Sweet Informational Thread - Page 47

Nurru · 08/13/08, 1:06 PM

If your Frost Mage outdoes your Fire Mages then the Fire Mages simply aren't very good. There isn't really anything to discuss, post a WWS.

mako · 08/13/08, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by Xanana

Can someone please explain how my frost mage (armory link) routinely does more damage and dps than the fire mages in my guild raids? Note that the fire mages are all actually better-geared than I am (this is an alt that I've only started raiding with recently), and all use a traditional fire spec.

[FYI -- don't yell that my spell hit is too low, it is not. I'm Draenai, and because of ghost hit my frost only needs 140 hit with 2 points in elemental precision, and my arcane only needs 140 with 2 points in arcane focus]

Are our fire mages just not getting the job done or is frost better than I thought? If its a problem with our other mages, then I'm gonna have to re-spec to fire (since I'm raiding now & not just grinding crap).

What kind of content are you doing?

Do you gem better than the other mage(s)? (epic vs blue, cap hit vs crit, etc)

Do the fire mages keep scorch up properly?

As fire my mage does less dps than as frost, but that's based solely on the fact that I am doing 5/10 mans and stress out over scorching a lot since I am not used to it.

cbags · 08/13/08, 1:21 PM

I looked at just a couple, and they look like they are gemmed poorly, +12 stam's when they are at ~90 hit...way below the cap, nerfing themselves, where as you are at 150 hit, comfortably at the cap for Frost.

mako · 08/13/08, 1:26 PM

Other thing I can almost guarantee they are doing wrong is not stacking cooldowns in execute range. The last 20% is where fire mages shine most on standard t&s fights. As frost, there is no reason to concern yourself with such, and simply popping all cooldowns as often as possible is ideal. As fire, you need to use them as often as possible, but still make sure they are ready for that 20% mark.

A WWS would help for sure.

Celani · 08/13/08, 3:54 PM

Originally Posted by mako

As frost, there is no reason to concern yourself with such, and simply popping all cooldowns as often as possible is ideal.

This is not quite true. A mage of any spec still wants to line up cooldowns (trinkets/IV/WE/AP/MF) with bloodlust, because it will produce more DPS. Oft times as frost, with a fire mage partner in the group, it has been better to hold off on that coldsnap so that it goes off near 20% and the water elemental gets a full duration bloodlust with dual trinket support. You have to have a good idea of fight length and plan your cooldowns around it.

Xanana · 08/13/08, 4:04 PM

Thanks guys -- I can see where your comments are coming from. Hwew is a WWS from last nights kills of Mags and Gruul (we stopped raiding for a while and are warming up again with a few easy ones). The mages were both in the same party for buffage. The 2 variables were on Mulghar, she was nerfed a bit as fire tank, and on Mags I was nerfed having to click the cube on the far side (don't ask me why they didnt have a warrior over there) and she was not a clicker.

Sounds like I would do better re-speccing (and getting my spell rotation down correctly).

mako · 08/13/08, 4:05 PM

Originally Posted by Celani

This is not quite true. A mage of any spec still wants to line up cooldowns (trinkets/IV/WE/AP/MF) with bloodlust, because it will produce more DPS. Oft times as frost, with a fire mage partner in the group, it has been better to hold off on that coldsnap so that it goes off near 20% and the water elemental gets a full duration bloodlust with dual trinket support. You have to have a good idea of fight length and plan your cooldowns around it.

As frost you gain no benefit by saving cooldowns save for to stack them with each other. The only exception is bloodlust, but that depends on when the shaman intends to pop it. Compared to fire it's fairly trivial as you're not limited by the 20% mark, so you could feasibly have the bl earlier depending upon the rest of the group (i.e. grouped with warlocks, other frost/arcane mages or hunters)

Celani · 08/13/08, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by mako

As frost you gain no benefit by saving cooldowns save for to stack them with each other. The only exception is bloodlust, but that depends on when the shaman intends to pop it. Compared to fire it's fairly trivial as you're not limited by the 20% mark, so you could feasibly have the bl earlier depending upon the rest of the group (i.e. grouped with warlocks, other frost/arcane mages or hunters)

If you are grouped with a fire mage, you have to pay attention to bloodlust timing and anticipate cooldowns for 20%. Hence the "not quite true". I play both fire and frost, and always have at least one other mage in my group, so we do have to plan around it.

