Pyromaniac was changed +3% for all spells according to the tooltip. You should notice that your overall displayed cirt% shot up 3% than what it was before, but your fire crit chance should be the same.

Also, you have 7.14% crit from Intellect (mouseover), 461 Crit Rating which is about 10%, and 20.18% crit total. So, you're missing 3%, which has to come from Pyromaniac now.
The easiest way to make sure that this is the way it works is doing a respec on the PTR or checking your general spell crit in your Frost spec. It should drop by 2%, since you lose 3% from Pyromaniac and gain about 1% from Arcane Mind there.


[Edit]: If it works as we decribed, then it's a net buff, mostly for using Blizzard in Fire/Frostfire specs. Please PM if you can confirm it in-game, I'll update the compendium. It hasn't been like that before I think. It's not gamebreaking however, just a little nudge in the direction we prefer

Thanks a ton Tedronai and Roywyn! That makes a lot more sense to me now. The number just seems lower to me, but I haven't raided (like I mentioned) for over a month and it has been a while since I would mouseoever the tooltip.

I was going to try to login this morning and check it out, but forgot that today was maintenance day so I through that idea out.
I will take your words for it though, thanks again. So I take it this change is there to benefit...? I don't really know what specs this change will benefit at all I guess except for the few occasions that we use off-spec spells as fire (Blizzard, AE, can't really think of too much else).

Pyromaniac change was in 3.1. I know since I had updated my spreadsheet for it.

Sigh.

Yes, I've read the rules and I apologize for this question ahead of time but I really am having tons of issues with this spec.

I've got decent gear, I'm hit capped, (etc, etc, my armory profile exists if you want to see). I've read this thread, read the optimal gear thread, understand the increased desire for haste over spellpower, etc. but I can't seem to push the numbers RAWR suggests. My rotation is Scorch/LB/pop cooldowns/FFB, refresh LB and Scorch when needed. I have a fast comp, low latency, and I chain cast. I know this sounds like I'm asking for hand-holding but I'm honestly not - I can't figure out if it's just me getting screwed by the RNG and not getting procs for Hot Streak or what the deal is honestly. Does anyone have ANY suggestions on gear/cast cycle/rotation?

Thanks

Two things come to mind right off the hop: You have good gear, and a good spec for FFB. You will absolutely want to get the glyph of living bomb (far and away the best glyph for FB or FFB specs right now). Check Rawr to see whether you should replace the Molten Armor or Frostfire glyph.

The other thing that I found is to ensure you select the correct buffs present in your raid - my raid frequently runs without a shadow priest or elemental shaman, so I have to deselect their buffs to get a better reading on my potential DPS. Even still, Rawr tells you your optimal DPS, something which I, at least, attain less than I would like. Unless you configure Rawr exactly to the particular conditions of the fight, it will still be off somewhat (a totally unavoidable limitation).

i'd also consider casting LB before any other spell. to me, it's 'no contest' if you need cast multiple scorches (don't have glyph or multiple mages keeping scorch up), but even for a mage with the scorch glyph, LB can be thrown while moving into position. this usually/often results in a few seconds of extra tick time.

Well. Thaddius and Hodir are pretty bad fights to do a comparison with. Thaddius will buff all out damage, while Hodir has a damage and a haste modifier. If you are only doing 4k on Hodir though, there is an issue.

For Hodir:
-Make sure you get Storm Cloud buff
-Make sure you stand in the haste things
-Make sure your guild is making hunters and other ranged classes put up singed, and not mages.

The biggest consistent source of DPS on Hodir will come from Starbeams/Moonbeams whatever you want to call them. Storm Cloud's obviously nice to get, but your main priority should be haste. If you do that and nothing else you should still be able to do up to 10k easily, depending on how often you have to dodge icicles/etc... Your raid needs to make sure Singed stays fully stacked and refreshed, but that should not be a job given to mages.

If your DPSing outside a beam you're doing it wrong. That time is better spent making your way to a beam.

When you say you 'chain cast' you have to realize what that means. For a mage, it means there is not one avoidable second or partial second where you aren't doing some type of dps. This is usually the difference between good mages and great mages (or good players and great players overall). I'm not saying you don't do this properly, but in my experience, when someone says they are speced right, casting the proper sequence, etc. it usually comes down to them not being aggressive enough with keeping dps up the whole time.

The only similar thing I can think of to explain it is if you've ever played a sport (or some other activity where there are 'professionals'), and you've mastered it to a degree where you think you are pretty good and could hold your own against a 'professional'. And then you actually get to experience playing against a professional, you realize the amazingly huge gap between your skills and theirs.

Now I'm not saying WoW is a professional sport or as difficult to master as a professional sport, but I guarantee you that if relatively good raiders go and look at TOP raiders and how they play, it would be a bit of an eye opener.

