DPS will go down, obviously. This is true for any class/spec. You can't accurately model how much because movement varies from fight to fight.
Obviously indeed. However my inquiry had more to do with the dps of the speccs relative to eachother rather than the absolute dps.
Considering Fire and Arcane are arbitrarily equal dps with these changes I see no hurt in conducting stress tests, testing the speccs in different environments with varying parameters.
While it is true that lower cast times are punished less fire also deals damage with living bomb/fire blasts and possible hot streak proccs on the move while arcane relies only on unstacked arcane barrage.
edit:
While it's true that Arcane Barrage can find a place in the static rotation as the 'shit out of luck' spell but let's not forget that it may have another competitor now, namely Arcane Blast.
I wouldn't expect it. When has Fire Blast ever been given any consideration? The instants seem to be, like you siad, pvp and mobility spells. I use fireblast a lot when I have to run and gun on hodir, thorim, mim but that's about it. same with ABarr when I was arcane. It would be nice to have a viable means of using these in more situations but Blizz has said they like having casters centered around one or two main nukes.
Apples and oranges. ABarr is a 51pt talent and should get more consideration than fire blast.
They really need to do something about the raid utility of arcane. The fact that imp scorching hurts your fire/ffb rotation's dps is a dilemma. If arc is on top again, and it seems so via simulationcraft, then most mages will want to spec that. This would mean that someone would need to be the scorch b*****. Most locks seemed to have gone away from imp shadowbolt in their rotations and let's not even talk about frost mage pve.
It would be simple enough to put a +1% crit to arcane blast capped at 5%. Or if they want to get tricky put it on arcane barrage. No one really want to feel like they are being taken advantage of; the scorch mage will feel like he's taking one for the team as the arc mages come out on top.
In regards to movement fights, arc has the advantage of the 10s arcane blast buff duration. You can move and still maintain it for the most part. Or shoot off a buffed arc barrage if need be.
Fire has hotstreak and living bomb (if it's dropped).
Due to this combination, before the calculations on reducing dynamic cycles are made, it would seem that ABar may resume as part of an "off-cycle" where there is still some mana management involved. Another common scenario is during a burn phase where MBar has not proc'd after 5+ casts and the caster must decide how long to continue AB spam before breaking the debuff.
Currently, the probability of MB proccing at least once in 5 casts is 67%, after the patch, the probability will be 92%. Even after only 4 casts, it's 87%. So, that scenario will happen significantly less often than it does now, in fact it will happen less than 1/4 as often. Given the extreme mana cost reductions, and assuming 4-stack not affecting AM is a bug(it almost certainly is, because that would produce pretty clunky mechanics and is something that will confuse the heck out of the average player, something Blizzard tries to avoid) I can't see you using ABar to clear a stack rather than just MBAM unless you have to move.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
Is the movement phases random to the 'player' or can fire speccs time it with say a hot streak and a living bomb refresh?
You can't exactly time it but if your are really good you can save a hotstreak proc for when you have to move or what I often do is move earlier than everyone else in little short bursts with the gcd as I'm hotstreaking and refreshing LB.
Edit: Also when you reach near 60% crit rates you have at least 2-3 gcds every twelve or so seconds so sometimes it just works out because of the frequency of things.
You can't exactly time it but if your are really good you can save a hotstreak proc for when you have to move or what I often do is move earlier than everyone else in little short bursts with the gcd as I'm hotstreaking and refreshing LB.
Edit: Also when you reach near 60% crit rates you have at least 2-3 gcds every twelve or so seconds so sometimes it just works out because of the frequency of things.
I believe that was a direct response to Lhivera's simulated numbers, whether the movement time in the sim was randomly selected or if the Fire spec could make its three seconds worth of movement on Hot Streak procs/LB refreshes. Selective movement would greatly benefit Fire in that sim, as it has better spells to use on movement that aren't always available.
Even if Arcane comes in at slightly less DPS than Fire specs by the time 3.2.2 goes live, Arcane will have superior burst and will have a little wiggle room to pick up more defensive talents (MA, Frost Warding, Prismatic Cloak) than Fire and won't have Playing with Fire.
