An alternative is that the # of ticks doesn't change until a certain level of haste is reached... will be interesting to see how they work that. Perhaps the duration will change some, when there is dead space?
Well we can assume mana will still be finite and that our mana bars will go down, which is always going to encourage chaining innervates and mana tides, which just isn't a great style of play.
We got no clue how mana management is going to look for arcane. They might change so you get x% mana back whenever you crit, use arcane barrage/arcane missiles/flame orb/whatever spell, increase mana gem restore, seriously reduce the cost of dps spells making it impossible to run low on mana as long as all raid buff and debuffs are up, or remove the cooldown of evocation for arcane mages. Or they might make it impossible to keep mana up without being carried by others. In other words - determining how good/bad the arcane-mastery is and how often we can expect the max-buff from it to be up at this point is impossible.
The only thing I think is fair to say about that mastery at the moment, is that it seems nearly impossible to balance for all fights - but arcane isn't balanced at all today either for e.g. a 30 sec 5 man heroic boss fight or longer fights with regular phase breaks for strong CDs to get ready. I like the idea of making (or rather keeping) mana management the key-feature of the arcane tree - it pretty much is the only dps spec in WotLK that doesn't feel like having unlimited resources. But I do fear that it is going to (keep being) overpowered in short burst fight and/or underpowered in long fights.
What stroke me as the weirdest thing with the announced changes, was that we got Flame Orb and not Arcane Orb/Prismatic Orb/Frozen Orb. I really don't see fire lacking different spells for neither AoE nor single target dps compared to both frost and arcane.
I'm guessing the last tick will just be a portion of the damage? I don't know.
It may work like DOTs: if you refresh the cast, the duration resets to full (or full plus time to next tick), and the ticks keep occurring on the hasted schedule. This requires you to recast early, wasting a bit of mana, to get the full benefit of the haste -- but trading mana for DPS is the whole point of the stat. You still have dead space on the last tick of the last cast, but if you're chain-casting, the haste works smoothly up until that point.
At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.
How often do you do back to back casts of the same channeled spell though? Blizzard AoE for frost mages sure, but not Blizzard for fire mages, or AM for arcane mages. It introduces another era of /stopcasting macros if the spell doesn't end in a tick representing the DPS time of the dead space. Or they take the simple route and keep the current haste implementation for channeled spells.
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.
How often do you do back to back casts of the same channeled spell though? Blizzard AoE for frost mages sure, but not Blizzard for fire mages, or AM for arcane mages. It introduces another era of /stopcasting macros if the spell doesn't end in a tick representing the DPS time of the dead space. Or they take the simple route and keep the current haste implementation for channeled spells.
Bear in mind that the Beta hasn't started, that the posts about changes are a preview and not everything is explained in detail yet. As for haste bahaviour with DoTs and channeled spells, there is no canonical haste behaviour, so we'll have to see what they cook up there. And point out when things go wrong.
Yes, it definitely has the potential to be really really messy, so we should be alert. Picture a hasted Bane of Doom, a 60s DoT that ticks once after say 40 seconds. If you miss a timely recast (and if the cooldown remains, it has to drop slightly below 60s as well), you just lost 20s uptime, and DoT-clipping at the last moment also doesn't make sense for Living Bomb. Bane of Agony would seem interesting as well, its tick damage increases during the duration. Would the extra ticks deal more damage than the last regular ticks? That sounds excitingly promising.
The suggestion of a final tick that does partial damage has been given a couple of times as well. Thinking about a hasted Evocation giving extra ticks isn't exactly terrible either. We'll just have to see how things will go, and which way those changes are going to swing.
As for your original question about back-to-back casts, there is Mind Flay, there is Drain Soul Execution (going away possibly) and Drain Health/Mana spam in some situations. I'm also not sure whether all channeled spell work via (visible or invisible) debuffs, and which mechanics actually produce the effects.
Shockingly, my guess was about right, regarding haste & channeled spells:
We didn't explain this very well in the chat.
The answer we were trying to give was that "channels won't just get shorter and shorter the more haste you get." But a more complete answer is that hasted channels will get shorter until you get a whole additional tick, at which point the duration will go back up again. We don't want to do partial ticks or things like that because they encourage you to just recast the spell.
