TBC Mage Theorycrafting - Page 113

Anedris · 08/14/07, 6:42 AM

It still runs out of mana, although it's not as bad as it used to be because it now starts with a full mana pool instead of a partially filled one (and at some level of intellect it may start with enough mana to chain cast for its duration, I'm not sure). Shadow priests obviously make this a non-issue.

My mage alt wears 2-piece oblivion to solve the problem. (Warlock tier 3.5 dungeon set - the 2 piece set bonus is 45 mp5 for your pet.)

Frenzi · 08/14/07, 7:32 AM

It does run out of mana but I wouldn't say it was halfway through its duration, maybey 10-15 secs before it despawns. I am always in a Shadow Priest group so normally it despawns before it runs out of mana.

If you want to see it go out of mana really fast get it bloodlusted with no mana regen :P

If I don't have a shadowpriest ( the nabs do die occasionally :P) I tend to coldsnap the second before the first has despawned.

Azurepain · 08/14/07, 7:46 AM

Originally Posted by Frenzi

925 average damage would be about right in my general experience but 15% crit is almost twice what my WE achieves everytime I raid. I have just checked the last few WWS reports of our raids and my WE has had exactly 8% crit.

The water elemental should gain the benefit of winter's chill for at least a 10% crit rate. After that I assume Vontre added the 5% crit chance that mobs generally have. However, that is only accurate for even level mobs. I think that amount is reduced to only 2-3% against bosses 3 levels higher. This 12-13% crit rate is very much in line with what I see against bosses in my WWS logs.

I believe what you are seeing is the result of viewing an entire run where the Water Elemental was used on a lot of trash where most mobs will die before 5x winter's chill is stacked or at least the lesser stacks factor in. This could easily reduce a the crit rate down to 8-9% for a full run, but I really don't care about trash dps and am only interested in the crit rate on bosses.

Also grouping with an elemental shaman should bring the water elemental back up to 15% crit rate and lower it's resist rate down to 14% on bosses. Sadly we don't have any in our raids atm.

Originally Posted by Roywyn

I haven't been frost for a few patches now, but the last times I toyed with it, the Water Elemental always ran out of mana halfway through it's duration.

Is mana still that close? Or does it not really matter since you're always in a shadow priest group anyway?

Now that the water elemental jumps to full mana and health on summon it is far better about mana. Mine still can run out 1-2bolts short sometimes depending on the gear I'm wearing and how much INT it has, but it's still vastly better then when it ran out in under 30 seconds. That said losing a bolt would certainly affect it's dps those rare times I'm not grouped with a shadow priest.

Frenzi · 08/14/07, 7:57 AM

Originally Posted by Azurepain

I believe what you are seeing is the result of viewing an entire run where the Water Elemental was used on a lot of trash where most mobs will die before 5x winter's chill is stacked or at least the lesser stacks factor in. This could easily reduce a the crit rate down to 8-9% for a full run, but I really don't care about trash dps and am only interested in the crit rate on bosses.

Nope the logs I looked at are from our Kael wipes the last couple of days. I don't use the WE during that trash as I am too busy working out what needs spam sheeping.

Over 350ish casts from the elemental during two raids, specifically, Thaladred in P1 and the Weapons in P2 is the only time I cast them, I also coldsnap for the weapons.

Cloudgatherer · 08/14/07, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by Azurepain

The water elemental should gain the benefit of winter's chill for at least a 10% crit rate.

It should, but parse after parse I've seen state otherwise. A Gruul kill where I typically don't summon till after a few WC builds up, and a Lurker kill, where you'd expect the crit rate to be at least 10% due to the long phases. WE-waterbolt seems to have its own crit/hit formula's, more likely, they just aren't modified by anything other than a flat, assigned rate.

Vontre · 08/14/07, 1:59 PM

Originally Posted by Cloudgatherer

It should, but parse after parse I've seen state otherwise. A Gruul kill where I typically don't summon till after a few WC builds up, and a Lurker kill, where you'd expect the crit rate to be at least 10% due to the long phases. WE-waterbolt seems to have its own crit/hit formula's, more likely, they just aren't modified by anything other than a flat, assigned rate.

This is interesting. If we can find more data that supports this I'll make the change in the spreadsheet.

jogjog · 08/20/07, 6:51 AM

Hi, I have a question, do you know if a deep frost mage tested the "Eye of Magtheridon"? I wanted to know if the trinket can proc when a bolt coming from the pet is resisted...

Caus' the pet can't cap hit and has a lot of resists on HL.

