Few points from my observations after 100 days played as an arcane mage,
I only joined the game back in Jan and lvl'd my Mage arcane all the way. At the time and until about 6weeks most people were telling me I was crazy for being arcane that Forst or Fire were way to go. I was also able to quickly show them they were wrong, arcane was a good spec both for lvl'ing and as DPS in instances/pvp and later in raids.
Now all of a sudden at 80 and having been perfectly happy with arcane up to now it's gotten to the stage where I can't seem to find gear (kept my T6 till 80) to keep my mage competitive with Fire and FFB builds. Especially after T7.5 haste in particular seems to be very hard to come by and most gear at 80 seems to favour haste over crit.
To make arcane a more competitive build I think blizzard need be change the Spell power bonus to be arcane only and make it 100% as was already suggested. At least then crit gear will come a lot closer to the value of hard to come by haste. Given the extra dmg comes at no increased mana consumption unlike haste, this could offset the advantage of the higher DPS and shorter casts times from haste though we would still obviously have to stack a lot more crit points than we had to haste for same percentages increases. Blizzard it seemed though were already weighting the amount points on items so percentage wise you seemed to be getting roughly the same %haste or %crit on items with some startling expections on pvp gear (same points hit/haste on titanforged/deadly gear making hit flavour way better value till cap then haste flavour).
2. I've found I'm still getting higher DPS doing ABABABAMAbarr over ABABABMbarr/Abar anyone else? Also due to increasing lag on my server I've removed all stopcasting on macros except survival casts which you'll want to interrupt whatever your currently doing since I seemed to be clipping and failing to cast more often than I liked. That lead me to test the timing of my casts and my haste now seems either not to be working or even apparently acting in reverse as AB and AM often take longer to cast than advertised without any debuff on me causing it. With haste enough to get AB down to 2.2s I was finding it seemed to normally take close to 3s though human reaction can account for some of it it defn seems there is something awry.
3. I only today tried out the CSD Meta, I had been using the Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, I'm still seeing if I can use CSD but I know from my dummy tests the IED makes a huge mana difference and can easily mean the difference between you being able to pop a mana at 80% and Evoc at 40% and keep the full rotation (with AP whenever it procs) going almost indefinately. I also stack a fair bit of spirit and have Mage Armour and Meditation to help keep mana flowing.
Given the IED seems to proc at least once a minute often twice, at 600 mana a go it give 50-80MP5 so I think it should be strong contender for your Meta socket as an Arcane mage, the CSD should not be the automatic choice. I think when Meta sockets first be become available to you at lvl 62 as a Technomage (Mage Eng) the IED should be the automatic choice given the MP5 from it alone means you don't have to have any other mana gear.
4. Although Eng for lvling as an gnome mage was great at 80 the only really useful items are the glove attachments and as a new 80 even the lightning generator held it's own for a while. On the gloves let me point out the obvious, the pryo rockets are better dps until your doing enough DPS (about 2.5k) to make it worthwhile to switch to the accelerators. However Eng defn at 80 atm is not worth it unless you need to do it to provide bots/postbox on raid (and given there is now usually repair guys close to start of raid that isn't often needed) so if your going to lvl fast to 80 defn choose one the other professions for the bonuses they give you (why didn't I go JC/Tailoring), I'll hold my breath to see if 3.2 delivers the changes to Eng which will once again make it a valuable Mage profession.
5. People say Resistant is highly situational and just not worth it because there aren't enough fights where it comes into play. I think these people ignore the amount of fights where Nature DMG is caused. Not only does the high resistant a Mage with/without Improved GOTW + aura/totems lead to better personal survival it also frees up healers to concentrate on poor unfortunates who can't get the resistance we can.
In pvp and mobs situations it also has mana benefits because you with buffs enough resistance to fully resist some spells and get the 2% mana. To me it seems though blizzard don't want mages to have resistance in PVP, the scaling is such that you only need to negate about half the resistance before it offers no real protection. Also using the same amount of gems or enchants you can get 5 times more Spell penetration than you can resistance.
6. Instant casts, having the ability to DPS on the move is one of the arcane mages greatest strengths so I think it worthwhile to seriously consider putting points into Slow, Ice Floes and Improved Fire Blast so you can do more of it. Slow and Ice flows mean you can make the time to be able to stop and get casts off on a moving target. It's only a pity that you really have to be frost to make CoC/Ice Lance effective weapons though it's still handy if you find you have to follow a kited target for some reason. Also Prismatic cloak, without it invisibility is only half as useful. Not only does it often mean you'll can often have your invisibility interrupted before it's started and therefore become useless (okay they say there are going to fix this so dmg during the 3s of fade won't cause invisibility to fail but if your having to turn invisible it means your in trouble and 3s of trouble often results in death).
