Camora

My apologies if this was already discussed somewhere else, but I couldn't find it anywhere.
i was reading the optimal sets thread, and noticed that the OP's 19/52/0 build does not include Combustion. Does anyone think that perhaps dropping one point from flamethrowing, which theoretically does not improve your DPS at all, and putting it in Combustion, or perhaps even filling out Student of the Mind, would be worth it? I mean, is there any fight in the game where that extra three yards is really needed?

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...rks/addyct.png

 

willem11

There are many fights in the game where extra range is great and will improve your dps allot, especially for the last 2 bosses in ulduar, general and yogg saron (fase 1 at least). At thorim extra range makes you able to spread safely and its fairly usefull in the tunnel too when your tank is moving away from you fast to pick up next packs, at hodir you can reach that cornered npc in his flash freeze while staying in the lightbeam for extra haste, for the other bosses range isnt that usefull I believe, but even if it allows you to shoot only a few more fireballs per fight its a bigger dps increase as student of the mind or combustion. (reaching the trees freya spawns, reaching a charged away water revernant)

 

• Seonid

The build also includes glyphed LB which will just eat Combustion charges assuming you maximise LB uptime; a waste of a charge compared to FB or FFB.

The Mage theme song.

 

gerryq

Maybe a case can be made for sticking with frost, then - arcane and frost gear are similar, and frost delivers in terms of both AOE and mana consumption.

The survivability is not without its advantages when learning bosses, too.

 

Gellor

Non Mage here. Which spec is currently best DPS? Please base your response on the supposition I'm talking about BiS gear from Naxx and smatterings oof 25 Ulduar gear.

 

Shaewyn

Best answer? It depends.

Best sustained DPS for a stand-and-deliver patchwerk style fight should be a Fireball/Arcane (19/52/0 or 18/53/0) build. This build has no burst at all, though.
Best burst DPS is arcane (57/3/11), tends to be a couple percent behind FB/Arc specs in sustained DPS but miles ahead in burst DPS.

Depending on fight mechanics, player skill and raid composition, either can come out on top. Frost is good for AOE but poor on single target DPS, and may screw with your replenishment. Perhaps due to global warming.

Take a look at Simulationcraft for more in-depth comparisons.

 

-Pawe-

I am currently raiding as fire/arcane spec in Ulduar. My consern is regarding this "priority" list which is introduced in Frostfire bolt thread. I'm aware that it's just expectation as stated in the post. What I'd like to know is what things are supporting the pattern where living bomb is prioritized over hot streak pyro?

Lets imagine the following event happens:

#1 Fireball (crit)
#2 Fireball (crit, hs proc)
#3 Fireball (since you've already started casting, this one crits too)
Living bomb explodes at the same time as fireball #3 finishes it's cast and also crits.

Now if you use hot streak pyro right after fb #3, you gain another hot streak proc due to server delay. However if you use living bomb you possibly loose it. Is it still dps upgrade to prefer lb?

I've been thinking if it would be more benefitical to cast pyro over living bomb if you are at close range. This mostly because in that case there would be no chanse you got second hot streak if you casted living bomb before pyro.
Yet if you are at max range you could cast living bomb over hs pyro, because then you also could get that second hot streak am I right?

I'd appreciate if someone could clarify this priority mechanic for me a bit further.

 

Bereadytodie

Say you could only have one spec through an entire Ulduar run, would Arcane or TTW / Fireball be more likely to preform best on most bosses?

 

Sinless

It never fails to amaze me how people gloss over the perfectly viable and bursty FFB build when they list Ulduar raid builds. Come on guys.

Here are two simple facts:

1) None of the bosses in normal 25-man Ulduar is a DPS race that would necessarily mandate any particular spec. In fact, they all require some kind of off-boss dps, like burning down adds, etc, which rarely have a slow effect for TTW to kick in.
2) The real stuff that matters, hard modes that are true dps races, like XT-002, Hodir, etc. all either have some kind of burn phase where you need the burst dps or require extreme mana efficiency both of which FB/TTW build severely lacks.


