Ok, this may be me showing how horribly awful I am at PvP but Ive been really curious. The PvPers in my guild have been raging about Frost Mages being so godly and how much Deep Freeze sucks. But thats where Im confused. How are they taking damage from Deep Freeze? Every time Ive used it in PvP, it just freezes the target and then I try to spam Ice Lance. Am I doing it wrong?
Frost mages are ridiculous right now because they have far too much control. Multiple Stuns and Roots, CC, snares of course.
I'm kind of a dumb goose, so answer me this: in the OP is says:
Hit to 17% > Int > Crit >>>>>>> Mastery > Haste
Does that mean hit trumps int trumps crit A WHOLE BUNCH OF LOTS over mastery and haste? In other words, worry more about the former and then the latter?
It's also wrong.
If you gear for Hit at the expense of Int you're doing it wrong.
Right, and looking at stat weights Int is greater than Hit, but also since you would never have to worry about reforging Int, and since all items of a same item level are Int there would be no reason to think about it except in the areas of enchanting and gemming, in which case you always want Int.
And epics are always better than blues, never downgrade a piece just for another stat simply because Int is incredibly powerful.
<Head explode!>:shock: I seriously didn't know this! I thought reaching the hit cap was highest priority. My item level is about 334, I think, and I've been gemming and enchanting for hit this whole time! So now I better replace all my gems and enchants (if applicable) with +int or +int/hit, as stated in the OP.
I'm Arcane Spec. Is lightweave embroidery (+~500 spell power proc) on cloak considered to be better than the +50 int enchant? The elitist jerks page seemed kinda ambiguous on that subject. The numbers were "assuming maximum up-time" which is kinda silly.
It has changed since Wrath, and now since Int is our Spellpower, Crit, AND Mana, it's better by far.
As for enchants, if it's exclusive to your class, it is almost without question better than what any other enchant can offer. Also, the Lightweave PROC and Lightweave TOOLTIP are at odds. The PROC is 580 Intellect.
Forty: MULTIPLE stuns? Does the PvP spec get Impact, as well?
Also, I dunno if Frost Mages are really all that bad right now, especially with some classes either shrugging off our snares/roots, and others critting us for 20-30k WITH resilience.
I like to think it's a trade off. Mages are lackluster in PvE but really good in PvP.
Of course with Blizzards way of fixing issues, I don't expect their to be a trade off for very long, since they seem to think PvP will ever be balanced enough to please anyone.
I took out int from the stat weights (it is always the best stat) and added a special note on gemming so that you can't make terrible decisions on gemming.
Rawr seems to like mixed gemming due to the chaotic meta requirements or more blue than red, leading to very few reds and lots of purples and greens
Anyone else noticing Impact eating LB? I dont mean LB dropping off my current target because it spread to 3 new targets. I mean, I have Living Bomb on Mob A, I toss out Impact and POOF! Living Bomb is not on A, B, C, D or E. Its looking like if there are too many options for LB to be on, it just disappears.
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GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
Forty: MULTIPLE stuns? Does the PvP spec get Impact, as well?
Also, I dunno if Frost Mages are really all that bad right now, especially with some classes either shrugging off our snares/roots, and others critting us for 20-30k WITH resilience.
I like to think it's a trade off. Mages are lackluster in PvE but really good in PvP.
Yes, the PvP spec gets Impact.
My count is:
4 roots (Frost Nova, Barrier Nova, Pet Nova, Cone of Cold)
1-4 snares (FB, FFB if not glyphed, Cone of Cold, Frost Armor)
2 stuns (Deep Freeze, Impact Fire Blast)
Ring of Frost
Sheep
Interrupt + Silence
Naturally some of those have CDs and also partially share Diminishing Returns.
And Frost mages have good mobility with Blink and glyphed Icy Veins (and I think you can even afford one point in Blazing Speed). Plus you only use two non-instant spells anyway (FB and sheep). And then there's Ice Block to reset a fight if it goes south.
Even if this huge amount of control was balanced by low damage (which it isn't imo, but 4.06 might change my mind) it's very frustrating to play against. That explains all the hate against Frost Mages. They now get what Rogues were getting when they could stunlock people to death.
