I read something about how they are going to let everyone easily swop between two specific talent setups in wotlk. Wouldn't that solve most of the partial resist/immunity problems already without having to have a spell designed for it?
Just have two specs that focus on different elemental schools and swap to the other one when you run into such a boss.
Far as I know it's an open question whether it can be done out in the world or requires a trainer. [edit] My assumption has been and stays it's the latter. If it's the former, it's very nice for hybrids and makes sense for the ten mans (pally OT goes heal spec and macros on heal gear for ZA eagle boss as a current example, without need for port and summon) If the latter, it'd kill elementalist dead if FFB is not a beast. Even if it's okay-to-good, with the unified gear could swap deep fire or frost and still win on DPS. [edit]
I'll buy you a beer if it works during a raid.
If players can change while in combat, not at a trainer, I'll poop on my chair and roll around on it. It's not going to happen.
Last edited by TurtleSludge : 07/04/08 at 8:11 PM.
Depends on what your second spec is. If you use the other talent allocation primarily for a PvP spec, it's going to be a damage bonus compared to nuking off-school, but it's still going to be sup-optimal and probably run into mana problems. If your second talent allocation is a PvP spec (or 5-man or grinding or whatever) of the same school, you're boned. Needing to use both talent stables for alternate raid specs is downright silly, even though it's what hybrid classes may end up needing to do.
Garak, I'd use that alternate spec for pve raiding in a heartbeat and with no compunctions.
Hydross and Alar on the same raid schedule in one night? No worries. (Or their WotLK equivalents.) Supremus, Teron Gorefiend and Illidan? Sure, lemme switch it up! Or in Sunwell, I could see myself switching from arcane to fire on a fight to fight basis. Etc.
For us mage types, ideal specs literally change on every fight. We don't a have a 0/21/40 that works outstandingly well for everything. (And, no, don't tell me about 2/48/11, it is distinctly inferior on way too many fights, not necessarily even immunity fights.)
There are no Shadow immune bosses not because it's "unfair", there are no Shadow immune bosses because Shadow Priests have no alternative.
If a boss is immune to Fire, the Fire Mages go Frost and the Fire Warlocks go Shadow
If a boss is immune to Frost, the Frost Mages go Fire
If a boss is immune to Nature, the Moonkin use Starfire (which they already do) and the Elemental Shaman go Enhancement*
If a boss is immune to Shadow, the Shadow Warlocks go Fire, and the Shadow Priests ... heal?
They cannot make a Shadow immune boss because Shadow Priests do not have a secondary spec to dodge that immunity with, and healing is not the same because you're either still losing DPS across the board or benching your Priests.
*Granted, this last point is more dubious given how Enhancement would require a whole second set of gear, but a nature immune boss does exist in the form of Hydross, albeit only half the time.
There are no Shadow immune bosses not because it's "unfair", there are no Shadow immune bosses because Shadow Priests have no alternative.
If a boss is immune to Fire, the Fire Mages go Frost and the Fire Warlocks go Shadow
If a boss is immune to Frost, the Frost Mages go Fire
If a boss is immune to Nature, the Moonkin use Starfire (which they already do) and the Elemental Shaman go Enhancement*
If a boss is immune to Shadow, the Shadow Warlocks go Fire, and the Shadow Priests ... heal?
They cannot make a Shadow immune boss because Shadow Priests do not have a secondary spec to dodge that immunity with, and healing is not the same because you're either still losing DPS across the board or benching your Priests.
*Granted, this last point is more dubious given how Enhancement would require a whole second set of gear, but a nature immune boss does exist in the form of Hydross, albeit only half the time.
Wow... I'm sorry but you fail on this.
A Shadow Priest DOES have damage spells to fall back on...his/her Holy School. You know...Smite and Holy Fire. A Shadow Priest being forced to leave Shadowform and toss Smites would see a significant DPS loss...just like a Fire Mage tossing Frostbolts.
So how is it "fair" to make a Mage use an untalented nuke but it is "unfair" to ask to the same of a Shadow Priest?
A Shadow Priest DOES have damage spells to fall back on...his/her Holy School. You know...Smite and Holy Fire. A Shadow Priest being forced to leave Shadowform and toss Smites would see a significant DPS loss...just like a Fire Mage tossing Frostbolts.
