Keldarn

Having to sacrifice a GCD for 10 or so seconds of 50% pushback prevention is hardly worth it. Improved Fade is more a pvp talent than anything else.

 

Lileith

According to my simulator its not true, because even if you can manage 90% Grasp uptime , during those 10% you will be doing close to no dps with IL (damage /3 because of no Grasp and /2 because of no crit).

With WG procing at 20% for a 4 sec duration and including Icyveins and Skull of Guldan used when up:

Icelance Spam(No Frostbolt):

4 Mages , WG uptime = 92% dps / mage 1996,3
3 Mages , WG uptime = 86% dps / mage 1851

Frostbolt Spam(No Icelance):

4 Mages , WG uptime = 78% dps / mage 2201
3 Mages , WG uptime = 69% dps / mage 2135

Icelance AND Frostbolt according to WG debuff duration (Icelance if debuff is about to fade)

4 Mages, WG uptime = 79% dps / mage 2239
3 Mages, WG uptime = 70% dps / mage 2166

dps doesn't include water elemental damage which is only an offset.

Conclusion: if something has to be spammed it's frostbolt using icelance may improve dps but missing an Icelance (casting it too late and hiting non WG'ed boss) may make IL totaly useless.

 

Wander

I'm not sure what numbers you're using, but if that's the level 66 Ice Lance, don't you think that a baseline of around 1.8k DPS with a ~127 mana instant-cast spell is kind of unreasonably good, even if Frostbolt is offering around 300 DPS more? A Mage could gear with 0 INT and be able to maintain Ice Lance spam indefinitely.

 

Lileith

Yeah, anyway we all agree that the thing will be nerfed : will only work for the mage who proced it, have one charge, won't work on boss ect....
Also we aren't sure of the proc rate and the duration, those numbers were calculated with a 20% proc rate and 4 sec duration. With 10% proc rate and 5 sec duration, Ice Lance spam becomes even less effective (1740 dps for 4 mages, 1600 for 3 mages which is bleh).
About mana consumption frostbolt is 135mana/sec Ice lance 100mana/sec (not including the mana cost reduction from Elemental precision and frost channeling) so it would'nt change "that" much from frostbolt spam.

 

Lhivera

I believe that's a poorly-worded talent that has two separate effects:

- Gives your Fade ability a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used while in Shadowform
- Gives 50% passive pushback resistance while in Shadowform

 

Pintofbrew

With Ice Barrier's base shielding almost tripling in WotLK and the change to IV to give 100% interrupt resist I think that's plenty.

 

Kludge

That just tells me that we will see more spell push back content. More resist/immune content....Maybe if we are lucky more sheeping!

 

alvinrod

I think it's more of a PvE change than anything. Even though this site and thread are pretty much dedicated to PvE we shouldn't be blindsided into thinking that all changes revolve around PvE. Just look at most of the new talents in any tree for any class. A lot of them simply scream PvP.

Considering we're still going to be the least armored class with the least amount of health that has no healing abilities it's only natural that we need a bigger shield to soak up all the damage that we take.

 

Alvira

You mean its more of a pvp change than anything.

 

Lemina

IV is only 20 seconds, 40 seconds if cold snapped, and if the fights have random AE damage like terron or illidan P2, it'll be pretty useless for pushback protection in general since you won't be able to predict when the damage will hit you.

Ice barrier will be using up a GCD every time you need pushback protection which will be annoying, plus I bet there'll be AE damage that breaks the sheild immediately rendering it useless for pushback anyways like in current fights such as illidan.

 

alvinrod

Yeah

By the way, even though it's difficult to model the new talents initially and they're likely subject to change, has anyone bothered to run simulations on the 33/38 and 33/0/38 builds that will now be possible that don't depend on talents that are likely to change? I'm curious to see how much of a difference they make compared to the deep fire or deep frost builds that currently exist.

 

Rouncer

What they really should do while recreating the trees for WoLK is switch the positions of Arcane Focus and Arcane Meditation.

