Reason for most mages running nether tempest?

[Deleted]

I haven't used it for a while but I think I remember Frost Armour just giving you 7% haste (but as rating instead of tacking 7% on). I know what I mean in my head -- I'm just awful at explaining things, hopefully you get me.

Think it just gives you flat 7% haste, not rating, I understood what you meant .

[Deleted]

With the instant "40% buff to bombs", just about every other mage believes they are a warlock and do nothing but multi-dot, thinking it is a dps increase D:

A DoT that does ~110K per application and cleaves means that it has a very high DPET as it runs over ~12s. Depending on the number of adds, sometimes multi-dotting is a DPS increase, especially now as Pyroblast/Ignite have a target limit. Ignite's short duration also means that, while it can be useful to spread with IB on CD, multi-dotting with NT (again, number of targets dependent) will out-DPS Fireball/Ignite. Pyroblast should always be kept up and spread on IB CD, but Ignite/Fireball is less important.

It's variable, sure, but it's not a completely mistaken theory.

[Magpai]

I use it for laziness, if i cut a living bomb short then i lose 50% of the dps.

I was under the impression the explosion still goes off when you clip.

[Deleted]

I was under the impression the explosion still goes off when you clip.

if you do it late enough (under 2 seconds remaining).

[Polarthief]

Especially at our haste levels, it doesn't scale that much better then the other bombs..

With the instant "40% buff to bombs", just about every other mage believes they are a warlock and do nothing but multi-dot, thinking it is a dps increase D:

It's more or less because we have no idea what we are anymore.

GC told us we're amazing ST turrets, and then he turns us into multi-dotters because of this tier.



Better yet, answer me this question if you can: What ARE we? (Because I sure as fuck don't know)

[Titan]

THe higher ilvl of my gear the more damage and proc's I get from NT.

[aggixx]

if you do it late enough (under 2 seconds remaining).

Technically it's anytime after the second to last tick (tick speed for Living Bomb is 3/(1+haste)). That's a really important distinction because of how it causes NT to have an advantage over LB: it works better as a filler while moving.

NT gcd is longer and if you clip an NT at half duration you get the full damage of the new bomb and the half the damage from the old bomb. LB gcd is 1 sec meaning it works worse as a filler (and you can only really cast it 3 times) and if you clip a LB at half duation you get the full damage of the new bomb but you get significantly less than half of the damage of the previous bomb.

[Magpai]

NT gcd is longer and if you clip an NT at half duration you get the full damage of the new bomb and the half the damage from the old bomb.

Is that so? I remember clipping a nether tempest early out of habit* on my mage and the new one was only 12 or 13 seconds or so.

*(My main is a warlock, and all our dots save Shadowflame behave in this manner)

LB gcd is 1 sec meaning it works worse as a filler (and you can only really cast it 3 times)

Always funny to see how something like a "shorter" cast time is painted as a disadvantage. I get your logic, but man, Blizzard really can't win can they? Still you must admit that there is no scenario where you would rather have a 1.5 second GCD for living bomb than a 1.0 second one. Even if those extra half seconds you save with the shorter GCD are spent on nothing, you're still breaking even.

[aggixx]

Is that so? I remember clipping a nether tempest early out of habit* on my mage and the new one was only 12 or 13 seconds or so.

Maybe my statement wasn't clear. In both cases if you refresh the DoT the new DoT is base duration + the time remaining on the current tick of the old dot, but that's not what I was talking about. NT's damage is distributed evenly: if you clip the DoT half way through you wasted half the damage. LB's damage is backloaded: if you clip the DoT half way through you wasted around something like 75% of the damage.

Both bombs are balanced around a situation where you never clip the bomb, which puts LB at a huge disadvantage in any case where it's desirable to do so.

Always funny to see how something like a "shorter" cast time is painted as a disadvantage. I get your logic, but man, Blizzard really can't win can they? Still you must admit that there is no scenario where you would rather have a 1.5 second GCD for living bomb than a 1.0 second one. Even if those extra half seconds you save with the shorter GCD are spent on nothing, you're still breaking even.

There is a scenario where it would be better to have a 1.5 second GCD: If the bomb's damage was balanced around said 1.5 sec GCD. This means that the DoT would have the exact same DPET but it would allow it to take up a larger amount of time as well as scale with haste, and that's exactly how NT works.

Having a 1 second GCD on a spell isn't inherently bad, but when it's intended to be balanced with another spell that has a 1.5 sec GCD it causes some small but important differences.

[Magpai]

Maybe my statement wasn't clear. In both cases if you refresh the DoT the new DoT is base duration + the time remaining on the current tick of the old dot, but that's not what I was talking about. NT's damage is distributed evenly: if you clip the DoT half way through you wasted half the damage. LB's damage is backloaded: if you clip the DoT half way through you wasted around something like 75% of the damage.

Ah, I see what you mean now.