I can do great dmg as FFB, the problem is the RNG on getting the buffs. If i get Storm Power during frozen blows, my MI will die and I'll have no way to drop threat cause I can't invis. I can invis as Arcane no matter what, sounds convenient.
This was the original topic of Invis on Hodir.
We all quickly pointed out that the MI dying doesn't matter. 30 seconds is what matters.
But then people seemed to misunderstand the situation.
Originally Posted by ash2ash
If you cast invisibility while he is channeling flash freeze you shouldn't take damage unless you fail at dodging icicles.
Yes, but that isn't what he said, or what I said.
There are five relevant abilities to Invis on Hodir:
Flash Freeze
Frozen Blows
Biting Cold
Freeze
Icicles (the things falling from the sky)
If you cast invis while he is channeling Flash Freeze and you go invis before it finishes, you will be safe. Unless, as ash2ash stated, you fail at icicles
If you cast invis during Frozen Blows....YOU WERE WRONG. You will not go completely invisible because you WILL take damage. This is the issue that Zerstorung originally brought up, but was incorrect to be worried about as a result of MI mechanics.
Biting Cold is always present, unless you are in range of a Toasty Fire (I have a nice Power Auras indicator for Toasty Fire, and I strongly recommend this). If you cast invis while you are not in range of a Toasty Fire, you can't stop moving and all will be well.
Regarding Freeze, I'm not sure if he has a max range on this one. I know there is a 10yard range, but I can't tell if it is a targeted ability with a 10yard range around the target; I am pretty sure it is targeted. If he doesn't have a max range, well that is pure rng and yeah, you can get screwed. If he does have a max range (of reasonably small size) take advantage of that. Keep in mind he can't cast Freeze while channeling Flash Freeze.
Icicles...just don't get hit by them...it isn't hard (turn projected textures on, they hardly affect performance and they are very useful).
The lesson here: use invis smartly, but you might have to MI if Frozen Blows is going on.
I dont think you understood what I was saying. I was asking why people only go 2/3 instead of 3/3.
Ahhh, my bad.
This may be better answered by somebody who actually specs into arcane, let alone 2/3 into IA. But I'll take a stab at it until somebody calls me wrong.
2/3 points allows 10% of absorbed damage to become spell damage, while 3/3 applies 15% of absorbed damage into spell damage. But BOTH 2/3 and 3/3 are capped at 5% of your hp. So if you are absorbing 50% of your hp, that third point won't do you any good.
Let's say you have 20,000 health, 5% of your health is 1,000. If you absorb 10,000 damage with 2/3 IA you will gain 1,000 spell power, and nothing will be reduced by the 5% hp cap. On the other hand if you absorb the same 10,000 damage with 3/3 IA you will still only gain 1,000 spell power, and 500 will be wasted as a result of the 5% hp cap.
Now I know that a well geared mage ttw/fire will only be absorbing in the neighborhood of 4500 damage (spellpower * 0.807 + 1950) using their frost/fire wards. But if you add on top of that priest shields you are going to get to 10,000 damage quite easily. An arcane mage will have significantly higher spell power (300-400) than a ttw/fire mage as a result of Mind Mastery and Arcane Mind. So for an arcane mage the absorption from their wards will increase somewhat, thus the necessary absorption from priest shields will decrease.
Now if you aren't getting priest shields to work towards your IA then we have an entirely different situation.
I dont think you understood what I was saying. I was asking why people only go 2/3 instead of 3/3.
I have a simpler answer for you. Yes there's a cap, but most arcane mages are simply limited on extra points, and it's hard to find more than 2 extra points to use in the tree for this situational talent. I know I had the same issue when speccing arcane, even dropping the hit talents, there's not many extra points to go around in arcane without losing the DPS talents. (which work 100% of the time, contrary to IA that is only sometimes usefull)
I would like to propose a question that I am unable to answer simply because I don't know how to do the appropriate calculations.
