You can no longer put up Focus Magic and switch dual specs. If you do this, the FM buff will stay on your target after you switch, but will remove itself after they crit (i.e. instead of activating, it goes away).
It is like that on live too.
Edit: I missed Hinalover's answer on the nxt page.
If amplify magic is universally beneficial in a raid setting, then the followup question is why there's no group version with at least a 30 minute duration...
I think back in TBC it was when blizzard has stated that they don't intend to make raid wide version and/or 30min duration on this "already too awesome buff". From what I know/tested back in TBC as someone else said, AoE abilities will never be influenced by amplify/dampen, while the DD abilities will have a coefficient under 50% usually and DoTs having a coefficient of over 100%. So in other words the Fusion Punch should have it's damage increased by around 120 damage (for a normal amplify), and Sara's Blessing damage being increased by something around 240 damage. That is ofcourse if they didn't change it from TBC to WotLK.
I didn't test this stuff in WotLK, but I can say damage from Steel Breaker's aura, Vezax's Searing Flames, Mark of the Faceless or Animus's Profound Darkness aren't affected by amplify or dampen, so it is safe to use those for quite more healing in those particular fights.
I think back in TBC it was when blizzard has stated that they don't intend to make raid wide version and/or 30min duration on this "already too awesome buff". From what I know/tested back in TBC as someone else said, AoE abilities will never be influenced by amplify/dampen, while the DD abilities will have a coefficient under 50% usually and DoTs having a coefficient of over 100%. So in other words the Fusion Punch should have it's damage increased by around 120 damage (for a normal amplify), and Sara's Blessing damage being increased by something around 240 damage. That is ofcourse if they didn't change it from TBC to WotLK.
I didn't test this stuff in WotLK, but I can say damage from Steel Breaker's aura, Vezax's Searing Flames, Mark of the Faceless or Animus's Profound Darkness aren't affected by amplify or dampen, so it is safe to use those for quite more healing in those particular fights.
I'm intrigued by the information regarding how amplify does NOT affect incoming AoE damage, this is new to me and sets things in perspective. Could I ask you fellow Mages for a little breakdown on which Ulduar fights you use dampen/amplify on? Also, how can I test this myself to be positively certain that it works this way in current content?
I use amplify for the whole raid at Steel Breaker, Mimiron firefighter, Vezax hardmode, Freya 3 elders and algalon. I do amplify only on myself at pretty much all the other fights if they are hardmodes (can't be arsed to amplify 25 people every boss).
How I tested is simply check the damage at every hit with amplify, after I got hit 3-4 times, I buff myself dampen mid-fight and see if the average damages has a noticeable change (it should be a difference of around 480 (720 talented) which is quite noticeable). Ofcourse at fights like Thorim you have to go from try to try (if you wipe) and check the damage of chain lightning, lightning charge at each of his debuff stack, so for that one to be 100% accurate it takes some RNG and wipes. For the damage coefficient to be accurate you need to take alot of hits and I didn't do any tests for it.
I'm not sure if I am missing something here, but the Living Bomb on multiple targets change doesn't seem to be mentioned in the final PTR 3.2 patch notes. Was this removed? Can anyone summarize/predict what the main changes to Mage playstyle will be now? If this change has not made it to live, is it basically just a lot more Hot Streak pyros as a result of Living Bomb's dot proccing Hot Streak?
The last PTR build still allowed Living Bomb applications on multiple targets at a time. That change never made it to any of the patch note lists, but was present and confirmed to be a purposeful change to at least try out on the PTR. I'm assuming it will go Live since it was on the final PTR, but time will tell.
As for how it will change our playstyle, since the DPCT of Living Bomb is greater than Fireball but lower than an instant Pyro, putting Living Bomb on any target that will live 12 seconds and for which the damage is meaningful (e.g. not secondary targets on the Aseembly of Iron since they'll heal when the primary target dies anyway) will be a higher priority than Fireballs, but lower priority than using Hot Streak procs and maintaining Scorch stacks. Pretty simple in concept, though could be tricky to juggle in practice, depending on target count. The fourth boss of the 3.2 raid in particular (the Faction Champions encounter) should be very interesting for mages since there will be a lot of simultaneous targets, any of which can be dps'd at any time in any order (think third boss of Magister's Terrace, raid-sized).
Edit: Just downloaded the patch (it's available in the US right now) and it's build 10192, same as the final PTR build was. So Living Bomb should still be castable on multiple simultaneous targets. Enjoy!
