The Arcane thread - Page 171

Radubadu · 08/19/09, 9:59 AM

Originally Posted by Nepenthes1

Surely that's exactly what GC is saying they won't do..

Fire is the steady DPS spec, you know what you'll get in most fights just doing the optimum rotation.

Arcane will sometimes blow fire away when the planets align (cooldowns, mana management). However when things aren't in your favour, or you mess up your rotation/mana management, you'll be penalised and end up well down on fire..

For me if they can achieve that i'll be happy. It gives you a chance to think about what you're doing, and optimise your play for a specific fight, which is what most arcane mages find fun. Those that just want steady good DPS with raid utility will have fire to use.

It's also quite clear this is all very much a work in progress, and we'll see arcane change alot on PTR over the next few weeks.

Are you talking about the PTR? I can't imagine messing up the rotation as things stand now, hit one button 4 times followed by different button the fifth time, rinse and repeat. I also can't see messing up mana management, when you're about 4000 mana under your max use your first mana gem and everytime it's up afterwards, paying attention to that shouldn't be that difficult given the simplicity of the rotation. The only "difficulty" with mana management is knowing the fights well enough to time evoc for the ideal time for you to not be casting for 6 seconds. Those things coupled with the decrease in cost for AB and MB I just don't see it being that difficult.

I'm not trying to argue, just wondering if I'm missing something. I switched to Arcane from FFB a while ago to see what it was all about and everything I read or was told by other mages on my server was that aside from higher dps it presented more of a challenge. Frankly after a week of familiarizing myself with it I was bored and only stuck with it because it put me closer to or at the top of the dps charts.

Kandir · 08/19/09, 10:00 AM

Originally Posted by Maje

Now we have a new quote, I can understand it ralated to FFB perhaps but it seems he doesn't know that fire mages (fire/ttw) have no cooldowns, Combustion isn't taken in the fire spec since the start of Ulduar.

Perhaps he was referring to timing "on use" effects together with molten fury *shrug*.

Roywyn · 08/19/09, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Maje

Now we have a new quote, I can understand it ralated to FFB perhaps but it seems he doesn't know that fire mages (fire/ttw) have no cooldowns, Combustion isn't taken in the fire spec since the start of Ulduar.

That's a problem with combustion though. The Fireball cast before Combustion is cast consumes one of the three crit charges if it crits - a latency/server/process/technical bug. Combustion itself scales negatively with crit - and we're in a world of close to 70% crit now. And I think there still is Ignite munching on double crits of Fireball+Pyroblast which happens more often during Combustion. Combustion is a nice cooldown for entry-level players, but it fades out pretty fast with its bugs and negative scaling. It is still used for Frostfire and synergises well with trinkets - which in turn synergise with Icy Veins which then synergises with Heroism.

Tweaking numbers to perhaps 5 crits, or changing it like [Elemental Mastery] or making it increase crit damage as well would help getting this button back. Fixing the bugs would help too, but those timing bugs are pretty ugly to fix if it's possible at all.

And like Chunga said, there is also Molten Fury to consider for timing purposes. Maybe his reasoning also included Flame Caps! *cough*

Lhivera · 08/19/09, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Maje

Now we have a new quote, I can understand it ralated to FFB perhaps but it seems he doesn't know that fire mages (fire/ttw) have no cooldowns, Combustion isn't taken in the fire spec since the start of Ulduar.

I think he may have been using "cooldowns" in a sense that includes "timers," meaning he's talking partly about the matter of maintaining Living Bomb and the Scorch debuff.

It's also entirely possible that this was sort of a "vision" post, and implies more about where Fire is going than where it is now.

Neos300 · 08/19/09, 11:00 AM

Question - a resto druid in our guild just got our guild's first Val'anyr completed. This being the case, and with Fire and Arcane being competitive in 3.2.2 it seems, would it be a "no brainer" to use an Arcane Incanter's Absorption spec? What about currently? How does the existence of that mace factor into the equation here? I would think between that and a disc priest, there should be a lot of bubble uptime, plus fire and frost ward on fights that require that.

Morthoul · 08/19/09, 11:25 AM

remove please

Noshei · 08/19/09, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Neos300

Question - a resto druid in our guild just got our guild's first Val'anyr completed. This being the case, and with Fire and Arcane being competitive in 3.2.2 it seems, would it be a "no brainer" to use an Arcane Incanter's Absorption spec? What about currently? How does the existence of that mace factor into the equation here? I would think between that and a disc priest, there should be a lot of bubble uptime, plus fire and frost ward on fights that require that.

