New Coefficients on Fire/Frost Ward and Ice Barrier
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The new Fire Ward/Frost Ward/Ice Barrier coefficient is somewhere between 33 and 34% of +damage (hard to pin down exactly due to rounding). The max ranks of of frost ward and Fire ward had their absorption reduced from 1220 to 1125.

To calculate whether or not this change constitutes a nerf or buff with your gear, consider the following where X= your +damage:

1125 + .33X = .10x + 1220
.33x = .10x + 95
.23x = 95
x= 413

Therefore, if you have more than +413 damage, this will increase your amount absorbed. If you have less, you will absorb less.

For your reference, with +1000 damage, you will gain about 135 damage absorbed by Frost/Fire Ward over previous patches.

Details on Ritual of Refreshment
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Ritual of Refreshment: 1790 mana, lasts 3 minutes or 50 full stacks of 20 Mana Biscuits. Requires Rune of Portals and 2 people to help cast. Uses same graphic as Soul Well for channeling and a small floating table of snacks for the final graphic.

New Mana Cost for AB/AI
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New Arcane Intelligence cost is 700 mana, new Arcane Brilliance cost is 1800 mana.

Mystical Skyfire Diamond Changes
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New proc chance is 15%. Internal cooldown is at least 30 seconds but less than 50. Widely reported to be 45 seconds -- but I have not yet seen a sample size large enough to confirm that. Also note the unlisted change listed below.

Unlisted Changes
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- Evocation is now affected by Spell haste effects -- including Blood Lust, Berserking, and MSD procs! Previously evocation was tied into normal mana regeneration mechanics and thus was reliant on going the full 8 seconds to experience all 4 ticks. The new mechanic for evocation does not have this restriction.

- Rune of Portals/Rune of Teleport now stack to 20.

- "Focus" procs from Mystical Sky Fire Diamond now have a 6 second duration instead of 10 second.

- It's already widely known, but the new 4 piece Arena set bonus is -.15 seconds from Polymorph.


Will add more as I notice/discover/hear about them . . .

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Q u o t e:
New Coefficients on Fire/Frost Ward and Ice Barrier
----------------------------------------------------

The new Fire Ward/Frost Ward/Ice Barrier coefficient is somewhere between 33 and 34% of +damage (hard to pin down exactly due to rounding). The max ranks of of frost ward and Fire ward had their absorption reduced from 1220 to 1125.

To calculate whether or not this change constitutes a nerf or buff with your gear, consider the following where X= your +damage:

1125 + .33X = .10x + 1220
.33x = .10x + 95
.23x = 95
x= 413

Therefore, if you have more than +413 damage, this will increase your amount absorbed. If you have less, you will absorb less.

For your reference, with +1000 damage, you will gain about 135 damage absorbed by Frost/Fire Ward over previous patches.

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Ice Barrier

1175 + .1x = 1.075 +.33x
.33x - .1x = 100
.23x = 100
x = ~429.

also are you sure its 33%? i haven't been able to test my self but i thought it was 30%, in which case,
x=500.

edited due to being wrong

Reserved

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Q u o t e:

i may be wrong, but as far as im aware wards currently gain no benefit from spell dmg, in which case

1125+.33x = 1220
.33x = 95
x = 285.

as for Ice Barrier

1175 + .1x = 1.075 +.33x
.33x - .1x = 100
.23x = 100
x = ~429.

also are you sure its 33%? i haven't been able to test my self but i thought it was 30%, in which case,
x=500.

again i could be completely wrong, faxmonkey has a habit of being right on these things

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My belief on this matter is that when ice barrier was changed to gain 10% +damage, the wards were given the same improvement -- though it may have gone unlisted.

A simple way to test this on live:

Make a macro to take off all your gear.

Use any +damage increasing trinkets you have.

Cast Frost Ward.

Use your macro to strip naked.

Cast coldsnap

Try to recast frost ward.

I *believe* You will get an error that a more powerful effect is already active.

Or you could simply have someone cast on you and see how much damage your ward actually absorbs and compare to tooltip -- but that requires a second person.

If I'm wrong, let me know. I'll update my post.

