One often neglected advantage of raiding with Arcane mages is the freeing of precious debuff slots. I suspect this may provide a notable improvement to overall raid dps. The question then remains: Is the potential raid dps from debuff slots which would otherwise be used by fire/frost specs greater than the dps difference provided by fire/frost mages over arcane mages?
Fire debuffs/dots = Fireball, Ignite, Scorch (shared), CoE (from a Lock). Frost debuffs/dots = Frostbolt, Winter's Chill (shared), CoE (from a Lock). Arcane debuffs/dots = none.
I believe Arcane Missiles has an "invisible" debuff slot. You can see this on Houndmasters in Heroic Shattered Halls, who periodically remove all debuffs on themselves. People have reported that it will stop an AM in midcast. The AM debuff was also noticed back in the 16 debuff era, but that was pre-2.0.
I think all channeling spells work through a debuff. That's why they'll keep damaging their target after a mind control causes them to be friendly to your side.
Thanks Muphrid and Copernicus for the corrections.
Admittedly I haven't tracked Frostbolt debuffs in BC on anything besides Vashj's Striders. A quick test on a snare-immune elite indeed proves that Frostbolt, Nova and Ice Armor will not debuff it. The "invisible" AM/channeling debuff is far more surprising. Certainly going to try finding more info on this phenomenon. Does this imply 1 debuff per channel similar to Mind Flay, or is there a master "invisible channeling debuff" slot shared amongst all classes?
These corrections update the 3-mage scenario to 7 Fire, 2 Frost, or 3(?) Arcane debuffs. Thus in regards to raid debuff slots, Frost actually has an advantage with 3 or more sync'd mages. The debuff gap between all 3 schools also narrows.
It's widely known with the experienced end-game pve fire mages that Fireball x2, Fireblast rotation is the highest dps/dmg rotation you can do in a raid. Obviously, it's a mana sink and sp's are required, but it's the best rotation. This is what a 10/48/3 spec is used for as well as the all-new 2/48/11 spec. 1/3 in Improved fireblast allows your Fireblast cooldown to be up at the exact same time as you finish casting your second fireball.
Your posts starts quoting what you consider a truism, but which has in fact been proven a few times (last I recall Roywyn posted in [Mage] TC after 2.3) to be wrong.
Fire Blast starts significantly ahead of Fireball, but it scales very badly in comparison and the comparative advantage combined with 4% crit difference only carries so far. After a certain gear threshold which isn't too hard to get to (think T5ish) it reaches a point where Fire Blasting starts being a DPS loss. Coupled with it's atrocious mana cost, what's widely held is that Fire Blast is only good for moving and for Combustion Double-Dipping (even though it's not 100% guaranteed that that's a good idea to boot, as on occasion the Fire blast ignite might overwrite the Fireball's one netting in a 1.5sec wasted with a DPS loss).
As for your question of haste: Yes, I think it's rather evident that when you spend 1.5sec out of your 7.5sec rotation doing a spell that can't be hasted, haste loses a good chunk of it's value.
This also holds true for the gentleman who posted before, regarding haste "losing" value the more he stacked with arcane-fire spec. It's not "losing" value, the simulator is merely giving you data you're interpreting wrong. Given 0 haste, GCD is not preventing anything, hence haste "should" increase total DPS by, say X. When you in fact gain 1 haste, half your spells gain GCD prevention from increase, resulting in Y (>X) increase. This only means that the simulator was displaying X, given the circumstances would not chance ie. given you'd not run into GCD. Seeing as you do, the prediction of X is wrong.
The fact that you're seeing multiple numbers of haste relative benefits just means there are "staggered" values of haste which reduce themselves each time a spell in your rotation (ie. first is the 1.5sec AB, then the AB before that etc) hits the GCD barrier.
The fact remains to both posters: You're both advocating/referring to stacking a lot of haste; this suggestion has been floated in the past but falls short on the fact that almost all the ZA/badges haste gear has a substantial lacking in anything except stats and +dmg. That being the fact, while stacking hypothetical haste might work, it will not provide substantial benefit over losing a lot of hit rating. It's not so much a case of "haste doesn't work" as a case of "most specs can't deal with haste gear" (or more accurately "deal with the loss of non-haste gear")
One thing I'd like to add: What's the only spec that doesn't particularly care about crit and hit? What's the one spec that will minimise the loss of "relative" benefit from haste because it hits once per second? That doesn't need to wait that "25th fireball" to get the benefit from 4% haste? Arcane.
