Meh, I'm fine with that Ignite change. On all but the most extreme circumstances, Ignite is a small percentage of a mage's DPS (mine is between 10-15% for a whole Naxx raid). "Rolling" an Ignite is nice, but not necessary in most cases. You're actually only getting a small benefit from it on practically all fights (exceptions are clearly Loatheb, and partially Thaddius because of the multiplier).
Also, this helps keep track of which mages are actually doing the most damage and not getting unlucky with feeding other's Ignites.
One thing I think a lot of people lose sight of, despite all their cries that Arcane is now superior DPS, is the playstyle involved. If you use Arcane Missiles as your main nuke, there's no way of getting around the fact that actually PLAYING that way is actually just...wrong.
I mean, you start a fight with a Missile volley, it takes 5 seconds, now the mob is <probably> right on top of you, so you...yes, you Frost Nova and strafe away (you better be strafing). Then you ... Arcane Missile again? If you do that, it could break on the first missile and you're SoL, or you could Arcane Blast, but that's going to break too.
To me, that playstyle just sucks, and I want no part of it. Give me my 41 yard range where I can do 2 fireballs before the mob is at me, and my damage is backloaded at the end of my cast times.
Channeled spells suck for leveling.
When leveling you will ofcourse use Arcane Blast (past lvl 64). The only channeled spell wich is decent for leveling is Mind Flay.
Also, you never start your cast chain with a channeled spell while soloing. You would cast a direct-hit spell first, then start the channeled spell right after the direct-hit spell is finished casting.
We are currently in the process of heavy DPS testing with all classes in a wide variety of combat types, situations, gear, and spec to ensure they fall in-line with what we expect of each class and where we want each class to be on the DPS scale. As we progress with the DPS testing there will be changes made that will help adjust classes to where we want them to be, and you may see improvements or nerfs that seem a bit odd. At the very least we want to express that we're making these adjustments due to involved DPS tests and the changes being made are a direct result of our findings.
The expansion gives us an amazing opportunity to balance all of the classes in one big release, and we're going to be refining each class until release to make sure we're making good use of it.
Is full fire really that good for levelling? I can't see how it could beat out a build including shatter, ice shards, frostbite, and frost channelling + AC/MoE for pure domination of non ranged mobs and awesome DPM with ice lance and the high crit rate.
I have +765 fire damage, so mobs are going to die in 2-3 fireballs no matter what. You don't need shatter if mobs are dying that quickly.
Then you don't need the massive dps of fire either, the survivability and efficiency of frost would be better, not to mention the possibility of blizzard grinding.
I think people are really over-rating fire for levelling. If it takes 2 or 3 fireballs and maybe a fire blast to kill a mob, OR 2 or 3 frostbolts and maybe a fire blast to kill the same mob, what's the difference? Fire's dps advantage only matters when mobs have a lot more hp proportional to each of your spellcasts, i.e. a raid boss. Against random world mobs most of the damage of your last spell is wasted anyway so using less damaging spells doesn't slow you down.
Then you don't need the massive dps of fire either, the survivability and efficiency of frost would be better, not to mention the possibility of blizzard grinding.
Blizzard grinding is over-rated now, isn't it? I very rarely use Blizzard now that you can chain Shatter a Flamestrike into a Cone of Cold... you deal the entire damage of a Blizzard in 3 seconds without critting, it's on a group of frozen mobs (so you'll probably crit for more) and they still move at 40% run speed so you can outrun them while using IAE. Not as graceful as Blizzard, but it's a lot faster and it doesn't get as screwed up by Frostbite.
I remember doing a couple of quick comparisons during the Scourge invasion as to whether it was better to Blizzard kite or to blow stuff up with Shattered Flamestrikes and Cones of Cold. Shattering was always faster and the efficiency was about the same due to critting and kiting in the Flamestrike AoE.
re: water/food, there is lots of new cooking recipes (and you get TONS of meat when grinding) and new vendor foot/water. for ex at level 65 you can buy purified draeni water which restores 7200 mana in 30 secs (!), for around 10s/each (2g/stack).
