[5.3] Do we have an official verdict on Mage Bombs?

[Akraen]

This is tight and it's stupid.

Fights rarely have the same # of targets through the entirety of the fight. Fights change, fluctuate, your assignment changes. We'll have to weigh the % of a fight we're fighting single target, or two, or more.

This is just not fun, I don't know how much longer I can raid as a mage, or how much longer my raid group will want to tolerate mages changing every patch. This isn't balancing, it's madness.

[Keiyra]

At 18 ticks of NT (12684) I see NT doing 181242 single target, add in the extra ticks from the meta gem and heroism and consider RPPM triggering and it looks like frost can keep using NT.

181242 for NT single target at 12684 haste and 40k sp
But LB has 6 ticks at that haste level (with 5% raid and frost armor) - which would be 32216*6+(32216*6*.1) = 212625.60.

Again, LB wins out for single target for frost. - doh ninja'd

Fights rarely have the same # of targets through the entirety of the fight. Fights change, fluctuate, your assignment changes. We'll have to weigh the % of a fight we're fighting single target, or two, or more.

True, but plenty of fights are only single target (or only 1 target that matters) so it wont be that complicated. It just means its a talent you'll swap around depending on fight and assignment..which was blizzards goal for talents anyhow. Just keep a stack of tomes on you .

[Neoxx]

I'm pretty sure RPPM-procs have an influence at the bomb decision. However it's not that easy to calculate everything and setting up a proper bomb test with that. Stuff like Cha-Ye's Essence of Brilliance make it pretty difficult to consider all factors for choosing the right bomb (the trinket only procs from crits and that favours NT).
But I think Keiyra's post is right or it's just a really small factor.

And btw ... I fucking hate the RPPM system ...

[spaace]

Nether tempest will still be the choice for scumbagging.

[Deleted]

Calculating this out based on my current SP and Haste I get the following:

Living Bomb
((4288/4+(0.8036*31880))*5)+((((4288/4+(0.8036*31880))*5))*0.1 = 146,799

Nether Tempest
(3900/12 + 0.2436*31880)*15 = 121,364

This means LB now does 21% more damage single target than NT. Given that currently, NT makes up roughly 14-15% of my overall damage on most single target fights, this is a straight up 3% DPS increase!

I'm pretty happy with that

[Proakryt]

This is tight and it's stupid.

Fights rarely have the same # of targets through the entirety of the fight. Fights change, fluctuate, your assignment changes. We'll have to weigh the % of a fight we're fighting single target, or two, or more.

This is just not fun, I don't know how much longer I can raid as a mage, or how much longer my raid group will want to tolerate mages changing every patch. This isn't balancing, it's madness.

Mage bombs are not so important that they will break your DPS if you choose NT over LB or vice versa. This change is not large enough to have any real effect on solving fight mechanics and strategies. Not sure why you seem to think the sky is falling.

You get more choices and those choices are not so clear cut anymore. Good players will be rewarded for smart play and average players will still do good dps if they choose "wrong". No problems from my perspective.

[Polarthief]

As far as I know, BotH is actually not BiS for Fire. Should be Wush and Cha-Ye.

That's been overly debated in another thread, to which it came out that they're significantly close to one another that your performance won't be affected too much if you choose one or the other.

Okay, problem solved!

Problem NOT solved unless you choose to use Wush over Breath. In which case, taking the extra 2+ ticks from NT into consideration, it'd be worth looking into if that would push Wush even higher if you use LB.

---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 01:51 PM ----------

This is tight and it's stupid.

Fights rarely have the same # of targets through the entirety of the fight. Fights change, fluctuate, your assignment changes. We'll have to weigh the % of a fight we're fighting single target, or two, or more.

This is just not fun, I don't know how much longer I can raid as a mage, or how much longer my raid group will want to tolerate mages changing every patch. This isn't balancing, it's madness.

Pretty much how I've felt day 1, but it's getting progressively worse.

Having to change a bomb talent (keep in mind, not even a fucking COOLDOWN OR GLYPH) on a per-fight basis just makes little to no sense, especially when it's just for a small DPS increase. I actually enjoyed having NT be the best because the choice between the three was stupid.


Regardless, curious to know if LB does actually make Wush better due to ticking later than NT, or if most RPPMs will generally be worse (slightly) with LB around.

[Akraen]

It also completely destroys the spec identity of our class. We are thematic by design. If they want cross-school rotations we shouldn't be labeled Arcane, Fire, and Frost.

[Malfecto]

Good reading. I love where Spaace's mind goes. LOL!

