Infraction for Actovision: General Idiocy

Kaubel · 10/22/08, 6:49 PM

Post: [Mage] WotLK Talent Discussion (Part Two)
User: Actovision
Infraction: General Idiocy
Points: 1

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

That sure is an ugly, fucking post you made there. Kudos if that was your intent.

Original Post:

Originally Posted by Eaden

Xentropy, if this is true, and given that it extends to brain freeze also, I will totally eat my words. But as I cannot test it, I Ill will have to take your word for it. /shakes fist at no glyff available on live to test.

It has already been tested. Regardless of the wording on the glyph, it does not "remove" the snare effect on FrB, but lowers it to a 0% slow.

Originally Posted by Saphya

So the only good use of the 3rd FoF charge generally speaking would be to use it for the "Fireball!" proc, right?
If so, would it be beneficial to wait a few seconds before using up the Proc while FoF isn't up (hoping that it will proc on one of the next few Frostbolts) or should it be used right away, provided it doesn't use the first or second FoF charge this way?

Essentially is it worth it to save an instant, crit fireball for FoF when any of the casts in between can proc another instant fireball, resulting in a lost charge, and when tacking a fireball on at the end of FoF suffers from the same problems that now make ice lance a bad choice? I'm not a numbers man, and that's what I'd have to be to give a definitive answer. Just from looking at the opportunity cost, I'd have to say saving is not worth it if dpm/mana is a concern.

On another note there've been quite a few posts on inter and intra class balancing that show some insight into how the devs want things to go down. They aren't all dealing directly with mages, but I think some inferences can be drawn:

I had to keep saying that to get through to all the classes that lost their gauranteed raid spot that we will boost their dps to compensate for having lower utility. Otherwise every raid would devolve into 2-3 classes to bring buffs and a whole lot of rogues / mages / locks / hunters.

Third, ultimately we still want raids to want rogues because they bring good dps. We just don't want it to feel that only the rogues (hunters, mages and locks) are doing the group's dps.

Warlock single-target dps should be competitive with mages, hunters and rouges. We try not to balance classes around their AE ability since that is situational (but often very useful).

Sounds well and good, assuming those four classes are above the hybrids. This seems to be the aim (as we've all hoped for some time) of the devs:

[Rogues] pay a small price both for being melee (where more damage tends to occur) and for lacking the ability to respec into a non-damage build.

On taking skills off the gcd:

Like I said, the GCD is there for a reason and we are always hesitant to let players remove it. When we do, it's often because you have a very reactionary ability.

Affecting the GCD is always something we're reluctant to do.

Followed 2.5 hrs later by:

Per the other thread, we removed Demonic Empowerment from the GCD. The potential dps loss should no longer be an issue.

Is Mirror Image still on the gcd? If so...

Moving on, its obvious that other classes, the devs, and even some Benedict Arnold types believe both that FFB somehow makes immunity/resistance fights more acceptable, and the myth that out of spec casting (of FFB) is really going to take the place of respeccing for immunity fights.

I can't promise there won't be any poison immune bosses -- resistance and immunity are things we can change on a boss to make the fight play out pretty differently from the previous boss.

Change the word "fight" to "damage meter" and I think you have the impetus, or at least the end result, behind resistance/immunity fights.

It all culminates in our new "Wotlk quote of biblical proportions":

"Hybrid" is a fuzzy term that means different things to different people. When I use the word, I generally mean classes that are not rogues, locks, mages or hunters. Those four classes can do nothing but dps. They can't tank or heal under almost any reasonable circumstance. If we botch their balance, they just don't get to play at all. Thus it is a priority to not botch their balance. We don't want to screw up anyone's balance, but at least a warrior has the option of tanking or the shaman has the option of healing. A rogue with bad dps is just not going to raid period. If the player can improve their dps by improving their gear or L2P then they're in business. If the game mechanics just don't let them improve, then the design team has done a bad job (and will fix it).