Well first we have to see what happens with scorch.
Second you have to know if the raid has anyone else to provide the buff (warlock specced into imp shadowbolt, frost mage)
Third, you have to take an honest look at yourself and say "do I ever lose the scorch stack when I'm maintaining it". If the answer is yes, and nobody else is maintaining the raid debuff the raid probably needs you to take the glyph. 10% crit is a huge deal for all the casters in the group, even 5% is a lot of dps left on the table.
The math on scorch glyph otherwise looks something like this.
Assuming you don't lose the scorch stack and your behavior won't change without the glyph (ie get more conservative and overscorch to keep it up) then the value of the glyph is 3 scorches per fight that instead could be something more useful like a frostfirebolt and a half (or ffb+pyro or ffb+living bomb).
If the fight is short, and on trash, this is a fairly significant hit. If, as expected, Uldar fights will be 3-6 minutes or longer instead of the 1.45 minute Patchwerk kind of stuff we're seeing now at the top end, a couple extra scorches is fairly insignificant. Scorch, because of the extra shot at pyroblast procs, isn't as bad relatively speaking as it used to be.
so yeah, raidng mages will likey go with frostfirebolt+molten armor+living bomb if the crits proc hot streaks. If they don't, the glyph will be ignored, as the dot crits probably don't by themselves outweigh the convenience of the scorch glyph and the indirect behavior benefits it supports (not overscorching, and faster recovery of stack if you miscalculate)
Given very basic mats of average dot damage of 1k, 50% crit chance and 240% crit multiplier for fire spells and ~80% uptime it would be a ~200 dps increase overall. Thats quite significant I guess. Even without hotstreak procs.
Given very basic mats of average dot damage of 1k, 50% crit chance and 240% crit multiplier for fire spells and ~80% uptime it would be a ~200 dps increase overall. Thats quite significant I guess. Even without hotstreak procs.
You're essentially doubling your damage events in a given period of time, which effectively doubles your hotstreak proc rate. Assuming the tick crits count, which I don't really expect them to, since the LB periodic damage is a different spell ID than the kaboom.
The big questions are about the scaling with crit increase effects (Burnout, Ignite, CSD, 4pt7), how it interacts with Combustion (if at all?), and how bad ignite munching gets with it since we can get some nasty timelines depending on haste/latency/missile travel time.
To truly model the game, we first must research it. http://zaldinar.wordpress.com/
Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.
I know many people disregard this spec nowadays due to 18/53/0 Fireball spec being slightly ahead on single target dps. I have tried that spec (+57/3/11 Arcane as well) over the last few weeks, and even though Fireball is marginally superior to Frostfire, I couldn't help but go back to Frostfire due to a huge decrease in trash damage with Fireball spec, and the usual existance of Razorice in our raids. My boss damage remained roughly the same, yet my trash damage was much much higher.
Now, with 5% crit nerf to Imp. Scorch/WC and the Razorice no longer usable by the raid, I fear Frostfire will fall way behind Fireball since Frostfire is affected the worst by the crit nerf. I know that Living Bomb glyph is likely to give a significant DPS increase, my concern is, between mage trees, Frostfire will now have a solid 3rd place with no advantages (thanks to having a dual spec for trash).
I was doing a bit of quick math the see how good the new glyph would is and it appears to be that Glyph of Living Bomb is about twice as good as Glyph of Frostfire Bolt(Glyph of Fireball 18/51/0+2) assuming it isn't affected by/affects Combustion and doesn't lead to ignite munching becoming a problem.
I know many people disregard this spec nowadays due to 18/53/0 Fireball spec being slightly ahead on single target dps. I have tried that spec (+57/3/11 Arcane as well) over the last few weeks, and even though Fireball is marginally superior to Frostfire, I couldn't help but go back to Frostfire due to a huge decrease in trash damage with Fireball spec
I had a similar experience. I got better damage on Patchwerk, Loatheb and I think one other, forget which. I got push damage on several other bosses. I was worse than frostfire in my contribution to the rest of the boss fights, because there are actually a startling number of fights with adds of some kind that ranged dps are supposed to deal with, and those adds aren't generally affected by anything that triggers Torment. Plus my aoe on trash was measurably worse which also sometimes got reflected in boss fights.