I've updated Rawr to calculate optimal cycles for 3.2.2 mode and here are the results (barring any modeling mistakes of course):
Cycle Code Legend: 0 = AB, 1 = ABar, 2 = AM
State Descriptions: ABx,ABary,MBz+-
x = number of AB stacks
y = remaining cooldown on Arcane Barrage
z = remaining time on Missile Barrage
+ = Missile Barrage proc visible
- = Missile Barrage proc not visible
First it means that the highest dps is actually AB spam not using barrage procs. The reason for this is that it takes quite a bit to restack AB and you'll almost always reset. However AB spam with MBAM on 4 stack is ~100 dps lower but extremely more mana efficient. Going further down the lines we get AB spam with MBAM on 2 or 4 stack, AB spam with MBAM on 2,3 or 4 stack. Then we have AB4AM with MBAM on 2,3 or 4 stack. The last 2 cycles are then lowering the stacking, first AB3AM with MBAM on 2 or 3 stack and last AB2AM. Note that ABAM is no longer an optimal cycle.
Comparing to 3.2 the ABSpam4MBAM will be the main cycle as it is more efficient than the current dpm cycles AB3AM or AB3ABar3MBAM. The new dps cycle will be AB spam. The dpm conversion in 3.2 was about 2.528, with the above we're looking at dpm conversion of 0.3 which is absolutely horrible. This means that you can more or less forget about any dynamic nature that we had so far. Yes you'll be able to use AB spam to get a tiny bit extra, but it'll be almost unnoticeable. Even though we'll gain in dps it's a sad state for arcane playstyle.
Yes you'll be able to use AB spam to get a tiny bit extra, but it'll be almost unnoticeable. Even though we'll gain in dps it's a sad state for arcane playstyle.
Honestly Kavan, I wasn't even expecting AB spam to be more DPS, so even though the difference is minuscule, this is still good news in my book. But I totally agree that this is not the optimum solution for arcane playstyle. I don't expect arcane to go back to the glorious days of pre 2.4, but 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 (rinse repeat until boss dies) is certainly not how I imagined arcane would turn out to be !
Is the movement phases random to the 'player' or can fire speccs time it with say a hot streak and a living bomb refresh?
The "movement" raid event in SimulationCraft is rather simple: Periodically (based upon inputs and RNG) a player is marked as "moving". The AI still walks the action list like normal, but any action that is not an instant cast is ignored. If the Fire Mage happens to have a HS proc at that time, all the better. This is why you will see things like FireBlast after the main nuke. Normally, it is unreachable except during movement.
Honestly Kavan, I wasn't even expecting AB spam to be more DPS, so even though the difference is minuscule, this is still good news in my book. But I totally agree that this is not the optimum solution for arcane playstyle. I don't expect arcane to go back to the glorious days of pre 2.4, but 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1 (rinse repeat until boss dies) is certainly not how I imagined arcane would turn out to be !
You are misunderstanding Kavan's meaning, ABSpam4MBAM is cast Arcane Blast until Missile Barrage Procs, then cast Arcane Missiles with 4 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff. So it's similar to the current burn rotation. However, the chance of a noticible Missile Barrage proc after your 4th Arcane Blast is 78.4%, so chances are you will be doing ABx4 AM most of the time.
Originally Posted by Crowl
If you have to control a robot dinosaur that fires lazers and there's a time when you shouldn't be shooting those lazers then the encounter is clearly flawed beyond hope of fixing.
This could start to sound an awful lot like a ranged combo point system, which may or may not be a good direction for the tree.
Honestly if you think about it Arcane already uses a simplified version of the combo point system. You are basically using arcane blast to build combo points and Arcane Missiles as a finisher. It would add some complexity if arcana barrage applied a dot or a debuff that only affects your attacks.
Originally Posted by Vontre
Protip: I don't actually raid on my mage, it's more fun to make spreadsheets.
