Tier 10 Set Boni from an Arcane Mage's Perspective

by Tachyon on Wed. 09. December 2009, 18:46

Filed under: arcane, spec, talents, sets, patch, 3.3, haste, tier 10

EDIT 2010-01-22: Tested and verified the mechanic of the T10x2 proc, added and corrected a few things in the article.

Patch day, 3.3 went live today in Europe. This time I refrained from summing up the changes (new raidwide 3% crit buff by Arcane mages, Fire and especially Frost get some small buffs) and instead point to WoW.com's patch 3.3 coverage.

Instead, I will focus on the new Tier 10 sets (presumably the last set we get before the next expansion) that are introduced by patch 3.3.

The Tier 10 armor sets come in three flavours, with an item level of 251, 264 and 279 respectively.
The starting set items are bought with Emblems of Frost, and can be upgraded with normal and heroic (Vanquisher's) Marks of Sanctification.

Emblems of Frost
Emblems of Frost can be obtained from the following sources:

• (3) as loot from killing any boss in Icecrown Citadel
• (3) as loot from killing Toravon the Ice Watcher in Archavon's Vault
• (2) as reward for running the first Daily Heroic Random each day (new in 3.3)
• (5) as reward for completing the Weekly Raid Quest (new in 3.3)

Mage Tier 10 Set(s)

Bloodmage's Regalia Set Boni:

• 2 pieces: Your Hot Streak, Missile Barrage, and Brain Freeze talents also grant you 12% haste for 5 sec when the effect of the talent is consumed.
• 4 pieces: Your Mirror Image ability also causes you to deal 18% additional damage for 30 sec.

Mage Tier 10 2-pieces bonus

After each MBarr cast (Arcane Missiles on a Missile Barrage proc), you gain a buff called Pushing the Limit, which increases your haste for the next 5 sec by 12%.
Note that you gain this buff after channeling Arcane Missiles finishes (or is interrupted), so you gain the full 5 seconds for your next casts.

To find out how much the 2-pieces bonus is worth, I adapted the Casting Simulation acordingly and ran it again with the same parameters as before (3000 Spell Power, Hit Capped, 20% Spell Haste before talents, 50% Spell Crit including CSD). Here are the results:

.	A=0	A=1	A=2	A=3	A=4	A=5
B=0	5261 DPS 14.21 DPM -10.47% DPS -16.80% DPM	5153 DPS 16.19 DPM -12.31% DPS -5.21% DPM	5173 DPS 16.37 DPM -11.97% DPS -4.16% DPM	5257 DPS 15.4 DPM -10.54% DPS -9.84% DPM	5417 DPS 13.39 DPM -7.81% DPS -21.60% DPM	5459 DPS 11.98 DPM -7.11% DPS -29.86% DPM
B=1	5186 DPS 32.99 DPM -11.75% DPS +93.15% DPM	5161 DPS 33.43 DPM -12.16% DPS +95.73% DPM	5195 DPS 27.76 DPM -11.59% DPS +62.53% DPM	5315 DPS 21.96 DPM -9.55% DPS +28.57% DPM	5485 DPS 17.42 DPM -6.65% DPS +1.99% DPM	5532 DPS 13.75 DPM -5.86% DPS -19.50% DPM
B=2	5401 DPS 32.77 DPM -8.08% DPS +91.86% DPM	5378 DPS 33.02 DPM -8.48% DPS +93.33% DPM	5395 DPS 28.96 DPM -8.19% DPS +69.56% DPM	5499 DPS 22.17 DPM -6.42% DPS +29.80% DPM	5642 DPS 17.5 DPM -3.98% DPS +2.46% DPM	5664 DPS 13.78 DPM -3.60% DPS -19.32% DPM
B=3	5597 DPS 29.15 DPM -4.75% DPS +70.67% DPM	5578 DPS 29.2 DPM -5.07% DPS +70.96% DPM	5566 DPS 26.8 DPM -5.28% DPS +56.91% DPM	5648 DPS 21.78 DPM -3.89% DPS +27.52% DPM	5776 DPS 17.24 DPM -1.70% DPS +0.94% DPM	5774 DPS 13.58 DPM -1.74% DPS -20.49% DPM
B=4	5760 DPS 26.16 DPM -1.97% DPS +53.16% DPM	5750 DPS 26.22 DPM -2.15% DPS +53.51% DPM	5728 DPS 24.78 DPM -2.52% DPS +45.08% DPM	5783 DPS 20.96 DPM -1.59% DPS +22.72% DPM	5873 DPS 17.08 DPM +0.00% DPS +0.00% DPM	5863 DPS 13.44 DPM -0.23% DPS -21.31% DPM
B=5	5857 DPS 24.1 DPM -0.33% DPS +41.10% DPM	5850 DPS 24.18 DPM -0.45% DPS +41.57% DPM	5818 DPS 23.2 DPM -0.99% DPS +35.83% DPM	5861 DPS 20.1 DPM -0.27% DPS +17.68% DPM	5939 DPS 16.75 DPM +1.07% DPS -1.93% DPM	5858 DPS 13.44 DPM -0.31% DPS -21.31% DPM
B=6	5904 DPS 23.15 DPM +0.48% DPS +35.54% DPM	5903 DPS 23.12 DPM +0.46% DPS +35.36% DPM	5869 DPS 22.39 DPM -0.12% DPS +31.09% DPM	5903 DPS 19.63 DPM +0.46% DPS +14.93% DPM	5980 DPS 16.57 DPM +1.76% DPS -2.99% DPM	5915 DPS 13.36 DPM +0.66% DPS -21.78% DPM
B=7	5936 DPS 22.53 DPM +1.01% DPS +31.91% DPM	5933 DPS 22.65 DPM +0.97% DPS +32.61% DPM	5902 DPS 21.96 DPM +0.45% DPS +28.57% DPM	5932 DPS 19.45 DPM +0.95% DPS +13.88% DPM	5997 DPS 16.47 DPM +2.05% DPS -3.57% DPM	5940 DPS 13.31 DPM +1.09% DPS -22.07% DPM
B=8	5954 DPS 22.26 DPM +1.33% DPS +30.33% DPM	5951 DPS 22.25 DPM +1.27% DPS +30.27% DPM	5916 DPS 21.64 DPM +0.68% DPS +26.70% DPM	5942 DPS 19.31 DPM +1.13% DPS +13.06% DPM	6008 DPS 16.39 DPM +2.25% DPS -4.04% DPM	5958 DPS 13.28 DPM +1.40% DPS -22.25% DPM
B=infinite	5977 DPS 21.83 DPM +1.72% DPS +27.81% DPM	5979 DPS 21.84 DPM +1.74% DPS +27.87% DPM	5939 DPS 21.37 DPM +1.07% DPS +25.12% DPM	5970 DPS 19.08 DPM +1.60% DPS +11.71% DPM	6031 DPS 16.3 DPM +2.63% DPS -4.57% DPM	5991 DPS 13.25 DPM +1.96% DPS -22.42% DPM

The best spell rotations when having the 2pT10 bonus are the A=0|1, B->Infinite rotations (lower left corner in the table above). They even have higher DPS than Arcane Blast spamming (which has 5788.37 DPS @ 6.68 DPM), so it's also the preferred rotation for burst phases.

The A=4, B->Infinite rotation that is the current 'state of the art' shouldn't be used anymore with the 2pT10 bonus, as it yields marginally lower DPS and way worse DPM compared to the A=0|1, B->Infinite rotations.

Recommended 2pT10 rotation: A=0|1, B->Infinity
Spam Arcane Blast, use Missile Barrage immediately or after the next Arcane Blast cast.

But now much is the DPS boost with the set bonus?
A=0, B->Infinite:
Without set bonus: 5560 DPS @ 21.88 DPM, 254.11 mana/sec
With 2pT10 Bonus: 5977 DPS (+7.50%) @ 21.83 DPM (-0.23%), 273.8 mana/sec (+7.75%),

The 2pT10 bonus here gives a plain +7.5% DPS boost, that's pretty massive!

The A=0, B->Infinite rotation with 2pT10 yields 5.43% more DPS compared to the A=4, B->Infinity rotation without the bonus (5669 DPS @ 16.30 DPM), that's the effective DPS increase as we are also swapping our main spell rotation.

New peak haste cap!

The haste peak is defined by:

• 1% per 32.79 haste rating on your gear
• 6% from Talents
• 5% from Wrath of Air Totem
• 3% from Swift Retribution or Improved Moonkin Form
• 20% when Icy Veins is active
• 30% when Bloodlust or Heroism is active
• 12% from 2pT10 procs after casting MBarr

The haste peak cap is reached when your spells (Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage + Arcane Missiles, both having a 2.5 sec base cast time) have an effective cast time of 1 sec (subsequent spells can't be cast any faster).

The haste% factors scale multiplicatively, so your haste peak cap now is at:
(2.5 / (1.06*1.05*1.03*1.2*1.3*1.12) - 1) * 3279 = 814 (813.337) haste rating.

Please note that I ignored the effect of Speed Potions and on-proc haste Trinkets; if we take those into account the haste peak cap would be even lower.

Black Magic

Also note that the weapon enchant for Black Magic has been changed in patch 3.3, and can now proc 250 haste for 10 seconds (proc chance: 35%, 30 sec assumend internal cooldown). When you're at 564 haste or above, Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower might still be the better choice though.
For PvP though, Black Magic is godsend!

Mage Tier 10 4-pieces bonus

The 4-pieces bonus is really nice and works like second Arcane Power (and yes, it stacks), giving mages an even higher burst potential. With a 30 sec duration and 3 min cooldown, the average uptime on a fight with infinite duration is 1/6, which is a plain 3% damage boost. The shorter the fight duration, the larger the uptime, when we keep Mirror Images on cooldown. If we assume randomly distributed fight durations between 1 min and 10 min, the average uptime is 22%, which is almost a 4% damage boost. If you use it along with your other cooldowns such as Arcane Power, Icy Veins, Bloodlust/Heroism and Trinkets, the bonus is worth much more.