All of the relatively small, in-of-themselves insignificant things that contribute to dps do add up. If you do them all and execute consistently, you will improve. These boards are dedicated to those small differences. Rawr is the same, it's unforgiving as it assumes you are doing everything perfectly.

The starlight buff is 50% haste and every time one goes down a glacier is going to fall soon after. You also aren't guaranteed to have starlight within range of a fire. Saying your raid needs to keep the stack up and then saying it isn't your job is just asinine. Whose job is it? The debuff has a 30% chance to be applied per spell. If you're DPSing outside of Toasty Fire, you are doing it wrong. I've seen logs where it's taken up to a minute to get Singed up to its full 25 stacks (for 50% increased magic damage). You can also do quite a bit of damage from Singed itself.

The real damage on Hodir comes from the crit bonus damage multiplier from Storm Power. I'm not sure why you think 50% haste is better than 135% increased critical strike damage, but in a common sense scenario, would you rather cast 1 1/2 fireballs that will hit for 12k each, or one fireball that will hit for 60k?

High DPS on Hodir comes from three things:

1) Fight length. Shorter fight time means a higher percentage of time spent in bloodlust and a higher percent of time under the effects of Storm Power. If the fight lasted only 45 seconds, you'd have 100% time spent with 30% increased casting speed and if you picked up Storm Power, you'd have 66% of the fight with it.

2) Storm Power. The more storm power applications you have, the higher your DPS will be, generally speaking anyway. Obviously there is some RNG going on here, as having Storm Power clearly does not mean you're going to be critically hitting left and right during those 30 seconds. Nonetheless, there is noticeable difference between two fights of the same length with one having maybe 33% uptime of Storm Power and one having 66%.

3) Singed -- it should have a very high uptime (although it's not going to be 100%). It's clearly easier to benefit from 50% increased damage the majority of the fight versus 50% haste occasionally. If everyone was running around looking for Starlights to stand in, it will take that much longer for Singed to hit 25 stacks, and that much worse if it falls off. You spend a lot of time running between Starlights, moving out of the icicles that fall and so forth.

The reason for standing in the campfire, buff stacking aside, is also so you don't have to move to stop Biting Cold from stacking. It's all very well pitching up in a starlight across the room but you're going to have to move pretty consistently to prevent the debuff stacking.

Personally speaking I only nip in the Starlights if they're within range of a fire, or very close to one so I know I can nip back in range. Being able to stand still and nuke without having to worry about Biting Cold shouldn't be underestimated.

Hey there everyone,
I have been trying to figure this out for some while now but i still havent come to a definite conclusion. what is mage's haste cap(DR takes in affect)? 500? 600? 700? what is the magic number are we looking at and will the haste cap be different for different specs? i.e you need less haste to reach DR as FB spec than arcane spec.

Haste does not have a cap nor diminishing returns as far as I know. The closest thing to a dr would be going beyond 50% haste as your hs-pyros, scorches and lbs don't benefit from more haste at that point, at 400% haste you don't benefit at all from more haste.

Your question is sort of weird and more fitting in the general mage discussion thread to be honest.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'd not realized all the buffs were so important. My guild brought the lightning to the tank and I just stood near the campfire as much as possible. That being said, I DID take what had been suggested to practice and ended up topping dps on several fights in ToC 25, so I'm happy about that. We'll see how I do on Hodir this week.

Well, while chasing starlights is pretty good for your personal dps it's terrible when you're trying the fight on hardmode. Stacking near campfires is the best thing to do because it keeps the singed buff up at all times and it makes distributing the storm buff a lot easier. Starlights should really be your lowest priority on a hodir kill, in addition it will require a lot more healing if everyone is doing the same because of the biting cold debuff.

Personally I usually find myself by the fire for the first ~20 seconds anyway as we only free the mages first, by which point I have contributed to the Singed debuff and by now hopefully acquired Storm Power. Then I rush off to a Starlight and DPS with Mirror Image up. I've found that standing in the Starlight and waiting for instant casts was the most optimum approach from experience, firing Pyroblasts, reapplying Living Bomb and if neccessary Fire Blasting while moving, sometimes from Starlight to Starlight to avoid the falling Iciciles, or actually just tapping my strafe keys ever so slighty to remove debuff stacks while still within the Starlight.

I've found that the Shaman storm buff on hodir hardmode is everything. To oversimplify, getting one 70k ffb crit in 3 seconds is greater than getting 2 12k ffb crits in 3 seconds. So, I definately stay around the fire as much as possible with all the other casters to maximize my chance of getting all the storm buffs. And only jump in a haste beam if its close. If you go run away from the clump of casters to get in a beam, and miss the next storm buff, its a dps disaster for you.

