TBC Mage Theorycrafting - Page 3

Lhivera · 10/17/06, 1:44 AM

Originally Posted by Falcon24

Perhaps, but for a Frost Mage looking for pure Frostbolt dps, those deep Arcane talents are pure sweetness. They'll outperform deep Frost on a pure numbers scale, although you'll be sacrificing Ice Barrier and about 12% crit for Frost spells (along with various bonuses to Frost cooldowns and the Water Elemental~).

Here's what I got comparing a 10/0/45 + 6 deep frost build with a 43/0/18 Arcane/Frost build. Assumptions were 500 intellect and 700 spell power before Arcane talents, 200ms latency, 15% crit before talents, 4% hit before talents, level 73 target fully raid-debuffed.

DPS Rankings
1333.93: Arcane Blast (arcane spec, fully stacked, w/Arcane Power, 15 sec/3min burst)
1051.88: Arcane Blast + Waterbolt (frost spec, 45sec/3min burst)
1026.10: Arcane Blast (arcane spec, fully stacked)
949.24: Arcane Missiles (arcane spec, w/Arcane Power, 15sec/3min burst)
923.13: Frostbolt + Waterbolt (frost spec, burst, 45sec/3min or 90sec/3:45 burst)
780.35: Arcane Blast (frost spec, fully stacked)
769.61: Frostbolt (arcane spec)
731.71: Frostbolt + Waterbolt (frost spec, sustained w/Cold Snap every cooldown)
730.18: Arcane Missiles (arcane spec)
651.61: Frostbolt (frost spec)
467.71: Arcane Missiles (frost spec)

DPM Rankings
10.25: Frostbolt + Waterbolt (frost spec, burst)
8.76: Frostbolt + Waterbolt (frost spec, sustained w/Cold Snap)
8.17: Arcane Missiles (arcane spec)
8.07: Frostbolt (frost spec)
7.85: Frostbolt (arcane spec)
7.51: Arcane Missiles (arcane spec, w/Arcane Power)
5.59: Arcane Missiles (frost spec)
4.90: Arcane Blast + Waterbolt (frost spec, burst)
4.33: Arcane Blast (arcane spec, fully stacked)
4.24: Arcane Blast (arcane spec, fully stacked, w/Arcane Power)
3.28: Arcane Blast (frost spec, fully stacked)

Lhivera · 10/17/06, 1:46 AM

Originally Posted by Raiste

with the new 143% base +dmg multiplier for AM

Do we have real confirmation of this? I used this number in my calculations for the chart above, but I'd love to hear for sure that it's true from someone in beta already.

Copernicus · 10/17/06, 2:38 AM

Lhivera, are you using level 62 spells (the AQ20 books) or the thottbot versionsof the 66-70 spells?

To get into my main problem with the mage...

Balance Druid - 47/0/14 spec.
Level 66 Starfire- 370 mana, 588 avg damage, 3.5 second cast
-0.5 cast time, +10% damage, +120% empowered, 4% hit, 217%? dmg from crits, +9% crit, Moonkin aura to others, +25% dmg from int

Fire Mage- 17/41/3 spec, not taking Playing with Fire-
Level 66 Fireball- 425 mana, 719 avg damage, 3.5 second cast
-0.5 cast time, +10% damage, +120% empowered, 6% hit, 210% dmg from crits, +9% crit, Molten Fury/Fire Vulnerability (I'll add those in later).

Both classes have comparable mana regeneration/costs, with the mage being slightly better with clearcasting through the five-second rule.
........

Comparing the two spells directly, we end up with the fire mage having +133 base damage, 2% hit, two buffs/debuffs (Molten Fury and Fire Vulnerability) vs a Moonkin druid's Moonkin aura for other party members and +25% dmg from Intellect. I'm not really feeling the seperation between the two classes right now, and that bothers me. A Shadow Priest is also close to that, while the Elemental Shamans are slightly behind but able to heal while DPSing. They haven't gotten a big manaregen talent yet though, so still run OOM.

Like I said earlier, encounters are going to need to be Naxx-level in terms of enrage/berserk/burst requirements, as threat-sensitive as BWL without Taunt, or as crowd-control intensive as Gothik to make Mages a signifigant option. When I'm making a raid or a party and looking for a final DPS slot, a Balance Druid should not be so comparable to a Fire Mage.

Joink · 10/17/06, 2:43 AM

Originally Posted by RK

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-mage/talents.html?2550050300230150333125105500001000000000000000010000000000000000000

49/11/1 might be interesting for burst, utility, and once per three minutes the biggest baddest pyroblast ever.

Arcane/fire doesn't look as if it should work from a DPS view, since to get the crit boost and double up spell power/ignite you don't get empowered AM for the clearcasts and for your fire spells you're either using fireball without all the power talents in deep fire or you're using scorch which wrecks the point of getting spell power/ignite anyway.

arcane/frost looks like it will have very very scary crits, though, and the late frost stuff you miss out on is more utility than damage (as long as someone else has winter's chill!). Be interested to see some numbers as to whether arcane instability, arcane power and spell power > empowered frostbolt and water elemental for straight DPS.

