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?
1) Does not.
2) Yes.
3) Yes. Functionally the procs appear to be on a one-roll system, such that if both are maxed they will always both proc.
4) Yes. Caveat is even moten armor procs burn charges right now, which I hope can be added as an exception since it's a waste of a charge.
Originally Posted by Sydtrack
So.. now FoF is not working on bosses anymore? And FoF is useless with Frostbolt Glyph?
Please read the thread you're replying to. This has been covered. FoF will proc just fine on bosses, and is in fact the intention of the talent. It (and Frostbite) also proc on Glyphed Frostbolts.
Functionally, read "your chill effects" do something as "your spells that under normal circumstances against a normal mob cause a chill effect" do something. Frostbite procs on bosses, too, you just get an Immune popup and it fails to "stick". Since FoF sticks to YOU, not the boss, it procs and works.
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.
I would LOVE this kind of a mechanic. Balancing it in terms of damage and mana costs could be a bit difficult, but I think this kind of a system would be the most interesting and fun casting mechanic in the game.
PTR is now on build 8962, however, Flamestrike still shows as a 3 second cast in the tooltip. I can't look in combat log because combat log isn't recording anything.
Firestarter -is- working, but it doesn't give you any buff to indicate it, much like Fiery Payback.
I got the impression that the shoulder inscriptions were actually meant for enchanters.
From MMO-Champion on 09/06:
Also, inscriptions are the name of shoulder enchants already in the game before they ever envisioned the inscription profession.
Am I just reading all of this wrong?
It seems like spells (if you look closely those are spells, not items) that use ink as a reagent are more likely to be Inscription than Enchanting.
And on the topic of Inscription being more powerful than other professions, in addition to that 40 spellpower you get another glyph, which may seal the deal depending on what the final glyph lineup looks like.
Since blizz is trying to encourage more dynamic play I'd personally like to see them make the damage buff from arcane blast lower and the mana increase less severe...
then make arcane barrage give you a small damage buff for arcane blast for a short time..
and finally extend the duration of the AB debuff
doing this will encourage weaving arcane barrage into AB rotations for it's damage buff
the longer debuff timer allows us to actually weave spells such as arcane barrage and missile barrage procs into AB without losing the debuff.
The dynamic play blizz wants is now there and can lead to viable dps rotations once blizz sorts out the numbers.
If focus magic stacks with other crit talents, we may be back to stacking class, no? (Since it's 1 mage for 1 buff) At the very least, this needs to be taken into account.
One issue I havent seen brought up much is the good ol' 'Playing with Fire'. Sure, it gives 3% dmg, but its still feels like a badly balanced talent. I dont know what to do with it, maybe a 2pointer: 4% dmg, 2% spelldmg taken? Or 3% dmg/1%taken etc. Just something. Right now its a talent you feel you have to take in the fire tree, but also feel a bit awkward about having.
I can understand the concept, its the glass cannon materialized through a talent, but the reward/risk-ratio seems wrong.
Do people feel its a good enough talent?
One issue I havent seen brought up much is the good ol' 'Playing with Fire'. Sure, it gives 3% dmg, but its still feels like a badly balanced talent. I dont know what to do with it, maybe a 2pointer: 4% dmg, 2% spelldmg taken? Or 3% dmg/1%taken etc. Just something. Right now its a talent you feel you have to take in the fire tree, but also feel a bit awkward about having.
I can understand the concept, its the glass cannon materialized through a talent, but the reward/risk-ratio seems wrong.
Do people feel its a good enough talent?
It could be 3% dmg/9% dmg taken and I would still take Playing With Fire.
If focus magic stacks with other crit talents, we may be back to stacking class, no? (Since it's 1 mage for 1 buff) At the very least, this needs to be taken into account.
in terms of the potential in a raid, 3% crit for 2 players is a drop in the ocean. If you're worried about unique abilities with stacking potential then you might as well also argue against the mana returns on the water elemental or the value of combat res. The truth is, the strength of the talent is good for the class/spec using it, but it won't make the raid stack for more of it (plus, we don't even know how effectively it stacks with itself... can you have the buff and the proc on yourself at the same time - eg, 2 mages cast it on each other?)
