1) Icy Veins is too much of a dps increase for how low it is in the Frost tree to let go
Well, the basic premice of my claim is that more haste doesn't do much if you don't have the mana for the entire fight
Of course, if mana is still non-issue we both agree that going arcane is still silly.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Improved Moonkin Aura almost isn't worth discussing, there is no way it will go live as is. It is basically a +100% haste buff that will have well over 50% uptime .. It isn't just the new "windfury" windfury is not even remotely as good as this. This buff is so good there would be no reason to even have melee in raids, just 3 groups of moonkins/spriests/ele shamans/mages/locks, and some healers/tanks.
Improved Moonkin Aura almost isn't worth discussing, there is no way it will go live as is. It is basically a +100% haste buff that will have well over 50% uptime .. It isn't just the new "windfury" windfury is not even remotely as good as this. This buff is so good there would be no reason to even have melee in raids, just 3 groups of moonkins/spriests/ele shamans/mages/locks, and some healers/tanks.
I'm fairly sure the Imp. Moonkin Aura will be nerfed (perhaps to a static cast-speed buff), but in its current form it does have a fairly significant drawback. it is absolutely sick for burst, that much is true, but in any long-duration fight mana becomes a major issue. This is especially true for Arcane and Fire in WotLK, since both will have high mana consumption to begin with.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
I keep looking at the DK frost tree and wondering if synergy between a tanking class and the not-top DPS spec is a good thing or a bad thing. 5-mans with a DK Frost tank and a frost mage would be pretty insane... But I don't know if that synergy would carry over to 10-mans or 25-mans where targets don't stay frozen for very long. And, of course, bosses don't get frozen at all.
I'm fairly sure the Imp. Moonkin Aura will be nerfed (perhaps to a static cast-speed buff), but in its current form it does have a fairly significant drawback. it is absolutely sick for burst, that much is true, but in any long-duration fight mana becomes a major issue. This is especially true for Arcane and Fire in WotLK, since both will have high mana consumption to begin with.
Moonkin aura is one of the reasons I'm thinking that arcane meditation may be mandatory for any deep fire build in the expac. It's going to heavily devalue icy veins, also.
I'm still wondering why any mage should take burnout over spellpower + AP. Nor do any of the other deep fire talents past empowered fireball seem attractive to me.
Netherwind is oddly, an old set bonus which is now useless (by the way, someone said "I pyroed when it procced". Notice the wording "next Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire bolt or Arcane Blast")
The old T2 Netherwind Presence bonus allowed any cast under 10 seconds to be cast for free so I would pyro when it procced and would save my pom-pyro for that occasion for some burst in pvp. The proc if i remember correctly was a 10% chance on every main nuke cast. obviously this is a 5% proc and a little more unreliable and you are limited to a free fireball not pyro so the burst is going to be smaller, however, it would still be two instant casted nukes under the influence of ap/trinket and would probably still be amazing burst. we'll just have to see i guess
Frostfire really will depend on implementation, if it can sense partial resists and switch to binary spells, it would indeed be a smart nuke. With all the buffs to resist mechanics noted in DK skills, maybe there will be more fights with chromatic auras like Mother and Chromaggus. Maybe it's just an elementalist's gimmick. We'll just have to see i guess.
What's with all the weird talents too? Incanter's Absorbtion... If you're this deep in the tree, only Frost or Fire ward and Mana Shield are there to absorb anything. Unless we're looking at a PvP-only talent, I sure as hell won't mana-shield any incoming damage, I don't care how much buff I'll gain. Assume we have such spellpower that with imp. Mana Shield, we're on a 1:1 damage:mana ratio (unlikely high). To gain one trinket's-worth of effect from this talent (+200dmg), i need to be targetted and lose 1350 mana from incoming damage, plus a GCD to cast the shield. Would you ditch 1350 mana for another activation of your HsH as arcane? Didn't think so.
Most of the benefit of this would actually come from power word shield and living seed.
Living seed is a resto druid talent that makes it so our crit heals give a shield that is equal to 15% of the amount healed. So with napkin math you'll get around 70 spell damage anytime a druid lands a crit regrowth on you (regrowth has effectively a 60% crit rate). More than that with power word shield, or a healing touch or swiftmend crit.
