Nock

Zeldyrr, you're forgetting about the 1.5 sec (affected by haste) GCD you get after casting ABarrage.

In regards to Vontre's math for the Missle Barrage procs, I'm not sure I agree with the analysis. You made the assumption that you'll always be choosing to use the MB after ABarrage since "Any potential MB procs for the ramp up ABs can be ignored because you already have the buff." But doesn't that assume that you'll know if you have the proc before the ABlast is finished casting? I know when I was playing as arcane, during the end of an ABlast cast I was hammering the ABarrage button to make sure that I didn't lose any time. Since you wouldn't get the MB proc until the end of the ABlast and wouldn't know to be prepped to cast a different spell. By the time I registered a MB proc, my first opportunity to cast it was always after an ABarrage. With the logic that you would always have to hold off to get an ABlast increase on Missle Barrage. Would it be better to compare a few different interjections of a Missle Barrage proc and what you would lose based on how many ABlast increases you choose to give up?

Unfortunatly I'm not sure exactly how you arrived at your dps numbers or the casting time you were using with haste on gear and don't want to mess up the calculations, so if you're up to figuring these out, here's what I'm thinking.

Assuming the first ABr always has an ABl increase before it.

Baseline with no procs
ABr > ABl (Repeating)

Missle Barage with no ABlast increase, losing 1 increase on ABr
ABr > MBAM > ABr

Missle Barrage with ABlast increase, losing 1 increase on ABr
ABr > ABl > MBAM > ABr

Missle Barrage with no ABlast increase, losing no increase on ABr
ABr > MBAM > ABl > ABr

Missle Barrage with ABlast increase, losing no increase on ABr
ABr > ABl > MBAM > ABl > ABr

It's entirely possible that your bottom line is still correct, but knowing that you'd have to actively hold off on the MB proc to get it the ABlast increase along with wondering what would be the best thing to cast after the MBAM considering that you're not going to have an ABlast buff up makes me curious.

 

Weemuu

MMO Champion has updated the "undocumented changes" which includes some very interesting updates:

So, 0/58/18 will now give you a 2.5s cast (before haste) FFBolt. Does this properly offset the bonus damage of the new TtW?

And with Hotstreak procing on Living Bomb, does this include every crit that the explosion causes? or just the explosion crit on the mob with the Bomb? I know when there are >3 mobs in the blast area, I'm almost guaranteed to get one of them to crit, so most of the time I'll get a Hotstreak proc on my LB explosion, which is going to up damage on FFBolt or Fireball specs considerably.

Interesting that Fire now gets a Mage Armor effect, which will start to make Spirit actually worth something for non-Arcane mages.

 

G0liath

I think all of this theorycrafting of wich spec is better just got terribly simple :

...

 

arch

No, it doesn't offset fireball TtW, it blows FFB up to the sky again. I'm sensing an FFB nerf to compensate for this, hopefully one aimed at reducing the volatility of this spec, while at the same time toning it down discretly.

Maybe they will reduce the crit multiplier and make it 3.5s cast time base. In any case, I like it.

 

Obfu

My own gear is carrying 12.5% haste right now, and Manly's is 15.8%. Add in the 3% raid buff of your choice, another 6% for NWP and you are toeing the line on Zeldyrr's aforementioned 3s rule. So there is a quite reachable haste cap.

I'd assume it can be avoided by not stacking haste, using a burn cycle during haste procs and (of course) heroism.

So avoid haste. Crit will have a low value without Fire/FFB's arsenal of crit talents and glyphs. There is only so much hit you need, especially if you get EP.

Assuming Arcane is actually viable, all you will need is a Scorch bitch. It's not exactly the TTW fire story all over again, since scorch is accessible while maintaining the arcane core. You'd need a little more hit rating to account for not having EP, you'd loose a nicely talented blizzard, and trade 3/3 frost channeling for 2/3MoE. Not nearly as horrifying as the old slow bitch spec.

 

Lhivera

So according to MMO-Champion:

- Pyromaniac now Increases chance to critically hit by 1/2/3% and allows 10/20/30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting (presumably no longer reduces mana cost by 1/2/3%)
- Hot Streak now also affects Living Bomb
- Frostbite now also reduces the cast time of your Frostfire Bolt spell by 0.17/0.34/0.5 sec. (!)

Putting a cast time reduction like that so shallow in the Frost tree strikes me as kind of insane, given FFB's current performance. Possible this stuff is just plain wrong.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Joopjan

It is wrong.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Frostfire spec buffed lol

 

Mentalfloss

I see two problems that I believe led to the wrong conclusion here. One is that you replace abar with the proc'd am. you don't "replace", you insert it in and still use the abar un-blast-buffed in the rotation after the Missile barrage. The second issue is comparing the dps and not looking at the fact that while fireing off the proc'd MB is higher immediate dps, you lose out in the long run by not buffing it first with ab.

