I would assume however that blizzard will put something in place on abilities like Mimiron's Nuke and Sindragosa's Frost Bomb to prevent them from procing IA, otherwise that's a pretty naive oversight on their behalf.
I do not see why they would change those abilities specifically. Mimiron's rocket will kill you most of the time and it is content that is several tiers behind.
Eating the Sindragosa bomb can net you a damage boost with no real risk. However, the damage boost can mostly be used to destroy the iceblocks faster, which you really don't need and the boss herself takes enough time to land that the bonus will be almost lost by the time you start casting on her.
What you are essentially calling for is for all spells that hit for (vastly) more than wards can absorb to be exempt from procing IA. How big an imbalance do you really expect to see over mages bathing in Sartharion's breath + Shadron debuff?
Would this mean with prodigious use of Guardian Spirit in case frost warding fails to proc, you could gain upward of 35,000 spellpower eating a frost bomb on heroic Sindragosa? I know I've heard of people getting warding procs off of Mimiron rockets and surviving; this seems to be in the same vein, and takes advantage of the uncapped IA.
I was thinking the same.
However, as Jackie points out it might not be a big deal for Sindragosa, and Mimiron is old content (I would still argue it could make difference on Sindragosa). But IA exploits could very well be a concern for future content which will have fire or frost damage involved.
Personally I think they should have kept the HP cap, maybe just increased it somewhat.
There still appears to be a cap on IA spellpower gains. It's just anecdotal at this point but I've been dueling an elemental shaman in Dalaran sewers to test this vs. Lava Burst. A full absorb of 9.8k crit only bumped me up about 600-700 spellpower with 3/3 IA and 19.2k HP.
Has anyone else noticed this behaviour or have any insight into some change/facet I may have overlooked?
There still appears to be a cap on IA spellpower gains. It's just anecdotal at this point but I've been dueling an elemental shaman in Dalaran sewers to test this vs. Lava Burst. A full absorb of 9.8k crit only bumped me up about 600-700 spellpower with 3/3 IA and 19.2k HP.
Has anyone else noticed this behaviour or have any insight into some change/facet I may have overlooked?
On a similar note, it also appears that, while the spellpower gain from Frost Warding still remains, it caps out at the maximum amount of spellpower gained from a regular fire/frost ward absorb. Can anyone else confirm this?
There still appears to be a cap on IA spellpower gains. It's just anecdotal at this point but I've been dueling an elemental shaman in Dalaran sewers to test this vs. Lava Burst. A full absorb of 9.8k crit only bumped me up about 600-700 spellpower with 3/3 IA and 19.2k HP.
Has anyone else noticed this behaviour or have any insight into some change/facet I may have overlooked?
Try a bigger spell? Find a fire mage and have him pop some cooldowns and hit you with a pyroblast?
Well these tests were just 'preliminary'. 9.8k absorbs would boost to well above the 5% cap. It would make sense that it caps out at the maximum Frost/Fire Ward can absorb because even the smaller hits I was taking was bringing me to the same spellpower levels.
On a similar note, it also appears that, while the spellpower gain from Frost Warding still remains, it caps out at the maximum amount of spellpower gained from a regular fire/frost ward absorb. Can anyone else confirm this?
Despite all these valid points, IA is still going to be next to worthless on anything besides sindragosa and possibly deathwhisper, and not worth spec'ing into unless your guild is progressing on those bosses (i spec'd into it just for sindra heroic attempts). Sindra will be the only fight where it stacks up to its fullest, and deathwhisper would be pretty situational.
Has anyone confirmed if IA is still procing from frost warding, and if so is there an unknown cap on the amount of SP you can gain from negated damage?
IA still procs from frost warding, tested on sindragosa yesterday. I need more testing to check if there's a cap but at first glance it looks that the sp gains is capped from warding max absorb. On a side note the fire from Dreadscale on ToGC now procs IA, so something have changed with the spell interactions (at least for me it never happened in ToGC).
