Maxrank for level 80, so:

Flamestrike 9
AE 10
BW 9
CoC 8
DB 6
FN 6

This change on Arcane Blast seems, in my eyes atleast, to render it totaly unusefull spell.
Way I see this its not even good for doing Arcane Blast spam when too mutch mana, Frost Bolt when too little mana kind rotation.
It simply eats mana pool too fast compared to damage that it puts out.

^

It's become completely useless. Arcane blast spam was how we could stay competitive. To some extent we could throw in rotations and still be competitive. However, the mana increase now means we can't spam AB for top damage, and the damage nerf means we can't weave in rotations because they just won't be competitive.

I'm guessing that a glyphed frostbolt procs FoF because of winter's chill (since it's also a chill effect).
Anyone care to test this by not speccing into Winter's chill and spamming frostbolt ? Thank's

You couldn't throw in rotations. With sustainable AB spam with the WotLK mechanic, any rotations that deviated from the spam were forced (ie, you had to move and were going to lose the stack anyway). AB spam needed to be unsustainable, and more then just barely unsustainable.

And for the love of god, stop talking about it like we can't do competitive DPS. Blizzard has not done their DPS pass yet.

With the nerf to replenishment, it will be interesting to see what changes they make to increase the desireability of spirit on gear. I really hope theres more.

Also, noticing that thy made both moonkins and deathknights raid buffs have personal DPS boosts (so the talents are worthwhile even if the raid buff is redundant), we are probably in line for a change to improved scorch, right?

2 days ago 3 out of 4 posts were asking for Arcane Blast to be nerfed to the ground so we can have a more complex cast sequence. Today, 3 out of 4 posts complain that AB is now a useless spell.

If MMO is correct that it is a typo, and they actually mean 30% (not 300%), it may still be capable of being a primary nuke. Its addition to the Arcane Stability talent and its earlier addition to Arcane Empowerment would imply that they want the spell to play the role of "primary nuke" with Arcane Missiles weaved in. Assume it is in fact a 30% increase, this was actually a huge buff to the longevity of the spell (90% full stack vs. 225% full stack).

30% cost increase rather than 75% makes the spell much much more viable given that replenishment has been cut in half. Now a simple fix to the duration of the AB effect making it possible to use ABar and AM and we have ourselves a nice, sustainable, complex Arcane only rotation. Isn't this what we all wanted to begin with?

What more do you want to know? Blizz / Living Bomb caps are my next targets, I've got good finalized data for the other six, at least two examples of each in a fully capped environment.

After LB/Blizz I'll probably call it a day unless you have specific requests for information.

You're asking people to take a leap of faith that MMO-champion is more accurate than other sources. Thats almost asking to play god.

If it is indeed true then the result should be a competitive AB spamming arcane build that is completely mirroring fire - Fireball/pyro on the proc versus AB/AM on the proc. Your spec defines the colour of the junk you throw, but not how you throw it.

(unless my math is wrong, its worth dropping AB for MBAM - if you're not fully ramped its a DPS gain, if you are fully ramped it breaks evn except that dropping the stack recovres a good chunk of mana).

So how does ABar fit into this brave new world?

If it is 30%, than fully ramped AB would cost less than a fireball mana-wise.
Not sure if that's what we want tbh.

With all due respect to MMO, I doubt that they have the TC that the community here has. As Thegoodman points out, the general consensus just before this patch would be that AB's mana cost had to increase to prevent its spamming nature.

If MMO is correct, and the 300% is a typo, then AB became more mana efficient, not less. It lost damage, true, but that doesn't change the real issue. The main issue was that AB was too efficient for its presumed role. Even with the loss of damage (it did change 'back' to +15% dmg per stack, right?), I'm fairly sure that AB spam will be the highest DPS Arcane 'rotation', and thus nothing would be gained by only a 30% increase in cost per stack.

Edit: Johnny: Indeed, the fate of Arcane Barrage is the deciding factor here. If ABarr is not worthwhile, Arcane Mages will be in the same position as Moonkin, with their 41- and 51-point talents not being worth their place.

Hm, it's small things actually:
* How far does Blastwave knock back right now? Out of AoE range?
* Does Living Bomb explode on the target, and how/how far are the Bomb and close targets knocked back?
* Living Bomb - are the DoT ticks an AoE too (cap?), or just single target?
For Knockback distance - is it "from centre to egde/just outside/far outside of consecration"?
Also curious if bosses - Van Cleef and Mr. Smite should work, they are not slowable at least, are they - will be knocked back or up by them.

Also, Blizzard and Living Bomb, whether they trigger Master of Elements, that's more for mana efficiency.

