PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 41

Arelenda · 12/14/07, 5:06 AM

Originally Posted by Ormus

Hello Warlock-Community,

I'm not sure, if this place is the right one, the ask this question, but I couldn't find anything using the search-function.
My Question:

When (exactly) ist the time of calculation for "flying"-Spells.
Example: When happens the Bonus-Damage-Calculation (i.e. Improved-Shadowbolt-Debuff with SB // Scorch, immolate with incinerate // Shatter with frostbolt ...)?

Is it the BEGINNING of cast, the end of casttime or the moment, the spell hits the mob (+flight-duration)???

Thanks for your answers
Sorry for my bad english (i'm german

Greets
Ormus

Answered here

Note that haste obviously is calculated at start of cast too.

Arelenda · 12/14/07, 5:35 AM

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

Is there any Theorycrafting on who benefits the most from an elemental shaman, mage vs wl?

I see at least 2 downsides to group wl's with an elemental shaman:

- Each lifetap is wasting 1,5 s of totem usage.

- Elemental Shamans are essentially tied up to a SP. The SP now generates additional threat by "healing" the life taps of 2-3 wl's. There are some fights where our sp's are already threat capped (bloodboil/ros i.e ).

Add that to the fact that wl's already have unlimited mana, I son't see how an elemental/SP/3x WL group can be superior to an elemental/SP/3x Mage grp. We don't sport any Moonkins btw.

I don't think the improved ISB Debuff Up-time can justify that.

Excuse my not-so-perfect english it's not my mothertongue.

Shadow Priest simply drop Vampiric Embrace if they're threat capped, especially in the fights you mentioned. Bloodboil is very threat sensitive, and healing Bloodboil is the least of your worries in that fight. It's predictable damage, unlike the rest of his abilities. It is however, an exceptional fight. That one occasionally has healers running OOM, something which is quite rare in TBC.

You thinking stuff doesn't necessarily make it true. If you want to convince anyone here, show us numbers.

Using the tools mentioned in the compendium, us warlock sport a roughly measured 6% damage from WoA, at least 3% from crit depending on how you model ISB, and 3% from hit bonus. Add Draenei +1% if you're alliance. As far as I know, mages benefit less from each of these, correct me if I'm wrong. Now add heroism, which is something mages tend to benefit less from too: good mages run OOM at the moment the boss dies, so getting more spells in benefits them less than warlocks.

Personal rant: I think play skill and latency will be much bigger factors in determining raid dps, drowning out any measurable difference of putting warlocks or mages with resto/elemental shamans. You probably just want your best players in that group. In our raids, I routinely see top dps people at 150% of the average dpser (regardless of class/spec). It might be gear, latency, people being clueless or just slacking. But given this, I find debating 2-3% extra personal dps just rather hypothetical at this time.

Claster · 12/14/07, 5:52 AM

Originally Posted by Krazen

What spec/gear setup is recommended to tank Illidan? I have 4 of the 5 crafted pieces (except the pants), not sure whether I need them or not.

Aim for max shadow resist (365) with shadow protection buff up. That was enough for our guild. We didn't use SL specced lock even during the training of the encounter.

Ormus · 12/14/07, 6:16 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

Testing proves:

for nukes: (Shadow Bolt, Soul Fire, etc)
Spellpower AND Multiplier are measured at the COMPLETION of cast.
If it's a projectile, it'll start traveling at that point.

for dots (Corruption, UA, etc)
Spellpower "locked in" at completion of cast.
Multiplier reevaluated per tic

for channeled spells: (Drain Life, Hellfire)
Spellpower is "locked" at START of cast.
Multiplier is recalculated at every tic.

I'm assuming crit bonuses (frost mages vs frozen targets) are also "locked in" at completion of cast, but am unable to test this.

I'll need to update ShadowSeer.

Is there a difference between modifiers (=Spellpower / multipliers) on the caster (i.e. trinkets / procs) and modifiers on target (i.e. ISB-Debuff / scorch)??? I mean the moment of "locking" / calculating damage.

Greets Ormus

Brooklyn · 12/14/07, 6:58 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

...

You thinking stuff doesn't necessarily make it true. If you want to convince anyone here, show us numbers.

...

Personal rant: I think play skill and latency will be much bigger factors in determining raid dps, drowning out any measurable difference of putting warlocks or mages with resto/elemental shamans. You probably just want your best players in that group. In our raids, I routinely see top dps people at 150% of the average dpser (regardless of class/spec). It might be gear, latency, people being clueless or just slacking. But given this, I find debating 2-3% extra personal dps just rather hypothetical at this time.

Actually I'm not trying to convince anybody. I'm looking for some hard numbers myself to min/max raid-setups. We have Illidan on farm for several months now so I have Sunwell in mind where every bit of Raid-DPS could matter. We've invitet just recently an elemental shaman. There will be debates in regard to group setups. We are a caster heavy raid and normally have 3 wls (1 affli-supporter 2 destruction)+ 3 mages (all fire) in our setup with 1 SP to go around for our DD's.

