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.
Clearly, I got a defective Occam's Razor.
Originally Posted by Zaldinar
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?
Bug, sounds like. Still listed as 8 seconds with an interval of 1 second in wowhead's database parse.
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.
If the new focus magic is effectively giving two people 3% crit, and it stacks with other crit raid buffs, will the new fire build be 11/52/8+1? FM is substantially better than IV from a raid DPS perspective; clearcasting and frost channeling are roughly equal for effeciency. If T9 gear gives excess hit like pre-sunwell T6 did, running 14% (relying on misery/IFF for the rest--which we should do this time around) and going for arc med may be the best way to go, as it would allow 5% glyphed molten armor *and* 30% in combat regen.
Spirit would be very desirable for fire mages again.
Last edited by Celani : 09/18/08 at 12:49 PM.
Reason: grammar
Celani, check out the build I posted on the previous page. It's a single target build, 18.53.0. I don't see a reason to sink any points into frost, as you're spending 5 points to use 3 points. You're gaining 3% spell hit, but you're giving up 30% in-combat regen. I don't believe Blizzard intends for mana to be as plentiful as it has been.
Elemental Precisions give you 98.34 hit rating, but there is no benefit from any of the talents required to get there. Ice Floes would be beneficial if you took Ivy Veins, but I'm not sure it's more desirable than Clearcasting. The builds in question then:
There is one floating point on the second build, which I sunk into Magic Absorption (or Student of the Mind, depending on how you want to look at it).
Also, as far as spirit being desirable for mages, 10% spirit increase is a trivial amount. I would much rather have 10% increase to intellect. Nonetheless, spirit seems to be going hand in hand with mage equipment. It's almost becoming a pre-packaged stat, much like it is on T4-T6 sets.
Seeking clarity on FoF, as the descriptions here seem to be at odds with the talent description on MMO ("gives your chill effects"):
1) So FoF no longer procs off of ice lance spam, or it still does?
2) You can now get an FoF proc off of ice armor?
3) FoF procs in tandem with frostbite, and only in tandem? That is, I will only get FoF procs on spells/effects that currently proc frostbite, and I then get to choose whether to attack the frostbitten target, or a different target (burning FoF)?
4) I can use FoF on a spell of any school, including brain freezed fireballs?
The way I currently read it, it can make sense to have both frostbite and FoF for pvp. FoF doesn't give you the root. Frostbite doesn't give you the target choice flexibility. An example where this would be useful: up against a druid warrior in arena. I get the proc off a warrior hitting me, and the warrior is frozen. But I choose to use the freeze time to sheep the warrior, and then throw an icelance and deepfreeze at the druid, consuming FoF and resulting in a cowcicle.
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?
The arcane blast nerf would be ok if we were presented with an alternative. But at the moment we have no alternative. We just have 30% less damage on our nuke and a whole lot more mana. We have to put faith in Blizzard that they have some plan for arcane, and that we'll have some interesting, workable rotations coming our way.
However, in BC arcane was only viable with 2xT5. The 75% damage was the equivalent of baking in our T5. By all means increase the mana cost but keep the 75%. That way AB is a proper mana dump. But taking 30% of the damage away means AB might be effective for dumping mana, but it doesn't to the damage to justify dumping that much mana.
I'm all for rotations but they're not going to happen until we get a longer AB debuff and hopefully a reason to use arcane barrage.
Why not have arcane barrage consume a 3-stack debuff and do a lot more damage in the process. That way it's worth casting for the increased damage and to drop the debuff. Arcane missiles should sustain the debuff. Perhaps that way the three second debuff could be kept with arcane barrage a large damage method of dropping it. (potentially casting arcane missiles rather than AB straight after barrage could keep the debuff up as long as you wanted before dropping)
We need some kind of system. Right now we have a nerf and no system to make up for it.
Just wondering, is fiery payback any good to spend 2 points into? Dont think we will fall under 35% health much in PvE. Also why not get blastwave instead of dragon's breath,Blastwave knockback seems better but just my opinion(or get both and not fiery payback).
There are some posts from Ghostcrawler in the US mage beta forums:
About AB:
"We're messing around with it. In our tests, the most efficient way to play Arcane was to spam nothing but Arcane Blast. Ideally we'd like to see more Arcane Barrage, Arcane Missiles and even some fire thrown around in there.
