Is mage really that boring in PvE?

[Syphonize]

Vael being quirky (if many mages get clever and start abusing missiles you'll soon find yourself doing 5-sec channels for zero damage).

Incorrect. Arcane Missiles was fixed to not take a debuff slot any longer, invisible or otherwise.

I'd like some confirmation on this, if it has actually been fixed.

I haven't been able to raid since early January. I can confirm that this was working then because I respec'd to and was raiding as a pure Arcane build. I haven't checked this month if it got reverted or anything (but I don't see why it would have been).

because talent modifications do not affect spell damage co-efficients pre-2.0.

I'm pretty sure they do, at least according to theorycraft.

Yep, theorycraft says a number of spells are affected by talent modifications.

[Impsie]

because talent modifications do not affect spell damage co-efficients pre-2.0.

I'm pretty sure they do, at least according to theorycraft.

If this were true then Frostbolt and Fireball would be receiving a penalty to their damage when you talent into Imp. Frostbolt/Imp. Fireball. It also would cause Improved Blizzard to apply a 5% penalty on Blizzard's coefficient, etc. This is easily testable by anyone that wants to reset their talents and try.

Talenting affects Healing coefficients only

Also, Soulfire is 100% spell damage. Not sure where the 171% number came from cause it didn't get nearly that much til Cata.

[Youfie]

Also, Soulfire is 100% spell damage. Not sure where the 171% number came from cause it didn't get nearly that much til Cata.

It was my understanding that Soulfire was 171%, at least according to some numbers seen in retail videos when seeing the gear & buffs they were done with.

Below is a post from here where I explained why I thought the coefficient to be 171%.

I could be wrong, and I haven't tested here on Nostalrius though.

Warrior pops recklessness: 20% damage increase
Warrior is in berserker stance: 10% damage increase
Warrior has curse of elements: 10% damage increase
Warlock has berserking: 30% damage increase
Warlock probably has Emberstorm: 10% damage increase
Warlock has demonic sacrifice, probably imp: 15% damage increase
Warlock has ToEP and ZHC active right before the cast: +379 damage
Warlock probably has Ruin which makes crits do +100% damage instead of +50%

11000 crit would be 5500 non-crit
5500 / 1.2 / 1.1 / 1.1 / 1.3 / 1.1 / 1.15 = 2303 damage before the multiplicative modifiers

Minus the bonus from trinkets = 1924 damage

Minus the upper end of soul fires damage range = ~1047 bonus damage from consumables and gear.

Looks like he has a flask of supreme power (150), Greater Arcane Elixir (35), elixir of fire power (10) and wizard oil (36). Total of 231.

Required spell damage from gear if the coefficient is 1.0 (capped at 3.5) = 811

Keep in mind you can get at least 104 spell damage from enchants alone. Video was posted in June 2006 so assume up to AQ40 gear.

Not entirely unreasonable. I'm not sure what the 4th buff from the right is, top row. Looks like it might have a 7 or 2 minute duration remaining. That might be relevant as well.

Assuming I accounted for all the buffs that matter, if soul fire's co-efficient was indeed 6 / 3.5 (1.71) then he would only need ~221 spell damage on his gear to get those numbers and I'm sure he has a lot more than that given the effort in staging this video (obviously the alliance warrior was helping).

Thank you for your input Armilus .


Whether damage modifiers are additive or multiplicative is another debate, but I always thought they were additive, at least for a majority of them. This is Blizzard's way of doing maths in many (but not all, most notably threat) mechanics of the game.

The truth probably lies in-between, this post from EJ highlighted that Emberstorm & Imp. Immolate were additive for instance, while the Black Book & Unspoken Names set bonus were multiplicative regarding pet damage.

If you stack the damage modifiers like you did, i.e. multiplicatively, you get a ~302% damage increase, as opposite to a mere +120% when just adding them up.

Needless to say it changes things a lot :/.

And even using this multiplicative way of calculating damage, you say we end up needing 811 spell damage on the Warlock's gear, other than trinkets. This is huge. This warlock was full T2.5, and was basically AQ40 BiS, and he "only" had +604 damage.

Actually, assuming the Warlock in the video had this kind of gear is in itself highly debatable.

The video was posted on YouTube in June 2006, but the video shows the double-trinket, which was impossible after 1.10 (March 2006). So the video is from the end of March, at best.

With AQ being released in January (1.9), this lets about three months for the server to complete the war effort and to the Warlock's guild to progress through AQ40. Haven't checked the world first of AQ40, but you get the idea : it is highly unlikely that he had that kind of gear. And as said above, even if he was, well there is no way he could have got 800+ spell.

And this is assuming the video was filmed the day before 1.10.

The Warlock was probably MC/BWL geared, with around 300-400 +damage.

