Pintofbrew

This specific aspect has been discussed before in this very thread. The same conclusion was alluded to at the time. There is no reason or conjecture to suggest any rationalization of the change from Counterspell to lock schools to one that locks the spell in question.

 

Skallewag

*grins* Well like i said i truly hope that is so. But reason dont always go hand in hand with blizzard. Just compare mages current arena situation with two of the major nerfs we´ve had since TBC. Survivability is lacking and we have next to no DPS on the move. Hypothermia makes mage focusing easier and frost nova change affected both kiting ability and dps on the move.

Also both of these changes (above all frostnova nerf) was more or less what killed the elemental spec. Well I guess that would have died in the higher seasons anyway when 400 resilliance became standard. But you cant escape the fact that something that was good but not really OP was nerfed away and in the new talent trees and wwi panel comments they are specifically stating a desire to boost the elemental spec.

I take your word for what datamining suggests, but I dont buy that the reason for a non change is blizzard being reasonable.

 

Pintofbrew

I don't get how your claimed lack of Blizzard's reason links with a random data-mined description of a spell being a new Counterspell.

There has been no change in anything remotely in this direction, for any class, ever.

No class has complained about counterspell.

No mention of anything of the sort has ever been discussed anywhere.

What does the "frost nova nerf" have to do with 400 resilience and Counterspell locking out schools just like every other counter in the game since launch?

My intention never was for you to "buy" the reason. I'm not "selling" my point. I argued that your thesis was unreasonable, based on one shred of potential evidence and mine was based on commonality with a function which exists in several different forms (kick, bash, counter, earth shock, spell lock) for a very long time, which never has been the crux of a reballancing in terms of usability. We've had Counterspell changed in duration, in CD, and in whether or not it affected GCD. We've never had it changed in terms of it not locking school, nor has any other class with a lockout ability.

Claiming the existence of said file as proof we're getting a change is tantamount to data-mining TBC data and determining "finger of death deals 99.999 damage to every target" is probably the new warlock aoe spell.

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-Spider Jerusalem

 

Lhivera

Well, Paladins freak out about it periodically. To be fair, there is also a new "Spell Lock" (Felhunter counterspell) in the spell database with the same wording change. It wouldn't surprise me if they've at least played with the idea of switching long-duration lockouts to be spell-specific. But since the change wasn't applied to the current spell ID (as other changes have been), I'm inclined to believe it's just a test version of the spell, nothing more.

Interestingly enough, Deep Freeze gives a 51-point Frost mage exactly what the Frost Nova nerf was intended to take away (although of course we never really truly had it) -- a full-duration freeze that doesn't break on damage. There was much complaining about the fact that the damage-breaking mechanics meant that a naked Fire mage could get more Ice Lance damage out of a freeze effect than a well-geared Frost Mage could; seems like Deep Freeze is a response to that.

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.

 

Skallewag

Exactly Lhivera. Its the nerfs in the past, the reasons for them along with the nature of whats been revealed about WotLK that makes up for a very inconsistent picture. All in all Im rather exited about WotLK and look forward to playing a lv 80 mage, but from a less positive point of view you could say that the new mage content is largely about undoing some of the nerfs in TBC. Deepfreeze is a very good example.

Also Pointofbrew I think you´re reacting to what may have been an unfortunate wording on my part. You dont haveto convince anyone of your opinions to be able to talk to them. A debate where everyone automatically swapped opinions as soon as a new one was uttered wouldnt be very rewarding at all. My point was that I dont question your info about what datamining suggests regarding counterspell. But one of your reasons simply does not sound like a reason at all based on my personal experience of how blizzard maintains, balances and develops this game. I love wow and spend way to much time playing this game, but I have not for a long time thought that blizzard has good reasons for everything they do. The examples were just means of displaying why I think like that.

Anyway Lhivera if you have seen other spells/abileties with the same rewording then it is perhaps not an impossible change in the future. I mean if we look at all the stuff introduced, a lot of it is about giving people stuff they have been lacking (whining about) for ages. Shaman CC, indoor druid roots, mobile mage DPS, the list goes on. And now to my point. CS may not be the most OP spell in the game and may not have been a common subject for whining, but classes with only one spell school does hate this spell and we in our turn have for a long long time been whining about what felpups do to mage vs lock battles. All da buffseys go bye bye and you get spell locked a lot. IF this is something Blizzard are considering then its very much in the lines of these two samples of class pvp concerns. Its also in line with blizzards statement about warlocks becoming less of an anti mage class. True enoughe a change like that to CS would make warlock fights harder but on the other hand will undispellable armors and not having ALL of your spells locked be huge. I guess its yet another case of wait and see.

