Blog Archive by month: July 2010



Simulation: verifying results

by Tachyon on Fri. 09. July 2010, 19:31

Filed under: casting, simulation

Hi folks, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have two articles in the pipe that address the damage problems some mages save, and tips for beginners and pros on how to improve the damage output, but they're not yet finished.

I'm also reading all the Cataclysm information that's flooding the web, but given the change rate of features announced, cancelled or replaced (talent trees revamp being the latest), it's stupid to do any projections yet on what we get on release day, or how we will play our mages.

News from the simulation front



I'm also continuing to develop my new casting simulation in my spare time, and hope to have it finished soon enough for Cataclysm, so I can adapt it to the new stats and spells, and have a tool to compare specs, stats and stuff for upcoming articles.

The basic simulation engine is more or less done, and now I'm verifying the results I get from the simulation runs. As combing through endless lines of combat log output in the hope of finding any discrepancies is a very dull task, I started programming some visual tools which can display the output of the simulation in a more pleasant way.

One visualization is a track lane view (resembles the tracks you see in audio or video editing software, and it's already looking neat! Of course this is only the beginning, I'm planning on adding more information, such as damage numbers, proc and buff uptimes and whateveryoucanthinkofs. Hell, this would also make a great tool to visualize combat logs, what do you think?

Cataclysm NDA lifted

by Tachyon on Thu. 01. July 2010, 11:27

Filed under: cataclysm, expansion, mage, beta



The Cataclysm NDA (non-disclosure agreement) has been lifted today, so we can expect to see new information from the beta flooding the internet, yay!

MMO-Champion already published a compilation of the mage talents/spells for the upcoming expansion, and it looks fine!

Some goodies I've found:
  • Spreading Chill spreads the chill effects to 1/2 additional targets on Frostbolt crits
  • Improved Cone of Cold freezes the targets for 2/4 seconds
  • Improved Polymorph delays damage taken by the target by 1.5/3 seconds
  • Arcane Repulsion gives all of your armor buffs the ability to knock back and slow an attacker, once per minute
  • Arcane Instability increases the damage of your next spell by 20/4/60% when one of your spells is pushed back or interrupted
  • Improved Mana Gem increases your damage by 1/2/3% of your maximum mana for the next 10 seconds after using a mana gem
  • Arcane Tactics is a raid-wide buff that increases damage

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