WotLK - Complete Mage Compendium (3.3.3 live) - Page 138

Light4 · 10/16/08, 10:37 PM

Thank you for the answer, especially with the blue post.

One thing I realized in Rawr: Spell hit from talents is not counted in the Hit Rate of the Stats window. I am not sure if it is ignored in the calculation though, but this would give some items pretty odd values.

Arcane Spec @70: I have a lot of fun with ABar,AB,MBAM - but will see under Raid conditions tomorrow. I still suspect fire does about 50-100dps more (according to rawr).
The good haste scaling of Arcane might actually close the gap when combined with a moonkin and Improved Moonkin Aura. The totally changed the value of haste from <crit (2.4.3) to >spell (3.0.2) favouring haste-heavy equip. This is also what I suspect Blizz wants Arcane to focus on, thinking of the 6% Spell haste in the tree.

Sinless · 10/16/08, 11:29 PM

For people who are having +int budget inflation on Rawr, go to options, select effects and input a very high number (like 1E+10) to your bonus spirit value. This is not going to affect your DPS but it will practically let you assume that you have infinite mana. Once you do that and do a stat comparison, you will find out +haste is still the best combat rating (if you are hit-capped) unless you are having mana troubles.

Gwendoline · 10/16/08, 11:44 PM

Originally Posted by Sinless

Once you do that and do a stat comparison, you will find out +haste is still the best combat rating (if you are hit-capped) unless you are having mana troubles.

I do not know maybe it is my plays style, but i used to be running with 2/48/11, with 15% haste, 1400 spell dam and like 30% crit. At 70 i decided to try a 14/47/0 ( i know this may not be the optimal 70 build), my DPS was just slightly higher.

Then last night I dropped most of my haste, used Crit gear over my nimble though etc, i replaced about 5 +10 haste gems by +crit etc, and my DPS went up few hundred points. I did close to 2500 on Teron ( obviously we popped bunch of cool downs, and i i m not in 4t6 ). I'm a human, not a simulator so i guess a lot can be blamed on my play style or lack thereof but it seems Crit was definitly dwarfing haste for a 14/47/0 build.

Ok went to the wws here is the break down for teron, I stacked scorch using the glyph and use molten. I did not use fireblast ( just 1 i think while i was moving in )

Fireball 53% of the damage crit at 55%
Ignite 20% of the damage
Pyro 17% of the damage

Dps was about 2500.

Zaldinar · 10/17/08, 12:20 AM

Originally Posted by Gwendoline

Then last night I dropped most of my haste, used Crit gear over my nimble though etc, i replaced about 5 +10 haste gems by +crit etc, and my DPS went up few hundred points. I did close to 2500 on Teron ( obviously we popped bunch of cool downs, and i i m not in 4t6 ). I'm a human, not a simulator so i guess a lot can be blamed on my play style or lack thereof but it seems Crit was definitly dwarfing haste for a 14/47/0 build.

Crit has the potential to provide large benefit. It effectively increases the highest value you expect to see by a large amount.

Imagine you have a spell that hits for 100 DPS and crits for 150 DPS, if you have a 0% crit rate, you'll hit for 100 DPS every time. If you have a 33% crit rate, you'll hit for 150 DPS 1/3 of the time. This can produce a lot of spikes that are typically called 'lucky' crits. over enough samples you'll fail to crit enough and succeed to crit enough to produce a steady stable average line around what theory craft predicts you'll be at.

Haste always provides the same benefit, it makes your damage happen faster. This doesnt increase the highest value you expect to see by a large ammount, it skips the random generation process by having a passive application.

Crit can generate individual events or individual series of events that perform way above average, but over the long run haste is more beneficial overall. Playstyle and personal opinion dictates which of the two you value more, mathematically Haste is better by far.

Sinless · 10/17/08, 12:22 AM

The good (and the bad) thing about crit is that it's random. Good thing is, even though your average DPS might be lower than what you might have had if you had haste instead, your maximum DPS parse might still be higher for crit.

Either rating are so close to each other, it's almost a matter of preference really.

Gwendoline · 10/17/08, 1:05 AM

Originally Posted by Zaldinar

Crit can generate individual events or individual series of events that perform way above average, but over the long run haste is more beneficial overall. Playstyle and personal opinion dictates which of the two you value more, mathematically Haste is better by far.

I completely agrees with this, but the delta was significant, and my crit rate was consistent with my actual virtual crit rate. I think a better explanation of why i see so much gain of crit vs hit on live right now is the fact that the nerf from 3.0 shorten the fight significantly and the fights even in BT are just not long enough right now for haste to provide its benefit. It would be interesting to model this on a 2 min fight, also obviously the more you do instant spells the lower the return on haste ( even with the GCD modification ) so the more crit you have the more instant you gonna do with HS ( up to 33% i guess in a perfect case ).

Most likely once i m done doing the math and i know what my 80 gear will look like i will have to regem back for haste.

