Tharia

I'm sure there will be an T8 Setbonus to make Arcane Blast viable!

On the subject of the frostbolt glpyh, I for one don't find it that bad. I mean, raiding is actually the only thing I really ever do with my mage so I wouldn't mind. The drawback is definitely bigger than for other glyphs which seems unfair but I think I would still take it when I'm done with leveling I guess.
Any news on glyphs being swappable or really cheap? That would make all discussion of drawbacks kind of moot.

 

JocktheMotie

Yes, the change has been reverted back to that of a 3 second cast.

 

Cryic

If these glyphs were going live right now in the current state of the game I would agree with you. But the sheer volume of *non 25 man raid* content that most people will be doing come xpac will be huge. Now a year after that, we might be not caring as much of the snare if most raiders are doing only high end content again. But until, we'll all be running countless 5 and 10 mans looking for rare drops (Quag's eye, TLC etc) were that snare is gold.

 

Ulthwithian

Further to Cryic's point, there's going to be many more people raiding, but in 10-man as opposed to 25-man. As such, the concern with this issue will be ongoing.

 

aikiwoce

Again they are NYI, and it's a warlock thing, but on the assumption we might get something similar. I would assume that it be implemented like a trinket/ring proc, and wouldn't be mutually exclusive to Nightfall. i.e. Both could proc off the same Corruption tick, but would essentially overwrite one another. In which case the probability of getting an instant Shadowbolt on a Corruption tick would be: 4% + 4% - (4% * 4%) = 7.9984%

I would also hope the Devs would shy away from the use of too many %-based modifiers as the main component of any hour-long group buff. They seem to be a little too much to balance from low to high end gear. Although, I do agree Arcane Intellect does need a boost, but I hesitate to make any suggestions in this regard. I think merely pointing to the disparity between it and other group buffs might be a better way of getting the problem addressed.

Arcane Fortitude and Frozen Core just need to go away and never come back in their current form. I don't think I will ever understand the thought process behind what's happening to Arcane Fortitude.

I have a feeling that the Devs have not completely thought this particular glyph through just yet. I was reading the warlock glyph discussion over in their thread, and it's funny that we want their glyphs and they want ours.

 

Valestra

Will the TLC be a valuable trinket maybe in WotLK maybe? I am not sure about it's coefficients but I do know it at least scales somewhat with spellpower and crit but not from your hit.

 

Lgs

It appears FFB no longer double dips, finally. It seems like the train of thought was: Frost mages will need something to do during the potentially many frost immune northrend bosses... FFB!

But that is the only use currently, except maybe a replacement snare spell with glyph or hotstreak procs.

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.

 

Praest

Unless something was changed with TLC from the time I had it, it never scaled with spellpower. It did crit though, but apart from that I think it was just a flat X-Y damage with no scaling.

On another topic, I for one am still praying for a real pve armor, but looking at the Glyphs so far, it seems we already have them, or at least according to Blizzard we do.

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

 

Muphrid

Indeed, percentage-based bonuses on stats tend to get more powerful as gear increases. As a result, I could imagine there being some issues in balancing such bonuses as well. That said, since there are already such buffs in place, it seems to me merely a matter of making sure that one class's buffs do not outscale another class's buffs.

 

Skandranon

Maybe, but there is/will be an upgraded version from a quest.
Thunder Capacitor, 4 charges instead of 3, does 1181-1371 damage.

 

Vhad

Apologize if it's already been posted, but FoF still doesn't work with Ice Lance/Deep Freeze, Brain Freeze doesn't proc and the imp WE talent doesnt give any mana back. Appears they did absolutely nothing but change how FFB doesn't double dip anymore.

There appears to be a new animation for icey veins too, I'll try to upload a picture here in a second.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...208_183658.jpg

What!?

 

Ivorthemage

1) TLC has crap scaling, except with haste/fast casts. It might be viable for arcane for awhile, if barrage, stacked blasts, and MB procs is a viable levelling spec, but otherwise, no.