7. Melee Armour, given we generally don't stack lots of stam then arcane fortitude does make the difference between life and death. Although it won't all of a sudden turn you into a tank it will give you the extra gcd you need. Okay in an ideal world with everyone doing their job you'll never need it. Healers will be keeping you topped up so you won't die from the occasional spear etc and tanks should be be grabbing whose mobs as soon as they spawn so they will never get in range of hitting u right?
Obvioulsy in PVP even though again it wont make you a tank, it in combination with improved Ice armour (glyph and talents) will give you the gcd you need to make space, switching armour as needed is worth a GCD so I generally walk around in Ice, put up Mage if about to take magic dmg and prior to Molten Nerfs I used to have that one for the extra crit if I was about to get a couple of free shots before switching to Mage or Ice.
8. Pushback, it happens and judging from how badly I see the DPS of some fellow arcane mages drop in certain encounters where they are suffering from it it can have a huge impact. Even if that only happens to you occasionally do you really want to have to put up with comments you'll get when the tank does higher DPS than you? Maybe 3 points is enough and you can drop Arcane focus instead. Using your sockets for Hit makes sense you can get over .5% per socket and an Eternal Flame trinket will you 4% on it's own.
Sry long post was also going to rave on about the general pvp inequalities that seem to be getting worse with mages vs other classes, but this gotten to long as is.
please advise me, should i change my current belt with the crafted one to cap hit (i lack 20 hit rating), or should i take some +hit gems in yellow sockets?
I'm sorry to post such a nub question, but I have seen various hit ratings posted and am hoping for a definite answer. How much hit is needed normally (no FA no dranei), with a dranei (no FA), with FA, and with FA + dranei? ty!
Thanks folks for your thoughts about my earlier question about fitting CD's in blood rotations. Experimented yesterday with it at Loken heroic. The healer didn't have to keep an eye out for me; but it still feels a bit shaky.
What I also wonder. Slowly my gear starts to get decent enough; I keep my defense above the 540; I always try to keep my unbuffed HP 30k+. And now I'm struggling a bit with the dodge/parry/expertise/hit numbers. At the moment I managed with a few dodge gems to get the total % of dodge + parry at around 45%. That's still a bit short right?
My expertise. In Ulduar I equip my Jawbone; which gets my base expertise to 21. Together with expertise food/elixir it will get me around 30. I might consider swapping one of those too consumables out for something else.
But I can't seem to get that hitrating up. It's either losing expertise or hit; or avoidance even, but that's not what I want to lose.
Is it just that I still need some more pieces of nice equipment which will solve the problem? Because in an ideal situation I'd like that 264 hit, 26 expertise and around 55% total avoidance; plus 30k+ unbuffed stamina and 540 defense right?
Or am I reading thing wrong here and can I replace a few dodge gems with hit already? It doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment as I'm more or less a big threat cannon during Naxx 25 i.e. It's just that every now and then the damage seems so spikey.
And here a link to a wow-meter recording I did last friday (lots of new alts running through; so not a very succesful night, but I was MT, so it might have some nice information).
After going through page after page of impressive facts and figures I have one question...what the heck does it all mean? Is the current Blood dps spec going to be viable at all? Or is it a must to switch to the new dw spec? If so, what sort of rotation,glyphs etc are going to be used. You guys are amazing at getting to the heart of whats going to be the optimal way to set up your points, I just need a litte simplifying.
oh... thanks
yeah i was really expecting an error on the calculation since "miss/exp > all" until the yellow cap
but i thought it was already correct on the lastest version of the spreadsheet
Hey guys.
I'm a hunter with around 4.3k AP unbuffed and around 30 % crit.
I just got into a new guild that raids ulduar 10 mans and prolly soon 25.
i would like some help here, does anyone have a sugestions about wich spec that is best for my own dmg in raids, and what pet that is best in raids tho.
Btw atm im survival specced and i have a tiger as pet.