Heator · 08/14/08, 11:36 AM

Hi there,

First time poster, long time reader.

I have a question regarding Cooldown stacking with Shifting Naaru Silver. Since it's on a 90 second CD, im trying to figure out how to stack it with the rest of the multiple cd's available.

Before getting it I had 4 Macros, probably the standard split. For the 6 min fight:

Start of fight:
a) IV / Skull / Flamecap / destro
b) Hex / Combustion

~ 2 min 30 sek:

a) Skull / destro
b) Hex

<20%:
Repeat start of Fight

The question now becomes how to integrate Shifting Naaru.

My gut feeling is to burn every CD except Skull at once, using Shifting on every CD immediately while making sure its avaiable for the <20% burn. Has anybody crunched some numbers on what the optimal stacking is? Is there a consensus out there I missed?

Spec is standard Fire-Raid obviously.

Sorry for my bad english.

Anaxo · 08/14/08, 8:54 PM

First, this question is better suited to the '[Mage] Help me please?' Anyway, your gut feeling is correct, according to Manly. Please use the search function next time, as a search on 'sliver' or 'shifting naaru' would have yielded the information you seek.

mako · 08/15/08, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by Celani

If you are grouped with a fire mage, you have to pay attention to bloodlust timing and anticipate cooldowns for 20%. Hence the "not quite true". I play both fire and frost, and always have at least one other mage in my group, so we do have to plan around it.

Or your raid could use intelligent group compositions and negate that completely...

YOU may have to plan around 20%, but that means nothing for the rest of the world. The end result is that as frost, you want to stack your cooldowns with bloodlust, regardless of what % it is being used at, which is common sense for all dps.

Magemasher · 08/15/08, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by fjorn

I play an arcane mage specced 49/12/0 I have been tinkering with some spell haste and intellect bonuses. As an arcane mage would it make more sense to use the Hex Shrunken Head or the Sorcerer's alchemist stone for longer fights? I run out of mana usually on fights lasting longer than 3-4 minutes. My theory is that if i use a mana potion I would be able to cast longer with an additional 40% more mana comming back to me but will the 40% more mana and the extra 10 spell damage be more of a benefit than the 211 damage over 20 seconds every 2 minutes.

I couldnt post a new thread so i put it here sorry If i did it wrong.

This question would be much better suited in either the [Mage] Raiding as Arcane mage post 2.4 or the http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16781-mage_help_me_please/ threads.

With that said, many mages swear by Rawr - Home for gear comparisons. It is normally very accurate and should be able to help you in your gear choices.

carryandfloat · 08/22/08, 12:45 AM

Awesome post. Very informational for all spec play styles. I have only been frost with my mage thus far as it is a new character and this will be very helpful to me once i start speccing for raids and trying other options.

One thing you can't forget about ice lance for frost mages however is that it is not only good for resetting winter's chill, but if timed right you can send it off at a frozen target along with your frostbolt and get two critical hits before the freeze is used it up. =) Of course this applies well to both pvp and pve and can really give your dps a boost if you insist on raiding as frost.

The part about the timing of your elemental with bloodlust is invaluable info to me, I don't think I ever would have realized that thank you!

Anaxo · 08/22/08, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by carryandfloat

One thing you can't forget about ice lance for frost mages however is that it is not only good for resetting winter's chill, but if timed right you can send it off at a frozen target along with your frostbolt and get two critical hits before the freeze is used it up. =) Of course this applies well to both pvp and pve and can really give your dps a boost if you insist on raiding as frost.

