dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
12319
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme to McBrain

Member

to McBrain

Re: [MoP] Mage thread of Awesomeness

All 3 have their spots I just choose Invokers Ward. It is passive. I have it in a Macro where it never falls off. Always up. My dammage has increased since i switched from RoP and Invocation. IDC what math you proove me wrong with. I am lazy as hell and a passive macro is better than a 4 sec cast, or casting 2 circles on the ground and standing in them.

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain

Member

There's math out there, I'll find it for you when I can.
McBrain

McBrain to cigtyme

Member

to cigtyme
said by Lhivera :

The level 90 Mage talents — Invocation, Rune of Power, and Incanter's Ward — were controversial in beta, and they continue to be controversial in the Mage forum now that people are hitting level 90 in the live game.

For a bit of history, the level 90 talents were introduced in the second major version of the Mage Mists of Pandoria talent grid. The Polymorph tier had been widely panned when the original grid was introduced, and many Mages had also made clear that we preferred to have thematic options available; many Frost Mages wanted Frost talents, many Fire Mages wanted Fire talents, etc. However, there was also general agreement that certain Arcane utility spells felt sufficiently universal that they didn't present a thematic problem for any spec. Polymorph was one such spell, but very few people liked those talents. A tier of talents modifying Evocation was a popular suggestion, and Blizzard ran with that idea.

A fair number of people have expressed displeasure at the result. There are a few recurring arguments being made about them, and in an effort to shed a little light on the discussion, I'd like to address some of their points.

Theyre No Fun
I'm not really going to argue this one. Fun is a subjective thing, and if you don't find any of these talents fun, I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. However, it is my hope that some people will look at them differently if the rest of this article helps them understand a couple of things about the talents better, and sometimes a new viewpoint is a pathway to enjoyment.

They Limit Mobility
There's no denying that — at least in the cases of Invocation and Rune of Power. Invocation is going to require that you stand still and get off an uninterrupted channel lasting about 4.5-5.5 seconds every 40 seconds or so, and Rune of Power makes you want to spend as much time as possible not moving. And there is no question that both modern encounter design and PvP demand a lot of movement, so anything that limits movement can be a source of frustration.

But while Mages are intended to do excellent damage, and to be highly mobile, they are not intended to do both at the same time. This was perhaps stated most clearly in a developer response to Hunters during beta testing:

Movement should be terrible for a ranged spec. Full stop. All of the various mechanics we put in from Spiritwalker's Grace to Aspect of the Fox are to make moving less terrible, but it should still be pretty terrible. (And if you think there are specs not penalized enough by moving, please let us know, though probably not in this thread. We felt that ranged movement got a bid out of control in Cataclysm so we've definitely made an attempt to scale it back.)

What Invocation and Rune of Power do is emphasize these two key design elements of the class: they improve your burst damage (more on that later, because I know there are already people shaking their heads at it), and they increase the difference between the damage we can do while being highly mobile and the damage we can do when we can plant our feet.

If a hindrance to mobile damage-dealing is simply intolerable to you, there is still the option of Incanter's Ward, which has no effect on your mobile damage whatsoever. It does, however, have its own trade-offs, in that maximizing its damage potential is not entirely in your control and requires that you soak damage.

We Cant Choose the One We Like, We Have to Switch for the Encounter
It's true that each of these options will be better suited to some encounters than others. And for those of us character-design purists who think of talents as inherent traits of our characters, things that can't simply be swapped around like gear, that can be a significant annoyance. But the truth of the matter is that the talents have been designed for easy switching, and the devs see them as being used that way; one of the goals of the new design was that people would interact with the talent system on a regular basis.

That's not a design failure, it's a design goal that unfortunately happens to be incompatible with the way some of us prefer to play the game. If, like me, you refuse to play the game that way, you'll need to pick the one you want to stick with, and do your best.

Were Balanced Around Using Them
Or, to put it more completely, the argument usually goes something like: "We're balanced around maintaining near-perfect uptime, so all we get for performing these extra tasks is the same damage everyone else is already doing without the hassle."

There are a couple of things wrong with this, the first of which is: even if true, that's how specs are built. You're gradually given additional abilities, and you need to use those abilities with a reasonable degree of competence in order to produce your expected damage. And I very much doubt that if you stack up the number of abilities that we need to use in our DPS process, including the L90 talents, against those of other classes, that you'd find the Mage specs to be an outlier with excessive buttons to push.

