Sweet Informational Thread

Vontre · 11/19/07, 4:24 PM

Ahoy there, magesires! On the behest of Lord Beef and his majesty King Gurgthock I bring you this compository of all things magely!

I:Talent Specs

Fire spec is currently the top dps spec. While frost may theoretically exceed fire in a small number of cases, frost spec also depends on taking full advantage of the water elemental and cold snap to deliver its damage. It is also the only tree with no pushback resistance on the primary nuke. Because of these downsides, fire builds are much more likely to deliver their full payload of damage than a frost build. On the plus side, frost builds have immensely better options for mass snaring, slowing, and survivability. As such, frost may be the preferred spec for certain raid encounters (Archimonde might be a good example).

Arcane spec offers the highest short duration burst damage of any spec through timers like Arcane Power and Presence of Mind as well as Arcane Barrage, and can burn mana quickly into damage through Arcane Blast. However arcane damage spells have poor mana efficiency, and the tree is highly dependent on outside mana regeneration and encounter duration to sustain good dps. Sustained dps with Arcane Missiles lags a good 10-15% behind fire or frost dps, while Arcane Blast requires a restrictive gear setup to work. Unfortunately, the maximum potential of arcane for Wrath of the Lich King falls well behind fire and even frost. As such arcane spec is not recommended for any serious raiding mage, except in the case of very specific situations that involve a heavy amount of mobile dps or quick burst damage.

Research is still being done on new level 80 builds and the viability of Living Bomb, however we believe we have a good grasp on future raid mechanics and how spec damage will play out.

Specific Builds:
18/53: Fireball spec with Living Bomb, Arcane Concentration and Focus Magic. Most likely best possible dps.

0/53/18: Frostfire spec. Comparable dps to Fireball spec, but lacks Focus Magic which is a decently powerful buff for other players.

0/10/61: (or other frost variant): Deep Frost. Strong for survivability, mass kiting, and mana efficiency. Weak for general dps. Takes ignite for better damage on Brain Freeze procs.

53/18/0: Deep arcane spec with improved fireball and master of elements. Currently considered the best arcane build.

II: Fire Spell Choice and Rotation

Effective Spell Arsenal: Fireball, Scorch, Living Bomb, Pyroblast and Fire Blast. Fireball is the primary nuke, providing the best dps all around. Scorch is extremely mana efficient, and critical for applying the fire vulnerability debuff, but much lower dps than fireball. Fire Blast is an inefficient use of mana, but is an instant attack, giving it special use at certain times. Living Bomb is a powerful dot that should be re-applied after every time it explodes. Pyroblast is for use on Hot Streak procs, making it instant cast.

For fire mages, keeping up the Improved Scorch debuff is key to maintaining good dps. It is advantageous to have every fire mage assist in applying and maintaining the debuff, as it is in everyone's interest to do maximum dps. If at any time the debuff drops it will have to be applied 5 times over again, cutting into fireball time and reducing every fire mage's damage. The scorch debuff is so powerful that it is advantageous to apply on almost every mob. As a rule of thumb, anything that's going to last at least 10 seconds should be scorched first. It's also a good idea to scorch down the tail end of a mob's life (when fireballs will not reach the target before it dies), ending with a fire blast, so that the most damage possible is affected by Molten Fury. For the rest of the time dpsing, spamming 8 fireballs for every 1 scorch gives the maximum number of fireball hits while still maintaining the debuff. However, use common sense: if a boss ability may prevent you from casting at certain times, increase the number of scorches you cast to avoid the risk of losing the stack. 5 fireballs for every 1 scorch is a good rule for encounters with interruptions.

It can be a good idea to get a DoT timer to track Living Bomb and a mod that will alert you to Hot Streak procs. Missing either one of these opportunities is a significant loss in dps.

In general, timers should be popped immediately as long as agro isn't a concern, and used again immediately whenever the cooldown is up. The effect of stacking timers with mismatched cooldowns is negligible, however stacking a significant number of powerful timers can have a great effect, and be worth saving your cooldown. If you have a shaman in your group, Bloodlust/Heroism should be saved for the end of the fight so that it can stack against Molten Fury. It's advantageous to save other timers such as Combustion, trinkets and Icy Veins to stack against this powerful combo, but don't save them for so long that you miss an entire cooldown cycle.

