It is like that on live too.

Edit: I missed Hinalover's answer on the nxt page.

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.

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.

The TTW/Fireball spec will not change at all.

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.


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.

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?