Could feel a little clunky when under varying haste effects. The channel time will ping up and down depending on the cooldowns we're under. I'm sure it won't be too much of a problem but I imagine it will feel odd at first. (Thinking largely of Arcane Missiles under a stable rotation here rather than Blizzard)
By that clarification if we relate it to Living bomb ticks, it would mean that for every 20% haste would add an extra tick to the dot. So in other words, we will most likely only stack 20% haste and go crit after that. Or am I doing this wrong?
12 second length / ( 3 second base periodic damage * ( 1 - haste % ) = number of ticks
12 / ( 3 * ( 1 - .2 ) ) = 5 ticks
12 / ( 3 * ( 1 - .4 ) ) = 6 ticks
I seriously doubt we will be hitting 40% haste in Fire spec unless they change the variables around on that formula.
The length decreases until it reaches a breakpoint, at which time it will 'reset' to the original length with an extra tick added. I guess they're doing this to keep rotations somewhat more static as gear progresses. Interesting system.
Edit: A side note, this actually introduces another complication into haste capping a spell at a 1.0 GCD. Pretend you have 50% haste on a LB cast, your GCD capped now at the 1.0 second GCD. Add another 25% haste and you can squeeze another tick out of the spell, thus increasing your damage done with that 1.0 second GCD, and as a result the DPS contribution of that spell.
Last edited by Zaldinar : 04/19/10 at 8:19 PM.
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.
Edit: A side note, this actually introduces another complication into haste capping a spell at a 1.0 GCD. Pretend you have 50% haste on a LB cast, your GCD capped now at the 1.0 second GCD. Add another 25% haste and you can squeeze another tick out of the spell, thus increasing your damage done with that 1.0 second GCD, and as a result the DPS contribution of that spell.
It wouldn't make sense to reduce the GCD through haste anymore. You'd effectively be double dipping on haste benefits for DOT spells, since most of which are instacast. Reduction in cast time and increased number of ticks are percentage increases in damage per cast time. It would either be one or the other, or a combination of both with less effect.
Reducing the GCD through haste is a quality of life issue, not just a balance issue. It affects many many things which are not DoTs and is one of the core ways the stat gains its power.
By that clarification if we relate it to Living bomb ticks, it would mean that for every 20% haste would add an extra tick to the dot. So in other words, we will most likely only stack 20% haste and go crit after that. Or am I doing this wrong?
12 second length / ( 3 second base periodic damage * ( 1 - haste % ) = number of ticks
12 / ( 3 * ( 1 - .2 ) ) = 5 ticks
12 / ( 3 * ( 1 - .4 ) ) = 6 ticks
I seriously doubt we will be hitting 40% haste in Fire spec unless they change the variables around on that formula.
Haste beyond 20% would still be just as valuable as ever for you primary nuke. I can't imagine any major shift in stats so great as to make you avoid the best dps stat available for your primary nuke.
Having said that, I'd be very surprised if our haste goes up very much with Cata. They've already said mages got way too much crit way to easily and quickly. We've stacked haste to fairly high level as well, just at a slower rate. I just can't see them allowing us to get much farther beyond the 25-30% people are already at.
It wouldn't make sense to reduce the GCD through haste anymore. You'd effectively be double dipping on haste benefits for DOT spells, since most of which are instacast. Reduction in cast time and increased number of ticks are percentage increases in damage per cast time. It would either be one or the other, or a combination of both with less effect.
It is not only instant casts that trigger GCD. Cast spells like Haunt and UA benefit from the reduction in GCD and cast time too. However it would make no sense if haste would no longer reduce GCD; that would mean your Fireball and Flamestrike would scale with haste, but your Scorch and (HS) Pyroblast would not.
It is not only instant casts that trigger GCD. Cast spells like Haunt and UA benefit from the reduction in GCD and cast time too. However it would make no sense if haste would no longer reduce GCD; that would mean your Fireball and Flamestrike would scale with haste, but your Scorch and (HS) Pyroblast would not.
I understand this issue, but try to consider DOT spells for a moment. Now that they gain extra ticks from haste, haste can be considered as a percentage increase in damage, if we use a rough approximation. For example, 25% haste would give a approximately 25% more extra ticks, so roughly 25% extra damage per cast. If you also reduce the GCD by equal amounts, your damage per cast time goes up by another 25%, for a total of (1.25 * 1.25 - 1) = 56.25%.