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3.2.2 Arcane Mage Changes

by Tachyon on Thu. 10. September 2009, 21:04

Filed under: arcane, patch, spell, simulation, theorycrafting

Arcane is facing some cool new changes in the upcoming patch 3.2.2 which can be tested on the PTR since quite some weeks and could go live any moment (or in a couple of weeks, who knows).
EDIT 2009-09-15: The mana cost for subsequent AB casts has been raised to 175%/stack in the latest PTR build (was 130%/stack in the first 3.2.2 build), therefore I updated the numbers and my conclusions.

• Arcane Blast: The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times (instead of 3), and each application increases mana cost by 175% (instead of 200%).
• Missile Barrage: The effect from triggering this talent now removes the mana cost of Arcane Missiles. In addition, the chance for Arcane Blast to trigger this talent is now 8/16/24/32/40%. All other listed spells continue to have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to trigger it.

The overall DPS wasn't increased all that much, but what really sticks out is the mana efficiency which suddenly makes this spec viable for raiding again, and indirectly boosts the DPS by allowing to run the mana exhausting high DPS rotations for a little longer.

Given the new circumstances, you might now wonder what the preferred DPS or DPM rotations will be once the patch goes live.

Once again I will use the simulation program I wrote for the Going Arcane article series ( part 1, part 2 and part 3) for a detailled anaysis and comparison of possible spell rotation strategies.
For the 3.2.2 spell rotation analysis, I slightly modified the base stats used for the simulation:

• 3000 Spell Power (used to be 2000)
• Hit capped, (100% Spell Hit, same as before)
• 20% Spell Haste before talents (used to be 10%)
• 50% Spell Crit including CSD (used to be 35%)
• removed 4xT7 set bonus for the calculation

The simulation yields following results for cast sequences:

Rotation	Damage	Time	DPS	Mana	DPM	Mana/sec
ABx1	8195.000	1.984	4130.280	215.000	38.120	108.360
ABx2	17866.000	3.968	4502.230	806.000	22.170	203.112
ABx3	15962.000	5.952	2681.620	1773.000	9.000	297.864
ABx4	32270.000	7.937	4066.020	3116.000	10.360	392.616
ABx5	55730.000	9.921	5617.580	4836.000	11.520	487.469
ABx10	109847.000	19.841	5536.290	13436.000	8.180	677.174
ABx100000	1151280132.000	198412.698	5802.450	171996236.000	6.690	866.861
ABarr	6673.000	1.190	5605.320	553.000	12.070	464.520
ABx1, ABarr	12527.000	3.175	3946.000	768.000	16.310	241.920
ABx2, ABarr	22859.000	5.159	4431.130	1359.000	16.820	263.437
ABx3, ABarr	21616.000	7.143	3026.240	2326.000	9.290	325.640
ABx4, ABarr	47434.000	9.127	5197.120	3669.000	12.930	401.995
ABx5, ABarr	45677.000	11.111	4110.930	5389.000	8.480	485.010
Mbarr	16758.000	1.984	8446.030	0.000	∞	0.000
ABx1, Mbarr	14630.000	3.968	3686.760	215.000	68.050	54.180
ABx2, Mbarr	40658.000	5.952	6830.540	806.000	50.440	135.408
ABx3, Mbarr	51134.000	7.937	6442.880	1773.000	28.840	223.398
ABx4, Mbarr	70458.000	9.921	7102.170	3116.000	22.610	314.093
ABx5, Mbarr	76519.000	11.905	6427.600	4836.000	15.820	406.224
AM	16758.000	3.968	4223.020	952.000	17.600	239.904
ABx1, AM	27970.000	5.952	4698.960	1167.000	23.970	196.056
ABx2, AM	36972.000	7.937	4658.470	1758.000	21.030	221.508
ABx3, AM	34185.000	9.921	3445.850	2725.000	12.540	274.680
ABx4, AM	70458.000	11.905	5918.470	4068.000	17.320	341.712
ABx5, AM	73864.000	13.889	5318.210	5788.000	12.760	416.736

3.2.2 Spell Rotations

For the spell rotation strategy, the same generic model as pre-3.2.2 was used:

• If Missile Barrage procced, use it after at least A subsequent Arcane Blast casts
• If Missile Barrage didn't proc after B subsequent Arcane Blast casts, cast Arcane Barrage instead

The following data is the result of running the simulation with 1'000'000 casts for each casting strategy (A, B):

.	A=0	A=1	A=2	A=3	A=4	A=5
B=0	4941 DPS 14.19 DPM -10.89% DPS -16.92% DPM	4864 DPS 16.19 DPM -12.29% DPS -5.21% DPM	4904 DPS 16.34 DPM -11.55% DPS -4.33% DPM	5031 DPS 15.4 DPM -9.27% DPS -9.84% DPM	5217 DPS 13.37 DPM -5.91% DPS -21.72% DPM	5278 DPS 11.98 DPM -4.80% DPS -29.86% DPM
B=1	4836 DPS 32.92 DPM -12.78% DPS +92.74% DPM	4821 DPS 33.41 DPM -13.05% DPS +95.61% DPM	4891 DPS 27.79 DPM -11.79% DPS +62.70% DPM	5038 DPS 21.98 DPM -9.14% DPS +28.69% DPM	5241 DPS 17.41 DPM -5.48% DPS +1.93% DPM	5317 DPS 13.73 DPM -4.11% DPS -19.61% DPM
B=2	5031 DPS 32.83 DPM -9.28% DPS +92.21% DPM	5017 DPS 32.99 DPM -9.52% DPS +93.15% DPM	5037 DPS 28.89 DPM -9.16% DPS +69.15% DPM	5173 DPS 22.17 DPM -6.71% DPS +29.80% DPM	5363 DPS 17.5 DPM -3.27% DPS +2.46% DPM	5429 DPS 13.76 DPM -2.10% DPS -19.44% DPM
B=3	5216 DPS 29.13 DPM -5.92% DPS +70.55% DPM	5203 DPS 29.2 DPM -6.16% DPS +70.96% DPM	5195 DPS 26.82 DPM -6.32% DPS +57.03% DPM	5293 DPS 21.8 DPM -4.54% DPS +27.63% DPM	5469 DPS 17.23 DPM -1.37% DPS +0.88% DPM	5524 DPS 13.57 DPM -0.38% DPS -20.55% DPM
B=4	5364 DPS 26.24 DPM -3.26% DPS +53.63% DPM	5356 DPS 26.24 DPM -3.41% DPS +53.63% DPM	5332 DPS 24.83 DPM -3.84% DPS +45.37% DPM	5394 DPS 20.94 DPM -2.72% DPS +22.60% DPM	5548 DPS 17.09 DPM +0.00% DPS +0.00% DPM	5589 DPS 13.44 DPM +0.79% DPS -21.31% DPM
B=5	5442 DPS 24.11 DPM -1.86% DPS +41.16% DPM	5441 DPS 24.23 DPM -1.87% DPS +41.86% DPM	5409 DPS 23.19 DPM -2.45% DPS +35.77% DPM	5461 DPS 20.11 DPM -1.51% DPS +17.74% DPM	5601 DPS 16.76 DPM +1.01% DPS -1.87% DPM	5587 DPS 13.44 DPM +0.77% DPS -21.31% DPM
B=6	5493 DPS 23.17 DPM -0.94% DPS +35.66% DPM	5491 DPS 23.16 DPM -0.98% DPS +35.60% DPM	5451 DPS 22.37 DPM -1.69% DPS +30.97% DPM	5497 DPS 19.69 DPM -0.86% DPS +15.28% DPM	5628 DPS 16.56 DPM +1.50% DPS -3.04% DPM	5631 DPS 13.35 DPM +1.55% DPS -21.84% DPM
B=7	5524 DPS 22.57 DPM -0.37% DPS +32.14% DPM	5518 DPS 22.6 DPM -0.48% DPS +32.32% DPM	5477 DPS 21.92 DPM -1.22% DPS +28.34% DPM	5518 DPS 19.45 DPM -0.48% DPS +13.88% DPM	5647 DPS 16.48 DPM +1.83% DPS -3.51% DPM	5656 DPS 13.31 DPM +2.00% DPS -22.07% DPM
B=8	5537 DPS 22.3 DPM -0.15% DPS +30.56% DPM	5536 DPS 22.33 DPM -0.15% DPS +30.74% DPM	5499 DPS 21.72 DPM -0.83% DPS +27.17% DPM	5529 DPS 19.29 DPM -0.29% DPS +12.94% DPM	5658 DPS 16.4 DPM +2.04% DPS -3.98% DPM	5669 DPS 13.28 DPM +2.23% DPS -22.25% DPM
B=infinite	5560 DPS 21.88 DPM +0.27% DPS +28.10% DPM	5561 DPS 21.94 DPM +0.29% DPS +28.45% DPM	5519 DPS 21.28 DPM -0.46% DPS +24.59% DPM	5549 DPS 19.1 DPM +0.07% DPS +11.83% DPM	5669 DPS 16.3 DPM +2.24% DPS -4.57% DPM	5689 DPS 13.24 DPM +2.60% DPS -22.48% DPM

Color legend:

• Black: Base rotation used as reference: ABx4, (MBarr|ABarr)
• Gray: Rotation for which another rotation with better DPS and DPM exists
• Blue: Rotation with more DPS than base rotation.
• Green: Rotation with more DPM than base rotation.
• Blue-green: Rotation with more DPS and more DPM than base rotation.
• Red: Bad rotation, worse DPS and DPM than base rotation

Optimal DPM rotations ( green, blue-green)

In the table above, the most efficient rotations mana-wise are those with A=0-1 and B=2..infinity. The Mana burn ratio (which is DPS/DPM) is about 254 Mana/sec*, which should be sustainable in a raid scenario.