It seems like spells (if you look closely those are spells, not items) that use ink as a reagent are more likely to be Inscription than Enchanting.
And on the topic of Inscription being more powerful than other professions, in addition to that 40 spellpower you get another glyph, which may seal the deal depending on what the final glyph lineup looks like.
Glyph Mastery is no longer in the spell database.
The shoulder enchants from Inscription are comparable to other profession perks - except for the insanity that is Leatherworker's Fur Lining (assuming Leatherworkers keep their epic BoP leg armor enchants).
It could be 3% dmg/9% dmg taken and I would still take Playing With Fire.
Yes, I kinda said that, we will take it because it min-max out dps. That wasnt the point however.
Its somewhat like the frostbolt glyph, Its a dmg gain, thus we take it. But it doesn't necessarily make it good (and since we will arguably be balanced after having these dmg gains, its not like you get some craazy dmg buff you wouldnt have got elsewhere :P)
I notice that there's already a thread complaining about the single roll on Frostbite + Fingers of Frost on the beta forums. I imagine Blizzard made this change as a quick and dirty way of fixing the "Frostbite consumes a charge of Fof" bug. Whatever the reason, I hope they don't listen to complainers and keep it the way it is. It's great. It's much better this way, once you get used to it and realize how obscenely often your Frostbite is broken instantly. Knowing you *always* have that back-up is very useful -- and knowing that when your frostbite DOES NOT get broken that you can spend the entire 4 seconds running away instead of spamming ice lance is priceless.
Rogue CloS's your Frostbite, you wait 5 seconds and hit him with Deep Freeze. Good times. I encourage anyone who's not in love with the idea to do some Batttlegrounds and try it out for a bit. You'll come to love it like I do. I made a post about it here: World of Warcraft (English) Forums -> [Feedback] Fingers of Frost
At any rate, another brilliant consequence of this change is that by putting ONE point into Imp Blizzard, you can basically get a permanant +50% crit when AoEing. It would be virtually impossible to let a full Cast of Blizzard go on more than one mob and not have a Fingers of Frost proc at some point. We're talking 15% per mob per wave (since its linked to frostbite). So basically each Blizzard gets that +50% except the initial cast.
Request for testing: If someone has time, try to determine if the +50% crit from FoF kicks in instantly after a proc during mid-blizzard (like the old +30% to crit from clearcasting on Arcane missiles) or if you actually have to have the buff when you start the cast for it to work.
I posted a possible fix to allow elementalist specs to exist. The thread didn't pick up much speed, although that probably in part due to the poor title.
I do strongly believe in this issue. Basically, FFB absolutely requires Burnout and Ice Shards in order to even function. As a result os that, FFB almost always invariantly ends up going 0/51/20 (in major part due to burnout position in the tree). If Blizzard really wants to allow elementalist specs to exist, they will have to move Burnout much below down the fire tree. As long as you can't pick up both Spell Power and Burnout in the same spec it shouldn't really matter much that Burnout gets moved down.
What I propose here is rather radical. I wonder if other people feel the same way.
<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
I posted a possible fix to allow elementalist specs to exist. The thread didn't pick up much speed, although that probably in part due to the poor title.
I do strongly believe in this issue. Basically, FFB absolutely requires Burnout and Ice Shards in order to even function. As a result os that, FFB almost always invariantly ends up going 0/51/20 (in major part due to burnout position in the tree). If Blizzard really wants to allow elementalist specs to exist, they will have to move Burnout much below down the fire tree. As long as you can't pick up both Spell Power and Burnout in the same spec it shouldn't really matter much that Burnout gets moved down.
What I propose here is rather radical. I wonder if other people feel the same way.
I would propose an even more radical change. Allow it to benefit from Improved/Empowered Frostbolt/Fireball. You can't get *both* empowered talents, but you could get both improved talents. That might be a bit much, so maybe just the 2 improved talents. That gives it a 2 second cast time with a 3 second coeffecient. That lets it scale slightly faster than Fireball (with empowered talent) but not too much faster and with a lower base damage.
That might make it too good, I suppose, but we're sort of stuck in a position where the spell is either going to be too good or too bad. Either its a mages primary raid dps spell or it's useless. There's very little room for middle ground with a spell like that. I'd rather see it slightly too good than totally unused.
