Magic Absorption for a Raiding Build - Page 2

Malvenue · 12/12/08, 5:17 PM

I was gettting 4500-5k+ mana back at times during Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad with this talent the other night. It's easily worth the two points.

Nemantopia · 12/12/08, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by Malvenue

I was gettting 4500-5k+ mana back at times during Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad with this talent the other night. It's easily worth the two points.

Combined with resist gear, mana absorption can be very powerful both for mitigation and mana gain...80 for Absorption + 70 for aura/totem + 115 Glacial Robe + 40 Mage armor already hits 305 resist, and that's assuming MotW doesn't stack which would push the value over 350. It would likely not be very hard at all to hit the cap with the glacial items in this scenario.

ebbv · 12/13/08, 6:32 PM

Originally Posted by Anobix

Last week while fighting Sapphiron I watched my resistance jump after being buffed by Mark of the Wild. I already had the paladin aura, was wearing two pieces of FrR gear, and had mage armor up. Maybe a recent change, but I can definitely attest that unless my brain was playing tricks on me it did stack.

I will check this this week when we get there again.

You're seeing things. When dealing with a well established mechanic like this it's a good idea to triple check before making claims that it has changed.

Enthorn · 12/15/08, 3:57 PM

With the changes to Torment the Weak and Pyromaniac, it is worth noting that a Fireball build does have the Magic Absorption advantage over Frostfire while maintaining DPS. There are, essentially, 2 floating points, starting from 18.51.0, to move around.

2/2 Magic Absorption, 1/2 Flame Throwing
2/2 Magic Absorption, 2/2 Flame Throwing, 4/5 Clearcasting
2/2 Magic Absorption, 2/2 Flame Throwing, 5/5 Clearcasting, 2/3 World in Flames
2/2 Magic Absorption, 0/2 Flame Throwing, 4/5 Clearcasting, 3/3 World in Flames, 2/2 Fiery Payback

Those are the four options I see as being viable. World in Flames does have added utility in DPS due to Living Bomb triggering Hot Streak in 3.0.8, so I can't justify dropping points from it. It works out to being a 0.5% DPS increase per point in 3.0.8. Magic Absorption is our base talent here, so it's always going to be 2/2. And if we're picking up Magic Absorption, then there is almost justification for picking up Fiery Payback as well. The goal is to increase survivability without sacrificing DPS (and one could argue to simply spec deep frost, but ice barrier is mana intensive and is a killer on the GCD if you're using it every CD).

While it's possible to pick up Fiery Payback quite easily with Frostfire (by simply removing points from Frost Channeling), the same can't be said about a Fireball build. There's no reason to raid without Burning Soul, and aside from that, Flame Throwing is the only talent that can be sacrificed and still pick up Fiery Payback. (Even though Playing with Fire increases spell damage taken, there's no reason to not take it still.)

My decision would be to first drop Flame Throwing, and then drop World in Flames. Clearcasting is tricky. While I don't have mana problems in the slightest with Frostifre in 25-man setting, I've never raided with Fireball. The added mana cost to Fireball, and the loss of Frost Channeling, may not be great enough to offset Clearcasting. However, with increased crit rate (3% from Focus Magic, 3% from Fireball Glyph), and 30% in-combat regen from Pyromaniac (in 3.0.8), mana may still be less of a concern.

Thus, I would certainly drop Flame Throwing, and then Clearcasting for Fiery Payback. On a fight like Sapphiron, when I typically have around 22,000 health, Fiery Payback would trigger at 7700 health. Without Fiery Payback, 7700 damage would kill me. With Fiery Payback, damage would be reduced to 6160. This means I would need to take 9625 damage with Fiery Payback to die. It's very trivial, but then, small increments is what a lot of things are about.

Doroteasenjk · 12/16/08, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Anobix

Last week while fighting Sapphiron I watched my resistance jump after being buffed by Mark of the Wild. I already had the paladin aura, was wearing two pieces of FrR gear, and had mage armor up. Maybe a recent change, but I can definitely attest that unless my brain was playing tricks on me it did stack.

This is an artifact of how buffs are displayed in the character screen. Sometimes you need to close and re-open the character screen to have the correct values displayed.

Nemantopia · 12/17/08, 3:05 PM

Originally Posted by Enthorn

...

2/2 Magic Absorption, 1/2 Flame Throwing

....

Are there any situations where Flame Throwing's 6 extra yards makes it a a must-have talent?

Good analysis, and I pick this one...honestly, I think of Firey Payback as a PvP talent...if you need it in a raiding situation, your raid is probably wiped already. Fire already has an extensive range, and an extra 3 yards is good for outdistancing and positioning...which I think of as a PvP priority, not a PvE one. I don't recall many situations as frost where I said 'man, I wish I was Fire so I could go out to 41 yds instead' outside of PvP, because you're already out of range of 'short' [35yd] range type AoEs, and can't outdistance raid/room wide ones. I suppose you could argue further ease of positioning during fights and in cast/run situations, but even with the number of moving fights I don't imagine this as being a super-priority.

