1) I used Mage Armor, no Glyph to improve the mana regeneration.
2) As you can probably see there, the gear I went in with was mostly Sunwell pieces, no 2pc t5 bonus. I did test the bonus later on and found that it is indeed still functioning, however I did not use it on that particular fight. As a result of mostly BC items, my hit rating was drastically below the required cap, leading to some poor showings.
3) Blessing of Might was indeed bugged in that scenario, providing 680 extra spell damage. I had around 2200 spell damage on that fight.
4) Many of the encounters called for AE or other types of non-traditional "stand and shoot" mechanics were involved. As a result, often times I would drop the arcane blast debuff, significantly hampering DPS.
1.) I had no clue Living Bomb was still bugged to do the explosion part at the end on your character and not the target in the latest push until it ended up killing me on Gluth, coupled with using the default Blizzard UI that made it difficult to see when Living Bomb needed to be reapplied made for sub par DPS. Sometime during the fight I just dropped it altogether in fear of going OOM (mana issues in #3).
2.) Ran with 228 hit rating (8.69%).
3.) Mana was only an issue because I had used Evocate after being mana drained on the previous trash packs and it came up very late in the fight. Had I been able to use a full Evocate on top of the 2 gems (glyphed, sapphires giving 3663-3850), runic mana potion, mana spring/tide/refreshment, I think things would've turned out to show fire dps more favorably. I gemmed immediately when I lacked the mana and again on CD, potted when I lacked the mana after the gem, had a mana tide sometime after that, went OOM and waited a second for evocate to come back, took a tick and nuked since Patchwerk was nearly dead by then. (though next time without the bugged glyphed BoM, fight duration lengthening etc, mana issues may arise)
edit:
4.) The Hot Streak buff icon looks pretty similar to another buff that warriors/death knights give which kind of contributed my lack of perfect deep fire playing ;(
Mysticfox, the frost mage at the time, ended with nearly full mana.
There is an article up on WoW Insider at the moment with an analysis/review of the Mirror Image spell including a couple of tests on some world mobs (no complete number parses). He gets similar numbers to the ones manly posted earlier, although I think he is confusing the frostbolt hits for crits. The other thing that is different is that his Mirror Images don't appear as shades but as copies of himself (I'm going by the pics posted in the article and the one manly posted of him fighting the training dummy).
1- the screenshot I took with ghost mirror images was a bug that happens when the server lags a lot. it is not common case. but it does look a lot cooler.
2- lo and behold, we can finally see other players debuff time remaining. it works. no shit. only problem is finding a mod that shows you what you're looking for. (since theres quite a bit to track, ranging from personal procs to debuff time on target)
3- mirror images are not affected by bloodlust, or totems. i haven't had the time to test if they are affected by debuffs on the target. However, with just coe up they did seem to do 10% more damage. I don't think they can benefit from replenishment either.
<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
1) I used Mage Armor, no Glyph to improve the mana regeneration.
The mage armor glyph isn't working or at least not showing up on the character sheet. I didn't pull out a stopwatch to make sure.
Tangentially related, but the Frost Armor (20% bonus) glyph does work and stacks with the 50% bonus from Frost Warding as expected for a total of +80%.
I finally got a key and have been leveling arc since that's how my raid gear is setup. The mana shield changes are terrific; I run around with it up pretending like I'm a frost mage. It's not quite the invincibility that is the Diablo mana shield with it's infinite potion spam, but for soloing the cost is finally low enough to be generally usable. I've experimented with taking Arc Fortitude, the glyphed+talented Frost Armor, and Prismatic Cloak for a 31% physical damage reduction, which gives a sort of elemental shaman feel but with mana shield sucking up your mana instead of heals, but that's usually overkill.
3.) Mana was only an issue because I had used Evocate after being mana drained on the previous trash packs and it came up very late in the fight. Had I been able to use a full Evocate on top of the 2 gems (glyphed, sapphires giving 3663-3850), runic mana potion, mana spring/tide/refreshment, I think things would've turned out to show fire dps more favorably. I gemmed immediately when I lacked the mana and again on CD, potted when I lacked the mana after the gem, had a mana tide sometime after that, went OOM and waited a second for evocate to come back, took a tick and nuked since Patchwerk was nearly dead by then. (though next time without the bugged glyphed BoM, fight duration lengthening etc, mana issues may arise)
Mysticfox, the frost mage at the time, ended with nearly full mana.