 

Lhivera

I may be an incurable optimist, but I prefer to view it not as "undoing a nerf" but rather as "refocusing an intended speciality." Mages in general weren't intended to freeze things and obliterate them; Frost Mages were. It just took a long time to correct course.

Well, I don't have a copy of the spell database myself, and wouldn't know how to parse it if I did; I'm going on info leaked at the wiki. But from what I heard, there were several high-numbered versions of Counterspell, some with that new phrasing, and one high-numbered version of Spell Lock with that phrasing, but no other school-locking spells had a similar change, and the low-numbered spells are the ones actually in use.

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.

 

Kel S'jet

I apologize for dragging the conversation back to Frostfire bolt, but with its mention at WWI there seems to be a burst of new info about it. Now it all could be completely wrong and/or fabricated, but the reports are coming out that while FfB will gain the advantages of both fire and frost talents, it will not gain both talent advantages at the same time.

Meaning that the spells and talents it will use will be solely dependent on what the final damage type is, with fire damage being the default setting. (Meaning that it will inherently use the 'a priori' fire talents like Burning soul, flame throwing, etc by default irrespective of final damage type, hence making the frost variants of these not needed).

In my mind, this makes FfB a good, but situational nuke. It will still very adequately serve its purpose as a good nuke to aid elementalist builds. For example, say you have a fire heavy elementalist who encounters a fire immune mob. Previously, he would have to either respec or throw frostbolts/arcane. Now he will be able to throw FfB which will hit hard enough since they will switch to using the frost talents the elementalist has. Furthermore, it will now start benefiting from the debuffs that the frostmages of the raid are throwing up (WG, WC etc etc).

Furthermore, if they work the "depending on what the target is more vulnerable to" bit in an intelligent way. It may even allow the FfB to change damage types on non-immune mobs. This would be cool since say one day you are running with a pure frostmage heavy raid and another day with a pure firemage. Perhaps the FfB will take advantage of this and switch the school type accordingly. I.e say you are a fire heavy elementalist and their is a pure frostmage in the raid as well, perhaps FfB will check on what will do more damage, having it being a fire school or frost school spell, then it will apply the talents accordingly.

In all, I believe that if any of this info true, FfB is meant not as a 'replacement' nuke for elementalists, but as a situational one that essentially removes the need for respecs. Now in the game current state, that may or may not be a useful ability to have, however, we do not know how prolific school immune mobs/bosses will be. From some of the pics I've seen, especially the one where one encounter has 2 bosses, one being frost immune and the other being fire immune, hence making the raid fight 2 immune bosses at the same time, perhaps FfB exists for just such a gimmick event. Which in itself may not be such a bad thing, let us remember spellsteal which was a new spell we gained in BC that served the exact same purpose, that being, to be used in gimmick raid encounters.

 

Lhivera

Is there a source available?

Mmm, not really. It makes it essentially useless for an off-school nuke in immunity situations, since it will only benefit from the talents you don't have anyway. And it badly hurts the Elemental spec viability, since it was really only running about on par with deep Frost when benefiting from both sets of talents simultaneously.

Basically, if there's a source for this info I'd like to see it so we can clear matters up, but the previously-assumed behavior makes a lot more sense to me (school-specific debuffs and talents such as Improved Scorch, Frozen Rune Weapon and Arctic Winds only affect it if it's dealing the appropriate damage type, everything else affects it all the time). Otherwise, as Skallewag says below, I don't see any point to the spell. I might as well cast a Fireball if I encounter a Frost-immune target.

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.

 

Skallewag

Hmm... that sounds a bit odd to be honest. Maby I misunderstand the mechanics now but if it gains bonuses according to the type of spelldamage landing then whats the point really? If a heavy fire tuned elementalist encounters a fire immune mob and uses FFB it will become a frost spell gaining what the elementalist may have in the frost tree. But how does that make it any better than just casting a frostbolt that will gain the same benifits but also has a cast time reducing talent making it only 2,5 rather than 3 sec but with the same coef? The only situation I can figure out where that would be meaningfull is if a target suddenly becomes fire immune when the bolt is in midflight. If this is how FFB works then I suddenly have a lot of troubles finding any situation where this spell is better than a frost bolt or fireball. Is it intended for scrub mages who dont wanna learn wich mobs are immune or what am I missing?

