arch

Well, there's threads for most other classes and I kinda miss the mage talk around here. The existing mage threads are all spread over different subjects and all of them are dead. Probably just because they were all about specific subjects, and you eventually reach a point where there isnt really that much more to be said when you keep strictly to one subject.

Anyhow, with the latest changes to the Arcane tree, I really see the tree becoming alot stronger.

I'm not really a fan of deep arcane as a PvE dps build, but Kalgan has already said that they want arcane missiles to be the best dps nuke, although very mana inefficient. I think they were close to that before, but now even a complete math fool such as me understands that the mana penalty reduction at Empowered Arcane missiles and the addition of SPell Power certainly made Arcane catch up to deep fire as a PvE dps source.

If we assume that the new Spell Power talent stacks with Ice shards and Ignite (and I see no reason why it shouldn't with that wording they used in the tooltip) then there's some important maths to be done. The most obvious frost example would be a pvp spec, I'll toss out a build I put together in 20 seconds here

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10005013000000

The build includes presence of mind, Arcane power, spell power, Ice shards, Shatter, Ice block and imp CoC. Just imagine the quick burst you could do with Ice lance and arcane power combined with spell power ice shards and Shatter. It's insane. Not to mention that this is build includes so much pvp utility, most likely THE best pvp utility build out there.

Moving over to the fire department, the addition of 50% more upfront damage to fire crits is interesting, bumping it to 75% upfront and 40% ignite added to that.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

The build even manages to reach 10% damage with instability, 1/3 playing with fire and 3/5 fire power, and it's a very interesting build both in the PvE aspect and PvP since we all know that ignite isnt all too reliable in PvP. I suspect that build can compete with a deeper fire build in pure PvE damage, but as I said earlier, there's maths to be done and that's certainly not my strongest area.

I´d like for this thread to be as broad as possible, discussing not only talent builds but changes and mechanics in general regarding the TBC and such.

Let's start off with this Spell Power talent, am I overrating its value?

 

Kasonic

It basically means an otherwise unboosted spell will do 175% normal damage instead of 150% on a crit, correct?

I joked about it before, but 61 Arcane really doesn't look that terrible anymore.

 

BeavisNuke

We have to find out if spell power would be multiplicative or additive with other +crit talents. Are these live on the test server yet?

http://ctprofiles.net/1367

 

Cloudgatherer

Adding spell power, buffing slow, and moving prismatic cloak down a level are fairly decent Arcane tree buffs. These changes make a deep arcane build alot more appealing now.

I am a bit surprised Spell Power applies to all spells, not just a +100% critical damage bonus for arcane like we have for fire/frost. So the mage firing a 1000 damage frostbolt does the following on a crit: a) frost: 2K b) arcane 1750 and c) frost & arcane: 2500 or 2250 (or other, does the multiplaction stacking factor in here? Guess we'll see).

Slow still needs some work IMO. That's a huge chunk of mana for a 15 second debuff and it's usefulness is... questionable. If you are fighting a caster/hunter, switching to a channeled/instant spell not a huge deal. If you are fighting a melee class... uh, what does it do for you? Warriors still charge/intercept as usual, which we have used basic chill effects to slow them in the past, and rogues have always been pretty boned against slowing effects. Slow just seems like a concept they are trying to make work.

 

Nite_Moogle

I think part of why Spell Power is there to help make up for the fact that Arcane itself really only has 2 damage spells, and will automatically improve either of the other two trees with very basic investment. Going 42/19/0 or 42/0/19 (I can't just get 41 without missing something good) means you aren't totally reliant upon Arcane Missiles or Arcane Blast. Going 43 Arcane to trick out your +dmg and Arcane Missiles and then 18 Fire for Master of Elements to rattle off machine gun Scorches and burning your Holycrap Arcane Missiles clearcasts (which are sitting at +70% of your +dmg, +36% crit rate and 175% crit bonus) is going to be a sickening way to extend your mana far, far longer than you have any right to at all and still do excellent damage in the process.

Also, Slow moving to a 50% move speed debuff is going to make it possible to kite any single mob not immune to the effect extremely easy for as long as you have mana.

 

Tempestra

Depending on stacking issues and semantics, spell power would be anywhere between 25% * crit rate of a sustained dps boost to 50% * crit rate. With a 30% crit rate that's a 7.5% to 15% dps boost, not counting how it'd affect ignites.

