Cataclysm Fire Mage Compendium - Page 20

Kvaern · 02/11/11, 5:44 AM

Originally Posted by Sinless

I have searched for this specific advice in this thread and couldn't find it so I thought I should bring this up.

The OP has a great summary of when you should use combustion (as in you should have LB and ignite at the very least, it's even better to delay combustion until you get an ignite, etc. etc.). I just wanted to add from my own experience that it's also better that you don't use combustion when flame orb is up on the target. The biggest reason for this is, you guessed it, ignite munching. When you see a big fireball crit going off, between the time you cast combustion, it is more than likely that the ignite could be munched by a close-simultaneous tick crit from the flame orb. I noticed that I was getting significantly higher overall combustion damage when I mutually excluded flame orb and combustion. You already have LB running constantly on the mob, you don't want to add another source of possible munching until you fire up your combustion.

I will attest to this being a very good point, flame orb is terrible at destroying combustion damage. The question is if they are mutually exclusive which ability should be given precedence?

• Wizeowel · 02/11/11, 6:33 AM

Originally Posted by smexymage

Im not the greatest with all these mathy calculations you guys do here, I read your advice and try to understand it as best I can, but is this change something that the developers of rawr/simC, or even the players who calculate all these numbers, have noticed? Can't find the blue post now but it was flagged up on mmo forums: Ignite Munch Fixed!!

Without being able to look in WoW's source code, I'm guessing that their "fix" actually resulted in more (or different) munching than there was during WotLK. The new 6-second ignite duration bug for example could have been caused by the "fix" mentioned there. To answer your question: SimC takes account of and tries to model all known ignite bugs, while Rawr estimates it based on SimC's results.

dirby · 02/11/11, 11:47 AM

I completely agree with you Wizeowel, there's been some talk (between mages only of course) about how it could be possible for Blizz to make the Ignite mechanic similar to Priests Echo of Light, each heal from the priest triggers a HoT that ticks for x% of the heal over 6 sec in 1 sec ticks. When a new heal lands the remaining ticks from the original hot are divided into the 6 ticks of the new echo. The hot keeps rolling and nothing is ever wasted.

This was mentioned on the EU forums, but again it's nothing really to go on as it's just talk amongst mages.

Not sure if this bothers anyone else...but looking at mmo-champ's blue tracker the story is the same for Mage - US and EU forums.

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3988/magec.jpg

EDIT: added link to image so advertisement doesn't block my post

Sinless · 02/11/11, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Kvaern

I will attest to this being a very good point, flame orb is terrible at destroying combustion damage. The question is if they are mutually exclusive which ability should be given precedence?

I think this only ever becomes a problem at the beginning of the fight. Since you would like to pop all your cooldowns along with combustion, you don't want to delay those just for the flame orb to run out. So what I'd recommend is to blow your CDs at the beginning of the fight (unless of course you are saving them for a vulnerability phase, etc.) and then use flame orb as soon as you get a fireball crit and use combustion. After that, it is very unlikely that this is ever going to be a problem again.

Alternatively, we can ask Blizzard to fix ignite for good?

• Wizeowel · 02/11/11, 7:59 PM

Originally Posted by Sinless

Alternatively, we can ask Blizzard to fix ignite for good?

I've removed some posts replying to this, because the focus of these forums is understanding current mechanics, not to wishlist about how you'd fix things if it were up to you. Otherwise we'd have a 100 opinions but be no closer to a solution. Blizzard have been trying to fix it since Naxx v1 and so let's just accept that we have to live with it now.

~goose~ · 02/12/11, 1:30 AM

Noticed this on the practice dummies:
The 10% haste will proc at the start of the fight if I LB the 3 of them or if I spread dots with impact.
Pyromaniac will stay up as long as the 3 things are taking damage.
As soon as fire damage drops off any of them, pyromaniac falls off, as it should.
However, it does not come back again when I get 3 or more targets taking fire damage again.
I have to stop casting and let everything fall off and start again to get it back up. Then, same thing
as before, 10% haste to start, but if it drops off it will not come back.
Check it out and let me know if you find the same problem. Thanks in advance.

vukae · 02/12/11, 4:56 AM

I did some similar dummy tests, and Pyromaniac seems to be working as intended. Both the buff icon and the spell cast time reduction appear and disappear when expected; I don't have to stop casting or anything. I posted a short combat log for the dummy tests on WoL showing 0 downtime and multiple pyromaniac periods. So, it is not a universal bug at least.

Averwind · 02/12/11, 9:55 AM

Please remember that the relative values listed here are for very geared 372 players.

Is there a reason the guide still reforges Haste to Crit where it also states that at lvl372 gear haste is clearly superior to crit? Is it just to avoid haste when there is already %15+ haste?

shammma · 02/13/11, 3:23 PM

Originally Posted by afflic

Was looking over trinket choices, and i noticed something interesting.

As of right now this thread is saying the 2 BiS trinkets are Volcanic Deck (which is hard to argue against) and the Atramedes Trinket. I had a hard time thinking that this would be the case because this thread, and all caster threads to be honest preach "int is king", so why pass up an int trinket?!

Did the math comparing the normal versions, but the difference between the two would even greater if you added more intellect to the Mirror.

Following numbers are based of the "relative values" section of this thread.

359 Mirror - 321 int / 1926 Mastery proc (20 seconds / 2 min internal)

321 int's relative value = 1036,7016

321 Mastery's relative value = 394.4127

So the trinket's "relative value" dps wise is 1431.1143.

