What I meant was, given an average fight length X you gain more BF procs during that fight if you use haste over crit. Apart from the discussion about "extra casts" due to more haste which is superfluous due to the randomness of fight lengths, an average fight length X is a valid assumption (in particular, I wish Rawr would allow to set some Gaussian width on fight lengths). If you start from this point, you will get more BF procs with haste, but not more with crit. I agree with you, that if you average over all casts you wont have more procs per cast, but you will have more per time. As I tried to state in my previous post, it is not relevant if you do Y amount of damage in infinite time, but if you do it in XX seconds, because the boss will die at some point. I mean, that is the point, we compare dps and not total damage.
So if I can do A damage in 60s with lots of crits and B>A damage in 60s with less crits what would be the equip of choice?
Furthermore, never underestimate the value of smoother dps output. You need to leave less headway concerning aggro and can probably start full dps earlier. Because you do not have to fear 300+% scaling critstreaks which may force you to pause casting because you hit the aggrolimit early.

Yes, that's how I would wanna look at numbers for dps comparison between specs/gear/etc. as well.

But when you apply a time frame to a DPS value, you are comparing total damage.

DPS = Damage Done / Time Period

When you require the fight to happen over 10 minutes, you have a definitive 60 * 10 * DPS = Total Damage value. When you extend it over a theoretical infinite sampling you are comparing just DPS, since you end up with.

DPS = Damage Done / Infinite Timeline

Which is really an abstract number, and since both Damage Done and the Infinite timeline cannot be compared directly, but their infinities effectively cancel eachother for purposes of comparison in DPS. When we average out effects like Hit and Crit we create this effectively infinite timeline. When we limit our time period to a X second fight for purposes of cooldown/proc uptimes, we still have an effectively infinite sampling since we are then assuming that instead of over an infinite time, we have a finite fight repeated infinite times.

This, however, may be a non-issue given the mechanics of Mirror Image. I've only had threat problems when I encounter abnormal procs of Hot Streak. Things like 2x scorch criticals -> hot streak -> fireball crit -> pyroblast -> fireball crit -> fireball -> pyroblast can pull large amounts of threat. But, 30 seconds into a fight, a tank has built up such a substantial lead in threat that even if I am remotely close to pulling aggro, I can use invisibility and forget about threat for the rest of the fight.

This is contrast to pre-3.0, at least in my experiences. I never had threat problems in Hyjal, but against Gorefiend, for instance, I would be riding the threat tail very closely, so much so that even dropping 50k threat wasn't both worth the time or the practicality. That is, sometimes I would give my tank a 15-20k threat lead, we would immediately pop bloodlust then, and I would end up right behind in threat, being forced to use invisibility. This wasn't enough though, I would soon be right back at the top. Now, I never once pulled aggro, but if the same threat system was used now, with hot streak and burnout, I most certainly would.

But, threat seems to be a non-issue except for freak RNG events, which on most bosses, Mirror Image would seem to be grand opener. Sure, the threat is returned, but as it's been suggested, we should just pop invisibility at 27 seconds.

Ok, I've been looking at a lot of the lvl 80 builds you guys have been posting, and my one concern is Torment of the Weak. I was specifically looking at the 20/51/0 spec that you guys use in your SimCraft. In our guild, we are going to have a fire mage (myself) and at least one elementalist/frost mage. Our only true Arcane mage has decided to quit the game as of tomorrow, so we don't have a mage with the Slow talent. What other talents from any class would enable the "Snare" affect in TotW to kick in so that we get the extra 12% damage? If there is no other, I might as well take out those 3 points and put them elsewhere. Only one that I can think of is Chill, but I'm not sure if that works on bosses or not.

If you don't care about DPS, you can spec what you want.
If you do care, you spec FFB.

More info on Torment might be well hidden in the Original Post.
Hint: Look for a paragraph in bold. Subtle, I know.

Speaking of Talent Builds...

Before v3.0.2 was released, there were several posts about Talent Builds and Simulation breakdowns of the DPS.
There was much discussion and related numbers concerning 11/50/0, 0/53/8, 0/50/11, etc.
To go along with that, there were many Bar Graphs, charts, and spell rotation information.

WotLK will be released in 36 Hours, and so far the only Level 80 chart or DPS breakdown I have seen is 20/51/0.

I was hoping to see some additional information, Charts, etc. Thanks.

Should your Rate-my-WotLK spec link be updated? It seems to indicate FFB is inferior to Fire and Frost. I'm kind of new here and am trying to wrap my head around all the math, so correct me if I missed something.

As i understand it current ffb mechanics indicate that burnout and iceshards will affect it. Is this true? Ive been scouring these forums all morning looking for charts and math for hints on a 0/51/20 build using ffb as a nuke weaving lb. Also read somewhere that ffb dot refreshes every cast and by alternating ranks u get two dots and a substantial damage increase over the course of a fight. Again all this is pulled from forums and excitement. Can anyone confirm? Any insight to the viability of this not so elemental build?

This may be the closest you get that I have seen in recent post which show some specs.... i hope this helps some.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t30655-m...part_two/p111/

I think the confusion here is that Haste is a pure multiplicative factor. If your normal damage would be 10% higher with haste, then your Brain Freeze damage will be 10% higher with haste. The amount of haste you have is irrelevant to the ratio of increase in damage. Thus, it is completely irrelevant when discussing the mechanics or value of Brain Freeze, because it does not affect BF any differently than it affects all other damage unless you are GCD capped (520ish haste) on your fireball.

This is almost true of Crit as well, because Crit rating will affect your Frostfire bolt and your Fireball nearly identically. But it's not exactly Crit that really matters... it is average damage. Specifically, the comparison between the damage a Frostfire bolt does, and a Fireball, with the talents you have.