Being the Raid-Leader, I'm trying to decide those matters based on facts and not gut-feeling. That's why I asked.

Arelenda · 12/14/07, 7:01 AM

Originally Posted by Ormus

Is there a difference between modifiers (=Spellpower / multipliers) on the caster (i.e. trinkets / procs) and modifiers on target (i.e. ISB-Debuff / scorch)??? I mean the moment of "locking" / calculating damage.

Greets Ormus

No.

All stuff is the same regardless of whether they're caster buffs (Shadow Mastery, Demonic Sacrifice) or target debuffs (ISB, CoS).

Arelenda · 12/14/07, 7:07 AM

Originally Posted by Brooklyn

Actually I'm not trying to convince anybody. I'm looking for some hard numbers myself to min/max raid-setups. We have Illidan on farm for several months now so I have Sunwell in mind where every bit of Raid-DPS could matter. We've invitet just recently an elemental shaman. There will be debates in regard to group setups. We are a caster heavy raid and normally have 3 wls (1 affli-supporter 2 destruction)+ 3 mages (all fire) in our setup with 1 SP to go around for our DD's.

Being the Raid-Leader, I'm trying to decide those matters based on facts and not gut-feeling. That's why I asked.

Fair enough.

To a raid leader I'd recommend putting the highest dps people in the group with the shaman, provided no mage goes without a shadow priest. Solid numbers are hard to give, due to reasons mentioned in aforementioned rant: it depends more on everything else. Especially when learning a new encounter, I'd reckon other factors will be a lot more important in determining success then the few % dps gained by putting the right mages/locks with the shaman.

Talosh · 12/14/07, 7:58 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

Fair enough.

To a raid leader I'd recommend putting the highest dps people in the group with the shaman, provided no mage goes without a shadow priest. Solid numbers are hard to give, due to reasons mentioned in aforementioned rant: it depends more on everything else. Especially when learning a new encounter, I'd reckon other factors will be a lot more important in determining success then the few % dps gained by putting the right mages/locks with the shaman.

Generally totally right. If a shaman would boost mage and warlock in percentage the same, more raiddps will be done from the stronger class.

But in reality it depends on the encounter. For Bloodboil e.g. I see no use for me to have either a shadow priest or an elemental shaman since I always scratch the border of overaggro.

However for Illidan a warlock don't have that much aggro problems if you don't start right away with a crit series.

Next factor is the duration of an encounter and in what state you are. For learning a new encounter healers which don't run oom are more useful than dps without mana.

Conclusion: there is no recipe for the best setup as long as you have so many points to bear in mind

Pintofbrew · 12/14/07, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

Using the tools mentioned in the compendium, us warlock sport a roughly measured 6% damage from WoA, at least 3% from crit depending on how you model ISB, and 3% from hit bonus. Add Draenei +1% if you're alliance. As far as I know, mages benefit less from each of these, correct me if I'm wrong. Now add heroism, which is something mages tend to benefit less from too: good mages run OOM at the moment the boss dies, so getting more spells in benefits them less than warlocks.

I can't profess to know whether shaman totems benefit a mage more than a lock. I'd hazard a guess that you gain more benefit from both crit and spelldamage, given you have a much more friendly coefficient in the form of SnF, Maledicted CoS and ISB. Even though our crit modifier is *2.1 compared to your *2. Hit rating benefits equally I'd think too, though given you output more DPS is more technically valuable to you. It's also more conventional for a mage to hit hitcap before a warlock does in gear terms.

On your other two points, I simply must stop you however. You display lacking knowledge of the mage class: Firstly, no, a good mage will not run OOM at point of boss death. You are perhaps getting confused with 2.2 Arcane spec. When this was possible, it was theorized that the optimum would be to *burn* all your mana on the very costly but very high DPS spell Arcane Blast. Technically, a perfect 2.2 Arcane mage would end with 0 mana but under no circumstances should be OOM before the end.

Either way, since 2.3 Fire is generally considered to be the most raid-effective spec and Arcane has been broken by having it's item-dependency incapacitated. A Firemage should not have any trouble maintaining enough mana throughout an encounter, even without a SP. Given SP however, they can switch to Destro Pots to maxmize Cooldown Synergy (ie. Icy Veins in 2.3.2, Combustion, Trinket, Flamecap, Destropot all together).

And as for Bloodlust/Heroism, undoubtably a mage's biggest weapon is Molten Fury which increases their output by 20% when the boss is under 20% health. This makes Bloodlust (and afforementioned cooldown synergy) at 19% boss health a hugely powerful combination for Firemages, arguably better use to them than Destrolocks who have no such fluctuation in output.

Finaly on your point of "getting more spells in benefits them less than warlocks." I don't understand what you're trying to say... A small percentage of your damage comes from CoA/CoD but by and large you're almost entirely dependent on SB Spam to make your numbers, just like we're dependent on Fireball/Scorch spam for 100% of our output. How are you justifying "more spells don't benefit" a mage more than you?

