My question was more whether or not it will stack with ice shards if they ever fix the burnout bug, because when FFB crits, it's treated as frost, and a change to burnout will make burnout not affect FFB, excluding frost-resistant bosses like sarth. Ice shards reads the same way, 100% crit bonus to 'frost spells', and by your logic shouldn't affect FFB at all, when it clearly does through testing.

@ Willem11, FFB is definitely calculated as either frost or fire, not both simultaneously, which is why I'm concerned about a potential burnout fix. Sarth is resistant to frost, which is why FFB mages do worse on that fight, hence why I think it's entirely possible there may be more to come.

remove please

I think it's safe to say that the latest PTR build was a huge step backwards in terms of bugs etc. Bad builds happen and I guess it's OK as long as they test builds and not release builds.

Do you have any evidence to back this up? I've never experienced abnormal frostfire resistance on sarth. Nor, for that matter, have I even seen frostfire behave exclusively to either frost or fire. I have had plenty of casts that proc ignite, frostbite, gain the crit bonus of ice shards , master of elements and (when I had it spec'd) also proc impact. Against frost immune mobs my combat log shows frostfire as dealing frostfire and gaining ice shards crit bonus, likewise on fire immune mobs it has clearly dealt frostfire damage and attempted to ignite the target (of course they are immune to ignite, but if the spell were being treated as frost it wouldn't even attempt to proc).

Are you sure you aren't casting frostbolts?

From what I've read over on MMO:

You can still Blink while stunned or rooted. In its current form you will, however, Blink around 20 yards further than before but NOT clear the stun or root. So for example, if you Blinked from a Frost Nova you'd Blink 20 yards further than normal but you would still be under the effects of Frost Nova wherever you blinked.

What worries me is that these bugs usually mean the ability or something connected to it is being tweaked.

Sorry, but, do you know which boss Sartharion is? I am entirely sure that Sartharion is not resistant, in any way, to frost damage. On one Sarthion fight, 4.5% of my Frostfire damage (FYI, Frostfire is treated as Frostfire) was mitigated, which fits perfectly in line with the innate magical damage resistance bosses have.

In particular though:

20:37'52.030 Mirror Image #1 Frostbolt hits Sartharion for 365 Frost. (41 Resisted)
20:37'52.170 Mirror Image #3 Frostbolt hits Sartharion for 406 Frost.

I have a hard time believing anything else you are saying when you've so blatantly misspoke about other things.

The damage of ffb gets calculated as frostfire damage and deals damage as either fire or frost depending on the kind of mob it hits.

Preformance issues on sapphiron are most likely due to wearing resistance gear and the fight is quite decurse/moving heavy.

Enthorn - I just wanted to come here to say things for your comments about the scorch/winter's chill/ISB issue.

I'm very interested to see what's coming down the road - I think Ghostcrawler's starting to see the problems Manly's been very vocal about (and for some time) as they're starting to be glaringly apparent.

As for "bring the player not the class" - I think my explanation is fairly decent below. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Something else to consider

Parissa, you make a valid point but I'm afraid that GC is thinking of "better player" differently. Better player to him is not doing 10% more DPS, especially if your class is a different class. A better player is someone that doesn't stand in the fire (TM), someone that shows up ready to raid and doesn't ninja afk, someone who knows the strat days before the scheduled raid, someone that doesn't question the raid leaders strat during the middle of a wipe causing chaos, etc.

Do I agree with GC? Not really. We cull the people that aren't like "better players" from our guild pretty quickly. We are then left with good players and it does come down to buffs and DPS and similar metrics.

I just don't know if GC understands/sees it that way.

GC has previously stated that he realizes this model breaks down at the high end.

I know I was frustrated when we wanted to get a shaman in for our 10-man Mimiron kill on the PTR yesterday and I had to sit someone -- and I ended up sitting myself because I didn't get any volunteers and, in absence of volunteers, sitting one of the two mages was better (and I was leaving the house in 45 minutes anyways -- unfortunately they got him two pulls later, so if I'd stayed I still could've left in time!)