So how is it "fair" to make a Mage use an untalented nuke but it is "unfair" to ask to the same of a Shadow Priest?
Because a Holy Smiting Priest is probably the worst caster DPS out there - Divine Fury and Surge of Light are gimmick talents for leveling/farming as Holy, not as actual raid DPS. They have no 2x crit talent and barely any mana regen.
Touching more on the mana regen, a Holy Priest wouldn't have Misery nor Vampiric Touch, which are integral parts of caster DPS utility.
Depends on the pvp rewards really. If they are something like what we were given in TBC hard core mages will have a pve spec for general raiding, a pvp spec to grind pvp gear while not raiding, and then on immunity bosses just pay to get a spec that works.
Raiding and pvping is something you can do every day, but facing immune bosses is something you dont do every day. (Well unless your guild totally sucks and cant get past that immune boss, but that doesnt apply to hardcore raiders.)
There are no Shadow immune bosses not because it's "unfair", there are no Shadow immune bosses because Shadow Priests have no alternative.
If a boss is immune to Fire, the Fire Mages go Frost and the Fire Warlocks go Shadow
If a boss is immune to Frost, the Frost Mages go Fire
If a boss is immune to Nature, the Moonkin use Starfire (which they already do) and the Elemental Shaman go Enhancement*
If a boss is immune to Shadow, the Shadow Warlocks go Fire, and the Shadow Priests ... heal?
They cannot make a Shadow immune boss because Shadow Priests do not have a secondary spec to dodge that immunity with, and healing is not the same because you're either still losing DPS across the board or benching your Priests.
*Granted, this last point is more dubious given how Enhancement would require a whole second set of gear, but a nature immune boss does exist in the form of Hydross, albeit only half the time.
A shadow priest could get healing, mass dispel, mind control or other duties.
Their healing is pretty bad without talents, but they do have the gear for it at least.
What has far more impact is the loss of (maledicted) CoE/S, nor CoR, no shadow embrace, no misery.
Those raid debuff alone completely skew any balancing. There is also the loss of VT/VE from SPs, but casters will simply have to cope.
I'm sure that a shadow immune fight can work, but it would have to be a gimick fight that
1) gives your SP(s) something useful to do
2) is not tuned for DPS or tank spikes due to debuffs and SE (and Bloodpact perhaps).
Originally Posted by mkultra55
Wow... I'm sorry but you fail on this.
A Shadow Priest DOES have damage spells to fall back on...his/her Holy School. You know... Smite and Holy Fire. A Shadow Priest being forced to leave Shadowform and toss Smites would see a significant DPS loss...just like a Fire Mage tossing Frostbolts.
So how is it "fair" to make a Mage use an untalented nuke but it is "unfair" to ask to the same of a Shadow Priest?
The combination of "fail" and "smite" was hilarious. It really was!
In any case, making elementalists viable while trying to make ffb only work when a boss has immunities wouldnt make any sense. That wouldn't help elementalists be viable -- it would just further cement that fact that fire/frost talents don't really synergize at all. And if you were to just cast fireballs or frostbolts, you would still run in the issue that half of your talent points are wasted. That doesn't really fits my definition of 'making elementalists viable'.
The more I think about it the more I don't like the FFB. It seems that it either becomes too powerful making frost and/or fire practically obsolete for PvE raiding - or it becomes so underpowered that it just saves you a respec in immunity fights. The only thing I can see would counter this is if Blizzards decide to make spell penetration an important stat in WotLK, which most mobs having 150+ resist to one school. Also the whole raid playstyle of a mage build around FFB seems to be very close to the same as a firemage - a playstyle already practically unchanged for 3½ years. I don't see see it being possible to have anywhere near 4 viable raid specs as a mage - the specs in playstyle with strengths and weaknesses are too similar (arcane the one that is most unique), meaning that the one with a generally few percentage higher dps always be the preferred raid spec.
Basically FFB is going to be so overpowered that deep frost and fire will be useless or it will be so bad that it only will be used in special fights (something as common as spell-steal tanking) - For raiders respeccing between either full fire or frost will be a much better option if they don't want the raid-leaders to bench them until the encounter is on farm-status.