Confirmed IA seems to now be proccing off of friendly fire damage. Global Thermal Sapper Charge now grants a spellpower boost when used with Fire Ward aswell.
Resistance and Absorption are not the same thing. So, magic absorption doesn't effect IA at all, since to trigger IA you must "absorb" damage, not "resist".
Originally Posted by Masnie
Unless I'm mistaken Rawr applies a negative DPS-Value to Magic Absorption if you are skilled for IA, since the resistance-check is made before any shields come into play, and a resisted spell won't be absorbed and can't increase your spellpower via IA.
It's a trade-off between survivability and DPS. Personally I would always take magic absorption in my arcane spec.
Originally Posted by Lucai
I think you are right about rawr applying a negative dps value to magic absorption but shouldn't it not affect IA as long as incoming damage / sec > shields / sec since any absorbs lost to partial resists would just be absorbed on the next damage taken?
Ex
1000 absorb
1000 hit
vs
900 absorb + 100 resisted
100 absorb + 900 hit
Was there any concensus on whether or not MA had any impact on IA, at all?
I've taken IA off my mainspec and am doing a Sindragosa offspec with 3 points in IA. MA would be very useful on that fight, but I'm not sure if the two talents conflict with each other.
I think people are looking far too much into this "MA conflicting with IA" issue. I do not think that such an issue exists in practice. The only problem is having enough talent points to spec for both.
IA right now only works off frost/fire ward, mana shield and ice barrier. Of all of these, only the wards are used on a regular basis. Both of these spells are on a 30 second CD. Each of them, if we ignore frost warding for now, only absorb roughly 5k damage each.
Right now, of all encounters involving fire or frost damage, the magnitude of the spells far exceed this minimal 5k ward. I am only considering ToC and ICC right now, but I imagine Ruby Sanctum to be no different. We can break down these fire or frost damage boss attacks into 2 types:
1. Constant aura type. This involves any fire patch on the ground. These generally tick for 4k-8k per tick, every 2 seconds.
2. Bomb type. Avoidable AOEs that hit for 20k or more.
3. Targeted AOE, ie. mass frostbolt volleys. These hit for 6k-10k.
Regardless of whether you spec into MA, (2) and (3) do enough damage, even after partial resists, to blow through the ward instantly. You shouldn't even be getting hit by (2) in the first place. (1) happens very often enough to not worry about ward being wasted, even with a few resisted or missed ticks. In both situations, MA is not going to make a meaningful difference - your ward is going to be consumed, and you will gain the respective spellpower bonus.
Now let us take into account frost warding:
(1) again has no difference. Your frost ward may last longer, and incanter's is more worth it now. MA only means it may take 1 or 2 extra ticks to burn through the ward.
(2) This is the only situation where MA would reduce the massive damage that -may- be absorbed, which means you get less spellpower. But do you really want to gamble your life on a 30% absorption, when a failure likely means your death? No encounter in the game right now encourages you to do that.
(3) MA causes you to absorb mildly less damage on frost warding procs. You lose the benefit of gaining some 100 spellpower and perhaps 1k mana. Is this rare minuscule benefit even worth caring about?
What I'm trying to say is that this "conflict" is nearly nonexistent in practice. It's almost like a tank arguing that dodge rating conflicts with block value, since you can't block and dodge at the same time. Instead, we should focus on both the benefits of both talents - one gives overall magic mitigation and survivability, while the other gives a situational damage boost.
(2) This is the only situation where MA would reduce the massive damage that -may- be absorbed, which means you get less spellpower. But do you really want to gamble your life on a 30% absorption, when a failure likely means your death? No encounter in the game right now encourages you to do that.
(3) MA causes you to absorb mildly less damage on frost warding procs. You lose the benefit of gaining some 100 spellpower and perhaps 1k mana. Is this rare minuscule benefit even worth caring about?