This is very depentend on the fight, there s to be dmg that you re ting for it to matter. Fights like Razor or general or even yogg wouldnt be very good for incanters. Though I do see it being use full in a lot of other fights. It could be a good reason to look at more stm gear for mages as well

Nepenthes1 · 08/19/09, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by Radubadu

Are you talking about the PTR? I can't imagine messing up the rotation as things stand now, hit one button 4 times followed by different button the fifth time, rinse and repeat. I also can't see messing up mana management, when you're about 4000 mana under your max use your first mana gem and everytime it's up afterwards, paying attention to that shouldn't be that difficult given the simplicity of the rotation. The only "difficulty" with mana management is knowing the fights well enough to time evoc for the ideal time for you to not be casting for 6 seconds. Those things coupled with the decrease in cost for AB and MB I just don't see it being that difficult.

I'm not trying to argue, just wondering if I'm missing something. I switched to Arcane from FFB a while ago to see what it was all about and everything I read or was told by other mages on my server was that aside from higher dps it presented more of a challenge. Frankly after a week of familiarizing myself with it I was bored and only stuck with it because it put me closer to or at the top of the dps charts.

No i'm talking about where i think they want us to end up.. I don't really see the PTR as relevant at present as it's a work in progress. What is on there now will not go live, it's the start of the process. My comments are based on the latest long winded blue post on where they want Arcane mages to end up for 3.2.2.. which clearly isn't where the current PTR is.

Phatpharm · 08/19/09, 1:41 PM

In a less mana-starved environment, which 3.2.2 is offering, it may be in the interest of Arcane mages to use partial evocates. Issue has always been that you don't need the evo when your IV is at 1sec left, so you wait to have a second round of "haste" which can be a hair long depending on what fight it is. Obviously we want to limit the length of our "zero dps time". Anyone with [Scale of Fates] or regularly uses Speed pots have another window of potential double haste (as well as Bloodlust obviously) to create a very hasted evo.

It is annoying how they all only ever sync up once, but we do potentially have 4 sources of "on-demand haste". It is nice, however, that the Scales and Evo CDs match perfectly.

Neos300 · 08/19/09, 2:03 PM

Originally Posted by Noshei

This is very depentend on the fight, there s to be dmg that you re ting for it to matter. Fights like Razor or general or even yogg wouldnt be very good for incanters. Though I do see it being use full in a lot of other fights. It could be a good reason to look at more stm gear for mages as well

I understand it's dependent on the fight, but most fights have some sort of incoming raid damage. Patchwerk is unlikely to occur again. Even other tank and spank burn fights like Brutallus had some sort of raid damage to worry about. I'm just wondering if the Val'anyr proc makes it worth using an Incanter's Absorption spec over a regular Arcane spec on a regular basis. How much dps would you lose going to IA spec vs. how much would you make up from Val'anyr procs + the fire ward, frost ward, mana shield (lol) and disc priest shields?

Noshei · 08/19/09, 2:37 PM

Originally Posted by Neos300

I understand it's dependent on the fight, but most fights have some sort of incoming raid damage. Patchwerk is unlikely to occur again. Even other tank and spank burn fights like Brutallus had some sort of raid damage to worry about. I'm just wondering if the Val'anyr proc makes it worth using an Incanter's Absorption spec over a regular Arcane spec on a regular basis. How much dps would you lose going to IA spec vs. how much would you make up from Val'anyr procs + the fire ward, frost ward, mana shield (lol) and disc priest shields?

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...&version=10192

That is the spec I would go with to get incanters. I like the threat reduction, but its not needed and I usually dont take it anyways. The range you lose can be tough, but its not going to do anything to your dps over all. Its really a trade off of utility talents or the added dps from incanters, the choice comes down to if you think it is worth it. I dont think I'll go incanters unless I can do some good testing to prove that its worth it. (have to look at logs on how much i absord per fight as well.

Phatpharm · 08/19/09, 3:11 PM

Originally Posted by Neos300

I understand it's dependent on the fight, but most fights have some sort of incoming raid damage. Patchwerk is unlikely to occur again. Even other tank and spank burn fights like Brutallus had some sort of raid damage to worry about. I'm just wondering if the Val'anyr proc makes it worth using an Incanter's Absorption spec over a regular Arcane spec on a regular basis. How much dps would you lose going to IA spec vs. how much would you make up from Val'anyr procs + the fire ward, frost ward, mana shield (lol) and disc priest shields?