Did you use Molten Armour?
And do you think you could have used Living Bomb every cooldown if Evo would have been up, maybe if Judgement of Wisdom would have been up full-time?
I cleared Naxx 10 too as firemage, but it is hard to make a conclusion about mana problems. Replenishment is totally bugged at the moment, at least if you run with shadow priest. Every damage they do refreshes the buff timer and because of this, it ticks less than 50% it should do. There have been 2 shadow priests in my group on Patchwerk and I had mana problems, although I used gems (glyphed), mage armor with glyphe (I don't know if the glyphe works), evocation and I had not even 50% LB uptime (also no JOW).
Did you use Molten Armour?
And do you think you could have used Living Bomb every cooldown if Evo would have been up, maybe if Judgement of Wisdom would have been up full-time?
Mysticfox and I both used the glyphed Mage Armor (whether the 50% part actually worked I have no clue) because we had mana issues in Naxx10 and went into the raid thinking it'd be the same in Naxx25. If I had a full evocate and if somehow JoW had an 100% uptime I don't think there would be any issues with mana at all as fire spec with Living Bombs on cd.
Additionally, I'm not sure how tuned druids are now compared to before and other classes or how they will end up being after the number passes but at least for what is available now, our tree druid Raelby managed to be top healing with no mana issues at all (no mana pot or innervate). She commented that she could have easily tossed out her innervate to a needing class for the fight and still would've benefited from it with the glyph (20% mana regen to the druid if cast on another target) although she didn't need it at all, so we'll have that innervate option open if the arcane mage needs it next time.
I made some calculations about hit crit and +dmg, i realise that this calculation is quite situational and only based on fireball. Since you don't need the same amount of Hit and Crit to reach 1% i calculated it back to 10 to make it easier to compare. I hope this will be usefull and feedback is welcome offcource.
Firemage with the following stats.
2000 +dmg
14% hit ( 97% on boss )
0% haste
40% crit
Fireball rank 16 hits for 888 - 1132 so i took 1000 as avarage.
Gaining from 1% crit in this example
Your avarage hit would be 2000*1.15= 2300 + 1000 = 3300 * 1.13 = 3729
Your avarage crit would be 3729*2.45= 9136,05
Your avarage critdamage would be 9136,05 - 3729 = 5407,05 since you are not hitcapped you lose some damage 5407.05*0,97 ( 97% hit ) = 5244,8385
So in this example you gain 5244,8385 damage from 1% crit
Now 1% hit for this example.
Avarage hit damage is 3729 * 0.6 = 2237,4
Avarage crit is 9136,05 * 0.4 = 3654,42
2237,4 + 3654,42 = 5891,82
So in this example you gain 5891,82 damage from 1% hit
To calculate +dmg we need to calculate our hit and crit back to the same numbers because both stats need a diffrend amount of points to reach 1%. I will calculate them back to 10
For 1% hit you need 26.23199272 spell hit rating
For 1% crit you need 45.90598679 spell crit rating
We gained 5244,8385 damage from 1% crit. 5244,8385 : 45,90598679 * 10 = 1142,51732
In this example 10 spell crit gives 1142,51732 damage
We gained 5891,82 damage from 1% hit. 5891,82 : 26,23199272 * 10 = 2246,043624
In this example 10 spell hit gives 2246,043624 damage
Now 10+ damage
The bonus on 10+ damage when casting a fireball is 10*1,15= 11,5 * 1,13 = 12,995
Your crit damage would be 12.995*2.45 = 31,83775
On 100 fireballs you would hit probebly 97 times. That are 0,97*40 = 38.8 crits and 0.97*60 = 58.2 hits
12,995* 58,2 = 756,309
31,83775 * 38,8 = 1235,3047
1235,3047 + 756,309 = 1991,6137
In this example 10 spell damage gives 1991,6137 damage.
