I wonder if Bornakk made a typo, or they really did just swap the 2pc and 4pc bonuses.
This also shows MI really is intended to be a burst cooldown in Icecrown. Or they are trying to make it more of a decision. As in, you can either save mirror on Hodir for when you're about to blow past the tank (threat management), or you can use it during XT's Heart Phase to get bonus damage (damage cooldown).
Something tells me the pendulum just swung waay far in favor of mage tier set upgrades and will probably swing back a little bit.
I'm a little unclear on the 4 piece bonus though, does that mean the cooldown on mirror image is reduced to 30 seconds or that the length of time that the bonus lasts is now 30 seconds?
Something tells me the pendulum just swung waay far in favor of mage tier set upgrades and will probably swing back a little bit.
I'm a little unclear on the 4 piece bonus though, does that mean the cooldown on mirror image is reduced to 30 seconds or that the length of time that the bonus lasts is now 30 seconds?
Judging by the way he said it, it appears he was just giving us new numbers to stick in the old tooltip.
So the new tooltip would read:
Your Mirror Image ability also causes you to deal 18% additional damage for 30 seconds.
Likely they will not tie it to the actual mirrors and just make it a 30 second buff on the mage to prevent losing the buff prematurely due to mirrors that love fire.
2 set bonus - wating for more in depth TC
4 set - MI lasts 30 seconds for the duration you get a buff of 18% to all the damage you do; looks to be 3% dps increase on a 6m fight, not accounting for CD stacking when you're arcane or under 35% when fire. So apart from us having to relearn what MI is for, looks like a solid bonus.
Mage 2 piece bonus – Hot Streak, Missile Barrage and Brain Freeze grant 12% haste for 5 sec.
Is a great revision of the original concept. That should mean you have at least 3 seconds to cast your next two Arcane Blasts at the hasted value, assuming your Mbarr-AM takes ~1.6-1.9 seconds to cast (depending on your gear).
A concern for some mages (particulary Arcane) will still be how often this proc is wasted during high haste periods. (IV, Hero, Scale type trinkets, future gear upgrades with increasing haste levels). Unfortunately modelling that mathematically is a bit out of my league, but i'm looking forward to reading what Kavan (and others!) conclude.
4 set - MI lasts 30 seconds for the duration you get a buff of 18% to all the damage you do
The new Mirror Image bonus is attractive. Some players might need time to shift their attitude away from the concept of "I only use MI as a defensive cooldown". But many Arcane mages have long since abandoned that concept anyway, and happily use MI at the start of fights with CD stacking, since threat is rarely if ever a concern. MI for Arcane is a "Get out of jail 30 seconds threat free, whilst you go to town on DPS" card.
Fire and FFB mages might take more time to adopt the change - and return to considering using Invisibility more often.
One of the most impressive things about this bonus is its a very high % modifier, instead of a more static "+Xsp for Y seconds". Imagine something like this on Twins, heart phase decon, brain phase yogg, Animus on Vezax HM, Icehowl during his stun, Jaraxxus Portals on heroic. Targetted burst dps is increasingly important in hardmodes, and this bonus is shaping up to be a solid addition to our arsenal to meet that demand.
I'm impressed that Blizzard has presented 'first pass' values and mechanics - and responded to feedback so quickly by adjusting them for further feedback and review.
The new Mirror Image bonus is attractive. Some players might need time to shift their attitude away from the concept of "I only use MI as a defensive cooldown". But many Arcane mages have long since abandoned that concept, and happily use MI at the start of fights with CD stacking, since threat is rarely if ever a concern. Fire and FFB mages might take more time to adopt the change.
I think Blizzard aren't happy with how Mirror Image is used, and there aren't many places they could insert such a damage boost without it being broken for some specs (Arcane, Fire, and Frost don't really share any common cooldowns that would allow this damage boost to be triggered by things like PoM, AP, Combustion, etc. even if the duration or damage increase were lowered).
However, I'd rather keep offensive cooldowns with offensive abilities and defensive cooldowns with defensive abilities. I think I'd be much happier with this tier bonus if, say, Mirror Image no longer divided threat (thus becoming a more offensive ability) and Invisibility became a little more robust (at present, casting removes the effect, then you lose your target, then you need to wait for the player and boss models to load back in along with any fires or poison clouds that may have spawned on you).