But more signifcantly, the statement isn't actually true. Oh, certainly, if you're only looking at sustained DPS, these abilities allow you to produce your expected sustained DPS and very little more than that. But as we all know, sustained DPS is not the only kind of damage that matters. Bosses have vulnerability phases, adds spawn that need to be burned down quickly, and so forth. This is why we value burst damage, and burst damage is exactly what these abilities provide us.

Incanter's Ward is pretty obvious: it provides a continuous passive buff, and then has a trinket-like active buff on a very short cooldown with a short duration. This is easily recognizable as a DPS cooldown; just like a trinket you pop it whenever you can, but if a burst damage window is coming up, you might delay using the cooldown to ensure that it's available for the entire burst window.

Now this is what many people are having difficulty with: Invocation and Rune of Power are also burst cooldowns. It's not easy to recognize them as such, because they have been turned on their heads: they are up more than they are down, and your timing decisions are more about when they are down, as opposed to a trinket or Incanter's Ward, where such decisions are about when they are up. But as I'm going to illustrate with some simple numbers, burst cooldowns is exactly what they are.

Uptime
Assuming you have 20% haste, your cast time on Evocation is 5 seconds (6 / 1.2 = 5). Perfect uptime would therefore involve evocating for 5 seconds, dealing damage for 40 seconds, and then repeating the cycle, resulting in an uptime percentage of 40 / 45 = 88.89%.

Now, the devs are not stupid or sadistic. Their description in beta of how these talents were balanced was as follows:

Are Mages going to be balanced under the assumption that they have perfect 100% uptime of their level 90 talents? No. Are they going to be balanced under the assumption that they take one of them and use it reasonably well? Yes.

Some people have argued that it's still going to be near 100%, because any clod can watch a timer and know that it's time to Evocate. But it isn't just about being smart enough to use the abilities, it's also about how practical it is to use them under various situations. The devs are fully aware that there are encounters that will reduce the amount of time you can spend standing in one place, or may randomly interrupt a channel. They don't ignore things like this while they design abilities; they account for them when deciding how much uptime qualifies as using the ability "reasonably well." We don't know what that value is — and indeed, there probably isn't a hard and fast value, since there are so many variables.

I'm going to assume for the sake of this discussion that they expect an Invocation Mage to be able to use the ability to 80% of its potential maximum. If you feel that's unreasonable, you can follow along with my math here and revise it using your own assumptions.

At optimal usage, as I said above, Invocation uptime is 88.89%. This means you're spending 88.89% of the time dealing 125% damage, and 11.11% of the time doing no damage at all. Your average damage is therefore:

125 * 0.8889 = 111.1125% of the damage you do without the buff

So effectively, the talent is increasing your damage by 11.1125%. If you're using it at 80% of its potential, you're seeing an increase of:

11.1125 * 0.8 = 8.89%

Now I'm going to do Rune of Power a little differently. Let's assume Blizzard wants the two talents to produce a similar sustained benefit. How do we get an 8.89% DPS increase (or close to it) out of Rune of Power? Well, first, let's assume you need to use two runes, so you're casting the spell about twice per minute. With 20% haste, it has a cast time of 1.25 seconds, so perfect two-rune uptime would be:

58.75 / 61.25 = 95.92%

So you're spending 95.92% of your time doing 115% damage, and 4.08% of your time doing no damage at all. Average damage is therefore:

115 * 0.9592 = 110.308% of the damage you do without the buff

And you therefore need to use Rune of Power to:

8.89 / 10.308 = 86.24% of its potential

Sustained DPS and Reward for Optimal Play
So let's pretend you're in Tier 14 Normal gear, and balanced DPS is in the neighborhood of 85,000 DPS. Here's what we get from those uptime assumptions:

Invocation Rune of Power
Not using the talent 78,060 DPS (91.84%) 78,060 DPS (91.84%)
Expected uptime 85,000 DPS (100.00%) 85,000 DPS (100.00%)
Perfect uptime 86,735 DPS (102.04%) 86,107 DPS (101.30%)

So far, it looks pretty much like the complaint says, doesn't it? You need to use the talents pretty well just to do your expected level of sustained DPS, and using them perfectly only lets you squeeze out a very small bit extra. So what's my problem with the argument?

