I find it hard to believe that AE could outdps a skilled mage who can get LB up on targets (assuming explosion will go off), and then do rank 9/8 of FS->blizz. If you're talking just AE vs Blizz then maybe so? I don't have the numbers to run that though.
And while you could say that AE can start up earlier because of threat reduction, depending on how you and your guild plays, threat shouldn't ever be too much of an issue.
For example on Anub, I LB the mobs as they're coming in, and even start casting my flamestrike when I see they're about 10yds from being grouped up, then do rank 8, blizz spam, etc. Really can't see AE outdps'ing all of that assuming AE will start at the same time as my FS goes off, and I don't usually pull off the tank unless it's during heroism (and even then everyone is dps'ing faster so they die before my threat is a problem).
Does someone have strict numbers on different AoE rotations?
I'm approaching this strictly from an Arcane Mage perspective of Arcane Explosion versus Blizzard (which still doesn't work with Illustration). Living Bomb spam blows Arcane Mage out the water, but as far as I remember Blizzard should blow Arcane Explosion out the water for mages, which it isn't.
I'm approaching this strictly from an Arcane Mage perspective of Arcane Explosion versus Blizzard (which still doesn't work with Illustration). Living Bomb spam blows Arcane Mage out the water, but as far as I remember Blizzard should blow Arcane Explosion out the water for mages, which it isn't.
Thats interesting. If I had Illustration I'd test it, but my luck with trinkets is rather lacking. Have you tried using AE to get Illustration up, and then thrown a blizzard, with the occasional AE to keep Illustration up? I know blizz is supposed to out-do AE, and it always has for me in the past, but using a rotation like that might be worth considering.
I'm approaching this strictly from an Arcane Mage perspective of Arcane Explosion versus Blizzard (which still doesn't work with Illustration).
It's probably related to the fact that AE has more chances per unit time & targets to proc Clearcasting which then procs Arcane Potency. Regenerating 30% mana whilst spamming AE on whelps does feel a little strange as well. Maybe it's simply a case that AE hits are almost as much damage as Blizzard crits with no Ice Shards.
Edit: Incorrect information deleted.
Last edited by Seonid : 10/18/09 at 11:07 AM.
The Mage theme song.
<+icesurfer> this is the fucking security industry; if you want ethics, join the Red Cross
Chance to proc CC only occurs when mana is consumed which means Blizzard only procs CC on the initial cast whilst AE has that chance every cast. CC also currently has a chance to proc per target so if you AE a large number of targets you will almost certainly get a CC proc, which then procs Potency for the next cast though obviously as no mana is taken you won't proc CC again until cast #3.
Blizzard can proc Clearcast on every wave currently.
It's probably related to the fact that AE has more chances per unit time & targets to proc Clearcasting which then procs Arcane Potency. Regenerating 30% mana whilst spamming AE on whelps does feel a little strange as well.
Definitely related. However, Blizzard also experiences constant Clearcasting and Potency in this scenario. Does Blizzard interact with Arcane Potency differently than Arcane Explosion (ex: only the first wave gets crit bonus)?
Well, any mid-channel clearcasting procc from Blizzard will not interact at all with the current channel, meaning if you ever cast a Blizzard without clearcast, you don't see any benefit from potency.
Additionaly, but thats only my gut-feeling from past experience, potency only works for the first wave of Blizzard. Thus, in comparison, AE might procc clearcasting just as much as Blizzard, but it does consume it a lot more often, and does benefit from potency more by it.
Well, any mid-channel clearcasting procc from Blizzard will not interact at all with the current channel, meaning if you ever cast a Blizzard without clearcast, you don't see any benefit from potency.
Additionaly, but thats only my gut-feeling from past experience, potency only works for the first wave of Blizzard. Thus, in comparison, AE might procc clearcasting just as much as Blizzard, but it does consume it a lot more often, and does benefit from potency more by it.
