TBC Mage Theorycrafting - Page 124

manly · 10/10/07, 5:47 PM

Ok so here are the results from my parser, using a somewhat very small sample size.
Basically, this confirms AM double dipping theory, as well as the theorical +60% crit.

User critrate%: 24.09 %

total AM bolts with clearcast active but not consumed
(ie: test double dipping theory. expected critrate% = +30%)
hits:      10
crits:     21
resists:   0
critrate%: 67.741935483871 %   ( crits/(hits+crits) )
critrate% gain: +43.651935483871 %

total AM bolts with clearcast not-active and clearcast consumed
(ie: regular clearcast use. expected critrate% = +30%)
hits:      12
crits:     18
resists:   0
critrate%: 60 %   ( crits/(hits+crits) )
critrate% gain: +35.91 %

total AM bolts with clearcast active and clearcast consumed
(ie: test double dipping theory. expected critrate% = +60%)
hits:      4
crits:     11
resists:   0
critrate%: 73.3333333333333 %   ( crits/(hits+crits) )
critrate% gain: +49.2433333333333 %

-----------------------------
total AM bolts without clearcast
(ie: regular AM casts. expected critrate% = user critrate%)
hits:      505
crits:     134
resists:   6
critrate%: 20.9702660406886 %   ( crits/(hits+crits) )
critrate% gain: +-3.11973395931142 %

all AM bolts
(ie: with/without clearcast. expected critrate% = +6%)
hits:      531
crits:     184
resists:   6
critrate%: 25.7342657342657 %   ( crits/(hits+crits) )
critrate% gain: +1.64426573426573 %

Rayga · 10/10/07, 10:14 PM

Originally Posted by Skinkelinken

Is it official and decided that blizzard really found a solution that they will implement to 2.3 patch?

WoW BlueTracker: /stopcasting 2.3 lag workaround

He just says it's coming in 2.3

khel · 10/11/07, 8:35 AM

If AM spam provides comparable dps to deep fire specs, then it should be the premiere spec really because of one major thing: debuff slots.

If mages respec then suddenly we free up slots from CoE, fireball ticks, ignite, and improved scorch. Raid dps can then go up by allowing certain things like CoA to replace the curse, deadlypoisons for rogues, and more slots for DOTS from warlocks and shadowpriests if your raid uses them heavily.

manly · 10/11/07, 12:16 PM

If you start arguing with that kind of logic, you should just remove all your mages from the raid and stack rogues instead. I'm sorry but I don't buy that argument.

manly · 10/11/07, 4:26 PM

WoW Forums -> 2.3 PTR Patch Notes

Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your
player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need
for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.

Rudi-CO · 10/11/07, 4:35 PM

Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your
player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need
for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.

Is this the legendary spell queue that I've heard about? Wow. I mean, seriously, this means that we'll be queuing spells by holding the key down and spamming as fast as global cooldown allows? Does this not mean rather significant DPS gains?

manly · 10/11/07, 4:49 PM

Not at all. It means you spam your fireball key as hard as you can the server will begin the cast on the first cast it receives while youre no more casting. In other words, it means now you spam your fireball key once you get near the red bar on quartz. It also means you won't have fireball clipping issues due to stopcast right after a spell pushback.

Hate Monkey · 10/11/07, 4:57 PM

Originally Posted by khel

If AM spam provides comparable dps to deep fire specs, then it should be the premiere spec really because of one major thing: debuff slots.

If mages respec then suddenly we free up slots from CoE, fireball ticks, ignite, and improved scorch. Raid dps can then go up by allowing certain things like CoA to replace the curse, deadlypoisons for rogues, and more slots for DOTS from warlocks and shadowpriests if your raid uses them heavily.

Pretty sure there was a theory around in pre-TBC that Arcane Missiles took up a debuff slot, but had no icon to place there. But this was back around when there were only 8 and 16 debuff slots, so not sure if it still exists or not.

Rudi-CO · 10/11/07, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by manly

In other words, it means now you spam your fireball key once you get near the red bar on quartz.

Ah, got it got it. So this is basically an ideal version of /stopcasting where you cannot clip?

Kewangeder · 10/11/07, 5:11 PM

You could read that two ways, actually.

"Spell casts that are received by the server will automatically begin casting after the current spell if one is in progress."

"Spell casts that are received by the server will automatically stop casting the current spell if one is in progress."

And of course: "Spell casts that are received by the server will be handled in a way Kew didn't think of yet."