For B=2, A=0..1 (use ABarr to clear the AB stack if MBarr didn't proc after 2xAB, and use the MBarr as soon as it procs) you can increase the Damage per Mana by over 90% at the cost of only ~9.5% less DPS compared to the base rotation. The Mana burn ratio is about 154Mana/sec*, which can be kept up even for long fights.
If you never use ABarr to clear the AB stack but just cast AM until MBarr procs and then use MBarr as soon as possible, you still have a very efficient DPS/DPM rotation.

Recommended optimal rotation: A=0, B->Infinity
Spam Arcane Blast, use Missile Barrage as soon as it procs

Recommended DPM/recovery rotation: A=0, B->2..5
Spam Arcane Blast, use Missile Barrage as soon as it procs. If no procs occur after 2..5 AB stacks, clear the stack with Arcane Barrage.

High/Burst DPS rotations ( blue)

The best DPS rotations are found when saving the MBarr proc until you have AB fully stacked (4 stacks). The later you give up fishing for a proc and clear the stack with ABarr (or AM), the higher the DPS, but the higher the mana cost. With A=4, B->Infinity, the Mana burn ratio is about 350 Mana/sec* which is rather high, but with Evocation every 2 minutes you should hardly run into mana problems.

Recommended high/burst DPS rotation: A=4, B->Infinity
Spam Arcane Blast, use Missile Barrage when it procs and AB is fully stacked (4 stacks).

* = Mana/sec values without taking Clearcast or Arcane Power into account

All in all we can be very happy with the arcane changes, for once Blizzard managed to boost them for PvE only without making them overpowered in PvP (not that we wouldn't need that, though).

If you have any questions, or want to share your experiences with the new arcane rotations, please drop me a comment, I'd appreciate that.

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Patch 3.2 - Call of the Crusade

by Tachyon on Wed. 05. August 2009, 12:47

Filed under: patch, mage

Patch 3.2 - Call of the Crusade went live in the US yesterday, and today here in Europe.

For our guild this poses some problems right away, as we didn't manage to clear heroic Ulduar yet (Yogg-Saron has been killed in non-heroic Ulduar, but we have yet to bring him/her down in heroic mode). We haven't done a single hard mode encounter yet, and Algalon is probably going to join the league of skipped bosses such as Kil-Jaeden.

I'm wondering what we're doing on our scheduled raid tonight, whether it's going to be Ulduar (what I personally hope, I don't want the place to stay uncleared until we outgear it) or the new Argent Coliseum instances (5, 10, 25 men).

The profession changes are also very welcome, in fact I kicked Herbalism for Enchanting (cost me 2 days and ~8k gold to powerlevel it) so I can get the upgraded ring enchants. Alchemy has some new recipies for the new epic gems, and a new Flaks ( Flask of the North) to compensate for the boni other professions have. The flask itself is everlasting, and its effect remains for 2h. Of course it doesn't stack with other flasks, but that's what we have have Mixology for (increased effect of flasks).

I'm also eagerly looking forward to play the new battleground, Isle of Conquest.
As I've planned to do more PvP, it means that I had to give up one of my raiding specs (Arcane and Fire/TTW). Leaving Arcane behind was kind of hard for me, as I learned to love that spec almost as much as Frost back in its glory days, but under the aspect that Blizzard is rather forcing us to spec Fire, I didn't have much of a choice. My two specs are now Fire/TTW (20/51/0) for PvE, and Frost/TTW (20/0/51) for PvP.

Mage spell and talent changes:

3.2 brings mana cost reductions, mainly to compensate for the Replenishment nerf. Frost mages will be happy to get a mortal strike like effect with Permafrost, and Fire mages will squeal with glee when sprinkling Living Bombs on multiple opponents.

• Arcane Blast: Mana cost reduced by 12%.
  Nice change, too bad it only affects AB and not also Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage. Arcane is still going to have a hard time, as it's quite obvious that Blizzard wants us raiding mages to spec into Fire (see 4xT8 and T9 set boni).
• Frost Bolt, Cone of Cold, Frost Ward, Ice Armor, Frost Armor, Frost Nova, Ice Lance, and Ice Barrier: The mana cost on these spells has been reduced by approximately 15%.
  Long overdue change for PvP.
• Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second Fade time, however an invisible mage is still vulnerable to Stun and Silence effects.
  Invisibility is now a granted thread dump, random boss damage effects will no longer break the fade, and we can even continue nuking during the fade time.
• Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when their time expires.
• Empowered Fire: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also grants a 33/67/100% chance to regain 2% of base mana each time the Ignite talent deals damage.
  This change looks like it could provide a solid mana regeneration, I've yet to test how much MP/5 this will yield on average.
• Empowered Frostbolt: Instead of increasing critical strike chance by 2/4%, this talent now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2 seconds.
  0.2 sec less cast time is 2.5/(2.5-0.2)-1 = 8.7% haste, that's nice for PvP and compensates well for the 4% less crit.
• Permafrost: In addition to its existing effects, this talent now also causes the mage's Chill effects to red)-uce healing received by the victim by 7/13/20%.
  That's an effect similar to the warrior's mortal strike, only with 20% less healing, but at least spammable (mortal strike: 50%, 6sec cooldown). I find it already nigh impossible to kill a well geared healer in PvP, so that effect could help me in this regard.

Mage Tier 9 set:

• Tier 9 Set: (10 normal, ilvl 232 ):
  Conqueror's Sunstrider's Regalia
• Tier 9 Set: (10 heroic / 25 normal, ilvl 245 ):
  Triumphant Sunstrider's Regalia
• Tier 9 Set: (25 heroic, ilvl 258 ):
  Totally Triumphant Sunstrider's Regalia

Set Boni:

• 2 pieces: Increases the armor you gain from Ice Armor by 20%, the mana regeneration you gain from Mage Armor by 10%, and converts an additional 15% of your spirit into critical strike rating when Molten Armor is active.
• 4 pieces: Increases the critical strike chance of your Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Blast spells by 5%.

PvE wise, the 2xT9 bonus will raise your spirit-to-critrating conversion from 55% to 70%. If you have, let's say, 600 spirit, the additional 15% is 90 crit rating, or ~2% crit (45.91 crit rating = 1% crit). Not too bad.
Ice Armor and Mage Armor are used in PvP situations exclusively, where running around in 2p T9 is debateable.

The 4xT9 bonus also gives more crit, thus Fireball and Frostfire Bolt specs profit the most. Arcane doesn't scale that well with crit, or even poorly compared to fire if we take the Hot Streak talent into account.

So all in all, mages can save a little mana this patch due to the talent changes, and I can't help but claim that Blizzard has given up on making all talent trees viable for PvP and PvE somehow. Fire will completely fill the PvE nice, kicking Arcane overboard, whereas Frost will continue to be the PvP tree. Makes me wonder if there's any place left for arcane...

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Patch 3.1 goes live

by Tachyon on Wed. 15. April 2009, 18:30

Filed under: patch, ulduar, spec, mage

Patch 3.1 - The Secrets of Ulduar - went live today in the US and EU.
Not much has changed since my PTR 3.1 post, and the mage class wasn't affected much by the many changes made in class balance.

The complete 3.1 patch notes can be found here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Features in Patch 3.1:

Dual Talent specs

Class trainers now offer the ability to have a second talent spec for 1000 gold.
Each talent spec has its own set of mayor and minor glyphs, and its own set of key bindings. The two talent spec windows can be accessed by pressing 'N', that's also where you'll find the glyph sets now. Switching your talent spec is a 5 second cast (affected by haste!) and can be done everywhere when you're out of combat, except in battlegrounds and arenas. No tome of power is required for applying glyphs anymore.

As a mage, you will most probably want to have a raid-oriented spec, and a PvP/solo/trash spec.

My choice of spec is follows:

• Raid PvE: 56/3/12 Arcane
  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vfz0IzxGuMtedcZb...
  That's the spec I'm using now, I'm quite content with it. I decided to keep slow, and placed another point in frost to get 3/3 Ice Shards for superb Blizzard DPS.
• PvP / Solo: 20/0/51 Frost-TTW
  http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0ic0McZZAc0fRbu0f...
  Yay, finally back to frost! The 20 points into arcane are mandatory for PvP to get Torment The Weak and Improved Counterspell. That leaves too few points left to get all the goodies in frost, so I had to make tradeoff decisions between DPS/utility/cooldowns.

Ulduar / T8

The new raid instance, Ulduar, is the main focus of the 3.1 content patch.

My guild will venture into that place starting tonight, and I'm really looking forward to learning new encounters with my guild mates (unlike the T7 dungeons, where I got piggybacked through more or less, which was rather challenging for me as everyone except me was already quite used to the encounters).

MMO-Champion already reports severaly world first kills of Ulduar bosses by US guilds, seems they managed to use their head start to their advantage (but I'm sure that the EU-Guilds will get the credits for a Yogg-Sharon first kill).

Mage changes

The changes to the mage class are, like, not spectacular. At all.
Despite Blizzard announcing that they intended to make frost viable for raiding again, and fire solid for PvP, neither of that happened.
Frost continues its existance as a pure PvP or trash mob spec for the time being, but thanks to dual speccing, that's not much of an issue.

Out-of-combat mana regeneration was lowered, but that affect more the healing classes, as we mages got compensated for that loss by higher in-combat regeneration, so for us it eves out.

There are only two big changes concerning the mage class:

• Molten Armor and the according glyph now grants its crit chance based on the spirit, and no longer on a fixed value.
  
