[Mage] 5.2 Hotfix Buffs

[Deleted]

Nop all I see there is Spriest, Warlock, Boomkin top 5.

http://www.twitch.tv/affinitiibl

He only said that they did not "sit" all mages, and they ran with 2 so he is right. Although they were under top 5 just as you said.
They were even under top 8

[ssviolett]

About 4-5% DPS buff on single target - not bad, also good buff in aoe fights.

[Spazzster]

By spec, it will result in :
Arcane : +5.36% (13,4% of the total dps before hotfix)
Fire : +3.12% (7.8%)
Frost : +4.08% (10.2%)
I have use SimC T15H data.

Number is not that bad. In multi-DoT/AOE, the increase will be more important.

I'll add my 2 cents with less QQ and more numbers to Pew Pew.

#1. Thanks for the numbers Nathyiel. I'll add to them as this pertains to a frost mage.

Nether Tempest - Approximately 4.54% overall dmg increase PER BOMB on main target, not including any splash dmg so if you multidot to your max of 3 targets, this becomes a 13.36% increase. This info was assumes a 93% uptime

Frost Bomb - Approximately 4.52% overall dmg increase PER MAIN TARGET, Not including any splash dmg. So, if you're using it on groups of mobs, you'll see a much greater increase based on # of mobs. Taking the 50% damage splash into consideration, this would give you 6.78% on 2 mobs, 9.04% on 3 mobs, 11.3% on 4 mobs etc etc. This info assumes a 90% optimization (as in - casting frostbomb 18 times in a 200 second fight, with a 10 second CD+cast time).

So wtf does it mean? My initial thought says #1. If the mobs are going to be tightly packed, you should be using Frostbomb if there are 4 or more - why? because casting 1 Frostbomb saves you 2 GCD's for similar dps and less headache. #2. Lrn2MultiDot effectively with Nether Tempest for any fight where you'll have mobs in groups of 2 or less (e.g. Council).

And to clarify a couple of things Nether Tempest Procs Brain Freeze off of your LAST Bomb Cast. So dotting extra targets does not get you extra BF procs.

I also left out living bomb because without its spread ability it has no place in Frost's arsenal. Hope that helps people. I personally like the buffs since it doesn't overpower us on ST (small increase), but our multi target becomes exponential.

[Polarthief]

Because you say so ? ALWAYS ?

No, because it's fucking logical.

Let's say I give you two options. Option A is a class that can always cast on the move with no penalty, bring lots of raid utility, and push out some high numbers. Option B has no flash, no pizazz, no mobility, and no utility, but if you can stand still completely, you will wreck.

Now, let me also tell you that Option A now beats Option B in DPS IN EVERY SCENARIO, INCLUDING ONES WHERE YOU STAND STILL 100% OF THE FIGHT because of this new patch.

Which one would you pick for your raid team?

If you said Option B, I'd have to consider if you were brain-dead or not.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 05:06 AM ----------

About 4-5% DPS buff on single target - not bad, also good buff in aoe fights.

It's not bad, but not nearly good enough to push us out of our bottom-of-the-charts/getting-sat-position.

Also, except when you use Frost Bomb, this is an insignificant AoE increase, as you shouldn't be multi-DoTting.

[Deleted]

No, because it's fucking logical.

Let's say I give you two options. Option A is a class that can always cast on the move with no penalty, bring lots of raid utility, and push out some high numbers. Option B has no flash, no pizazz, no mobility, and no utility, but if you can stand still completely, you will wreck.

Now, let me also tell you that Option A now beats Option B in DPS IN EVERY SCENARIO, INCLUDING ONES WHERE YOU STAND STILL 100% OF THE FIGHT because of this new patch.

Which one would you pick for your raid team?

If you said Option B, I'd have to consider if you were brain-dead or not.

It's not bad, but not nearly good enough to push us out of our bottom-of-the-charts/getting-sat-position.

Also, except when you use Frost Bomb, this is an insignificant AoE increase, as you shouldn't be multi-DoTting.

You throw your toys out of the pram far too often.

The only class that can "DPS on the move without penalty" is Hunters. Warlocks do it with a penalty and given how fast you currently have to move on some fights, it's a problem. They have to use Burning Rush to compensate for the DPS loss and that creates avoidable/unnecessary damage.
Hell, Fire retains more damage on the move than Shadow, Boomkin or Elemental at the most (talking purely from a Ranged perspective, here).