If it takes 2 or 3 fireballs and maybe a fire blast to kill a mob, OR 2 or 3 frostbolts and maybe a fire blast to kill the same mob, what's the difference?
Would turning Molten Fury back into Cold Hearted make Frost more competitive? Just to keep beating that drum.
Say, if you got rid of Frozen Core (which is crap), put Arctic Winds in its place, and put Cold Hearted where Arctic Winds was.
And what would happen to fire then?
When will all these undead frost mages realize that frost will never ever never ever be allowed to do the same damage as fire *IF* the fire mage manages to somehow keep up the manaflow by potting or whatever.
Frost is survivability, stability and control. Fire is "zomg, all out lets go crazeehh!" and for the record, yes fire mages do drive their cars without seatbelts.
Obviously something is wrong with the frost tree when it's better to go deep arcane combined with frost rather than deep frost plus lower tier arcane, but the solution doesn't always have to be nerfing fire... It was the Spell power talent that increased the gap, maybe the arcane tree is a better place to look for nerfs.
Speaking of, I hope there's a new water quest at level 68-70?
New water quest at 70 is the rumor, we're still capped at 67 though so no proof to that yet except a data mined info on thott's beta site.
As far as levelling/5 man/etc so far Fire is a lot easier to grind with (I have +470 or so spell damage and ~18% crit on fireball) than frost or arcane. Things aren't dying in a couple of frost bolts and I wasn't having the luck with shatter procing that I seemd to while farming the elite bugs in Silithus for my Field Duty quests. Its 2 fireballs and a fire blast or 5-6 frost bolts for me on most grinding kills. Over the course of an hour that adds up to a 20% difference or so in the experience I can make.
Arcane the damage is great but grinding and in 5 mans I've found it to be a pain. I'm drinking water after a 4 mob trash pull with Arcane if I want to do damage it can do. When grinding the mana usage is so high the added downtime eliminates the gained combat DPS. Granted I'm Horde and I haven't been in a 5 man with our 1 pally yet nor have I been with a Shadow Priest. In those situations the mana usage of Arcane may feel better. With the change to Slow not impacting melee attack speed anymore it really lost its "spunk" on most of the bosses out there (it seems most of the casting effects from bosses are instant so 50% increase to instant is well still instant ;D and aside from the hunter boss in Underbog not many use ranged attacks either).
For the 5 man bosses I load up scorch, pop Combustion and MQG and by the time MQG is expired they are all pretty much dead. With all of the crits the DPM is good enough that I'm not having mana issues thanks to MoE by time they die. They also seemed to have made significant changes in spell hit mechanics because my resist numbers are a much lower percentage than I'd expect fighting +4-5 elites. I don't know the math behind the changes but the 3% vs 6% vs not having it specced even doesn't seem have the impact it did before. I don't have any decent addons to track a large sample but in going up versus +4-6 non-elites/elites I should be looking at a 50% miss/resist rate by +6 and I'm not getting that (and no I'm not going to sit with pad and paper counting hit/miss/hit/hit/hit/etc :D ). I have the equivilent of +4% to hit on my gear in L60 WoW1 terms (+56 hit rating).
this seems like an awfully passive-aggressive way to say "when will you" fyi - also wtg level 1 alt
To move past that call-out, one tree should not dominate another in virtually every situation where there aren't immunities involved. This is most easily solved by varying the resist levels of mobs such that even Curse of Elements/Shadow + spell penetration gear can't overcome resists completely.
When will all these fire mages realize that mage talent trees should not place the mage in a position where only one tree is the most effective for maximizing raid dps? ( :V: ) Keep standard damage about the same, providing Frost with more mana efficiency and survivability, and fire with more options for critical strikes where it counts. I just don't see the need for all of the significant raid damage multipliers to be placed strictly in the Fire tree.
Alternatively, I'd even be fine with Fire getting the kind of damage it does, but give Frost even more mana efficiency. 15% off Frost Channeling won't do it. Try 30%. Put it further down the tree, if you want. Give Frost something worthwhile to spec into in a raid setting, because as it stands Fire can achieve the greatest dps and dpm, and at the very least the latter half just isn't right.