Haste gear is perfect for arcane. The item stats are nice and well-placed (plenty of int, plenty of +dmg) certain parts have spirit on them (ZA chest hast plenty), there isn't overflowing hit rate, and there's still space to get as much as you can and have 2 parts free for T5.
Note however, I'm not advocating arcane spec, on the contrary. I'm providing an illustration as to how haste gear would be in it's element so to speak (droll pun intended).
With a 100% crit rate, my damage would go up exactly 3% with a CSD.
Assuming my Fireballs hit for 100 damage, a critical hit would be for 210 damage. A critical hit with a CSD would be for 216.3 damage, a 6.3% increase on my regular hit but only a 3% increase from my actual critical hit.
Meh, I was wrong on this one. A Warlock guildmate pointed it out to me.
Using the formula of (Non-crit damage * non-crit percent + 1.03 * Crit percent * crit damage) / (Non-crit damage * non-crit percent + Crit percent * crit damage) makes it a logarithmic curve. Which means that the percent increase CSD gives suffers from diminishing returns (but is still growing) as a person's crit percent increases. The simple math I used matches at 0 and 3. As you can see from my chart, slightly less than 20% crit rate makes the CSD worth about a 1% increase in damage, 50% crit rate worth about 2%, and 100% crit worth 3% increased damage.
Here's the numbers for a deep fire (210% damage on crits) percent increase from CSD. Deep Frost (200% crits) is close enough for eyeballing, getting from 0.01% to 0.04% less of an advantage until they converge at a 100% crit rate.
Only, for frost, the CSD pushes the crits from 200% to 209%, a 4,5% gain, due to funky mechanics (the formula: CSD crit multiplier = 1 + (1,03 * (base crit multiplier) -1) * (1 + talent modifier) = 1 + ( 1,03 * 1,5 -1) * 2 = 1 + 0,545 * 2 = 2,09.
For Arc/Fire, we go from 245% to 254,45% crits, a 3,86% gain.
For Arc/Frost, we go from 225% to 236,25%, a 5% gain.
For Arcane, we go from 175% to 181,75%, a 3,86% gain.
(note: Ignite is calculated after crit damage, which is why it doesn't double-dip on the CSD like the other crit talents)
Your posts starts quoting what you consider a truism, but which has in fact been proven a few times (last I recall Roywyn posted in [Mage] TC after 2.3) to be wrong.
Fire Blast starts significantly ahead of Fireball, but it scales very badly in comparison and the comparative advantage combined with 4% crit difference only carries so far. After a certain gear threshold which isn't too hard to get to (think T5ish) it reaches a point where Fire Blasting starts being a DPS loss. Coupled with it's atrocious mana cost, what's widely held is that Fire Blast is only good for moving and for Combustion Double-Dipping (even though it's not 100% guaranteed that that's a good idea to boot, as on occasion the Fire blast ignite might overwrite the Fireball's one netting in a 1.5sec wasted with a DPS loss).
As for your question of haste: Yes, I think it's rather evident that when you spend 1.5sec out of your 7.5sec rotation doing a spell that can't be hasted, haste loses a good chunk of it's value.
Just to add to this little discussion, before we raided with an elemental shaman months ago, i used to use a 2fireball/fireblast rotation because it was effective at my gear level. with an elemental shaman, mostly tailoring gear i can push 1430 +dmg with the crusade trinket proc'd, food, oil, flask, which makes not casting fireblast more dps. on a fight like gorefiend, i can hang in the top 3. if i am in stam gear like on najentus i use the 2fireball/fireblast rotation.
So yeah, if you're low +dmg it'll be beneficial. you can always go to boomand test it out (gives you a larger sample size with more mana). then after a raid and still flasked if you can bring an a shaman for the dmg totem you can see if there's a difference again given the increased damage of one rotation to the other.
or you can just look at the other thread since someone all ready did this.
Frostbolt, however, is a binary spell, meaning it has special rules regarding magic resist. A binary spell can only ever hit or miss; it will not ever partially resist. Because of this, frostbolt is completely unaffected by level based magic resist. We're not exactly sure why this occurs, but frost mages almost always see a 99% hit rate on frostbolt (assuming they are hit capped like they should be). Therefore the 6% damage reduction can be completely ignored. This does not mean that frostbolt does more damage than fireball; it is only another consideration that has been made when comparing specs and theorycrafting.