Not bad at all for two points... In fact it might be the greatest of all the new talents.

 

Nurru

These changes lend a lot of weight to arcane, but I'm still wary of going that deep into the tree. In pvp slow isn't much of a difference over a simple chill effect vs melee and I can't see it being a huge gain over many other classes:

Hunter: Ok, he's slowed 50%. I could have rank 1 frostbolted for just as well (Keep in mind, I'm frost)
Warlock: Slow doesn't stop those dots or deathcoil
Priest/Paladin: Oh look, they dispelled my expensive slow magic
Druid: I'm curious, would shifting remove slow due to the snare portion?
Shaman: This is the only class I could see it being very useful against
Mage: Mage vs Mage is already stupid, I'm ignoring this one.

In PVE I don't see a reason to use it over Thunderclap and/or CoT since the mobs are vulnerable to all three or none at all. It would just be a mana drain on the mage keeping it up and lower their dps.

Slow aside, Spell Power is interesting. 150% crits is one of the major issues hold Arcane Missiles back, this would help that and also mesh extremely well with the other arcane buff talents in the tree. I agree with the Nite_Moogle in regards to the MoE spec, but aside from pure single target dps that build lacks decent tricks / utility. It's quite a tradeoff, but definitely something to look at.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Nite_Moogle

Slow affecting both ranged attack speed and movement speed is going to make it a lot easier to stay inside the dead zone and to not take as much damage while you're not in the dead zone.
And you're right, it's going to be debilitating to Shamans without Improved Ghost Wolf that don't catch it with Grounding Totem. I wouldn't be totally shocked to see a short recast time on Slow at some point.

 

• Navaash

The reason the bonus is only 50% is probably

* because it applies to all trees, not just one
* because of existing itemization

 

silversum

These changes are very nice for the arcane tree, but I'd still rather dump most of my points into fire, as the tree oversall just seems more 'fun.'

 

Omentuva

I'm still wary for full Arcane, though it certainly is possible. Slow, however powerful it is. (And it is.), eats a lot of mana, and I mean a lot. This makes the use very situational. (Especially with the perceived hp increases, mana became a lot more important in my opinion for PvP.) I'm still not convinced to spec deep Arcane, though I dare say that it will depend on how Spell Power is calculated. I'm guessing for 175 % normal crits, 40 % of 175 % as the Ignite DoT. (Or, effectively, 70 % of the normal spell had it not critted in stead of 60 %, all doing double duty with CoE and Imp Scorch.). As for Frost, I'm hoping on 250 %, but guessing for 225 % on Frostbolts / Cones.

That having been said, 43/18/0 with MoE looks very, very nice now, but we'll have to see how it works out. I'm just hoping that Blizzard enters enough gold on the mobs in TBC. I can see about 5 respecs coming at 70 already...

 

duostrike

Attack speed slowing is where this is great. Also slows cast time aka aimed shot. Slow verses hunters = fun
Probably the best use of slow is against hunters.
You aren't suggesting that mages have a chance against warlocks are you? heh.. However, it does make fear cast time 50% longer and shadowbolt etc.... very useful against locks. Moreso in the arena or group pvp.
True, what's new?
Probably
yep very good

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Did you notice that it went up from 20% slow to 50% slow?... or am i just seeing things....
In the new implementation slow looks great.

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Only thing missing is a talent to provide resistance to dispelling. I can dream can't I?

 

Northerner

My first impulse was to revive the old 28/23 spec into a 40/21 arc/frost spec and continue to ignore AM/ABlast. It certainly has some merit but frankly I don't know that it will hold up at all to actual testing. Mind mastery really feeds off AMind and frankly, I'm just not sold on spending that many talent points for what may end up being a rather small +damage boost at 70. This is especially true as I don't otherwise tend to seek Int much at all.

For solo work the 3x/2y arc/frost with perma/shatter is however pretty silly and although very tight on talent points in frost, should produce very high damage on any target that can be frozen even in 5-man settings. I'll call this one a farmer's delight though, with potential raid/group applications. The really interesting one though is the 32/29 arc/fire spec, with emphasis on gearing for crits to feed unparalleled ignites. If the ignite mechanic stays the same then this is simply going to be more powerful than any other option I can think of, presuming situations where you can still roll ignites. That is however a pretty huge presumption, given smaller raid sizes and the odds of getting 3+ fire mages together to try and build a decent stack and especially without combustion to seed it. It probably won't play well in real situations to be honest but it is something I'll definitely play with a little bit at least.