I'm not saying that GCD should be unaffected by haste. I'm trying to argue that an X% haste affect on long cast time, direct damage spells cannot be balanced against X% extra ticks in addition to X% haste effect reduction on the GCD at the same time, or such spells will occupy a very small amount of our cast time, yet account for too much of our damage output when haste ratings stack up.
And we haven't even considered powerful haste buffs such as heroism and bloodlust.
I'm still curious about LB and CoA (bane?). They don't function like any other dot in the game. So what tick (s) is haste going to effect?
I think it's safe to assume that LB won't get extra explosions (last tick), since that's an aoe portion of the spell. Also with the "no dot clipping", how will a duration refresh work on LB? Will the explosion be delayed, which would be very bad for dps... or will the duration be added on and after the explosion, the spell just begins again?
Likewise with CoA (bane), which tick(s) gets added? The ticks at the end do more than the ticks at the beginning, so will the added ticks be an average of all normal ticks of the dot, or a beginning tick or an end tick? And does the duration refresh reset the dot, beginning anew, or will the dot continue ticking at it's highest damage.
I think we can assume that both spells will have to be renewed and reset with non-clip dot recasts to preserve the balance of the spell, but that seems somewhat difficult and clunky. Also what's to stop a dot caster to simply spam a dot (s) over and over on a target at the beginning of the fight to increase it's duration to last the expected length of the fight, then nuke away without having to worry about dot refreshes at all?
One final question for those perhaps more imaginative than me. What's the point of flame orb? It will likely be next to useless in terms of dps for any spec other than fire, and fire already has (the possibility of) Blast Wave, Flame strike, Dragon's breath, and Living bomb. Does fire really need another aoe spell? Is the damage based, even partly, on flight time? Meaning, does it become more or less valuable based on how close to a mob stack you are? I read someone suggest using it to pull a lot of mobs for aoe grinding (apologies if the source was in this thread), and while that's certainly a possibility, I know I've never had problems grabbing mobs for aoe grinding, and generally I'm frost for that kind of leveling anyway.
I understand this issue, but try to consider DOT spells for a moment. Now that they gain extra ticks from haste, haste can be considered as a percentage increase in damage, if we use a rough approximation. For example, 25% haste would give a approximately 25% more extra ticks, so roughly 25% extra damage per cast. If you also reduce the GCD by equal amounts, your damage per cast time goes up by another 25%, for a total of (1.25 * 1.25 - 1) = 56.25%.
Remember that DoT focused classes or specs usually have poor spammable nukes. Thus, calling +50% haste a +125% DPS effects isn't correct if you consider that you only get 0.5s (0.75s unhasted) of the lowest spammable spell as increase over the 1.5 seconds.
An example: 2 DoTs at 20k DPS, then 12s filler spells at 10k DPS. That's 180k damage over 15s.
At +50% haste, that becomes 2 DoTs for 2s at 45k DPS, then 13s fillers at 15k DPS. That's 285k damage.
So, your +50% haste becomes only +58% damage, not that much more than a fair +50% haste.
I've done some further analysis of Mana Adept, this time more along the lines of what Muphrid started to get some generic principles. One thing to realize is that we can't use Muphrid's formulation directly because Euler-Lagrange equation only applies in unconstrained case. In our particular situation we have both a constraint on mps and mana. We could either employ calculus of variations with constraints or more appropriate in this case I believe theory of optimal control.
You can get a brief overview of optimal control theory at wikipedia Optimal control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For a good reading on optimal control theory I would suggest http://lawww.epfl.ch/webdav/site/la/...ures-17-28.pdf. In particular I will employ notation as used in paper by Richard F. Hartl, Suresh P. Sethi and Raymond G. Vickson: "A Survey of the Maximum Principles for Optimal Control Problems with State Constraints" (available at JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie if you have access). It is to be noted that in our case state and control appear in nonlinear term and that we have both control and pure state constraints.