 

Kel S'jet

The source is essentially people on various forums 'claiming' to be in the FFA forums. I will try to dig up all the posts and post them here (I am at work, so it may take a bit of time since I have to keep alt-tabbing :P)

This point I understand, which is why I'm still a little confused about the situation as well. That being said
I don't think we can really take deep frost as a viable touchstone for our calculations right now, since pretty much everyone agrees that it's scaling and 'stacking' behavior is mostly quite OP, if for no other reason except that in its current state it is encouraging a 'stacking' behavior (stack more frostmages to gain more frostmage dps) which is something blizzard is obviously not to keen on, especially given the smaller raid sizes. Now, I understand that we can be comparing this to just a single frostmage, however, all I am saying is that I will be quite surprised if the raid buffs to frostmages go into the game as they are currently.

Either way, I believe we will find out soon enough.

 

Lhivera

Aye, but I'm talking about a single Frost mage using a normal rotation, not a stacked situation; this produces much more reasonable numbers. They're also very similar numbers to an Arcane mage, so we're not talking about crazy out-of-this-world DPS here.

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.

 

Kel S'jet

From my post...

My point is not what the comparator states concerning a single frost mage. My point is that even though a single frost mage dps may/may not be on par, the fact that the 'stacking' behavior exists, means that in some shape or form, the buffs to frost mage dps will most certainly change. That change will trickle down to affect the performance of the single frost mage as well. Hence using the frost spec, both single or stacked, makes for an unreliable touchstone for dps performance at this moment in time.

 

Lhivera

Note the other statement in my post, however: you can substitute "Arcane Mage" for "Frost Mage" if you are uncomfortable with using the Frost Mage as the basis for comparison.

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.

 

ebbv

The math so far indicates even with FFB getting Frost and Fire talents at the same time it is barely competitive if at all. If it were only getting one at a time it would be a turd.

Still a long way from release, so it can change in a variety of ways between now and then regardless.

 

Kel S'jet

Arcane is, imho, an ill advised substitution to make, simply because we are talking about Frostfire bolt vs specific school bolt. The arcane mage does not suffer immunity issues, and we can safely remove him from the entire conversation concerning the 'new' elementalist specs of WoTLk, since the comparisons are between elementalists and pure schoolers.

If we do substitute the "Arcane Mage" for "Frost Mage" in your previous statements, all you are asserting is that Arcane mages will do more dps than elementalists. Something which is the current case anyway, and can easily be placed in the category of the Arcane spec just doing more damage period, and being one of the premier 'raid' specs, so to speak. That would not be a stretch, since similar ideas exist today, and have existed since the beginning of WoW.

No, the substitution cannot be made, since the Arcane mage does not truly effect the conversation of fire/frost immunities as much as a frost mage or fire mage.

 

Lhivera

Hm, no, that wasn't what we were talking about at all, I thought. We were talking about whether FFB could allow an Elementalist to deal viable DPS while only benefiting from one tree's talents at a time. My argument was that no, it can't, because when benefiting from both frost and fire talents simultaneously, it only produces comparable DPS to Frost and Arcane Mages; remove one tree's talents, and its DPS must become substandard, unless we assume that both Frost and Arcane DPS as the talents stand now are much higher than they should be. If we assume that, then of course we can't determine anything at all, because we have no valid points of comparison.

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.

 

Zeldyrr

Frostfire bolts have to use (at least) some of the fire talents and frost talents at the same time or else there is no point to the spell. Imagine if it didn't; only fire talents affected it unless the target was fire immune/resistant, in which case frost talents affected it.

Case 1: I'm an elementalist, with talents in both the fire and frost trees. I target a non-immune to fire mob. If I cast a frostfire bolt, only my fire talents would be active. So why not cast fireball for more damage? Unless it is for the sare?

Case 2: I'm the same elementalist. This time I target a fire immune mob. If I cast a frostfire bolt, only my frost talents would be active. So why not cast a frostbolt? For the weak dot? (Is the dot even frost damage in this case?)

Case 3: I'm an elementalist and I'm tired of having to spec frost for arena. I'm going to bring the pain with frostfire bolts. But since none of my targets are immune/resistant to fire, the bolt would do fire damage and all of my frost talents wouldn't be active. You could make the weak argument that you get the snare, but so would fire mages casting frostfire bolts.