In 25-man, the Storm Cloud buff gives Storm Power to 6 targets. In 10-man it is 3 targets. I believe in 25-man he also may cast it on two players though (the Storm Cloud buff that is). I haven't done Hard Mode on 25-man, but I have done it on 10-man, and from what I've experienced, the DPS pressure has very little to do with Starlight simply because of how Starlight works. If you're constantly moving into Starlights, then out of them before the glacier falls, and also periodically moving to get rid of the Biting Cold debuff, then you're spending a lot of time moving. It's awesome when you get Starlight within range of a Toasty Fire, but when you don't have the opportunity, I'm not found it worthwhile.

Keep in mind that if you're standing in a Toasty Fire, that's where the majority of players typically are (at least in my raid setups). As Medloh has said, it benefits everyone when you aren't running across the room trying to get the Storm Power buff, and it's especially true if you're trying to fight between players for that buff. There's no sense in running to a Starlight, standing there and DPSing, moving for the Biting Cold, moving back in, DPSing, moving out before the icicle falls, then chasing down someone who has Storm Cloud, then finding another Starlight, and repeating it.

Furthermore, the Singed debuff itself carries damage with it. It's not a significant amount or anything (a surv hunter will excel with it due to Explosive Shot pulsing every second), but you may end up with 70-100k Singed damage, depending on various factors. I've seen hunters with 200-250k Singed damage though. Naturally this doesn't offset 50% haste, but it's still worth noting.

Last but not least, Biting Cold doesn't drop off just from moving. It's a gradual loss. Although, with only 1-2 stacks of it, moving for a second or two will drop it fairly fast. If you have higher stacks though, you'll need to move more though. And it's important to minimize moving on this fight. You don't want to trade off 5 Fireballs for 10 Fire Blasts. That's not efficient at all given the buff potential. If you must move, I tend to try and squeeze movements into the global cooldowns on Living Bomb and Hot Streak Pyroblast.

We have quite a different approach to Hodir. We assign some people to stacking / keeping up the debuff (everyone ought to help at the beginning of course to build a big stack fast) and we have a group of people assigned to get the storm power, preferably mages ofc ^^. Those try to stand together (we put a mark on one of them) in the starlights and storm power is brought to them (or the melees sometimes. Obviously a melee that gets the buff doesn't run out to give the buff to casters). personally, I move in GCDs used for LB and Pyro (and Fireblast if I really have to move), mostly between starlights or in and out of the same starlight, not caring to much about toasty fires.
This is for 25 man. 10 man is different as you probably have to help stack the debuff all the time if you are not running with a ranged-only setup and maybe even then. You might lose dps by not standing in the starlight but keeping the stack high is important. Keeping together in the toasty fires and only use starlights if they are close is probably best in 10man.

Hard to say what the optimal way to dps is. everyone needs to find something that works.

This is pretty much the point.

You can't do a fight on 10's and then assume what you know applies to 25's. If nothing else the DPS limit on Hodir on 10's is far more forgiving so your execution never has to be as tight, and on all the fights the ratios of space per number of people and "things" per number of people (e.g. moonbeams) is different and that results in more strat differences than you might initially think.



(edit) Since Jarlyn told me I was too harsh in this post let me clarify:

I'm not saying 10's tells you nothing about 25's, I'm sorry if I came across too harsh.

I'm saying that I've seen a lot of statements made, here and elsewhere, that you have to do "X" or can't do "Y" or whatever based on experience with 10's that I and others know aren't actually true. And it's important to recognize that things as simple as "squeezing more people into the same space" can have surprisingly different results.

In the case of Mimiron for example it makes doomfire far more deadly. For Thorim, 25's P2 actually requires a strat and positioning while you can totally wing it in 10's (I had someone begging me for help because their raidleader didn't believe this, refused to assign positions, and then constantly yelled at the ranged for being in Blizzard or chaining lightning.) In the case of Hodir, I actually think it makes some aspects of the fight easier: like stacking singed, like getting stormpower out, even though the dps race is less forgiving.

I didn't notice this in the thread though I may have missed it. However I just got finished doing some number crunching on geming option and had a bit of a realization. Notable for me at least it is definatly NOT worth using solid +23sp gems. Instead I found my DPS was noticably higher by using a combination of [Reckless Ametrine] and [Purified Dreadstone] in order to get set bonuses. I based this on the following numbers:

1 Spell Power= 1.4 DPS
1 Hit Rating= 0 DPS
1 Crit Rating= 1.11 DPS
1 Haste Rating= 1.35 DPS

which are the numbers pulled from Theorycraft-o-Matic.

Based on these numbers the Reckless Ametrine has a value of 30.3. Compare this to a Runed Cardinal ruby with a value of 32.3.

The effect of this is that if in order to get a socket bonus you need to use a yellow gem and the bonus is equal or greater than 2sp, 2 crit, or 2 Haste then it is better to use the Reckless Ametrine than another +23sp red. It is also important to note that since we are already stuck using 2 blue gems, if you have a blue&yellow socketed item the same rule would apply.