If I were to pick only one spec for the entirety of Ulduar, I would definitely go with FFB.

 

◊ manly

As I said in the ffb thread, the order is the order assuming you have no chance to lose HS procs. I would indeed consider playing it differently in a case where you know you could interstice one extra HS-pyro cast since the in-travel fireball/ffb is known to crit (which is a dubious fact to begin with, but lets assume the theorical case of combustion being actually useful). In that case you want to use a free HS-pyro cast since you can only cast one spell before your mid-air spell lands and refreshes HS. Thats like the only exception to the rule. But its a lot of trouble to manage, very unlikely to happen, and moreover, will not even result in any kind of meaningful dps difference. But the problem can get really complex fast if you truly want the full answer, since you need to take into account 4pct8, combustion state, active LB time remaining, scorch time left for refresh if scorching, pyroblast dot being on the target or not, and moreover, the crit-count for the next HS. Its a lot of things to track down and calculate, and I really doubt that would even make any kind of dps difference in the first place, not to mention that even if I knew every case where and how to play it perfectly, it would be too much of a hassle to keep track during play.

In any case, barring for an impending LB explosion, you shouldn't come into the situation where you have a chance to re-trigger a HS while one is active.

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.

 

Duravi

1) Basically any mob with a specced tank on it will have TTW and on many fights the MT himself can pickup some of the other mobs you have to dps.

2) For the most part hard-modes require survivability, optimized dps, or some mix of the two. Out of all the hard modes currently in game there is only ONE where I see an advantage having FFB spec over another spec. That isn't to say FFB spec is worse than FB/TTW in every case (in some it definitely is) but in the ones where FFB is better there is another spec that is even better than that.

 

Skyburst

The only times where TtW may not be readily applied are cases where you should be using AoE (e.g. XT adds, Kolo adds, Thorim arena adds, Freya exploding adds) - in which case TtW has no effect. Futhermore, in those situations, PBAoE (AExp, BWave) serve better in maximizing DPS time, making FB > FFB.

The only fights I would consider taking FFB over FB are Hodir and Vezax, where high crit modifiers and dpm are valued, respectively. XT's heart is arguable as there is a bit of RNG, depending on how early the adds come out.

I think where FFB shines over FB is on Ulduar 10, where the lack of replenishment or mp5 buffs can make going OoM a reality.

 

Sinless

The only spec that has more survivability than cookie-cutter dps specs is the frost/TTW spec which is unfortunately so far down on DPS that I'd think twice before saying "but in the ones where FFB is better, there is another spec that is even better than that" especially when you're talking about survivability.

 

Gili

Please accept my apologies if someone has already answered this question.

I've been looking over FB/TtW builds and I've noticed almost no one takes any points in Student of the Mind. Is the increase in spirit and crit (assuming Molten Armor) just not worth it?

 

Enthorn

What do you mean, exactly, when you say you've been looking over builds? First and foremost, whether you sink 1 or 2 points into Student of the Mind is largely irrelevant. The first point is almost required (though I suppose you could put it into Magic Absorption). The second point is a floating point and is usually thrown into: Student of the Mind, Combustion, or Arcane Meditation. However, there's clearly exceptions to this. I'm thinking of making one myself and putting this point into Blast Wave.

And then there's the builds that sacrifice points in talents like Flame Throwing or Burning Soul to pick up Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath. You need at least one point in either Flame Throwing or Burning Soul, but the other 3 points can be spent wherever. There's many possibilities -- 1/3 Student of the Mind and 0/2 Flame Throwing to pick up Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath. You could drop an additional point in Burning Soul and then drop something somewhere else (Playing With Fire most likely) to pick up 2/2 Firestarter.

If you really want to go the AoE route (and I know you didn't ask about this, but nonetheless), then Frostfire is a far more solid option. The three points in Torment the Weak are absolutely required for single target DPS, but the 3 points in Frost Channeling certainly aren't. This lets you drop 1 point from Flame Throwing and 3 points from Frost Channeling to point all points into getting Dragon's Breath + Blast Wave + Firestarter, all on top of Blizzard. It makes for an absolutely convoluted AoE rotation (that I haven't tried, and I can't really think of a situation that warrants it).

