Fire/Ice Spec

[eqvach]

<p>Moving from a solo/duo/grouping wiz to doing more raiding, I'm thinking of shifting out of manaburn and instead going fire/ice.  There are many posts on the topic, but I'm unclear as to how the abilities have changed people's specs recently.  What does your fire/ice spec look like after the recent changes?</p>

[Kaycerzan]

Rending Icicles 5 Ice Nova 5 Surging Tempest 4 Electrical Flash 1 Frigid Gift 5 Iceshape 1 Sunstrike 3 Immolation 5 Incapicatate 3 Fiery Convultions 5 Firestorm 1 Ball of Lava 5 Fortify Elements 5 But I tell ya, I miss that magi's shield ward.

[Bright_Morn]

<i></i><b><i>-Fire</i></b> Sunstrike - 3 Irradiate - 5 Incapacitate - 3 Firestorm - 1 Fiery Confulsions - 5 Ball of Lava - 5 <b><i>-Ice</i></b> Rending Icicles - 5 IceNova - 5 Electrifying Flash - 5 Surging Tempest - 1 Glacial Wind - 1 Frigid Gift - 5 IceShape - 1

[eqvach]

<p>Thanks to the two posters that already offered their specs!</p><p>After thinking about it a little more, I only see a few viable options.  Here are the constraints to the problem as I see them and how they affect my choices:</p><p><b><u>Musts</u></b> 1.  Frigid Gift 5 2.  Iceshape 3.  BoL 5</p><p>That's already 16 points in Fire and 21 points in Ice, for 37 points.  Yes, you can go the Fortify Elements >> Anomalism tree to get to BoL as well, but that essentially adds 3 more points to the requirement, putting it at 40.  As much as I enjoy the additional power pool and anomalism procs that I have now, they don't seem to be in my best interest for DPS.</p><p><b><u>Wants</u></b> 1.  Ice Nova 5 2.  Rending Icicles 5 3.  Fusion 5</p><p>That makes 26 points in Ice, for a total of 42 points so far.  A couple of notes here...  I am currently playing with IN5 and RI5 and really can't see spec'ing out of them.  I am not currently spec'd for Fusion5, but really want to try it out, thinking that it may alleviate some of the loss of manaburn in solo/duo/group content.</p><p><b><u>Options</u></b> 1.  +2 Electrifying Flash 2.  +4 Glacial Wind 3.  +3 Surging Tempest 4.  +2 Irradiate 5.  +2 Incapacitate 6.  +4 Firestorm 7.  +4 Fiery Convulsions 8.  +5 Fortify Elements 9.  +5 Inferno Surge</p><p>So, where would you put your final 8 points from the "Options" list above?</p>

[Kaycerzan]

Personally I've never had such issues with Fusion that I would spend the points to get there.  Too many points blown in those AEs that I don't really touch unless I'm screwing around. The only reason for it would be the range increase, and I am not looking at my tree right now, but I would guess the prereq on spell reach is probably a better use of my points.

[Kaycerzan]

i didn't answer your question, just gave my opinion. lol. Going by your options list, I would point up in Fortify elements, irridate, and/or surging tempest. I've always been a big fan of Tempest even if it does screw with triggered effects like catalyst. But again, I don't think you're going to gain much going by way of Fusion. You'd be better served with things like the Magi's shield ward and the mana-conversion lines '

[Force Weaver]

<p>Myself it seemed too costly to get BOL 5 the first time so I tried out a full Ice Line maxed out except EF at 4 instead of 5 and the rest for Magi's Shielding, MOF, Spellreach.  </p><p>Although the AOE's don't get extended by spell reach so to my dismay Fusion 5 and Spell reach don't equal 16 for Fusion but 10 is noticeably further away.  It's nice NOT to be interrupted by AOE's or Stifles even when you're specced Agi and have your cloak of zet when fighting the Hag in Unrest for instance.  </p><p>As far as pure dps I'm with the others here in the builds that include 5 in BOL, IN, FG.  Although some points in FC could be given up to get points over in Magi's Shielding if you need it as FC is up a lot anyhow during most fights.</p>

[G1Joe]

as a noob wiz here,  can someone pls explain the real benefits of Iceshaping and Fireshaping

[simpwrx02]

<p>the main point of both iceshape and fireshape is so that you can max out the damage from your castable spell procs.  fireshape is all but worthless as 80% of your spells are already fire based and will net you very little gain in dps.  Iceshape how every will net you huge gains when used wiith frigidgift  as most of your fast casting spells are heat based and as such will not proc frigid gift.</p><p>The added benefit is if you are in a group with a nuking fury or a conj who also have some heat based spells as ice shape is a group wide buff.  </p><p>The only possible other benefit of fireshape is the fact that you can debuff heat mroe than cold if you use Forge of Ro, however I still do not see this as much of an improvement.</p>

[eqvach]

Any other opinions on the fire/ice spec question?

