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  1. #1
    Stood in the Fire Taiknee's Avatar
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    Post Ice Barrier vs Flameglow Analysis

    The results of the analysis are shown on google docs here:

    Link to Results - Google Docs

    The tricky thing with Flameglow is that it doesn't scale very well, so it will probably have to be re-adjusted every patch just to stay up to par. The spreadsheet shows the results based on sims of the 'average' benefit, because you will not always receive the same benefit every time - due to the damage reduction being based on how hard you get attacked for.

    If the change that I suggest is implemented, it means that - on average - Flameglow will be equal to Ice Barrier in non-upgraded S13 Tyrannical 493's when you gear is gemmed and enchanted ( a typical scenario ).

    In case you do not want to view the summary of results spreadsheet, I have included the recommendation below:

    The current tooltip...
    Flameglow

    Protects you with fiery energy, absorbing [ 20% of Fire Spell Power ] damage from each attack against you (up to a maximum of 30% of the attack).
    ...in my opinion, should be...
    Flameglow (re-evaluating)

    Protects you with fiery energy, absorbing [ 40% of Fire Spell Power ] damage from each attack against you (up to a maximum of 20.6% of the attack).
    According to my info, this is the optimum setup for Patch 5.2. It strikes the fairest balance between "DoT-type attacks" (by this I mean things like DoTs, fast auto-attacks, pet attacks, etc.) and other attacks. It is important to remember than this is based on average - when you are getting attacked by someone using major cooldowns, the harder your enemy hits you, the worse Flameglow gets devalued. (see Post #14). The spreadsheet is now corrected (thanks to yurano for your help) with error-free information.

    Currently, Flameglow is actually overtuned. It provides a DoT-type passive damage reduction (on average) equal to ~27% during regular-pressure scenarios and (on average) reduces burst scenarios by ~4.5%.

    With the change I suggest, it transfers a portion of that currently-overtuned passive damage to reducing slightly more burst. It equates to approximately the same damage reduction as current (~15%) - just with the power shifted a little to provide a *little more* defense against burst, and reducing the overtuned damage versus the majority of some classes' attacks (this way, classes who rely on lots of small attacks are not as negatively affected as much as they are currently). This change puts FG at about the same EH level as IB in S13 493 gear, whereas currently it is over the EH level of IB.

    With the change, Flameglow would provide a DoT-type passive damage reduction (on average) equal to ~20% during regular-pressure scenarios and (on average) reduces burst scenarios by ~10%.

    EDIT: Updated
    Last edited by Taiknee; 2013-02-25 at 07:41 PM. Reason: Revised with updated, correct information
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  2. #2
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    I would like to see your working, especially why Feral Druids are exempt from calculations, and what Flameglow should be if Feral Druids are included in calculations.

    As much of an outlier they may be, they're still a class a Mage can face and deserves to be factored in as much as all the other classes are in your suggested buff.

    What is also most likely is that Blizzard will round the accurate figures you've suggested to the nearest 1%, so you're asking for 70%SP absorb up to 40% of the attack.
    37 + (3*7) + (3*7)
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  3. #3
    I'm curious why Feral is excluded, but I'm more interested in when you compare them at PvE.

    Oh wait, you wouldn't need to. FG sucks :3
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Ofcourse ice barrier has to be stronger than flameglow, it's purgeable.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by zykaz View Post
    Ofcourse ice barrier has to be stronger than flameglow, it's purgeable.
    Explain Invo vs IW in 5.2 then.

    15% vs 6% (0% if you activate IW).
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  6. #6
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragon9870 View Post
    Explain Invo vs IW in 5.2 then.

    15% vs 6% (0% if you activate IW).
    Because the DPS buff from IW is always going to be purged, and the PTR isn't live.
    37 + (3*7) + (3*7)
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    Because the DPS buff from IW is always going to be purged, and the PTR isn't live.
    Oh I was more or less being a smartass.

