TBC Mage Theorycrafting - Page 97

Kavan · 05/19/07, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by Darkmantle

The 1.05 is likely to be misery. Since the Combatlog reports resistances before amplification you need to work out how much damage the resisted portion would have done. I'm a bit confused why curse of shadows 1.1 wasn't included though.

Correct the 1.05 was from Misery. Curse of Shadows wasn't included because the locks are lazy

I don't know of a reliable way to determine the amp percentage from the combat log alone. For hits it might be enough to just do resist / (hit + resist) and round to nearest 25% to get P. Then compute P/(1-P) * hit/resist to get amp value. Where you'll have problems is where the amp is big enough that it can change the rounded resistance percentage. This can happen for crits since you don't know the actual crit modifier from talents (varies a lot) or some special mobs like draconids in BWL.

Pyr0 · 05/20/07, 6:03 PM

What is the accepted raid cycle with a 61/0/0 full arcane spec?

Antiphonal · 05/20/07, 9:12 PM

Originally Posted by Pyr0

What is the accepted raid cycle with a 61/0/0 full arcane spec?

My guess is something like

ABx2, AM, ABx2, etc...

For more dps do ...

ABx3, AM, ABx3, etc...

Depending on your lag you might be able to squeeze in a scorch to make it...

ABx3, AM, Scorch, repeat.

Best of luck with full arcane.

Kavan · 05/20/07, 10:43 PM

Originally Posted by Pyr0

What is the accepted raid cycle with a 61/0/0 full arcane spec?

Basically what Antiphonal said. If you have a shadow priest you can go ABx3+AM+Scorch all the time and still have leftover for AB spam. If you don't have a shadow priest then I suggest downranking AM to rank 8. If you need to regen mana go into ABx1+AM8 for high dpm and reasonably high dps while you fish for procs.

Tekiya · 05/21/07, 4:14 AM

Originally Posted by Pyr0

What is the accepted raid cycle with a 61/0/0 full arcane spec?

Having tried this spec on one of our Al'ar nights, I can say a ABx3 // AM does work, using AM on clearcast. I guess you could indeed put out more dps if you can fit in another scorch, but I didn't come to testing this due to Al'ar being fire immune. Fully potted I did around ~800 dps, with all the movement Al'ar requires in Phase 1. I think it's possible to put out more than 1000 DPS easily on a stationary target.
Not to be a jerk - but it's still nowhere near a viable raid spec. Don't bother unless you want to try something new.

Roywyn · 05/21/07, 8:26 AM

Originally Posted by Antiphonal

ABx2, AM, ABx2, etc... For more dps do ... ABx3, AM, ABx3, etc...

Excuse me for being a bit dense here, but does that mean that you wait for about a second doing nothing after the AM cast, to make the AB debuff expire during the cast of AB?
I haven't done a lot with arcane yet, sorry for that stupid question

paedur · 05/21/07, 9:21 AM

Heya ! First-posting here but have been following this thread for about a month now, trying to get my directions from it on how to gear properly and offer the best dmg to raids as possible.

I've found both sides of the coin with doing alot of theorycrafting. First it answers alot of questions on the actual technique behind this game, secondly it offers options on what to aim for in a specific gear-driven/talent-spec toon if one looks hard and tries to apply it to your specific toon/gear.

However, it also makes me kinda get lost in all the "to think about". Instead of going for int/dmg as I did pre-tbc, I've now come to find it's more like a big puzzle, or a big LEGO-robot where you can't put a green piece there since it'll stand out too much in the wall of yellow bricks. Weird comparison perhaps but I hope you get what I mean

For some time now I've been abit frustrated with this "new" mage of mine that has changed quite remarkably into something other than before. I consider myself as an above average player, dedicated to the bone when playing and always go 100% in raids.

Even so, I'm not using any kind of specific rotation but rather play as the fight "feels", length, numbers of mobs etc(try to scorch up a trash is kinda useless 'cos it'll be dead before I can cast a fireball). Nor do I keep track on combatlogs to see what went wrong. More just try and understand and deal with what I got without getting too much into it since I don't have time basically =/

I've been trying to get up on the +hit-department after following this thread, not without ofc nerfing dmg/crit.