[Fingle]

I was kind of surprised by people putting 5 into firey convulsions.  Is it worthwhile using this spell now?  Is it combining it with FG that gives the benefit? Thanks, Mindblade - Recently returned wiz!

[simpwrx02]

fiery convulsions has never been a bad spell with it does ~900-1000 damage for a 1 second cast time, not the greatest, but not bad either far better than sunstrike, the AAs do not really make it any better for dps, but make it so that you can cast it when ever it is up with out haveing it overwrite itself.  Personally Ionly have 1 point in it so I could unlock BoL, i think that points into enhance inferno surge are better than fiery convulsions, but that is just my opnion as inferno surge will up your dps giveing you 4 more seconds of proc time per AA point.

[slippery]

<cite>Slippery wrote:</cite><blockquote>For raiding you want agi 4 4 4 8 2 with the extra 2 points where you prefer (I put them in ambidextrous casting), wis 4 7 4 8 2. For the Wizard line you want fire/ice lines with the main points being 5 points in ball of lava, 5 points in irradiate, 5 points in Ice Nova (unless you get the fabled wizard set pants, then you can lower this to 4), 5 points in frigid gift, 1 point in iceshape. The rest of the points are kind of up to you where you want to put them in fire/ice.</blockquote> Also, the only 2 single target spells we have that are worse than fiery convulsions are sunstrike and ice flame.

[sgbarber]

Just respec'd once again: Sunstrike: 3 Irradiate: 5 Firestrom: 1 Incapacitate: 5 Fiery Convulsions: 5 BoL: 5 Accord: 5 (I get to put it on the MT and AA here gives us both more regen) Rending Icicles: 5 Ice Nova: 5 Surging Tempest: 4 (#%$#) Electrifying Flash: 1 (why oh why can't I put that point into ST) Frigid Gift: 5 (Also M2 choice) IceShape: 1 If I didn't take Accord I think I would try for Fusion: 5 just to see how much it helps. Glacial Wind at 5 is nice if you have a tank that can hold the AoE aggro.

[eqvach]

Thanks to all for the replies!

[EQTTEQ]

<p>My question regarding AA specs is this:</p><p>If there are 3 or 4 likely wizards in your raid, is it beneficial for them to look at similar specs, or is it better to keep them different? </p><p>If one has gone Ice, is there another that would completment?</p>

[TheGReddy]

<u><b>Fire Line</b></u>Sunstrike-3Incapacitate-3Irridate-5Fiery Convulsions-5Ball of Lava-5Total Points-26<u><b>Ice Line</b></u>Rending Icicles-5Ice Nova-5Now here is the delema, you can either go for the single target dps and thrown my stuff into Surging Tempest or you can go the AoE Dps way and do some calculations to see which i should spend more points in. I prefer to go the AoE way since 75% of all fights are grouped, but some calculations will be needed if you want to find the exact dps increase, blah blah blah. Either way you will end up with....Surging Temest/Electrifying Flash/Glacial Winds-5Frigid Gift-5Iceshape-1Total Points-21Here you end up with an xtra 3 points. You should go ahead and put it wherever you want. As for me, ill stick it in my ice line for more AoE damage.Wizards may not be AE classes but it doesnt mean we cant still do AE damage.

