This is a thread dedicated towards frostfire bolt and frostfire bolt builds specifically. I know for now it looks more like its under construction (and it is), but the main goal for me to post this is to get the points of contention worked out. Also others might like to ask specific questions about the build at the same time, although I think most of it is rather intuitive.
(crit multiplier formula listed in the formula section)
Specs - all 0/53/18 variants
Pure single-target dps build. 3/3 World in Flames. No blastwave/dragon's breath. This is generally the 'base' build used from which you make modifications from. http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...0&version=9551
Typical modifications
1pt ice floes -> frostbite - Ice floes is fairly bad for the build anyway, so might as well max out frostbite for better farming. Keep in mind frostbite will not proc on blizzard without putting at least 1 pt in it. 1pt ice floes -> frostbite, 1pt world in flames -> imp. blizzard - More controlled blizzard dps. Keep in mind World in Flames affects blizzard dps. 1pt world in flames or 1pt frost channeling -> dragon's breath - Dragon's Breath 1pt ice floes -> frostbite, 1pt world in flames -> imp. blizzard, 3pt frost channeling -> shatter - Shatter/blizzard. This change alone isn't too awesome, however, if 2+ mages spec with 3/3 frostbite 1/3 blizzard the results can turn out excellent. Keep in mind you will do 10% more blizzard threat.
Other modifications
I can understand mages cutting out Flame Throwing since FFB is unaffected by the talent. It does mean your scorch/living bomb/pyroblasts are limited by range though.
Playstyle
Generally speaking, the spec works with priorities. Here is what I use, as I point out in the points of contention, I am not 100% sure on them, although remain confident this is accurate.
Living Bomb > Hot Streak pyroblast > (scorch refresh) > ffb
However, this is only the main outline. This is the optimal priority list assuming everything goes according to plan, which needless to say, isn't something you can really count on. Also, you want to prioritize HS-pyro over LB when you have a high probability of losing a HS-pyro proc. This will become particularly good to remember for 4pct8 wearers.
AOE
ranged aoe: living bomb > flame strike (full rank) > flame strike (rank 8) > blizzard
close aoe: living bomb > combustion/flamestrike/dragon's breath/blastwave > flamestrike > cone of cold > blizzard
AOE isn't a simple as it used to be. First, you can and probably will die from aggro pulls. Yes, even on blizzard. However, you can work around this by using mirror image to have 30s where you can't pull aggro.
The reason you want to do a full rank flamestrike followed by a lower-ranked flamestrike is because the ground dot will stack.
Generally you want to delay invisibility as much as possible, because the more you wait, the more effective it becomes.
Based on my personal experience, waiting for the boss to reach 70% hp before using invis will allow you to go all out for the remainder of the fight. Of course, this is only a rule of thumb and assumes that you produce more threat than your tank, and that you will catch up to him. You can play with the number a bit if you can afford to use mirror image at the end of the fight (ie: finish the fight with >130% threat). It has proven to work well, however, expanded math could give optimum values (if anyone is willing to do it).
The above list is simplified and doesn't lists every possible non-stacking buffs. For a proper list, check the FFB thread or MMO-Champion RaidComp . For example, 'coe' refers to any of (Ebon Plaguebringer/Curse of the Elements+Malediction/Earth and Moon).
note: there is a discrepancy between the in-game-tooltip values and the ones reported by sites parsing the data files. The values above are taken from in-game-tooltips (except for arcane missiles).
* Based on a limited number of casts (~100 per).
exception case: ab_mana_cost = rounddown( round(base_mana_cost [* elemental_precision] [* frost_channeling] [* arcane_focus]) * (1 + ab_stacks * 2 [+ arcane_power] [+ 2pct5]) )
(Arcane_blast is different than the rest because the first part of the mana cost can be rounded up, whereas every other spell can only be rounded down. So even though it seems like the formulas are the same, they need to be treated separately.)
If you're just doing the equivalence for Frostfire Bolt (and not a typical mixed rotation of FFB with Pyroblast from Hot Streak procs and/or Living Bomb woven in), the calculations are extremely straightforward.
m is the average base damage (ex: frostfire bolt: (722+838)/2 = 780)
r is the spell power coefficient (see table above for spell coefficients)
d is your spell power.
b is the critical strike bonus. (see table above for crit multiplier)
c is your crit chance.
z is the bonus to your casting speed from gear-based haste.
h is your hit chance.
