Specifically, Firebound alliance : what does it do, exactly? The ZAM description is really hard to understand. Dichotomics companion : what effect does this have on pets, exactly? Will it also work on 106+ pets? The 'Of many' lines seems to have been changed ( less strikes for more damage ), what are the pet number requirements to trigger the strikes? Have they changed? Chaotic fire, seems cool. I see we have a new instant clicky orb <3 Also, what's the typical raid burn order look like now? I see Union now stacks with Heart of fire. Anything else change? One last question. When I left I was 105 in TDS, Had no problem boxing my way through all progression in that and RoF. I read something that RoS has mobs which have a very ugly AE which is mitigated only with an item by completing EOK progression, I like progression and all, but I wanted to get straight through RoS before going back to complete previous expansions, is this possible? I box 3 magicians, well.
Firebound Alliance is a debuff that lasts 18 seconds and has 8 counters. The caster cannot use any counters; only other Mages can. It adds about 36k (depending on rank) damage post-crit to each spell that uses a counter. If all 8 counters are used prior to 18s, the spell does 2.4 million unfocusable damage to the mob. Only one Firebound Alliance can be on a mob at a time. Only single target DDs that do more than 2500 damage can use counters, meaning RS and AE spells will not use counters. Dichotomic Companion gives a 150% hit damage modifier, gives a 23k HoT, and a proc that does 35k damage and reduces your pet's hate by 35%. It lasts for 24s. Hit damage modifiers don't stack, so that does nothing during FBO and it is not additive with Burnout's hit damage modifier. The proc will likely proc ~3 times during its duration, it does not have that high a proc rate modifier. It will work on 106+ pets. Its overall damage addition is very low, though, certainly worse than a nuke. Of many requires 1/3/6/10/15 pets for the lines, which has not changed. "Raid Burn Order" probably deserves a dedicated post/guide. That said, at a very basic level, you want Focus of Arcanum/Heart of Flames/Elemental Union/Glyph of the Cataclysm. There are a few options for spell lineups, for starters you might run Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear -> Spear during spell twincast, and then Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic during Improved Twincast. Then run RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear afterwards. It can be way more complicated than that, but that should get you started. Kar'Zok mobs in RoS have abilities that will be really painful without EoK progression. That said, most zones in RoS do not have (many of) them. To quote Ngreth: Also the mission End of Empire has a lot of Kar'Zok. I don't think you'll be doing that without Essence of the Dragon, but most of the other zones should be doable? Gorowyn might be rough without it.
Great post, much obliged. Wonder if I may be able to use our spellshield. Forget the name, for those karzak encounters. Ill give it the ole college try before dragging my butt back through an entire expansion. Have powered through a lot of ugly stuff with 3 reactive mercs.
And firebound alliance sounds like its going to be awesome with my 3 mage group. Thats awesome. Cannot wait to try it out. AND THEY LAUGHED WHEN I MADE A 3RD MAGE, WHO'S LAUGHING NOW ?!?
Curious why you would use Chaotic during ITC, especially at the end. If you are doing it primarily for a rejuvenation, I would think it would be for Volley. Which would be the next spell in that weave. So it seems odd to use Chaotic in an I TC. Also surprised a little you did not mention RS before Volley in the ITC. RS will not use ITC counters, and it makes Volley more powerful by increasing it up to 60%. Final thing- if using a multi bind and wanting Chaotic-Spear-Spear, keep in mind another Chaotic will be casted after that first spear due to quick refresh time. So technically it would run Chaotic- Spear- Chaotic- Spear (lower version)...