Frostfire build is not much different from Fireball build other than using Frostfire Bolt in place of Fireball. However, Frostfire Bolt is also the most mana efficient spell in a mage's arsenal (no matter what spec you are), so that's something to remember if you are having mana issues.

III: Frost Spell Choice and Rotation

Effective Spell Arsenal: Frostbolt, Fire Blast, Ice Lance, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt. Frostbolt is the primary nuke, providing the best dps all around. Fire Blast is a mana inefficient nuke, but is useful as an instant attack. Ice Lance is useless damage against anything that's not frozen, but will refresh the winter's chill debuff if it hits. The DoT from Frostfire Bolt scales very well with spell damage, so it can be advantageous to rotate Frostfire Bolts for the DoT damage depending on your gear.

Frostbolt. Know it, love it. Cast fire blast during movement, but otherwise frostbolt constantly for best dps. If your gear is good enough you may also rotate in a Frostfire Bolt every 9 seconds for the DoT damage. However, simply spamming Frostfire Bolt will cause the DoT to refresh constantly and never tick any damage. Frostbolt will apply the winter's chill stack on its own, and maintain it, but keeping it up for an entire fight can be difficult due to its 15 second duration. An ice lance hit will immediately refresh the stack, and can be useful while moving or otherwise unable to deliver a full frostbolt. Do not use ice lance to put up the initial stack of winter's chill, the massive difference in damage makes it unwise to ever use ice lance when a frostbolt could be used in its place.

It can be a good idea to get a mod that will alert you to Brain Freeze procs. It is always a good idea to use your free Fireball when Brain Freeze procs.

Fingers of Frost is still being studied, however there is currently a small timing oddity that allows you to get 3 spells from the 2 charge buff. Using a frostbolt->ice lance combo for the second charge will cause both spells to gain the frozen status from the buff. It is not clear at this time whether this is solidly a dps increase. If your latency does not allow you to reliably use the combo, don't even try.

Timing the water elemental is crucial to maintaining good dps. As frost, the water elemental should account for upwards of 10-15% of your overall damage, possibly more. However, the water elemental has extremely low health, and no avoidance abilities, making it susceptible to almost any AoE. If possible, time water elemental summons to maximize the chance that it will stay alive for its full duration. Remember that water elemental bolts benefit from winter's chill, so it's a good idea to wait until winter's chill is applied before the first summon. Stacking timers against the water elemental is overall not important, with the major exception of bloodlust. Summon a water elemental right before Bloodlust is activated, it will not get the effect unless the pet is active while the spell is cast. Be sure to use cold snap to summon an extra water elemental at some point during the fight and do even more damage.

IV: Arcane Spell Choice and Rotation

Effective Spell Arsenal: Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast, Fire Blast, and (Fireball/Scorch or Frostbolt), Arcane Barrage. Arcane Blast is the highest dps spell in the game when ramped fully, but has terrible mana efficiency. Conversely the first (and only the first) cast of Arcane Blast has the best mana efficiency of any spell except Frostfire Bolt. Arcane Missiles is a weak primary nuke with a high rate of fire, and should only be used on Missile Barrage procs. Scorch, Fireball and Frostbolt are filler nukes for rotations in order to give the Arcane Barrage enough time to reset. Fire Blast is a mana inefficient nuke, but is useful as an instant attack. Arcane Barrage is a high damage instant attack, but has a 3 second cooldown. It is generally advisable to use as many Arcane Barrage's as possible, except while spamming Arcane Blast.

Arcane Blast spamming has been deprecated due to rising mana issues. Arcane Barrage -> Fireball rotation is currently considered to be the most effective arcane damage rotation. Arcane Blast is of course the highest dps spell if you can afford to spam it at 3 stacks of the debuff.

There are a few valid reasons to consider Arcane spec:

1) You are threat capped, unable to deliver your full damage as fire due to threat constraints.

