Pintofbrew

clearly it won't affect AM, but it will decrease the benefit of AM spec over full fire. Fire gains in the region of 5-7% overall unless I'm mistaken. Quite a significant difference.

Seems to me that the way things are going, while arcane will most likely remain the highest DPS it will come at the expense of lower DPM. All in all, BAU... Business As Usual. Good regen? Agro-sensitive? Arcane is your man. Sketchy shadowpriests? Prefer reliability? Go-go fire.

 

Grandaddy

I have raided Deep Fire since AQ40 and I was really skeptical about switching to AM spam. When I won a t5 helm and had to decide on a meta I took the plunge and regemmed and picked up the other 2 t5 pieces I needed for the 4piece bonus.

The damage output I am seeing now, plus the pure fun factor of a new spec, is well worth the gold I spent. Getting a focus proc and seeing 3 or 4 big crits hit all at once without having to worry about threat is hard to top. I went from middle-of-the-pack damage to usually being #1 or #2. I can't speak for switching at lower gear levels, but if you have access to TLC and some tier 5 you won't regret going AM spam.

 

vishal

hey guys,

I have visited your webpages for sometimes and found very good advices and would really appreciate if i could get some more. I realize this might have already been discussed somewhere else and if so pls just point me and ill just revisit it.

I love playing deep fire as such i want to stick with it, issue comes with 2x T5 arcane mage with a good support are able to out beat me in dps. I am not saying i am the best mage player but i do try my best and consider myself somewhat smart at it.

this is what i am using at the moment:
The World of Warcraft Armory
here is the wws from the past few days raids:
pyrous is the person whois arcane that i would like to be able to compete with without going arcane if possible.

Wow Web Stats
Wow Web Stats

I have 2 more issues i would like to ask about:
1.
as you can see from armoury my stats are lacking 6 to hit. I have just joined the guild i such dkp wise it will be very hard for me to get T5 gear anytime soon, is there anything i can do/farm besides raid item to make that up without potentially lossing too much other stat.
2.
The World of Warcraft Armory

Quantz has the gear that i am kind of aiming for when i hit BT/mount hy range (our guild is on vashj as of right now and we are very optimistic we will down her by monday, with about 4-5 hrs of try on her so far.) I am just curious if arcane is so op, why is he still not arcane, it could be perference or perhaps there is a better answer out there.

Any help will be appreciated, and i am sorry if i am asking about things that have already been talked about but it seems with the new arcane crave, deep fire or fire spec is not talked about alot or perhaps its been overdone.

~Vishal.

 

Shawn

Your gear is alright. Don't be too keen on getting your hit capped to the last tenth.

You would deal a lot more damage if you would cut the excessive scorching altogether. Debuffing adds on Karathress won't yield enough of a boost to make up for the lost Fireballs. Debuffing Lurker will take too long if you keep in mind that Imp Scorch will run out everytime he dives. Unless the fight is an absolute tank-n-spank where your debuff won't ever run out you better just Fireball. You should also make better use of [Serpent-Coil Braid]. Use your first gem (Citrine for example) as soon as possible. In a 5 minutes fight you should be able to use the trinket three times - just like any other "clicky"-trinket. There are better alternatives if you are not utilizing the trinket to the max (Crusade-Deck for example). Note: Use your Icon first and then eat a managem not the other way around. Depending on your Mana (read: if you get a Shadowpriest) you should use Fireblast and Molten Armor.

 

vishal

Ty for your advice, i do use Molten armour all the time, and and my group usually consists of 3xmage, SP, Sam, or 4xmage, SP
I was thinking about using Fireblast in my rotation but i though i read somewhere unless you are moving then use fireblast (like right before lurker dives) else 7x or 6xFireball and scorch (not 8x because it assumes perfection which can make you recast 5x scorch)
i have also been collecting the crusader-deck and trying to get LC incase i do decide to go arcane (as you can see my guild is arcane mage heaven with out setups)..

I have also been trying to optimize how to use the serpent trinket, i recently recieved it (2 nights ago) , i have been using my icon before mana potting, i usually use Flame cap as well, so usually start out with icon flame cap after initial scorch. then when icon is back on, combust, icon, mana pot, i have been trying hard to get a rotation down where i can activate serpent and combust at the same time so i can optimize my crit damage but it has been very hard.
I also try to keep 1 mana pot for after 20% boss hp so i can use do as much damage as possible.

