Living bomb vs Frost bomb

[linduc 6]

Hey,

In your MoP mage guides you say:

At the moment, Living Bomb is the best choice for single-target DPS, thanks to the 1-second global cooldown that it triggers.

Frost Bomb should be used when you are dealing with 6 enemies or more.

Nether Tempest is currently undertuned and does not perform as well as the other two talents.

According to simcrafts - and my own tests - it seems Frost Bomb deals much more damage. I'd like to ask you what are your reasons to choose Living Bomb instead of Frost Bomb for all spec.

Thanks,

linduc

[Damien 1,514]

A new version of Simcraft was released yesterday or last night, so I went to check it out after reading your post.

I simmed all 3 specs, with all three choices of Tier 5 talents: Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, and Frost Bomb. It turns out that they're now all viable in single-target damage (the difference is like 1%). So I updated the guides to reflect this.

Also, Invocation seems to have become the Tier 6 talent of choice for Fire Mages and the Fire Mage guide has been updated accordingly.

So, thank you for posting your question :)

To answer your question, at the time I did the tests, Living Bomb turned out to be better. The problem with the beta is that it changes too often for us to re-run the tests at every build. We're trying out best, but there's only so much we can do.

[Krazyito 521]

^{Invocation is so odd.. If its over-powered, it forces good mages to evocate FULLY every 40 seconds, but if its underpowered (or even overpowered by 1% or some small margin) then it will never get used, because of the simplicity of} Incanter's Ward and Rune of Power

Though, I think Incaters ward will be more preferred regardless for movement heavy fights.

Edited August 23, 2012 by krazyito65

[linduc 6]

Thanks for your quick reply. It seems to me there is a bigger difference between these two spells.

And you also say:

For multiple-target damage, Living Bomb will be most suited for when you are fighting between 2 and 4 (or 5) enemies.

Living bomb's target cap is 3 enemies. And the Inferno Blast spreads it to up to 2 nearby enemies.

I didn't tested the Living bombs' explosion damages on multiple targets, I only made one target tests. But I think there are no a lot of raid boss encounters with many targets constantly. This is the other reason why Frost Bomb is better choice (I think).

Fire mage tier 1 talents: If you choose PoM, wouldn't it be better if you use PoM+Pyroblast combo in every 90 seconds? Just because of the Pyroblast dot.

[Damien 1,514]

Living bomb's target cap is 3 enemies. And the Inferno Blast spreads it to up to 2 nearby enemies.

I didn't tested the Living bombs' explosion damages on multiple targets, I only made one target tests. But I think there are no a lot of raid boss encounters with many targets constantly. This is the other reason why Frost Bomb is better choice (I think).

Let's make a comparison. I'll take the tooltips as they appear on my level 90 Mage.

• Living Bomb does 27,830 damage over 13.17 seconds. It explodes for 22,372 damage dealt to up to 3 enemies within 10 yards (including the enemy who was afflicted with Living Bomb).
• Frost Bomb has a 1.32-second cast, a 8.78-second cooldown, and deals 52,708 damage to the target after 4.39 seconds, and 26,354 damage to all targets within 10 yards (excluding the enemy who was afflicted with Frost Bomb).

If there 2 enemies, it takes 2 seconds exactly to apply Living Bomb on both of them (by casting it twice). Each Living Bomb will do 27,830 + 2x 22,372 = 72,574 damage. So you get to do 145,148 damage by spending 2 seconds casting and you can repeat it every 13.17 seconds.

For the same number of enemies, you will do 52,708 + 26,354 = 79,062 damage with Frost Bomb with a 1.32-second cast and you get to do it only once every 8.78+1.32 = 10.10 seconds.

Here, I think it's better to do 145,148 damage with 2 seconds of casting every 13.17 seconds than 79,062 damage with a 1.32-second cast every 10 seconds. The reason why I think so is because you will fill the rest of the rotation with much less damaging spells, so the longer you can spend casting highly damaging spells, the better.

If there are 3 enemies, it takes 2.32 seconds to apply Living Bomb on all of them (1.0-second initial cast of Living + 1.32-second cast of Fire Blast to spread it). Each Living Bomb will do 27,830 + 3x 22,372 = 94,946 damage. So you get to do 284,838 by spending 2.32 seconds casting and you can repeat it every 13.17 seconds.

For the same number of enemies, you will do 52,708 + 2x 26,354 = 105,416 damage with Frost Bomb with a 1.32-second cast and you get to do it only once every 8.78+1.32 = 10.10 seconds.

Here, I still think Living Bomb is better, as each second spent casting brings you more DPS than for Frost Bomb.

If there are 4 enemies, Frost Bomb does 131,770 and once again brings you slightly more DPS by second spent casting than Living Bomb, but once again, I think that spending more time casting highly damaging spells is important, so I'd go for Living Bomb.

If there are 5 enemies or more, Frost Bomb is the clear winner. I'll update the guide to reflect this.

Fire mage tier 1 talents: If you choose PoM, wouldn't it be better if you use PoM+Pyroblast combo in every 90 seconds? Just because of the Pyroblast dot.

It is, thanks for suggesting it

[linduc 6]

Sorry if it looks like I don't want to accept your arguments and I'm just wasting your time. But all the simcrafts (http://simulationcraft.org/) use Frost Bomb for all spec. I tried both spells and the results were convincing.

Your numbers are clear and theirs as well. Now, I just have to figure out what to do... :)

Thanks for your time, and you are doing a great job here. :)

[Damien 1,514]

Sorry if it looks like I don't want to accept your arguments and I'm just wasting your time. But all the simcrafts (http://simulationcraft.org/) use Frost Bomb for all spec. I tried both spells and the results were convincing.

