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Funny story.
I finally finish the last of my homework, a 3rd-grader level worksheet for French (we're working on the subjunctive tense). I cast it aside, and sit down to do what I've been meaning to do since before The Greatest Mage Post Ever was owned by the MageSock instead of Filterspawn.
I log onto the PTR onto my copied mage, spec him to 20/41/0 (taking talents like Magic Absorption and Improved Mana Shield, and leaving out talents like Improved Fireball and Improved Scorch), and run RFC.
I run RFC again and again and again and again. Why?
Because I don't want the only source of AoE Damage Cap testing to be the Saturday Morning PTR AoE Damage Cap Testing post on the O-Boards, as great a post as that was. Seriously, it's the only thing WoWWiki uses. Elitist Jerks has it listed, but it's copied from that same post.
So, yeah. I'm running through Earthborers and Molten Elementals and Ragefire Troggs and Ragefire Shamans with Blazing Speed always active, Mana Shield always active, Ice Armor on. I semi-spam Arcane Explosion (Rank 1) with about 500~ spell damage on my gear, and barrel down, take a VERY sharp right and go in the opposite direction, pass by Oggleflint's nook, and jump down to the stone ground with more troggs. Everyone else who was following have to turn around and run through the lava to get to me, and it makes me wonder,
"Why don't mobs take environmental damage?"
But anyway, all of them come to me. There must be like only 5-6 untouched troggs left, and then, I set up. I had already fixed up my new Combat Log window so that it only showed specifically:
-Actions Done By Me.
-Spells [Started casting, Failures]
I think those were the only things.
Remember, if you're going to try to edit the combatlog filters, make sure that after you've selected what you wanted and then press Okay, CLICK THE FILTER'S NAME AT THE TOP TO REFRESH IT WITH THE NEW FILTERS.
I use Frost Nova (Rank 5) and freeze most of them (the Ragefire Shamans are casting their lightning bolts and are out of range, but I'm resisting almost all of them and gaining 5% of my mana back for each one, to keep my Mana Shield limitless). I use Blastwave, Dragon's Breath, and am careful not to spam more than one Arcane Explosion (Rank 8) at a time so that I can tell the difference between the first AE and the second.
I kill them all, and I scroll up through my combat log. I see where the Frost Nova starts, I count how many events had them being hit with a Frost Nova, and multiply it by the lowest damage number there (if I have some that hit 231 and some that hit 230, I go with 230). Then, I do the same with Blast Wave. Then, I do the same with Dragon's Breath. I must pay attention to if the range of damage is too broad-- if so, it's obvious I didn't hit the cap. There were several occasions where I DID NOT HIT THE CAP WITH ARCANE EXPLOSION EVEN THOUGH IT LOOKED LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE. THIS IS GOOD NEWS.
So, I grab a piece of paper, and start writing down my multiplication products. Here is how it goes.
NEW 2.4 PTR Arcane Explosion (Rank 8):
Result 1: 10150
Result 2: 10188
Result 3: 10176
Result 4: 10176
Conclusion: Arcane Explosion (Rank 8) has a Damage Cap of around 10173.
Blizzard (Rank 7) [WARNING-- I'm not used to Blizzard. I wasn't sure if I got two ticks or one tick in my calculations. It just happens so fast. I'm sorry. This is NOT a very confident test, so DON'T TAKE THIS ONE FOR GRANTED.]:
Result 1: 3618 PER TICK.
Result 2: 3600 PER TICK.
Conclusion: Blizzard (Rank 7) has a Damage Cap of around 3609 per tick. That means it would be around 28872 damage for the total spell.
[WARNING AGAIN-- IT MIGHT BE ONLY HALF OF THAT.]
Dragon's Breath (Rank 4):
Result 1: 10101
Result 2: 10104
Result 3: 10108
Result 4: 10109
Conclusion: Dragon's Breath (Rank 4) has a Damage Cap of around 10106.
Flamestrike (Rank 7):
Result 1: 7800 DIRECT DAMAGE.
Result 2: 7790 DIRECT DAMAGE.
