I'm not sure how they have changed the regen mechanics but the ones the introduced later into TBC work with a balance of intellect and spirit. If I remember the arcane talents skew the balance some towards intellect but I'm not sure they make spirit totally irrelevant as you seem to imply and not all mages have those talents.

Perhaps all mages will have enough spirit that this will never be an issue in WotLK but I haven't seen anyone theorycraft that result here. The more intellect you have the more spirit helps regen and the more spirit you have the more intellect helps regen since regen is coupled to both of them.

I know the healers were very interested in finding to right balance to maximize their performance and I suspect that this isn't totally irrelevant to mages. In a long fight too little spirit and you will be crippling your performance if mana is a big issue. In TBC mana just isn't an issue if you have the right classes and right buffs but what people are worried about in WotLK is that people will actually need to be concerned about mana.

Standing around without mana is even less "fun" than having 5% less crit.

It's not so much the spirit regen mechanics as the replenishment mechanics, which will account for a greater portion of your in-combat regen and are based on intellect.

Actually it's replenishment regen, judgement of wisdom regen, improved water elemental regen, evocation, mana tide totem and of course the "regen" of mana/fight length.

A Shadow Priest misses out on Evocation but gets Dispersion and Shadowfiend which are also +int scaling forms of regen.

Spirit on the other hand only provides regen through the Constant*Sqrt(Int)*Spirit*CastingWhileCastingModifier.

And yeah with all of these +int scaling forms of a regen, +spirit is comparatively a weak stat to stack for regen.

Coldsnap only brings another IV to the table. If we assume two things: mana is not a problem and they fix the bug where you can only have 1 living bomb up on a boss, I think an extra IV per boss fight is a much lesser DPS contribution than keeping living bomb up constantly.

I don't know, am I mistaken here?

Assume a character with 300 spirit and 700 intellect. Adding 150 spirit increases mana regeneration by 50% while adding the same amount of intellect adds about 10% (because it varies with the sqrt of intellect). However, 150 intellect adds 2250 mana so evocation would add 1350 extra mana each time it is used.

Scaling up current man regen formulas to level 80 you get something like:

sqrt(int) * spirit * .0056 = mps

300 spirit, 700 intellect = 44.45 mps
300 spirit, 850 intellect = 48.98 mps
450 spirit, 700 intellect = 66.67 mps

That means adding 150 spirit rather than 150 intellect would give 17.69 more mps so assuming glyphed mage armor (since we claim mana is an issue) that adds 8.85 mps if we are always casting so it would take 1350 / 8.85 or about 2 minute 32 seconds to compensate for the extra mana gained from an evocation and another 2250 / 8.85 or 4 minutes and 14 seconds to compensate for the extra starting mana. With cooldown on evocation being 8 minutes if you are really serious about having more mana then adding spirit is far smarter than adding intellect if you spirit is really too low.

Wow, you managed to ignore your two largest sources of mana that completely dwarf spirit regeneration.
And the spirit regen coefficient is 0.0056, you inflated it by 50%.

[Edit]: 150 intellect adds 2250 mana. That means 5.6 mps frm replenishment, 9 mps from JoW, and nearly 1% crit.

Samuel: You are correct... as far as you go. However, to make a full comparison between Spirit and Int for regaining mana, you must also model the mana regeneration mechanics tied to Int rather than Spirit.

300 spirit, 700 intellect = 44.45 mps
300 spirit, 850 intellect = 48.98 mps
450 spirit, 700 intellect = 66.67 mps

So, from this part of mana regen, adding 150 spirit increases regen by roughly 18 mps than adding 150 intellect.

Now, what about replenishment? The difference between 700 intellect and 850 intellect is 1500 max mana (give or take). 0.5% of that is 7.5 mps. This must be added to the +150 intellect portion. Only if you do this for each mana regen mechanic can you truly compare the total contribution to regeneration of Intellect vs. Spirit.

Also consider that JoW isclose to replenishment in mana returns, and also scales off int (Yes, i'm still assuming the cooldown is meant to be player-based).

Basically, unless you have something like >1k int, <200 spi and fully talented/glyphed regeneration, you're better off with Int for mana.