Starting with the numbers you gave from manly's gear:
Arcane Missiles: 2971 dps, this means 5942 with missile barrage. -> 14855
Arcane Blast: 2976dps -> 7440
Arcane Barrage: 3919 dps -> 5878.5

each ABar ABlast cycle has a normal dps of 3329.6 and 36% chance to proc Missile barrage, which is an increase of 2612.375 dps for 2.5 seconds.

I think it's reasonable to assume the proc between ab and abar in the cycle would be unusable because you are already casting abar, thus you only see the proc after each pairing of 2.
* - represents a missile barrage proc below.

AB ABar * AB AM ABar continue with normal dps cycle of ab abar
Total damage
7440 + 1.15*5878.5 + 7440+1.15*14855 + 5878.5 = 44600

ab abar * am ab abar continue with normal dps cycle

7440 + 1.15*5878.5 + 14855 +7440+1.15*5878.5 = 43253.7

Both are over the same time

With the first rotation, you lose out on a 20% to get another MB because it's already proc'd while you cast a ab to buff, so that buffing ab's proc is lost. This translate to an actual 16% loss on the proc as you already had 4% loss of the proc with your normal ab abar rotation. 4% being the chance both AB and ABar proc and thus the AB proc is useless

16% chance to lose out on a net increase of 6531 damage = 1045 extra damage on the second cycle due to extra proc.

It's very clear AB MB ABar is a better rotation on the proc than MB AB ABar

it seems to me, you should ALWAYS buff your proc'd Missile barrage.

Perhaps you can point out what I'm missing.

I also don't understand why you wouldn't fully buff a MB if you have mana to spare, *proc* AB AB AB MB = 7440 + 8556 + 9672 + 21539.75 = 47207 over 10 seconds is better than the dps loss over the 3 possible procs that would be lost due to them being redundant.

 

Leialyn

Edit: nvm, see above.

But the Manareg incombat was certainly a buff for fire... that means they are playing around to make spirit usefull for mages... I wonder, what would have been if you take Pyromaniac, Meditation and glyphed Mage Armor giving you 110%.

Lets hope something like this is coming in the Ulduar Patch.

 

Lhivera

Oh, good. Because, you know, wow.

Throwing something like that onto CttB or Brain Freeze might make some sense. Or really, any tier inaccessible to a build that includes Burnout. Could promote a half-and-half build if tuned right.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Putts

It's not, check the link 2 posts above you. And although you get the 30% 5SR regen, you lose the 3% spell cost reduction. Still an overall gain, but not as much as you might initially be inclined to believe.

 

arch

I don't think you'll find too many complaining about the gain/loss in this case. We can finally use spirit. I will still avoid the pieces with spirit on them beause it eats off the item budget, but at least the stat won't be completly useless anymore.

 

macbeet

It's probabaly a slow effect, too.

 

Kel S'jet

This will only occur in moments of extreme haste (e.g Bloodlust). A 'regular' rotation of AB->ABr would work perfectly fine.

That being said, in moments of extreme haste (i.e when bloodlusted), I do believe that you are going to want to maximize your damage output as much as possible. The new AB allows us to do this by ramping up the damage of our spells, hence it would actually not be so bad having to cast 2x AB followed by MBAM/ABr, since you will be able to squeeze in more 'ramped' ABrs/MBAM in the same period of time. Notice, AB is not really the 'heavy hitter' in the arcane spec, that is MBAM and to a lesser (but more consistent) extent, ABr.

Also take note,
This change to AB mechanics does not actually increase the damage of AB itself (putting the TotW changes aside). Instead, it gives the arcanist a tool by which he can buff the damage of his/her other spells. Let us not get ahead of ourselves and focus too much on AB's damage, but instead, look at the spell as a step in the process of improving Arcane's overall damage.

 

◊ manly

Thank god. It should still only apply once per offensive cast. Pre-charging it with slow fall is quite retarded. So is getting 3+ stacks from one scorch with glyph of scorch.


I'm not going to lie. This was rumored 2 weeks ago to be an upcoming change, so no real surprise there. However, something I would like to mention/remind to Blizzard. First, here are the base mana values for all classes, and their jow equivalent:

Class	Base mana value	2% base mana (jow)
Druid	3796	75.92
Hunter	5046	100.92
Mage	3268	65.36
Paladin	4394	87.88
Priest	3863	77.26
Shaman	4396	87.92
Warlock	4294	85.88

The reason mages have a lower base mana is because we do not have any spammable mana regen option. In other words, we don't really have any way to manage mana, despise the fact it was your own stated goal to make sure players have to do it. To avoid mages going OOM, you made sure the base mana for mages was low. The reasoning is quite good too, and simple. Since spells mana costs are based upon the base mana cost, lowering the mage base mana meant we would be less likely to go OOM, in addition to do a virtual 'lower across the board' mana cost for all mages spells vs classes that can, in fact, manage mana / spam mana regen.

