I was in a group recently running an instance and was attempting to keep any monster of reasonable strength enfeebled with faerie fire. For those that may or may not know its an ability that takes a pretty decent chunk of the targets defense off and prevents it from doing a few other things.
After casting the spell the party leader flipped out saying I was wasting my mana. I thought my mana pool was fine at the time. In fact it was sitting at full and is about a 3.5k pool and I had innervation to fall back on. Yet he freaked out and exclaimed I was wasting mp then went ahead and showed how much damage I was doing on the center of the screen.... o.O
Question...
Is Faerie fire really a waste of mana?
Personally I think a mob that dies faster is a mob that does less damage meaning that I have less healing to do. Right?
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Why not use your feral faerie fire (assuming you are feral, since you said your mana pool is 3.5k)?
If you are a caster, it may be a "waste" because there are others spells that can be casted by others that do the same thing and dont cost mana. Since they cant stack, maybe your tank thought it was a waste. But he was a litlle "************ about it. He shouldnt had to complain about it. At all.
If you are a caster, it may be a "waste" because there are others spells that can be casted by others that do the same thing and dont cost mana. Since they cant stack, maybe your tank thought it was a waste. But he was a litlle "************ about it. He shouldnt had to complain about it. At all.
It kinda depends on what your spec is and what your role was (if my healer was casting ff I think I might be a little miffed unless the instance was a joke for us).
The times I go resto and I'm the only druid I'll FF the bosses in 5 mans and 10 mans. But, 9 times out of 10 im with a warrior so they just sunder and I really dont do much of anything.
I'm level 42 (feral spec but role in groups is healer) and I FF every melee mob we come across. We don't have a warrior in the group (tank is a pally). Mana has not been an issue (pally buff, shaman totem) except in big pulls (i.e., mistakes) and in those situations I will FF the primary target and any secondary targets that have more than half life when we get to them. I see no reason not to.
When soloing as a kitty, I FFF after attacking from stealth. I have no qualms about using it. =)
When soloing as a kitty, I FFF after attacking from stealth. I have no qualms about using it. =)
just as an fyi, sunder and faerie fire stack. expose armor and faerie fire stack. tell this to your physical dps classes and theyll love you if you do it, as the less armor an enemy has the quicker it dies.
faerie fire does NOT stack with curse of recklessness however, just as sunder armor and EA dont stack with one another.
as for me, generally i find that its something of a waste to put FF on anything aside from a boss; most stuff tends to die too fast.
faerie fire does NOT stack with curse of recklessness however, just as sunder armor and EA dont stack with one another.
as for me, generally i find that its something of a waste to put FF on anything aside from a boss; most stuff tends to die too fast.
If the encounter is healing-intensive (ie, make every GCD count), I don't see why a healer should ff. Otherwise I don't really see the harm. I use it all the time when tanking or dpsing as feral. Even if there's a hunter pet exposing armor (can't recall what that ability is called but I know it overwrites ff) I use it just in case the pet drops or is on another target.
Edit: Ah, it stacks w sunder. So scratch that. I've never had a warrior sundering in xpac since I tank or dps w a DK tank.
Edited, Jan 6th 2009 12:33pm by tuskerdu
Edit: Ah, it stacks w sunder. So scratch that. I've never had a warrior sundering in xpac since I tank or dps w a DK tank.
Edited, Jan 6th 2009 12:33pm by tuskerdu
OP is level 43 according to sig. So his mana pool sounds right.
FF is a neat spell. Keep it up on mobs as per Dr. Quor's prescription.
I use it as feral to keep casters on me. Holds off healer aggro until DPS start attacking the mob.
FF is a neat spell. Keep it up on mobs as per Dr. Quor's prescription.
I use it as feral to keep casters on me. Holds off healer aggro until DPS start attacking the mob.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
When i first when to Hellfire Citadel I was healer and cast faerie fire on one or two mobs per pull once they were in combat. Mana was no issue.
However I kept aggroing the mobs and dying and I couldn't work out why... I have been told faerie fire generates threat although I'm not sure how much. Maybe that is what he was concerned with.
To be honest, the group that time in Hellfire consisted of 3 DKs and a feral druid DPSing everything down with no set 'tank' so it was probably fairly easy for my threat to override theirs.