My spec doesn't lose any DPS, as long as you aren't dropping your rotation due to lack of mana. No DPS talents were sacrificed (although no push-back protection, this could be tinkered with some) just lost a point in Arcane Med. There may be two more points in there to play with come 3.2.2. Some would pick up the resistance talent, but depending on the frequency of absorbs, you lose quite a bit from the partial resists coming before the shielding.

epoh · 08/19/09, 3:42 PM

And a nice follow-up from GC (!!!)

"Indeed, I write most of my posts from the point of view of designer intent, not a description of what is going on in the game. I assume most of you know what is going on in the game, and any direct discussions therein tend to lead to arguments about how numbers are measured or who is or is not out of touch. (Case in point when I say we are happy with Fire mage damage). My point was that we don’t want Fire / Frostfire to have to worry about mana to the extent that Arcane does. Arcane is more about pacing. Fire is more about responding to what is going on in the fight. That is not to say that Arcane should run OOM constantly or that Fire has an unalienable right to infinite mana. Try not to take my comments to illogical extremes.

When I say we want Fire to be about cooldowns, I meant that lining up your spells at the right time is the hallmark of a great Fire mage. I know a lot of players will say either LOL mages just spam one button, or else LOL mage dps is entirely RNG. I don’t believe either to be true, and the evidence supporting this conclusion is that there are mages who can do much higher damage than other mages, consistently and with similar gear. This suggests there is a much higher skill component to mage dps than even some mages want to acknowledge. A lot of that skill component for Fire / Frostfire comes in doing things at the right time (which we hope to contrast with Arcane and ultimately Frost).

What those things are you are supposed to manage come in several tiers: first are Scorch, Living Bomb and Hot Streak. Yes Hot Streak has an RNG component, but not entirely so. Players still have some control over it.

Second are things like Icy Veins, Combustion, Molten Fury, trinkets and even things like Flame Caps. Yes, I know that both Fire and Frostfire mages don’t always take all of those talents. A note on Combustion in a minute.

Third are more external cooldowns like say Bloodlust and Power Infusion. Yes, other classes benefit from these too. But mages can inflate their damage dramatically when they line these up with their other cooldowns. In the BC days, a mage who really focused on that last 20% of a fight could see their dps nearly double. (I acknowledge this was a bigger factor when Combustion was a bigger contributor.)

Fourth are factors that have less of an effect overall. I’m talking about things like PoM and Firestarter (not included in most raiding builds), and Focus Magic and Torment the Weak (not trivial, but generally up nearly all the time too).

Combustion isn’t good enough right now. We get that. Fire used to be more about cooldown stacking when Combustion meant more. The problem is that we’re happy with Fire damage. We don’t generally like to nerf a spec in order to buff a talent unless things are really, really off. We’ll eventually (3.3?) fix Combustion, because it’s a fun talent. But we aren’t going to do it in such a way that just grants some “free dps” unless of course mages need it at that time. If you disagree that Fire is performing well, then I can understand how you’d disagree with our course of action here. "

(Bolded by me.)

gaerthe · 08/20/09, 1:12 PM

GC spent a lot of time yesterday responding to specific forum posts including ones from Kyth and Enthorn. While he didn't say anything specific about buffs or nerfs, I thought it was very enlightening about their long-term plans for mages.

Specifically, he mentioned

- scorch may be too large of a penalty
- combustion needs work without generally buffing mage damage
- fire should be about CD management and arcane should be about mana management (and frost is about pvp)
- they consider external CDs (power infusion, bloodlust/hero, flamecaps, trinkets, potions) to be viable mage CDs for increasing dps

While he didn't give any specific answers, it gave me a better feeling that they do "get it", but none of the mage problems/weaknesses are game breaking and demand immediate attention.

Regarding flamecaps, does anyone get the feeling that these are an unintended side-effect of separating the mana gem and healthstones from the same CD? Since they're on a 2 min CD (not a one per fight), I can go through a significant number in a single night. In WotLK, Blizzard made a strong effort to remove the need to farm raid consumables, but now that I can use flamecaps, I need to spend significant time farming them. This just seems to go completely against their design intent.

Pakostevens · 08/20/09, 2:43 PM

Was there ever any talk of them or someone suggested to them of creating mage-only bop conjured items similar to flame caps. I was thinking something like the warlocks "Create Firestone" but instead of applying it to your weapon it would be a cooldown based duration buff.

One example would be create spellstone.
Spellstone
Bind on pick up
Use: increases spell power by 60 & critical strike chance by 1%. Lasts 1 min. (3 Min Cooldown)
3 Charges

We would then have a choice of using a spellstone or a mana stone on available.