The numbers that Kavan has posted sound very promising. I really hope that arcane becomes the go to single target damage spec. I'd still like to see some of the talents get condensed a bit, maybe throw in some sort of a group buff, and most of all I'd like to see ABar be part of the rotation somehow. Being a two button class isn't exactly what I had in mind for arcane but unfortunately I can't think of any way that Blizz could possibly accomplish incorporating ABar into the rotation other than making ABar provide some sort of short term self buff like the way conflag works for warlocks.
I've made some further analysis. I've spoken too soon before about AB spam being the dps rotation. That will actually not be the case. Instead what will happen is we won't use Evocation. Only if ABSpam4MBAM can be sustained without using Evocation will AB spam come into play.
I've made some further analysis. I've spoken too soon before about AB spam being the dps rotation. That will actually not be the case. Instead what will happen is we won't use Evocation. Only if ABSpam4MBAM can be sustained without using Evocation will AB spam come into play.
Can I just clarify what you mean by this. Though Arcane Blast spam is slightly higher dps it will require you to use an evocation every two minutes which is 6+ seconds of not dpsing. Though ABspam4MBAM is slightly lower dps than Arcane Blast spam we will not need to Evocate every 2 minutes, gaining 6 seconds of dps time and thus increasing overall damage.
Is ABspam4MBAM really so sustainable it will put is closer to Fire in terms of choosing when to Evocate?
If I misrepresented the effect of the trinket, please let me know and I'll delete the post. I have it so I'll try it out on the PTR tonight and confirm.
Nope, you're understanding it correctly, that's exactly how it works.
One (nitpicking) comment though, on my charactar it lowers the base mana cost by 41, no idea why, since the trinket doesn't state it'll lower up to 42, or something similar.
Is ABspam4MBAM really so sustainable it will put is closer to Fire in terms of choosing when to Evocate?
The MPS values would suggest that it is the case, using Rawr 2.2.12 the AB3AM cycle which we know is sustainable comes in at 157 MPS. Given that using Kavan's numbers the ABSpam4MBAM comes in at 129 MPS, it would indicate that Evocation would become a strategic (long term) decision not a tactical (short term) one.
The Mage theme song.
<+icesurfer> this is the fucking security industry; if you want ethics, join the Red Cross
Is ABspam4MBAM really so sustainable it will put is closer to Fire in terms of choosing when to Evocate?
AB spam then 4MBAM is actually very sustainable, it feels very much the same as fire and if you choose to use MBAM as soon as it procs regardless of your AB stack or if you choose to continue gattling AM until the procs fades because of 4p8.5 your actually recovering mana! Raiding Ony 10 on the PTR I was with 2 pallies for kings and wisdom (not imp.), a druid for GotW and one of the above pallies was ret so we also had replenishment. Wearing full 8.5 gear I had roughly 25k mana and 337 mp5 while casting and had no issues with mana. It was very possible to do ABspam4MBAM and not depending on evocation.
EDIT: Deleted useless info
Last edited by darkstrike01 : 08/15/09 at 3:37 PM.
Can I just clarify what you mean by this. Though Arcane Blast spam is slightly higher dps it will require you to use an evocation every two minutes which is 6+ seconds of not dpsing. Though ABspam4MBAM is slightly lower dps than Arcane Blast spam we will not need to Evocate every 2 minutes, gaining 6 seconds of dps time and thus increasing overall damage.
Is ABspam4MBAM really so sustainable it will put is closer to Fire in terms of choosing when to Evocate?
I think you're reading it the wrong way and mix up the conclusions. Assume you use AB4MBAM and finish the fight with 0 mana.
Having read your post two more times, you may actually have understood him correctly, I just can't figure it out from your wording.
ABSpam is a 2% DPS increase and a 400 MPS loss when used. Evocation is a 100% DPS loss and 4000 MPS gain (roughly) when used. That means that if you channel mana gains from Evocation into more ABSpam, you'll end up losing damage, with these kind of numbers.