    He said IB has to be better because it's going to be purged, so I said explain IW (and yes, in high skill matches, it WILL always be purged)

    (If that change actually does go live though, I will give up all hope for our class in the future)

    Anyways, back on topic: FG sucks. :|
    Last edited by Polarthief; 2013-02-24 at 01:47 PM.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  8. #8
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragon9870 View Post
    Anyways, back on topic: FG sucks.
    Not constructive.
    Quote Originally Posted by Taiknee View Post
    The tricky thing with Flameglow is that it doesn't scale very well
    Could you suggest a better scaling stat than Int/SP? I mean, I'm up for models like a*(SP)^2, or a*e^(SP), if a linear scaling doesn't seem good enough.

    Note: where "SP" is your spell power value, "a" is a constant value and "e" is the exponential constant.
    37 + (3*7) + (3*7)
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    Could you suggest a better scaling stat than Int/SP? I mean, I'm up for models like a*(SP)^2, or a*e^(SP), if a linear scaling doesn't seem good enough.
    Yeah. a 50% SP scaling or something.

    Anything more than 20%. It's simply not enough to be worth taking in extremely situational... situations.

    Plus I'd feel so flimsy having 0 defensive cooldowns/absorptions.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  10. #10
    Legendary! Firebert's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragon9870 View Post
    Yeah. a 50% SP scaling or something. Anything more than 20%. It's simply not enough to be worth taking in extremely situational... situations.
    The way he words it:
    Quote Originally Posted by Taiknee View Post
    it will probably have to be re-adjusted every patch just to stay up to par.
    What this means is your suggestion of 50%SP might be fine for 5.2, but it'll need buffing for 5.3, and again for 5.4, and so on. Instead, why not change what it scales off of (or create a function of our best scaling stat) such that Flameglow won't need tweaking every patch just to come close to the other two talents?
    37 + (3*7) + (3*7)
    W/L/T/Death count: Wolf: 0/1/0/1 | Mafia: 1/6/0/7 | TPR: 0/4/1/5
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  11. #11
    The Lightbringer LocNess's Avatar
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    Flameglow will also be a slight DPS boost just due to the fact you do not need to waste a GCD in order to use this (however TS gets the same benefit). Yeah it sucks defensively but for pure DPS it will beat out Ice barrier by a slight percent for min/maxing.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Firebert View Post
    The way he words it:

    What this means is your suggestion of 50%SP might be fine for 5.2, but it'll need buffing for 5.3, and again for 5.4, and so on. Instead, why not change what it scales off of (or create a function of our best scaling stat) such that Flameglow won't need tweaking every patch just to come close to the other two talents?
    Or scrap it because it's stupid and try again. Anything that needs constant tweaking should be scrapped because it's a bad design (kinda like CM; scrap it and give us something in compensation. It's DOOMED to be nerfed in the future; that or our damage.)

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-24 at 02:57 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by LocNess View Post
    Flameglow will also be a slight DPS boost just due to the fact you do not need to waste a GCD in order to use this (however TS gets the same benefit). Yeah it sucks defensively but for pure DPS it will beat out Ice barrier by a slight percent for min/maxing.
    I didn't know people still used IB in T14.

    Once it got nerfed, I looked into TS and realized how beautiful it is.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  13. #13
    The Lightbringer LocNess's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragon9870 View Post
    Or scrap it because it's stupid and try again. Anything that needs constant tweaking should be scrapped because it's a bad design (kinda like CM; scrap it and give us something in compensation. It's DOOMED to be nerfed in the future; that or our damage.)

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-24 at 02:57 PM ----------



    I didn't know people still used IB in T14.

    Once it got nerfed, I looked into TS and realized how beautiful it is.
    I use it during 25ms for most fights, but not 10m. Reason for using IB in 25ms is because Healers are more of a "whack a mole" and dont really have the attention to know whether to heal you or not, however during 10ms you are obviously more relating to the other raid members and can better direct them to not heal you. Therefor you are not really wasting the healing.
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  14. #14
    Stood in the Fire Taiknee's Avatar
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    I forgot to add an important comment to the original post that these calculations were performed assuming the mage is constantly getting attacked (ie. receiving - on average - the full benefit of this spell) and we know that isn't going to be the case in PvP due to kiting/LoS/CC/etc. It also doesn't factor in the scenario of already having Ice Barrier up, and refreshing it one or more times during a fight - however, I attribute this trade-off as an opportunity cost for Ice Barrier being dispellable.

