Deltrus

Well the official talent trees don't have a knockback on living bomb so I doubt it will have one. Also no inscription for living bomb has been released yet(I think). They are going to do a polish of the fire tree soon so I would just wait until then to get more information.

 

Qbert

I got the exact same feeling. It seems like a lot of current Mages these days were not around before TBC and don't remember how the exact same things regarding polish and "it is only beta" were being said at this same time 2 years ago... but not much was changed at all, and any changes that were made were for the worst.

The brightest thing about these Arcane changes is the display of willingness to scrap bad talents and rethink new ones. That gives the hope for throughput upgrades to Fire/Frost.

I'm happy for the Arcane changes, particularly the inclusion of Arcane Missles which has felt like an 'odd-spell-out' for quite some time. Although I do feel like Arcane Blast is just losing its identity even further.

 

PsyBomb

That no inscription has been released for it is no measure to go by. Thus far, we have fewer than 10 known inscriptions, mostly for Druids.

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.

 

Lemming

I don't remember seeing this before the new arcane tree was posted, but did anyone notice the change to Magic Absorption?

Magic Absorption (5/5) - Increases all resistances by 1 per level and causes spells you fully resist to restore 5% of your total mana. 1 sec. cooldown.

That's quite the change from the flat 10 resistance it gives now. Nothing ground breaking in terms of dps, but for those resistance fights it will be one or two less pieces of resist gear we need to wear. 80 (MA) + 76 (motw) + 40 (Mage armor) = 196 to all resistances at lvl 80. Should provide a decent mana return as well for fights with some random magic dmg.


Edit: ok it looks like it was there before, I just don't ever remember reading about it, its hard to remember all of 99 pages over the course of a couple weeks.

 

Qbert

Yes the Magic Absorption changes have been known for quite some time and it is a very welcome change, however I don't see it as having nearly as much of an impact in PvE as PvP. For PvE its use will hinge directly on whether the encounter has consistent periodic AoE magic damage that is fully resistible without massive amounts of resistance. For PvE it will be a situational spec encounter by encounter. It is hard to justify an entire spec where 5 pts are almost entirely useless unless you are speccing purely for one encounter. For that one encounter though, yes, the ability to have a high amount of resistance at a low tier is extremely good news.

 

Zymm

I don't understand the exclusion of some spells from certain arcane talents. It would be nice to see Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast in Missile Barrage and Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage in Spell Impact. It *is* the arcane tree after all. It seems like Blizzard is trying to make us want to use AM more, but why it wouldn't be included in two of the major talents in the Arcane tree is a mystery to me.

Anyone see any reason to not have those spells affected?

 

PsyBomb

Yeah, it was discussed earlier. There has also been a change to the resist calculations, it's now based off a 10% scale instead of 25%. Means people will take much steadier (and lower, on average) amounts of damage, but the number of full resists will be down.

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.

 

Lemming

If that's truely the case, then The secondary effect of this talent is next to useless. I suppose I might go back to dropping it again and picking back up 6 extra yards in arcane and frost.

 

Qbert

It makes sense to leave AM out of Missile Barrage since the exclusion of the potential to repeatedly spam one spell is always a good idea for enriching gameplay, but I'm in agreement regarding Arcane Blast. I think it loses a lot of what little viability it was given when left out of the Missile Barrage proc chance.

Also, unless Missile Barrage is designed to proc purely on distinct spell casts, I think they would have to redesign Arcane Missile's mechanics yet again to prevent another MSD fiasco where AM gains 6 chances to proc the effect. Otherwise you would have a 62.3% chance from every AM cast to proc Missile Barrage... even from a hasted AM, which would be MSD exploit pt 2.

 

Sinless

Yes, it breaks at much higher levels of damage. Usually after 3rd or 4th icelance crit. But I've never seen it last the entire duration.

 

Saizul

One interesting side effect of WG is that frost mage DPS, even while on the move, will be completely respectable.

In a raid with four WG mages spamming only icelance, you would see over 70% WG uptime. With a 5th mage this would go up to about 80%, or if all 4 of those mages had over 20% spell haste, it would go up to 81%.

