[Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion - Page 192

Roywyn · 08/16/08, 6:19 PM

I'll do a pure mechanics write-up in a few minutes.

<Work under construction>

Will migrate it into a new thread when done.

WotLK Mage Mechanics Changes

Generic Mechanics

Spell Pushback
Spells can get pushed back only twice now.
Pushback is 0.5s on each hit that causes pushback, up to 2 times total.
Pushback talents are said to be reworked.

Mana Reduction Talents
All talents of that type are multiplicative.

Mana Cost
All spell mana costs are being changed to a percentage of base mana.
Downranking now costs the same mana or more than the maximum rank.

Downranking Penalties
Around 5-7 levels after learning a spell, it will take a 5% penalty from your spell power for every leve after that certain levell.
That means that after 20 levels, it only gets its base damage.

Partial Resists
Every spell with a damage penalty can now be partially resisted.
Level-based partial resists are still in the game, but do not follow the strict 25%/50%/75% pattern any more.
It seems to be 10%/20%/30% for mobs slightly above you, and scales up to 60%/70%/75% for mobs far above you.
Spell penetration was tested to still have no impact.

Full Resists
It is now possible to fully cap spell hit. The 99% hit cap has been removed.
Full resists appear as misses in the combat log.

There has been some evidence that the spell hit cap to mobs 3 levels above you was lowered to 9%.
There has been even more counterevidence against this claim.
It's regarded as unknown for now.

Area of Effect Damage Caps
Area of Effects will continue to to have total damage caps like in the Burning Crusade.
The exact have not been determined yet since players have not reached the level cap to learn them yet.

Arcane Abilities

Arcane Blast
The Arcane Blast debuff was changed to +75% mana cost, +25% damage, stacking additive 3 times.
The debuff duration was changed to 3.0 seconds, making it very easy to lose the debuff.
The Mana Cost increase is additive with Arcane Power, like it is now.

No testing has been done with 2T5. It is expected to get a major change.
Bug: The current mana cost is presumably a bug.

Mana Shield
The Damage-Mana ratio has been reduced to 1:1.5 and can be reduced to 1:1 with talents now.

Focus Magic
The damage increase works like a spell power increase against the target, modfied by scaling, talents and debuffs.
Direct spell hits use up charges, DoT ticks do not.
Bug: Melee/ranged/wand hits also use up charges currently, likely a bug.

Torment of the Weak
Bug: Ability is not funtional, so we cannot test what it affects and how.
Whenever a mob is somehow slowed, an "Ensnared!" message comes up.

Prismatic Cloak
Taking all three points of this talent makes Invisibility instant.
Bug: It also makes Invisibility non-funtional right now.

Incanter's Absorption
The buff seems to memorise its absorption timers.
If you absorb two hits for 1k each at 0s and at 5s, you will get +150 damage from 0-5s, 10s-15s and +300 dmg from 5s-10s.
Disclaimer: At least that's how I understood it.

Missile Barrage
Procs off Arcane Blast, not off Arcane Barrage. The 2.5s cast time is affected normally by all other haste effects.

Netherwind Presence
This haste effect is multiplicative with all other haste effects.

Arcane Barrage
It is an instant spell that scales like a 3s cast time spell, it gains 85.7% scaling with your spell power.

Fire Abilities

Ignite
Ignite ticks can still get lost when landing simultaneous critical strikes.
A Hot Streak rotation like Fireball - Scorch - Fire Blast is particularly vulnerable to this.

Pyroblast
Unconfirmed: The direct damage part is said to have it's scaling reduced to 110% from 115% when the base cast time was reduced to 5 seconds.

Master of Elements
Channeled Wave spells are currently not affected, that means Blizzard and Arcane Missiles.
Also, the final detonation of Living Bomb is currently not affected either.

Hot Streak
This talent works like a counter that counts how many critical strikes you have just had in a row.
When it reaches 3, the counter resets and you gain a 100% critical strike buff for one spell cast.
This guaranteed critical strike counts as first element of a new Hot Streak.