Because a Holy Smiting Priest is probably the worst caster DPS out there - Divine Fury and Surge of Light are gimmick talents for leveling/farming as Holy, not as actual raid DPS. They have no 2x crit talent and barely any mana regen.
Touching more on the mana regen, a Holy Priest wouldn't have Misery nor Vampiric Touch, which are integral parts of caster DPS utility.
Not to beat a dead horse but I never said the SPriest should respec for a Shadow Immune Fight. I said if there was a Shadow Immune Boss the Priest could drop out of Shadowform and throw Smites if he wanted to still DPS or he could off heal the fight. That's just as much (if not more) Utility than a Fire Mage has against a Fire Immune boss.
Elemental Shammies have it the worst because the best they can do is go melee for a Nature Immune mob/boss. They still bring all their Buffs though. Right now a Fire Mage against a Fire Immune Boss brings sub par DPS and no Utility.
My argument is more along the lines of getting rid of Immunity all together OR make it consstent across the board.
This whole "shadow immune" argument is irrelevant, it's comparing with different viewpoints:
1) A Mage can be forced to respec, and an Elemental Shaman, and Moonkin, for that matter, because they can do "other things", according to class design
2) A Priest can not, because while he can do "other things", they're shit.
So you're examining one from the perspective of absolute fact in intended design, and examining the other from preferential, opinionated, result-based evaluation of effect.
"Other drivers can't drive on the wrong side of the road because it's illegal to drive on that side."
"You can't drive on the other side of the road because you'll get killed."
See what I did there? It is not rational to use different scales to compare similar things.
Specifically regarding Boss immunity, what should happen isn't related to bosses at all; Boss immunity should be used as a tool to imply mechanics. An encounter designed to be AoEd should "nudge" in that direction by having a main Boss who has a lot of resistance, thus prompting against single-target nuking. An encounter promoting targeted timed nuking (I'm looking at you, Curator) should be extra sensitive during the allocated time.
Irrelevant immunities, like Al'Ar being Fire immune, and Hydros being Frost/Nature immune may be lore-relevant but are impediments to game enjoyment. Have to make a boss resistant? Give it Supremus-style 255 resist. "Nerfed" is a long way distant from "useless" and "respecced".
The more I think about it the more I don't like the FFB. It seems that it either becomes too powerful making frost and/or fire practically obsolete for PvE raiding - or it becomes so underpowered that it just saves you a respec in immunity fights.
It is actually worse than this. If it is "underpowered" meaning it gets only frost talents or fire talents depending on the damage it does but never both, then it is worthless for the most part. Fire mages on fire immune bosses could just cast frostbolt for the same effect. Unless there was a gimmick fight where you don't know if the boss is fire/frost immune, it can be assumed most players aren't blind and can see when to switch spells. (This applies to elementalists, too for that matter.)
If it does take talents from both, then Blizzard is walking a razor thing line between it not competing and being, dare I say it, ZOMG damage. We don't need to rehash the "does Blizzard do math?" argument from several pages back, but razor thin lines are not good places for Blizzard. History would suggest something like WotLK comes out with FF bolt being obscenely overpowered; all mages use it for all purposes; Blizzard patches and tweaks it and nerfs it so hard, it is useless. A second patch tries to boost it again, but it only falls within 20% of fireball spam, so no one uses it still. A year after the expansion and Lhivera is able to use "remember how badly they managed frostfire bolt scaling?" as an example when discussing the alpha for the next expansion.
I think blizzard avoids shadow immunity fight not because shadow dps classes have no other options (I'm skeptical that a shadow priest spamming smite is all that worse off than a fire mage casting untalented frostbolts or AM/AB), but rather that ranged magical dps is pretty dependent on shadow-school buffs these days.
On a shadow immune boss, you lose shadow priest mana regen, misery, and warlock curses -- everybody suffers, but mostly casters, and if the encounter is hard enough you could conceivably see raid leader stacking physical dps of all kinds. On al'ar, really no one suffers but the 1-3 fire mages you might have in your raid, and if they're really upset they can respec. You can't respec your shadow priests and warlocks to bring back those raid buffs. Shadow immunity is just a much bigger deal than frost/fire/arcane immunity, from a raid balancing standpoint.