  Molten Armor used to increase the crit chance by 3% (with the glyph: 5%), and now grants 35% crit rating (55% with glyph) per point in spirit.
  Remember that it takes 45.91 critical strike rating for 1% critical strike chance, so to end up with the same crit chance as before, you'd need to have 394 spirit (without the glyph) or 417 spirit (with the glyph).
  For PvP, this is a huge nerf (for solo play it doesn't matter that much), as you barely got any spirit on your PvP gear. With my current raid gear, I'm at 370 spirit unbuffed, so in a raid scenario my crit chance will be slightly higher than before.
  
  Despite the PvP nerf and despite the fact that spirit is one of the worst stats to get on gear, I think the change is justified, and mages finally scaling with spirit is nice and necessary.
• The Improved Scorch and Winter's Chill crit debuff were lowered to 1/2/3/4/5% (from 2/4/6/8/10%). After a few gazillion sour mage tears, we got compensated with an increased crit chance for Scorch, Fireball and Frostfire Bolt (1/2/3% with Improved Scorch) and Frostbolt (1/2/3% with Winter's Chill).

Argent Tournament

To be honest, I couldn't care less for the Argent Tournamentright now, but hey who knows, I'm sure I'll pass by some day anyway.

I never bothered to read into the details, but if I recall correctly it's a horse mount PvP duel thingy which rewards titles and vanity pets. Whatever.

Miscellaneous

• Mounts now can swim (and dive?)
• Flasks only last 1h (before: 2h). The recipies stay the same, but will yield now two flasks at once. Old flasks were migrated to 'mixtures' which can be transformed to 2 new flasks.
• Curse Gaming and WowInterface.com decided to block WoWMatrix requests. I switched to the curse client to keep my addons up-to-date, works quite well.
• A new boss named Emalon The Stonewatcher has been added to Archavon's Keep in Lake Wintergrasp. The new boss dropps the iLvl 226/232 Furious Gladiator PvP gear.

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PTR 3.1 open

by Tachyon on Wed. 25. February 2009, 00:06

Filed under: ptr, patch, test realm

The public test realm (PTR) servers for patch 3.1 are now open. As always, you can download the PTR client from http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ptr (US) or http://www.wow-europe.com/ptr (EU).



Big additions/changes at a glimpse:

• Dual Spec, allowing characters to have two talent specializations (along with a dedicated set of glyphs and key bindings). Learning how to dual spec will cost a one-time fee of 1000g.
• Ulduar, a new 25/10 man raid instance, defining the new raid tier (with hopefully increased difficulty)
• Lots of (mostly minor) class changes

A very comprehensive list of documented and undocumented changes can as usually be found at MMO-Champion.com.

Here's the changes that affect our class:

Mage - Spell/Talent changes

• ARCANE
  
  • Mage Armor has been increased to allow 50% of your mana regneration to continue while casting (previously 30%)
    Change due to mana regeneration rebalancing (compensates for the decreased base mana regeneration from spirit, so it should even out in the end.)
  • Polymorph Rabbit (new spell)
    What is this polymorph I keep hearing about? Oh...gaaah, it has a new Icon!
  • Arcane Meditation (Tier 4) Allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. (Previously 10/20/30%)
    Change due to mana regeneration rebalancing.
• FIRE
  
  • Burnout (Tier 10) now only affects Fire Spells. (Previously affected all spells)
    Doesn't really affect PvE as all spells in your rotation are fire anyway, but it's a slight nerf for PvP. Or not. As you won't spec fire for PvP. Nevermind.
  • Pyromaniac (Tier 7) now allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. (Previously 10/20/30%)
    Change due to mana regeneration rebalancing
• FROST
  
  • Improved Water Elemental (Tier 9) has been renamed Enduring Winter. It now increases the duration of your Summon Water Elemental spell by 5 sec and your Frostbolt spell has a 33/66/100% chance to grant the Replenishment effect to up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.25% of their maximum mana per second for 15 sec.
    What's the point? Frost is still subpar in PvE raiding, especially with dual spec no sane mage will spec frost for raiding, so again, what's the point?
    Only when the healers would get completely screwed with mana regeneration, only then they would call for frost mages in the raid (Mana Battery 2.0?), but hey what are we, in the supporter role?
    

Glyph changes

• Glyph of Ice Lance
  Your Ice Lance now causes 4 times damage against frozen targets higher level than you instead of triple damage. (Old: Increases the range of your Ice Lance by 5 yards)
  You're quite unlikely to meet lvl81+ opposites in PvP before the next addon, so this change seems to be targeted at raiding. As bosses can't be frozen, this effect is limited to the 2 charges of the Fingers of Frost proc, but unless they changed the way the charges are consumed (immediately as they're a player buff, not a target debuff), combos are not viable, and I assume it's still better to cast 2 Frostbolts in a row than 1 Frostbolt+1 Ice Lance or 2 Ice Lances. And frost stays dead for raiding, remember?
  
• Glyph of Ice Armor
  Your Ice Armor and Frost Armor spells grant an additional 50% armor and resistance. (Old: 20%)
  Nice for PvP against meele. But is it worth having that glyph, compared to the other ones?
• Glyph of Deep Freeze *new*
  Increases the range of Deep Freeze by 10 yards.
  Nice if it's a minor glyph, which doubtly it is...
• Glyph of Living Bomb *new*
  The periodic damage from your Living Bomb can now be critical strikes.
  Minor buff
• Glyph of Arcane Barrage *new*
  Reduces the mana cost of Arcane Barrage by 20%.
  Not really worth having it, as your spell cycle will mostly consist of AB/MBarr with only the occasional ABarr. Besides that, it's AB that's the great mana hog, not ABarr.
  
• Glyph of Mirror Image *new*
  Your Mirror Images gain the Winter's Chill talent, granting their Frostbolt spell a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 1% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
  This won't really compensate for the lack of Frost or Fire mages in raids. But it's better than nothing.
• Glyph of Ice Barrier *new*
  Increases the amount of damage absorbed by your Ice Barrier by 30%.
  Nice, mandatory for PvP

These are not the final patch notes for 3.1, but in my eyes Blizzard failed again to make Frost viable for raiding again, and making Fire viable for PvP.
Most of the changes a so minor it's embarrasing, but at least we get the dual spec.

I'm still downloading and installing the PTR client (I already performed the character copy on the weekend), so I think I'll be able to bring you more news from the PTR this week (with a little luck also some first hand experience with Ulduar raiding).

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Going Arcane, Part 3 - Spell Rotations

by Tachyon on Fri. 20. February 2009, 00:22

Filed under: arcane, spec, raiding, dps, patch, theorycrafting

In part 2 of this series, we introduced the theorycrafting basics to calculate the average DPS for the single target arcane spells, as well as the DPM. Now let's look into possible spell rotations.

The arcane spec allows to dynamically tweak the DPS/DPM depending on how many subsequent Arcane Blasts are cast.

The Arcane Blast debuff

Remember that Arcane Blast applies a stackable debuff (up to 3 times), which increases the damage of the next arcane spell by 15% (18% with the Arcane Blast glyph) per stack, but also increases the mana cost of the next Arcane Blast by 200%.
Casting Arcane Missiles or Arcane Barrage will consume that buff and thus reset the stack. Note also that those spells will profit from the increased damage, but will not get a mana penalty.

• Arcane Blast, 1 stack: increases damage by 18%, next AB costs 3x its base mana
• Arcane Blast, 2 stacks: increases damage by 36%, next AB costs 5x its base mana
• Arcane Blast, 3 stacks: increases damage by 54%, next AB costs 7x its base mana

Being to lazy to do all the calculations in a spreadsheet, I wrote a small simulation program in Java instead. Here's the outcome:

DPS/DPM for arcane cast sequences

Rotation	Damage	Time	DPS	Mana	DPM	Mana/sec
ABx1	4968.000	2.155	2305.150	245.000	20.280	113.680
ABx2	10830.000	4.310	2512.560	980.000	11.050	227.360
ABx3	17586.000	6.466	2719.970	2205.000	7.980	341.040
ABx4	25236.000	8.621	2927.380	3920.000	6.440	454.720
ABx5	32886.000	10.776	3051.820	5635.000	5.840	522.928
ABx10	71136.000	21.552	3300.710	14210.000	5.010	659.344
ABx100000	764994636.000	215517.241	3549.580	171497060.000	4.460	795.746
ABx0, ABarr	3762.000	1.293	2909.280	553.000	6.800	427.653
ABx1, ABarr	9407.000	3.448	2728.030	798.000	11.790	231.420
ABx2, ABarr	15946.000	5.603	2845.750	1533.000	10.400	273.582
ABx3, ABarr	23379.000	7.759	3013.290	2758.000	8.480	355.476
ABx4, ABarr	31029.000	9.914	3129.880	4473.000	6.940	451.190
ABx5, ABarr	38679.000	12.069	3204.830	6188.000	6.250	512.720
ABx0, Mbarr	8812.000	2.155	4088.770	952.000	9.260	441.728
ABx1, Mbarr	15367.000	4.310	3565.140	1197.000	12.840	277.704
ABx2, Mbarr	22815.000	6.466	3528.720	1932.000	11.810	298.816
ABx3, Mbarr	31157.000	8.621	3614.210	3157.000	9.870	366.212
ABx4, Mbarr	38807.000	10.776	3601.290	4872.000	7.970	452.122
ABx5, Mbarr	46457.000	12.931	3592.670	6587.000	7.050	509.395
ABx0, AM	8812.000	4.310	2044.380	952.000	9.260	220.864
ABx1, AM	15367.000	6.466	2376.760	1197.000	12.840	185.136
ABx2, AM	22815.000	8.621	2646.540	1932.000	11.810	224.112
ABx3, AM	31157.000	10.776	2891.370	3157.000	9.870	292.970
ABx4, AM	38807.000	12.931	3001.070	4872.000	7.970	376.768
ABx5, AM	46457.000	15.086	3079.440	6587.000	7.050	436.624

(AB = Arcane Blast, ABxN = N subsequent AB casts (max. 3 stacks), ABarr = Arcane Barrage, AM = Arcane Missiles, MBarr = AM cast on Missile Barrage)

A first approach towards a new cast sequence

According to these results, you get the highest DPS cycle when using Missile Barrage procs as early as possible. Arcane Missiles however should never be cast without Missile Barrage procs, the DPS is just not competitive without it.

