Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 3

Skem · 03/26/12, 5:04 AM

We need to be mindful that while evocation is an accepted part of the Arcane spec because all T6 are about mana regeneration it could be a change that all specs will need to manage mana in a proactive way rather than passive. For example the specs no longer have access to each others key spells, meaning that optimising Fireball's mana for Fire spec, so it can play out as intended, wont make it more attractive to the other specs

IMO It would be a major failure on blizzards behalf if spec dictated this talent spend

Invocation: Arcane
Rune of Power: Fire
Incatner's Shield Frost

Astynax7 · 03/26/12, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by Skem

We need to be mindful that while evocation is an accepted part of the Arcane spec because all T6 are about mana regeneration it could be a change that all specs will need to manage mana in a proactive way rather than passive.
IMO It would be a major failure on blizzards behalf if spec dictated this talent spend

Invocation: Arcane
Rune of Power: Fire
Incatner's Shield Frost

I agree. The way these talents are set up, I see them as being a major mechanics change to all mage dynamics. The sheer fact that an entire tier is focused on one spell makes me think that they're bringing some extra dynamics to the class. Rather than the same basic principles being kept for all specs (and changing only certain rotations or casting combos) mages appear to be getting their own identity where it might be possible for a fire mage and a frost mage to play drastically different, eve before endgame content. However, will these talents gear towards a certain spec, a certain boss, or a certain playstyle? I'm not on beta, therefore, I don't know the answers to these questions.

♦ nathanbp · 03/27/12, 12:46 AM

Interesting new find from mmo-champion: Nether Attunement: New. Your spell haste also increases your mana regeneration, and the effect of mana restores from Mage spells.

This means that our rotations can stay the same with respect to mana no matter how much haste we have. It also raises some interesting tactics, for example Arcane could burn lower during heroism and then have a larger Evocation to still get back to full mana.

Dylar · 03/29/12, 2:35 PM

With mana attunement being added, it looks like rune of power will be far superior to invocation (for arcane) for any fights without too much movement between more than two areas (as invocation removes passive mana regeneration). Even during helter-skelter type encounters, rune of power might still be better than invocation, even with the dps loss from casting rune of power more than once a minute. Haste will also further synergize with arcane mastery, most likely being the superior stat.

Guromin · 03/30/12, 6:04 AM

Lhivera made an interesting post about the normalized ceofficent data in Mists. Based on the data that can be found here, these are my observations.

Fire spell damage:

Spell	Coefficient
Pyroblast	4.216
Living Bomb	2.085
Fireball	1.884
Inferno Blast	0.789

Fire spells normalized for cast times:

Spell	Coefficient
Pyroblast (Hot Streak)	2.811
Living Bomb	1.390
Pyroblast	1.205
Fireball	0.754
Inferno Blast	0.526

Based on the data from the normalized table hard-casting Pyroblast could exceed the damage from casting Fireball. This, of course, does not include the benefits of casting quicker spells to increase the odds of a Hot Streak proc, however, with the addition of Inferno Blast it may be a viable option to hard cast Pyroblast. Since Inferno Blast has an 8 second CD the benefit from more spells hitting the boss is reduced. Acquiring one crit from casting Pyroblast every 8 seconds seems as thought it would be a viable method of dps if Pyroblast remains higher damage per second than Fireball.

Arcane has undergone a much greater amount of change than Fire based on the beta. I very, very quickly realized that the days of spamming Arcane Blast until the boss dies are over. Each stack of Arcane Charge increases the mana cost of Arcane Blast by 125%, which makes use of the spell at 4 stacks unpractical. Further analysis of the normalized coefficient data provides more evidence to support the termination of Arcane Blast spamming.