First I'll restate some facts we know about the dps vs mps curve. I'll be using x to denote mana, u to denote control which will be identical to mps of selected cycle mix and e(u) as the dps of that cycle mix. Since e is defined as maximum for each mps of convex hull of all cycles in the dps/mps space, it must hold that e(u) is concave, strictly increasing. It is piecewise linear, meaning there exist points m1 < m2 < ... < mn such that e(u) is linear on each [mi,mi+1] interval. In addition we know e(0) > 0. This means that its derivative e'(u) is piecewise constant, strictly decreasing and strictly positive. Everywhere except at corner points where derivative is not defined it holds that e(u) - u * e'(u) >= e(0) > 0 due to concavity.
Now let's formulate our optimal control problem. I'll be assuming that the mana adept takes linear form to simplify calculation, in particular A(x) = 1 + x * k. I'll be using the direct adjoining approach (and assuming we don't have an abnormal situation). We want to maximize
under the following conditions:
System dynamics:
Control constraints:
Pure state constraints:
We now formulate Hamiltonian
and Lagrangian
It follows from this formulation that the following necessary conditions must hold for an optimal solution (x*,u*):
u*(t) maximizes over all feasible u.
We also have complementary slackness:
Note that this means whenever optimal control is in interior, multiplier mu equals zero. Similar if mana is in interior, multiplier nu equals zero.
We also get a terminal condition which gives that one of the following must hold
a)
b) and
c) and
In particular note that whenever control is not at upper bound lambda must be positive, so because we can assume mn > 0 option c will not apply.
In addition we get that dH/dt along optimal trajectory is constant because we have autonomous system, but this does not give us any useful information beyond obvious.
Now let's examine the two equations we have for lambda. Whenever the derivative e' is defined we also have second derivative which equals zero. We differentiate the first equation in this case and equate it with the second.
From the properties of function e we know that if k > 0 the left hand side is strictly positive. This tells us that whenever mana is in interior, control must be at the boundary or at one of the corner points, otherwise the above equation cannot hold. This gives us the first important result:
If mana is not full or empty it is never optimal to mix cycles.
When mana is in interior it must hold that . Since e > 0 it must hold that in this case lambda is strictly decreasing. In addition since optimal control can only take discrete values on such interval (t1,t2) where control is constant it must hold that lambda(t2) = lambda(t1) - (t2-t1) * e(u*(t)) * k where t1 < t < t2.
At this point we turn our attention to the maximization principle. If we ignore for a second that e is not differentiable everywhere we would get maximum where the derivative of that expression is 0. That happens when
But since e'(u) is piecewise constant this basically means u*(t) is at the corner of e(u) where e'(u) jumps over lambda(t) / (1 + k * x*(t)).
Let's look at the expression that defines at which corner we are and compute time derivative along optimal trajectory.
So the expression of interest is strictly decreasing (and continuous). This gives us the second important result (which we already knew for the case of 2 cycles):
We should use cycles in order of increasing mps in consecutive order (i.e. not skipping any of the optimal cycles).
Now I'll derive some formulas that can be useful when solving problems manually.
Let be the first time when control is used. Let's put and . If we define , then the following must hold:
From this we can compute how long the previous cycle can be used until we get to the next breakpoint (assuming mana in interior).
Using the above constraint to determine the next boundary we get:
If is the last cycle used, we get similar equation for last time segment:
Note that in order for this to be positive i must be chosen such that .
I'll conclude with saying that it's good to keep in mind the interpretation of the costate lambda being the gradient of optimal value-till-end, meaning that it gives us the marginal value of extra mana in terms of rate of change of total damage. It is possible for specific palette of optimal cycles to start with a specific terminal value of lambda (either starting with lambda(T) = 0 or x(T) = 0) and working backwards towards t=0 to tell which condition is appropriate to get a feasible solution. It might be possible to expand some of these results to find conditions for example when it is optimal to use more than 2 cycles. Or maybe some example solution for a small set of optimal cycles could be useful to better understand the imposed conditions.
Last edited by Kavan : 04/22/10 at 6:47 PM.
Reason: Added equations for final time segment
First: <3 Kavan, Roywyn, and the other hardcore mathers. I could do it, but...urgh. So, much appreciation for the number geeks!
On Arcane: The proposed changing DPM cycles based on current mana and evocation makes sense and clarifies Mana Adept a bit. I'll be very interested to see how this develops both for PvE and PvP. I also really like the proposed AMissiles change, and not just because it should make frost less Frostbolt-spam. Even if all it does in terms of changing end-game rotations is make Frost into Frostbolt spam + Brainfreeze + Ice Lance + AMissiles, it would at least be comprable to AB spam + ABarr + AMissiles. And if the hit changes are what I suspect, the new refund will be critical to Arcane balance (more on this below).