Conclusion: Flamestrike (Rank 7) has a Damage Cap of around 7795 DIRECT DAMAGE. I did not record the DoT damage, because I do not know if that counts as AoE Damage or individual damage (mass apllied), I do not know if that has a cap, if it is affected by spell damage, the DoT is an enigma to me. Lastly, I did not try to record it because my Combat Log window was disabled to recording Periodic Damage, and I was too lazy to change it. ;P
Blast Wave (Rank 7):
Result 1: 9435
Result 2: 9424
Result 3: 9430
Conclusion: Blast Wave (Rank 7) has a damage cap of around 9430.
Frost Nova (Rank 5):
Result 1: 1575
Result 2: 1581
Result 3: 1596
Result 4: 1584
Result 5: 1599
Conclusion: Frost Nova (Rank 5) has a damage cap of around 1587. Because it matters.
Frost Nova (Rank 1):
Result 1: 235
Result 2: 231
Conclusion: Frost Nova (Rank 1) has a damage cap of around 233. I used it, I thought, "Why not include it?"
Cone of Cold (Rank 6):
I almost forgot about this spell. I realized it just before I was going to bed. So, only one time I used it. I'll be doing more testing later for other ranks, and more for these same ranks because more testing means more correct.
Result Only: 6500
Conclusion: Cone of Cold (Rank 6) has a damage cap of around 6500.
So, you wondering what was the "funny story"?
The paper I grabbed and wrote all over, I realized afterwards, was my completed French homework.
Edited, Sep 21st 2008 5:41pm by Raglu
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AoE Damage CapsFollow
Great post, now which one gives the highest DPM?
Assuming 3 points in Pyromaniac and 3 points in Elemental Precision, each fire spell's cost should be 94% of the default. Assuming 3 points in Frost Channeling and 3 points in Elemental Precision, each frost spell's cost should be 82% of the default. Arcane Explosion receives no mana reduction.
Arcane Explosion is 545 mana.
Blast Wave is 620 x .94 = 583 mana.
Dragon's Breath is 700 x .94 = 658 mana.
Flamestrike is 1175 x .94 = 1105 mana.
Blizzard is 1645 x .82 = 1349 mana.
Cone of Cold is 645 x .82 = 529 mana.
Frost Nova is 185 x .82 = 158 mana.
AE: 10173/545 = 18.666 DPM
BW: 9430/583 = 16.175 DPM
DB: 10106/658 = 15.359 DPM
FS: 7795/1105 = 7.054 DPM*
BZ: 28872/1349 = 21.403 DPM**
CoC: 6500/529 = 12.287 DPM
FN: 1587/158 = 10.044 DPM
*Flamestrike calculations here do NOT take into account the DoT. The DoT recieves near 11% of spell damage, and may or may not be Area-Capped. Furthermore, the DoT damage is really high in relation to the direct damage.
**Blizzard calculations here may be drastically wrong.
Now, realistically, as the standard raid build is 2/48/11, mages probably don't have Frost Channeling. That makes the frost spells only 97% of their listed mana costs.
BZ: 28872/(1645 x .97) = 18.094 DPM (LOWER THAN ARCANE EXPLOSION)
CoC: 6500/(645 x .97) = 10.389 DPM
FN: 1587/(185 x .97) = 8.844 DPM
The last thing to take into account is CRIT CHANCE.
Critical Hits do things for a 2/48/11 mage:
Crit Damage does NOT count towards the damage cap, and neither does Ignite damage.
With 3/3 Master of Elements, a SINGLE enemy being critted by the AoE spell leads to a 30% mana return on the spell cost.
Blizzard cannot crit.
With the spec, fire spells have a 9% higher chance to crit. Flamestrike can go 15% crit higher than listed.
However, we must remember, Arcane Explosion causes 60% threat. Fire AoE spells will cause 90% threat.
Arcane Explosion is 545 mana.
Blast Wave is 620 x .94 = 583 mana.
Dragon's Breath is 700 x .94 = 658 mana.