359 Bell - 321 crit / 1926 spell power proc (20 seconds / 2 min internal). And lets reforge the crit to hit, to give it the maximum value you can give an item (assuming you need hit, it is our best secondary stat).

128 hit's relative value = 314.8416

193 crit's relative value = 268.1928

321 Spell Power's Relative value = 761.0589

So the trinket's "relative value" dps wise is 1344.0933

Basically, Mirror > Bell, unless obviously you have 372 bell and 359 mirror blah blah. Just making a note because I personally was curious, and I thought I would share my findings. Also, DMC:V is our best trinket, considering it's 12 second's of 1600 int, on a 45 sec internal (which comes out to be over 400 int) and it still has mastery which can be reforged to hit. So unless you are in need of hit, I would use Mirror / DMC:V.

You're using mastery's assumed value over the duration of a fight (5+ mins or something). As a proc, its highly dependent on how many times you refresh LB, whether you high ignite damage and crits not getting munched via FO or other dots and whether you have pyro dot.

tchay · 02/13/11, 5:14 PM

I quote Brandox who post in the Rawr thread, maybe lots of mages aren't aware about the fact that's is really important to use combustion with bonus of haste like Berserking, bloodlust, Heart of Ignacious. Or try to reach a cap to be sure to have +1 tick more.

Originally Posted by Brandox

My understanding is that Combustion gains a new tick every 10% haste.

Spell Duration / ( Base Tick Time / ( 1 + Haste % in decimal form)) = Total Number of Ticks Rounding Up

During my #1 Chimaeron H, I had 3 Combustions that resulted in 51 dot ticks, from using Combustion + [Heart of Ignacious] and Berserking, the last with Bloodlust (i think).

I have not seen a way to factor in Dark Intent on Rawr, unless I am mistaken. Is/will that be implemented?

I think that Combustion like LB need to be use at the same time that all cooldown of haste. I try to calculate all the step that who permit to earn lots of ticks of combustion dot. In fact we can imagine that a good combustion between 15k 20k no crit send during Berserking Racial and Bloodlust should be an amazing gain of DPS.

I don't know if Rawr or Simcraft take this factor in the simulation. But i think maybe this information could change a little bit the influence of Mastery on our Dps with this combination of Combustion with haste.

It's same idea that to calculate more ticks on Lb, this is my work on Excel about combustion:

My Link excel you can Download for verify : Haste Cap Combustion

duiwelkind · 02/13/11, 6:25 PM

I know the general rule is never to interrupt your current spell cast. but is it ever a good idea to stop your current spell cast for combustion if you have all three your dots up but one of them, say maybe a nice big ignite, will expire before your current spell cast will finish? Or should I just wait until the next ignite?

Charybdis · 02/13/11, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by duiwelkind

I know the general rule is never to interrupt your current spell cast. but is it ever a good idea to stop your current spell cast for combustion if you have all three your dots up but one of them, say maybe a nice big ignite, will expire before your current spell cast will finish? Or should I just wait until the next ignite?

Getting the most out of Combustion is a bit trickier than just having the dots going. If delaying the cast would prevent you from using it again in the encounter then you should use it ASAP. Using it once more will generally be better than not. If you can delay it without repercussions and expect to have some beneficial CD's going then delay it and hope you get lucky with crits. If your current dots are already under the effect of CD's then delaying would likely result in losing the potential of everything at your disposal, meaning that interrupting your current cast and using Combustion would be more beneficial.

Bowchikabow · 02/13/11, 11:07 PM

If you have, for instance, trinket/buff enhanced Dot's on your target (or primary target in a multi-target encounter) and other relavent procs are in place (such as on Halfus, where you have ignite/LB/flamestrike etc on halfus and you have an impact waiting to be cast), then yes, it may be advantageous to stopcast your current spell and hit combustion. Remember however, to think forward. Will there be a vulnerability soon? Will lust/hero be used soon? All of these things need to be considered at that moment before determining whether or not the use of combustion would be best used.

♦ nathanbp · 02/14/11, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by Charybdis

If your current dots are already under the effect of CD's

I thought that Combustion merely looked for the presence of Living Bomb and Pyroblast DOTs, not their actual value. So the only DOT that the value matters for would be Ignite.

vukae · 02/15/11, 4:11 AM

Originally Posted by nathanbp

I thought that Combustion merely looked for the presence of Living Bomb and Pyroblast DOTs, not their actual value. So the only DOT that the value matters for would be Ignite.

I didn't realise this, but it is correct. I have done some basic dummy tests: removed all my gear to minimise crit (to prevent interference from Ignites) and switched a +SP weapon in and out to simulate a trinket proc. The combustion tick is the same whether my weapon was equipped for the LB cast or not, as long as it is present for the Combustion cast. If I unequip it after the LB cast, Combustion ticks at the lower (unequipped) value. The same holds for the Pyroblast DoT. So Combustion, as nathanbp implies, apparently includes these dots as if they were cast under your current spellpower.

I also tried the same test with a potion of speed, with a slightly different result. Drinking the pot between Pyroblast and Combustion casts did not affect the size of the Combustion ticks. So it appears that the DPS values of the Pyro and LB DoTs are included in the Combustion DoT without the effect of haste (though haste obviously then alters the frequency of the resulting DoT).

So, in terms of combustion usage strategy, there is (according to these tests at least) no reason to try to account for the conditions under which your LB and Pyro dots were cast.