Sustained DPS vs Burst Windows
Here's the basic thing people are missing: by focusing on sustained numbers, they're ignoring the fact that while the buff is active, your damage is significantly higher than the sustained average at which you're balanced.

To illustrate, I'm going to add a row to that table:

Invocation Rune of Power
Not using the talent 78,060 DPS (91.84%) 78,060 DPS (91.84%)
Expected uptime 85,000 DPS (100.00%) 85,000 DPS (100.00%)
Perfect uptime 86,735 DPS (102.04%) 86,107 DPS (101.30%)
While buff is up 97,575 DPS (114.79%) 89,769 DPS (105.61%)

By way of comparison, a Mage with Incanter's Ward would be doing 82,744 DPS (97.35%) while running on the passive buff alone, but 101,478 DPS (119.39%) for the duration of her active buff. After using the active buff, there would be ten seconds of dealing only 78,060 DPS (91.84%) until the passive buff kicked back in.

So as you see, while your average, sustained DPS is balanced just as any other class's at 85,000, at any given moment when you are actually dealing damage, you are putting out significantly more than that average sustained value.

Now I want you to think about what you do when you're approaching a burst window. Just like any other non-Mage class, you're preparing to use your trinkets, you're getting ready to use your DPS cooldowns (Arcane Power or Icy Veins, maybe if you're Fire you're holding on to your next Combustion). And then when the burst window starts, you cut loose with that stuff.

With these talents, you're doing something else as well: you're making sure they're going to be up for the whole window. If you're approaching a 15-second burst window, and you have 10 seconds left on your Invocation buff or a Rune you may need is about to fade, you're going to refresh those buffs early. This costs you a bit of sustained DPS, but burst windows tend to be more important, so it's worth the trade-off. You do exactly the same thing with trinkets and Icy Veins, trading sustained DPS by activating them late so you can use them for burst.

And then, when you hit that burst window, you're not starting at 100% of your sustained DPS like other classes are. Before you even activate those trinkets or cast your cooldowns, you're hitting the burst window with 114.79% or 105.61% of your sustained DPS.

What the developers have effectively done with these talents is given Mages higher damage, without giving us higher DPS. This is useful, because there are times (such as burst windows) when short-term damage is more important than long-term DPS.

Another Way to Look At It
Some people had trouble seeing how this works; they see DPS, and their heads automatically go to sustained numbers. From their perspective, this doesn't qualify as burst because when you're not refreshing the buffs, it's the damage you're always doing. Some, I think, found it helpful to look at it not in terms of DPS, but it terms of actual spell damage.

So imagine for a moment that you play an incredibly simplified version of the Mage that casts a single spell. This spell deals an average of 156,120 damage without any of the Level 90 talents, and it takes two seconds to cast, so you deal 78,060 DPS.

Now, if you think of the level 90 talents purely in terms of sustained DPS, you might prefer that they were simply removed, and replaced with a passive 8.89% increase to damage. This would increase the damage of your spells to 169,999, and you would be dealing 85,000 DPS — the same sustained DPS as the talents currently give you, but without the extra hassle, right?

But let's look at what happens to a 20-second burst damage window with those three options:

Buff Damage per Spell Total Damage
None 156,120 1,561,200
Passive Buff (+8.89%) 169,999 1,699,990
Invocation (+25%) 195,150 1,951,500
Rune of Power (+15%) 179,538 1,795,380

As you can see, while all three designs produce the same sustained damage of 85,000, our L90 talents produce significantly superior results in a burst window. These gains will be amplified if there are raid effects or other buffs that further increase damage in the burst window, since the higher multipliers will apply to all such increases.

Conclusion
It may be difficult to see an always-on buff as a burst damage increase, but as you can see, that's what they are — strange, inverted burst cooldowns. Just like any other cooldown, we plan for windows of time when we need them, and adjust our usage times accordingly, sometimes sacrificing a bit of long-term sustained DPS in exchange for increased short-term burst. But unlike any other cooldown, we do so not by delaying usage after an item comes off cooldown, but by sometimes needing to refresh a buff early to ensure that its duration is sufficient to be up when we need it. The end result — higher per-cast damage in those windows when that matters more than sustained DPS — is the same.