With an Arcane spec possessing 3/3 IA, would it be more beneficial (on appropriate fights) to use a Mighty <element here> Protection Potion?
(Note: these potions absorb 4200-6000 damage over 2 minutes)
Take for example the following situations:
Assume: 20000 HP, therefore 0.05 x 20000 = 1000. 1000 SP = MAX +SP from IA.
4200 x 0.15 = 630SP, 6000 x 0.15 = 900SP;
AVERAGE SP ABSORBED: 5100 x 0.15 = 765SP
1) General Vezax, use a Shadow Protection potion (and even a PW:S but not necessary) and absorb a significant portion of a shadow crash. Result: +765 SP for 10 seconds, which in a shadow crash is theoretically equivalent to much longer than 10 seconds.
2) Yogg Saron, use a Shadow Protection potion (and even a PW:S but not necessary) and absorb the gazes in phase 3. Result: +765 SP for 10 seconds (*NOTE: could potentially be a smaller +SP buff but with a refreshed duration, i.e. potion not being consumed on the first gaze and thus refreshing the buff later on)
3) Hodir, use a Frost Protection potion (as well as PW:S and FrW) to provide a "buffer" for additional frost damage to be absorbed when FrW/PW:S have been consumed and/or on cooldown. This would allow for rolling IA buff refreshes.
Similar techniques for: Ignis, Razorscale, Deconstructor, Kologarn, Iron Council, Thorim, Mimiron, Freya (Virtually every other Ulduar boss encounter?)
It is my assumption that +500SP over 15 seconds is comparable to +500 Haste Rating over 15 seconds, so I wonder whether + ~765SP over 10 seconds (or less SP over longer duration via refreshing IA, see: Yogg/Hodir) is more effective than, equal to, or less effective than a Potion of Speed.
EDIT: I recognize that consuming a Potion of Speed in combination with Arcane Power allows one to cast more spells while AP is active, however, an additional +765SP would allow for each spell cast during AP to hit even harder which might result in more total damage than the benefit of being able to cast significantly more...
It is my assumption that +500SP over 15 seconds is comparable to +500 Haste Rating over 15 seconds, so I wonder whether + ~765SP over 10 seconds (or less SP over longer duration via refreshing IA, see: Yogg/Hodir) is more effective than, equal to, or less effective than a Potion of Speed.
Don't forget that those 500sp might get spread about more than 15 seconds.
Situation: You have a +500sp IA buff and the buff has 10 seconds left.
Now you get a new absorb (from powerword shield, or your ward). Now the old +500 over 10 (remaining) seconds change to a +333,3sp over 15seconds buff (plus the new damage from the absorb).
Don't forget that in your cooldown stacking calculation.
I honestly think 3/3 IA is the way to go. The 5% HP cap is certainly gear / raid dependent, as even with my gear I can break 25k with imp commanding shout, and it will only get higher.
Doing hard-modes, our priest(s) are more than happy to help maximize my DPS, and being warded / shielded means I really don't have to care about Arcane Stability. 0/5 allows full threat\hit\efficiency talents and 3/3 IA easily. (and that 40% threat really shines fully proc'd at 4100sp)
The protection potions are a great idea, as there are many situations where I have a crazy amount of haste through gimmicks / heroism / IV and feel that a haste pot is giving very limited returns. There are many fights that it is nice to use during AP when IV is on CD, or to massively haste an Evo and get your 3 stack back up fast.
*edit*
Response to Hotan: I could use it for the spellpower, but the crit bonus would mostly be lost. If I had the bulk of my gear with haste and shed some crit it would seem more appealing.
Last edited by Phatpharm : 06/15/09 at 1:25 AM.
Reason: response
It is my assumption that +500SP over 15 seconds is comparable to +500 Haste Rating over 15 seconds, so I wonder whether + ~765SP over 10 seconds (or less SP over longer duration via refreshing IA, see: Yogg/Hodir) is more effective than, equal to, or less effective than a Potion of Speed.