Have to make a boss resistant? Give it Supremus-style 255 resist. "Nerfed" is a long way distant from "useless" and "respecced".
You're saying that if Supremus was actually difficult you wouldn't respec from fire to arcane or frost? I'm asking because I'm inclined to say that "nerfed" is effectively equal to "useless" and "respec". We just haven't had a case yet where it really mattered. Supremus and Rage are the only resistance bosses that come to mind, and they're both pushovers.
This whole "shadow immune" argument is irrelevant, it's comparing with different viewpoints:
1) A Mage can be forced to respec, and an Elemental Shaman, and Moonkin, for that matter, because they can do "other things", according to class design
2) A Priest can not, because while he can do "other things", they're shit.
So you're examining one from the perspective of absolute fact in intended design, and examining the other from preferential, opinionated, result-based evaluation of effect.
"Other drivers can't drive on the wrong side of the road because it's illegal to drive on that side."
"You can't drive on the other side of the road because you'll get killed."
See what I did there? It is not rational to use different scales to compare similar things.
Specifically regarding Boss immunity, what should happen isn't related to bosses at all; Boss immunity should be used as a tool to imply mechanics. An encounter designed to be AoEd should "nudge" in that direction by having a main Boss who has a lot of resistance, thus prompting against single-target nuking. An encounter promoting targeted timed nuking (I'm looking at you, Curator) should be extra sensitive during the allocated time.
Irrelevant immunities, like Al'Ar being Fire immune, and Hydros being Frost/Nature immune may be lore-relevant but are impediments to game enjoyment. Have to make a boss resistant? Give it Supremus-style 255 resist. "Nerfed" is a long way distant from "useless" and "respecced".
Um... priests CAN do other things than be in shadowform and dps. They can heal. And in WotLK it wont even require a different set. Same deal as boomkins and Elemental shammies really. they can heal without changing gear or they can go melee but need an extra set to do so. If they respec they can heal really well, if they dont they can support heal.
I dont see how facing a respec to perform really well or not respecing and providing medicore performance is worse for a priest than it is for a mage. I would agree that it would be retarded of blizz to make an insane nuke fight with a hard enrage timer that was also a shadow immune boss. But if it isnt a nuke fight then what is your point about priests healing? Just smack a lot of demon ads on the fight and there you have plenty for both priests and warlocks to do. Extra healing needed cause the adds are nasty and warlocks need to controll a few to make them managable while tossing fire spells around.
Or, possibly, collect a spell penetration gearset. It's a possibility if you choose to sacrifice bag space for respec costs or sitting out.
Supremus/Rage have around 225 resist or so?
CoE removes 88. T6 shoulders have 18, Arcane Subtlety is another 10. Spell penetration for another 20 on an secondary cloak.
(WotLK had a "15 spi + 2% less threat" cloak enchant enchant datamaned, so the spell penetration enchant will probably not be used on your main cloak.)
That 136 spell penetration. So a mage would need 89 more to cap, that's 7 [Stormy Empyrean Sapphire]s.
Loosing 7 gem slots is probably less damage loss than respeccing out of your main spec.
Personal anecdote: Since [Vestments of the Aldor] are terrible, I socketed them with spell penetration and used them for supremus/rage quite often.
More often than not, I forgot about it to equip them though after our first kills
I still wouldn't like the idea though. It's, I don't know, like a boss that has 10% crit rate.
Either he hits weak enought that it won't matter, or he hits hard and your tanks need yet an extra def/resi gemmed tank set that's completely useless outside this fight.
It's just dumb mechanics, I'd vastly prefer resist fights over it.
heh, well your elemental shammies will be happy but the enchancement chammies will get pissed since you piss away their storm strikes. Altho I doubt it really mattrers. I mean its not like Supremus is a hard fight anyway. The only real threat is people acting careless chasing him to score a little better on the damage meters.
Anyway on to another matter. Has anyone done any numbers on the manashield + incanters absorbtion yet?
Popping max ranked mana shields will most likely not be worth it but its still a tool for arcane to controll DPS vs DPM. If you got incoming raidwide damage and some movement you have good means of popping a lower rank manashield just strong enoughe to give you as much +damage you want. Maby as preparation to blow AP+IV+trinket and all that.