But that's just how things are going to be. If your players are sufficiently skilled then it *is* going to come down to questions like:

- who brings a buff you don't have
- ranged versus melee
- fight-specific details (is dotting multiple adds an advantage? overpowered AE abilities? handling mana drains gracefully?)

In this case I could sit the dps warrior who was OT'ing adds for us. The Feral Druid whose abilities are so OP right now that even with the hotstreak bug and even with somewhat poor cat gear he was topping the meters. Or me or the other mage.


I don't think Blizzard can or necessarily should make it so these things don't matter because that's arguably going too far in the class homogenization direction. I do think there's an argument that some buffs are still 'too strong', but I actually think the direction is duplicating them across more classes rather than weakening them.

Creating group synergy allows them to keep, say, damage lower for pvp, but still allow raid groups successful synergy.

The problem shows up in 10-mans almost exclusively because WoW has so many classes and many buffs are provided by relatively few classes.

I think there may be some interesting stresses in 10-man Ulduar hard mode if there are fights which flat out require having some ranged (or some melee), given that to do a 'hard mode' you often need to go exclusively ranged or melee just to be able to sufficiently buff everyone.

I meant to say sapph but said sarth (Hooray dyslexia!)

Does my post make more sense now? Sapph has been proven to be highly resistant to frost, I don't think I need to post any numbers on that subject.

I was under the impression that FFB only applied ignite because it was coded to regardless of the type of damage it dealt, but still only does one type of damage. I could very well be wrong, but I was under that impression because Sapph (almost said sarth again) does cause a significant dps loss to FFB, whereas if the damage were frostfire, we likely wouldn't see that drop.

So, instead of nitpicking and harping one word, can anyone actually answer my question? I wouldn't mind your mockery at all if you had actually answered my question.

Just in case you forgot what the question was: Does anyone know if the burnout bug has been recognized by blizzard; or do you think they're taking an approach similar to the BC elemental precision bug where the talent added 6% hit to frost instead of 3% and are just going to let it be. I've not seen any blue posts about it in my searchings. If such a fix were to occur, does someone with a more intricate knowledge of how FFB works to say if the fix would affect max crits on a normal boss. My argument would be yes, based on my assumption that FFB deals either frost or fire damage, and not frostfire damage, and hence a fix to burnout would cause most FFB crits to go down.

Edit: spelling

Fimally got embrace of the spider tonight but didnt realise it also doesnt proc of Blizzard - is this a known bug?

hello there ,
would you tell me if arcane will stay the same place on dps meter after 3.1 or i start to fix my gear for fireball spc ? thanks
Ps:i kept the post as short as possible my English isn't that good

Too soon to tell completely, but as it stands now the changes to mana ought to hit arcane harder than fire which is in turn harder than frostfire.

I think it's in the same class of problems as [Illustration of the Dragon Soul]. I knew of it, but I don't remember if I have reported it. The issue is more likely to be in the blizzard & rain of fire spells than in the trinkets, so if the spells are fixed (or the trinket mechanic related to those spells), both trinkets should start working. Blizzard has stated that they are looking into the rain of fire issue with the trinket, which of course doesn't mean that it will be fixed...

Strangely, the Sundial does proc on blizzard.

Yes. One thread is specifically about 3.1, and only contains information regarding 3.1, the other is an on-going compendium with a maintained FAQ-1st post, which currently happens to be between 3.08 and PTR3.1.

You could argue we should remove the "Upcoming 3.1" thread, but once 3.1 is up, it'll be redundant anyway.

The real problem with both threads is that they're full of mages eager to sink their teeth into amazing new theorycraft, yet all we've got to work with is the iSC/WC change (which wasn't strictly a mage-change) and the craptacular new glyphs, which are either "it's good and so it's a given I'll use it." (LB), "As if I'd spend a glyph on THAT" (MI) or "good idea, badly needs more work." (IL).