Although it is true that secondary targets (like the mentioned council members) are not important, an application of Living Bomb is not just the damage from the spell but also an increase in the number of events that can proc Hot-Streak, and it's a significant number.
It might be debatable how much it's worth in terms of DPM if you only account for the secondary effect of proccing Hot-Streak.
Well, in a case like Council you have to completely ignore the damage from the spell itself, so you'd be losing a GCD just to gain potential Hot Streak proc events. Each living bomb cast is 5 of these potential proc events. If Living Bomb's crit rate on ticks is 60% (a bit below Fireball's, as we know, unless they fix the bug with World in Flames), then by the c^2/(1+c) formula, each Living Bomb proc event is approximately a 22.5% chance to proc Hot Streak. 5 of these is (rounded) 27.96% chance of no procs, 40.58% chance of exactly 1 proc, 23.57% chance of exactly 2 procs, 6.84% chance of 3 procs, 0.99% chance of 4 procs, and 0.06% chance of 5 procs. On average, about 1.125 procs per cast. Granted, this is a bit rough since these are intermingled with fireball crits of higher crit chance, and the fifth proc event is at 6% higher crit (for 3/3 WiF), but the damage contribution is still very minor against the target that matters (the only one whose damage won't heal right back up soon). For 1 proc per cast you basically get one pyro for the same cast time as a fireball (GCD + instant), and you expend pyro + LB mana instead of just fireball mana to do that damage (almost the same as just a fireball anyway). You get a bit more than 1 proc per cast, but the damage contribution is very poor, and this assumes no double (and thus wasted) procs mid-cast, as well. If Kavan's estimate of 25% wasted procs from the latest Rawr is correct, and that's just from one target's rolling Hot Streak events, figuring only 1 useful proc per cast instead of 1.125 from a second rolling Living Bomb seems fairly safe.
The only case where it might really be worth it to me is if the extra targets are tanked close enough to the main target that the explosions hit the main target (and/or many secondary targets, increasing the chance of the explosion procing Hot Streak significantly) and thus at least part of the LB damage itself is useful. And even then, the dpm of the extra damage done is abysmal, so it'd have to be a fight where running out of mana isn't a consideration.
Last edited by Xentropy : 08/04/09 at 10:48 AM.
Reason: Dumb mistake
Items with Triggered Effects: These items generally have cooldowns on how often they can be triggered. Those cooldowns are now triggered each time the item is equipped (example: A trinket has a 45-second cooldown on an effect triggered by player attacks; when a player equips that item, the effect will be unable to be triggered for the first 45 seconds it is worn).
Why, hello there! I've just discovered this one in the patch notes on MMO-Champion, I haven't seen it before nor seen it discussed. While it is a minor nerf if you've mastered trinket-switching every pull on trash or while grinding to stagger internal cooldowns, there is a very practical benefit to it for it.
You can do swap out and in all your items with relevant procs just before a fight to make sure that they are on cooldown when the fight starts but become triggerable 10-45 seconds into the fight when you can go all out and Bloodlust is popped.
This is however counterproductive if you'll lose a proc at the end of the fight if the end of the fight is as relevant as the beginning. It still seems powerful if you start with a Burn, or time the re-equip to have your cooldowns come back 10 seconds into the fight.
If I can get a confirmation for this, I'll add this to the front post and try to get some info about Amplify/Dampen Magic in it as well. Also, post/PM if things are still missing or outdated. I've done a few clean-ups already, but editing this huge post in editor-mode is like pulling teeth.
Originally Posted by Maje
Although it is true that secondary targets (like the mentioned council members) are not important, an application of Living Bomb is not just the damage from the spell but also an increase in the number of events that can proc Hot-Streak, and it's a significant number.
It might be debatable how much it's worth in terms of DPM if you only account for the secondary effect of proccing Hot-Streak.
I did some very rudimentary napkin math and came to the same conclusion as Xentropy. If all damage of the second Living Bomb is irrelevant, it's roughly a +/-0 thing while wasting quite some mana. Ignite ticking on the second target does return quite a bit of some mana however, so it's not so clear-cut. I reckon it is worth it if the explosion on your secondary target hits the first target as well, allowing for even more Hot Streak procs as well.
I'll wait for some proper Rawr/Simcraft results though before posting anything since there is definately no clear-cut best solution.
