Fire Cataclysm Discussion: OP Updated for Release - Page 37

Zeldyrr · 10/23/10, 2:46 PM

For what it is worth, Greg Street (GC) is being interviewed on the live Blizzcon stream at the moment. He confirmed that mana should be a major concern of arcane but not for frost and fire. Summary bullet points of his comments:

-- generically DPS classes should have enough mana to do "the things they need to do" without worrying much about mana
-- that changes if an encounter runs abnormally long (due to poor play) or being owned in pvp
-- arcane mages are the exception; GC specifically mentioned number of AB stacks, etc.
-- but for fire and frost he shook his head and said mana shouldn't be a concern

One could perhaps argue that a fire mages "things they need to do" list includes weaving in scorch but being able to see GC wave off (literally) frost and fire mage mana concerns seems to pretty much settle the issue.

Cuhjo · 10/23/10, 3:36 PM

Does anybody know how Scorch would effect Fire DPS if one stacks mastery and uses FFB instead of FB? As far as I have read, FFB damage becomes competetive with high mastery ratings, which I assume is solely due to the DoT from the glyph. The direct damage part however should be closer to scorch in terms of DPS. Therefore as long as one keeps up the FFB DoT, adding scorch to the standard rotation shouldn't be a damage loss.

Is there any math on this already or did anybody test this in beta?

Dappercad · 10/23/10, 9:41 PM

Nvm, I was crazy. Also thanks for the earlier and in depth replies to my LB questions.

orionnt · 10/23/10, 11:43 PM

Here is a link to the GC Interview from Blizzcon that was mentioned above.

Blizzcon 2010 Q&A with Ghostcrawler - Voodoo Extreme

Zaldinar · 10/24/10, 8:12 AM

Originally Posted by Zeldyrr

For what it is worth, Greg Street (GC) is being interviewed on the live Blizzcon stream at the moment. He confirmed that mana should be a major concern of arcane but not for frost and fire. Summary bullet points of his comments:

-- generically DPS classes should have enough mana to do "the things they need to do" without worrying much about mana
-- that changes if an encounter runs abnormally long (due to poor play) or being owned in pvp
-- arcane mages are the exception; GC specifically mentioned number of AB stacks, etc.
-- but for fire and frost he shook his head and said mana shouldn't be a concern

One could perhaps argue that a fire mages "things they need to do" list includes weaving in scorch but being able to see GC wave off (literally) frost and fire mage mana concerns seems to pretty much settle the issue.

His comments don't solve the debate either way.

Potential 1: "Fire mages shouldn't be concerned about their mana" yields "...because they have a free spell that does comparable DPS to their normal spells. So they can cruise at a mana neutral level whenever they like and thus not be concerned about running out."

Potential 2: "Fire mages shouldn't be concerned about their mana" yields "...because we'll be retuning mana costs etc because we don't want scorch to be the tool that allows them to not be concerned about mana."

The question that needs to be answered is whether or not Imp Scorch is what makes mana not a concern. Saying that they shouldn't be concerned about mana doesn't answer that question.

Tristany · 10/24/10, 9:39 AM

Originally Posted by Shaewyn

Don't bother with the hot streak. The Hot Streak Pyroblast! doesn't spread with impact, nor does it get included in combustion.

Keep a close eye on this issue in future patches to Live client as currently on Beta this bug has been fixed. Impact does indeed spread Pyroblast! DoT in 13202 beta patch.

Shaewyn · 10/24/10, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by Tristany

Keep a close eye on this issue in future patches to Live client as currently on Beta this bug has been fixed. Impact does indeed spread Pyroblast! DoT in 13202 beta patch.

Good to know! Does combustion include the Pyroblast! DoT as well? (and, if you have the time, can you test the impact-spreading of Living Bomb? When you impact-spread living bomb to more than 4 targets, does it leave 2 or 3 living bombs up?)

Vand1 · 10/24/10, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by Zaldinar

His comments don't solve the debate either way.

Potential 1: "Fire mages shouldn't be concerned about their mana" yields "...because they have a free spell that does comparable DPS to their normal spells. So they can cruise at a mana neutral level whenever they like and thus not be concerned about running out."

I have noticed a couple posts where people refer to scorch DPS as comparable to fb. Are they closer now than they used to be? How much so?

Knorro · 10/24/10, 6:14 PM

Originally Posted by Vand1

I have noticed a couple posts where people refer to scorch DPS as comparable to fb. Are they closer now than they used to be? How much so?

This is actually true... did some testing on the Betaservers and Scorch is doing ~5000dmg (noncrit) per cast (1.43sec) which is ~3500dps.
Fireball is doing ~9700dmg (noncrit) per cast (2.39sec) which is ~4000dps.

