From my experience crit is the biggest factor in a FFB spec, I'd personally say that if you don't have 25% fire crit unbuffed then you may be better off raiding as frost till your gear improves.
Their are a few things I wanted to come on here to ask, to clarify for myself cuz I heard it's pro mages here. I've seen so many different theories about this FFB rotation and Ignite Munching with Hotstreak. And can someone thoroughly explain the mechanics to me
Rotation
1st I heard: Imp Scorch X2 -> LB -> FFB
Then LB -> Imp Scorch X2 -> FB
Also, if your mana can stand it, every 12 secs LB.
Also, with Ignite munching & Hotstreak procs. After 2 FFB Crits I heard to Cast scorch then Pyro.
Then I also read somewhere that : LB-> 2X Imp Scorch -> Combustion -> FB was wrong.:p
Also, is there a particular time to use Mirror Image? I use it every time the CD is up. Don't really have to worry about aggro to much. Only 1551 spell damage atm.
Also with 5 man hero's. On Trash scorch is a waste right? Mobs die to fast, just LB a mob and FFB spam? This is what I usually do, but just wanna see if that's most effective. You guys seem to have tested everything.
As for rotation, I generally start off with LB, then scorchx2, FFBx8, etc. The reason is that nearly every boss fight requires running into position during/after the pull. You can toss LB while running to get an early start. I believe starting with scorchx2 then LB, then FFB is going to result in a little bit more dps (the LB ticks will get the scorch benefit) but it's really only possible if you are in position pre-pull. Obviously you want to re-cast LB everytime it explodes for max dps.
I've also just started hearing about casting scorch before the pyro to avoid ignite munching. If you've got great pingtimes and a good frame rate it's worth some testing. I know we've been having a lot of server lag lately, so I feel lucky to not miss my pyro entirely, let alone trying to get off another spell beforehand.
As for scorch and trash. It depends. I have the glyph and will often toss off 1 scorch then go to FFB. Some trash is so silly easy i actually just cast scorches and don't even bother with FFB.
I use Mirror Images generally as part of my max-dps macro (IV, Combustion, Tinket, Fire Seed, FFB). I cast the macro then hit MI and go to town. That varies depending on fight, but I generally reserve MI to maximize the threat reduction they offer. They do negligible dps, so threat is the only real benefit, IMO.
I believe starting with scorchx2 then LB, then FFB is going to result in a little bit more dps (the LB ticks will get the scorch benefit) but it's really only possible if you are in position pre-pull. Obviously you want to re-cast LB everytime it explodes for max dps.
What scorch benifit? The DoT ticks can't crit (only the explosion can), so there is absolute no benifit. So Lb first, than 2 x Scorch (a long time before the Lb explosion), than the normal FFBPyro stuff.
Before wotlk, I always renew scroch debuff before IV+trinket+combustion(scroch->combustion). Now, it seems to be pointless as there is no good on-use trinket, so I usually renew scroch during IV. Here comes the problem:
1) FFB-> combustion, combustion charge becomes 2 when the FFB arrives, i.e. instantly.
2) LB-> combustion, combustion charge is 1 until another cast arrives, however, the LB explosion could eat my 3rd combustion crit.
Before wotlk, I always renew scroch debuff before IV+trinket+combustion(scroch->combustion). Now, it seems to be pointless as there is no good on-use trinket, so I usually renew scroch during IV. Here comes the problem:
1) FFB-> combustion, combustion charge becomes 2 when the FFB arrives, i.e. instantly.
2) LB-> combustion, combustion charge is 1 until another cast arrives, however, the LB explosion could eat my 3rd combustion crit.
#1 Damage Source is Frostfire Bolt
#2 Damage Source is Ignite
Anything that keeps your Ignite going is a good thing. Attempting to control Living Bomb during your Combustion is not worth it.
As far as scorch is concerned, I only scorch before Pyroblast. It prevents Ignite loss due to double instant crits and can also Proc another Hot Streak right after you release your Pyroblast. It can also make your ignite longer which is also good.