I took out int from the stat weights (it is always the best stat) and added a special note on gemming so that you can't make terrible decisions on gemming.
Rawr seems to like mixed gemming due to the chaotic meta requirements or more blue than red, leading to very few reds and lots of purples and greens
There's no need for it now because of the new meta requirements.
On any piece that has say:
Red Slot
Yellow/Blue Slot
Socket Bonus +20int (this is on epics for the most part).
You almost always want to actually fulfill the socketbonus because you would otherwise stack 2 +40int gems = 80int, but with that you would get 80int+20 hit/crit/haste.
Also gemming almost always wants to be towards int because you can't reforge anything into Int, whereas you can reforge almost everything into things like hit or crit.
Reforging made the meta-gaming portion of the game a bit more interesting simply because it's not as cut and dry anymore trying to gear/reforge around the hit cap (which is a serious problem I've come across on my mage.
Also finally at 3-piece T11 after getting the robes from badges and the gloves from BH last night. Yeaaaah.
Yeah it was with this patch, as well as the new meta that you'll want to use which is +54 int/increased crit dmg (something like that).
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
Okay guys, this shit is starting to break my brain. I'll admit: I'm not a super-hardcore player but at the same time I want to be effective. So apologies if I sound like a total clueless mage in advance.
Patch Changes
I was browsing the EJ forums last night, the fire mage thread specifically. It appears with the changes to mana costs to fireball, we don't need to talent into improved scorch anymore? I was just getting the hang of "scorch weaving" too, but since I'm only level 64 right now, the dungeons at my level are pretty much zerg fests and I barely have time to fire off any single-target spells; I imagine this will change when the dungeons ramp-up? Did any other fire mages redo their talents yet? Any idea where the points should go? I also have questions about stat changes too, but that's my next question (below)...
Stats
Again, I'm just not getting it. As I understand it, +INT gear is king; any piece I get that adds +INT I have been equipping; I'm hesitant to gimp my +STA and health now (the mobs really started hitting hard out in HFP) but I'm managing. At any rate, as someone who raided prior to taking a break about a year ago, I understand the need of getting to the hit-cap but the stats after that is where I'm getting lost.
Part of the problem is, the game has changed a lot not just with Cataclysm, but with other patches that came and went before I stopped playing. A good example of this are new gems; and a more recent example would be reforging. I haven't reforged an item yet (I started a Goblin right after I picked the game back up; doesn't seem worth my time to reforge anything yet given I replace a new piece of gear almost every hour), and I'm sure once I do it I'll understand. However, Other than INT and the Hit cap, if I'm reading the priorities right, you want to balance +haste and +crit evenly now (due to "ignite munching", which I have a tenuous grasp on, at best). Is it as simple as that? Is there some target number for +crit and +haste I should be looking for? They aren't very clear on their posts; they just say to target them. What's a good rule? 80/20?
The other thing I am gathering is that most of the gear that mages will be wanting to acquire later on almost always has a high +INT stat, and some other stat to reforge; does a lot of the gear already have +hit too? Or will it all be enchants and gems to bridge the gap? Or is it as simple as just reforging +Spirit into something else?
tl'dr I'm not a very good mage player and there's a lot I don't understand! Help!
You almost never have to worry about INT except in regards to gemming and enchanting. You'll always be putting on gear that has a higher ilevel because the stats are better, and in that the int will be higher. +int stays the exact same across all items of the same Ilevel (all 359 epics from normal raids have the same +int).
Gemming is basically INT unless the socket bonus gives +20int in which case throw in another +20INT/+20X gem.
In general stat weights are at an extremely weird place, and the stat weights posted on sites like that usually involve BiS or gear that brings out the most DPS, but in general stats really depend on the gear you have and the possible reforge/gemming/enchanting compositions.
Also with this patch being a day out, it's still too early to tell on whether or not Haste or Crit or Mastery will be best now. They're all a lot closer which is good for the layman because it means gearing will be a lot simpler than it was before where you need to reforge everything into like hit or crit and such.
In regards to the new Scorch mechanics, I did BWD last night and had no problems with mana last night which was awesome, but I'm still holding onto scorch and firestarter simply because, where else will you put the points? Arcane Concentration isn't necessarily a DPS increase because of the same reason, and there aren't too many frost talents that would actually make it useful.
