The New FFB Spec

I play a mage named  Ishwar on the Area 52 server. A little information about me. I raided in the second best guild on the alliance side of my server for over a year as the mage officer in War Nerve. We did manage to clear Sunwell, so I have a fairly significant amount of raid experience. Unfortunately my guild broke up mostly into Symbolic Logic who left Area 52 and went onto being in the top 100 U.S. a week into Ulduar (since then they have broken up as well because there GM got into Premonition). I have been unable to raid for the most part over the last 6 months due to computer issues which will explain my current gear status being mostly in high end Nax gear instead of mostly Uldaur gear, but I have a great new computer and  have found a fun guild that is progressing nicely. Ok, enough about me and onto the good stuff.

One of the things I like so much about this game is how it’s constantly changing opening up new avenues for innovation. I was the first mage on my server in BC to show the power of 40/0/21 in early MH, so finding new optimal specs has always been a passion of mine. I must say I like what Blizzard has done with our class in this expansion, though most people for some reason seem to think our class is broken. Even in Nax gear I still find myself more often than not topping meters which once again goes to show, being good at wow is more about knowing how to play your class then what gear your class is playing with. One thing I will say about the changes to our class is that because most of us have to go so far into the fire tree we are finding ourselves  off the top of overall charts due to lack of AOE power. This is what I would like to change and I have found a way for us all to optimize our AOE talents without losing single target dps which is crucial for any spec to remain viable on single target encounters.

Currently there are 3 raid specs for our class. Arcane Spec, Fireball Spec, and FFB spec. There has been significant speculation on what spec is optimal for raiding I believe mostly because with so many encounters it’s hard to say for certain which one is “Best” for every occasion. Arcane seems to be great at converting mana directly into dps at a whim, so for fights like Malygos where you have half of the encounter as a flying dragon you find that you can dispose of your mana with your maximum dps rotation not sustainable in other fights. The downside of that equation is you are relying on the 2 minute cool down of evocate to recharge your mana. During the 7 seconds you are evocating (average cast time with current haste) if you are hit by anything you lose huge amounts of your mana regen which then gimps your dps by not allowing you to use your best rotation. Also, Arcane lacks spell push back resistances on its main nuke, Arcane Blast, which shows heavily on fights that have any kind of a constant damage ticking on the raid.  Lastly, though arcane can push out incredible amounts of AOE damage for the duration of its cool downs its overall AOE is the weakest of the 3 raid specs.

The dispute between Fireball and FFB spec is ongoing. The current argument is that Fireball spec is 5% above FFB spec on your single target dps. With my own personal calculations and research on the RAWR dps charts and raid tests I find this to be incorrect. One aspect, which I admit will change when 3.2 comes out giving us a ridiculous amount of mana back from our ignite, is Fireball specs significantly higher mana consumption. On the majority of fights you will find yourself evocating and having to use mana pots. That 7 seconds you are out of the fight is 7 seconds that FFB is maintaining constant dps while also being able to use Potions of Speed or Potions of Wild Magic. Fireball spec also lacks the cool downs that FFB is able to utilize. Stacking Icy Veins with Heroism and Trinkets cannot be overlooked either. As we all know, in BC the difference between a good mage and a great one was how effectively he (or she) managed their cool downs. I think FFB gives us more tools to work with.

Let me just say this, I don't pvp. I think wow pvp is unbalanced in this area and I have always joked with friends that if I want to pvp I’ll play Halo 3 lol This allows me to run PVE duel specs. My current duel spec is the Fireball spec and my new FFB spec. I just got out of a Nax run with my guild where I was able to test both out on similar fights. While in a couple fights I used The Fireball spec, I held second on the meters behind one of our main locks, the rest of the instance I ran my new FFB spec and was back to topping every encounter until I ran into connection problems on the last 2 bosses and dc-ed out of the fights. I guess what I’m saying is that as a matter of personal preference, I like FFB and will hold that it can keep up if not surpass the Fireball spec on the majority of fights. Of course there is always going to be an RNG factor when dealing with specs that rely so much on crit procs for their dps, but I will back up my statements about the single target dps viability of FFB also by referencing elitistjerks.com where on their mage forums mages have posted fight per fight what spec they would prefer and the majority is FFB.  

What I would like to see now is mages topping overall meters. Why can we not do this? Because we spec so far into Fire or Arcane, both of which do not have raid topping AOE, that we are unable to keep up in AOE trash and AOE boss fights, Razorscale for example. My new spec changes this completely. Your cookie cutter 0/53/18 FFB spec is simply incorrect. Why do we need Flame Throwing? It does not affect FFB. The only thing you are buffing with that talent is Pyro, Living Bomb (both of which have 35 yard ranges that are completely far enough to be viable), and Scorch which has a 30 yard range, but we are finding that we usually don’t have to scorch because Blizzard was kind enough to give Affliction Locks the 5% crit buff as well. Not to mention Shamans 4 set T8 gives them the same ability. This means that I do not have to scorch in raids. I still spec for it on the off chance that the Lock or Shaman dies though. So, going back, who of you cannot dps at 35 yards? I raided as Arcane for a very long time with a 30 yard range and was fine. In my opinion 35 yards is cake.