The damage increase is wonderful, but I like playing Fire and, as you've mentioned, threat is a much bigger part of playing with a Fire spec than with an Arcane spec.
I think Blizzard aren't happy with how Mirror Image is used
I think the current MI bonus will eventually become a talent or Glyth of some sort in Cataclysm. Similar to how so many other bonuses in the past have.
Mirror Image overall would be better developed as a spell if our Glyths allowed us to focus it more on a offensive or defensive nature, which we can then take advantage of according to our spec. At the moment its flirting with both. Id love to see changes like that for 3.3, but wouldn't expect them (they seem like more next-expansion changes instead).
With regards to the 'offensive vs defensive' debate, id be more sympathetic to it if we didnt have Invisibility. Many people on the official forums seem to have forgotten that Invisibility is still a way to manage threat and that fights like Hodir (front loaded with massive buffs off the bat) aren't the norm. After the patch that stopped it breaking so easily, its not that bad. However, it definetely has room for improvement to be more elegant when used (such as the examples you mentioned).
I think we can all understand the apprehension/trepidation some players have over this issue, but I think this is a good test change for the spell. Until such time as a new expansion can re-evaluate the entire spell and provide other means (eg glyths) that let you further niche it's offensive/defensive power, according to your desired spec and what you want it to do - this is a good middle ground for now. (As you said, theres not many other places they could insert something like this)
Is a great revision of the original concept. That should mean you have at least 3 seconds to cast your next two Arcane Blasts at the hasted value, assuming your Mbarr-AM takes ~1.6-1.9 seconds to cast (depending on your gear).
With 0 latency, chain casting and assuming the haste proc is applied when missile barrage is used yet not applied to the missiles my rough working out is that if you normal raid buffed Mbar-AM takes 1.78secs or less you can get a third AB at the hasted value.
I wonder how this is going to effect the optimal roations, with the difference between ABSpam04MBAM & ABSpam0234MBAM being relativly small, will the extra proc uptime from using ABSpam0234MBAM off set the damage lost from casting MBAM at 4 AB stacks less?
Last edited by Alezio : 10/09/09 at 11:19 AM.
Reason: Typos
Tier armor set bonuses have generally fallen in the 2-3% of late. The current draft for T10 2-piece would be way out of whack. Do we know if there is a cooldown for this ability?
Simply put, a 12% haste buff should have a 25% uptime, if it's to be a buff in the 3% DPS range. With a 5-second duration, the ability should be going off once every 20s or so. More often than that, and it's OP (well, more specifically "out of line with past practice for set bonuses). Both fire and arcane mages will proc their respective ability much more frequently than once every 20s.
Do we have any info about an "internal cooldown" for this ability?
Tier armor set bonuses have generally fallen in the 2-3% of late. The current draft for T10 2-piece would be way out of whack. Do we know if there is a cooldown for this ability?
Simply put, a 12% haste buff should have a 25% uptime, if it's to be a buff in the 3% DPS range. With a 5-second duration, the ability should be going off once every 20s or so. More often than that, and it's OP (well, more specifically "out of line with past practice for set bonuses). Both fire and arcane mages will proc their respective ability much more frequently than once every 20s.
Do we have any info about an "internal cooldown" for this ability?
Unfortunetly not at the moment. The PTR has yet to release the actual tier items for testing. They have said that they should have those available "soon"
Yeah, I think a few things have been missed about the set bonuses...
Proc rates are much higher for arcane than frost and fire. arcanists just ignore their proc until they get a 4 stack. That will almost certainly change given the higher mps and dps of a haste buff. The dps difference right now between a sequence like "cast AM every time MB procs" and "cast only on 4 stack" is only about a 5% difference. This proc could have extremely high uptime, as the faster we cast the more MB procs we get. During hasted cooldowns (where AB is pushing we are probably looking at close to 100% uptime. Coupled with the mirror image buff this could be absolutely sick for arcane.
Running up against the haste cap during cooldowns isn't that much of a dps loss. You just de-synchronize some of your haste cooldowns. Using the speed pot during a non-heroic Arcane Power sequence, for instance, is a negligible dps loss.
I look forward to seeing this modelled, but my hunch right now is that the likely high uptime of this bonus for arcane is going to result in an internal cooldown being added to it.
