State of the Specs (Dec 8, pre-Mythic Highmaul)

[Komma]

On December 8th, a number of hotfix buffs were applied to mages. The buffs apply to all 3 classes, but were primarily meant to bring Arcane and Fire, who were underperforming, up to speed for Mythic. This post is meant to investigate whether Blizzard accomplish their goals. I will include my thoughts and predictions on how the specs stack up against each other in Mythic Highmaul.

As is the case with most of my posts, this is based off extrapolation from SimulationCraft results and my personal experiences in Highmaul. The simulations use T17 Normal, itemlevel 665 sample profiles with set bonuses turned off, so as to emulate a mix of normal/heroic highmaul items.

Current spec comparisons
Single target: Arcane > Frost > Fire


The substantial 16% buffs to core spells for Arcane means that it overtakes Frost as the top "tunnel boss" spec. The gap is misleading though - Arcane suffers the most from movement, and all Mythic encounters are expected to have a certain degree of movement involved. Fire significantly closes the gap when compared to last week, but continues to lag behind due to weak spellpower coefficients.

Two target cleave: Fire >= Frost > Arcane


Contrary to what the charts say, I believe that Fire has an advantage in cleave fights. This is due to splitting ice's unreliability, which is much harder to take advantage of when compared to Fire's Inferno Blast cleaving. Twin Ogron comes to mind as a fight where Frost is unable to cleave well, while Fire cleaves with no issues at all.

Five target AOE: Fire >> Frost >> Arcane


The crit gains from Fire are most evident here. A mix of Living Bomb, Dragon's Breath, Pyroblasts and Meteor means that Fire is now a complete monster in terms of AoE capabilities. I expect Fire to dominate fights like Tectus by a wide margin. Meanwhile, Arcane is still lagging behind, not only in numbers, but also due to mechanics. The unreliability of Arcane Orb, along with lacking sustained ranged AOE, causes huge problems when it comes to actual encounters.

As Mythic Highmaul opens, it is looking much harder to tell which spec has an advantage. Due to the single target nature in most of Highmaul, I am still expecting Frost and Arcane to come out ahead on most fights. Fire will shine on chaotic cleave fights such as Tectus and Twin Ogrons. Arcane will have a measurable advantage on Butcher and Kargath. I am expecting most mages to play either Frost or Arcane, partly due to multistrike gear collected from the first week, and also because Frost is the most well-rounded for all fights. Fire will work mostly as a niche AOE spec. In a crude summarizing way, I'd rank the specs as:
Frost ~= Arcane > Fire

Q&A
Q: Is <spec> good?
A: Each spec can work in different situations. I suggest reading the summary.

Q: I'm planning to swap to <spec>. Where can I learn the rotation?
A: I suggest looking at the spec subforums for guides. Icy Veins also has quality guides for each spec.

Q: Are stat weights affected?
A: Stat weights for Arcane and Frost are unlikely to see massive changes. Fire needs more investigation.

Q: Are sims updated? Can I sim myself for details?
A: As of December 8th, hotfixes have been applied in the code, but there isn't a new release yet. Stay tuned!


Detailed 630 and 665 talent comparison sims can be found in my personal folder at http://downloads.simulationcraft.org/Komma/" target="_blank . Feel free to check them out if you want more details!

[Figdan]

thanks komma you're the best

[Kasc]

Thanks for the summary.

I will most likely be playing Frost at the start due to gear and familiarity. Will look more closely at Arcane over the weekend.

[Garrod]

I'll most likely be making my other spec Arcane for ST fights and Fire for cleave/Aoe heavy fights. Both specs enjoy Mastery so I think it'll work out nicely.

[karkooshy]

Thanks for the analysis Komma. I'll probably continue raiding as Frost until I gather enough conquest gear (which is more reliable in terms of itemization ... plus the set bonus...) and then I'll be making a switch to Fire. Good to see that all 3 specs are at least somewhat competitive now.

[perchon]

Is berlina's guide still applicable to the arcane spec with the change to barrage?

Can anyone give any tips on the rotation? With the evocation and barrage change, seems like there may be some changes to the way the rotation is done. It seems weird to evocate at 4 stacks if you could get a good barrage out of it. It seems it only takes a couple more secs of evo to get back to 100 at 0 stacks of charge.

[Rinoa]

Thanks a lot for the work you are putting in. This is very useful information.

[Latonius]

I'll most likely be making my other spec Arcane for ST fights and Fire for cleave/Aoe heavy fights. Both specs enjoy Mastery so I think it'll work out nicely.