Your numbers are clear and theirs as well. Now, I just have to figure out what to do...

Thanks for your time, and you are doing a great job here.

I'm not sure just how well you can test multiple-target damage with simcraft. How did you test?

[linduc 6]

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. You are right about 2-4 targets, and I accepted it. I was talking about the single target dps. According my own tests (not as optimal as simulations, but I won't do a perfect timed best rotation ever) on raid dummies Frost Bomb did about 6-8% more damage than Living Bomb. That's why I prefer Frost Bomb.

[Damien 1,514]

I did some simulation last night and all specs simmed very close.

• Arcane: 125k (Nether Tempest), 124k (Living Bomb), 126k (Frost Bomb)
• Fire: 127k (Nether Tempest), 126k (Living Bomb), 126k (Frost Bomb)
• Frost: 124k (Nether Tempest), 122k (Living Bomb), 124k (Frost Bomb)

[linduc 6]

Well, as I said, I couldn't do as perfect as simulations could. But I'm glad we could discuss it, and thanks for your help. :)

[Damien 1,514]

I'm glad I could help. And it's also important to take simulation results with a pinch of salt. The simulation tools are written by human beings, so there's always room for error ;)

[TelFiRE 0]

Regardless of what the sims say, in practice, changing from Living Bomb to Nether Tempest made my DPS on a dummy go from 33k to 40k consistently and without effort. I don't think the three talents are created as equal as everyone seems to think... Not sure if there's a tooltip bug preventing proper math from being done, or my gear situation (pretty normal 405 gear) or what. But this is easily the single biggest change I've ever seen on any of my characters, just from one talent change. I mean I did a good 30 minutes on that dummy to be sure. Nether tempest OBLIDERATES Living Bomb.

Edited September 12, 2012 by TelFiRE

[boccko 0]

If there are 3 enemies, it takes 2.32 seconds to apply Living Bomb on all of them (1.0-second initial cast of Living + 1.32-second cast of Fire Blast to spread it). Each Living Bomb will do 27,830 + 3x 22,372 = 94,946 damage. So you get to do 284,838 by spending 2.32 seconds casting and you can repeat it every 13.17 seconds.

Sorry if it's a noob question, but is it better - as you suggest - to instantly spread Living Bomb / force secondary effects on others with Inferno Blast as Fire than to wait for crits and force insta-Pyros? Even at the first application of LB I usually don't spread it instantly, but wait for a crit. Do you have any suggestions?

[Sagetastic 20]

Sorry if it's a noob question, but is it better - as you suggest - to instantly spread Living Bomb / force secondary effects on others with Inferno Blast as Fire than to wait for crits and force insta-Pyros? Even at the first application of LB I usually don't spread it instantly, but wait for a crit. Do you have any suggestions?

If there are 2 adds next to your LB target, it is definitely worth spreading. The evidence is more or less in your quote. I like to think it would theoretically be a higher damage gain since the explosion hits 3 targets (assuming there are 3 targets when it explodes, we are talking about AoE here right? kinda sorta?).

~Sage

[BrightBrown 4]

If you have 3 mobs on you, LB all three and you don't need to spread w/Inferno. If there are 1-2 more than the 3 you tagged, go for an Inferno.That's the way I play it (until someone shows me the error of my ways!).

Also keep in mind that 10, yards is a lot smaller than what most "see" in-game.

[midgettoes 6]

If you have 3 mobs on you, LB all three and you don't need to spread w/Inferno. If there are 1-2 more than the 3 you tagged, go for an Inferno.That's the way I play it (until someone shows me the error of my ways!).

Also keep in mind that 10, yards is a lot smaller than what most "see" in-game.

I don't understand why, in your first case, you wouldn't just spread with inferno? I mean, it is 1 less GCD, it means the explosion is sooner (by up to 2 seconds), it's simpler to do and you get additional damage (inferno blast damage on a single target > the 1 tick of LB).

I just don't follow why more than 3 mobs makes it suddenly work Inferno Blasting, but just 3 you do it the less efficient way.

[Vladamyr 169]

If you have 3 mobs on you, LB all three and you don't need to spread w/Inferno. If there are 1-2 more than the 3 you tagged, go for an Inferno.That's the way I play it (until someone shows me the error of my ways!).

Also keep in mind that 10, yards is a lot smaller than what most "see" in-game.

It is much better to simply living bomb 1 target and Inferno Blast with Glyph of Fire Blast if the targets are close together (10 yards). The only reason to separately cast Living Bombs would be if you had 2-3 targets further than 10 yards apart.

Also note that Living bomb is capped at 3 targets total, no matter how you apply it (separate casts or with Glyph of Fire Blast).

Damien keeps the mage rotations very up to date and I would highly recommend reviewing them if you have questions.

http://icy-veins.com...downs-abilities

Edited October 4, 2012 by Vladamyr

[specialk 3]

I have recently changed from LB to NT (as a Fire mage) and im not looking back - i have noticed a considerable difference in my dps. and especially my aoe dps (still absolutely no way I could keep up with a monk - but its 'better'). Highly recommend.

[midgettoes 6]

I have recently changed from LB to NT (as a Fire mage) and im not looking back - i have noticed a considerable difference in my dps. and especially my aoe dps (still absolutely no way I could keep up with a monk - but its 'better'). Highly recommend.

I mean to try tonight a proper test but I have found frost bomb to be the best so far. I'm going to run some dummy tests and I'll edit this to see what I find.