To address deedre with regards to utility of a deep arcane mage - if firelocks are present then this comes back to the idea of an arcane/fire mage cycling ABr and scorch. Having spellpower/ignite behind scorch combined with 4% more crit chance and adding synergy for your firelocks could work out quite well. I admit frostbolt gets more attention in early frost, but untill you get deep into the frost tree you're providing 0 utility and frostbolt won't fit into the cooldown window of ABr without significant spell haste.

I set up my own simulator as well, though mine took a bit longer. I've tried to account for the interaction between Hot Streak and Combustion in a reasonable way.

For every base crit rate from 0% to 99%, I've run through one million rotations. Each rotation consists of nine Fireballs and one Scorch. If a Scorch is due and the HS buff is up, it casts a Fireball to consume the buff, then a Scorch. My theory here is that people should be carrying enough passive haste at 80 that this is feasible while still leaving time for a recast in event of a Scorch resist.

Being lazy, I have not accounted for a 99% hit rate.

Combustion is triggered whenever it is available, unless the HS buff is up, in which case it is triggered after the HS buff cast.

After the million rotations are run through and results tallied, I calculate expected crit rate like so:

(number of fireballs cast * base crit rate + number of scorches cast * scorch crit rate) / total number of casts

The expected crit increase from Combustion is calculated using Zaldinar's formula. The Hot Streak increase is the actual crit rate minus the expected crit rate including Combustion. Note that Zaldinar's formula seems to produce some funky results at very high base crit levels, so things get kind of wacky in the high 90's.

We then wind up with the three interesting numbers: the amount of increase we would expect from Combustion without Hot Streak, the amount of increase we got from adding Hot Streak, and the total increase from both talents combined. Taking, for example, the results at 35% base (Fireball) crit:

And basically, what it looks like to me is that these two talents shore each other up. As your crit rate increases, your benefit from Combustion decreases, and your benefit from Hot Streak increases. Result is that they more or less flatten the curve, so that those four talent points combined give you between 1% and 1.5% crit per talent point at any base crit rate between the crazy extremes.

Here are the short results from 10% to 70% crit in 5% increments.

Here is a zip file of the script itself (in Python) and the full verbose output from my run. The final output section at the bottom of the file is a tab-delimited list:

fireball crit rate<tab>combustion increase<tab>hot streak increase<tab>total increase

...in case anyone who owns a spreadsheet program wishes to try to make pretty graphs.

Johnny, would need to run the numbers, but I just cannot see scorch keeping up with frostbolt. If you go arc/fire, it will be for purely for imp scorch utility and we shouldn't kid ourselves about the dps. And it places arcane that much further behind in non mobility situations.

At some point it becomes very difficult in a 25 man context to avoid just throwing up your hands and embrace deep fire and be done with it. If you're gonna be the scorch b*tch, may as well do it right and don't bother with half measures. (Or alternately, go frost and be the WC/WG b*tch.)

Now in a 10 man situation I think your idea has a lot of merit. Flexibility > min/maxing in that context. In fact, the smaller the situation, the better off you are with versatility. Bigger raids reward specialization, where raid roles get chopped up into ever finer pieces, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The big raids, you might say, industrialize the game.

Nice work lhiv. On paper >1% increased crit per point is a reasonable tallent investment, but when you consider that one of those tallent points is the active 31 point tallent it loses its appeal.

I guess blizzard hopes the 'selling point' for hot streak is the idea that, just occasionally, you're gonna score 6 crits in a row off it. Its a nice thought and I can see the casual audience drooling over it. to me though, this needs burnout/shatter (with a WG mage) synergy to really be worth taking. But then, I could say the same about the entire deep end of fire right now.

I tried running scorch/ABr and it's absolutely terrible. Partly because haste reduces the cycle time below 3 seconds, which means either 2 scorches or lost time. Partly because scorch is terrible dps.

I figured that would probably be the case. Arcane blast is likewise not ideal for ABr weaving for the same reason (haste) and the intense mana cost. What i'm trying to find is the ideal spell to weave with ABr. Scorch has no mana problems but is low damage, Blast has mana problems, other spells need very specific amounts of haste to be effective. For me, this is the last hurdle for building a WotLK arcane spec and i've been scratching my head over it for a while now.

An arcane Barrage cast sequence would probably be like this, "tagging" every spell cast with an ABr before and after each AB/AM/whatever. This should significantly boost the dps of arcane spec. This looks like it should put out quite a bit of damage. It is kind of like getting a 1/2 mana fireblast before and after every spell. Note that I represented each arcane missile individually as opposed to a full 5 second channel. EDIT: I did not take into account haste, but it should not be a factor just as long as arcane blast is not being cast with 3x debuff. Also, this model does not take into account changes in casting due to clearcast/arcane potency procs and netherwind presence procs.