As it stands now, a balance druid is more DPS than a frost mage spamming Frostbolt (against stuff that can't be frozen). Blizzard has said that they're actually going to be evaluating all the classes and specs in terms of DPS, so I'm just going to wait and see what actually is done.
As for what Frost needs, it should get a raid or party buff. Being the master of survival only matters if an encounter is built around surviability.
As a fire mage, please give me more dps and take away my mana efficiency. Honestly I changed spec so that I could do more damage, synergize with other fire mages (fun!) and be forced to actively manage my mana - *not* mindlessly shoot off fireballs like frost mages spam frostbolt.
Not sure why they slapped the -3% mana cost on pyromaniac and elemental precision, but I'd prefer more damage modifiers myself. Let frost have its DPM, give fire better DPS, and arcane gets all the stat enhancements and tricks (as well as pretty decent DPS).
I'm not really looking forward to the expansion as a fire mage, especially if people have verified the separate ignite nerf. I am, however, having fun playing a Draenei, so perhaps I'll just reroll Draenei to get myself excited again =)
I'm not really looking forward to the expansion as a fire mage, especially if people have verified the separate ignite nerf. I am, however, having fun playing a Draenei, so perhaps I'll just reroll Draenei to get myself excited again =)
Has this been verified? I've only seen it mentioned once, though it does seem that Blizzard is going back and fixing a lot of their minor bugs over the last year (a la the Warlock MD-when-not-MD buff).
I'm not really looking forward to the expansion as a fire mage, especially if people have verified the separate ignite nerf. I am, however, having fun playing a Draenei, so perhaps I'll just reroll Draenei to get myself excited again =)
Has this been verified? I've only seen it mentioned once, though it does seem that Blizzard is going back and fixing a lot of their minor bugs over the last year (a la the Warlock MD-when-not-MD buff).
I am 100% sure it has been verified on the beta forums, I would link it but they are down. It wasnt how blizzard intended it to be.
As a fire mage, please give me more dps and take away my mana efficiency. Honestly I changed spec so that I could do more damage, synergize with other fire mages (fun!) and be forced to actively manage my mana - *not* mindlessly shoot off fireballs like frost mages spam frostbolt.
Not sure why they slapped the -3% mana cost on pyromaniac and elemental precision, but I'd prefer more damage modifiers myself. Let frost have its DPM, give fire better DPS, and arcane gets all the stat enhancements and tricks (as well as pretty decent DPS).
I'm not really looking forward to the expansion as a fire mage, especially if people have verified the separate ignite nerf. I am, however, having fun playing a Draenei, so perhaps I'll just reroll Draenei to get myself excited again =)
What you are missing is that damage multiplies are ALSO mana efficiency modifiers. If you stack enough damage multipliers, an initially low efficiency spell can outstrip a high efficiency spell with less multipliers -- look what happened with scorch vs fireball.
What you are missing is that damage multiplies are ALSO mana efficiency modifiers. If you stack enough damage multipliers, an initially low efficiency spell can outstrip a high efficiency spell with less multipliers -- look what happened with scorch vs fireball.
That can be easily solved by giving mana *inefficiency* on top of the damage modifiers. Think empowered arcane missiles. I see no reason why pyromanic could not be 3% crit, 3% dmg, and 3% increased mana cost - especially for its position in the tree.
edit - with respect to scorch, the problem was because there was never a -casting time component to the spell. all such spells are more or less doomed in the end, as they scale worse with +dmg modifiers and +dmg gear.
Originally Posted by Zero
I am 100% sure it has been verified on the beta forums, I would link it but they are down. It wasnt how blizzard intended it to be.
I'm not sure exactly whether "it wasn't how blizzard intended it to be" would be a viable argument against it. Let's say is that even if it's true, their mistake gave rise to one of the best aspects of raid cooperative mage play - timing ignites/combusts and rolling them with scorch/fireblast. /shrug They really ought to take a lesson from that and try to correctly implement similar gameplay aspects.
