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I'm currently working on a lvl 70 edition of the scoreboard for the 3.0 patch. If you have a good lvl 70 3.0 build, please PM me and i will add it to my list!

Paper is fine, nerf rock - Sincerely, scissors!

 

Roywyn

1) Cool!
2) Your Frostfire spec 20/40/11 seems not good, sorry. Focus+Torment is not worth losing Pierce/Veins/Streak/Burnout unless I'm missing something.
You'd have to exclude it from the Focus Magic chain then thug.
Try 0/53/18 too, just withut casting Bomb.
3) Non-arcane specs get ~12k mana from Evo, 4.3k from a pt, 4781 from gems with 4/5 T7. Arcane gets ~13.5k frm Evo.
That should improve mana in some specs.

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.

 

Pasture

Out of interest what would the dps be for the fire mage who kept his own scorch rotations up?

At the moment fire mages are benefitting, perhaps hugely, from the assumption that there will be some poor arcane mage in the raid stacking scorches and slows for the fire mages.

I think we need to be realistic. This isn't going to happen.

A more accurate test for fire would be to exclude torment of the weak and have the fire mage apply his own scorch debuff. You'll be incredibly lucky to find a mage who wants to spec into Slow/Scorch debuffing on behalf of the other mages.

 

Shaewyn

I have two questions off the top:

I think that this is a very good point. Especially in 10-mans and even more so in 5-man heroic instances, it's not at all uncommon to be the ONLY mage. Is there any theorycraft data on mage DPS when the mage has to provide all his own buffs or is the only mage?

edit - saw the answer to my other question in the first post of this thread.

 

Gheed

It's pretty safe to assume that Blizzard doesn't intend for 1 mage to keep up slow while others leech it with Torment the Weak. And please, like Praest pointed out 2 pages ago;

Torment the Weak

NOT Torment of the Weak

 

Fqubed

 

Ploppy

Shaewyn try reading the first page of this thread, it doesnt have everything exactly up to date but is still a good overview of mages current condition.

 

Pasture

The front page could use a bit of updating actually.

It still has frostfire specs as not viable which is no longer the case. The section on Torment the Weak needs updating too.

Plenty of other stuff too. In short it could use an update.

 

Shaewyn

It did answer my question, though. Thanks Ploppy.

(original post edited)

 

Pasture

I was just having a look at arcane specs and wondered if with enough haste it will be worth weaving in frostfire bolts rather than fireballs?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...50323102505321

I'm assuming a rotation of Arcane Barrage and Frostfire Bolt, with Missile Barrage on procs. The base frostfire damage wouldn't be great but crits for 315% with spellpower, ignite and ice shards would be amazing damage.

I'm sure the spec has been discussed and binned already but with the right amount of haste and crit would it ever top weaving in fireballs?

 

Arazan

Well, in general arcane specs generally have high damage and lower crit, so I'm not sure that the better crit modifier of FFB would be good enough to make up for the loss of fireball's very nice coefficient. Plus, specs that go their own variant of 53/18/0 can either provide themselves imp scorch, or take advantage of IV.

 

Samuel

Your numbers seem to be wrong but your reasoning seems correct. If you are assuming BoK and 80% regen you should could safely assume the +10% spirit talents as well just to get an upper bound.

So 450 spi, 700 int is in reality 545 spirit and 770 int which is 338.8 mp5
300 spi, 850 int is in reality 330 spi, 935 int which is 226.0 mp5

and that's a 112.8 mp5 minimum theoretical gain in mana assuming 0% FSR


Now the maximum theoretical gain for JoW assuming you are using fireball (this is the mage thread) is 41.25 mp5
Assuming 100% uptime on replenishment (is that reasonable, it sound ridiculous to me?) I get 0.25% of 2475 mana every second or 30.94 mp5 so I don't see where you got your number.

