"Todo list": before tonight's raid (mage 3.0.9)

[Jante]

And what about glyphes ?

Still AB/AP switched by AM/Molten Armor to improve AM glyphe ? >_>

Todo list:

* Replace your AP glyph with AM
* Remove PoM from your arcane cooldowns macro, and bind it so you can still use it on its own
* Expect to use AP+IV, then AP on its own, then probably (probably) holding IV again until AP is back up
_________________________________________________
So if that's right, then your glyphs should look like:

1. AM
2. Mage / molten armor
3. Arcane blast

[Jynx]

Looks like Jarlyn only had 60% presence there. No worries on those numbers.

I meant on Patchwerk specifically.

I do remember what happened though: he DC'd right as lust hit, and then ended up DC'ing on and off the rest of the night.

[Jynx]

And what about glyphes ?

Still AB/AP switched by AM/Molten Armor to improve AM glyphe ? >_>

Yeah drop AP, get AM. AP glyph was always garbage.

Honestly if mage threat were fine as fire, I'd probably switch back. As it is, we have 3 mages, and we only raid with 1-2 vigilances and 1-2 salvs. And doing content as fire without Vig/Salv sucks because our tools for threat management suck.

The cooldowns are really annoying, and I play with lag that varies randomly between 250 and 550 ms, which makes using AM really obnoxious.

[Scorage]

To Do List:

Respec Fire.

This kinda has the idea. I've tested, and tested, and tested throught the day, and on VoA. Lost about 250 to 300 DPS with the nerf to Arcane Barrage. I loved Arcane. That's why I'm not returning to mindless spam builds of Frostfire and Fire. (I have a Frost Mage ready for utility in raids. I've never scorched. Besides, Paladins love to receive the Focus Magic from him too.) I don't want RNG to play a 30% role on my DPS.

There is only one spell to unload Arcane Blast debuffs, thanks to all the whine, it died, and Blizz didn't even had the guts to write it on patch notes.

I hope, it was worth to make all these DK's, Rogues, Feral Druids, Paladins and Warriors happy.

Their next target is Slow, we all know it.

God bless ignorant retards that actually have the nerve to ask a cooldown on snare abilities, or diminishing returns on snares.

[cheech]

Kyth what was your average dps using ffb?

[Jynx]

Kyth what was your average dps using ffb?

The use of the word "average" and "ffb" together in the same sentence make me giggle uncontrollably. FFB is so rng that it's really hard to say. I could top charts with FFB also, yes.

That said, the Rawr simulation puts fire at 0.9% behind arcane, and FF 1.9% behind arcane.


However, I actually came here to say a friend of mine, Vontre, author of MageGraf and DeathGraf, made an awesome post on EJ today that I copied it into a blog post because he rocks and said I could.

The summary is that fire is actually slightly ahead of arcane according to Magegraf.

He also did some investigations that should make the fans of mage armor happy (if you prefer to believe Magegraf over Rawr).

Vontre's post is on the EJ arcane thread or at:

<a href="http://www.stratfu.com/blog/2009/02/...results/">Mage 3.0.9: Some surprising simulation results</a>

[Abandon]

Frostfire Bolt is a bit like hitting a pinyata with a shotgun. Sometimes you miss a lot and only blow little fountains of sweets out of it, but other times you just shoot the crap out of it and are picking bits of toblerone out of the wall for weeks.

[HellBurn]

Yup, only reason we had AP glyph was cause we had nothing else to put.
Now that AM got a boost ( woo! not only nerf this patch! ) we finally have 3useful glyphs in arcane

[Deleted]

Well, did Patch' tonight, and on a 2.52min fight as an Arcane Mage I hit 6k3dps with 1 Evocation, using simple cycle. My FFB mate did 5k8, haha RNG FTW.

Finally it's cool, not a buff but not a nerf.

[Demik]

I used Evocation glyph for those "oh crap" moments and the occasional gank protection. I may replace that with arcane missiles now with the glyph change.

[Zelimagi]

The use of the word "average" and "ffb" together in the same sentence make me giggle uncontrollably.&#160; FFB is so rng that it's really hard to say.&#160; I could top charts with FFB also, yes.

That said, the Rawr simulation puts fire at 0.9% behind arcane, and FF 1.9% behind arcane.


However, I actually came here to say a friend of mine, Vontre, author of MageGraf and DeathGraf, made an awesome post on EJ today that I copied it into a blog post because he rocks and said I could.