It does bring up the point of how many NT are worth dotting out beyond the comparable limit of LB? I mean, you don't want to lose a decent ignite to multidot do you? or drop FB stacks? I'm just trying to look at the practical side of it. I know the dots are high DPET blah blah whatever, but there's nuances that aren't in the math.

[Proakryt]

I have a hard time understanding how having one bomb for every fight is better than having two viable options depending on fight mechanics. Ive only seen two arguments against it that sum up generally 1. "Im a frost mage so I should never cast a fire spell" or 2. "The talents are too close in DPS". The later of which makes no sense since that is ultimately the goal of the new talent design: Real, viable choices that can be used to adjust the spec from one encounter to another but not in a game breaking manner.

The first has some merit yet MoP has had all Mage bombs available regardless of spec so its not specific to this change. Also that is a topic for class design and feel overall.

[Akraen]

I have a hard time understanding how having one bomb for every fight is better than having two viable options depending on fight mechanics. Ive only seen two arguments against it that sum up generally 1. "Im a frost mage so I should never cast a fire spell" or 2. "The talents are too close in DPS". The later of which makes no sense since that is ultimately the goal of the new talent design: Real, viable choices that can be used to adjust the spec from one encounter to another but not in a game breaking manner.

The first has some merit yet MoP has had all Mage bombs available regardless of spec so its not specific to this change. Also that is a topic for class design and feel overall.

Why's everyone assume that's all I mean.

I don't think a fire mage should be casting NT or FB either.

[Malfecto]

Akraen, I think it is a symptom of too many numbers and not enough whimsy, mate.

[bobcageon]

whimsy .. we definitely need more whimsy. And more bourbon. Playing a drunkard swag mage is at an all time pique for me, as neither the changes nor the mathematical equations matter beyond chance or trivial thought, alas sweet melancholy ensues.

when sobriety rears its ugly head, I choose to ROLL A LOCK or a SHAMMY & F [] C K B L I Z Z A R D straight up b*atches cause this sh!t is whack


Infracted for... this post.

[Akraen]

I don't understand anything typed by bobcageon.

I'm a Night Elf mage, not interested in whimsy.

[Keiyra]

I'm a Night Elf mage, not interested in whimsy.

Come on now, we've seen the female night elf dance...there's rooms for a little whimsy

(on a serious note - i get your point that the bomb talent tier should be thematically neutral if it is going to be applied across specs - alas without a redesign, that's not what we have. Thematically NT wasn't enjoyable to take as frost, but having been desensitized already, swapping between LB and NT no longer bothers me as much. Though I would prefer a frost themed ability and a neutral tier choice, but till then, gotta make do, though i understand your frustration)

[Deleted]

Hey, did you forget that there's a third bomb here ??

personally, I still think I will stick to Frost bomb ....

[xiaozhi40]

I got a question, does living bomb scale with arcane mage's masterey?
If not, does that mean nether tempest is still better than LB on single target since nether tempest scales with arcane masterey?

[Keiyra]

Hey, did you forget that there's a third bomb here ??

personally, I still think I will stick to Frost bomb ....

Frost Bomb would be nice, but doesn't work with my Breath of the Hydra :P - that and the instant dots are easier during movement. Now if Frost Bomb had some sort of minor dot tacked on I might give it a whirl, or after i get a trinket better than Breath

[Frost1129]

It also completely destroys the spec identity of our class. We are thematic by design. If they want cross-school rotations we shouldn't be labeled Arcane, Fire, and Frost.

How are we thematic by design? An entire tier of talents are all frost-themed. Which means every fire / arcane mage is going to cast them. Fire mages have almost always used PoM (arcane). Things like Frost Nova, evocate, and mirror images are baseline for every spec. Even with the old talent system mages always used one, two, or all three talent trees to gain maximum benefit depending on which tier you are looking at. If anything, we've always been designed around a core spec which is supported to a degree by the other two. This isn't any different, and adds at least a small bit of variety between what was just NT use into oblivion.

And what about Frostfire bolt? Or T3, aka Frostfire. We've never been a one spec, one element class.

[Deleted]

Why's everyone assume that's all I mean.

I don't think a fire mage should be casting NT or FB either.

Cuz you simply hate every other spec than Frost. Lol, lets remove Blizzard from Fire and Arcane and remove AE from Fire and Frost by your logic. Seen like that, these are also cross-school spells, and they've been that forever, you can't blame Blizz for adding Bombs, which you don't even see on the boss that much...