What I'm still confused about is what I really should go for as a prio stat, and where to stop and focus on another ?

This is what I've been using switching between on various encounters recently:

81 hit
237 crit
939 dmg

or

52 hit
223crit
963 dmg

not always, but usually on boss(hit-gear):

125 hit
222 crit
874 dmg

I'm using a 10/48/3 "default" full fire. Here comes the questions;

When using the more hit, but nerfing dmg, will I actually "loose" hit since dmg counts as a primary stat and by some of what I read also offer +hit ? Instantly feels like I've totally misunderstood this but...

Am I doing it totally wrong when aiming for that 16% hit-cap in comparison with using more dmg and still get equal or better dps, even if I get resists more often ?

Some nights in Kara for example, it honestly feels like I got more (partial weirdly enough)resists with that hit-gear than the one with more dmg/crit and less hit, can it be so ?

In all those I have medium-low crit(~27-28%), which means I tend to crit not so often, especially when those resists happen pretty often it feels. Should I skip hit for a bit and just go crazy on higher crit?

Also if anyone has a good, full-fire point-of-view spell-rotation to offer it would be nice, both for trash and bosses. If seen a few here but not specifically for full fire and/or trash/bosses (unless I've missed it perhaps).

I got loads more of question-marks, since I'm fairly new to all this thinking behind instead of just playing for fun. It got obvious in tbc that something more is needed for an "eager-to-do-good"-mage than just jump in and nuke.

Sorry for a long long first-post, questions have been stacking up and I'm sure I'll get even more =)

Rocktart · 05/21/07, 10:43 AM

First off download Vontre's spreadsheet http://radiationnow.net/wow/mage_dps.xls
You can get good ideas on what the answers to your questions are by plugging the numbers into the spreadsheet and seeing how that changes the predicted performance.
You will find that once you reach a certain point with +dam, +hit will outperform +crit on bosses. This only stops when you are hit capped.

Generally speaking for fire mages you run with 2 sets of gear:
1. Crit gear for trash.
2. Hit gear for bosses.

For specific encounters you may want more int (mana) or stamina, plus the resist sets you may need at some point.

A full fire specs only real rotation is for keeping your scorch stack up. This works out at 1 scorch every 5 fireballs if you're spamming, which for lots of bosses you won't be as you'll be busy doing other things.

Antiphonal · 05/21/07, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

Excuse me for being a bit dense here, but does that mean that you wait for about a second doing nothing after the AM cast, to make the AB debuff expire during the cast of AB?
I haven't done a lot with arcane yet, sorry for that stupid question

It depends on your lag, naturally. My connection is not perfect and I have some issues with the stopcasting macro (not an arcade player). I've found that the overlap is pretty easy to hit, actually - especially with a 2x AB, AM rotation. The 3x AB rotation would make me have to wait half a second. The same goes for 2x AB, 2x Frostbolt rotations for 40/0/21 (2.5seconds x2 for Frostbolt or 5seconds x1 for AM).

To respond to the arcane spec not being viable crowd: I am sure that those who go the Arcane route do so other than to get absolute max damage (which 10/48/3 gives with appropriate gear). What you _DO_ get is very low threat, high burst, very good utility spells for heroics and PvP (ICS, Slow, PoM), and COMPETITIVE damage. Is it is high DPS as Deep Fire builds? Nope. But it is close enough that you shouldn't feel embarrassed for going that route if it suits you. It isn't a "gimp" spec. Not having to worry about fire or frost immune bosses is a plus, as is being able to take advantage of CoS from the warlocks. The real selling point is 40% threat reduction. As a Deep Fire mage (still working through Karazhan), I have had numerous times where I had to stop casting to not pull aggro (KTM = amazing). Deep Arcane would probably let me do more damage over the course of the encounter, for whatever that's worth.

Just my 2c.

paedur · 05/21/07, 11:29 AM

I forgot to mention I'd downloaded that one aswell. I've put in all my numbers, though being kind of new to this and not as hardcore theorycrafter I'm having a hard time putting the answers from it, to the usage in live fights. Forgive if I'm just being nub'ish.