The only fight we're struggling with is Sarth+3d, and the extra damage on the drakes was offset by slower cleanup of the adds with burst aoe. That was one of the fights frostfire vs arc/fire was a "push". I'm the only scorcher right now for that fight, so arcane isn't really an option even if I was inclined that way. Frostfire is less annoying in solo and fiveman types stuff than arc/fire too, again mostly because of better aoe and the chill effect of the main nuke.
This may all change with dual spec, but how I use dual spec will greatly depend on the nature of the fights in Uldar. I suspect though that the "trash spec" will still have to do competitive boss DPS, as the fights where you'd use it are more often boss+add fights, or maybe something like Malygos where an entire phase is reasonably dangerous and annoying adds.
I had a similar experience. I got better damage on Patchwerk, Loatheb and I think one other, forget which. I got push damage on several other bosses. I was worse than frostfire in my contribution to the rest of the boss fights, because there are actually a startling number of fights with adds of some kind that ranged dps are supposed to deal with, and those adds aren't generally affected by anything that triggers Torment. Plus my aoe on trash was measurably worse which also sometimes got reflected in boss fights.
The only fight we're struggling with is Sarth+3d, and the extra damage on the drakes was offset by slower cleanup of the adds with burst aoe. That was one of the fights frostfire vs arc/fire was a "push". I'm the only scorcher right now for that fight, so arcane isn't really an option even if I was inclined that way. Frostfire is less annoying in solo and fiveman types stuff than arc/fire too, again mostly because of better aoe and the chill effect of the main nuke.
This may all change with dual spec, but how I use dual spec will greatly depend on the nature of the fights in Uldar. I suspect though that the "trash spec" will still have to do competitive boss DPS, as the fights where you'd use it are more often boss+add fights, or maybe something like Malygos where an entire phase is reasonably dangerous and annoying adds.
From my own experience being specced (18/53/0), my trash aoe rotation was : LB, FS(8), FS(9), Blizzard
I'm usually first or second on trash, competiting with only a god of an ele shammy and another mage(arcane) or warlock
The fact that you are able to use both rank of FS and then blizzard just means that generally your trash dps isn't very high. In our raids I can hardly finish the blizzard channel on some packs, and even the longest living ones don't last past 1.5-2 blizzard casts.
I know many people disregard this spec nowadays due to 18/53/0 Fireball spec being slightly ahead on single target dps. I have tried that spec (+57/3/11 Arcane as well) over the last few weeks, and even though Fireball is marginally superior to Frostfire, I couldn't help but go back to Frostfire due to a huge decrease in trash damage with Fireball spec, and the usual existance of Razorice in our raids. My boss damage remained roughly the same, yet my trash damage was much much higher.
Now, with 5% crit nerf to Imp. Scorch/WC and the Razorice no longer usable by the raid, I fear Frostfire will fall way behind Fireball since Frostfire is affected the worst by the crit nerf. I know that Living Bomb glyph is likely to give a significant DPS increase, my concern is, between mage trees, Frostfire will now have a solid 3rd place with no advantages (thanks to having a dual spec for trash).
Thus, the slight worries...
Well, if you're running with a blood spec DK using the Blood Strike Glyph, they'll be happy to keep you as FFB since the FFB dot is one of the few debuffs that triggers the 20% bonus damage on the glyph.
Could you link me where the Glyph of Blood Strike is proven to be triggered by snares on bosses, and which spells? Torment of the Weak is triggered off of a very small set of "snares" for bosses and FFB is definitely not one of them. Is there some secret to FFB's snare that I missed?
Could you link me where the Glyph of Blood Strike is proven to be triggered by snares on bosses, and which spells? Torment of the Weak is triggered off of a very small set of "snares" for bosses and FFB is definitely not one of them. Is there some secret to FFB's snare that I missed?
Double standards; The BS glyph is triggered by movement snares (even those that don't actually affect the mob) whereas TtW is triggered only by effective snares, either in attack speed or movement, and also by the spell "Slow".
The fact that you are able to use both rank of FS and then blizzard just means that generally your trash dps isn't very high. In our raids I can hardly finish the blizzard channel on some packs, and even the longest living ones don't last past 1.5-2 blizzard casts.