TL;DR: Too early into the patch to really know which is best now because Blizzard changed stat and talent mechanics enough to make it a bit more interesting.
Improved Scorch will still be good if you're casting Scorch a lot, which means "in any fight where you have to move". If you dropped Improve Scorch, you'd probably be picking up points in Arcane Concentration anyway.... I mean, I haven't gone over and read the firemage thread since the patch, but I am dubious about dropping Improved Scorch even if you can be manastable casting Fireball forever.
Also, for stat priorities right now I would go "Int>Hit to cap>just get whatever you want here". The stat priorities on Elitist jerks are based on simulations, and while smart people are working very hard to get those simulations to match conditions in the game, it's not worth breaking your skull over. All of the simulations predict that crit and haste will be close, but less valuable than Int and Hit.
To the people talking about Impact earlier- I personally get Impact, but it's very popular to pass it up in favor of Improved Blink. I suppose that's not a very good argument against "frost is OP in PVP" though- that a lot of people think you should give up a frequently-proccing stun in favor of an escape mechanic because we just don't need another stun.
I dislike the frost changes so much! 50k deep freeze crits feel so weak compared to my old 60-70k ones.
I got a 172k deep freeze crit on Magmaw's impale phase once. I really enjoyed the burst control that we had in PvE with all these bonus damage phases, but losing six points of mastery for frost bolt damage just feels like a loss to me.
Are mages behind in DPS right now?? Simulation craft says we are a bit... I was only doing about 66% of the top DPSer's damage the other night on Maloriak after being 2nd and 3rd on Omnitron/Magmaw. It was really concerning to me that I lost so badly on a straight DPS thing like that. It's obviously an item level thing to some extent, and I realized that my rotation was slightly flawed (not saving one charge of FoF for brainfreezes). I can't imagine it making up the difference though...
So apparently Im a witch. I dont know how I did it, but I got a Combustion that was doing 7k+ per tick. I usually only get 3-4k and rarely will get a 5k. But wow...7k!
I dislike the frost changes so much! 50k deep freeze crits feel so weak compared to my old 60-70k ones.
I got a 172k deep freeze crit on Magmaw's impale phase once. I really enjoyed the burst control that we had in PvE with all these bonus damage phases, but losing six points of mastery for frost bolt damage just feels like a loss to me.
Are mages behind in DPS right now?? Simulation craft says we are a bit... I was only doing about 66% of the top DPSer's damage the other night on Maloriak after being 2nd and 3rd on Omnitron/Magmaw. It was really concerning to me that I lost so badly on a straight DPS thing like that. It's obviously an item level thing to some extent, and I realized that my rotation was slightly flawed (not saving one charge of FoF for brainfreezes). I can't imagine it making up the difference though...
So apparently Im a witch. I dont know how I did it, but I got a Combustion that was doing 7k+ per tick. I usually only get 3-4k and rarely will get a 5k. But wow...7k!
Rolling ignites all up ins, or some such witchcraft.
I want to take the secondary stat debate a little further, if you all don't mind.
How much mastery, crit, or haste does it take to = 1 int? For instance, does 10 int = 10 mastery + 10 crit/haste (i.e. 1 primary = 2 secondary) or is int even more valuable than that? I realize the true stat weights haven't been calculated yet, but I'm happy to hear theories and hypotheses.
I left hit out because it's obviously worth more than crit, mastery, and haste - up to the hit cap. But I would also be curious to see how much hit it would take to = 10 int against a boss mob. Hit is obviously useless against non-bosses because it's easy to hit cap against non-bosses.
These stats have totally different values in different specs. Crit is worth far more to a fire mage because hot streak and ignite both rely on crits. Since no arcane talents or skills are activated through crits, does that leave Mastery as the most important secondary stat to an Arcane mage? I think it is.
What about Frost? Seems to me that mastery is more of a pvp/leveling/farming stat for frost, since bosses cannot be predictably "frozen" (reliant on proc). Does the Frost Mastery bonus even kick in when Fingers of Frost procs? I think it does, but if not, then that would make mastery worthless in pve. If so, then it's reliant on a random proc. I feel that would make haste the best frost stat since more casts = more opportunities to proc Fingers.