 

Alvira

Assuming you don't take blastwave so that you can put one more point into playing with fire for max dps. Then 38 points in fire compared to current deep fire means you only lose

1 point of playing with fire (1% more total dmg)
1 point of Pyromaniac (1% crit)
2 points of empowered fireball (6% of +dmg)

With 30 points in arcane, you gain

Either a 2 second invis or 2 pts in Arcane potency
Arcane Instability (+3% to total dmg and crit)
Arcane power
POM
Arcane mediation
Arcane mind
spellpower (+50% to crit damage)

With the new WOTLK fire talents, you are comparing that to

World in flames (good only during aoe)
Hot Streak (marginal increase in single DPS, as athe math here show)
Burnout (which is inferior to spellpower, 5 pts in it gives only 25% compared to spellpower's 50%, and it will drain you of 5% of your mana each crit).
Living bomb (another AOE, so no help to single DPS).

So, all in all. 33 arcane, 38 fire will be higher DPS with better mana regen than any deep fire builds which are 50 points in fire or more. Because arcane instability, POM, AP, and spellpower will provide a bigger boost to damage than losing one point of playing with fire, pyromaniac, and whatever new WOTLK deep fire talents. This is why I maintain that the many of the new mage talents are all pvp based.

Unless they make AOE such a big part of pve in wotlk, and unless the new deep fire AOE is so head and shoulders better than arcane's steady spamming of AE, otherwise, 33 arcane 38 fire is just so much better than deep fire pve wise because not only is the single DPS damage higher, it has better threat handling (2 sec invis), and much better mana regen.

 

alvinrod

Although we'd all love that, it'd almost make it too easy.

I think it was Manly who suggested it but since AF and EP are essentially the exact same talent it would make more sense to just change AF (or EP) to affect all trees.

I think dropping AF down to the third tier would be enough motivation to consider putting 13 points into Arcane as a deep fire or frost spec. Fire would probably have to sacrifice IV to get it, and frost is bloated enough that you have to choose something to give up. That's about the same leeway for picking up IV so it's a difficult choice. 3% crit (using molten armor over mage armor) or IV? I feel that's enough to force a spec difference based on access to a shadow priest.

I think that's a good thing.

 

Lhivera

This is really the big question mark. As far as we can tell, the mana cost does not increase as you put points into the talent (it stays at 1%). We aren't really 100% sure that it's 1% of total mana. And we aren't really 100% sure that it's a bonus damage increase like Spell Power rather than a total damage increase like the CSD; while the wording implies the former, the wording has proven to be quite unreliable. We need actual test results to tell us how this talent behaves.

 

alvinrod

As Lhivera pointed out there's a lot up in the air with how the talent works. If it's only one percent of current mana then there's little reason to worry since it eventually becomes insignificant once we reach a certain amount of mana. Perhaps with the proper amount of mana regeneration there's a point where our mana becomes stable.

In general the difference right now is that deep fire gets an extra 6% coefficient and Arcane gets an extra 2% spell damage. The difference in crit is a little difficult to determine at this point depending on whether or not deep fire can run with molten armor or needs mage armor to function. The extra intellect from the 33/38 spec would perhaps add around an addition 1% crit. Arcane potentially walks away with an extra 4% crit.

Also there's some leeway in the way you distribute the arcane points. Magic absorption has some potential PvE benefits, especially on resist fights. Depending on how the new fire talents end up will determine which spec is better. You're probably right that 33 arcane is better at the moment, but I still have hope that deep fire will be improved.

One major question that's still on my mind is how viable is using an AB spam at sub 20% as AB gets molten fury effect and with a BL can get close to 1 second casts. I know that it's quite good DPS and the best combination may be using AP and combustion to get some large fireball crits and then start spamming AB to dump as much mana as possible and weave in fire spells if we start to run close to OOM.

 

Lileith

If you look at warlock's armor change maybe we can expect a switch between the -5% crit from Molten Armor and the 30% regeneration while casting from the mage armor.