In TBC the socked numbers where not equal, so sockedwise 10 hit/crit was 12+damage. 1991,6137 * 1,2 = 2389,93644
Like i see it now nothing will change stat priowise. Hit > +Dmg > Crit i haven't calculated Haste but if i had to guess, i would value it between Hit and + Dmg.
In this example 10 points of hit will give you the most damage, crit is again like it is in The Burning Crusade the weakest stat for your fireball. If the sockeds grow in an equal way like they are now, then it is probebly the best to socked with +damage in allot of cases.
Assumption
Stacking one stat means that other stats are getting more worth, i assume there will be a point that +dmg will become lesser worth but i haven't calculated the amount of +dmg for that.
We will probebly stacking hit again till hitcapped and from there collecting +damage and haste.
Last edited by Mizkultrahs : 09/09/08 at 11:12 AM.
Build 8926:
* 2 piece Tirisfal Regalia has been changed from 20% to 5%. It is still a good set bonus, slightly beating Wrath gear, but no longer mandatory as before.
* Naxxramas 25 gear, season 2 and badge gear appeared, but not considered for a starter kit.
* Several other classes had several talents led to the chopping block.
So, most of he gear from Naxxramas 10 has been discovered by now.
I'm sure a quite a bit of it will get changed, but let's start with what we have.
The Gear
I assume the following raid buffs so far: AI, PW:Fort, DSpirit, MotW, BoK, flask, food, weapon oil, 160 dmg from ToW.
Assuming +5% intellect for my gnomish racial in my sheets. The overall effect should be negligible.
A Naxxramas 10 gear set, fully gemmed, enchanted, with the mentioned consumables and the gnomish racial brings us to:
Add armours/personal buffs for different classes. Add 18% crit from raid buffs, -3% crit depression.
Add 1%, 3% and 5% haste from ToW, iMKA, WoA.
Add 3% damage from FI/Ret, 13% from CoE, -6% from partial resists.
The Bugs and Assumptions
Torment of the Weak is assumed to not work on bosses for now.
If it will, non-arcane specs are likely shifted towards 18(+2)/X/X.
Frostfire Bolt will then be gone for good since there are no points to get Ignite and Ice Shards.
Fingers of Frost is assumed to allow a third charge for an instant spell.
I can't see that feature/exploit/whatever fixed unless they completely remake their combat engine.
The DPS of Specs/Classes
All mage specs assume molten armour for simplicity.
MPS is the mana spent per second and includes cost reduction/mana returns from talents.
It also includes 30% spirit regen from Meditation for deep arcane specs.
Arcane rotations assume a sensible arcane spec. Blast spam assumes 50/3/18.
Frost assumes 0/10/61 with Ignite. Fire assumes 0/51/20.
Arcane Blast spam with 2T5 is likely about 2% better than in Naxxramas gear, depending on the set pieces used and possible set bonuses for the Naxxramas set.
100 dmg = +122.3 DPS
100 int = +25.9 DPS, +0.27 MPS from MoE/Hot Streak, +23.29 MPS from Pool/Evo/Replenish/JoW
100 crit = +81.2 DPS, +0.85 MPS from MoE/Hot Streak
100 haste +101.8 DPS, -6.75 MPS
100 hit = +127 DPS
Some of the DPS increase for int/crit comes from more Hot Streak procs.
4) Mana management for Fire specs
Not using Living Bomb: -192.8 DPS, +41.02 MPS
Using Evocation: -54.83 DPS, +33.90 MPS
Using Mage over Molten Armour: -186.8 DPS, +69.62 MPS
Getting 100 crit over 100 haste: -20.6 DPS, +7.6 MPS
That gives use the following DPM values and efficiency order for mana conversion:
4.70 DPM - Using Living Bomb
2.71 DPM - Getting 1 haste over 1 crit
2.68 DPM - Using Molten Armour over Mage Armour
1.62 DPM - Not using Evocation
What does that mean?
Your standard setup should be "use Living Bomb and Molten Armour, use Evocation if needed".
Use Mage Armour and avoid Haste if you still run out of mana.