How sure are you about this? I don't really raid frost much (save immunities), but I remember a long time ago reading a huge analysis showing that Frostbolt and binary spells alike recieve an added resist chance proportional to the %damage reduction to non-binary spells from level-based resistances. I would think that amidst all the recent testing done on frostbolt's hit% with respect to elemental precision that the answer should be pretty obvious whether what you're saying is true or not (which suggests that you're correct). However, it is also quite obvious that resistance levels in PvP and level-based resistance rates in PvP do affect binary hit chances which would suggest that level-based resistances should cause additional resists to binary spells. I've just always thought the latter is how it works and was surprised to see you say binary spells are unaffected.
Also, as an addition to the list of bugs you may want to include the AOE+MoE bug.
Only, for frost, the CSD pushes the crits from 200% to 209%, a 4,5% gain, due to funky mechanics (the formula: CSD crit multiplier = 1 + (1,03 * (base crit multiplier) -1) * (1 + talent modifier) = 1 + ( 1,03 * 1,5 -1) * 2 = 1 + 0,545 * 2 = 2,09.
For Arc/Fire, we go from 245% to 254,45% crits, a 3,86% gain.
For Arc/Frost, we go from 225% to 236,25%, a 5% gain.
For Arcane, we go from 175% to 181,75%, a 3,86% gain.
(note: Ignite is calculated after crit damage, which is why it doesn't double-dip on the CSD like the other crit talents)
Yeah, you're right.
Here's a nifty chart I made!
Values I used-
Deep Frost - 209%/200%
Deep Fire - 216.3%/210%
Deep Arcane - 181.75%/175%
Arcane/Fire - 254.45%/245%
Arcane/Frost - 236.25%/225%
The percentage increase in DPS is due to Chaotic Skyfire Diamond is easy to generalize: namely, for crit chance c and crit bonus b (note that b = 0.5 without talents, not 1.5), the percentage increase in DPS is given by...
∆D/D = c*∆b/(1+b*c)
Note that ∆b = .09*b without Ignite or .09*b-.036 (which is just .09*(b-.4) with Ignite. These expressions yield the correct values for the new crit damage--for example, ∆b = .09 when b = 1 (Ice Shards), meaning your new crit bonus is 109%, as has been determined.
I'm comparatively new to the whole theory-crafting thing and found the ma-hoo-sive theory crafting pages a little daunting. This however has really brought things into perspective and clarified things, it's also helped a great deal on my concerns about spell-haste, which I was finding hard to factor into my calculations as I couldn't quite see where it fitted in. All in all thanks. Thanks also for your links to spreadsheets and stuff - all really intriguing.
Anyway... Onto my questions, which hopefully aren't too mage-noob like (is that moob like?)
I am looking at weapon combos and thinking - Main Hand & Off Hand Vs. Staff... and wonder if you could pose some advice - most people at my level of raiding (SSC-Vashj, on Kael atm) seem to favour staffs, and I am at the happy position of buying arena stuff. SO... here's my choices at the moment, but I would be interested in your opinions in general (am I aloud to ask for generalisations here?)
Season 2 War Staff Vs Season 2 Spellblade & the BoJ Primal Fetish (the new BoJ reward)
Stats are:
Warstaff
Stam 55, Int 42, Res 29, Hit 24, Dam 225, Crit 42
vs
Spellblade & Primal Fetish (BoJ)
Stam 44, Int 42, Res 18, Hit 15, Dam 262, Haste 18
Now on the face of it that looks like the Blade and Fetish are better. Obv it relies on using a couple of other bits for the spell but at most that means using a + hit gem instead of a +9 damage gem in something.
For clarity if it helps I don't do much PvP, and so I'm interested in PVE raiding kit not PvP kit, but at my level these weapons still seem significantly better?
While I have self interest at heart here, I am also interested in higher levels as well, and on your rather-more-educated opinions to guide (and hopefully all my 'moob' buddies into the future. (and yes, I am aware of the 'other' meaning of the acronym!)
