I will post sets for Frostfire Bolt sometime soon. I also need to update the non-Hard Mode list. And I'm still working on that whole progression thing. I don't want everything to be needlessly complicated though with so many lists that it's impossible to keep track of what someone is looking for. And if it's complicated for people reading it, then imagine what it's like for poor me trying to update it (all I see is a myriad of item codes).
Perhaps I'll find a way to streamline this though, so I can easily show progression for both Fireball and Frostfire from pre-3.1 items, to Non-Hard Mode Ulduar 10/25 man, to Hard Mode. I won't bother separating 10 and 25-man though Normal modes, and in the same vein, it seems too complex (to look at) to separate Hard Modes amongst 10 and 25-man. Doing one would practically necessitate the other, and doing both would create 4 more lists (2 for each FB and FFB).
The T8 2-piece set bonus is easily better than the T7 4-piece set bonus. Whether you replace T7 2-piece with T8 4-piece is your decision, but given the stat increase on the items (whether it's 219 or 226 -- either one is an upgrade against 200 or 213) and the proc (now that we know it's 20% with no internal CD), I'd say it's a fair trade if mana isn't an issue.
You'll be giving up mana (40% mana gem increase) for an increase in mana usage (more hot streak pyroblasts). As for getting rid of the Frostfire Bolt list -- well, many people were Frostfire due to AoE and Rune of Razorice. Now that we're down 5% frost damage bonus, and since Fireball was already ahead, I simply did away with Frostfire.
I know many people still use Frostfire though, and it does have its allures.
thanks enthorn, I have been using your guide since i hit 80 and have been trying to follow all the math and mechanics of everything. I know its hard work and i am sure very confusing but i know many that enjoy and use the work you have done.
I notice that since 3.1 my damage has skyrocketed as FFB, now some of that is better itemization on my part, and also better addons to make sure I do not miss hot streaks but am hesitant to regear for another spec as I honestly am pretty happy with the dps and overall damage that I do. I can keep up and beat most on the meters in a very well geared guild.
If I knew for a fact that I would be doing 10%+ or more dps versus what I do now, then i maybe tempted to switch. I know with FFB that you are crit dependant but on longer duration fights ( and not tons of movement) I can outdps very good mages with either fttw or arcane. And I rarely have to worry about mana unless I am AOE'ing like crazy.
Anyways, I will try to keep up on the other threads and see what numbers everyone else is coming up with to make a sound choice. Thanks again for the great info and I will be replacing my gear with the T8 2pc for sure and might as well go with the 4pc also.
Enthorn, yea please do post a FFB thread or at least rename this one to support FFB. The real difference (and correct me if I'm wrong) is simply one valuing Haste (FB) and one valuing Crit (FFB) as well as one needing an additional 3% Hit. I've been working on my own lists for FFB but making the switch back to FB is tempting with new gear being able to support mana even better (and regen with spirit itemized).
I'd think the most helpful way to do it is place their optimal gear sets side by side with end results. Who knows, maybe not having to itemize 3% additional hit would in turn give BIS FFB the boost to stay close with BIS FB end results.
EDIT: And while we are at it, we could always throw Arcane in there :P. I know I see BIS questions every day on the Public forums, if we had an Arc, FB/TTW, and FFB best in slot item list with one containing Hard Modes and one Non Hard Mode people could absolutely point here and be done.
Enthorn, yea please do post a FFB thread or at least rename this one to support FFB. The real difference (and correct me if I'm wrong) is simply one valuing Haste (FB) and one valuing Crit (FFB) as well as one needing an additional 3% Hit. I've been working on my own lists for FFB but making the switch back to FB is tempting with new gear being able to support mana even better (and regen with spirit itemized).
I'd think the most helpful way to do it is place their optimal gear sets side by side with end results. Who knows, maybe not having to itemize 3% additional hit would in turn give BIS FFB the boost to stay close with BIS FB end results.
EDIT: And while we are at it, we could always throw Arcane in there :P. I know I see BIS questions every day on the Public forums, if we had an Arc, FB/TTW, and FFB best in slot item list with one containing Hard Modes and one Non Hard Mode people could absolutely point here and be done.
The difference valuation in crit and haste for both Fireball and FFB is pretty small so the sets will likely look pretty similar. One other thing to keep in mind is you don't have to take Precision in a FFB build. I have been Fireball for sometime and have enough hit to be over cap for it with no gems so recently I made my secondary spec a FFB build without Precision and some points in Imp Blizz. I use that build for AOE fights and if I run into mana trouble with my Fireball spec.
I was going to do some work later on, seeing if FFB may be a better intermittent spec instead of ToW Fire. I wonder this simply because I haven't been able to upgrade my gear since entering Ulduar since everything is so carefully balanced and any item i get drops me under hit cap and lowers my damage (according to RAWR). Perhaps with FFB I will be able to upgrade to these better items and pull more dps than a Fire build.
If anyone has any input I'd appreciate it, I'll play around with it sometime later.
The difference valuation in crit and haste for both Fireball and FFB is pretty small so the sets will likely look pretty similar. One other thing to keep in mind is you don't have to take Precision in a FFB build. I have been Fireball for sometime and have enough hit to be over cap for it with no gems so recently I made my secondary spec a FFB build without Precision and some points in Imp Blizz. I use that build for AOE fights and if I run into mana trouble with my Fireball spec.
The difference between crit and haste isn't large, but having a hit requirement that's 79 rating lower should result in shuffling around some gear for some significant gain relative to just using a FB set for FFB as is.
The difference between crit and haste isn't large, but having a hit requirement that's 79 rating lower should result in shuffling around some gear for some significant gain relative to just using a FB set for FFB as is.
Understood, but my point was if you gear for max hit cap (which isn't hard) you can avoid Precision and get some utility talents that are useful in several fights.