See this post. And as far as I've been able to gather a midchannel proc of Clearcast will add the 30% crit from Potency for the rest of that wave (Potency fades like described in previous post).
When I'm able I personally use Arcane Explosion (or preferably Cone of Cold if possible) to proc Clearcast before using Blizzard. However, as has been discussed in the ffb-thread, you cannot get the aoe template out on the ground before the gcd finish so latency will kill this method.
Talents
Frost
Deep Freeze: This spell now deals a large amount of damage to targets permanently immune to stuns.
Translation: Deep Freeze will do damage to raid bosses. A new spell in the Frost PVE rotation. We need to get the relevant numbers and see how this affects frost DPS, very interesting. A 'large number' can work here because it's not going to interfere with PVP, since players are never ordinarily pemanently immune to stuns (based on my reading, I dont think it would be the same as players who are immune because they are on stun DR. If theres talents which make you immune to stuns briefly, will be interesting to see how/if Deep Freeze interacts with them).
It's great to see Blizzard really not being afraid to make some interesting changes in a mid-expansion patch. Usually we'd expect to see things like this saved for an expansion.
Translation: Deep Freeze will do damage to raid bosses. A new spell in the Frost PVE rotation. We need to get the relevant numbers and see how this affects frost DPS, very interesting. A 'large number' can work here because it's not going to interfere with PVP, since players are never ordinarily pemanently immune to stuns (based on my reading, I dont think it would be the same as players who are immune because they are on stun DR. If theres talents which make you immune to stuns briefly, will be interesting to see how/if Deep Freeze interacts with them).
It's great to see Blizzard really not being afraid to make some interesting changes in a mid-expansion patch. Usually we'd expect to see things like this saved for an expansion.
They did pick up the pen&paper for frost this expansion. I am only concerned about frost play being more difficult than necessary with managing the water elemental for the entire fight, new frozen core, two different procs to manage at the same time plus using deep freeze on every cooldown, not to mention all the other cooldown management.
Deep Freeze also works quite nicely on Dr. Boom back in Netherstorm.
2200 spell power on my alt mage.
Hit: Minimum 8061, Maximum 10181, Average: 9440
Crit: Minimum 12183, Maximum 14404, Average: 13061
Using my essentially made up as I went along spec (I avoided frozen core as GC had hinted about them removing it anyway) Deep Freeze accounted for around 9% of my damage done, which seems a fairly hefty buff. I'll wait for Dr. Boom to respawn and do a WWS.
Using my essentially made up as I went along spec (I avoided frozen core as GC had hinted about them removing it anyway) Deep Freeze accounted for around 9% of my damage done, which seems a fairly hefty buff. I'll wait for Dr. Boom to respawn and do a WWS.
You mean to say they decided sub-1 second frostbolts were a little excessive?
003:52:38> [Janice's] [Deep Freeze] hits [Chillmaw] for 15361 Frost.(Critical)
03:55:03> [Janice's] [Deep Freeze] hits [Chillmaw] for 10060 Frost.
3063 spellpower and was solo.
04:01:29> [Janice's] [Deep Freeze] hits [Chillmaw] for 2695 Frost.
without any gear
Was this without Ice Shards or something?
Regardless, these numbers imply a pretty massive spell power coefficient. I'm downloading the latest patch now, I'll try to do some good Dr. Boom testing tonight.
ETA: Reports on official forum are that the damage does not seem to be affected by Ice Shards (presumably a bug), so never mind about that. This implies that the 15351 crit would have been (if CSD present) a 9942 hit, meaning (with a wide margin of error due to only one sample) the spell power coefficient is somewhere around 2.37.
Last edited by Lhivera : 10/21/09 at 12:31 AM.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
Given that Ice Shards isn't working with it, I'm thinking it's possible that Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds may not be working with it, either. I'm going to go spec out of those and see if it changes the numbers at all.
So far, naked I get a range of 2705 - 2913; with 1756 spell power, 6845 - 7063.
ETA: Piercing Ice and Arctic Winds seem to work.