The summary is that fire is actually slightly ahead of arcane according to Magegraf.

He also did some investigations that should make the fans of mage armor happy (if you prefer to believe Magegraf over Rawr).

Vontre's post is on the EJ arcane thread or at:

<a href="http://www.stratfu.com/blog/2009/02/...results/">Mage 3.0.9: Some surprising simulation results</a>

After some tests, I've discovered that Fire does much better than frostfire.

What I did was I did a run of my frostfire spec on a dummy. The results lead to me doing 2.7k DPS, and 663k damage self buffed until out of mana entirely.

As for fire, I got a mage friend to help me. I told her to give me focus magic, and keep casting ffb or frostbolt to add the snare for Torment the Weak. Her role was to give the reactive buffs that I get from going fire, such as the 3% crit from focus magic and the 12% more damage for fireball from Torment the Weak, to be able to accurately compare fire to frostfire by having my own buffs. The result for fire was 3.1k DPS, and 700k damage self buffed until out of mana.

After I did this test, I discovered that I had forgot to glyph for fireball...which lead me to conclude that fire will absolutely stomp frostfire as of now.

[Jynx]

Unfortunately you can't actually cast enough in your own simulation to conclude something like that -- especially with specs like Frostfire which are extremely susceptible to RNG.

Your conclusion is correct (if ~1% difference is "stomp") just your methods aren't accurate, and with a bit of luck the other way you might have concluded the opposite.

[Zelimagi]

Yeah, my method isn't exactly a spreadsheet, but it helps me realize that in an environment fire has enough damage to beat frostfire. With a 53% chance to crit with fireball self buffed, and possibly more with raid buffs, fire is definately up there on the charts, I would have to say. Next week I'll give it a shot on patchwerk, and if it beats my last test of 4k dps (crap gear atm) I'll stick with it.

Plus if theres a death knight with the razorice, theres a chance fire will have a little trouble against frostfire, I think. Unfortunately, we had one...but yeah, "had".

[Malentra]

The effect of crit RNG on Fire and Frostfire is twofold.&#160; First the number of crits has a huge impact due to the crit multiplier.&#160; Secondly, *when* the crits occur has a huge impact, as a string of crits procs multiple hotstreaks, while alternating crits/non-crits proc no hot streaks, even with the same overall crit%.

Therefore if you want to compare the two specs with in game results, you must ensure:
1) actual crit% close to expected character screen expected value
2) either no mana issues affecting gameplay or affecting gameplay equally (in a raid you generally won't be mana limited as fire, although the situation is more likely than frostfire)
3) cooldown effects (best not to cast cooldowns)
4) hotstreak and living bomb interaction*

*this gets messy because the different crit rates between a fire and frostfire spec nukes will affect your hot streak proc rate, but so does the RNG..how do you ensure you get the expected hot streak proc rate calculated by C^2/(1+C), where C= crit rate?&#160;&#160; That's asking the RNG to give you the average result, when it can be skewed either way quite easily.

Also one must take into account that Frostfire will scale differently from raid buffs (Frostfire gains more from crit, Fire from slowing effects on target and, I believe, spellpower)

So what you end up comparing is the average expected damage of a fireball vs. a frostfire nuke at the paper-calculated crit rates and at the paper-calculated hot streak proc rates...oh wait you can do that with a calculator anyway.&#160; :P&#160; If you want to take into account more complicated effects, load your profile into Rawr and select your rotations and assumptions.&#160;&#160; You'll get the most accurate results that way.

[Jynx]

If you want to take into account more complicated effects, load your profile into Rawr and select your rotations and assumptions. You'll get the most accurate results that way.

Going to get pedantic just for a moment: Rawr isn't the Bible, and has in the past been provably incorrect (and for some classes absolutely abysmal.) It's good, but personally I prefer to actually go the full route and compare Rawr, Simcraft, and Magegraf.

(Simcraft also has a sordid history -- I got into quite the argument over PM's with the author when he flat refused to model lifetap for warlocks because it was 'too much effort and didn't matter anyways'. Oh you mean something that is a 15% dps loss for a lock doesn't matter? Really? And Magegraf has had its bugs -- Sancus and I have both tested it extensively for Vontre, but there's always bugs.)

It's not that the right answer is an average of the three -- it's not. But between the 3 you get an idea of what the terrain looks like.