What both threads need is some mage changes. Blizz mentioned an intention of 3.1 going live at the start of April. With several classes having been through two or three cycles of changes, I can't help wondering if we'll get sufficient time to fix our own issues.

Edit: On the issue of MI glyph. Even assuming it is a "new" WC that stacks above and beyond the existing one, giving us a minor unique buff. Why is my buff dependant on a spell that has a high chance of not surviving? How often have you had your MI's killed by void-zones, or some other ambient AoE. If the Glyph made their Frostbolt grant 1% crit, stacks x5, lasts 30sec, then I'd consider it. But at 15sec Duration, you're risking having a few cast, then MI's die, ending with a totally uninspiring +4% crit for 19sec. Hardly worth a glyph. Not to mention you won't be able to use MI as an agro-dump any more, because if you de-sync it from it's intended Raid effect (Bloodlust, 35%HP et al) then what's the point?

It's not so much that the effect isn't enough, as it is a question of what it'll replace? In 3.1 (as far as we know) we'll be wearing Glyph of FFB/FB, HS, and Molt.Arm. The weakest is the MA glyph, but is an unreliable raid-wide crit debuff better than a permanent 2% self-crit? It's also unlikely for the Frostmage, who'll have to wear IL, FrB and WE glyphs. The only mage who'll be able to consider it will be the Arcane, who apart from AB glyph gains only minor DPS increase from other glyphs, including AM, Molt.Arm. and AP glyph.

Hi guys long time reader, first time poster. I have a quick question about TTW.
I know that you need to slow down the boss to get the 12% buff. The question is if the tanks, Death knights, Pallies, Druids, Warriors have to spec into any talent for the debuff to take effect. I am asking because last night I went TTW for the first time and my dps was not that impressive in comparison to FFB spec and from what I hear FB is suppose to be superior. My crits as FFB are always over 10k and my FB crits most of them did not even reach 10k.

As FFB I am at 2.2k spell damage, 57% crit(this is fully raid buffed) FFB and hit capped, haste at 410. As TTW/FB, 2.2k+ damage, 56% crit(this is fully raid buffed) FB and .50% away from hit capped, haste over 470. But I don’t seem to pull away on the dps from FFB.

Thank you in advance

Frost fever provided by any death knight (and every DK should be applying it) will activate TTW damage bonus, regardless of the DKs talent spec.

<edit> I posted this as a quick reply to the post that currently appears after this one. How my post got in before it beyond me.

In short Yes for all classes except warriors. They have to be specced either Improved Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, or Judgements of the Just.

Long answer - Paladins/druids/DKs get the debuff automatically in their rotation. Warriors must thunderclap. If you have a warrior tanking and not keeping up thunderclap, you will not gain the 12% damage buff.

Also, keep in mind that a comparison between TTW fire and FFB specs have to take into account the damage of the noncrits. Noncrits I do almost 1.5x as much damage with my Fireballs than I do with my FFBs.

Thank you so much for the answer the pally that was tanking last night did not take the talent. He says is to generate more threat, we have been having threat issues on the past . Ill ask him to respec.

Yeah. The % of total damage done with crits in FFB build is significantly higher than a FB build. This, among other reasons, is why a frostfire spec should be your focus magic buddy over an arc/fire (or any other class/spec). Nobody gets more out of crits than frostfire, and their noncrit damage is scaled down to compensate.

The issue with your tank not taking Judgements of the Just (or not judging at all) is a hidden drawback to both arc/fire and arcane builds. The 12% damage you get with the debuff on is baked into the dps scaling for those specs. Whenever you don't get it, for any reason (party composition including an off-spec tank, fight dynamics--needing to kill slimes instead of boss on Grobbulus for example, most aoe situations, warrior tanks that aren't getting hit hard enough to bother slowing the enemy attack speed), you will underpeform a frostfire build.

OK understood but Pheroz and Ash2ash say two differnet things. Do DKs have to get the talent or not.