Regarding Raid Utility - sure, Mages have little besides their DPS, but they're still useful in some scenarios. On any fight where adds need to be slowed/kited, Mages can be king with Frost, especially Frost in its current state. As well as this having good personal survivability through Blink and various Personal CDs makes them less of a healer nightmare. We have great personal utility and while this isn't as good as raid utility, it's something. It's not as if we're brain dead fish who can do nothing besides DPS.

A 4-5% DPS buff to Mages, coupled with a ~2.5% nerf to Shadow and ~4% nerf to Warlocks should easily pull you out of this position, especially on single target fights. Multi-DoT fights (Council springs to mind) will also become more even with NT cleave usage.

[LogixTN]

They could at least undo the -10% pyro nerf. That was really not needed, now. Looking at Blood Legion mages, with over 28% crit unbuffed (around 40% buffed) yet still not even in top 5 tells me that the 40% mage bomb buff will not make any difference. However, is better than nothing.

[klaps_05]

1) bring back combustion spreading and make it only to 2 targets when on pvp targets
2) revert CM to the original state

fire fixed.

[Polarthief]

You throw your toys out of the pram far too often.

The only class that can "DPS on the move without penalty" is Hunters. Warlocks do it with a penalty and given how fast you currently have to move on some fights, it's a problem. They have to use Burning Rush to compensate for the DPS loss and that creates avoidable/unnecessary damage.
Hell, Fire retains more damage on the move than Shadow, Boomkin or Elemental at the most (talking purely from a Ranged perspective, here).

Yes, I know; it was a hypothetical scenario. I'm well aware of Warlock's speed penalty from KJC. Regardless, it holds true. We're shit.

A 4-5% DPS buff to Mages, coupled with a ~2.5% nerf to Shadow and ~4% nerf to Warlocks should easily pull you out of this position, especially on single target fights. Multi-DoT fights (Council springs to mind) will also become more even with NT cleave usage.

NT cleaving is actually going to be a DPS gain over doing Fire's ST rotation and just spreading Ignites/Pyroblasts? Somehow, I find that really hard to believe.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 05:36 AM ----------

1) bring back combustion spreading and make it only to 2 targets when on pvp targets
2) revert CM to the original state

fire fixed.

No, fire fixed for now and will need a nerf in the future.

The only solutions at this point is to buff Fireball and/or Pyroblast's DOT (which will trickle down into a huge net gain on both ST and AoE DPS), buff Arcane's damage across the board, and to buff Frostbolt back to 52% and not benefit from the debuff (and nerf FB damage on players by 10% to compensate because apparently there was some bitching in PTR about it). That, or go the lazy way and buff our L90 talents.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 05:37 AM ----------

They could at least undo the -10% pyro nerf. That was really not needed, now. Looking at Blood Legion mages, with over 28% crit unbuffed (around 40% buffed) yet still not even in top 5 tells me that the 40% mage bomb buff will not make any difference. However, is better than nothing.

I would have rather had nothing at this point because it's like putting a band-aid on a wound that has a bone sticking out of it.

This shit should have been dealt with on the PTR, not a week later (5.1 says hi, btw). This is now the second fucking time that we've gone through an entire PTR without enough proper balancing, and needed a hotfix before the second raid lockout of the patch went by.

[Deleted]

I bet 100k gold we won't see any changes

[Deleted]

Yes, I know; it was a hypothetical scenario. I'm well aware of Warlock's speed penalty from KJC. Regardless, it holds true. We're shit.

NT cleaving is actually going to be a DPS gain over doing Fire's ST rotation and just spreading Ignites/Pyroblasts? Somehow, I find that really hard to believe.

NT cleaving for 2 Targets.

Last night my NT was doing ~76K damage (based off tooltip value) per application.

76*1.4 = 106.4K damage per application.

106.4+(106.4/2) = 159.6K Damage.

Multiply this value by two as it applies to the secondary target as well, 319.2K

Considering this only takes ~2.4s to apply the two DoTs (depending on haste), yes it'll be better than IB spread every 8 seconds w/ a single target rotation.

[Pandacally]

This is a < 5k DPS buff, which still keeps us at the bottom.

Just because I'm in a (very) slightly better place than I am now doesn't change the fact that we're still just as bad.

I don't know what specc you are playing, but I guess it might be fire. For fire, the buff is not that good. For Frost and Arcane, it is crazy OP if you know how to use it.
Essentially, this buff completly diminishes the greatest weakness a mage had, which was multi-dot fights. Now, we can do good single target dps (frost/arcane), good cleave dps (fire, frost) and great multi-dotting (arcane/frost); and also we have some burst CDs (icy veins/orb or combustion or arcane power). Basically, we can now do everything.