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On Fire: This may sound odd, but it's more of everything I hate about Fire, which is why it's good. I'm a Frost Mage when I can afford to be for a lot of reasons, but flavor aside the survivability is the key. Fire is about burning things. Not even defending yourself or others by burning things down first, just...you burn things. A lot. If it can burn, you burn it as much as you can, preferably until it cannot be burned any further. So things like 'the new Burnout' strike me as themtic and fun. Fire Orb, aside from just being downright cool, is more than 'just another AoE' and complements Fire's existing set very well. Having a frontal cone, a spherical burst, a targeted circle, and a line work very well together. Maybe it's because I played City of Heroes before WoW, but I just look at AoEs differently than most posted opinions I've seen. ((And frankly, you all are sisses about it)) Consider the new Pyromanic change, in particular, and Wall of Fog ((I have!)).
Consider the following raid situation of adds, which for the sake of example we'll use Onyxia whelps. As with most add situations, you know where they're coming from and where they're going. Exactly from where and to where. Wall of Fog provides a snare that makes it easier for tanks to catch all the whelps in their own AoE and gives you a minor damage lead which is probably negligible. But here's the kicker: you've already launched Fire Orb along the same line as the Wall of Fog, since that is where the tank is presumably tanking the adds (if not, you moved to get the right setup). Other classes are still sitting on their arse waiting for the cue to open DPS. Unless they do very wierd things with the speed of Fire Orb, it's reaching the adds a little before or just as DPS is called. In addition to setting up Living Bombs unless expressly forbidden to, Pyromanic should be providing enough Ignites ticking to give you your haste buff before the first cast, which removes the need to use Dragon's Breath + [instant] Flamestrike to get things rolling (although you're still free to do that, even faster) before going into the optimum LB/Flamestrike combination based on the number of adds and expected uptime. Mirror Images are just another layer here, and basically a safety net. Obviously this is much more beneficial in situations with a high-number of targets [whelps] as opposed to single biggies or an opposite-of-the-room pair, but it still has utility and potential. It's currently theoretical. It's subject to change. But based on what we've been told it 'currently' works.
The simple version of the above paragraph: Pre-cast WoF + pre-cast FO + current > current.
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[edit]
On Hit: As stated above, hit capping has always been desirable because of the exchange rate the rating gave you. It was simply better itemization to be capped, and usually over-capped rather than under-cap. What the blue-post hints at is a combination of the following:
-raising the hit value to hit the boss
-lowering the exchange rate on hit even further
Based on stated goals, this will allow for them to design Tier and generic boss-drops around significantly less hit-per-item and avoid what Arcane Mages in particular are familiar with: "[expletive]! More hit?!"
Based on the 3-4 ((3.5?)) Raiding Tier cycles we've been given, this could be taken to what is admittedly a logical extreme but should seriously be considered: making it [almost] impossible for DPS to hit-cap raid bosses in gear from that tier or below. Why? With the stated Arcane Focus change and possibility of removing hit reliance on spells like CS and Poly, this will make gearing less confusing and more flexible. Yeah, I know I just said "less", but bear with me. The idea behind this is rather similar to the Dual-Wield hit caps: hit is never wasted. It's not always OPTIMAL, but it's never WASTED. This would be a tremendous change, and not just for Mages. What I suspect is going to happen is less drastic: they'll make it possible but numerically disadvantageous to hit cap, but only with a greater majority of slots (at least those that aren't tier) having hit. At the second tier of rating and beyond, tier will gain more overall hit until you need less hit items to cap, but you DO still need non-tier items to cap. It seems clear to me the idea of an Arcane Mage being easily overcapped in Tier gear is something they are veering far away from. How far remains to be seen, but I'd expect them to make hit more even with crit and haste as DPS gains.
