Maje

Just an observation, to anyone that's doing Twin Valkyrs as fire, LBing the second valkyr is a DPS loss if you're not tanking them close to each other.

The value of fireball on your target is fireball*1.5 and LB on the secondary target is LB*0.5, inputing the DPS value for each spell from rawr yields that expanding a GCD on off-target LB is a waste of DPS.

 

alannia

Is the DPS loss due to the portal buff of increased damage done to opposite color targets, which means you do less dmg on the secondary target because she's the same color? How about for fights like Northrend Beasts where no such bias buff comes into play? I assumed that I should position myself so that I'm in range of both Acidmaw and Dreadscale so that I can keep LB up on both while focusing fire on say Acidmaw.

 

zurmagus

Yes, the reason it is a DPS loss on Valks is due to the fact that your damage is buffed on one target and reduced on another.

When three are no special effects in play, LBing an extra target is generally a DPS gain assuming it will explode and that you don't fail at target switching.

 

Mynak

It's a DPS loss because the explosions aren't hitting both Twins. If it's hitting both targets it means an additional chance to proc Hot Streak. I'm not sure I'd even use the gcd on Northrend Beasts if it won't hit both targets.

 

Toshimo

Please don't give people misinformation. The reason it's a possible dps loss to LB both twins if they are spread is because of the damage aura. On any normal fight with multiple targets (e.g. P2-Beasts), if LB is by far your best dpsc even if the target has no debuffs. With my gear (mostly 245), the dpsc of LB on a non-debuffed target is still over 10k. By comparison, the dpsc of Fireball on a fully debuffed target is about 6600. Hot streak procs are just an added bonus in this situation.

On Twins, the matter is less clear because (a) you have to account for the damage buff/debuff and (b) Ignite is double-dipping.

 

myztikrice

What do people mean when they say Ignite 'double-dips' on the Twin fight?

 

Zaldinar

They mean that the ignite damage itself is modified by an effect involved in the fight.

Ignite damage is based off your end crit damage, if then the ignite damage itself is modified by something then it is double dipping that effect, since the base crit was already modified by it. When this has come up in the past it has always been corrected after it is pointed out.

To truly model the game, we first must research it.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...icId=109841969
Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.

 

Maje

Since 3.2.2 is going live I decided to run the current tools on the expected specs:

Rawr (updated for 3.2.2 arcane, including AP being non-multiplicative and fire having Combustion)
Fire/TTW: 10197*
Arcane 57/3/11: 10761^ (+5.5%)

* Fire includes the new Combustion however it's value according to rawr is quite low if you compare to how simcraft values it.
^ Arcane here drops 2 points from Arcane Focus for four points in Arcane Stability, a change I believe is needed but open to interpertation.

Simcraft
Fire/TTW: 10391
Fire/TTW (no-combustion): 10289
Arcane 57/3/11: 10498

Both tools used a somewhat similar gear set.

 

Fizzl

Interesting that Fire/TTW is quite close to arcane now, I was going to go Arcane this patch and make the warlocks scorch but now I'm not sure since warlocks can't be trusted! :P
Also I love living bomb at the moment.

For the arcane rotation.. is Arcane Barrage anything other than something to use on the move at the moment?

Also has any thought been put into dropping Arcane Potency for something like extra range? I estimate I have about 75% crit in a raid so it doesn't feel so usefull. Guess I'll have a play when the next simcraft is out.

Currently thinking about this (Two points spare at the moment for when I have a better feel for the mana use/threat of arcane):
The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Imbar

Typically, using the GCD on an ABarr is too costly in terms of mana consumption and rotation disruption. If you're need to move, it's simply filler damage until you can stop and cast again, or during times when you can only use instant cast spells. None of the rotations listed as top DPS for Arcane right now use ABarr for anything other than these purposes. You're better off with ABx3 AM for sustained and ABx∞, fishing for MBarrs during burn phases. Posts discussed this a few pages back, as I recall.

 

Faxmonkey

Not sure which thread this best goes in, so let me just throw it in here. It is entirely about clearcasting, but it's not exclusively about "arcane". So I think this seems like the best place to put it.

3.2.2 and possibly previous patches (I haven't paid much attention) have thrown some weirdness into Clearcast procs. Here's a quick summary of things I noticed with a few minutes of testing. I wouldn't bet my life on any of these things without extensive testing/sampling, but I'm fairly confident of them based on some basic observations.

1) Blizzard (the spell, not the company) now has pro-rated ticks for both Master of Elements and clearcasting. That is to say, if you crit on a tick, you get 91 mana back from MoE -- thus by critting on all 8 ticks you get back the full 1/3 of the casting cost. With clearcasts, it strongly appears to be the case that each wave can proc a clearcast but that it does so with 1/8th of the normal proc chance.

2) Clearcasting seems to be currently bugged with ALL AoE Skills. Its has a chance to proc on each individual mob affected by the spell in question. Thus, if your Flame Strike hits 10 mobs, you have 10 chances to proc clearcasting. This makes clearcasting extremely broken when AoEing large groups as it makes it pretty much impossible to run out of mana -- or to lose you 30% crit if you're Arcane. Also, the potency from clearcasting double dips into Blizzard (as in, it affects the cast that procced it as well as the one that follows it) as it does (or maybe did, if it ever got fixed) with Arcane missiles.

So for instance, if you have 10 mobs in a blizzard, thats 80 chances to proc clearcasting, each one at 1/8th of the normal proc rate.

