Fire Cataclysm Discussion: OP Updated for Release - Page 12

Maje · 09/23/10, 8:34 PM

Originally Posted by Zeldyrr

...The main takeaway is that at what I think is a reasonable crit value (20%), over 90% of your procs happen because of Tier 3. I understand the design but perhaps this suggests the Tier 3 proc rate is too high?...

There is nothing wrong with having such a high rate from T3, the only problem is that it makes it kind of wierd having a better talent being a pre requisite for a 'worse' one. They should probably change it T4-T3 and vice versa.

Though that would require them to define chances for the current T3 proc and they obviously don't want to do it, at the moment it's like a black box they can change however they want; if they defined the chances than changing those would become more difficult due to player feedback. Though yes it would make more sense having T3 being 1 point talent granting 100% hs from double crits and T4 a 2 point talent granting 35% per point on any crit.

I was under the impression tha there is going to be a lot of movement in Cataclysm. Which means we wl be casting scorches and fireblasts, and defininitly casting fireblast where there are adds, as impact is going to be allowing us to spread DoTs around.

That doesn't make much sense, simple models don't take into account fight mechanics or specific boss abilities and they shouldn't. Scorch/Fireblast are not part of the rotation, Living Bomb is but it doesn't affect HS it just 'pushes' some casts farther down the timeline, and it shouldn't change the output of the script in question.

Zeldyrr · 09/23/10, 9:35 PM

Originally Posted by Maje

There is nothing wrong with having such a high rate from T3, the only problem is that it makes it kind of wierd having a better talent being a pre requisite for a 'worse' one. They should probably change it T4-T3 and vice versa.

Yes that was my point, perhaps not made as clearly as you managed to. If the single point in T3 HS provides +X DPS, then the two points in T4 HS provide +X/9 DPS, or 1/18th the DPS per point. As you say, it seems odd that points in a prereq are 18 times more effective than points in the deeper talent. All this is for 20% crit rate but I think the argument holds for most reasonable values of crit.

Bashram · 09/23/10, 9:52 PM

Originally Posted by Zeldyrr

Yes that was my point, perhaps not made as clearly as you managed to. If the single point in T3 HS provides +X DPS, then the two points in T4 HS provide +X/9 DPS, or 1/18th the DPS per point. As you say, it seems odd that points in a prereq are 18 times more effective than points in the deeper talent. All this is for 20% crit rate but I think the argument holds for most reasonable values of crit.

How would the value of the talents compare if the proc chance of unimproved Hot Streak were changed to k = 1 - c? Of all the models I've considered, that one appeals to me the most. It gives a higher proc rate per cast at lower crit levels than k = .7 does, but--after 30% crit--slows down its scaling.

Blizzard still doesn't seem sure what they want this proc rate to be. First, it seemed to be scaling with something, then datamining found a value of 33%, and, now, it's been tested at 70%. And we know that Glyph of Frostfire is going to be changed in the near future, so the proc rate of Hot Streak might change again in that same build.

gaerthe · 09/23/10, 11:21 PM

On the current PTR, Impact doesn't seem to be properly spreading dots any more. I'm not sure if this is an intended change or a bug.

Specifically, if a Pyro dot is ticking on the target, Impact will not transfer it to any nearby mobs. It was my understanding that this should occur.

9/23 11:57:58.989  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Pyroblast															
9/23 11:57:59.067  SPELL_DAMAGE         Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Pyroblast															
9/23 11:57:59.537  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Fire Blast															
9/23 11:57:59.537  SPELL_AURA_REMOVED	Gaerthee	Gaerthee                Impact															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_DAMAGE    	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Fire Blast															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Impact															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Ignite															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Ignite															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Ignite															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Ignite															
9/23 11:57:59.700  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED	Gaerthee	Theramore Combat Dummy	Ignite

You can see the pyro dot applied to the target, then the fireblast/impact, then the ignite is transferred to the other mobs, but the pyro dot isn't.

Am I misunderstanding how this should work or is this a change/bug?

Toejam · 09/24/10, 4:03 AM

Fire updates from the new PTR build;

Fire
Frostfire Bolt base damage increased by 20%.
Living Bomb base damage increased by 12%.
Pyroblast base damage increased by 12%.
Fireball base damage increased by 12%.

