Hmm from personal experiance, never worry about ignite ticks on an agro change over, If your tanks can't grab agro over an ignite tick, then in fairness your tanks need a bit of work. I know for weeks on Leo I was top DPS by a long shot (well about 2 %) and even now I still top the charts, though people have got more agressive. I've found that unless the tick happens exactly as he changes, he'll go for a searing totem anyway. And our tanks usually have him under control within half a second or so even if he is running towards me, as I'll blink through him to them. Course, we have done the fight to death now, so even our most inexperianced tank knows exactly when to start running back in etc.
My point, long and rambling as it may be is, I stop DPS over change overs due to the obvious agro reset, but I'll keep going right to the reset line and not care about ignites, its never got me killed yet (although plain forgetting about stopping DPS has, erm, obviously)
Could it be we're gaining only the spell resilience and not the physical? I suspect this will be easy to prove; get a rogue to strip off gear and wear two white lvl 9 daggers, white attack for a few hours, compare crit rates with and without Molten Armor.
Bring a healer for the rogue
Before the Fire/frost buff, Arcane was way on top on almost every fight in SSC because of those aggroswitches. with Arcane, I sometimes didn't even bother with dps breaks at phase transitions, just kept on nuking and never had a problem. (AP + AB spam at phase transitions can get you killed very fast though ^^). I remember Ignite killing me once as fire, because of lots of misses of the tanks, but that was really bad luck and at least you can blink to the tanks so no problem there.
I haven't tested it since then, but you should be ok with all 3 speccs actually.
do u guys mind if i ask u a question?
i just bought Crusade trinket from the blessings cards. what would be better to match it with? lighting capacitor? or icon from badges?
im full spellfire, full spellstrike, and the rest is zula/tk loots, spell hit capped, 33 crit ubuffed ( just molten armor)
do u guys mind if i ask u a question?
i just bought Crusade trinket from the blessings cards. what would be better to match it with? lighting capacitor? or icon from badges?
im full spellfire, full spellstrike, and the rest is zula/tk loots, spell hit capped, 33 crit ubuffed ( just molten armor)
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
Banaj: The combination of fireball being a long cast and a relatively moderate crit rate mean the trinket's uptime will be far from it's maximum. Roywyn also recently did some research that showed it wasn't properly applying to the first spell after activating; this means that with 0 haste you'll effectively get 1 fireball's worth of haste, and with enough haste to get your fireball under 2.49sec you'd get two fireball's worth of haste, but deffinitely less than you're entitled to.
AToI should be left in your bank, patiently awaiting 2.4 when it'll become the best trinket to ever grace Arcane Explosion with it's procs. It will undoubtably be one of the major reasons we'll shoot ahead in AoE DPS
Is there any point at which [Ashtongue Talisman of Insight] would become decent for fireball spam?
Like a certain amount of haste (from buffs or items) or is just always plain useless?
Seeing as there is more and more good haste gear available I wondered if you could get some synergy going.
Not useful for fire with any currently feasible gearing. I believe there is also a bug with it which causes your first cast to not gain any benefit from the buff. It could be very good for AE spam in 2.4 with the haste changes though.
Under this context, given you're doing T5 content, yes, arcane has a relative edge and fire has a relative handicap, nobody denied this. Arcane is not OK however, by a long shot, in the end game. There has not been proof to disprove this yet.
Hi all, long term reader and only just at a point in raiding where I feel slightly qualified to offer input.
I agree completely that the phasal/stop and start, target switching encounters of SSC/The Eye do not favour fire over arcane.
I'm back to arcane(current armory spec) after trying fire(Unbuffed Fire stats : 163 hit rating, 1105 fire damage, ~34% Fire crit) for our first run in BT. Was doing roughly the same damage as an equivalently geared arcane mage on Naj'entus. As I was the only fire mage CoE wasn't up and I wasn't in the shadowpriest group (didn't have an elemental shaman attuned at this point). I'm guessing that CoE would have closed the gap and had us at about the same damage level even put me slightly ahead with the benefit of not being as reliant on a shadowpriest.
At Supremus without COE I had ~45% of my damage mitigated. COE should reduce this a lot (other WWS reports show about 17% mitigation for fire mages). This would probably put me above the arcane mages too. But given this isn't a difficult fight the fire spec doesn't really offer anything that arcane doesn't. Sure you have a better range for doing a bit more dps during the mobile phases but then arcane with reduced threat can lay down more damage during the tankable phases.
For Hyjal as Arcane of course you are doing more damage on the waves between bosses. I've yet to try fire here but we've cleared to archimonde in our first few visits without issue. Because of the nature of the fights here (don't go under 3k mana, move out of the death and decay, wait for tank building threat on infernal etc etc) I don't see fire being much better DPS either. The one fight that we haven't beaten yet seems to be the best candidate for fire to out perform arcane, since sitting at max range at archimonde as fire spec is probably going to be easier than sitting at 30yrds as arcane.
When coming into Hyjal and BT I don't see any reason to switch immediately to fire spec. Is it only the best spec once you have 4xT6 and your groups are optimised to burn down most encounters in 2-3mins where your dps time is spent entirely under all achiveable cooldowns and buffs to give 2500+dps figures? Until further notice (and further upgrades) I will be advising our T5 geared mages to stay arcane. Fire will probably move ahead of arcane once we all know the fights off by heart and are familiar with positioning, how much time we have to dps between phases etc.