However I kept aggroing the mobs and dying and I couldn't work out why... I have been told faerie fire generates threat although I'm not sure how much. Maybe that is what he was concerned with.
To be honest, the group that time in Hellfire consisted of 3 DKs and a feral druid DPSing everything down with no set 'tank' so it was probably fairly easy for my threat to override theirs.
FFF only has increased threat/damage in bear form.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Dosgamer wrote:
I'm level 42 (feral spec but role in groups is healer) and I FF every melee mob we come across.
Faster fight should mean I need to do less healing right?
Also, if everyone does more damage they gain additional threat right?
So my last question is if Faerie fire can overwrite any superior debuffs that it does not stack with?
No weaker debuff can override a stronger debuff.
It's a bit of a waste on most trash mobs, but not freak out at you worthy.
Lower armor = more melee damage = dead mobs faster + better aggro for tank. Mind you, FF isn't a priority spell for me when I'm healing, so if the ***** hits the fan, I will pop it on the primary target but forego putting it on secondary targets while I concentrate on keeping the tank and party alive.
But if the party is on a roll and we're chewing through mobs 2-3 at a time, yep, I'll FF them all once the pally tank has gathered them up. I haven't yet pulled aggro with FF off the pally. In fact, the only one who typically does is our mage hehe.
My typical actions during combat in our instance runs (level 42 atm) are FF mobs, throw up hot(s) on tank, and dot the primary target while whacking it with my stick. I may or may not put the dot on depending on how many we pull and how badly I think the pally will get beat up, but at least 50% of the time I'm adding damage. Good luck!
But if the party is on a roll and we're chewing through mobs 2-3 at a time, yep, I'll FF them all once the pally tank has gathered them up. I haven't yet pulled aggro with FF off the pally. In fact, the only one who typically does is our mage hehe.
My typical actions during combat in our instance runs (level 42 atm) are FF mobs, throw up hot(s) on tank, and dot the primary target while whacking it with my stick. I may or may not put the dot on depending on how many we pull and how badly I think the pally will get beat up, but at least 50% of the time I'm adding damage. Good luck!
I use FF all the time, but then I also run as Feral. I am also typically the only Feral Druid in the raid, so the Boomkins and Trees have no reason to cast it. When I tank I pull with it, and when I DPS I'll throw it on whichever mob I'm currently shredding the crap out of :)
As I started reading the post, it reminded me of me in instances below Lv50 where I healed a lot of instances, though I wasn't specced resto or boomkin.
I did it largely because of my RDM experience. For all the non-FFXI gamers, that means Red Mage (Somewhat similar to Druid in the sense that it could do just about everything assuming you had gear for it) and more specifically, curing parties (in WoW talk: healing parties) and maintaining the spell Dia (similar effect as FF except it also has a dot effect) on all or most of all targets pulled.
I throw in the whole curing vs healing because I remember the first time I asked in WoW, "Am I curing the party?" and then I darn near got chewed out for not using the right lingo!
Then I saw the OP's signature and it all made more sense haha.
There's a lot of differences between the two games. Sometimes playing in on what you know from another game will get you in on some lecturing or worse, an undeserved bark of orders or *** chewing.
You see, in FFXI, a Red Mage worth their salt will cast Dia on 95% of all targets. Occasionally there's other things that come up that require more attention and you find yourself casting something else instead of Dia as more or less the first spell per pull.
In World Of Warcraft things are often a lot more faster paced and that's by design. FF on most trash targets isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to anyone except the person casting in terms of using up that Global Cool Down (the cool down most every ability/spell triggers for all classes that prevents you from using another ability/spell until that cool down has cleared) and then too, the cost of mana.
And for many folks, it's not just the cost of mana for that pull that they worry about. It's also the down time between pulls waiting for casters to recover mana.
In FFXI, Dia's effect is a fixed percentage of FFXI's version of armor called defense, regardless of target.
In WoW, FF does more for physical attackers on cloth or lightly armored targets than it does on heavier armored targets and then too, it does more for physical attackers the more armor penetration they already have.
In lower levels, essentially no one has armor penetration access on their gear so the stacking effect that can be seen at higher levels can't be seen at lower levels.