One way to get that to happen is to let Arcane Blast still be a rewarding button to hit, but make it less desirable to push a second time in a row. There are other ways to do it too, like cooldowns or just making it less efficient. "
"That (buffing one spec and declaring it the PvE raiding spec) is certainly the easier way to balance classes, but we are gluttons for punishment and are trying to make the various different ways to play a mage viable in a raid setting.
Arcane Blast ended up being so good that we were concerned you could remove all your other buttons, and that every mage would go spec deep Arcane. Rather than just nerfing it, we are trying mechanics that let pushing the button be awesome, but pushing it twice in a row be less awesome. "
"As posted elsewere, intended, though I don't have a lot of confidence that this is it's final design.
I should add that I don't spend a lot of effort comparing the change logs posted on outside web sites, and they could very well have some details wrong. "
About the trees:
"If the question is: should we expect Frost, Fire, Arcane (and perhaps Frostfire) do be doing competitive raid dps, the answer is yes. Obviously you could probably come up with a really broken spec if you wanted to.
Traditionally we gave melee dps a slight advantage because they tend to die more and are more penalized for moving around. But this is less true in BC than it was in Classic WoW. We want to balance for the raid case, so it may be you see other specs doing higher damage on training dummies.
All in all, the numbers should be a lot tighter. Even tanks and healers can do a lot more damage. (I don't expect healers *will* be doing a lot more damage in a raid, because they are often preoccupied with other things.)
If we do our job right, gear and skill will be more important to who "wins" damage meters than class mechanics.
About spirit:
"We have some ideas here, but it's also possible we won't make any changes. Too soon to tell is probably the best answer I can give. Mana generation is too good for some classes right now, which makes it hard to evaluate how much Spirit and mp5 we need to hand out. "
One way to get that to happen is to let Arcane Blast still be a rewarding button to hit, but make it less desirable to push a second time in a row.
Not to sound awfully pessimistic, but making it where you'd only want to use one-stacked AB kind of defeats the point of the spell, doesn't it? I'm fine with having a rotation of AB/ABr with Missiles Barrage on procs and balancing around that, but it just seems to completely ignore a facet of the spell.
Hopefully they'll consider some other options that would allow it to be the mana dump it seems intended for.
Spirit just needs to just convert directly to some DPS stat like agi/strength does for melee. Make it so that stacking spirit and then using mage armor is better DPS than molten armor.
One reason I like the current TBC arcane is that it's play style is huge burst between low dmg or regen. Comparing to frost or fire or any other class, arcane is much more dependent on CD, dps is double or triple during use of CD. This kind of burst works very well in a lot of boss fights with phases. However, one cannot even sustain 15 sec of arcane blast during arcane power with the new nerf. I think the optimal mana cost of AB3 spam should consume 70-80 % of mana bar during AP + IV. A very CD dependent tree would make arcane mage a very fun spec to play with and have a lot more interactions with different bosses.
Just wondering, is fiery payback any good to spend 2 points into? Dont think we will fall under 35% health much in PvE. Also why not get blastwave instead of dragon's breath,Blastwave knockback seems better but just my opinion(or get both and not fiery payback).
From a "stand-still and nuke" perspective, World In Flames or Incineration are a better investment of points since both Living Bomb and Scorch are a part of your rotation; where as Blastwave and Dragon's Breath are not. Fiery Payback just isn't reliable in a raid situation and may only account for 1-2 Pyroblasts per fight. The healing benefits may make it more worthwhile than World in Flames or Incineration, but that is dependent on the encounter. I would suggest dropping both Dragon's Breath and Blastwave to pick up talents that will actually help your damage when fighting a single target.
One question, does Brain Freeze proc off of Frostfire Bolt? If yes, combined with the addition of the Frostfire glyph, will a Frostfire/Elementalist spec ever be competitive?
Has anyone run the numbers on a 51.8.12 build with an ArBarr/FFB rotation with 3/5 Ignite, IV, and 3/3 EP? The changes to Focus Magic may make this spec a bit more attractive if there is another Mage putting up the Scorch/WC debuff.
Just wondering, is fiery payback any good to spend 2 points into? Dont think we will fall under 35% health much in PvE. Also why not get blastwave instead of dragon's breath,Blastwave knockback seems better but just my opinion(or get both and not fiery payback).
Fiery Payback is useful anytime you are below 35% health, which (while it's probably not good to be below 35% health) will happen on some fights -- that's just the nature of raid encounters. I mean, every time High Warlord breaks his shield, even with Frost Ward, I'm coming out of that under 35% health. My immediate opening spell would by pyroblast. And 20% less damage would certainly help against freak occurences (although it's not ground breaking, and is more suited for PvP).