Lastly, how much haste does it take to get an extra bolt in arcane missiles? Specifically, at what haste rating or % do you get your first extra missile, and how much more does it take to get another one? I'm thinking of emphasizing int, hit, and mastery in my gearing, enchanting, and gemming and I'd like to know what my base haste should be, and how much haste I need to get a big improvement. I prefer to focus on stats like mastery and crit that increase my damage per mana point AND dps, as opposed to haste which boosts dps, and only indirectly increases my damage/mana ratio by boosting arcane missiles. I really like the arcane Mana Mastery, I feel it compliments Arcane Blast and I want to exploit it as much as possible. :twisted:
Depending on just how willing you are to dig for those numbers, here's the Elitist Jerks' mage forum: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/
Generally, the first post in the thread will contain relevant basics for things like stat priorities, gemming decisions, talents, glyphs, spell rotations, etc.
Example, the fire stat values:
Intellect 3.2296
Hit 2.4597
Spell Power 2.3709
Haste 1.4677
Crit 1.3896
Mastery 1.2287
The explanation for haste/crit being ordered differently than you'd expect:
Haste now has a higher relative value compared to Crit/Mastery. Ignite Munching devalues Crit and Mastery considerably. Please remember that the relative values listed here are for very geared 372 players. Haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear. You need to run Rawr / Simulationcraft with YOUR character - to find out whether Haste is slightly better or worse than crit for YOU.
...
Surprised how Crit has dropped in relative value? The biggest factor is Ignite Munching. In a bug-free world without Ignite Munching, Crit would be considered a much stronger stat. But in practise, Crit loses considerable value when Ignite Munching is factored in and accounted for. Various tools (SimulationCraft, Rawr) now account for Ignite Munching, and as a result, Crit has been devalued to levels that more accurately reflect ingame results.
There's a big ol' section explaining Ignite munching pretty well in the Fire thread's OP if anyone's curious.
Edit- looks like the arcane thread is crap by comparison to the fire thread.
Thanks for that post Bobble! Very interesting how something as obscure as Ignite "munching" can make it very difficult to predict stat weights based on nothing but knowledge of the talents and mechanics. You really NEED to run Rawr. I'll start using that in the future, but for now I think I'll just focus on upping my item level!
Unfortunately, I can't hit up EJ at work. I like to peruse PA forums in between work projects and plan out how I'm gonna guild my mage. Lets keep the mage pve discussion going...so I can have something interesting to read in my downtime!
I think if mastery loses out to haste again for Arcane mages, that's really a shame, and maybe a sign that some rebalancing might be in order. Based on how the talents were designed, I feel that Fire should be a crit based spec, while Frost is haste based (because of all the free crit from talents) and arcane ought to be mastery based so as to stack the scaling +% damage bonuses from arcane power, arcane blast, and mana mastery. I get the feeling, from reading the talents and what not, that this was the intention but little details like ignite munching and gear stat-budgeting caused them to miss the mark.
Anyway, this is all just my interpretation. How do you guys feel?
Arcane just appeals to me. It may or may not be bleh right now, but I have a feeling that it won't be bleh in the future. I doubt that frost pve will be allowed to reign supreme in pvp and also hold 1st or 2nd tier in pve at the same time.
I found a nifty old macro on wow-wiki. It's designed to cast arcane blast 4 times, then either cast arcane barrage or arcane missiles based on wether or not you're holding down shift. It's from WoTLK I think, and it doesn't work now. Can any of you make a functioning macro that does the same thing?
Depending on just how willing you are to dig for those numbers, here's the Elitist Jerks' mage forum: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/
Generally, the first post in the thread will contain relevant basics for things like stat priorities, gemming decisions, talents, glyphs, spell rotations, etc.
Example, the fire stat values:
Intellect 3.2296
Hit 2.4597
Spell Power 2.3709
Haste 1.4677
Crit 1.3896
Mastery 1.2287
The explanation for haste/crit being ordered differently than you'd expect:
Haste now has a higher relative value compared to Crit/Mastery. Ignite Munching devalues Crit and Mastery considerably. Please remember that the relative values listed here are for very geared 372 players. Haste might be slightly weaker than crit with lower levels of gear. You need to run Rawr / Simulationcraft with YOUR character - to find out whether Haste is slightly better or worse than crit for YOU.