I can put in my numbers, but in a short fight where I never get to do any dmg except those Scorches before the mob is dead, my dmg will suffer and won't equal that spredsheet. So, I tend to get one Scorch off, thinking it'll lessen the resist-rate on Fireballs, then just spam Fb and usually don't get more than one off.
Or, I just spam Fireball on the mob, hoping for crits. Or if I'm feeling eager to drain my mana I go AB and loose all my mana but go high on dmg-meter even if I'm not specced Arcane.

In a longer fight, I always start off by Scorching up the mob, like Gruuls etc, and keeping it up. Then spam Fireball, with Scorch inbetween every 5-6 Fb's.
But like this, if I slack off for one sec, loosing a cast since I have to move from the Elementals in Mag's Lair, start a cast then Counterspelling or moving from cave-ins, reverberation, slam in Gruuls, I loose dps.
I've yet to see me with about 1,1-1,2k +dmg, go over 1k dps even with Supreme + Major Firepower + Adepts + Wizard Oil. Feels kinda awkward and weird since what I've been reading here don't seem the same.

What I've found imho, is that I hardly reach the numbers of the spreadsheet in "real", since a fight is dynamic, which means you move around alot, hence my dps takes a big toll when I don't stand still and spam.

Agreed that atm, I'm the only mage in my Kara-group, and in Gruul/Mag's perhaps 3-4 mages in total but only 2 fire-mages

Astrik · 05/21/07, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by paedur

What I've found imho, is that I hardly reach the numbers of the spreadsheet in "real", since a fight is dynamic, which means you move around alot, hence my dps takes a big toll when I don't stand still and spam.

Its definitely true that you will never hit those theoretical numbers in a real fight. In Gruul it will depend quite a bit on how much you have to move around - ie. did you get a safe spot (we give these to our healers). The spreadsheet also assumes that the scorch stack is always up and things like that.

Copernicus · 05/21/07, 11:58 AM

The main issue with deep arcane is that Arcane Missiles is a horrible, awful spell that severely restricts the mage. A large up-front mana cost, thirty yard range, and being stuck in place for five seconds combine to make it an unfriendly spell. I've tried in the past to make it work. Unless an encounter is designed for it (like Vael) a mage should never be casting Arcane Missiles.

paedur · 05/21/07, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by Astrik

Its definitely true that you will never hit those theoretical numbers in a real fight. In Gruul it will depend quite a bit on how much you have to move around - ie. did you get a safe spot (we give these to our healers). The spreadsheet also assumes that the scorch stack is always up and things like that.

Yea, that's as I've experienced myself. We're kinda new to Gruul, only downed him 1-2 times mostly because people die from cave-ins.
But how do you, the good mages make up for it in your resp. guild to still stay on top in dmg-meters ? Special rotations or "special" gear to annihilate that downtime between 3sec long casts between moving etc ?

I can agree that as a fire-mage i tend to do rel. if not above good dmg. For example, we have a frost-mage that's equally geared than me and I'm more often loosing to him than winning.

However, that would be if I could stand still and /or soam my prio spell (Fib) as often as he can. Not unusual I get up to 2,5 sec cat then have to move due to cave-in or interrupted by Reverberation etc.

I can, still with fire-spec, go wild with AB-spam and pwn just about everything on dmg for a trash mob/mobs, but just "feels wrong" when fire to use AB to just go high. Admittedly it does imba-dmg, but I'm old and would like an option to be ahead on dmg (as mages are/were supposed to be) with my spec, a spec that are supposed to be the "best" dmg-wise.

Geglash · 05/22/07, 6:30 AM

Originally Posted by paedur

Yea, that's as I've experienced myself. We're kinda new to Gruul, only downed him 1-2 times mostly because people die from cave-ins.
But how do you, the good mages make up for it in your resp. guild to still stay on top in dmg-meters ? Special rotations or "special" gear to annihilate that downtime between 3sec long casts between moving etc ?