So Fireball is still a little bit ahead (+ has 5% more crit because of glyph), but it's not as much as in Wotlk. Scorch has its advantages though:
- Costs 0 Mana (with talents)
- More reliable Impact procs
- More chances of Hot streak to actually happen (maybe interesting when using T3 Hot Streak... although T3 Hot Streak seems to proc even less than T4 Hot streak for me even with low crit)

Maybe Blizzard really wants us to use Scorch until we get better gear... but the problem for me is, that the Singletarget-DPS at Level 85 is quite low compared to other casters even in short fights without having to use scorch. And these casters don't have to worry about Mana (for example Elemental Shamans and Destruction Warlocks are doing more Singletarget dmg than firemages while having nearly unlimited Mana). So if we also do have to use a lot of scorch just to not go oom our DPS will suck even more. Multitarget is another story though, but not every Boss has Adds etc...

amped · 10/24/10, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by Shaewyn

Good to know! Does combustion include the Pyroblast! DoT as well? (and, if you have the time, can you test the impact-spreading of Living Bomb? When you impact-spread living bomb to more than 4 targets, does it leave 2 or 3 living bombs up?)

Did some testing on a cluster of four Target Dummies (most I could find together) in Orgrimmar on the beta.

Yes, Combustion does work with the Pyroblast! DoT. I was able to apply Combustion when Pyroblast! from a Hot Streak was the only DoT on the target.

Yes, Impact spreads Pyroblast! reliably now.

Living Bomb is still acting very strange when Impacted to three other targets than the primary.

Out of 105 Impacts of Living Bomb off a primary target to three others, 67 of them successfully had three Living Bombs applied; the other 38 had only two, additional to removing Living Bomb from the primary target.

I noticed that most of the failed Living Bomb Impact applications happened after the use of Combustion with a usual Impact spread with Living Bomb. I noticed that they would reliably fail until I "reset" the targets by prematurely applying Living Bomb to the primary target and using Impact while other Living Bombs from the failed spread were still present (I did not count this towards the failed tally). This would only apply one Living Bomb to the farthest Dummy, removing from the primary and not spreading to either of the two other Dummies. Every Impact afterwards would successfully spread to all three targets while dropping from the primary, until the use of Combustion again. Strangely enough, it was ALWAYS the same Target Dummy that did not receive Living Bomb on the failed Impacts, while it did receive other DoTs such as Pyroblast! and Ignite reliably.

I'm going to test the functionality of this on a similar cluster of Target Dummies on live, I welcome others to as well.

EDIT: Did some testing on a similar cluster of four Target Dummies in Orgrimmar on live. The failures were definitely less consistent to reproduce with Combustion than on beta, but when they did occur they kept repeating the failure of not applying Living Bomb to the same Target Dummy until I did the "reset" that I explained above.

mysteltainn · 10/25/10, 5:38 PM

Ignite must have less than 4s on its duration before it may be refreshed. Any crit when its duration is greater than 4s is completely ignored.

After having been refreshed at least once, the total damage pool is split between three ticks: one at 4s, one at 2s, one at 0s.

So, more simply, after having been refreshed at least once, ignite must tick once before it will be refreshed.

log: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis
query: sourceName="Lyrra" and targetName="Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)" and (spellId=12654 or isCritical)

Here's a snippet: lines in red are crits that add to ignite, and lines in green are ignite ticks.

[21:59:18.152] Lyrra Living Bomb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *9873* (O: -1)
[21:59:18.768] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) afflicted by Ignite from Lyrra
[21:59:19.852] Lyrra Fireball Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *31890* (O: -1)
[21:59:20.351] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:20.873] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 7370 (O: -1)
[21:59:21.199] Lyrra Flame Orb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *4792* (O: -1)
[21:59:21.974] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:22.652] Lyrra Pyroblast! Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *37375* (O: -1)
[21:59:22.652] Lyrra Fireball Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *33416* (O: -1)
[21:59:22.737] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 5759 (O: -1)
[21:59:23.172] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:23.172] Lyrra Flame Orb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *4851* (O: -1)
[21:59:25.636] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 9737 (O: -1)
[21:59:25.984] Lyrra Flame Orb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *4899* (O: -1)
[21:59:26.066] Lyrra Living Bomb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *9873* (O: -1)
[21:59:26.066] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:26.683] Lyrra Pyroblast! Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *3787* (O: -1)
[21:59:26.744] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 7356 (O: -1)
[21:59:27.172] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:28.763] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 5572 (O: -1)
[21:59:30.369] Lyrra Flame Orb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *4751* (O: -1)
[21:59:30.733] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 5572 (O: -1)
[21:59:31.405] Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test)'s Ignite is refreshed by Lyrra
[21:59:31.425] Lyrra Flame Orb Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) *4784* (O: -1)
[21:59:32.807] Lyrra Ignite Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) 2696 (O: -1)

This mage has 12.94 mastery, making for 52.94% ignites.