So my first approach (Rotation_Tachyon)was following:

• Cast AM when MBarr procs, no mater how many stacks of AB you have
• Otherwise cast AB, stack maximally to 3, then use ABarr if MBarr didn't proc

Running the simulation with this rotation (1'000'000 spells cast) resulted in:
Rotation_Tachyon: 3279.46 DPS, 9.58 DPM

Then I wanted to compare this to the classic rotation:

• Cast AB until you have 3 stacks
• Cast AM if MBarr procced, otherwise cast ABarr

Rotation_Classic: 3351.04 DPS, 9.27 DPM

To my surprise, the classic rotation still had slightly more DPS. This is confusing, as the rotation involved less MBarr procs than the first rotation. I'd have expected to see higher DPS when using more of the high DPS sequences, but obviously that was not the case. To explain this effect, it's crucial to know how to calculate the DPS/DPM of mixed rotations.

Spell rotation: DPS/DPM of mixed cast sequences

The best cast sequence above, ABx0,Mbarr is only sustained for a very short time, so it contributes less to the overall DPS than other rotations which have a longer run time.

The total DPS contribution of a cast sequence is therefore to be weighted by the length of the sequence, the DPS during that lenght, and the probability you are casting it.
DPS := sum(DPS[i]*t[i]*p[i]) / sum(t[i]*p[i])
where DPS[i] is the DPS of Sequence_i, t[i] is the cast time of Sequence_i, and p is the probability (or percentage of times) we use Sequence_i.

To determine the probabilities, the simulation comes to aid again. Results:
RotationTachyon:
ABx3, ABarr 46.5139%
ABx1, MBarr 18.0682%
ABx2, MBarr 14.4659%
ABx3, MBarr 11.6308%
ABx0, MBarr 9.3213%
RotationClassic:
ABx3, MBarr: 53.5976%
ABx3, ABarr: 46.4024%
The calculated weighted DPS matches the results of the simulated DPS, so you can take that formula along with the probabilities as given fact for your own theorycrafting calculations.

In conclusion, the best approach is to use the longest cast sequences that give you good DPS without wasting too much mana, as they often contribute more to the effective DPS than short cast sequences with slightly higher DPS.

Generic pattern of arcane rotations

Basically, every arcane rotation follows the same pattern:

• If Missile Barrage procced, use it after at least A subsequent Arcane Blast casts
• If Missile Barrage didn't proc after B subsequent Arcane Blast casts, cast Arcane Barrage instead

There are two paramenters in there, A and B. My suggested rotation was A=0,B=3, while the classic rotation is A=3,B=3.

Using the simulation, I calculated the DPS and DPM for the configurations A=0..6, B=0..6, and here's the result:

.	A=0	A=1	A=2	A=3	A=4	A=5
B=0	3204 DPS 7.43 DPM	3171 DPS 8.62 DPM	3219 DPS 8.86 DPM	3312 DPS 8.44 DPM	3343 DPS 7.55 DPM	3366 DPS 6.98 DPM
B=1	3028 DPS 11.66 DPM	3029 DPS 12.21 DPM	3095 DPS 11.8 DPM	3196 DPS 10.56 DPM	3238 DPS 8.99 DPM	3271 DPS 8.06 DPM
B=2	3136 DPS 10.93 DPM	3132 DPS 11.23 DPM	3165 DPS 11.09 DPM	3262 DPS 10.08 DPM	3296 DPS 8.67 DPM	3321 DPS 7.84 DPM
B=3	3278 DPS 9.58 DPM	3272 DPS 9.75 DPM	3286 DPS 9.78 DPM	3351 DPS 9.27 DPM	3374 DPS 8.13 DPM	3394 DPS 7.43 DPM
B=4	3371 DPS 8.36 DPM	3363 DPS 8.47 DPM	3370 DPS 8.56 DPM	3417 DPS 8.34 DPM	3432 DPS 7.6 DPM	3445 DPS 7.02 DPM
B=5	3428 DPS 7.78 DPM	3422 DPS 7.85 DPM	3425 DPS 7.96 DPM	3462 DPS 7.83 DPM	3470 DPS 7.27 DPM	3479 DPS 6.82 DPM
B=6	3467 DPS 7.44 DPM	3462 DPS 7.49 DPM	3462 DPS 7.59 DPM	3493 DPS 7.52 DPM	3498 DPS 7.07 DPM	3503 DPS 6.68 DPM
B=7	3493 DPS 7.22 DPM	3489 DPS 7.26 DPM	3488 DPS 7.36 DPM	3516 DPS 7.32 DPM	3518 DPS 6.92 DPM	3521 DPS 6.58 DPM
B=8	3513 DPS 7.08 DPM	3510 DPS 7.1 DPM	3508 DPS 7.21 DPM	3532 DPS 7.17 DPM	3534 DPS 6.83 DPM	3535 DPS 6.51 DPM
B=9	3527 DPS 6.97 DPM	3525 DPS 6.99 DPM	3521 DPS 7.08 DPM	3545 DPS 7.06 DPM	3546 DPS 6.76 DPM	3546 DPS 6.46 DPM

In the table above, I grayed out every rotation for which there is a better (more DPS and more DPM) alternative rotation in the table. The remaining rotations have either better DPS or better DPM than any other rotation in the table.

To put the result in a more relative context, let's take the classic rotation (A=3, B=3) as a base (100%) and compare the relative differences:

.	A=0	A=1	A=2	A=3	A=4	A=5
B=0	-4.4% DPS -19.8% DPM	-5.4% DPS -7.0% DPM	-3.9% DPS -4.4% DPM	-1.2% DPS -9.0% DPM	-0.2% DPS -18.6% DPM	+0.5% DPS -24.7% DPM
B=1	-9.6% DPS +25.8% DPM	-9.6% DPS +31.7% DPM	-7.6% DPS +27.3% DPM	-4.6% DPS +13.9% DPM	-3.3% DPS -3.0% DPM	-2.4% DPS -13.1% DPM
B=2	-6.4% DPS +17.9% DPM	-6.5% DPS +21.1% DPM	-5.5% DPS +19.6% DPM	-2.6% DPS +8.7% DPM	-1.6% DPS -6.5% DPM	-0.9% DPS -15.4% DPM
B=3	-2.2% DPS +3.3% DPM	-2.4% DPS +5.2% DPM	-1.9% DPS +5.5% DPM	+0.0% DPS +0.0% DPM	+0.7% DPS -12.3% DPM	+1.3% DPS -19.8% DPM
B=4	+0.6% DPS -9.8% DPM	+0.4% DPS -8.6% DPM	+0.6% DPS -7.7% DPM	+2.0% DPS -10.0% DPM	+2.4% DPS -18.0% DPM	+2.8% DPS -24.3% DPM
B=5	+2.3% DPS -16.1% DPM	+2.1% DPS -15.3% DPM	+2.2% DPS -14.1% DPM	+3.3% DPS -15.5% DPM	+3.6% DPS -21.6% DPM	+3.8% DPS -26.4% DPM
B=6	+3.5% DPS -19.7% DPM	+3.3% DPS -19.2% DPM	+3.3% DPS -18.1% DPM	+4.3% DPS -18.9% DPM	+4.4% DPS -23.7% DPM	+4.5% DPS -27.9% DPM
B=7	+4.3% DPS -22.1% DPM	+4.1% DPS -21.7% DPM	+4.1% DPS -20.6% DPM	+5.0% DPS -21.0% DPM	+5.0% DPS -25.4% DPM	+5.1% DPS -29.0% DPM
B=8	+4.9% DPS -23.6% DPM	+4.8% DPS -23.4% DPM	+4.7% DPS -22.2% DPM	+5.4% DPS -22.7% DPM	+5.5% DPS -26.3% DPM	+5.5% DPS -29.8% DPM
B=9	+5.3% DPS -24.8% DPM	+5.2% DPS -24.6% DPM	+5.1% DPS -23.6% DPM	+5.8% DPS -23.8% DPM	+5.8% DPS -27.1% DPM	+5.8% DPS -30.3% DPM

Again, the grayed out rotations are to be avoided since there is a better alternative rotation with higher DPS and DPM.
The blue colored rotations are the ones with higher DPS, and the green colored rotations have a higher DPM ratio that the classic rotation. The red ones have less DPS and less DPM, so they should be avoided at any cost.

As a comparison, that's what you get with chain-spamming Arcane Blasts: 3549.58 DPS, 4.46 DPM.


Looks like the optimal path is to use the Missile Barrage proc only with the maximum Arcane Blast (3) stack, and to cast at least one Arcane Blast before using Arcane Barrage. The more subsequent Arcane Blast casts you can afford to wait hoping for a Missile Barrage proc, the higher the DPS, but the lower the DPM.
This path is always efficient, because there is no other alternative path that would yield more DPS for a higher DPM ratio.

So here's my recommended rotation:

DPS/Burst:

• If Missile Barrage procced, use it only with a full Arcane Blast (3) stack
• Otherwise keep casting Arcane Blast, hoping for a Missile Barrage proc. Use Arcane Barrage to reset your stack as soon as you think you're using too much mana.