Frenzi · 08/20/07, 7:02 AM

Originally Posted by Frenzi

I am starting to get a feeling there is something not quite right with +hit and Frostbolt. I understand that +hit resists have absolutely nothing to do with partial resists but recently since we started logging our raids with WWS I have noticed my miss rate is ridiculously low compared to others who have equal or more +hit than myself.

My current gear has just over 10% +hit from gear and I have Elemental Precision specced which in theory gives me a little more than 13%. According to what I know I should get roughly 4% miss rate per boss fight.

My average miss rate for the last two weeks has been under 0.5%, basically what I am seeing is one of my Frostbolts missing once on one fight per night.

Last week on one of the raids we did Al'ar, Solarian, VR, Hydross. Four hours worth of raiding and from the whole night only on one of the attempts we had on Solarian did I get a miss. Al'ar for instance from that night I had 120 frostbolts cast and not one missed. Last night we did Al'ar, Void Reaver, Hydross, Lurker , Kazzak. Again I had 0% miss rate on every fight except Lurker where I had one miss putting me at a 1.2% missrate.

These aren't just freak occurences either, I haven't seen my miss rate hit 2% or anywhere near so far in the last month since I have been checking for it.

Has anyone else seen anything like this, I find it hard to believe it just because I am extremely lucky? :P

I would like to go back to this, I have still been monitoring my missrate on Frostbolt, I am now on 12.5% + hit (9.5% from gear and 3% from elemental precision)

As far as I can see from my combat logs every other spell is reacting as normal and I am getting the missrate that is to be expected:

0.5% on Arcane Explosion & Arcane Blast(3 points in Arcane Focus)
3-4% on Ice Lance & Fireblast

but...

1.5% on Frostbolt

I have a theory but I think my theory is bogus TBH. I think that maybe full resists are being calculated into the missrate, its the only thing I can think of that could possibly account for frostbolt having less chance to miss which really shouldn't be the case at all.

Obviously the problems with this is that frostbolts should probably have a higher miss rate due to not getting partial resists but that doesn't seem to happen either. There is just to many holes in my theory for me to accept it TBH but I want to know exactly why Frostbolt has less chance to miss than other spells?

Currently with less chance to miss and no partial resists frostbolt is looking better than ever.

I can link the WWS reports I have but so far over about 5000 frostbolts while raiding 1.5% is the average with 12.5% +hit

Edit: I would like to point out also that we don't have any elemental shamans in the guild so Totem of Wrath is not a factor.

songster · 08/20/07, 7:08 AM

What's your crit rate on frostbolt? Didn't Empowered Frostbolt give +hit% at some point in beta? It may be that there's something buggy with it - maybe one of the ranks still gives hit instead of crit? Can't be a full 5% from Emp FB, or you'd be capped and not seeing any misses.

Frenzi · 08/20/07, 7:16 AM

I have 22.6% or something from gear, I average 38% crit looking at damage meters but obviously this varies.

I don't think this is where the difference lies, I do that there is a difference in wording between Empowered Frostbolt and Winter's Chill where one says "Critical hit" and the other says "Critical Strike". That is just grasping at straws honestly.

songster · 08/20/07, 8:07 AM

Originally Posted by Frenzi

I have 22.6% or something from gear, I average 38% crit looking at damage meters but obviously this varies.

I don't think this is where the difference lies, I do that there is a difference in wording between Empowered Frostbolt and Winter's Chill where one says "Critical hit" and the other says "Critical Strike". That is just grasping at straws honestly.

Any chance you could run a test during a Kara run or other farm content? Just drop the 5 points in Emp FB and see if it affects your hit rate.

Frenzi · 08/20/07, 8:16 AM

Well I haven't been to Kara on my mage for 3 months, our Kara runs are run on offdays and usually when I am working. I can't test this on our 25 man runs apart from Gruul and Mag but they aren't long enough to get an accurate sample plus we rarely run those either.

Frenzi · 08/20/07, 8:28 AM

An old Al'ar kill:

WWS

Both Liinoe and Agalloch were 10/48/3 spec for this, i can't remember their exact hit rating but it isn't much better or worse than mine, Liinoe's was bout 8% from gear I think at that time. Both have 0% miss on Al'ar without anything other than the 3 points in elemental precision. Their normal miss rate with fireball was 4-5%

Its a really crappy sample but its the only recorded Al'ar kill I have with our fire mages present.

Cryic · 08/20/07, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Vontre

This is interesting. If we can find more data that supports this I'll make the change in the spreadsheet.