If your average Frostfire does 3000 damage in 2.5 seconds (remember, haste is unimportant since it affects both equally), and Fireball does 2500 damage in 1.5 seconds (because it is instant), then we can easily compare the DPS increase we get by using a Fireball.

3000/2.5 == 1200 dps
2500/1.5 ~= 1667 dps

With a 15% proc rate, that gives us a fireball about once every 18.17 seconds, after factoring in the casting time of the fireball. So we have 1200dps for 16.67 seconds, and 1667dps for 1.5 seconds, leading to an overall dps of 1238.5dps, or about a 3.21% increase in DPS due to BF.

Any talents or stats which affect the DPS of both the fireball and the frostfire bolt equally (as a percentage, not as an absolute number) will not have any affect on the value of BF. Any talents or abilities which affect one more than the other will improve BF (if it helps the Fireball more) or hurt BF (if it helps the Frostfire more). However, the difference would have to be VERY significant. If a change gives 1% more damage to Fireball, and 2% more damage to Frostfire, the result is:

3060/2.5 == 1224dps
2500/1.5 ~= 1683dps
overall ~= 1261.9dps
So in this hypothetical scenario with a stat that was TWICE as helpful to Frostfire (as a percentage), the value of BF went from 3.21% down to 3.09%, barely over one tenth of one percent change to overall DPS. Most stats will help Frostfire and Fireball nearly equally. A stat that affected one twice as much as the other would be very unusual. So my conclusion is that for all practical purposes, Brain Freeze can be considered a flat % increase unless your stats or talents are wildly divergent from normal.

Thanks, that does have some useful information.

It would be extremely beneficial if there was input from several sources so we can all make the best decision for own gear, preference, etc.


I Agree.

New Thread for New Expansion.

Noooooooo ......

I was so hoping to reach the 10k post mark in the two Mage WotLK threads together

HELP What Spec?
Fixed my Signature, there's been some pretty ancient stuff in it.

Also, a new Rawr will likely come out within a day or two for level 80 stats and all.
I'm mostly looking forward to how mana will look like for 5 minute fights.

That is Patchwerk's berserk timer and most other DPS focused fights seem to be in that ballpark.

Quick question(s).

Wasn't sure if all the information on the first page was correct, was wondering if EP 3/3 still gives 6%+ chance to hit for Frostfire Bolt, or if it was "fixed"?

Also was wondering if any other information regarding TTW has been found, whether other "snare" effects can apply to the talent, perhaps something by another class?

Any information regarding these matters would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Is this still current and up to date, or have people found out more about the workings of Torment the Weak?

Main points im interested in really is -

1. Is Torment the Weak still not working when specced into Molten Fury?
2. Is slow the only reliable way to trigger the effects of Torment the Weak, or do spells such as frostfire bolt, mind flay, etc trigger it now aswell on bosses?

I've tried searching for these answers, but mostly come up with untested results, or one person saying one thing and another saying the opposite. Any help with this would be wonderful thankyou

From the front page...
Are the bold numbers correct, or am I missing something ... +59sp for rare gems and +49sp for epic?

1. TtW was broken, when I tested it, w/MF for spells that applied the "mod speed slow" aura, and didn't have the mechanic flag set to "ensnared". I.E. Worked with Slow (has mechanic flag set to Ensnared), but not with the frostbolt chill effect when MF was involved.
2. Slow is effectively, the only spell/ability that can trigger TtW currently on almost all bosses.

My current theory is that a spell/debuff has to apply the "mod speed slow" aura. In addition, to some other secondary effect that can hit the boss, in order for TtW to work. This is easily testable by testing the only other ability I found that meets these conditions - Waylay - Spell - World of Warcraft.

Any particular reason the socketed Jewelcrafting Trinkets aren't considered a bonus? As far as I can tell only the JC BoP trinkets have sockets.

Ninja-linked!

Also worked some more on the Original Post.

What were the bugs/issues with pushbck protection and Burning Soul/Icy Veins/Frostfire Bolt exactly.
I never found out exactly when and how it breaks, and if it's only Frostfire Bolt or not or just some of the issues with it and some with all spells.

@ Fujisaw

If I remembe correctly, IW counts as snare towards TtW, however, I have not tested it on bosses, because all our ferals do not have it in their raid-spec.


@ Muphrid

My way to calculate FoF is as follows:

Frostbolt spam dps is D1, crit scaling is 2, critchance c, haste z, E1 average damage of non-crit frostbolt.

D1=(1+z)[0.9*[(1-c)*E1+2c*E1]+0.1[(1-c-0.5)*E1+2(c+0.5)*E1]]/2.5
D1=(1+z)(1+c)*E1/2.5

realtive stat increases (below critcap) are thus absolutely equal

D1*/D1 = 1+ dz/(1+z) = 1+ dc/(1+c)

The former is usually larger than the latter due to 2 things.
a) you generally have lower amount of z than of c
b) dc is smaller than dz for equal iLvl-increase

I thought it through twice, but maybe I overlooked something...

Hello,

First of all, i'm french so i apologize if i made mistakes in writing this post.
I was discussing with a mage from my server this morning, and we have a question about the threat reduction of frostfire bolt.
Is it affected by both agro reduction talents (burning soul and frost channeling) or just one of them?
I also wonder if the ignite from a frostfire bolt is only affected by burning soul only?(in case frostfire bolt is affected by both talents).

Thanks for your answers


Edit : the information is in page 1 : only one of the two talents reduce the threat, even if we have both.

However is the dot(ignite) threat affected by frost channeling too? (what type of damage does ignite? fire or frostfire?)

Most likely not.

I wouldn't worry about having double threat reducing talents anyway, threat is not really an issue at the moment.