The numbers on it are still a bit low I think but the concept is actually pretty cool and I think would be fully usable in a raid setting with you having to use mana shield.
I'm fairly sure the Imp. Moonkin Aura will be nerfed (perhaps to a static cast-speed buff), but in its current form it does have a fairly significant drawback. it is absolutely sick for burst, that much is true, but in any long-duration fight mana becomes a major issue. This is especially true for Arcane and Fire in WotLK, since both will have high mana consumption to begin with.
Maybe it could survive if it made your next cast +100% haste instead of +100% haste for 6 seconds, regardless no one is gonna be losing sleep over going oom because they are doing extra damage, anyway you slice it your going to be doing way more damage overall with improved moonkin as is. If specs are already being planned around not caring about dps without a moonkin, but maximizing mana regen + moonkin setup, it is obviously way overpowered.
Actually, now that we know about Fel Armor, I have doubts that there are any additional spirit changes in the works.
What's the Fel Armor change?
And on Moonkin Aura, the first time I read it, I thought it said that you gain 100% of your current spell haste. Dunno why I read that. However, a flat +haste rating or even a nerfed percent could be a fairly viable buff.
But even if it emerges at a fraction of its present power, it's going to be very huge. A 20% haste buff on crits would still make a big difference, to pick a number out of the air. So long as the basic concept emerges, it will be very powerful even after making adjustments on numbers.
# Fel Armor(Rank 4) - "Surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell damage by up to 180 and allows 30% of your mana and health regeneration to continue while casting."
# Demon Armor(Rank 8) - "Protects the caster, increasing armor by 950, and increasing the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 20%."
And on Moonkin Aura, the first time I read it, I thought it said that you gain 100% of your current spell haste. Dunno why I read that. However, a flat +haste rating or even a nerfed percent could be a fairly viable buff.
Demon Armor is going to be bonus armor and +20% healing received, while fel armor will be 30% mana regen while casting and bonus spell damage.
So all DPS casters besides elemental shamans will be able to benefit from spirit.
As for moonkin aura I expect the basic concept to remain but with tweaked numbers. Remember that moonkins themselves don't do amazing DPS so they need strong synergy that's competitive with shadow priests and elemental shamans.
# Fel Armor(Rank 4) - "Surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell damage by up to 180 and allows 30% of your mana and health regeneration to continue while casting."
# Demon Armor(Rank 8) - "Protects the caster, increasing armor by 950, and increasing the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 20%."
Wait, what? Warlocks get mana regen as well as a damage increasing armor? GG Blizz.
I keep looking at the DK frost tree and wondering if synergy between a tanking class and the not-top DPS spec is a good thing or a bad thing. 5-mans with a DK Frost tank and a frost mage would be pretty insane... But I don't know if that synergy would carry over to 10-mans or 25-mans where targets don't stay frozen for very long. And, of course, bosses don't get frozen at all.
Well, Winter's Grasp appears to be designed to pseudo-freeze targets that can't you can't actually freeze. But overall, I'm a little disappointed in the synergy between the two. It's great for trash/spawns where DK's can freeze things for ice Lancing and/or Deep Freezing, but on bosses there seems to be pretty much zero crossover support between the classes -- only the unreliable hit proc on Winter's Grasp, and the increased crit for whichever DK Frost spells are able to crit. DK's don't seem to have any bonuses against frozen targets that could benefit from the Grasp debuff, and they don't provide any debuffs of use to the Frost mage.
Still, perhaps increasing the tank's crit by 10% is enough, especially if some of those spells have threat multipliers.
Wait, what? Warlocks get mana regen as well as a damage increasing armor? GG Blizz.
I would refrain from the "grass is greener on the other side" mentality for now. Mages are oohing and aweing at some lock talents, but the math proves it is unwarranted. There are nerfs for warlocks. I'd rather the +healing on my fel armor. ISB is now 15% instead of 20%. Soul link is more attainable, but 15% instead of 20% and has no +damage component.