ETA again: If folks posting numbers could specify whether they're using a CSD, it'd help work the crit numbers in. Thanks!
Does anyone else find it weird that Blizzard tries buffing Frost by buffing the damage of a 30 seconds cooldown ability? Not only does that greatly reduce haste scaling but to have it make a meaningful difference in a raid setting it'd need to do obscene numbers that probably make it way too strong for other purposes (like soloing stuff that shouldn't be solo'd).
@Numbers about new DF:
Looking at the tests DF seems to do around 2.5 times the damage of a FB, thus you can guestimate the effect it'd have in a raid setting. Some quick data assuming DF does 2.5 times as much damage as FB (x=damage of one FB):
Does anyone else find it weird that Blizzard tries buffing Frost by buffing the damage of a 30 seconds cooldown ability? Not only does that greatly reduce haste scaling but to have it make a meaningful difference in a raid setting it'd need to do obscene numbers that probably make it way too strong for other purposes (like soloing stuff that shouldn't be solo'd).
When it comes down to it it's about 50% more damage than a frostbolt, on a 30 second cooldown, dependent on a proc. It's really good, but it's not going to break content or anything. If 10k damage makes a big difference against a solo mob then it's unlikely you were going to die to that mob in the first place.
50% if Ice Shards isn't supposed to work. If it is supposed to work, it'll average about double a Frostbolt, unless I've screwed something up in my figures, which is certainly possible.
As Vontre pointed out on the official forums, I neglected to factor out piercing ice and arctic winds before figuring the coefficient. It looks much more likely to be the 7.5 / 3.5 that he suggested.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
When it comes down to it it's about 50% more damage than a frostbolt, on a 30 second cooldown, dependent on a proc. It's really good, but it's not going to break content or anything. If 10k damage makes a big difference against a solo mob then it's unlikely you were going to die to that mob in the first place.
That's the problem. If it doesn't break content or anything then it will have no significant influence on Frost DPS. As you can see above, in a raid scenario it'd only add ~10% to the Frost Mage's DPS (excluding that of his Water Elemental) even if DF did 2.5 times the damage of a FB. And that's even ignoring things like the haste cap for instants that's easily reached with a single CD up and probably without any CDs up in T10 gear.
That's the problem. If it doesn't break content or anything then it will have no significant influence on Frost DPS. As you can see above, in a raid scenario it'd only add ~10% to the Frost Mage's DPS
I actually estimate that this one change adds just under 6.5%. But note that I don't use the word "only." That's a massive increase for a single talent point, and it frankly puts us right where we need to be. At present, SimulationCraft estimates Frost at about 81% of Arcane. With a 6.5% increase from Deep Freeze and a 5.4% increase from the new Water Elemental glyph, that puts us at just under 91% of Arcane (81 * 1.065 * 1.054 = 90.92).
Vontre also believes that the estimate of Arcane I'm using runs about 5% high; if he's right, that would put Frost within 5% of Arcane. That's pretty much exactly where many of us think it should land.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
I actually estimate that this one change adds just under 6.5%. But note that I don't use the word "only." That's a massive increase for a single talent point, and it frankly puts us right where we need to be. At present, SimulationCraft estimates Frost at about 81% of Arcane. With a 6.5% increase from Deep Freeze and a 5.4% increase from the new Water Elemental glyph, that puts us at just under 91% of Arcane (81 * 1.065 * 1.054 = 90.92).
Vontre also believes that the estimate of Arcane I'm using runs about 5% high; if he's right, that would put Frost within 5% of Arcane. That's pretty much exactly where many of us think it should land.
And now consider in that Frost AoE is the worst of all specs and its burst DPS is lacking compared to other specs that have AP or Combustion and you have a spec that still nobody will use. Frost needs to do comparable DPS so its added potential survivability may make up for the missing AoE and burst DPS. 95% simply is not enough to make Frost a competitive spec.
10/17/09, 10:04 PM