5s of Evocation allow 50s more ABSpam. You lose 100% for 5s to gain 2% for 50s. So you lose 5 times as much as you gain, it's not worth using Evocation just to feed into ABSpam. That's what he meant.
You still use Evocation if you lack the mana for AB4MBAM, and you still use ABSpam if you have mana left to burn, but you won't use Evocation and ABSpam in the same fight.
You are misunderstanding Kavan's meaning, ABSpam4MBAM is cast Arcane Blast until Missile Barrage Procs, then cast Arcane Missiles with 4 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff. So it's similar to the current burn rotation. However, the chance of a noticible Missile Barrage proc after your 4th Arcane Blast is 78.4%, so chances are you will be doing ABx4 AM most of the time.
No, I don't misunderstand what he is saying. But with the recent change of AB having 40% chance to proc MBAM, what do you think are the chances of MBAM not being up by the 4th stack? 0.6 ^ 4 = 0.12, which is 10%. So, yes, 10% of the time MBAM won't proc before the 4th stack, but for the majority of the time, it will be ABx4MBAM fixed rotation throughout.
But even worse is what's below.
Originally Posted by Kavan
I've made some further analysis. I've spoken too soon before about AB spam being the dps rotation. That will actually not be the case. Instead what will happen is we won't use Evocation. Only if ABSpam4MBAM can be sustained without using Evocation will AB spam come into play.
Welcome to the age of mindless rotation for arcane. I am not to QQ though since it will be fun to razzle dazzle people in heroics with 10k dps on bosses through AB spam (That is if I was still playing !)
Welcome to the age of mindless rotation for arcane. I am not to QQ though since it will be fun to razzle dazzle people in heroics with 10k dps on bosses through AB spam
It is in fact unfortunate that few mages will complain about how terrible arcane will be if this goes through unchanged. It's TBC warlock but without lifetap to break up the monotony.
This is the inevitable result, however, when they make mana not a concern for a spec built around "you don't want to spam this one spell because it costs too much mana." They were better off keeping the spec teetering on the edge of mana, requiring you to react to changing mana parameters (3.0.8 arcane) with a combination of four spells (treating AM and MBAM as two separate spells here.)
Arcane isn't well-suited, especially in the absence of ABarr, to being a carefree-with-mana spec because all of its complexity was built into its detailed mana management. While there is a very little bit yet, a difference of 2% if you guess wrong (and that's if you guess wrong for the *whole fight*) is extremely minimal and doesn't count as a functional difference rewarding (or punishing) your skill level and attention.
I will continue to hope they either nerf it to below the level of fire, or spend the time to add several spells to create some rotational complexity. They can bring back Abarr, for example, with a PvE flavor to add rotational value. I'm not sure what else they could do without introducing another spell, especially since AM without MB will never be a choice, but there might be something. They also could re-tweak the mana values so it's not as obvious that you should just keep hitting MB.
Because as much fun as it may seem now...: I played a warlock in TBC. It's not fun to top the meters with a single spell.
I will continue to hope they either nerf it to below the level of fire, or spend the time to add several spells to create some rotational complexity.
With the difference being as small as 3%, no Fire mages are going to be forced into Arcane simply on account of dps. It's a much smaller gap than is currently the case between Fire and Arcane. Add to this the fact Arcane has no raid utility where as Fire brings 5% crit to the raid and this somewhat evens things out. You'll still want a fire mage doing 3% less dps because he'll bring the raid 5% crit. On fights with multiple targets, AoE or spell interupts Fire is still likely to fare better due to it's DOT capalities through Living Bomb and Ignite and multi-target Living Bomb for AoE.
As a spec with zero utility Arcane SHOULD be slightly ahead of fire in DPS. I will agree simplifying the playstyle isn't fun, but as a suffering Arcane Mage I can tell you being 10% behind Fire isn't fun either in a raid environment. This is a fix to make sure Arcane remains competitive. We likely won't see the complexity re-introduced until the next expansion when they have chance to make the bigger changes that Arcane needs to ensure it scales.
08/14/09, 6:48 PM
(That is if I was still playing !)
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