But stacking +crit is optimal for fire, correct? I myself have accrued some mastery/crit heroic dungeon gear so I'm wondering if I can dual spec the same way.

[ps2dude756]

But stacking +crit is optimal for fire, correct? I myself have accrued some mastery/crit heroic dungeon gear so I'm wondering if I can dual spec the same way.

That is correct. The point he was making is that there's significant overlap in stat priorty between Fire and Arcane, since Mastery is #2 for Arcane and #3 for Fire (Int is #1 for both and Crit is #2 for Fire), whereas there's no overlap with Frost since it wants Multistrike and Versatility.

[Kasc]

When a new SimC release comes out, will the Frost v. Arcane sims be a dependable resource when deciding which spec you will perform in based on gear alone?

I have yet to delve too deeply in to SimC with mages due to the MoP-era SimC not being accurate with mages.

[ShaObito]

Is it still worth it to run the 4pc t16 gear for fire? Or was that for the lack of crits? I didn't look into it much but I'm probably going to be expected to have a fire set for next week.

[Corazu]

Is it still worth it to run the 4pc t16 gear for fire? Or was that for the lack of crits? I didn't look into it much but I'm probably going to be expected to have a fire set for next week.

They nerfed/fixed it, so...no.

[Festen]

Do you think UM is now good for each spec?

[zhengma]

Despite the credibility of these results (and that they're largely consistent with my first impression), it is very unlikely that I'll switch spec just yet, because accumulating a set of Mastery/Crit gear from scratch will be very hard at the moment. Still, thank you for the timely publication of the results.

I have yet to delve too deeply in to SimC with mages due to the MoP-era SimC not being accurate with mages.

I know that Blizzard had openly mocked on Twitter, that mage looked much more promising than warlocks in the simulation done in the eve of 5.4, but the performance of the two classes in Tier 16 turns out to be just the opposite. However, that was largely due to the mechanisms in Tier 16, which give the burst of Chaos Bolt and the AoE of Fire & Brimstone a whole lot of room to shine. Also the comparatively simpler and more error-tolerant rotation allows more moderately-skilled players to raid with it to good effect. SimC itself has a lot of changable parameters to study a variety of scenarios, but the spec ranking published on its homepage is restricted to Patchewerk style fight at high skill level that lasts for thousands of GCDs, how to make use of these results and connect them to performance in actual raid is up to each of us.

If by "inaccurate" you mean anything else, please specify so that we may discuss further.

[Frantik]

Do you think UM is now good for each spec?

I was wondering about this too.

In general did the talent combinations and results change as well with the changes?

[Komma]

Do you think UM is now good for each spec?

With the increased crit for Fire Mages and how Unstable Magic benefits from Critical Mass, I believe UM will be one of the strongest single target talents for Fire Mages. For the other specs, not so much.



Unfortunately most of the fights involve some sort of add cleaving, so I don't think there's much reason to take it.

In general did the talent combinations and results changed as well with the changes?

Not really. IF and and RoP are now slightly stronger for Frost due to stronger spells, but ideal talent selections haven't changed greatly. CmS buff does make it slightly better for PVE though.

[zhengma]

Do you think UM is now good for each spec?

I was wondering about this too.

In general did the talent combinations and results changed as well with the changes?

The problem with UM and IF is that they're largely out of control. IF is uncontrollable but predictable, while UM is neither controllable nor predictable.

That being said, the buff to Frostbolt and Arcane Blast will likely make UM performing better, since the balance in talent tier 5 is, IIRC, quite delicate. I'll run some comparisons between the talent choices when I get the updated SimC, if nothing has been published by then.

EDIT: Komma is faster than I am

[zhengma]

I haven't paid much attention to Fire during the past 3 weeks. Now that I see these results, I may as well put down a few questions here so as to catch up:

1. How is the increased crit making UM more valuable? More Fireball crits means more chances for UM to do extra damage, but with more crit there will be more Pyro and less Fireball, which seems to diminish the value of UM.

2. Can the strength of Met be ascribed solely or largely to its adding to the Ignite pool for higher quality Combustion?

3. With extra crit, we should be able to see more Pyros shot onto the PC during the small time window. Has the damage composition in the "pet - prismatic_crystal" table seen any visible change due to this?

[jimme]

Thx. Komma.

Looks like I might have to look into Arcane for Kar'gath and Butcher. Haven't really played the spec since ToES when I was running with a haste build.

[Dutchmagoz]

Keep in mind guys, the opening post is including blackrock foundry gear, which is obviously not available yet.

Highmaul has a lot of multistrike gear, and not a lot of mastery gear, so this skews frost a bit.