With 350 +dmg :

882 (Soul Fire damage range upper end)
+
(723 (ToEP, ZHC, Oil, Flask, Arcane Elixir, Fire Power, Talented Amplify Magic) + 350 (spell damage from gear)) x 171%
=
~ 2717 uncrit Soul Fire.

After the modifiers, (+120% when added rather than multiplied together), it becomes 5977, which is in line with a crit for 10-11k+, and makes much more sense regarding the Warlock's probable Gear.

In reality, he *may* have a bit more spell damage from BWL gear, and some of the +damage modifiers might be multiplicative, but you get the idea. It's been proven in-game than they're not ALL multiplicative (rather the opposite), so the most favorable hypothesis (everything is multiplicative) leading to a +302%, and still requiring the Warlock to have > 800+ spell damage to be able to achieve the 10-11K number, leads me to believe a 100% coefficient is not obviously true.


Even if it's a completely different debate, it would be interesting to have inputs from you guys about this "are the buffs/debuffs/talents modfiers additive or multiplicative" and the research you may have done, I'm deeply interested . Or a word from the staff about how it has been scripted here !

(btw the fourth buff on the video was Songflower Serenade)

For those too lazy to read, long story short :

Using every possible buffs / debuffs that modify Damage done/taken by a %, and assuming they're multiplicative (which means more damage), we end up with a Warlock needing at the very least 800 spell damage to get a 11k crit on Soul Fire.

However, on the video the Warlock can NOT have that much +Damage, given that a full AQ40 BiS Warlock would have about 600, and we can see the Warlock having gear a lot less powerful than that in the video, probably MC / ZG / BWL.

Not to mention the fact that +Damage multipliers are, for some of them, additive and not multiplicative.

And we can see in the Combat Log that there isn't any Vulnerability Bonus related to negative resistances (removed with AQ).

Long story short, the Warlock on the retail video doing 11k Soul Fire couldn't do it without a 171% coefficient.

[Undertanker]

So to discredit fireblast you added the global to its time, but compared it to spamming frost bolt and didnt include globals. Seems fair i guess....

[Undertanker]

@youfie, or this was pre nerf of stacking toep and hero charm.

[Youfie]

@youfie, or this was pre nerf of stacking toep and hero charm.

Yeah indeed it was, but I took this into account in the calculations .
But even with both trinket, unless I missed something huge, you couldn't get 11k crit on SF with a 100% coefficient.

[Undertanker]

@youfie, or this was pre nerf of stacking toep and hero charm.

Yeah indeed it was, but I took this into account in the calculations .
But even with both trinket, unless I missed something huge, you couldn't get 11k crit on SF with a 100% coefficient.

10% total damage increase from Dark Moon Fair Options 1 > 1 > 1 is the only one I can think of that could make up the difference.

[Undertanker]

Instant casts do have a time and a place, like when you have to move before finishing your current cast and the resulting GCD won't clip your next frost bolt[in fact Warlocks are supposed to life tap in similar circumstances] but that is really stupid. What you are describing reminds me of a certain moonkin druid who spams moonfire on the boss for huge up-front dps for the first 30 seconds of the fight and then is OOM for the rest of it.

It is the ranged casters job to keep mana reserves proportionate to the HP % of the boss.

If the boss was lets say MC and it only alive for 25 - 50ish seconds, then hell yeah do that. Mana dump for more dps, ideally running out of mana as the boss dies.

Longer fights require conservation and damage per mana comes into play with certain classes. On new encounters, just go by general rule of thumb, if my mana % is > than boss HP i can mana dump on a few instant cast spells when movement is needed or what ever situation presents it self. Once your mana + reserves (gem / potion / rune) get to the boss HP %, then go back to damage per mana mode.

[Malrex]

When I mained a mage in 2005, I played very closely to the bosses unless a mechanic prevented this.

I was topping meters as 31/20 frost mage, however it wasn't because I pressed 1 all the time.

What most people don't do, is utilize their instant cast spells in their rotation for a dps boost. Even in MC/BWL Fire blast is nice to use in rotation. Especially if you need to move out of fire, or reposition for any reason.

I mixed cone of cold in there as well, but this was me. Starting around 15 yards, frost bolt x2, start running towards boss fireblasting, cone of cold, blink and spam frost bolts at 15 yards again until fire blast was up. Cone of cold has a much longer CD, but I took cold snap and would do a double cone of cold some times.

Most will jump at "this reduces dps", but it doesn't. Instant cast rock, even it there is a some resistance on the boss.

You will go through mana faster, so make sure you make 1 of each rank mana gem and use them on cooldown as you go starting with the weakest.

It makes this class a lot more involved than typical spam 1 button.

Sounds like a lot more fun to me...and that's why I play games, to have fun. Not to have a few extra points on DPS on a raid that it doesn't really matter since the boss is on farm mode.