Karolus · 09/24/10, 2:05 PM

With the new build that has just came out, it might fix the situation where spamming scorches was actually nearly as good as spamming fireball.

My latest concern over the fire build, and probably only (after reading the threads, those concerns have dropped considerably thanks to the community. ) is about the pyromaniac talent which i think is a very dangerous talent in terms of its applications. It is probably the single biggest boost we have when it is applied, yet it is very situational E.g when there is 3 or more targets.

arch · 09/24/10, 5:31 PM

Originally Posted by Karolus

My latest concern over the fire build, and probably only (after reading the threads, those concerns have dropped considerably thanks to the community. ) is about the pyromaniac talent which i think is a very dangerous talent in terms of its applications. It is probably the single biggest boost we have when it is applied, yet it is very situational E.g when there is 3 or more targets.

This.

Along with mana efficiency and the vastly reduced critrates are pretty much the only concerns I have left. I don't know what kind of critrates they are aiming for but to me anything below 25% is unplayable.

EDIT: Unplayable as in boring. Such a crit centric tree will not be that exciting if crits become very rare.

Rugz · 09/25/10, 2:19 PM

The latest beta change wave implies that Combustion will not consume existing DoTs, just reapply their combined effect. The wording of how damage on the new DoT has also changed from:

'...burning for the same total damage for 10 sec.'

to

'...lasting 10 sec and dealing the same damage per time as all your existing periodic fire effects.'

Initial question: If we have combustion ticking for X every 2 seconds and Living Bomb ticking for Y every 3 seconds, will combustion tick for X+Y every period or [(X/2)+(Y/3)]*T every period?

(T = tick period)

Bashram · 09/25/10, 2:36 PM

Originally Posted by arch

This.

Along with mana efficiency and the vastly reduced critrates are pretty much the only concerns I have left. I don't know what kind of critrates they are aiming for but to me anything below 25% is unplayable.

EDIT: Unplayable as in boring. Such a crit centric tree will not be that exciting if crits become very rare.

Well, I've been assuming a basic crit rate of 23%.

5% - Base crit chance
5% - Glyphed Molten Armor
5% - Critical Mass debuff
5% - Elemental Oath/Leader of the Pack/Et cetera
3% - Piercing Ice

That's before crit from intellect or from gear. Now, maybe my value for base crit is too high, but I'm pretty confident we'll have at least 25% crit when you include intellect and gear. Of course, 5% of that is from another class, but that's not wholly unreasonable.

The mana efficiency issue is somewhat more alarming to me. On the Public Test Realm, I can maintain six to eight minutes of combat by using mana gems and Evocation on cooldown. However, I also have much more crit than we're going to be seeing at level eighty-five--I've reforged as much crit as possible into mastery in order to alleviate this discrepancy, but I'm still at around 40%--and am therefore still getting more benefit from Master of Elements and Hot Streak than we should expect. On the other hand, I'm only 2/3 in Arcane Concentration. How much difference does that extra point make? What about Replenishment? These are the answers we need.

Also, someone in Beta should point out that Clearcasting is being consumed by free Hot Streaks and Scorches. Maybe there's no easy way to code it, but it would be nice if that mana cost reduction only applied to things with mana costs.

Reat · 09/25/10, 3:54 PM

Originally Posted by Rugz

The latest beta change wave implies that Combustion will not consume existing DoTs, just reapply their combined effect. The wording of how damage on the new DoT has also changed from:

'...burning for the same total damage for 10 sec.'

to

'...lasting 10 sec and dealing the same damage per time as all your existing periodic fire effects.'

Initial question: If we have combustion ticking for X every 2 seconds and Living Bomb ticking for Y every 3 seconds, will combustion tick for X+Y every period or [(X/2)+(Y/3)]*T every period?

(T = tick period)

well, if...

Pyroblast first tick = 1000, Living bomb first tick = 5000, Ignite first tick = 30000, then first tick of Combustion = 1000 + 5000 + 30000.

If living bomb ticking for Y every 3 seconds and Combustion every 2 seconds, then the first tick of combustion will be Pyro + Living Bomb + Ignite but the second tick should be Pyro + Ignite.

arch · 09/25/10, 4:00 PM

I thought that would mean it creates a DoT based on the other dots without removing them. But the functionality has not changed on the PTR (after the update yes) so I'm guessing it is merely a tooltip update?