...
Surprised how Crit has dropped in relative value? The biggest factor is Ignite Munching. In a bug-free world without Ignite Munching, Crit would be considered a much stronger stat. But in practise, Crit loses considerable value when Ignite Munching is factored in and accounted for. Various tools (SimulationCraft, Rawr) now account for Ignite Munching, and as a result, Crit has been devalued to levels that more accurately reflect ingame results.
There's a big ol' section explaining Ignite munching pretty well in the Fire thread's OP if anyone's curious.
Edit- looks like the arcane thread is crap by comparison to the fire thread.
Unfortunately though those stat weights also change in simulation based on whether the person in particular has 4piece T11 or not.
Stat weighting Mages is quite difficult now compared to before.
So apparently Im a witch. I dont know how I did it, but I got a Combustion that was doing 7k+ per tick. I usually only get 3-4k and rarely will get a 5k. But wow...7k!
Rolling ignites all up ins, or some such witchcraft.
We did an AoE pull in BoT 25 with all of the packs and I was doing 70k+dps with combustion/impact procs.
So apparently Im a witch. I dont know how I did it, but I got a Combustion that was doing 7k+ per tick. I usually only get 3-4k and rarely will get a 5k. But wow...7k!
Get CombustionHelper and watch it carefully. I try to only pop it when Living Bomb is up and Ignite does more than 6000 damage in a tick (otherwise, Living Bomb crits will set it to like 2000).
Pyroblast is a nice little addition, but right now it's too risky to wait for that AND Ignite to be rolling AND Ignite rolls high.
See those numbers right there? What the fuck do those numbers mean.
Fancy talk for "In is better than Hit is better than spellpower is better than haste" etc.
You can probably simplify it, too.
Think of it this way: If the numbers don't add up to more than the top, it's not better. This is mostly for gems (as ANYTHING with more Int is likely better than what you're wearing now)
So an orange slot with +10 Int, you'd need at least +30 crit and haste to actually be more than the +40 Int plus the bonus.
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
See those numbers right there? What the fuck do those numbers mean.
Fancy talk for "In is better than Hit is better than spellpower is better than haste" etc.
You can probably simplify it, too.
Think of it this way: If the numbers don't add up to more than the top, it's not better. This is mostly for gems (as ANYTHING with more Int is likely better than what you're wearing now)
So an orange slot with +10 Int, you'd need at least +30 crit and haste to actually be more than the +40 Int plus the bonus.
So those are coefficients, then? Like, say I have a piece of gear with high +int right now; if a piece drops that doesn't give +int, but gives, say +hit and +cirt, I need to do math, like so:
if (X * 3.226 ) > (Y * 2.4597) + (Z * 1.3896) then keep item 1, otherwise use item 2?
Given:
X = +INT from current piece
Y = +Hit from dropped item
Z = +Crit from dropped item
A note, though- those numbers are coefficients based on the additional DPS that 1 more of each stat would give you, in a particular spec, wearing full T11 gear, assuming that the models behind Rawr and simulationcraft are accurate (and I'm not deeply confident that the way they are modelling ignite munching are accurate). They are not written in stone, they may not apply to you at all.
Blizzard appears to be balancing around Int>hit>everything else, and all of the modelling seems to agree with that. For now I would prioritize Int, keep an eye on your DPS meter while you play around with stats, and take a look at what Rawr tells you to do without losing sleep over whether mastery is better than haste.
Yeah, that stuff is bleeding edge, squeezing out the last .1% of your DPS type math. For me, I look at my fire mage and say "Int, then crit, with enough hit to do what I want."
Also, I feel like for frost, mastery is very good in pvp and questionable in pve. I think around 60-70% of my dps in pvp is on frozen targets, and only around 10-20% in pve.
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It has changed since Wrath, and now since Int is our Spellpower, Crit, AND Mana, it's better by far.