Rudboi, I don't understand why you are inserting an AM in there and letting the AB debuff drop. Isn't that hurting your dps?

If mana conservation is the issue, then we are back to frostbolts as filler.

Deedre, a couple of reasons.
1) The extreme inefficiency of casting AB with 3x debuff does not justify the dps increase
2) If you are going that deep into arcane, it is probably worthwhile to pick up empowered missiles because it works extremely well with both arcane potency and potentially netherwind presence (still up in the air).
3) With any amount of haste the time it takes to cast AB with 3x debuff + GCD < 3 seconds, so you will have wasted time not being able to cast another Arcane barrage due to cd, albeit a very small amount of time.

The key thing you're missing there is that Arcane Missiles is terrible dps. Frostbolt still hits harder and takes less time.

Rudboi, bad news: AM only gets one bite at the NP apple, same as any other spell. Worse, actually, insofar as you could cast 2 frostbolts in the same time frame and get twice as many chances for procs.

This has been confirmed by Vontre, who generally knows what he is about. That's why we've been talking up frostbolt.

I personally think that arcane missiles is underrated. I agree that arcane missiles that is not empowered should never be used, but empowered arcane missiles can pack a pretty hefty punch, especially on a clearcast with 3/3 arcane potency. Arcane specced raid buffed in 2 pieces of t5 i had around 1250 spell damage, maybe a little less. each missile hitting for >900 with a curse of shadows, like 800 without. so thats around 2250 per 2.5 seconds (shadows), the time it takes to cast a frostbolt. Thats comparable in t5 to frostbolts. I dont know I just like the way the arcane talents work with arcane missiles as opposed to frostbolt and arcane missiles really can do good damage if you use it right and are specced for it. The highest I ever got with an arcane missile volley was 5 crits in a row for 1900 a piece for a total of 9500.

Yes, mages do wear cloth. However, mages have the best tool of any caster (arguably any class) to deal with a melee threat. It is easy to ignore this, and for the purposes of your point of view, beneficial. Then again, if you are implying that I stated that mages are not threatened by melee physical damage, then I really cannot say anything other than to ask you to reread my post again. It is a very generally accepted rule that mages weakness is not melee classes, but other casters.
May I remind you, out of all the casters, mages are probably the best equipped to deal with the designated caster killer, the rogue, as well as being almost untouchable against warriors. Your invitation for me to 'play more wow' will not change the simple fact that when it comes down to it, mages don't suffer from melee dominance, it is in fact the other way round. No amount of armor will change that.

Funnily enough, I gave a lot of thought to those specs before I posted it. Shamans are discounted since being enhance does not remove Purge from the spellbook. Retribution Paladins are discounted since the greater chuck of their burst damage is done through a stun-judged seal of command, which is holy damage. Furthermore, they are, for all intents and purposes, unsnarable.
That only leaves Deathknights. Having looked over the deathknight spells and talents, I am still uncomfortable placing them in a "physical damage melee class" category. Since it seems that a very large chunk of their damage will be spell damage either in the form of frost, or diseases etc. I believe the melee aspect is merely a damage delivery mechanism. Finally, Hunters are discounted, since they are not a melee based physical class, and they have a dispel. The frost nova aspect will have no effect on a hunter, and the shield itself will be removed just as easily as ice barrier is today. (Remember one thing, I am specifically speaking towards the viability of this spell for non frost specs, hence we can assume that the mage does not have Ice barrier as well).


Unfortunately, I, and I am sure any mage who really has spent most of their time in the arena, will not agree with Vontre's statement. Physical DPS is no where close to the biggest issue for mages in the arena (partially due to my explanation above). The biggest threat is healer teams, LOSing teams, and depending on the comp, endurance and drain teams. Compounded upon this, the issue of mage - x.class synergies is probably a far greater problem in arenas than anything else. Stating that the reason mages do poorly in arenas is due to melee teams is just outright wrong.
Furthermore, mages are rarely the "target" in high end arena play anymore. The last thing a melee team wishes to do is to go for the mage. Just the sight of the IceBarrier is enough of a deterrent, since they know they will need to burn through not only the mage's shields but his immunities, snares, roots, and mobility before they can even get to the good stuff.
The only other thing that I would wish to point out, is that if you feel that frost only gives a small benefit over the other mage specs in the arena, I really cannot fathom which version of the game you are playing. Playing a frost mage is a requirement of any kind of arena play, of that there is no question. And the benefits of playing a frost mage over any other spec are too large to be overlooked. There is a reason all mages in arena play are frost.