 

Pintofbrew

Unlikely. Dropping mana regen from the arcane-tree's armor makes no sense, and neither does giving the same tree any resilience. Do maintain that Molten Armor has long been the armor of choice vs. melee due to impact, the -5% crit and the reflecting damage.

I think many of you are reading too much into the 1%, with Elemental Mastery, you'll still be plnety-afloat even with 1% per crit. A top rank fireball currently costs 437 mana, and regens 139 via EM each crit. Call an average fire-mage's manapool 9k. That 1% mana drain is 90mana... A measly 90 mana, people. It's just over half EM's refund...

Let's take a medium fight: Terron. Let's say you have an ambience of 95%, for the 5m it takes.Let's say, you're chain-casting for 4:45. That's 90 Fireballs. At 40% crit, it's 36 crits. Times 90mana each time, it's 3240 mana. Is that really so dramatic?

Maintain, that while I'm using 70 encounters to offer a "feel" for the numbers, I will display that Flamecaps will be no more in WotLK. Often I have wondered who the hell thought of them, and why only one spec of one class realistically gained benefit from a consumable that seems to have no other point in life but to stack one more CD to our mountain of CDs already. Once we hit 71, gentlemen, we're on the Mana-gems each CD. Now consider that 3240 mana from the perspective of your normal raid, with gems instead of caps.

I'm not saying SPs will regen the same amount as now, I'm not saying all will be A-OK manawise, and I'm not saying we'll stay at the current "if you're fire, you have no mana issues" status, but I will say (a) it's not really so bad and (b) I see splashing arcane much more likely than splashing frost for IV.

Advantages are too many to list, and don't just think the old BC version of arcane "arcane = clearcasting", think the new and improved Magic Absorption which will give you a shit-load of resistance and (nobody seems to mention) plenty of mana when you do resist, Clearcasting obviously, and range on your AE (fuck range on Poly, it's the AE I'm interested in). And the new-and-improved Arcane Meditation.

Frankly, early arcane has so many great talents I'm finding IV hard to excuse in a fire-build in the future. This will be doubly true if ultimately, I am wrong and the firemage has to often decide between Molten and Mage Armors, when Fire-IV.

 

Roywyn

Using the usual 6-minute fight with a fire based base spec and the common raid buffs.
Using all currently attainable gear (Sunwell and lower) and 300 mp5 from an SP. Using 150 mp5 for the values in brackets (VT change in WotLK). Using Rawr 14.1.

61-point specs
2/48/11 - 2790 DPS
33/28/0 - 2714 DPS

71-point specs
10/50/11 - 3011 (2948) DPS
0/50/21 - 3019 (2924) DPS (not counting shatter/winter's grasp; forced to use mage armour with 150 mp5 VT)
18/50/3 - 2972 (2918) DPS
33/38/0 - 3212 (3163) DPS

Scaling
10/50/11 - +dmg 1.27 , +haste 0.96, +crit 1.09, +int 0.55, +spi 0.01 (no IDS)
33/38/0 - +dmg 1.34 , +haste 1.36, +crit 1.28, +int 0.59, +spi 0.16 (no IDS)

So, Arcane/Fire pulls ahead by spending another 10 points into some of the best dps/point fire talents in the late tree.
It's strong enough to pull ahead in DPS and in scaling while offering better mana management as well.

Arcane Power adds 115 DPS and Spell power adds 340 DPS for 2 points (170/point).
That shows how powerful those points are, even if you spent a huge amount of fillers along the way.


We'll have to see how the talents atually work though.

(Simulating Burnout as 1/2 Spell Power and 0/3 Master of Elements (fits with current gear at least), and Hot Streak as 2/3 Arcane Instability (2% crit, 2% damage) as the most generous approches seem to be around that.)


Edit
Yes, I'm aware that thing may (and should and probably will) change. And that we won't have 71 points at level 70. And that stats and gear change at level 80.
It's just some check how thing would currently look, and how their scaling will probably look like.

