[Discussion] Patch 6.2 PTR

[TLTeo]

I think it's a bit early to say "stronger than Arcane on single target". We didn't really see that happen even in Highmaul when Frost was slightly ahead.

Napkin math says that this buff will make us want to ignore FoF procs during Icy Veins, or if we use Unstable Magic and Comet Storm. This does not bode well for T18 set bonuses.

I dont remember Frost being ahead after the hotfix rounds, it was only true at the start of HM. Sims reflected Arcane vs Frost pretty well iirc.

[Valounette]

I personally wouldn't mind Frost coming out first for single target. True, it shouldn't really be like that, but hey, we get to play frost again for a bit ^_^

[DocileCraig]

Are these numbers we're seeing based on current PTR builds using current tier sets? (probably obvious I'm not on the PTR with that question) I'm wondering if they currently just scraped off a little too much DPS with the arcane nerf, or they are doing it because they want the new 4 piece bonus to be something we actually want. My biggest fear is that we get the effect 1/3rd of mirror images. I know it may be a bit harsh to assume whoever's in charge of mages would do something like that, but they have done worse in the past..

Edit: Also it looks like they are nerfing Mastery for more than a few classes so it could just be to prevent us from turning into crit gods like in MoP ( I remember the days of my AB critting 4 million... oh the memories.)

[Griepen]

Does anyone have any idea about changes in stat weights with these buffs to frostbolt and FFB? I am curious as to what gear I should start taking for frost.

[Smaiki]

Wonder if it's a bug that the Boss 7 - Int Trinket 3 does not increase its dmg number for arcace (mastery) in the tooltip despite a lower RPPM number (factor 1.6667). (Tweet)

[Komma]

That's interesting. I guess we'll wait until the trinkets are available for testing before figuring out whether it's a tooltip bug.

Does anyone have any idea about changes in stat weights with these buffs to frostbolt and FFB? I am curious as to what gear I should start taking for frost.

It's a rather bad idea to base decisions on early PTR numbers.

[Griepen]

Well, no one needs anything anyway. Just want an initial idea of what way they are thinking of going with frost. Perhaps it's to make mastery more attractive, making the switch from arcane/fire to frost easier.

[Preheat]

Perhaps it's to make mastery more attractive, making the switch from arcane/fire to frost easier.

God, I hope so. The better mastery starts looking the more inclined I am to try frost out again.

[Frosted]

A preliminary look at how the trinkets stack up currently.

Some quick notes:

Arcane is running SN_RoP_AO
Fire is running: BW_RoP_Kind
Frost is running Fbomb_RoP_CmS
ALL set bonuses are disabled.

Currently, there is a bug in SimC with the Blacklight and Mark of Doom when used in conjunction with PC. To avoid this, I didn't use PC. Using PC spikes the ranking of the arcane trinket (all 3 levels get quite a bit stronger), and the Blacklight / Mark of Doom are both a decent bit stronger when using PC. Once the bug is fixed, I'll re-run using PC. For now, just keep that in mind when looking at these comparisons.

Darmacs, Blackiron Crucible, and Gorens all of mythic quality are included to give a frame of reference.

PTR Trinkets:

"flat_int_crit_haste"



"flat_mastery_int_proc"



"Blacklight"



"Mark_of_Doom"



"flat_stats_all_x"



"mage_trinket_spec"




Frost:



Fire:



Arcane:



Some thoughts:
Mark of Doom and Blacklight (especially considering the fact they get even stronger with PC) are clearly strong across all specs. The mage trinket isn't really worth it for any spec except for Arcane, and for Arcane it's incredibly strong (PC makes it stronger!). Even the mythic Fire and Frost trinkets are essentially worthless compared to current tier trinkets - showing that the mechanics they are plugging into are just poor trinket options. Flamestrike is a weak spell that we almost never cast, and ice lances don't make up such a huge amount of Frost damage that buffing them is worth losing the massive amount of intellect all other trinkets offer. I feel these trinkets need to plug into more potent mechanics for Frost/Fire, or provide more significant damage bonuses (generating a Flamestrike that deals more dmg than a normal Flamestrike, for example).

Unsurprisingly, the two specs that have very strong secondary scaling across the board (fire/arcane) value the "flat_stats_all" trinket highly. Equally unsurprising is that the gorens is still so strong for Fire.

If you have a keen eye, you might have noticed that there is some weird stuff going on with Frost and the trinkets it likes! The gigantic buffs to Frostbolt/FFB and the nerf to BF proc rate from MS are mostly to blame for this (and a bug we recently identified and fixed). The problem gets worse with PC.