DPM/Recovering:

• If Missile Barrage procced, use it not before having stacked the Arcane Blast debuff to 2-3
• Cast no more than 3 subsequent Arcane Blasts. Reset the stack with Arcane Barrage if Missile Barrage don't procs.

That's all folks, I hope my calculations aren't too far off, and remember that your mileage may vary, as always

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Going Arcane, Part 2 - Therorycrafting Basics

by Tachyon on Wed. 18. February 2009, 00:57

Filed under: arcane, spec, raiding, dps, patch, theorycrafting

As an arcane mage, your spell arsenal consists of:

• Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage for single-target damage
• PoM-Flamestrike and Blizzard for AoE (Area of Effect) damage

A good arcane talent spec that gets the optimum out the damage capabilities will put 3 points in fire (for Incineration, as it affects Arcane Blast), at least 11 points in frost to get Icy Veins and the rest in the arcane tree.

Personally I prefer to have 12 points in frost for more AoE damage (3/3 Ice Shards), so my recommended spec is something like this:
56/3/12 Arcane Raid Spec.


Some mages recommend more pushback protection by adding 3-4 points into Arcane Stability, but it's really hard to ditch some points there as it usually hurts other good talents.
Manly from Elitist Jerks even suggests a spec without Slow, and he's right for raiding as you really don't need the talent there, but boy I wouldn't run around without it outside a raid instance, so I'd rather sacrifice that points elsewhere, if at all.

I won't go into details for AoE damage in this article, as with the rotation above (and preferrable Arcane Power), it's straightforward to do massive(!) damage to multiple targets. So let's focus on the single target spells instead.

Arcane Blast - Rank 4
8% of base mana (261 Mana at lvl 80), 30 yd range, 2.5 sec cast
Blasts the target with energy, dealing 1185 to 1377 Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of all Arcane spells is increased by 15% and mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. Effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 sec or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.

Glyph of Arcane Blast: Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. This makes the arcane blast debuff increase the damage by 3% per stack, so it's +18%, +36% and +54% for 1-3 stacks. That glyph is really recommended.

Spell Power Coefficient: 2.5/3.5+0.09 = 80.429%
The coefficient is scaled to the cast time (2.5sec), plus gets 9% from Arcane Empowerment (3/3).

Crit Multiplier (with 4xT7 + CSD): 1+(((1.5*1.03)-1)*(1+0.5+0.05)) = 1.84475
This includes the CSD meta gem (3%), the Spell Power talent (50%), the 4xT7 set bonus (5%). Without the 4xT7 bonus, it would be 1.8175, so it's not much of a difference. The CSD ( Chaotic Skyflare Diamond or Chaotic Skyfire Diamond) however is not negotiable, you're just expected to have it, no way round!

Arcane Missiles - Rank 13
31% of base mana (1013 Mana at lvl 80), 30 yd range, Channeled (5 bolts in 5 sec)
Launches Arcane Missiles at the enemy, causing 360-361 Arcane damage every 1 sec for 5 sec.

Spell Power Coefficient: 5/3.5+0.45 = 187.857%
The coefficient is scaled to the full channel time (5sec), plus gets 45% from Arcane Empowerment (3/3).

Crit Multiplier (with 4xT7 + CSD): 1+(((1.5*(1+0.03))-1)*(1+0.5+0.05+0.25)) = 1.981
This includes the CSD meta gem (3%), the Spell Power talent (50%), the 4xT7 set bonus (5%) and the Glyph of Arcane Missiles (25%). Without the glyph, the coefficient would be 1.84475, so the glyph increases your AM crits by 7.39%

Arcane Missiles become really nice when used on a Missile Barrage proc (20% proc chance after using Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage), reducing the cast time by 2.5sec and thus doubling the DPS for that spell.

Arcane Barrage - Rank 3
18% of base mana (588 at lvl 80), 30 yd range, Instant cast, 3 sec cooldown
Launches several missiles at the enemy target, causing 936 to 1144 Arcane damage.

Spell Power Coefficient: 2.5/3.5 = 71.429%
This may not seem high, but take into account that this is an instant cast spell. The usual coefficient for instant cast spells will be weighted by the global cooldown time in place of the cast time, so it should be 1.5/3.5 = 42.857%. That's a significant boost, so this spell will scale extremely well with spell damage (66.7% more than compareable spells such as Fire Blast).

Crit Multiplier (with 4xT7 + CSD): 1+(((1.5*1.03)-1)*(1+0.5+0.05)) = 1.84475
This includes the CSD meta gem (3%), the Spell Power (2/2) talent (50%), the 4xT7 set bonus (5%).


Theorycrafting Scenario
For the following scenario, we consider a 57/3/11 standard raid spec with 2000 spell power, 35% crit and 10% haste, hit capped (100%).
Basically we could leave out the haste as well as all talents (Spell Power etc.) or raid buffs/auras that scale the DPS proportionally, as it affects all rotations equally, and your mileage may vary anyway. For comparing the spells and rotations, that scenario suffices well, and if you need exact numbers, just replace the numbers above with whatever works better for your.

Time to start the number crunching!

The average base damage for a spell will be:
avgBaseDmg:= (minDamage+maxDamage)/2
The effective cast time for a spell is the base cast time (or GCD for instant cast spells) divided by the speed multiplier from haste (1+haste). The GCD (Global Cooldown) is also affected by haste, but won't go below 1 sec. For our scenario, we take the 10% haste plus the 6% from talents (Netherwind Presence).
castTime := baseCastTime / (1 + haste)
The average damage is the base damage plus the spellpower times the coefficient, times any talents that multiply the damage (3% from Arcane Instability, +6% for ArcaneBlast with Spell Impact, and 12% in a raid scenario from Torment the Weak)
dmg(hit):= (avgBaseDmg + (spellpower * coefficient)) * multiplier
For the mana costs, we consider -3% from Arcane Focus, and -3% from Precision, but for the time being ignore any Arcane Concentration procs (just substract 10% from the average mana/sec in the end).

Here's what we get so far:

.	Arcane Blast	Arcane Barrage	Arcane Missiles	Missile Barrage
Dmg Avg	1358	1040	1807.5	1807.5
Mana	261	588	1013	1013
Mana /w talents	245.34	552.72	952.22	952.22
Cast Time	2.50	1.50	5.00	2.50
Cast Time /w haste	2.155	1.293	4.31	2.155
Coefficient /w talents	80.429%	71.429%	187.857%	187.857%
Dmg Avg	2966.57	2468.57	5564.64	5564.64
Dmg Avg /w talents	3233.56	2542.63	5731.58	5731.58
+Torment the Weak	3621.59	2847.74	6419.37	6419.37

The average critical damage per spell is just the average damage, multiplied by the crit factor (Arcane Blast gets an extra 6% crit from Incineration):
dmg(crit):= dmg(hit) * critMultiplier

.	Arcane Blast	Arcane Barrage	Arcane Missiles	Missile Barrage
Crit Multiplier	1.84475	1.84475	1.981	1.981
Crit Dmg	6680.93	5253.38	12716.78	12716.78

To find out the average damage, including crits, we'll have to weight that outcomes by the hit, crit and miss probabilities.
p(crit) := critChance * (1 - p(miss))
p(hit) := (1-critChance) * (1 - p(miss))
This leads us to the average damage numbers for our scenario. Divide those by the cast time and you get the DPS, or divide it by the mana cost to get the DPM.

.	Arcane Blast	Arcane Barrage	Arcane Missiles	Missile Barrage
Avg Dmg	4967.70	3761.88	8812.39	8812.39
DPS	2305.01	2909.19	2044.47	4088.95
DPM	20.25	6.81	9.25	9.25

So far so good, we got the basic numbers we need to calculate our spell rotations in Part 3 of this series.

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Going Arcane, Part 1 - Preface

by Tachyon on Wed. 18. February 2009, 00:51

Filed under: arcane, spec, raiding, dps, patch, theorycrafting

Two weeks before, I retired my Frostfire Bolt spec and joined the happy bunch of arcane specced fellows.

I hesitated long before I finally did this step, as this means that my raid will lose yet another scorch debuffer, and will have to run without the 10% crit debuff quite often.
This is a general design flaw by Blizzard, making the arcane tree too attractive compared to the frost or fire tree, causing lots of mages to skip the 10% crit debuff talents (Improved Scorch in the fire tree, Winter's Chill in the frost tree).

Anyway, I'm now Arcane specced, and will probably stay so for the near future. Patch 3.1.0 will bring some improvements for frost, but also the dual specs, so Frost will become an option again, purely for PvP, whilst Arcane will continue to dominate as PvE spec.



The last patches brought quite some nerfs for the Arcane specs, but don't worry, most of it affected the burst damage potential only, and PvE damage stays neraly as effective as it used to be.

The latest patch (3.0.9) reduced the glyphed damage boost of the Arcane Blast debuff (from 5% to 3%), reduced the spell power coefficient of Arcane Barrage (from 3/3.5 to 2.5/3.5), but also introduced an improved Arcane Missiles glyph, which increases the critical damage of the missiles.

When reading the blogs and forums lately, there seems to be a controversy about which spell rotations are now preferred, if Arcane Missiles should be cast even without Missile Barrage, how high to stack the Arcane Blast debuff, and whether using Arcane Barrage is still viable at all.
In the end I gave up on reading recommendations, especially as most of them were based more on claims that on evidence, and did the math for myself.

So that's the whole point of this arcane article series, to guide you through the calculations and considerations towards finding the proper spell rotations for arcane raiding.

Read on in Part 2 of the "Going Arcane" series.

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Patch day and first raid in 3.0

by Tachyon on Fri. 17. October 2008, 17:43

Filed under: raiding, patch, sunwell, brutallus

Wednesday was patch day here in Europe. The servers were burdened by a clusterfuck of returning players, all simultaneously trying to log on, resulting in realm servers switching on and off as if they were lights on an early christmas tree.