Spell	Coefficient
Arcane Missiles (4 charges)	3.240
Arcane Missiles (3 charges)	2.835
Arcane Blast (4 charges)	2.588
Arcane Missiles (2 charges)	2.430
Arcane Blast (3 charges)	2.264
Nether Tempest	2.088
Arcane Missiles (1 charge)	2.025
Arcane Barrage (4 charges)	1.942
Arcane Blast (2 charges)	1.941
Arcane Barrage (3 charges)	1.699
Arcane Missiles	1.620
Arcane Blast (1 charge)	1.617
Arcane Barrage (2 charges)	1.457
Arcane Blast	1.294
Arcane Barrage (1 charge)	1.214
Arcane Barrage	0.971

Here is the same data, but normalized for cast time:

Spell	Coefficient
Arcane Missiles (4 charges)	1.620
Arcane Missiles (3 charges)	1.418
Nether Tempest	1.392
Arcane Barrage (4 charges)	1.295
Arcane Blast (4 charges)	1.294
Arcane Missiles (2 charges)	1.215
Arcane Barrage (3 charges)	1.133
Arcane Blast (3 charges)	1.132
Arcane Missiles (1 charge)	1.013
Arcane Blast (2 charges)	0.971
Arcane Barrage (2 charges)	0.971
Arcane Missiles	0.810
Arcane Blast (1 charge)	0.809
Arcane Barrage (1 charge)	0.809
Arcane Blast	0.647
Arcane Barrage	0.647

Because of the ability to cast Invocation anytime there has been a lot of speculation that it will be best to simply spam Arcane Blast as much as possible and then regenerate the mana back. If you look at the chart above the damage from Arcane Blast at 4 stacks is not as strong as Arcane Barrage or Arcane Missiles at the same number of stacks. After some quick testing on PTR to determine how long I would be capable of sustaining a rotation of only spamming Arcane Blast I quickly realized that the burst would last only 30 seconds at best. Considering that when we level to 90 and the gear is weak in comparison to what we have now spamming Arcane Blast for higher damage will not work. Bellow is a graph that charts the benefit of Invocation based on the fequency of it's use. The formula for this graph is (3*x)/(x+6) where x is the time between Invocation uses.

The red line marks where Invocation changes from a dps gain to a dps loss. Casting Invocation every 20 seconds or more frequently is a dps loss because of the 6 seconds spent not doing damage. This brings me to my thoughts about how the Arcane Rotation could work out. Since there are more powerful spells than Arcane Blast and spamming Arcane Blast is unpractical, the rotation should be about maximizing the damage from Missiles and clearing stacks with Arcane Barrage. Arcane Missiles now stacks up to 2 times and adds a stack of Arcane Charge. Arcane will likely change to a priority based spell rotation that is dynamic with mana pools. Based on the data from above and some common sense, I think the rotation for arcane will look something like this:

1. Arcane Missiles (if 2 stacks are up)
2. Nether Tempest
3. Arcane Missiles (if Arcane Charge is 3 or 4)
4. Arcane Barrage (if no Missile procs are available and Arcane Charge has 3 or 4 stacks)
5. Arcane Blast (if stacks are less than 3)

Arcane Missiles while 2 stacks are up is placed at the top of the priority list because you never want to waste an Arcane Missiles proc. Nether Tempest is second on the list because it both does good damage and also gives additional chances to proc Arcane Missiles. Following Nether Tempest is Arcane Missiles while there are 3 or 4 stacks of Arcane Blast on the target. I think it will prove to be beneficial to save Arcane Missiles procs for high stacks and then dump them since Arcane Missiles costs zero mana and benefits from Arcane Charge.

Another interesting point is that as Arcane we will likely want to pre-invocate right before pulling a boss for higher damage. This means we will need a countdown timer of at least 7 seconds to pre-invocate, pre-pot and start up a cast.

I'm curious as to others thoughts on the rotation(s). Hopefully a few of you have been more fortunate in regards to beta invites than I have been.

nekyr · 03/31/12, 10:32 PM

"With mana attunement being added, it looks like rune of power will be far superior to invocation (for arcane) for any fights without too much movement between more than two areas (as invocation removes passive mana regeneration)."