How sure are you about this? I don't really raid frost much (save immunities), but I remember a long time ago reading a huge analysis showing that Frostbolt and binary spells alike recieve an added resist chance proportional to the %damage reduction to non-binary spells from level-based resistances. I would think that amidst all the recent testing done on frostbolt's hit% with respect to elemental precision that the answer should be pretty obvious whether what you're saying is true or not (which suggests that you're correct). However, it is also quite obvious that resistance levels in PvP and level-based resistance rates in PvP do affect binary hit chances which would suggest that level-based resistances should cause additional resists to binary spells. I've just always thought the latter is how it works and was surprised to see you say binary spells are unaffected.
Also, as an addition to the list of bugs you may want to include the AOE+MoE bug.
If you prefer circumstantial evidence, I've raided frost almost exclusively, appart from the first karazahns we did (33.28.0, woe is me) and 2.2 arcane AM spam. Not once ever have I noticed a number that wasn't within 120dmg of my average (and thus within the range on tooltip). Debuffs on mob, trinket procs and trinket activations, destruction pots and Spellstrike Proc where appropriate, it goes up. Less than 100% unbuffed non-crit value, I have never seen. Partial resists, unless I'm badly mistaken, are 25, 50 or 75% and I've never analyzed data that gave a minimum bolt hit of less than circa 1400-1600 (depending on gearing at the time).
Keep in mind, it's a whole lot easier to keep track of the number-spam in frost: There's no ignite DOT going off, no fireball DOT going off, and no scorch every-so-often to throw you off the number count; A wrong number in frost stands out like a sore thumb extremely intensely. The focused "trance" of awareness you fall into when you're frost has a lot more attention tuned to the numbers that come up because they're less prone to be all over the place like fire is.
Is the General Consensus that 2/48/11 is going to be the best pure dps spec in 2.3.2. If not how much will Icy Veins affect deep frost (3/0/58), compared to this new Fire/Icy Veins Spec(2/48/11). I was wondering if Vontre or one of the other theory crafting mages could help me out. Thanks
As for your question of haste: Yes, I think it's rather evident that when you spend 1.5sec out of your 7.5sec rotation doing a spell that can't be hasted, haste loses a good chunk of it's value.
This also holds true for the gentleman who posted before, regarding haste "losing" value the more he stacked with arcane-fire spec. It's not "losing" value, the simulator is merely giving you data you're interpreting wrong. Given 0 haste, GCD is not preventing anything, hence haste "should" increase total DPS by, say X. When you in fact gain 1 haste, half your spells gain GCD prevention from increase, resulting in Y (>X) increase. This only means that the simulator was displaying X, given the circumstances would not chance ie. given you'd not run into GCD. Seeing as you do, the prediction of X is wrong.
The fact that you're seeing multiple numbers of haste relative benefits just means there are "staggered" values of haste which reduce themselves each time a spell in your rotation (ie. first is the 1.5sec AB, then the AB before that etc) hits the GCD barrier.
It was actaully a comparison of deep fire vs deep arcane not arcane-fire. I could understand why haste would be valued so low for Arcane since I could easily see how Ab rotations would devalue haste vs +dmg (although I was surprised to see it drop in relative value below crit); however, according to the numbers the script gave me, the relative value of haste was below +dmg for deep fire too once you had more than 1 piece of haste gear (lets guess 20 points because I forgot and eitherway several times that amount of spellhaste is relatively easy to get). Since deep fires rotation is largely immune to GCD clipping THAT is what made me wonder what was going on. Unless that one scorch in a 30s cycle can really mess up the value that much I figured that these numbers weren't matching what I kept hearing. I did hear someone mention that there is a +dmg threshold (~1100?) where haste gains superiority to +dmg. Frankly.. i'm going to have to model the equation myself to figure out exactly how it works and I thnk I've learned enough to do so. However, the point still remains taht spell haste does seem to shift in relative value much more quickly than other stats I've seen... but there could be several reasons for that... including an error in method I may have made while running the script. Insofar as that its true tho, when min/maxing armor it just becomes a pain to work in spell haste gear for me which is what i've been trying to figure out how to do for the past 2 weeks.