3) Living Bomb, while subject to the same bug listed above (once chance to proc per target hit at the full proc rate), will only proc clearcasting on the actual explosion, not on cast (or on tick, so far as I can tell).


With these facts in mind, I propose that in a typical 57/3/11 Arcane Spec, that points sometimes spent into Frost Warding might be better spent into Ice shards. Possibly even a point from Elemental Precision, provided you are hit-capped without it, is appropriate. This allows you to 225% crits on your Blizzard, which you would only need a critical mass of 6-7 mobs to maintain a very high uptime on Arcane Potency since each wave has multiple chances to proc it and each proc is good for 9-16 waves. Combined with Torment the Weak, Arcane Power, and other talents an arcane spec might be able to keep up with a FrostFire bolt spec on AoE and eliminate the need to have FFB as a secondary spec for hard-mode Anub'arak and other AoE purposes. That is, however, entirely speculation. I have nothing to back that up whatsoever, it just sounds like a possibility worth examining.

It's a bit hard for met to compare the two different types of AoE and how they might perform on Anub for 2 reasons a) I need a raid (or a wasted point in Imp Blizzard) for Torment the Weak to kick in and b) I need to be AoE'ing 5 targets at once and be able to hit all 5 with FLamestrike if I'm really going to make a fair comparison. I don't know of any target dummies that close together.

At any rate, I just thought I'd share what I had observed here, as well as my speculations for a possible single-spec solution to mage raiding (god knows I'd like to have my PvP spec back and not have to have 2 separate PvE specs). If anyone has the time to do a good comparison of Arcane AoE with Ice shards abusing arcane potency vs FrostFire AoE on 5 mobs (I.E. Anub'arak), I'd love to hear it.

 

Ataxus

Unfortunately this is fixed on live.

 

Faxmonkey

It wasn't fixed as of 30 minutes ago, when I logged out.

 

Einhander

Alliance or some sneaky horde mage can use Exodar dummies for 3-target aoe tests or Dr.Boom's spawned bombs can provide some more targets.

Also Torment of the Weak talent is irrelevant for Blizzard (or any non-specified spell for that matter).

 

Sarm

The Clearcasting bug is still live on Mal'Ganis. I tried it out just now by rounding up a quarter of Ragefire Chasm and spammed rank 1 Arcane Explosion.

26 casts, 25 Clearcasting procs.

 

ZetaTR

Has anyone else found TTW fire to be fairly underpar on fights with a lot of target switching. I have been having trouble breaking 4k on 25 Heroic Gormok and I am having trouble finding out why. When i go do the same fight on 10 man I easily break 3700. I realize gear may be the issue but the dps being close leaves me wondering if there were some outside factors. Would Arcane be better for Gormok?

 

ToxeMage

I just switched over to Arcane last night for our heroic 25 northrend beasts and found it to produce higher dps consistently in comparison to fire, with fire i was ending around 6k once we got into phases 2-3, with arcane i was around 7-8k. Also with phase 3.. i feel arcane will produce better results for your raids success when looking to beat the enrage timer, simply by saving arcane CDs for wall stuns + the fact you will have far better burst dmg even without the CDs.

 

Einhander

Tested abit on 3-targets Blizzard aoe (Exodar dummies). Had 30.10% crit listed on paperdoll. Out of 1140 blizzard hits 436 were crits, resulting 38.2% rate. No chainprocs noticed, probably due to low number of targets.

This is with 57-3-11 build, so no World in Flames talent.

 

Faxmonkey

Good point on TTW, I totally forgot it was specific to the listed spells.

 

Papajan

Fire is pretty bad for target switching, even more so for Kobolds since Living Bomb explosions don't affect them. It tends to be more reliant on debuffs than arcane as well, and whether you get 5% spell crit on the mobs is a big if (unless you do it yourself). Then you have the issue of judging whether the current cast will land before the mob dies (base 3s cast + travel time vs base 2.5s cast, no travel time). The only advantage I'd give fire on the Gormuk stage is that it has a lot of range if your raid is spread out.

In arcane's favor are the better passive threat on the Jormungars, better burst for Icehowl stuns, and there's plenty of downtime between bosses or during submerge to evocate, so you have more mana to dump.

 

Ataxus

Arcane Explosion on 12 penguins at once near the Tournament = no Clearcast proc

Could there be less obvious mechanic at play here than 10% chance per mob?

 

angayelle

You could check theramore, there is a clump of targets dummy there in the fort but also some guards in between, so maybe for alliance only.

 

• Reignman

I admittedly have no parse or empirical evidence. But during ony25 I spammed AE (as 57-3-11 with 5/5 clearcasting) just for kicks when the two big packs of welps come out and, if I recall correctly, proc'd clearcasting on every single AE. My mana went from ~60% to ~80% just from being outside the 5s rule during said spamming.

I'll try it again in 10man tonight and try to provide a log of some sort, but there's definitely something different about clearcasting and AOE now.

Priest Alt

 

colmanaburn

Maybe this is a stupid question, but I could have sworn I read something about mana regen being constant around the time of patch 3.1? Im willing to bet someone popped symbol of hope or a mana tide.


I know I use a lot of mana on Anub during the burrowed phase. If in fact this is true wouldn't living bomb explosions keep me constantly procced up with clearcasting? During that phase I living bomb everything as I try to DragonsB/CoC/nova adds because my guilds healers think you have to stay still to cast instants.

 

Wizeowel

We're talking about a very obvious bug with Arcane Explosion, not Living Bomb.