Tristany · 09/26/10, 8:35 AM

On the current PTR, Impact doesn't seem to be properly spreading dots any more. I'm not sure if this is an intended change or a bug. Specifically, if a Pyro dot is ticking on the target, Impact will not transfer it to any nearby mobs. It was my understanding that this should occur.

I have been focused on testing the interaction of abilities on Beta... and you are correct about Impact not spreading Pyroblast's DoT to a degree. It will not spread a Pyroblast DoT that was created from a Hotstreak Proc... but will spread it from a Pyroblast that was manually cast. Am not sure how these two DoT effects ended up with different internal "tags" that allowed one to spread and not the other. I did post this in the Beta Bug Forums with no response as to whether it was intended or not... I'm hoping it will be "fixed" as you would rarely cast Pyro not procc'd with Hotstreak.,, even for the DoT spreading.. simply because of how Impact copies existing DoT timers.

Which leads me to a few aspect of the mechanics I find "klunky".. and confuses me as to what one should do.

1) Impact spreads DoTs by copying them from the target... and that means if you have 3 secs left of FFB and 8 secs of LB... that is what surrounding targets will recieve, I find myself struggling with optimizing this. I would think that a decision of whether current state of DoT's are worth spreading or whether to wait refresh them first.. LB>Frostfire bolt to get them back up seems.

Ideally having maximum DoTs up would be nice.. though if you are going to spread one that is "short" Living Bomb would be it... as spreading it at last second applies the explosion to all the targets. And FFB's DoT is one you'd like to just keep up (with the exception of clipping a tick).

Where it get's confusing is that you can often get the Impact procs reasonably close together... and casting it too soon with surrounding mobs with LB on them.. will result in reseting the timers and missing out on the explosion. Again seemingly making it wiser to apply the Impact when LB has less than 1/2 of it's time left. This would be a non-issue if LB could not be refreshed or overwritten like currently on live.

2) Another clunky aspect is when you have more than 2 surrounding targets and use Impact to spread DoT's... it removes the LB off the target because you can only have 3.. and it's a cascading removal. Meaning if you apply it to 4 targets it will drop off the first target.

3) Lastly was the Combustion mechanic of "consuming" the current DoTs to create the new one... it MAY be getting addressed soon and perhaps will be leaving the existing DoTs on (tooltip change of Combustion)... but seems that hasn't happened yet. Impact does spread the Combustion DoT and this would make folding that in with maximum DoTs a bit easier... and a goal.

Overall I am really excited about the playstyle, tho atm I am somewhat frustrated trying to "keep up" with all the timers and decision making to try and develop the best priority/rotation. I am also somewhat concerned with how often we will actually be able to keep Pyromaniac's 10% Haste buff rolling in raid encounters. It seems to be such an integral requirement for decent DPS on single target.. and that's exactly when we can't obtain it.

This is also my first post here... I have lurked for the past 3 years and read a many informed post here that has helped me understand my class better. A great thanks to the site and it's members.

I am sure we have plenty members in Beta following this thread, but would be glad to apply suggested tests if I am able to.

arch · 09/26/10, 3:08 PM

FFB glyph changed according to what Kalgan was talking about:

Glyph of Frostfire - Item - World of Warcraft

Increases the damage done by you Frostfire Bolt by 15% and your Frostfire Bolt now deals 3% additional damage over 12 sec, stacking up to 3 times, but no longer reduces the victim's movement speed.

Maje · 09/26/10, 5:54 PM

That's going to wreck Frost rotation to hell, probably to an almost exclusion of Frost Bolt apart from keeping buffs if at all.

Tristany · 09/26/10, 7:34 PM

Originally Posted by arch

I thought that would mean it creates a DoT based on the other dots without removing them. But the functionality has not changed on the PTR (after the update yes) so I'm guessing it is merely a tooltip update?

The PTR version is still the same wording as Beta is... whereas the "new" wording shoulld be appearing in this patch tonight on Beta. I am hopeful that that means Combustion will not "consume" the existing DoTs.

The first part of the spell also changed from:

"Instantly deals 4098 critical strike Fire damage and..."

and the new description says: "Instantly deals 955 to 1131 Fire damage and" so apparently it no longer is an Auto-Crit... that would be fine by me if the DoT's stay on target.