2) You are working on an encounter which benefits from controlled throughput, significantly increasing your dps for one period of the encounter while decreasing dps during the other period.

3) You are working on an encounter that require a high degree of mobility while doing damage, or otherwise very fast burst damage against weak, quickly killed targets.

In all cases you should use a spreadsheet, magegraf or other theorycrafting tool to compare spec for your gear level and particular raid setup. More theorycraft is still being done in this area.

V: Gear and Stat Choices

Spell hit rating is the best stat you can get, by a large margin. All spell casts use a 2 roll system, which means they must hit before they can crit or partial resist. Additionally, only 12.6 hit rating is required to add 1% hit chance with spells. Because of this, spell hit rating is, point for point, almost 3 times better than spell crit rating. The base chance for any spell to resist, before talents, is 83% against a boss level mob (+3 levels). Any talent that describes itself as "reducing the opponents chance to resist" increases your chance to hit. Beyond that, gear can be used to improve your hit chance to a maximum of 100%. Once you reach the 100% hit mark, further hit rating is completely useless and you are considered "capped". With rare exceptions, gearing below the hit cap will almost assuredly result in a loss of potential dps.

The following is a list of all mage stats in order of effectiveness (for fire spec):

spell hit rating (to cap) > spell damage > spell crit rating > spell haste rating > spell penetration

Arcane mages follow a slightly different scale:

spell hit rating (to cap) > spell damage > spell crit rating > spell haste > spell penetration

Haste is now of questionable value because mana is much tighter than it was before 3.0. Every stat increases dpm except for spell haste.

Spell penetration is of almost no value at all, it's primarily a pvp stat. Spell crit rating tends to come prepackaged on a lot of gear, but is generally not a desirable stat because it takes a monstrous 22.1 points of it to give a 1% increase to crit rate. In all cases, check the gear against a spreadsheet or other theorycrafting tool to see how effective it is, as varying stat values can often make the differences between gear exceedingly difficult to eyeball.

Meta gems: It is not known what raiding meta gems will be available at level 80.

VI: Mana

The new mechanics in Wrath of the Lich King make mana a much bigger concern than it was previously. Theorycraft is still being done on the value of intellect and spirit, and for the moment these look like stats that should be considered as side bonuses to gear and not directly compared to traditional damage stats. There is a set amount of mana regeneration that is needed to sustain mana for the duration of a typical raid encounter, beyond which more mana is of questionable value. For fire specs, Living Bomb and Hot Streak can eat a sizeable chunk of mana. It is always advisable to switch to mage armor before dropping either of these spells. The mana return on mage armor, especially glyphed, is exceptionally good and may be required for most if not all non-frost specs.

VII: AoE

Spamming blizzard is now typically the most effective way of doing aoe dps because of its damage, mana efficiency, and range. Avoid using frontal cone spells like Dragon's Breath and Cone of Cold for straight damage, as their limited frontal range arc will often his less targets than a circular area effect like Arcane Explosion or Blast Wave. Instant spells like Arcane Explosion and Blast Wave are good for mobile aoe damage and burst, but less effective than blizzard for overall aoe damage.

Not all AoE is done by tanking. In the case of shorter burst AoE phases, it may be best to focus on mass snaring with Cone of Cold and Frost Nova. Warlocks can potentially hold agro from range with Seed of Corruption, while mages snare the mobs and spam low threat Arcane Explosions or Improved Blizzards, resulting in a quick and clean AoE clear.

VIII: Partial Resists and Binary Spells

For every level above the caster, a mob gains an effective 8 magic resistance against all magic schools. This means a level 83 mob will have an effective 24 magic resistance against any player. It's important to note that this level based magic resist cannot be overcome or removed in any way, not even by spell penetration. It's estimated that partial resists caused by level based magic resistance account for a 6% loss in overall damage for fire spells.

Frostbolt is no longer a binary spell, and is thus affected by this resistance in the same was as all other nukes.