    EDIT: Removed incorrect information due to previous errors in spreadsheet.
    Last edited by Taiknee; 2013-02-25 at 07:36 PM. Reason: Updated to remove incorrect information
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragon9870 View Post

    I didn't know people still used IB in T14.

    Once it got nerfed, I looked into TS and realized how beautiful it is.
    It still is pretty useful for those chances you can be gibbed by aoe after taking a large hit (For Example, Empress Hc Pre Nerf) Can't really think of any others as I'm raiding atm - Bad Utsegi!

    On topic: I haven't looked too much into 5.2 encounters yet tbh. How many (if at all) fights have a constant small aoe a la Will Hc. May prove quite useful there, when I tried it on the PTR really quickly I think it was only something around 3-7k absorb? I can't remember exactly as it was a few weeks ago but I agree - something needs to be done with the scaling.
    Last edited by mmoc30c4564aa8; 2013-02-24 at 08:35 PM. Reason: Flameglow stuff

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Taiknee View Post
    First and foremost, there are no calculations or data shown in the spreadsheet. In particular, there is no justification as to why Flameglow is attributed a flat 90K EH. Specifically, what test/classes/data was used to determine the 90K EH? Moreover, there's no justification as to why Flameglow EH is assumed (falsely) to not scale with Resilience. In fact, Flameglow scales better with resilience than Ice Barrier. The effective health of Flameglow's SP absorb scales equivalently to the effective health of Ice Barrier's absorption with respect to resilience. However, as resilience increases, the Flameglow 30% cap improves (in terms of EH), increasing the percent absorption of larger hits up to a maximum of 30%. In other words, as hits become weaker, Flameglow is able to 30% max absorb a greater portion of incoming hits. Due to this 30% cap, Flameglow scales better with resilience than Ice Barrier, albeit marginally.

    Put simply, Ice Barrier is worth 4580+SP*3.3, or 78830 with full Tyrannical, shielding after resilience. The work lies in determining the efficacy of Flameglow in different situations.

    The OP asserts that Flameglow is garbage in all situations. The following analysis shows that there are several situations where Flameglow is effective, primarily against DPS with frequent small hits (dual wield, DoTs, etc).

    In the following analysis, I have used full Tyrannical characters on 5.2 PTR. A Subtlety Rogue and Shadow Priest will bash on a Flameglow Mage from 100% health to 0% health during a duel in two modes: Standard DPS and Burst DPS. Their character stats are shown in this image.

    Rogue - Standard DPS - Garrote > Backstab to 5CP > Evis > MfD > Evis > Backstab to 5CP > Evis > Mage Death. Here I've chosen MfD to maximize burst, exploiting the weakness of Flameglow. We see that in the ~18 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed roughly 110K, significantly more than Ice Barrier. Moreover, due to the 7 sec advantage of Flameglow due to Ice Barrier's 25s CD, Flameglow could continue to absorb more damage with heals. This is highly possible in team play (eg. arena).

    Rogue - Burst DPS - Garrote > Shadow Dance > Ambush to 5CP > Evis > MfD > Evis > Ambush to 5CP > MfD > Mage Death. We see in the ~11 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed ~50K. This encounter shows the weakness of Flameglow to burst damage, especially multiple 80K Ambush Crits and 40-45K Evis/Backstab hits. Without incoming heals, Flameglow is weaker than Ice Barrier a burst scenario, but Flameglow isn't completely useless.

    Shadow Priest - Standard DPS - 0 Orb > Mind Blast > Dots up > 3 Orb DP > Mind Flay Insanity > Execute > Mage Death. We see that in the ~27 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed roughly 125K damage. Again, Flameglow out absorbs Ice Barrier by a large margin.

