Thursday, September 18, 2008

Holy Pally/DK/Mage

Really?

Actually, I was going to briefly talk about the new changes, but as you've probably noticed, I don't have a particularly strong interest in talking about incomplete beta stuff much anymore.

A few things though:

Imp Scorch Glyph - Down to 3 stacks per scorch instead of five.
Frozen Core - Still bad, I'd probably rather invest in perma or imp coc, but others will disagree I'm sure.
FoF - Now only procs off "chills" (Does Ice Armor proc this? If so, WTF)
Shatter and Ice Shards - Down to 3/3s (Man these talent trees are starting to look like the ones I posted months ago ^^)

The FoF change is good in the sense that it discourages spamming Ice Lance. I think I read Affix whining about this, and I generally agree; basically, spamming IL is optimal with the current frost talents. You refresh FoF for insane damage, you impact it up if you're 2/18/51 (which you should be), and you get BF procs. So this change is nice in a sense, but tbh is really gay because you STILL will be spamming IL like mad, it just won't be as good now.

Mages need rank 1 equivalents still.

Mages have way too much RNG, probably far and away the most of any class in wotlk. Impact, Frostbite, FoF, BF, Hot Streak, and so forth. It's ridiculous. A lot of these talents need to be tweaked. Not to mention we have 30% dispel resist and a billion junk debuffs. (Blue has already said they are revamping dispel system, which might make specs like 2/18/51 rather pointless, who knows)

Fire needs a manacost revamp, 19/51 with Firestarting + scorch spam + hot streaking it up look sick as fuck to play, but you go oom in like 30 seconds. It's probably too late for Beta suggestions, but a few things that could help this whole Fire PvP work:

  • Add to Fiery Payback - and reduces the mana exhausted by your Mana Shield by 30/60%.
  • Add to Fiery Starter - and this Flamestrike costs no mana.
  • Dragon's Breath, Living Bomb, Blastwave - 12% Base Mana
  • Revamp Flamestrike - Slower Cast, cap to 3 targets and increase damage?
Fire's burst is actually good now, not as good as Frost's, but it is interesting. It requires more RNG than Shatter Combos, but is a little bit harder to stop. Plant LB on offtarget, wait 3-4 seconds, swap back to it, Combust->scorch->fireblast->pyro whenever HS procs->DB->FS-> scorch->BW->FS etc. It's pretty neat.

29 comments:

Oppo said...

no, not really.

Mut rogue / Ret pally / Frost mage!

You can live without grip.

Ranged instant nova into DF into burst.

Oppo said...

Wave of the future, mang.

Raddy said...

Ret is so two builds ago

Artanias said...

I just wish they would improve blazing speed a bit, its far too unreliable agains't rogues.

Niiva said...

Frostmage/Ret in 2s, no kidding.

Kolenzo said...

Fingers of frost proc on ice armor: confirmed

However, it's also being very gay and (quite literally) only proccing when frostbite procs (assuming you spec both 3/3). Frostbite is also eating one of the FoF charges it seems.

Dicks bro :\

JimmyHoffa said...

@ Oppo: Grip -> JoJ will gay any team with a druid on it and resto druids are still the hardest healer in the game to CC/kill.

Good death knights will abuse grip to pull a player out of LoS of their healers, prevent peeling during coordinated burst and denying a player pillar cover when they're in trouble. Don't even get me started on how retarded anti magic shell and strangulate are. Until blizzard nerfs the hell out of the death knights they're going to be the must have class for 3's.

Anonymous said...

Fire mana issues are a myth. 2/56/3 was hella fun on ptr, no where near as OP as frost though. deep freeze on 24s cd is lulz

-pv

Raddy said...

Yeah, I'm with you on df. It's currently so good that everything else is pretty much a joke. ^^

Dahis said...

RADDY SHOULD I PLAY DEATH KNIGHT ROGUE OR WARRIOR IN WOTLK?!?!!

Yes I'll play again (for real), expansions are too goddamn tempting.

Dahis said...

P.S. WANNA PLAY WIT ME?!?!?

samuelbeckett said...

hmm, i haven't tried the latest latest build, but on ptr on monday (i think), living bomb wasn't exploding. that being said, fire does look to finally have a cool burst combo, but its still much harder to pull of than a deep freeze is. but i suck at fire since i've been 17/0/44 for sooo long, i'm probably just being bad.

Dahis said...

JK I HAVE TERRIBLE PING ON EASTERN SERVERS

Anonymous said...

Radikal you better play human in xpac, you know there's going to be some crazy sick two-trinket combo.

Icicles said...

Arcane Barrage > Deep Freeze.

Oppo said...

With a ranged nova into DF you wont need to pull anybody out of LOS.

You can burst the druid down right there!

This, of course, is quite reliant on ret surviving as a 'omg that's not even fair' spec till Wrath.

...and a look at the forums doesn't give me too much hope on that front. >.<

gordonramsey said...

play rogue dahis. return to your roots and fullfill your chakra so you can overcome ming

Anonymous said...

Come 3.0 Druid/Mage will be by FAR the best team.

You can literally CC someone indefinitely with poly/clone/deep freeze rotation never hitting DR.

yay for 1v2

-pv

Oppo said...

They should just add in the 'gladiator' title as a druid talent.

Gladiateure
1/1
"You and your 2v2 and 3v3 teammates are able to wear the gladiator title as if you had earned it legitimately."