I understand what they are trying to do with Spell Power but frankly, it still doesn't make me want to go deep into arcane for the arcane spells at all. Perhaps it's max rank should increase fire/frost crit bonuses by 33% and arcane by 100% rather than all of them by 50%. Slow just isn't compelling to me still and Mind Mastery is close to being interesting but feeds off a stat that I inherently dislike. Neither is horrible really but those points are points I'd much rather stick into fire or frost.

 

Viator

Exactly. I appreciate the builds that were posted but if that's the max statistical fire damage build no way. That's pretty unfun to my non-beta eyes. At the least I'd have to shed some to get Combustion and go from there.

Mages have a set time that they want you to ask for food, and that time is pull #4 of the night. You may notice them putting a little snack table down before the raid, that's them cooking the food for you to demand on pull 4. --Nork

 

Lhivera

The big question for me is whether a Spell Power + Ice Shards build gets:

1 + (0.5 * 2.0) + (0.5 * 1.5) = 2.25 = 225% crit
1 + (0.5 * 2.0 * 1.5) = 2.50 = 250% crit

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.

 

Tempestra

That's an interesting suggestion and one I think would be good to look at more closely. If they're trying to make arcane viable as a DPS tree, why not make the actual arcane spells crit higher. As it stands, it sends a confusing message to mages who want to dps with fire and frost -- +7.5-15% dps just from 2 talent points in the arcane tree?

 

• Lanky

I am fairly impressed with Arcane at this point, although I still think I'll be deep frost on my mage come expansion.
I see potential for a PvE, PvP hybrid in arcane, something like this.

 

Nurru

Now that we're seeing gear from 60-67 the int changes to support Mind Mastery doesn't really seem there to me. With MM ending up giving such a mediocre bonus (What's +75 dmg in the grand scheme of things?), it hurts the effectiveness of the arcane specific builds. Raid itemization at 70 could change this, but it would need to be pretty drastic to make it worthwhile considering how much you give up for extremely mana inefficient dps.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Z-Factor

I am arcane in the beta atm and i must say i am having a lot of fun with slow, although i should really try fire out

 

Azhdeen

I don't see why spell power and ice shards wouldn't stack. The percentages should probably add. Ice Shards adds 100% of your critical damage (50% of your base damage dealt) and Spell Power will add 50% of your critical strike damage (25% of your base damage dealt). So this is 100% damage from base, 50% from crit, 50% from Ice Shards, and 25% from Spell power for a grand total of 225% damage.

Personally, to take advantage of both, I'd probably go with
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...10004010000000

Improved cone of cold isn't that great of a spell. Currently at 60, with mostly BWL gear and a few MC pieces, I'm running around with a tad over 400 int (yay gnomes), so that'd be a solid +100 spell damage to all spells (assuming that it doesn't get modified due to casting times - that would be a pretty important question to get answered now that I think of it). With that same gear, I'm also running around with a bit over 400 spell damage, so a 25% increase to my bonus damage is pretty sweet, even if it does get scaled due to casting time. Thus, I'd find it more valueable than improved cone of cold. Also, the amount of critical chance you have will determine if the point in ice block or slow (I have it in ice block right now) winds up going back to shatter or not.

But the following is still definitely possible, particularly in a pvp setting: PoM, Arcane Power, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Lance some unlucky sap, Cold Snap, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Frostbolt, Ice Lance.

All of those spells are pretty much going to deal an extra 250% damage (base + critical, and Ice Lance will multiply it's result by 3 to figure out it's damage). A couple people are pretty dead, and anyone else who's not dead won't be too thrilled. And they're all instant, which is great. And that's some pretty sweet farming, albeit once every 10 minutes :p Substitute Frostbolt for Flamestrike for AoE farming greatness once every 10 minutes. Finish mobs off with arcane explosion.