Talented manashield makes it 20% more effective. I willingly admit that its a lot of talent points you invest to get this thing working but after all giving a damage buff isnt the only thing mana shield will do. Just possibly that talent ads some use to it.
Another concept/combo is to actually pop a mana shield thats strong enoughe to absorb all of an incoming attack, then magic absorbtion oughta kick in and give 5% mana right back. (Unless Im missing something in mechanic and am just being a noob.) Anyway IF thats how mana shield, magic absorbtion and incanters absorbtion will work in WotLK then just possibly manashield might be worth it sometimes. Costs a shitload of mana, but prevents damage, refunds mana if you can absorb a full blow and boosts damage for a while. And ofc granting a decent resistance to all kinds of magic unless 120-ish resistance will count for nothing at lv 80.
Edit: realised that magic absorbtion wont work. But its still a way to trade some mana for some damage. Possibly worth it, possibly not. ^^
There are no Shadow immune bosses not because it's "unfair", there are no Shadow immune bosses because Shadow Priests have no alternative.
They cannot make a Shadow immune boss because Shadow Priests do not have a secondary spec to dodge that immunity with[/i]
I'm sorry, but this is backwards. This is exactly the kind of thinking that ruins mages. You see, it doesn't make sense to make a class with 3 damage types, then say "oh, well, we can make bosses with high fire resist because they can just use frost spec instead!", but then make a class with 1 damage type and say "hey guys even a pure shadow elemental MUST have 0 shadow resist because oh the poor shadow priests".
Having more damage types is supposed to be an advantage, but this kind of backwards design turns it into a disadvantage, which makes no sense at all. If Blizzard wants it to be fair, then there is absolutely no reason not to have shadow resistant bosses. Yes, shadow priests will do less damage. So? If you don't want to have the *disadvantage of one damage type*, play a class with multiple damage types. That's how RPGs and damage types work, some things are resistant to some damage types and so you bring different people or use different spells. Having to respec to a weaker spec and/or respec between multiple fights is an annoying disadvantage also, just not as significant of one.
Now, on the other hand, if Blizzard wants all classes to be playing at full capability all the time, then they can stop making fights with heavy resistances or immunity in the first place. But it isn't logical to make encounters with fire-immune fire elementals and to leave shadow elementals with 0 resist.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
Um... priests CAN do other things than be in shadowform and dps. They can heal. And in WotLK it wont even require a different set. Same deal as boomkins and Elemental shammies really. they can heal without changing gear or they can go melee but need an extra set to do so. If they respec they can heal really well, if they dont they can support heal.
I dont see how facing a respec to perform really well or not respecing and providing medicore performance is worse for a priest than it is for a mage. <snip>
For the last time, it's not about not having something else to do, it's about that something else not measuring up.
Yes, your Shadow Priests can respec to Holy and start healing, but that means you just lost some DPS. A Frost Mage respeccing to Fire because of a Frost immune boss is still doing DPS regardless.
Yes, your Shadow Priests can respec to Holy and start Smiting, but the DPS offered by a Smite build is abysmally low, and you'd lack so many Shadow Priest and Warlock utility debuffs that the fight would have to be extremely gimmicky to have this work.
If Blizzard wants it to be fair, then there is absolutely no reason not to have shadow resistant bosses. Yes, shadow priests will do less damage. So?
It's not all about damage - you lose on Shadow Embrace, Misery, Vampiric Touch, Shadow Weaving (obviously), Curse of Elements, Curse of Recklessness, etc.
Now, on the other hand, if Blizzard wants all classes to be playing at full capability all the time, then they can stop making fights with heavy resistances or immunity in the first place.
Isn't the whole point of FFB to allow a Mage to operate at a "near-enough-to-full-capability" when facing a boss that's immune to his spec?
If a Fire Mage encounters a Fire immune boss, his FFB will still ...
... Ignite for Frost damage
... still get crit from Critical Mass
... still get damage from Fire Power
... still get crit and mana reduction from Pyromaniac
... still get crit from Combustion
... still get crit from Burnout
... not to mention Master of Elements, Playing with Fire, Molten Fury and Hot Streak, which already work on non-Fire spells.
