Improved Scorch 1.4.0

[Madwand]

Improved Scorch (Talent) - Redesign. Scorch spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire damage. This vulnerability increases the Fire damage dealt to your target by 2% and can be stacked up to 5 times for a total of 10% increased Fire damage.

Duration is 15s.

I presume that the vulerability does not extend to fire immune, and that all previously fire immune mobs stay so. Anyone check this for sure?

I presume further that this doesn't act as a resistance debuff, so you don't get to see an effect as a resistance drop on a player, just as a damage add negative effect. Can anyone confirm this?

Now is anyone getting this? Why? It seems that if you're going heavily into fire, then Fire Power would be the better talent to have. Same cost, except for the need to have Critical Mass in addition, better benefit, because you get it on the first and every cast instead of having to stack it and keep its effect alive.

If you get the Improved Scorch in addition to the Fire Power, it's another matter, but then you've given up something else for it...

[Attyla]

Duration is 15s.

I presume that the vulerability does not extend to fire immune, and that all previously fire immune mobs stay so. Anyone check this for sure?

I presume further that this doesn't act as a resistance debuff, so you don't get to see an effect as a resistance drop on a player, just as a damage add negative effect. Can anyone confirm this?

Now is anyone getting this? Why? It seems that if you're going heavily into fire, then Fire Power would be the better talent to have. Same cost, except for the need to have Critical Mass in addition, better benefit, because you get it on the first and every cast instead of having to stack it and keep its effect alive.

If you get the Improved Scorch in addition to the Fire Power, it's another matter, but then you've given up something else for it...

I can give you how Shadow weaving talent works for Shadow priests:

Your spell must land for the effect to work.
Your target gets a debuff Icon.
Unknown if it can be dispelled. Would expect it to be able to.
Stacks with all other +damage talents

If I go 31 Arcane and 20 fire, I can get it. That's a nice bonus having a +45% Insta cast Pyroblast and subsequent +45% fireballs and +45% Fireblasts. It's like a boxer softening you up with jabs, followed by the big right hook and uppercut combo.

[Malikith]

How does the 15 second duration interact with the stacking. Does it:
A) Reset the duration, so it will last 15 seconds after the last scorch cast.
B) Add 15 seconds to the duration for each cast, thus it will last for a total of 75 seconds from when the first scorch landed.
C) Wear off by individual scorchs so that it will end up fluctuating a bit.
D) Something else.


B and C seem unlikely (C would be more or less worthless). A would be useable and makes the most sense, though if that is the case could you merely throw another scorch on them before it expires to extend the debuffs full amount another 15 seconds?

[Kephra]

How does the 15 second duration interact with the stacking. Does it:
A) Reset the duration, so it will last 15 seconds after the last scorch cast.
B) Add 15 seconds to the duration for each cast, thus it will last for a total of 75 seconds from when the first scorch landed.
C) Wear off by individual scorchs so that it will end up fluctuating a bit.
D) Something else.


B and C seem unlikely (C would be more or less worthless). A would be useable and makes the most sense, though if that is the case could you merely throw another scorch on them before it expires to extend the debuffs full amount another 15 seconds?

From when I was farting around with it on Test, the -best- case is A. B doesn't happen. C doesn't seem to happen (but usually, the mob is dead before 15s anyway).

D)'s possibility is the durations DON'T stack (much like if you cast scorches under the old model back to back, the dot wouldn't tick continuously, because the dot component of one of the spells was seemingly blocked by the existing one). So I'd say it either works on A) 15s from the last scorch cast, or D) 15s from the first scorch that lands, potentially meaning that only the last scorch in the series gets the full 10% bonus (with the exception of POM'd instants, or fireblast). 12 seconds after the first scorch lands before the 5th scorch lands, 1.5 global cooldown before you can cast anything else, leaves you only 1.5s to get anything done... in a PERFECT chaincasting situation.
Seems like it would be workable for groups/raids with more than one mage, or a warlock who uses fire.

[Rael]

This talent, which I was planning on getting, with the 15s duration seems less powerful than +4% chance to crit and -.8 seconds to cooldown for Fire Blast.

[silverblaze]

How does the 15 second duration interact with the stacking. Does it:
A) Reset the duration, so it will last 15 seconds after the last scorch cast.
B) Add 15 seconds to the duration for each cast, thus it will last for a total of 75 seconds from when the first scorch landed.
C) Wear off by individual scorchs so that it will end up fluctuating a bit.
D) Something else.


B and C seem unlikely (C would be more or less worthless). A would be useable and makes the most sense, though if that is the case could you merely throw another scorch on them before it expires to extend the debuffs full amount another 15 seconds?