Overall, WoW's Fearie Fire in lower levels is worth less than Dia 1 was worth in FFXI in lower levels, in parts because of the dot effect, and because FF's duration is often cut very short on targets that die in far under 30seconds.
Personally, I'd suggest to reserve your use of FF for the first target of a group pulled or big targets (bosses) as the healer/dps caster, and that's assuming you don't have a feral druid in the group, because if you do, they should be casting theirs. Outside of that, use it anytime it's obvious your tank isn't having a difficult time to survive and you don't have something better to cast: IE overgeared for the instance.
Edited, Jan 8th 2009 3:51pm by Torzak
I did it largely because of my RDM experience. For all the non-FFXI gamers, that means Red Mage (Somewhat similar to Druid in the sense that it could do just about everything assuming you had gear for it) and more specifically, curing parties (in WoW talk: healing parties) and maintaining the spell Dia (similar effect as FF except it also has a dot effect) on all or most of all targets pulled.
I throw in the whole curing vs healing because I remember the first time I asked in WoW, "Am I curing the party?" and then I darn near got chewed out for not using the right lingo!
Then I saw the OP's signature and it all made more sense haha.
There's a lot of differences between the two games. Sometimes playing in on what you know from another game will get you in on some lecturing or worse, an undeserved bark of orders or *** chewing.
You see, in FFXI, a Red Mage worth their salt will cast Dia on 95% of all targets. Occasionally there's other things that come up that require more attention and you find yourself casting something else instead of Dia as more or less the first spell per pull.
In World Of Warcraft things are often a lot more faster paced and that's by design. FF on most trash targets isn't going to make a whole lot of difference to anyone except the person casting in terms of using up that Global Cool Down (the cool down most every ability/spell triggers for all classes that prevents you from using another ability/spell until that cool down has cleared) and then too, the cost of mana.
And for many folks, it's not just the cost of mana for that pull that they worry about. It's also the down time between pulls waiting for casters to recover mana.
Quote:
Is Faerie fire really a waste of mana?
Personally I think a mob that dies faster is a mob that does less damage meaning that I have less healing to do. Right?
Personally I think a mob that dies faster is a mob that does less damage meaning that I have less healing to do. Right?
In FFXI, Dia's effect is a fixed percentage of FFXI's version of armor called defense, regardless of target.
In WoW, FF does more for physical attackers on cloth or lightly armored targets than it does on heavier armored targets and then too, it does more for physical attackers the more armor penetration they already have.
In lower levels, essentially no one has armor penetration access on their gear so the stacking effect that can be seen at higher levels can't be seen at lower levels.
Overall, WoW's Fearie Fire in lower levels is worth less than Dia 1 was worth in FFXI in lower levels, in parts because of the dot effect, and because FF's duration is often cut very short on targets that die in far under 30seconds.
Personally, I'd suggest to reserve your use of FF for the first target of a group pulled or big targets (bosses) as the healer/dps caster, and that's assuming you don't have a feral druid in the group, because if you do, they should be casting theirs. Outside of that, use it anytime it's obvious your tank isn't having a difficult time to survive and you don't have something better to cast: IE overgeared for the instance.
Edited, Jan 8th 2009 3:51pm by Torzak
Torzak of Carbuncle(Moved To Asura)
Torzak wrote:
In WoW, FF does more for physical attackers on cloth or lightly armored targets than it does on heavier armored targets and then too, it does more for physical attackers the more armor penetration they already have.
Well with the change to ArP, this isn't really true anymore. But as long as FF is still a fixed amount of armor removed, it's actually going to provide the exact same amount of damage boost due to how damage resistance from armor works. Whether it be 300 or 3000 base armor, you're causing the same net difference in damage taken (times when that difference takes the target to 0 armor notwithstanding).
Based on what I know from tanking theory at 70, unless I'm mistaken or missed changes since 3.0 in how damage resistance from armor happens, while the percent delta on armor damage resistance goes down gradually the more of it you have, it's actually still providing the exact same increase in your TTL point-for-point; 1000->2000 and 36000->37000 armor provide the exact same total bonus to your survivability. Thus it would stand to reason that the opposite is true, a decrease of 610 armor (FF rank 6) is as effective on a plate wearer as it is a clothie. (Coincidentally this is also why ArP rating isn't as good as it used to be; it reduces a percentage of armor, so it's less effective the lower the target's armor currently is)
There's some oldschool math from Ciderhelm somewhere that proves it, I'm not sure exactly how to go about finding it though (my connection from here to the oboards is atrocious). It's annotated on wowwiki (www.wowwiki.com/Armor#Armor_Damage_Reduction_Formula) but I wouldn't blame anyone for not trusting that as a source of detailed information.