 

Pheroz

I think you missed his point enthorn.

Student of the mind is not a strong talent. The DPS increase on a per point basis is very low. Most mages only put points in the talent where they 'have' to, or in place of talent choices deemed situational or personal preference.

 

Enthorn

I didn't miss his point at all. The first point in Student of the Mind is required to get to Torment the Weak. If Student of the Mind is a weak talent for DPS, then putting a point in anything but that to get to TTW is even worse, unless there is some kind of survival fight where 40 extra resistance is going to benefit immensely. The second point is by and large better than Combustion in every possible circumstance. And as I stated, you can either put it into 2/3 Student of the Mind, or 1/3 Arcane Meditation.

Your last sentence is basically exactly what I described: talent choices deemed situational or personal preference. Is that not what I described in detail when I mentioned the alternative options: Flame Throwing, Burning Soul, Blast Wave, and AoE in general? What talents other than Combustion and Student of the Mind are going to increase DPS? None.

 

Duravi

You don't use frost/ttw for survivability (well as the main reason, of course it helps) the reason it outshines all the other mage specs on a couple hard-modes has to do with the specifics of the fights themselves. As for FFB the one fight I would use it on is Hodir for the higher crit modifier. Mana is never an issue with FB/TTW as long as you evocate intelligently.

 

Kless

Never mind, I found it. You can delete this post.

 

Munkikin

Hi, I'm researching some stuff for a mage friend of mine, and I was wondering one thing. If you have the Glyph of Living Bomb, does the LB dot crits count towards Hot Streak procs?

 

Jept

No, the dot crits are just a buff in damage; only the explosion can trigger hot streak.

 

Masnie

Not a pure mage issue, but anyway:

How does Storm Power - Spell - World of Warcraft interact with the critical strike damage bonus of various spells and abilities - additive or multiplicative? Seeing how most guilds going for the 3 minute kill were stacking FFB mages I thought it would be multiplicative, but I wasn't able to find any confimation so far.

 

Sunfire

I had a couple Vezax questions as I've been trying to optimize an alt spec for him...

1) Spirit-based mana regen doesnt work - so am I correct in assuming that Arcane Meditation and (aside from the +crit%) Pyromaniac don't do anything to help your mana efficiency in that fight?

2) When Fusion did him on hard mode all their mages were frost and had the 3/3 imp. water elemental talent ... since replenishment doesnt work was that just for the extra 15s of DPS or is there some kind of exception where you can recover mana that way?

Kyth said "We were frost, actually. For mana efficiency.

(except one mage who picked up improved amp magic.)"

3) What would improved amp magic do for you on that fight? Allow you to be healed more effectively in a shadow crash?

Thanks for all your help!

 

Dorrinal

1) Correct.

2) Correct, just for the Water Elemental uptime. In fact this is the best fight for going more than 1/3 Enduring Winter because the Replenishment is irrelevant.

3) I think in a fight where the tank takes huge physical hits and healer mana needs to be used as efficiently as possible, Amplified Magic is a no-brainer.

 

arekugureman

I have a question, wich is very related to Fire/TtW.

I've been running with different types of tanks, last 2 weeks: DK main tank, Warrior off tank. So I had to hold my dps for a while until they get aggro. Yesterday, during several fights in ulduar10, I started 10 seconds after the pull, threw a LB, and casted some scorchs, so far nothing happend, my threat was low enough, after a minute omen started to show how I was constantly over 80% and nearly 95% of tanks aggro.

The tank is a good tank, I know he does his job great, but yet, I'm still catching, and sometimes passing, his aggro... I put the points in my threat reduction talent, but is there anything wrong with me? I mean i have nearly 50% crit with fire, 10 - 11% haste, and a bit under 2k sp without a flask... LB and then FB spam til HS proc or LB refresh...

Ideas?