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Old 06/12/08, 2:07 PM   #1051
Obeast
Glass Joe
 
Gnome Mage
 
Dark Iron
Not necessarily. Arcane doesn't have anything below AP and SP that would make it desirable for pvp except for maybe this spell and in order to get this you would have to give up cold snap or blastwave. Giving up cold snap is fine since most mages who spec deeper than 17 into arcane for pvp end up going arc/fire anyways. Giving up blastwave on the other hand could be a problem, especially since barrage isn't much stronger than scorch in arc/fire when it comes to pvp. As I said though, we'll have to wait to see how this plays out because the mobility is massive in pvp but I don't think it's anywhere near overpowered.
I think you're underestimating how good NP procs will be in PvP -- there won't be any burst in the game like AP- NP fireball-PoM Pyro, and unless there's a further distortion of the relative values of stamina and spelldamage I would imagine that it'd be rather hard to live through.

It's obviously far too early to make sensible decisions about PvP balance, but on the face of it a 3/3.5 coefficient on a nearly spammable instant that occasionally procs (about every minute) an absolutely huge burst sequence does seem a little much.

On the other hand, you can't get arcane barrage and blazing speed, so if melee is as strong as it is in the current game people might still avoid the bottom of the arcane tree; as always in PvP, what builds are best depends as much on other classes' talents as mage talents.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:07 PM   #1052
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by MyrddinE View Post
I saw this problem too, but here's what I suspect the answer is: we're going to have a notably higher int/spirit, and that will bleed over into our pets. So at level 80, moderately geared, I suspect our WE will never run OOM... perhaps when fully buffed with 2/3 increased duration, it will run out near the end. That's why I suspect it's balanced the way it is.
The duration increase is 15 seconds, not 30 seconds.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:08 PM   #1053
Rouncer
Deeper Shade of Blue
 
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Orc Shaman
 
Mal'Ganis
Originally Posted by Deedre View Post
Well that kills AM for good. And probably arcane pve along with it, unless you want to bring along one arcane mage for utility purposes. (Imp amp magic in particular.) I just cannot see going deep into arcane from a pure dps standpoint solely for arcane barrage.
are you an idiot???

Did you not just notice Lhivera posting that a rotation of ABr + Frostbolt with Fireballs on NP procs produced over 2400dps?

Seems pretty friggin viable to me with those dps numbers.

36 yards on AM does make that spell a lot more viable in PvP so that might be what they are intending for it to be used for. Be nice to watch the first volley take out the grounding totem while the other 4 volleys rip up the shaman before he can get into range to Earth Shock and since LoS does not apply, watch him try to pillar hump those volleys. Also nice to have 100% pushback resistance against the hunters pets and other annoyances as well.

Rogue beating on you, shattershield up and let the missiles track him no matter how much he wants to dance around you. Then when he breaks through the shield he gets rooted and you can strafe away and hit him with a nice Arcane Barrage before popping Invis and shifting direction. If he can't vanish then he can't stealth (5 seconds to break combat versus the talented 1 second fade on Invis) before you can unload into him again from a new location. Certainly would add an exciting new twists on the rogue/mage 1v1 matchup. Sure Cloak of Skill will work against that but at least it is somewhat viable, which is a lot different then the current Deep Arcane vs Rogue matchup.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:09 PM   #1054
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Oh and if I didn't mention, NP only works on the initial AM cast, not individual missiles.
As you seem to have a good source of info, any word on:

- Hot Streak -- forced crit count as first of new triplet, or no?
- Deep Freeze -- break on damage, or no? (I presume the answer to this is "yes," but -- usable on targets affected by Grasp?)

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Old 06/12/08, 2:15 PM   #1055
Deedre
Piston Honda
 
Human Mage
 
Turalyon
You can get better pve dps with other builds, Rounced. I'll grant you that arcane looks good for pvp.

That said, encounter design may favor arcane in certain circumstances.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:19 PM   #1056
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Deedre View Post
You can get better pve dps with other builds, Rounced. I'll grant you that arcane looks good for pvp.

That said, encounter design may favor arcane in certain circumstances.
You mean, like, any circumstance that involves moving during the fight, arguably the single biggest complaint that mages had in TBC raid encounter designs? It might have an advantage under circumstances such as those?

I apologize for the sarcasm, Deedre, but you let your pessimism get away with you big time on this one. The sustained, stationary DPS gap is small; there will be plenty of fights on which Arcane's advantages (threat and mobility) come into play and allow it to be the top-performing spec. If Frost mages were able to find fights in TBC on which they could outperform Fire (and not talking about Al'ar here) due to mobility or good use of their more potent cooldowns, then Arcane mages can certainly do so given the numbers we're seeing at present and what we know of raid encounter design to date.

Now, bear in mind, the stats I calculated from are just a wild guess, but that could break in any direction when we get a better idea of the real numbers, and barring significant changes in the talents, it won't break very far.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:27 PM   #1057
Deedre
Piston Honda
 
Human Mage
 
Turalyon
Perhaps I'm letting my disappointment over AM get the best of me here, as well as my aesthetic preferences. But I just see so much more raid synergy going on with fire, frost, and possibly even elemental builds depending on how ffb plays out. It's telling that a deep arcane build functions best using only one arcane spell and otherwise is heavily borrowing nukes from other schools.

Yes, the dps isn't awful, but I can't help feeling a bit let down.

