Mage 4.0 stuff
Alprazalam — Sun, 10/17/2010 - 15:52
Due to school, I haven't been able to fully get online and figure out the new mage talents and changes. I'm putting this up hoping that our other mages will come here and post what they have found out whats best to do with reforging and gemming choices.
I have glanced briefly at Elitist Jerks, but it was a few days ago. At the time I didn't find any clear stat DPS numbers. I figured what I would do is reforge spirit into hit and gem hit until I'm capped. I figure that if I'm still not hit capped, then for fire I'd reforge haste to hit and for arcane reforge some crit for hit. I also would like to point out that now Living Bomb doesn't proc Hotstreak, and just the few minutes I have been on I've noticed a drop in my procs, so I'm going to try to stay around 63% to crit as fire then stack haste. My guess about mastery is that it really isn't worth it for fire atm seeing how it isn't on gear yet, but I have no idea how good it is for Arcane. Maybe Crawfeesh can give a load down on what he did for his arcane spec.
I also saw several of our mages go frost. I don't agree with frost being a PVE spec, but if its liable, then its liable. I'd like to hear what ya'll have to say regarding geming and reforging choices. Also, a rotation would be nice. I wanna ask about rotation because I'd like to know if anyone has seen saving brainfreeze for a fingers of frost proc worth it, or if the procs are so few then just use you procs ASAP.
I will probable get some free time on Wednesday to do some actual research, but I just wanted to find out what our mages are doing.
Stuff I have gathered
dreziak — Wed, 10/20/2010 - 17:31Fire: Hit: (446) for 17%, Haste at 35% you get a 6th living bomb tick, im at 29.9 % for raiding, you get 2% from talents and 5% from raid, mastery is useless as of right now
Frostfire bolt glyphed for the three stacks isnt worth it because we have no mastery, the 5% crit for fireball does more damage then glyphed frostfire bolt. I have tried reforging all haste, all crit, and a mix of haste and crit and putting everything into mastery. When doing this right now, you CAN get an initial high burst of dps with combustion, but overall the dps isnt very good.
Pretty much I would say Hit (446) >> Haste (35%) >> Crit >> Mastery
Arcane: One of my friends on greymane in a top raiding guild told me that Mastery is by far the best stat for arcane as long as you are above 66% mana. He uses Mage armor (glyphed) and when he gets to around 66% mana he evocates. Personally my opinion of arcane is, even though it probably is the best dps spec right now, it is really boring so... that's why i am fire.
Hit >> Mastery >> Crit >> Haste
Gems Red: Int, Blue: Int/Hit, Yellow: Int/Haste
That's it for now.
WHAT!!!!! NONE OF OUR MAGES
Alprazalam — Tue, 10/19/2010 - 08:43WHAT!!!!! NONE OF OUR MAGES HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY?!?!?!?!?!?!?! RAGE!!!!!!
NEW COMBUSTION ADDON!!!!!!!! It is called CombustionHelper and apparently shows all relevant DOTs that work with the new Combustion. Shows if the dot is active on the target and its duration. It isn't necessary, but I'm going to get it and see if I can get rid for classtimers for it if it works properly. I'll then add an second SBF window to show my procs..... kind of how like Saedo has his mage's SBF set up to do.
I will say this about fire rotation, and it'll be awhile before I get a chance to test it out, but I've been reading that keeping 3 stacks of the glyphed FFB dot active but still casting FB as our main nuke is a DPS increase. HOWEVER, I've also read to only put the three FFB dot is only liable when you are going to use Combustion. Keep in mind to only use Combustion when Ignite, Living Bomb, and Pyroblast dots are on your target. The Combustion dot can also be spread to other targets with the ignite talent, just like the rest of our dots.
Some other things I have read and haven't tested.
ALSO, speculation is that once we start to get mastery on our gear, glyphed FFB will become our main nuke. It adds an extra dot, which the dot damage is then multiplied by our mastery, but atm there is no way to get enough mastery to make switching our main nuke to FFB.
Something else I would like to point out. If you wanna get the best numbers for whats a better rotation or what not, take off all equipment that has anything "proc" based on it, such as a weapon with Black Magic, a chance on hit trinket, Tailoring cloak enchant, etc. Proc rates and chances can obscure numbers. Another thing to point out is if you are comparing 2 specs, only use a cooldown if it isn't available in the other spec. What I'm saying if if for fire you wanted to check and see if FFB or FB is better for you main nuke, don't use combustion or Mirror Images (if you have the tier 10 set bonus) because both of those are available for both specs. If you are testing something out like Frost vs fire, then use Combustion/Icy Veins.