I don't have the math done to back up my opinion yet . . . but I'm pretty sure that +500sp and +500 Haste don't scale the same way, and therefore cannot be comparable. I hope someone has done the math and can either prove me right or wrong, as it would help to know in planning cd cycles.
Well... it still doesn't seem enough to fix the arcane problem. 12% seems to be not enough to put it up in competition with fire.
Anyhow, this seems to be a response to replenishment nerf (you'll get 1% of your max mana every 5 sec instead of every 4).
The arcane change is welcome of course, especially given the stacking nature of the spell - 12% amounts to a fair amount of mana at higher stacks. I'd love a mage Q&A though so I could ask why there is no Arcane talent available to provide the 5% crit buff that every other spec of mage brings. I was hoping this would be addressed this patch. I can't think of a single reason for withholding it.
Let's put it simple: you're using the wrong spells at the wrong time or wrong spells altogether.
For a start: use AB, stack to 3 and use AM. Flush and repeat. PoM-FB/FFB is nice to use, but PoM AB(2) works as well to get the stack up faster. Don't scorch. ABar is only useful if you have really low latency and good reactions/timing to replace AM if Missle Barrage did not proc.
And get yourself a new weapon and get rid of that Meta and replace it with Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (21crit + 3% crit damage)
Quotes from the Mage Q&A thread that are relevant to Arcane PvE:
Community Team: The next few questions concern the number-one issue raised by mages on the forums as of late: mana efficiency.
Mana Gem and Evocation are commonly referred to as outdated mechanics. Many players feel the Mana Gem does not restore enough mana and should not be placed on the same cooldown with a warlock’s Healthstone, while Evocation has too lengthy a cooldown and is typically not a reliable means of acquiring mana during boss fights.
Q: How do you view these mechanics, and are there any intentions of updating mana recovery capabilities for mages in the future? A: Our general philosophy, in a very broad sense, is that healers risk running out of mana if they aren’t careful or are in over their heads, but that damage-dealing specs generally have enough mana to do their jobs. That doesn’t mean that you never need to burn a gem or use Evocation, but it does mean that if you are being reasonable about what you’re doing that you should have enough mana except perhaps on very long or unusual fights. What we are more likely to do is just lower the mana costs of the main nukes: Arcane Blast, Fireball, Frostbolt, and Frostfire Bolt.
A quick fix if you will. I personally don't mind having to use mana gems or evocation (though six seconds of downtime is never fun). I'd like Evoction as some kind of buff that doesn't require us to be rooted to the spot however. That's the ancient, outdated mechanic. Reducing the cost of Arcane Blast isn't going to reduced the amount we evocate. Arcane mages will just be more aggressive in their rotations. They'll still be evocating every two minutes.
Community Team: Now let’s jump to some questions about specific talent specs.
Firstly, the Arcane tree is widely considered too bloated. It seems that, over time, the talent trees of all classes have really evolved to provide plenty of different options with fewer five-point talents to allow for greater customization. There are several flavorful talents in the Arcane tree (i.e. Student of the Mind, Magic Absorption, Magic Attunement, Incanter’s Absorption, etc.), but many players feel that they cannot afford to spend points in such places since many of the most necessary damage-dealing talents require five points.
Q: How do you feel about revitalizing the Arcane tree to thin out some of these five-point talents? A: Arcane is a little bloated. If you take all of the damage and mana talents there aren’t many left to spend on the more fun or cool talents. We recognize that it’s hard, for instance, to have a single Arcane build that can work in both PvE and PvP. To be clear though this is a problem with several of the talent trees and not a problem with Arcane alone. If you look at say the warrior Protection tree or the paladin Retribution tree, those provide a model for where we’d like to take talent trees in the future – fewer talents overall and plenty of points to spend on fun play-style choices that really do feel optional rather than talents you need to make your spec function. Also note that fixing some mage mana issues might make some of the mana talents feel less mandatory.