I'm strongly sensing the second one would be implemented. Otherwise, counterspell would be screwed in a way that makes the ill-fated GCD nerf on it look like tiny potatoes.

That, or option 1 goes up, and mages put CS in a stopcasting macro anyway. (That actually seems plausible; then damage spells would feel more like a heroic strike/maul queue-up.) There are much fewer cases where I would want to interrupt a damage spell with another one, than with a counterspell. However, when those cases come, I'd have a lot of toolbar changeup to do (cf. Vashj elementals; totems).

Kewangeder · 10/11/07, 5:16 PM

Originally Posted by Hate Monkey

Pretty sure there was a theory around in pre-TBC that Arcane Missiles took up a debuff slot, but had no icon to place there. But this was back around when there were only 8 and 16 debuff slots, so not sure if it still exists or not.

We strongly suspected this in the days of learning Vael. Five mages spamming AM (and interrupting after 2-3 volleys) was causing Vael to mysteriously show about five fewer than a full array of debuffs. We couldn't be sure, and back then we were too undisciplined to conduct a real experiment outside of raids.

It's also supported by the notion that AM is in many ways a channeled spell, and other channeled spells put a debuff on the target.

As you say, I've no idea if this was changed.

Zure · 10/11/07, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by Rudi-CO

Ah, got it got it. So this is basically an ideal version of /stopcasting where you cannot clip?

Most likely. The current mechanic seems designed to prevent the server from being flooded with excess spell cast attempts. They probably have the hardware/experience to feel the servers can handle the extra strain now.

This will increase dps in two ways:

First, no more accidental cancellations. Avoiding one cancellation every three minutes for fireball is a 1.78% increase in dps (assuming 3.2 second fireballs).

Second, your latency is now a function simply of how fast you can press the button of the spell you wish to cast. I know, myself, in raids I'll have my main nuke bound to eight keys (Z through M) and will just repeatedly roll my fingers across them as the previous spell is finishing its cast. Going from 0.2 to 0.05 latency is a dps increase of:

4 second casts (Average AM w haste for example): 3.70%
3 second casts (e.g., fireball): 4.92%
2.5 second casts (e.g., frostbolt): 5.88%
2 second casts (e.g., some ABs): 7.32%
1.5 second casts (e.g., Scorch/max AB): 9.68%

carvisock · 10/11/07, 6:37 PM

i was wondering if sacrificeing +dmg for crit would be better with the 2 trinkets i have(the lighting capacitor and sextant of unstable currents)
if anyone has done any math or has any ideas on this it would be great
ty

The World of Warcraft Armory

is a link to my gear

if this has been asked, could u post a link to the thred

Seanothan · 10/12/07, 3:43 AM

Alright, second try at this.

My guild is sort of hitting a wall in our raiding, and I'm looking to up my DPS in order to help. I'm deep Frost (2/0/59) and I usually end up getting around 10th on the damage meters. I'm not interested in switching fully to Fire or Arcane... I still want to use Frostbolt as my main nuke. I just want to know if I should drop some points into Arcane, or if I should just wait out 2.3 and hope the removal of the damage tax helps.

And if I need to drop points into Arcane, how many do I need to put in there in order to see some results? Or is it just a waste of time? I also know I need better gear. My staff is pretty underpowered. There's a few items (dagger/off-hand/trinket) that I have the ability to get now that will push me over +1000 bonus damage. So I'm working on that. I also know I need to get some non-PvP items, I just haven't had the chance to come across them yet (neck, belt).

Basically I want to know if there's any point in respeccing. I like being able to live through what a Fire or Arcane Mage cannot, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. Is there any way at all to keep Frost as my main damage do-er, or is it pretty much impossible to up my DPS without switching over to using Arcane as my main spells.

I'm just at a loss for what to do right now. Here's the good old armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

Praanz · 10/12/07, 4:37 AM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

I like being able to live through what a Fire or Arcane Mage cannot

Believe it or not - but I have actually raided Fire since Molten Core. I admit - it wasn't the best DPS on Ragnaros or some bosses in BWL but thats another story.

There's nothing yet that I haven't managed to live through with the aid of careful positioning and thinking ahead.

I've tried frost once or twice - but the IB just 'dumbified' me to some extent, making me play uncareful.

To your question - cranking up your DPS is a matter of gear nothing else. Frost can't deliver what Arcane and Fire can in terms of DPS and damage so just live with it. You've made your choice to play it safe and that's about as far as you get.

When damage-tax is removed your DPS will increase - but the gap will still be there since tax on fire is also removed. The gap towards arcane will or will not be the same, it will depend on the new MSD.