The talent on beta actually states that it halves passive mana regeneration. A lot of the information on the talent website is out-dated.

"Nether Tempest is second on the list because it both does good damage and also gives additional chances to proc Arcane Missiles."

Currently on beta, only the initial cast of Nether Tempest can proc an arcane missile. Same with Living bomb. I tested for about 10 minutes of casting each bomb type.

Frost bomb is the only bomb talent that currently can provide an Arcane missile proc on the initial application and when it deals damage (Which is just the explosion at the end, but on multiple targets)

Lylandra · 04/03/12, 9:42 AM

I'd also believe that a priority-based rotation will be the go-to mechanic of arcane playstyle which is a relief after an expansion full of boredom.

However, I'm still thinking about keeping two phases (burn and conserve) vs. clearing all stacks after your last missile proc.
My burn phase could look like Guromin's priority minus arcane barrage which results in keeping 4 stacks and fishing for missiles proccs via AB throughout the burn phase, elongating the phase if the RNG gods are with us since missiles cost us no mana. After the obvious evocation we could return to a more mana neutral prio list with stack clearing after 3-4 stacks until evo is back again.

With invocation one could alternate mana regen and burn.

Nathyiel · 04/12/12, 5:59 AM

I have made some calculation to compare the 3 bomb spell. All data is based on mmo-champion extraction.

If we look at the spell coefficient, we can see that the base damage is inferior at 10% for 10k spell power. First conclusion, we can ignore base damage to facilitate the calculation.

The damage of all bomb can be separate in 2 parts : damage on primary target (i will note it a, b or c) and the damage of the second effect (noted a', b', c').

The global duration of each bomb is globally the same: 11.5s for the Frost bomb (FB) and 12s for Living bomb (LB) and Nether tempest (NT). For 2 or 3 bombs at the same time, there's a différence: 13s/14.5s for FB, 13.5s/15s for NT and only 12s/12s for LB.

Each bombs work differently:

FB have 1 tick (a) on the main target and 1 tick (a') on the others targets. The number damaged by a' is the number (N) of all target (Tmax) in 10 yard minus the main target. Tmax = N - 1. Can be cast only one at time.
LB have 4 tick (b) each 3 seconds on the main target and 1 tick (b') on 3 targets, the main target seems to be include. Tmax = 3. Limited to 3 bombs
NT have 12 tick (c) each second and 12 tick (a') on a second target, different of the main target. no limits in numbers.

Each bombs make different damage:

FB have a'=a/2 and is a direct damage and an AOE
LB have b'~b and is a DOT and a direct damage or an AOE
NT have c'=c/2 and is a DOT and a DOT

Frost Bomb	FB	a=209.2%	a'=104.6%
Living Bomb	FB	b=104%	b'=104.5%
Nether Tempest	NT	c=208.8%	c'=104.4%

For 1, 2 and 3 target, with 1 bomb:

	1 target	2 target		3 target
Frost Bomb	a=209.2%	a + a'	313.8%	a + 2xa'	418.4%
Living Bomb	b+b'=208.5%	b + 2xb'	313%	b + 3xb'	417.5%
Nether Tempest	c=208.8%	c + c'	313.2%	c + c'	313.2%

If you want 1 bomb per terget, you only have to multiply the result by the number of the bomb you have. In these case, we have to note that Living Bomb can be spread easily but Frost bomb and Nether Tempest have to be cast each time.

Conclusion:

On a single target, the 3 bombs will make equivalent damage.
On 2 targets, 2 Living bomb or 2 Nether tempest, Frost bomb is already behind.
On 3 targets, Living Bomb is far ahead (because of the spread), followed by 3 Nether Tempest
On 4+ targets, Frost bomb is behind unless you reach 10 targets for doing an equivalent damage of 3 Living Bomb, and 8 targets for 3 Nether Tempest But it's a AOE situation and a lot of other parameters can interact

Note:
It's note clear if Nether Tempest's secondary damage can be applied on the same target if there's only 1 target.
The new version of Glyph of Fire Blast is very confusing, so I don't take it in account.

