Alysrazor Guide on 350k+ Ignite/Comb by Logoz

[LogozRR]

The post is long so I'm not gonna post the entire thing here.
I also posted in Raids&Dungeons forum, but some mages might not read that forum.
But here is my post on WoW forums Enjoy!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3195920164

And here is the video if you just want to see big numbers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOo-9p_-AXc

[Deleted]

I was just checking you wol... Gratz man, that's really impressive!

Thank you for sharing some advices

[Hinalover]

It does help that you have the legendary....

But yea I just got Heroic Alysrazor 25 tonight (fucking moron on the kill where I died to the second set of tornados because I was too worried about keeping my Blazing Power debuff up >_<) and if I didn't f up like that I would have had over a 90k-100k dps on that. Instead I ended up with a 74k dps final.

Anyway yea I see what your doing there. Just I'm wondering why you say 17 stacks? I know Ignite Munching can get bad (I wsa hitting 19% ignite Munching myself and I do not spec into Hot Streak). I know I was switching from fireball to Pryo when I was hitting 1-1.04 second Fireball casts (12-13 stacks if I remember correctly). Granted I was getting targeted with Dark Intent so that may have helped a bit. But yea I know I was hitting the 1 second mark before the first Firestorm.

[Deleted]

I've always appreciated your logs awesome job. Those AB casts were bugging me the other day when I was going over your log and even though it doesn't make sense, that's the way you found for it to work!

But I'd love to crack this out! How can having no ignite be better than have a small ignite? Ignite isn't even affected by haste, it's a 4 secs dot that ticks at 2secs and 4secs after being applied. I mean, the only thing I can think of is the damage debuff that the boss gains in the burning phase, that's the only thing that changes in this equation.

Once again, great job, Logoz!

[Deleted]

Very interesting information.
Every now and then I manage to get very big ignites, but I just couldn't figure out why. Now i'm thinking it may have to do with me having ignite on alysrazor when the burn phase starts.
I will try your method on our next attempt.

[Deleted]

If you want to improve your damage further more, you move the two points from Improved Blink to Invocation and get another 10% by interupting one of the adds at the start of the burn phase. One GCD should be worth 10% more damage.

[Deleted]

If you want to improve your damage further more, you move the two points from Improved Blink to Invocation and get another 10% by interupting one of the adds at the start of the burn phase. One GCD should be worth 10% more damage.

Counterspell doesn't trigger a GCD.

[Ipsissimus]

Counterspell does trigger a GCD, you're confusing the fact that it is not, itself, on the GCD.

[Deleted]

Counterspell does trigger a GCD, you're confusing the fact that it is not, itself, on the GCD.

#1 "As of 2.0.6; "Counterspell no longer triggers the global cooldown."

#2 wowhead . com / spell=2139
"GCD category n/a"

If you don't believe it, go on a dummy and do this:

- do a cast longer than 1.5secs
- spam counterspell
- press fireblast

You'll see that you'll cast counterspell and fireblast in the same gcd.

[LogozRR]

#1 "As of 2.0.6; "Counterspell no longer triggers the global cooldown."

#2 wowhead . com / spell=2139
"GCD category n/a"

If you don't believe it, go on a dummy and do this:

- do a cast longer than 1.5secs
- spam counterspell
- press fireblast

You'll see that you'll cast counterspell and fireblast in the same gcd.

curii is correct.
There is no GCD before or after a CS.
You can CS right after pressing fireblast.
And you can also fireblast right after pressing CS.

[noremac]

So I read this guide and it made sense to me for the most part but I still have some questions:

1. According to what you found out, the Ignite seems to "snapshot" any +% damage modifiers on the target at the time of application. However, I thought Blizzard had changed this a while back to make the DoT's recheck against any damage increases each time they were refreshed?

2. If #1 is true, wouldn't that mean that you could continue to roll the same Ignite that you started in the burn phase and have it always have the +50% damage on it? (Although would be highly unlikely since you would lose the crit buff after burnout so you would need insane RNG.)

3. So does this mean that Combustion triple-dips into that 50% damage increase? Your Pyroblast hits 50% harder which gives you a powerful ignite, which also hits another 50% harder, and finally the Combustion takes that buffed Ignite as it's base value and then that hits 50% harder.