    Shadow Priest - Burst DPS - Start w/ 3 Orbs > Dots up > 3 Orb DP > Mind Flay Insanity > Execute > Mage Death. We see that in the ~13 sec to kill the Mage (3s lost to putting up VT/SWP), Flameglow absorbed roughly 110K damage. We see that in a DoT based burst scenario like DP + MFI, Flameglow is able to hold out quite well.

    All in all, we see that Flameglow can be competitive with Ice Barrier in situations with a large number of small hits. In these situations, Flameglow is able to absorb a large amount of damage and is reset/recharged with healing. In contrast, Ice Barrier is a use once and gone ability. Flameglow in its current iteration is clearly superior to Ice Barrier in small hit scenarios and should hold its own compared to Ice Barrier in medium hit scenarios. Only in large hit (burst) scenarios does Flameglow fall behind. Even in the burst case, healing can cause Flameglow to be a better choice than Ice Barrier. Ice Barrier's efficacy is only guaranteed temporally close to its activation since it can be dispelled or depleted. In contrast, Flameglow is active whenever the Mage is taking damage and is reset whenever the Mage is fully healed, common in team-based PvP.
    Last edited by yurano; 2013-02-24 at 10:09 PM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by yurano View Post
    All in all, we see that Flameglow can be competitive with Ice Barrier in situations with a large number of small hits.
    Okay, and that's only with small hits, whereas IB is on any hits because it's just X damage.

    So you can be prepared for any situation, or only situations where you take many small hits (which isn't often because small hits in PvP = Lulz, y'know?)
    Still wondering why I play this game.
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  18. #18
    Stood in the Fire Taiknee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yurano View Post
    First and foremost, there are no calculations or data shown in the spreadsheet. In particular, there is no justification as to why Flameglow is attributed a flat 90K EH. Specifically, what test/classes/data was used to determine the 90K EH? Moreover, there's no justification as to why Flameglow EH is assumed (falsely) to not scale with Resilience. In fact, Flameglow scales better with resilience than Ice Barrier. The effective health of Flameglow's SP absorb scales equivalently to the effective health of Ice Barrier's absorption with respect to resilience. However, as resilience increases, the Flameglow 30% cap improves (in terms of EH), increasing the percent absorption of larger hits up to a maximum of 30%. In other words, as hits become weaker, Flameglow is able to 30% max absorb a greater portion of incoming hits. Due to this 30% cap, Flameglow scales better with resilience than Ice Barrier, albeit marginally.

    Put simply, Ice Barrier is worth 4580+SP*3.3, or 78830 with full Tyrannical, shielding after resilience. The work lies in determining the efficacy of Flameglow in different situations.

    The OP asserts that Flameglow is garbage in all situations. The following analysis shows that there are several situations where Flameglow is effective, primarily against DPS with frequent small hits (dual wield, DoTs, etc).

    In the following analysis, I have used full Tyrannical characters on 5.2 PTR. A Subtlety Rogue and Shadow Priest will bash on a Flameglow Mage from 100% health to 0% health during a duel in two modes: Standard DPS and Burst DPS. Their character stats are shown in this image.

    Rogue - Standard DPS - Garrote > Backstab to 5CP > Evis > MfD > Evis > Backstab to 5CP > Evis > Mage Death. Here I've chosen MfD to maximize burst, exploiting the weakness of Flameglow. We see that in the ~18 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed roughly 110K, significantly more than Ice Barrier. Moreover, due to the 7 sec advantage of Flameglow due to Ice Barrier's 25s CD, Flameglow could continue to absorb more damage with heals. This is highly possible in team play (eg. arena).

    Rogue - Burst DPS - Garrote > Shadow Dance > Ambush to 5CP > Evis > MfD > Evis > Ambush to 5CP > MfD > Mage Death. We see in the ~11 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed ~50K. This encounter shows the weakness of Flameglow to burst damage, especially multiple 80K Ambush Crits and 40-45K Evis/Backstab hits. Without incoming heals, Flameglow is weaker than Ice Barrier a burst scenario, but Flameglow isn't completely useless.