Edit:
I have limited my calculation at 3 bombs at the same time.

Shendow · 04/12/12, 7:43 AM

If there is a boss fight where mechanics include a lot of adds lasting a good amount of time (let's say more than 20 seconds), won't NT tab-spamming be better than Frost Bomb due to the fact that AOE damages are capped but dots are not? Won't there be a cap of mobs where Frost Bomb will be less beneficial?

Pasture · 04/12/12, 4:53 PM

Originally Posted by Shendow

If there is a boss fight where mechanics include a lot of adds lasting a good amount of time (let's say more than 20 seconds), won't NT tab-spamming be better than Frost Bomb due to the fact that AOE damages are capped but dots are not? Won't there be a cap of mobs where Frost Bomb will be less beneficial?

It's not as simple as which bomb does the most total damage, but rather which AoE rotation does the most damage. NT tabbing is all well and good but that's all you will be doing. Living Bomb on the other hand can be spread with fillers used while it ticks. Frost Bomb, already simmed to do superior damage once 5+ targets are involved, also allows heavy use of filler spells until it's back off cooldown.

In a pure AoE situation I suspect you will want to put your Frost Bomb out, Flamestrike and then spam Blizzard.

That said the sims above are different to those posted by Lhiv recently, which shows NT as the single target winner, Living Bomb as the cleave winner and Frost Bomb as the AoE winner. I'm sure this is the intention as having the other bombs do equal single target damage puts NT out of the picture entirely.

kindath · 04/18/12, 10:50 AM

If living bomb keeps its 1s GCD, it's actually superior DPSC for a single target than nether tempest until extreme amounts of haste.

Not to mention glyphing fireblast gives 3 bombs for two gcd's, which, depending on what specialization we're talking about, allows more time to use that spec's AOE. For arcane, AE+ABarr, for fire, infernocleaves, for frost... well, nether tempest multidotting might be better for frost. Maybe take glyph of cone of cold, too.

I need to test this better, but it seems like glyphed fireblast for nether tempest just deals damage equal to 1/2 of one of the 12 ticks on all targets? Seems fairly weak, given how little the individual ticks are.

Nathyiel · 04/19/12, 10:15 AM

I can confirm that glyphed Fireblast will add to Nether tempest a tick to all targets. Each tick make 1/24e of total damage on the main target.

i have also notice that glyphed fireblast is pretty bug for the Brain Freeze proc.

Guromin · 04/22/12, 6:33 PM

After having finally reveived a beta invitation I have gotten a chance to start some theory crafting.

Level 15 Talents
Presence of Mind: If a fight contains zero movement Presence of Mind provides the greatest dps increase because it allows for an instant cast Pyroblast every 1.5 minutes.
Scorch: For fights with heavy movement Scorch will be the strongest choice because it benefits from Mastery. Scorch no longer puts Critical Mass on the target so this talent is not mandatory and instead situational.
Ice Flows: For fights with a mediocre amount of movement Ice Flows will be a strong choice because it allows you to do as much damage as you would stationary for a few seconds. The disadvantage is the 1 minute CD which limits the use of this talent. Chances are strong that if you have to move at all, your will have to move more frequently than once per minute.

Level 30 Talents
Temporal Shield: The utility from this talent is insane. Because the spell is off the GCD it does not cause you to loose any dps to cast and has potential to prevent you from death during periods of extensive damage.
Blazing Speed: Since this talent is easily activated by any melee or spell hit for more than 2% of the casters health the spell provides a consistent speed boost. If you do not need the utility from Temporal Shield or to help healers with Ice Barrier this will likely be the go-to talent.