Flamestrike is 1175 x .94 = 1105 mana.
Blizzard is 1645 x .82 = 1349 mana.
Cone of Cold is 645 x .82 = 529 mana.
Frost Nova is 185 x .82 = 158 mana.
AE: 10173/545 = 18.666 DPM
BW: 9430/583 = 16.175 DPM
DB: 10106/658 = 15.359 DPM
FS: 7795/1105 = 7.054 DPM*
BZ: 28872/1349 = 21.403 DPM**
CoC: 6500/529 = 12.287 DPM
FN: 1587/158 = 10.044 DPM
*Flamestrike calculations here do NOT take into account the DoT. The DoT recieves near 11% of spell damage, and may or may not be Area-Capped. Furthermore, the DoT damage is really high in relation to the direct damage.
**Blizzard calculations here may be drastically wrong.
Now, realistically, as the standard raid build is 2/48/11, mages probably don't have Frost Channeling. That makes the frost spells only 97% of their listed mana costs.
BZ: 28872/(1645 x .97) = 18.094 DPM (LOWER THAN ARCANE EXPLOSION)
CoC: 6500/(645 x .97) = 10.389 DPM
FN: 1587/(185 x .97) = 8.844 DPM
The last thing to take into account is CRIT CHANCE.
Critical Hits do things for a 2/48/11 mage:
Crit Damage does NOT count towards the damage cap, and neither does Ignite damage.
With 3/3 Master of Elements, a SINGLE enemy being critted by the AoE spell leads to a 30% mana return on the spell cost.
Blizzard cannot crit.
With the spec, fire spells have a 9% higher chance to crit. Flamestrike can go 15% crit higher than listed.
However, we must remember, Arcane Explosion causes 60% threat. Fire AoE spells will cause 90% threat.
Raglu wrote:
Assuming 3 points in Pyromaniac and 3 points in Elemental Precision, each fire spell's cost should be 94% of the default. Assuming 3 points in Frost Channeling and 3 points in Elemental Precision, each frost spell's cost should be 82% of the default. Arcane Explosion receives no mana reduction.
I believe that that MoE will proc off of the AoE even if only one hit crits(which is almost every time). Which gives your average fire user a handy cost reduction.
For those of you who are curious what the pre-2.4 caps are, here's a post from the Oboards with a bit of testing on it back in July of last year.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=443123919&sid=1&pageNo=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=443123919&sid=1&pageNo=1
The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
I believe that that MoE will proc off of the AoE even if only one hit crits(which is almost every time). Which gives your average fire user a handy cost reduction.
I mentioned that on the post after Anobix's, but you're right, maybe I should have counted the mana cost of fire spells as (([Mana Cost] x .94) x .7) as it will almost always have at least one crit.
BW: 9430/408.1 = 23.107 DPM
DB: 10106/460.6 = 21.941 DPM
FS: 7795/773.5 = 10.776 DPM*
*Still a retarded calculation without DoT.
This is a huge difference in the DPM. Now, it's not fair to put MoE with the fire spells without putting it to Frost spells, which, though it's a lesser crit chance for the spec, can still have Cone of Cold and Frost Nova crit.
CoC: 6500/437.95 = 14.842 DPM
FN: 1587/125.62 = 12.633 DPM
With MoE and assuming that each AoE gets at least 1 crit, but NOT taking into account how many crits bring damage over the cap, the list ranks in DPM as such:
Blast Wave: 23.1 DPM
Dragon's Breath: 21.9 DPM
Arcane Explosion: 18.7 DPM
Cone of Cold: 13.8 DPM
Frost Nova: 12.6 DPM
Flamestrike is down at 10.8 DPM, but these calculations are surely skewed without DoT damage, higher crit chance, and cast/positioning/radius requirements.
Blizzard is up at 18.1 DPM, but these calculations may be off. Blizzard cannot crit itself past its damage cap, as well. It has even worse cast/positioning requirements than Flamestrike, has a nice Chill on trash mobs if you shift points to 2/45/14. Also, the damage cap I listed, I'm not very confident about.
