I didnt exactly know what build the 3.0.8 mode was based on and what changes it implemented, but i tried it out with 18/53/0 and it seems to beat 0/53/18 by a lot.

Yeah you're right, I thought as a frostfire mage, who hasn't any mana problems.

I'm raiding as a frostfire mage atm, with 2/3 MoE and I've no mana issue.

But as a fire mage, I totally forgot to consider that mana consommation is bigger than as a frostfire.

That's one for mine, sry ^^

Would you care to back your statements up with some evidence, or are we to believe this is so simply because you "tried it out"?

OK, so I used Rawr (2.1.6) in 3.0.8 mode, simulating a 300s raid-buffed fight with a latency of 0.05, a snared time of 1 and a focus magic rate of 0.2.
First up: 0/53/18 (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft) with 2888 spellpower, 681 haste rating, 262 hit rating and 410 crit rating which resulted in 6019.50 DPS
Secondly: 18/53/0 (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft -> probably not perfect but close) with 2855 spellpower, 638 haste, 341 hit rating and 445 crit rating (this needs more hit so I swapped out some pieces) and got 6476.87 DPS
The gear is top-notch heroic raid gear with rare (not those imaginary epic) spellpower & spellpower/crit gems and 3 JC BoP spellpower gems (Dragon Eyes) in blue slots.

I would absolutely love to see how you managed 6019 and 6476 DPS. Furthermore, you're stating a difference of 457 DPS. Unless something has dramatically changed in the calculations from Rawr 2.1.4 to 2.1.6, I don't see how you could increase the DPS by as much as you have done, when my own findings in Rawr (which have been mirrored by other players as well) have shown a difference of some 193 DPS (see my signature).

That's really two questions for you... how have you increased Frostfire (0.53.18) by 192, and Fireball (18.53.0) by 456, and how have you increased Fireball by such a large margin over Frostfire?

What is particularly interesting about this is that I've never had anyone message me asking why the DPS I have listed in those gear charts is as low as it is, but I've had several ask how it is as high as it is. And yet I've taken all of the necessary steps to make sure things are accurate (that means things like changing Illustration of the Dragon Soul to 180 instead of 260 spell power, and making sure Rawr isn't enchanting your offhand with 63 spell power, or using inscription shoulder enchants when you already have jewelcrafting and enchanting professions).

There we have the first reason. I edited it myself in a previous version, but I install each rawr version in its own directory, so I forgot to edit the trinket in the newest version's item cache.
Also, my raidbuffed setting includes "Heroic Presence" (saw in your thread that yours doesn't).
New numbers are as follows:
0/53/18 = 5895.36 dps (w/o heroic presence: 5836.40)
18/53/0 = 6344.95 dps (w/o heroic presence: 6281.50)
Closer to your findings.

I believe this was already covered several times within the thread: FFB and Fire/Arc are competitive (within ~5%). Fire/Arc consumes more mana. FFB is easier to AOE with (Blizzard).

Losing the double-dipped hit isn't going to swing things either way since FFB already had the option of ignoring the double-dip anyway for Living Bomb and Scorch.

Enthorn: It would be nice if you can make an attachement of the Rawr xml of your gear-setups (need to zip them first). I get somewhat different findings when using Rawr.

My personal 'Shopping-list' for FB-spec hits 6121 DPS on a three minute fight. It's assuming best raid buffs, no heroic presence, maintain scorch and no Focus Magic. Not sure If I've missed something or if we've setup the fights different but a XML might prove my list or yours better.

I'll attach mine and we can compare.

I will update it later Praanz. The difference is that I've never made any claims about the supposed DPS of Frostfire and Fireball specs, only the theoretical best combination of equipment. I've stated several times that the DPS I have listed is merely there as a reference point, not as an accurate number. There are so many buffs and variables within Rawr, it would be asinine to say that everyone should be able to load up that equipment and get the same results.

Furthermore, the DPS numbers themselves for each spec hardly matter. At question was never how much DPS either Frostfire or Fireball spec could do. That topic has been discussed thoroughly already. What was asked, though, was whether or not Fireball is capable of higher sustained DPS than Frostfire. And while that topic as well has been discussed, the reported numbers raise an eyebrow.