2) To cut Blizzard a bit of slack on the frostbolt glyph, mages have been complaining for years that they have been penalized for raid dps due to slowing effect that was useless on raid bosses. My take is that Blizzard thought they were directly addressing that problem. I would agree that they didn't fully understand the flexible utility of the frostbolt snare, but that is partially because mages never really mentioned that upside in their arguments for why the frostbolt coefficient should be boosted. If the glyph can be hot swapped or disabled, its fine. And I cannot imagine that Blizzard will make glyphs like permagems. That would wreck the ability of mages to flexibly get glyphs for both PVE and PVP. I can swap my spec when I pvp, but I am stuck with raiding glyphs? That makes no sense.

3) I think mages are looking at the polymorph glyph the wrong way. Its a boost to our comparative raid dps versus locks, as whenever locks try to boost their trash dps by multi-target dotting, we can counter with a quick sheep. You guys have to learn to see the upside...

4) A key thing that is being missed in the glyph discussion is that mages get far more out of individual glyphs than most other classes. A 5% dps boost to frostbolt affects 90% of our raid dps. The lock glyphs just stink, in contrast, as they use a lot more spells for dps, and a 10% mana boost to shadowbolt is something they would sneer at. That is like 10% fewer lifetaps, meaning maybe 1 more shadowbolt per boss fight.

 

◊ Vontre

Does the frostbolt glyph actually boost the coefficient directly too? That would be very good. Otherwise it's identical to the fireball glyph except with a far worse downside.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

◊ manly

I meant to type this a while ago, but things seem to have stabilized a bit with few changes. I've seen a lot of people give bad flak to frostfire bolt, and quite honestly, I just don't understand why. Its really really good. Not for the reason most thought it is though.

Wotlk fire playstyle (0/51/20)
----------------------------

So first thing first; Living Bomb is awesome. Yes, I mean, even on single-target dps. Living Bomb is a 10% dps increase if you make it part of your rotations. Its that good. In fact, its the single best talent-point investment in the fire tree, giving the highest dps boost per point. Problem is, its prohibitively expansive to cast. But like everything else, we can work around that. I'll come back to this later. As a result of this, it pretty much 'forces' 0/51/20 specs as the de-facto fire standard spec. Not that it would surprise anyone.

And then frostfire bolt. I honestly don't see why most people hate the spell. Personally, I think it gives a great versatility to fire spec. Its intended goal is to allow elemental specs, and that it does, although blizzard failed to give a real incentive to go pure elemental spec (read: 0/30/41), since the spec doesn't really shine under any circumstance, except maybe spec-flexibility, but the damage isn't there. However, elemental spec aside, frostfire bolt has severe play implications on deep-fire play. A lot bigger than most realize.

First, the pros:
-Lower threat than fireball. Remember, since blessing of salvation was put directly into tank threat, that makes all threat reduction talents much more efficient, so don't knock down that extra 10% threat reduction.
-Nearly equal dps to fireball. This might not sound like a 'pro', but it has implications as well: it allows flexibility. That means you can almost use fireball/frostfire bolt interchangeably without much dps difference. This means you can better adapt upon the context.
-Ridiculously good DPM. 17% base mana cost vs 21% fireball. That's 20% cheaper mana wise !
-Having 2 main nukes allows you to take advantage of the FFB dot. It gives you the option to use FFB like a 'dot'. Refresh it every time the dot is about to die out. You'll save mana and threat. That means a refresh every 9 seconds at the most.
-Crit multiplier galore. Well, this was already well known. But I think it needs emphasis. This is what makes FFB better than fireball. If you plan your crits ahead (combustion, hot streak), you can switch to FFB rather than fireball and get a better 'bang for the buck'.

So what are the implications of all this ?

Well, first, to me, it seems pretty clear its extremely desirable even as a fireball spam spec. Its mostly the same dps as fireball, but hey, even assuming no procs and no cooldowns, its cheaper and less threat, so why not ? I'm not talking spamming FFB here, I'm talking weaving FFB/fireball(for 9+ seconds) rotations. If you really needed better DPM, then just FFB spam and ignore fireball altogether. So now your 'base' rotation of deep fire is a mix of either fireball spam or FFB spam or FFB/fireball rotations. Whichever you chose is up to the context.

But then again, theres cooldowns, and procs. On combustion, I would highly recommend switching to pure FFB spam, to take advantage of the crit multiplier. Also, if you get a hot streak proc, you definitely want to FFB rather than fireball.