    Shadow Priest - Standard DPS - 0 Orb > Mind Blast > Dots up > 3 Orb DP > Mind Flay Insanity > Execute > Mage Death. We see that in the ~27 sec to kill the Mage, Flameglow absorbed roughly 125K damage. Again, Flameglow out absorbs Ice Barrier by a large margin.

    Shadow Priest - Burst DPS - Start w/ 3 Orbs > Dots up > 3 Orb DP > Mind Flay Insanity > Execute > Mage Death. We see that in the ~13 sec to kill the Mage (3s lost to putting up VT/SWP), Flameglow absorbed roughly 110K damage. We see that in a DoT based burst scenario like DP + MFI, Flameglow is able to hold out quite well.

    All in all, we see that Flameglow can be competitive with Ice Barrier in situations with a large number of small hits. In these situations, Flameglow is able to absorb a large amount of damage and is reset/recharged with healing. In contrast, Ice Barrier is a use once and gone ability. Flameglow in its current iteration is clearly superior to Ice Barrier in small hit scenarios and should hold its own compared to Ice Barrier in medium hit scenarios. Only in large hit (burst) scenarios does Flameglow fall behind. Even in the burst case, healing can cause Flameglow to be a better choice than Ice Barrier. Ice Barrier's efficacy is only guaranteed temporally close to its activation since it can be dispelled or depleted. In contrast, Flameglow is active whenever the Mage is taking damage and is reset whenever the Mage is fully healed, common in team-based PvP.
    First, thank you for posting your screenshots. I plugged your mage's stats into my spreadsheet (390,660 health, 22377 SP, 66.01% resil) to compare it to your picture's results, and they appear pretty similar based on the current formula (Screenshot Here). It is a good sign that the data is similar to the results, but I am thinking I might have made an error in my Ice Barrier section, which led me to high health levels for Flameglow. I will re-evaluate it when I have more time.

    EDIT: I have discovered the problem! Thanks very much to yurano for your tests and contributions - and keeping me from making a further fool of myself. I converted Ice Barrier's absorb into Effective Health WITHOUT ALSO DOING THE SAME THING TO FLAMEGLOW. In effect, I was making Flameglow EVEN STRONGER THAN IT SHOULD BE. This will be fixed and I will try to release the corrected effective health spreadsheet tomorrow sometime. I should've known something was up when it wasn't scaling with resilience but I figured it was minute. New formula inc. It turns out Flameglow is actually overtuned - the max static damage reduction of other classes is 15%, so I will try to find the new formula based on that while also considering the fact that Flameglow is not effective at reducing burst - will test higher spell coefficients. (It shouldn't take too long since I already have the spreadsheet created.)
    Last edited by Taiknee; 2013-02-25 at 03:55 AM. Reason: New info - found the problem
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Taiknee View Post
    In effect, I was making Flameglow EVEN STRONGER THAN IT SHOULD BE. This will be fixed and I will try to release the corrected effective health spreadsheet tomorrow sometime. I should've known something was up when it wasn't scaling with resilience but I figured it was minute. New formula inc. It turns out Flameglow is actually overtuned
    ................... Wat.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  20. #20
    Stood in the Fire Taiknee's Avatar
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    The errors have been fixed and the correct information is now available in the Google Docs link shown in the original post.

    The reason for the error was that I converted Ice Barrier's absorb to EH, based on resilience, without doing the same thing to Flameglow, so effectively I was making Flameglow a lot stronger than Ice Barrier on accident because I was scaling Flameglows actual-damage reduction to match the EH of Ice Barrier! However! This has been fixed - I have double checked everything and am certain there are no errors now. The new, correct formula suggestion is shown in the Google Docs link and in the original post. Thanks again to yurano - I probably wouldn't have noticed my error without your help.
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