Are you sure the misses were yours? I've noticed my Mirror Images miss occasionally in raids (which will generate a yellow Miss message, appearing identical to if you had missed). They appear not to inherit +hit talents, so that may explain it.
They do inherit your +hit, however, they only cast frost or fire spells, which means they are going to be missing 3% hit. I also assume based on my own WWS that they do not benefit from Heroic Presence.
You could take the spreadsheet on the ffb thread first post, and plug your values. It would tell you right away a rough idea of whether or not AB spam is good dps.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
They do inherit your +hit, however, they only cast frost or fire spells, which means they are going to be missing 3% hit. I also assume based on my own WWS that they do not benefit from Heroic Presence.
That doesn't seem to fit. I have 11.89% hit from gear, 3/3 AF, 3/3 EP. That means with a Spriest or Moonkin (which my raid always has) I'd have 20.89% hit. If Mirror Images inherit +hit talents but cast only Frostbolt/Fire Blast, they should still be over the hit cap at 17.89% hit, but they still occasionally miss. Either they're not getting +hit talents or they're not getting +hit from my gear.
From a WWS parse of Patchwerk on Tuesday (thereby eliminating any possibility that the spriest or moonkin may have died): Wow Web Stats
My Mirror Images missed 1 out of 36 Frostbolts and 1 out of 20 Fire Blasts.
Looking at the hit points of bosses in Ulduar, it seems like fights are going to get much longer, which would make mage armor more benefitial, however there will likely be times when you don't need extra mana regen and molten armor would be more benefitial.
Even though Molten Armor glyph provides the best DPS, I am not convinced going forward into the future that it is going to be the most benefitial glyph if you are constantly changing armors.
This leads me to believe that Arcane Power Glyph is the best of both worlds, allows you to choose which type of armor without sacrificing your glyph.
Of course the super hardcore will probably dual spec two arcane builds, which might not be such a bad idea as well, glyphing mage armor and not getting meditation, allowing for full protection on your casts and channels due to pushback.
Looking at the hit points of bosses in Ulduar, it seems like fights are going to get much longer, which would make mage armor more benefitial, however there will likely be times when you don't need extra mana regen and molten armor would be more benefitial.
Even though Molten Armor glyph provides the best DPS, I am not convinced going forward into the future that it is going to be the most benefitial glyph if you are constantly changing armors.
This leads me to believe that Arcane Power Glyph is the best of both worlds, allows you to choose which type of armor without sacrificing your glyph.
Of course the super hardcore will probably dual spec two arcane builds, which might not be such a bad idea as well, glyphing mage armor and not getting meditation, allowing for full protection on your casts and channels due to pushback.
You're speaking of arcane as if it has a constantly declining mana pool, which isn't really true. Whether you'll need mage armor isn't really directly relevant to the fight as if you can last two minutes, you can last the entire fight. Most of the TC at this point suggests that you'd be better off switching to ABx 2 AM for the majority of the fight and running molten than running mage and using a bit more ABx3. The only time that mana gets better as the fight gets shorter is if you can go without any evocate at all, which, as you said, certainly won't be the case based on current boss HPs in Ulduar. Not to mention at the moment it's unsure if mage armor glyph will be changed or what, because currently meditation+mage armor is 100% regen right off the bat.
You're speaking of arcane as if it has a constantly declining mana pool, which isn't really true. Whether you'll need mage armor isn't really directly relevant to the fight as if you can last two minutes, you can last the entire fight. Most of the TC at this point suggests that you'd be better off switching to ABx 2 AM for the majority of the fight and running molten than running mage and using a bit more ABx3. The only time that mana gets better as the fight gets shorter is if you can go without any evocate at all, which, as you said, certainly won't be the case based on current boss HPs in Ulduar. Not to mention at the moment it's unsure if mage armor glyph will be changed or what, because currently meditation+mage armor is 100% regen right off the bat.
That's the point. As you said, if you can last two minutes, you can last forever. It makes more sense to settle for a lower DPS rotation on occasion than it does to give up 5% crit.
That's the point. As you said, if you can last two minutes, you can last forever. It makes more sense to settle for a lower DPS rotation on occasion than it does to give up 5% crit.
For as long as DPM tradeoffs remain as low as they are now, this situation is unlikely to change. Given the current direction of arcane I doubt that DPM tradeoffs will vary a lot in the future.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
For as long as DPM tradeoffs remain as low as they are now, this situation is unlikely to change. Given the current direction of arcane I doubt that DPM tradeoffs will vary a lot in the future.
Does this type of scenario put fireball closer to arcane or even ahead?
If it is close is it also safe to assume that the gear upgrades which favor fireball scaling vs. arcane scaling will put fireball over the top for good?
Does this type of scenario put fireball closer to arcane or even ahead?
If it is close is it also safe to assume that the gear upgrades which favor fireball scaling vs. arcane scaling will put fireball over the top for good?
