The true impact of impact.

Impact is great for solo play or PvP but for a group invironment they are a hassle. Also once you raid many mobs are immune to stun anyways so ...

-Tinkelywink

I want to expand on this a little. Impact, as with any other random stun proc (mace spec, startfire) does no have a place in your spec if you wish to group alot. Stuns are something that should be planned in a group, not left up to chance. A poor timed stun will actually wipe the raid instead of save anyone. yes there will be times when you save the tank with a stun, but not often enough to be counted on.

Why? If you stun a mob, that mob is no longer attacking the tank. Tanks need to be attacked! Paladins build threat by blocking with their shield and the mob taking damage when they get hit. Druids & Warriors get rage built up when they get hit which they turn into threat. So, a poor placed stun at the begining of the fight will take the tank out of the fight as he will have a harder time regaining threat while not being hit.


Note: I love impact for solo play or non traditional (no tank) groups Continue reading 'The true impact of impact.'

Tinkelywink, I need your advice!

Tinkelywink,

I've been a frost mage for a while now. With the addition of iceblock as a trainable skill I no longer feel it is nessisary to be frost spec. I wish to try fire out. How do you feel about a 10/40/11 spec? Thanks!

-Name with held as I don't have permission and it isn't an exact quote-

-First I'm not a raiding mage, I'm a raiding warlock/druid and a level 18 mage. So this is all theory and has no testing on my part-

OK lets look at the situation it's obvious that you want to go with 10 in arcane for clearcasting, and 11 in frost for icy veins. But what do you give up?

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The 40 points you spend should be as follows in this link 00/40/00

What does that leave you missing out on.

3 yards shorter range on all your fire spells spells.
20% mana return instead of 30% when you score a critical
20% less damage 20% of the time
Pyroblast/Blastwave/Dragon's breath

What do you gain?
Either
10% of your spells are free
or
20% faster spells for 20 seconds every 3 min for 3% of your base mana

What does this translate to?
Clearcasting
10% of your spells cause the next one to be free.
So effectivly 10% less mana spent
Master of elments
Lets assume you currently have 20% crit
that means that 20% of your spells return 20% of your mana
This effectivly means that 4% of your spells are free 2% more if you max out master of elements.

So Clearcasting here nets you 8% more mana then if you were to go with Master of elements (if you go 4 points in CC and max out master of elements it will have the same effect, but will probably overlap each other better)

Icy veins:
20 seconds every 180 or 11% of the time you can keep this active for an extra 25% damage. (20% faster means that in the time you casted 4 spells you could now cast 5
which is 125%)
11%of20% is 2.2% more damage.
VS
Molten Fury
20% damage when the target is at 20% or less health, mathamaticly they should be at 20% or less 20% of the time. 20% of 20% is 4% more damage.

There is also the idea here that Icy veins is a spell with a cooldown you have to keep track of and costs you extra mana. I dont favor Icy Veins much again just theory on my part.

What else do you gain?
Improved cooldown on frost nova, a single pull shouldnt last even the improved cool down. Frostbolt improved or perma frost- you should rarely use frost bolt so /shrug. It really is 8 points for 2.2% more damage.

I would still suggest the tried and true 10/47/3 with a point to spend
Continue reading 'Tinkelywink, I need your advice!'

Fireball VS Scorch

Lets break down what we want to use as our main nuke.

Improved fireball as the only talent, no Damage bonus,

Fireball
3.0 seconds 633-805 425 mana
Scorch
1.5 seconds 305-361 180 mana
2 scorches
3.0 seconds 610-722 360 mana

Average
Fireball 719 damage for 425 mana 1.69 DPM
Scorches 666 damage for 360 mana 1.85 DPM

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Now add in talents
Empowered Fireball- Adds 15% more damage bonus
Improved Scorch- Adds 15% extra fire debuff
Incineration- 4% extra crit

Lets assume 600 damage bonus at 70 and 20% crit (numbers pulled out of thin air)
1 Fireball 719+690 = 1409 (damage above+ damage bonus gained, 115%)
2 scorch 333+257= 590 + 608 (damage from second hit which would have the 3% debuff) 1198

For adding in the crits we multiply 1.half the crit value (spells only get half again extra damage.
1409 X 1.10 = 1550 for 425 mana 3.65 DPM
1198 X 1.12 = 1342 for 360 mana 3.72 DPM