Anything that keeps your Ignite going is a good thing.
I don't understand this logic. Barring ignite munching, your Ignite is always going to do the same amount of damage overall for spells that crit, whether you get multiple crits stacking up to a big Ignite tick, or whether they all tick separately. In fact with ignite munching, in an ideal world the safest option to have Ignite damage maximised would be to never have ignite stacking up (of course this is not going to happen though with spells that have a cast time lower than the 4 second ignite debuff).
There has been almost no incidence of positive Ignite stacking (that is of Ignite granting more than 40% of the combined crit damage) since some mad haste experiments Rounced, Manly, and others performed in late SWP. This, however, was not proven to be either stable, or reliable, or in fact any easier than Bloody Difficult to do.
There is no benefit to keeping an Ignite rolling/stacking/not ticking. The only thing that is possible, is to over-write it (and the larger it is, the more you lose) or to drop it due to mob death (again, larger loses more).
In summary: There is absolutely no evidence to support your theory of "Anything that keeps your Ignite going is a good thing.". There is evidence against it, but it's not directly due to its effect, rather to its consequences.
Added full support for 18/53/0 build on the spreadsheet.
<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
Normally when I get a hotstreak proc, I'm in the middle of my FFB cast. Lets assume that the FFB does not crit, and the pyroblast that follows does not crit either. Well the ignite is gone. However if your scorch does crit, the ignite continues, and it refreshes your scorch debuff.
I haven't payed close attention but the continuation of the ignite from the scorch is not going to be the scorch ignite only, is it?
If you land a crit when there is already ignite on the target, one of three things happen:
If the first ignite hasn't yet ticked, then the ignite is refreshed, with the new damage added to the previous damage (ie. it will then tick for a higher value than it would have previously). For example:
Fireball crits for 1000 (Making ignite damage equal to 400, or 200 per tick)
Fireball crits for 1000 (Increasing ignite damage by a further 400, or 200 per tick, to 400 per tick)
Ignite ticks for 400
Ignite ticks for 400
If the first ignite has ticked once, then the new ignite takes the expected damage from the second spell, but the remaining damage that would have occurred from the second tick of the first spell is halved and added to each of the ticks of the second ignite. For example:
Fireball crits for 1000 (Making ignite damage equal to 400, or 200 per tick)
Ignite ticks for 200
Fireball crits for 1000 (Ignite damage for this fireball is 200 per tick, but the remaining 200 from the previous ignite is halved and shared between each tick, increasing each tick by 100 to 300 per tick)
Ignite ticks for 300
Ignite ticks for 300
Notice that both this example and the previous total to the same ignite damage (800). Note also that this pattern can safely continue, resulting in the "rolling ignite" situation with bigger and bigger ticks - however due to the way the remaining damage of the previous ignite is split between the two new ticks, the total damage that occurs will be identical to if you had a non-rolling ignite.
In any situation, if an instant cast spell crits after a cast time spell, munching can occur. For example:
Fireball crits for 1000
Ignite ticks for 200
Fireball crits for 1000 (Here we would expect the resulting ignite to tick for 300 each tick, as above, however:)
Fireblast crits for 500 (NOW we would expect the resulting ignite to tick for 400 each tick - 300 from above, plus 100 from the Fireblast, BUT munching occurs:)
Ignite ticks for 100 (The Fireblast has wiped the Ignite, and it now only ticks for the Fireblast damage)
Ignite ticks for 100
Spells/damage values are for demonstration purposes only. Clearly rolling ignites do not pose any advantage, and in fact may pose a DISadvantage due to the possibility of munching a large second tick.
EDIT: Did I REALLY just have to write this post? Not understanding Ignite... Random EJ posters, I thought better of you.