[Polarthief]

I don't know what specc you are playing, but I guess it might be fire. For fire, the buff is not that good. For Frost and Arcane, it is crazy OP if you know how to use it.
Essentially, this buff completly diminishes the greatest weakness a mage had, which was multi-dot fights. Now, we can do good single target dps (frost/arcane), good cleave dps (fire, frost) and great multi-dotting (arcane/frost); and also we have some burst CDs (icy veins/orb or combustion or arcane power). Basically, we can now do everything.

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Megae...00000000000000

I think that should speak for itself in regards to "our ST dps is fine".

[Deleted]

I do definitely see an increase in DPS from last week with the bomb buff. Though I do know the fights a little bit better. But My gear hasn't really changed either. My other mages in my guild are way behind me, I have a couple ilvl pieces higher I believe, I've been trying to feed all pieces into them. And both of my raid pieces have come from my extra rolls luckily. I personally don't think its a large enough of a buff to bring the mage class up a bit more competitively with the other classes yet. Maybe a tweak from our lvl 90 talents.

Council of Elders - R#13
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=3020&e=3519

The brilliant #13 among frost mages is still #1413 overall. We need a bigger buff.

[Deleted]

http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Megae...00000000000000

I think that should speak for itself in regards to "our ST dps is fine".

Megaera is a bad example, really. The heads barely last long enough to get a proper Combustion off (and not wasting it). Too much target swapping for Ignite to really tick over properly.

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Durumu_th...14/60/default/
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Iron_Qon/...14/60/default/

Both better examples of single target. Fire, funnily enough, performing much better.

[Pandacally]

Just wait until raidbots gets all the new data after the buffs, should take maybe 2 weeks.

[Deleted]

They talk about making mages cast more, by buffing instant spells damage, why should mage cast more after this?

[Fennixx]

Megaera is a bad example, really. The heads barely last long enough to get a proper Combustion off (and not wasting it). Too much target swapping for Ignite to really tick over properly.

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Durumu_th...14/60/default/
http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Iron_Qon/...14/60/default/

Both better examples of single target. Fire, funnily enough, performing much better.

So, fire being over 10k below affliction means our ST is ok? lol

And no, don't come with this "its ok to be mid pack". All pures have a spec in top5 single target, hybrids liking or not - all pures except mages of course.

Like I said many times. If a mage has any self-respect left (or any respect for its raid mates), he should: a) reroll a much better ranged class (and by much better, let me emphasize MUCH); b) unsub.

---------- Post added 2013-03-13 at 11:45 AM ----------

Just wait until raidbots gets all the new data after the buffs, should take maybe 2 weeks.

Yeah, this xpac been a long wait, don't you agree?

Hey, wait till you get 490+ and fire DPS gets out of control.

Hey wait till newer content (5.2) and frost will actually shine on some fights (lol shine compared to what? destroyed and gimped arcane?)

Hey wait till you get 505+ and fire does respectable dmg again.

Hey wait till you get 522+ and you should be able to compete as fire (and still be behind afflicition locks on most fights)...

Hey lets wait a few more weeks to find out mage as a class has outdated mechanics and critical design issues (lol turret w/o firepower)...

But hey, hold united mages, we're going to shine on last tier when farming heroics ("oh wait, CM nerfed aga...? WTF")

[dandex]

They should make deep freeze do damage again on Bosses

[LogixTN]

This shit should have been dealt with on the PTR, not a week later (5.1 says hi, btw). This is now the second fucking time that we've gone through an entire PTR without enough proper balancing, and needed a hotfix before the second raid lockout of the patch went by.

I know that, but playing in a 10 man in the current state is frustrating and the probability to get benched is quite high so any buff no matter how small it is, it counts. On the same note, I don't care how fire will scale with HC gear. I can't care less about that since progress is not made in T15 HC gear but in the current one.

I don't understand how this happens but something is really wrong with the mage class in terms of balancing. For at least 3 years, Blizzard goes from 1 extreme to another.

Also, I fail to understand the LB spread via IB removal.

[Ehrenpanzer]

I'm seeing hope in that they see a problem, but despair in that they are not seeing it clearly.

I want to be a stationary awesome glass cannon that gets punished for moving... the dot is handy for AoE, but it shouldn't be the core. We should have awesome enough standing still damage, to counter the crap we do when moving.

then you better go play on a private server thats TBC/Wrath based....because they seem to want us to be glass cannons that are supposed to standstill nuke..then go "lawlassholes, every fight this xpac is insanely movement heavy..gl..heres your clunky lvl 90 tier talent to go with it..."