It is possible to follow your Hot Streak cast with a Fire Blast to get a second guaranteed critical strike that also counts towards your next Hot Streak.
It is possible to cast a rotation like Fireball - Scorch - Fire Blast that never loses the Hot Streak buff.
It might be considered very questionable or exploitative.

It is sometimes possible to chain Area of Effect spells under permanent Hot Streak uptime, but apparently is a bit random.

Living Bomb
The DoT ticks every 3 seconds and gains 20% of your spell power on each tick. The final explosion gains 40% of your spell power.
All damage should be AoE damage (confirm?), the DoT and the final explosion.

This spell is extremely valuable for single target DPS in its current state.
Bug: The ability has only recently been implemented and the explosion is completely bugged.

Frostfire Bolt
It is affected by almost every ability that affects fire spells or frost spells.
The only exceptions are range talents which do not apply. Its range is fixed at 40 yards.
Improved/Empowered Talents for Fireball/Frostbolt do not affect it either, which is expected.

The direct damage part scales as expected with 85.7%. The DoT ticks 3 times every 3s for 9s total, each DoT ticks gains 5% of your spell power.
The whole spell deals Frostfire damage.

This spell does not have very strong basic scaling, but it can compensate by its extremely powerful scaling via critical strikes.

Bug: Abilities and debuffs that explicitly state that they affect frost and fire spells apply twice to Frostfire Bolt. This currently includes Elemental Precision, Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill, Curse of Elements.
This is generally viewed as a bug, the only official statement possibly pointed towards this issue was aimed at a Frostlightning ability of a hunter pet.

Frost Abilities

Non-Functional Talents
Fingers of Frost, Brain Freeze, Shattered Barrier and Improved Water Elemental are currently not functional.

Blizzard
The indivicual hits in the individual waves are now capable of critical strikes.

Deep Freeze
The spell requires your target to be frozen at the beginning and the end of Deep Freeze's cast time. The second part is moot since it has been made instant.
Deep Freeze scales like a 1.5s cast time spell with 42.9% of your spell power.

For the 5 second duration of the Deep Freeze debuff debuff, your target is considered frozen and stunned.
Unconfirmed: Diminuishing returns with respect to freezing and stunning have been reported.

Permanent Links:

Vontre's Magegraf - http://www.magegraf.com/expansion/in...cee907499dcda7
A mage/warlock casting simulator updated for the current level 80 talents and abilities.

Lhivera's Theorycraft-o-Matic - Man Out of Time - WotLK Mage Review
Quantitative and qualitative talent reviews.

Official WotLK talent calculator - WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator
Some of the talent listings have been incorrect for a few weeks now, it is still good to look for planned changed.

Wowhead's Talent Calculator - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
MMO-Champions Talent Calculator - http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage
Those calculators are taken directly from the game files.

Wrath of the Lich King Beta Forums - WoW Forums -> Forum Index
A more or less healthy mix of direct developer feedback, information, feedback, suggestions and nonsensical spamming.

Temporary Links:

Comparing mage specs of the current build - [Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion
Mana cost as percentage of base mana - [Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion

Tyrian · 08/16/08, 6:24 PM

I'll do a pure mechanics write-up in a few minutes.

A "Rate-my-WotLK-spec" like yours should definetely be included in the first post. What id ideally like, is a fresh thread (same theme) but with an 'WOTLK mages at-a-glance' first post I can refer to at any point between now->wotlk release and get the most recent, pertinant information instantly. Even if its something simple like "How does frostfire bolt work? Under what conditions is it better than fireball/frostbolt spam?" etc.

Aka, Not have to weed through the backpages of a massive thread and sift for it. Im sure it will help alot of mages. If you would be willing to keep track of the mammoth amount of changes/Theorycraft and organise it into something easy to read for EJ forum-goers thats updated often, it would be very appreciated.

• Nurru · 08/16/08, 6:27 PM

Making a new thread seems moot until beta talents are finalized. We're in constant flux so any definitive "State of things" thread is going to risk being obsolete or just plain wrong. In that light, this thread is fine for now.

