Thaellyn - Mage DPS testing
Thaellyn (blood elf mage - self-buffed with AI and Molten Armor):
No cooldowns = nothing but spell spam
With cooldowns = mirror image, icy veins, arcane power (when arcane spec), presence of mind (when arcane spec), cold snap (when frost spec). No mana restoration cooldowns used.
OOM = tested until I ran out of mana, length of time is listed after total DPS
Frost (18/0/53):
No cooldowns, OOM - 2984.5 DPS (4m 36s)
- Frostbolt: 109 hits, 615615 dmg, 87.7% total dmg
Hit - min 2825, avg 3513, max 4574, count 49, 45.0%
Hit - min 2583, avg 3313, max 4319, count 8, 40.0%
- Frostbolt: 99 hits, 648899 dmg, 91.4%
Hit - min 2855, avg 3605, max 4749, count 26, 26.3%
Hit - min 2605, avg 3136, max 3627, count 7, 50.0%
Arcane (57/3/11):
No cooldowns, OOM - 3254.5 DPS (1m 56s)
- Arcane Blast: 38 hits, 232337 dmg, 63.0%
Hit - min 3146, avg 4410, max 5965, count 21, 55.3%
Hit - min 1743, avg 2216, max 2872, count 34, 75.6%
- Arcane Blast: 39 hits, 278879 dmg, 62.2%
Hit - min 2899, avg 4867, max 8087, count 20, 51.3%
Hit - min 1880, avg 2532, max 3698, count 31, 62.0%
The results of the test are slightly misleading: this was against a heroic test dummy (boss level ??) with the full hit cap on gear. However, the test dummies are not immune to being frozen, so the damage from Deep Freeze does not come into play with the DPS scores. Frost should be a little higher DPS than where the tests bring it in at.
I usually see Deep Freeze hit for about 9k and crit for about 17k. Let's assume a 50% crit chance. Calculating that in with my frost results means a DPS gain of 409.4 (9 times [5 hits, 4 crits] in 4m 36s = 113000 dmg, over 276 seconds) without cooldowns, and 466.9 (9 times in 4m 2s with Cold Snap [5 hits, 4 crits] = 113000 dmg, over 242 seconds) with cooldowns.
As it stands, arcane is approx. 22% more DPS with cooldowns, and about 8% more without. The average is close to 15%. With the loose Deep Freeze calculation added in, frost's DPS becomes 3393.9 DPS w/out cooldowns and 3897.7 DPS with, making frost actually *higher* DPS without cooldowns. Frost still comes in under arcane with cooldowns, however--about 18% under.
These results support what I have read about the state of arcane and frost at this time. With the increased spell power scaling of frostbolt coming in 3.3.3, I expect these results to change somewhat--at the very least, frost should close the gap.
Or at least, that is what I hope. I'm well aware that I'm no master theorycrafter, but it's a start.