I notice that there's already a thread complaining about the single roll on Frostbite + Fingers of Frost on the beta forums. I imagine Blizzard made this change as a quick and dirty way of fixing the "Frostbite consumes a charge of Fof" bug. Whatever the reason, I hope they don't listen to complainers and keep it the way it is. It's great. It's much better this way, once you get used to it and realize how obscenely often your Frostbite is broken instantly. Knowing you *always* have that back-up is very useful -- and knowing that when your frostbite DOES NOT get broken that you can spend the entire 4 seconds running away instead of spamming ice lance is priceless.
My assumption was that it was intended, up until Ghostcrawler visited the thread and said, "I'm looking into it." That kind of implies that he wasn't aware that it was working that way, and it kind of seems like if it was intentional, he should have been.
I agree that it's better -- having a 1/3.6 chance of proccing a freeze effect of some kind every time you apply a chill is just plain kind of silly. Not more powerful, perhaps, but better.
I posted some log data in that thread, which seems to make it very clear that it's working as a single roll. One strange thing I found:
19:21:41.090 <--- Fingers of Frost (applied)
19:21:42.511 <--- Frostbolt hits
19:21:42.512 <--- Frostbite
19:21:42.975 <--- Fingers of Frost (refreshed)
It seems as if Frostbite has a chance to proc Fingers of Frost, which seems...strange.
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 would propose an even more radical change. Allow it to benefit from Improved/Empowered Frostbolt/Fireball. You can't get *both* empowered talents, but you could get both improved talents. That might be a bit much, so maybe just the 2 improved talents. That gives it a 2 second cast time with a 3 second coeffecient. That lets it scale slightly faster than Fireball (with empowered talent) but not too much faster and with a lower base damage.
That might make it too good, I suppose, but we're sort of stuck in a position where the spell is either going to be too good or too bad. Either its a mages primary raid dps spell or it's useless. There's very little room for middle ground with a spell like that. I'd rather see it slightly too good than totally unused.
Well, what I am proposing is not directly directed towards that issue. I did point out the same fix a while ago, that empowered frostbolt/fireball should also affect FFB since they are mutually exclusive. Problem is, even though that would fix DPS issues, it wouldn't change the fact that the only way to make an elementalist spec work is to spec deep fire. (to get burnout)
Doesn't that strikes you as misplaced ?
It isn't much about how to fix the dps issue, but to allow an elementalist spec where you actually have a real choice in the talents you choose. Lets say you take all the changes I proposed in the link, that makes Burnout a 25-30 point talent, and Ice Shards 8 point. That means the sole requirement for an elementalist spec would be 0/30/8, which leaves a lot of room for customisation. If FFB dps is still an issue even after everything I proposed (which I doubt FWIW), then it still doesn't prevents the spell from having a multiplier change (or base damage increased). Theres about an infinite amount of solutions to fix DPS issues, however, the desired solution tends to be the simpliest ones, to avoid having side effects. However, that rule only applies for spells that already exists. For a new spell that its damage isn't tweaked yet, I do believe you have more room to play with the coefficients without having an infinity of customer service to tag along the way.
<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
19:21:41.090 <--- Fingers of Frost (applied)
19:21:42.511 <--- Frostbolt hits
19:21:42.512 <--- Frostbite
19:21:42.975 <--- Fingers of Frost (refreshed)
It seems as if Frostbite has a chance to proc Fingers of Frost, which seems...strange.
Or could the FoF application just be laggy from the frostbolt? It felt that way on the PTR for me, but I didn't record any data on it due to the general server instability. I had a build without Frostbite and with FoF and it seemed that FoF took a long while to apply after a hit.
I'll check it out once I get on, new ptr build out.
EDIT3 - Conclusions from testing:
a) Frostbites procced from Imp Blizzard, Cone of Cold, or Ice Armor do not steal an FoF charge.
b) Frostbites procced from Frostbolts do steal an FoF charge.
c) FoF charges are never stolen when procced on unfreezeable mobs.
Something weird is happening in the combat log with regards to frostbolt's starting and casting messages when fingers of frost procs. FoF is applied on cast, apparently. Maybe this accounts for the weird behavior with linked frostbite since that is applied on hit.