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Old 06/12/08, 2:57 PM   #1058
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Deedre View Post
Perhaps I'm letting my disappointment over AM get the best of me here, as well as my aesthetic preferences. But I just see so much more raid synergy going on with fire, frost, and possibly even elemental builds depending on how ffb plays out. It's telling that a deep arcane build functions best using only one arcane spell and otherwise is heavily borrowing nukes from other schools.

Yes, the dps isn't awful, but I can't help feeling a bit let down.
Well, it's true that Arcane uses spells from other schools, but that seems very fitting for the nature of the tree, since the tree buffs every school.

Now consider for a moment the impact of a hypothetical fight where you have to spend half your time moving.

Fire: Your DPS is cut to 0% during movement phases, resulting in 50% DPS for the whole fight.
Frost: Your DPS is cut to about 45% during movement phases (ice lance spam), resulting in about 72.5% DPS for the whole fight.
Arcane: Your DPS is cut to about 69% during movement phases (barrage spam + fireball on NP proc), resulting in about 84.5% DPS for the whole fight.

If we go with the numbers I posted above, on such a fight we'd see:

2423.78 * 0.845 = 2048.09 (Arcane)
2357.50 * 0.725 = 1709.19 (Frost)
2480.67 * 0.5 = 1240.335 (Fire)

You see what a huge difference can happen when we introduce movement? Now think of the huge range of fights between "no movement at all" and "lots of movement" and you'll see there's a whole range of results for the three trees as well -- and that's only one of the major variables.

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Old 06/12/08, 3:02 PM   #1059
Vontre
Mr. Sandman
 
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Vontre
Gnome Mage
 
No WoW Account
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
As you seem to have a good source of info, any word on:

- Hot Streak -- forced crit count as first of new triplet, or no?
- Deep Freeze -- break on damage, or no? (I presume the answer to this is "yes," but -- usable on targets affected by Grasp?)
Deep Freeze does not break on anything. It's a stun.

Hot Streak I have no idea.

[e] Deep Freeze: it's also a freeze, like those mobs in Wester Plaguelands do. A stun freeze. In a block of ice. Yes, you can ice lance it.

Last edited by Vontre : 06/12/08 at 3:13 PM.

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

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Old 06/12/08, 3:07 PM   #1060
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Vontre View Post
Deep Freeze does not break on anything. It's a stun.
There was some speculation that the freeze would break, while the target remained stunned. So this is not the case -- deep freeze gives you 5 seconds of guaranteed ice-cold shattery action no matter how many people are beating on the target? Neat. (Well, 5 seconds minus 1.5 / haste, really.)

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Old 06/12/08, 3:16 PM   #1061
Deedre
Piston Honda
 
Human Mage
 
Turalyon
In truth, the arcane mage is perhaps better off than even that in movement situations, since he can insert instant casts like fireblast and icelance into his rotation and get by reasonably well without frostbolt.

My main concern is that the arcane mage with decent but not outsanding dps is going to be muscled out of raid compositions by fire and frost and possibly elemental mages who bring along debuffs that benefit all mages (including the arcanist) as well as other classes. (Firelocks, deathknights.)

But I'll stop my grumbling here and admit I overreacted.

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Old 06/12/08, 3:20 PM   #1062
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Deedre View Post
My main concern is that the arcane mage with decent but not outsanding dps is going to be muscled out of raid compositions by fire and frost and possibly elemental mages who bring along debuffs that benefit all mages (including the arcanist) as well as other classes. (Firelocks, deathknights.)
Synergy's a risk, but if movement in fights -- even only about 10% movement time -- is more or less the norm, Arcane mages should generally put up higher personal numbers than Fire or Frost mages, thus making the better synergy of Fire and Frost mandatory to justify their presence.

There is a big wild card in here for Frost, and that's the effect of the Frozen Rune Weapon debuff. But that is only in play if you have a Frost-spec DK in the raid, of course.

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Old 06/12/08, 3:47 PM   #1063
Niv
Glass Joe
 
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Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Turalyon
Originally Posted by Deedre View Post
In truth, the arcane mage is perhaps better off than even that in movement situations, since he can insert instant casts like fireblast and icelance into his rotation and get by reasonably well without frostbolt.
So, Arcane Barrage won't trigger Fireblast's cd (and vice versa)?

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Old 06/12/08, 4:09 PM   #1064
Cryic
DPS
 
Human Mage
 
Llane
Originally Posted by Lhivera View Post
Fire: Your DPS is cut to 0% during movement phases, resulting in 50% DPS for the whole fight.
Frost: Your DPS is cut to about 45% during movement phases (ice lance spam), resulting in about 72.5% DPS for the whole fight.
Arcane: Your DPS is cut to about 69% during movement phases (barrage spam + fireball on NP proc), resulting in about 84.5% DPS for the whole fight.
Small quibble, but you would still use fireblast as Fire during movement phases.

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Old 06/12/08, 4:19 PM   #1065
Lhivera
Bald Bull
 
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Human Mage
 
Aggramar
Originally Posted by Cryic View Post
Small quibble, but you would still use fireblast as Fire during movement phases.
Aye, and a Fire mage could also use Ice Lance and maybe even hit some Winter's Grasp procs with it, but it illustrates the concept. DPS rankings of the three trees shift as you introduce movement, with Arcane coping best, then Frost, and Fire bringing up the rear, thus making up one of the elements that give the three trees unique advantages and disadvantages in different types of fights.

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