Yes, any kind of slowing effect as in movemenet/attackspeed/castspeed.

This is kinda annoying as we already know 18/53/0 will beat 0/53/18 if you have the mana for it.

The trick to know is that a non-torment fire build was just a smidgen behind frostfire as is. 0-3% in the Rawr simulations I ran across a variety of gear levels (factoring in focus magic's dps increase on another caster). If frostfire could add torment without giving up a thing in frost, it would remain just slightly ahead of fire, but giving up burnout, living bomb, piercing ice, and elemental precision and still keeping up? Not a chance.

You are misinterpreting, or perhaps simply reading too much into, Ghostcrawler's comment. He didn't say anything about bosses being susceptible to slowing/snaring effects. He said that Torment the Weak provides the damage bonus to targets that are afflicted by any kind of slowing effect.

Taken literally, that means, if the target can be slowed (not immune), then Torment the Weak works. Manly's question is entirely valid, and I asked the same thing on the WoW thread. Ghostcrawler seems to be actively replying to it, so we'll see. You could be entirely right, but GC was quite vague.

So the Precision change puts Arcane spells back to have a crazily lower hit cap, correct?

I'm vaguely annoyed by the Torment the Weak change as I enjoy FFB play quite a lot. Put it seems obvious that arcane-powered fireball specs will shoot up by a wide margin now.

Corrected some stuff about Fire and TTW.

Short analysis: A slight nerf to FFB spec, which is probably good, a significant buff to a max-DPS Frost spec and Fire spec (because, realistically, Torment the Weak didn't do anything for them before, because Slow Slaves weren't really present), and probably a decent buff to Arcane. Result is probably that Fire is max DPS, FFB is a bit lower, Frost is lower but possibly at least in a competitive range now, Arcane will be improved but not sure how much.

Arcane: Since I haven't looked at the breakdown of how much damage is coming from which spells in a few months, I'm not going to guess whether the changes are enough or too little or too much, but they should certainly get Arcane closer to target. I really wish they would stop reducing the cooldown on Evocation (although the talented cooldown reduction is good). Much preferable would be a 5-minute cooldown (3 or 4 for Arcane), reduced base regeneration, and increase the regeneration via spirit.

Fire: DPS up by 12% because TTW now does something for it. Probably max-single-target DPS spec now, but with its higher threat and lower efficiency, is it viable compared to FFB? And if it is, is it so far above Frost as to keep Frost nonviable?

Frost: The bad news is, Frost Mages now must spec 18 into Arcane for competitive DPS, which requires dropping Brain Freeze and getting two more points (probably from Arctic Reach or Improved Blizzard).

The good news is that the extra 10% DPS relative to FFB (+12% from TTW, -2% from losing Brain Freeze) may push Frost DPS up into a competitive range, depending on how Fire works out.

The other bad news is that, by losing Brain Freeze, Frost's DPS rotation became even more boring than it already was, which hardly seems possible. I seriously hope they're working on the Shatter Combo problem, because that's the only thing that can save the spec from actually killing players in real life by suppressing respiration and heart rate.

Frostfire: Loses the double-dip on Elemental Precision, resulting in a small DPS reduction as FFB Mages will need to gear for another 3% hit.

Overall, this seems to be a good set of changes, but Frost PvE needs a hell of a lot of work on its flavor before it's going to be fun to play.

Lhivera, the 3% nerf to FFB and the applicability of Torment to fireball should probably shove fire specs 12% ahead of frostfire.

Evocation change is pointless, having a shorter cooldown won't do anything about the fact that we lose a huge chunk of DPS if we use it.

Frostfire was already anywhere from 8-12% ahead of Fireball, without the 3% ghost hit. Fireball builds having 12% more damage to Fireball doesn't give it necessarily a 12% lead ahead of frostfire, when, in some cases, it's already that far behind. There's an option in Rawr to turn on Slow slave, which is just as good for running the numbers and comparing builds. I'll do that later, using the same equipment list I've been using. Taking the ghost hit out is easy as well. It's built in, so you only need 12% to reach 100% hit for Frostfire, so gearing for 15% hit should model it fine.

As far as Thunder Clap -- I realize what people are saying. Yes, Ghostcrawler did imply that Torment the Weak now works on bosses, since Thunder Clap does work, and it simply wasn't triggering Torment the Weak in the past. However, that makes no implications as to other slowing/snaring effects. In other words, did they simply expand the list of slows/snares that trigger Torment the Weak?

I think it'd be great if they did, but I don't like that Arcane Meditation is being given up for Torment the Weak when Fireball builds can have mana issues without it.

For the record though, Torment the Weak is one of the most powerful PvP talents for 20.0.51 Frost Mages. It was of course triggering off of Frostbolt's chill effect on targets that weren't immune to it, so if your intial Frostbolt crit for 5100, your subsequent Frostbolt would crit for 5700. It's an incredibly powerful talent for chaining Frostbolt/Ice Lance shatter combos back to back (frost nova, then WE frost nova, then a deep freeze, and so forth).

But yes, it does seem... out of place, in a fireball build. Spell Impact works on its own and is far enough down in the tree that I don't have a problem with it (and it's half of what TTW is).

I corrected my Fire comments; obviously, two months of inactivity has totally rusted my brain in thinking about this stuff.

I would interpret the TTW change liberally: Ghostcrawler said "any kind of slowing effect," and I assume that's exactly what he means: snares, attack speed debuffs, cast speed debuffs.

Some random points:

Mana: The Evocation changes are serious /facepalm. Particularly with no changes in regards to spirit, I take this as a sign that we're never going to get any real overhaul to our mana mechanics.

Precision: I have difficulty imagining why anyone wouldn't already have at least 11% hit as an FFB spec, so I don't see that change as especially relevant. Minor nerf in raids without a shadow priest or moonkin, but (at least in my guild) it's highly infrequent not to have at least one of those classes in our raids, even in 10-mans. Now if you're Fire/Arcane, it's a different story.

Arcane offspecs: I think it's obvious they do intend for TTW to work on bosses. Still incredibly crappy design, in my opinion, but at least now there's room for debate about which spec is best, not just FFB or bust.

[e] FFB vs Fire: Assuming Vontre's sims are right and Fire is a ~1% dps gain over FFB, speaking personally I'd lose most of that gain by having to re-gem for extra hit. There's also the mana situation to consider, and while I'm rarely hurting in 25-mans, I'm not exactly sailing by. Barring some new revelation about TTW specs, I don't think I'll be changing.

Most importantly here, if Fire specs do become fully better than FFB, and mages do start running away on the DMs (especially when HAT rogues and hunters get nerfed), then yeah, we'll be next up for nerfs. I'd say it's a strong possibility at this point, so enjoy it while you can.

If you're getting TtW, you're not getting the frost crit / dam talents that make FFB worth casting.