First of all i have to admit that my knowledge about my own mage since patch 3.0 is a little bit behind, what might be the best recommendation currently.
So please forgive me if my question sounds a little bit repetitive i would like to ask it non the less if you dont mind
According to my own reasearch here at elitistjerks it has been stated that deep arcane Specs where you do nothing more than just spam ArcaneBlast the whole time seems to result in pretty competitive dps numbers.
I am refering to this particular thread (http://elitistjerks.com/878432-post960.html) in which its concluded that
ArcaneBlast Specs are the ones which gives u the most dps out of your mage.
The question is now that this thread is dated 09/02/08 (Build 8885) and meanwhile there might have a few changes occured which changed the situation for arcane specs a little bit.
So to make a long story short i want to inform myself about what the current situation is especially when you compare fire to arcane builds.
Thanks in advance for your help.
P.S: Sorry for my bad english its not my native language.
This is out of date information
It is no longer possible to spam AB for any meaningful length of time and even if you could the dps from it is inferior to cycling ArB-AB with AM whenever MB procs.
In response to Lhivera's post regarding the "shatter combo" problem I believe I may have a balanced solution.
First off, I don't think the damage or crit scaling for ice lance should be buffed, rather, an additional proc should be added to provide a reason to use the ability. For example, after executing a shatter combo with FoF you gain a temporary (10 sec let's say) buff to haste (~5%), that scales well with gear. but shouldn't be too overpowered because in order to gain this buff you took an initial dps loss.
That way, you would not run into as many PvP balancing issues because the initial burst remains the same as before, but now the mage has a minor buff that will be noticeable in a PvE settings, but should not have a dramatic impact on PvP.
I personally went to a frost mage exactly because it's so simple. I don't like watching cooldowns and procs and prefer to find my enjoyment in kiting things around, elemental management, and more kiting. I'd agree that the "any idiot can do it" aspect is annoying, but... meh. That's just my own view.
Yes well, in theory, if you just use frostbolt spam with frost spec and blow you CDs whenever you want to, you might be getting higher dps numbers than you would from a mismanaged fire or frostfire spec. Frost just seems easier to play, that's a good thing for players who are bad or those who can't concentrate fully on dps rotations (fights where they need to heavily concentrate to stay alive, mages who are raidleading and need to call battlerezzes/commands etc.).
I myself am a raidleader but still consider the new "more-complicated" fire/frostfire specces manageable while taking care of the raid in combat; it's also a welcome change and a fun challenge to master while doing other stuff during the fight.
- Second, Arcane/Frost Mages already have 225% crits with Ice Lance, plus a significant bonus to their Spell Power. These suggested changes should not put a Deep Frost Mage's average Ice Lance damage any higher than that of an Arcane/Frost Mage's Ice Lance -- and the deep Frost Mage can't juice his up with Arcane Power.
I don't believe this logic works though, because you're ignoring the rest of the Frost tree.
In PvP, Deep Frost has the Elemental, Ice Barrier, double IB and countless other strong talents that I'm sure I don't have to enumerate. Arc/Frost lacks similar valuable abilities and its only advantage in PvP IS higher damage.
The tradeoff of speccing Arc/Frost in this context is gaining the potential for slightly higher base damage (and possibly some not-as-horrible PvP talents in Arc with the changes) in exchange for the missed 'toys' deeper in the Frost tree.
Now, I wouldn't argue that's a terribly successful tradeoff in PvP, but it did work to a lesser extent in the past for PvE, and I think that regardless you're comparing apples with oranges.
Following your example, I should have gained Hot Streak after my fireball crit (and before the pyroblast landed). Instead, I gained Hot Streak when my next crit (the fourth crit) hit. This is straight from WWS:
Sorry for dragging this topic back up, but I've been trying to post for the last couple of days but kept falling foul of restrictions on my new account.