Assuming:
4 deep frost mages with
0 haste
2k +dmg
25% crit before WC
absolutely no other raid synergy or buffs (CoE, Misery, whatever else)
You are still looking at:
WG DOWN:
IL hit ~518
IL crit ~1036

WG UP:
IL hit ~1858
IL crit ~3716

So the time-averaged hit damage from each IL from each mage will be something like:
[518*(1+.35)]*.29 + [1858(1+.85)]*.71 = 2643

or 1762 DPS

Admittedly this is not amazing...perhaps a bit below what top-end frost mages are doing now...but it is ignoring a number of multipliers and raid synergies that will likely be present, and all in a situation every mage is able to move unrestricted and without pause anywhere within 36 yards of the target.

Compare this to the extreme DPS drop off virtually every other class will suffer during movement-intensive phases, and I would say it is pretty impressive. It may be competitive or even better than arcane specs.

 

Joink

I've only ever had it break early in instances. 5+ icelances spammed while the target is rooted is common.

 

Qbert

I personally doubt WG goes live as is and the ability to spam Ice Lance will be viable. From the math I've done, it makes Mage-stacking too good and Ice Lance spam too viable. I just don't see a mechanic like that which promotes even less user-dependent gameplay being intended. I bet that WG gets reduced to something like proccing from Frostbolt (and maybe Waterbolt) only, chilling spells only, or possibly a list of spells like Frostbolt, Blizzard, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Waterbolt. Proccing from Ice Lance just seems wrong to me.

 

Trisyx

I don't have any experience with haste, and am just barely in the heroic phase of BC - but I specc'ed into 40/0/21 awhile ago and love it. I know I'm not optimally geared for it at all, but it's fun to play, and I enjoy actually thinking about what to cast. So, if I keep my affiliation with a deep arcane spec, I'll be looking at WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

My only concern has been mentioned throughout the thread as soon as the talent change popped up. I don't see a reason NOT to take Netherwind Presence, but have a hard time understanding how haste could possibly screw up arcane rotations. I don't really know what to expect from Arcane Barrage, but it should neat, and mixing in Frostbolt, Arcane Missles, and Arcane Blast just sounds entertaining to me.

Still, I'm a bit dissapointed with the change in talents, only because I looked forward to the emphasis of Spirit, and that sort of itemization. For me, with that and Spell Power, it helped a crappy geared mage itemize a little easier, but I'm assuming we'll get by.

Frost looks fun, and that's what I was before I chose the arcane build, and that seems awesome. I've never been interesed in Fire much, but the possibility of some nifty Elementist builds for BG's seems fun. Quick idea would be WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

I have a feeling that Mage burst damage won't be improved at all come WotLK, but still, that would make BG's really fun. With FFB, I'm not sure how it would work.

 

Saizul

I don't think elementalist builds will see much success in PvP. Most of the specs revolve around FFB, a 3 sec cast that apparently risks lockout of both frost and fire trees...hardly an ideal mainstay for any situation in pvp where theres a chance someone may pay attention to you. Not to mention that its viability is contingent on picking up as many multipliers as possible in both trees, forcing you to skip many options better suited to pvp. You may be able to get away with a few casts from 40 yards in BGs. But for the most part PvP will continue to be dominated by frost, and perhaps arcane will be able to move in and take a slice of the pie.

 

radikal

I haven't had a nova break from a lance below 2500. Big frostbolt crits I've had break novas, same with them breaking in 5mans. I'm assuming that the breaking odds have just been scaled up pretty significantly.

Deep Freeze is very underwhelming, a few small things:

If reflected, you still get frozen even if you aren't frozen. (annoying) I don't mean to be a dick when saying this, but realistically in competitive pvp, almost nobody is going to let you get a freeze on them the way the spell is currently designed. And the payoff for landing the freeze is perhaps too high. You can get two frostbolts + lance even with no haste point blank. (because of queueing mechanic) IMO, it needs to be .5 second off the global, not have a second frozen check, or simply removing the frozen requirement and shorten it to 4 seconds.

