Ask Vontre/Nejyn; I'm just hosting it for him, he did all the hard work.

Rank 14 Fireball/Frostbolt, though, don't seem to be in-game yet. Yes, thott/wowhead list them, but you can't learn them from a trainer. Presumably they're in there for an eventual AQ20 style intermediate rank upgrade.

I just used the highest trainer rank, which is 13.

haha, oops ><. at work, so i assumed the lvl 70 ranks on thott were currently trainable. thanks again.

@Vontre/Nejyn and the other excel makers and the answer to the roll for spells question:

***It is debated whether world of warcraft uses two tables (hit/miss, then hit/crit) or just one table (hit/crit/miss) to roll for spells. Evidence suggests a two roll system, so this option is set to "yes" by default. A two roll system considerably increases the value of +hit increases wherever they are effective.

dunno if its true or not but this is what a gm said to me when i asked
http://www.nihilum.co.uk/image/1074/

No offense (though I cannot find the image itself) but there is one out there of a fireball being resisted but procing Master of Elements thus giving the evidence needed to assume they use 2 tables. Im not sure how that screenshot (which i will try and find) can be disputed O_o.

ya, still waiting for rank 14...

pretty sad that our highest level fireball is a 66. also sad that scorch's mana cost outscaled its damage

So, a question for all you Mages out there... although the topic is, of course, "Theorycrafting"--I'd be quite curious to know where the theorycraft meets reality. Or, in other words, what kind of "normal" DPS are you guys seeing in average fights?

By that, I mean...basic consumables (or perhaps none at all), normal raid buffs, on say high-HP trash or bosses where you aren't flasking, stacking with optimal group setups, etc.

The spreadsheets basically tell us that most builds are actually quite close to each other in maximum potential theorycrafted DPS, but I would be interested to see what builds are actually getting in terms of average damage output on a regular basis. (Also looking for "pure" damage numbers, e.g. no "cheating" with those 1% Fireblast crits )

I don't believe that spells are on a 2 roll system, for two reasons :

i) My crit rate when parsedon on an individual spell is roughly the same as it should be in game. If it were a two roll system, it would be less, as some crits would be resisted.

ii) I've never once had a resisted spell generate a Master of Elements proc. *Ever*. If someone does have a verifiable SS of this, I would suspect it's one of those occasional bugs wherebye Master of Elem,ents has procced when it shouldn't - if resisted spells could generate MoE hits then we'd be seeing them on a very regular basis.

For the PVP mages out there:

I'm getting my first piece of honor point gear today, and I'm debating between the silk and the dreadweave. I'm 37/0/24 - how important is crit? I'm thinking +damage will benefit me more because of shatter, but I don't want to go too low on crit - right now I have around 16% in pvp gear.

No offense but isnt dreadweave class: warlock?

There's a warlock set called dreadweave, but I'm talking about the bracers, belt, and boots that are for any class. Sorry, should have mentioned that.

Marshal's Dreadweave Belt

Your spells are pretty much worthless if they don't crit. Doesn't matter if they hit for ~50 damage more or less in a PvP situation. Crit > Damage in regards of PvP.
The Dreadweave-pieces actually are designed for Warlocks and Shadow Priests, IMO. Personally, I went for the Silk-bracers, boots and belt. Bracers socketed with a Potent Noble Topaz.

Here's my two cents on this. Several times in the last couple of weeks I've had combustion go up to 8, 9, even 10 charges. While I was sitting at these levels giving me anywhere from 102% to 120% chance to crit, I've gotten a resist. Unless the mechanics whereby combustion increases crit chance affect the roll system differently than crit chance given by gear, it would seem to indicate that WoW uses a hit/crit/resist roll.

I think you do not get 8, 9 or 10 charges that often. And even so, you don't get resist on those on a daily basis.
I think you are facing the 1% resist rate of every spell, whatever your spell, crit, stuff or anything else.

I use to have combustion a long time ago (naxx's days ...), and tbh, it didn't go up to 8 9 or 10 charge every day... it was more a unlucky strike, or on a lucky flamestrike (awesome to have 10 charges on a flamestrike )

(image from crenshow for those who can't see it)


It fact, it doesn't seems logic to me to have 2 check for a spell, 'cause it will force the server into avoidable operation, and I think blizzard simply cannot deal with avoidable operation for the server :/

PS : sorry for my bad english, I'm just a poor french mage looking for good theorycraft

Hello all.

Currently specced 2/56/3 (last week I was deep frost, which I had played forever, then I went 40/21/0, which was fun for pvp, but even though people swear by arcane blast, I just don't like the spell), and am wondering where to go from here.