And this is exactly my point. The spell is neither functional nor inspired. Having a 30 sec recast 2000 physical damage shield that has a frost nova effect does not, under any situation, offset a frost based pvp/arena spec. You are attempting to weigh the benifit of 2xIceblock, 2xWaterElementals, the absolute immense battle control an arena frost spec ensures, Icebarrier as well as the host of deep frost talents that outright prevent damage, as well as Shatter shield against just shatter shield. I am not sure how much pvp or arena you do, but to me the choice is a no-brainer. I will take deep frost anytime. In short, it still does nothing to make non-frost specs more viable.



1) I believe I have shown why I stand by my statement. Again, please do not interpret me as saying that non-frost spec mages got nothing. We can all see what they got. But my assertion still stands. Shatter shield does not make non-frost specs more arena viable. I do not see any evidence or logic presented by you or anyone else to show otherwise. (nb. Simply stating that SS makes non-frost specs more viable, without anything else, does not an argument make).

2) I am 110% certain that I have, through the entirety of my previous post been talking very specifically about Shatter Shield and its application to pvp/arena play. If you are discounting my statement which clearly states the bounds in which I am commenting purely on the basis that there is a new pve/raid spell rotation, then I suggest you figure this one out for yourself.

3) I have heard this argument before, every time I do I both laugh and cringe at the same time, and every time it boils down to a very simple fact. The only way that what you are saying will be right, is if the enemy caster just chooses, for shits and giggles, not to dispel you. Now true, if you fight against completely inexperienced players, they may not dispel you, but I assure you, as soon as you are in a battle with a priest or warlock who has even the slightest idea of how to play their class against a mage, you will find that you will be completely stripped of all your buffs in great haste. Your entire point is hinged around the idea that for no apparent reason, the opposing class will just choose not to dispel you. It is analogous to basing an argument around an assumption that druids wont use HoTs, or that rogues will not use poisons, etc. In short, the argument fails before it even gets off the ground for the simple fact that it is not based in rational play.



NB> I apologize for the length of this post, but I found it necessary since there were too many statements built off of one another that were, imo, incorrect. For the sake of completeness, I felt it would be proper form to address them without leaving anything to misinterpretation.

This is my first post on these forums so here goes.

I seemed to have recalled, many many months ago, Blizzard having a thread on their class forums asking for class feedback from players looking for improvements to their class and to elaborate on some of their current problems. Over 100 pages later and the main topics in area of improvements were:

1) Mana Issues - Which has been looked and with the spirit changes, it hasn't been too bad.
2) Frost Pushback - Still sucks
3) Polymorph being the only CC that heals people and has a cast time - Still the same
4) Blink not working properly - YAY now with Imp Blink they cant hit me 50% of the time for 2 seconds, hope I don't blink IN THE SAME SPOT.
5) Spellsteal - costing too much mana and nothing is going to change
6) Slow - costing too much mana and nothing is going to change
7) Poor DPS - Undetermined
8) Invisibility - 4 seconds is too long. Down to 1 seconds is pretty damn good but I'm not impressed.
9) Arcane Fortitude - Anyone ever use this?
10) PyroBlast - useless spell unless you have PoM or spec down the arcane tree to get the Netherwind Presence.

and many many more.

I'm sure by now you can see where I'm going with this. They hardly solved any of our old issues and are now giving us these new and improved spells for us to be amazed and quite frankly I'm not. I'm more disappointed in the fact that here we are yet again trying to maximize our DPS from spells that I think are far inferior to what other classes received and I feel that we will be out DPSed by Secondary Classes and still have Survivability issues in arena with our low health and low armor.

I know comparing classes is not the best way to make a point simply because every class is unique in play styles and have different game mechanics but what I'm saying is that our new spells and talents seems like it took them 15 minutes to come up with and then moved on without a look over.

I am one unhappy mage. I don't want my class to be the most dominated class in the game both pvp or pve but I would like a fighting chance and I feel we have none.

You are wrong and your ratings are terrible. Melee damage is a tremendous danger to mages, especially with the rise of armor pen.

Stop posting in this forum.

Priests and shaman will still dispel you, but felhunters are going to have a rough time of it against mages with mage armor and magic absorption -- they have no +hit and no spell penetration, so you'll resist nearly 30% of their dispel attempts (and spell locks, for whatever it's worth). When you combine this with an 8 second cooldown and a number of buffs to munch through, I think you'll find that mage armor to be a powerful tool against warlocks (which are, not coincidentally, the class most affected by it).

There's also the fact that chain devour prevents a warlock from removing freeze effects and/or whatever spells your teammate(s) are throwing on, so he'll be taking more damage (from frost spec, at least) if he wants to get the armor off.