[/edit]
------
On Frost: Deathfrost is a wonderful idea, and I wholeheartedly endorse it until we hear something wonky in the works. With what's looking to be the 'new AM'. I'm curious whether this will be a timed, passive (de)buff (see: Replenisment, Winter's Chill) that has a set timer and refreshes on cast or like Arcane Blast's buff (probably short timer, applies to one spell and is removed). Assuming DF/FoF/BF interaction remains as is, it's a good buff either way (how valuable/dynamic varying). That (and possible changes to that) aside, I'm also interested because of AoE interaction and whether they're going to have trouble with Molten Armor. Because the last thing most Mages want is a removed-on-use buff that dissapears because Molten Armor pinged somebody. Or Frost Armor, for that matter. I'm hopeful this will make Frost easier to balance with other Mage specs across both games.
Parting Notes: I'm left in Hate Monkey's boat. I'm still deathly confused with the stated logic at removing DAmplifcation and the Wards, even they buff Mana Shield by a fair amount. I can understand player confusion about WHEN to use the DAmp mechanic, but not WHY. Clear purposes: reduce incoming magic damage, increase incoming healing. Figuring out when can be fairly math intensive and require testing and data-mining at times, but their PURPOSE is clear. This applies triply to F/FW. Mana shield is/has-been inefficient at best. Elemental schools that are our defining (and considered opposing) trees providing an efficient damage prevention is pretty clear cut: I cast the ward, I [hopefully] don't die. Added into that you have the talents in Frost and Fire that play on the wards...your wards become MORE efficient in some way, making you even better at warding off elemental damage, which occurs OFTEN in the world and in PvP, and with enough frequency in raids to be notable. If the real reason is any, some, or all of the following:
1) they're extra buttons
2) the way we run things can be hard to understand
3) we didn't balance PvP or raids to consider them at all
4)we don't like the feel
5) we want Mana Shield and Frost Barrier to be the only Mage 'shields'
then TELL US. On that note: they need to fix the Time Warp description. As stated by other posters, it just doesn't jive as worded. It's either Bloodlust with a self-bonus...or it's not. It either penalizes you for early BL...or it doesn't. Would love to know.
Please understand this isn't crying about them being removed, this is real confusion amidst what are otherwise fairly clear-cut and well-thought-out information they've given us. I liked the edge they gave as well as the flavor, sure,but I can understand reasons for their removal and live without them just fine. I just do not fathom how their purposes are 'unclear' in any way. If you want a gripe, ask me what I think about the food change!
[edit2]
Since it was requested: The food change is more than just mana, it's a way for low level mages to have easy access to health and save money. By cutting it off till level 40, this makes new players and the unconnected lose a QoL feature that someone with an 80 main would hardly notice. It's relatively small, but with Blizz's increasing focus on QoL features, removing FOOD seems like a bad idea, even if removing water might be.
Last edited by Nemantopia : 04/30/10 at 2:43 PM.
Reason: completely forgot hit comments in original post, edit to avoid double-posting
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Your description of Wall of Fog is alot more appealing than the one i had when i saw the preview. I was more thinking about something like the wall of fire in Diablo : Picture there a wall parallel to you which would be not moving.
Your scenario on Cataclysm aoeing is much more fun and deadly than we have now, excepting when adds are coming all around like the spider room after VDW. In this case, the rotation should be LB all over, DB when packed, instant FS while going away and Flame orb on the pack and resume.
On a side note, i'd be interested in hearing what you think about the food change.
Last edited by angayelle : 04/30/10 at 6:59 AM.
Reason: stupid idea nvm
Your description of Wall of Fog is alot more appealing than the one i had when i saw the preview. I was more thinking about something like the wall of fire in Diablo : Picture there a wall parallel to you which would be not moving.
I can understand that fear and took it into consideration, but based on existing spells and talents for the entire game, including those of enemies I think it's highly unlikely you or friendly players/raiders will be penalized in any way for being in Wall of Fog's effect. On the first hand, the very concept of 'friendly fire' in WoW is based on reflection and Mind Control. You can have three mages and three warlocks blasting the same patch of terrain straight to hell, but the friendly melee classes duking it out on the same ground only suffer a possible epileptic episode from the light-show.
The second reason for this assumption is the means they have given us to halt/stop opposing players or mobs. We can slow them, snare them, root them, confuse them, stun them, disorient them, MC them to run the other way, fear them, horrify them, you name it. None of these effects actually create an impassible barrier (like terrain geometry), not even the Knockback found in Thunderstorm, Typhoon, and Blast Wave. Combined with the above, this leads to me to what is admittedly an uncomfirmed assumption that Wall of Fog will (regardless of probably cool visuals) in effect be a line of as-yet indeterminate length 1-3 melee reaches wide that is basically the Hunter's Frost Trap with a persistent minor-Blizzard effect as long as a foe is within the effect (the slow might last a bit after leaving).