[LogozRR]

So I read this guide and it made sense to me for the most part but I still have some questions:
1. According to what you found out, the Ignite seems to "snapshot" any +% damage modifiers on the target at the time of application. However, I thought Blizzard had changed this a while back to make the DoT's recheck against any damage increases each time they were refreshed?

2. If #1 is true, wouldn't that mean that you could continue to roll the same Ignite that you started in the burn phase and have it always have the +50% damage on it? (Although would be highly unlikely since you would lose the crit buff after burnout so you would need insane RNG.)

3. So does this mean that Combustion triple-dips into that 50% damage increase? Your Pyroblast hits 50% harder which gives you a powerful ignite, which also hits another 50% harder, and finally the Combustion takes that buffed Ignite as it's base value and then that hits 50% harder.

I do not know the answer to #1 or #2 with 100% certainty. Ignite is very weird, especially on this fight, and I still haven't figured out all the kinks yet.
As for question #3, I don't think it "triple-dips" like you describe.
Regarding in burn phase:
Your first claim is true. Pyro will hit 50% harder in burn phase.
However ignite is NOT going to do 50% more dmg. Ignite just does 40% of how much your pyro crit for.
For an simple example, let's assume you have no metagem and 0 mastery.
Outside of burn phase, if your pyro hits for 20k, then it will crit for 40k (leaving a 16k ignite , 40k x 0.4)
Inside of burn phase, your pyro will hit for 30k (20k x 1.5, due to +50% dmg), then it will crit for 60k (double what it hits for, and leave a 24k ignite, 60k x 0.4).
What I'm saying is, inside burn phase, if your pyro crits for 60k, leaving a 24k ignite, that 24k ignite WILL NOT get an additional +50% dmg. Only your pyro does 50% more dmg, which LEADS to a bigger ignite than in non-burn phase.
Lastly, combustion just creates a new DoT that totals the DPS of all your fire DoTs on the boss. It will NOT do an extra 50% dmg after adding up the DPS of your DoTs.
So for example, if you have an ignite doing 24k DPS, and a pyroblast DoT doing 5k DPS, combustion DoT will do 29k DPS over 10sec. It WILL NOT do (29k x 1.5).
The 50% dmg in burn phase directly affects pyroblast, and indirectly affects ignite and combustion. B/c will critting harder leads to a bigger ignite, and a bigger ignite leads to a bigger combustion.

[noremac]

Well if the Ignite doesn't benefit from the +50% damage then why is it better to let it drop off before her burnout? It would seem to me if you had like a 75k Ignite being rolled over from the tornado phase and then started adding on those huge Burnout phase Pyroblast crits then it would be more damage at the end than just starting to cast Pyroblast without having a rolling Ignite already on her.

---------- Post added 2011-09-16 at 02:15 PM ----------

Also, on a side note I forgot to ask if this video was recorded before or after the nerf to Combustion? Since it no longer gains a double benefit from mastery those kinds of numbers may not even be possible anymore.

[LogozRR]

Well if the Ignite doesn't benefit from the +50% damage then why is it better to let it drop off before her burnout? It would seem to me if you had like a 75k Ignite being rolled over from the tornado phase and then started adding on those huge Burnout phase Pyroblast crits then it would be more damage at the end than just starting to cast Pyroblast without having a rolling Ignite already on her.

Like I said, I'm not entirely sure why ignite behaves like this. I just noticed from testing, if I have an ignite roll into burn phase, it's very very difficult to get a 350k+ ignite, even when all my procs/CDs line up perfectly. But every time I let ignite fall off, a FRESH ignite stacks up really really fast.
It's weird behavior. But maybe you are right, maybe ignite does get +50% more dmg too, I haven't analyzed the log closely enough to crunch the numbers.

Also, on a side note I forgot to ask if this video was recorded before or after the nerf to Combustion? Since it no longer gains a double benefit from mastery those kinds of numbers may not even be possible anymore.

This video was recorded a few days ago, on 09/13/11. This was way after the nerf to combustion double benefiting from mastery

[Hinalover]

It was made just on Tuesday, when he scored the #1 parse on WoL.