Understood, but my point was if you gear for max hit cap (which isn't hard) you can avoid Precision and get some utility talents that are useful in several fights.
Then you would no longer have a max DPS FFB set up.....and max DPS gear set ups are the topic of this thread.
Exactly we are talking about Single Target DPS fights in our discussions. Don't get me wrong, they are plenty of Ulduar fights which require adds being taken down, which is another reason to swap to FFB (for AOE mana management), but in terms of gearing..single target.
The way I see it, the front page seems to be valuing haste over crit in a few pieces which is why FFB seems like it needs it's own gear list.
One interesting thing is that there are some fights where having boss level hit cap is mostly a waste assuming you can get substantially more dps by dropping the hit. Hard-mode freya and yogg-saron come to mind, where only a very small portion of the fight is against a boss level mob. It would be interesting to see an optimal dps setup for level 81 or 82 mobs and see how much dps you can potentially gain over a boss level setup. This is especially relevant to guilds working on Freya Hard-Mode where the boss part of the fight is by far the easiest.
Hey Enthorn, I was just wondering if an error has been made with the Non Hard-Mode gearset due to low thoroughness or something. Where you use a [Purified Twilight Opal] in the [Pennant Cloak], I would have thought it was more DPS to just use a [Runed Scarlet Ruby]. It's basically just trading 5 spellpower and 8 spirit for 10 spellpower. Using the relative stat values you posted, I see 10 spellpower as 16.8 and 5 spellpower 8 spirit as 16.32.
There are some other things i'm suspecting might be errors but i'll just get your answer to that first so I know if i'm on the right track.
Thanks.
Actually, now that I go back and look again, the other stuff seems fine. I was just wondering what was going on with the neck and cloak sockets. Thanks.
Hey just some questions.
I tried fb/ttw spec and I seem to get much lower DPS than with arcane, only about 4.2k on Patchwerk 25. The World of Warcraft Armory
I'm guessing I need more crit or haste or something like that.
I keep LB up the whole time, scorch is done by another mage.
I dont know how many times this has been said but addons like recount flatter your dps due to the way it measures it. For instance, i could go into a fight and do absolutely nothing until the last moment, pop all cooldowns and score a 20k crit, this would launch my dps through the roof but, did i contribute much to the fight? The answer is no. Overall damage on a single encounter is the best way to rate yourself against other classes. I think the reason for fb/ttw dps being lower than arcane is due to the fire dots, i would suggest using something like wws reports to get better numbers, it will show you average dps over single encounters and over a whole raid, a much better way to rate yourself. Looking at your gear, your pretty good for fb/ttw spec, only .12% under hit cap assuming you have a shadow priest in your raid.
Enthorn, about your FFB non hard mode setup, I read you said it is questionable.
In fact, if we take exactly the same stuff as Fireball non hard, switching [Dying Curse] for [Eye of the Broodmother], I immediately find a new winner with 7043 dps.
This is interesting because we can almost have the same set for both specs.
I'm almost positive something else is inflating the DPS in your file. Did you match the DPS (that I have listed) of the Fireball set and then make the switch? Because at first glance, just switching the trinket, stats looks like this:
That is 128.75 less crit, 6.47 hit over the cap, 49 more haste, and 8 more spell power. If you look at the relative stat values of 1.67 for 1 crit and 1.61 for 1 haste for that Frostfire set posted, it would definitely seem to indicate that having less crit (215 DPS), more haste (78.89 DPS) and SP (13.44 DPS) would not result in a DPS gain of 46.22, when those stat differences alone show a loss of 122.67 DPS. (Relative stat values are calculated after everything else, so this isn't a completely accurate way to look at it, but it's close enough.)
I did actually look at the trinkets though, since Living Flame seemed like an odd choice, but when you think about it, 505 Spell Power for 20 seconds is much better than 432 haste/20sec for Frostfire, and 107 hit vs 125 SP is borderline the same, due to the item switches that having the hit on the trinket allows. For instance, it allows you to drop the head piece -- and both [Collar of the Wyrmhunter] and [Conqueror's Kirin Tor Hood] have either hit or haste. [Cowl of Dark Whispers] keeps the spirit (crit) and replaces hit with crit, which Frostfire favors. It's likely the same reason it suggests Cord of the White Dawn over Ancient Sash of Power (and same reason Reckless gems are replaced with Potent gems).
It would be nice to able to show a smooth transition between the two specs, and this is one of the reasons that it's slightly irritating to see an item like Cord of the White Dawn used in only one set, because it's entirely unrealistic to make both. This goes doubly for trinkets, as the number of trinkets used across all the different sets is staggering. Finding a middle ground then is helpful.
Now that I've gotten nearly all of the sets updated, I'll try to make some progression charts, and finding "close" alternatives. I mean, is it really worth switching out five items to get 50 DPS when you can switch out two items and get 20 DPS? Another thing is gems. It's nice to be able to plan gemmings ahead of time so that as items are picked up, gemmings don't constantly have to be switched. A good example of this is that [/item]46132[/item] are present in nearly every set. [Veiled Monarch Topaz] is also present in nearly every set. It makes sense then to put one into the gauntlets, because it's the one gem and one item that is least likely to change when upgrading gradually.
I have recently discovered rawr but am a total noob to it. I am currently trying to figure out what my bis in every slot would be for an arc mage, is there any thread here that contaions that info as I havent been able to find it. This thread has been extremely helpful for my FB spec and if I could find something similar to this for arc it would be greatly appreciated.
To echo that sentiment: I thoroughly enjoy reading Enthorn's posts and this thread is a formiddable resource for FB/FFB gearing. However, our beloved mage forum does indeed need a (separate) dedicated thread just discussing optimal Arcane gearing.
05/06/09, 11:35 AM