Except for one thing: boss level mobs are either immune to being frozen, or the freeze will break instantly from other raid damage by the time you react.

willem11 · 08/23/08, 7:06 AM

Originally Posted by mako

As frost you gain no benefit by saving cooldowns save for to stack them with each other. The only exception is bloodlust, but that depends on when the shaman intends to pop it. Compared to fire it's fairly trivial as you're not limited by the 20% mark, so you could feasibly have the bl earlier depending upon the rest of the group (i.e. grouped with warlocks, other frost/arcane mages or hunters)

Your not correct in that statement, frost benefits from saving cooldowns also. As fight lenghts differ, situations come up where its viable to save your 2 min trinket cooldown/destro pot cooldown for a few seconds or even a minute to make it stack with your icy veins/water elemental cooldown.

As for the frost vs fire discussion, I have been frost since my first gruul about 6 months ago untill illidan a month ago and topped damage meters in my guild on near all bosses as frost, so I too felt no reason to respec. But I have switched to fire a few weeks ago. As of dps fire is supreme to frost, the difference in dps at for example terron was way bigger as I expected (~1800 as frost and ~2.2k as fire for me). But fire also relies way more on group setup (you will want a shadow priest in group at all cost, and you will want bloodlust at 20% wich is in most progress situations not viable because mostly one of your party members is dead at that time). So yes, as ex-frost mage I can assure you that in end-game situations fire is the better option. This doesnt leave the fact that in t5 gear/t5 bosses frost does as good as fire. So imo if you like frost there is no reason at all to respec fire untill you grab yourself some t6 gear and enter bt/mh.

Enthorn · 08/31/08, 12:01 AM

Originally Posted by willem11

As of dps fire is supreme to frost, the difference in dps at for example terron was way bigger as I expected (~1800 as frost and ~2.2k as fire for me).

I have near similar gear as you and I can barely hit 1800 as fire. Usually when I hit 1800 it's against something like Bear or Rage. I'm just curious how you do 2.2k DPS. Do you have a WWS log perhaps so I can see spell rotation (well, your fireball/scorch count, anyway). My guild actually just downed Teron for the first time last night. My DPS over the course of our attempts was 1690 - 1763 - 1522 - 1687 - and finally 1752, with the last being under 25% DPS time, as I was marked pretty early. I'm not sure how much higher my DPS would have been had I actually lived through the fight for molten fury range, but I'm assuming it wouldn't have been that much higher. My DPS time was 43 seconds, so I don't receive the full bloodlust, but I had used all of my CDs by that point.

willem11 · 08/31/08, 5:37 AM

Originally Posted by Enthorn

I have near similar gear as you and I can barely hit 1800 as fire. Usually when I hit 1800 it's against something like Bear or Rage. I'm just curious how you do 2.2k DPS. Do you have a WWS log perhaps so I can see spell rotation (well, your fireball/scorch count, anyway). My guild actually just downed Teron for the first time last night. My DPS over the course of our attempts was 1690 - 1763 - 1522 - 1687 - and finally 1752, with the last being under 25% DPS time, as I was marked pretty early. I'm not sure how much higher my DPS would have been had I actually lived through the fight for molten fury range, but I'm assuming it wouldn't have been that much higher. My DPS time was 43 seconds, so I don't receive the full bloodlust, but I had used all of my CDs by that point.

Heres a log for terron as example: Wow Web Stats I even had bad luck with 2.3% missed.

Im not sure why you cant hit higher, but I assume a few things. As first, get your heroism at 20% and stack all your cooldowns with it (destro pot, mana gem for ssc mage trinket proc, mojo madness, icy veins, combustion) make a macro for it to activate them all within 0.1 sec without loosing more cast time as your latency cause none of them procs the global cooldown.

Maiby your group setup wasnt as good as mine, (boomkin, ele shaman, shadow priest) or maiby they died early in the fight.