First of all, I don't want a spec that's viable both in PvP and PvE. That's what my dual spec is for. But yes, Arcane is too bloated. Arcane mages have to choose between pushback protection, additional spirit and additional spellpower on absorption, all talents that amount to a dps increase. Fire and frostfire mages don't find themselves in the same situation. They can spec into other trees while still picking up all the dps increasing talents in their own. Even if 5 points were to be freed up in Arcane we wouldn't be able to pick up the 'fun' talents such as instant invis. We'd still be picking up dps increasing talents.
And reducing the mana cost of arcane spells isn't the answer to freeing up talents. Reducing these huge 5 point talents is so our tree has the same amount of talent points as other mage trees.
Q: Is threat generation from Fire mages a concern at all given their burst damage is controlled mostly by proc talents and critical chance? A: Threat-generation is a concern. One way we’d like to fix this is through Invisibility. We’ve always been a little cautious with making sure the spell wasn’t too powerful, but we think we have plenty of room to improve it. In PvE for example, it’s really hit and miss whether you’ll take damage that will prevent the threat wipe. Do remember that Mirror Image is quite useful as a threat-reduction spell. Your threat is divided among the images while it’s active. Sometimes it makes sense to blow the spell right at the start of a fight, and other times when you get a spell buff or are otherwise able to go into really high damage mode for a few seconds.
Really can't complain about this - the patch notes tell us this one is going through. There's nothing worse than getting dangerously high on threat during a period of consistent AoE damage where your only option is to stop dps. Having to do nothing for three seconds while you waited for invis to kick in was enough of a punishment (when warlocks and hunters could do the same thing instantly). Having it interupted by damage to you a needless addition.
I have to agree with some of the comments I've read though. Why not just make it instant? What's the obsession with mages having to stop dps for utility. We have to stand rooted to the spot to regain mana and we have to suffer 3 seconds of invisibility fade time as well as those extra seconds to break invis and retarget the boss just to drop threat. Instant invis really wouldn't be such a terrible idea (though Arcane PvP would lose one of its perks).
Let's put it simple: you're using the wrong spells at the wrong time or wrong spells altogether.
For a start: use AB, stack to 3 and use AM. Flush and repeat. PoM-FB/FFB is nice to use, but PoM AB(2) works as well to get the stack up faster. Don't scorch. ABar is only useful if you have really low latency and good reactions/timing to replace AM if Missle Barrage did not proc.
And get yourself a new weapon and get rid of that Meta and replace it with Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (21crit + 3% crit damage)
Don't forget that focus magic will give you an extra 3% crit when it procs, always put it on the caster in the raid with the highest crit to get the most out of it.
Don't forget that focus magic will give you an extra 3% crit when it procs, always put it on the caster in the raid with the highest crit to get the most out of it.
This is not true. To get the most out of focus magic, from a raid-wide DPS standpoint, you should be buffing the class that gets the most of out it, not just the person who has the highest crit %. Taken from this post:
Originally Posted by Roywyn
Any nuking class who is going all out should give you at the very least 95% uptime with current gear levels.
This is not true. To get the most out of focus magic, you should be buffing the class that gets the most of out it, not just the person who has the highest crit %. Taken from this post:
That's also not true.
To get the best out of focus magic the mages should be circle jerking it so that each mage gets 6% crit and not 3%. The only time I ever cast focus magic on someone other than a mage is if there are no mages in my group.
Selfish perhaps, but your dps will be higher which I assume is what you're aiming for.
To get the best out of focus magic the mages should be circle jerking it so that each mage gets 6% crit and not 3%. The only time I ever cast focus magic on someone other than a mage is if there are no mages in my group.
Selfish perhaps, but your dps will be higher which I assume is what you're aiming for.
No, the aim is to maximize raid-DPS, and that means you should follow that priority list. You will always get 6% raid-Crit from focus magic, not only if you buff other mages.