Korrigan is showing that Rawr was listing Fireball as being 7.6% ahead of Frostfire. My own numbers, that others have said they were able to confirm, show Fireball at about 3.2% ahead of Fireball. Because I'm at work, I don't have access to Rawr, and therefore cannot look at the discrepancies.

Yes, well I only posted about FB-spec and its gear rather than the differance between FFB and FB. Since your signature says optimal I was interested to see if we've used different settings or if we're on same terms.

Anyhow Korrigan, and anyone posting Rawr-numbers, should attach their post posting his Rawr-XML's for reference. Makes alot easier to see where the numbers come from.

Can't attach anything in the forum so here you go:

EDIT: URL removed. Outdated.

The reason FB is consistent in it's output (ie, has a small SD) is not at all because of the high base. It's because it has a much lower crit modifier, meaning that for a given (statistically flat) sample less of it's bulk represents damage caused due to crit. Which in turn means that when Crit is RNG'd into appearing too low, it'll penalize the spec less.

I don't understand your statement of "Its base damage is so high that Ice Shards still doesn't match the crit damage of Fireball.". Are you implying a FFB crit will be smaller than a FB crit? In any spec FFB's base damage is less than FB's. Also, in any spec, FB will have a higher crit rate than FFB (due to the glyph). Finally, the spellpower-compounding effect of Improved Fireball is superior to that of the FFB glyph (the +2%damage part). Thus If a FB crit was always bigger than a FFB crit, it follows that any FFB spec is always less DPS than any FB spec, and by a non-trivial margin too. This is not the case.

And because RNG is getting bad publicity a little too much lately, FFB does not rely on "insane" crit numbers, it relies on "stable" ones. Relying on "insane" crits insinuates it relies on unrealistically high values, which it doesn't.

Numbers taken straight from Rawr:

At 2711 spell power in an 18.53.0 build:
Fireball non-crit: 6,072.22 - 6,442.69
Fireball critical: 15,682.42 - 16,639.22
Crit rate is 60.16%

At 2709 spell power in a 0.53.18 build.
Frostfire Bolt non-crit: 4,776.15 - 4,936.72
Frostfire Bolt critical: 15,979.31 - 16,516.53
Crit rate is 57.91%

At 4331 spell power:
Fireball non-crit: 8,889.34 - 9,259.81
Fireball critical: 22,958.04 - 23,914.84

At 4329 spell power:
Frostfire Bolt non-crit: 7,034.65 - 7,195.22
Frostfire Bolt critical: 23,535.47 - 24,072.69

At 20,531 spell power:
Fireball non-crit: 37,060.48 - 37,430.95
Fireball critical: 95,714.25 - 96,671.05

At 20,529 spell power:
Frostfire Bolt non-crit: 29,619.67 - 29,780.24
Frostfire Bolt critical: 99,097.04 - 99,634.27

As you can see Bombdigie, your statements concerning ice shards and scaling aren't exactly accurate. Fireball spec does pull ahead in overall DPS, in current optimal gear, but the lines begin to cross as crit rate increases, and gradually Frostfire spec overtakes it.

Can someone please confirm this for me:

Haste from gear = 10%

With raid buffs of Haste Totem and Moonkin the calculation =

1.1 * 1.03 * 1.05 = 1.1897

New PTR update:



- Arcane Subtlety now Reduces the chance your helpful spells and damage over time effects will be dispelled by 15/30% and reduces the threat caused by your Arcane spells by 20/40%. (Old - Reduced the chance of dispell on all spells)

- Incanter's Absorption now has an additional effect: Total spell damage increase cannot exceed 5% of your health.


- Glyph of Invisibility -- Increases the duration of the Invisibility effect by 10 sec. (Up from 5 seconds)

Actually his statements are true a little bit. Beacuse in your example above , i calculated at %80 crit rate , FFB does 10k more and i guess at %78 ish crit rate they will make the same output. So bombdigie made a point , even at the unreachable SP values with %78 crit FB beats FFB and lower SP values do the favor to FB even at higher crit rates. Your statement will be true with %90+ crit rates but believe me you cant have %90 crit rate while having 20530 SP. You should turn some SP into crit rate or vice versa at real gear issues.