I really, really like fire (it just seems so much more alive than frost, and I am not denigrating frost, as I loved it), but am concerned about mana issues, so I might go 10/48/3 for clearcasting. At any rate, aside from the respec, which I will sort out, I am concerned about whether I am wearing the right gear. Here is my armory profile:

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...trigg&n=Cwealm

In a day or two I should have the HH exalted sword and the fire offhand, and I am trying to replace the gloves with the mana-etched gloves (I think the mana etched is the best gear in the game besides tailored pieces and t4 and above).

My real weak spot is my chest (and the MP5 enchant is there as a hangover from levelling enchanting- figured I would replace the robe and still haven't and have not bothered to replace it), but I am afraid to gain a few more points in spell damage at the expense of crit. The question, I guess, boils down to how much should I favor crit over +dam.

Looking at my profile, what spots would you upgrade first (and I am working on the spellpower enchant for my bracers. Had to kill 722 ogres for the recipe to drop, now I am farming the primal fires and primal water))? How much crit do i want vs. spell damage?

Thanks in advance.

What is the ideal %hit for a boss fight (lvl 73 mob) - I know they have a 17% resist rate and 1% will always be there but should I aim for 16%? I seem to remember reading that the difference between 14% and 16% hit is minimal. I know %hit is more important to an ice mage but is there any easy way to define how important %hit is to a fire mage?

Looks like a 45 second cooldown.

you're right, should have talk about miss instead of resist...
Fact is, I consider a 100% resist dmg on DD spell as a hit, a bad one for sure, but sill a hit. That's why I'm talking about resist instead of hit. Nothing to do whith english french thing, just my personal negligence
the only blue post we got on the subject isn't really constructive for me... I could understand what I want to from this post ... as explained (much better) here.

So here is the great question : has someone ever post a full combat log of over 1.000 dd spell to close this "two roll/three outcomes" argument ? I've seen this report from the lvl 20 priest nuking lvl 30 mobs, but the number of elements (331 if I remember correctly) is definitly not representative.

I assume the answer is no as we are still here talking about it ... I will try to run a test myself during the week. Assuming I have 0% hit and 10% crit
On a lvl 70 target, with no resist, I should have :
10% crit, 86% hit, 4% miss on a three outcomes models
or
9.6% crit, 86.4% hit, 4% miss on a two roll models

right ?

Will try to post the result asap, before the end of the week.

So to get a solid sample for a deviation of .4% you "only" need around 62500 casts. (My numbers may be a bit off.)

Anyway, the deviation you are looking for is small enough it is gonna take a rather large sample. This is the reason for the level 20 priest and level 30 target, to make the difference large enough be studied in small sample size.

You mention a 3 outcome model, I assume you mean 1 roll 3 outcomes? (miss,hit,crit)
If that is what you mean:
Quick test version is to take a level 60 mage and have it attack a level 70 (naked) player. (Assume fire mage with 0% hit and 20% crit) According to the 3 outcome 1 roll model it should result in:
20% crit, X% hit, Y% miss

Who cares about the hit/miss, if you don't see 20% crit you know instantly it is not the 1 roll 3 outcomes. (400 casts should be large enough to see what is happening)

Chase, that's similiar to the test I've been meaning to do.

Take a level 60 Mage, get all the +crit fire talents and then go drop 1,000 or so scorches on Dr. Boom (level 68) in Netherstorm. Base chance to miss vs. a +8 mob is 72%.

I do think it would be more conclusive if the test was done against a mob instead of a player though, as I am unsure if all the relevant mechanics are the same PvP.

Even better would be a boss flagged creature (Anachronos was suggested in another thread) since that's the condition that most of us care about anyway. It would require a larger sample size due to only a 17% miss chance though, and probably require a tank and healer to assist you.

Now to find someone's alt mage I can borrow...

Would highly recommend doing a PvE test. Many Warriors ran into similar testing problems in regard to crits vs. combo table while mistakenly relying on PvP tests that didn't jive with PvE mechanics.

Earlier on in this thread, people were discussing bloodlust and if it shortens the global cooldown. I had a mage in my guild with a blade of wizardry and a mind quickening gem do some scorch spam tests on me to try and figure out if he could maintain an arcane/fire spec, since during blade procs he would be dealing with short cast time spells. I took a snapshot of my combat log, trimming out everything but haste buffs, him beginning casts, and when the spells hit.

Unfortunately, the results were inconclusive, as I am not so sure of my combat log due to whatever latency there is in reporting it. The snapshot is him activating the MQG, and his first spellcast proc'd the blade (very lucky). I ended the snapshot when the MQG buff faded.

If anyone is able to analyze this and interpret whether or not the haste buffs are able to shorten the global cooldown, I (and Nocte) would be very glad to hear it. A note, he was mashing Scorch as quick as possible with latency in the 150ms range and a 60 fps framerate