However, JOW working off the base mana goes against the very principle.

I mean, I understand that proportionally it makes sense to do it that way. However, it also means that the classes that need the most the mana (because we can't do anything once you go OOM, and it is somewhat outside of your control) have the least of it. Is this really the intended direction?

"* Pyromaniac now Increases chance to critically hit by 1/2/3% and allows 10/20/30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.."
This is clearly meant to go hand in hand with the JOW change. Even though I applaud the change, and think it finally adds more depth to fire spec (hey, some use out of spirit finally), it does leave one wondering why frost did not get a matching fix. Spirit is still 100% useless for frost. Why can't you just make one new mage armor that combines both 30% mana regen and 3% more crit ? All mage specs would finally not have to deal with this retarded concept of either having 0% mana regen into suddently having 50%+ mana regen.

"* Hot Streak now also affects Living Bomb."
Ok so, this nails the coffin about anyone arguing whether or not living bomb is worth casting. I do welcome the change since it strengthens the fire tree as a whole (by making world in flames better). I also welcome the side effect of increasing fire spec mobility dps. However, as a player, I can't stop but notice how awkward this could be to play with. You can now get a FFB crit and a living bomb explosion almost at the same time, which means you need to watch a lot more for hot streak procs to avoid wasting potential procs. It also means that delayed hot streak pyro casts should never ever be encouraged anymore. This in itself enforces more ignite munching. Its really not a huge deal; its just essentially a weird change from a playstyle perspective.

Also, about ignite munching.

I proposed a few months ago an easy and simple 100% ignite munching fix. It was unlikely to be implemented back then because of the debuff limit (40). However, with the new and increased debuff limit, my proposal is now almost perfect in every way.

1- Make every crit generate a new ignite, not add unto an existing one
2- Make ignite tick every second rather than every 2 seconds, essentially avoiding taking much debuff space.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Kel S'jet

Blizzard has already stated that these were mistakes in the patch notes and are in fact not going in for testing and/or live.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Frostfire spec buffed lol


Just an addition.
I do believe that mages have had the lowest base mana even before the %base mana spell cost changes (and most probably well before such an idea was even in any designer's head), and I think the reasoning given for it at the time was that mages get the more +int from gear than any other class.
As far as mage mana regen goes, I believe the initial (and perhaps still current) design for mage mana regen is meant to be a combination of spirit based "passive" regen, "active" regen through gems and evocation and all round "inherent" regen due to efficiency of spells, instead of just a straightforward regen model of "active" (and spammable) that the warlock (for example) has.

 

Jonny_Monroe

So is it possible now for a fire mage to reach 110% regeneration while casting through Arcane Med, Pyromaniac and glyphed mage armour? Maybe Arc. Med. and pyromaniac won't stack, but if they do then fire specs are going to see far more reasonable returns from spirit.

OMNOMNOM.

 

◊ manly

And I quote
"This was actually a mistake. This change will not be on the PTR or in the next patch. "
I am pretty sure it referred exclusively to the frostbite change.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Its not entirely clear in the post which change he is refering to but if it is only 1 change, the Frostbite one makes the most sense as its clearly broken.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Lhivera

I'm pretty sure he was referring only to the Frostbite change. Could be wrong, but since the Frostbite change was absurd, and the Pyromaniac change isn't, it would make sense.


Would that really help Frost? My understanding is that Frost Mages (assuming there are any raiding) aren't running out of mana even when using Molten Armor, so it seems like any Spirit solution for Frost that focuses upon having it provide regen doesn't really improve the spec in any way. Fire and Arcane, yes, they can use spirit regen; Frost and Frostfire pretty much only benefit from a spirit-to-damage-stat conversion.


From my perspective outside the game and looking for reasons to come back rather than go to CoX, it seems to me that what Frost needs hasn't changed much:


Bug Fixes

Fingers of Frost incorrectly dependent upon (not merely linked to) Frostbite with Improved Blizzard. Yes, we understand that Fingers of Frost and Frostbite are supposed to be linked so that, when specced for both, they proc together. However, when not specced for both, the one you are specced for is still supposed to function. Fingers of Frost does not function with Improved Blizzard unless you are also specced for Frostbite. If you put one point into Frostbite, 2/2 Fingers of Frost will proc at a 15% rate with Improved Blizzard. This is clearly not correct behavior.


