Cranberry

For the Arcane rotations, how are you modeling Magic Absorption? At 2% mana per resist, and mage armor+mag abs+raid buffs putting you at nearly 200 resist, this could add up to rather a lot.

 

mkultra55

Question about the Frostfire Build.... I've seen you post it before and you always have Burning Soul. Do Burning Soul and Frost Channeling BOTH lower threat from Frostfire Bolt or do NEITHER lower the threat? Or maybe one does and the other doesn't? It's been confusing me for a while.

Also... wouldn't a 0/50/21 Build with Coldsnap be better for a Raiding Frostfire Build than having Living Bomb?

 

Arazan

No, I'm being serious. +4% damage per talent point is absolutely insane for any talent, let alone one in the fourth tier of a tree. I don't think that TotW will ever apply to the actual boss fight because, in the vast majority of cases, a boss can never be "snared", and a 4% damage increase from one talent point is crazy.

It's a very elegant change to pvp as it reinforces big nukes against kited targets, but it's way too powerful of a talent to be applicable to the actual boss of a pve encounter. It's just too good.

What I think will happen is that you'll see all straight-up snare mechanics like frostbolt/ffb snare met with immunity by raid bosses, and you'll see that snares with additional effects like Slow or Blade Turning (rogue) will not count for TotW against raid bosses as the boss is never actually "snared".

Basically, I think TotW is intended as a pvp talent that doesn't do much in pve. In the end, I don't think TotW will be a part of mage pve builds because it won't apply.

 

Lhivera

The general assumption would be that it will pretty much never, ever proc, because (a) first, the fight has to offer you a chance to take resistable magic damage, and (b) the increased granularity of the resist system pretty much neutralizes the increased resistance you'll be running around with, even if resistance can offer full resists, which is somewhat controversial but signs seem to point to no.

ETA: And yes, Arazan sums up the TTW situation nicely. I haven't offered this in quite a while, but I will once again stake a pint of ale against this talent applying to boss targets.

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.

 

Dragonrhonin

I think it is looking that way, which is sad. But as stated, it is too OP to work on bosses since it makes fire and frost require it. Problem is it's such a huge help to arcane. And yet, if those numbers are right, the GCD causes it to be a dps loss. I have no idea what they want out of this talent, why can't they just come out and say? Even in the thread I created GC was so vague i wasn't even able to get a general idea.

 

Faxmonkey

Well, it, apparently does at the moment. So I think the discussion we are having is "what will we do if they don't nerf it in its current form" -- and I was merely point out that the obvious course of action is a Frostfire Mage to supply the "snare". Frostfire snare is like "slow" in that its a snare + secondary effect (the secondary effect being the fireball dot) and thus bosses aren't immune to it.

You may be right that they will nerf it -- 12% damage for 3 talent points is clearly over a line. In fact, it may be too good for PvP as well. As a frost mage who would be doing some arena at some point, I was looking at potential 17 arcane/54 Frost builds and noticed that I would actually be better off going 20 arcane/51 frost and putting my 3 points into arcane torment *instead* of Improved Water Elemental -- and that's just silly. A tier 4 arcane talent shouldn't be better for frost than a tier 9 frost talent.

 

Enthorn

Torment of the Weak is a Frost PvP talent, when it comes down to complete utility. That is, frost mages revolve around snares, and 12% more damage to Frostbolt caters to that build incredibly well.

20.0.51 is such a build. That is a Frost mage's dream build for PvP. And I don't think we should be worrying about TotW at the moment in raids. It doesn't seem like there are enough encounters to warrant it. As such, I think it's safe to say that we can continue setting our eyes on the now classic 18.53.0 build.

Now, whether or not 5% crit from molten armor ends up being the better choice over 50% in combat regen from Mage Armor is another question. The choices at the moment seem to be...