[slightly edited]
More numbers
Level
Crit / Int
Int / 1% crit
70
0.0125
80
71
0.0116
86.2068944
72
0.0108
92.59259244
73
0.0101
99.00990313
74
0.0093
107.526879
75
0.0087
114.9425283
76
0.0081
123.4567927
77
0.0075
133.333327
78
0.007
142.857139
79
0.0065
153.8461534
80
0.006
166.6666709
crit_rate_from_int = 0.9075 + final_int / 166.6666709
note: 0.9075 applies only to lvl 80 ? currently unknown
To do
add hot streak tables
add DPM calculations on spreadsheet
add dpm-affecting buff/debuffs
Last edited by manly : 11/22/09 at 1:58 PM.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Regarding your opening 10 seconds: Assuming you open up with Living Bomb and scorches, I don't think your DPS will be too bursty to the point where you need to worry about threat. It's predictable enough to the point where even through pure crits, threat shouldn't be an issue until your first nuke goes out 7.5 seconds later.
Some quick math would suggest that Living Bomb is definitely worth keeping up, even through bloodlust/haste cooldowns. For the sake of simplicity, lets assume we have a hit capped mage with 1500 spell damage and 35% Chance to crit. To calculate DPS from our living bomb while under the effects of just bloodlust with no geared haste, I used the following formulas:
1.1 Being the bonus from Fire Power (Which does not apply to the dot portion.) and 1.2 being your global cooldown (time committed to cast Living Bomb).
The thing with this formula is it doesn't take into consideration your chance to crit, as I'm honestly not 100% sure how that works mathematically with burnout and ignite. Regardless, we end up with about 5200 damage over the 12 second duration which comes out to be 4333 DPS with the 1.2 Second GCD, far more than a Bloodlusted Frostfire bolt will be worth until you gear some serious crit, unless my math is wrong.
Last edited by Legitimate : 11/24/08 at 10:13 PM.
Reason: Grammar / Clearity.
With regards to Point of Contention 12: Proper Play of the first 10 seconds:
It seems somewhat obvious to me that it's best to Follow the order of Living Bomb (1.5), Scorch (1.5/3.0),Scorch(1.5/4.5), FFB(3.0/7.5), FFB(3.0/10.5), FFB(3.0/13.5) <-- LB Explodes during this one. In fact, it would potentially be optimal to get haste rating to a point where you can squeeze 1.5 seconds off this entire 13.5 second cast sequence for a "perfect" LB rotation in the opening 10 (or look at getting a "perfect" rotation later) -- but regardless, I can't see any other way to play the opening 10/13.5 than this.
Well its mostly about scorch vs living bomb opener when taking into account raid dps. Also, and most importantly, its about mirror image. There is always the possibility of a trailover hot streak giving up a nasty threat opening. Do you mirror image while both ffb/pyro is in mid air to avoid threat issues ? Or do you wait until threat becomes an actual issue to pop mirror image ? I understand the points are somewhat vague, theyre mostly placeholders as far as I'm concerned.
While it wasn't clear, what I meant by holding up on living bomb casts during cooldowns was actually referring to finishing a bloodlust timer in a case where casting a living bomb now will prevent you from casting a hasted ffb, in which case my gut feeling would tell me to delay by 1 ffb my living bomb cast, but truly I think the math on that needs to be expanded. I do readily agree that in every other case there is no good reason not to cast living bomb haste cooldowns.
Last edited by manly : 11/25/08 at 12:46 AM.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
For single target boss fights, Living Bomb will out do 1 extra IV from coldsnap. For aoe, that build may well out do a Living bomb build due to the extra points in the frost tree.
Once the dual spec system comes in, depending on how it works, you'll be able to run one spec as your single target spec and your second spec can be more focused on aoe/trash. At least this is what I'm planning for myself.
In regards to opening cast sequence, is it known when the explosion part of Living Bomb will crit or not? Is it with the inital cast of the spell or when the explosion occurs? So far my opening cast sequence for bosses that come to me at the start of the fight has always been scorchx2 followed by LB in the hopes for it to crit on explosion.
Alinth, think further about what you ask. If the living bomb explosion was part of the spell directly (as in, whether ir crits or not and the total damage dealt is determined at time of cast), then that would allow to infinitely roll ignites (for the better or worse). It would mean, for example, that you have 10k ignite on target, cast living bomb (which will 'remember' 10k ignite + 1k ignite to add for his own), have ignite deal 10k damage, then 12s later have that 11k ignite re-surge up (and by the same process, eat whatever new ignite numbers would then be up).
It doesn't work that way. Happily.
Living Bomb is made out of 2 spells. The first one is the dot. The second one is the explosion. They work independantly as far as I know. And as far as I know, if you pop trinkets, they will affect the dot, but not the explosion (assuming the trinket dies before the explosion of course).