As for the rest of it, I think it's far too early to say what specs will be viable in what kinds of PvP -- the class interactions are too complex. Certainly, the PvP buffs to the arcane tree (of which shattershield is one, by default, but arcane barrage and netherwind focus) at least put the question of non-frost viability on the table.

Also, this statement is not true:
PoM-pyro with blazing speed is absolutely viable in high-level arenas, especially 2v2.

Kel S'jet, I don't know if you watched the MLG finals this weekend, or happened to catch the match between Duelists Going for Glad (a PMR) and another team... I forget the name... that was druid/rogue/enhance shaman. PMR lost every match except one, and every match they lost the same way: the mage got locked down from casting by two melee and brutally murdered once his two ice blocks were up.

To say melee classes are not a worthy concern at this point is willfully ignorant. Yes warlocks are a problem, and we already got 2 very strong buffs against that class and other magic users set up for WLK, which is good.

By the way I hadn't even considered that you could be off the global when shatter shield procs, allowing for an instant ice lance, which is awesome. I like this spell already.

I'm not mad about the binary spell change. Fixing a bug as you say is just fine. The point is frost now is (just barely) viable vs. Fire as a raiding spec. If Blizzard fixes the resistance bug (and the EP bug, which should also be done), they need to re-balance the specs.

It's pretty simple on the surface. Fix the bugs. Add the new talents/spells/ranks. Tweak until DPS and utility are "balanced" between specs. Much harder to do in reality, of course. But the simple and honest truth is that if frost is 10% behind fire, then frost is dead for raiding (unless utility is off the charts, which we haven't seen). I know that doesn't bother most people. The idea that fire = pve, frost = pvp is just fine with most. I just would prefer to pick my spec (frost) and my content (pve).

Like I said though, it is still early. I'm not pissed--just concerned Blizzard is being Blizzard. It wouldn't surprise me if they had no idea that fixing the "binary resist bug" affected frost DPS negatively. Understanding the math behind their changes is not one of their strong suits.

Are we even sure frost deserves to be just as good for PvE as fire? Judging by the fact that frost is so superior to any mage spec in PvP, shouldn't that justify frost being slightly behind in PvE to prevent mage from being narrowed down to _one_ perfect spec?

That's my take on it at least. If you want frost to be competative in PvE - make fire/arcane seriously competative in PvP. This may or may not be impossible with the current design philosphy.

The World of Warcraft Armory -- 2646 in 2v2 as 33/28/0 at the time I linked it.

Found through the article on Arena Junkies, Pom Pyro Mage/Rogue Strategy - Arena Junkies, so you don't think the spec is a fluke. Frankly, I'm a little embarrassed to even bring it up since it always struck me as the proverbial exception that proves the rule. The authors of the article even admit it is more challenging to play than a traditional frost/rogue setup and nowhere does Ankienttei suggest he runs threes or fives with this spec. I am horrible at pvp and these players make it pretty clear that mastery of frost/rogue is prerequisite for making arcfire/rogue work. Moreover, the authors still tacitly support Digo anyway: using Blazing Speed to abuse melee dominance seems an important part of this degenerate comp (or at least that's what my rogue told me the time we got chain whipped by the team).

I was assuming shatter shield only absorbed physical damage because a free frost nova triggered by ranged magic would be just dumb. Restricting it to physical makes it easier to get a useful freeze rather than just hoping the other team is retarded enough to break it at a bad time -- which everyone still seems worried about anyway.

No, it absolutely does not justify it. The solution to that problem is to improve Fire for PvP. And of course that is the direction Blizzard has been taking -- look at changes made in both TBC and now coming up in WotLK, and you see many changes geared toward improving weak PvE trees in PvE, and weak PvP trees in PvP. Even the Warrior Protection tree is getting PvP improvements. Winter's Grasp is aimed squarely at making Shatter and Ice Lance useful for raiding. There's no question what their intention is here, the only question is how successful they'll be.

Yes, we all know they consider it acceptable if they can't achieve perfect parity between all the trees for every form of content; they've said so. But that's a very different thing from them being fine with a tree being nonviable in one class of content because it dominates another.

All that said, I'm not entirely convinced the gap will widen that much -- it'll take some time to see how big an effect Winter's Grasp really has.

I hope you are right. I just look at frost changes outside of WG and I see increased snare, stun while frozen, shatter shield (well, frost getting shatters of shatter shield) and I see too much of a pvp focus on a spec that is already the pvp favorite. Sure some fire and arcane changes are good for pvp, but for people to want to switch, they need to make fire and arcane better and leave frost where it is. I don't pvp (at all) but I fear that people will still flock to frost to pvp. And once they do, the oft quote argument of "frost is good for pvp, it can't be good for pve" (which we just heard, again, above) will be back in full force.

But enough. We'll see how WG works and how things change as we move from alpha to beta.