If Kavan's estimate of 25% wasted procs from the latest Rawr is correct, and that's just from one target's rolling Hot Streak events, figuring only 1 useful proc per cast instead of 1.125 from a second rolling Living Bomb seems fairly safe.
The 25% estimate was computed under 4T8 assumption. I'm guessing it is lower without 4T8, but I have not checked how much.
Actually this means that I'm overestimating the number of wasted procs. If I'm reading this right this says there were 41.5+8.8=50.3 procs of which 8.8 were wasted. This means only 17.5% of procs are wasted (or 16% without 4T8). I wonder where the difference comes from. I'm computing it as 1 - pyro casts/hot streak procs, but I don't think that is the cause. Could you post what was the ratio of Pyro/Fireball casts in your test?
EDIT: The output of Living Bomb is a bit confusing..... The initial cast and the explosion at the end are confusing the stat tracker into thinking there are double the number of casts. I'll work on that.
EDIT2: Updated with fix to Tier8 4pc proc rate and World-in-Flames as mentioned by Kavan.
Last edited by dedmonwakeen : 08/05/09 at 12:30 AM.
What does it mean when it says 3.4sec next to Fireball? Is that the cast time?
It seems overall your simulation is predicting a lot less hot streak procs than I am, which could explain why I'm predicting more wasted also.
One thing I noticed is that you're using the same crit rate for LB explosion and dot. The dot ticks don't benefit from World in Flames. Might be the root cause is in the crit rate somwhere. You have Fireball at 66% while I get it at 68.6%. I'll try to look at the buffs if there is some difference there.
EDIT: I just found an error in my code regarding LB dot crit rate in relation to hot streaks as well so I'll see what I get after I fix this.
Ok I think I've finally found the root cause. You're using 10% 4T8 proc rate while I'm using 25% proc rate.
Good catch. Thanks, Kavan. I'll get that fixed, re-run and edit my post.
EDIT: One other thing: When I run a single profile with "optimal_raid=1" and the Focus Magic talent they only get the feedback. When I simulate entire raids I usually put the FM Mages in a circle-jerk. Not sure if that helps account for the differences.
I don't have any formulas to justify this, but I was unable to have a steady flow of fireballs tonight due to hot streak procs back to back when I casted Living Bomb on all targets. It was odd to see hot streak proc over itself.
I particularly enjoyed the 2% mana back per ignite tick.
The Pally talent Judgements of the Just now applies its own separate debuff from the Judgement that caused it, making it much easier to tell when your target will take extra damage from Torment the Weak.
Originally Posted by Crowl
If you have to control a robot dinosaur that fires lazers and there's a time when you shouldn't be shooting those lazers then the encounter is clearly flawed beyond hope of fixing.
- Flame caps still share CD with healthstones, not with mana gems.
I have been munching these things down like crazy since I geared past the 2t7 bonus, and now it will be even more favorable to do so. I am not sure how I will keep supplied at this rate if I can user 2-3 per fight without cutting into my ability to mana gem.
I posted a question: how many targets does LB have to hit before LB outweighs Pyro? Enthron PMed me a link to a post by Manly from the FFB thread. I think it fits well here.
Originally Posted by manly
taking the default values from my spreadsheet:
spell
dpsc (fireball spec)
dpsc (ffb spec)
LB (1 target)
9683
9443
LB (2 targets)
13229
12904
LB (3 targets)
16775
16364
LB (4 targets)
20321
19825
LB (5 targets)
23867
23286
HS-pyro (no dots)
8937
8723
HS-pyro (4 pyro dots)
9972
9757
fireball
4932
-
ffb
-
4472
Now keep in mind that the LB numbers on extra adds assume the extra adds are equally debuffed. Also, keep in mind that hitting extra mobs with LB means more HS procs. For partially debuffed mobs, keep in mind that the numbers would go down by:
13% COE
12% TTW active (only affects fireball though)
5% scorch
I think the numbers speak for themselves. Even if you remove 13% from COE and 5% crit you still very much want to cast LB regardless on adds that aren't debuffed. The real tricky part will in fact be properly juggling HS-pyro and LB refreshes.
Second question, is it worth it to cancel a fireball cast in order to HS pyro? It feels that I'm munching a lot of HS procs, especially with 4pc t8.
Well I was about to post the updated spreadsheet yesterday, but I held out on it just to be sure numbers are more definite. If anything, the new 3.2 spreadsheet now directly displays LB for 1-5 targets.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff