• Anaxo

Play skill also factors into any type of mage damage comparison. A common mistake arcane mages make is justifying the spec by saying they are #1 on the damage meters. Being #1 on your guild doesn't mean you'd be #1 against, say, Manly. Most of the time, it just means the other mages aren't playing to their full potential or getting support they need.

[Mage] Raiding as Arcane mage post 2.4 would be a good quick overview of the new style of arcane raiding. Yes, you are shackled to 2T5 because the set bonus is that good. Filler rotations are out the door, replaced by spamming as much arcane blast as you can get away with. The new int/spirit mana regen change means you can arcane blast for a lot longer than you used to be able to. With COE now combined with COS, you can always expect a damage curse up, unless your guild only has one warlock, no spriests, and ten warglaive rogues.

 

Pintofbrew

Kulehan: You probably left at 2.2, 8 months ago was waaay before 2.4. What made 2.2 arcane work was nerfed to the ground. Thankfully.

Currently arcane (prevalently 40/0/21) is very, very competent. It suffers, however, from being a massive dependency whore. It can't function without a shaman and a SP and preferably a JoW. It supercedes fire in that it can convert any and all excess mana into more DPS but suffers from that it can't perform without it. It's deffinitely doable and interesting, but mandates a number of negative things:
1) Scales badly with haste
2) Problematic with a number of mechanics, including range and pushback
3) Very picky of grouping
4) Has to have 2/5*T5. A major let-down at SWP gear levels.
Etc.
Before the CoS/CoE change, quite likely, it could depending on scenario surpass Fire. I was 50/0/11 all the way until we lost our Divine Spirit and Maledicted-CoS. At that point fire simply out-performed it.

Not exactly "better", more like a different way to skin a cat, as it were.

"Do no offend the chair leg of truth. It is wise and terrible. Continue."
-Spider Jerusalem

 

fivesixtwo82

just wondering what add on's everyone is using!?!?

If there is a good one for fire, frost or arcane... and general ones. At the moment, i use:

magecraft
scorchio
enemy cast bar

& of course

recount
omen

...id like to hear feedback and of course give a shot at other addons. Anything to improve =)

 

Sunburn

Good day all, I've read that any amount of haste is good. I have tried RAWR but practical experience in raids seems to point to the fact that spellcrit set gives me more DPS than haste. My guild is very ZA heavy and my gear is therefore very haste heavy. I am wondering if my spec should be changed to accommodate this.

My profile: 70 Human Mage

NB: In raids, I usually leech off guildies' frost debuffs to do some nice crit damage. My spell sequence is mainly AB till 30% and Frostbolt to regain mana.

 

MaddHawk

For myself, I use the following:

General Raid Addons:
Grid- I like to see the big picture
Recount- nice to have immediate feed back on how effective I am being (read Epeen booster)
Omen- I am not a tank nor desire to be one
Deadly Boss Mods- how long till the next conflag?
Quartz- prettier casting bars than Blizzard and I got a latency moniter too!
Fubar- takes those buttons of my minimap
DurabilityFu- I like a % number for my durability over the paper doll
BigBrother- who broke my sheep and who is missing AI?

Mage Specific Addons:
Scorchio- now I can see when scorch is about to fall off even when I don't get the first scorch on the boss
Decursive 2.1- decursing made stupid easy, and now with little timers so I can see just how long that curse has been there

P.S. - The admins around here like to see proper use of sentance structure, capitalization, punctuation, grammer, and spelling.

"The future will be better tomorrow."
-Sid Mier's Civilization IV

 

Fogge

Long time reader, first time poster (I come here for help and advice, not as a TC:er) wanting a few pointers for the continued mage career, as I am becoming bored of frost (even though it is increasingly nice for the content im doing at the moment) and the non-viability of it as a raiding spec as soon as I leave my current field.

Right now, we have ZA and Kara on major farm, I have 85 badges, Mantle of Ill Intent and Robe Of Departed Spirits (not primary replacement for FSW but just FYI) in my backpack ready for the respec, and as soon as the trial period is over i will start doing the 25 mans (SSC/TK) as well (Gruul and Maggy are on farm too obviously). Also, gold is no longer an issue - although i have a couple of crap gemmings to take care of, i've started doing my dailys like a good boy again so they'll be gone soon enough.

My armory

I would like to try arcane when i hit 2T5 cause i think it looks more interesting to play than fire, but being pessimistic i might never get there. This opens three paths for me as of now.

Either, i respec fire, and never look back even with T5 gear. This is the safe bet, most straightforward solution and requires little change except getting rid of the craft epix. However, i find fire boring for RP reasons (i wont let it stop me tho) so im kinda reluctant.