~vishal

 

Kehly

Afternoon all,

I am trying to squeeze a bit more dps out of my frost mage and wondered if anyone here has any suggestions?

I am currently deep frost - 10/0/51 and I have gear that compliments the build as best I can. I do use quartz and stopcasting macros. I am working on getting better gems and 2 badges off the cloak available pending one dropping from Maulgar or Prince.

Here are some links to some recentish webstats - here, here and here.

Up against 4 other fire mages in my guild, so you can imagine the crap I cop

 

Morriel

As per your quote if i was looking to switch to the AM build but don't have access to most of the re-reqs that you have listed.

Is it still worth re-specing and re-gemming to be able to get the Diamond to work, or should i just stick with deep fire 10/48/03 till i get my hands on 2 peace t5 and then make the switch ?

Armory Link = The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Pinsor

Well, currently on mage forums we are seeing that the internal cooldown is going to be around 30s - 45s so it will possible be a substantial nerf to those AM spam mages who were getting a nice chain of MSD procs. That being said, even if we get a 10% chance to proc (which would never happen), the 45s cooldown is really hurting to an AM spamming mage since it really doesn't matter that ever tick of AM now properly triggers the affect.

Your goal with AM spam was to have 5 chances per AM rotation to get another MSD proc. That no longer can happen quite as often.

Until we can get some hard PTR numbers up 10/47/3+1 will definitely still be a nice dps spec for mages.

 

grayrest

I'm seeing nothing of the sort. The only references to cooldowns on the forums are people posting numbers just to say "gotcha". I'd test it myself, but my wow-capable machine is out of service.

 

Dustwhisper

One very important thing to remember with any mana-intensive spec like arcane is one simple fact, it synergises heavily with raid-dps. The higher your raid-dps and thus the faster the boss goes down, the more viable the spec is. Guilds learning Gruul or even learning SSC/TK fights that can drag upto 10 minutes quite easily will often not be the best learning-place for arcanemages imo.

 

Pinsor

It helps to go past the first page. Furthermore, I is going to be around so we are looking at an a educated estimate based on other internal proc cooldowns such as Shiffar's or RoES. We cannot expect anythign less than 30 nor anything more than a minute. My best guess is 45s. Why? Well if it currently procs at 5%, then having a 1 minute CD on a 5% proc is hardly worthwhile. So Blizz is uping the proc rate, to what we don't know. I assume it might go to around 7% and have a 45s CD which would be balanced and not drastically destroy the AM spamming mages.

 

◊ manly

What? No I'm sorry I'm probably out of AM spam spec if the cooldown is above 10s. I might go as far as 15s if the procrate is 10%, otherwise I'm definately back to fire.

Do you even realize that a lot of posted parse include 18-20 focus procs on a 4-5min fight? I even have a ROS phase 3 parse with 9 focus procs within 1 min. If my number of focus proc goes from 18-20 to 5-6 that is pretty much it.

<superblotto> Last I heard the Arcane Believers were going to burn the Infidel normal people at the stake but refused to use fire. Things went down hill from there
<arioch> arcane blast the firewood
<Blackpatch> they tried
<Blackpatch> but went OOM

Manly <Jet Silk Tires> / Lich King

 

Dustwhisper

MSD nerf has been verified by 2.3 patch-notes, the CD seems to be 45s from reports though I haven't seen anything verified on that except multiple posts from mages supposedly having tested.

 

Skinkelinken

Need som help, i respeced arcane from fire and go gear with to much hit and to little crit.
Best rotation for me seem to be a AB rotation with fireball fill

I use spellstrike pants / head and Im wondering if I should switch to mercilless head to get the MSD available?

selfbuffed stats:
1250 + damage
20% critt
135 hit

 

Pintofbrew

Vishal:

Unless I'm mistaken Flame Cap falls under the same CD as mana stones as it's "other beneficial item" and thus you can't flame-cap and serpent-coil braid at the same time. If you have a macro to do that, you're probably just not noticing that your mana stones aren't getting eaten.

 

• Anaxo

I see nothing horribly wrong with your talents or gear. You do lack a little in hit though, but that's not unusual at the T4 level. As that you are exalted Scryers, I hope you have the [Scryer's Bloodgem] for boss fights. Your socketing pattern shows a habit of going after the socket bonuses, a choice I disagree with. Given the low raw stats on the tailored epics, 16 extra stamina from the socket bonuses will hardly save you once you pull aggro. You should ignore those socket bonuses for more spell damage and hit.