However, this is just me entertaining the thought of combing spell power with other +crit damage talents. Personally, I like pvp and pve flexibility, and I value mobility in pvp above most everything else so fire is by far the easy choice for me. I'm currently 21/30 arc/fire, but will most likely sink 41 or 42 points into fire come expansion. I've also ignored impact through my entire fire career (not a fan of a stun occurring only 10% of the times I need it), but with Molten Armor proccing impact, I can see it being much more useful, particularly when dealing with pets. It's pretty much just a bonus at that point, considering the -10% to be crit chance and the +3% chance to crit with spells.

 

Lhivera

To do the math correctly on Arcane Missiles with these new changes, we need to know for sure what the standard, untalented damage coefficient is. At present on the live servers it's 1.2, but I've seen a beta tester in the mage forums report that it has been increased in beta to 1.43, the fully value it should get for the 5 sec. cast time. Does anyone know for sure?

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.

 

Northerner

If (and that is a big if indeed) AM is now getting 1.4+ out of +damage gear then the whole thing shifts rather dramatically. It would still suffer from 1.75 crits but would at least otherwise scale nicely and become a decent staple nuke and a quite good choice on clearcasts, if indeed we can ever switch spells on clearcasting reliably without losing the amount of time we do presently. I know the stated intention is a spell that does heavy damage at the cost of mana efficiency but presently AM is not that spell at all.

I still see arcane as pretty much requiring another tree to be supported properly but I have not had a chance to do real testing at all yet. As I've often said, theorycrafting is all well and good but is never a substitute for actual parses and analysis.

 

◊ Eej

Crit damage multipliers stack multiplicatively (thus, [(50 * 2) * 1.5 = 150% additional damage). You can test this now with Hunter talents (Mortal Shots + Humanoid Slaying, use Arcane Shot to test because of its fixed damage).

Which leads me to believe a lot of Mages will be speccing 34/0/27. :P

 

Cloudgatherer

This certainly seems like a pretty huge incentive to spec 3x arcane and 2y frost. Screams to me "use shatter and ice lance!"

Say your ice lance does 500 damage, +150% damage bonus would be 1250 (eh, that number right?). Triple damage on a frozen target (+50% crit chance) so we're talking almost 4K (3750) damage for a 150 mana cost spell which can happen fairly regularly? Am I even remotely reading that right or has ice lance changed since I last read it?

Raid spec? Nope. Grind/instance like a demon? I'd certainly hope so!

 

Copernicus

My quick math makes a 33/28 Arcane Fire build about 2% better than a heavy fire build, but that's way cancelled out by the 6% hit that a 1?/4?/3 Arcane/Fire build gets. I wasn't counting Combustion, Molten Fury, Arcane Power, or Playing with Fire. Crits would go from 210% damage to 280% damage (200% damage on a regular hit with an 80% of the base damage on ignite).

A 40/21 Arcane/Frost build is around 85% of the damage output of a heavy Fire build, without any buildup requirement. That's assuming that the modifiers stack additionally, giving Frostbolts a 250% crit. That compares to the DPS output of a hybrid class specced for casting (Balance, Shadow, or Elemental). Frost is getting better DPM and Arcane Power though. Frost is still a dissapointing talent spec vs Fire. Fire just does so much more raw damage and has a better burst talent, that Frost is basicly revolving around Frostbite/Shatter and Water Elemental.

Also, Slow is no longer slowing down melee attacks it seems. Unless a blue post mentios that somewhere.

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Overall, I'm not that impressed by the mage in TBC. A great deal depends on threat limited encounters, so that Invisibility and the aggro-reduction talents mean something. Otherwise, all a mage brings to the table is burst damage via Combustion/Molten Fury/Arcane Power/Water Elemental. Frost damage remains anemic without Water Elemental or frozen targets. It's kind of like the rogue, where the main thing the mage brings is single-target DPS, and every class is getting some method of bringing a form of DPS to the encounter and a raid or party buff to point out why they are valuable to the group or raid, above and beyond their DPS. It's probably because mages got such a good review recently, so we had less to go than other classes. But unless everything is like Naxx (enrages, sub-20% berserks, or other stuff that requires burst damage or high overall damage), pre-taunt BWL (where threat was incredibly important) or ZG (where Polymorph/Frost Nova where useful) then a pure DPS class is just going to have less overall value to the raid then a well-played healer that can spec DPS. I know, it's a wide range of stuff that seperates a mage from an off-spec DPS. But if the first raid instance is MC 2.0, then I'll be unhappy. And it's something that simply can't be theorycrafted since it's so encounter dependent.