Very interesting posts. That makes me glad that I know I am using DB + BW every chance I can (cooldowns) on the hyjal trash and that it really is doing the most dpm that it can be. The flamestrike dot could be worth it, but I don't think that it will be doing enough damage to put it past the other few. now the Blizzard one is interesting, I don't think that it will do as much dps (assuming around 10-15 mobs for a normal AoE pack in Hyjal) because in order to get the full amount for it you have to let it fully channel (which is 5 seconds?) and instead you could have done ~3 arcane explosions.
Now one thing that I have also wondered is how much +dmg actually affects AoE attacks, like is it even worth it to pop trinkets, or as far as I can tell, they are a complete waste because of the damage cap so you won't be doing any more damage per target.
Now one thing that I have also wondered is how much +dmg actually affects AoE attacks, like is it even worth it to pop trinkets, or as far as I can tell, they are a complete waste because of the damage cap so you won't be doing any more damage per target.
Anobix wrote:
(assuming around 10-15 mobs for a normal AoE pack in Hyjal)
Now one thing that I have also wondered is how much +dmg actually affects AoE attacks, like is it even worth it to pop trinkets, or as far as I can tell, they are a complete waste because of the damage cap so you won't be doing any more damage per target.
Now one thing that I have also wondered is how much +dmg actually affects AoE attacks, like is it even worth it to pop trinkets, or as far as I can tell, they are a complete waste because of the damage cap so you won't be doing any more damage per target.
Blizzard is 8 seconds of channeling. You could do 5 Arcane Explosions in that time and another .5 seconds left over. Remember that in 2.4, Spell Haste can lower GCD to a maximum of 1 second (but it will still probably be 5.333 Arcane Explosions because Blizzard's channeling time will reduce from Spell Haste as well).
Now, I will probably want to later test these out myself, because these all seem to be affected by hardcoding rather than the default (1.5/3.5)/2 for AoE coefficients, but at the time, I'll use WoWWiki's coefficients.
Arcane Explosion's Coefficient is 21.28%
Blast Wave's Coefficient is 13.57%
Dragon's Breath's Coefficient is 13.57%
Flamestrike's Direct Damage Coefficient is 17.61%
Blizzard's Coefficient is 76.19%
Cone of Cold's Coefficient is 13.57%
Frost Nova's Coefficient is 13.57%
I think I checked out your gear, Anobix, and you have 974 spell damage, if it was you? I'll round it to about 1000 spell damage for easy calculations.
Rank 8 AE does 377 - 407 listed damage, becoming 392 mean. Adding (1000 x .2128) to that brings average damage up to 604.8
Rank 7 BW does 616 - 724 listed damage, becoming 670 mean. Adding (1000 x .1357) to that brings average damage up to 805.7
Rank 4 DB does 680 - 790 listed damage, becoming 735 mean. Adding (1000 x .1357) to that brings the average damage up to 870.7
Rank 7 FS does 471 - 575 listed direct damage, becoming 523 mean. Adding (1000 x .1761) to that brings the average direct damage up to 699.1
Rank 7 BZ does 1472 listed damage. Adding (1000 x .7619) to that brings the damage up to 2233.9
Rank 6 CoC does 410 - 448 listed damage, becoming 429 mean. Adding (1000 x .1357) to that brings the average damage up to 564.7
Rank 5 FN does 99 - 111 listed damage, become 105 mean. Adding (1000 x .1357) to that brings the average damage up to 240.7
AE's cap at 10173 damage divided by 604.8 average damage per target (with 1000 spell damage) means that you need to hit 16.721 targets before more spell damage becomes ineffective.
BW: 9430/805.7 = 11.704 targets before more spell damage becomes ineffective.
DB: 10106/870.7 = 11.607 targets before more spell damage becomes ineffective.
FS: 7795/699.1 = 11.150 targets.
BZ: 28872/2233.9 = 12.924 targets.
CoC: 6500/564.7 = 11.511 targets.
FN: 1587/240.7 = 6.593 targets.
