This is mainly relating to fire/frost immunities as I am a mage, but what I'm wondering is basically is there anything significant taht is immune to either of these elements in raiding besides hydross (to frost) and a'lar (to fire)? I tried to find more, but was unable to see if any other boss mobs were immune. One question in particular I wasn't about to find the answer to is are the "water?" elementals (they might be poison, I'm not sure) that spawn during the vashj fight frost immune?

Since the 2.1 patch the mages in my guild (myself included) have been exerimenting a bit with different buiilds, including heavy frost and have found some pretty nice results that we didn't expect. We're just embarking into SSC and I'm curious if once we get hydross down to a ridiculously easy phase if we can specc out of fire or if there is a significant amount of frost immunity after that? I'm not sure if that's what we plan on doing, but I'm kind of curious if there is, to be prepared, and make an informed deicision, I can't find anything ot suggest any boss mods or adds in a boss encounter are immune, but I could be wrong.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Of what I've seen so far in SSC there's only Hydross, and of TK it's only Al'ar.

If you're also considering the older raids, more or less all bosses in BWL are immune to fire (Chromaggus, Broodlord and Razorgore aren't), Ragnaros and Geddon in MC, nothing in AQ40 and nothing in Naxx.

Out of curiosity, Sapph wasn't frost immune?

Sapph in naxx was immune to frost, but I could care less about the old instances.

I thought that it was mainly those 2 bosses, but I wanted to double check before making any major gear/specc decisions.

Ultimately its going to possibly affect your choice wrt a tailoring specialization, but I dont think you can really consider the current boss encounters such that they make you pick a particular spec. The respec cost is so cheap now in terms of how fast it is possible to make money ingame, so I honestly wouldn't sweat your choice too much.

Respec cost is not really the problem, it's enchants and gear decissions. Sunfire/Soulfrost are very expensive investments so is tailoring.

The solution for me was going full Arcane... CBA with being inferior or completely useless on some fights, much rather be 95% of 10/48/3 on most fights and much better on Al'ar. Also, Slow has turned out to work really well for us on some encounters.

This isn't a mage issue, but it fits into the thread nicely: What bosses in TBC raiding are poison immune and therefore a problem for Mutilate specced rogues? I know about Hydross and Void Reaver, so far.

I'm aware that at some point I'll just have to bite the bullet and spec Combat, but I'm a bit curious to see how long I can put that off.

Vashj elemental adds are (as elementals) immune to poison.

and Frost for what its worth

It's only Karazhan, but Curator is immune to arcane. A bunch of the trash that looks like Curator was also immune last patch, but it may have been changed as I don't recall any immunities on my last run (Though I may have just been overjoyed by the changes to the mana fishes).

I am unsure why Blizzard thinks that these sorts of immunities are hilarious for mages to deal with. Basically it means you either don't do the fight or you pay to respec a number of times a week. Frankly I'm shocked they didn't make Nightbane immune to fire. I guess "We won't make immune bosses any more" was along the same lines as "Don't worry about Draenei getting fear ward -- we won't be using fear much."

Are there any shadow or nature immune bosses or trash in BC? I seem to recall the Green Dragons were nature immune.

Hm, full arcane meaning that you only cast arcane spells most of the time? 3*Arcane Blast, 1*Missiles, wait for the debuff to get to 1s remaining, and repeat?
Also, where did you find uses for slow, I haven't really found anything yet, sadly

Also, a few weeks ago, I did normal Arcatraz with an arcane mage. He used to cast slow on a target after the tank sundered ir 1-2 times, and tended to pull aggro very shortly after. He stooped using slow then and never aggroeed again right at the start.
Did you feel that Slow is an aggro bomb or have you experienced anything similar?

Edit: Thanks for the feedback up on slow, I have no idea what it was that caused threat havoc.

Could just be a fluke or other mitigating factors.

Lately one of our 2 top Mages (the others are inconsistent in terms of their performance) went 40 Arcane 21 Frost, in part to sidestep fire-immune mobs in The Eye. He's done very well, usually top among the mages and up there with our Affliction Warlocks/Shadow Priest. On Hydross' frost phase he uses a 3*AB, 4*Scorch cycle (Fire Vulnerability is up from the other Mages).

It is possible that the major slowing effect was just keeping the tank from generating much of any rage.

Slow generates less threat than faerie fire, so it was probably another mitigating factor.

And to szgeti: slow affects spell casts, ranged attacks and movement speed. none of that would keep a tank from generating rage, considering most mobs with a ranged attack are very squishy.

I'm 50 arcane 11 fire atm, I basically only do arcane spells yeah. Clearcast AM -> Pom Pyro.

Right now I only really use AB for conservation and if I have a shit load of mana to spare. Lightning Capacitor and how clearcast works with AM is just amazing and can put out some sick numbers at times. I'm not as happy with this spec as 10 48 3, but it works and I'm getting more conformtable with it - getting rotations sorted and learning to play properly with it in raids is still something im working on.

Worst part about it is the need to chain chug super mana pots on almost everything if I want to do good dps. But with Daily quests atm and the relatively cheap super mana pots it's not that big of a deal.

I specced a weird arc frost spec for Vashj because all other strategies with Striders didnt work. Had to find a permanent solution to it so I didn't have to respec each time we did Vashj and went with the heavy arcane and some fire spec that I actually find very fun to play and isn't as gimp as everyone thinks so.

Freudian perhaps?

Sorry, I know it's a valueless post but that was a hanging curve right there. I won't make a habit of it I assure you.

How would a snare reduce the amount of rage he generated? Odds are these mobs were in melee if they were being tanked.

Because Slow also decreases the target's attack speed by 50%, decreasing the amount of rage gained from taking damage & subsequently the threat the tank is able to output with that reduced-rage. Ultimately, making it easier to pull aggro off your tank, especially in multi-mob pulls.

no?

Can you elaborate a little as to where I am incorrect?