Your other points still stand valid with regards to mana and such, just wanted to point that out :)
Edited for minor typos and one anecdote
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 3:34pm by Norellicus
Then I am curious about this:
Source
Quoted on two other sites that I read not so long ago, MMO-Champion being one of them.
Edit:
Without putting a lot of thought into it (and I'm by no means math inclined in this game specifically), it could have something to do with the way we attack opponents (NPC or PC) and not how opponents (NPC) attack us. You make an example of how adding armor increases our Time to Live when being attacked.
But when we attack targets there are things like 10% more damage from all physical attacks that we can spec into or 3% more damage on crits etc that we can meta gem in to and other talents too. Maybe it is for these reasons that armor and armor penetration work a bit differently when being attacked by a player?
In any case, I'm still curious about the blue post I quoted.
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 2:56pm by Torzak
blue post talking about resilience and armor penetration on cloth Jan 1, 2009 1:12PM wrote:
We do think it is odd that armor penetration in general is more valuable against characters with the least armor, and that is something we might change in the future.
Source
Quoted on two other sites that I read not so long ago, MMO-Champion being one of them.
Edit:
Without putting a lot of thought into it (and I'm by no means math inclined in this game specifically), it could have something to do with the way we attack opponents (NPC or PC) and not how opponents (NPC) attack us. You make an example of how adding armor increases our Time to Live when being attacked.
But when we attack targets there are things like 10% more damage from all physical attacks that we can spec into or 3% more damage on crits etc that we can meta gem in to and other talents too. Maybe it is for these reasons that armor and armor penetration work a bit differently when being attacked by a player?
In any case, I'm still curious about the blue post I quoted.
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 2:56pm by Torzak
Torzak of Carbuncle(Moved To Asura)
torzak, it seems you want to know why it is ArP and -armor effects have different levels of effectiveness in pvp than in pve, is that right? or am i reading your question wrong?
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 2:17pm by Quor
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 2:17pm by Quor
Lastar wrote:
I use FF all the time, but then I also run as Feral. I am also typically the only Feral Druid in the raid, so the Boomkins and Trees have no reason to cast it. When I tank I pull with it, and when I DPS I'll throw it on whichever mob I'm currently shredding the crap out of :)
Your boomkins should have improved FF and should be casting it for the raidwide 3% spell hit bonus and 3% crit chance bonus for themselves.
Quote:
torzak, it seems you want to know why it is ArP and -armor effects have different levels of effectiveness in pvp than in pve, is that right?
Is that all it amounts to? Just a difference in PVE vs PVP? If that's the case, then yes why? haha
Torzak of Carbuncle(Moved To Asura)
I'm not really sure why GC would say that, because it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. :p
Hopefully Quor has an answer for the both of us ^^
Edit: I just checked the math, it still works if wowwiki's damage reduction formula remains unchanged:
Assume 3000 DPS, all being affected by armor (this will *never* happen in reality, but it shows the workings of armor reduction and where armor reduction seems to be providing a greater effect on lower armor while still providing the same difference in actual time to death). Both mobs with 4,320,000 HP, with a Lv80 attacker.
Note there's a fractional difference between the delta-time, but it's very likely truncated that deep in (and doesn't matter in practical use anyway, either one will have to be rounded to 58 sec to achieve actual mob death). I only left the decimals so deep because my calculator does and I was only copy/pasting the data, lol.
So yes, you get "more" percent difference in each hit with the lower armor value, but that reduction in armor is having the same effect on that monster's time to death no matter his armor value, assuming all other things equal.