Those lucky to get in usually had a minute or two to check which addons were injured the most, to download updated versions where available once the servers dived again.
I'm blessed with a divine patience, so I kept revolving in the logon/crash cycle until I got all of my addons updated and my UI setup right again.
In the late evening, the servers became more stable, allowing me to learn the new spell ranks, build my new deep frost spec, buy the new pvp items (trinket and cloak), get myself a shave and a haircut and do a quick BG before I logged off.

Yesterday (Thursday) my guild finally picked up raiding again after more than a month of idling. The participation for the Sunwell raid was high again, everyone who could showed up to test their new builds in action, so we had to bench a few of us.

Raiding was nearly impossible due to the heavy lags and zone crashes, which caused us to wipe quite often. Sometimes when dying, the 'resurrect now?' message popped up, and it also worked: one would be resurrected on the spot, only to be ported to the graveyard on sheer minute later (usually on the next pull, especially when on sheeping duty), or worse, being steamrolled by the armada of added mobs that went berzerk in the raid. Alliance players camping the entrance, putting the unlucky lagging horde souls out of their misery, added their share to our repair bill.



We finally got to Kalecgos, where we had to assemble a Field Repair Bot 110G (nomen est omen). Now the boss had 30% less HP (leaving about a 2M left), and with the new talent builds, we faced another problem, which was doing way too much DPS on the Kalecgos compared to the damage we did on Sathrovarr (they have to die almost simultaneously, or the portals won't spawn again, resulting in a reset of the encounter). It was a little chaotic, but we finally managed to kill him.
I would have needed the bracers, as I was still one piece shy of the 4xT6 bonus, but due to bad luck no single mage T6 token dropped.

It was alredy late (11 pm), but nevertheless we headed to Brutallus to give it a try, despite being short of healers. The first try looked so promising that we decided to do a serious attempt, and managed to kill him in our second try in only 4 minutes.

My DPS was abysmal, I ended up as 7th on the damage meter, with a little over 2000 DPS. I can and must do better next time. Trying to weave Deep Freeze into my rotation on Fingers of Frost procs was pointless, getting out of mana and having to use evocation was inexcusable, and the water elemental had its usual share of resists (18%), which was surprising, as Blizzard announced that it would inherit the mage's hit rating, which obviously not the case (let's still hope for WotLK).



My fellow fire mage comrade, Ashenshogar, excelled with >2600 DPS and (to his surprise ) ended on position #1 in the DPS meter, congratulations!

This was the first time we killed Brutallus, pre-patch we only managed to get him down to 17% before he enraged. Too bad the boss despawned before I was able to make a screenshot, but my guild will hopefully post one soon on the <Dal Marok> home page. We're now excitingly looking forward to beat Felmyst and Eredar Twins, which I think we manage before the expansion comes out.

Oh, and I was given the mage token we looted from Brutallus, so I'm now finally at 4x T6, which means my Frostbolts will to 5% more damage next time.

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Preparing for the 3.0.2 patch

by Tachyon on Tue. 14. October 2008, 07:38

Filed under: patch, talents, tips

The WotLK compatibility patch 3.0.3 is currently going live in the US, and will hit Europe tomorrow (October 15th).

My guild stalled raiding completely in the last 3-4 weeks, but tomorrow we will pick up raiding Sunwell again and intend to kill Brutallus for the first time this id, now that all trash packs and bosses get their health points reduced by 30%.

There's lots of things to prepare for wednesday, as the patch has a broad impact on talents, addons and game mechanic.

How to prepare for patch 3.0.3:

• The new WotLK talents are now in the game, and all talent points have been refounded. Chose your new spec wisely.
• Visit your class trainer, he's got some new spell ranks available (at least on the PTR this was the case). For mages, Frostbolt rank 14, Fireball rank 14 and Arcane Missiles Rank 11 are available.
• Note that the hit cap has been raised from 99% to 100%, and the Elemental Precision ghost hit bug has been removed. You now need 17% to reach the cap, that is 176 Hit Rating with Elemental Precision, or 214 Hit Rating without it.
• Update your addons, most of them (in my case Bartender3 and Recount/Recap and some more) aren't compatible with 3.0.3.
• Adapt your macros, some spells/abilities have changed. 'Remove Lesser Curse' has been renamed to 'Remove Curse', so change it early before causing a wipe.
• Use (right-click) your mounts/pets to 'learn' them and thus adding them to the new mount/pet interface, this frees also some bag space, It was rumored that mount speed items such as the Riding Crop now become applicable enchants, and that they can only be applied before you learn the mount. Be careful to verify this! Also adapt your mount macros to include now the name of the mount, and not the former mount item's name (they're usually different)
• If your talents include procs (such as Brain Freeze, Fingers of Frost or Hot Streak), consider using a specialized addon such as TellMeWhen to display them, making it easier to not miss a proc.
• If you've accumulated enough honor and marks, go get the new PvP trinket and cloak, they're excellent also for PvE
• Get a shave and a haircut in the new barber shops

That's quite a lot of preparation to be done, I'm curious if we manage to raid at all on patch day, but I hope that we get at least a group together to kill/free Kalecgos.

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New PvP items in 3.0

by Tachyon on Sat. 04. October 2008, 15:38

Filed under: pvp, items, patch, battleground

A complete honor reset (points and marks) with the release of the WotLK expansion was first announced then cancelled. Blizzard announced then that the prices of the lvl 80 honor items would instead be raised, to make sure that saved honor points won't be that much of an advantage when the first players enter the new PvP endgame.

What remains from the original plan are the new PvP items that will be added in the 3.0 patch, meant as a last occasion to spend the remaining points and marks.
The items are cloaks and trinkets, 4 different variants each, and every one of them is item level 156.

I'm currently stockpiling my honor and marks to buy these two beauties when the patch goes live:


The cloak costs 20k honor and 20 Eye of the Storm marks, and the trinket 35k honor and 40 Alterac Valley marks.
Both items are not only among the best for PvP, but also PvE, definitively worth getting them, and they are also unlikely to be replaced before the late lvl 70s in WotLK.

For a complete list of all 4 cloaks and trinkets, see: mmo-champion.com

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WoW 3.0 PTR testing and new Frost Spec

by Tachyon on Mon. 22. September 2008, 01:30

Filed under: mage, talents, spec, raiding, wotlk, ptr, deep freeze, patch

This weekend, I did some testing on the public test realm (PTR) with patch 3.0, in order to test the new frost talents, and have some fun with Blizzard now critting (it's about time!)



On visiting the mage class trainer, I was surprised to find new spell ranks for Frostbolt, Fireball and Arcane Missiles at level 70, haven't heard of that before.

• Frostbolt rank 14: 630 to 680 Frost damage
• Fireball rank 14: 717 to 913 Fire damage + 92 Fire damage over 8sec
• Arcane Missiles rank 11: 280 Arcane damage every 1 sec for 5 sec.

Also the new battleground (Strand of the Ancients) is now in the game, though I didn't test it yet, as my addons are quite in a mess due to incompatibilites. I didn't take the time to fiddle with the UI and find out new hotkeys for most of my spells (Bartender3 wouldn't load), so I'd be handicapped for PvP anyway.

I finally decided what frost spec I'd take when 3.0 goes live. My focus is still on raid PvE, but I also took some PvP talents and included meaningful talents for a Blizzard AoE spec.

My new WoW 3.0 spec:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=oZZAIccRfu0fdgrst

Improved Frostbolt - Rank 5/5
Reduces the casting time of your Frostbolt spell by 0.5 sec.
Must have talent. Reduces the Frostbolt casting time from 3 to 2.5 sec, which is a 20% DPS increase.

Ice Floes - Rank 3/3
Reduces the cooldown of your Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Ice Block and Icy Veins spells by 20%.
Reduces the Frost Nova cooldown from 24 to 20 sec, Cone of Cold from 10 to 8 sec, Ice Block from 5 to 4 min, and Icy Veins from 3 to 2:24 min.
It's not a must have talent, the only component that makes it wanted for raiding is the reduced cooldown on Icy Veins (to maximize DPS).

Ice Shards - Rank 3/3
Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Frost spells by 100%.
Must have talent. Makes your frost spells crit for 200% of the normal damage, and with the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond metagem even for 209%.

Frostbite - Rank 3/3
Gives your Chill effects a 15% chance to freeze the target for 5 sec.
Neat for solo/PvP situations, useless for raiding (as boss mobs can't be frozen) - unless you combine it with Improved Blizzard, giving each tick of it the chance to freeze the target, which means superb AoE crit chance with Shatter.

Elemental Precision - Rank 3/3
Reduces the mana cost and increases your chance to hit with Frost and Fire spells by 3%.
Mandatory for PvE. I'm not sure whether the Elemental Precision Ghost Hit (+6% instead of +3% for Frostbolt) still applies in 3.0/WotLK, but I doubt so.
Spell hit chance is no longer capped at 99%, so for raiding situations, you need +17% hit (214 Hit Rating @ lvl70, 446 Hit Rating @ lvl 80), or +14% hit with 3/3 Elemental Precision (176 Hit Rating @ lvl70, 367 Hit Rating @ lvl 80).

Piercing Ice - Rank 3/3
Increases the damage done by your Frost spells by 6%.
Must have talent, no discussion.

Icy Veins - Rank 1/1
Hastens your spellcasting, increasing spell casting speed by 20% and gives you 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting. Lasts 20 sec.
Must have talent.

Improved Blizzard - Rank 2/3
Adds a chill effect to your Blizzard spell. This effect lowers the target's movement speed by 50%. Lasts 1.50 sec.
Adds a snare effect to Blizzard, making the affected targets stay longer in the spell's area. The snare allows it also to proc Frostbite, combined with shatter this will turn Blizzard into a crit galore feast!