As for enchants, if it's exclusive to your class, it is almost without question better than what any other enchant can offer. Also, the Lightweave PROC and Lightweave TOOLTIP are at odds. The PROC is 580 Intellect.
Forty: MULTIPLE stuns? Does the PvP spec get Impact, as well?
Also, I dunno if Frost Mages are really all that bad right now, especially with some classes either shrugging off our snares/roots, and others critting us for 20-30k WITH resilience.
I like to think it's a trade off. Mages are lackluster in PvE but really good in PvP.
Of course with Blizzards way of fixing issues, I don't expect their to be a trade off for very long, since they seem to think PvP will ever be balanced enough to please anyone.
Fire mages aren't lackluster in PvE (or weren't before the patch; I don't know what's happening with them).
Rawr seems to like mixed gemming due to the chaotic meta requirements or more blue than red, leading to very few reds and lots of purples and greens
Yes, the PvP spec gets Impact.
My count is:
4 roots (Frost Nova, Barrier Nova, Pet Nova, Cone of Cold)
1-4 snares (FB, FFB if not glyphed, Cone of Cold, Frost Armor)
2 stuns (Deep Freeze, Impact Fire Blast)
Ring of Frost
Sheep
Interrupt + Silence
Naturally some of those have CDs and also partially share Diminishing Returns.
And Frost mages have good mobility with Blink and glyphed Icy Veins (and I think you can even afford one point in Blazing Speed). Plus you only use two non-instant spells anyway (FB and sheep). And then there's Ice Block to reset a fight if it goes south.
Even if this huge amount of control was balanced by low damage (which it isn't imo, but 4.06 might change my mind) it's very frustrating to play against. That explains all the hate against Frost Mages. They now get what Rogues were getting when they could stunlock people to death.
There's no need for it now because of the new meta requirements.
On any piece that has say:
Red Slot
Yellow/Blue Slot
Socket Bonus +20int (this is on epics for the most part).
You almost always want to actually fulfill the socketbonus because you would otherwise stack 2 +40int gems = 80int, but with that you would get 80int+20 hit/crit/haste.
Also gemming almost always wants to be towards int because you can't reforge anything into Int, whereas you can reforge almost everything into things like hit or crit.
Reforging made the meta-gaming portion of the game a bit more interesting simply because it's not as cut and dry anymore trying to gear/reforge around the hit cap (which is a serious problem I've come across on my mage.
Also finally at 3-piece T11 after getting the robes from badges and the gloves from BH last night. Yeaaaah.
Patch Changes
I was browsing the EJ forums last night, the fire mage thread specifically. It appears with the changes to mana costs to fireball, we don't need to talent into improved scorch anymore? I was just getting the hang of "scorch weaving" too, but since I'm only level 64 right now, the dungeons at my level are pretty much zerg fests and I barely have time to fire off any single-target spells; I imagine this will change when the dungeons ramp-up? Did any other fire mages redo their talents yet? Any idea where the points should go? I also have questions about stat changes too, but that's my next question (below)...
Stats
Again, I'm just not getting it. As I understand it, +INT gear is king; any piece I get that adds +INT I have been equipping; I'm hesitant to gimp my +STA and health now (the mobs really started hitting hard out in HFP) but I'm managing. At any rate, as someone who raided prior to taking a break about a year ago, I understand the need of getting to the hit-cap but the stats after that is where I'm getting lost.
Part of the problem is, the game has changed a lot not just with Cataclysm, but with other patches that came and went before I stopped playing. A good example of this are new gems; and a more recent example would be reforging. I haven't reforged an item yet (I started a Goblin right after I picked the game back up; doesn't seem worth my time to reforge anything yet given I replace a new piece of gear almost every hour), and I'm sure once I do it I'll understand. However, Other than INT and the Hit cap, if I'm reading the priorities right, you want to balance +haste and +crit evenly now (due to "ignite munching", which I have a tenuous grasp on, at best). Is it as simple as that? Is there some target number for +crit and +haste I should be looking for? They aren't very clear on their posts; they just say to target them. What's a good rule? 80/20?