IX: Tools, Utilities, and other Information
Vontre's Mage DPS Spreadsheet by Vontre
Full-featured spreadsheet primarly for gear and stat comparison.
http://www.magegraf.com/mage_dps.zip
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t10907-v...s_spreadsheet/

MageGraf.com by Vontre
Pseudo-simulation tool with extremely detailed output and advanced logic used for spec and rotation comparison.
http://www.magegraf.com

Rawr.mage by Kavan
Gear and stat comparison tool written in C#
Rawr - Release: Rawr.Mage b2

Vontre · 11/19/07, 4:25 PM

IX: Tables and Values

Base spell damage for max ranks at 70:

Spell                   Min     Max     Mean    DoT

Arcane Explosion 8      377     407     392
Arcane Missiles 10      264     265   264.5
Blast Wave 8            616     724     670
Blizzard 7             1472    1472    1472
Cone of Cold 6          418     457   437.5
Conjure Mana Agate      375     425     400
Conjure Mana Citrin     775     925     850
Conjure Mana Emeral    1136    1364    1250
Conjure Mana Jade       550     650     600
Conjure Mana Ruby      1000    1200    1100
Dragon's Breath 4       680     790     735
Fire Blast 9            664     786     725
Fire Ward 6            1125    1125    1125
Fireball 13             649     821     735      84
Flamestrike 7           480     585   532.5     424
Frost Nova 5            100     113   106.5
Frost Ward 6           1125    1125    1125
Frostbolt 13            600     647   623.5
Ice Barrier 6          1075    1075    1075
Ice Lance 1             173     200   186.5
Mana Shield 7           715     715     715
Pyroblast 10            939    1191    1065     356
Scorch 9                305     361     333

Rating conversion formulas:

Stat                    Conversion

Spell Hit Rating        12.6 => 1%
Spell Crit Rating       22.1 => 1%
Spell Haste Rating      15.75 => 1%

Misc calculations:

-Spell Haste: To determine the new cast time of a spell after haste rating is applied, take the percentage of haste, as a decimal, and 1. Divide the cast time by that number. For example, 10% haste against on a second Fireball would be 3 / 1.10, giving a new cast time of 2.72~.

X: Currently Observed Bugs
(Last updated 06/18/08)

- Frostbolt gains an additional 1% hit per a point in Elemental Precision.
- Fireball and Fire Blast may sometimes stack their ignites incorrectly if the Fire Blast is cast while the fireball is still in mid-air. In all cases this glitch results in a loss of ignite damage.

Inoko · 11/19/07, 4:57 PM

Thanks for doing this, by the way. I'll have some actual content later, once I've had time to digest what you've posted.

For now, use: (size=+2)(/size) and replace the () with [], around the text you want to be big-ness, it's what Malan uses.

galzohar · 11/19/07, 7:19 PM

Meta gems: MSD's additional disadvantage would be DPM (and slightly scaling down with haste).

Fire spec: something I noticed many people do is just refresh scorch way too often. Sometimes even before 1/2 its duration is over. I think it needs to be over-stressed that this is a DPS loss and shouldn't be done when not nescessary due to fight mechanics.
On trash I also often end a mob with a fireblast but don't scorch, because TBH if I think a mob will live for 1.5s, it might live for 3 as well. However I think it's simply best when you think a mob will not survive long enough for another fireball is to move to the next mob. Granted you lose some molten fury but you save yourself and the raid wasted DPS by overkilling the target (either actively having abilities hit a dead target or simply have spells fail because "target is dead" when they complete casting). Of course trash doesn't matter, but then again many bosses have adds where this can be applied to (first example that pops to mind - hydross with a non-aoe strat).

Arcane:

the stack will not refresh and you will not be charged the additional mana cost.

I'd rephrase "will not refresh" to "will start over at 1" or something like that.

Stats: Remember the only place where I see people actually putting spell penetration intentionally is on a cloak. I think the 2% threat reduction enchant should be mentioned as much more useful, correct me if I'm wrong here.

You probably know all of these but I figured it's best to add them in so stuff that have been discussed to death don't come up again (as often...).
For the same reason I would include some basic spec or spec templates, which for us should be obvious but for others that come here it might not, so stupid questions that can be answered before they're asked should probably be.