- 3/3 Arcane Meditation + Mage Armor + Glyph for 80% in combat regen
- 3/3 Arcane Meditation + Molten Armor + Glyph for 30% regen and 5% crit
- Dropping 3 points from Arcane Meditation and 1 point from Student of the Mind. This frees up 4 points, which I would most likely place in Fiery Payback and World in Flames. Though, Fiery Payback is highly situational, but then again, so is Magic Absorption, Magic Attunement, and Firestarter.

Glyphs play a part in this as well. It's assumed that Glyph of Fireball is taken regardless of anything else, which leaves Mage Armor and Molten Armor glyphs for the last two slots. Naturally if we run with both of these, it means no Scorch glyph. Not a terrible problem, but nonetheless.

 

marloz

I'm browsing through the beta mage-forums now and then, and as a EU-mage I find it frustrating sometimes to only be a spectator to the mess going on there. Although, in the end, it's probably a blessing. Apart from that, props to Kyth for his outstanding simile in the "Upcoming Mage changes"-thread. Awesome and straight on.

Oh, by the way: Dragonrhonin - think about being a tad more elegant in the way you post in the mage forums. I'll quote GC on something he posted in the rogue forums; "Honor Among Thieves. You're supposed to stick together. Yes? Anyone? Hello?".

 

Gediablo

In a long tank and spank fight this spec won't be the ideal spec. But it is, however, a very good spec for doing pretty much everything else. With a standard scorch+fireball spec the target is usually dead before you can land more than a few fireballs and often the mob goes down while casting a firebal or while it is flying - scorch doesn't have this problem. Also on bosses prevent you from having the debuff up all the time or makes long cast spell very difficult this spec is good too. I would, however, advise you to get Living Bomb instead of Student of the Mind. Also you should maybe think about how to use your combustion. For most 5 and 10 man content I think a spec like this much better than most theorycrafting - which practically always is build around Brutallus like encounters - indicates it will be.

 

◊ manly

I don't know why people are up in arms before even seeing the outcome of the lowering of the mana cost of our main nukes. Its no different than people having pre-formed opinion. I strongly urge everyone to at least wait before passing judgment.

For what its worth, if the lowering of the mana cost allows us to go from 5 minutes into the 10 minutes sustainability realm, then you know what I'm fine with it. It doesn't addresses the issue, but how can people not be realists and see that it could possibly be an acceptable compromise ?

Regardless of the outcome, it will be a net buff. I find it ironic that the best way to get people frustrated seem to be giving out buffs. Whether they nerf or buff something, people complain. The fact that they change something ends up reminding people of issues. Its almost better of them to not change anything because hey the boards gets more readable.

Heres the problem, if we keep giving negative feedback to buffs, we just send a signal to blizzard to stop buffing.

Will this be an acceptable compromise ? I sure don't know. Will they be willing to completely fix the mage mana issue once and for all ? Unlikely. So take it at face value and realise that in the end all we will end up getting -- if anything -- will be a compromise regardless of the outcome. If any compromise is to be made, reducing the base mana cost is the most effective solution of them all.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Xentropy

I suppose it is "pre-formed opinion", because I don't see any result to changing our mana costs that does not fall into one of the following categories:
1) The change basically leaves us with infinite mana for all meaningful fight lengths we will encounter in Wrath so we can ignore the blue bar entirely.
2) The change leaves us in exactly the same boat we were in pre-change, in a perhaps reduced subset of fights (we're starved and do subpar dps in say 20% instead of 40% of fights), because the costs were not reduced enough.

You're clearly happy with #1 occurring. The problem with that is twofold: One, it entirely misses the point and leaves us that much closer to a one-button-spamming dps class. You almost might as well write an addon to hide the blue bar entirely to gain screen real-estate. Two, it does not address mana drain encounters, where you're still going to be best off stacking hunters and warlocks and leaving mages outside at the stone because our dps *will* always be significantly behind a class with mana renewal off cooldown in such encounters.

 

◊ manly

Well, now you pretty much know they aren't aiming for a full-sized fix of the problem. Given this new knowledge, why keep hoping for the impossible ?

If I follow that train of logic then yes I am fairly happy with the changes. Its the best possible fix short out of fully fixing the problem.