Now lets see how it stacks up over time 20 seconds

Fireball
3 seconds 1550 425 mana
6 seconds 3100 850 mana
9 seconds 4650 1270 mana
12 seconds 6200 1700 mana
15 seconds 7750 2125 mana
18 seconds 9300 2550 mana 3.65 DPM

Scorch
1.5 sec 661 180 mana
3.0 sec 1342 360 mana
4.5 sec 2043 540 mana
6.0 sec 2763 720 mana
7.5 sec 3503 900 mana
9.0 sec 4263 1080 mana
10.5 sec 5023 1260 mana
12.0 sec 5783 1440 mana
13.5 sec 6543 1620 mana
15.0 sec 7303 1800 mana
16.5 sec 8063 1980 mana
18.0 sec 8523 2160 mana
19.5 sec 8983 2340 mana 3.84 DPM

Looking at this ever 1.5 seconds the dps goes back and forth until the 19 second mark at which point Fireball spam wins. under 18 seconds scorch works better if you are to spam one spell due to better mana efficiency and the fact that you aren't as likely to overkill as much. This all assumes 600 damage bonus and all talents are taken.

Anything past 20 seconds you are a fool to do anything other then scorch for the debuff then follow with fireball spam.

Now lets apply this to leveling as that what this blog is mainly about


Before level 45 you wont have access to empowered fireball. So, that will take out 15% of the damage so after 18 seconds you are now at 8086 damage without those talents. Lets see the numbers as we level Damage bonus is 5 per level sound fair?

@22 (110damage)

Fireball 4
210 per 3 sec
VS
Scorch 1
238 per 3 sec (over 15 sec)

@24 (120)
Fireball 5
283
Scorch 1
249

@28 (140)
FB 5
303
S 2
327


We see that the most recently acquired spell edges out the other one slightly. But Scorch keeps the better mana efficiency all the way though. Also these numbers favor fireball slightly due to the spell damage being on the high end. Once I hit 22 and gain access I will re spec out of improved fireball to get impact and will use scorch as my primary spam until after 40 when I can get empowered fireball. This will also save on the overkill that I see using fireball at the moment. Faster spells & better mana efficiency = less downtime = more killing = faster leveling.

Continue reading 'Fireball VS Scorch'

Tinkelywink!

Tinkelywink has been my bank alt for longer then my main characters have been around. I finally decided to dust him off and start leveling him. I'm writing this blog to record my progress as I level him and my thoughts about the mage class in general. Now, Ive got many characters higher level then Tinkelywink and even have a mage thats higher level (37 I think). But, this is my gnome mage, the race I feel embraces the mage to the fullest. Also the same race as my wife's mage more on that later.

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We start this story off at level 12. It has been a long time since Tink has seen his starting area so how he got there is forgotten history. It's not to hard though, pick a target /cast fireball till it's dead, pick another target and keep going. At 10 came the big choice to go fire or frost. Arcane isn't even an option till way later in the game, arcane spells cost too much and dont have the same bang that fire/frost does. If I were to go arcane it would be to max out clearcasting and then go one of the other trees. But I decided to go down a main tree and finish off with clearcasting in my later levels. Now to the choice: The way I see it Fire= speed, Frost= Control. I want to kill fast at this point so I opted for Fire.

Where to go? Ive done the human land quests at least a dozen times. Ive only done the Draenei lands once or twice and never solo. Lets give that a try. It helps that Im already in Exodar as it has the closest AH/Mailbox ratio. Off to town I go. The quests in Draenei lands are simple fast and to the point. The area is also very compact, not alot of running around compaired to westfall. Leveling is fast here, after one night of leveling Im at 18.

Strat: Currently my basic set up is lead with frostbolt for the snare, cast firebolt till it's close enough to root, cast fireblast as I back away then frost nova, back away some more and fireball 'til dead. It doesnt always work perfect, but it often does. you have to do some improvisation at times, I think I would go nuts if this wasnt the case.

Current talents:
5/5 Imp Fireball
2/5 Impact (the stun is helpful gives you a free cast of fireball, time wise)
2/2 Flame Reach

Current goals:
20 for teleports: so much easier to make trades with this spell, and he is still my main source of money.
36 Catch up to my wife's mage

Now the question: to Twink or not to twink. Giving this character a pair of pants with a spell thread imbued into them would help him tremendously. But if Im writing this as a guide others may not have access to it and may not be able to do the same things I did. Also I am supposed to be saving up for Epic Flight on my main so maybe not the best choice right now. What do you think?
Continue reading 'Tinkelywink!'