Seanothan · 10/12/07, 4:43 AM

Originally Posted by Praanz

Believe it or not - but I have actually raided Fire since Molten Core. I admit - it wasn't the best DPS on Ragnaros or some bosses in BWL but thats another story.

There's nothing yet that I haven't managed to live through with the aid of careful positioning and thinking ahead.

I've tried frost once or twice - but the IB just 'dumbified' me to some extent, making me play uncareful.

To your question - cranking up your DPS is a matter of gear nothing else. Frost can't deliver what Arcane and Fire can in terms of DPS and damage so just live with it. You've made your choice to play it safe and that's about as far as you get.

When damage-tax is removed your DPS will increase - but the gap will still be there since tax on fire is also removed. The gap towards arcane will or will not be the same, it will depend on the new MSD.

Alright, cool. I realize in 25mans, survivability becomes practically a non-issue. It helps with special cases (like a big DoT) but that never really plays a huge roll. The only point I was making with that was that when I'm not in 25mans, the extra survivability helps.

Anyways, this helped. I worked it out, and the gear I'm aiming for now (2 pieces) will up my damage by either 123 or 140. I have no idea how much that'll help over say, a 9 minute boss fight, but it'll help nonetheless. So it'd be wisest to just stay deep Frost and work on getting better gear then, eh?

Pintofbrew · 10/12/07, 6:46 AM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

The only point I was making with that was that when I'm not in 25mans, the extra survivability helps.

This thread and indeed the deep level of theorycrafting we discuss isn't about "not in 25-mans". If you're in Karaz, it doesn't particularly matter what you spec, because your gearing is such that pretty much any spec you make will see you competitive and adequate. It also means you can't consistently have all the buffs you want; three palas, a shadowpriest and a shaman are not always availabe and neither is it convention to down elixirs/flasks/oil/food in most guilds. If you're talking 5-mans, again, what's the point? Any spec is competitve. If something, end-game specs that rely on raid setup are at a loss compared to conventional specs. Ever tried AM spam with no regen whatsoever? It's depressing.

Surviving an encounter is not your responsibility. There are two ways you survive an encounter:

1) Positioning during certain events

2) Getting healed.

IB only adresses 1 if you falter, hence you spec it because you can't rely on your ability to be in the right place at the right time, or your guild has a dramatically flawed strat. As for helping with 2? It's not your job. In the same way you don't expect a priest to SW:P the boss to help with DPS you're not expected to IB to save them from healing you through Moroes' Garotte.

kadgar · 10/12/07, 9:00 AM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

Surviving an encounter is not your responsibility. There are two ways you survive an encounter:

1) Positioning during certain events

2) Getting healed.

IB only adresses 1 if you falter, hence you spec it because you can't rely on your ability to be in the right place at the right time, or your guild has a dramatically flawed strat. As for helping with 2? It's not your job. In the same way you don't expect a priest to SW:P the boss to help with DPS you're not expected to IB to save them from healing you through Moroes' Garotte.

I don't agree with your points.
Surviving is also your responsibility. Your job is to minimalizing incoming dmg whereever you can. (Sometimes you may have a healer more than needed and can concentrate more on dps accepting the extra dmg as long as this healer is alive)

1) Movement is the way to prevent many of such incoming dmg but IB can make movement needless in some cases and this way also increase your dmg. E. g. Void Reaver: other mages have to run away from the orbs, frost just stand there cast further frostbolts and IB before the orb lands.

2) In a perfect world you won't need IB that much but sometimes things go wrong, healers die, tanks die, bad luck, ... . Thats when IB comes really handy. If you've never ever used bandages or healthstones in raids than you won't need IB but i doubt that.

Sure it's not healers job to dps the boss, but if you can IB out of a dot/sacrifice/waterTomb/... and the healer has some mana and time extra to put a dot on the boss, and the kill will be faster.

Frenzi · 10/12/07, 9:06 AM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

Alright, second try at this.

My guild is sort of hitting a wall in our raiding, and I'm looking to up my DPS in order to help. I'm deep Frost (2/0/59) and I usually end up getting around 10th on the damage meters. I'm not interested in switching fully to Fire or Arcane... I still want to use Frostbolt as my main nuke. I just want to know if I should drop some points into Arcane, or if I should just wait out 2.3 and hope the removal of the damage tax helps.

