Mage: Simple Questions/Simple Answers - Page 189

Nastral · 10/31/10, 6:58 PM

Hi Mage mates,

I'm searching for a long time if there is a haste cap in FB spec, i heard before 4.0 that a soft cap existed around 850 haste rating but I couldn't find a clear post about it.

Does this soft cap still exist in 4.0.1 ? How can i calculate this haste cap , does it depend of my gear ?

• Jessamy · 10/31/10, 9:47 PM

Originally Posted by Nastral

How can i calculate this haste cap?

The lowest your global cooldown can go is 1.0 seconds. So any haste that makes your spells faster than that is wasted. This affects instant cast spells (like hot steak pyro) and spells with a 1.5 base cast time. This is a "soft" cap because haste after this point is still useful for your other spells.

After the 4.0.1 patch, mages get 3% talented haste, and 5% haste from raid buffs. These effects are multiplicative, so you need 1.5 / (1.05 * 1.03) = 1.387 haste to hit the soft cap. 38.7 * 32.79 = 1269 haste rating is your soft cap.

If you include the 10% haste you can sometimes get from Pyromaniac, that's 1.5 / (1.05 * 1.03 * 1.10) = 1.261 to hit the soft cap. 26.1 * 32.79 = 856 haste rating, which might be the number you were thinking of.

Juravieal · 11/01/10, 11:06 PM

Ive got a quick question on arcane tactics. I just went back arcane for the first time since the patch, and for some reason it doesnt show that I myself have the arc tactics buff. It does show on my party members however. Has things been changed so that you dont see your own supplied auras now? I even tried turning buff mods off and using the blizzard buff bar.

Elge · 11/02/10, 8:29 AM

Originally Posted by Juravieal

Ive got a quick question on arcane tactics. I just went back arcane for the first time since the patch, and for some reason it doesnt show that I myself have the arc tactics buff. It does show on my party members however.

I noticed the same thing on my rogue alt with Honor Among Thieves (5% crit aura). It does not show up in my buff frames, but the moment I put a talent point in it I see a 5% increase in crit chance on the character sheet. I'm sure it's the same effect.
I wonder, since the buff does not show up, does it stack with similar auras? I can't test that right now, but I'll try later.

Draginclaw · 11/02/10, 9:22 AM

Your own raid buffs don't show on yourself, only others. No, they do not stack.

The 850 haste was a target for mages leveling up (pre-25-heroic gear). At around 850-900 haste it would start switching with crit on their stat values/weight. So at that point you would use a sim or rawr to see what worked best.

Skem · 11/11/10, 3:50 PM

Im trying to validate my tool tips- since now they include spellpower etc (and Im updating my DPS model)

Damage from tooltip: 1442 I have validated this with a target dummy~ it took ages to do it with out something procing!

Drivers
Spellpower: 3339
Spell Co-eff: 1.0765 (0.2153 per wave) as per http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t106009-...mage_resources
Base Damage: 305 Arcane Missiles - Spell - World of Warcraft
Mastery: 12% (for simplicity)
Arcane Tactics: 3% (talent)

Math
Min Dmg: 305
SP: +719
Sub total: 1,024

Mastery: +123
Arcant Tac: +31
Buffs: +154

Total: 1,178

Variane to tooltip: 264

So long story short- have I missed something or has the base/spell co changed?

thanks

Roywyn · 11/11/10, 4:26 PM

The base damage and scaling has been changed back and forth a lot recently. So, the values listed on the Cataclysm front page are not up to date any more. The following link contains last week's values on beta, which are not the values on live either, mind you. They also don't add up to your values either, sadly.

Values of Nov 8th on beta: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta - (English) Forums -> Attack/Spell Power Coefficients

Skem · 11/13/10, 5:52 PM

Thanks

They have however changed it again.. its now 1379- but thats a different issue ;-)

I while I was building there comes up few order of precendence issues.

Base Damage
+ Spell Power (and spell power mods)
Base Total

Buff/Debuff Effects
Arcane Tactic's
Mastery
etc
Total Modifiers

Critical Strike

So this works out as Base Total x Total Modifier x Critical.

Does this make sense? (don't get me started on the pain that is haste... lol- it keeps me busy)

ethix · 11/14/10, 2:32 AM

How does the ignite bug work exactly? The new Flashburn mastery for fire tells me that knowing how to avoid ignite munching will be extremely important for dps.

Edit: From browsing some of the Fire for 4.01 thread, it seems like this is still up in there air. Is there a 4 second period where all crits are ignored? Or is it some sort of duration based on pyroblasts or how hard you crit?

Enthorn · 11/20/10, 10:35 PM

You cannot avoid ignite munching. My explanation of ignite munching is buried, but you can read the post here.

Ignite loss happens in two ways...

The first is when an ignite DoT is supposed to tick and a spell crits. Occasionally, the ignite damage that was supposed to tick is completely disgarded and the next ignite tick only includes the ignite damage from the spell that just crit. Ignite loss here can be significantly high if the ignite discarded was rolling (particularly on a fight where rolling ignites can accrue to significant amounts).

The second is when two spells simultaneously crit. This happens far more often than the previous example but also is a more static amount of ignite damage lost, because the ignite damage lost can never excede the ignite damage of a single spell. The way this works is that when two spells land and crit at the same time, the first one that lands and crits has its ignite damage completely discarded (not calculated) because it is overwritten by the next spell that lands. Most often this happened to players using Fireball -> Fire Blast pre-wrath. Now it happens with Hot Streak Pyroblast and Fireball, since they are chained. Contrary to popular belief, Glyph of Living Bomb does not increase the amount of ignite loss.

LoTekk · 11/25/10, 8:50 AM

Now with the glyphs fixed -- did anybody already come up with some numbers on the four prime glyphe choices for a fire spec?

[Glyph of Fireball]
[Glyph of Living Bomb]
[Glyph of Molten Armor]
[Glyph of Ice Armor] (This should say 'Glyph of Pyroblast' -- probably a caching issue?)

'Glyph of Fireball' seems pretty obvious to me, but I'm not entirely sure which one of the other three I should omit --- I'd really appreciate some number crunching.

• Wizeowel · 11/26/10, 3:17 PM

Originally Posted by LoTekk

'Glyph of Fireball' seems pretty obvious to me, but I'm not entirely sure which one of the other three I should omit --- I'd really appreciate some number crunching.

Vontre did the calculations and you can see in Vontre's Magegraf that Molten armor is the best glyph. The other three give much the same damage, depending on the detail of your spec, but it's generally assumed that pyroblast > fireball > living bomb.

Naqaj · 12/01/10, 5:27 AM

Does the Firepower talent also affect Frostfire Orb? Both the damage part as well as the added explosion?

lmaoskates · 12/02/10, 3:24 AM

Originally Posted by Wizeowel

pyroblast > fireball > living bomb.

Sorry, but do you have any statistical evidence for this? Because pyroblast > fireball seems very weird to me, as you cast many more fireballs than pyroblasts, also the fireball glyph will let you proc HS more often.

• Wizeowel · 12/02/10, 5:53 AM

Originally Posted by lmaoskates

Sorry, but do you have any statistical evidence for this?

I don't have statistical evidence because that would require gathering 1000s of combatlogs of mages with several combinations of glyph choices. But as I linked in my post, Vontre's Magegraf has modeled all the glyphs and calculates pyroblast higher. You have to make your own decision whether you trust Vontre, although he's been providing solid theorycrafting tools for years now.