5) Stat values for different specs
Arcane Blast spam without mana limitation
1 hit = 1.17 dmg, 1 crit = 0.45 dmg, 1 haste = 0.93 dmg, 1 int = 0.39 dmg
Frost spec without mana limitation
1 hit = 0.96 dmg, 1 crit = 0.46 dmg, 1 haste = 0.77 dmg, 1 int = 0.15 dmg
Fire spec without mana limitation
1 hit = 1.04 dmg, 1 crit = 0.67 dmg, 1 haste = 0.83 dmg, 1 int = 0.21 dmg
*Fire spec with mana limitation, spending mana on more Living Bombs (extremely mana-starved)
1 hit = 1.04 dmg, 1 crit = 0.70 dmg, 1 haste = 0.57 dmg, 1 int = 1.12 dmg, 1 mp5 = 0.77 dmg; *1 spi = 0.49 (with 50% Mage Armour)
*Fire spec with mana limitation, converting mana with haste and Molten Armour (enough mana for 100% LB uptime)
1 hit = 1.04 dmg, 1 crit = 0.68 dmg, 1 haste = 0.68 dmg, 1 int = 0.89 dmg, 1 mp5 = 0.44 dmg
The extremely high values of intellect are the result of JoW and Replenish scaling with your current mana.
Which heavily inflates the mana gains from intellect as stat, and gives it a high value in mana-limited situations.
Those values drop sharply if JoW, Replenishment or both are not available.
Frost specs should have mana issues without a mana dump like Living Bomb.
Arcane specs right now should be fine. Use mage armour and evocate if needed.
I expect some major changes to Arcane Blast though.
Edit: I realize that as it is now, it will add a flat non-scalable damage, judging from the Naxx run somewhere in the lines of 30-45k damage per CD. Which is about 70k for a standard 5-6 minutes fight, looks like around 200dps increase. Or was it used twice in that fight...
3.) Mana was only an issue because I had used Evocate after being mana drained on the previous trash packs and it came up very late in the fight.
...
Mysticfox, the frost mage at the time, ended with nearly full mana.
I see below that you answered that you used Mage Armor. So that pretty much shows us that Spirit has value to Fire Mages, since they want Mage Armor to provide fuel. Do you have any idea which armor Mysticfox used?
If Frost Mages can really get by without Mage Armor, then Frozen Core should probably be reworked into some sort of useful Spirit-based talent. There isn't really room in the tree for any additional points.
The Fire tree is actually fairly low on total points, and could easily stand to have a 2- or 3-point Spirit-based talent added to it, but based on this information, it may simply not have a use for one.
In case someone hasn't seen it, Ghostcrawler posted to the Druid forum in response to complaints about Spirit on Naxx balance gear:
As I posted in another thread, some amount of Spirit is something that all casters are going to need a lot more of. You can't stack shadow priests like you used to, and you can't downrank. Mana management is a part of all caster classes, not just trying to maximize the pewpew. We got away from that a little in BC.
It's a bit frustrating that they're not responding to the specific concerns Mages have raised about this issue; not for lack of trying by the beta-testing Mages to get their attention about it, though.
After reading Roywyn's comments about the low number of DPS talent points in Arcane, I put this list together yesterday, and some people here may find it interesting. I'm sure some people will disagree about the way I counted "significant DPS talents," but the list is easily adjusted if any kind of consensus can be reached. Basically, I counted talents that:
- Provide 1% or more DPS increase to a major DPS spell (e.g., Fireball, Shadow Bolt)
- Provide 2% or more DPS increase to a minor DPS spell (e.g., Scorch, Siphon Life)
- Provide 1% or more damage to the spec's primary school or overal damage output
- Provide 2% or more damage to a Pet that is used by that tree's primary spec
- Adds a new DPS spell or Pet that is used by that tree's primary spec
- Provides a useful raid DPS increase (e.g., Demonic Pact, Improved Scorch)
Trees Ranked by Total Talent Points
81: Arcane
78: Frost
76: Destruction
75.83: Average
74: Affliction
73: Demonology, Fire
Trees Ranked by Significant DPS Talent Percentage
64.47%: Destruction (49 of 76)
64.38%: Fire (47 of 73)
57.69%: Frost (45 of 78)
53.19%: Average (40.33 of 75.83)
51.35%: Affliction (38 of 74)
42.47%: Demonology (31 of 73)
39.51%: Arcane (32 of 81)
Last edited by Lhivera : 09/09/08 at 11:59 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.