All the t10 set bonuses seem more "powerful" than is usual (very evident with the Protection Paladin 2-set, which is exactly twice as strong as the equivalent 2t7 bonus), so I don't think we can use the existing 2 - 3% DPS increases as a rule of thumb.
Originally Posted by Heenk
"IRONBRANCH, THE FLOWER BED IS IN DANGER! ASSIST ME!"
When I plug BiS gear into Rawr, it disagrees with the consensus that Tailoring is the best profession for mages, at least for arcane.
Lightweave is a 84.8 dps upgrade over Greater Speed.
In contrast, engineering gets you:
3.68 dps for springy arachnoweave on cloak over Greater Speed
8.45 dps for nitro boosts over greater spirit on boots
112.68 dps over excep spellpower on gloves
for a grand total of 124.81 dps. a 40.1 dps improvement for engingeering
I tried less ideal gear, and engineering also won out.
Choosing Tuskarr's on your boots reduces the dps advantage slightly, but Nitro gets you nice speed when you need it (getting across the arena when icehowl runs far away, getting to portal fast to switch for twins, etc.), and I never understood the fixation of Tuskarr's slight mobility increase when you are a mage and can just blink. Doesn't change the conclusions though.
Note 3 from Sancus' run down of BiS overall [not just specifically for 245 so you could have missed it because of that] - "If you add together all the benefits of Engineering(nitro boosts, saronite bombs off the gcd, glove enchant), combined with the ever-increasing value of Haste, there is a solid argument that it is better than tailoring and the best profession combination is Engineering/Jewelcrafting. However, since it's pretty difficult to model 2/3 of those things, I left it out. Regardless, it is a competitive alternative and people should not restrict themselves to Tailoring any longer."
Much expected 3.3 improved scorch change in the most recent PTR build. Not exactly what I'd have prefer'd but it's a good change none the less. Basically glyph effect base-line.
Improved Scorch: The debuff from this talent no longer stacks, and instead can apply the full effect from a single cast of Scorch.
* Improved Scorch now increases spell critical strike chance against the target by 5% but no longer stacks. (Up from 1%, Stacks up to 5)
Ice
* Frozen Core now also causes your Ice Lance criticals to reduce the cast time of your next Frostbolt or Frostfire Bolt by 0.4/0.7/1 sec.
Glyphs
* Glyph of Improved Scorch is now named Glyph of Scorch and Increases the damage of your Scorch spell by 20%. * Glyph of Eternal Water - Your Summon Water Elemental now lasts indefinitely, but your Water Elemental can no longer cast Freeze.
Frozen Core is utterly insane. I mean I'll model it when I get home but there's no doubt in my mind that that makes frost pve viable, and frost pvp utterly overpowered.
In addition to making Frost more viable it also effects Frostfire Bolts which will catch up with arcane and maybe even pass it, plus the scorch change. FFB could be the "it" spec again if the changes make into live.
Scorch is a change long overdue. The WE glyph shows that Blizz hasn't forgotten about Frost PvE after all! And the Frozen Core change seems like it fixes a myriad of issues all in one master stroke:
Frozen Core being useless for both PvE and PvP
Frost's one button rotation
PvP Frost's lack of burst vs. high resil targets
No doubt the pvpers will be up in arms about an RMP buff, but it's looking like a pretty elegant (possibly overpowered) solution so far.
that change to frozen core, makes it look like their intention is that we use icelance on a second fof charge or the ghost charge, on a PvE view of the buff. For PvP, I dont think that change will remain as it is now, it's OP, way too OP. I think we will see a change similar to the Ice Lance glyph, it will change to a "ice lance crits on targets higher lvl than you"
I also have another concern with it, if that change to Frozen Core proves to be a substantial dps/damage increase, where are we going to remove points from for it? Magi dont have many points left considering we are forced to pick TtW.
Very interested that they explicitly put Frostfire Bolt into the Frozen Core tooltip. You can't get it without dropping Living Bomb. We all know that dropping Living Bomb has never been regarded as a serious option for a FFB spec in the past. I wonder if they have long term plans to make a "Frost based FFB build" more viable after all. It would still need more work, for example, tweaking Brain Freeze to proc (a guaranteed crit) Ice lance.
That type of synergy between talents such as Brain Freeze and Frozen core is "the fun" that Frost mages want back in their spec.
10/08/09, 6:19 PM