And individual fights vary in terms of what they require as well -- specs shine on different fights.

[Malentra]

Going to get pedantic just for a moment: Rawr isn't the Bible, and has in the past been provably incorrect (and for some classes absolutely abysmal.)&#160; It's good, but personally I prefer to actually go the full route and compare Rawr, Simcraft, and Magegraf.

I think Rawr's list of assumptions for Mages is quite good, and Fireball and Frostfire are well understood at this point.&#160; Generally people don't have time to check multiple tools and average results.&#160; Rawr's mage module tends to be the most updated and most used, and therefore has fewer mistakes and erroneous assumptions (though they are there).&#160; I'm not saying Simcraft or Magegraf aren't worth using, but advocating someone to use all 3 and compare results for an easily modeled spec is a little over the top. o.O

For Arcane I'd currently take any simulations with a grain of salt.

[Jynx]

I'm not advocating it. I said "to be pedantic."

Too many people think Rawr is 100% accurate, I just thought it was important to point out that there are 3 simulators out there with differing results, so you should take it all with a grain of salt, period.

That said of course, simulations are all 100x better than "So I hit this dummy for an hour and..."

[Zelimagi]

And individual fights vary in terms of what they require as well -- specs shine on different fights.

This is true. I think that fire/frostfire does greater when doing long fights and arcane does better on short, mobile, or controlled DPS fights.

Patchwerk is a little difficult to measure, mainly because a good guild burns him down in 3 mins which isn't much time at all for a mage to start unloading their DPS completely.

I'm curious on frost, where is it on the charts compared to the other 3 mage specs?

[Malentra]

I'm curious on frost, where is it on the charts compared to the other 3 mage specs?

The best way to understand the current state of frost is to spec it for a week of raiding in Naxx and observe your place on the boss damage meters.&#160; Models don't really take into account how well you can use your WE during most fights.

If you don't want to risk your fellow raiders thinking you've started taking AFK breaks during combat, then I'll quote the number as 15-30% behind the other raid specs (depending on your IV and WE uptime work out), meaning a mage capable of 6000 dps as Arcane would have trouble cracking 5k as frost.

Keep in mind you probably want to stack haste and spellpower as frost, without too much incidental crit to keep from exceeding the shatter cap (50%) when raid buffed.

[keld]

This is true. I think that fire/frostfire does greater when doing long fights and arcane does better on short, mobile, or controlled DPS fights.

The problem with saying that is that even on long fights, Arcane is still technically competitive due to its Evocation CDs (discounting mana gems as FFB can use it too). It is entirely possible for an Arcane mage to out-damage a FFB mage based on (but not limited to) the RNG impact on the FFB spec.

Where the Arcane Mage has an advantage here is his/her ability to deal consistent damage. That choice is based purely on the player’s rotations and mana management and is less susceptible to factors beyond one’s control. For an FFB mage however, the rotations are pretty fixed and mana isn’t as much of an issue (if it is an issue at all), but they are very susceptible to RNG which is a factor outside of their control.

The other reality is the fact that the content currently have only a few fights which I would personally deem as “long”. If we’re talking “long” as in “unsustainably long for Arcane”, I don’t believe such a fight exists at all. If you look at Naxx, OS and EoE now, most of the so-called long fights are due to boss mechanics like teleportation, add phases or even ‘dancing’. Sarth3D, possibly the longest fight, is due to the fact that you’re essentially fighting 4 bosses and manoeuvring through various encounter gimmicks/mechanics.

For all the above, you’ll notice that “controlled and mobile” DPS are actually much more important than standing and spanking a boss for >6 minutes. It is the control of DPS and mobility that shaves of 2 dance phases in Heigan to 1, hence turning potentially long fights into shorter ones. When you consider the reality of that, it can be quite misleading to simply follow the rule of thumb that is to “spec FFB/Fire for long fights, spec Arcane for short Patch-like fights”.

I get the idea that sometimes people are looking for a king-hit spec. If that were the case then Mages would be in the same situation as late BC… play fire or nothing at all if you want to raid. The class was severely limited not only by its spec but its singular playstyle, and had no way of competently overcoming weaknesses (oh shit, Illidan’s elementals are immune to fire…), which eventually was also a contributing factor to its less than favourable raid position in Sunwell.

Mages should be enjoying the fact that all 3 specs can be played competitively, instead of being cornered into 1 spec again (no matter how interesting that can be, it’ll become boring over time).