Here's a running total of the ignite amount.
Note that because of the small delay between the crit actually hitting the mob and ignite applying, the chronology between the log and this tally is slightly different.
Also note that each ignite tick is for a third of the total damage pool.

crit amount	ignite tick	damage pool remaining
		
9873				5226.77
31890				22109.33
		7370		14739.33
4792				17276.22
		5759		11517.22
33416				29207.65
		9737		19470.65
4899				22064.18
		7356		14708.18
3787				16713.02
		5572		11141.02
		5572		5569.02
4751				8084.2
		2696		5388.2
		(2696)		2692.2
		(2696)		-3.8

The last two ignite ticks are hypothetical, put in to show that the tick amount very nearly reflects the calculated damage pool.

There are some exceptions - simultaneous crits may fire two refresh events simultaneously, but it's doubtful that they're both added to the damage total. This is the phenomenon that produces munching, and I doubt it's been fixed.

In the linked log specifically, there are later instances where ignite refreshes happen ~.4s apart, but I believe there were duplicate mobs present at that time.

This holds true on live as well - and is more noticable because of higher crit rates.

Enthorn · 10/26/10, 3:55 AM

Originally Posted by mysteltainn

Ignite must have less than 4s on its duration before it may be refreshed. Any crit when its duration is greater than 4s is completely ignored.

Am I to understand it correctly that completely ignored means that the ignite damage from a critical strike that lands when ignite has more than four seconds on it will be added to the next ignite tick and not the current one? I don't completely understand this. Also, is it haste that's extending ignite past four seconds?

From your log, the first Living Bomb crit for 9873 plus the Fireball crit for 31890 is 41,763, multiplied by 0.5294 is 22,109 ignite damage. The first tick is for 1/3rd of that: 7369.77, leaving 14,739. The flame orb adds 2537 ignite damage, bringing the total to 17,276/3 = 5759 for the next ignite tick. So that's interesting, because it confirms that it's splitting the damage by three instead of two ticks. But how does it work for just one spell? If there's only one crit, does it split the ignite into two ticks (one at 2 seconds and the other at 4 seconds) still?

Zaldinar · 10/26/10, 7:12 AM

So it looks like (at least, trusting WoWHeads data, confirmation in Beta at some point soon I hope) Fireblasts base damage was increased at some point and I never noticed or heard about it. My sim is showing using Fireblast in the rotation as being around a 6.6% DPS increase, making the list CM > Comb > FO > LB > HS > FBL > FB > SC, you can potentially do jiggery pokery with Scorch elsewhere in the rotation either as a 1 per X seconds / spells or 'maintain x% mana until y point' type ordeal, but I haven't been able to show any of that as being a significant DPS increase. The difference between Scorch and Fireball when Hot Streaks come into play is not significant enough to make it worth trying to save mana for Molten Fury range.

Bashram · 10/26/10, 9:23 AM

Originally Posted by Zaldinar

So it looks like (at least, trusting WoWHeads data, confirmation in Beta at some point soon I hope) Fireblasts base damage was increased at some point and I never noticed or heard about it. My sim is showing using Fireblast in the rotation as being around a 6.6% DPS increase, making the list CM > Comb > FO > LB > HS > FBL > FB > SC, you can potentially do jiggery pokery with Scorch elsewhere in the rotation either as a 1 per X seconds / spells or 'maintain x% mana until y point' type ordeal, but I haven't been able to show any of that as being a significant DPS increase. The difference between Scorch and Fireball when Hot Streaks come into play is not significant enough to make it worth trying to save mana for Molten Fury range.

Assuming this proves true, exactly what would be the DPS value of Impact? Resetting the cooldown sounds like it could be worth the points.

Zaldinar · 10/26/10, 10:59 AM

Around 0.9% per point or so.

0/2 Impact - 
Overall DPS Min / Max / Mean / Stddev:
        12386.34 / 20055.95 / 15891 / 1228.69

1/2 Impact -
Overall DPS Min / Max / Mean / Stddev:
        12953.71 / 20063.63 / 16025.39 / 1100.52

2/2 Impact -
Overall DPS Min / Max / Mean / Stddev:
        12687.36 / 19830.15 / 16187.43 / 1185.51

You probably want to take it for the DoT spreading more than the single target DPS benefit.