Being generous and using a fully glyped mage armor and fully talented mana regen (total 80%):

300 spi, 700 int = 35.56 mps
300 spi, 850 int = 39.18 mps
450 spi, 700 int = 53.34 mps


Now, add replenishment (5.6 mps on the extra 2250 mana according to Roywyn) and JoW (9mps) and 300 spi, 850 int becomes 53.78 mps, which is already larger than 53.34. Now add higher starting base mana, evocation, improved water elemental, mana tide totem, roughly 1% more crit (higher dps + a little from MoE) and 150 int just becomes much better than 150 spi.

That's my opinion. They went huge with the base damages on pyro and fireblast, so I'm really curious how much of the crit-based cloth itemization will get passed over for people trying to stack haste. I mean, how easy would it be to get hit-capped and push 60-65% crit?



EDIT:

Also, at all the Magic Absorption comments, I want to point something out. We all know that only binary resist spells are greatly affected by resistances, but with Magic Absorption, Mage Armor, and imp MotW, a mage is easily pushing 200 resist, which is enough for most fights that need resistance. While it doesn't really buff our damage, it keeps us from having to swap out gear for resist gear, which puts the mage substantially ahead of someone who has to wear 2-3 pieces of resist gear. That's what every build I design that puts more than 10 points in arcane gets MA, because I think the bypassing of need for resist gear will end up being *huge*.

150 int is 2475 mana with BoK.

Assuming 100% Replenishment uptime, that's 61.875 mp5 from Replenishment.
JoW (assuming 1 proc every 4 seconds) is also 61.875 mp5.
Evocation is 24.75 mp5.

Over a 5 minute fight 2475 mana is also worth 41.25 mp5 "regen" just from having extra mana.

That's still ignoring Mana Tide and Imp. Water Elemental.

So 450 spi, 700 int has 265.5 mp5 (with 80% regen inside FSR) from int/spi regen.
The 300 spi, 850 int has 195.0 mp5 (with 80% regen inside FSR) from int/spi regen.

That's a 71.5 mp5 lead to 450spi/700int from int/spi.
From JoW/Replenishment/Evocate however the 300spi/850int setup gains 148.5 mp5.

So from those 3 the extra 150 int instead of 150 spirit gives 77 more mp5. Over a 5 minute fight that raises to 118.25 mp5 when you count the extra mana you have.

On the subject of MoE I have a request for testing;

If a spell with a binary and damage component has the binary component resisted but the damage component still goes through, does MoE still proc? Its easilly tested with frostbolts, and if someone on the EU beta wants to test it my mage is called 'Hypergnome'. He's only 70 right now since I only recently got a key (Thanks Toejam); an 80 pre-made will be copied in a day or so.

Oh, and he's Alliance.

edit: I'd also like to test if knockbacks attached to spells go on a binary resistance too.

3 IVs compared to two without Cold Snap. You only count the extra one for comparison.

That brings me to Blizzard's stupid, stupid decision to nerf the human racial from 10% down to 3% spirit because spirit is oh-so-good now, when the Gnome racial still sits at 5% intellect. And since int numbers are much higher than spirit numbers, the gnome racial is at least 3 times as good now for mana regen alone... and that's when you use glyphed Mage Armor.

Oh, sorry for the wrong number for Int... I did the calculation, and don't know exactly what heppened from there. ><

Mea culpa. Suffice to say, Int is certainly better for most Mages as a mana regen stat.

I am curious as to how frost channeling and burning soul interact with frostfire bolt's threat, but it's not going to be a reason to re-evaluate anything. From all accounts tank TPS has increased to the point that threat can be all but ignored. I don't imagine an extra 10% reduced threat on frostfire or an extra 30% on arcane is going to sway anyone towards those builds (unless you consistently run with really really bad PuG tanks I guess). (None of which is to say that those builds can't stand on other merits and the extra threat reduction isn't a nice perk, but I don't really think it matters right now.)

SB mentioned that there are two ranks of Focus magic in the spell book and the 30min BUFF isn't stack with the trigger one.
Would it be possible that the two spell are counted as the same magic and thus the trigger one is always being covered?

Yeah..I've read the same. I just haven't seen any discussion from players doing Naxx 25 (for example) about threat. Maybe that's the answer right there. If it was an issue they would be talking about it I guess.

If threat is a non issue the question are the points in Burning Soul better spent elsewhere? One point needs to be spent somewhere to get to the next Tier in Fire. Flame Throwing for Fireblast Range? Burning Determination for those AoE Silence encounters? Impact is PVP and soloing and Imp. FB is a waste in a Frostfire Build.