In the odd and bizarre case that someone can't understand the above post, which quite accurately displays what's going on, here's the TLDR version:
Your Ignite will (practically) Never be more than 40% of your Critical Damage. It doesn't matter when, it doesn't matter how. The only thing that can happen to change Ignite to be anything other than 40% of your Crit Damage is:
1) Mob dies, wasting the last ignite tic/tics
2) Ignite gets "munched", wasting a the previous ignite to be over-written by the current one. This nets you less than 40% of your ignite damage.
Please let's not spend any more time discussing things which should seem obvious to anyone reading the talent tooltip.
Since I recently added the options for 18/53/0 support on the spreadsheet posted on the first page, I figured I might as well use it and see what numbers it gives. Keep in mind, I intentionally do not model any cooldowns since the primary goal is to make TC easy to figure out.
Heres the values I get, using the appropriate glyphs in both case. It does not takes into account the 3% hit loss in 18/53/0 (small dps impact) or the extra 3% crit given to another raid member. In addition to all that, 18/53/0 has a higher crit rate, meaning more hs procs (which is where the bulk of your higher dps comes from).
spell
0/53/18 dpsc
18/53/0 dpsc
ffb
4249
3645
fb
3200
4718
lb
6647
6732
hs pyro
8526
8734
scorch
2994
3079
<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
1) Mana. Fire consumes much more mana than Frostfire, and Rawr 3.0.8 mode does not seem to have the new JoW model yet.
(Switching 3.0.8 mode doesn't change the MPS of Wanding.)
You're currently better off with disabling JoW for better results (it gets nerfed by around 70%. more for Arcane Mages).
With the JoW change and when you gear out of 2T7, mana is looking much more interesting for fights beyond 5 minutes than it is now.
2) Rune of Razorice. It seems gone in Rawr 2.1.6, unless I'm missing something.
Look at your "total damage by spell" and add 5% for FFB if you want to include Razorice.
So, if you use Rawr data, think about that, and that it's a ~3% DPS loss for one a DK to provide Razorice.
(And yes, I think the whole Razorice design is complete gargabe.)
3) Focus Magic is now listed as buff in Rawr. So you can click it on for Fire/Arc and click it off for FFB.
That assumes that you have 2 mages of the same spec. You buff each other with it of you spec it, and don't if you do not have it.
The differences aren't that large, but they add up. Especially mana bar juggling for fights that take 6-7 minutes.
When I respecced frostfire, I followed what the other mages in my guild ran off of. We all have 0/53/18, mostly in favor of Dragon/Blastwave. However, despite my best efforts, I end up in 12th place on a 25 man Naxx or OS. I have roughly the same stats as the other mages (aside from variances in haste, spelldamage, hit, etc). I WAS hitcapped given spriest or boomkin, but I decreased some hit in favor of gaining some haste because I noticed that our CL had more haste than hit and wasnt missing a cast of FFB at all. Granted, I dont have many T7 pieces (just lower gloves), but I definitely make the effort. Could it be my rotation?
Should I always be opening with FFB, or mix in scorch depending on the encounter? My rotation during raiding is more or less:
FFB->reapply Scorch/LB/Hot Streak as need be
Is there a science that I am not understanding? I'm continually casting if I switch from FFB to ImpScorch, but with LB it obviously creates the gap in damage output. Should I reapply Scorch only when LB goes off? Because I think my main problem is getting the proper flow for my rotation.
Also, I need another opinion on a raid dps/damage macro...
I usually pop it right away at the beginning of an encounter. This obviously boosts my DPS and prevents aggro gain, but should I be saving Combustion for some other time? Should I not include it in the macro and make sure its up whenever its not on cooldown?
You probably want to remove mirror image from there. If mirror image is on cooldown, it will stop your macro from completing, not casting ffb.
<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
Hmm.. I've never noticed ffb not casting if something in the macro is on cooldown. Also, another quick thought... I noticed that sometimes Scorchio2 picks up another mage's Scorch. Why cant mages have their own separate scorch? If I try to "refresh" I think I'm simply refreshing the other mage's Scorch and not putting up my own, contributing to their DPS (at least I dont think so, I havent thought to check recount).