Please help me.
have a nice day and thank you
can someone point me to the "BiS" list for Non Hardmode Ulduar? I found the Fury/Arms list for hardmode gear but I need the non hardmode list (fury/arms)
First let me extend a hearty thank you to Elitist Jerks and all of the work that goes into these threads. I have been playing for over 3 years now and have (for a long time) used the Class Mechanics forums as the bible for all of my toons and my guild-mates toons.
Today I came to the Druid thread in attempt to help a guild-mate's performance in Ulduar 10. Much to my disappointment, I can't find a thread for Moonkins that shows stat values, spell rotations, etc that is available in all of the other Class Mechanics section.
I've looked in this thread and Raiding Moonkins thread but can't seem to find it. Am I over-looking it ? Can somebody point me in the right direction ?
I'm lost without the ability to find the answers to my questions in your forums
can someone point me to the "BiS" list for Non Hardmode Ulduar? I found the Fury/Arms list for hardmode gear but I need the non hardmode list (fury/arms)
Step 2) Increase threat generated on Seal of Righteousness for Prot so their threat isn't harmed during the process
Step 3) Seal of Command becomes the main damage seal for Ret as it is now (bear with me)
Step 4) Reduce the cooldown of Crusader Strike to 3 seconds. (Damage and mana cost appropriately)
Step 5) Crusader Strike now stacks a debuff 3 times, this debuff will do 2 things, it will create a DoT equal to what Seal of Vengeances did at 5 stacks and will increases Judgement damage by 16/32/50%
Crusader Strike being a 3-second cooldown and stacking 3 times is equal to 9 seconds of "ramp-up" before damage is maximized, it also doesn't punish the spec nearly as much for switching as the DoT and the Judgement damage increase are only missing, NOT the weapon damage every swing
What does this solve
Clear Seal niches for every spec.
Seal of Command actually being used for PvE and PvP
Gives Crusader Strike it's own Niche and debuff, i.e. not a boring piece of trash
Creates "counterable" damage for Ret in the ways of denying the debuff being stacked in PvP to produce more Judgement damage
Crusader Strike would look like this
Crusader Strike
4% of base mana Melee Range
Instant cast 3 sec cooldown
Requires Melee Weapon
An instant strike that causes 55% weapon damage, dealing (1/3'rd of Seal of Vengeances DoT damage) damage over time and increasing Judgement damage taken by 16%. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
After talents the 55% weapon damage would look closer to 70%.
I thought this was a rather decent suggestion, I think the numbers on command would have to be lowered to a tiny bit to what Vengeance's weapon damage is at 5 stacks and what it's judgement is before the 50% increase, but I think this solution fits the problem without making us take 'forever' to ramp up damage
You're not going to want to gear for haste, but having IAotH and the glyph to get your steady shot to 1.5 is always a DPS increase.
Thanks for the reply. I've perused the information you linked previously, but the refresher was appreciated.
Maybe I'm just thick, but it seems that a normal proc of IAotH (w/o glyph) would cap me haste-wise (at least to the point of hasting Steadies to 1.5) rendering the additional haste of the glyph pretty much useless.
Quite possible I'm missing something here, but at least this is how it appears to me, making me feel like the glyph of the Hawk is a waste.
What's even more confusing is the spreadsheet (to which I'm new, and still sorting out) shows a ~70dps increase when using Glyph of the Hawk. Maybe the dps increase is from the buff to autoshot, that's the only thing I can surmise thusfar.
Blindly following FBN will probably result in less DPS than paying attention to what's going on. Think of it like a cookbook - it's got the basic recipe, but tweak it to your own tastes and it'll turn out better.
That being said, Shred is often higher DPE than Rake depending on procs (as stated in this thread several times) so refreshing Rake instead of Shredding may be a DPS loss.
Using SR at 4-5 CPs is a waste of CPs. You should be refreshing at 2 CP for your gear level (3 if you get a non-crit followed by a crit, obviously).
There are several other flaws in your rotation, but if it's a net DPS gain for you stick with what works.
yeah i tried a bit to watch at FBN and my timers the same time, but when i do that it get's more complex for me. i guess i'll use FBN in fights where i have to watch out for other things than my timers (sometimes i don't even see my own healthbar when concentrating on dps).
i haven't read the thing about shred/rake DPE yet (45 pages are a bit much), but i'll search the information and try it.
you said i should use 2-3 CP SR.. well this is what i used to do, but when testing with 4-5CP on the dummy i could FB more often and found myself doing more dps but i'll recheck this!
yeah i my priority list isn't the best and it's hard to write down exactly how i react in every situations as there are so many conditions. but i guess it's really hard to USE (and find) the perfect rotation for your gear but as long as i can push the full ulduar equipped rogue on #2 i'm fine
ps: as most of my damage comes from rip and i do more damage with rip idol.. should i regem agi?