It does depend on the trash and on your raid. With me in our 25 man raids beefier trash can take a lbfs/fs/blizzard rotation but normal trash it's more like lb/blizzard/single target the 1-2 left standing.
It might also depend to some extent on pull style and pull geometry. Some tanks or groups of tanks keep pulling more crap into the aoes to clear an area, which can benefit longer aoe rotations.
Could you link me where the Glyph of Blood Strike is proven to be triggered by snares on bosses, and which spells? Torment of the Weak is triggered off of a very small set of "snares" for bosses and FFB is definitely not one of them. Is there some secret to FFB's snare that I missed?
I mentioned this a while back on the Arcane thread, so there's some discussion there at around page 53, although most of it pertains to TtW and the tank's role on making sure they provide a triggering debuff. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a list of all debuffs which do/do not trigger TtW which is tested thoroughly enough for Manly to post on the front page of one of the main threads. It seems to be pretty widely accepted that the debuffs tanks provide trigger the debuff, but debuffs like the FFB dot seem to still be contested. Maybe if I get some time this week I'll try to run a solid test, but between raids, work, and school I'm not sure when I can get to it. I'll also have to do some reading up to make sure that the tests are performed in a manner that is both thorough and accurately enough to be accepted by EJ (since I've never provided numbers for this forum before).
Updated the spreadsheet for a minor fix. Somehow, I was unaware that ret aura / imp moonkin form stacked with other haste effects. I was going under the rationale of 'only one non-personal haste multiplier', which apparently isn't fully true anymore. That adds 3% haste to all the numbers.
Also, it should be far more straightforward to determine what you're supposed to put in the crit% column; the exact formula is given.
Last edited by manly : 02/26/09 at 2:15 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
Are many raiding mages switching back to FFB from Arcane? I switched to Arcane a couple weeks ago and have definitely noticed a dps increase. However, some friends from my old server have gone back to FFB so naturally I am contemplating which way to go. Are the supposed upcoming arcane nerfs forcing people back to FFB? I really enjoy both playstyles but want to be of the greatest benefit to my raid group.
EDIT: Poked around the armory and looked at mages in the top raiding guild on my server as well as some old friends. NONE are arcane spec. Seems to me that any that did go arcane are switching back. I can only presume it's a combination of factors like better aoe, mana management, incoming arcane nerfs, and Ulduar.
Arcane has gone down from it's godly existence to a still superior but not so godly existence. Thus, it all comes down to play style preference, now. If you like mana and cooldown managing, white spells going out of your hands go with arcane. If you like a simpler yet more refined play style, like to keep things up on things, and orange and blue spells going out of your hands go with FFB (or FB).
I switch to FB lately and have gotten into grave manaproblems, if I go the full rotation with LB/Pyro. If fights get longer in Ulduar, I don't really know how to sustain FB spec. With FFB I had a lot more mana, so efficiency and higher burst capability, as well as higher AoE dps could make FFB interesting in Ulduar.
Yup. From a raid stacking standpoint somebody has to be the scorch bitch. If you've got that though, you get a story kinda like our raid group.
3 mages.
1 prefers arcane. She's arcane. It's making up for a gear disadvantage atm, but she's catching up fast.
2 prefer fire. Both started frostfire. One tried out arc/fire, didn't like what it did to all the add+boss fights and went back to frostfire. Meanwhile the other frostfire mage is now trying out arc/fire, hoping to improve her single target dps.
Any given raid has two mages, so we always have the scorch buff there. At the moment who is on top on damage meters is which fire mage executes best, but the arcane mage is starting to win sometimes in the shorter fights and we expect her to get competitive pretty soon.
It's actually kinda nice right now. We all get to play a spec we enjoy. Uldar of course will throw us out of balance again, but because of our style preferences one of us will probably remain arcane, and the other two deep fire+either arcane or frost in at least one of our dual specs.