Well, like I said, a comprehensive discussion of burn theory would take a dedicated post. Given we're only a week into RoS and with potential for tuning to come in the January patch, I think it would be premature to conclusively give the best lineup. What I gave was "for starters," and is mainly based on kizant's DPS app and my own spreadsheet math. I don't have nearly enough data from actual raids at this point. That said, I can certainly explain the reasoning behind the lineups I gave, I'm just pointing out that they're 100% subject to change. First, regarding using Chaotic during ITC vs RS. This is something I've been conflicted over, but the numbers I do have favor Chaotic for personal DPS. I ran more parses in beta but just briefly using the web app, I have Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic doing 44.7 million over 42 seconds and RS -> Volley -> Spear -> Spear doing 53.5 million over 57 seconds. I believe, based on how the web app works, this doesn't account for Chaotic's refreshment proc at all either, which would widen the gap. This leaves 8.8 million to make up over 15 seconds. We should be able to do around 10.2 million without ITC for that time period. Those estimates are based on manually adding in pet DPS for RS at 600k per cast. A lot of this depends on whether or not that is accurate; pets were changed during the last few days of beta and I don't have enough data in current raids with new pets to conclude their average damage. 600k is a pretty generous estimate though going off the numbers I do have from beta. I know just quoting numbers from the web app isn't perfect, so I will try to give some logic for them. First, RS -> Volley -> Spear -> Spear does not actually give Volley the Synergy proc. Especially with Quick Time, Volley should consistently fire before RS after the first rotation. Secondly, Conjurer's Synergy uses SPA 302, which is what Gift of Chromatic Haze also uses, and it gets overwritten by other Mage's synergy procs. This means the actual benefit is lower than it would be in a vacuum without those other effects present. The end result is that, with EU, Chaotic Inferno is significantly ahead of RS in terms of damage per cast during ITC. ITC will drop sooner, but the higher damage during ITC and our relatively high damage outside of ITC makes up for its shorter duration. Also, I'll quickly address the potential use of Spear of Blistersteel as a fourth spell. Chaotic is actually our fourth highest DPS nuke, not accounting for any of its procs. Spear of Blistersteel has slightly higher base damage and will get focused by our robe, but it isn't affected by spell damage and effectively takes .625s longer to cast. These two factors make Chaotic a much better choice that Spear. I mention this because for whatever reason Mages seem obsessed with using older Spears even though they're terrible. Now, as far as being fourth and not higher in the rotation, there are two reasons. First, it's easy to use this multibind while still having Chaotic in a spot to refresh Volley. You can manually cast Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Volley and then continue the multibind, at which point Chaotic will consistently follow Volley. You'll have a little bit of dead time between Spear and Volley, but that's worth getting out an extra Volley cast. This is better than just putting Chaotic second because, even if it has a chance to proc Syllable of Refreshment, given its negative proc and lower base damage, you still want to cast it least of any of your four spells. If Syllable of Refreshment does proc, you again want to cast Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Volley before casting Chaotic again; if it was in the second slot you'd get an extra cast of it. Additionally, if there is any dead time (e.g. if you need to burn on adds for whatever reason), if Chaotic is in the second slot you're going to be casting Volley and it way more than your spears. That's bad because, again, Chaotic is the worst of your four spells. The other worthwhile point is that, while Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic might be higher personal DPS on paper, it has some downsides. The first is that your group is losing out on Conjurer's Synergy, which is a legitimate concern. Accounting for the ADPS benefits, casting RS might be better. The next issue is that Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic benefits significantly from having another Mage in your group proccing synergy, and one of the issues with RS -> Volley -> Spear -> Spear is overlapping synergies. However, if both of you switch to the former lineup, than neither is getting synergy. It might be best to have one person use the former and one use the latter, but that would mean forcing someone to use a lower DPS lineup to help the group (game theory seems relevant here). Finally, Volley is dependent on having pets on the boss, and not using RS during burns means fewer pets. It's not the only way to get to 15 pets, but losing out on ~3x pets from each mage is significant. This is especially true since RS are much better suited to surviving AEs than other swarm pets. That was a rather long winded way of saying that both have compelling arguments. In a vacuum Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic seems better to me, but in a real-world raid RS -> Volley -> Spear -> Spear may yield better and more consistent results. We probably won't know without more raid cycles to gather data, and it could absolutely depend on the raid. What we can conclude, though, is if you have 5 spells in your multibind you're doing something wrong.* And yes, there are lineups where Chaotic should fire twice. RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear casts another Chaotic before casting RS, for example. I never mentioned Chaotic -> Spear -> Spear, but yes, after the first rotation Chaotic will cast twice. *Edit: RS -> Volley -> Spear -> Spear -> Chaotic is not nearly as bad as most other 5 spell rotations because of Quick Time, but it's still looking to me like you're better off dropping the fifth spell.