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marloz

Insinuating that they aren't going to fix our mana-problems -properly- is like what you said in your previous post - being "up in arms" before seeing the outcome of the mana cost-changes. Somewhat self-contradictory.

I believe the worst thing one can do is just accepting the change, which, we Mages have been way to lenient about.

 

Akston

It really just seems that people aren't happy with yet another bandaid fix. Given GC's post it doesn't seem that anything significant, with regards to mana, will change at this point and that really doesn't make a lot of people happy. The natural response to being denied something big and handed a shiny piece of glass instead isn't to focus on how shiny the piece of glass is.

Personally I really dislike inconsistency and flawed mechanics, regardless of whether or not they can be made to work in practice. Things may work out fine in-game with the mana changes but the idea that it is based on a flawed concept leave a sour taste in my mouth and apparently the mouths of many others.

It's true that the best idea is probably just to accept what we are given and make it work or realize that it may not make any practical difference, other than being slightly less interactive, but I would guess that a LOT of mages are idealists from the posts that I have read here and other places. For a lot of us it isn't so much about whether it works but about how it works and if it is designed well.

 

Volde

Hmmm.. my calculations shows that a Scorch/Fireblast spam with Pyro on HS proc isn't THAT lower in Dps. I mean, is still lower compared with Fireball/HS spam but absolutely comparable.
Moreover, it scales in a total different way with crit rating, giving worth it collecting the Critrating to get the 60(+) % needed to let the spec work properly.



P.s.
Great thread.

 

Prom

Well at least we're getting something to compensate for our mana problems with these spell cost changes.

It's funny though how we go from spirit being a "mage-stat" and teleporting being a unique mage ability ---> Warlocks receiving an armour that is perfectly suited for spirit and a teleport spell that is more useful in PvE than blink. Yes, I consider Demonic Circle Teleport more useful than Blink, since it's range is larger, the mana cost is smaller and it usually outweighs the disadvantages of a longer cooldown and fixed position, in PvE encounters.

As for evocation I believe it's fine now as long as it's an ability that we use when we occasionally go oom and not a spell that becomes fundamental to our play-style because we're oom on most fights.

They must find it difficult....
Those who have taken authority as the truth,
rather than truth as the authority.

 

Karit

I can't see why they don't take the cooldown off Evocation. Mages don't have any sustainable types of DoTs like Warlocks so it would give us a reusable Oh **** button that would directly reduce our DPS.

 

Praest

It's most likely due to PVP-reasons, since in PVP the only real drawback of the spell is lost dps-time and a possible lockout of arcane for X seconds when you get it interrupted. It's quite sad though, because no real arena-team would allow any mage to stand there and evo freely without interrupting.

The post about our mana costs being lowered is in a very small way an upside, at least they're looking at the problem. The fact that they can't see the forest for all the trees is however a bit sad, but I think most of us are sadly used to that by now. Getting a way to manage mana is probably a scary thought though to many mages who are just used to the whole "Pop refreshments asap and ignore the blue bar" way we had all of TBC, since it adds more to keep track off. But that's the point, just ignoring a big factor like we have is quite boring in the long run.


And a totally useless offtopic part: It's called Torment the Weak. Not Torment OF the Weak. Those two are insanely different as the first implies you're actually tormenting the weak, the second is more of a "awww, poor weak guy, he is being tormented" if that makes sense.. Anywho, please call it by it's given name, if only to please an old whiner?

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

Roywyn

Spell resistance like that only increases your miss chance for binary spells.
Spell that can be partially resisted retain their 4% miss chance regardless of resistance.
Blood Elves have a 50% advantage there though, with +2% miss chance.

Best way to find out is spec 2/2 Absorption and run Naxx and check how often it procced.
My guess would be "not often enough". Probably a decent amount of procs, but the amount of mana is likely a drop in the bucket.


I do think the talent is worth taking over 2 points in clearcasting though.
It's about 15% chance for binary spells to miss and 15% less damage on non-binary spells.
I'm sure others will disagree.