[Lakespookie]

<p>Fire Line</p><p>Sunstrike 3</p><p>Incapacitate 5</p><p>Irridate 2</p><p>Fiery convolsions 5</p><p>Ice line is maxed including FG and iceshape</p><p> Now take into consideration that FC is the best damage for spell casting time single target spell we have other than the big three (Fusion, IN, Icesheild) the reduction in duration lets us get that spell out again sooner and so i belive gives us more overal gains that say a power reduction(Note i have the crystal gift earing and honestly i should be ashamed if i run out of power lol)</p><p>Please note like any self respecting wizard i went to the fusion line due to reduced risistability as i have no trouble hitting three targets even with the reduced range (Your Results may vary)</p><p>While the power reduction gains that we get from BOL 5 is nice considering the amount of time we spend casting that spell and the total amount of damage as a percentage that it does for us is nice i find that</p><p>A. Forge of ro/Galcial Winds/Firestorm all do more overall dps on a 2 mob or larger encounter than all any of our single targets sans the big three.</p><p>B. any wizard that is raiding endgame and dealing with large numbers of adds is more likley inclined to max the ice line as they will be squezzing electryfing flash on any encounter with 3 or more mobs even with out frigid add frigid and the equation is tilted more in favor of the ae spells as you have multiple procs of frigid thus larger dps gains from aes as opposed to single targets.</p><p>DISCLAIMER: MY OPINIONS ARE BASED ON SPREADSHEETED RETURNS BASED ON PER CAST SPELL DAMAGE AVERAGED BASED ON MIN MAX/CASTING TIME ETC ETC NEED LESS TO SAY ITS A PRETTY ELABORATE EXCEL FORMULA.... SPELL ORDER CHANGES ON THE FLY DEPENDING ON VARIABLES (I.E. HATE ETC) PLEASE NOTE DEPENDING ON GEAR RAID SETUP ETC ETC YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY ALL SPREADSHEET VALUES ARE OBTAINED BASED ON SELF BUFFED STATS ETC ETC HAVE A NICE DAY.</p>

[simpwrx02]

<cite>Lakespookie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Fire Line</p><p>Sunstrike 3</p><p>Incapacitate 5</p><p>Irridate 2</p><p>Fiery convolsions 5</p><p>Ice line is maxed including FG and iceshape</p><p> Now take into consideration that FC is the best damage for spell casting time single target spell we have other than the big three (Fusion, IN, Icesheild) the reduction in duration lets us get that spell out again sooner and so i belive gives us more overal gains that say a power reduction(Note i have the crystal gift earing and honestly i should be ashamed if i run out of power lol)</p><p>Please note like any self respecting wizard i went to the fusion line due to reduced risistability as i have no trouble hitting three targets even with the reduced range (Your Results may vary)</p><p>While the power reduction gains that we get from BOL 5 is nice considering the amount of time we spend casting that spell and the total amount of damage as a percentage that it does for us is nice i find that</p><p>A. Forge of ro/Galcial Winds/Firestorm all do more overall dps on a 2 mob or larger encounter than all any of our single targets sans the big three.</p><p>B. any wizard that is raiding endgame and dealing with large numbers of adds is more likley inclined to max the ice line as they will be squezzing electryfing flash on any encounter with 3 or more mobs even with out frigid add frigid and the equation is tilted more in favor of the ae spells as you have multiple procs of frigid thus larger dps gains from aes as opposed to single targets.</p><p>DISCLAIMER: MY OPINIONS ARE BASED ON SPREADSHEETED RETURNS BASED ON PER CAST SPELL DAMAGE AVERAGED BASED ON MIN MAX/CASTING TIME ETC ETC NEED LESS TO SAY ITS A PRETTY ELABORATE EXCEL FORMULA.... SPELL ORDER CHANGES ON THE FLY DEPENDING ON VARIABLES (I.E. HATE ETC) PLEASE NOTE DEPENDING ON GEAR RAID SETUP ETC ETC YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY ALL SPREADSHEET VALUES ARE OBTAINED BASED ON SELF BUFFED STATS ETC ETC HAVE A NICE DAY.</p></blockquote><p>Did you just say that fiery convulsions was our 4th best spell on single target mobs......        .,......</p><p>I honestly have nothing to say to that and to the fact that you find fiery convulsions to be a better place to put AAs than in Ball of lava...........</p><p>I cant type my thoughts due to forums rules, but lets just say I completely disagree with you.</p><p>firesy convulsions say an average of 175/tick for 7 ticks or 1225 damage for a 1 .87 cast and a .5 sec recovery ( i am specced agi and this is from memory)  ball fo lava a worst spell <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> about 3100 damage for a 2.19 cast and a .5 sec recovery .   so burst damage FC 1225/1.37=894 BoL 3100/2.69=1152  I guess FC is way better than BoL.   I need to start casting FC more and throwe some AAs into it so I can drop below 2k dps like you.</p>

[Lakespookie]