Is there a science that I am not understanding? I'm continually casting if I switch from FFB to ImpScorch, but with LB it obviously creates the gap in damage output. Should I reapply Scorch only when LB goes off? Because I think my main problem is getting the proper flow for my rotation.
Also, I need another opinion on a raid dps/damage macro...
Mirror image needs to be on its own binding yes, it'll mess up casting of any other spell after. Also it is easier to reserve it for its threat purpose if it's not tied into your main nuke.
You can validate whether your real problem is "not proper flow for rotation" by looking at WWS parses and seeing what spells you cast and how often, compared to the higher performing DPS. Haste differences will only tweak this a little, most of the difference will be behavior. Heasitation, overscorching, lots of things like that will show up in casting.
Just as an example, yesterday I was outperforming another mage in my raid in "standing" fights but she kicked my behind in "running" fights in spite of me having a bit of a gear advantage. Going over the parses we had similar results and casting numbers of various spells except that she was using fire blast a lot more in the running fights. Most of the damage difference was that she was finding times to use fireblast when I was not (and also not casting anything else offense-oriented). I realied I was literally forgetting to use it, something I didn't have a problem in BC...but it appears that I'm spending that "running" time looking at whether to refresh living bomb or trying to get a hot streak shot off and forgetting that I should also fireblast if in range, mana permits etc. It's like refreshing the living bomb or zapping that pyrolbast is turning off a switch in my head when I'm moving for more than a second or so and have the opportunity to fire something else effective.
If the spell mix is the same and the average damage/spell is smaller for you and your gear is similar and raidbuffs are the same then the problem is probably inefficient use of cooldowns. Look at crit rate too, as frostfire is pretty variable on an individual fight basis. You seem to be describing consistent underperformance rather than "I sucked at Patchwerk last Thursday" though, so it probably isn't the RNG.
Probably not. Rotations in DPS are quite simplistic on paper, but the complexity only becomes practical in the actual fight due to having to react to the fight. It's easy enough to say that you scorch twice, applying living bomb (or vice versa), and proceed with the Frostfire Bolts, interjecting Pyroblasts from Hot Streak when appropriate. But then actually performing that is why the DPS listed in simulators and other means of theorycrafting is always higher than your actual DPS.
I value reapplying Scorch over keeping Living Bomb up. Very few fights are longer than 3 minutes, so my cooldowns are trivial to time perfectly, hence why I use them immediately. My group seems to Bloodlust whenever it feels like it, and I would rather use my cooldowns immediately on the off-chance that a fight is 4 minutes long than save them all for Bloodlust.
I use Combustion -> Icy Veins -> Mirror Image in a macro, but because Icy Veins is on a 2:24 cooldown, I end up using Icy Veins immediately when it's available. Combustion typically takes around 3 minutes and 9-12 seconds to reset. I could possibly try to time them with trinket procs (Icy Veins with Embrace and Combustion with Sundial), but I don't think I have the energy to pay that much attention.
I never stack my Mana Gem with my cooldowns, since I always want the full mana return from it. I also have Mike's Scrolling Combat Text alert me when I reach 40% of my mana, so I have a visual reminder of when it's safe to use evocation. That is, it reminds me to look at my mana and value things like remaining time of fight, mana gem cooldown, potions available, and whether or not evocation is worth stoping my casting.
On a completely different note, I too am a victim of Fire Blast, Solbergb, now that I think about it. I have been using Living Bomb on Heigan during his second phase, but I've never remembered to use Fire Blast, and there's no reason not to.
Thank you for the input and personal experiences. I know that Fire Blast is definitely something that I should be using more often, and getting a better adjustment of how to deal with my cooldowns - using CDs more often is still something I'm working with. In terms of the consistent underperforming, I wouldnt call it that. Instead, I see the other mages and wonder what I'm lacking compared to them that is costing me spots on the damage charts (12th vs 10th-4th) I know gear is a big factor, but when I look at stats I wonder to myself if I'm not reacting in the best way possible.