Or, i stay frost and get what improvements i can get a hold of (i've been holding back on gear a bit not to get stuff i might not be able to use with any future spec, and ive had consistent bad luck with etting a decent offhand). For example I've recently learned that there is a frostbolt bug which would let me free up some hit rating, and that would greatly affect my current DPS when i switch the bracers out for example. Being pessimistic i wont reach the stages where frost is utterly, totally crap compared to the others before Lich King arrives, and I can itemize from 71 and upwards instead. Frost is pretty fun after all, and doing heroics/dailys/10-mans as frost is sweet.

Or, i stay frost, with the intention to spec arcane as soon as 2T5 comes around. This gives some time to gather gear and gems for the respec. I start using stuff that are upgrades but wont switch the craft epix for example.

For each of these choices, what would be a sensible gear wish list? For example, can i safely get the Fetish of the Primal Gods which i've been thinking, or should i get one of the more specific off-hands that goes with whatever spec i chose? Might not get the wing bone since i dont have a lot of stuff to get rid off to drop hit rating, and i dont want to have hit rating all over the place.

Well, anyways, need to wrap this up as I'm kinda pressed for time. Any and all pointers and helpful tips are welcome. Telling me to get rid of gems/enchants is OK, i know how to ignore advice i already know but simply havent gotten around to fixing or do not want/can fix (the reason i've been using some gems is because thats whats been on hand, and ive held back on getting new ones as ive been uncertain which spec to go for and was thinking to get the good ones when respec comes around. Socket bonuses are more of a coincidence that way than a concious choice, and as far as enchants go i have the best ones available to me on each slot - i know there is a better bracer enchant for example, and i havent farmed the mats for Subt on the back), but i dont want to risk missing valid points of argument.

 

Lord Loom

Putting together a gear list depends on your preferences and circumstances - eg. how far do you want to go with min-maxing? What level of content do you expect to play before Wrath? What does your raid support look like? The same questions apply when you have to decide to pick a spec. Rawr will help you with that. But generally speaking, I'd say go with whatever you have the most fun atm because through most of T5 and all content below, specs don't really make a big difference as long as you go for actual, current raid specs.

Now for the "possibly redundant" advice: Get rid of crit gems - crit is a stat you pick up "by the way" but it's too expensive on the item budget to actively gem and enchant for. Straight damage and haste is more beneficial for the same amount of points. Only gem/enchant for Int if you're Arcane and they give you an advantage over conventional +dmg/+hit/+haste gems and +dmg/+hit enchants (-> Rawr it). Only gem for socket bonuses if you need a certain color for meta requirements (ie. use two Glowing gems somewhere to activate the CSD) or if they help you squeeze more damage out of an item even with an "inferior" gem (eg. the socket bonus of a yellow slot + Reckless gem > no socket bonus + Runed gem even tho you might generally get more out of Runed gems). Don't bother with mana regen gems/enchants unless they lead to higher DPS than damage/haste/hit. Again, Rawr it.

You might have noticed where this is going: Get Rawr. Depending on your parameters (eg. can't rely on having a shadow priest in your group = 0 shadow priest MP5, new guild entering T5 content = up to 10 minute fights, et al.) and spec (make different character files for different specs for quick comparisons) the program will let you spot upgrades easily. You can't automatically make Rawr exclude items you don't have access to, but it's easy to delete eg. all Sunwell or T6 instance drops or crafted items you don't have the tradeskill for (like engineering headpieces) from the item list. It will also let you check which enchant or gem will help you more - and don't forget the handy "Direct Upgrades" comparison chart to decide on which item you might want to spend badges first. There's also Vontre's Magegraf (parameters customizeable as well, albeit not to the same amount of detail as in Rawr I think)

 

Fogge

I've been using Rawr for quite some time now, but its just that i cant ask a computer program "soft questions", and just by numbercrunching and trying both with and without Spriest etc, i dont get a decent answer as far as im concerned. Also the program itself works better for highend raiders wanting to squeeze out those last 2 DPS from their setup rather than giving helpful pointers to comparatively fresh raiders such as myself, simply because there are so many parameters to set, and i dont have a good grasp on any bossfight in T5 content except like, Lurker.

As for the gemmings, I know they are crap. They were established while playing very casually and I have replacement plan should i continue being frost or switch to fire, and apperantly i need to undertake drastic measures if i go to arcane, which is why i have waited.