More later.

 

grayrest

Haste screwing up rotations is because haste effects the cast speed and GCD of spells but not cooldowns. Since ABr has a 3 second cooldown, having a GCD+Frostbolt in less than 3 seconds (it's 4 seconds without haste) means sitting around waiting for ABr to come off cooldown (bad) or having to cast two spells between ABr (bad for anything except possibly AB spam). With 10% haste from WoA and 6% from talents, getting from 4s to 3s is quite obtainable, particularly under haste procs, as Roywyn pointed out.

As for elementalist pvp builds, they don't revolve around FFB, they're basically today's 17/0/44 but with WG and with Blazing Speed instead of Imp. CS, something like this. The discussions about FFB elemental are pve related and don't really have anything to do with pvp. The question is Blazing Speed+Blastwave+Impact vs CttB+Deep Freeze+80 resist all+6% ice lance crit+6y on CS and poly+Imp. CS.

Edit: Realized I forgot the burst. For Arc, burst is way up. ABr->MBAM->ABr->PoM+FFB->ABr is a hefty chunk of damage in 7.5s, particularly with AP and is entirely instant cast except for the 1.5s AM. Frost burst is the same but occurs more frequently due to WG. WG can be dispelled, but dispelling a frost mage is a pain due to WC and frostbolt debuffs. Fire...sucks but burst has never been the focus of the tree.

 

dragnl0rd

Given that
1) there will probably be quite a few elemental builds and frost builds causing freezes
2) Death Knights might spec Frost for tanking and thus cause even more frozen conditions
3) Shatter affects ALL spell schools, not just frost

In a build where frost is the secondary tree (51/0/20 for some random example), should shatter not be considered a requirement? (I'm thinking combining the concepts of shatter and missile barrage)

Also, with a heavy arcane build, would AM be the spell to cast on a clearcasting proc regardless of whether Missile Barrage was procced?

 

Densor

Anyone who feels like any of our trees have too many points should take a look at the trees of other classes. Blizzard seems to have designed most talent trees to feel very full, especially at high tiers. I don't think many people will be playing 50/20+1 builds. More likely you'll see more 30/30+1, 5x/1y+z, and 4x/2y+z builds. The choice between a 21 point talent and 41 point talent has just been broadened to include more points.

If the current implementation of shared refreshable debuffs isn't changed (only the person who started it can tell when it will end), then Ice Lance will only be useful for the person who procced WG in the first place. Everyone else will be better off with continuing the Frostbolt spam, due to the chance that the debuff will refresh without you being able to tell. Frostbolt scales better than Ice Lance, so the only time Ice Lance is better is when you can get it in during a freeze and can't get a Frostbolt in.

Also, unless they change the mechanics from current implementations, haste auras/buffs from other players won't stack, so you'll have +3% from Ret paladins, +10% from WoA, +20% from Moonkin proc, or +30% from Heroism. If they do change, haste is going to be stupid.

 

Trisyx

Appreciate the reply.

I did not know that haste reduced the GCD, but I guess it wouldn't make sense any other way, now that I think about it. I recently looked up the formula's for haste rating, and I do see now how one could go about hitting a wall and gimping themselves with that.

I understand the concept about the burst that you're talking about, but I've never really put it into practice. I never looked into Arcane for anything like that except for PoM+Pyro, but it sounds awesome.

Again, thanks for teaching me something. :p

 

Althor

I haven't tested this myself (in terms of seeing if you can see entries from other people's debuffs on mobs) but Blizzard added entries to the combatlog that show when a debuff has been refreshed so it's possible that even if it the duration left isn't directly able to be queried that by checking combat log events you can get an idea as to whether or not that debuff you want is going to fall off within the next couple of seconds or not.

 

Skallewag

There is either one of two things that has to happen for any ABar spec to be good fo r PvE.

* Either there has to be some way to affect the cooldown of the spell so that any rotation that works with 0 haste also works when you start getting some haste.

