Prom

As reported by many players recently, spellpower flasks receive only a 29% gain in the last builds.
This makes most professions fall in the range of +35 ---> +45 spellpower.
Having around 1700spellpower and 300 haste unbuffed in Naxx gear, it makes the difference between any of the professions negligible. In my opinion you should pick the one that you feel is more useful to you and/or your guildmates.
You're not truly min/maxing if you're Horde and not a troll

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

 

Roywyn

Blizzard testing
As of build 9061, Blizzard still needs 1 point in Frostbite to proc Fingers of Frost (and of course Imp. Blizzard to get a chill effect).
It doesn't need those talents to proc Winter's Chill.

I did a test on Theramore dummies (level 1, 6 dummies clumped up), 25.76% crit character screen.
I tested it with a level 70 mage in BT/Sunwell gear, no buffs/debuffs besides AI/Molten, always uses 2/2 Fingers.

1) Blizzard does not proc Lightweave Embroidery - Spell - World of Warcraft
2) Blizzard does not proc [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight], it would be a ~8% increase if it worked.
3) Blizzard does proc [The Lightning Capacitor] which was a 5.5% DPS increase.
4) For comparison, [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] was a 2.4% increase.

5) Blizzard had a 64% crit rate over 1062 hits with just rank 1/3 Frostbite and 2/2 Fingers. Lightning Bolt had a 44% crit rate.
6) Blizzard had a 79% crit rate over 1002 hits with full rank 3/3 Frostbite and 2/2 Fingers. Lightning Bolt had a 51% crit rate.


[Edit]: On the bright side, we got a tag on Aikiwoce's large bug/inconsistency list.
WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Consolidated List of Bugs and Inconsistencies

Updating the info on 4/5 T7 soon. The 5% bonus is of the same kind like and additive with Spell Power, Burnout, Ice Shards.
So, a 2.5% increase on the crit multiplier (3.5% with Ignite), resulting in a 0.9%-1.1% DPS increase for Mage specs around 50% crit rate.

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.

 

Gediablo

I made an EU list kind of similar to Aikiwoce's some weeks ago, adding stuff when I experienced them in game and/or read about them here. Unfortunately the EU beta forum is completely dead. If anyone are able to post on US forum feel free to steal from my post and take the credit. Aikiwoce's list is lacking several things in my eyes.

Edit. Thank you Sorbe

 

hiisukun

As a full frost mage, and trying to keep up with the thread, it appears that using icelance on FoF procs is a dps drop (with the exception of 'doubling up' on the second charge of FoF, something I'm finding difficult/unreliable).

Two questions:
1) Is this still true? Or only true for builds without the 6% from spell impact affecting ice lance?

Along with there being currently no damage on deep freeze, this means that aside from the odd instant fireball I'm just spamming frostbolt.

2) If I include ignite in my build, and they fix FFB to have DoT scaling on the upper rank, will weaving a FFB once per DoT duration up DPS, or drop it? I'm happy to focus on weaving it only during FoF, for the crit bonus too. Is there another option for having a more interesting, but frost based, rotation?

I'd be happy to drop a bit of damage for a more interesting playstyle - hence the desire to use frost, but with a different rotation. I was thinking of adding frostfire bolt in - because the top of the fire tree is accessible, spell impact doesnt affect frostbolt in the arcane tree, and I'm not banking on TtW being usable on bosses.

 

Sorbe

EU link cross posted to WotLK US beta mage forum on the Aikiwoce list thread as requested.

 

Sinless

Yeah, I noticed the same thing last night. I shouldn't have looked at the overall damage done because 1) trash damage is usually lower unless there is aoe involved, 2) hidden cooldown ticks down between trash pulls.

Anyways, last night @ patchwerk, it only contributed to 0.6% of my overall damage done. Note also that we didn't have ebon plague/CoE either so I'm not sure how it gets affected by those buffs. If it doesn't, then it will be around 0.5% as my overall dps increases. So I guess it is safe to say it's nowhere near the top professions for a mage. Bummer.