Maiby you scorch too much. Maiby your tanks threat sucks (even tho I had tho use invisibility also). Maiby your latency is too high.

Btw, my dps vs terron is usually higher as vs rage, there is no aoe to run from, there are no out-of-range of group buffs/totem issues, no iceblock that stuns you exactly during your heroism, etc.

Enthorn · 08/31/08, 2:38 PM

Hrm, well, I'm normally grouped with a shadow priest who brings in an average of about 180 Mp5, and an ele shaman. I don't have a boomkin (actually, we only run with one resto druid most all of the time). Looks like you had 50% crit rate for Fireball. That's definitely very high. My crit rate was 36% on the longest fight that I didn't turn into a ghost. Teron Gorefiend Try 4. Actually, I was at 1687 DPS there, and I imagine I might have spiked over 1800 if we had gone on to kill him, as I would have had all of my CDs available again.

Your ignite damage is 20% of your damage, where as mine is only 16%, and you also have the buff from hyjal rep ring, so I'm sure that accounts for something. Anyway, very nice log. You're clearly doing something right, as you're nearly topping your max DPS it seems. I hope to get there someday.

Orixa · 09/02/08, 12:06 PM

I was leafing through the EJ pages to find some info on frostbolt mechanics calculations but spotted the recent discussion about raiding as frost vs raiding as fire so thought I'd contribute my tuppence.

I raid as deep frost (0/0/61) in MH/BT/SWP content because I enjoy this spec hugely and also find I can play the spec so as to be competitive with other mages in the guild. With regards to the Frost vs Fire debate, from my experience you will find a deep frost mage will pull well ahead in the first few minutes of the fight, only to be caught up in the closing minutes due both to the front heavy DPS that comes from access to cooldowns blended with 40 seconds of Icy veins and the fire mages damage increase in the last 20%.

Out of interest, we made a few attempts at Brutallus last night with a new tank which, despite being unsuccessful, show that a deep frost mage can keep in the same ball park damage wise as rogues and locks in the first few minutes of a fight, though as mentioned will fall back in the closing minutes. Here's the WWS data of the fight.
Wow Web Stats

(For gear comparison, the top rogue on the meters has MH/OH glaives and the second highest mage is cookie-cutter IV/Fire spec with ~best in game MH/BT gear and some sunwell.)

Regarding my other question about frostbolt mechanics, is there a topic on one of the threads discussing in exact detail the damage calculation of a frostbolt?

I have set up a gear/gems/enchants/buffs/DPS etc spreadsheet for my mage raiding as deep frost but, despite having liaised with a few designers of some online mage-calculators, seem to be slightly off with my frostbolt calculations when comparing my theoretical with actual results.
The calculation I use is as follows:

FB damage = ((Damage increase on level + Base Damage) + Spdam * Snareable Penalty * FB Damage Coeff. + Spdam * Empowered FB) * (1 + Piercing Ice + Arctic Winds)

So for example a lower bound of a non-crit rank 13 frostbolt cast by a level 70 mage would be calculated as:

Damage increase on level = 3.5 (the improvement in the power of rank 13 frostbolt from when you learned it at level 69)
Lower Bound Base Damage = 597
Spdam = 1000 (for sake of an example)
Snareable mob penalty = 95%
Frostbolt Damage Coefficient = 81.41%
Empowered Frostbolt = 10%
Piercing Ice = 6%
Arctic Winds = 5%

((3.5 + 597) + 1000 * 0.95 * 0.8141 + 1000 * 0.1) * (1 + 0.06 + 0.05)

(600.5 + 773.395 + 100) * 1.11

1473.895*1.11

= 1636.02 (which appears to be too low)

If any knowledgable person is either able to point out the correction needed here or point me to a thread where this has been discussed, I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

Zinaida · 09/02/08, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by Orixa

Regarding my other question about frostbolt mechanics, is there a topic on one of the threads discussing in exact detail the damage calculation of a frostbolt?