It's less about the numbers, but more about whether they are easy to use or awkward.


Let's just say that I have learned to expect the unexpected and prepare for the impossible.

Spammed Blast with 2T5 right now is +20% damage, +66% haste, +245% mana cost.
That's +99% DPS and +473% mana consumption.

With the changes, it's +5% damage (2T5), +6% damage (Talent changes), +8% damage, +45% damage, at +905% mana cost.
That's +74% DPS and +905% mana consumption. Whoa. Ouch.

How would remain Arcane Blast how it is now?
It would need +22% damage per debuff stack, and +155% mana cost.
With the +25% it had, it overshot Fire by ~20%. With 22%, it would be ~10% ahead. It can be tuned up or down, and mana cost can be adjusted to its power.

There are many ways to tune Arcane Blast, the thing it mosly lacks right now is a proper purpose.

*In Sunwell gear and in Naxx-10 gear, spell damage is about 60% and base damage about 40% of Arcane Blast damage. Hence the +9% bonus to the 71% coefficent ends up as about +8% total damage. Of course more with better gear/buffs.
Also, 2T5 is no longer viable past Sunwell, and probably a sidegrade in Sunwell, but I'll keep the bonus in, because it mostly matters for people who wear the set and are progressing in T6 content.

Arcane Blast mana cost by tooltip in 8962:

0/3 - 294
1/3 - 1176
2/3 - 2058
3/3 - 2940

1176 / 294 = 4
2058 / 294 = 7
2940 / 294 = 10

Adds 300% mana cost per debuff. Reductions in mana bar being disturbingly fast, I'd tend to believe that if it is a typo, its an internal typo that made it onto the beta as 300%.

Personally, I'm waiting to see if Blizzard gives an explanation. Seeing my favorite tree, frost, get so many nice changes, I don't think they are out to get us. It just seems that they are grasping at straws here. Hopefully, when things go live Arcane will be in better shape.

Thanks so much for the work you're doing on this, Z. Not to get greedy, but have you had a chance to examine whether the coefficient on Flamestrike has been reduced along with the cast time?


He knows all this. Cold As Ice was, in the previous build, reducing Ice Block's cooldown by an additional 1 minute. Molten Armor using charges, even though it's because of Shatter, could be considered a problem (just like having DOT ticks consume ISB charges was considered a problem, way back when).


No reason to assume that. It doesn't say anything about only being usable on one person. It appears to be a straightforward single-target 30-minute buff that can be cast on as many people as you like. Observe the wording on Arcane Intellect:

Increases the target's Intellect by 60 for 30 min.

Occam's Razor suggests this is a direct competitor to Elemental Oath and Moonkin Aura, which is really needed, as that's a buff only provided by two specs so far.


The sky is not falling, Arcane Mages. DPS pass hasn't happened yet. If the rotation is how you're intended to DPS, then the rotation's DPS will be tuned to match Frost and Fire's standard DPS.


Winter's Chill is not a chill effect. It just has the word "chill" in it. A glyphed Frostbolt procs FoF, according to Xentropy's testing, because it still has a chill effect -- it just doesn't stay on the target or provide a snare. The glyph reads, after all, that it removes the slowing effect, not the chill.

I haven't seen this being mentioned, the health of the Water Elemental got buffed significantly. Without any raid buffs, a summoned Water Elemental has close to 10k health.

Now, I don't know about avoidance issues.

- Blast Wave knocks targets back 5-10 yards. It is a very significant distance, so much so that you cannot possibly use dragon's breath or flamestrike on the same targets. It is, in very definition, a melee repellent. You can blink into a crowd and scatter everyone. I say 5-10 because the tooltip says 10 yards, but that could be dependent on how far they already are from you.
- Apparently Living Bomb was fixed on the last build, but others say it wasn't. It definitely wasn't fixed on PTR as of last night, and because Blizzard patched PTR server side and not client side, it's hard to say until someone tests it.
- Living Bomb does a "knock up." They land in the exact same spot they were in. What it does is, it interrupts them, but it doesn't move them further or closer to you. It is simply an interrupt when it explodes. This is why you can currently spam it indefinitely (as mana permits) and control any number of mobs/players around you.
- The DoT is not an AoE, only the detonation (which is trigged on dispel/removal of LB. That is, casting LB on the same target, or on another target, forces the previous LB to detonate. Whether this gets fixed is up in the air, or if its already been fixed). If it does get "fixed," it will have PvE implications, as casting LB prematurely would remove the possibility of LB detonating (and the explosion is always better than the last tick of the DoT). However, over time, if it's not cast immediately after the last detonation, then seconds add up when LB does not have uptime.
- LB's DoT cannot crit, but the detonation can crit (and whether it consumes combustion charges is another qusetion). I have not noticed it returning mana from MoE, but I do have screenshots at home of combat logs and I will look at these if someone doesn't answer before then.