<p>Yes i know it seems insane im not talking burst im talking sustaind per spell cast dps</p><p> hence this table (Note these stupid forums would not post the whole spread sheet and im lazy right now) based on self buffed numbers </p><p>Spell Name   Cast DPSFusion(3 Targets)  6692.677346Fusion(2 Targets)  4461.784897Icesheild   3772.413793Firest orm(3 Targets)  2910Protoferno   2857.142857Surging Tempest   2806.48855Glacial Wind(3 targets)  2566.285714Fusion(1 Target)  2230.892449Ice Nova   2197.714286Firestorm(2 Targets)  1940Glacial Wind(2 targets)  1710.857143Electrifying Flash(3 Targets) 1479.389313Rending Icicles   1363.793103Fiery Convulsions  1356.321839Irradiate   1256.325301Bal l of Lava   1235.305344Incapacitate   1191.428571Electr ifying Flash(2 Targets) 986.259542Firestorm(1 Target)  970Glacial Wind(1 target)  855.4285714Sunstrike   751.6778523Electri fying Flash(1 Target) 493.129771</p><p>Realize that this is DPS based on the amount of time it takes to cast the spell how long its up is irellavent as your not going to be overiding your dots and hence you still gain the same amount of total dps for that single spell cast</p>

[Dextera]

Some of that math is [Removed for Content]'d.

[simpwrx02]

<p>Maybee you can enlighten use with your formula, but soemthing seems totally wrong to allow FC to be above BoL in any catagory.</p><p>edit: just curious are you calculating recovery time in your dps numbers? AS that is the only way I can see FC being better than BoL as recovery time affects FC more than anyother spell as it is our fastest casting damage spell.</p>

[SacDaddy420]

He's just not taking into consideration things like you can have<i> umpteen</i> BoL's on a mob in the time it takes Protoferno to make that 1 number

[Lakespookie]

<p>Acually good sir with the duration times reduction i can get one FC up for every BOL granted those numbers include the AA gais but take into account that recast is irrelavent as the spell will do x amount of damage ofr the amount of time it takes you to cast... if you want my formula i will is as follows </p><p>Total Damage/ By Casting time </p><p>Where by total damage consists of the (((Min+Max)/2)*AEordotMultiplier) + ((mininstant+Maxinstan)/2)</p><p> etc etc with AA enhancements im doing aprox 1 for 1 a little less but i usually pop up icesheled again to make up for the one second diffrence between the 9 second duration for FC and the 8 second recast for every BOL FYI</p><p> take into account that i have not placed AA's into BOL but the only real gains there are .5 seconds time redux and power redux on the bol and i have to move away from full ice line that gains more on Multiplu mobs etc etc not that i cant see the gains form fire line i just dont hurt for power with the crystal gift eariing 500 power ofor 700 health insta cast regen items that stack up like hot cakes so i rather get the duration redux </p><p>im not saying thta total damage will  be more form BOL just that for the amount of time it takes you to get the spell of it will do more overall dps again that you will popw more BOLS of the duration is irrelavant per spell cast your gaining more from FC and as we all know DPS is based on Damage devided by time so if your casting spells that fdo more damage for the amount of time it takes you to cast your doing more DPS.</p>

[SacDaddy420]

well good sir let me say this.   OFC i applaud anyone who obviously takes the time to come up with mathematical formulas and such.  There is -nothing- I enjoy more than reading them.  Except for a few thousand other things.Lemme say this.....and before I go further I only really concern myself with Zonewides.   And of those ZW's only ones with a considerate (read: 30 min or higher) of combat time really mean anything to me.FC is a spell on my personal rotation.  It gets love.   However, it is -never- very high on a ZW.   Fiery convulsions is a filler.  a spell to keep the rotation flowing.  It pretty much took Sunstrike's spot a long time ago.

[simpwrx02]