And if I need to drop points into Arcane, how many do I need to put in there in order to see some results? Or is it just a waste of time? I also know I need better gear. My staff is pretty underpowered. There's a few items (dagger/off-hand/trinket) that I have the ability to get now that will push me over +1000 bonus damage. So I'm working on that. I also know I need to get some non-PvP items, I just haven't had the chance to come across them yet (neck, belt).

Basically I want to know if there's any point in respeccing. I like being able to live through what a Fire or Arcane Mage cannot, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. Is there any way at all to keep Frost as my main damage do-er, or is it pretty much impossible to up my DPS without switching over to using Arcane as my main spells.

I'm just at a loss for what to do right now. Here's the good old armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

I have been raiding Frost since TBC, I have tried other specs but have never been impressed with the damage increase. I am assuming you are at Gruul/T4 and just approaching the T5 level of content.

Here is my Armoury: The World of Warcraft Armory

Ignore my Ogre trinket, my usual DPS trinket is the Sextant.

From my experience as frost I have always relied heavily on crit and there are a few items you should definitely replace. You should get the PvP bracers with Crit on them, get T4 gloves as soon as you can, try to replace your staff with the dagger from prince or the sword from gruul and get the frost heroic badge offhand, the cloak from badges isn't too bad either but its barely an upgrade from the cloak you currently have and I only upgraded it from that cloak because I had a rediculous amount of badges.

Your +hit is about what it needs to be, 128 hit rating is the ideal amount that you need to reduce frostbolts down to 1% miss, mine is much higher only due to items on my shopping list not dropping for me to reduce it.

As to your spec you have put alot of points into talents that won't benefit you at all in PvE raids, mainly frostbite (which is a serious liability in most raids and 5 mans with freezable mobs) and shatter. You would be much better off getting clearcasting and arcane impact as you will find yourself using arcane explosion for AoE damage than any frost AoE damage.

Other than that just make sure your locks put CoE up and keep your pet alive. Also time when you put your pet out and watch for boss abilities and try to time summoning your pet when you will get the most damage out of him, for example immeditely after a shatter from Gruul, When Hydross is in nature form, during curators evocation etc. You can also use Ice block to increase your damage alot as well by blocking through an orb on VR, blocking out of watery tomb on hydross, blocking through the AoE damage on Magtheridon at 30%.

Roywyn · 10/12/07, 9:44 AM

I'd love some info on how the new "it's-not-a-spell-queue" system works.
A good benchmark would be how fast one can spam scorch without a macro and without quartz.

Or if it's possible to consistently pull off 3AB/FB.FB.Sc, which should "only" be 7.5s between casts. Maybe with some haste gear.
Or other stuff that was nigh impossible before.

ebbv · 10/12/07, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

So it'd be wisest to just stay deep Frost and work on getting better gear then, eh?

Well, err, no. Wisest would be to respec for more DPS. But since you are stuck on being frost the only two things you can do to improve your damage are play better and get more upgrades. Everyone always has ways they can improve their play for more DPS, so find yours and do that. If you have a WWS that includes yourself people here can give you more specific advice on what you can do to improve your damage.

In either case, the thread you really want to be posting in is:

[Mage] Help me please?

Zipher · 10/12/07, 9:58 AM

Originally Posted by Kewangeder

We strongly suspected this in the days of learning Vael. Five mages spamming AM (and interrupting after 2-3 volleys) was causing Vael to mysteriously show about five fewer than a full array of debuffs. We couldn't be sure, and back then we were too undisciplined to conduct a real experiment outside of raids.

It's also supported by the notion that AM is in many ways a channeled spell, and other channeled spells put a debuff on the target.

As you say, I've no idea if this was changed.

Just some further anecdotal evidence that AM might take up a hidden debuff slot, in Shattered Halls last night I was using AM on the hunter/2 wolf packs and when he does his yell and clears all debuffs on the dogs and himself my missiles were interrupted/stopped channeling.

Seanothan · 10/12/07, 3:49 PM

Originally Posted by ebbv

In either case, the thread you really want to be posting in is:

[Mage] Help me please?

Ahh, that's what I was looking for.

Thanks though everyone. Very informative.

Lhivera · 10/12/07, 4:09 PM

Originally Posted by Rudi-CO

Ah, got it got it. So this is basically an ideal version of /stopcasting where you cannot clip?

That's what it looks like to me. So you still want to watch the quartz latency indicator, but now you only use /stopcasting if you actually want the macro to interrupt your current cast.

Lhivera · 10/12/07, 4:11 PM

Has anyone had a chance to determine the base absorption reduction and new scaling coefficients on Ice Barrier and the wards?