I have some WWS extracts that also back up the fact that Hot Streak only procs on two unique consecutive crits, not just two consecutive crits:
00:46'20.218 Eldárwen Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 4933 Fire. (Critical) (277 Resisted) [1/2]
00:46'22.718 Eldárwen Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 5479 Fire. (Critical) [2/2]
00:46'23.140 Eldárwen gains Hot Streak.
00:46'25.453 Eldárwen Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 5369 Fire. (Critical) [1/2 - note HS not refreshed after this crit]
00:46'25.453 Rage Winterchill is afflicted by Pyroblast.
00:46'25.453 Eldárwen Pyroblast hits Rage Winterchill for 5891 Fire. (Critical)
Also:
00:45'43.109 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 4608 Fire. (Critical) [2/2 - previous crit on trash]
00:45'43.609 Molko gains Hot Streak.
00:45'47.375 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 2116 Fire. (468 Resisted)
00:45'49.312 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 3752 Fire. (Critical) (474 Resisted) [1/2]
00:45'51.343 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 4923 Fire. (Critical) [2/2]
00:45'51.734 Molko's Hot Streak is refreshed.
00:45'53.468 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 4700 Fire. (Critical) [1/2 - note HS not refreshed after this crit]
00:45'56.296 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 2354 Fire. (232 Resisted)
00:46'08.203 Molko Fireball hits Rage Winterchill for 4953 Fire. (Critical) [by now it's safe to say he didn't Pyro to consume HS]
In this example, the player wasn't using his Hot Streaks, under which conditions you'd expect it to refresh on every crit, if it was actually possible to get 2xHS from 3xcrit.
I have some WWS extracts that also back up the fact that Hot Streak only procs on two unique consecutive crits, not just two consecutive crits.
Yeah, it has always wrked like that. It's a counter that gives you a "Hot Streak" buff if you crit twice in a row and resets. And also resets if you get a non-crit.
Master of Elements + Living Bomb
They work together now. Burnout now applies as well.
Tested on the PTR. It's a bit annoying to test since ther is no combat log entry for Burnout.
More Master-of-Elements Bugs
It doesn't work on Arcane Missiles rank 11 (L70) and Blizzard rank 6 (L60).
It does work with the other ranks of these spells though.
Judgement of Wisdom
On 128 Arcane Missile hits and 3 Lightweave Bolts, I had a total of 32 JoW proc. With some back-to-back procs.
So, it seems JoW is down to 25% proc rate now, unless I was totally unlucky.
Another random 'Pasture does arcane pvp' observation.
If you're a herbalist you can use your heal 'racial' whilst invisible without it pulling you out of invisibility. Not sure if it's a bug or working correctly but I used it yesterday expecting it to pull me out of invisibility but it didn't. It's only a small amount of health but hey it's better than nothing.
Another random 'Pasture does arcane pvp' observation.
If you're a herbalist you can use your heal 'racial' whilst invisible without it pulling you out of invisibility. Not sure if it's a bug or working correctly but I used it yesterday expecting it to pull me out of invisibility but it didn't. It's only a small amount of health but hey it's better than nothing.
Do you know if your enemy can see the flowers you spread while invisible and using the herbalist heal?
Destruction really is the poster child for how this kind of problem should be solved. It went from casting a curse, spamming Shadow Bolt for two minutes, refreshing the curse, repeat, to casting a curse, keeping Immolate up, possibly keeping Corruption up depending on what the math says about that now, casting Chaos Bolt on every cooldown, spamming Incinerate when not doing the other things, and managing the pet.
This is good. Similar attention to Frost is necessary.
