I hope they squash Fire talents so people stop blowing a load over them and imperiously declaring that Fire trumps every other spec in the game. Ugh, so angry.
In any event, unless you force talent specs in the expansion, Fire isn't going to run away with damage nearly as much as it has in the past. With the prospect of bringing 3-4 Mages in a 25-man raid, you are definitely not keeping a rolling ignite up there as often. Hell, if you bring 3 mages of a different spec each, you're not keeping it up at all. I've seen Mages with inferior Frost builds easily outdamage equally geared Fire mages when they don't catch the Ignite, so I'm not really concerned for the future.
Yeah, you guys will get some decent damage boosts, but so will Frost with the addition of these deep Arcane talents, and I honestly think many people are overstating the level of overall dps gain from these new talents (at least, I remember having an argument on here with a Fire mage a couple of months back where he made it clear that the new Fire talents would only improve Fire damage output overall by a few percentages).
Fire should ALWAYS outperform frost in a direct damage fight assuming mana is not an issue.
I don't have a problem with fire outperforming frost in raw single-target DPS. Frost has its own advantages -- very long sustained burst (up to 90 seconds) from the water elemental with virtually no mana cost and no added threat, the ability to split focus (elemental DPSes primary target while you nova and aoe spawns), etc.
What I do have a problem with is a deep Arcane build with a few frost talents outperforming frost using frost spells. By my calculations (arc/frost numbers in bold):
I don't think someone spending 41 points in frost should outdps someone spending 41 in fire. There may even be an argument for a deep arcane spec to outdps a deep frost spec, using arcane spells. But it seems to me that a deep frost spec should do the best frost DPS possible.
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.
one thing i'd like to add as far as being an arcane mage for PvE purposes. I've seen several people mention the mana inefficiency of both AM and AB. However, people forget to add in the benefits of Judgement of Wisdom to Arcane Missiles. Max rank JoW restores 74 mana per hit @ 70, so a cast of AM will refund 370 mana if JoW is up on the mob. This cuts the mana costs of AM to less than half, making it the best DPM nuke available to us. Also non trivial mana returns from getting a full tick of 100% regen for every AM/AB combo cast. So depending of the demands of the fight one can choose extrmelly mana efficient (AM/AB with JoW up) to extremely bursty (AP with AB spam) playstyle which is why both fire and arcane make solid PvE trees now while frost still essentially being frostbolt spam.
Erm Falcon, every piece of maths I do shows fire's lead over frost to be increasing in the expansion, no matter which frost build you're talking about. And frosts one advantage, mana efficiency, has gone out of the window - rank 12 fireball with the new talents is more damage per mana point spent than max rank frostbolt with the new talents as far as I can see. HOWEVER, my calculations don't include the water elemental, because I think it's really hard to judge how that will affect things, and becauise I'd like to see some really hard numbers for how it works, which so far I haven't. (Does its mana bar last long enough for the full fight? does it chain cast? etc etc). And that's not including rolling ignites at all - that's just spamming fireball and assuming each crit happens in isolation from each other.
I still think they way to balance out frost is to have frostbite and frozen effects put a debuff on *every* mob, even if it doesn't slow them, so that you can react to a mob getting frozen and smack it with an Ice Lance or two really fast. Makes frost a more interactive tree, and gives it some decent use for it's frozen spells in PvE - two things which I think it desperatly needs.
(BTw, regarding previous arcane builds - although a clearcaster Arcane Missiles with 40 points in Arcane is over a 1000 DPS, it's still well below a normal cast fireball as far as I can see).
Oh, and slow doesn't slow melee attack speed down at all, so I think you can safely relegate it to a pure PvP talent.
one thing i'd like to add as far as being an arcane mage for PvE purposes. I've seen several people mention the mana inefficiency of both AM and AB. However, people forget to add in the benefits of Judgement of Wisdom to Arcane Missiles.
My DPS/DPM numbers above assume JoW on the target returning an average of 37 mana per hit (or 185 mana for a full AM cast).
Edit: Sorry, those numbers are back on page 2.
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.
Erm Falcon, every piece of maths I do shows fire's lead over frost to be increasing in the expansion, no matter which frost build you're talking about. And frosts one advantage, mana efficiency, has gone out of the window - rank 12 fireball with the new talents is more damage per mana point spent than max rank frostbolt with the new talents as far as I can see. HOWEVER, my calculations don't include the water elemental, because I think it's really hard to judge how that will affect things, and becauise I'd like to see some really hard numbers for how it works, which so far I haven't. (Does its mana bar last long enough for the full fight? does it chain cast? etc etc). And that's not including rolling ignites at all - that's just spamming fireball and assuming each crit happens in isolation from each other.