I will definitely try Mirror Image on a different binding and out of the macro, and see how that helps.
Edit: I usually use a mana gem right after Evocation to get as much mana back as possible.
Hmm.. I've never noticed ffb not casting if something in the macro is on cooldown. Also, another quick thought... I noticed that sometimes Scorchio2 picks up another mage's Scorch. Why cant mages have their own separate scorch? If I try to "refresh" I think I'm simply refreshing the other mage's Scorch and not putting up my own, contributing to their DPS (at least I dont think so, I havent thought to check recount).
Scorchio should ALWAYS be picking up any instance of Scorch and Winter's Chill. Only 1 mage needs to be keeping one of those two up. Also, there can only be 1 scorch debuff on any one mob at a time. So you can't have _your_ scorch while another mage has _their_ scorch. Scorch benefits every caster in the raid, not just the person casting it. Generally it's a good idea to sort out ahead of time who is primarily responsible for keeping scorch up. I am usually the 'scorch bitch' in my raiding group because I have the glyph and the other mage does not.
Whoever is keeping scorch up will probably have slightly lower dps, but it's an important task, and should always be taken into consideration when evaluating WWS reports.
Scorchio should ALWAYS be picking up any instance of Scorch and Winter's Chill. Only 1 mage needs to be keeping one of those two up.
Ideally, having two Frostfire mages with the Scorch glyph would allow for the most efficient DPS. In my guild, where we have exactly that situation, the other mage and I divide Scorch duties equally. Since we each have the glyph, one Scorch apiece applies the full stack; then, we alternate Scorch refreshes. We both have buff monitors that allow us to coordinate when the refresh needs to be applied (NeedToKnow, in my case).
Looking at us individually, we are each casting Scorch half as many times as if we were the lone (Frostfire) mage. This reduces the DPS hit those refreshes cause. It also makes keeping the Scorch debuff from expiring much easier, giving the entire raid a DPS boost -- a win-win situation all around.
Edit: I usually use a mana gem right after Evocation to get as much mana back as possible.
This would imply that your Mana Gem is off its cooldown, but there is no reason to use Evocation if your Mana Gem is available. A Mana Gem with 2 piece T7 is restoring 4662 - 4900 mana. If you start with a mana pool of 17,000, the earliest you should use your mana gem is 12,100, whereas the earliest I would use evocation is when I've reached zero mana.
There are some exceptions, but we don't have any fights that are that long. If you were at a point where you had zero mana gems left, and you had enough mana to conjure a mana gem, I would stop casting, conjure a gem and use it as opposed to continuing casting till I run out of mana, and using evocation. However, this also depends on how long the fight is going to continue to last. Consider that one tick (2 seconds) of evocation would restore 2550 mana (with a 17k mana pool), but conjuring a Mana Gem is a 3 second cast. In the large scheme of things, 1 second doesn't really matter, but for those trying to max DPS, it's an obvious step in the right direction.
(On the flip side, despite saving 1 second, you're gaining 225 spell power from using the mana gem, so it's clearly better if the fight is going to continue for at least 18 more seconds.)
Ideally, having two Frostfire mages with the Scorch glyph would allow for the most efficient DPS. In my guild, where we have exactly that situation, the other mage and I divide Scorch duties equally. Since we each have the glyph, one Scorch apiece applies the full stack; then, we alternate Scorch refreshes. We both have buff monitors that allow us to coordinate when the refresh needs to be applied (NeedToKnow, in my case).
Looking at us individually, we are each casting Scorch half as many times as if we were the lone (Frostfire) mage. This reduces the DPS hit those refreshes cause. It also makes keeping the Scorch debuff from expiring much easier, giving the entire raid a DPS boost -- a win-win situation all around.
Sounds like far too much work to me. We just alternate raid nights on who does scorch.
01/08/09, 2:55 PM