The problem with the way GC is trying to portray our 15-second ramp up as comparable to other classes is that all the classes with any sort of "ramp up" have control OVER that ramp up.
In his example of the feral with 4 combo points on Hodir, his DPS actually does NOT suffer from switching off, because a competant player would be able to consume those 4 combo points before switching. Combo point classes are not forced by any mechanic to reach 5-combo points to use their abilities. Nor are DoT based classes forced to apply ALL their DoTs to one target before they switch to a new one. A Shadow Priest on Yog Saron can throw a couple of his Dots on a corruptor while running by before switching onto a Crusher andd those DoTs do not do massively reduced damage because not all of them are up on that target. A skilled feral can do things like throw up a 2-combo point rip on Mimiron before they run out from Shock Blast to maximize thier DPS.
The way SoV currently works FORCES reliance on a 5-stack of the Dot. The difference between a 4-stack and a 5-stack is massive, beyond simply the one extra DoT's damage, because the seal procs only occur when a 5-stack is up. Not to mention the fact that Judgement damage is directly tied to the number of DoTs too, making opening with judge weak.
Ramp up on a target-rich environment, on enemies which die quickly or which you have to switch off of, would not be nearly as crippling if 33% weapon damage procs weren't reliant on there being a 5-stack up. Our damage with these changes doesn't even ramp... it's Binary. We either have a 5-stack and do ok DPS, or we have a 4-or-less stack and do terrible DPS.
Make the weapon damage procs occur always, but make it's damage scale based on the number of DoTs on the target.
-The fact that we can't scale our damage out all like all classes with similar ramp up can is a problem. Give us options when we dont have a 5-stack up or can't get one up in time. Ret DPS is no less mindless whack-a-mole than it was before precisely because we didn't get any control over our damage whatsoever.
-Don't underestimate the hit that the JoL change represents for ret in a competative raiding environment. Only a substantial DPS increase for the spec it's self, not just some kind of baseline booster jumpstart for "people who dont have good weapons" will compensate for that. Right now there's no justification for bringing more than one ret. If we go live without the "substantial DPS increase" we were promised, there will be no justification for bringing a ret at all for almost every hard mode in ulduar and everything we've seen in collosseum. We've lost even the "we are good when there are approximately 4 targets to be fought at once" mini-niche we shared with warriors.
What if SoV dot application was based on the number of Vengeance(buff) stacks you had?
1 stack of vengeance = 1 application
2 stack of vengeance = 2 applications
3 stack of vengeance = 3 applications
you get your ramp up in a fight without being at a huge disadvantage when switching to another target.
or a full stack of Vengeance(buff) could apply an additional SoV dot per hit.
The thing that's been bugging me is that we're being shoved into a half broken "combo point" system mechanic except without finishing moves.
That's the thing that sticks out. GC's repeated use of the word "finishing moves" when comparing ret in situations to other classes.
Rogues and Feral druids use those points as they want in order to do things like start bleeds, trigger self buffs etc...Ret has to get the equivalent of 5 points on a target and then stay there.
We use finishing moves?
Everyone of my buttons still just does damage on demand, it's just now if I don't have 5 points that on demand damage sucks...
Last edited by RevokeRepent : 07/29/09 at 10:48 PM.
Just wondering with the gear and spec I have atm would it be better for my DPS to stack ArP or keep stacking Agi? I've tried both setups in shandra's spreadsheet but i can't really get a straight answer because I don't feel like im doing as much DPS as I am capable of. Would It be because my gear isn't good enough for marks yet? looking forward to your input. thanks guys
This is my first post and i do have to say that EJ(druid forums) has been my go to for every question i have had about bein a kitty for the past couple of months. i do however have a question about armpen. with my current gear i do not have a armpen trinket. grim toll doesnt like me and mjolnir has yet to drop for our uld10 group. so my question is with there being a softcap for armpen. should i continue to stack armpen past the softcap if i dont have a armpen proc. trinket? i still pull top dps and have gone with the thought that moar armpen w/o a trinket is better than softcapping it and then stackin agi.
07/29/09, 7:10 AM
, and try to replace the blue trinket with the one from nexus heroic,the one with hit rating.