All in all, it is hard to get actual scaled data just shooting a target dummy, because of all the raid crit and haste buffs we get in raid. It really isn't THAT bad for arcane, but it is much worse for fire because it relies so heavily on critting. Just something else to remember. Now get on here and post something so we can discuss mage!
<edit> 10/19/10 Added CombustionHelper info.
im sure you have already
shroom — Tue, 11/02/2010 - 10:57im sure you have already noticed, but yes, it is possible to clip LB and i believe it can only be on 1 target at a time, unless spread by combustion. I dont think FFB will ever be our "main" nuke, but i do forsee it becoming a regular part of the rotation with more mastery. something like get the dot stacked to 3, then FB until you need to FFB again to keep the dot from falling off. After the initial stacking it would look something like FB, FB, FB, FFB, while keeping an eye on LB obviously.
just did some tests on target
Alprazalam — Thu, 11/04/2010 - 14:04just did some tests on target dummies infront of Darnasus (closest ones I could find together) It is possible to cast LB on 3 separate targets. If LB is spread by impact, and there is only 2 targets within range of the initial target, then LB is spread to the other two and the initial LB on the first target does not refresh itself (it keeps ticking like nothing happened). HOWEVER, if there is 3 targets within 12 yards of the initial LB target and you spread LB using impact, LB will disappear off of the original target and apply itself to the three targets within 12 yards of the initial target.
Other things I've noticed is only DOTs can be spread using impact. Critical Mass (5% crit debuff) does not spread. Slightly saddened me.
I've also confirmed that LB DOTs are doing more damage than the explosion at the end of its duration. The explosion does do the same amount of damage to everything it hits though. Basically, if the explosion hits the initial target for 1600, then it will hit someone in its AOE for 1600.
I took off all of my trinkets and other proc type gear off (exalted Ashen verdict ring for example) to make sure I didn't get any SP gains during this so I know it is right.
Netherwind Presence - Arcane Tree
I love this talent more and more. I read this somewhere and I'm still not for sure how it works, but the character sheet does not seem to actually take this talent into account for your haste rating. To get a more accurate discription, use Mage Nuggets. To explain what I'm saying is when I'm naked (no gear on), My teleport spells should take 10secs to cast. But with three points in this talent, my teleport spells are 9.7 sec cast time. Mage Nuggets shows me that 3% on its stat bar. Also something to be aware of is it not only give a straight 3%, but a 3% + 3% of your haste from gear. Here I'll use H DFO, since it has ALOT of haste on it. H DFO has 170 haste rating on it, which equals out to 5.18% haste. When I equip it though, Mage nuggets shows me that my haste % is at 8.34%. 3% from the talent, 5.18% from DFO and an extra 0.16%. The extra 0.16% is the extra 3% haste OF YOUR HASTE RATING from Netherwind Presence. basically 5.18*0.0003=0.1554 rounded to the nearest 100th.
[EDIT] Somewhere, the extra 3% haste from gear does have somewhat of a diminishing return. Noticed it when I put on all my gear and saw that something didn't add up. Going to check elitist jerks after awhile and see if I can't find something about it.
I haven't done any tests to see if Piercing Ice (3% to crit with 3/3 points) is the same way, but I believe it is. If anyone wants me to test it then I can, but I'm not that concerned with it at this moment. When we get a new patch, I'll keeping testing these things to see if they change or not.
Something I want to test but
Alprazalam — Fri, 11/12/2010 - 16:58Something I want to test but have no clue how to do it, its see if when LB is spread and there is say 5 targets in range of the initial target, is Impact smart and spreads it to the ones with the highest HP (giving it a better chance to last its duration for the explosion). If there are any tanks/healers that wouldn't mind running around ice crown or something to test this out with me, pls send me a whisper in game. May need to respec to make sure you have no 'counter attacks' cause I'd like to get each target to a set % of their health to test it. Also, I need to find a mod to track LB that shows the health of the mobs that it is on. I think Combustion Helper Dev. team was working on something like that.
If anyone has any idea on how I could do this efficiently, it would be awesome.