I am 100% sure it has been verified on the beta forums, I would link it but they are down. It wasnt how blizzard intended it to be.
I'm not sure exactly whether "it wasn't how blizzard intended it to be" would be a viable argument against it. Let's say is that even if it's true, their mistake gave rise to one of the best aspects of raid cooperative mage play - timing ignites/combusts and rolling them with scorch/fireblast. /shrug They really ought to take a lesson from that and try to correctly implement similar gameplay aspects.
I agree it isnt a viable argument to defend the nerfing but there isnt alot that we can do about it. Just take a look at all the other mage nerfs that they have "justified" and made adjustments to in BC. The 30% threat reduction was to much, Counterspell not sitting on GCD, Elemental precision being to much at 6% hit for PVE. There are no doubt more changes comming for the mage class and I am slightly scared at what is on the horizon for us.
PS.
Tseric posted on the mage forum that the mechanics to Counter Spell might be changed slightly. He did state that the Devs were happy with it on the GCD but some addtional features MAY be added to the spell, who knows.
That can be easily solved by giving mana *inefficiency* on top of the damage modifiers. Think empowered arcane missiles. I see no reason why pyromanic could not be 3% crit, 3% dmg, and 3% increased mana cost - especially for its position in the tree.
That is true, although the exact numbers would have to be different, due to the difference in the DPS and DPM scaling factors.
edit - with respect to scorch, the problem was because there was never a -casting time component to the spell. all such spells are more or less doomed in the end, as they scale worse with +dmg modifiers and +dmg gear.
Good point, a better example would be fireball vs frostbolt. Frostbolt was more efficient initially, but fireball eventually won out because the fire tree has more multipliers.
Before 1.11 and our initial mage patch (before the notes came out), I was happy with Mages (but I'm a pretty easy-going guy when it comes to what an authority hands me to work with - I pretty much do "what I can with what I have").
When the patch notes released with 1.11, I was ecstatic (although even back then, I can remember some mages grumbling about some of the changes, i.e. Arcane Fortitude (understandably), the nerf to Arcane Power (big deal, haha), and the non-addressing of many gripes (Blink, Polymorph, etc.).
After 1.11 came out, I was one of only 2 mages in my guild that had been Fire BEFORE the patch, and we just dominated. There was just no stopping us. As you can imagine, I was even happier then. Then many more Mages jumped on our bandwagon, and I only have 1 Frost Mage in my core raiders. This made me even happier still.
Now I have to look at TBC talents. At their initial release, I was pleased, although not as much as I could have been. Then when they introduced the deep Fire talents and took out Burnout, all of a sudden there's many different specs using Fire that are viable - there wasn't a "cookie cutter" build.
And now we come to today. Nerfs come daily it seems. At the very least - they come weekly, and they are constant. For the first time, I actually fear for my damage output...I just don't see how these latest nerfs are warranted - even with their internal tests. Mages are <supposed> to do the most damage - we have the lowest HP, lowest Armor, lowest everything but damage. I don't see any harm in leaving our fundamental abilities intact at all (this includes Counterspell mainly, but also Elemental Precision [we're masters of magic - why shouldn't I be able to hit something consistently?]).
Mana isn't my issue - I work my way around it with consumables. I'd give up this version of EP for the old one in a heartbeat, but I don't think it will happen. I don't want a new version of Counterspell with new functionality - I want the old one not on the GCD. I don't really care about the Ignite change...I always figured this was the way it was intended, and if there's the debuff slots for it, I highly doubt a 25-man raid will see much of a drop in raid DPS (seeing as how the number of Mages in raids will significantly decrease).
To sum up, I just keep trolling forums, and all of a sudden I find myself being PESSIMISTIC about upcoming changes, instead of optimistic, which is how I usually feel when looking for changes. It's a very different feeling and of course, it's unwelcome too.
Looks like after these new changes instead of being the masters of magic AoE and the elements we will be the masters of number of times killed in BGs and Arena. :(
this seems like an awfully passive-aggressive way to say "when will you" fyi - also wtg level 1 alt
I said undead frost mage because it's more or less always these horde mages, that were once forced into the frost tree and now are too used to it to switch, that seems to want frost to do the same damage as fire without any penalties.