While I realize this is not the case for everyone, and I respect the fact that some people simply have different tastes, I think there are some people who dislike these talents because there is no actual gain from using them, just an added chore that permits you to perform up to par. I hope this explanation has cleared up that misconception, and if so, that it helps more people find enjoyment in these talents.

cymraeg
Thread Killer
Premium Member
join:2011-06-07
Dodge, NE

cymraeg

Premium Member

tl:dr

Invocation is better, if you are unable to keep track of a buff then go the passive route and make sure you stand in the fire.

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain to cigtyme

Member

to cigtyme
With perfect usage, Invocation wins...The average Mage will more than likely notice higher average DPS with Incanter's Ward because of the passive damage increase, but if it's used on cooldown there will be times that it won't be available when you know the bubble will be popped and you'll receive the maximum damage buff from it.

Rune of Power is a little different, since it doubles your mana regen and 1% max health per second when glyphed...Its 15% damage increase is obviously inferior to the other two level 90 talents, but the mana regeneration it provides Arcane Mages is invaluable. And the 1% heal (~4k hps) isn't anything to scoff at either.

And here's the link to the blog I quoted earlier since I forgot to post it originally. »lhiveras-library.com/con ··· -talents

gangral
join:2009-04-20
Jefferson, GA

gangral to cigtyme

Member

to cigtyme
Can you post your macro?
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

/cast Fireball
/cast Incanter's Ward

Wow Cymer calling me out, McBrain saying i am average. My DPS doesn't think so.

Innvocation-4sec or less channel time. Has to be timed right.
RuneofPower-2 runes on ground have to stand in pixels. If Bad is on ground recast.
Incanter's-No crap to worry about macroed behind my fireball.

Instead of poo-pooing it try it out.
4 people in here have seen my dammage, ask them.
cymraeg
Thread Killer
Premium Member
join:2011-06-07
Dodge, NE

cymraeg

Premium Member

not calling you personally out, but the math and real world evidence is overwhelming to Invocation
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

I used invocation, maybe i am a tard, or baddie, just do not get the dammage out of it that i got using Incanters. Sorry cannot convince me otherwise. I was smoking other mages all weekend. Ask Jobbie, Tul, or Dark about my dammage?? They were there. Saw it.

Results>Math
cymraeg
Thread Killer
Premium Member
join:2011-06-07
Dodge, NE

cymraeg

Premium Member

do you have a WoL of it
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

Nope. I had world of Jobbie, Tuldarin, Darklogix, and me in there.

Jobbie
Keep It Simple
Premium Member
join:2010-08-24
Mexico

Jobbie

Premium Member

Whatever cigtyme is doing, works, he was top damage by quite a bit on all encounters on 2 LFR runs (6 bosses on HoF)

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain to cigtyme

Member

to cigtyme
Cig, the math is there that proves Invocation is the best talent if played properly. Incanter's Ward is definitely not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but using it on cooldown seriously gimps its effectiveness, esppecially on fights where incoming raid damage is not constant but still predictable. There are fights where I use each talent. Stone Guard and Garalon are examples of fights I use IW on, while I prefer to use Invocation on most others.

And I definitely didn't call you average specifically. I merely said that the average Mage using IW would notice a higher DPS gain from it because of its passive 6% damage increase. Meaning that if you don't even use the talent once, you'll get 6% more damage. But reapplying the shield the moment it's off cooldown is not only setting you up to miss out on having it there to burst at an opportune time because it's on cooldown, but drastically decreasing uptime of the 6% passive damage buff and 65% increase to mana regeneration.

I'm not a developer or even a Mage guru, but I can guarantee that you'll get more return from using Incanter's Ward if you use it only when it will be burst than keeping it on cooldown and basically negating the passive damage and mana regeneration bonuses.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to Jobbie

Premium Member

to Jobbie
Admittedly I could have upped mine on LFR#3/4 if I had AOE'ed more, and more multi-doting (that fight I should use LB instead of NT)

but that was LFR and I didn't use any pots or flasks or crystals.

Jobbie
Keep It Simple
Premium Member
join:2010-08-24
Mexico

Jobbie

Premium Member

Your damage was really high as well.
cymraeg
Thread Killer
Premium Member
join:2011-06-07
Dodge, NE

cymraeg to DarkLogix

Premium Member

to DarkLogix
keep in mind we are talking magi here, it isnt hard to put out good numbers with one, but i will stick with Invo, cig can stick with IW and we will both play and a good time will be had by all.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix to Jobbie

Premium Member

to Jobbie
And now from LFR#2 I have a epic head now, currently I have a cata meta in it (blew lots of gold on cooking mats.