Copernicus · 11/19/07, 8:05 PM

Bugs:

Frostbolt gains an additional 1% hit per a point in Elemental Precision.
Frostbolt does not proc Judgement of Wisdom.

Additional subjects:

*Quick comparisons of hit vs haste vs crit vs damage at a reasonable gear level for each of the specs
*An explanation of what stats Water Elemental gains bonuses from.
*Possibly a chart showing how Frost's DPS vs time, to show how important the Water Elemental and Cold Snap are.
*The AoE cap for each spell.
*Non-binary spells and the 6% resist rate for +3 level mobs (boss mobs).

Inoko · 11/19/07, 8:14 PM

Here are the AoE caps, I've only personally tested Arcane Explosion and Flamestrike, but given that they're both correct, I trust the other three to be as well. I found them in this thread, originally, and removed some of the extra information.

The writer of that post had "Number of mobs required to cap damage" on each spell, but it was calculated at the base (+0 spell damage) rate, which isn't very useful, honestly.

Information that should be included with this is that +% damage from talents and +spell damage is counted BEFORE the cap, so the better your gear is, the fewer mobs that are required to cap out. This is especially important for frost mages who plan to cone-of-cold AE, and take the talent, because that +35% damage just caps them out faster, then becomes a waste.

The way to check how many monsters you need to reach the cap is to take your spell's average damage (BEFORE CRITS) and divide the "Capped" value for a given rank by that. (99% of the time you'll be max ranking, anyways)

Crits are applied after the damage cap, so don't use average crit damage.

Flamestrike

Rank	Capped
1	980
2	1780
3	2670
4	3660
5	4700
6	5940
7	7830

Blastwave

Rank	Capped
1	2470
2	3130
3	4140
4	5250
5	6900
6	8120
7	9440

Dragon's Breath

Rank	Capped
1	5370
2	6470
3	8470
4	10100

Arcane Explosion

Rank	Capped	
1	610
2	1180
3	1800
4	2470
5	3180
6	4000
7	5300
8	6730

Cone of Cold

Rank	Capped
1	1650
2	2350
3	3160
4	4000
5	5120
6	6500

kycan · 11/20/07, 11:36 AM

One topic that may be considered (and that still confuses me on occasion) is when to stick with a meta socket helm, at the expense of an otherwise upgrade (Tier 4 to Grand Engineer/Hood of Hexing come to mind).

Copernicus · 11/20/07, 12:04 PM

Originally Posted by kycan

One topic that may be considered (and that still confuses me on occasion) is when to stick with a meta socket helm, at the expense of an otherwise upgrade (Tier 4 to Grand Engineer/Hood of Hexing come to mind).

Metagems suck. They offer in the range of 1-2.5% increased damage. You can check it with some quick math (think about a CSD with a 100% crit rate) or use Vontre's spreadsheet. [Cowl of the Grand Engineer]'s hit rating plus crit rating is 1.77% better than [Cowl of Tirisfal], and that's without counting the two extra sockets given. For the ease of math, stick two +8 hit rating gems in there and that's another 1.27% better, making the Cowl a better item than the Tier 5 helm (ignoring the 8 stam, 9 int, and 24 spirit). Spellstrike -> Grand Engineer/Hexing -> Tier 6/Illidari is the progression path now that we don't need Tier 5 set bonuses or the metagem's proc anymore.

ReignConfused · 11/20/07, 12:26 PM

I'm not disagreeing with you, but stamina and intellect, as well as spirit (although god knows why now) all cost in item budget. If you factor this in I believe Cowl comes out with a much higher item budget. And I'm not 100% sure that Hood of Hexing isn't better than T6 if you're looking at pure dmg/hit/crit [Hood of Hexing] [Cowl of the Tempest] Yeah it definitely comes out ahead, way way ahead if you're figuring 2 12dmg sockets > CSD

Kir · 11/20/07, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

The scorch debuff is so powerful that it is advantageous to apply on almost every mob. As a rule of thumb, anything that's going to last at least 10 seconds should be scorched first. It's also a good idea to scorch down the tail end of a mob's life, ending with a fire blast, so that the most damage possible is affected by Molten Fury.