Thanks for the nice list , but I am not sure what to make out of it.
Do you want to imply that Arcane consists mainly of worthless talents? Or what do you want to show with that list?
One question to Roywyn.
What about Arcane at 35% Haste or so who can weave in Arcane Barrages/Missle Barrages into ABs without loosing the debuff? Might be interessting to know that if it's favourable to go a heavy haste routine, especially since arcane doesn't get much out of crits.
What about Arcane at 35% Haste or so who can weave in Arcane Barrages/Missle Barrages into ABs without loosing the debuff? Might be interessting to know that if it's favourable to go a heavy haste routine, especially since arcane doesn't get much out of crits.
Roywyn stated that Arcane Blast has both superior DPM and DPS to Arcane Barrage, with or without 2T5. Therefore it is not possible to improve your DPS by using Arcane Barrage I think (except while moving), no matter how much Haste you might have.
I haven't seen this, apologies if it's upthread - Our Mirror Images seem to be capable of casting hex on a target if we're currently fighting more than 1. This is not a polymorph because it doesn't heal and doesn't break immediately on damage.
However yesterday I was dueling a priest and he used his shadowfiend at the same time as I used Mirror Image and they hexed the priest (he was a frog).
Updated for 8962 with the halving of Replenishment and regen const adjustment
Followup to Roywyn's post, mana regen numbers to guesstimate sustainability. Numbers are non-gnome, non-human and assuming replenishment works correctly. These numbers do not include evocation or potions, since you only get one shot at them. Mana spring is looking like it's stacking and party only, so it's not included in the totals and you'll have to add it in manually if the shaman aren't all stacked in the heal parties.
Gem Spam: 28.5 mps
Imp. BoW: 21.8 mps
Mana Spring: 17 mps
Imp. Mana Spring: 21.3 mps
No Arc Mind/SotM:
Total mana: 19038
Replenishment: 47.8 mps
JoW (every 5s): 76.3 mps
Spirit o5sr: 109.42 mps
Total no spirit: 174.3 mps
Total @ 30% spi: 207.1 mps
Total @ 50% spi: 229.0 mps
Total @ 80% spi: 261.7 mps
5/5 Arc Mind, no SotM:
Total mana: 21446
Replenishment: 53.6 mps
JoW (every 5s): 85.78 mps
Spirit o5sr: 117.34 mps
Total no spirit: 189.7 mps
Total @ 30% spi: 224.9 mps
Total @ 50% spi: 248.4 mps
Total @ 80% spi: 283.6 mps
5/5 Arc Mind, 3/3 SotM:
Total mana: 21446
Replenishment: 53.6 mps
JoW (every 5s): 85.78 mps
Spirit o5sr: 131.4 mps
Total no spirit: 189.7 mps
Total @ 30% spi: 229.1 mps
Total @ 50% spi: 255.4 mps
Total @ 80% spi: 294.8 mps
To get the sustainability, do mana_pool/(rotation_mps - regen_mps) and you get the time to OOM in seconds.
Nobody seems to be having problems with mana in Naxx right now (maybe Ret pallies), but I think that's because regen is too good across the board. I wouldn't use that experience (yet) to determine that you have enough Spirit.
Most casters are going to have a lot of Spirit on their gear, but we'll see if we can get you some more crit.
Emphasis mine. This was applied in 3962, Replenishment was halved and the sprit constant was reduced.
A few comments on FFB. I understand where you could think that FFB would "double-dip" from Coe, but lets look at the tooltip for it.
FFB's tooltip says
"If the target is more vulnerable to Frost damage, this spell will cause Frost instead of Fire damage."
This tooltip says it will ALWAYS deal fire damage, unless the target is more vunerable to frost (like the A'lar fight for example.) Since this spell does not deal Fire damage AND Frost damage, it cannot benefit twice from CoE.