Note that the prior phrasing wasn't really proper. The number doesn't only constitute "where spell damage becomes ineffective" because as you add spell damage, that number goes down. It really just means, "how many targets you can hit without hitting the ceiling".
As such, with 1000 spell damage, you need a pull of 17 targets to hit the cap with AE. Since you say that an AoE pull in Hyjal is like 10-15 targets, feel free to activate the damage trinkets right before AoE spam. This makes AE a much stronger AoE than it was before at ~6800 damage cap. Take note it's DPM in comparison, though, as there's no help from MoE. Then go back and take note of its Threat generation superiority.
If there are less than 13 targets, you can trinket before Blast Wave, but it will make you hit the cap by doing so.
If you have less than 10 targets, trinketing is absolutely helpful.
I found this post on the oboards (same thread that Pold linked)
it kind of backs up the information, just in a different direction. Raid buffed I have around 1.2k fire damage (and 1150ish of the others). Standard non-buffed I sit around 1k others -> 1025 fire damage (due to my fire necklace, etc).
That being said, it seems that, as you said, AE is definitely the best, although mana efficiency hurts. If I could get an spriest up that would help out (but we normally only have 1 and he gets put into another group normally unless our top mage is in as his resto shammy).
Excellent posts by the way, rated up for all of them.
Quote:
Heres some more breakdown of the spells themselves vs their spec gains, +damage scaling, and caps. NOTE: The coefficients used for this are from WoWWiki (http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_Damage_Coefficients) and have not been confirmed through observation as far as I know.
The charts represent +damage values required to cap out at a given number of targets with and without spec gains. Negative values imply that you hit the cap without any +damage gear.
Specced CoC for the loss, it would appear.
Mean Cap Coefficient Spec Gain Flamestrike 7 523 7830 0.1761 1.1330 Blastwave 7 670 9440 0.1357 1.1330 Arcane Explosion 8 392 6730 0.1429 1.0300 Dragon's Breath 4 735 10100 0.1357 1.1330 Cone of Cold 6 429 6500 0.1357 1.6139
+Damage to cap at X Targets without gain from spec 8 9 10 11 12 Flamestrike 7 2588.02 1970.47 1476.43 1072.22 735.38 Blastwave 7 3757.89 2791.81 2018.95 1386.60 859.65 Arcane Explosion 8 3144.75 2490.44 1967.00 1538.73 1181.83 Dragon's Breath 4 3886.84 2853.22 2026.32 1349.76 785.96 Cone of Cold 6 2825.79 2160.58 1628.42 1193.01 830.18
+Damage to cap at X Targets With Spec Gains 8 9 10 11 12 Flamestrike 7 1935.59 1390.53 954.49 597.73 300.42 Blastwave 7 2737.24 1884.57 1202.42 644.31 179.21 Arcane Explosion 8 2973.23 2337.98 1829.79 1413.99 1067.49 Dragon's Breath 4 2794.83 1882.54 1152.71 555.57 57.96 Cone of Cold 6 548.61 136.43 -193.32 -463.11 -687.94
The charts represent +damage values required to cap out at a given number of targets with and without spec gains. Negative values imply that you hit the cap without any +damage gear.
Specced CoC for the loss, it would appear.
it kind of backs up the information, just in a different direction. Raid buffed I have around 1.2k fire damage (and 1150ish of the others). Standard non-buffed I sit around 1k others -> 1025 fire damage (due to my fire necklace, etc).
That being said, it seems that, as you said, AE is definitely the best, although mana efficiency hurts. If I could get an spriest up that would help out (but we normally only have 1 and he gets put into another group normally unless our top mage is in as his resto shammy).
Excellent posts by the way, rated up for all of them.
That post on the Oboards is the one I was talking about in the first post. It's a great post, I really like it, I've found it helpful for a long time.
I just don't want there to be only one source (that post) for information as important as that.
Also, all these really suggests that when it comes to AoE, spell crit means a lot more than in single-target scenarios.
Edited, Mar 11th 2008 5:05pm by Raglu
I just don't want there to be only one source (that post) for information as important as that.