The other thing I am gathering is that most of the gear that mages will be wanting to acquire later on almost always has a high +INT stat, and some other stat to reforge; does a lot of the gear already have +hit too? Or will it all be enchants and gems to bridge the gap? Or is it as simple as just reforging +Spirit into something else?
tl'dr I'm not a very good mage player and there's a lot I don't understand! Help!
Gemming is basically INT unless the socket bonus gives +20int in which case throw in another +20INT/+20X gem.
In general stat weights are at an extremely weird place, and the stat weights posted on sites like that usually involve BiS or gear that brings out the most DPS, but in general stats really depend on the gear you have and the possible reforge/gemming/enchanting compositions.
Also with this patch being a day out, it's still too early to tell on whether or not Haste or Crit or Mastery will be best now. They're all a lot closer which is good for the layman because it means gearing will be a lot simpler than it was before where you need to reforge everything into like hit or crit and such.
In regards to the new Scorch mechanics, I did BWD last night and had no problems with mana last night which was awesome, but I'm still holding onto scorch and firestarter simply because, where else will you put the points? Arcane Concentration isn't necessarily a DPS increase because of the same reason, and there aren't too many frost talents that would actually make it useful.
TL;DR: Too early into the patch to really know which is best now because Blizzard changed stat and talent mechanics enough to make it a bit more interesting.
Also, for stat priorities right now I would go "Int>Hit to cap>just get whatever you want here". The stat priorities on Elitist jerks are based on simulations, and while smart people are working very hard to get those simulations to match conditions in the game, it's not worth breaking your skull over. All of the simulations predict that crit and haste will be close, but less valuable than Int and Hit.
To the people talking about Impact earlier- I personally get Impact, but it's very popular to pass it up in favor of Improved Blink. I suppose that's not a very good argument against "frost is OP in PVP" though- that a lot of people think you should give up a frequently-proccing stun in favor of an escape mechanic because we just don't need another stun.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I can barely manage my fire rotation; I can't imagine trying frost at this point.
You pretty much just follow a bunch of if then statements and press buttons accordingly.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I like big crits.
I got a 172k deep freeze crit on Magmaw's impale phase once. I really enjoyed the burst control that we had in PvE with all these bonus damage phases, but losing six points of mastery for frost bolt damage just feels like a loss to me.
Are mages behind in DPS right now?? Simulation craft says we are a bit... I was only doing about 66% of the top DPSer's damage the other night on Maloriak after being 2nd and 3rd on Omnitron/Magmaw. It was really concerning to me that I lost so badly on a straight DPS thing like that. It's obviously an item level thing to some extent, and I realized that my rotation was slightly flawed (not saving one charge of FoF for brainfreezes). I can't imagine it making up the difference though...
What class was the top DPS?
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Rolling ignites all up ins, or some such witchcraft.
How much mastery, crit, or haste does it take to = 1 int? For instance, does 10 int = 10 mastery + 10 crit/haste (i.e. 1 primary = 2 secondary) or is int even more valuable than that? I realize the true stat weights haven't been calculated yet, but I'm happy to hear theories and hypotheses.
I left hit out because it's obviously worth more than crit, mastery, and haste - up to the hit cap. But I would also be curious to see how much hit it would take to = 10 int against a boss mob. Hit is obviously useless against non-bosses because it's easy to hit cap against non-bosses.
These stats have totally different values in different specs. Crit is worth far more to a fire mage because hot streak and ignite both rely on crits. Since no arcane talents or skills are activated through crits, does that leave Mastery as the most important secondary stat to an Arcane mage? I think it is.
What about Frost? Seems to me that mastery is more of a pvp/leveling/farming stat for frost, since bosses cannot be predictably "frozen" (reliant on proc). Does the Frost Mastery bonus even kick in when Fingers of Frost procs? I think it does, but if not, then that would make mastery worthless in pve. If so, then it's reliant on a random proc. I feel that would make haste the best frost stat since more casts = more opportunities to proc Fingers.