I guess one reason for my original question was do you think Blizzard balances specs based on things like Threat and Mana consumption?

I'd still get burning soul personally, but if you're moving the point then impact is as good a choice as any for lightly easier times on trash.

Given that TtW would (hopefully) end up not affecting bosses under any circumstance and SotM is a poor, poor choice of talent I have to ask - Is arcane still bloated and where do those early points go? Personally, I get past the tier on Spell Impact and Magic Atunement, with MA if I can spare the points simply because the resistance is great in so many situations and the mana procs (at least for me) seem to come up more often than what you'd expect on paper.

Simcraft Mage Scoreboard

I will try to keep this scoreboard updated, and run the numbers on all those build we have flying through the forums, if you want a build tested or have suggestions to builds, rotations, gear adjustments please send me a PM.

This is the results using Simcraft r680:

Unrealistic builds w. slave: (everything goes here, the builds are hardly playable and assuming ToTW)

5519 Mage_Fire - actions=combustion/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/fire_ball
5508 Mage_Fire_Living Bomb - actions=combustion/living_bomb/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/fire_ball
5429 Mage_FrostFire_Living Bomb - actions=combustion/icy_veins/living_bomb/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/frostfire_bolt
5246 Mage_Arcane - actions=arcane_power/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,pyroblast/arcane_barrage/fire_ball
4967 Mage_Arcane_Frostfire - arcane_power/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,frostfire_bolt/arcane_barrage/frostfire_bolt
4712 Mage_FrostFire - actions=combustion/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/frostfire_bolt
4422 Mage_Frost - actions=water_elemental/icy_veins/cold_snap/fire_ball,brain_freeze=1/frost_bolt
4348 Mage_Arcane_Slow_Scorch - actions=slow/scorch,debuff=1/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,pyroblast/arcane_barrage/fire_ball

Unrealistic build without slave: (everything goes here, the builds are hardly playable)

5407 Mage_Frostfire_Living Bomb_noslave (same build as Mage_frostfire_living bomb)
5206 Mage_Fire_Living Bomb_noslave (same build as mage_fire_living bomb)
5015 Mage_Fire_noslave_noscorch (same build as Mage_Fire)
4927 Mage_Fire_noslave_scorch (same build as Mage_fire but with /scorch,debuff=1)
4651 Mage_Arcane_noslave (same build as Mage_Arcane)
4398 Mage_Frostfire_noslave (same build as Mage_Frostfire but with hotstreak and no torment)
4372 Mage_Frost_noslave (same build as Mage_Frost)

Realistic builds: (these builds should be close to what we could use)

5068 Mage_FrostFire - actions=scorch,debuff=1/living_bomb/combustion/icy_veins/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/frostfire_bolt
4612 Mage_Arcane - action=arcane_power/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,pyroblast/arcane_barrage/fire_ball
4606 Mage_Fire - action=scorch,debuff=1/living_bomb/combustion/pyroblast,hot_streak=1/fire_ball
4563 Mage_Fire (with Flamethrowing instead of World in flames)
4382 Mage_Frost - actions=water_elemental/icy_veins/cold_snap/fire_ball,brain_freeze=1/frost_bolt
4330 Mage_frost_fire - actions=water_elemental/icy_veins/cold_snap/fire_ball,brain_freeze=1/frost_bolt
4132 Mage_Arcane_Deep - [mage_armor]actions=arcane_power/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,arcane_blast/arcane_barrage/arcane_blast

All "players" are using gear form a Nax25 setting, with the following stats:

gear_stamina=831
gear_intellect=796
gear_spirit=138
gear_spell_power=2534
gear_crit_rating=393
gear_hit_rating=339
gear_haste_rating=600

I don't use the chaotic_skyfire=1 or Txx options, since the stats should include enchants/gems/bonuses

All mages have these actions before the rotations, and focus magic is running a circle so every mage should get the buff:

wizard_oil/arcane_brilliance/molten_armor/focus_magic,target=Mage_Fire_lb/mana_gem,trigger=4700/mana_potion,trigger=4300/evocation,trigger=12000 (13500 for arcane)

The flask has been removed since those numbers are included in the gear parameters.

I'm currently working on a lvl 70 edition of the scoreboard for the 3.0 patch. If you have a good lvl 70 3.0 build, please PM me and i will add it to my list!