His point is , at reliable SP and Crit lvls without depending on humangouslucky RNG , FB beats FFB.
i.e. At 2710 SP (again with your numbers) FFB needs %94,15+ Crit rate to beat FB.

I know you did not mean that FFB is better than FB spec. But i tried to show even at enormous SP and Crit lvls the statement is still true. ( <%90 crit rates ofc. )

( I calculated these with your numbers and examples so all mistakes at you Enthorn's Rawr , sorry for that )

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - New Dispel Resistance mechanic

Essentially yes. CC is no longer subject to dispel resistances.

Found another "bug": The default Rawr 2.1.6 item cache has "Embrace of the Spider" with 98 Spell Power, 505 Spell Haste proc AND 84 haste rating extra.
And, according to the newest PTR, "Illustration of the Dragon Soul" goes up to 200 from 180.
With the same rawr outlines as before (read above posts) and the same rawr xmls I now get:

0/53/18: 5827.39 dps (with heroic presence and oh one thing did change: Embrace of the Spider was replaced by Sundial of the Exiled)
18/53/0: 6269.76 dps (again with heroic presence, but no gear changes)

Still nearly 7.6% better? Let me know, if you find flaws in the xmls (or in Rawr )

My own spreadsheet (on the ffb thread first post) suggests also bigger and better numbers with 18/53/0. And it doesn't takes into account the extra 3% given to someone else, so the numbers are even higher in reality.

in fact, the rough values (remember, those are without any cooldowns, but still gives a good idea)

spell	0/53/18 dps	18/53/0 dps
ffb	4249	3645
lb	6647	6732
hs pyro	8526	8734
fb	3200	4718

So, I saw a lot of talk about Arcane in 3.0.8 post patch notes, but it seems to have slipped away as the Fireball vs. FFB discussion has ramped up.

I've read somewhere on these forums that the AB glyph does infact give 5% to each stack, so it works out at 20%/40%/60% more damage per stack.

Like some of the community here, I'm a little tired of my dps fluctuating wildly, and I'd rather be a solid number that is a few % under max possible FFB/FB than a spec which can be amazing one week, and relatively poor the next week.

To this end, I'm been thinking of speccing Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for some variety (having raided Fire TBC and FFB WoTLK).

I'm not so hot with the maths, but I was wondering if, with the glyph confirmed (on the PTR at least) as being 5% per stack, where does Arcane sit now in terms of spec? And even if it is below FB/FFB, is the SD on the crit dependent specs enough that Arcane could be viable as a dependably high dps spec, even if not the max possible spec?

I was not in any way addressing the DPS of the specs, nor the crit rates obtainable. It should be clear that Fireball spec will have a higher crit rate. It gains 3% from Focus Magic, with a consistent uptime, and an additional 3% (comparitively to FFB) from its glyph. What I was doing though was addressing his statement on scaling. His statement was that its "base damage is so high that Ice Shards still doesn't match the crit damage of Fireball."

This has nothing at all to do with the crit rate, it has to do with the crit multiplier. Yes, we all know Fireball has a higher base damage. One can look at the tooltips to see this. However, that is neither here nor there, as his statement, and my numbers, have little to do with the output (the total damage) of FB versus FFB over any course of time.

Discussing "reliable numbers" contradicts the part about "scaling." And I and others have known for quite some time that 18.53.0 is superior to 0.53.18. The problem was that Torment the Weak required a slave Arcane mage to keep Slow up. And two Frostfire mages were superior to an Arcane and a Fireball mage. On top of that were the bugs associated with speccing into Molten Fury and its interaction with Torment the Weak.

I'll just say that when I reply to a comment in somewhat of 'disbelief,' I am not necessarily disagreeing with its validity. I'm asking for clarification, for something to show what's behind the numbers. Making a post saying, "This spec does this much DPS and this spec does this much DPS" adds absolutely nothing to a thread. Nor do statements about one spell scaling better than another. If you don't provide details, then all it appears as is guesses, things you heard from someone, or things you've noticed from experience.

Don't forget your dps will fluctuate as arcane too depending on the amount of missile barrage procs you get. Not as much as frostfire granted.

I can think of very few occasions were pushback while raiding has been a problem. 5 points for pushback protection is a lot when there are only a couple of fights you'll ever see benefit from it.