If we had static tank and spank fights in raids, I'd agree. Unfortunately, most fights are not static. You are overlooking the severe disadvantage of having to manage such complexity: It stifles your personal DPS in fights which require a lot of movement, thus making it impossible to carry out the necessary actions to maintain your optimal DPS. Think about what happens in fights like Felmyst, where you must move at a moment's notice and your imp gets killed by the splash damage being thrown around. What happens is that your single target DPS is reduced heavily through no fault of your own. Right now, warlock destruction tree requires fairly involved timer-tracking and correctly-timed spellcasting to be able to do decent DPS, which is not a viable playstyle for dynamic fights. You can't maintain your rotation perfectly because the encounter won't let you and your pet isn't usable due to the encounter's design, so your DPS gets reduced through no fault of your own. Where is the fun in that? This really should not be the gameplay style anyone aspires to have. If Blizzard's grand design vision is to have better players do better DPS, and not to penalise people for playing a certain class over another; then these kind of changes will fail that vision because they penalise players based on their class and spec, not skill.
I don't mind a little flavour in the playstyle to jazz it up a bit. I think Hot Streak is an example of adding a little flavour to keep gameplay interesting for the player without screwing them over in dynamic fights, but too many variables interacting which you must track are bad because it's impossible to keep that up in dynamic fights, even if you are a playing flawlessly.
What sets the skilled players apart is not how many buttons and cooldowns they can manage to be able to do competitive DPS. It's how quickly and correctly they react to the various situations thrown upon them during a boss encounter. A bad player will fail the "run out of the fire/click the orb/take the portal/collapse on top of the triangle" tests.
Another random 'Pasture does arcane pvp' observation.
If you're a herbalist you can use your heal 'racial' whilst invisible without it pulling you out of invisibility. Not sure if it's a bug or working correctly but I used it yesterday expecting it to pull me out of invisibility but it didn't. It's only a small amount of health but hey it's better than nothing.
Playing with this ability on my druid I've discovered it doesn't break stealth either. Entertainingly though, it can proc the druid clearcasting, and gaining clearcasting breaks stealth.
I do think it is a very good point that if one spec's playstyle is signficantly less complex than others, then the less skilled flock to it and it becomes the noob-spec. This is bad, and frost definitely does not deserve it, and on the surface it seems very strange given the increased complexity of other specs cast rotations.
But I think the points made about the variety of other abilities frost has have merit, and it's worthy to note that the devs may be looking at a bit more wholistic perspective than just cast rotation. Granted that frost's other abilities do not go into frost's cast rotation, so the rotation remains mind-numbingly simple, but remember 6 months ago in this and similar threads we were pointing out that while frost by theorycraft was only minimally behind fire, in practice it frequently was farther behind because of imperfect cooldown stacking or the elemental dying, etc.
Does anyone here really think that any noobs flocking to frost because it is too hard to watch for a hotstreak buff are going to find it easier to maximize elemental uptime and proper stacking? Granted, as was pointed out, arcane and fire both have cooldowns to watch and stack too - but seriously, which is more difficult to really get the most from, combustion, AP, or the water elemental? And which has the biggest impact on dps? Not to mention the additional tools that frost has at its disposal for survivability, etc., which do not directly impact dps in a rotation, but which are situationally used to good effect by any master of the spec.
My pondering is that the devs likely do intend frost to be as easy-to-learn/hard-to-master as fire and arcane, but may be intentionally making the cast rotation easier, to balance additional difficulty in learning to really maximize the other tools, and the additional split in focus needed to use and protect the pet. Just because the cast rotation is simple, doesn't mean that there's nothing hard to learn about frost - just that there's not much *new* that's hard to learn about frost. Of course we all want new things to learn, but I think there's a degree to which arcane and fire are only just catching up to frost's level of tricks to master, and the long-term frosties in this thread may be taking their own skills for granted.
Just because the cast rotation is simple, doesn't mean that there's nothing hard to learn about frost - just that there's not much *new* that's hard to learn about frost.
Yup. In spite of the fact that I really like the talented blizzard and some of the other frost playstyle tricks, I can't bring myself to do a frost spec because I absolutely can't stand pet management, and that's a very important part of frost, especially with the increased uptime the elemental has now.