Blast Wave is entirely situational, and anytime you're AoEing, it's more likely that you'd want to keep mobs in the same spot. You probably won't be the person tanking the mobs (think hyjal), and your tanks won't appreciate it when your blast wave knocks every mob outside of consecration (and all other raid AoE, save for Blizzard). In fact, that makes it even worse, if you have a frost mage using Blizzard. Your Blast wave would knock the mobs out of consecration, and then blizzard would slow them down from reentering. It's a hypothetical situation, but it's just one of the downsides of blast wave. Dragon's Breath seems superior in every way.
The reason I put no points into Incineration is that you're spending 1 talent point for 2% crit on a spell you'll be casting once every 30 seconds. It's simply not worth it, and the scorch glyph, even in its new state, trivializes Incineration, which has more merit in a fire PvP build (in which you would take Improved Fire Blast, which would gain 6% crit).
World in Flames is also a tough sell. With it, your only AoE is Flamestrike. If you were spamming AE, I would want Dragon's Breath to interject on CDs. The problem is, World in Flames, without points in DB and BW, gives even less benefit than Incineration. If anything, I would remove a point from DB and put it into Student of the Mind for 3/3 there.
Yes, Fiery Payback and Dragon's Breath are entirely situational spells, and there is a slight DPS increase if you removed all points from Fiery Payback and DB and put them into Incineration for the full 6% crit to Scorch. I just think it's more beneficial to take what you can, and the points in Fiery Payback seem like they could, on the right fights, give substationally greater DPS gain than any points in Incineration.
Fiery Payback is useful anytime you are below 35% health, which (while it's probably not good to be below 35% health) will happen on some fights -- that's just the nature of raid encounters. I mean, every time High Warlord breaks his shield, even with Frost Ward, I'm coming out of that under 35% health. My immediate opening spell would by pyroblast. And 20% less damage would certainly help against freak occurences (although it's not ground breaking, and is more suited for PvP).
Blast Wave is entirely situational, and anytime you're AoEing, it's more likely that you'd want to keep mobs in the same spot. You probably won't be the person tanking the mobs (think hyjal), and your tanks won't appreciate it when your blast wave knocks every mob outside of consecration (and all other raid AoE, save for Blizzard). In fact, that makes it even worse, if you have a frost mage using Blizzard. Your Blast wave would knock the mobs out of consecration, and then blizzard would slow them down from reentering. It's a hypothetical situation, but it's just one of the downsides of blast wave. Dragon's Breath seems superior in every way.
Calls to mind "glyph of Blast Wave", increases damage by x% and removes knockback. But, I guess you'd do just as well spamming AE, not like AoE is usually a major killer. Still it does seem like an easy hotfix.
Working theory presented on beta forum is that FoF/Frostbite are using a one-roll system now (probably last patch too, though the operation is now more clear). If you've got 1/3 Frostbite and 2/2 Fingers of Frost, for example:
1-5: both proc
6-15: FoF proc
16-100: no proc
Question for anyone who can get online (I can't 'til tonight): has the Deep Freeze base damage really been restored to its previous range of 1319-1531?
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.
Does the change to FoF to proc off "your chill effects" render it useless against bosses? Aren't most bosses immune to chill effects? I have a hard time believing this to be the case, since the whole purpose of FoF was to give shatter some uses against raid bosses, but I just had to ask.
I havent found any posts in reference to this yet. I apologize if there is. What is the purpose of the new mechanic to AB? Are there arcane mages out there that didnt like the BC version with the faster cast time? Numbers aside, wether they make arcanes dps in line with frost or fire is not the issue(they will do it). Why are they taking the primary nuke,at least mine, away all of a sudden? Its what i assume many have come to love about the spec, burst damage like no other, and a sustainable filler such as frostbolt. Anyways just me crying about my one and only spec, sorry.
Arcane Blast ended up being so good that we were concerned you could remove all your other buttons, and that every mage would go spec deep Arcane. Rather than just nerfing it, we are trying mechanics that let pushing the button be awesome, but pushing it twice in a row be less awesome. "
hmmm... If this is the philosophy they want to follow, they could simply extend the debuff to 5-8 seconds (former is good for ABar, latter if they want us using non-proc AM), keep the rest of the debuff the same, and buff the base damage of the spell itself by, oh, 15% or so. Make the base spell marginally worse that FB/FfB/FrB as a nuke, with the ramp-up effect turning it godly for the 8 seconds your mana pool will last. This seemed to be the original intent of the spell, and it was good.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
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.