Einhander · 12/22/08, 10:11 AM

Dragon Breath + Firestarter (even if 1/2) actually gives two instacasts to play with. I even found myself using this combo on some single-target bosses having Fireblast on CD (Taddius)

Anobix · 12/22/08, 2:32 PM

Originally Posted by Doroteasenjk

This is an artifact of how buffs are displayed in the character screen. Sometimes you need to close and re-open the character screen to have the correct values displayed.

Ahh okay that makes sense then.

And @ ebbv, it must have been something weird with the thing updating or the aura fading and coming back to make me think that it was different.

As for the extra 6 yards for flame throwing, I think it isn't a mandatory requirement as your distances should (I believe) always be 30 yards or farther (the normal aoe radius) it just makes it so you can be just that much farther away or spread out behind players who have to be closer while you worry about re-applying scorch and such. Is it a direct dps increase? No, but if you have to move around it can affect it.

LBXZero · 12/22/08, 9:22 PM

All I can say about Magic Absorption is that it is the closest a mage will have to be a tank of some kind without any gimmicks. Just add stamina and resistance gear, and you can tank casters. At 400/415 spell resistance, you should be receiving on average 25% of the total spell damage dealt, most being full resists. Combined with other Arcane talents, you should have some decent mana regen going and a strong mana shield.

But why should mages be close to tanking? But then, a properly geared rogue can go for evasion tanking.

Nemantopia · 12/22/08, 9:57 PM

Originally Posted by LBXZero

...

But why should mages be close to tanking? ...

Because of fights like the first Gruul's Lair encounter [Krosh Firehand], and that there will presumably be another fight where mages with resistances or some kind of spell-counter matter. Incidental side-note: being damned annoying in PvP. If you PvP with a raid build [like, say, before dual-speccing is released. meaning now], you could stack resist gear on purpose for 5s and BGs as a secondary set to take the brunt of the firepower out of the opposing team. Mages are oft targeted in such situations, so taking any kind of substantial wind out of enemy DPS sails can be big in BGs.

Einhander · 12/23/08, 3:00 AM

Originally Posted by LBXZero

But why should mages be close to tanking?..

Vek'nilash, Krosh Firehand, Zerevor and even heroic Razuvious - all tanked by me. But neither of those require any resists at all, with exception of Vek'nilash if you are still 60lvl.

threep* · 12/23/08, 6:23 AM

Please remember that at both mage-tank encounters in TBC resistance was worthless. Fire or arcane resistance had no effect on the dmg from krosh or council.

Pasture · 12/23/08, 9:05 AM

Perhaps there'll be more fights along the lines of SSC Leo for warlocks. Mages will be a natural choice for resistance tanking. The only problem I can forsee in these circumstances is keeping threat.

Nemantopia · 01/01/09, 1:03 PM

As a side note Molten Shields and Frost Warding provide similar protective benefits, as do the glyphs for the improved wards. I'm currently using a Fire raiding build that has both [what ELSE was I going to take to jump from Precision to Icy Viens?] as incidental talents, and in fights involving Fire or Frost the wards become amazingly powerful. And I don't just mean 'hey, look, I reflected that Pyroblast back into his FACE!', I mean as raid DPM/DPS are concerned. Obviously, most fights won't see a benefit here, but element heavy fights allow you to turn direct damage into DPS potentially worth the cost of the cooldown and any damage into potential mana gains [like Magic Absorption can]. The idea of the shield paying for itself or boosting your DPS is clearly a fight specific, RNG based trick, but I have actually used it just in Heroic Nexus and noticed significant returns from using Wards: Instead of being at about 1/4th of my mana at the end of the fight, I was nearly topped off and never had to use Evo (I was still relearning my casting cooldowns and priorities, so that meant a lot at the time ^_^; ).

Assuming you're passing up Playing with Fire [because playing with fire can get you kilt!], you can get a reasonable raiding build that combines the benefits of all this together, but sacrifices AoE potential to become specifically a single-target raid DPS bugger that has less to fear from magic dangers in fights [like mana drains, raid-wide magic damage, etc.]. Note that this IS effecitvely a gimmick spec, despite having most of the DPS boosters fire can take. You lose Playing with Fire, both fire AoEs, the possibility of insta-flamestrikes, any survival or DPS Fiery Payback grants, range, BT, and gets no Blaz*cough*Fire Blast CD reduction.

Sunfire · 01/01/09, 5:33 PM

I'll bite on this thread a little ....

I'm not saying it would be in any way the best use of resources / slots / points etc .....

BUT you could get your resists over 300 by using the Flask (which does stack w/ totems or MOTW) and some Void Spheres.

I've never specced arcane myself so I have a somewhat naive question - does the Incanter's Absorption talent work off resists or only off damage your Mana Shield absorbs?