Cataclysm Mage Changes - Page 25

Fennor Angrithon Virastar · 07/26/10, 8:26 AM

On another topic, as for the Fire/Frost rotations I've got a quick question:
Didn't Blizzard want to change DoT refreshes in Cataclysm to no longer clip ticks and instead refresh the DoTs like currently some talents do? If this applied to FB, FFB and Pyro as well, the above mentioned rotations wouldn't make a lot of sense, would they? You'd only have to care about keeping the DoT up and not about how often it ticks before you cast the spell again.

I think you´ll still have to care. You won´t have to care, if a second FFB would aplly a second DoT to the target next to the first one. Refreshing without clipping would just mean, that around 75% of the DoT ticks will be lost instead of 100%, if you spam FFB. So if Frostbolt does more dps than FFB +around 25% of its DoT damage, you would have to cast Frostbolts. But you may won´t let it tick three times, because your next FFB won´t hit the target directly after the previous DoT disappeared, and losing even more DoT time if FoF proccs after the second Frostbold forcing you to use DF or IL.

I´am wondering how ignite would influence scaling between Frostbolt and FFB. The rotation would change to FFB spam again with higher crit ratings. I think having Frostfire Orb only effect FFBs DoT is a good idea to prevent this.

Hidden · 07/26/10, 8:43 AM

Originally Posted by Fennor Angrithon Virastar

I think you´ll still have to care. You won´t have to care, if a second FFB would aplly a second DoT to the target next to the first one. Refreshing without clipping would just mean, that around 75% of the DoT ticks will be lost instead of 100%, if you spam FFB. So if Frostbolt does more dps than FFB +around 25% of its DoT damage, you would have to cast Frostbolts. But you may won´t let it tick three times, because your next FFB won´t hit the target directly after the previous DoT disappeared, and losing even more DoT time if FoF proccs after the second Frostbold forcing you to use DF or IL.

What I was talking about was that you wouldn't need to care about how many ticks you have in between FFBs because the FFB DoT would always do the same DPS if you keep it running. Thus if FFB had a higher direct damage DPS you'd only use FFB as your filler and FB for nothing but keeping the debuff up. If it had lower direct damage DPS, you'd only use FB as a filler and FFB to keep the DoT up. If it had lower combined direct damage and DoT damage per cast DPS, you'd never use it (unless on Brain Freeze procs if that pushed it above FB).
If it was clipping, however, it may have been that allowing the DoT to tick (which it otherwise wouldn't) made FB the better filler spell - this case was what above cast priority theories based around unless I missed something.

Lgs · 07/26/10, 8:49 AM

Originally Posted by Zaldinar

If so, you can't. You can't send a spell request while a GCD is active. There is nothing at all that says that the GCD has to be 1.5 seconds base for cast time spells, however. Since the GCD does absolutely nothing to the behavior of the spell itself until your cast time matches it and precasting becomes a problem.

This is something that I'm surprised Blizz hasn't looked into: 5 years of furiously spamming the 'e' key (and now the e, f, and q keys) for every raid. They could streamline everything in the game (and they are trying to), but this fundamental flaw is still there; and let's be honest, it's annoying to hit the same key 5 times in a second just to cast one spell.

Does anyone see any changes in this regard for cata or some way to alleviate this?

Zaldinar · 07/26/10, 9:10 AM

Originally Posted by Hidden

Maybe my post wasn't clear but it was, just like the post I quoted, about possible changes to the queuing and thus I was asking if anything spoke against having spells queued after the GCD just like after another. They could just allow you to send cast requests in the last 1/3 of a GCD so there's not too much cast request spam going on while keeping the whole queuing functionality unless you have a really exceptionally high ping.

I wasn't asking about current mechanics anywhere - this thread would be the wrong place for that.

Being unable to send spell requests while a GCD is ticking and GCDs starting when you send spell requests are among the finer points of the guts of spellcasting that I see frequently mistakenly described, which is why I asked for the clarification, to ensure you were asking about future changes and not what the state of current mechanics / beta mechanics are. I should hope that if they changed the way GCDs work as far as requesting spells go that it wouldn't be an undocumented change.

There isn't anything to say that they couldn't make you able to request a spell over period at the end of the GCD with the start of the next GCD delayed until the current finishes, but that starts edging close to a true queuing system, which they were pretty clear about not wanting to create in 2.3 when they introduced precasting. Obviously several years later things can change (and often have) though.

Fennor Angrithon Virastar · 07/26/10, 9:32 AM

What I was talking about was that you wouldn't need to care about how many ticks you have in between FFBs because the FFB DoT would always do the same DPS if you keep it running.