No, the aim is to maximize raid-DPS, and that means you should follow that priority list. You will always get 6% raid-Crit from focus magic, not only if you buff other mages.
Unless of course you are buffing a healer with it, which I have done on my mage when in a melee heavy 10-man that has a healing priest or holy paladin.
No, the aim is to maximize raid-DPS, and that means you should follow that priority list. You will always get 6% raid-Crit from focus magic, not only if you buff other mages.
You're right about raid-DPS and about calling it 6% raid-crit (apologies for misreading before I edited this correction).
This reply is directed more towards Pasture and other who think circle-jerk FMs are best. The aim as far as I understand with theorycrafting and EJ is to improve raid performance as a whole. For DPS classes this is usually accomplished by increasing personal DPS as more DPS = shorter fights, less stress on healers and tanks etc.
FM does not follow this as directly because it is an individual buff that can only be applied to one out of 10 or 25 players. Roywyn's post shows that there are classes and specs that benefit more from FM than an arcane mage and that FFB and Shadow Priests benefit more than Fireball/TtW. As such, you should be buffing those who benefit the most regardless of whether they are mages if your objective is to help the raid the most. If your sole objective is to wave your e-peen around, by all means, buff the elemental shaman who guarantees that FM will mean 6% crit to you (since Lava Burst is a guaranteed crit when cast on a target that has Flame Shock up). If you read EJ to benefit your raid and provide raid DPS not just buff your own DPS, then follow the suggested order - it's a tiny difference sometimes but it's something that a good mage is well-served to know.
There will always be 6% crit out there - it just won't all be on the mage. If you cast FM on a shaman he'll have 3% and you'll have 3% for the whole fight (100% uptime of the proc part of the buff thanks to Lava Burst). However the benefit of his 3% is not as great as on someone else.
If you cast it on another mage he'll have 3% all the time and you'll have 3% when it procs. If it's a FFB mage the overall benefit is greater than if it was on a shaman and your proc was up 100% of the time. If it's an arcane mage and you're buffing each other then sure you each have 6% when your respective buffs proc, but the overall benefit of having these buffs on your spec is lower than if the two of you had cast it on 2 other players.
It feels silly typing all this out because the basics seem self-evident to me and the list determines who benefits most. It's not hard to understand and frankly circle-jerking it for personal benefit seems to me a lazy choice for someone who reads a theorycrafting site.
It is silly to type it all out. You make a choice with Focus Magic. You buff your own dps or you buff someone elses. We buff ourselves. Selfish? Sure. But then isn't it selfish on the healers not pick up Magic Absorption, or Frost/Fire Ward on every cooldown in elemental AoE fights. We all make a choice between our own dps and the greater raid utility. It's not as sqeaky-clean clear cut as you'd like us to believe, nor does your theorycrafting take into account the gear and skill levels of those benefitting from the buffs. Casting Focus Magic on a very well geared, very skilled, high dps Arcane mage is a better choice than casting Focus Magic on a lower-geared, lower-skilled, low dps shadowpriest. The crit might be more important to the shadowpriest but in this case the greater dps gain comes from giving it the Arcane Mage.
Theorycrafting on this site cares as much, if not more, about personal dps compared to raid dps. Unless your raid is consistently wiping at 1% on a boss then your decision to circle jerk the Focus Magic hasn't been a bad one and your own personal dps is higher. Yay.
Straw man. A discussion of which class/spec benefits most from Focus Magic is meaningless unless you consider all other things, including player skill, equal.
Straw man. A discussion of which class/spec benefits most from Focus Magic is meaningless unless you consider all other things, including player skill, equal.
Very true.
My original comment applied to the topic how Arcane mages do have a talent that is comparable to a fire mages 5% crit, and it's actually a 6% crit, as the previous posts have made clear. True the 6% does not have the same extent of raid utility that improved scorch does, but it's still a useful raid buff.
06/11/09, 1:54 AM
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