As far as raid support go, I'm gonna have to be pessimistic and not expect to be put above other class needs, thus relying on being selfsufficient. Anything above that is icing, and if i in the future KNOW i will always be grouped with a spriest i might have to reconsider for example. I expect to see at least whole of SSC and whole of TK at the current rate the guild is moving, but it greatly depends on release date of Wrath.

But OK, lets say i want to respec fire (thats my most realistic alternative moving from frost). Where do I start? Fetish? Flametounge seal? What chest and boots to replace the FSW, assuming i take the Mantle of Ill Intent? Something to aim for in my current raiding, or badge gear, or can i expect to get a better chest as late as on Vashj for example?

 

Lord Loom

I don't see how the ZA shoulders are not an upgrade all on their own no matter what spec (read: use them now, not only if you respec out of frost), although they are worth less if you'll have to raid fire with zero support. Meaning, you shouldn't spec fire just for the sake of it as your ZA haste gear won't like unsupported fire as much as it does unsupported Frost or Arc (with Frost sub). Use the robe as well, replace boots with badge ones for fire spec, or keep FSW for Frost or Arc/Frost. Get the Fetish, not the damage-specific off-hand - it will allow you some flexibility in spec and gets better the less restricted by mana you are.

Regarding gems, the main difference in gemming and enchants is that each spec has a different hit cap (76/126/164), ie. you'll replace your Veiled gems with Reckless or Runed ones if you have excess hit - or vice versa. Arcane makes use of Spirit (mana regen -> more AB spam time) and intellect (Int -> Dmg) but you don't gem for Spirit and gemming Int isn't automatically worth more than dmg/haste/hit gems just because you go Arcane. For your current gear Rawr rates +20 dmg higher than +12 Int, and +6 all stats to chest higher than +15 spirit if you were to spec 40/0/21. Crit gems are worthless for all specs, and some MP5 will not save your mana pool.

Maybe I misunderstood as I don't quite understand what kind of soft questions you're trying to get answers for. Number crunching *will* answer the following questions: Is item X better than Y? If I use item Z where is the next (significant) upgrade from? What spec gives me more damage output (under the right assumptions)? Rawr works the same for everyone, even if you just wanted to optimize performance in 5-mans. However, don't expect a 100% accurate list of upgrades because that's not what you actually need nor what Rawr can provide. If items A and B trade places in the comparison chart whenever you alter the parameters slightly, it means they're roughly worth the same, ie. if you have one, you don't need the other, or if you need to pick from A and B you might need other reasons to decide.

This is how I'd expect you to use Rawr: After you import your character from the Armory, enable every buff you can realistically expect to have during raids, like MotW, AI, Fort and one of the pally blessings, ignore totems for now, leave the mage armors unticked. Pick eg. [Flask of Supreme Power] as it affects all schools of magic, then set your weapon imbue and food buff. Click Imp Scorch, Winter's Chill and both CoE and CoS. Assuming low raid support, set s.priest MP5 to zero, leave auto armor on, disable bloodlust and drums, keep maintain scorch on, set your faction. For fight duration, you'll want to try different values as fight lengths vary between ~2 Minutes for stuff you outgear and up to 15 Minutes for convoluted fights with longer phases where you can regen mana, both is of little interest. Assume an average fight length of 6-8 Minutes for entering T5 content for now.

Now you'll want to check out the upgrades Rawr "suggests" and put together a new set of gear, then cross-check how it will handle in longer/shorter fights and with less/more raid support and different specs - that way, finding out "optimal" gear is far easier to do yourself with Rawr than trying to get blanket statements out of us by looking at your Armory profile, statements which will also be less accurate and flexible because we can really only reply based on certain assumptions too. Item A isn't always better than item B you're wearing, and this is the main problem with your request - finding upgrades is kinda something you have to figure out yourself with spreadsheets and tools like Rawr because there's too much variation for other people to cover all angles. Doing it yourself will also let you apply preferences we might not know. Like, do you go to lengths to farm badges? If no, getting the 100 badge robe might not be a good idea if you can expect to get a different, roughly equal item from the content you're planning to do.

Try to get your own answers out of Rawr, that will help you more than "get robes of Vashj". Just ask yourself, what content can I realistically expect to experience before Wrath? What drops there? Is it an upgrade to my gear? How do I maximize a gear setup if I can pick all items from said content, and how do I optimize it with gems and enchants? I hope that helped somewhat.