Originally Posted by Pintofbrew
The fact remains to both posters: You're both advocating/referring to stacking a lot of haste; this suggestion has been floated in the past but falls short on the fact that almost all the ZA/badges haste gear has a substantial lacking in anything except stats and +dmg. That being the fact, while stacking hypothetical haste might work, it will not provide substantial benefit over losing a lot of hit rating. It's not so much a case of "haste doesn't work" as a case of "most specs can't deal with haste gear" (or more accurately "deal with the loss of non-haste gear")
One thing I'd like to add: What's the only spec that doesn't particularly care about crit and hit? What's the one spec that will minimise the loss of "relative" benefit from haste because it hits once per second? That doesn't need to wait that "25th fireball" to get the benefit from 4% haste? Arcane.
Haste gear is perfect for arcane. The item stats are nice and well-placed (plenty of int, plenty of +dmg) certain parts have spirit on them (ZA chest hast plenty), there isn't overflowing hit rate, and there's still space to get as much as you can and have 2 parts free for T5.
Note however, I'm not advocating arcane spec, on the contrary. I'm providing an illustration as to how haste gear would be in it's element so to speak (droll pun intended).
Refering to my original post... the numbers for spellhaste showed it below even crit in value. For AM spam... it would be excellent... but having to work in an AB rotation would make it almost useless.
Is the rule of Damage > Crit universal? I was (probably mistakenly) under the impression that as a 10/48/3 mage equipping a crit proccing item like TLC, stacking as much crit as possible would be in my best interest (for the ignites and the TLC). Now I am not so sure.
Its pretty universal. Using Lhivera's TC script (because I'm too lazy to do the math by hand), you can see that the higher crit rating you have, the better +damage is relative to crit. This makes sense due to the feedback between the two: a higher crit rating multiplies the benefit of your +damage.
So, a 10/48/3 spec with 164 hit rating and 1000 +damage gets the following:
At 0 crit rating, 1.00 Damage = 1.52 Crit Rating
At 500 crit rating, 1.00 Damage = 1.82 Crit Rating
At 1000 crit rating, 1.00 Damage = 2.12 Crit Rating
Even in the most extreme case, with a 33/28 build with 0 crit rating, 1.00 Damage = 1.25 Crit Rating.
Conclusion? +Damage is unambiguously better than crit rating on a point for point basis in terms of dps output.
New EJ poster here; a bit intimidated by the number-crunching and "elitist" (pun aside) mood around, but I do have a question pertaining on the future of proper mage raiding spec, preferably past Karazhan.
Right now, I am your classic ABx2, AM, Scorch mage with 48/13 spec, and I keep hearing that the rotation is not recommended anymore due to 2.3's various nerfs and buffs to other trees than Arcane. While I love the playing style of Arcane, I'd like to switch to a more favorable spec in terms of maximum DPS output.
Time to time, I keep hearing about the new acceptable raid rotation as an Arcane/Frost spec: AB x2, Frostbolt x2, repeat. I assume it's because of the 225% damage on Frostbolt crits due to Spell Power and Ice Shards combo, and due to the 10% tax repeal. Is this information true in its most basic form, and can it exceed my current spec in terms of damage output?
PS: In terms of gear, I have no problem in reaching (back) 164 Spell Hit or whatchajigger less due to Elemental Precision bug. Also, if WoW Armory hasn't updated yet, I picked up [Blade of Twisted Visions] from our good ZA run last night.
2.3's best DPS spec still seems to be 10/47/3+1 deep fire, with fireball spam and just enough scorch to keep the debuff up. An arcane/frost or deep frost spec is now more competitive than before, but that still assumes the water elemental is used to its fullest. See the "Mage Sweet Informational Thread" thread. Aside from managing the pet, frost is still about spamming frostbolt; no AB is used.
And yes, it should exceed your current ABx2,AM,Scorch rotation, and by quite a bit (you should have been using ABx3). All this also assumes your uptime is comparable. I'm surprised this isn't stressed more; moving around a lot to get the view you like on a mob causes your DPS to drop like a rock.
Has anyone modeled out the 'scorch the tail' theory?
I understand the basic benefits of: 1. reducing the chance that your fireball will land on a dead target, and 2. using a spell less subject to push-back during Molten Fury. 3. using a spell with a built in increased chance to crit during Molten Fury
Particularly I'd like to know at what point does one start to burn with Scorch? Should one start immediately at 20% of the mob's health remaining, or wait until the very end.
For trash, it's pretty clear that scorching right at 20% mob HP makes sense since most trash mobs drop so freakin' fast at that point.