Spell scaling is just one part of the story. We don't know how the fights work in Ulduar, so the 'viability' (and let me say it pains me to use the term because its soo easy to misinterpret) of any spec is impossible to determine. What we can conclude logically is that a spec that can best adapt to any scenario is guaranteed to have the edge assuming identical dps from both specs. Point being, I believe it is naive to only look at scaling and make conclusions from there.
Furthermore, even if one spec scales better on one given stat, we don't know what the gear will look like in Ulduar. Like it or not, even if the scaling was such that, for example, you were getting uber crazy dps from crit rating, if the gear from Ulduar is low on crit well then you're just shit out of luck. Its simply outside of your control.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Spell scaling is just one part of the story. We don't know how the fights work in Ulduar, so the 'viability' (and let me say it pains me to use the term because its soo easy to misinterpret) of any spec is impossible to determine. What we can conclude logically is that a spec that can best adapt to any scenario is guaranteed to have the edge assuming identical dps from both specs. Point being, I believe it is naive to only look at scaling and make conclusions from there.
Furthermore, even if one spec scales better on one given stat, we don't know what the gear will look like in Ulduar. Like it or not, even if the scaling was such that, for example, you were getting uber crazy dps from crit rating, if the gear from Ulduar is low on crit well then you're just shit out of luck. Its simply outside of your control.
I think you can predict more than you're willing to admit though. Wouldn't it be more logical to assume the scaling will reflect 200->213->226 rather than some drastic new path? In a void, you're correct, but we have years worth of information to draw conclusions from. An educated guess would suggest that a mage in Ulduar gear will perform better with a Fire spec than an Arcane spec. Is it possible that the assumption is wrong? Of course (and I hope it is), but it seems silly to claim that it's impossible to predict.
I think you can predict more than you're willing to admit though. Wouldn't it be more logical to assume the scaling will reflect 200->213->226 rather than some drastic new path? In a void, you're correct, but we have years worth of information to draw conclusions from. An educated guess would suggest that a mage in Ulduar gear will perform better with a Fire spec than an Arcane spec. Is it possible that the assumption is wrong? Of course (and I hope it is), but it seems silly to claim that it's impossible to predict.
It is predictable in a sense.
Any item with spirit will have two main stats. One spellpower the other Crit/Hit/Haste/MP5
Almost every top-tier item will have three stats, exception is listed above.
There were a few other exceptions, like the Wanton pants, that stacked more spellpower. Itemization used to be that you could shop around and focus on one or two areas. The homogenizing of gear has almost destroyed our ability to do that anymore.
There is a distinct "budget" for every item, some seem a hair low, and some seem over. Anything with sockets seemed to be budgeted with the average available gem, and could easily become better than the same iLevel gear with zero sockets.
With all of the new trends, we have to dismiss any budgeting mechanisms from tBC or earlier.
Since arcane has one of the lowest +hit requirements, it will indeed have a harder time trying to stack Haste / SP without soaring over the hit cap.
Any item with spirit will have two main stats. One spellpower the other Crit/Hit/Haste/MP5
Almost every top-tier item will have three stats, exception is listed above.
There were a few other exceptions, like the Wanton pants, that stacked more spellpower. Itemization used to be that you could shop around and focus on one or two areas. The homogenizing of gear has almost destroyed our ability to do that anymore.
There is a distinct "budget" for every item, some seem a hair low, and some seem over. Anything with sockets seemed to be budgeted with the average available gem, and could easily become better than the same iLevel gear with zero sockets.
With all of the new trends, we have to dismiss any budgeting mechanisms from tBC or earlier.
I'd agree that you can't look to before TBC; the "four years" that I sited was relative. The point is that itemization and fight mechanics didn't drastically change between AQ40 and Naxx (though itemization has obviously changed a great deal if you compare them to now).
Regardless, your first two lines are perfectly accurate and that is my point. We know all the variables, thus predicting the gear we will get is not difficult. I agree with Manly that it can be silly to deal in such absolute terms about something we have not seen, but I also think it is fairer than he seems to think. We could all draft up ideas for the stats we feel will be on the Ulduar 25-man gear and none of us would be very far off.
Manly is wary to speak of 'how things will be' both because he's absolutely right in that we can't predict it at all with any degree of certainty, and because what he says tends to get taken as true by a lot of people who lurk these forums (rightly so, a large majority of the time he is right), and to maintain that credibility it behooves him to not partake in musing about how things might be when there's so little information at hand.
To truly model the game, we first must research it. http://zaldinar.wordpress.com/
Proven TheoryCrafting Stuff, chain casting in a PTR near you soon.
Manly is wary to speak of 'how things will be' both because he's absolutely right in that we can't predict it at all with any degree of certainty, and because what he says tends to get taken as true by a lot of people who lurk these forums (rightly so, a large majority of the time he is right), and to maintain that credibility it behooves him to not partake in musing about how things might be when there's so little information at hand.
That's completely fair, but not really the point of the discussion. If itemization stays on course, Fire will scale better than Arcane. We know that. My point is that Arcane scaling should be addressed now, rather than buffing it after it is substandard for an entire patch. Is it possible that itemization is altered in a manner that favors Arcane? Sure, but we're dealing with gear that needs to suit Warlocks and SPriests as well, and thus it seems more logical that correcting Arcane's upcoming path is a better solution than reshaping all cloth itemization.