I have more than 3 stacks of 275 feasts now (IE the panda one not just the pot one) and almost 2 stacks of 300int food.

Lothario
join:2009-09-30
Ottawa, ON

Lothario

Member

Metal's cheap on mal'ganis
.....

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

Sorry but I'm ally.
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme to DarkLogix

Member

to DarkLogix
Yeah i had a bad weekend and was looking for a fight to pick, Sorry Cym and McBrain. My dammage has gone up signifigantly since the switch. I do as well change them. I just see too much of a gain on IW to switch.

Dark said EPIC HEAD.

Dark i will catch your meta when i get on.

114k was just so nice to see for a 10 minute fight.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

Ya it was.

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain to Jobbie

Member

to Jobbie
Click for full size
Here is a chart displaying expected gains from Invocation and Rune of Power in different situations.

The DPS gain from the average Mage's assumed 80% uptime of Invocation is 8.89% (100% uptime is 11.1125%). To receive the same 8.89% damage increase from RoP, you'd have to have 86% uptime, and ~96% uptime for the ~11% increase. The third chart displays potential damage over a 20 second burst window assuming the full buff from RoP or Invocation are present vs a passive 8.89% damage increase.

Here is Lhivera's math on Incanter's Ward:

By way of comparison, a Mage with Incanter's Ward would be doing 82,744 DPS (97.35%) while running on the passive buff alone, but 101,478 DPS (119.39%) for the duration of her active buff. After using the active buff, there would be ten seconds of dealing only 78,060 DPS (91.84%) until the passive buff kicked back in.

Assuming you keep IW on cooldown AND the shield bursts instantly from enough damage every time to give you the 30% damage bonus, you'll receive an average bonus of 12.37% during a cycle of Incanter's Ward (26.25 seconds -- 1.25s GCD + 25s spell cool down). Since you'll be doing 130% damage for 57.14% of the cycle, unbuffed damage for 38.09% of the cycle, and 4.76% doing 0 damage because you're casting the shield itself. This is the theorectical maximum potential of Incanter's Ward with 100% uptime.

The math gets too sketchy for me to comfortably go any further than this with Incanter's Ward. Throwing in the 6% from the passive buff is turning out to be a bit much for the mind of this simpleton at the moment.

As you can see from the numbers the chart displays, as well as the math I did on Incanter's Ward, in a perfect scenario in a perfect world Incanter's Ward is, in fact, the best Mage L90 spell.

IW = 12.37% overall damage increase

Invocate = 11.1125% overall damage increase

RoP = 10.308% overall damage increase

But...as we all know, it's absolutely impossible to have that 57.14% uptime of the 30% damage buff from IW. Not only would it assume you refresh the spell instantly and have the shield burst for the required damage to give you the 30%, but this would have to happen instantly...every time. So, let's assume that you receive the 30% buff roughly 80% of the potential time mentioned above and add in the 6% for the other 20%...you'd end up with something more like a 10.08% increase in overall damage.

I'm not sure at all if 45.7% uptime on the 30% buff (12s per cycle) and 20% uptime of the 6% buff (5s per cycle) are reasonable estimates...If anything I would assume that the 30% number would be lower and the 6% number would be higher in reality.

I guess in conclusion what I'm trying to say is that you'll be damn lucky to get an overall damage gain of 10% from Incanter's Ward if you use it on cool down, every time.
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

But at the same time doesn't missing a Evocation, or not standing in a rune of power, = I guess in conclusion what I'm trying to say is that you'll be damn lucky to get an overall damage gain of 10% from Incanter's Ward if you use it on cool down, every time.

So when done perfectly:
IW = 12.37% overall damage increase

Invocate = 11.1125% overall damage increase

RoP = 10.308% overall damage increase

The Defense Rest your honor.

DarkLogix
Texan and Proud
Premium Member
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX

DarkLogix

Premium Member

Also IW gives you a 22k bubble, so more shielding from damage that your healer doesn't have to heal, even if its only worth one tick of their HoT's

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain to cigtyme

Member

to cigtyme
You missed this part, Cig:

it's absolutely impossible to have that 57.14% uptime of the 30% damage buff from IW. Not only would it assume you refresh the spell instantly and have the shield burst for the required damage to give you the 30%, but this would have to happen instantly...every time.