I'm wondering more on a boss. If you're in a tank-and-spank fight where the boss has lots of hp, do you start scorching right at 20% of the mobs health remaining? Or do you keep spamming Fireballs (keeping up Scorch, of course), until the last 10-seconds or so of the fight?
Maybe that's the better way to ask:
scorch the tail at 20% regardless, or scorch the tail with X number of seconds remaining?
Has anyone modeled out the 'scorch the tail' theory?
I understand the basic benefits of: 1. reducing the chance that your fireball will land on a dead target, and 2. using a spell less subject to push-back during Molten Fury. 3. using a spell with a built in increased chance to crit during Molten Fury
Particularly I'd like to know at what point does one start to burn with Scorch? Should one start immediately at 20% of the mob's health remaining, or wait until the very end.
For trash, it's pretty clear that scorching right at 20% mob HP makes sense since most trash mobs drop so freakin' fast at that point.
I'm wondering more on a boss. If you're in a tank-and-spank fight where the boss has lots of hp, do you start scorching right at 20% of the mobs health remaining? Or do you keep spamming Fireballs (keeping up Scorch, of course), until the last 10-seconds or so of the fight?
Maybe that's the better way to ask:
scorch the tail at 20% regardless, or scorch the tail with X number of seconds remaining?
I do not think there is a fixed point for scorching. We all know that fireball is always more dps, provided that it lands. So, if you feel that you can squeeze in 1 fireball which will land, you should cast it. If you have to risk casting a fireball which may not land, then I think just scorching the target will be better. My distance away from the mob also plays a part, since fireball travel time is almost insignificant if I were standing right next to the mob. Personally, I always end a mob with scorch + fireblast combo, which ensures 2 spells to land with +20% damage.
Has anyone modeled out the 'scorch the tail' theory?
I understand the basic benefits of: 1. reducing the chance that your fireball will land on a dead target, and 2. using a spell less subject to push-back during Molten Fury. 3. using a spell with a built in increased chance to crit during Molten Fury
Particularly I'd like to know at what point does one start to burn with Scorch? Should one start immediately at 20% of the mob's health remaining, or wait until the very end.
For trash, it's pretty clear that scorching right at 20% mob HP makes sense since most trash mobs drop so freakin' fast at that point.
I'm wondering more on a boss. If you're in a tank-and-spank fight where the boss has lots of hp, do you start scorching right at 20% of the mobs health remaining? Or do you keep spamming Fireballs (keeping up Scorch, of course), until the last 10-seconds or so of the fight?
Maybe that's the better way to ask:
scorch the tail at 20% regardless, or scorch the tail with X number of seconds remaining?
Molten fury increases the damage of all your spells equally, so it doesn't actually have any bearing on the discussion in my mind. The only reason to use scorch is to refresh fire vulnerability and to eke out extra damage if the mob you are targeting will die before your next fireball will land.
If the mob will live for more than 1.5 seconds but less than say 4 seconds (3 secs for fireball's cast + 1 sec approximately for the time of your fireball's flight before its damage is calculated), then you should scorch + fireblast. If the mob will live for less than 1.5 seconds, you should simply fireblast. Fireblasting has the additional benefit of giving you 1.5 seconds to reposition without a dps cost.
Alternatively, you can move on to dpsing the next mob if one exists and you are unsure of whether your damage will land. The real question in this case is whether a molten fury scorch is better damage than an extra 1.5 seconds if fireball on the following mob, keeping in mind the intangible benefits of going for the killing blow: For example, the sooner a mob dies the better, as it cuts your raid's healing load, fireblasting affords you a bit of mobility, etc.
Scorch's extra crit chance actually means that scorch is less favorable relative to fireball than a simple look at a dps calculator would reveal, as ignite ticks are squandered when the mob dies.
Has anyone modeled out the 'scorch the tail' theory?
I understand the basic benefits of: 1. reducing the chance that your fireball will land on a dead target, and 2. using a spell less subject to push-back during Molten Fury. 3. using a spell with a built in increased chance to crit during Molten Fury
Particularly I'd like to know at what point does one start to burn with Scorch? Should one start immediately at 20% of the mob's health remaining, or wait until the very end.
For trash, it's pretty clear that scorching right at 20% mob HP makes sense since most trash mobs drop so freakin' fast at that point.