Here's what I get for deep frost vs. deep fire, including the elemental. This assumes it chain casts (comment by Kalgan that leads me to believe this is so: when it was mentioned that you had to turn off the waterbolt autocast to cast frost nova, Kalgan said it was determined that this was too clunky, and the frost nova can now be cast while the elemental waterbolts without interruption). It also assumes that its mana bar lasts for the full 45 seconds, because otherwise, there's little point in it having a 45-sec duration!
This is with rank 13 frostbolt, rank 13 fireball, level 70 elemental. Both mages are identically geared, the only difference is spec.
This does not include rolling ignites or combustion, but it does include ignite damage double-dipping the imp. scorch and coe bonuses. It looks to me like a frost mage can out-DPS a fire mage against a non-wounded target by up to 90 seconds (using cold snap), but a fire mage has better sustained DPS, as it should.
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.
you are probably looking at the DPM list and not DPS list flyinfungi.
In any case, you said "equal gear" Lhivera, but I dont think this is sufficient, as fire and frost scale much differently given the huge numbers of %dmg talents in fire. Can you post your numbers assuming standardized level 70 mage in decent gear i.e. 1000 +dmg, 20% crit before talents, hit capped with talents? I think the gap between fire and frost will just get wider and wider as more +dmg and +crit are added to gear, in both DPS and DPM departments. Which I agree makes no sense since there is little reason to spec frost at all for those that enjoy the playstyle. Bottom of the frost tree needs some serious help IMO, hopefully now arcane being viable, frost is next on the list of imporvements.
It's to early in the morning for me to add much, but I do feel it necessary to point out that most of you claiming we can spam scorch / arcane blast and stop for everyclearcast are entirely crazy. With any degree of lag it's difficult to stop the next scorch before the previous one has full registered and procced the buff. Best case you're still probably canceling the next scorch by hand and casting AM, worst case you just accidentally scorched on a clearcast. Planning around that when Tichondrius is as reliable as it is (read: Isn't) doesn't sound like a fun idea.
Even better, have any of you even thought about the number of fights where the mage has to move? Relying on having to stand still for 5 seconds everytime a clearcast procs is a potential hazard to your health.Imagine using this sort of strategy on encounters like Thaddius and Four Horsemen.
that's the list he quoted, I think you're just not reading it right. fireball wounded -> scorch wounded -> fireball -> scorch is the rankings, highest to lowest
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 :)
I am on the Beta Test server currently and while I have not done extensive testing I can say that Arcane Missiles has definitely had its coefficient increased. My rough tests put it at 1.42-1.43. As for an exact number, my strong suspicion would be that it's simply getting the full bonus for its 5 sec duration.
In any case, you said "equal gear" Lhivera, but I dont think this is sufficient, as fire and frost scale much differently given the huge numbers of %dmg talents in fire. Can you post your numbers assuming standardized level 70 mage in decent gear i.e. 1000 +dmg, 20% crit before talents, hit capped with talents?
I think the gap between fire and frost will just get wider and wider as more +dmg and +crit are added to gear, in both DPS and DPM departments. Which I agree makes no sense since there is little reason to spec frost at all for those that enjoy the playstyle. Bottom of the frost tree needs some serious help IMO, hopefully now arcane being viable, frost is next on the list of imporvements.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. Fire should out-DPS frost, but frost should do either more DPM or at least the curve should be flattened out considerably.
We need some damage-increasing talents deep in the frost tree that only a deep frost build will have access to. Frozen Core would be the ideal choice for this:
- Change it to a +frost% talent, perhaps with a penalty, akin to Playing With Fire. One option I considered was +2/4/6% frost damage dealt and fire damage taken; -2/4/6% frost damage taken and fire damage dealt.
- Change it to something like, "up to 3/6/10% of your ice armor's armor value is added to your frost damage." Synergizes nicely with Ice Armor and Frost Warding. Gives us a new decision to make when raiding -- ice armor for more damage, or mage armor for more endurance.
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.
What I do have a problem with is a deep Arcane build with a few frost talents outperforming frost using frost spells.
Yep, exactly what I thought would happen if they buffed arcane even further, which they´ve done now with that Spell Power talent.
The new arcane tree is some weird mix between the old utility arcane and viable damage. This recent buff almost resulted in forcing me as a fire mage to go deep arcane plus fire, and it definately forces some of the deep frost people to go deep arcane plus frost to get the most damage out of it, and that's not right.
The reason why that is happening is because they´re giving arcane all these damage upgrades that apply to all damage while frost got 3 defensive talents out of the 5 total talents gained. Fire still manages to challenge that, but I think frost could use some buffs to those talents, they were quite terrible even before arcane was buffed.
I'm fine with arcane becoming a viable source of damage, but I'm not fine with those talents ruining the other two trees.
10/18/06, 12:44 PM
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