Fire Cataclysm Discussion: OP Updated for Release - Page 40

Alveia · 10/31/10, 9:41 AM

Combustion is modified by haste:

The top parse is with 28.54% haste and 2/3 Netherwind Presence, the 2nd is with 0 haste from gear, and 2/3 Netherwind Presence.

It's also relevant in the sense of applying Living Bomb with a haste buff before applying Combustion so that it double dips, in that sense.

Vontre · 10/31/10, 8:08 PM

Cross posting this from the beta forums. I did some simulations and such and made numbers which hopefully put some questions to rest regarding current beta mechanics at 85. Someone may have already posted these conclusions, but corroborating data between different tools is always handy.

Q: Should I use Mage Armor and/or Glyph of Mage Armor?
A: No, never.

Q: Should I Evocate for more Fireballs or just keep casting Scorch?
A: Evocate. Evocation is worth ~0.5% additional dps.

Q: How dependent am I on raid mana buffs?
A: Not very. Replenishment and Mana Spring Totem combined grant a ~0.5% increase in dps.

Q: What glyphs should I use?
A: Molten Armor, Pyroblast, and Fireball. An alternative to Fireball is Living Bomb for multi target fights. Glyph of Fireball is ~0.5% better than Glyph of Living Bomb for a single target.

Q: What about Glyph of Frostfire Bolt?
A: I haven't checked yet, sorry. Its been a long day!

Q: How much does my dps vary based on fight duration?
A: Around 6% at most. As an example, a 3 minute fight will yield ~5.9% better dps than an 8 minute fight. Further dps loss beyond the 8 minute mark is negligible (this is not just from mana, but Time Warp uptime as well).

Q: Should I hard cast Pyroblast's to maintain the DoT?
A: No. This one actually surprised me. While technically it is a dps increase while scorching, waiting for Hot Streak nets a considerable mana advantage, resulting in better dps overall.

Unfortunately the 85 Magegraf isn't available for public use yet because Frost and Arcane are still messed up (and my interest in fixing them is somewhat low).

Kyth · 11/01/10, 12:09 AM

Q&A is a summary format not really what most of us are looking for in the discussion portion of the thread.

Please post what glyphs, talents, etc. you used like the other simulation authors did so we can compare apples to apples. (e.g., did you remember to drop the Molten glyph when testing Mage armor?) Otherwise it's more of a set of opinions than actual data.

Vontre · 11/01/10, 2:16 AM

Well this is the talent build I used: The World of Warcraft Armory Very standard single target dps build.

Glyphs were Molten Armor, Pyroblast and Fireball. All testing was done with Molten Armor except for the actual Mage Armor test.

Kyth · 11/01/10, 3:22 PM

Well the reason I ask is, the prior test that Zaldinar did that showed Mage > Molten replaced the Molten glyph for the test because Molten wasn't being used. It sounds like you weren't though, which may be the reason for the different results.

elluminea · 11/01/10, 4:36 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

Q: What glyphs should I use?
A: Molten Armor, Pyroblast, and Fireball. An alternative to Fireball is Living Bomb for multi target fights. Glyph of Fireball is ~0.5% better than Glyph of Living Bomb for a single target.

Wait, you're saying the Pyroblast glyph is worth more than Fireball? With hot streak rarity and Pyroblast! not contributing to procs why are you not comparing the Living Bomb glyph as an alternative for Pyroblast?

Pasture · 11/01/10, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by elluminea

Wait, you're saying the Pyroblast glyph is worth more than Fireball? With hot streak rarity and Pyroblast! not contributing to procs why are you not comparing the Living Bomb glyph as an alternative for Pyroblast?

I was surprised by this as well. I would have thought that at entry level Cata raiding hot streak procs will be infrequent enough to make an additional 5% crit on Pyro near useless. Living Bomb seems like a pretty dismal glyph in it's own right, however. I was assuming that at low gear levels it might be more worthwhile taking the Frostfire glyph and maintaining a 3 stack. I'm not sure there has been any recent theorycrafting on this however.

angayelle · 11/01/10, 7:34 PM

Another fun fact i observed while coding dps report for my addon, is that mastery is affecting ignite. Which is kinda an interesting find as we planned to have 2 fire specs for cata : one with mastery and dots playstyle and one with haste/crit for fireball upfront damage.
Now as a fresh 85 premade i can get easily to 1500 mastery rating with reforge and enchant, let's assume 2000 mastery in heroic epics, we are now looking at 50% increase for dot damage which means criticals will be 320% of normal damage.
Now to calculate breaking point between crit, haste and mastery, i leave that to better TC than me.

angayelle · 11/01/10, 8:02 PM

And by the way, is the mastery bonus applied upon spell critting/dot application or upon ignite/dot ticking ? As there is some items with procs or On Use mastery buff, this is a good question.