OK I've read through this thread pretty extensively and even given the various nerfs/changes it seems especially according to the great work by Manly and Enthorn the FFB trinkey hierarchy looks something like:
1) Illustration of the DS
2) Sundial of the Exiled
3) Embrace of the Spider
4) Dying Curse
5) Forge Ember
6) Extract of Necromantic Power
Over the last couple weeks I've been swapping things around and my personal observations have been:
1) Sundial of the Exiled
2) Forge Ember (which has been really surprising to me)
3) Illustration of the Dragon Soul
4) Embrace of the Spider
Now I'm hit capped so I havent used Dying Curse and I dont have the Extract... despite the appeal of the 95 Crit the proc seems very lackluster.
Has anyone else noticed the Illustration falling behind Forge Ember as a 2nd trinket or has this just been some weird RNG effect? Now to be fair a lot of the fights I've been comparing on involve some AoE like 3D - so maybe the Forge Ember makes up on the AoE procs what its losing single target?
Also as a hypothetical (considering overall I think you get more Dragons Eye mileage elsewhere) has anyone considered how a Figurine - Twilight Serpent gemmed with 2 Runed Dragonseyes would rank for FFB. That would be 71SP, 42Hit and a pretty reasonable triggerable proc.
Also as a hypothetical (considering overall I think you get more Dragons Eye mileage elsewhere) has anyone considered how a Figurine - Twilight Serpent gemmed with 2 Runed Dragonseyes would rank for FFB. That would be 71SP, 42Hit and a pretty reasonable triggerable proc.
It's poor gear modeling to put it like this unless it has particularly special socket bonuses, because as you said those dragonseyes gain no benefit from being in that trinket. The benefit from the special gems is the same regardless of which gear piece you put it into, assuming you have non-red (preferably blue) sockets to match, meaning that it's only realistic to compare gear with normal gems.
Has anyone else noticed the Illustration falling behind Forge Ember as a 2nd trinket or has this just been some weird RNG effect? Now to be fair a lot of the fights I've been comparing on involve some AoE like 3D - so maybe the Forge Ember makes up on the AoE procs what its losing single target?
[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] on live does not proc off Blizzard, and thus you will lose any stack you had built up. It will proc off Flamestrike, or the application of Living Bomb (or Arcane Explosion, for that matter). For Sarth3D, I would stack up your Illustration charges on Sarth (just throw Living Bomb up and ice lance till you reach 10). You should have a full 10 stacks then when Tenebron drops. You shouldn't be AoEing before Tenebron dies, and in my particular case, the whelps/fire elementals die so quickly (two hunters and a rogue who are volley/fan of knives happy) that it's easy enough to keep Illustration going. Just throw Living Bomb up after Blizzard is done channeling. The stacks are all client side, so there's no latency issues with losing the stack.
If all goes well, it's a passive 200 spell power (more or less). (For the record, I realize this could pre-emptively proc Sundial/Embrace.)
So, I've been having a problem over the past 2 weeks of raiding...
My mana is getting eaten up. Yeah, sounds weird, FFB having some mana problems. I don't understand it really, my DPS has gone up 300 or 400(a few better pieces of gear, better raid comp, etc), and we have plenty of replenishment. Our boss kill times have all gotten much, much lower... and still, I find myself having to use an evocation on Razuvious, of all fights...
It's not too big of a deal really, I don't mind using evocation, but it just seems strange to me.
So, I've been having a problem over the past 2 weeks of raiding...
My mana is getting eaten up. Yeah, sounds weird, FFB having some mana problems. I don't understand it really, my DPS has gone up 300 or 400(a few better pieces of gear, better raid comp, etc), and we have plenty of replenishment. Our boss kill times have all gotten much, much lower... and still, I find myself having to use an evocation on Razuvious, of all fights...
It's not too big of a deal really, I don't mind using evocation, but it just seems strange to me.
I have to ask: how long is your Razuivous kill? From my experiences with FFB spec, with short kills, I have quite a bit of mana to spare; this is assuming I have replenishment. I can't check your armory because it is giving me a error, but are you aggressively using your mana gems if you possess 2-piece T7? Even without the T7 bonus, in the event you need mana, you have that option.
Other than that, I just don't see how you are running out of mana with FFB with replenishment active in-raid.
Last edited by Kaiyoko : 03/06/09 at 4:43 AM.
Reason: Grammer/formating/
02/24/09, 2:09 PM