Raddy said...

How are you landing the DF though pv? Burning a pet nova? Doesn't seem way easier than just poly->poly->MC->fear rinse with a priest to me.

I really want to find a mage or priest to try arcane mage/priest 2s. Priests are going to be much harder to kill with 30 sec DP, they will provide WAY better assist damage with spell power changes, and your mage is a damage threat to any class with Barrage and CD potential. Plus you get slow for free wins vs crap like shammy/war. I'm kind of curious as to how good Slow might even be with scorch glyph. (even nerfed 2 scorches is likely 4-5 stacks, plus a pain or an ignite and you've got a good start on debuffs)

Plus there's random crap with potential like IA, 2min instant invis, imp blink, etc.

Does anyone have any Arcane PvP specs they like? There really aren't enough points to go around, it feels like as Deep Fire or Frost I can get most of what I want, but this isn't the case at all as Arcane.

I'm still hoping Barrage gets a little bit more help through talents -- Missile Barrage, Spell Impact, etc. Being able to hop around and AB->FB and toss out a Missile Barrage on a proc followed by CDs could be devastating.

icicles said...

spec is here: http://tinyurl.com/4adyf6

icicles said...

I have both mage and priest, but both horde =P

The Arcane spec I'm liking at the moment that's purely Barrage spam with CDs is http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage=23032023100200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000230025200122032153320132510021

You skip everything related to Blast and Missiles (sad, but those are more 5s/PvE/maybeBG talents), go down to Molten Shields (only defense vs. hunters really + reflecting other mage pom pyro is fun).

Great with a priest cause of IA, everything a disc priest does is shielding-based, plus Barrage hits like a truck anyway, Slow is amazing, no imp Scorch, but that's easily tweaked in instead of Molten Shields.

Mirror Image is still really too strong, especially for double Arcane Mage (lol) with 2 PoM Pyros on top of the crazy burst of the images, nothing has lived yet. Trading Focus Magic is nice too.

Overall it's just really strong - great resistance + slow vs casters and incredible mobility vs melee (somewhat squishy, but with a priest, makes it easy to live long enough to get away, once you're away, it's gg).

Pretty much ends up being a rotation - Barrage Slow Barrage FB Barrage WhateverYouNeed rinse repeat all day. Silliness.

Oppo said...

NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE.

HFB NO LONGER REMOVES PHYS.

Wasted those points on arena daggers. GG.


Assassination tree just bent over.

Dahis said...

Mutilate/Prep is still going to be really, really good, no worries.

phael said...

21/50/0 fire +
33/0/38 dreamstate

HS-> combustion-> DB-> starfire+firefeball -> scorch or fireblast (glyphed) -> pyro -> pompyro

were looking at sick crit %s too:
6 world in flames
6 critical mass
3 pyromaniac
3 molten armor
2 molten glyph
3 focus magic
3 focus magic proc
5 moonkin aura
10 improved scorch
10 combustion (1st hit)
10 combustion (2nd hit)

~61% on procs/talents
~30% on gear

91% crit on the double pyro
-12.5% for resil caped target

78.5% = damn near 80%, tell me that shit wouldnt be baller as fuck.

Raddy said...

Yeah I agree Phael. Deep Fire looks pretty solid to me. Messing around on beta, I was staring to even like Fiery Payback.

I'd take 2/3 Imp Scorch over Molten Shields I think for the Arcane spec. Or you can just rock 3/5 Arcane Mind.

I think you're probably right with just giving up on Missiles for that spec -- I couldn't really find a way to get enough of the other stuff if I invested 10+ points in missiles.

Spell Impact is debatable over some of that other stuff imo, depends on how much you end up scorching. Pretty OP talent considering its current placement in the tree -- I just wish it affected Barrage. Put Barrage on that talent and Missile Barrage and Deep Arcane will rip and dip.

I really really enjoy playing the new Deep Fire -- I'm just not exactly sure what comps it will shine in. It doesn't really have ANY long CDs (except Combustion but that isn't a big deal) and has ridiculous burst, if somewhat unreliable. I do kinda wonder if HS will stay without a hidden cooldown forever as you occasionally are going to get stupid chains like: sc-fb-instant pyro-blastwave- instant pyro - instant flamestrike - db - instant pyro - instant flamestrike - instant pyro etc lol.

Still a bit undecided if I'm going to pvp on a priest or mage -- depends on who's around. ^^

@kzn - balls terrible like 300 probably

Anonymous said...

"How are you landing the DF though pv? Burning a pet nova? Doesn't seem way easier than just poly->poly->MC->fear rinse with a priest to me."

Through frostbolt on healers. Shouldn't be too hard with dispel resistance. The druid can be w/e spec he wants even full balance. The druid has better kiting ability than the priest, better damage, beter regen. It's a better team now and will be an even better team then.

If you're against a druid healer just use the poly/clone/df rotation on the dps and attack the druid.

Btw silence is the way to go for priests nowadays. We be killin druids left and right now.

wtb priest/mage video

-pv

Anonymous said...

priests won't really be harder to kill at all btw, as DP is now only giving the base damage back as a heal

Anonymous said...

"Still a bit undecided if I'm going to pvp on a priest or mage -- depends on who's around. ^^"

Priests are pretty fucking terrible on beta/ptr, I'm sure you know this.