Evocation is 60% of 2475 mana or 1485 mana once during a fight generally. Even if the fight is only 5 minutes that is
24.75 mp5 but honestly, any mage with mana problems on a 5 minute fight is just a failure. If you make a 10 minute fight which is a lot more realistic for a fight where someone might have mana problems you get 12.375 mp5

So 150 spirit give a minimum theoretical gain of 28.24 mp5 with the example you worked up. The extra 2475 mana over a 10 minute fight is 20.625 mp5 so spirit is still a little bit ahead. We can add in the improved water elemental 0.006 * 2475 = 14.85 mp5 if we make the ridiculous assumption of 100% uptime and mana tide which is something like 2 totems * 4 ticks * .06 * 2475 in a 10 minute fight or around 9.9 mp5. So that puts the theoretical maximum for intellect ahead by about 17.3 mp5 if my numbers are correct.

Of course in a real fight the mana you get from spirit will be higher than the theoretical minimum and the mana you get from int will be lower than the theoretical maximum but the problem is knowing how much higher and how much lower. In other words the mana from spirit is 100% certain while the mana from int depends on a lot of other people doing the right thing, not dying and not being otherwise limited by the fight which is totally unrealistic.

The real point I picked up from this is that unless you have the talents to maximize spirit you are certainly better off adding int.

 

andastra

Why are you dividing evocation return by 2 for a 10 minute fight? The cd is 5 minutes, which means you could use it 3 times.

Also, 450*1.1 is only 495, so your first example should only have 307.68 mp5.

Lastly, JoW restores 49.5 mana every 4 seconds with the extra 2475 mana. For mp5, it should be multiplied by 5/4 instead of 4/5, resulting in 61.875 mp5.

 

Lgs

You won't need it in the first 2 minutes?

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.

 

gaerthe

Regarding mage mana regen, I don't see why Blizzard doesn't take an established mana model and re-use it for mages. Specifically, I mean the warlock imp/dark pact mechanic.

Use the mana gem like the imp as a mana battery. It regenerates mana based on some percentage of your spirit based mana regen (tuned based on testing). Put the mana gem use on the GCD and make it pull mana from the gem based on your spirit similar to how lifetap works in LK for warlocks.

Voila - mages have an active mana regen ability. Further, it is based on spirit and lets mage trade off spirit for DPS. Too little spirit and you are gemming too often and the gem can run out. Too much and you lose DPS because of loss of other stats.

You also have to manage it similar to dark pact in that you can't just wait til you're OOM before you hit it or you'll drain the gem and could go hard-OOM.

Adding a negative to it could also help balance it - warlocks have to balance lifetap with the risk they will get hit and die due to low HP. Not sure specifically what negative to add though - perhaps -1% max life per tap, stacks to 10%, 15 sec duration. Or replace the life reduction with damage reduction.

Putting it on the GCD would seem to balance it for PVP, but I'd have to defer to people who have more experience with that than me. The only place I see a big advantage is solo PvE/grinding/dailies since the mage will have basically zero downtime. But is this really any different that rogues, hunters, or warlocks now?

Curious to hear other people's opinions (not that Blizzard will listen anyway).

-- Edit - fixed some spelling errors.

 

dedmonwakeen

In general the crit rate is so high that the Mage casting Focus gets almost as much benefit as the target receiving it.

So it doesn't have to be a complete round-robin

http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft

 

Anedris

Isn't this simply a really round-a-bout way of buffing mage spirit regen? It still doesn't give the mage infinite sustainability since if you use your gem too much it runs out, and now instead of getting your mana from spirit passively (via mage armour) you have to spend GCDs to access it. I have to assume periodically losing GCDs to keep your mana up is going to drop your DPS far more than simply losing 5% crit, which is the current tradeoff for mage armour...

It's a neat little concept, but unless the gem recharges so fast that it's almost impossible to use it up (at which point it simply becomes a lifetap clone without the downside) it doesn't seem to address the issue.

(Removing the cooldown on evocation, or dropping it to say 2 minutes, seems the obvious solution to me, but they've obviously chosen not to go there.)