* Option two is that there is a rotation with two filler spells mixed with ABar that can swallow a lot of haste without gliding under the ABar CD. For example Frostbolt, Frostbolt, ABar. If something like that makes for competetive DPS compared to what deep fire, deep frost and elemental has to offer then haste scaling is no big issue for deep arcane mages. But if two filler talents means you get to low DPS then the ABar spec suddenly runs into a whole bunch of problems.

As things look now there are a lot of nice high tier arcane talents but they dont interact to well with eachother. You can for example pour a lot of points into Arcane Missiles without managing to turn it into a good main nuke. Improved AM and Empowered AM wont be enoughe unless AM scales up a lot more than shown so far at lv 80. Thats 8 talent points and you still dont even have a good filler spell. Not to mention that you definetley want to pick up Missile Barrage since that makes AM cause tremendous damage when it procs. But casting AM at any time exept on procs will be bad since AM cant proc Missile Barrage. Empowered Arcane Missiles could possibly be worth it, Im not sure. But spontaniously it feels like you can get better stuff for over all performance than buffing those barrage procs a bit more.

Then theres Arcane Blast. Fully ramped you can get two off in between ABar casts at 0 haste, but as soon as you get any haste at all (remember theres 6% you can spec for giving even a naked arcane mage some base haste) then you haveto either wait for ABar CD or cast one more spell. Regardless of what kind of DPS you get out of AB spam it currently cant proc missile barrage meaning you get 15% proc chanse out of 4 spellcasts or 6 sec unhasted casting, (based on allready having ramped up AB previous cycles). From frostbolt + ABar you get 30% proc chanse in 5 sec or 45% chanse in 7,5 sec and that applies from cycle one. No ramp up time.

Long story short a lot of the future of arcane currently depends on what kind of DPS you can put out if you haveto cast two of some non arcane spell +ABar or if there will be some way to ensure that even with haste you can weave one non arcane spell +Abar. But I would love to see these new arcane talents tweaked just a little bit more to interact better with eachother.

* A total of 13 points that affect arcane missiles is to much if AM is to be reduced to a cast on proc only spell.

* Being able to spec 6% haste seems pointless if even 1% haste starts screwing up your casting cycles.

* Arcane flows on its own is a very sweet talent, lots of bang for your buck. But again its far far better for DPS to spend one more point in frost and get IV, and if you allready have IV the only gain to Arcane Flows is reduced CD to PoM and Invis. Faster PoMs is ofcourse a DPS increase but no way near what 30 sec off on AP means if IV was out of the picture.

Talents that counter eachother rather than work together makes me a sad panda, but with some minor tweakes I could instead be a Kung Fu panda!

 

nazar

I made an algorythm calculating a table with the wotlk talent Hot Streak's approximate conversion to crit %, since I was curious about how good the talent was. Since I don't master alot of programming languages, however, I decided to do the calculations in a previous blizzard game: Warcraft 3 world edit, which is a perfectly fine way to do it, due to the complexity of JASS. The code is later in the post, so you can verify it for yourself.

Each number in the table is based on 500000 tests which adds up to 2,500,000 tests for each column. The numbers, however, still varies slightly due to the inconsistence of the talent. It's probably possible to derive this mathematically, but I haven't figured out a way to do it myself.

Now, I've not taken resists into account, so the real crit values are in fact a bit smaller, but the table should give an overview of the effectiveness of the talent anyway. Enjoy!

Table:

Following this table, your actual crit chance with 3/3 Hot streak and for instance 35% crit will be around 37%.


Graph:



As seen in the table the talent is very insignificant and generally worthless at lower crit percentages. It, however, gradually increases until a certain point placed between 65 and 70%, whereafter it begins to tone down again.

Conclusion: So is this effect worth 3 talent points? Well, it's probably not that good for 3 talent points in tier 7, but if you want to go all the way in fire, then there's no reason not to take it, since there aren't any viable alternatives.