For me playing deep fire since early Naxx I believe the spec and gear following it really is what pushed me to play better. As frost I always was a bit more reckless while playing just because Ice Block is such a huge save. This coupled with having control over what happens around me is vital in TBC. I need to follow my rotation (usually something like fireballx6 -> scorch) and still predict when certain fight specific events occur to avoid them, for example a single tick of cave-in easily puts me under 50% hp which means that if it ever happens I have a hard time focusing on doing dps until my hp is regained since just one minor mishap during a shatter after this will kill me (should I bandage or keep doing dps and wait for that heal that will land in 10->15 secs when things cool down?). Instead if you can focus your main attention on what is going on around you, making sure that you never get a single tick of cave-in, watching the silence-timer and simple stuff like that you will perform better.

Since TBC almost every fight consists of some sort of random element that you often will be able to foresee and avoid which has for me meant I needed to improve my own playing. There is no fight yet that is even close to being like Patchwerk, but that fight is still probably the one to teach me be a better player in TBC since it taught me how to control my mana pool and rotation, adding on the need for situational awareness is so much easier when everything else is something you do automaticaly without really thinking about it.

Getting a good boss mod for timers, some debuff addon for your scorch debuff and making sure your UI is clean so that you have good vision would be my first steps, after this you could go visit Dr. Boom as often as you can just to try and nail your rotations a bit better. While raiding I'd suggest you focus your main attention on how the fight evolves around you, if you feel in control you will play better and more relaxed.

Thanaomira · 05/22/07, 8:03 AM

Originally Posted by Copernicus

a mage should never be casting Arcane Missiles.

On a clearcast with wisdom judged, what would you use instead?

Aranan · 05/22/07, 10:34 AM

I apologize for the slight derail, but I have a request. I have recently started playing my previously retired mage again. It's been ages since I've last played him--I think I stopped around a month or two after Molten Core was released. I want to dust him off and get him to 70, then start doing some alt Karazhan runs or whatnot with him.

My question is: What's a decent leveling spec to get from 60 to 70? Like I mentioned, it's been a long time since I've played a mage and a huge amount has changed since then. I'm trying to play catch-up by reading this thread, but it takes a while to get through all 97 pages.

Phalanx · 05/22/07, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by Aranan

I apologize for the slight derail, but I have a request. I have recently started playing my previously retired mage again. It's been ages since I've last played him--I think I stopped around a month or two after Molten Core was released. I want to dust him off and get him to 70, then start doing some alt Karazhan runs or whatnot with him.

My question is: What's a decent leveling spec to get from 60 to 70? Like I mentioned, it's been a long time since I've played a mage and a huge amount has changed since then. I'm trying to play catch-up by reading this thread, but it takes a while to get through all 97 pages.

I leveled with Arcane/Fire (40/11 to start). Some guildies went full Frost to play around with the elemental. I liked Frost a bit better once I got the Ice Lance at 66, to be honest. Before then, it felt kinda weak.

The one thing I liked about deep Arcane/Fire was I could two-shot a lot of mobs with the improved crit, but I had BWL/AQ40 and one piece of Frostfire gear.

Copernicus · 05/22/07, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Aranan

I apologize for the slight derail, but I have a request. I have recently started playing my previously retired mage again. It's been ages since I've last played him--I think I stopped around a month or two after Molten Core was released. I want to dust him off and get him to 70, then start doing some alt Karazhan runs or whatnot with him.

My question is: What's a decent leveling spec to get from 60 to 70? Like I mentioned, it's been a long time since I've played a mage and a huge amount has changed since then. I'm trying to play catch-up by reading this thread, but it takes a while to get through all 97 pages.

Frost is the best leveling and gearing up spec.

For leveling, it's the best spec because crits aren't wasted by waiting on a 4-second DoT. It also gurantees a crit almost every fight because of Shatter + Frost Nova. The damage difference between Frost and Fire is not that extreme at lower levels of +dmg gear so the added control from Shatters and Frostbite procs is very nice. Ice Lance and Shatter is also a nice combination that is very powerful.

It's the best gearing up spec because the added control frost gives in instances is very powerful. A frost mage can kite or crowd control multiple mobs easily. Water Elemental is also more useful with the added downtime and shorter fights. It also allows for easier PvP gearing. And the big thing is, as previously stated, the damage difference between frost and other specs is less noticeable at lower gear levels.

