Jonny_Monroe

I can already hear the official forums echoing with 'But warlocks have much more HP than mages!'

Seriously though, AB/ABar discussion is valid but its hard to speak with conviction when we haven't yet seen what kind of theoretical numbers they can pull off on this build. If AB is indeed meant as a main nuke I'd expect it to be 10-15% of other nukes when fully ramped (my own math on the uptime of ramping shows that you can expect to lose 10-15% damage on it in most encounters from forced downtime - Sampled said downtime in some early 25mans and ZA)). Likewise, I'd expect ABar/AB weaving to be on-par with other cycles.

OMNOMNOM.

 

lucyflawless

This is exactly what I was trying to say a few pages back. (One of the things you'd have to give up for imp scorch is IV btw, so that won't really help you out when trying to keep scorch up as arcane.) The point is however, that you could spec arcane + IV and have another mage bring imp scorch/WC and thats the situation they would have to balance arcane dps around. So either you dont spec imp scorch and you'll underperform (along with all the casters in the raid tho) whenever the other mages aren't available, or you spec imp scorch and underperform constantly.

Either give all 3 trees the same debuff and let them cast spells from their own school to keep it up, or give arcane its own debuff that doesn't stack with imp scorch/WC.

 

lucyflawless

It's changed to AB afaik, unless they changed it back?

 

Jonny_Monroe

I listed IV for the sake of helping FM refreshes, really. I agree a deep arcane build that takes both scorch and IV isn't going to happen.

Some easy resolutions would be;

A glyph that increases AB buff duration by 0.5sec
Make Imp scorch a shallower talent in the tree; thereby making it an easier choice for any mage build. Give WC an equal glyph to IScorch and you can say 'WC is deeper because you don't have to cast a crap spell to get it up, but any mage can get IScorch to cover the debuff'.

This solution has obvious parallels to the warlock talent to buff health stones, the paladin talent for IBoM or the druid talent for IMotW; the raid wants it and it's expected, but its 1st tier so its rarely a problem or a large sacrifice (and only 1 person needs it).

OMNOMNOM.

 

Zanadarn

Has anyone done any significant testing if Missile Barrage makes Arcane Missiles worth casting? I've been doing some napkin math, and it still seems like a somewhat poor way to spend a thousand mana. Is there really any particular point in taking Missile Barrage and Improved Arcane missiles currently?

 

Jonny_Monroe

If you're using unramped AB for whatever reason and have the MB proc up, its worth using as a DPS increase. Even a ramped AB will do less DPS (but the cost of re-ramping makes it not worth doing).

Lets say your fighting the bear boss in ZA, MBAM procs and you leave the buff up, he does his AoE silence - you've lost AB buff but still have MBAM. Your best course of action now is to blow that MBAM before ramping back up on AB (you lose 1 fully ramped AB that you could have squeezed in before the kill/next silence, but you haven't lost the cost of re-ramping since you're paying that regardless).

The mana cost isn't that bad if you compare it to the cost you would have spent on a fully ramped AB; in fact I believe it may be a net gain.

OMNOMNOM.

 

solbergb

edit - never mind. Upon reflection my comment had no merit.

 

Xentropy

I believe it makes sense that CC breaking is based on caster health rather than target health. That would explain why the freezes were still breaking fairly quickly in instances for me, but not quite as quickly as they used to. This means in a 25-man raiding situation, seeing a frostbite last more than one second will still be rare, however. A mage with 15000 buffed hp at 80 and the glyph would have his frostbite procs last 9000 damage before breaking.

I'll try to perform Zaldinar's tests shortly. I still need to get my hands on a Glyph of Frost Nova.

Also, I haven't seen this mentioned, but currently Ice Block is benefiting (incorrectly, given the tooltip doesn't list it) from Cold as Ice, giving it a 3 minute cooldown for frost mages with both it and Ice Floes (thus additively as well, for a 40% reduction). I made sure this was the cause of my 3 minute IB cooldown by reseting my talents and watching it as I added each point. No other cooldowns appear incorrect. This could be an intentional change that just hasn't made it to Cold as Ice's tooltip yet.

 

Lhivera

Editing more context from the thread greyrest linked into this quote:

"You" in the context of this thread is the Shaman's PvP opponent, not the Shaman himself. Koraa was responding to the victim of the Hex, not the caster, and is therefore referring to the CC target's health bar, not the caster's health bar.

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.

 

Roywyn

There we go, incoming Big Ass Post.

The post is a bit messy but functional. Clean-up comes tomorrow.

Assumptions are as before.

All the merged raid buffs are assumed to be up.
The +10% frost damage debuff is not assumed to be make it into live. For calculations with it, add 10% frost damage.

3% crit depression, 6% damage loss to partial resists.
Pets are assumed to survive.
Per are assumed hit capped from inheriting their master's hit. Source: Announcement (we haven't heard of it since).

Gear assumption:
3k spell damage fully buffed before talents.
20% crit before talents. That's 40% with ToW/Molten/Moonkin/Scorch.
15% haste. That's 26% with WoA/ToW/iMKA.
Hit capped.
1000 intellect, 700 spirit fully raid buffed.

Fight length is 6 minutes (360 seconds). Assuming Molten Armour for direct comparison.

A word on mana:
Mana consumpion and DPM does not consider spirit regeneration or mana from similar sources.
It only used the spell's mana cost and talents that affect it, including clearcasting and master of elements.

In a fight with a fixed length, spirit and other regeneration is fixed as well (unless you wand), it all acts like one single mana pool. Not more, not less.

Also not considering JoW or Replenish (from VT&Co.):
JoW is now a 100% proc with a 4s CD giving 2% max mana. Replenish gives 0.5% mana every second.
JoW is slightly weaker than Replenish, they are equal if you hit exactly every 4 seconds. From how I understand, both refund mana.
In a 360 second fight with JoW proccing every 5s, that would return 144% total mana from JoW. That's 3 times as much compared to now.
Replenisch would return 180% mana, a bit less than now. With 12k mana, that would be like a 1.2k shadow priest, but is less vulnerable to little casing breaks (running out of fire).


Assuming mana pools go up to about 20k mana, we would see the following mana returns (ballbark guesstimates):
JoW - 80 m/s, Replenish - 100 m/s, Mana Gems - 29 m/s, Base mana pool - 55 m/s, Evocation - 33 m/s, BoW - 22 m/s, 50% mage armour (with the gear above) - 77 m/s, Meditation - 47 m/s.

So, we can spend 250 mana per second just with our base mana and JoW/Replenish/BoW. 60 more with Gems/Evo and another 120 with Mage Armour/Meditation.
The spirit regen is the less predictable one, this would be 560 effective spirit (80% regen of 700 spirit).


Most specs should be pretty straightforward.

Torment of the Weak is assumed not to work on bosses for now.
If it will finally work on bosses, then Arcane needs someone to keep snares up.
Frost will likely end up as 18/0/53, and Fire has 18/53/0 and 0/51/20 as equal choices.

Assuming Glyphs for Molten Armour, Fireball, Frostbolt, Summon WE.

Updates on the functionality are appreciated.


1) Arcane specs

Takes all relevant Arcane talents, Incineration in fire. Rest depend on filler spec. Not assuming IV/MoE/FC unless explicitly noted.
The spells cost a lot of mana. Arcane Mind adds 20 m/s (Pool/JoW/Replenish) and Meditation adds 50 m/s.

5205 DPS, 12 DPM, 436 MPS - Arcane Barrage
3325 DPS, 13 DPM, 255 MPS - Arcane Missiles
3281 DPS, 25 DPM, 133 MPS - Arcane Blast (0 stacks)
5741 DPS, 13 DPM, 433 MPS - Arcane Blast (3 stacks)

3809 DPS, 17 DPM, 222 MPS - Frostbolt
3881 DPS, 14 DPM, 268 MPS - Fireball


4338 DPS, 14 DPM, 303 MPS - (ABar-FrB)
4329 DPS, 13 DPM, 325 MPS - (ABar-FB)

4153 DPS, 16 DPM, 257 MPS - (FrB*7-MBAM)
4168 DPS, 14 DPM, 293 MPS - (FB*7-MBAM)

4552 DPS, 14 DPM, 325 MPS - ([FrB-ABar]*7-MBAM-ABar)
4525 DPS, 13 DPM, 350 MPS - ([FB-ABar]*7-MBAM-FiBl-ABar)


6566 DPS, 13 DPM, 503 MPS - Arcane Missiles (Missile Barrage)
4716 DPS, 16 DPM, 301 MPS - (MBAM-AB0-AB1-AB2)
Missile Barrage doesn't really work with Blast spam. Restacking the AB debuff makes MBAM a large DPS loss with AB spam.
It does save mana but at a 8 DPM ratio it is not worth using.
It is a net DPS gain if you have to interrupt casting anyway for some other reason.


Blast spam specs:
5906 DPS, 15 DPM, 398 MPS - Blast spam with 50/3/18
5741 DPS, 14 DPM, 409 MPS - Blast spam with 50/21/0
5327 DPS, 15 DPM, 361 MPS - Blast spam with 50/21/0 while maintaining Scorch with the debuff dropping

5569 DPS, 14 DPM, 398 MPS - Blast spam with 50/3/18 without Scorch/WC
6805 DPS, 16 DPM, 413 MPS - Blast spam with 50/3/18 and 2T5, losing a guessed 80 Int, 60 Spi, 150 Spell Power

5093 DPS, 17 DPM, 303 MPS - Blast spam that has to restack its debuff every 12 seconds (interrupt fight)


Conclusion:
Arcane is great for Blast spam. Everything else is pretty mediocre DPS.
Mana currently seems very sustinable with gems, a pot, evocation while using Molten Armour.

Speccing for Scorch is a 3% loss, keeping it up while losing the debuff an 11% loss.
You actually need 3 casters to make speccing for and keeping up Scorch in that case a DPS gain.
Tirisfal Regalia provide an absurd boost to this spec.

The spec relies on standing still and not losing the Arcane Blast debuffs.

Also, Arcane Blast is not worth using in non-Arcane specs at all.


2) Frost Specs

Assumes 10 points in Fire for Ignite.
Final cycles assume 3 charges on Fingers of Frost when chaining an instant at the end because I don't see FoF combos fixable without turning the whole cast sequence engine inside out.
I decided to overestimate Frost, because I couldn't properly model FoF reprocs.
So our FoF procs never overlap, which overstates DPS by about 0.5% to 1%.

FoF is assumed to only work with Frost spells in the future. If not, Brain Freeze FBs are a good use for FoF charges.

Brain Freeze is always a DPS gain, as is Ice Lancing on FoF in case Deep Freeze is on cooldown.

707 DPS - Waterbolt when the Elemental is active
471 DPS - Waterbolt averaged with 66% uptime over 6 minutes

3622 DPS, 17 DPM, 210 MPS - Frostbolt, ignoring FoF
3236 DPS, 17 DPM, 187 MPS - Frostfire Bolt without DoT, ignoring FoF
3629 DPS, 19 DPM, 187 MPS - Frostfire Bolt with 4 DoT ticks, ignoring FoF

4581 DPS - Instant Fireball with 0/5 Ignite
5490 DPS - Instant Fireball with 5/5 Ignite

3889 DPS, 19 DPM, 210 MPS - (FrB*16)+FoF-(FrB*4) Frostbolt spammed with 2 FoF charges
3878 DPS, 19 DPM. 208 MPS - (FrB*16)+FoF-(FrB*2-DF*2) Assuming 2 FoF charges, using Deep Freeze
4017 DPS, 19 DPM. 208 MPS - (FrB*14)+FoF-(FrB*4-DF*2) Assuming 3 FoF charges, using Deep Freeze
4088 DPS, 20 DPM, 205 MPS - (FrB*14)+FoF-(FrB*2-FFB*2-DF*2) Using Frostfire Bolt as 2nd and Deep Freeze as 3rd charge
4208 DPS, 22 DPM, 188 MPS - (FrB*14)+3*FB+FoF-(FrB*2-FFB*2-DF*2) Using Frostfire Bolt as 2nd and Deep Freeze as 3rd charge, and Brain Freeze

This is what would happen if Brain Freeze was allowed to make Frostfire Bolt instant:
4481 DPS, 24 DPM, 187 MPS - (FrB*13)+1*FB+FoF-(FrB*2-FFB*2-DF*2) Assuming that FFB is used as 2nd charge of FoF and with Brain Freeze

2166 DPS, 16 DPM, 133 MPS - Ice Lance spam with Deep Freeze when not on cooldown and instant Fireballs


4621 DPS. 24 DPM, 191 MPS - The full cycle with summons, FB, FFB on 2nd FoF, DF on 3rd FoF. Pet restores 16 MPS.
This does assume that procs never come in a bad moment, FoF procs are always 12s apart for the FFB DoT, and DF is always off cooldown.

4545 DPS, 24 DPM, 193 MPS - With randomly spread procs, you're looking at roughly a 1.5% DPS compared to staged conditions.
4422 DPS, 23 DPM, 190 MPS - Without Ignite, you lose another 3% DPS, with randomly spread procs.


3) Fire Specs

Spec is 0/51/20 maximising Fireball and Frostfire Bolt.
In this setup with 50% crit, it takes 6 casts on average to proc Hot Streak (7 with reaction to consume it). Pyroblast gets 3.375 ticks of its DoT on average.
Ignite is assumed to always bug, Pyroblast loses its Ignite on a double crit. Fire Blast is not worth it unless you're moving.
Frostfire Bolt is assumed to have its normal mana cost, not double-dipping from some mana talents.

4528 DPS, 22 DPM, 204 MPS - Fireball

7249 DPS, 11 DPM, 690 MPS - Living Bomb with DoT
4156 DPS, 27 DPM, 155 MPS - Frostfire Bolt with 0 DoT ticks
4470 DPS, 29 DPM, 155 MPS - Frostfire Bolt with 4 DoT ticks
9113 DPS, 22 DPM, 419 MPS - Instant Pyrobast with 0 DoT ticks
10244 DPS, 24 DPM, 419 MPS - Instant Pyrobast with 4 DoT ticks

4780 DPS, 19 DPM, 249 MPS - (FB*5-LB) Fireball with Living Bomb weaved
4513 DPS, 24 DPM, 192 MPS - (FB*3-FFB) Frostfire weaving to save mana
4840 DPS, 22 DPM, 218 MPS - (FB*7-Pyro) Hot Streak procs


5050 DPS, 19 DPM, 259 MPS - Fireball spam with Living Bomb weaved and Hot Streak procs


The mana conversion rate is as follows:
21 DPM for using Hot Streak, 8 DPM for not using Frostfire Bolt spammed, 6 DPM for using Living Bomb, 1 DPM for not using Frostfire Bolt.

That means - try spamming Fireball and Living Bomb if possible. If you lack mana, then weave Frostfire Bolt, then use mana gems/potions/evocation, then use mage armour, then start dropping Living Bomb.
If you then still lack mana, start spamming Frosfire Bolt, and then stop using Hot Streak if you still run out of mana.
That should never happen outside of mana burn fight fights though.

The mana cost of Fireball spam wiith Living Bomb and Hot Streak should be sustainable with JoW/Replenish and weaving Frostfire Bolts.


4) Frostfire specs

With the buff to Burnout and the changes to Scorch/Chill not being school specific, Frostfire specs lost a large part of their advantage and are now strictly inferiour to their Frost and Fire spec counterparts.
They are rather mana-efficient though, even when the mana cost bugs will be fixed.

4314 DPS, 25 DPM, 171 MPS - Frostfire Bolt as 0/34/37
4338 DPS, 26 DPM, 170 MPS - Frostfire Bolt as 0/30/41 with 50% pet uptime


5) Conclusion

Blast spam is the highest possible DPS, but it also is the the most vulnerable spec to interruped casting.
For mobility fights, one point can be moved into Arcane Barrage to cast on the run.
Even with interrupts, Blast spam is still very powerful.

The comes Deep Fire with a Bomb and Pyro cycles. It is only weaker if Blast spam gets interrupted every 12 seconds or more.
It has a very good ranged and two strong point blank AoE spells.

Then comes Deep Frost which is as about strong as pure Fireball spam and can deal nearly half its DPS from range while moving.
It also brings a raidwide scaling mana buff nearly as strong as Blessing of Wisdom if its pet survives.
It has a very good ranged channeled AoE with a talentable slowing effect and at least two good survival talents.

The come all kind of Arcane Barrage cycles. They are not bad, but not good either. Their only strengh is that they can spam Blasts when needed.

In that ballpark and below are Elementalist Frostfire specs.


6) Numbers

5906 DPS, 15 DPM, 398 MPS - Blast spam with 50/3/18

5050 DPS, 19 DPM, 259 MPS - Fireball spam with Living Bomb weaved and Hot Streak procs

4552 DPS, 14 DPM, 325 MPS - ([FrB-ABar]*7-MBAM-ABar)
4545 DPS, 24 DPM, 193 MPS - Frostbolt with Frostfire/Freeze/Lances and Fireballs on procs and 66% pet uptime.

4338 DPS, 26 DPM, 170 MPS - Frostfire Bolt as 0/30/41 with 50% pet uptime

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

Thanks for the work Roy; i've been waiting on a good AB comparison to other specs. I was expecting to find a point where X interupts would make it even with Deep Fire, but 12 seconds? Damn, thats crazy. Probably needs toning down some. I assume that figure is reached assuming that MBAM can be shot off after an interpt around 50% of the time for a small DPS and DPM gain?

Also, regular interuptions in fights can sometimes also mean more opportunity for ABar (knockdown/knockback/knockup effects are especially good chance to throw out some ABars). Considing how tricky that is to model I'll assume its not factored in to the arcane specs. It all culminates to bring AB spam specs even further ahead.

Here's hoping they fix 2xT5.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Roywyn

Whoops, my DPS numbers on interrupts don't even take into account MBAM.
50/3/18 can only get 3/5 Missile Barrage. But with frequent interrupts, you need less mana and can maybe drop some MoE/FC for 5/5 Missile and 1/1 Arcane Barrage.

MBAM is roughly a 10% gain for 2.5 seconds (pre-haste), and has about 50%-75% chance to be up after an interrupt.
It's not much compared to the loss you already have.

Ramp-up without MBAM is 4219 DPS for 5.8 seconds
Ramp-up with MBAM is 4852 DPS for 7.7 seconds.

That's quite a drop compared to pure spam, but it is just 5% below Frost/Fire specs.
So it's not a big loss when compared to other specs, only to itself.


Now with the numbers done, I'd want to add some personal notes.

Frost
I wouldn't level as anything else than frost again. Mind you, I leveled as fire in BC, did one level as frost and found it horrible and very slow, and I leveled with non-working FoF/BF/SB in WotLK beta.

Honestly, it's just that good now. Mobs barely reach you. You can stun mobs on demand, like stuff going for healers.
Ice barrier is a free 3k HP on a 24s timer. Freezing and slowing galore. A pet on demand with another freeze.
In mobile fights, you can try to save your proc for instants on the run, or fish for more with Ice Lance.

Plus it's hell of a lot of fun.


Fire
Played it only for a short time, specced back again because mobs always reach me and melee me before I got them down. Lack of survival on control.
It might actually be better at 75, when you can pull with FFB which will slow the mobs.

For raid DPS, fire burns 1/3 more mana than frost, and doesn't have it's own mini-battery which would also feed the raid.

I think the 10% DPS difference is in line with the sheer amount of control and survival offers.


Arcane
I haven't played it, thus I don't want to judge how it play.

But I can't help but feeling that there is some huge disconnect between how spells work and what they are supposed to do.
On one hand, there is Arcane Blast. It got changed from 66% haste to 45% damage when stacked, plus 9% scaling and 6% total damage. Good.
Stacked Arcane Blast does good damage, unstacked one does bad damage.

Then it suddenly had the 45% damage increased to 75% and went to lala-land.

On the other had, you have the 2 core, yes even tree-defining talents Arcane/Missile Barrage which don't work with spammed Arcane Blast at all.
Maybe pamming Arcane Blast isn't the intended use. But other than that, the spell has little use, and the whole spec can only put out mediocre damage without brinding a core raid debuff.

Arcane Blast spam is also very vulnerable to interrupts. Fine.
But it's so far ahead of anythng else that the amount of interrupts doesn't really matter.

I don't mind Blast spam becoming the best raid DPS spec.
I do mind that it's:
- The epitome of 1-button mashing. Destrolock lose a tiny bit from throwing two DoTs per minute. Blast spammers lose 10%.
- It spends about 30 out of 71 points on DPS talents, the rest is mana and filler.
- It's it extremely uninspiring and has no use for most tree-defining abilities.

- It is the only mage spec where using Presence of Mind is actually a DPS loss.
- It is the only way to compete (and then overshoot everything else with it) with the other 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.

 

◊ manly

Well, personally I'd put my money down on everyone going arcane come wotlk because I'm pretty sure they won't remove 2pct5 (to clarify: because I'm sure they'll forget and sure enough nobody will report it in beta forums). The other major point to mention here is that with 2pct5 assumed you need a somewhat unrealistic amount of pushbacks for the worst-case scenario, as arcane, to equal the other specs. I haven't checked either, but if pally auras are raid-wide too, well, that makes the matter even more moot.

And yes, I can personally confirm that nothing comes remotely close to frost for levelling in wotlk. If I went frost thats because its just flat out nuts. I don't know what to say about fire besides that its in a sorry state of things. Right now fire is a very solid 5man spec because of bugged living bomb (for massive aoe damage), but outside of that, its pretty much garbage.

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.

 

Quality

When it reduced the cast time it was godly, but with the debuff change the moment the mob gets to you, you lose the stack.

 

NickSeng

If a mob is moving towards you in a raid, there's a bigger problem than losing the stack.

 

Valestra

Mh, this goes contrary to what Livh says on his page. Unless I oversee something.

Quote:
Fire and Arcane, on the other hand, look to be in very good shape in the interactivity department, and all three specs now carry decent raid utility (though that's not nearly as important with the huge changes to buff and debuff stacking).

 

Nastre

I'll take everything with a grain of salt in terms of pve raid dps until they actually say they have done true internal balance testing.

That being said, I am finding the merry-go-round of top dps specs for Mages since LK talents came out one interesting ride.

 

Skallewag

Very nice summary, thanks for all the hard work Roy. It does kinda show that blizzard wants to change arcane but still are not quite sure how to do that. An interesting sidenote, (not intended as any kind of whining), is that blizzard really had something good going with arcane before the TLC and CSD were changed. For a time mages were specing arcane and not using AB spam but rather using the original arcane nuke and dealing good damage with it. If the devs are unsure what to do with arcane it would probably be a very good idea to look at what effects being removed from the game it was that stopped raiders using AM and simply use that as inspiration for new talents. Procs and speed buffs, that is the potential strength of AM. If every tick can proc some nice effects arcane gets a unique advantage over frost or fire and something else to work with than crit. Also it somehow "feels" right if arcane is more haste focused than frost or fire, (besides the talent). Like mentioned earlier allowing each tick of AM to proc MBar might be an idea. 25% procchanse per cast would make up for some of the lacking punch of AM. It would also encourage people to both spec and use AM as much as possible. Doesnt sound to hard to balance DPS wise either.

Wouldn´t responding to something you claim to ignore, per definition make you a liar?
If so then what does passing judgement on an idea you claim to not know make you?

 

Valestra

On the other hand your suggestion would lead to pure AM spamming. I'd loathe that too. I really hope I can find a good playstyle which delivers good DPS without mindless spamming of either AM or AB.
If we get a slightly increased debuff duration and can weave ArBarr into AB rotations now that be nice at least. PoM has to be used to get the stack from 2-3. Think this would be the best use.
If Missle Barrage would not let the debuff to fall off it'd be a nice DPS increase too. Such possible cycles should somehow give a good DPS/DPS ratio. AB spam in the end when enough mana is left for finishing.

Maybe it would be good to either add ArBarr or exchange AB with ArBarr to get Missle Barrage proccs.

 

Dragonrhonin

Just an Idea that your comment brought to mind:

What if the AB debuff, rather than increasing damage/haste, reduced the cast time of AM by a set amount? You could even add in ABar to the debuff so that you could go AB ABr AB AB ABr AM or something like that? That would be a nice way to really implement AM back into an arcane raiding rotation without losing DPS like you do in MB? Of course the debuff would have to be lengthened, but I'm hoping that happens anyway. Thoughts?

 

Celani

Blast spam tops out at a whopping 18% higher DPS than the next nearest spec (fire w LB), and 30% greater than frost specs. That's too much disparity, considering every class can provide a raid buff/debuff and most classes can do this without sacrificing ANY personal DPS. The problem is that ONLY a mage can provide the spell crit debuff and someone will have to do so at a huge personal DPS cost. Hopefully the DPS rebalance pass address this and brings high and low end a lot closer together.

 

Nastre

Blast Spam is so counter-intuitive to Blizzard's own development playstyle philosophy that I am under no doubt it will receive revision.

They are pushing for dynamic pve damage rotations in WotLK. Admittedly, there is still marked room for improvement with Frost as well, but Arcane Blast DPS itself is now the complete opposite of what Arcane Barrage and Missile Barrage are leading towards.

@ Manly: Levelling as Frost, Mage Armor or Molten? I'm assuming Ice Armor is of no use, as the mobs do not reach you. I'm imagining that the regen from Mage is far superior to any crit you gain from Molten, due to the nature of Shatter and Frostbite and all that synergy.

 

Searix

Anyone else disappointed in the new Hot Streak? Not because of the effect, i love it, but rather because the ignite bug should be blatantly obvious but they dont seem to notice :/

 

Tyrian

Change "Hot Streak" to "Your next pyroblast spell is instant and the full-DOT component is applied instantly to the initial DD hit".

I'd echo the concern others brought up: Arcane just doesn't have a compelling, exciting playstyle at the moment. Spamming Arcane Blast is mind-numbing. Having a split-second movement or interrupt throw off your whole stack is just frustrating. I can't claim to have the best ideas on innovative solutions to make arcane more fun, but I do hope its thoroughly revised before it hits live - not just the talents, but its fun/interactivity factor too.

 

Pintofbrew

Or not, and instead make Ignite work correctly, which will not only fix the Pyro issue but also fix numerous Fireblast/Scorch/etc issues.

I'm not too keen on a proc which means you front-load a monumentally huge amount of damage in instant form immediately after a normal nuke. Can you imagine 5mans? "yea we can't hotstreak because it's practically a taunt".

"Do not offend the chair leg of truth. It is wise and terrible. Continue."
-Spider Jerusalem