EJ IS the authority on Theorycrafting, and that can only be done with real formulae.
One can try and use the data at hand for some extrapolating, but the only thing I see so far is that 2/3 trees are getting a 3% buff. Whether this is compensated by "making spirit interesting" or not is anyone's guess. Chances are the devs don't even know.
When you say "fire scales better" did you consider the extra int (and spirit) items may have? Like Manly said, we don't really know how itemization is going to be and therefore it's not very possible to say one spec scales better than the other, considering that they both have stats they scale much better with than others.
On top of that, we still don't know how the final patch notes are going to look like, and even a small change in them can make a big difference regarding which spec is best, as you probably noticed during the last few patches/hotfixes as well as the same trend happening in BC.
My main point never was about spec scaling in accordance to unknown items. My core point has always been that evaluating the 'worthyness' of a spec involves far more than merely looking at its scaling. To give but one exaggerated example: most mages would not spec fire back in pre-tbc because MC and BWL had several fire immune bosses. Much in the same veins, we don't know what the fights will be like, and as such, we can't know whether or not one spec will be the de-facto standard raiding spec. Particularly now that they've put a higher focus on "bring the player, not the class". It means that all specs should have much more close dps to one another, which means that intangible benefits of specs will end up making a big difference on the throughput of the spec vs x boss. And this is where arcane really wins.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
The intangibles are already present between the specs: on fights like Sarth3D I've had to throttle my DPS as fire by not using living bomb to avoid "bad timing" on the explosions that send all the newly spawned whelps or elementals across the battlefield to chew my pretty little face off, making life more difficult for my tank any my healers. There's a similar problem on KT where I can break crowd control and damage a friendly raid member if a bomb goes off at the wrong time. Fire has also been a plus in the past, where in a 10 man Naxx I might not have been able to save a healer or deal with zombies out of place on a kite or prevent one from being eaten if I was arcane without blastwave or dragon's breath.
Immunities aside (since blizzard now frowns on these mechanics in fights) there are other reasons why a spec may or may not be chosen. They've made the specs very close for just this reason, you won't be able to evaluate which one you should be simply by a spreadsheet telling you that in BiS gear your DPS will pull ahead 0.8%. The number of fights where this even matters is really low.
Theorycrafting being what theorcrafting is, the spec that scales the best will be judged with refence to fights like Patchwork. A pure dps race fight. Wasn't it poor scaling that left arcane mages behind in BC once Sunwell hit?
Sure, on high mobility fights like Heigan (and indeed Hodir in Ulduar) arcane specs will have the edge due to the amount of damage they can do on the move. But then that has nothing to do with scaling. It has to do with the fact that arcane can do moderate damage every 3 seconds with an instant cast spell (which itself scales poorly with crit, not at all with haste and not nearly as impressively as it used to with spellpower).
Saying arcane will be 'viable' in high mobility fights does nothing to address the scaling issues of the spec. It merely sets aside the issue as though poorer scaling doesn't matter if the spec gets a fight or two to shine on.
With the dual-spec being as it is now, you don't have to be a specific spec, on high mobility fights use spec1 (say arcane) on other whatever other spec you have prepared. There is no need to homogenize the mage specs, being a DPS class we have the ability to have two PVE specs that can be tailored to the encounters.
Every spec has it's shortcomings, and apart from frost which at the moment isn't even in the picture they are all valid.
Scaling is just one part of the equation, others are fight mechanics and we've only seen 3 out of 14 bossses so far so making conclussions from those is pretty bad, lastly itemization.
While worse scaling might mean that eventually the secc will fall behind but do also remember that as long as it's competitive in existing content that's a non-issue, making all speccs scale equally to infinity is not a very easy task and it's probably much easier to tweak the numbers as we go along.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if fight mechanics and/or itemization can keep a specc with weaker scaling competitive for the current content the scaling doesn't actually matter. It migth matter the content patch after that and that's when tweaks are needed.
If you've been keeping tabs on Rawr.Mage development you've probably noticed that I spent a lot of time recently on improving the advanced solver. Before I didn't want to give any suggestions regarding optimal cooldown stacking, but now Rawr is capable enough to answer the questions.
The problem is still hard and for some scenarios it's not uncommon to spend several hours to get the optimal solution so I wouldn't advise you to try it yourself unless you can let it run for a while in addition to having good understanding about how the solver works.
I have run the solver on test setup for durations between 2-5 minutes. Note that the sequences I'm posting are optimal for this particular setup. While I don't expect much variation in optimal cooldown stacking between different setups I haven't tested this.
Cool. The summary on that seems to be: Use cooldowns whenever they are up, but save them to stack with heroism.
At least, from what I could see it didn't seem to be delaying icy veins 2 to stack with arcane power 3 in any case, although it's too late for me to do math right now, so I can't tell if any of the fight lengths really allow for that choice.
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.
02/26/09, 11:20 AM
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