Talent Links
Most of them should be quite straightforward, really. Level 70 builds should be clear.
10/50/11 - War Pirate :: Talent tree Mage
Could debate to get 3/3 PWF and drop 1 point from MoE, Pyromaniac or Clearcasting.
0/50/21 and 18/50/3 use the same template for fire, the other talents should be clear.
33/38/0 - War Pirate :: Talent tree Mage
Something like this. Probably needs some juggling of MoE/PWF/Pyromaniac, but it won't make a big difference.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

Pintofbrew

Roywyn, could you offer a link to the builds you ran, barring the assumed "burnout=1/2SP" and "HS=2/3Arc Ins"?

These numbers are extremely interesting. Though I'd have guessed 33/38/0 would surpass most fire specs I wouldn't assume the difference was that staggering.

Let's also consider, that while Hot Streak has some minor, better synergy than a clean 2%crit 2%dmg modelling it's not exactly all that... Well... Hot. You may argue that "combustion with CDs means HS gives extra crit" but it won't always. All it takes is one non-crit to break the streak and HS modelling is back to, essentially, 3%crit.

It is, however, known that Rawr does not model AP correctly, and will not AP-PoM-trink-Pyro. Nor will it delay the activation until a Clearcasting (possibly with 2/3 Arc. Potency) comes up, which should add a few dps to the sum.

 

Lileith

I Agree that Arcane Regeneration does make sense with Mage Armor, but in Wotlk Mage Armor will recieve a very good pvp boost (40 Resist and Magic debuff duration/2 (on fear , sheep,dot) which is huge) and will be used versus caster's team. But 30% mana regeneration while casting makes no sens in pvp with 0 spirit on gear.

On the other hand Molten armor isn't the armor of choice vs. melee, Frost Armor is clearly the best choice slowing attack/move speed,armor and frostbite. Almost no one use Molten Armor in arena (except for 0/5/56 mages or some fire mages and there are few of them)

The Wotlk Arcane tree is obviously oriented toward pvp, Arcane barrage will be a great tool to dps while kiting, procing instant frostbolt/firebolt now and then as well as a great syngergy with priest's shield. I highly doubt anyone will pvp without at least 17 points in Arcane (not only for improved cs , but for the "must have" 80 resist from magic absorption and the 6 yards on sheep , counterspell and spellsteal). So giving resilience to the arcane armor does make sense because arcane is supposed to be the wotlk pvp tree.

Warlock will have 1 armor for pvp and 1 armor for pve.

It would make a lot of sense if we could have:

Mage armor for pvp vs casters
Frost armor for pvp vs melee
Molten armor for pve

 

Alvira

Its probably quite close gear wise. Blizzard was saying gear won't scale up in a huge way like original wow to TBC. So, its highly likely that we may have lv 80 blues around the same power level as current sunwell purples. Its possible we will see upgrades only when we enter T7 dungeons. Unless we get lv 80 crafted epic gear or something.

So, for early raiding, the gear used is probably quite accurate power wise. Possibly a bit more from having better enchants and possibly better gems, but that's about it.

 

Deedre

Thanks for the numbers there, Roywyn, confirms my suspicions about deep fire vis a vis 33/38. 250+ dps is a big gap.

It all comes down to burnout, plainly.

How does deep ice hold up against 33/0/38? I still think it's competitive.

 

Lileith

33/0/38 would surpass deep frost given a sufficient amount of deep frost mages for WG. But on overall dps (all mage averaged) I think It would be better to stack only full frost mages.

I would like to know what stats do you reach with that gear and raid buffs and If you include Bloodlust/Drums so I can compare with my WG stacking simulation.

 

Deedre

Interesting. 33/0/38 then only surpasses deep frost by leeching from enough deep frosties, and assuming that WG is leechable, and that the raid has enough room to stack that many mages.

That's a lot of conditions.

Deep frost continues to look pretty solid.