Do you even realise that it really isn't clear that the much touted fire dps numbers are sustainable ? Also, did you realize that it is very likely that living bomb explosions end up eating fireball ignite charges pretty much consistently ? Firespec will not do the top numbers you compare arcane to, but rather somewhere between the fireball/hotstreak number up to living bomb/fireball/hotstreak numbers, which means arcane is a lot closer than you make it sound. You lose some in exchange for better pushback protection and better damage on the move.
<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
Anyways just me crying about my one and only spec, sorry.
You arent onlyone crying, im too *snif*.
Anyways I still hope that they make all builds viable for raiding. Like Ghostcrawler did wrote in US beta forums they trying to make all mage builds raid viable.
Atleast mages can choose then what to throw at bosses and not forced to specifiec builds.
Celani, check out the build I posted on the previous page.
Also, as far as spirit being desirable for mages, 10% spirit increase is a trivial amount. I would much rather have 10% increase to intellect. Nonetheless, spirit seems to be going hand in hand with mage equipment. It's almost becoming a pre-packaged stat, much like it is on T4-T6 sets.
Definitely similar to what I had in mind. Regarding the spirit talent, I don't see the point in taking it as fire (or frost if it sneaks into the tree). Its benefit at 2 points is equivalent to the spirit found on a single piece of gear; I'd much rather have +240 bonus healing to targets affected by amp magic (2/2 Magic Attunement). That's substantial raid utility for just two 2 points, not to mention +6 yards on counterspell/sheep (more for pvp, but a nice convenience for PvE).
I havent found any posts in reference to this yet. I apologize if there is. What is the purpose of the new mechanic to AB? Are there arcane mages out there that didnt like the BC version with the faster cast time? Numbers aside, wether they make arcanes dps in line with frost or fire is not the issue(they will do it). Why are they taking the primary nuke,at least mine, away all of a sudden? Its what i assume many have come to love about the spec, burst damage like no other, and a sustainable filler such as frostbolt. Anyways just me crying about my one and only spec, sorry.
Cast time is determined at the start of a spell cast.
Mana cost is determined at the completion of a spell cast.
Damage is determined at the completion of a spell cast.
The 2 determining factors in TBC AB were determined at different times. This lead to on some occasions getting costs inconsistant with the cast times.
The 2 determining factors in WotLK AB are determined at the same time. You will never see that inconsistency.
While, most players liked the ability to cast an AB as the debuff was expiring to get the multiple debuff casting speed at the 0 debuff mana cost, I don't beleive that blizzard did. I beleive that is why the changed the mechanic of Arcane Blast for WotLK, but I don't have any statements verifying that theory.
One way to get that to happen is to let Arcane Blast still be a rewarding button to hit, but make it less desirable to push a second time in a row. There are other ways to do it too, like cooldowns or just making it less efficient. "
Pheroz, i understand the gimmick mechanics, how often a person got to utilize it is up for debate. It appears that Blizzard does not want AB to be a primary nuke. My question was why? Fireball and Frostbolt are not on the chopping block. As far as i could tell everyone who used AB liked it, and not because of inconsistencies.
Thanks Roywyn, the coefficient I had for living bomb were out of date. I also altered the implementation of hot streak to be more easily visible. Everything on the list should be addressed now. Additionally I updated with the latest patch changes. Fire is like... lol? Living Bomb does a ton of damage. However it's still better off with mage armor.
Question for anyone who can get online (I can't 'til tonight): has the Deep Freeze base damage really been restored to its previous range of 1319-1531?
Ohhhh, you're such a tease Lhiv.
I just got on beta, the damage reduction was reversed on deep freeze, it's 1319-1531 damage again. Another thing that came out with this build is new armor models, my gnome mage is very sexy now.
The mere fact that changes to AB drastically effect the whole tree is just a clear indication of how bad the arcane tree really is, the tree should be about it's upper end talents not soley focused on one spell. That being said with the new mana penalty & damage reduction hopefully they will look to tweaking things like Missile Barrage & Abr to encourage better rotations.
Then again I also am hoping blizzard will take a bit focus of AOE in the fire tree for better single target DPS so I guess Im a dreamer.
09/18/08, 12:19 PM