[Novox]

What about the Alchemy trinket fully upgraded? Is there any info about that?

[Kuni]

"flat_stats_all_x" to my knowledge is a world boss drop, and won't have heroic/mythic versions. Keep that in mind.

[Frosted]

"flat_stats_all_x" to my knowledge is a world boss drop, and won't have heroic/mythic versions. Keep that in mind.

it has heroic / mythic versions in the spell data. Is this not correct?

I haven't seen the 5/5 alchy trinket. If you can find a link to it, I can sim it.

[Komma]

Everything has heroic/mythic versions in the spell data. You can apply it to Rukhmar drops and it would still spit out a valid item, even if it doesn't exist in game.

[yungg]

A few questions I have regarding trinkets

1. What makes Mark of Doom so strong for arcane so much that the normal version is better than most mythic trinkets? I'm guessing it's the interaction with each wave of arcane missiles proccing the mark of doom effect? Would this mean it'd be good to try to keep at least 1 charge of AM banked for Mark of Doom proc?

2. Mark of doom sounds like it applies some kind of debuff on a target, and then direct spells cause that debuff to proc, and deal damage, sort of like Frost Bomb. Does prismatic crystal damage count as direct spell damage to cause Mark of Doom damage, if mark of doom is on the boss and we're attacking the PC?

[Frosted]

A few questions I have regarding trinkets

1. What makes Mark of Doom so strong for arcane so much that the normal version is better than most mythic trinkets? I'm guessing it's the interaction with each wave of arcane missiles proccing the mark of doom effect? Would this mean it'd be good to try to keep at least 1 charge of AM banked for Mark of Doom proc?

2. Mark of doom sounds like it applies some kind of debuff on a target, and then direct spells cause that debuff to proc, and deal damage, sort of like Frost Bomb. Does prismatic crystal damage count as direct spell damage to cause Mark of Doom damage, if mark of doom is on the boss and we're attacking the PC?

1) Each explosion happens on impact. Arcane missiles is 5 spell impacts per cast. So it triggers a lot of explosions. No clue about AM banking, haven't looked into it. My guess is no.

2) Mark of doom is basically frost bomb, yeah. I think PC damage triggers an explosion? Not sure. The trinket isn't on PTR for testing fine details like that yet.

[Komma]

PC damage does not trigger an explosion. Otherwise it would create an infinite loop of explosions, where PC damage triggers an explosion that hits PC, triggers another explosion and so on and so on.

The rule of thumb is that anything that isn't a direct action will not trigger Mark of Doom.

[Frosted]

After some bug fixes, now with prismatic crystal.

Frost:



Fire:



Arcane:

[Komma]

Some preliminary tier bonus numbers with sims.

Fire is pretty straight forward:

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50042 35.1% 4T18 47622 33.4% 2T18 44848 31.5% Mage_Fire_701

6.2% and 5.1%, which puts them at healthy spots. Also works for AOE, which is nice. The 4T18 buff, http://ptr.wowhead.com/spell=186170/icarus-uprising" target="_blank , has fairly high uptime.

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icarus_uprising : start=10.8 refresh= 9.8 interval= 41.7 trigger= 21.2 uptime=51.61% benefit=52%

With the assumption that 2T17 gets nerfed heavily, T18 bonuses are looking to be in an OK spot.

Frost has ambiguous wording. Currently I'm assuming that "additional 40%" means that Brain Freeze is increased from 85% bonus damage to 125%. 4T18 we only know from a previous iteration, and numbers say that it was extremely underwhelming for a variety of reasons. I've omitted it, because Kuni mentioned how the bonus seems to have gone missing from PTR.

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53412 52.3% 2T18 48661 47.7% Mage_Frost_701

2T18 is evaluated as a 10% gain on single target, but offers 0% value for AOE. I wouldn't bet on it surviving until 6.2 live.

Arcane 2T18 is looking like between 1-2% gain, but it's hard to give exact numbers because Presence of Mind usage needs some work. Robomage is getting record numbers of PoM buffs, but it's not paying off. This is because Arcane Blast already has a short cast time, and it doesn't help that POM causes mana adept to be evaluated at the start of the cast, instead of the end of a cast.

[Smaiki]

Fire looks quite good. Nevertheless, I don't see how the T18 bonuses can compete against T17 2pc and cleave encounters like Iron Maidens.

[Frosted]

the t17 2pc will prolly be changed to make us drop it.