I have set up a gear/gems/enchants/buffs/DPS etc spreadsheet for my mage raiding as deep frost but, despite having liaised with a few designers of some online mage-calculators, seem to be slightly off with my frostbolt calculations when comparing my theoretical with actual results.
The calculation I use is as follows:

((Damage increase on level + Base Damage) + Spdam * Snareable Penalty * FB Damage Coeff. + Spdam * Empowered FB) * (1 + Piercing Ice + Arctic Winds)

So for example a lower bound of a non-crit rank 13 frostbolt would be calculated as:

Damage increase on level = 3.5 (the improvement in the power of rank 13 frostbolt from when you learned it at level 69)
Lower Bound Base Damage = 597
Spdam = 1000 (for sake of an example)
Snareable mob penalty = 95%
Frostbolt Damage Coefficient = 81.41%
Empowered Frostbolt = 10%
Piercing Ice = 6%
Arctic Winds = 5%

((3.5 + 597) + 1000 * 0.95 * 0.8141 + 1000 * 0.1) * (1 + 0.06 + 0.05)

(600.5 + 773.395 + 100) * 1.11
1473.895*1.11
= 1636.02 (which appears to be too low)

If any knowledgable person is either able to point out the correction needed here or point me to a thread where this has been discussed, I would be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

The frostbolt coefficient before the penalty is 3/3.5 = 0.8571, but other than that I don't see any errors. You don't count CoE/Misery though, and 1000 is a very low amount of spelldamage which is why your result seems low.

solbergb · 09/02/08, 12:34 PM

edit ^^ what he said, beat me to it

At the level of gear you describe the spell damage is too low, and you've not included the effects of any raid stacking (CoE, Boomkin, etc) which may be why the result seems low.

Orixa · 09/02/08, 12:45 PM

So it appears I had both an incorrect formula and a typo (81.41% instead of 81.43%) which meant I was factoring the 95% twice, thanks for your input guys.

As an aside, does the 95% snareable mob coefficient only come into play on snareable mobs or is this in effect on non-snareable mobs like bosses as well?

Anaxo · 09/02/08, 5:27 PM

Frostbolt's coefficient penalty for snare always applies, so whether or not the mob is snareable is a moot factor.

willem11 · 09/02/08, 6:59 PM

Originally Posted by Orixa

I was leafing through the EJ pages to find some info on frostbolt mechanics calculations but spotted the recent discussion about raiding as frost vs raiding as fire so thought I'd contribute my tuppence.

I raid as deep frost (0/0/61) in MH/BT/SWP content because I enjoy this spec hugely and also find I can play the spec so as to be competitive with other mages in the guild. With regards to the Frost vs Fire debate, from my experience you will find a deep frost mage will pull well ahead in the first few minutes of the fight, only to be caught up in the closing minutes due both to the front heavy DPS that comes from access to cooldowns blended with 40 seconds of Icy veins and the fire mages damage increase in the last 20%.

Out of interest, we made a few attempts at Brutallus last night with a new tank which, despite being unsuccessful, show that a deep frost mage can keep in the same ball park damage wise as rogues and locks in the first few minutes of a fight, though as mentioned will fall back in the closing minutes. Here's the WWS data of the fight.
Wow Web Stats

(For gear comparison, the top rogue on the meters has MH/OH glaives and the second highest mage is cookie-cutter IV/Fire spec with ~best in game MH/BT gear and some sunwell.)

0/0/61 is not a raid spec imo, 10/0/51 or even 17/0/44 is better. There is no use in improves nova/shatter, permafrost, improved blizzard, icebite, improved frost barrier at all at brutallus. Why not benefit from the extra mana/resistance you can get from arcane so you dont require a spriest at all/can use more destro pots/dont have to evocate.