Code (JASS):
function GetCrit takes integer critprocent returns real
local integer i=0
local integer a=500000
local integer c=0
local real r=I2R(critprocent)
local integer crit=0
local integer critrow=0
local real critcompare=0
loop
exitwhen i==a
if ModuloInteger(i, 2500)==0 then
call TriggerSleepAction(0)
endif
if GetRandomReal(0,100)<=r or critrow>2 then
set crit=crit+1
if critrow>2 then
set critrow=0
endif
set critrow=critrow+1
else
set critrow=0
endif
set i=i+1
endloop
set critcompare=(I2R(crit)/I2R(i))*100-r
return critcompare
endfunction




Any comments to the calculation of the additional critical strike percent are welcome.

 

Sunstealer

with haste from NWP(6%) and WoA tot(10% apparently), it's bringing frostbolt down to a 2.12sec cast, and the GCD (for Abar) 1.27sec, making it a 3.39 sec rotation. (we're not counting in gear haste, but i imagine you'll hasve 5-8% more from it as i have on my t6 when i have my haste suit on.)

3.39 sec is great for a rotation. barely overpassing the cooldown for Abar.

Now when you factor in IV (now i did a straight 20% haste but i've heard that it only really gives 16.6% for some reason... confirm/deny??) it brings Frostbolt down to a 1.7 cast and your GCD down to 1.02 sec, equaling out to be... a 2.7sec rotation...

Now this is a little bit of a problem. in this situation you can do one of two things as i see it...

Awitch to FFB for the duration of IV, since the cast time there will be 2.03 sec, it'll go rather nicely with the 1.02 sec GCD, bringing you back to what appears to be a very clean 3.05 sec rotation, damn near perfect.

Adding Bloodlust into the situation, it seems that Frostbolt become a good choice, changing it to a 2:1 rotation with frostbolt. Oviously BL brings the GCD down to the 1sec cap (if thats still there in wotlk, idk) and Frostbolt down to 1.48 sec cast... Setting you up similarly to your original 4 sec 3.96sec rotation, only with 2 frostbolts before you do a Abar again. (of course throwing in the AM procs when they occur)... That's BL on it's own... but assuming all goes well you'll obviously have IV up with Bloodlust too... sooo Frostbolt becomes a 1.19sec cast, making your 2:1 rotation even nicer.
1 sec GCD (Abar) -> Fbolt (1.19sec) -> Fbolt (1.19sec) -> Abar repeat...

So... all this into consideration, it seems FFB is best when IV is by itself and 2:1 Fbolt becomes the best when you have IV and BL up. Or even Blust by itself, you just gotta know when to switch and you've got to be able to think on your feet.

Personally im exctied to have this option... this randomocity in there... it's a whole hell of a lot better than the lame ass 8x Fireball 1x scorch... /yawn


** NOTE: if outside haste effects STILL wont stack in WotLK, that i'd have to do math to remove the WoA totem for when Blust is activated... which may be the difference between using Frostbolt or still using FFB...

can someone confirm/deny this also please?

 

Arazan

I'm really confused as to why you guys seem to only be looking at WG in terms of deep frost specs spamming Ice Lance. Yes, spamming IL instead of frostbolt will result in higher uptime with less mages, but IL has a *FAR* worse coefficient per second... and when you're talking about mages with 2k+ SD that 10% difference in coefficient per second is pretty huge.

Also, assuming no raid debuffs whatsoever makes the dps look far, far worse than it will be. Misery + CoE + Winter's Chill + Frozen Rune Weapon is somewhere in the ballpark of a 35% damage increase, which turns that 1762 into 2378... which is just a *tad* better.

Anyway, what I see with WG is 0/33/38 using Frostfire Bolt. FFB is the best nuke in terms of scaling with crit, so being gifted 50% crit from shatter/WG will be a HUGE dps boost.

Really, if it's not too much trouble run the math with those mages being 0/33/38 and spamming FFB... even with the worse WG uptime from a slower cast it should be far, far more dps... and again, this gets into why WG is so dangerous. It's great dps for one or two mages, amazing dps for three or four, and exponentially increases the more you stack WG mages for all your raid dps slots.