<p>I totally agree recast mean little for figureing out which spell does better dps, I am saying recovery , the time after you cast a spell before you can cast the next ( aka you are stifled).  Almost every spell has a .5 second recovery aspect associated with it.  the recovery hurts fast casting spells more than the slow casting spells.  </p><p>I too use FC, it may not be the first spell I cast , but it is in my rotation, how soon I use it depends on the buffs I have on me at the time,  If I only have a troub and my own AAs for cast haste, then it may not get cast until near teh 20-30 second mark.  If i get more cast haste loving then it is normally cast with in the first 15 seconds depending on if fusion is up or not.</p><p>my base formula when I try to figure out spell priority( i normally just use my parse to tell me if I gained or not as my raid group is pretty static)  but it is self buffed  {(min+max)/2}/(cast time +recovery time) I use all of my modified times as tnat is what I have, I need to ,ax a spread sheet some time soon as right now I just go off of memory. </p><p>I do not figure in recast and I always keep our debuff up and cast forge of Ro as well as it has a nice heat debuff as well.</p><p>My AAs are:</p><p>                           sunstrike-3                                                                     rending icicles-5</p><p>incapacitate-4                     irradiate-4                                      ice nova-5              electrifying flash-3</p><p>firestorm-1                         fiery convulsions -1                        surging tempest-2         glacial wind - 4</p><p>                    BoL-5                                                                                         Fusion-2</p><p>Inferno surge-5                                                                            frigid gift-5              iceshape-1   </p><p>I liek inferno surge more than FC as I can have soem type of spell proc up almost an entire fight and it really adds to the dps of inferno surge 20 extra seconds of procs is a lot as in raids it averages around 100 - 110ish per tick.</p>

[Lakespookie]

<p>I do omit the .5 seconds but my resopning behind that is that all our spells suffer from the .5 seconds thereby negating that factor a constant can be pulled from the formula for comparison as the original formula minus the constant is tstill within the same family of functions.</p><p>i for the most part have myself and one other wizard in raid dso we rotate FG throughout the fights where by we can have it up for a good 44 seconds after that rotation i run inferno surge and and then follow up with frgiid/iceshape again as soon as its up as it benefits the entire group as oppsed to me and i pretty much am reciving some kind of spell proc full time(if you add up the casting timesand the durations of to FG+5AA and iceshapex2 and add the Inferno surge times your looking at roughly 2-5 seconds without a proc) </p><p>note the gains from ST are significant with the cast time redux and i really went full fusion for the gains in resist redux as most end game mobs are orange etc...</p><p>that being said i do not discurage maxing out the fire line i just dont see the potential gains in power reduction from the fireline ie BOL to out weight the gains i get in encounters of 2 or more especially considering the large majority of encounters in the endgame have some add management component.</p><p>your resuslts may vary. im just not a big fan off the bonuses form the far left side of the fire line </p><p>granted like i said i usually have 2 wizards in group</p><p> oh yeah and as for FC its usually not cast till after FG/iceshape, Fusion/Freehand, IN, Icesheild,Rending, Proto, Surging temptest, are all out, spells are in no particular order before you guys go nuts o on me.</p><p>And i too really only look at zonewides i think i made a post about that somewhere else in this forum (I belive it was the are we T1 DPS forum posytt)</p>

[eqvach]

<cite>Lakespookie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I do omit the .5 seconds but my resopning behind that is that all our spells suffer from the .5 seconds thereby negating that factor a constant can be pulled from the formula for comparison as the original formula minus the constant is tstill within the same family of functions.</p></blockquote>Your conclusion is flawed.  You can pull out a common factor if everything is multiplied by a single constant, but that's not the case here.  To prove it, please add in 0.5 seconds to all of the casting times, rerun your numbers, and notice that the ordering does indeed change.  An extra 0.5 seconds to casting time will affect the DPS of a 1 sec spell much more than it will affect a 4 sec spell.

[Dextera]

<cite>eqvach wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lakespookie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I do omit the .5 seconds but my resopning behind that is that all our spells suffer from the .5 seconds thereby negating that factor a constant can be pulled from the formula for comparison as the original formula minus the constant is tstill within the same family of functions.</p></blockquote>Your conclusion is flawed.  You can pull out a common factor if everything is multiplied by a single constant, but that's not the case here.  To prove it, please add in 0.5 seconds to all of the casting times, rerun your numbers, and notice that the ordering does indeed change.  An extra 0.5 seconds to casting time will affect the DPS of a 1 sec spell much more than it will affect a 4 sec spell.</blockquote><p>QFE.</p><p>You must calculate recovery time when determining damage efficiency. Basically, recovery time is merely an add-on to casting time.</p>

[Lakespookie]

<p>you sirs are correct and i am a victim of <span style="font-size: xx-large;color: #ff0000;">BAD MATH</span></p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;color: #ffffff;">while you are correct i still dont know if the gains of one maybe 2 points that it takes me to get ther are worth it considering that i really dont see myself going away from full ice line just because of the usuall ad controls associated with end game content</span></p>