablo II was, I think the devs of WoW have been getting better at balance. Still get wtf moments from time to time when looking at the beta patchnotes, but most adjustments seem more reasonable (and not of the godly->nigh worthless in a single patch variety).
Side note: Never played necro before the CE nerf happened, but it did seem a bit too over the top. And it's probably one of the more drastic examples of overreactive Diablo II nerfs.
Give Blizzard some credit, I'm quite certain they do theorycraft. They've pretty much said so, there was a blue quote a while back that said something along the lines of "we'll get down to running the numbers after we're happy with the way things feel", implying they're not going to waste time theorycrafting for final number tweaking until things are a little more settled.
The reality is the game is too big for theorycrafting to get everything right. There's 10 classes skills/talents/items to balance across solo/5/10/25/BG/arena. There are lots of people involved in each area. Some things are going to fall through the cracks and only become apparent once released.
I agree blizzard are very conservative with their buffs, but I think that's mostly because they know if they overshoot the mark with a buff and later have to nerf it back down the player base screams blue murder. Sometimes the players (or at least the forum trolls) are their own worst enemies. It's also very hard to buff classes without it becoming an arms race, as successive buffs to make each class in turn catch up get out of control.
As far as talents vs talents and how much they should be "worth", it's pretty clear they look at things wholistically, not at a micro talent level. There are many examples of classes having similar or identical talents which cost a different number of points, or sit in different tiers. I think it makes more sense that way, nobody spends only 7 talent points unless they're level 16.
Actually the playerbase doesn't normally scream anything, since most of the "nerfs" tended to be results of bugs or stealth stuff that they simply didn't tell players about. I think Blizzard's general problem has always been transparency. Only recently has there actually been more communication with the classes as they're developing it, and I feel that the communication should be an ongoing process with the classes. That's really the only reason you get those big reactions. I think it has very little to do with the nerfs or buffs themselves, players just want an explanation. No explanation is not good enough in a game with ten million players.
Blood Frenzy itself is going to be on the back-burner until we resolve how we're going to handle raid stacking. It isn't the intention that Arms gets to raid and Fury goes home.
Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler
We wanted to make Arms as attractive as Fury for raids, but we probably tipped the scales too far. We're currently discussing whether it's okay for any class or spec to bring no real synergy to a group other than mad dps. But granting buffs to traditional high dps classes might also mean their dps needs to come down a little in proportion to everyone else.
It's clear that Blizzard isn't even sure which direction to go yet, it seems to me like a very hard decision because utility is valued so differently across different types of WoW players and even across different boss fights, putting a dps value on utility to balance the total class raid dps is comparing apples to oranges.
Originally Posted by Wryxian
What will change though is that lower rank spells will lose their appeal. We have made this mana cost change purely to prevent downranking, which is an unintended technique that we were not at ease with. We've previously tried ways to discourage it, but have decided that we'd rather find a solution than continue to find ways to penalise those who choose to downrank. The solution we chose was to make downranking obsolete, encouraging people to always use their highest rank of each spell and nothing else.The highest rank of a mana-based spell or ability will now remain the most powerful effect, but at the same mana cost as earlier ranks.
We're certain that for some people this will cause a period of readjustment. Hopefully removing a few more of the extra buttons you've been pressing will eventually be seen as a good thing; it might also be easier for some people to do their role without having to learn to downrank. We are anticipating such a big change may have some teething problems, perhaps causing balance issues, and we're all set to deal with them as they arise. In the meantime, we appreciate any comments and feedback related to this change.
I'm not sure if this quote is intended to be read merely in light of downranking heals, or in light of all ways to utilise downranking, including pvp. If they intended the latter, then Blizzard has failed their objective to me as the lower cast time would still make me use some downranked spells in pvp, despite the massive mana increase. If Blizzard intends to make all uses of downranking obsolete, I'd rather have them remove the lower ranks completely, not just hide them through an option in the spellbook, because removing lower ranks completely will make the baseline to balance things from easier.
It has to be read as directed towards healers - the impact on most DPS classes is tiny in comparison to the impact it has on just about every healing class. Having my R1 Frostbolt cost the same as a full rank Frostbolt isn't going to stop me from using it for a quick snare, but if this change sticks it'll completely change the way everyone but druids heal.
It has to be read as directed towards healers - the impact on most DPS classes is tiny in comparison to the impact it has on just about every healing class. Having my R1 Frostbolt cost the same as a full rank Frostbolt isn't going to stop me from using it for a quick snare, but if this change sticks it'll completely change the way everyone but druids heal.
It's not so tiny in pvp... There is the case for the R1 frostbolt, but what about R1 blizzard or AE to detect rogues and druids? It will be more painfull to find them...
I think the new Torment the Weak is fairly interesting, it's essentially a 6% boost on all frost spells (albeit not on raid bosses, of course, which is presumably the crux of the matter. I wonder if Thunderclap counts as Ensnared?).
For all other purposes, it's a very good talent. Are Focus Magic and Torment the Weak as good as scorch? No, but they are a decent arcane, non-raid alternative.
Edit: Reaching it is a pain in the ass since you have to invest so heavily in frost, but alas.
Does Slow count as "ensnared"?
If so, an arcane Mage can put Slow debuff on a boss (even if the boss is immune to the slow effects, the debuff will be up) and fire or frost mages specced Torment of the Weak will get 6% more dmg.
Does Slow count as "ensnared"?
If so, an arcane Mage can put Slow debuff on a boss (even if the boss is immune to the slow effects, the debuff will be up) and fire or frost mages specced Torment of the Weak will get 6% more dmg.
I think it does. However, not sure putting up Slow every 15 seconds justifies 6% more damage.
It's not so tiny in pvp... There is the case for the R1 frostbolt, but what about R1 blizzard or AE to detect rogues and druids? It will be more painfull to find them...
That's going to be a bummer.
I've been making good use out of my "AE rank 1 ooc, max rank in combat" macro.
Currently I'm not in the beta at the moment, however I have been following the beta forums to the best of my ability and I have a question regarding a post you made. WoW Forums -> What the Mage class as deterioated to.
In that post you mention that arcane isn't good DPS. Now, given the context, it seems to me that you are saying the Instant spam of ABr with PoM up isn't good DPS. However, I am a lover of arcane, and while I'm being overcautious, this brings up a question that I am trying to stay on top of with each patch:
As of now, is arcane still competitive in DPS compared to Fire and FFB specs? On that note, with all the utility being given to the mage class, Is arcane going to be desirable for the raid?
Note: Excluding the (hopefully) glitch in the cost of AB.
Last edited by Dragonrhonin : 08/14/08 at 8:25 AM.
Currently I'm not in the beta at the moment, however I have been following the beta forums to the best of my ability and I have a question regarding a post you made. WoW Forums -> What the Mage class as deterioated to.
In that post you mention that arcane isn't good DPS. Now, given the context, it seems to me that you are saying the Instant spam of ABr with PoM up isn't good DPS. However, I am a lover of arcane, and while I'm being overcautious, this brings up a question that I am trying to stay on top of with each patch:
As of now, is arcane still competitive in DPS compared to Fire and FFB specs? On that note, with all the utility being given to the mage class, Is arcane going to be desirable for the raid?
With the % changes to mana and arcane blast costing 40% of your base mana pool i seriously doubt arcane is viable right now.
Originally Posted by Vontre
Protip: I don't actually raid on my mage, it's more fun to make spreadsheets.
08/14/08, 1:45 AM
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