Arelenda · 12/14/07, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

On your other two points, I simply must stop you however. You display lacking knowledge of the mage class: Firstly, no, a good mage will not run OOM at point of boss death. You are perhaps getting confused with 2.2 Arcane spec. When this was possible, it was theorized that the optimum would be to *burn* all your mana on the very costly but very high DPS spell Arcane Blast. Technically, a perfect 2.2 Arcane mage would end with 0 mana but under no circumstances should be OOM before the end.

Either way, since 2.3 Fire is generally considered to be the most raid-effective spec and Arcane has been broken by having it's item-dependency incapacitated. A Firemage should not have any trouble maintaining enough mana throughout an encounter, even without a SP.

This is new to me. My post was made assuming that mages had ways dumping their mana into more dps, which was the case with 2.2 arcane. If that is no longer the case, and fire is the default pve spec now, I was wrong. Thanks for correcting me.

It seems that this makes it even harder to decide what is better. I'll stick with my previous statement: put your best players with the elemental shaman, be they warlocks or mages. This is assuming they're not threat capped.

Did they fix ignite yet so fire crit modifier is a real 210% now? It used to be 150% + 60% ignite dot that got overwritten by subsequent crits.

Roywyn · 12/14/07, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

This is new to me. My post was made assuming that mages had ways dumping their mana into more dps, which was the case with 2.2 arcane. If that is no longer the case, and fire is the default pve spec now, I was wrong. Thanks for correcting me.

Did they fix ignite yet so fire crit modifier is a real 210% now? It used to be 150% + 60% ignite dot that got overwritten by subsequent crits.

You can see people argue for and against arcane day in, day out.
As far as I know, <The Flaming Ruby> is raiding with a couple of very convinced arcane mages, so it's hard to argue for or against it.

* Fire specs just scale vastly better than arcane.
Arcane needs 2/5 T5 and a huge amount of excessive mana to spam AB. Fire scales with all the +hit and +haste on T6 level gear and with 4/5 T6.
Come 2.3.2 and Icy Veins (20% haste for 20sec, 3min CD), fire will be more mana hungry, but 1 shadow priest is about all the mana a mage needs*. There is no real option to burn mana for more damage.
Having more mana means that damage is increases by not using Evocation (cast time lost), using molten armour over mage armour, using Flame Caps instead of mana gems, and Destruction Potions instead of SMPs. Check the mage thread for numbers, it's roughly 0.4-0.5 spell damage equivalent gained per 1mp5 from outside.

* Ignite has been "real 210% crits" for about a year, since 2.0 came and rolling ignites were removed. It can bug on occasion when one player has two crits at the same time, but it has next to no impact on raiding.

* Heroism at 20% on mages is probably the most you can get from a heroism in a caster group. Mages have two 3 minute cooldown talents and usually trinket/flame cap to save when the boss gets to 20% and takes 20% from them.
If you really min-max though, you're probably better off rotating your shaman through the melee group.

gargosch · 12/14/07, 12:33 PM

We agree on a One Roll system right ?

So the win of 1% hit is only +1% dps without any crit. With a hight crit modifier and a high crit chance the win of 1% hit is alot less. With ruin and 33.33..% crit your personal damage is 50% from crits, so increasing the non crit damage by 1% will only lead to 0.5% overall dps gain. This is why crit is not so bad vs. hit.

Can someone confirm this?

Arnath · 12/14/07, 2:23 PM

There's a post somewhere around here that gives a decent amount of evidence for a 2 roll system. It's generally agreed that it's probably 2 rolls at this point I believe.

EDIT: Found the post: Quick question about 1 roll or 2 roll system for casters

Gumibear · 12/14/07, 2:33 PM

Originally Posted by Talosh

...

But in reality it depends on the encounter. For Bloodboil e.g. I see no use for me to have either a shadow priest or an elemental shaman since I always scratch the border of overaggro.

However for Illidan a warlock don't have that much aggro problems if you don't start right away with a crit series.
...

Do not forget about Tranquil Air totem. If you would be threat-capped, that's a good DPS increase. For what it's worth, I'm usually with an Elemental Shaman and a Shadow Priest for Bloodboil and Tranquil Air allows me to make good use of all the other group DPS increases. TA allows for a Soul Shatter around 50% to be all I need on Bloodboil to cast undeterred by threat.

Edit: TA during the parts where threat actually matters anyway. A good Elemental Shaman knows when to switch between Wrath of Air and Tranquil Air for a high damage caster group.

Latus · 12/14/07, 3:29 PM

ok so ive been reading about the arguements for and against 30/21/10, and mostly i see "has less crit" and "does not have ruin" so now given this and after making an adjustment has anyone ever tried 19/21/21

basically since most of the highest end gear still promotes casting corruption i tried to keep things like imp corruption, nightfall, and as much empowered corruption as i could, while still having shadowbolt be fairly strong, you only lose out on 3% crit and the 20% more +dmg to shadowbolt from shadow and flame. not saying that this is a great build, as it is mainly just me tinkering, but im mainly looking for input and opinions and if anyone has ever tried this out.