Level 45 Talents
None of these provide any advantage to PvE (unless there is some very unusual circumstance where targets need to be frozen). Very disappointing tier in my personal opinion.

Level 60 Talents
Greater Invisibility: This talent is situational and could potentially become useful in circumstances where you need to reduce the damage you take for a period of time, but there's also other mechanics that do that (Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Ice Barrier). I doubt the compelling perk of this talent will be the instantaneous loss of threat. Mages already have an arsenal of abilities that prevent death, delay damage taken, or reduce damage taken.
Cauterize: The ability to die and be brought back to life without consuming a battle rezurection is uncanny. Cauterize is now, and will be an overpowered spell that nearly all mages will spec into because of how well it can ease progression. On a side note, the ICD on Cauterize is now 2 minutes.
Cold Snap: This talent serves to restore health and resets the cool down of Ice Block. I foresee this being a highly situational talent and not as compelling as Cauterize.

Level 75 Talents
Living Bomb does the most single target damage.
In AoE situations the choice gets complicated so I will elaborate in a future post. Lhivera has done some fabulous testing on this and you can view her blog to read more.

Level 90 Talents
Invocation: Because you can aquire the buff stationary and then proceed to move and retain the damage increase Invocation will surpass the strength of Rune of Power on fights where heavy movement is required.
Rune of Power:I think we will need to be able to level to 90 before we will understand how strong this talent is. I suspect that for Patchwerk Style encounters Rune of Power will be the strongest choice.
Incanter's Ward This strikes me as a PvP talent, but if you can consistently proc the damage bonus I could see potential for it's use in PvE. Again, we will need to level to 90 before testing can confirm or deny the strength and utility of this spell.

Potential Fire Mage Rotation Single Target

Living Bomb > Hot Steak proc > Inferno Blast (with one crit active) > Fireball

Rotation While Moving:

Living Bomb > Hot Streak Proc > Inferno Blast (with one crit active) > PoM Pyroblast* > Scorch* = Icy Flows Fireball*
*Depending on current talents

The rotation may seem rather simple, there are a few finer details that make the spec more complex and dynamic. True skill and mastery of the fire spec will be elicited by how players handle the Inferno Blast 8 second CD and utilize it to create a large ignite for Combustion. I'm am currently unsure of what the best method for doing this is, but I have a theory:

While one crit has landed on the target and Inferno Blast is off CD, begin casting a Pyroblast (hard casting). Then use Inferno Blast to initiate the second crit which will land before the Pyroblast. Then you can cast the instant cast Pyroblast! right after. The end result is two Pyroblasts within 2 seconds that will hopefully yield a large ignite for Combustion. In the best case scenario, if both Pyroblasts Crit you will get a third Hot Streak proc and will be able to cast a third Pyroblast! at the target before Ignite Ticks.

Feel free to add in your thoughts.

NickSeng · 04/22/12, 11:37 PM

Temporal shield doesn't absorb the damage, it simply heals you for the damage taken during the duration. If you eat the Hour of Twillight, you will die before and healing can be done.

IMHO, Greater Invisibility is actually better than Cauterize because in addition to saving you from death, it also drops your threat, and remove 2 debuffs. The only time Cauterize would be better is when 90% damage reduction is not enough to save you from death.

For the Bombs, Living Bomb may not be the most obvious choice for a Fire Mage. Lhivera has calculated that the bombs are pretty equal in a single-target scenario, and depends on the number of target for AOE fights.

Guromin · 04/23/12, 1:50 AM

Temporal Shield gives healers 10 seconds to heal you up which includes possible hots on you before you take the hit. It's a rather pointless argument, but I will update my post to reflect what I intended to convey.