Solisa · 10/17/08, 1:09 AM

I completely agrees with this, but the delta was significant, and my crit rate was consistent with my actual virtual crit rate. I think a better explanation of why i see so much gain of crit vs hit on live right now is the fact that the nerf from 3.0 shorten the fight significantly and the fights even in BT are just not long enough right now for haste to provide its benefit. It ould be interesting to model this on a 2 min fight.

If this is try then most likely once i m done doing the math and i know what my 80 gear will look liek i will have to regem back.

If you're really going for a crit heavy build then I can't see much reason to take spell impact over burnout, unless I'm completely off balance here.

Gwendoline · 10/17/08, 1:12 AM

Originally Posted by Solisa

If you're really going for a crit heavy build then I can't see much reason to take spell impact over burnout, unless I'm completely off balance here.

You are right but going arcane allow me for 3% more crit ( spell focus trigger all the time ) additionally to the +6% fireball damage. Which is just slightly inferior in my math to burnout

At start i was scared i would have mana issue so it was the first reason, but in the end if i trade Spell Focus with another mage then it put this ( 6% dam + 6% crit ) over the return from burnout alone if i did not screw up my math.

Ranch · 10/17/08, 1:17 AM

I think a better explanation of why i see so much gain of crit vs hit on live right now is the fact that the nerf from 3.0 shorten the fight significantly

umm, are you comparing your dps from 2.4 to 3.0? all mage damage went up through talents/synergy/buffs except arcane blast spam. Thats a apple-orange scenario.

and the fights even in BT are just not long enough right now for haste to provide its benefit.

Be sure you understand that you don't have to get 1 extra fireball in for haste to increase dps. 1% haste is 1% more dps, a time table is not required for justification.

The good (and the bad) thing about crit is that it's random. Good thing is, even though your average DPS might be lower than what you might have had if you had haste instead, your maximum DPS parse might still be higher for crit.

Also if you gem for haste you also have the probability of high or low crit parses. Random is random even if you don't gem for random.

Luminair · 10/17/08, 1:29 AM

What raid members are you guys typically placing Focus Magic on?

morge · 10/17/08, 1:39 AM

This a perpective from someone who is slightly behind the cutting edge only early T6 gear. Was raiding 40/0/21 before and have been trying the arcane specs. Have done a full kara and full ZA clear. The first run was the full kara clear and like has been observed the arcane rotation felt clunky I afterwards I spent some time hitting practice dummies to get a fell for the rotation once I spent some time the change does feel a lot more interactive to play. Then came ZA.
Enjoyed arcane a lot more since I spent some time practicing the rotation, mana was not realy an issue did have to be carefull with early threat as you can get a lot of burst with some luck(I didn't take the threat reduction talent). DPS was up despite my sub optimal cooldown usage.

I want to do some experiementing with 2xAB ramp barrage rotation since mana is a non issue but not sure if the 15% makes up delaying arcane barrage (might be better at higher haste rating). With arcane barrage haste might not affect the cooldown on the spell itself but it does reduce the GCD it triggers meaning you can get you next blast or MB off quicker.

Ramsden · 10/17/08, 2:06 AM

Originally Posted by Luminair

What raid members are you guys typically placing Focus Magic on?

I've been putting it on our ele shaman or a holy pally... it's pretty much constantly up then.

Lons · 10/17/08, 2:43 AM

I feel so clunky with the hot streak, I know I will get better as my mods come back u to speed, but for now I'm always missing the proc and the GCD after it does cast seems like an eternity. But Crits are the name of the game with the fire spec now, no ifs and or buts.

maxi · 10/17/08, 3:04 AM

Has anyone managed to get any use out of fiery payback in pve?
On this night's BT run i never - ever dropped below 35% hp. Even when i aggroed some trash and tanked it for a bit, cause healers got buffed to stratosphere as well as everyone else.

Benlol · 10/17/08, 3:08 AM

Originally Posted by Sinless

The good (and the bad) thing about crit is that it's random. Good thing is, even though your average DPS might be lower than what you might have had if you had haste instead, your maximum DPS parse might still be higher for crit.

Either rating are so close to each other, it's almost a matter of preference really.

Wouldn't it make sense though to get crit instead of haste, since more crit = more hot streak procs, thus more pyroblasts. I havn't compared haste vs crit though, but like I said, crit just seems more logical since it scales with your talents whereas haste doesn't.

♦ Seonid · 10/17/08, 3:28 AM

Originally Posted by Kyriani

If it is possible... can someone enlighten me on just how? I've been trying to play with a rotation of ArB, AB and hit AM on MB procs. I am not sure if it's my just not knowing how to play the spec anymore or if the spec itself is just poor now.

AB itself is poor for raids and in the current state, not worth even keeping on the bar - I cast one every 2 minutes though as it's part of the CD macro and I may as well PoM something with a cast time. Basic rotation is just Barrage->AM with Mage or Molten armour dependant on how long you expect the fight to be.

Stein · 10/17/08, 3:35 AM

Originally Posted by maxi

Has anyone managed to get any use out of fiery payback in pve?
On this night's BT run i never - ever dropped below 35% hp

Not even on Naj post bubble break? I agree that it's a useless talent though...

maxi · 10/17/08, 4:17 AM

Originally Posted by Stein

Not even on Naj post bubble break? I agree that it's a useless talent though...