 

Søndag

I just tested a deep arcane spec and rotation in Simcraft 68/3/0 (sent to me by Sorbe) and while the build and rotation does not end up doing a lot of dmg right now, I kind of wonder how do you think it could perform with itemisation, gems and perhaps enchants fitting a deep arcane mage? I have been trying a few experiments, but i don't really know how much int you could possible stack. Perhaps there is a beta arcane mage who has a few pointers?

Paper is fine, nerf rock - Sincerely, scissors!

 

Lgs

Link. Har har....

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Is Int definitely the better choice of stat for arcane in wrath? In TBC its close to even with spell power but in Wrath our Int --> damage talent suffers a nerf. Not to mention with BoK being only 2% now the actual Int gained per point on items is lower. One of my mages on live stacks heavily into Int as a 10-man raider, and i've lasted full ZA fights without a shadow priest, arcane blasting. In wrath however I assumed that spell power and haste were better choices, and even then fire seems to get more love from SP, Haste and certainly Crit. I think what we'll find as we progress to tiers 8 and 9 is that arcane mages fall behind, both for lack of Crit scaling and a sort of soft-cap on haste scaling due to the weaving with a fixed c/d on ABar (~33%, if that turns out to be a realistic number to reach).

Of course, it will be interesting to see if blizz make good on their promise to be constantly watching specs to see if any fall behind.

OMNOMNOM.

 

ebbv

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

INT is nowhere near as good as Spellpower. Not in TBC, and not in WotLK.

 

Kyriani

Blessing of kings is still 10% when fully talented. Now it's just a 1 pt talent for 2% and 4 more talent points to make it a full 10%. Any paladin buffing kings will have it maxed to 10%.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Oh? Apologies for my ignorance on this. Is the tooltip bugged at all then? Because when I had the buff on beta it was reading as 2%.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Corronach

It is, the effect should still be there though.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Heh, you learn something every day. My original point however was that Arcane doesn't have any special stat bias. Its still all about stacking SP until a point where crit and haste actually become good. The difference is that fire can actually reach that point where crit is good, arcane can't.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Roywyn

Blessing of Kings is still 10%. It just costs 5 talent points now, 1 point per 2% increase. (Yes, I think that's pretty silly design too.)

Intellect loses a lot of power from the Mind Mastery change.
It gains new power from the new mana scaling of JoW/Replenishment.

That however is als its Crux:
In BC, Arcane Blast (spam) is expensive, high DPS, and you can sustain it throughout a fight if you pull all your and other mana resources you have.
Its problem is that is has a high base damage and scales not well with crit (and so-so with spell power).

The problem is the following:
The better your gear becomes, and the more crit there is flying around, the better your other spells become, your filler spells.
That means the difference between Arcane Blast and your filler spells becomes smaller (at least relatively), and the extra damage you gain from the additional mana spent becomes less and less.

That means that as your gear gets better, the relative value of mana (compared to other damage stats) goes down.

Our current situation is that Arcane Blast does mediocre damage for an atrocious mana cost.
That means you get very little extra damage for a lot of extra mana spent, which makes mana not a good stat.

The other issue is that Fire specs get nearly twice as much from crit as Arcane spec, due to the large difference in crit damage and Hot Streak.


As far as numbers go, we can't really tell the value of Intellect yet.
We can, once we know how much damage Arcane Blast and other (filler) spells do, and how much mana they cost.
It's a pretty fragile system, and right now I dare say that it's not worth it at all.

Fire walks the exact same line with Living Bomb.
The buffs (Impact/Torment) to Fireball means that the relative difference between Fireball and Living Bomb has become smaller, and the damage-per-mana you gain went down.
This means that with good enough gear, you'll reach a point where Molten Armour is better than Living Bomb to convert mana, or skipping Evocation, or even using a haste instead of mana potion.

Long story short:
Intellect has become much more valuable for mana.
We however cannot tell yet how that extra mana translates into extra damage yet.
Trying to gauge the gains before we know where mana costs and Arcane Blast design design is pure speculation.

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.