Case 4: I'm a deep frost mage. I target a frost immune mob. If I cast a frostfire bolt, none of my frost talents would be active and I don't have any fire talents. So why not cast a fireball?

If frostfire bolts aren't affected by talents in both trees at the same time, the spell is almost pointless.

Mind you I hate the idea altogether and would be very happy if Blizzard would just scrap it and give us a more imaginative new spell. But if it is in the game, it is going to have to be some kinda crazy hybrid, IMO.

 

◊ manly

I don't know whats the point of baseless speculation over nothing. Blizzard said in WWI, directly, that the goal of frostfirebolt was to allow elementalist spec. I think its a pretty damn clear indication of what it means.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Kel S'jet

Ok so lets look at this again. Lets first note, that currently, things stand as such. In the order of 'raid' dps we can perhaps create a hypothetical table as follows, from highest/best raid dps to lowest: (nb. the numbers are just made up for the sake of argument and illustrative purposes)

1. Arcane
2. Fire - d1/d0
3. Frost - d3
4. Elementalist - d8

Where d# stands for the delta between that spec and the 'premiere' raid dps spec given some arbitrary scale, where the higher the number the greater the difference.

From this, we can glean a few facts. Firstly, there will always be a 'premiere' dps spec given a certain tier of raiding. This is not a new concept and neither is it one that blizzard feels is outside the bounds of acceptability. (I point to the statements made by blizzard on numerous occasions that they feel content with the fact that there will be one min/maxed spec for some task, and all they really wish to do is to lower the delta between the specs, which in their words translates to "making it a little more viable").

Now from the looks of WoTLk, that is exactly what blizzard is doing. The developers realize that they will not ever realistically achieve a value of d0 for all specs, all they can hope to do is to lessen the spread. This is something that they can achieve. I do not think they truly believe that they will achieve 'comparable' dps between the specs across the board, however I do believe they will make the specs that have a large delta (say d5 and above) more 'viable'.

If at the end of WoTLk, we end up with a scale of:

1. Arcane
2. Fire - d1/d0
3. Frost - d1/d2
4. Elementalist - d2/d3

Then I think they would have succeeded.

From what I can see, this is something that will occur in WoTlk. Things may change a bit, and specs will become a little more specialized (Fire being the best AoE damage spec, Arcane being a great mobility spec etc etc) but when it comes down to a straightforward 'lets dps this boss kkthxbai brutallus 2.0' there will still be a hierarchy. Assuming we accept this, we then cannot outright discount possible spell mechanics based solely on the idea that "it does not make the specs comparable", since I believe that is not what blizzard is trying to achieve. Instead they are, quite clearly, giving the specs certain things that they are good at. Arcane - mobility, fire - aoe, elementalist - immunity fights (since at the end of the day, on a fire immune boss, an elementalist mage will still hit harder than a pure fire mage), frost - control.

I do not take a statement that 'since on brutallus 2.0 one spec is outperformed by another we must discount an assumption' to be an accurate way to look at what is going on here.

But then again, this is just my own reading of what blizzard is trying to accomplish.

edited for clarity

 

Nostrum

I'd still be amazed if it turns out to be anything other than a (lazy) way for frost mages to bypass frost immunities in wotlk.

 

◊ manly

I mean, don't get me wrong. Blizzard has gotten a few things wrong in the past. However, the goal of the spell is to allow elementalist spec to exist for PVE purpose. If that is the goal, it means they will probably try and make whatever adjustment is necessary to make it work.

Sure, I hope it doesn't end up being an alternative when it comes to immunity, but its not the goal.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Kel S'jet

I hear ya.
Though a part of me thinks that they should perhaps work on streamlining the existing specs rather than adding another spec to the mix that may or may not end up being half arsed. Now don't get me wrong, I too, like I'm sure every other mage here, went through an extreme elementalist phase, and would want nothing more than to have such a spec be truly competitive for high end play. Though at the same time I would also want the slightly more glaring issues with mage specs addressed before we turn to adding more complexity to the mix.

I guess what I truly long for, is viability of all mage specs in both high end raiding as well as high end arena/pvp (lawl who doesn't eh? :P). While the pve side is looking good so far, I am still very much disappointed in how the pvp side is turning out. With the addition of some the tools going to frost, all I can see happening is that the frost spec's dominance in high end arena play will just pull far far ahead of the pack. And even then, it does almost nothing where it concerns the mage's complete dependence on running a cookie cutter build with a cookie cutter comp. It's quite bad just how blatantly mages are pigeonholed to running with a very specific class composition for arenas. The least they could do is to develop the mage playstyle to the point where we have more of a choice on who we can team up with.