The talent sounds just like shadow weaving. If thats the case then everytime you cast scorch it willr eset the timer to add in the + % modifier and then be reset to 15 seconds.

[Maledict]

Given that every guide to mages listed the old Improve Scorch as a very wasted talent, I can't help but feel this is a good upgrade - and I'm probably going to respec my 31 Arcane / 20 Fire PvE spec to include it.

Of course, with the old scorch I never saw a single tick of the DoT when I was spamming it, (if you have a good connection you won't), so its defniitely a decent upgrade for me! :-D

[Magatone]

Given that every guide to mages listed the old Improve Scorch as a very wasted talent, I can't help but feel this is a good upgrade - and I'm probably going to respec my 31 Arcane / 20 Fire PvE spec to include it.

I disagree. While I haven't read a lot of the published guides, I liked the old talent quite a bit for improving the DPM of the Fire Tree. As a Fire / Arcane mage on a PvE server, I cast Scorch a lot. The old talent upped the DPM as well as slightly increasing the DPS of the spell, which was quite nice. It meant that I wasn't drinking as often during instance runs.

I haven't had a chance to play with the new version, but I expect that I won't be terribly impressed. I can't imagine too many battles where I'm going to get to land 5 Scorch spells and then start with bigger fire spells. If I respec to get PoM to make Pyroblast post 5 Scorches viable, then I lose Fire Power which means I'm getting an overall decrease in damage. I'm going to give it a week, but I don't expect to keep the new talent.

Of course, with the old scorch I never saw a single tick of the DoT when I was spamming it, (if you have a good connection you won't), so its defniitely a decent upgrade for me! :-D

This simply isn't true. I have an excellent connection, and I always saw my Scorch spells tick all the way down. Recasting Scorch did not overwrite the DoT portion, so from my initial cast, that DoT would get it's 2 ticks of damage in and wear off, and there would be a brief time when the mob went undotted as my next Scorch was casting (if you work it out, there's about a 1 second window between the dot wearing off and and the next Scorch landing when you're spamming Scorch, and I found that to be true in practice as well).

[Maledict]

This simply isn't true. I have an excellent connection, and I always saw my Scorch spells tick all the way down. Recasting Scorch did not overwrite the DoT portion, so from my initial cast, that DoT would get it's 2 ticks of damage in and wear off, and there would be a brief time when the mob went undotted as my next Scorch was casting (if you work it out, there's about a 1 second window between the dot wearing off and and the next Scorch landing when you're spamming Scorch, and I found that to be true in practice as well).

Sorry Magatone, but your not right there.

Old Scorch overwrote and restarted the DoT. This was proven repeatedly, by many mages, in this forum and others.

Which meant that if your next scorch hit the creature before 2 seconds were up (which is the standard tick time), you would *never* see a tick of the DoT - because it was always being reapllied and never actually getting to deal damage.

I literally have logs where I spammed Scorch 20 times on a monster (yay Uldaman giant), and never once did the DoT tick for damage until I stopped casting Scorch. (Note that my connection generally registers at 20 / 30 to the euro servers).

If you were spamming Scorch on a creature, you certainly never had a point where the DoT had worn off before the next scorch hit. Thats simply not how the spell worked, and even proponents of the old scorch admit that (hence the 12.5% benefit most people gained from it, as they only ever got 1 tick before the next scorch overwrote it).


Whether or not the new scorch is better is up to question, but the old scorch certainly wasn't working a t full potential.

[Magatone]

If you were spamming Scorch on a creature, you certainly never had a point where the DoT had worn off before the next scorch hit. Thats simply not how the spell worked, and even proponents of the old scorch admit that (hence the 12.5% benefit most people gained from it, as they only ever got 1 tick before the next scorch overwrote it).

I don't know what to say here, other than my experience has been exactly the opposite. Perhaps there was a patch between when you had Improved Scorch and when I picked it up. I don't know, but I can tell you that my Scorch spell was not overwriting it's DoT component with each consecutive cast. I don't take logs, so I have nothing that I can show you as proof. You can believe me or not. I know what I saw in game though.

It's all moot anyway, since it's gone now. I'm just frustrated.

[gore]

If you're tight on points (read, 31 Arcane build) this one's hard to justify. With that build you're obviously not as concerned with sustained DPS or DPM, and with only 20 points you'll be seriously crunched.

My build right now is 31 Arcane / 20 Fire and I don't plan on taking Improved Scorch. If I was going 30 Fire I'd probably grab it, but I just can't work it in here.