Here's some numbers for the Water Elemental against level 73 bosses for myself for the last month. Includes fights against Vashj, Leo the Blind, Gruul, Mag, VR, Al'ar and Tidewalker. I included Vashj, Al'ar and Tidewalker because I almost strickly use the pet on the boss, he never goes on the adds unless something crazy happens.

1870 Waterbolts.
1379 Hits. 73.7%
203 Crits. 10.8%
288 Misses. 15.4%

I almost always summon the WE at the start of every boss fight, so the WC buff is not up yet for some of it's damage (probably 5% total). My hit gear is around 12%, with another 3% from EP.

The data source of the above numbers is here: Wow Web Stats

Most of the recent raids I'm 3/0/58 frost.

Voley · 08/22/07, 2:33 PM

Anybody who got Ashtongue talisman, does it have hidden cooldown?

Aldric · 08/22/07, 2:37 PM

Originally Posted by Voley

Anybody who got Ashtongue talisman, does it have hidden cooldown?

There is no hidden cooldown.

jula · 08/23/07, 8:10 AM

anyone know the modifier formula for downranking spells ? assuming i'm lvl 70...
i know its bad to downrank, but i still wanna know

Docjowles · 08/23/07, 11:07 AM

Two seconds on WoWWiki reveals: Formulas:Plus damage and Plus healing - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

alai · 08/25/07, 6:01 PM

Is the change in Patch 2.2 a buff or nerf for mages in respect of [Mystical Skyfire Diamond]?

I refer to the PTR notes
WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes

Relevant quote for easy reading:

# Increased the duration of the Mystical Skyfire Diamond’s cast speed buff to 10 seconds.

Presently, cast speed buff is 4secs (iirc)

QUESTION: Does this mean in Patch 2.2, the MSD proc is limited to once every 10 secs? If yes, this is probably a nerf for fire mages. For arcane mages i can see this as a buff.

Roywyn · 08/25/07, 7:11 PM

Originally Posted by alai

Is the change in Patch 2.2 a buff or nerf for mages in respect of [Mystical Skyfire Diamond]?

I refer to the PTR notes
WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes

Relevant quote for easy reading:

Presently, cast speed buff is 4secs (iirc)

QUESTION: Does this mean in Patch 2.2, the MSD proc is limited to once every 10 secs? If yes, this is probably a nerf for fire mages. For arcane mages i can see this as a buff.

On the PTR, it still only lasts 4 seconds, and half my items are still pink. So, there are still some changes to come, incuding a change to that gem making the proc last 10 seconds. I bet you a cookie that it's not going to be the only change to the gem.

Waiting on the next PTR push to see what's going to happen. Anything else is pure speculation.

SOaD! · 08/28/07, 11:23 AM

Hi all,

I don't know so much about spell mechanics and something hurts me when I read the Working Theories of Theorycrafting as of 2.1 post.

- Boss level mobs have a 5% partial resistance to non-binary spells (i.e. those that can be partially resisted). This resistance can not be overcome with spell penetration or hit percentage. [note: This particular mechanic is still undergoing testing, some bosses appear to violate this rule].

If I'm not wrong frostbolt is a binary spell so it is not included in my question, but doesn't matter.

Does this mean if you have capped your hit you have no more partial resist on non boss mobs? Or maybe non boss mobs has no partial resist at all?

Thank you for your time

edit : removed the second question, I found the answer.

Aldric · 08/28/07, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by SOaD!

Does this mean if you have capped your hit you have no more partial resist on non boss mobs? (It sounds strange but...)

Thank you for your time

edit : removed the second question, I found the answer.

It means that even if you have capped your hit, you're still going to have that 5% partial resist. In fact it means that even if you haven't capped your hit, you're still going to have that 5% partial resist (plus whatever additional percentage of full resist from being below the cap.)

SOaD! · 08/28/07, 11:34 AM

Yes I understand on boss mobs, but what about non boss mobs (70, 71, 72)?

Aldric · 08/28/07, 1:34 PM

Originally Posted by SOaD!

Yes I understand on boss mobs, but what about non boss mobs (70, 71, 72)?

Ah, I missed that, I would assume that the same applied but to a lesser percentage. I doubt anybody has done a lot of conclusive testing on trash. You'll always have the possibility for partials on non-binary spells, no matter what the mob level.

Kavan · 08/28/07, 6:10 PM

As far as I've seen from my testing it is 6% partial resist on +3 levels/bosses, 4% on +2 levels, 2% on +1 level, no partial resists on 70 or lower.