I guess I'm just bored now. I mean, maybe it was fun for the first few times you did Sheep->Cs->shatter combo. But the thought of doing pretty much the same thing for another two years does not sit well with me. (and yes I know they are at least trying to add a little more variety to the frost spec playstyle through the introduction of a stun). Though I would still prefer blizzard to spend their WoTLk development time really trying to add a viable playstyle to non-frost specs, and work on making better synergies between mages and other classes so as to increase our partner choice set in arenas. (and the DK-Frost mage synergie is not what I'm talking about, it is faar more PvE oriented, a little too blatantly imo).

Though I am just rambling at this point, maybe this will be discussed at a later time in a different thread.

 

Jarlyn

I agree on paper that it sucks to be pigeonholed into one spec for pve, one spec for pvp, et al, but by the same token if the solution to making say, Fire viable in Arenas to keep adding bizarre and mostly worthless talents (Fiery Payback) while not fixing any of the real problems, then screw it. I'd rather see each of the trees refined to be the absolute best at one role rather than have all three be filled with mediocre talents that will never be used.

 

Lhivera

I'm not really sure where all this came from.

Basically, you said that if Frostfire Bolt benefits only from one school's talents at a time, based on the type of damage it's being dealt, it would be good but situational. I'm simply pointing out that, no, it actually won't; it'll be flat-out terrible. The reason for this is that the math currently shows this:

Frost ~= Arcane ~= Elemental FFB Spec assuming both trees' talents work simultaneously regardless of type of damage dealt

In other words, with this assumption the delta you describe above is small, which is good. (I'm leaving Fire out for now because Fire is hosed at the moment.) If the behavior changes such that only one tree's talents affect it at a time, then we will have a very large delta, resulting in Frost ~= Arcane >>> Elementalist FFB Spec. This would be bad, if we assume (as we should, based on the panel comments) that it's intended to produce a viable Elementalist spec.

Now, as you say, the numbers themselves aren't important. Say the rumors you saw are correct and FFB really does only benefit from one tree at a time. This means two things: first, that it doesn't work at all as an alternative nuke for deep specs, and second, that in order for the Elementalist spec to be viable, both Frost and Arcane would require a significant reduction in DPS.

Conclusion: Either FFB benefits from both trees simultaneously as previously assumed, or something else must change significantly to reduce the DPS of other specs (and probably classes). Otherwise, the spell fails to serve its purpose.

I'm using the working assumption that Blizzard knows the ballpark it's aiming for with damage and has landed, if not between the foul lines, at least on the grass somewhere, and that we're in a dialing-in state now. Maybe Arcane is right down the middle, Frost is off near the Shortstop, and Fire is bouncing around being chased by the ball girl, but nothing's landed out in the parking lot. So I find it more likely that the new info about FFB is wrong than that every other spec is horribly wrong. Obviously, we'll find out for sure soon enough, but this is another thing I'd be willing to stake a pint of ale on.


Without disputing that the attempts to make Fire PvP-friendly have been, shall we say, Clouseauesque at best, I think this is an exaggeration. How many talents in each tree really fall into the category of "mediocre talents that will never be used"?

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.

 

Zaldinar

In watching the official released information about FFB and the leaked information, I see four possible outcomes (in order of awesomeness, not necessarily likelyhood)

1) FFB gets benefit from all frost and fire damage, crit, hit, range, etc talents. Gains double benefit from those that provide benefit to both (EP, for example). This eventuality is extremely unlikely and almost certain not to be true.

2) FFB gets benefit from all frost and fire damage, crit, hit, range, etc talents once. This eventuality is reasonably likely.

3) FFB gets benefit from all caster-based frost and fire damage, crit, hit, range etc talents, and only gets target-debuff effects from ones specific to the damage school it is currently using. That is, imp scorch when dealing fire damage, WC when dealing frost damage etc. This, I feel, is the most likely situation. Testing it will be entertaining.

4) FFB gets benefit for talents etc only for the school it is doing. Hopefully unlikely, and given that it'd make elementalist not particularly viable I'd say not going to happen.


Option 1, ridiculous and would get fixed fast. Option 2, not insane, but very nice. Option 3, perfectly reasonable and all around I feel the most likely. Option 4, sucks and would be useless.

Testing will tell which it falls under.



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