By contrast, keeping track of one debuff stack, one DOT and one random proc +dps effect is better for me, even though I have to pay a lot more attention. I feel like my destiny for better or worse is in my own hands, not at the mercy of a braindead creature. I am at about my complexity limit. I don't really want to have more to manage than scorch, hotstreak and living bomb at the moment, especially as I'm also working on my AOE rotations and the changes to mana management and talent/trinket cooldown stacking.
For me, a firefrost spec (if it turns out viable) would be a nice middle ground. Mostly fire playstyle witbut with a chill on the main nuke and the option for either increased single target DPS or the entire gamut of mage AOE tools available to me, depending on the spec emphasis. I think I can also work in both impact and frostbite to one of the specs, doubling the chance of a random "I win" proc when soloing.
Yup. In spite of the fact that I really like the talented blizzard and some of the other frost playstyle tricks, I can't bring myself to do a frost spec because I absolutely can't stand pet management, and that's a very important part of frost, especially with the increased uptime the elemental has now.
I've got to agree with this sentiment. I recently went frost preparing for leveling in wrath and while I love the huge increase in survivability, I'm really poorly practiced on pet management. Frost's play style of juggling cooldowns and managing a pet seems to provide a nice balance to the one button spam rotations (with a 2nd button on a proc) so I don't know that it has to become all that more interesting/complex of a rotation to still have an interesting play style overall.
I would think noobs that are really and truly looking for the easiest one-button spam class would be much more likely to go moonkin at this point than try for any of the mage specs.
Speaking as someone who has been playing Frost for the past 3.5 years, yes, it desperately needs a more interesting/complex rotation. Pet and cooldown management is trivial; you rarely even need to think about it.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
In response to the Frost playstyle discussion, I had tried raiding as such for a time in BT/Hyjal and some ZA, and I felt as though Pet management plus watching cooldowns for IV and WE (and further in my case, Mana Gems) for using Cold Snap was awkward and frustrating.
I found the WE confusing because sometimes when summoned, he would attack my target and other times he didn't. That means setting further macros or keybindings, causing me to stray too long each time I summoned him and subsequently losing Frostbolt casting time. I'm sure there is a rule for this somewhere. Timing the fights required a mod so I could use my cooldowns appropriately with Cold Snap. Mana Gems plus SCB didn't help because I wanted to use them in conjunction with IV always, which usually meant saving it for sub-20% boss health and thus decreasing my DPS/overall damage.
On a minor note, I also missed Flamestrike for AoE whenever AoE was needed.
Although I'm sure some people would argue all of this is second-nature or easier to pickup than I found in my case, I'm definitely in the camp where I don't feel like Frost needs anything more to make its playstyle more "interesting." Shatter Combos I could see happening, but a major re-working of the tree seems a bit overkill.
While frost's playstyle is variable in Leveling and PvPing, the status of interactivity is still essentially a one button spec.
Lhivera 's statement about frost is correct. Pet management is trivial. Summon elemental (via hotkey), set pet to attack boss, and continue mashing away at that good old frostbolt button. It takes exactly one GCD to accomplish such a task, even for a lesser player.
Cooldown stacking issues are present for any class with such cooldowns, or players that choose to use "clicky trinkets" (timing on SCB + mana gem timing is a concern for any mage who uses it). While to a limited extent, this aspect can also set apart the good players from those who are mediocore or poor, it's not unique to (frost) mages and it's not nearly as significant as it is for a fire mage (molten fury range stacking requires more attention to your cooldown timers, and has a greater impact on your dps, while the only concern frost has is "when is the bloodlust occuring").
To the couple of guys who think that fingers of frost adds any kind of dynamic to frost, please read earlier pages of the thread. Raiding as a frost mage, FoF procs are not worth "shatter comboing" at any reasonable gear level. You'll get more damage out of simply chaining frostbolts instead of getting a shattered ice lance at last charge.