 

Alvira

Anyone tried going with a spec like 53 arcane / 10 fire / 8 frost ?

It seems to offer a very interesting style of play. You can spam frostfire bolts that receive increased crit damage from ignite, ice shards, and spellpower. And these can proc missile barrage. And if you have extra mana to burn towards the end, or at the start, then you can Arcane power - arcane blast spam for the best results.

Alternatively, you have the flexibility of trying out certain AB/arcane barrage rotations as well.

Seems like a very workable spec to me. But I don't know if it might lose out to a frostfire spec with majority of points in fire. Such a spec brings certain things to the table that a heavy fire frostfire spec doesn't have. Like arcane power, presence of mind, the option to arcane blast spam, etc etc. And the frostfire bolt that such a heavy arcane spec casts hits for a lot and crits just as hard as the heavy fire frostfire spec.

Its loses out in not having scorch or winter's chill, but it does bring focus magic to the table. One other question I have (not in beta). Does torment the weak work with on frostfire snares? As in, is the 40% reduction in speed given by Frostfire count as a snare for this talent's purposes? How about if frostbite procs? Is the target then counted as snared? And are bosses immune to frostfire bolt snare and frostbite? I know this build can use slow as well, but I was under the impression most bosses aer immune to slow also.

So, what do you guys think? Is this spec competitive?

 

mkultra55

I was playing with a spec like that. If Spell Impact worked with Frostfire it would help offset (a little) the loss of all the Fire goodies going at least 50 in Fire brings to Frostfire. I don't know why Fostfire isn't included.

Doesn't it seem like Blizzard is pushing us to certain talent combos? The list of spells that Spell Impact effects is one example...another is Frostfire only getting a benefit from Emp Fireball and not Emp Frostbolt. There is basically ONE Frostfire spec. I was actualy hoping for a Frost heavy Elementalst build myself.

 

Kyriani

I've been hoping they would add FFB to spell impact

I too am intrigued by using FFB as my off nuke as an arcane mage and in fact it seems like currently arcane spec mages have little to no use for FFB. Some support for it in our tree would be welcome.

 

Alvira

Hmm, well arcane has some talents of its own that also increase spell damage, plus a higher overall INT that increases crit indirectly too. While the frostfire bolt by a deep arcane might not hit as hard, it would be fiarly close? Plus arcane can go AP- arcane blast spam which a deep fire frostfire build cannot. Such a damange/mana dump is valuable in its own right.

My other question, based on existing talents and models, is missle barrage worth it? I am assuming it will always be worth it to switch to arcane missiles in the event of a proc from casting frostfire. But I wonder if it might be worth it if we are spamming arcane blast. Also, how long does the proc last? Indefinitely until we cast AM?

To Mmkultra,

Well, you could still get everything up till empowered fire, then the rest all in frost. It would be less damage than a truely deep fire frostfire build, but it would in exchange give you cold snap, ice barrier, and winter's chill. So, you get a lot more survivability and you can skip taking improved scorch and just concentrate on spamming frostfires. Its not as big a mana hog as a deep fire frostfire build too.

 

xiaoxin21

Is this proven? The first post stated that frostfire + elemental precision gets only 3% from hit. If it is changed it will make Frostfire a very good spec for entry level raiding where we don't have quite enough hit until we get some naxx/badge gear.

Why are there Brown and Black Polar Bears?

 

PsyBomb

11% hit in Naxx is what anyone with Elemental Precision aims for. Any shadow priest or moonkin will keep up the 3% hit debuff, which will cause it to cap out. I'd bet the target dummy had someone else firing at it at the time he tested, as well.

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.

 

bruda20

I Think i can prove that, i didnt get any miss for about a week now with frostfire bolt. And sometimes i dont have a shadow or moonkin in naxx, and in exodar on the dummy im always alone.

 

Searix

Wondering how http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...50323102405321 Frostfire Bolt would work.

Probably one of the highest scaling spells, if not at base, then with more crit gear. All things considered should crit for over 400%

Edit: Completely Forgot burnout...