I disagree here even though I understand your point. First of all, I do not believe the threat reduction will be useful in many situations. It's easy enough as it is now to time Mirror Images with periods where you are concerned about threat and if something happens and Mirrors are on CD you can Blink away and use Invisibility or Ice Block for a few seconds. Second, you have to activate Invisibility and interrupt any damaging abilities you would have cast to prevent damage taken. To do this you have to know you are going to take a lot of damage as well so this does not do well at mitigating mistakes like getting hit by Lava Waves on Ragnaros. Because Cauterize works as a passive I believe it will be a better talent for progression fights that do not require the utility of Greater Invisibility or Cold Snap.

I have read Lhivera's posts and I realize they are close, however, my post was intended for single target situations. Living Bomb does the most damage single target. I will clarify and add in additional details about each bomb and their specialties. I ran out of time earlier and didn't get a chance to add in AoE information yet.

NickSeng · 04/23/12, 2:20 AM

I'm still not sure how Temporal Shield will save your from Hour of Twilight without Cauterize. How the shield works is that during the 4 sec duration of the shield, it will keep track of the damage you take, and then heal you afterwards for the total damage. You still take the damage, and HoT WILL kill you.

If I recall correctly, Nether Tempest pulls ahead very so slightly in Single-target damage, so I'm not sure how you calculated the dps for Living Bomb. I'd be very interested to see your calculations.

Nathyiel · 04/23/12, 4:20 AM

For the Bombs, it's clear if you test it that the 3 bombs are doing equivalent damage on a single target. On cleave, Frost bomb is a little behind only because it's limited to one at time.

For the shield choice, it will be situational choice:

Temporal Shield is good on fight with constant little damage. It's make to be healer's friendly. It's also good in combo with Cauterize because it will heal back the DOT.
Ice Barrier is made for fight with big damage to absorb (all packed with a lot of survival cooldown).
Blazing Speed is usable in raid for exiting those black pools, gas fog and all the other "fire is hot" stuff.

We also have the 3 talents for survivability:

Cauterize is still good in the learning phase, when you forgot to click the button and for specific use. It's help a lot that it don't kill now.
Cold Snap is a health stone on a 3 minutes CD. Always use full.
Greater invisibility has 2 majors use. It's a debuff CD and it's a very big damage reduction. With this part, we can now help the tank to absorb some nasty cleave but it's limited by the fact that the invisibility part will restrict is use.

Guromin · 04/24/12, 1:24 AM

Here is my explanation for why Living Bomb does more damage single target than Nether Tempest. On a side now I interpreted the Temporal Shield spell text to mean that it prevented damage for 4 seconds and then healed you back for that amount. I hadn't gotten a chance to test it and I realize the major flaw in my previous argument. Apologies for my previous fallacies.

Living Bomb functions on a 1 second GCD while Nether Tempest has a 1.5 second GCD. This is illustrated by the following combat log that illustrates me repeatedly refreshing Living Bomb and me repeatedly refreshing Nether Tempest. Keep in mind that server lag causes the numbers to be slightly off, but the data should be conclusive at demonstrating that Living Bomb requires less DPET than Nether Tempest.

[04:52:30.541] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:31.542] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:32.543] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:33.544] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:34.547] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:35.749] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy
[04:52:36.749] Guromin casts Living Bomb on Training Dummy

On the contrary here is a data set for Nether Tempest:

[04:53:25.666] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy
[04:53:27.084] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy
[04:53:28.418] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy
[04:53:29.703] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy
[04:53:31.120] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy
[04:53:32.555] Guromin casts Nether Tempest on Training Dummy

The damage of each of them is very similar if you calculate damage per one cast, but when you calculate DPET Living Bomb pulls ahead.

Living Bomb Damage (0 Spellpower @ level 90) = 2781
Nether Tempest Damage (0 Spellpower @ level 90) = 2785

This is where you can see that Nether Tempest does slightly more single target damage than Living Bomb, but the conversion to DPET reveals the true damage.