Brain freeze had (has?) the potential to make frost mildily dynamic, with it's random proc of instant manaless fireballs, however it's not currently an increase in dps, and as such, is generally not worth the points for a raiding frost mage.
The problem several of us see with frost is that when performing optimally, you are only pressing one button. Granted, unlike pre 3.0 destro warlocks, frost mages are not generally topping the meters, if would be nice to see frost be given a boost in complexity that increases damage (but would leave frost damage as-is if a player chose to continue in his or her one-button world) to a point where it's more competitive with fire, and the other dps classes.
It's called Bloodlust, not Heroism. What kind of pansy name is Heroism, anyway?
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To the couple of guys who think that fingers of frost adds any kind of dynamic to frost, please read earlier pages of the thread. Raiding as a frost mage, FoF procs are not worth "shatter comboing" at any reasonable gear level. You'll get more damage out of simply chaining frostbolts instead of getting a shattered ice lance at last charge.
Although it is ultimately not a DPS increase to do "Shatter Combos", I do think it is the original intent of the FoF talent design. Right now it is a powerful PvE talent but lends nothing to spell rotation complexity, it seems like a little bit of tweaking could allow it to make other spells useful in place of FrB when FoF is up. I just don't know what that spell could be : /
Originally Posted by mako
Brain freeze had (has?) the potential to make frost mildily dynamic, with it's random proc of instant manaless fireballs, however it's not currently an increase in dps, and as such, is generally not worth the points for a raiding frost mage.
Has anyone seen any information or discussion about Brainfreeze's Fireball being replaced with Frostfire Bolt? I think the talent should be changed to..
Brain Freeze
Your Frost damage spells have a 4/8/12% chance to cause your next Frostfire Bolt spell to be instant cast, a critical strike, and cost no mana.
The only problem with changing the 51 pt talent, is that we have access to a talent that would do nothing until we reach 75. Which would only be slightly less useful than the Frost 51 pt talent now, but that is a different design dilema.
The only problem with changing the 51 pt talent, is that we have access to a talent that would do nothing until we reach 75. Which would only be slightly less useful than the Frost 51 pt talent now, but that is a different design dilema.
I didn't see any mention of brain freeze becoming a 51 pt talent instead of a 41?
Anyway, this is very easily solved. Simply make the talent give a free fireball or frostfirebolt. pre 75 you stick with the fireball, after that you get to choose.
Perhaps cbags means that it should be a 51 point talent? It could have more potential than Brain Freeze if it offered maybe an additional something, like a guaranteed crit on an already free spell, and/or included Frostfire Bolt as an option. That I wouldn't mind at all, as I'm already intrigued by the talent as is. I guess I just see Deep Freeze being reworked down the line sorta like IV was introduced when IB became a trained spell.
An instant FFB with a CD attached to it? Sounds an awfull lot like PoM, considering GC has specifically mentioned the devs feel frost is slightly to bursty in pvp it feels unlikely they would add a PoM type talent to replace DF with, especially not on a shorter timer somewhat close to the shatter timer.
That doesn't mean there is no room for improvement in Frost. We would like to get Ice Lance back into PvE and it would be great to get Deep Freeze back into PvE too.
Deep Freeze even? Sounds good! Let's hope they don't mean they're going to make encounters where it's necessary to FoF->DF stun mobs...
Brain Freeze
Your Frost damage spells have a 4/8/12% chance to cause your next Frostfire Bolt spell to be instant cast, a critical strike, and cost no mana.
I would like to see an instant Frostfire Bolt either, but the sugested solution is not practicable, though Frostfire Bolt is not accessible before reaching lvl 75.
Additionally, frostmages are able to get about 14% crit by skilling FoF with 2 talentpoints, another 15% crit with 3 talent points would be overpowered.
An easy conclusion would be the following:
Brain Freeze
Your Frost damage spells have a 5/10/15% chance to cause your next Fireball or Frostfire Bolt spell to be instant cast and cost no mana.
10/28/08, 6:12 PM