Yes, you wouldn´t need to care about the ticks, but about the remaining time of the Dot. Ok, he talked about ticks in his theory, but I just wanted to say, that it is not a big difference, whether you have to care about ticks or the remaining time of the DoT. If there are 6 seconds left to the DoT when refreshing ist, you will still lose two ticks. Clipping just means, the amount of ticks you lose will be rounded up by one per refreshing, maybe you´ll lose nearly nothing, or maybe you´ll lose nearly a whole tick. (Until the DoT ticks every three seconds and FFB has a three second cast time too, it really could be crtical in this case)

I don´t know whether this makes a big difference. Maybe it will be enough of a difference so that you are right. Maybe I underrate the clipping effect in this case. One question about the new refreshing: If you refresh the FFB DoT at 8.9 seconds, will it reset the new DoT to exactly 9 seconds again? If so, would you lose one tick, when the refreshed DoT expires because of ticks at 0.1, 3.1, 6.1 and theoretically at 9.1?

daygotdis · 07/26/10, 12:54 PM

On the topic of where to spend the remaining 10 talent points after specing 31 into fire:

The viable PvE options at this time appear to be:

Arcane:
(T1) Netherwind Presence: 1/2/3% Spell Haste
(T1) Arcane Concentration: 3/6/10% chance to proc Clearcasting
(T2) Arcane Potency: 7/15% crit chance increase after gaining clearcasting

Frost:
(T1) Piercing Ice: 1/2/3% crit to all spells

With these options, taking all of them would require 11 points. So the question is which talent has the least value per point.

The final point in:
Netherwind Presence is worth 1% haste
Piercing Ice is worth 1% crit
Arcane Concentration (assuming 2/2 Arcane Potency) is worth (.04*15= 0.6% crit), plus some mana efficiency
**Arcane Concentration (assuming 1/2 Arcane Potency) is worth (.04*8= 0.32% crit), plus some mana efficiency
Arcane Potency (assuming 3/3 Arcane Concentration) is worth (.1*8= 0.8% crit)
**Arcane Potency (assuming 2/3 Arcane Concentration is worth (.06*8= .48% crit)

From my napkin math, (please correct me if my logic is off) it looks like we should max out Netherwind Presence & Piercing Ice, and go with 2/3 Arcane Concentration and 2/2 Arcane Potency for max DPS build.

Does this make sense?

EDIT: As per the following reply, yes that makes sense. I underestimated the value of Arcane Potency being as it has 2 charges. Looks like 2/3 Netherwind Presence is the way to go (ty Roywyn), since 1% haste costs less itemization points than 1% crit.

Hidden · 07/26/10, 1:23 PM

Originally Posted by daygotdis

On the topic of where to spend the remaining 10 talent points after specing 31 into fire:

The viable PvE options at this time appear to be:

Arcane:
(T1) Netherwind Presence: 1/2/3% Spell Haste
(T1) Arcane Concentration: 3/6/10% chance to proc Clearcasting
(T2) Arcane Potency: 7/15% crit chance increase after gaining clearcasting

Frost:
(T1) Piercing Ice: 1/2/3% crit to all spells

With these options, taking all of them would require 11 points. So the question is which talent has the least value per point.

The final point in:
Netherwind Presence is worth 1% haste
Piercing Ice is worth 1% crit
Arcane Concentration (assuming 2/2 Arcane Potency) is worth (.04*15= 0.6% crit), plus some mana efficiency
**Arcane Concentration (assuming 1/2 Arcane Potency) is worth (.04*8= 0.32% crit), plus some mana efficiency
Arcane Potency (assuming 3/3 Arcane Concentration) is worth (.1*8= 0.8% crit)
**Arcane Potency (assuming 2/3 Arcane Concentration is worth (.06*8= .48% crit)

From my napkin math, (please correct me if my logic is off) it looks like we should max out Netherwind Presence & Piercing Ice, and go with 2/3 Arcane Concentration and 2/2 Arcane Potency for max DPS build.

Does this make sense?

Arcane Potency affects the next 2 spells after a clearcast and thus cannot be calculated like that. It also causes vastly different Hot Streak results depending on your crit prior to the talent affecting you.
Ignoring the second point you get:
3/3 AC & 2/2 AP: 15%*(1-0.9^2)=2.85%
2/3 AC & 2/2 AP: 15%*(1-0.94^2)=1.746%
3/3 AC & 1/2 AP: 7%*(1-0.9^2)=1.33%

Thus you'd always gain more than 1% crit from putting the last point into the AC+AP combination assuming you have already spent 4 points into them. The max DPS build would then depend on potency of 1% haste vs. 1% crit and either have 2/3 PI or 2/3 NP but always 3/3 AC and 2/2 AP.

Lhivera · 07/26/10, 2:41 PM

A point raised on the beta forum is that while FFB has better raw DPET than Frostbolt, Frostbolt will produce more procs per minute than FFB by a considerable margin. I think it's going to take a sim to figure out the optimal rotation. And that in itself is a problem.

Xentropy · 07/27/10, 5:16 AM

I don't know why that really has to be considered a problem, unless the difference between the optimal rotation and other rotations that "feel" right is too great, and/or the "easier" rotation ends up being higher dps than the more complex one. If a slightly more complex rotation results in 3% higher dps, even if simulation is required to confirm that difference, I'd call that good game design, not bad. Remember, Blizzard just wants it to be easy to figure out what to do to be effective, not easy to figure out what to do to be optimal.

dieseledge · 07/27/10, 6:39 AM

Originally Posted by Vontre

What they ought to do is bump FFB down to 1.5 second cast, push more damage onto the dot and drop the dot down to 6 seconds. Make sure it's not strong enough for fire mages that they want to use it in a rotation. This kills a whole shitload of birds with one stone. First off it gives FFB a much more distinct flavor as a fast casting dot/nuke hybrid with a snare. Secondly this gives fire and frost mages a long range decently quick casting snare (I am aware this is not as good as R1 Frostbolt but 1 second cast spells are stupid).