As of right now, due to the current 2.3 patch notes indicating a big nerf to the AM/MSD combo, I would hold off on regearing for an AM build. It's still early and people have yet to test how drastic the change is. There is no solid verified information out on how much the increase to proc chance will be and what the hidden cooldown is.

Skinkelinken: same response regarding the MSD. Wait. Also, do you have access to 2 piece T5? AB rotations are not viable if you do not have the set bonus.

 

vishal

hey guys,

would like to start of with saying thanks for the advice on previous questions, i am just curious, in 2.3 can a shadowpriest be beaten by a fire mage vs single target dps, like boss.

Sorry to change the topic but just curious.

I am not sure if it is my spec or my gear but atm my Shadowpriest friend owns me in dps if its single target and if he is trying. I am just curious if its my skill, my gear choice or just that its not possible. Any advice will be helpfull, here are the relevant data,

my spec: firemage:
The World of Warcraft Armory

his spec: shadowpriest:
The World of Warcraft Armory

again thank you in advance, i have been trying my best to beat him but it seems if no aoe then i can't beat him if he is serious.. which kind of irritates me seeing how shadowpriest have been nerfed.. if its my skill then oviously i will work my ass to beat him but if its gear and i can't do anything about it, then i will be somewhat satisfied.

 

Ambril

You are not being out dpsed because of your gear. I'd assume that it is a skill issue. Which isn't necessarily to say that you're awful. He might simply be an amazing player. Either way, there is probably room for improvement for you, though there is no way for anyone here reading this to know what those areas where you can improve are apart from simply blurting out a bunch of common mage playstyle adages which may or may not be insightful or applicable to you.

 

Ambril

Not only does it share the cooldown with mana gems, it ties up the cooldown for 3 minutes instead of 2. Flame Cap seems sort of weak as an opening consumable to me for that reason. It would seem best to save it for near or under 20% (during Molten Fury) when/if you are not likely to need another mana gem.

 

◊ manly

You mean you need mana as fire spec ? Most of the time I don't even use more than 1 or 2 ticks of evocation - when I use it. So much for 2pc t6 set bonus.

<superblotto> Last I heard the Arcane Believers were going to burn the Infidel normal people at the stake but refused to use fire. Things went down hill from there
<arioch> arcane blast the firewood
<Blackpatch> they tried
<Blackpatch> but went OOM

Manly <Jet Silk Tires> / Lich King

 

Aluscia

I was going to post in the TC thread, but I think I'll post here instead (since it's more in tune with the "help")...

With the new ZA/Heroic loot heavily pushing Haste rating (as well as a few choice HS/BT pieces, which I will soon have access to), what spec really utilizes haste over crit/hit? I note that the pieces are very stat heavy, which leads me to believe Arcane would benefit the most. Am I wrong? Is heavy (read - any and all) haste gearing the way to make up for the MSD nerf for AM spam? I know it won't come close... but, I'm trying to figure it all out right now.

I'd like to note that I've been heavy fire since BWL days. I would like to try Arcane, similar to a child that has always seen something sparkly and multicoloured behind a glass case, but I'm hearing doom and gloom over MSD, and very little concrete Haste talk about 2.3. Should I take the plunge now and socket my T4 helmet (rotting in my bank atm)/resocket gear for AM spam in the interim?

 

Roywyn

It's hit > haste ~= damage > crit for all specs really.
1 spell hit is 1.5-2.0 spell damage (until the cap), 1 spell haste is little bit better than 1 damage at high gear level, and probably a bit worse than it in blues, and useless for AB spam.
1 spell crit is 0.5-0.8 damage depending on gear level, Arc/Fire can push it to 1:1.
For AM spam with TLC/AToI, 1 haste is ~1.3 damage and crit is nearly as good as damage.

Link with outdated MSD calculation, but the stat weightings should still be valid for high-end gear. (With lower gear, +damage is a bit better, little else changes though.)
[Mage] How Can Arcane Damage Work?


If you're tired of fire and are not too tight on money, give AM/MSD spam a try for some fun until 2.3 hits!
Taste the juicy fruits before they're taken away

 

Aluscia

Thanks Roywyn <3 I'm standing in the AH right now, ready to purchase a skyfire diamond.

All I need to do is to figure out my spec. I hastily respecced last night for Al'ar, but I'm thinking emp AM is the way to go with fire to Pyro for POM abuse?