Apart from that I dont like these 'look I outdpsed a rogue with 2 glaives' arguments, especially when you only show a 2 min 30 attempt. I am topping damage meters in my guild by 30% sometimes, this shows more about the other dps'ers as about myself tho and does not prove my spec/gear choices to be superior to another random mage.

There are many logs of fire mages dealing 2.5k dps on a kill of 6 min with similar gear as you, and on a 2.5 min attempt with 2 heroisms this number will be even higher. I dont quite understand the combatlog btw, it shows you used 4 destro pots, 4 icy veins, 4 mojo madness buffs and 2 heroisms all within 2.5 min. Seems like impossible to me =D

Anyway fire is and will be supreme to frost at least untill the next patch. And the 'but my damage is good in the first 2 minute' argument is nice on terron or akama but doesnt work at brutallus.

Orixa · 09/02/08, 11:01 PM

0/0/61 is not a raid spec imo, 10/0/51 or even 17/0/44 is better. There is no use in improves nova/shatter, permafrost, improved blizzard, icebite, improved frost barrier at all at brutallus. Why not benefit from the extra mana/resistance you can get from arcane so you dont require a spriest at all/can use more destro pots/dont have to evocate.

Apart from that I dont like these 'look I outdpsed a rogue with 2 glaives' arguments, especially when you only show a 2 min 30 attempt. I am topping damage meters in my guild by 30% sometimes, this shows more about the other dps'ers as about myself tho and does not prove my spec/gear choices to be superior to another random mage.

There are many logs of fire mages dealing 2.5k dps on a kill of 6 min with similar gear as you, and on a 2.5 min attempt with 2 heroisms this number will be even higher. I dont quite understand the combatlog btw, it shows you used 4 destro pots, 4 icy veins, 4 mojo madness buffs and 2 heroisms all within 2.5 min. Seems like impossible to me =D

Anyway fire is and will be supreme to frost at least untill the next patch. And the 'but my damage is good in the first 2 minute' argument is nice on terron or akama but doesnt work at brutallus.

Willem11,

You appear to misguidedly believe I am trying to argue that deep frost is a better overall DPS spec than IV/Fire, please read my post again and realise that this is not the case.

I appreciate your sentiments that, "0/0/61 is not a raid spec", but frankly once you have the core DPS talents in frost, what you spend the last handful of points on has no bearing on your raid DPS as long as you are not going oom - Which is not so in my case where we have a spriest in our group and I am comfortably able to chain destro pots/molten armor/brilliant wizard oil/blackened basilisk without resorting to mana regen items. You really needn't try to explain to an end game content mage that you can't frost nova/shatter on Brutallus. As I mentioned in my original post, I play this spec because I both enjoy playing it in and out of a raid environmnt and can also put out competitive DPS, not because I am laboring under a false apprehension that this is the best raid DPS spec.

"Apart from that I dont like these 'look I outdpsed a rogue with 2 glaives' arguments" Again please re-read my post, look at the WWS I posted and observe that I have not suggested I "outdpsed a rogue with 2 glaives", at any point nor do I believe I could over the duration of a normal fight. I was merely allowing people who do not know the spec and gearing of my guild members to easily interpret the WWS data and provide a point of reference to which they may be familiar. It is a snap shot of the raid's progress at around 40% of the fight and again, as I mentioned in my original post, a deep frost mage could expect to be ahead at this point in the fight but will fall behind as the fight draws on.

Please take the time to actually read what someone's saying before trying to burn down their house.

I dont quite understand the combatlog btw, it shows you used 4 destro pots, 4 icy veins, 4 mojo madness buffs and 2 heroisms all within 2.5 min. Seems like impossible to me =D

I'm not sure why this appears to be as it is of course not possible. I believe I used 2 Icy Veins, 2 destro pots, 2 Hex Shrunken Heads, 2 mana gems (Serpent-Coil Braid) and received 1 heroism as well as a couple of drums in this 2:30mins. It looks like the data has doubled up some how.