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
I spent a little time casting Frostfire bolt today at the boss dummies. Not a huge sample size, but may be of some use. The only thing i messed up with is I forgot to untie my trinkets from frostfire so they were always up (I'm bad =( )
I had no buff's, no armor up, and no Frostfire glyph.
1pt ice floes -> frostbite, 1pt world in flames -> imp. blizzard - More controlled blizzard dps. Keep in mind World in Flames affects blizzard dps.
I don't get this.
What the point of freezing mobs with blizzard? You don't have shatter in the build, so there is no dps gain.
And if it is about control, i can only see it as bad. If your tank is keeping agro, you don't need it, and it can split pack if the tank is moving them.
If the tank is not keeping agro, how good is it when the tank is moving to regain agro on loose mob to leave frozen mobs behind?
What am i missing?
Yes it is about control and you need it alot when you AoE. With your blizzard critting at the same time to several mobs, tank can lose aggro and you can get it easily. At these times, slowed mobs, even frozen mobs will give you and tank a lot time to lose/regain aggro while continuing AoE..
I would think livingbomb superseeds scorch as an opener due to the simple fact that living bomb is instacast and can be cast whilst pulling. While doing 10man naxx yesterday on any boss that required moving into place i threw up LB as soon as I was in range and tank was running for it.
I would think livingbomb superseeds scorch as an opener due to the simple fact that living bomb is instacast and can be cast whilst pulling. While doing 10man naxx yesterday on any boss that required moving into place i threw up LB as soon as I was in range and tank was running for it.
Well obviously LB will be a better choice if the choice is to run and cast LB or just run. The question was probably more for the encounters where you are in position at the pull and your first cast is to hand the casters 10% crit on their initials or give yourself a 3s headstart on living bombs explosion.
On reference to the doubledipping from EP and FFB I've seen misses when running with 11% hit + EP from FFB. Sadly I did not screenshot or WWS it so this may just be anecdotal and discarded as such. It was on Archaron or however he spells it (the boss you can fight after you gain control over Wintergrasp) and it was the 25 man version. So from my experience, you still need 14% hit as horde (counting EP) and 13% hit as alliance with draenei.
EDIT: as pointed out below, that may have been due to the cloud and I retract the statement above (not the LB one).
Last edited by Praest : 11/25/08 at 8:41 AM.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
If you have Fireward up and is hit by frostfirebolt it will do frostdamage to avoid being absorbed.
If you have Frostward up and is hit by frostfirebolt it will do firedamage to avoid being absorbed.
I spent a little time casting Frostfire bolt today at the boss dummies. Not a huge sample size, but may be of some use. The only thing i messed up with is I forgot to untie my trinkets from frostfire so they were always up (I'm bad =( )
I had no buff's, no armor up, and no Frostfire glyph.
By that screenshot, it looks like you've recieved the worse-half of the RNG.
Spike damage is a big thing with frostfire bolt, hence resulting in a big possibility of crit-stacking.
My current crit-rate is around yours, and I've noticed times where my DPS has gone down the drain due to lack of crits. (Did Raz today, and crit 6 times.. but it was a physical dps favored group)
I'm going to try what you did (300 FFB's), but keep scorch up(Yay!) and check my results.
On reference to the doubledipping from EP and FFB I've seen misses when running with 11% hit + EP from FFB. Sadly I did not screenshot or WWS it so this may just be anecdotal and discarded as such. It was on Archaron or however he spells it (the boss you can fight after you gain control over Wintergrasp) and it was the 25 man version. So from my experience, you still need 14% hit as horde (counting EP) and 13% hit as alliance with draenei.
Archavon uses Choking Cloud, so you might have been affected by one of those at that point.
Thank you Manly, I've been waiting for this thread!
It seems like the frostfire builds are very streaky. One fight I'll do 3k dps and another 1750. It will be interesting to see how it feels once I am able to flesh out my gear more and have some options.
I really would like to get to a point where I could incorporate some spell haste into my gear, because I notice a lot of missed casting opportunities due to "something" happening that requires my attention (decurse, phase change, whatever). It would be nice to have "enough" damage and crit to where I could add in some haste. For the time being, it seems like there just isn't room.
I spent a little time casting Frostfire bolt today at the boss dummies. Not a huge sample size, but may be of some use. The only thing i messed up with is I forgot to untie my trinkets from frostfire so they were always up (I'm bad =( )
I had no buff's, no armor up, and no Frostfire glyph.