[Ralan]

Gore you are right that if you are tight on points its hard to justify. Even with my 21 arc / 30 fire build I don't have enough points to justify improved scorch. If I want blast wave its absolutly out of the question because I can't get both fire power and imp scorch and if I forego blastwave I can still only get 4/5 of fire power. with 30 fire points I'd rather have the 10% all the time rather than 10% after 5 scorch casts. So to really justify, I think, getting Imp Scorch you need to be really heavy in fire so you can at least get both fire power 5/5 and imp scorch 5/5.

To get that with 30 fire you'd have to lose pyroblast/blastwave or short something to a 4/5 or a 1/2. If you going to go above 30 you might as well go full fire since you'll lose PoM anyway and go all the way to combustion, at that point, Imp Scorch would be pretty sweet I think. Scorch x 5, Combust, Pyroblast, Fireblast, Fireball would probably be a pretty good chunk of damage.

EDIT: Looking closer if i dumped impact i could have Blastwave, Pyroblast, Scorch and Firepower, oh but I love impact, ugh..../sigh, what to do what to do.

[Maledict]

If you're tight on points (read, 31 Arcane build) this one's hard to justify. With that build you're obviously not as concerned with sustained DPS or DPM, and with only 20 points you'll be seriously crunched.

My build right now is 31 Arcane / 20 Fire and I don't plan on taking Improved Scorch. If I was going 30 Fire I'd probably grab it, but I just can't work it in here.

Well, at the moment its 5 points in Improved Fireball, 5 in Ignite, 1 in Pyroblast and 2 in Incinerate, leaving me with 7 points to play around with.

Where I spend the 7 points is a bit of a mystery to me lol - Impact, Improved Scorch, Improved Fireblast?

I was thinking Improved Scorch purely because I use that spell so much in instances, and I'm nervous about adding a stun effect to my firespells. Any ideas?

[gore]

Well, at the moment its 5 points in Improved Fireball, 5 in Ignite, 1 in Pyroblast and 2 in Incinerate, leaving me with 7 points to play around with.

Where I spend the 7 points is a bit of a mystery to me lol - Impact, Improved Scorch, Improved Fireblast?

For me it was Flamethrowing, Burning Soul, and Improved Fire Blast. At least one point in Improved Fire Blast is a really, really good idea. The other two talents you can probably live without, but Flamethrowing is great to snipe in PvP and Burning Soul makes solo farming/grinding a lot easier.

[Attyla]

This talent, which I was planning on getting, with the 15s duration seems less powerful than +4% chance to crit and -.8 seconds to cooldown for Fire Blast.

Even one scorch is equivalent to +4% crit chance. This is a big improvement. It's a very noticeable effect. Ask any shadow priest.

[gore]

Even one scorch is equivalent to +4% crit chance. This is a big improvement. It's a very noticeable effect. Ask any shadow priest.

That is incorrect. To find out how much extra damage you'll do with crit items, you can use this formula:

damage_increase = (added_chance_to_crit * 1.1) / (existing_chance_to_crit * 1.1 + 1)

So, for example, adding 4% chance to crit over a 10% existing chance will grant you almost a 4% increase in damage, which is equal to the effect of a double-stacked improved scorch.

The added damage from Improved Scorch would of course be welcome, but Scorch has a shorter range and does less DPS in general than Fireball. You have to get closer to your enemy and waste time with Scorch's lower DPS to make Fireball/Pyro/Fire Blast better, and if you're thinking of PvP you almost never have that opportunity.

It's not like Shadow Weaving that works with every shadow damage spell - for us to get the fire vulnerability we HAVE to use Scorch, which means any added DPS we get from later spells is cancelled out by the weaker DPS of Scorch itself ramping up. Not to mention, the effect is presumably dispellable, and if your target runs out of range or you're forced to switch targets for another reason the benefit of your ramping up is totally lost.

This is a great ability for PvE groups/raids when it comes to increasing efficiency and sustained DPS, but when it comes to PvP you will seldom have time to make full use of it. That's why I hesitate to select it in my 31 Arcane build, which is mostly concerned with burst damage for quick PvP takedowns.

[Kephra]

From experimenting with it, the improved scorch ICON can be kept up more or less indefinitely as long as you recast at least once during the duration.
It's hard as heck to try to do controlled testing on if the bonus stays at max or wears down as individual contributors hit their 15s mark.
scorch 1
scorch 2
scorch 3
fireblast
scorch 4
fireball
fireball
scorch 5

Am I max IS effect? Or did it drop as scorch 1+ wore off?
I dunno. And I can't think of a good way to check.