I knew it was powerful, but I was surprised it's 10 seconds. Is scorch with just a stack or two of the debuff higher dps then a non-debuffed fireball? I had always figured you had to get off at least two fireballs after fully debuffing for it be worthwhile. I didn't run very conclusive tests, just my dps was higher on trash that died in ~10 seconds by just fireballing. There could have been quite a few variables that I didn't take into consideration, of course. But, if they lived 12 or more seconds constantly, I always scorched. Hard to factor the few seconds difference on those mobs, as a few warrior execute crits can drop them quicker then you anticipate.

Glad to see you confirm my hunch about scorch/fireblast on the tail end of a mob's health is a good practice, though. I've always done it to minimize dps loss from a fireball not hitting the mob in time (both from the longer cast time and fireball travel time). I never ran a test, it just made sense.

Originally Posted by kycan

One topic that may be considered (and that still confuses me on occasion) is when to stick with a meta socket helm, at the expense of an otherwise upgrade (Tier 4 to Grand Engineer/Hood of Hexing come to mind).

If there is a simple rule of thumb, agreed. I think the long answer is, plug it into a spreadsheet and compare for your specific equipment. Would be nice if there is a general way to figure out if a meta helm (T6 for example) is better then a similar ilvl a 3 gem helm (such as Hood of Hexing).
I believe someone did a comparison on these specific items that showed Hood of Hexing to be roughly equal if you are not hit capped already, and you aren't breaking the 4pcT6 set bonus. But, for future reference, it would be nice to have an easy way to make that decision.

clairecakes · 11/20/07, 1:15 PM

There's no mention of it so what about arcane/frost? I'm about equally geared with our resident fire mage and in most encounters our damage is nearly identical (though I have to hit my trinkets at every cooldown). It also has the benefit of PoM which is absolutely wonderful when trying out a new instance and needing an emergency sheep (or sheeping ZA flamecasters) and I'm pretty sure it will work great with 2piece T5. In fact looking at Lhivera's script the damage is better then deep fire with 2 pc T5...and it also stacks pretty well with haste without hurting your rotation (3 frostbolts instead of 2).

Vontre · 11/20/07, 1:28 PM

Arcane/frost is basically the same as arcane/fire. They're pretty specialized builds that supposedly can work with specific gearing, but have issues with scaling, haste, and are generally more trouble than it's worth.

Beska · 11/20/07, 1:37 PM

A deeper explanation of when to choose haste over crit/damage would be excellent. Also, as Copernicus suggested a comparison between these stats would be great too.

Kir · 11/20/07, 2:59 PM

I've seen it before somewhere, but a chart showing the relative value of hit/haste/dmg/crit as your stats scale would be nice.
Like, until 164 hit, under 1000 dmg, 1 point of hit is worth 1.5 dmg, 1.3 haste etc.. (made those numbers up just now)

I saw it somewhere before, no idea where. If anyone has it, or wants to make another, that would be an awesome addition to the original post. It'd be nice to have as a reference, both for people not good at working it out themselves, and the people like me who are too lazy to redo it too often

Muphrid · 11/20/07, 3:03 PM

Originally Posted by Kir

I've seen it before somewhere, but a chart showing the relative value of hit/haste/dmg/crit as your stats scale would be nice.
Like, until 164 hit, under 1000 dmg, 1 point of hit is worth 1.5 dmg, 1.3 haste etc.. (made those numbers up just now)

I saw it somewhere before, no idea where. If anyone has it, or wants to make another, that would be an awesome addition to the original post. It'd be nice to have as a reference, both for people not good at working it out themselves, and the people like me who are too lazy to redo it too often

Such a table would be fraught with caveats. These equivalences vary greatly based on spec and gear. I find tools to be much handier in this regard than any sort of table. That said, people are lazy; they'd much rather a table, I'm sure, than to have to use a tool unless they're genuinely interested and not just genuinely confused.

The problem, then, would be how to present tables for each spec, as well as varying +damage, +haste, +crit, and +hit. 5-dimensional table, anyone?