What can we do with these 2 other talent points then? Look to your frost tree.  Your current cookie cutter FFB spec puts 2 points into Frostbite. This does nothing alone I might add so as of right now there is 2 points that every single FFB mage is currently wasting. How can we utilize these talents? Put one of the points you just gained into Improved Blizzard. This allows your Blizzard to apply Frostbite to every target it hits as well as slows them down which is a nice bonus for tank control. Now with your remaining point fill up 3 for 3 in frostbite. Now look at your tree. Let me ask you this. Does FFB have any manna issues whatsoever? I should hear a resounding no from every single person out there. We have too much mana.  So the 3% mana reduction that we get from Precision can be completely overlooked. Mages everywhere that are using the Fireball spec have proven that we do not need hit talents to be viable in raids because so much of our Tier gear has hit on it. Hit is not holding us back. That being said, once again what else can we lose? What can we gain? Take out 2 points in Precision. If you are in Ulduar gear or even top end Nax gear it is safe to say, Hit is not your problem (with this spec your raid buffed hit cap mark is 318). That frees up 2 points, but we can do one better. Once again, mana is not your problem even in the slightest, so we can lose one point in Frost Channeling. We have freed up the 3 points we need to once again be the AOE kings. The all powerful Shatter. 50% extra crit chance against frozen targets.

Think about it people. We lost 5% mana reduction which we had too much of, 2% hit we didn’t need, and 5 yards range on our off living bombs and pyros to reign once again. The 3% less threat reduction lost for your Blizzard is overcome by the slow and frozen affect you now put on every mob you hit with the only frost spell you use, so that’s not an issue either. The deciding factor is now Every mage freezes targets with their main AOE which means we all buff each other. Do the math. Even 3 mages with a 15% chance to hit a target every second freezing them for 5 seconds is every target being frozen period.  That means with Shatter we will be criting with Blizzard at around 70%-80%. With 3 of 3 in Ice shards (100% bonus on frost critical damage) and 3 of 3 in Piercing Ice (6% extra overall frost damage). Once again, Mages Rule! Even standing alone in my new spec I was not once out AOEed in that entire Nax run. My crit chance went up significantly, but the real power is when 2, 3, or even 4 mages stack this ability. Test it out for yourselves.

One last point I want to make about the Fireball spec that is currently out there. 18-53-0 is also incorrect people.  19-52-0 is what you want. Drop one point in flame throwing, a useless dps talent, and get yourself some more spirit which equals more crit-mana-dps.

First of all, Mage is not the AoE King. Mage can slack all the way, watching how Destruction-Affliction Warlocks, Shadowpriest, and Deathknights are doing it. In no spec, for mage, that there is viable AoE. Blizzard gains nothing from the talents to be as powerful as Rain of Fire. Flamestrike misses half the pack due to covering so small area. Flamestrike + Blizzard may yield you some nice damage done on AoE packs.

Frostfire has no mana issues. It lacks damage. Crits, are RNG. Ignite no longer stacks, if it did like it used to do in TBC, then FFB would be the best spec to use due to largest ignite potential.

For me, there is no dispute. I tried both. And everyone in the guild laughed at me when I used FFB, asking me if there is something wrong, or significant amounts of lag, causing me to do so low damage done, but high DPS with FFB spec. It is just the way FFB is. I'm sorry for all the FFB players, but the spec is bad.

Why? Simple. It uses same coefficient as Frostbolt. It does not translate well with spellpower. I was averaging 4750ish Hits (May or may not be after 35% mark, I only checked what spec did as overall in a boss fight.) using Frostfire. On a raid setting, you can get up to 60% crit with FFB. Not percentage, but as overall crit percentage of total FFB casts. No matter how many of those were in a row, your hits are just too low to pull themselves together.

I've dumped 6% of Spirit in order to get Meditation. I've 83% mana regen while casting, which yields up to 570 in my current gear.  That number is not bad. On most ulduar fights, I find myself without the need for Evocation.

The more sellpower you get, (As in, new tiers) the worse FFB spec will become. Scaling is the key for the DPS, and is one of the main problems for Arcane aswell. Arcane Missiles scaling is excellent, while Arcane Barrage, thanks to Arena fix, is terrible. The spell will see little use once we are into 3.3 and beyond, and FFB will be forgotten by then.

You can get lots of crit rating, but all in all, it will be RNG, and since there is no spellpower cap, your hits will determine the outcome of your damage. Arc-Fire will be the "to go to" spec once we reach 3000+ Spellpower, with Arcane being its only competitor. Mana costs, are fix. The more gear you get the more mana and spirit you get. Your crit percentage will stall with gear, but your Spirit (Casting mana regen) and spellpower will not. The more gear, and the mana problems of fire will become trivial. However, FFB will still be left behind thanks to its poor scaling, and that's the reason the spec is not performing well now.