Improvements

DPS made competitive with other specs. AFAIK, nobody's calculating 18/0/53 yet, so maybe this problem has been solved and I just don't know it. Note that balancing survivability against DPS in PvE doesn't really make a great deal of sense; it's an advantage in occasional fights, yes, but so are burst damage, reduced threat, mobility, pushback protection, not relying on pet DPS in fights that kill pets, etc. Survivability should not be weighed against DPS in PvE any more than any of these other advantages. It may be that Frost benefits from more of these advantages than other specs, in which case that's a valid balance consideration, but survivability is not inherently more valuable than the others.

Improve the "fun factor" (mainly the complexity) of Frost's PvE DPS process. Most natural solution would be to rebuild FoF, Frostbolt, Ice Lance, and possibly Deep Freeze so that executing Shatter Combos in PvE on FoF procs produces a significant performance difference. This may require nerfing Frostbolt spam DPS so that it can be rebuilt with the Shatter Combos, but that would be acceptable to produce an improvement in the spec's overall playstyle.

Deep Freeze made useful to PvE specs. Arguments that 51-point talents are intended to be fairly situational fall down when some 20-23 51-point talents are useful for performing the spec's primary role in raid boss encounters, and most of the remaining 7-10 talents are useful for performing the spec's role during trash clears. Off the top of my head, only Deep Freeze and Dispersion are entirely worthless to a PvE spec. And isn't Frost just about the last tree in the game that needs more talents that are geared more toward PvP than PvE?

Improved Blizzard. OK, perhaps 85% snare was excessive. And having the snare match that of Cone of Cold is convenient. But why not drop it from 3 points to 2, which was the number of points most people put into that talent throughout vanilla and BC anyway (precisely so that it would match Cone of Cold's snare)? Frost doesn't exactly have a lot of "fun flavor" points to spend, now that it has to put 18 into Arcane.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Kel S'jet

Ah yes, you could be right. I have just noticed the edit made by the OP of that post. So in fact, he could have edited and added the LB and Mana regen change after blizzard responded to the Frostbite change.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I doubt you'd actually be able to surpass 100%. That would mean you'd regenerate more mana while casting than while not casting.

But 100% does seem doable.

 

Dragonrhonin

While it wouldn't be the first time I overestimated Blizz, I can't imagine they'd have that change in the notes only to decide not to do it. As previously stated, it atleast gives spirit SOME benefit to fire. It's only slightly disappointing that they finally decided to do it a month after beta ended.


EDIT: And yes it could just be the OP trolling.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...agonrhonin.png

 

Enthorn

Hot Streak now also affects Living Bomb.

Living Bomb triggering Hot Streak - first 30 seconds, for simplicity, the first two scorches are non-crits, all further scorches are crits, and all frostfires and living bombs are crits.

00:00 Living Bomb(1) Cast
01:50 Scorch(1) Cast
03:00 Scorch(1) Land
03:00 Scorch(2) Cast
04:50 Scorch(2) Land
04:50 Frostfire(1) Cast
07:50 Frostfire(2) Cast
08:50 Frostfire(1) Critical (1/2)
10:50 Frostfire(3) Cast
11:50 Frostfire(2) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(1)
12:00 Living Bomb(1) Critical (1/2)
13:50 Pyroblast(1) Cast
14:50 Frostfire(3) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(2)
14:50 Pyroblast(1) Land
15:00 Living Bomb(2) Cast
16:50 Frostfire(4) Cast
19:50 Pyroblast(2) Cast
20:50 Frostfire(4) Critical (1/2)
20:50 Pyroblast(2) Land
21:00 Frostfire(5) Cast
24:00 Frostfire(6) Cast
25:00 Frostfire(5) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(3)
27:00 Pyroblast(3) Cast
27:00 Living Bomb(2) Critical (1/2)
28:00 Frostfire(6) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(4)
28:00 Pyroblast(3) Land
28:50 Living Bomb(3) Cast
30:00 Scorch(3) Cast
31:50 Scorch(3) Critical (1/2)
31:50 Frostfire(7) Cast
34:50 Pyroblast(4) Cast
35:50 Frostfire(7) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(5)
35:50 Pyroblast(4) Land
36:00 Frostfire(8) Cast
39:00 Pyroblast(5) Cast
40:00 Frostfire(8) Critical (1/2)
40:00 Pyroblast(5) Land
40:50 Living Bomb(3) Critical (2/2) - Hot Streak(6)

Thanks RpgWizard for pointing out a few mistakes. It's corrected.

Theoretically, you could miss a pyroblast, but I think it would be very rare.

 

Putts

But it wasn't actually in the patch notes. That information was posted in the "Undocumented Changes" section on mmo-champion. The only changes posted in the official patch notes were Arcane Blast, Arcane Flows, Elemental Precision, Evocation, Imp. Blizzard, Slow Fall, and TTW.