Let me repeat myself, the theoretical maximum damage bonus from Incanter's Ward (12.37%) IS IMPOSSIBLE to achieve. THE NUMBER MORE LIKELY TO REPRESENT USING THE SPELL IMMEDIATELY ON CD IS LESS THAN 10%.

Give me math or show me logs proving otherwise and then we can talk.

And Dark, you're kidding me about the 22k shield as a selling point, right?

The fact is if you use the spell on CD you're not using it to its potential and its return is worse than the other options.
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

Whatever McMath,
I need to add this math person to my raid team.
Whatever is not "Achievable"

Well if it is impossible then the math is wrong.
How is it the damn "maximum" if it cannot be achieved?
The math is flawed if it shows a number in which could never happen.

You show only the negatives for IW, not once did anyone mention an evocation that is interrupted, or a RoP clogged with dammage dealing ground affects+recast time+movement.
Math is for sheeople cookie cutter types. Performance>Math.

"The fact is if you use the spell on CD you're not using it to its potential and its return is worse than the other options."

The fact is you really don't know what i am doing, so preach on about something being wrong, with this math person as your back. My recount backs me up.

McBrain
BRB Face Melting
join:2010-05-06
Marietta, GA

McBrain

Member

Cig, maybe you're too angry to read properly, but I clearly stated above that Invocation's assumed uptime for the average player is 80%...with that 80% uptime you'll receive an 8.89% overall increase in damage. I even took it further and said to equal that 8.89% damage increase with Rune of Power, you'd need an uptime of 86%. And I described the 12.37% damage increase from Incanter's Ward as the "theoretical" maximum...that means it's the most you can get in theory, not necessarily in practice...kind of like this, theoretically speaking the minimum amount of pitches a pitcher can throw in a 9 inning baseball game is 27...comprende?

And the math person you need in your raid is Lhivera...Blizzard has named an NPC after her, so she's probably more credible than your anecdotal statements of your recount backing you up.

I'm sorry if you can't see that your current use of Incanter's Ward leaves you with roughly twice the time of ZERO damage buff than you have with the 6% buff. I don't get why you can't see that this is limiting the spell's potential. No one is calling you a bad because how you use Incanter's Ward, just pointing out how you can improve your use of the spell. And since you can't seem to take mathmatically supported constructive criticism without turning into a big ol' Cajun baby, I'll keep my advice and math to myself.

And FWIW, I beat the piss out of the meters in LFR as Arcane...using Rune of Power.
cigtyme
Coonass and Proud of it
join:2010-08-17
Houma, LA

cigtyme

Member

Sorry if i am abrasive, if you took offense, for that i apologize. I only played a Mage, This xpac they made it possible to pick and choose things you enjoy. Math is for min/maxers, that is cookie cutter-sheeople BS to me. Performance and meters is what i see. BTW a pitcher can throw 27 pitches, so that math works to me.
cigtyme

cigtyme

Member

Sorry to all i snapped at yesterday. I was channeling my inner Cajun(Bourdreux). I realize Math plays a signifigant role in which one to use on certain fights. I would be a fool to think not to switch out talents depending on fight mechanics. What i should of said is, while doing LFR, Heroics, or dailies, i use IW cause it doesn't matter. While raiding i choose whichever one of the three meshes with my playstyle+encounter mechanics. I was in an anger cloud for 3 days and just came up for air. I am too educated to be a pompus ass about it stating one is superior to the other three. Mages or in a good place with choices in my opinion. I can choose any of the three specs, and almost choose different abilities, and be at the top of the charts.

Instead of me arguing so visciously about IW, it should of been for other mages to look at our discussion to understand, or contribute to the conversation. All three of us were being brick walls by not giving in to reason. Yes RoP will produce more Derps on certain fights, as well as Invocation will blow more shit up, and IW will shine in other situations.

So in closing i will say i was wrong, due to ignorance of having to be right.
cymraeg
Thread Killer
Premium Member
join:2011-06-07
Dodge, NE

cymraeg

Premium Member

you werent wrong, playstyle and skill have a lot to do with actual numbers, my arguement comes from math and the empirical evidence shown in WoL, now if you look at Wind Lord fight there isnt a mage anywhere near good numbers, so if you are wrecking it i would like you to seriously use WoL so we can marvel in the mage awesomeness