Now, imp scorch and WC give bonuses to spell crit so I don't understand where some people would think that FFB would benefit twice from them.
Also, I'm not sure how this would work exactly (I don't have access to the beta) but I would assume that the only time FFB would apply the WC effect would be if it deals frost damage instead of fire. Here's my reasoning behind thinking that. WC says "Gives your Frost damage spells a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect. While other talents we know affect FFB such as Ice Shards/Piercing Ice/Fire Power all say Frost/Fire spells. That would mean WC's effect would be applied upon spell hit of FFB only if it did frost damage instead of fire.
I'm not sure what you're arguing against. FFB was shown to double dip against CoE because when CoE was up, it got a 20% damage increase instead of the 10% it should have had. It was behaving the same with the old versions of Imp Scorch and WC, ie getting double the expected damage/crit from the debuff. This wasn't deduced from the tooltip but from actually going and firing a few bolts at a mob. As far as I know, all double dipping bugs have been fixed now (apart from the double mana cost reduction on EP, as posted in the first post of this thread). And it always deals frostfire damage.
Okay thanks for clearing that up a little, I was a little confused on the subject myself. As I said before, I don't have access to the beta so everything I was saying was completly based on the tooltips and nothing else. Maybe they should clairify things on the tooltip better.
Thanks for the nice list , but I am not sure what to make out of it.
Do you want to imply that Arcane consists mainly of worthless talents? Or what do you want to show with that list?
Koraa mentioned that Blizz has a rough item budget that they use on talents and that they generally shoot for a 1% increase per talent point on damage talents. Listing the number of damage talent points per tree is a different way of looking at how powerful the various trees are. Unsurprisingly, the stronger raiding trees have the most damage talents. Arcane gets through by using gimmicks. The MSD was worth a good 10-15 talent points and 2t5 is about the same. If you add those in, you get percentages that are fairly close to the other trees.
The arcane tree shows its roots as the utility tree when these comparisons are made, but the numbers alone don't tell the whole story. Of the 31 damage talent points, all but 4 are deeper than 20 points in the tree. As a result, you have this threshold effect where going past 20 points means you don't stop before 50 since basically every talent is a damage talent. It also doesn't show that base arcane spells are higher dps than fireball and frostbolt (AM actually compares fairly well when you're just looking base) but the damage talents low in the fire/frost trees boost the respective spells well past the arcane nukes. It does, however, give a non-theorycraft rationale for why Fireball/Frostbolt make better fill for ABr rotations than AB: there are simply more damage talents behind them.
Okay thanks for clearing that up a little, I was a little confused on the subject myself. As I said before, I don't have access to the beta so everything I was saying was completly based on the tooltips and nothing else. Maybe they should clairify things on the tooltip better.
It has long been known that Frostfire Bolt deals Frostfire damage. The tooltip has never been updated, and it's always done frostfire damage. I believe this is displayed as "Frost+Fire" or some variation, and I believe this was first seen in Sunwell as Nature+Shadow damage. As such, this is why it benefits from all fire talents, all frost talents, and has double dipped on talents that benefit both fire and frost (taking once for fire, and once for frost).
Additionally, this is made even more evident when counterspelled. Both fire and frost schools are locked out. Though I don't know how much of this, including the tooltip, will change in time.
Has there been any confirmation as to the % hit needed for cap. I have been following the forums and keep seeing some people stat that it is 10% while others state that it is 17%. This makes a huge difference considering that 228 hit at 80 is onlt 8.46% hit. This alone makes me think the cap is 10%, but has any one truly confirmed this?
No offense, but this is being asked and answered every few pages although the very first post of this thread includes the information already: Yes it's still 17% (the same 16% for +3 mobs as on live plus the remaining 1% miss chance because spells will finally be able to reach 100% hit rate). The 9% (not 10%) rumour came from early in the beta when I think a shaman didn't realize he had a talent that buffed his spellhit, and has been debunked over and over again in the last weeks. I wish we could put this rumour to rest, at least on this forum...
Everyone always coming to Zathras with problems. Great responsibilities. But Zathras does not mind. Zathras trained in crisis management.
09/08/08, 5:21 PM