Similar to the idea of having a Hunter Frost Trap the area adds will come through to give the tank time to pick them up and tank them on the affected area if possible for easier control/grouping. Whether it works exactly like this there seems to at least be a reasonable expectation for the planned spell to work very similar to this. Flame Orb along the same line is basically free damage for any mage involved, but a significantly higher boost for Fire mages. Combined with Time Warp this will give mages a surprising amount of raid utility without having to go Frost Spec (I'm not talking about Poly and hard CC here). For a Mage to provide any kiting/utility benefits used to be limited to the Arcane talented spell Slow or a Frost spec dedicated to slows and freezes. Unless you were a risk-taking Fire Mage who had both BW and DB and took upon yourself the completely unauthorized duty of using those spells to save healers, but stories like that either go unnoticed or end in death. Regardless, I'm happy with this aspect of the changes because it makes us more than polymorphing vending machines that can put out good/insane DPS if we're good at what we do. Now we'll be DPS that can provide a variety of important buffs and be proactive in fights with adds in addition to our other functions, and have very different flavors doing it based on our main tree.
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I see Wall of Fog the same way (essentially a Frost Trap shaped like long rectangle that also does a small amount of damage), and I am looking forward to seeing how we can utilize it.
My only concern with it at this point is the mechanism for placement. Will it be a reticle such as Blizzard and Flamestrike? If so, how will you rotate it to line it up where you want? Or is it just a straight line from your position to some point (perhaps 20 or 30y?) from there? Or perpendicular to you at a set distance away? I think the answer to placement mechanism will greatly determine how useful (or annoying) the spell will ultimately be.
Also, I know lots of opinions have been given regarding the Arcane mastery benefit, some positive and some negative. My impression is that the effect seems backwards. Mages are basically taught from "birth" that unspent mana (in PvE) is bad. Every fight you end with mana left means you werent as destructive as you could be. The whole idea of suddenly wanting to stay full on mana feels wrong.
I think the concept is great, but the opposite would have been more in line with the theme of what it means to be a mage. Our damage should be boosted the closer we get to *zero* mana. This would reward the truly skilled players that are capable of hovering right there on the brink of disaster for long periods of time (nothing more disastrous than running totally OOM). It also greatly increases the difficulty of running stacked cooldowns for haste and Arcane Power (assuming it isnt removed) while in the "high dps zone", because those cooldowns also cause you to burn mana at a higher rate. I can also presume that it would lead to greater dynamics in cycles, possibly making cycle shifting more of an art and less of a science.
To me that would be far more interesting gameplay. I play a pure dps class. I want to be able to use skill to "red-line" the engine for maximum output. If I overheat then give me a penalty, but reward me if I can take it right up to the edge without going over.
I'm not sure if anyone saw the article on WOW.com but the folks over at Nihilum - World of Warcraft updated their wiki with basic mastery formulas. These are just showing the per-point in a tree a mastery gives. However their wiki is currently password protected so I cannot verify this personally, but they did make the formulas public in a Google spreadsheet.
Spell Damage %: 0.157 * 51 = 8.01% [Increases the damage done by your spells by a percentage.] Spell Haste %: 0.157 * 51 = 8.01% [Grants a percentage of spell haste.] Mana Adept: 0.236 * 51 = 12.04% [Increases all spell damage done by up to a percentage, based on the amount of mana the Mage has unspent.]
Fire:
Spell Damage %: 0.157 * 51 = 8.01% [Increases the damage done by your spells by a percentage.] Spell Crit %: 0.157 * 51 = 8.01% [Increases your spell critical strike chance by a percentage.] Flashburn %: 0.092 * 51 = 4.69% [Causes your fire spells to deal additional periodic damage via based on a percentage of the direct damage they dealt.]