Living Bomb: (2781)/(1) = 2781 DPET
Nether Tempest: (2785)/(1.5) = 1,856.67 DPET

I am not sure if this is merely a bug in the beta or if it's intentional, but as of the current beta build Living Bomb does the most Single Target damage. I would't be surprised if Arcane talents into this for single target fights as well. I realize I could have been more concise with this post, however, I wanted to be thorough.

Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

Nathyiel · 04/24/12, 3:25 AM

Your calculation is wrong. You don't have take in account spellpower scaling, duration of the spell effect and haste.

I already calculate damage some post before.

For the haste's scaling:

Living Bomb and Nether Tempest scale with haste like the actual Living Bomb.
Frost Bomb scale normally with haste: %haste = (base_cast / new_cast) -1

For the duration:

Living bomb and Nether Tempest have a 12s duration before haste. Your next spell will began after the GCD but the spell is already in effect, like all instant spell.
Frost bomb have a 11.5s durations before haste (1.5s cast time + 10s cooldown).

To conclude on the bomb part, we will have to wait for more data. What haste cap can we obtain in pre-raid gear and in raid gear, and with what spellpower.

Pasture · 04/24/12, 5:55 PM

Originally Posted by Nathyiel

For the Bombs, it's clear if you test it that the 3 bombs are doing equivalent damage on a single target. On cleave, Frost bomb is a little behind only because it's limited to one at time.

For the shield choice, it will be situational choice:

Temporal Shield is good on fight with constant little damage. It's make to be healer's friendly. It's also good in combo with Cauterize because it will heal back the DOT.
Ice Barrier is made for fight with big damage to absorb (all packed with a lot of survival cooldown).
Blazing Speed is usable in raid for exiting those black pools, gas fog and all the other "fire is hot" stuff.

Last I checked Ice Barrier is on the global cooldown but Temporal Shield is not. This makes it a bit of a no-brainer for any raiding mage. With Temporal Shield you help the healers out at no cost to your own dps - Ice Barrier costs you dps. In a situation where Temporal Shield won't save you from death, Cauterise will do that job for you instead.

Nathyiel · 04/25/12, 4:27 AM

This is why I have stated it will be situation choice and I have list some examples of this situation. But it's clear that temporal shield will be the standard. The duration of Ice Shield is long enough to be cast will moving to a pack point, for example, reducing is DPS lost.

I'm interested to know what will be the result between cauterize+temporal shield versus Ice Shield absorb, for big damage.

Can someone tell if there will be a way to be immune to push-back in MOP. If not, Ice Shield can be interesting for this.

Muaddib · 04/28/12, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by Guromin

Potential Fire Mage Rotation Single Target

Living Bomb > Hot Steak proc > Inferno Blast (with one crit active) > Fireball

Rotation While Moving:

Living Bomb > Hot Streak Proc > Inferno Blast (with one crit active) > PoM Pyroblast* > Scorch* = Icy Flows Fireball*
*Depending on current talents

The rotation may seem rather simple, there are a few finer details that make the spec more complex and dynamic. True skill and mastery of the fire spec will be elicited by how players handle the Inferno Blast 8 second CD and utilize it to create a large ignite for Combustion. I'm am currently unsure of what the best method for doing this is, but I have a theory:

While one crit has landed on the target and Inferno Blast is off CD, begin casting a Pyroblast (hard casting). Then use Inferno Blast to initiate the second crit which will land before the Pyroblast. Then you can cast the instant cast Pyroblast! right after. The end result is two Pyroblasts within 2 seconds that will hopefully yield a large ignite for Combustion. In the best case scenario, if both Pyroblasts Crit you will get a third Hot Streak proc and will be able to cast a third Pyroblast! at the target before Ignite Ticks.

Feel free to add in your thoughts.

From what little testing I did, intuitively I would say single target fire rotation will be something like...