Killed naj before second shield, and the burst damage got iceblocked away.
There might be some room for Payback on Brutallus after 3rd slash, but i can't really think of any other scenarios where it would be useful.

Darcan · 10/17/08, 5:01 AM

Everyone is talking about DPS and rotations here, ok it is the talent discussion so I guess its natural. But noone seem to mention the best fix since the dwan of WoW (or did I miss it?).

Is it just me or did they fix blink? I have had a few raid-killing conflags on twins becourse I couldn't blink of the ledge, im able to do that now.

About putting up Focus magic, I asked in the raid who had the highest crit and my fellow LB mage won. On a close 2nd was one of the holy pallys, and we don't have an ele shammie in our raidgroup :/

♦ Seonid · 10/17/08, 5:16 AM

Raid-wide Arcane Brilliance, mana gems staying after logout and the fact you can refresh the charges without having to delete the old gem, are also nice changes.

Even without the 30% hp reduction, fights would be shorter as RDPS as gone berserk and the healing seems to have done so as well. On BT trash we had healers begging people to find AoE damage and stay in it and a paladin was shaking his head at a 24K crit heal.

Xei · 10/17/08, 5:29 AM

I actually found I had too much haste ... I know, sounds weird.

0/0/61 build with 349 haste.

With bloodlust up and Icy Veins, drums, skull etc, I would find myself with lower then GCD Frostbolt casts ... and with 500ms latency I would actually miss casts. If I were serious about raiding in 3.0 as frost, I would have to dump haste for damage somehow ... I could regem a couple of pieces but I think I would still run into that problem.

Although, that is a pretty "good" problem to have :p

hiisukun · 10/17/08, 6:11 AM

Couldn't find it mentioned: In PvP you can get a 'rejuv' in WSG without it breaking your invisibility.

I imagine there are a few other effects that dont break invis, but my server went down before I could test. Anyone have anything else useful that can be done? I havent tried evoc/bandage or anything obvious like that.

Pintofbrew · 10/17/08, 6:23 AM

Originally Posted by Gwendoline

You are right but going arcane allow me for 3% more crit ( spell focus trigger all the time ) additionally to the +6% fireball damage. Which is just slightly inferior in my math to burnout

At start i was scared i would have mana issue so it was the first reason, but in the end if i trade Spell Focus with another mage then it put this ( 6% dam + 6% crit ) over the return from burnout alone if i did not screw up my math.

It has been stated elsewhere in this thread that by trading Focus Magic with another mage will not result in two 6% buffs. You may not have both the buff and the proc from Focus Magic.

Originally Posted by Benlol

Wouldn't it make sense though to get crit instead of haste, since more crit = more hot streak procs, thus more pyroblasts. I havn't compared haste vs crit though, but like I said, crit just seems more logical since it scales with your talents whereas haste doesn't.

It would make sense to substantiate a claim with simulator data or at least napkin math. If we went by what makes sense, we could argue that haste is better because you roll more times for a chance for hot-streak, given more spell-per-encounter. Also, if we went with what "feels" better, we'd still consider +hit gear bad ever since BWL invented it.

Maje · 10/17/08, 7:25 AM

Well to be honest Rawr seems to think crit gems are in fact better then haste ones, this is with mostly BT/Sunwell gear, granted with talisman of Insight which boosts crit but still.

Moreover the optimizer even prefers crit gems over spellpower. I'm cautios in this regard, I've even lowered the fight length to 180 seconds to make myself not mana limited but to no avail.

In the meantime I'm keeping my spellpower/haste gems untill I'm certain it's not a miscalculation of some sort, in either case content is so "lol" it's a non issue.

Typex · 10/17/08, 7:51 AM

Originally Posted by Xunwael

Threat is definitely a non-issue now, even outside of raids.

I just ran 5 - 6 different heroics with a paladin in assorted ZA/Badge gear, and on some bosses I'd do 2.2k+ DPS from lucky chaincrits (=hot streak) and still be unable to pull. Opened up on a boss with living bomb right on the pull, two scorch crits, pyro crit, two fireball crits, another pyro crit, another two fireball crits followed by a normal pyro, and by then the boss was dead, the tank having had aggro the whole time.

Most 5 man pulls could be summrized by a living bomb application, flamestrike, dragon's breath, flamestrike, blastwave, flamestrike, and by then everything'd be dead - and only very rarely would I get aggro, though it was unnoticable ever then since blastwave functions as a several seconds long stun against mobs in pve. Mages were already extremely strong in 5 mans - probably the strongest DPS class in my opinion - but now, with the almost complete removal of threat sensitivity and huge aoe damage added with short term aoe cc and various other class mechanics, we're by clearly the best option for a dps slot in any TBC 5 man. Can't say anythin about WotLK 5 mans obviously, since I haven't tried any.

Haven't had a chance to do any raiding yet, but many of the above posts talk about that.

I was just wondering what spec you used when you did those heroics.
Thanks in advance.