Frost:
Spell Damage %: 0.157 * 51 = 8.01% [Increases the damage done by your spells by a percentage.] Spell Crit Damage %: 0.353 * 51 = 18.00% Increases the critical strike bonus on all your spells by a percentage.] Deathfrost: 0.236 * 51 = 12.04% [Your Frostbolt spell causes its victim to take a percentage increased damage from the next Frost spell you attack the victim with.]
At 51 talent points (the cap via talent points) you get +8.01% spell damage, +8.01% spell crit chance and +20.05% Shadow Orb damage (can stack up to 3 times).
Adding Mastery rating increases that third one. At level 81 between 61 and 68 Mastery Rating moves Shadow Orb damage to +22.55%.
399 Mastery Rating at level 80 is +35.05% Shadow Orb damage (or 15% above the talent point cap).
All of these numbers are of course subject to change (and likely will still be even after it goes live).
The starting quest items are all ilvl 272 greens. It looks like they might be using a different formula to what WotLK items are though.
The cloth gear has heaps of armor and stamina on them.
The new weapons are lacking +spellpower which is sort of strange as it means they have no chance of being competitive with WotLK epic weapons (which retain their +spellpower as they should). Maybe it'll be added in later or maybe they're saving that for Cata epics. Either way, at present you won't be replacing your weapon anytime soon.
Mastery from talents caps out at 51 talent points. As per Alphatester's screenshot currently Spell Dmg caps at 8.01% (dunno if the 0.01% is just a tooltip issue or not), Crit is at 8.01% and Shadow Orb damage is at 20.05%. (Stacks 3 times). Mind you, it doesn't actually do anything...maybe in a later build.
Currently Mastery seems to have the "bug" that Expertise has in WotLK where it doesn't display as smoothly increasing as you add more Mastery rating. Instead (at least on the tooltip) it jumps in increments of 2.5%. At level 81, you need somewhere between 61 and 68 Mastery Rating to get that 2.5% jump. I don't know if it's just a tooltip issue or not because as I said, Shadow Orbs aren't actually giving a DPS boost yet.
...
So at 80, 399 rating / +15% bonus = 1% per 26.6 rating, or about 2.544 talent points spent in mastery, and 1 talent point is equal to about 10.45 rating
At 81, 68 rating / +2.5% bonus = 1% per 27.2 rating (I'm assuming 1 mastery rating decreases in value as you level ), and 1 talent point is about equal to 10.69 rating
To get a real gauge of where mastery fits, we'd need to figure out how much is spent in the item budget and what the 85 values are, but I've yet to see any screenshots of gear with mastery rating. Perhaps some comparisons could be made with enchants, as I remember some mastery rating enchants there, but I don't have a copy of that handy. I don't think Mastery is going to ramp up that slowly, and will likely join the other ratings with triple digits per 1% at 85.
Somewhat related, I was also told by a friend that the first quest blue you run across is around ilvl 280.
Quick edit note: These posts are concerning Shadow Priests and their 3rd Mastery, Shadow Orb damage, which increases by 0.393% per 1 talent point. Mages have significantly lower bonuses per talent point spent (0.236 and 0.092). At 399 rating, Mages will get +9.01090...% to Mana Adept and Death Frost, and +3.51272...% to Ignite.
So at 80, 399 rating / +15% bonus = 1% per 26.6 rating, or about 2.544 talent points spent in mastery, and 1 talent point is equal to about 10.45 rating.
Haste costs 32 rating for a 1% DPS increase. (I know, it's 1% above base, not above current value, but mastery will exhibit the same effects once you have a decent chunk of it.) Thus, at 10.45 Mastery Rating per talent point increase equivalent, it means that Mastery should increase your damage by 1% per 3 talent points to be competitive.
Currently, this amount of Mastery gives a 0.7% Mana Adept Bonus, a 0.7% Frostbolt Deathfrost or a 0.3% Fire Flashburn bonus (periodic damage after direct damage hit). So, it's quite a bit worse than Haste which gave 1%. But haste was always good, due to using more mana and not causing spikes like crit. Mastery is actually in line with Crit Rating, yielding a 1% increase for 45 rating points. Anyway, it's not even beta yet, so things will change a lto and numbers will do a really bumpy rollercoaster ride. Bit it's nice to know that the scale of Mastery is like the one of Crit. Both of which could use some boost for spells, ever since stats were weighted.
04/17/10, 12:57 PM
), and 1 talent point is about equal to 10.69 rating
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