Then you get to weave-in Living Bomb. Every 12s. That one is somewhat killer, mana wise. But hey, I said we could work around it. We have 2 options. First - more FFB during fireball rotations. FFB is ~20% cheaper than fireball. Then we have mage armor. Yes, I'm directly comparing here 50% mana regen to 5% crit. If that allows for more living bomb uptime, then it could possibly lead to better dps depending a lot on the case.

Who thought deep fire would become such a dynamic spec now ?

So heres what I'm saying. You now have to micro-manage mana as fire spec, to a point where mage armor is a real possibility. You want to do as much Living Bomb as possible (ie: weave every 12s within your normal rotation). You want to weave-in FFB for its dot (every 9s). You also want to keep your eyes constantly open for hot streak, to be ready to switch to FFB after 3 crits. Then during combustion, FFB spam.

And if all of that were not enough, I haven't even started talking about fiery payback. I'll definitely have to set up a mod that makes it extremely visual when below 35% hp.

Also, on an off-note, I wanted to point out that the new scorch glyph makes the 6% scorch/fireblast talent even worse than it already was. Also, removing the fireball dot is nice since it takes one less debuff slot. If you wanted to be stringy about this you could take the dot into account while doing fireball/ffb rotation and not do FFB.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Xentropy

There is currently no way to test it since it's not possible to get glyphs, but I would be very surprised if the glyph changed the coefficient.

Bottom line is that the coefficient penalty should be removed with or without the glyph, since frostfire bolt does not have the 5% penalty despite having a snare component. I made a post to this effect on the beta forums, but the coefficient issue was largely ignored in the torrent of glyph complaint posts.

Is this going to be possible, given the mechanics of when the buff will appear and chain-casting? As I understand it, you'll be halfway done casting the fourth, guaranteed-crit fireball when Hot Streak procs.

 

Stein

Ronwyn - from your Rate-My-Spec thread:

I assume the PoM exploiting rotation you used was just alternating ABar & AM? Would some variant mixing in Fireblast do better? For example: ABar-Fireblast-ABar-AM .... or maybe replace that AM with some other instant (AE?). Haste obviously complicates alternating ABar with other instants...still might be better.

This might serve as Arcane's movement rotation for parts of encounters where AB can't be chain cast well.

(Also, I would greatly appreciate it if you (or anyone else) would list the stats being assumed, coefficients, etc. you're using. Thanks!)

 

Valestra

With about 900 Spellpower my TLC proccs were always at least about 150 damage over the avarage and the crit rate was aproximatly comparable to mine. Crits were also higher with Spellpower.

Logically it would make sense making Frostbolt a nuke similar to Shadowbolt and reverting the -5% Coeff Modifier.

 

AShadowyMage

Agree. looking at the numbers Vontre had; FFB was pretty much up there with Fireballs and Arcane Rotations once you ignore the double dipping. Like stated on one hand, a little bit of damage is loss, but creativity/mechanics can make up for some of this. Then of course, you will still have a nuke to make use of in Fire immuned fights plus still getting snares in 5 mans/soloing etc without having to use a Frostbolt.

If anything, Frostbolt damage is on the low side; even with its glyph.

I may argue it may be slightly better to switch to FFB after 2 crits (since you will be doing the 3rd Fireball) just in case the 3rd Fireball crit as well.

 

Xentropy

Two crits vice three is going to be so much more common that the dps lost to FFBing "too often" (and losing dot ticks) may be greater than the dps gained from FFBing rather than fireballing on the somewhat greater crit chance casts. Some math will need to be done to decide this one.

I suspect simply rotating in an FFB after each 4th fireball makes sense regardless of procs that may or may not occur amidst the rotation. If you happen to need to move when Hot Streak procs and the buff is on you when you start a cast, it's clearly best to toss an FFB first, though. Possibly even before the re-application of scorch, depending on timing (since even if scorch falls off the mob, just one cast reapplies it). More fodder for those with updated spreadsheets to toy with.

 

Prinsesa

If we take a hypothetical 3 second cast spell with an 85.71% coefficient and 655 base damage (basically an unpenalized Frostbolt), it would be dealing 1512 damage with 1000 spell power added*.

A Glyphed Frostbolt would be hitting for 1542 damage under the same conditions**, and would consistently stay ahead as you added more spell power. What seems to be the problem?