Lastly, how much haste does it take to get an extra bolt in arcane missiles? Specifically, at what haste rating or % do you get your first extra missile, and how much more does it take to get another one? I'm thinking of emphasizing int, hit, and mastery in my gearing, enchanting, and gemming and I'd like to know what my base haste should be, and how much haste I need to get a big improvement. I prefer to focus on stats like mastery and crit that increase my damage per mana point AND dps, as opposed to haste which boosts dps, and only indirectly increases my damage/mana ratio by boosting arcane missiles. I really like the arcane Mana Mastery, I feel it compliments Arcane Blast and I want to exploit it as much as possible. :twisted:
Generally, the first post in the thread will contain relevant basics for things like stat priorities, gemming decisions, talents, glyphs, spell rotations, etc.
Example, the fire stat values:
The explanation for haste/crit being ordered differently than you'd expect:
There's a big ol' section explaining Ignite munching pretty well in the Fire thread's OP if anyone's curious.
Edit- looks like the arcane thread is crap by comparison to the fire thread.
Unfortunately, I can't hit up EJ at work. I like to peruse PA forums in between work projects and plan out how I'm gonna guild my mage. Lets keep the mage pve discussion going...so I can have something interesting to read in my downtime!
I think if mastery loses out to haste again for Arcane mages, that's really a shame, and maybe a sign that some rebalancing might be in order. Based on how the talents were designed, I feel that Fire should be a crit based spec, while Frost is haste based (because of all the free crit from talents) and arcane ought to be mastery based so as to stack the scaling +% damage bonuses from arcane power, arcane blast, and mana mastery. I get the feeling, from reading the talents and what not, that this was the intention but little details like ignite munching and gear stat-budgeting caused them to miss the mark.
Anyway, this is all just my interpretation. How do you guys feel?
As long as I can hit 17% hit and 33% crit I'm going to be stacking INT as much as possible.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Why 33.34? I am new to the mage end-game dynamic so to me it's kinda eh.
Aside from Deep Freeze crits, it seems like Arcane would be the best spec for raiding... although i've not looked at any numbers yet.
And its not just DeepFreeze crits, its Ice Lance Crits and FFB crits.
Everything i've heard about arcane is pretty bleh.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I found a nifty old macro on wow-wiki. It's designed to cast arcane blast 4 times, then either cast arcane barrage or arcane missiles based on wether or not you're holding down shift. It's from WoTLK I think, and it doesn't work now. Can any of you make a functioning macro that does the same thing?
#show Arcane Blast
/cast [mod:shift, nochanneling] Arcane Missiles;
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=10/nocombat Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage
All this does is cast arcane blast one time and then stop. I don't know enough about macros to make it work. Thanks for any help!
Unfortunately though those stat weights also change in simulation based on whether the person in particular has 4piece T11 or not.
Stat weighting Mages is quite difficult now compared to before.
We did an AoE pull in BoT 25 with all of the packs and I was doing 70k+dps with combustion/impact procs.
Kinda sweet.
I can't wait until they make it so that Int completely kneecaps our damage.
Time to stack STR then! Melee mage to the rescue!
See those numbers right there? What the fuck do those numbers mean.
Get CombustionHelper and watch it carefully. I try to only pop it when Living Bomb is up and Ignite does more than 6000 damage in a tick (otherwise, Living Bomb crits will set it to like 2000).
Pyroblast is a nice little addition, but right now it's too risky to wait for that AND Ignite to be rolling AND Ignite rolls high.
Fancy talk for "In is better than Hit is better than spellpower is better than haste" etc.
You can probably simplify it, too.
Think of it this way: If the numbers don't add up to more than the top, it's not better. This is mostly for gems (as ANYTHING with more Int is likely better than what you're wearing now)
So an orange slot with +10 Int, you'd need at least +30 crit and haste to actually be more than the +40 Int plus the bonus.
So those are coefficients, then? Like, say I have a piece of gear with high +int right now; if a piece drops that doesn't give +int, but gives, say +hit and +cirt, I need to do math, like so:
if (X * 3.226 ) > (Y * 2.4597) + (Z * 1.3896) then keep item 1, otherwise use item 2?
Given:
X = +INT from current piece
Y = +Hit from dropped item
Z = +Crit from dropped item
This shouldn't be this hard!
Blizzard appears to be balancing around Int>hit>everything else, and all of the modelling seems to agree with that. For now I would prioritize Int, keep an eye on your DPS meter while you play around with stats, and take a look at what Rawr tells you to do without losing sleep over whether mastery is better than haste.