Also, all these really suggests that when it comes to AoE, spell crit means a lot more than in single-target scenarios.
Edited, Mar 11th 2008 5:05pm by Raglu
Raglu wrote:
Now, it's not fair to put MoE with the fire spells without putting it to Frost spells, which, though it's a lesser crit chance for the spec, can still have Cone of Cold and Frost Nova crit.
Frost Nova maybe, but for Cone of Cold, I'd say you can, as it's not likely a raiding fire mage will be using it, and most raid specced frost mages won't have MoE.
WOTLK UPDATE:
Zaldinar (who tested all the old AoE caps for mages) has done testing on the PTRs, and found out the new damage caps for the highest rank spells at level 80.
Dragon's Breath: 37500
Blast Wave: 37500
Frost Nova: 37500
Arcane Explosion: 37500
Cone of Cold: 37500
Flamestrike: 75000
Blizzard: 25000 per tick, assumed 200000 total. NOTE: ON PTR, BLIZZARD DOES 7 TICKS RATHER THAN 8. PROBABLY BUG.
The guess is that all the instant AoEs have half the cap that the cast-time AoEs.
Ghostcrawler has mentioned that the AoE caps were meant to limit oddball cases of AoE-advantages like Faxmonkey's 93 zombies, but not normal raid encounters. They simply didn't have them nearly as high as they should have during BC. Currently, you can get away with hitting roughly 30 mobs and still not hit the cap on most of those spells.
Edited, Sep 21st 2008 5:40pm by Raglu
Zaldinar (who tested all the old AoE caps for mages) has done testing on the PTRs, and found out the new damage caps for the highest rank spells at level 80.
Dragon's Breath: 37500
Blast Wave: 37500
Frost Nova: 37500
Arcane Explosion: 37500
Cone of Cold: 37500
Flamestrike: 75000
Blizzard: 25000 per tick, assumed 200000 total. NOTE: ON PTR, BLIZZARD DOES 7 TICKS RATHER THAN 8. PROBABLY BUG.
The guess is that all the instant AoEs have half the cap that the cast-time AoEs.
Ghostcrawler has mentioned that the AoE caps were meant to limit oddball cases of AoE-advantages like Faxmonkey's 93 zombies, but not normal raid encounters. They simply didn't have them nearly as high as they should have during BC. Currently, you can get away with hitting roughly 30 mobs and still not hit the cap on most of those spells.
Edited, Sep 21st 2008 5:40pm by Raglu
Fantastic news, thanks Raglu for the update.
Raglu wrote:
Ghostcrawler has mentioned that the AoE caps were meant to limit oddball cases of AoE-advantages like Faxmonkey's 93 zombies, but not normal raid encounters. They simply didn't have them nearly as high as they should have during BC. Currently, you can get away with hitting roughly 30 mobs and still not hit the cap on most of those spells.
Edited, Sep 21st 2008 5:40pm by Raglu
Edited, Sep 21st 2008 5:40pm by Raglu
I knew Faxmonkey had ruined it for the rest of us!
Anyway, that's awesome.
The AoE Damage Caps for all spells at level 80 are actually:
25,000 DPS.
Instants have a 1.5 second global cooldown, so they have 1.5 x 25000 = 37500 AoE Damage Cap.
Blizzard deals damage in waves that come down every second, so each wave has a 25000 AoE Damage Cap.
Flamestrike used to be a 3-second cast, which was why it was a 75000 AoE Damage Cap. Now that it has turned into a 2-second cast, it's expected to be a 50000 AoE Damage Cap.
25,000 DPS.
Instants have a 1.5 second global cooldown, so they have 1.5 x 25000 = 37500 AoE Damage Cap.
Blizzard deals damage in waves that come down every second, so each wave has a 25000 AoE Damage Cap.
Flamestrike used to be a 3-second cast, which was why it was a 75000 AoE Damage Cap. Now that it has turned into a 2-second cast, it's expected to be a 50000 AoE Damage Cap.
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