Living Bomb
Cast Fireballs till you get crit (You are chain casting so before you get notified that you critted you will be half way though the next Fireball cast)
As soon as Fireball starts flying you cast Inferno blast and proc instant Pyro
Cast Pyro

Not sure if that is what you meant, sorry if I just repeated it. With recent Inferno damage nerf I am not sure if this will be better then just chain casting Fireballs and not forcing instant Pyro proc with Inferno blast.
Concerning preparing for Combustion, I agree with you only disagree with stopping mid cast Fireball (as you are chain casting) to hard cast Pyro. First it might be quite hard to do as you want to be far away from boss, and secondly it might be DPS loss.

No addons on Beta make me sad panda, have to get numbers from combat log

Pasture · 04/29/12, 8:35 AM

While one crit has landed on the target and Inferno Blast is off CD, begin casting a Pyroblast (hard casting). Then use Inferno Blast to initiate the second crit which will land before the Pyroblast. Then you can cast the instant cast Pyroblast! right after. The end result is two Pyroblasts within 2 seconds that will hopefully yield a large ignite for Combustion. In the best case scenario, if both Pyroblasts Crit you will get a third Hot Streak proc and will be able to cast a third Pyroblast! at the target before Ignite Ticks.

This won't be possible in practice.

You will be chain casting Fireballs for the majority of the rotation, meaning by the time your last Fireball crits you will already be casting the next (and you will use Inferno Blast before this next Fireball hits to get the hotstreak proc). To 'begin casting a Pyroblast' you would have to cancel your currently casting Fireball with a stopcasting macro and start your Pyro. There would be a lot of dps waste time.

Sunaseni · 05/11/12, 2:34 PM

New Incanter's Ward:

Places a magical ward on you, absorbing up to (1374 + $SPA * 1.320) damage for 8 sec. Absorbed damage will restore up to 18% of your maximum mana.

When this effect ends, you gain up to 36% increased spell power for 15 sec, based on the absorption used.

Passive:
Increases spell power by 10% and increases mana regeneration by 65%. This effect is deactivated while Incanter's Ward is on cooldown.

Now it isn't such a no-brainer PVP-only talent. Passively, the spellpower bonus is only 3% behind the averaged out 1.13% damage multiplier of the other talents, but when invoked, it'll provide a nice little bubble for protection, also for a burst of mana regeneration without spending 6 seconds on Evocation.

Mathing out the multiplier: Let's say you cast it every x seconds, and the bubble breaks y seconds after being cast. X can't go below 25 seconds, and y can't go above 8 seconds After the bubble is broken, your spellpower multiplier is increased for 15 seconds, then you lose everything and go back to base damage for 10 seconds while the cooldown is in effect. You'll spend a GCD while the spell's cooling down doing no damage to cast this spell. (I'm assuming this; it may work like Temporal Shield with no GCD, but this is more likely in my mind.) This makes the equation roughly:

(1.1 * (x - 25) + 1.36 (15) + 1.0 * (y + (25 - y - 15 - 1.5)) + 0*1.5 ) / (x) =
1.1 + 1.4 / x

The multiplier is thus maximized when x = 25, making the maximized multiplier 1.15. As an example of Dragon Soul, a good amount of fights are able to pop the bubble very easily, most importantly Ultraxion, while some fights make it very difficult or unreliable to pop, such as Yor'sahj depending on ooze makeup. Assuming that most fights have events that pop it every 40 seconds instead, the average multiplier turns out to be 1.135, closer to the other talents.

All of this was just to show that, indeed, all of the talents are balanced at around the same multiplier. You can take whichever talents you want on how it changes your gameplay.

Incanter's Ward thus became my most likely choice. It has the ability to be cast on the move, it has a good passive bonus such that even if you are incredibly bad and forget to cast it, you don't lose too much damage, and most importantly, it can't be lost by being forced to move out of a spot or interrupted while channeling. It's almost second habit for me to pop Mage Ward and/or Mana Shield when I'm taking damage during a fight, so having that habit turn into damage again, just like back in Ulduar and ToC, provides a fun way to live on the edge.