For pve dps I agree that a spell power build would not be optimal with fire, but rather better suited with a shatter build. For pvp I'd strongly disagree. Scorch is the main pvp spell for fire mages, and going with a spell power build over a deep fire build would be more beneficial for scorch spamming. All the fire tree talents that scorch benefits from are on the top half of the tree along with other good pvp talents like blastwave, imp fireblast etc. Going with a spell power build also gives you access to pom/AP/imp counter spell which imo are the best pvp talents for any mage especially in an arena where the cooldown spells are all ready to go. For pvp, I expect to see spell power/scorch builds become more popular than elementalists assuming no more major changes happen.

Azhdeen · 10/17/06, 9:49 AM

Eh, this is a pretty lame bug:
http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thre...d=291836&sid=1

In a nutshell, Molten Armor seems to cause an action in order to reflect the damage. Thus, if you're casting a spell, Molten Armor fails to proc because another action is in progress. Also, it seems to be screwing with Arcane Missiles, probably because of the same reason. Even if you've improved them, if you are hit with physical damage while casting them, Molten Armor will cancel them in order to deal its damage.

I can only imagine that this is indeed a bug... and hopefully one that is able to be fixed more reliably than blink.

Lhivera · 10/17/06, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

Lhivera, are you using level 62 spells (the AQ20 books) or the thottbot versionsof the 66-70 spells?

I'm using the thottbot data on the 66-70 spells.

Holyman · 10/17/06, 12:22 PM

In beta, does AM scale ~1.428 or 1.43?

arch · 10/17/06, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by 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?

I'm 99.9% sure that they are multiplicative and that they do stack. Ignite doesn't even touch the base critbonus (50%), instead its counted of the actual crit meaning that if you bump your critbonus from default 50% to 75%, ignite will reflect this.

The placement and the wording used also tells me that it does stack with the other bonuses.

I think I'm still going deep fire for pvp though, I like the added utility from dragon's breath, blazing speed and molten fury.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent-bc=RZxgMzf0IRgszbAr0o0x

Like Joink said, Spell Power could be quite good for Scorch builds, this could be "the new 28/23" scorch pvp build:

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

EDIT: They updated the calculators once more, but unfortunately no mage changes. I'm still hoping that they will make Spellsteal a bit better.

Krux · 10/17/06, 2:14 PM

I see this thread is primarily focused around Spell Power but I have a different question. I used the search but couldn't find any info so I'm posting.

From beta reports, PoM and Combustion are sharing a cooldown. Can anyone confirm this yet as a bug or as an intended cross-cooldown?

Jaizha · 10/17/06, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by Azhdeen

Eh, this is a pretty lame bug:
http://beta.worldofwarcraft.com/thre...d=291836&sid=1

In a nutshell, Molten Armor seems to cause an action in order to reflect the damage. Thus, if you're casting a spell, Molten Armor fails to proc because another action is in progress. Also, it seems to be screwing with Arcane Missiles, probably because of the same reason. Even if you've improved them, if you are hit with physical damage while casting them, Molten Armor will cancel them in order to deal its damage.

I can only imagine that this is indeed a bug... and hopefully one that is able to be fixed more reliably than blink.

I hope it's a bug. However, it reminded me of something weird I noticed on one of my alts (a shaman, don't know if that had anything to do with it) a few months ago. I was grinding those satyrs in Ashenvale that can put a curse on you, that will periodically trigger an incapacitating effect. However if I was casting a spell that effect would not trigger, but I would get an error message that "an action is already in progress". From the sound of the Molten Armor problem, they may be related.

arch · 10/17/06, 2:21 PM

It's about mages in TBC, no specific subject.

PoM and Combustion sharing cooldown is most likely a bug, I see no reason why two spells that you spent alot of points to reach should share cooldown like that. That would be outrageous and it would upset alot of people.

Holyman · 10/17/06, 3:03 PM

Originally Posted by 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?

Do you by any chance remember wether it is exactly 1.43 or ca 1.43?

Thanks in advance :)

Dendory · 10/17/06, 3:15 PM

Talking about mages in PvP, I found this pretty good video on the WoW forums showcasing a fire mage in duels and world PvP against most other classes, showing many new TBC abilities.

http://files.filefront.com/TBCwmv/;6...nfo.html&sid=1

Kasonic · 10/17/06, 3:24 PM

Isn't a point in Arcane Potency basically +1% crit? That sounds so-so but people were making it out to be much worse. Which is it?

Holyman · 10/17/06, 3:34 PM

Originally Posted by Kasonic

Isn't a point in Arcane Potency basically +1% crit? That sounds so-so but people were making it out to be much worse. Which is it?

Before they introduced the crit bonus % talent in arcane each 1% crit was only 0.5% * (1 - crit % before arcane potency) as a damage increase on arcane spells each point. Making it less than 1.5% dmg increase 3/3 =(

Now its 0.75% * (1 - crit % before arcane potency) though on arcane spells. I still don't think its good enough for an arcane damage build though. Should really get buffed.