Vontre · 11/02/10, 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by elluminea

Wait, you're saying the Pyroblast glyph is worth more than Fireball? With hot streak rarity and Pyroblast! not contributing to procs why are you not comparing the Living Bomb glyph as an alternative for Pyroblast?

Basically Glyph of Pyroblast is about 6.2% damage increase, a little more than double that of Living Bomb. Living Bomb would have to do more than double Pyroblast's overall damage in order to compete for that slot. Looking at logs from Vodka's top mage on beta suggests that it's nowhere close to this value, and my theorycraft agrees.

Good news! I released an update for Magegraf which I used for my research. You can add custom specs and glyph/armor selection, but it only supports fire right now so every spec you give it will parse as a fire spec. This should provide a lot more data for you guys to mull over. Enjoy!

Vontre's Magegraf

Tyrian · 11/03/10, 7:32 AM

What we know so far about Fire's mana can be summed up as:

1 - Using Mage Armor: Will largely trivialise mana.
2 - Using Molten Armor and the high DPS rotation will result in you running into severe mana problems around ~3 to ~3.5 minutes into an encounter.
3 - Encounters of 6+ minute durations are common, so lasting ~3 minutes will still see encounters at only ~50% health
4 - Some combination of: Armor Swapping (Molten vs Mage) + Specially Tailored Specs (Eg: With Arcane Concentration and MoE) + Conservative cycles (Improved Scorch) + astute use of mana CD's (Gem, Pot, Evocate) + creative rotations (Using Fireblast on CD with Mage Armor running?) is the solution.

The fourth point - which combination of those elements will net the best DPS - is the one we're trying to answer. I've seen some conflicting sim reports, eager to see more which will either dispute or correspond with Vontre's findings.

Lerciolas · 11/03/10, 3:03 PM

Originally Posted by Alveia

Combustion is modified by haste:

The top parse is with 28.54% haste and 2/3 Netherwind Presence, the 2nd is with 0 haste from gear, and 2/3 Netherwind Presence.

It's also relevant in the sense of applying Living Bomb with a haste buff before applying Combustion so that it double dips, in that sense.

This seems strange to me. I just finished an instance as Fire, I was checking recount and noticed that Combustion ticked 14 times, but I only have 8% haste and 2/3 Netherwind Presence, a moonkin in party (+5%) and no heroism.

If I haven't messed with the math this seems strange to me.

Edit:
I've performed some tests on the dummy with various haste values, and the math for the Combustion ticks was right every single time. Maybe in the episode I mentioned above the healer was a Shaman, even if I remember he being a priest.

elluminea · 11/03/10, 6:38 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

Basically Glyph of Pyroblast is about 6.2% damage increase, a little more than double that of Living Bomb. Living Bomb would have to do more than double Pyroblast's overall damage in order to compete for that slot. Looking at logs from Vodka's top mage on beta suggests that it's nowhere close to this value, and my theorycraft agrees.

I didn't mean that, just that in a multitarget scenario you recommend Living Bomb over Fireball. Given our current 3 target limit to living bomb, cooldowns on BW/DB plus an 8s Flamestrike duration (if it's even worth casting depending on # of target), there is room for cast spells while AoEing, and as such Fireball would still trump Pyro.

Alveia · 11/03/10, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by Lerciolas

This seems strange to me. I just finished an instance as Fire, I was checking recount and noticed that Combustion ticked 14 times, but I only have 8% haste and 2/3 Netherwind Presence, a moonkin in party (+5%) and no heroism.

If I haven't messed with the math this seems strange to me.

Edit:
I've performed some tests on the dummy with various haste values, and the math for the Combustion ticks was right every single time. Maybe in the episode I mentioned above the healer was a Shaman, even if I remember he being a priest.

Keep in mind that if you spread Combustion via Impact, you are going to net additional ticks off the mobs you spread it to, leading to different numbers.

Vontre · 11/03/10, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by elluminea

I didn't mean that, just that in a multitarget scenario you recommend Living Bomb over Fireball. Given our current 3 target limit to living bomb, cooldowns on BW/DB plus an 8s Flamestrike duration (if it's even worth casting depending on # of target), there is room for cast spells while AoEing, and as such Fireball would still trump Pyro.

Not if you don't have enough mana to cast it. Every extra AE spell or LB you cast is another Fireball you can't afford, which is why I'd guess a long multi-target encounter would have very few Fireball casts.