Edit: woops sorry Logz; also I feel neglected in my question. Still what you gave on the ignite part is worth using for the next kill. I for one still have room to improve upon. I know in my attempts I was Pyrospamming a few seconds before the 50% debuff came up so yea I can hold off there. That and I'm too worried about getting the impact spreading before the combust to get the haste so my ignites may not be as high since I do it so late. Oh well, like I said I have room to improve.

[noremac]

Yeah if someone can look into this it would be really nice. I could try but I am not very good at navigating through WoL so if I were to do it, I would take forever haha.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

I'm not a mage raider, but this is one of those guide/videos that significantly inclines me to try and gear up my mage alt. Very impressive, and kudos to you Logoz for sharing this with us. The video is even incredibly cool to watch.

[LogozRR]

Edit: woops sorry Logz; also I feel neglected in my question.

Sry, I posted this topic on a few different forums, so I miss a few comments keeping track of them all.

Anyway yea I see what your doing there. Just I'm wondering why you say 17 stacks? I know Ignite Munching can get bad (I wsa hitting 19% ignite Munching myself and I do not spec into Hot Streak). I know I was switching from fireball to Pryo when I was hitting 1-1.04 second Fireball casts (12-13 stacks if I remember correctly). Granted I was getting targeted with Dark Intent so that may have helped a bit. But yea I know I was hitting the 1 second mark before the first Firestorm.

To answer your question, your gear might have more haste than mine prior to the buffs.
I never miss a ring, and I never get a 1sec Fireball until after the 1st firestorm. I said 17 stacks because that's usually when my Fireball drops to 0.9sec and I switch to Pyroblast.

It's not really worth switching to pyroblast until Fireball is UNDER 1.0sec cast. B/c when fireball is 1.0sec cast, pyroblast is still 1.2sec cast. Here's some math.
If you look at my logs:
my average fireball hit is 20573.7 (at 1.0sec cast, 20573.7 / 1.0 = 20573.7dps)
my average pyro hit is 23147.0 (at 1.2sec cast, 23147.0 / 1.2 = 19289.2dps)
At 1.0sec cast, Fireball is still more dps than pyro.
Once Fireball goes under 1.0sec cast (your GCD is still 1sec though), then it's better to switch to pyro.

[Karazee]

It's not really worth switching to pyroblast until Fireball is UNDER 1.0sec cast. B/c when fireball is 1.0sec cast, pyroblast is still 1.2sec cast. Here's some math.
If you look at my logs:
my average fireball hit is 20573.7 (at 1.0sec cast, 20573.7 / 1.0 = 20573.7dps)
my average pyro hit is 23147.0 (at 1.2sec cast, 23147.0 / 1.2 = 19289.2dps)
At 1.0sec cast, Fireball is still more dps than pyro.
Once Fireball goes under 1.0sec cast (your GCD is still 1sec though), then it's better to switch to pyro.

True that it's better to switch to Pyro, but not at exactly the immediate time your Fireball goes under 1.0. Using your own math, even if Fireball were lower than 1.0 second cast time, the GCD limits it so the dps would stay steady at 20,573.7 dps, right? But the Pyro DPS still hasn't gotten to Fireball's yet (it's still 1,300 dps lower in your example).

For example, when your Pyroblast cast time eventually goes down to 1.15 seconds, the dps would be 23,147.0/1.15 = 20,127.83 dps. That's still lower than the 20,573.7 dps your Fireball is doing. So even being GCD capped on your Fireballs is still going to do more dps than Pyro until your Pyro dps catches up and then eventually surpasses it. Pyro at 1.1 seconds comes out to 23147.0/1.1=21,042.73. The moment when the two are equal is when your Pyro is around 1.12 second Pyroblasts, giving 23,147.0/1.12 = 20,577.68 dps.

TLDR: probably still need to get another ring or two once you get to 1.0 second fireballs.

[Hinalover]

To answer your question, your gear might have more haste than mine prior to the buffs.

It could very well be the haste + the Dark Intent, since literally the only thing I changed was my Lightning Capacitor was switched out for the un-reforged DMC:Volcano. I have built up a set using Rawr and some obscure gearing choices. So I may try reforging into that next time and see how it goes. Also I've set up the mod you suggested for next time. Like I said it's only the first kill and it's just tweaking to get better at it.