• frmorrison · 05/22/07, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by Aranan

I apologize for the slight derail, but I have a request. I have recently started playing my previously retired mage again. It's been ages since I've last played him--I think I stopped around a month or two after Molten Core was released.

Since you likely have little +damage and crit, I would use very deep Frost build. Frost spec now adds 5% more frost damage than it used to, plus it is the best spec at low gear levels build (since Shatter is very powerful then).

Just put a ton of points in Frost tree and remember to cast the Elemental every 3 minutes and use Frost Nova and the pet's Nova when you can to get Shatters.

/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/petattack

Is a decent starting macro for pet useage.

Aranan · 05/22/07, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Phalanx

The one thing I liked about deep Arcane/Fire was I could two-shot a lot of mobs with the improved crit, but I had BWL/AQ40 and one piece of Frostfire gear.

Heh, this guy's gear is long distance from BWL/AQ40. 191 damage, 10.18% crit. I didn't really know what I was doing when I was gearing him up, so when I logged on last he was in full magister's. Luckily I kept all the +spell damage gear I got in the bank, so I swapped that out. :P

Originally Posted by Copernicus and frmorrison

Frost +

Thanks for the suggestion and the reasoning behind it. I'll get out there and start throwing snowballs.

Tempestra · 05/22/07, 3:19 PM

Originally Posted by Thanaomira

On a clearcast with wisdom judged, what would you use instead?

Fireball.

Your dps loss from (a) taking the time to cancel your fireball and (b) using AM instead of fireball outweighs any gain you may have.

Yes, even with spell power and arcane potency.

If you're trying to conserve mana, then *maybe* you can justify casting AM. However, it's a pretty awful spell overall.

Astrik · 05/22/07, 3:21 PM

Originally Posted by paedur

Yea, that's as I've experienced myself. We're kinda new to Gruul, only downed him 1-2 times mostly because people die from cave-ins.
But how do you, the good mages make up for it in your resp. guild to still stay on top in dmg-meters ? Special rotations or "special" gear to annihilate that downtime between 3sec long casts between moving etc ?

Really good mages basically don't take damage during this fight. Move out of the cave-ins before the first tick hits. Create enough space to take less than 1k damage from shatter (blink if needed).

Your biggest dps increase will come from not having to bandage and not having your mana gems be on cooldown because you had to pop a healthstone.

For rotations, use your normal fireball-scorch rotation, but watch the timers for upcoming reverbs and shatters. Primarily make sure you don't loose your debuff stack to either of these events so give yourself leeway for resists and adjust your rotations around them. As long as your debuff timer is fine, just spam the fireballs and don't worry if they get interrupted - you will squeeze off more than you think and the timers are too inconsistent to give up the dps for shorter cast spells like scorch.

Best way to top the charts though is to get in with a shadowpriest so you don't have to worry about petty things like healh or mana. Not having to use mage armor, bandage, evocate, using fireblast, etc translate into a fair amount of dps.

paedur · 05/23/07, 5:57 AM

Geglash, Astrik, thank you both for your answers that both gave me something to think about. I agree that keeping a more peripheral eye on what goes on around you, will really help the fight/outcome.
That with bandaging or continue dps is always hard, how many healers around, any in range, do I have time to take my chances on recieving a heal or not ? And all to be decided within a sec tops.

Trying to avoid that alltogether is probably gonna be the best choice but it's easy to miss out in a hectic fight. I downloaded NECB the other day, haven't really understood how I could have that mod show my Scorch-debuff, but I probably will get it soon enough. Admittedly I end up too many times swearing to myself when I'm just a tad to late with keeping the debuff, and end up re-Scorching the boss to 5 stacks again.

gimmering · 05/24/07, 11:59 AM

Which addons do you use to use the "stopcast" makro in the right time?

Zero · 05/24/07, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by gimmering

Which addons do you use to use the "stopcast" makro in the right time?

I myself just started using Quartz to time my stopcasting macro, it seems to be working rather well for me. It calculates realtime dependant on your latency and is VERY customizable.