Except in these situations, IA spellpower gains appear to cap out once the maximum damage a standalone Frost or Fire Ward could absorb has been dealt, making any 'conflict' even less of an issue, unless the resist takes the damage done below approx. 5-6k. In the cases where MA reduces a Frost Bomb from 19k to 15k, you'll still gain the maximum benefit from Incanter's in its current state.
Except in these situations, IA spellpower gains appear to cap out once the maximum damage a standalone Frost or Fire Ward could absorb has been dealt, making any 'conflict' even less of an issue, unless the resist takes the damage done below approx. 5-6k. In the cases where MA reduces a Frost Bomb from 19k to 15k, you'll still gain the maximum benefit from Incanter's in its current state.
I have just tested this by dueling a fellow mage, and would like to confirm that IA is now indeed capped at the effect of a standalone frost ward. Actual numbers are as follow:
I have just tested this by dueling a fellow mage, and would like to confirm that IA is now indeed capped at the effect of a standalone frost ward. Actual numbers are as follow:
So we can now conclude that it's capped at a standalone ward absorption.
This further proves that the "conflict" between MA and IA is in practice, non-existent.
Are you saying that the "talented" Frost Warding doesnt contribute any more to IA than the untalented frost ward? If so frost warding is pretty worthless for the 2 talent points.
Yes, any single Frost Ward/Fire Ward will only contribute spellpower to Incanter's Absorption up to it's own full absorb, regardless of Frost Warding procs. Frost Warding is far from worthless with the mana returns it provides, but that is more a topic for the arcane thread than the IA thread.
I understand that, but my question is this: does the improved ward, the talented ward, with Frost Warding talented 2/2, raise the amount of frost damage that can be absorbed (presumably 50% more than the base frost ward)and thus contributed to IA's spell power increase? So will 2/2 in frost warding increase the potential contribution to IA or is there some invisible cap set by the basic and untalented frost ward spell that prevents the talented ward from contributing its additional 50%?
I think you are misreading the talent tooltip. The ward absorption does not increase from the talent except when it "procs", at which point it simply absorbs the entire spell that hit you. The 50% increase applies only to the armor and resistance debuffs of frost and ice armor. The only thing I am aware of that increases ward absorption is simple spellpower increase.
I believe Demonic Runes share CD with Flame Caps and Healthstones but again, it's been over a month since I checked. I would question the effectiveness of Mana Shield either way, as you're paying a GCD and ~200 mana for ~120 sp over 10 seconds. Given a spell power coefficient of 2.1 and 6 casts in 10 seconds, that's 1500 damage tops, or maybe 2500 under CDs. Or in general terms, a Mana Shield absorbing even a full 5000 damage will produce 750 sp, or 750 * 2.1 * 6 = 9500 damage, far less than the average Arcane nuke and not worth including in normal rotations. A full 5k absorb then trades 7.7k mana for 750 sp.
As I see it, IA would be a talent you'd want to take only for fights with a certain minimum of movement and wardable damage... say on Marrowgar during Lolstorm or Sindragosa where you'll be guaranteed free GCDs for casting Frost Ward.
I believe Demonic Runes share CD with Flame Caps and Healthstones but again, it's been over a month since I checked. I would question the effectiveness of Mana Shield either way, as you're paying a GCD and ~200 mana for ~120 sp over 10 seconds. Given a spell power coefficient of 2.1 and 6 casts in 10 seconds, that's 1500 damage tops, or maybe 2500 under CDs. Or in general terms, a Mana Shield absorbing even a full 5000 damage will produce 750 sp, or 750 * 2.1 * 6 = 9500 damage, far less than the average Arcane nuke and not worth including in normal rotations. A full 5k absorb then trades 7.7k mana for 750 sp.
Right, but you can pop the Rune/Shield outside of combat; in other words, this would really only be suitable for pre-fight buffs after a Haste or Wild Magic pot.
03/24/10, 7:36 AM
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