They also should give Druid and Shaman casters a similar mana regeneration tool.
And they should remove MP5 as stat and give shaman/paladins 30% spirit regen because copy-pasting every item with spirit for an MP5 copy is pretty stupid.

They would have to rebalance mana costs, the throuput on Evocation and/or Arena balance.
Which doesn't make it a good idea to turn it upside-down one week before release.
Yes, I really wish they'd push through some changes there to outdated archaic mechanics.
But sadly it's too late for that right now.


Also, DoTs are completely irrelevant for Life Tap. Life Tap is always a direct DPS loss.
It has less impact on Affliction because their only spammable spell has terrible DPS, and because Destruction gains less mana per Life Tap and their spammable spell has good DPS.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

◊ manly

If they wanted to truly fix mage mana issues, they would have removed evocation' cooldown. They had a lot of time to do that fix, and they never got around to do it. They made evocation a trained spell, then added mana gems, then made the top gem have 3 charges, then they increased the mana return, then later on they lowered evocation' cooldown. They also put extra mana on the low-tier set piece of wotlk, which is somewhat a hint or at least a band-aid to pad up for the missing stats you would get from higher tiered gear. Yes I know, apparently it doesn't work right now. And yes I know, they also make it so that you can only have 3 gems active at any-on-time, so thats a small nerf in itself.

As far as I'm concerned, I think its about as likely we get evocation' cooldown removed as it is likely that warlocks get the shitty soulshard mechanic removed. Your interpretation might differ.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Ploppy

Sadly enoughe I agree, either mages will go to northrend and experience seriously crippling mana issues and a couple of months into release get a big mage patch with the possible introduction of a new regen mechanic. Or we will have a managable manasituation everywhere exept manaburn fights that will be a pain and there will be moderate whining about it on various forums and with a bit of luck the issue gets adressed for lv 90, (this seems like the most likely scenario imo considering how they chose to handle stuff like invis and the unintended destro spec). One thing that is perhaps not to farfetched is for evo pushback protection to be baked into arcane stability. I know I know, it cements all magespecs offtree points even harder into arcane, but it would help many of the specs that are allready being calculated ad the highest DPS ones and would fit naturally with the pvp spec most likely to become standard and it fits the theme of the talent. Sure there´s still interrupts but at least people haveto use a proper interrupt on mages in pvp.

One slightly more interesting option would be to bake iceblock and evocation together. It´s still a regenmechanic on a CD but it would be kinda fun if jumping into yer little sphere of safety was really good for mana. It would be a bit like the shadowpriests 51 pointer, (unless I missed some change on it). Also the IB timer is short enoughe to be used more than once on long fights so thats another benifit, and it would add a nice balance between defense and offence. Blowing the IB timer for mana alone leaves you more vunerable, and finally with cold snap at 21 points fire and arcane haveto give upp their top talents if they want double iceblocks and frost wich gets this for free allready has no problem with mana, and in future expansions the situation will always remain the same, as long as blizz deisgns juicy enoughe top tree talents it will be a hard choise between them and cold snap. Perhaps this is just the change frostmages need in pvp not to run dry so easily?

Edited: Typos

 

• Seonid

That would not be a good thing in my opinion - I don't want to use Evocation every time I Iceblock and vice versa.

 

Samuel

Heaven forbid some mages might be required to put some spirit gear on and wear mage armor for some of the longer fights. I don't think lowering the mana costs is much of a fix but I think if mages had to choose between mage armor and molten armor in order to maximize dps then in general would be a good thing. Or if in 20% of fights a frost build would out dps the top fire build I don't see that as being a problem either although some seem to hint that they would consider that broken mechanics.

 

Althor

Why would you start wearing spirit when intellect is far superior for regen?

 

Vhad

Problem is you can't effectively just change armor. You'd have to reglyph in order to reach max potential, so it has to be one or the other. It's just really dumb they havn't streamlined the armors, 5% crit is a huge drop in crit if you decide to go for mage armor and it's not "fun".

What!?