I'm concerned with the change to 2% VT when patch goes to 3.0 before the expansion, mages are going to go OOM. Locks regen from fel armor is going to be laughable because we have no spirit gear (and our spells costs are ridiculous, we have no mana return/free spell talents like shamans/mages), so a change to life tap will really, really hurt. CoH has an 8 second cooldown? I think ranged dps and other classes will be absolutely crippled in that window from 3.0 to expansion...level 80 raids really.
While in discussion with a few Mages I know, an idea came up in response to the stacking Ice Mages tactic discussed earlier. Someone talked about a 4 Arcane 1 Boomkin group setup.
Assuming that Improved Moonkin Aura and Nature's Fury go live in a form even moderately similar to current, the cast sequence for Arcane Mages could very well be 1:1 weave of AM-Barrage and tossing Arcane Blast on the Netherwind procs. The timing would work out nearly perfect for it. This has advantage of being a single-school sequence of casts, allowing very dedicated specs (60/0/11 was theorized).
The only real disadvantage we saw would be mana consumption issues (up for debate until Spirit mechanics are revealed), and if the Blue Dragonflight happens to be arcane-resistant. Then again, we could be missing something fairly obvious, so don't be afraid to call us all idiots and tell us where we're wrong.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
I would refrain from the "grass is greener on the other side" mentality for now. Mages are oohing and aweing at some lock talents, but the math proves it is unwarranted. There are nerfs for warlocks. I'd rather the +healing on my fel armor. ISB is now 15% instead of 20%.
I'm concerned with the change to 2% VT when patch goes to 3.0 before the expansion, mages are going to go OOM. Locks regen from fel armor is going to be laughable because we have no spirit gear (and our spells costs are ridiculous, we have no mana return/free spell talents like shamans/mages), so a change to life tap will really, really hurt. I think ranged dps will be absolutely crippled in that window from 3.0 to expansion...level 80 raids really.
You are assuming that Blizzard is going to itemize warlock cloth in WoTLK the same as they do now.
It seems pretty clear to me that all cloth dps gear in the future, including warlock gear, is getting spirit on it. Granted, there's going to be some transition issues. Locks may be forced to ditch t6 earlier than mages, for example.
You are assuming that Blizzard is going to itemize warlock cloth in WoTLK the same as they do now.
It seems pretty clear to me that all cloth dps gear in the future, including warlock gear, is getting spirit on it. Granted, there's going to be some transition issues. Locks may be forced to ditch t6 earlier than mages, for example.
I'm talking about the time period from patch 3.0 to the time level 80 raids begin, just like we saw patch 2.0 come out in early December and the expansion Jan 17th. I don't think locks will be dumping T6, we still have life tap.
Even so..don't assume locks will be stacking spirit. Kindling Soul may not be attainable in a raiding build to maximize dps, we will still rely on life tap. They are just making spirit "do" something for warlocks now. Before it did almost nothing, like agility. Doesn't mean spirit is replacing int/stam in a list of desired lock stats.
If I remember correctly I have like 300-350 mp5 ooc with all the spirit/int raid buffs so at 39% regen so warlocks with a spriest are going to have about the same or more regen. I don't really see what mages have to complain about though, 2 warlock trees receive significant nerfs, and your new talents are better than our's imo, at least for long term scaling. Early in the expansion I definitely see affliction locks being overpowered though.
I don't see locks stacking spirit; I see them behaving much as non arcane mages do now, getting spirit along with their ordinary gear. They will get spirit incidentally.
Warlocks may well be forced to replace their t6 with level 78+ blues, and that's annoying, I fully admit this.
Edit: depending on how badly set bonuses get nerfed, this may also be true for mages, or any other class with a percentage based set bonus. Blizz has never liked these sorts of things carrying over in the past. I'm morally certain the 2 pc t5 mage arcane bonus is gone, and wouldn't be shocked if the 4 pc t6 bonus also goes away. Both being replaced with flat damage bonuses, presumably. So those level 78+ blues will start looking pretty good for everybody.
People cant really look at the current raiding game and WOTLK talents/spells together and make drastic conclusions. The expansion shakes it all up and WOTLK raids will be balanced with WOTLK talents/spells in mind. Of course - it would indeed be very insane to try to rationalise how WOTLK talents/spells would fit in with current TBC-raidsynergy-mindset.
05/22/08, 1:56 PM
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