So while ArP rating seems to be providing greater throughput on targets with low armor, it's actually weaker the lower the target's armor already is on account of it now reducing a percentage portion of the target's remaining armor after all other buffs/debuffs (it's counted after things such as Sunder, EA, FF, etc unfortunately), which is why it no longer should be focused on as a primary DPS/raid stat. It's not *bad* per se, but certainly not as good as it used to be (although with extremely high armor targets, it can actually end up better than it once was; though I don't expect you'll be seeing this outside of PvP).
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 9:16pm by Norellicus
Hopefully Quor has an answer for the both of us ^^
Edit: I just checked the math, it still works if wowwiki's damage reduction formula remains unchanged:
Assume 3000 DPS, all being affected by armor (this will *never* happen in reality, but it shows the workings of armor reduction and where armor reduction seems to be providing a greater effect on lower armor while still providing the same difference in actual time to death). Both mobs with 4,320,000 HP, with a Lv80 attacker.
-10,000 Armor- Damage output after mitigation: 3000 * ( 1 - ( 10000 / ( 10000 + 15232.5 ) ) ) = 1811.057168334489 Time to death 100-0: 4320000 / 1811.057168334489 = 2385.347119645495 sec Damage output after mitigation, with FF(-610 armor): 3000 * ( 1 - ( 9390 / ( 9390 + 15232.5 ) ) ) = 1855.924459335973 Time to death 100-0: 4320000 / 1855.924459335973 = 2327.68094534712 sec Delta-damage: ( 1855.924459335973 - 1811.057168334489 ) / ( ( 1855.924459335973 + 1811.057168334489 ) / 2 ) * 100 = 2.447096580082% Delta-time: 2385.347119645495 - 2327.68094534712 = 57.666174298375 sec -20,000 Armor- Damage output after mitigation: 3000 * ( 1 - ( 20000 / ( 20000 + 15232.5 ) ) ) = 1297.026892783651 Time to death 100-0: 4320000 / 1297.026892783651 = 3330.694239290991 sec Damage output after mitigation, with FF(-610 armor): 3000 * ( 1 - ( 19390 / ( 19390 + 15232.5 ) ) ) = 1319.878691602282 Time to death 100-0: 4320000 / 1319.878691602282 = 3273.028064992614 sec Delta-damage: ( 1319.878691602282 - 1297.026892783651 ) / ( ( 1319.878691602282 + 1297.026892783651 ) / 2 ) * 100 = 1.746474840742% Delta-time: 3330.694239290991 - 3273.028064992614 = 57.666174298377 sec
Note there's a fractional difference between the delta-time, but it's very likely truncated that deep in (and doesn't matter in practical use anyway, either one will have to be rounded to 58 sec to achieve actual mob death). I only left the decimals so deep because my calculator does and I was only copy/pasting the data, lol.
So yes, you get "more" percent difference in each hit with the lower armor value, but that reduction in armor is having the same effect on that monster's time to death no matter his armor value, assuming all other things equal.
So while ArP rating seems to be providing greater throughput on targets with low armor, it's actually weaker the lower the target's armor already is on account of it now reducing a percentage portion of the target's remaining armor after all other buffs/debuffs (it's counted after things such as Sunder, EA, FF, etc unfortunately), which is why it no longer should be focused on as a primary DPS/raid stat. It's not *bad* per se, but certainly not as good as it used to be (although with extremely high armor targets, it can actually end up better than it once was; though I don't expect you'll be seeing this outside of PvP).
Edited, Jan 9th 2009 9:16pm by Norellicus
quick question.
Haven't had a chance to test this myself yet but can you cast FF while in tree form?
Haven't had a chance to test this myself yet but can you cast FF while in tree form?
Seeing as it's a Balance spell, I would wager no.
Edited, Jan 12th 2009 8:54am by Norellicus
Edited, Jan 12th 2009 8:54am by Norellicus
Norellicus wrote:
Seeing as it's a Balance spell, I would wager no.
Well then after level 40 I imagine that this is not much of an issue anymore right?
Nobody tells balance druids to not FF and you probably cannot cast FF while in tree form so..
I suppose that is pretty important detail... Only reason I did not have a chance to try out tree form is
1. My spec spent points in 2 trees rather than one so I failed to get the tree form at level 40... whoops!
2. I recently speced into balance so I can be a .... BOOMKIN!
I suppose this was a lesson learned..
Edited, Jan 12th 2009 10:46am by thorazinekizzez
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