---

Q u o t e:


My belief on this matter is that when ice barrier was changed to gain 10% +damage, the wards were given the same improvement -- though it may have gone unlisted.

A simple way to test this on live:

Make a macro to take off all your gear.

Use any +damage increasing trinkets you have.

Cast Frost Ward.

Use your macro to strip naked.

Cast coldsnap

Try to recast frost ward.

I *believe* You will get an error that a more powerful effect is already active.

Or you could simply have someone cast on you and see how much damage your ward actually absorbs and compare to tooltip -- but that requires a second person.

If I'm wrong, let me know. I'll update my post.

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gonna go test now, ill just double screen mages

---

Q u o t e:


My belief on this matter is that when ice barrier was changed to gain 10% +damage, the wards were given the same improvement -- though it may have gone unlisted.

A simple way to test this on live:

Make a macro to take off all your gear.

Use any +damage increasing trinkets you have.

Cast Frost Ward.

Use your macro to strip naked.

Cast coldsnap

Try to recast frost ward.

I *believe* You will get an error that a more powerful effect is already active.

Or you could simply have someone cast on you and see how much damage your ward actually absorbs and compare to tooltip -- but that requires a second person.

If I'm wrong, let me know. I'll update my post.

---

you are infact correct, with 950 +dmg, fireward absorbed 1315, equating to 10% extra, ill go edit my post now

WTB PoM Evo's~

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Q u o t e:
WTB PoM Evo's~

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That is something I should look into. There is a mob in Zul Aman that I was able to spellsteal a +500% casting speed buff from (also gave 200% running speed, and lasts a full minute) and with that buff I was able to do evoc in under 1.5 seconds. I doubt it's possible to do with PoM, however, but you never know until you try.

Why did they make our wards and shield scale with spell damage, which I don't think I ever heard anyone request before, and not do it to our mana gems which has been a constant request for the last few months?

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Q u o t e:
WTB PoM Evo's~

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Woah, wait... If it is now affected by spell haste, would that work?

Edit: Btw, thanks for doing all of this again for us Fax.

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Q u o t e:


Woah, wait... If it is now affected by spell haste, would that work?

Edit: Btw, thanks for doing all of this again for us Fax.

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Again, my guess is not. But I haven't tried it. Generally speaking, you can't PoM channeled spells. You can't do PoM AM, or PoM Blizzard -- but Spell haste DOES affect them.

So it's worth testing, but more than likely will not work.

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Q u o t e:


That is something I should look into. There is a mob in Zul Aman that I was able to spellsteal a +500% casting speed buff from (also gave 200% running speed, and lasts a full minute) and with that buff I was able to do evoc in under 1.5 seconds. I doubt it's possible to do with PoM, however, but you never know until you try.

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lol wtf was your dps with ams? or were you scared of it

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Q u o t e:




lol wtf was your dps with ams? or were you scared of it

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You know, I was spamming frostbolts with that. But given the give global cooldown, that was silly. I should have done AM. I just happened to have specced frost on PTR . . .

Faxmonkey weigh in on the MSD change: GO!

More importantly, what was the name of the mob and the spell name?

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Q u o t e:
More importantly, what was the name of the mob and the spell name?

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The Buff's name is "Haste" its on some sort of "Flamethrower" mob. I want to say it was an Amani Flamethrower but that might be wrong. They cast it pretty frequently on themselves.

Here's the buff:

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=43242

If you think about it, it's really quite an incredible buff. The +295 spell damage buff you can steal in Botanica seems like a lot until you consider that this one is a +8000 spell haste buff.

Thanks for the info. Any news on season 3 armor sets or wands?

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Q u o t e:
Thanks for the info. Any news on season 3 armor sets or wands?

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No season 3 stuff is in atm. Whether it will be added later in the PTR (clearly there will have to be multiple "pushes" -- Battlegrounds and Guild banks are currently disabled and with all the changes will definitely need to be tested) or whether it will be in 2.3.1 remains to be seen.

Also:

HOLY CRAP: http://www.worldofraids.com/news/october/zulaman/za-trinket1.jpg