I think one way to keep it from becoming a main nuke for Fire is to not allow it to proc Hot Streak. Another way is to make your change is through mostly a deep Frost Talent. You could nerf it down to a 1.5 cast that hits much weaker with no DoT and have the DoT added with a Deep Frost Talent. Hot Streak makes makes sense to me to be honest.

Hmmm just throwing this out there but I had the thought that 1.5 cast time Frostfire Bolt could just replace Scorch.

Edit: Scratch the Scorch idea unless a fire talent made it hit instantly.

Lhivera · 07/27/10, 7:56 AM

Originally Posted by Xentropy

I don't know why that really has to be considered a problem, unless the difference between the optimal rotation and other rotations that "feel" right is too great, and/or the "easier" rotation ends up being higher dps than the more complex one. If a slightly more complex rotation results in 3% higher dps, even if simulation is required to confirm that difference, I'd call that good game design, not bad. Remember, Blizzard just wants it to be easy to figure out what to do to be effective, not easy to figure out what to do to be optimal.

Yeah -- I actually posted something like this in beta as well, and didn't remember to update here. If simply maintaining Frostburn and the FFB DOT is enough to get, like, 95% performance (assuming you're also using your procs well), then that's probably just fine. If the difference is larger, on the order of 15-20%, that would be a problem, but that's highly unlikely.

Maje · 07/28/10, 2:51 AM

A very interesting post by GC about raid buffs/debuffs:
MMO-Champion BlueTracker | Mandatory Raid Buffs and Debuffs

Notably some new additions related to mages:

6% Spell Power -- Mage, Shaman
10% Spell Power -- Ele Shaman, Demo Lock, Fire Mage
5% Spell Crit Chance Taken -- Fire Mage, Lock (probably Demo), possibly Frost Mage

6% and 10% spell power buffs aren't implemented yet but are looking interesting, also a frost mage might lose the crit debuff.

On the same topic of buff/debuff, Fel Hunter aura now overrides Arcane Intellect completely and removes it from you, which is extremely annyoing when going out of range and being left with no buff, it also provides mp5 not like AI.

Pasture · 07/28/10, 4:19 AM

If you look in that thread, Ghostcrawler actually mentions much earlier on that Fire mages would be getting the 10% spellpower buff, but I think it was overlooked at the time. I'm assuming that the 6% and 10% versions don't stack (these are looking like Flametongue / Totem of Wrath).

I'm am interested to see where they place these buffs given a mage of any spec can provide it. The obvious choice would be to attach it to intellect or otherwise have our armours emanate it as a secondary effect. I presume Fire will just get a talent that buffs the buff (weren't they getting rid of those?)

Maje · 07/28/10, 5:21 AM

Actually tying it to Intellect would be a good solution since it also solve the issue of lock puppies removing it.

Lylandra · 07/29/10, 3:20 AM

Originally Posted by Pasture

This. It's expected that this 6% damage condition will always be up, so bake it into our spells and put something else there.

That was exactly what I had been thinking.
In PvE environments, we will always have a snare on the boss via tank and Nether vortex will help us not spend a GCD on casting slow on focus target adds. While I really like vortex (it is a fun utility talent that can help a lot in PvP and in PvE kiting/soloing environments and I think I will specc it even if TTW gets the cut) and the current TTW does not make us as dependant on tanks as the old one did, it is still a plain and simple 6% damage increase that will be considered specced by every arcane mage even if they don't like this talent.

For the % SP buff: Yes, I thought they wanted to get rid of "smaller, talentable buffs", too. BoM/BS/SoE, MotW, PW:F and Windfury all got streamlined into one version and I am looking forward to that change.
It would feel really weird to bring it back now so that fire, ele and demo get their niches (and IMO those three specs already got enough "I bring this buff" specials) as no spec should have to bring more than others to be brought to a raid. And 4% is a huge difference.
Especially in 10 man raids a mage/lock might be forced to specc into a specc she doesn't like just because of optimal setups and no ele shaman available. (giving 10% to all mages and locks and shamans or sizing it down to 6% for all would be sweet)

As for frost and FFB/FB ratio:

In my opinion it depends on the dps difference between the "optimal use" of FFB ticks and the rotation that would come "by logic" to a non-EJ-reading frost mage (i.e. either not using FFB in a rotation outside of brain freeze or keeping up the FFB dot whenever it is about to expire).
If the difference is huge, then yes, that is a problem. If the difference is... say... 0,5 to 1% dps (cannot insert true numbers here) then it might be okay with the intention in mind that the "real experts" should have some small advantages over the beginners.

And @ those people being fortunate enough to have beta access:
What about the current usefulness of crit? Did they change the rating requirements for haste/crit or will all casters gain 200% critical multipliers in Cataclysm? Otherwise I fear that crit again will be left behind.