Arctic Reach - Rank 2/2
Increases the range of your Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Deep Freeze and Blizzard spells and the radius of your Frost Nova and Cone of Cold spells by 20%.
Must have for PvE (Frostbolt) and especially for PvP (Frostnova, Cone of Cold). Too bad it only increases the range of Blizzard and not its radius.

Frost Channeling - Rank 3/3
Reduces the mana cost of all spells by 10% and reduces the threat caused by your Frost spells by 10%.
Must have for PvE, the thread reduction is vital. It's now even better than clearcast, as you get the mana reduction directly, no wasted procs.

Shatter - Rank 3/3
Increases the critical strike chance of all your spells against frozen targets by 50%.
This. Is. SPARTA! The bread and butter of a frost or elemental spec (since patch 1.12 it increases the crit chance also for non-frost spells), mother to all shatter combos, and now also useful in raids, thanks to the Fingers of Frost talent. And it now only costs 3 talent points, and no longer has a prerequisite talent.

Cold Snap - Rank 1/1
When activated, this spell finishes the cooldown on all Frost spells you recently cast.
Allows you to gain more DPS by increasing the Icy Veins and Water Elemental uptime in boss fights, and saves your back in PvP fights by resetting Ice Block / Frostnova.

Cold as Ice - Rank 2/2
Reduces the cooldown of your Cold Snap, Ice Barrier, Deep Freeze and Summon Water Elemental spells by 20%.
Indirectly increases your DPS due to the reduced Cold Snap and Water Elemental cooldown. For two points, a must have, even for PvP, as it reduces the Ice Barrier cooldown from 30 to 24 sec.

Winter's Chill - Rank 3/3
Gives your Frost damage spells a 100% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance spells will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
Up to +10% crit, now for all spells. Too bad it doesn't stack with the new Improved Scorch (+10%) or Boomkin aura (+5%). Might help your fellow fire raiding comrades, as they can skip adding Scorch into their spell rotation and just gain the effect from Winter's Chill. Sideeffect in PvP: WC is an additional debuff, making it harder to remove more important ones, such as polymorph.

Shattered Barrier - Rank 2/2
Gives your Ice Barrier spell a 100% chance to freeze all enemies within 10 yds for 8 sec when it is destroyed.
I'd say this is a PvP-only ability, but an incredibly powerful one. Adds a third way to nail your opponent to the ground (besides Frostnova and Frostbite), which helps shattering or deep freezing. It's also good that the effect just freezes the opponents, but doesn't do any damage, so it won't break sheep on any target it hits.
Meele will hate you for this, as soon as they slice away your Ice Barrier, they get frozen, allowing you to gain distance again.

Ice Barrier - Rank 1/1
Instantly shields you, absorbing x damage. Lasts 1 min. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted.

• Rank 6 (Level 70) absorbs 1075 damage
• Rank 7 (Level 75) absorbs 2800 damage
• Rank 8 (Level 80) absorbs 3300 damage

Must have, as it's essential for PvP, and helps you survive in PvE in 'oh snap!' situations, or when your healers have a hard time keeping the raid alive.
Never leave the house without it!

Arctic Winds - Rank 5/5
Increases all Frost damage you cause by 5% and reduces the chance melee and ranged attacks will hit you by 5%.
Nice, a plain +5% dmg, take it.

Empowered Frostbolt - Rank 2/2
Increases the damage of your Frostbolt spell by an amount equal to 10% of your spell power and increases the critical strike chance by an additional 4%.
Improves scaleability by adding +10% to your spell power. The crit chance used to be 5% for rank 5 points before patch 3.0, now it's only 4% but only requires to points.

Fingers of Frost - Rank 2/2
Gives your Chill effects a 15% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which treats your next 2 spells cast as if the target were Frozen. Lasts 15 sec.
Now that's cool, a 15% proc which allows you to cast 2 spells that profit from shatter, even if the target can't be frozen. That's 2x Frostbolt, or 1x Frostbolt + 1x Deep Freeze with almost guaranteed crits.

Brain Freeze - Rank 2/3
Your Frost damage spells have a 10% chance to cause your next Fireball spell to be instant cast and cost no mana.
This is the most weird talent in the new frost tree. With 3/3 ranks, the proc chance is even higher, 15%. When Brain Freeze procs, you've got 15 sec time to release an instant fireball for free. Untalented fireballs won't do much damage, and only crit for 150% base dmg, but the instant cast (1.5 GDC instead of 3.5 sec casttime) evens this out. Don't expect too much DPS increase from this, the talent only shines because the fireball costs no mana, increasing your overall mana efficiency (DPM).
For PvP this is actually funny, having a little 'PoM Fireball' ready which can be cast while moving, that alone makes it worth taking it.
Might make spell rotations a little tricky, as you don't want to waist the Fingers of Frost proc on a Brain Freeze proc, so watch your procs carefully.

Summon Water Elemental - Rank 1/1
Summon a Water Elemental to fight for the caster for 45 sec.
Squirtle, friend to all frost mages. Will bite nastly rogues into the ankles while they stunlock you, helps you range-shattering with its ranged nova, and add its little share to your raid DPS. Must have.

Improved Water Elemental - Rank 3/3
Increases the duration of your Summon Water Elemental spell by 15 sec and your Water Elemental restores mana to all party or raid members within 100 yds an amount equal to 0.6% of their total mana every 5 secs.
PvE only. Increases WE uptime, and adds a little manareg to the party (for a lvl 70 mage with 10000 mana, it's 60 MP5).

Chilled to the Bone - Rank 5/5
Increases the damage caused by your Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt and Ice Lance spells by 5% and reduces the movement speed of all chilled targets by an additional 10%.
Another 5% plain damage to your main nukes, and adds an additional snare which comes handy for your Blizzard (with 2/3 Imp. Blizz., it's 60% snare).

Deep Freeze - Rank 1/1
Causes x to y Frost damage and stuns the target for 5 sec. Only usable on Frozen targets.

• Rank 1 (lvl 60): 694 to 806 Frost damage
• Rank 2 (lvl 66): 787 to 913 Frost damage
• Rank 3 (lvl 72): 1018 to 1182 Frost damage
• Rank 4 (lvl 80): 1319 to 1531 Frost damage

Hey, this does significant base damage. And, most important, gives us access to the holy grail of crowd controlling: a stun. The only other stun that mages can have is the Impact talent in the fire tree (10% proc chance).
Stunning your target means totally incapacitating it, so you can do anything to it (paint a moustache on its face, untie its shoelaces or just nuke the living daylights out of it without breaking your CC).
Even better, the freeze effect won't be broken on the target by damage, thus you have 5 sec of shatter opportunity. The Deep Freeze cast will also be affected by shatter, and you enter the global cooldown afterwards as DF is an instant cast spell, so 3.5 sec remain to unleash another Frostbolt/Ice Lance combo, or 3x Ice Lance if you're really quick.
The damage component of Deep Freeze gains 1.5/3.5 = 42.857% of your spell power.

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WoW 3.0 Compatibility Patch

by Tachyon on Tue. 26. August 2008, 06:49

Filed under: patch, WotLK, talents

Every expansion requires a compatibility patch, that brings the WoW client to a version which is compatible to the expansion, but does not include its specific features. With this compatibility patch, you can play the same WoW that users who don't buy the expansion will experience, including the new talent trees and professions, but none of the new zones, items, or increased level range.



Blizzard added such a patch (2.0) almost two months before The Burning Crusade shipped, and now they're doing it again with patch 3.0 before lauching Wrath of the Lich King.

Quote from Eyonix ( see original quote):

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, we wanted to provide you with some important information. In preparation for the expansion, we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks. Much like the patch made available shortly before The Burning Crusade's release, this content patch is designed to bridge current game content with that of the expansion and will contain some exciting changes and additions.

We have outlined some of the larger features scheduled to release with the patch below:

• New class spells and talents
• Stormwind Harbor
• Barbershops in capital cities
• Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
• Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
• Guild calendar
• Hunter pet skill revamp
• New profession: Inscription

As mentioned above, this is not a comprehensive list, just some of the major highlights. We?ll post the full patch notes as soon as they?re available. Regarding Inscription, please note that all Burning Crusade players will be able to select Inscription as one of their two professions and level up to a skill level of 375 with it. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players who purchase and install the expansion will be able to continue leveling in Inscription and the other professions beyond 375.

The pre-release of the new talent trees and the guild calendar was expected, but the addition of the new Inscription profession, the barber shops and the new arenas were quite a surprise.

This patch is soooo full of opportunities:

• Testing the new talents
  The changes in the talent trees are massive, it might as well be a new game you play. The patch is a good occasion to test and explore the new talents, so you can experiment which talent combination works best for you. I hope there will be a beta version of the patch on the Public Test Realms, so we can test all trees and talent combinations with virtually free respecs.
• PvE progression
  The new talents and especially their synergies will likely result in a boost in raiding environments, aiding you jump over whatever hurdle you're facing in progression. Too little DPS on Brutallus..no more!
  
• Shave and a haircut
  Aye, it's a fun feature and money pit, but I'm foreseeing large queues before the barber shops. Look at my new hairdo, mom!
• Inscription
  Inscription can be levelled to 375, and even if you won't choose this profession, I'm sure you'll *love* to fiddle about inscribing your spells
• PvP
  Arenas are fer sissies, but BG PvP will give you a chance to test your new talents and also experience in what way the other classes changed. Prepare for a refreshing new experience in the battlegrounds (and whine threads flooding the forums)

No date for the patch has been anounced yet, and the talents aren't final, nor are all working properly yet, so it's too early to come up with talent build suggestions. I'll reserve those for when the patch goes live (or when the PTRs are open)...

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