The only talent he's missing out on is Improved Scorch, since that requires Scorch itself to apply the debuff
If a Frost Mage encounters a Frost immune boss, his FFB will still ...
... get crit damage from Ice Shards
... get damage from Piercing Ice
... get crit from Shatter (frozen through Winter's Grasp)
... get crit from Winter's Chill
... get damage from Arctic Winds
... get chance to be considered frozen from Winter's Grasp
... not to mention Elemental Precision and Icy Veins, which already work on non-Frost spells
The only talents he's missing out on are Chilled to the Bone and the extra crit from Empowered Frostbolt.
This is besides the fact that a Mage can already be playing at full capacity all the time by either A) playing Arcane or B) be willing to respec for specific fights (on top of respeccing being made easier come WOTLK).
Depending on how the easier respec mechanic works out, all FFB will do is make it possible for Blizzard to design a Hyjal-esque boss that's linked to his trash, which is really the only situation where a Mage would be significantly screwed over on in Live.
This is why frostfire bolt is going to so difficult to balance. Its either going to be so hideously overpowered that it superceeds both frostbolt and fireball, or it will be so weak that mages will just use the quick two spec switch they are talking about putting in to get the best fireball or best frostbolt as and when they need to.
This is why frostfire bolt is going to so difficult to balance. Its either going to be so hideously overpowered that it superceeds both frostbolt and fireball, or it will be so weak that mages will just use the quick two spec switch they are talking about putting in to get the best fireball or best frostbolt as and when they need to.
Admittedly, this is a problem, but we don't know just how the two spec system will work just yet.
If it still entails a trip to the trainer, then FFB will still have a niche: As I said before, a situation where the Mage will be forced to fight the boss without having the time to take a trip to the trainer and be summoned back.
Isn't the whole point of FFB to allow a Mage to operate at a "near-enough-to-full-capability" when facing a boss that's immune to his spec?
Not really, no. It means he'll operate at somewhere around 75% rather than somewhere around 50%. The primary purpose is to allow for a working elementalist spec.
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.
.... a situation where the Mage will be forced to fight the boss without having the time to take a trip to the trainer and be summoned back.
Missing the point entirely. Our strength is supposed to be our ability to do more than one school of damage. If our strength simply means we have viable other specs on an immune (highly resistant) fight that really only effects mages, it is a zero sum gain.
About the only fight I have seen where it was "neat" to be able to do more than one school was chromaggus. If they instituted more fights where you see a positive affect of being able to cast more than one school of damage instead of pure negative than it would be better.
Admittedly, this is a problem, but we don't know just how the two spec system will work just yet.
If it still entails a trip to the trainer, then FFB will still have a niche: As I said before, a situation where the Mage will be forced to fight the boss without having the time to take a trip to the trainer and be summoned back.
It would take a pretty exceptional situation for that to be the case. It would have to be a time-sensitive instance (ala ZA or Hyjal) where the DPS requirements for the trash would be high enough that I couldn't switch to my alternate spec, with a specific school immunity boss with a high enough DPS requirement that I needed to be properly specced.
Personally I'm in the camp of FFB is going to bounce between horrendously overpowered and utterly pointless. I think early on because of how strange/new the spell is, it's likely to be buggy and overpowered. Then a few patches into WLK it'll be fixed and properly balanced, and at that point it'll start collecting dust in my spellbook.
Personally I feel like the entire concept of having bosses immune to a school of magic is just silly. Frostfire Bolt shouldn't even be a necessity. Maybe it's bleeding over into the realm of the other thread about respecs but this seriously damages character spec identity. We need to stand up and tell Blizzard "I'm a fucking Fire Mage! No I'm not going to respec. Fire *is* my character."
Respeccing is fine and even having easy respecs is okay too I suppose, but to *expect* people to respec for certain encounters because you explicitly designed the encounter to encourage respecs (IE making the boss immune to Fire) is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard. We don't need encouragement to play in different ways. This game has been around long enough that people have found their niches. We don't need Blizzard to tell us "Okay, that's enough of playing that spec for now. We want you to switch for XYZ encounter." People are Frost/Fire/Arcane/etc for a reason. They enjoy it. You don't need to artificially control people's spec choices.
07/03/08, 12:47 AM
Similar Threads