*85.71% coefficient * 1000 spell power + 655 base damage = 1512 damage

**(81.43% coefficient * 1000 spell power + 655 base damage) * 1.05 glyph bonus = 1542 damage

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Masaru

Nice write-up, Manly. As someone who is still waiting on a beta invite, a detailed write up about how all this new stuff is actually played with in terms of rotations, etc., is pretty exciting. I've been liking the idea of a 0/51/20 build ever since hearing about FFB and the revised version of LB. Mind linking the exact build? I was playing around with the talent calculator and wondering how much emphasis to put into LB enhancing talents and Fireball-centric talents.

 

Daydreamer

To add on to Prinsesa's post, I think that the key point is that the +5% bonus from glyphs also multiplies your spellpower, so even if it does not affect the coefficent directly, the boost does increase scaling from spellpower.

In fact we can go back to good old distribution and see what it does to your coefficient:

(81.43% coefficient * 1000 spell power + 655 base damage) * 1.05 glyph bonus =

(81.43% coefficient * 1000 spell power * 1.05 glyph bonus) + (655 base damage * 1.05 glyph bonus) =

(85.50% boosted coefficient * 1000 spell power) + (688 boosted base damage).

Not quite 85.71%, but pretty close, and the boost in base damage will more than make up for the 0.21% difference in spellpower (you'd need over 15k spellpower for that small difference in coefficient to overtake the flat 33 point increase in base damage).

In other words, the new glyph is close enough to removing both the snare and the snare penalty that it's not worth niggling about, especially since you'll actually be ahead in any reasonable scenario (15k spellpower or less).

 

Xentropy

The argument is not that you don't gain damage from the glyph; the argument is that you don't gain ENOUGH to be worth the extreme downside. Your own math itself shows that the 5% bonus doesn't even bring the coefficient of the spell up to the level it would be at without the penalty, and FrostFire Bolt's coefficient seems to show, to me, that such a penalty is an outdated mechanic in the first place.

At 1000 spellpower, you functionally remove the penalty and gain ~2% extra damage. At 2000 spellpower, you functionally remove the penalty and gain ~1.2% extra damage. In exchange for completely destroying frost spec for soloing and 5-man, making 6 talent points nearly worthless, and diminishing the value of at least 5 other talent points.

I know of no other glyph with a downside equivalent to 6+ lost talent points in exchange for an upside equivalent to about 1-2 talent points. Granted, one will likely not take those 6 talent points (frostbite and permafrost) when using this glyph, but then we need to know how costly glyphs are going to be, since the cost of respecing for non-raids and back will functionally increase from 100g to 100g + reglyph, as attempting to get meaningful output out of frost spec outside of a raid boss will be an exercise in futility with this glyph.

The closest analogy I can think of would be a glyph for rogues that removes their ability to enter stealth (with the exception of vanish, to remove the threat dump as an issue) in exchange for extra direct-damage. Sure, in a boss fight, you lose minimal damage on the opener and end up coming out ahead. But in any situation other than a boss fight, your entire playstyle changes in a very negative way. Someone else mentioned the flavor of frost being lost with this glyph, and unless you've played a frost mage for a while yourself it may be difficult to get across just how crippling the removal of frostbolt's snare is to the spec.

 

Lhivera

This is exactly right, except actually, six other talent points:

- Frostbite (3) greatly reduced
- Permafrost (3) greatly reduced
- Chilled to the Bone (5) slightly reduced
- Deep Freeze (1) moderately reduced (fewer opportunities to use it)

That's an excellent analogy, and I'd really love for people with access to the beta forums to be pushing that argument in this thread (which Merena thoughtfully started for me):

WoW Forums -> Glyph of Frostbolt vs. Glyph of Fireball

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.

 

Zeldyrr

This, this, this, one thousand times this. I made the stealth analogy in passing above, but this text is much better.

I think that having have Glyphs totally change things is OK for non-core spells. Changing a non-core spell completely might make a different spec / content-seeker get that glyph and use that spell. But negative effects on a core spell is just too much for a single glyph. People are going to HAVE to keep removing and re-applying it many times a week and that just isn't fair.

As Lhivera said if someone could push this line of thought on the beta forums, it would be appreciated.