If a paladin has consecration down and you used blast wave, they would be knocked out of the consecration (or very close to the edge) if you were standing on top of the paladin.


I wonder if the 2-set bonus stacks with [Serpent-Coil Braid]. Although, by the looks of the new trinkets, Serpent-Coil braid will be completely obsolete:

Embrace of the Spider
Equip: Increases spell power by 98.
Equip: Your spells have a chance to increase your haste rating by 505 for 10 secs.

Sundial of the Exiled
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 84.
Equip: Your harmful spells have a chance to increase your spell power by 590 for 10 secs.

(Source: mmo-champion.com level 80 raid trinkets)

With the changes to Focus Magic, could it be beneficial for a fire mage to sink a point into Focus Magic?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...00000000000000

Alternatively, for an AoE build:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...00000000000000

I still think Magic Absorption may prove considerably useful in PvE settings, depending on raid damage of course. I don't see a reason to put a point into Blast Wave though, and I'm wary of putting 2 points into Firestarter as well (but Dragon's Breath + Flamestrike at least makes sense). On the flip side, Frost received a lot of attention, and perhaps Fire tree is next (Firestarter, Combustion, Living Bomb tweaks and balances).

Just did some testing with focus magic on PTR, it's interesting i guess.
You can only buff it on one target, buffing another removes the first buff. When that person crits, you get +3% crit for 10 seconds (it's reflected on the character screen stat window). 3% crit for 2 people for 1 point is pretty cool, assuming it stacks with other things.

What makes it odd is if that other person is a mage, and buffs you with it, you get the 10 second 3% crit buff version of it, instead of the 30 minute buff.

Oh and the short term buff is a magic buff, so it's presumably dispellable.

Emptying your mana pool in seconds with arcane blast is pretty amusing, if distressing for an arcane mage like myself.

Given that it can only be active on 1 target, I would presume it stacks with all raid buffs. I will be casting this on my fire mage friend since he gets the most from the crit and having over 45% crit chance fully buffed, he should have no problem keeping the 3% crit buff on me too.

All in all, I think I like this version of FM. easy to use, and good returns for 1 point.

Feels like 7-10 yards. Any volunteers on US beta servers want to meet me in IF to test this?

It currently still explodes on you, hopefully that will be fixed eventually. The knockback is something lame like 1 - 2 yards. Still within melee range on landing, I think its just meant to be cool and offer a chance to have a lucky interruption on someones casting.

DoTs are single target. Overall cap for the kaboom is 37,500

Yes, Van Cleef and Smite can be juggled up. But they can also be stunned. I would be surprised if we could make Lurker hop with this spell.

And no MoE does not appear to proc from either LB or Blizz or AM at this time.

This description of Focus Magic seems to add a new twist to an old buffing mechanic.

We all know buffing a pvp flagged player, flags the buffer.

So if I'm on a PvE server, I can cast FM on a friendly player questing near opposing faction players. Now I can go hide out of view of the enemy, and /pvp. If and when the buffed ally crit's he should flag up.

I expect this to be changed to party/raid only.


Fire pvp is looking a lot better for Wrath imo. Not only have we seen a few nice pvp talents added/adjusted, but 40%+ crit chance will restore some of the burst lost to resilience.

My pleasure mate. I'll hit Flamestrikes coefficient up tonight after I get a sleep cycle in, since its cap is so insanely high this'll be cake at 29 datapoints per cast in Terrokar. However, its tooltip on beta right now still reflects a 3 second cast time, and with a very ghetto measure of LBing Dr Boom and casting as a tick happens and watching it land as one happens, it appears to still be a 3 second cast.

Blizzards cap is 25,000 per wave. Now, I've never really payed close attention to Blizzard, and my two second "How many ticks is it?" test on Dr Boom is telling me it ticks 7 times currently? Is this something it normally does? or is this like the AM bugs I remember hearing about back in the day?

Either way, its overall cap is between 175,000 and 200,000 depending. Going to take a break from gathering data to do some posting on my research thread about all this and putting the Living Bomb/Blizz stuff in a consumable format.

Nope, it's pretty suitable manacost. 9% base cost, 3x 300% -> 9x 9% = 81% basemana, which equals something around ~2650 mana when spammed with full stack, not calculating possible manacost reductions. However, the 15% coefficient killed the spell effectively. (Atleast the first post in thread implies that the coeffiecient was 25% earlier). AB spam dps went down by 18% in addition for not being sustainable.

edt: How is it possible to misstype that much.