Yes yes, I had a 60 mage for over one and a half year which I got rid of recently, and as I got rid of the character I also instantly lost the knowledge of the class :/
Originally Posted by Falcon24
Originally Posted by arch
And what would happen to fire then?
It stays the way it is because it's fine?
When will all these fire mages realize that mage talent trees should not place the mage in a position where only one tree is the most effective for maximizing raid dps? ( :V: ) Keep standard damage about the same, providing Frost with more mana efficiency and survivability, and fire with more options for critical strikes where it counts. I just don't see the need for all of the significant raid damage multipliers to be placed strictly in the Fire tree.
Alternatively, I'd even be fine with Fire getting the kind of damage it does, but give Frost even more mana efficiency. 15% off Frost Channeling won't do it. Try 30%. Put it further down the tree, if you want. Give Frost something worthwhile to spec into in a raid setting, because as it stands Fire can achieve the greatest dps and dpm, and at the very least the latter half just isn't right.
All I'm saying is that the flaws with the fire tree should be lack of surviability and low dpm but high dps. Frost should be good surviability and dpm but naturally lower dps than fire. These assumptions are more or less confirmed, it is very obvious.
Now, if the fire mage manages to take one of those, or both, flaws away, then yeah there's no way frost should even come close to the damage.
The survability part is about encounter design, which unfortunately has been lacking in the past. Not many of the current encounters offers a frostmage a great advantage in terms of damage because of the added survability.
The efficiency part is of course also depending on encounter design, but even more so on what overpowered consumeables that can be currently attained.
My conclusion is that we can hope for encounter adjustments in the future, but I dont expect them to adjust the consumeables and buffs you can gain just because of one class. I do expect them to adjust some of your talents now that they are stress testing the dps capabilities of each class and spec, but I wouldn't get my hopes as frost is already very powerful in pvp, and the addition of more damage solely because of pve would force them to consider all the damage mitigation talents with pvp in mind.
The deep frost talents simply can't give you alot more damage without overpowering the spec completly in pvp.
No, as I said earlier, I still think Spell Power and other nasty arcane talents are the ones ruining the frost tree for PvE altogether.
But then again, It really looks like it is intended, as a frostmage with deep arcane can still get the damage talents except for Winter's chill.
I don't think that spec is a coinsidence, it looks very intended to me. Go deep arcane + frost for strict PvE single target damage, aka boss nuking builds.
Go deep frost + arcane for pvp.
I know you dont want it to be that way, but arcane has become too strong for the frost tree. Look for adjustments or nerfs in the deep arcane, don't always assume fire is the enemy. Or you can hope for blizzard to tone the defensive talents down and/or switch places with them in the frost tree, but I wouldn't bet any money on that.
Yes yes, I had a 60 mage for over one and a half year which I got rid of recently, and as I got rid of the character I also instantly lost the knowledge of the class :/
It's just a matter of accountability. Pre-emptively setting your main as a level 1 that hasn't even been created yet can create the perception of L1A trolling.
It's not like your old guildmates are going to find you posting here and come for your neck (at least, I certainly hope not :v: ).
I know you dont want it to be that way, but arcane has become too strong for the frost tree. Look for adjustments or nerfs in the deep arcane, don't always assume fire is the enemy.
You have to admit fire in its current state is retarded, though. We have one mage who has a talent called "99% Ignite Stealing". He has this unearthly ability to always get the first crit on a mob, trash or boss, and keep it rolling for a very long time, and as a result it makes his damage numbers embarrass all but the absolute best-geared fury warriors. Granted, this is going to get fixed with player ignites no longer stacking with the 2.0 rollout.
Also re the talent build you posted: I can't justify only putting 1 point into Reach until it's conclusively proven that no expansion encounters require you to be greater than 30 yards away from a given target. Also, I would rather put the 2 points from Magic Attunement into Arcane Impact, since Impact will help in burst situations while Attunement doesn't help your DPS at all.
10/26/06, 11:37 AM
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