I must say, even if everyone is crying from the Arcane Blast nerf, just as I was, the Arcane spec is now so much fun to play with.
Since MBAM > ABar > AB in term of pure dps, rota are quite simple, like
AB-ABar-AB-ABar, then ABar-MBAM-ABar when the proc occurs, and I must say it scales really well with haste/SP, it's no longuer mana dump, and its really still competitive if going for a haste/spell gemming. If they do a number pass on ABar and AM then a little up, like a better synergy, it will still be first comparing to fire and frost builds. At same gear level I was always on top or equal to fire, on top of frost and destrolocks. With Only Mage armor and Arcane intellect at level 70, 5/8 T6 Gear (End BT gear), I was doing from 1550 to 1850 sustained dps on Dr Boom, depending on RNG, and I was still geared for TBC 2.4 Arcane (int+spi). Mana was even easier to manage than in Fire Spec with Living Bomb. It scaled very well then just an elemental shaman in the group was enough to make it to 2000+dps, even with no bloodlust, and with a Balance or a destro warlock for the +10/+13% buff, it was just awesome dps at no mana cost, can't wait to test it fully raid buffed.
If Roywin/Xentropy/Vontre could do a number pass for comparison, it could be cool, cause I think there is not so much to worry about on the actual Arcane Spec, Even with the new hard AB nerf.
The only real bad aspect I found with the new AB is that when you get a Bloodlust, even with AB-ABar Rota, you're forced to have 3 AB Debuff Stacked, And that was really hard for my mana pool, but I think a little Replenishment buff at the end could help handle that, or the chance of a MBAM occuring proc.
Oh, and Arcane Barrage would need a little Up, since it does roughly the same damage as an unstackked AB (with a GCD time Cast, so ABar got the same DPS as a TBC 2.4 3Stack AB, at a reduced mana cost), or at least an up for AM.
Just with some more synergy, I definitely see arcane going somewhere it's viable, and fun.
But the fact is that Arcane in TBC was all about mana, and the new one is not. Are Arcanists ready to think their spec in another way, stopping the blabla about AB and starting to rely on synergy ? I think It would be more usefull for dev than the actual whining about AB nerf.
Lets start thinking as if AB was only a filler spell.
The only thing I'm worrying about is... even if this seems to scale really well at 70, how does this scale a 80 ?
Observed:
Flamestrike DD - 0.242705570291777
Flamestrike DoT per Tick - 0.122015915119
Flamestrike DoT Total - 0.488063660477
Frost Nova - 0.192307692307692
Dragon's Breath - 0.192970822281167
Blast Wave - 0.192970822281167
Cone of Cold - 0.214190981432361
Arcane Explosion - 0.214190981432361
For the .214 crowd, we can predict the value by about:
(1.5 / 3.5) / 2 = 0.214285714286
So CoC and AE get a normal AoE penalty... And CoC conspicuously doesn't get a snare penalty.
For the .192 crowd, we can predict the value by about:
((1.5 / 3.5) * .9) / 2 = 0.192857142857
So it seems FN, DB, and BW are getting a normal AoE penalty, and a 10% snare/root penalty?
And as per the norm, Flametrike makes no sense to me. We expect it to have a coefficient of:
(3 / 3.5) / 2 = 0.428571428571
Split between the DoT and the DD. Which doesn't work out.
Two qualitative obserservations I've had recently that might be of interest:
1) CoC and DB don't share a cooldown in 8962 (may already be known... haven't seen it myself until today)
2) Abars cooldown is server directed, therefore its effective spammable rate may be 3.0 + Ping Time seconds, not 3.0 seconds. This can be observed by casting abar and watching its cooldown double tick, it starts the GCD, then around 100 msec (or whatever your ping is) later it seems to start its cooldown. I haven't checked with any direct measurements yet (like if it backdates its cooldown to start at the GCD start), but this could change its DPS value if we're expecting it to be available exactly at T+3.0
aoe_ref_blizz.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
From earlier tests (Moving AoE radius increase), and measuring floortiles in IF with Blink, every tile is approximately 7.5 yards (two tiles is 15 yards). So the radius of Blizzard is about 10 yards.