I'm wondering more on a boss. If you're in a tank-and-spank fight where the boss has lots of hp, do you start scorching right at 20% of the mobs health remaining? Or do you keep spamming Fireballs (keeping up Scorch, of course), until the last 10-seconds or so of the fight?
Maybe that's the better way to ask:
scorch the tail at 20% regardless, or scorch the tail with X number of seconds remaining?
I would submit that there is no point to Scorching the tail on a boss, that it is only going to save a significant amount of time on trash even if you only magically happen to Scorch only when a Fireball would land after the mob dies.
Scorching the tail will save a percentage of time on each mob kill. This percentage is naturally higher the less max health the mob has. Bosses have so many more times the health of trash that there is very little point, I can imagine, to Scorching the tail on anything other than trash.
Again, if dpm is important than haste won't be that effective. Personally, I couldn't run out of mana if I tried. Fire is very efficient. Anyway, haste only rates over spell damage after a certain level of spell damage, somewhere around 1100 maybe. They are pretty close stats. I value haste more because faster spells reduce pushback and interruption damage loss.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit confusing? I mean, I wouldn´t say it´s particularily good if a DD states not being able to run oom, this leads me to the conclusion, that his dps is restricted somewhere. Given the statement form the first post:
Arcane Blast is the highest dps spell in the game when ramped fully, but has terrible mana efficiency.
leads to the conclusion, that - in a proper raid-environment (SP, fully buffed, maybe JoW) - arcane might be able to outperform deep-fire. I don´t play a mage, so I´m not able to test it, but our highest-dps mages run arcane-specc (TK 3/4, SSC 6/6) and some posters in this thread also suggested arcane might be able to perform equally/better than deep-fire. Just an incentive, though.
leads to the conclusion, that - in a proper raid-environment (SP, fully buffed, maybe JoW) - arcane might be able to outperform deep-fire. I don´t play a mage, so I´m not able to test it, but our highest-dps mages run arcane-specc (TK 3/4, SSC 6/6) and some posters in this thread also suggested arcane might be able to perform equally/better than deep-fire. Just an incentive, though.
This statement:
Arcane Blast is the highest dps spell in the game when ramped fully, but has terrible mana efficiency.
absolutely does not lead to any conclusions without including calculations. If Arcane Blast was 2000 dps, Fireball was 1999 dps, AB's mana efficiency was 0.01dpm and Fireball's was 10dpm, this statement would still be true.
Would it be worthwhile to burn all of your mana in a couple of spells for a 1 dps difference? No, of course not - what you're missing is that the difference between Fireball dps and Arcane Blast dps is not big enough to make using AB a wise choice at the T6 gear level.
This is because Arcane Blast, like the rest of the Arcane tree, scales horrendously. AB is still the highest dps, but you need to trade AB too much per gained dps for it to come out ahead of Fire. Were there some intermediate step between 3x debuff AB spam and Fireball, it might be viable, but there isn't.
This is less true at the low-level raiding that you're talking about, simply because most Mages at that level have not attained enough damage yet for Fire's superior scaling to allow it to pull further ahead.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
Thorongil: You need to see AB's mana consumption to believe it. Fully buffed, it -eats- 1043 mana per 1.5sec. I once saw a google vid of a spellfire mage AB spamming in Gruul. Despite movements for shatter (meaning he gets plenty of regen time, as well as VT time for free) and despite 3 SP and a Restoshaman in his group (clearly a gimick specifically deisgned to make him AB spam) he still had to evocate and chain-pot, chain-gem.
Thank you, though, for your suggestion, however unlikely.
Ghalt: Why would you care about "scorching tails" and other techniques that only net a benefit on trash, which is irrelevant? Sure you can get one more scorch in before the trash dies... And? Smells of e-peen to be honest.
Ghalt: Why would you care about "scorching tails" and other techniques that only net a benefit on trash, which is irrelevant? Sure you can get one more scorch in before the trash dies... And? Smells of e-peen to be honest.
Though not quite what he was asking, this sort of thinking can become relevant at fights like Curator. Realizing how much time you had for each Flare, and timing a final Scorch/Fireblast correctly (instead of losing 80% of a Fireball) each time made a big difference. For the same reason, it can often be good trash technique to keep this in mind.
11/28/07, 12:46 AM
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