Tyrian · 08/16/08, 6:30 PM

Making a new thread seems moot until beta talents are finalized. We're in constant flux so any definitive "State of things" thread is going to risk being obsolete or just plain wrong. In that light, this thread is fine for now.

We need a clearer and more concise way to see at-a-glance the latest spec information, mechanic explanations and current TC thinking. Waiting until the beta talents are finished is unnecessary. Theres many more mages that come here, that simply want a quick easy-to-read run down - and theres no easy way to get this at the moment.

• Nurru · 08/16/08, 6:33 PM

Originally Posted by Tyrian

We need a clearer and more concise way to see at-a-glance the latest spec information and current TC thinking. Waiting until the beta talents are finished is unnecessary.

Then just look for Vontre's posts for magegraf sim information, or Lhivera's if you want napkin math. The thread is long, but it's not moving particularly fast outside of when a new build is released (which is when you'd most likely check it anyway). There's a lot of noise, but it's pretty easy to know which posts to ignore.

Tyrian · 08/16/08, 6:35 PM

Then just look for Vontre's posts for magegraf sim information, or Lhivera's if you want napkin math

I look for vontres posts for magegraf, Lhiveras for napkin math, I use Nuuru's comment when I forget which talents work with frostfire bolt, and Roywyns comment when im interested in the latest spec DPS performance. And im a experienced poster who happens to know these are the posters who have the info I need - but not everyone is in the same boat and wouldnt know how to sift through this thread to find it - and reading this many posts is not practical. See what I mean?

deadlyice · 08/16/08, 6:40 PM

Dunno if it's been mentioned, but Fingers of Frost is still not allowing Deep Freeze to be used, although the multiplier on Ice Lance is still effective and Shatter crits seem to be applying.

Improved Water Elemental is not returning mana.

Does anyone know if mobs in the beta still have zero armor for melee calculations?

• Nurru · 08/16/08, 6:47 PM

Originally Posted by deadlyice

Dunno if it's been mentioned, but Fingers of Frost is still not allowing Deep Freeze to be used, although the multiplier on Ice Lance is still effective and Shatter crits seem to be applying.

Improved Water Elemental is not returning mana.

[Mage] WotLK Talent Preview / Discussion

Perhaps Tyrian has a point.

deadlyice · 08/16/08, 6:50 PM

Very nice, sorry for the redundant info - but I didn't know about:

Shattered Barrier does still not proc when Ice Barrier is removed via dispel or damage.

so I appreciate the link.

Anyone know about the melee armor still rated as zero on mobs or not?

Here's hoping they fix the mage bugs this week when the next build comes out. Hard to test this stuff on beta when it doesn't work as intended.

Also, I'm new to the beta (just got my key) so if anyone needs anything tested, just holla.

{Edit} so I don't over clutter this thread

Sorry about the mis-info on Ice Lance, I must have been getting lucky crits or something. It seemed to hit hard everytime a mob was frozen, but thanks for the double check.

Originally Posted by Nurru

claims Fingers of Frost still works properly with Ice Lance, which is false.

• Nurru · 08/16/08, 6:54 PM

Originally Posted by deadlyice

Very nice, sorry for the redundant info - but I didn't know about:

Shattered Barrier does still not proc when Ice Barrier is removed via dispel or damage.

so I appreciate the link.

I just tested it again to be sure, and it definitely does not work. Also, your post before this one claims Fingers of Frost still works properly with Ice Lance, which is false. I logged in to check since you made the claim, and it's still hitting for 400ish with FoF up.

Tyrian · 08/16/08, 8:13 PM

Great work Roywyn - looking forward to seeing your summary come to fruition. It will certainly help a lot of people (especially new mages coming to EJ for help) and reduce the general noise in the future thread - with one initial consolidated, updated post/link to everything pertinent the WOTLK mage will need to know about.

Roywyn · 08/16/08, 8:16 PM

New thread started. http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t30655-m...sion_part_two/

Let's lock this one now if mods/people are fine with it?