I don't know yet if the distance you get kicked is related to how close you are to the caster, or if kicking from the very edge of the spell moves you less / more or what have you. I'll need a PvP target to confirm that with any degree of certainty.
Last edited by Zaldinar : 09/19/08 at 7:33 AM.
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Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.
In fact, when you use AB or Frostbolt as filler in ABr rotations, you should "lose" an extra 1sec.
t=0: cast ABr
t=1.5: cast AB/frostbolt
t=3: ABr CD finished
t=4: cast ABr
If you use Scorch and Fireblast as Filler, it does:
t=0: cast ABr
t=1.5: cast scorch/fireblast
t=3: scorch/fireblast finished, ABr CD finished, cast ABr
My suggestion is to use this kind of rotation to avoid "losing" 1 sec in each rotation. And, fire crits are higher than AB and frostbolt crits. And seeing the pourcentage of crit we will have in Wotlk, maybe it will be better?
ABr -> fireblast -> ABr -> scorch -> ABr -> fireblast (CD is up thx to talent) -> etc.
More ABr at the end of the fight, more clearcast (and Arcane Potency), and PoM pyro.
Maybe i'm totally wrong, but i'd like your feeling (and theorycraft) about it, if possible
Rather than constantly having to readapt like you're trying to do sakku, it would be really better to give the dev a baseline to work on, like the synergy of ABar MBAM and AB, to make the AB debuff usefull somehow, or to convince the dev that one of the best solution to have back the mana dump but usefull effect of AB back is to allow the Debuff to stack past 3.
You're losing MBAM, you're losing 3% hit, you're losing a range which is also really hard to manage sometime, and you're nerfing your dps for adapting to a spec which isn't done yet. Also you destroy a key point of Arcane Spec : The threat issue. This is my opinion.
1. Elemental precision and Icy Veins: Every PvE mage needs these talents, simple as that. But at the same time it prevents us from putting points in the lower tier of arcane where there are actually talents that wouldn't cause all that spirit on our gear to be a complete waste. Elemental precision in my opinion doesn't belong in the frost tree. It feels to me that it would be much better placed in the fire tree or merged into arcane focus and bumped up to Tier2.
2. Icy Veins: Also referred to in the previous point. This is a nice talent, without doubt, but at the same time it destroys the philosophy Blizzard claimed to have with the new talent trees, basically that people would be having to make difficult choices between different but equally good talents. Where is this other 11 point talent that should make us wonder if it's better or not? Focus magic is a nice start, especially since deep fire builds depend alot on crits and that it stacks with other raidbuffs, but still it doesn't even come close to the quality of Icy Veins.
3. Too many too good talents in Frost: This is clear .. even frost mages specced purely for PvE would be able to get alot of talents which snare, immobilize targets and at the same time improve the mages survivability. Fire however does not have this luxury. If we spec purely for PvE we do not have the luxury to spend points on talents such as "Blazing Speed - Spell - World of Warcraft", "Molten Shields - Spell - World of Warcraft", "Impact - Spell - World of Warcraft" or "Fiery Payback". Even abilities like "Blast Wave - Spell - World of Warcraft" and "Dragon's Breath - Spell - World of Warcraft" are starting to be pushed aside. And the only way that this possibly could be balanced is if a deep frost spec does alot less DPS than a fire build or if Fire also gets many of it's PvE talents merged with the before mentioned PvP / Survivability talents.
This is a huge setback for this profession as a mage (or any class for that matter) unless I'm missing something. I'm in the process of gathering all the herbs for this profession but now I'm considering keeping JC.. lets hope it's temporary.
Have you also noticed the significant delay before the knockback occurs? It takes like one second before the targets actually get knocked after using bw. At first I thought this was due to PTR/beta lag, but then I logged on my friends elemental shaman and tried the 51pt talent which turned out to be really fast, almost faster than instant if there is such a thing.
I wonder why that is... hopefully it'll get fixed.
1. Elemental precision and Icy Veins: Every PvE mage needs these talents, simple as that.
Just becuase you state something is so, doesn't make it so. Every PvE mage does not need those talents. But if you honestly beleive they do, that's fine, but your going to have to make the argument as to why and back it up.
09/18/08, 7:31 PM