 

Risingstar

A couple item out of H Mgt you might want to consider:
[Fel-tinged Mantle]
[Scarlet Sin'dorei Robes]

The badge boots & pants:
[Boots of Incantations]
[Leggings of Devastation]
[Legwraps of Sweltering Flame]

If you can get upgrades from ZA:
[Mana Attuned Band]
[Hex Shrunken Head]
[Fury of the Ursine]
[Blade of Twisted Visions]
[Shadowcaster's Drape]
Are all good upgrades you can get for speccing fire.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. - Plato

 

Gralin

Aside from the fact that I completely forgot to use my drums this raid, can anyone give me any insight into why I'm getting consistently out-DPS'd by a Warlock that I outgear fairly heavily (at least according to be.imba)? Or, perhaps more to the point, what can I do to improve?

Wow Web Stats

I use G15 spammage to maximise casting of my primary nuke macro, which pops all CDs as they come up. I probably scorch a little too much as I end up doing most of the scorch-work. Spriest/shammy availability is occasional which is why I'm 10/48/3 at the mo.

Also, I'd appreciate any specific gear recommendations on what I should do about my crappy health. My only current plans gear-wise are to drop the Kara ring for [Fused Nethergon Band], pick up DC:Crusade and pray to god that i win the /roll on Prince's cloak next time it drops, or failing that Gruul's one.

 

MaddHawk

I assume you are referring to Bellamorte as the lock since she was the only one I saw consistently ahead of you.

First off I wouldn't say you out gear her alot. Be Imba will give her a crappy rating cause of the two pieces of pvp gear, but she does have them enchanted/gemmed for pve. Overall I'd say ya'll are on relative parity for gear.

As for your DPS the first thing you need to understand is that you are in SSC. A raid instance that HATES fire mages. So many fights make it so hard to keep up decent DPS conditions. With that said I notice you used Flamestrike on both bosses every attempt. For Hydross I guess it was with the adds and for same again for Lurker. Don't use Flamestrike. Its terrible DPS compared to Arcane Explosion. Further you should never be AOEing anything on Lurker. Sheep one mob on your platform and blow up the other than swap to you sheep. Even at your gear level you shouldn't have much difficulty doing that. Another loss of DPS on Lurker is the fact that he submerges and Scorch falls off before he comes back up. This means you have to be scorching alot more than normal compared to most other bosses. Its a DPS loss that can't be helped when fire. Best thing you can do is have the other mages present help you put the debuff back in ASAP.

Thats all I could get out of your WWS, perhaps someone else will be able to divine more. As far as your comment goes about the G15, I take it you mean you hit a button and it automatically starts using your CDs for you? I personally would never recommend letting something hit your CDs for you as sometimes it could hit them at a bad time. I.e. they come up just as the last adds die and it hits them while you stand around waiting for Lurker to resurface. The biggest boost to a fire mages DPS is proper CD management. I might be jumping the gun when I say this, but I am pretty sure all the best mages in any top guild manage their own CDs instead of letting a preprogrammed gaming pad/keyboard do it for them, regardless of spec.

Now about that gear advice. Standard advice, I'm sure if you do a scan of this thread as you will see. You have way too many blue gems. Drop the stam hybrid gem from your spellfire robes. Put in more [Veiled Noble Topaz]. Replace the shoulder and helm blue gems with [Glowing Nightseye]. Replace your [Spellfire Belt] with [Belt of Blasting] and gem it with pure damage like your legs and wand. Drop the [Spellfire Gloves] for [Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips] since the socket is yellow and you can get the bonus while gemming for hit/dmg([Veiled Noble Topaz]) (normally I recommend the older [Studious Wraps] but the +dmg on the newer gloves is better when gemmed for hit than it is on the Wraps.) This will also let you put spell damage on your gloves instead of spell hit. You are right in wanting to pick up the ring. Between the changes I listed above and your own goal of getting the ring, you can replace your Scryer trinket with the DM:C and you you will actually go up in hit to 163 spell hit (assuming my math isn't screwed up.)

Edit: P.S. Get used to getting out DPS'd by Warlocks. It only gets worse the higher the content. Trust me on that.

"The future will be better tomorrow."
-Sid Mier's Civilization IV

 

Gralin

Basically my macro tries to pop CDs every time I launch a fireball; the G15 just spams the macro 50 times in a second in the hope that it will go off as soon as possible rather than trying to manually time it for estimated latency. If I'm trying to save my CDs I just use a different button, but you do have a point in that I'm not paying enough attention to when I should be saving them.

I've kept the blue gems not so much for the socket bonuses but because my health is only about 7.2k unbuffed, so it seems silly to chuck them out in favour of damage gems for extra DPS when I see 8-9k mentioned as a recommended minimum :/

Anyhow, thanks for all that, I'll take a look at the gear you mentioned and play with Rawr a little more.

