Amplify/Dampen Magic & Naxx

[anerak]

So in a discussion with our mages in the guild, they're of the opinion that we don't use amp/dampen magic near enough. Having next to no experience as one, nor with the spells themselves, I'd love to get some feedback. Making use of tools is never a bad thing Thanks!

This is my general idea regarding each boss and if either is useful.

Anub - amp
Grand Widow - neither
Maexxna - dampen on all but the MT, esp since dmg from web wrap seems to have been increased

Noth - amp so long cure is dispelled on time
Heigan - probably no amp b/c of the disease/splashes, not sure about dampen
Loatheb - maybe amp on the MT, but probably not b/c of doom from melee?

Instructor - amp on the understudies every time they're MCd, every bit helps.
Gothik - amp for at least the first bit, once he comes down, all dmg is shadow bolt, but it's wussy even with the debuff
Four Horsemen - dampen magic for the marks, but probably nothing?

Patchwerk - amp
Grobbulus - dampen on all but tanks
Gluth - amp
Thaddius - maybe dampen on non-MTs

Sapphiron - neither, or dampen
Kel'thuzad - dampen on non tanks

[Playdoh]

On kel'thuzad I would be leery about putting dampen on everyone not tanking.

The icetomb does 104% dmg and has to be healed very quickly. True it is an easy thing to heal if the healer knows about it soon enough. But with dampen magic it would waste some mana, on what can be a mana intensive fight.

I would not think that dampen magic would effect the 104% damage debuff from icetomb.

Not until I saw it.

[Wolvar]

ONLY use amplify magic on a fight that has no magical component. (Patchwerk, Instructor, Gluth)

NEVER use dampen magic at all.


If the magical damage is significant enough to warrant dampen, then the healing required is significant enough to disallow it's use.


ESPECIALLY don't use either on kel/saphh.

[Elsie]

In general, dampen magic is useless. This is most easily seen by looking at dampen / amp as a percentage, and below I'm assuming that the healing effect is +/- 2% though any given percentage works due to the 2:1 healing:damage nature.

i.e. say you are normally healed for a value of 1. Amplify magic makes this, say, 1.02 or effectively +2%. Since the mob has little to no magic damage, we can say this: Damage On Tank = Damage Done - Healing*(1.02)

Now let's assume we have dampen magic. You are now being healed for 0.98, and assume the mob is dealing 1.01% more damage. So Damage On Tank = Damage Done*(1.01) - Healing*(0.98). So as we see, the damage is always going to scale higher than the healing.

The exception to the never use dampen magic rule is where the burst magic damage is so great and set apart that the tank could not reasonably survive without it. That is, Damage Done > EH

If you want to see this more mathematically, simply note that y = damage increase/decrease, and y*2 = healing decrease. Thus we have for amplify DOT[Magic]=DMG - Heal*2y where DMG is negligible and DOT[Magic]=DMG*(y) - Heal*(y/2) where DMG is not negligible (otherwise you wouldn't use dampen).

[anerak]

thank you, i appreciate the explanations

[Rizzy]

Now let's assume we have dampen magic. You are now being healed for 0.98, and assume the mob is dealing 1.01% more damage. So Damage On Tank = Damage Done*(1.01) - Healing*(0.98). So as we see, the damage is always going to scale higher than the healing.

If you want to see this more mathematically, simply note that y = damage increase/decrease, and y*2 = healing decrease. Thus we have for amplify DOT[Magic]=DMG - Heal*2y where DMG is negligible and DOT[Magic]=DMG*(y) - Heal*(y/2) where DMG is not negligible (otherwise you wouldn't use dampen).

I am probably missing something obvious, but I don't quite follow your math in this case. Why is the mob dealing more dmg? If we're using dampen magic, its because the mob is dealing magic dmg, so shouldn't the mob's dmg go down as well? I'm just not understanding why the boss deals more damage.

Also, it appears you may be working from the old mechanic of dampen/amplify with the 2:1 healing-damage ratio when you say y=dmg and y*2=healing. It has been changed significantly; the highest ranks of dampen/amplify currently use 240 for damage and 255 for healing.