<insert image here with bad crit rng>
FWIW, heres what I got on my first full naxx clear (missed the first reset because I wasn't 80 yet. Also, had 690 crit rating at time of parse)
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Points of contention
1- Optimal gearing with EP bug ? Gear for 11% or 8% ?
I would gear for 11%, if only to cap Scorch and Pyro, regardless if this ghost hit bug lasts as long as the previous one.
Refreshing the scorch stack is a DPS hit as it it, let alone having to recast it due to a miss.
I would also like my trinketed Pyro's to not miss in MF range.
I've been doing the variation with no Burning Soul, but 2/3 WiF for DB and 2/2 Fiery Payback, and playstyle with Fiery Payback is a bit awkward. I only really took the talent to give me a better chance of surviving Sapphiron, but occasionally, I'll wind up getting two Hot Streak procs too close together and then Pyro is on CD for the second, which always surprises me. If only the Hot Streak'ed Pyro didn't count as a usage of the Fiery Payback'ed Pyro.
Also, unlike pre-3.0 with fire spec, where I could ignore Scorch on quick trash, it seems almost impossible to do much damage on a mob with low HP without Imp Scorch up. As far as trash rotations, tank threat is pretty good, so working Flamestrike into the rotation has been useful for most trash mobs, whether 5-man or 10.
First I'd like to say thanks for putting this thread and information together. Most of the information here isn't new but it's nice to see it all in one place and some intelligent discussion about it, especially the "double dipping" into EP by FFB which is something I am very interested in hearing test results from.
One question, and it may be a goofy one, do any of you know of a good bar timer mod for Living Bomb?
I've used scorchio in the past for scorches and it works out really well on boss fights when there are a lot of debuffs up making it less of an effort to try and locate the scorch one, and I was hoping to find one for living bomb.
If this question is to far out of the scope of this thread then I apologize.
I see you used evoc on the patchwerk pull, here is my first Patch on a 25 Naxx raid. I didn't use evoc, but i had to put up a full fight with Mage Armor (glyphed). On the other side i could use my hast potion.
I've been wondering for a moment if the use of molten armor glyphed + evoc insted of the mage armor glyphed on a 25 raid would be a dps up.
But 1k dps ... snif
First I'd like to say thanks for putting this thread and information together. Most of the information here isn't new but it's nice to see it all in one place and some intelligent discussion about it, especially the "double dipping" into EP by FFB which is something I am very interested in hearing test results from.
One question, and it may be a goofy one, do any of you know of a good bar timer mod for Living Bomb?
I've used scorchio in the past for scorches and it works out really well on boss fights when there are a lot of debuffs up making it less of an effort to try and locate the scorch one, and I was hoping to find one for living bomb.
If this question is to far out of the scope of this thread then I apologize.
There is a mod called "Debuff Filter" which can be found on the cursed website. I used to use it while playing my warrior to keep track of thunder clap, sunder armor et al, but it can be configured to track whatever you need. I scale the debuffs on my unit frames a little larger, because there is less unnecessary information. I haven't used it since 3.0, but the website says it has been updated, so give it a try. I plan to reinstall it myself to avoid any Living Bomb downtime (and help prevent scorch from falling off when I nod off at the keys).
I see you used evoc on the patchwerk pull, here is my first Patch on a 25 Naxx raid. I didn't use evoc, but i had to put up a full fight with Mage Armor (glyphed). On the other side i could use my hast potion.
I've been wondering for a moment if the use of molten armor glyphed + evoc insted of the mage armor glyphed on a 25 raid would be a dps up.
But 1k dps ... snif
I might have been able to pull without evocation. I think I used my overstocks of SMPs rather than actually good potions, and it seems I only used 1 gem. My macros are due for a makeover, right now its more like playing with no macro whatsoever, and this is one of the indirect results.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
So with all these new changes in the game, and playing with the FFB specs I've seen alot of crazy results that are clearly illustrated in this post already. However with the conversation over the first 10/13.5 sec of the fight and that ensuing rotation really caught me. Can we assume that like a deep Arcane build with Arcane Barrage there may be a soft haste cap now with LB rotations?
While Hot Streak is still unpredictable yes, can we stack for a certain number of haste now that will be able to give us our perfect rotations? Or is there another equilibrium between haste and crit where the DPS gains of these stats will be affected differently.
My concern comes from hitting and lacking our old Sunwell Crit rating, how Manly attained near 700 rating is just insane, but still a major show of the potential of this spec. I'm curious as to how we would see the haste caps/crit caps for this spec. But most of all we knew period in the fire spec that crit was our weakest dps gain stat, with this heavy 334% modifier that's changed, and I'm curious as to just how much, anyone have input on testing methods?
11/24/08, 8:49 PM