 

grayrest

It was as good and better than SP in TBC if you had 2t5 and were mana limited (i.e. not getting chain innervates/tides)

 

aikiwoce

If you guys see something that isn't on the list PM me on irc or the forums, and I'll add it to the list. Oh, and I'll try to add all the info from the EU forum post to mine.

Reported Bugs that I couldn't reproduced. Please confirm if you can reproduce:
Arcane Missiles - Couldn't get it to drop the 5th bolt spec'd 5/5 Arcane Stability. Fixed?
Incanter's Absorption - Worked with Fire/Frost Ward. Damage buff is still FIFO. Tested vs Elementals on Elemental Plateau.
Shattered Barrier was reported non-functional with build 8982, but it's working in 9061.

 

aliengrey

They got better Int/Spellpower orange gems now. Jewelcrafting - WotlkWiki - Wrath of the Lich King Information

 

Søndag

I would have liked to stack a bunch of those nifty +12 spell +10 int ones in BC :P

But Roywyn is right i guess, it's pure speculation when we have a spell we now they are playing with, since it can change the whole perspective on arcane when we know if AB is going to be a main nuke or a filler.. og a comic sidekick like right now :P

Paper is fine, nerf rock - Sincerely, scissors!

 

Roywyn

When was [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] ninja-fixed back?

I remember it not working with spell when the CSD meta was added.
But right now in beta, I tested it on a rogue and poison crits (wound poison) did go up to 154.5% crit damage.

So, if that gems went back to working with spells, then we have 2 caster metas in Wrath:
1) Chaotic Skyflare Diamond - 21 crit, 3% crit damage, requires 2 blue gems.
2) Relentless Earthsiege Diamond - 21 agi, 3% crit damage, requires 1 red/yellow/blue gem

For frost and Arcane specs, second gem may actually end up better in early gear sets when 21 crit + 9 dmg + 8 spirit is likely worse than 19 dmg *cough*

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.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Unless you're a jewelcrafter of course

Unrelated request:

I've reported this bug in numerous places but I'd like someone else to give it a shot and check i'm not crazy if thats ok:

If 2 spells hit at the same time and Arcane Potency procs, then the buff is instantly consumed regardless of which spell caused the proc. I spent hours in theramore shooting fireball/ABar at the target dummies and many, many potency procs were instantly consumed. Not 1 proc stayed for more than a moment. Since the proc was never up as a spell was cast, of course I never actually gained a bonus from it. It could be that I was unlucky and the 2nd spell in the cycle never once proc'd it; but I find it hard to believe out of 40+ procs the all of them were from fireballa nd none from ABar.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Rhayn

Maybe I missed it somewhere in the thread, but why is it more beneficial to take World in Flames over Incineration? It seems like having that extra crit to try and force a hot streak is helpful? Also, is Burning Soul not worth picking up either?

Would:
fire icy veins 0/50/11 with burning soul be better?

Or maybe:
fire icy veins 0/50/11 w/out burning soul ?

 

Solisa

Because Scorch is a very, very minor dps contribution, and if you have a frost mage in the raid you probably won't be casting it at all. You will, on the other hand, be casting pyroblast.

It's not much either way but I think the pyro will have more of an effect.

 

Rhayn

Isn't fireblast some decent DPS that can give the extra crit for attempting to force hot streak procs (assuming the mana is there)?

Let's take two different scenarios then, as well:

1] Assume I am the one keeping the debuff up.
2] Assume someone else is helping.

In both scenarios is World in Flames a better choice, or would condition 1 warrant a talent change to Incineration?

Condition 1 seems to be a sort of catch 22, since if you spec into assuming scorch is used more and hot streak will proc more often due to this, you'll end up using pyroblast more as well.

 

Prandur

Do the most recent simcraft numbers assume ignite "munching" is fixed? If not, has anyone checked how would that affect damage balance, or respectively how much % of damage is lost by the bug?

I think I saw a blue on the beta forums stating that they're looking into ignite munching, however no clue as to whether they'd fix it before wotlk goes live.