Edit in:
Heh, at least at the moment it's just the RL (who recently switched mains) beating me. No doubt the others will catch up, but I'll keep trying to ensure that they have to work damn hard to do so!

 

MaddHawk

8-9K health buffed is what is recommended for Black Temple, NOT for Tier 5 content. I raided with around 7.5K health buffed all way up to Archimonde with no problems at all. And in BT, on HWL Naj'entus, where his Tidal Wave hits for 8.5k dmg I used Frost Ward to make up the difference until I could get more stam gear. Which reminds me.

DPS wise Spellfire are the best you have until [Robes of Rhonin] off of Archimonde or [Robes of the Tempest] or [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] from Lady Vasj. But if you really feel the need for more stamina, you can drop the Spellfire robes in favor of [Scarlet Sin'dorei Robes] from Kael'thas in Heroic MgT or [Shroud of the Lore`nial]. The last robes will let you drop more spell hit gems letting you do the gloves I mentioned in parenthesis; [Studious Wraps]. You could then gem the gloves with double damage gems and you could afford to drop the hit gem from your shoulders as well.

"The future will be better tomorrow."
-Sid Mier's Civilization IV

 

Lord Loom

You don't need this kind of HP for T5 content, and you'll easily hit 8k+ buffed HP with "lolstats" tailoring epics in T5 where raid damage isn't even remotely as crazy as later in the game. You're a mage, your job is to do damage, not to provide a large buffer of hitpoints to compensate for weak healing - so to speak.

Once you get into T6 you need those 9k buffed for eg. Naj'entus but you won't hit 9k unbuffed HP as a mage unless you specifically gear for stamina (which you shouldn't, unless for PvP or mage-tanking I guess), but a solid selection of T5/ZA/badge gear will easily get you there.

Really start using your CDs manually, popping them everytime they're up is very counter-productive to your performance as a mage (and to the performance of EVERY class, basically). You want to get your last use of CDs per boss in execute range for Molten Fury, and another 2-3 before that depending on boss and fight length.

 

Pandah

Hey guys. First time posting.
I'm kind of stuck at the moment due to the Haste Vs Pure spell damage race.
Heres my armory:The World of Warcraft Armory
Here's a Link to WWS of my guilds Brut attempts:Wow Web Stats

The reason im a bit torn is the mage ahead of me, We are somewhat equally geared, The only difference is i've Gemmed for Haste, She's gemmed for Pure damage.

Granted, My group was NOT ideal. I had another Lock, a hunter, a holy priest and a resto shammy.
Is my DPS on par for my gear, I was popping Destro pots and all my cooldowns when they were up.

Is it worth it more to regem for pure spell damage? I'm sitting at 121 Haste. Should i just keep trucking it out til i get more upgrades?

Any insight will be helpful

 

Aeoliana

Well to start with why dont you have +15 Spell Damage on your bracers and +20 Spell Damage on your gloves? Also that pvp ring is not helping out much at all.

Also I would ditch the tear for the Scryers Bloodgem (if you can) and also ditch the pvp MH for either the Badge MH or since you are geared for haste go for the MH off Zul'Jin as well as the Haste Cloak off the first timed chest.

Also I see you used Evocate in your WWS on all of your longer attempts, the 10 seconds you channel Evocation according to your WWS is a loss of 14,200 damage done, I may be mistaken but I believe this outweighs the benefites of using destro pots? Why not chain pot/gem and never go oom?

Another thing, on a three minute attempt haste wont look like much of a difference, the longer the fight the more pronounced hastes effects are.

 

Gralin

I'd be interested in hearing other's views on this - my understanding was that haste increased the value of damage and reduced the value of haste, so that someone "gearing for haste" would be better off picking up more +damage.

(Pandah: Of course, checking with Rawr is generally advised anyhow as it can give definite answers on choices of gear and gems.)

Also, I'm wondering why haste would be more "pronounced" on longer fights? Given a fight of non-fixed length there's no telling whether you'll get an extra cast in or not, and more to the point as a rule shorter fights would be those where haste is less likely to cause a DPS drop at the end due to mana issues, making the improvement it brings less pronounced if anything.

 

Keldarn

In response to the poster above:

That statement is completely fallacious.

In a single short fight, you might not notice haste's impact that well, because it for instance might or might not add one extra spell. (My guess is this is what Aeloiana meant) But since the length of a fight modulo cast time is uniformly random distributed, you will easily see the effects of haste on a sample size of say a hundred short fights. If you were then to compare the % DPS increase of X haste, it would be just as big for a fight of 3 mins, as for a fight of 6 mins.