I'm not saying that fire isn't the best DPS spec end game. Obviously I'm still gearing up for true end game T6 dpsing, but it does seem to rely more on perfect conditions than arcane at our current progress.
On Archimonde it depends on your group strategy. Due to decursing standing "at max range" and nuking is most likely not an option unless you're clearly not decursing any melee. I like to schizophrenically attempt to deucrse anything that gets a grip, even if out of range (though unless they're in my designated grp I won't bother moving to them) on the slight offchance their decurser is out of range, occupued, or inattentive. Losing a GCD to attempt a decurse is not an issue, we[ve found Archi DPS is a lot less critical than not dying.
As for AoE, imp. Flamestrike does magic. It won't beat full arcane AE (and won't beat full-fire AE in 2.4) but for now is extremely efficient, particularly combined with BW @ 20% and the potential to DB any stray adds that a lock may have pulled with SoC. The reason I say DB rather than FN is that the latter will make the add attack whatever is closest instead, which might just be you, another lock, etc.
The one fight that we haven't beaten yet seems to be the best candidate for fire to out perform arcane, since sitting at max range at archimonde as fire spec is probably going to be easier than sitting at 30yrds as arcane.
When coming into Hyjal and BT I don't see any reason to switch immediately to fire spec.
I'm not saying that fire isn't the best DPS spec end game. Obviously I'm still gearing up for true end game T6 dpsing, but it does seem to rely more on perfect conditions than arcane at our current progress.
In terms of needing perfect conditions, arcane is on a relatively similar level as fire. The mana intensity that comes with it almost requires a shadowpriest, lest you be sitting with a low damage rotation with your thumb promptly inserted in your backside.
No, fire is not the best spec to go once you hit bt and hyjal, so feel free to abuse the 2pc t5 bonus until you replace the older gear, for a couple reasons specifically. One, you're unfamiliar with the fight, so optimizing your cooldowns will be borderline impossible unless you're a psychic, which is unlikely ;p. Two, you'll be lacking a lot of hit rating, as SSC/TK and T5 loot has very little of it. I'd recommend waiting until you at have at least helm and gloves (over t5, as those are DIRECT upgrades from t5 in terms of fire due to the hit) to even think about switching out. Ideally, you'd want the 4 piece bonus, since 5% on your main nuke is a huge bonus, but if you're not at the mother/council/illidan killing stage (or from what it looks like, the Archi killing stage either), don't worry too much about it.
As for archi... well, it depends on how your guild does it. If you want to stack resto druids, that's one way to do it, but in my guild, we have no such abundance of foliage, so our mages essentially get assigned to bitch duty for decursing and leading the group away from doomfire while the rest of them mindlessly spam shadowbolt, steadyshot... the like.
Two, you'll be lacking a lot of hit rating, as SSC/TK and T5 loot has very little of it. I'd recommend waiting until you at have at least helm and gloves (over t5, as those are DIRECT upgrades from t5 in terms of fire due to the hit) to even think about switching out. Ideally, you'd want the 4 piece bonus, since 5% on your main nuke is a huge bonus, but if you're not at the mother/council/illidan killing stage (or from what it looks like, the Archi killing stage either), don't worry too much about it.
As I stated in my post I am 1 hit below cap and thats only with Leggings of Channelled Elements from Hyjal. coming into Hyjal and BT I had gear for about 220 hit in my bags (obviously damage and crit then suffer). I don't think its too hard to get hit prior to Hyjal/BT, its just hard to get hit accompanied by other stats that can make the gear truely worth equipping. Until I have 4xT6 I'm finding it hard to drop 4xT5 bonus. I actually want to get back to fire as I'm now bored of AB spam. We'll see how Archi goes soon, better not drop the caster weapon since I just blew most of my DKP on The Maelstrom's Fury ^^
My guild is entering SSC/TK now as a 2/48/11 fire specc I must admit im rather clueless about Arcane/Frost. Iv'e serched these forums for an hour and havent been able to find a simple condensed answer post 2.3
For this point in our progression what spec should I be telling my non fire mages to lean toward?
With MSD nerf is Arcane still viable, I know its better suited for SSC especially but what about T/K and beyond?
Is it still dependent on first getting 2pc t-5?
What is the spell rotaion now still ABx3/AM??
Whats the spell rotaion for frost and should they bother if they are already Arcane/Fire?
Any help would be greatley appreciated i'm right brained and get lost in the jumble of % and numbers
My guild is entering SSC/TK now as a 2/48/11 fire specc I must admit im rather clueless about Arcane/Frost. Iv'e serched these forums for an hour and havent been able to find a simple condensed answer post 2.3
For this point in our progression what spec should I be telling my non fire mages to lean toward?
With MSD nerf is Arcane still viable, I know its better suited for SSC especially but what about T/K and beyond?
Is it still dependent on first getting 2pc t-5?
What is the spell rotaion now still ABx3/AM??
Whats the spell rotaion for frost and should they bother if they are already Arcane/Fire?
Any help would be greatley appreciated i'm right brained and get lost in the jumble of % and numbers
I am not sure if this thread is right place for questions like this, but here is my answers to your questions.
1. Stay 2/48/11 until you get 2 piece t5
2. After two piece t5 40/0/21
3. Rotation is 3ab/3fb. Arcane missles is out, do not try to maximize damage with it.
4. Arcane fire is not as mana effecient as arcane frost.
5. They can stay 2/48/11 and do great damage. You do not have to switch to arcane. I found that its more about play style. All the high damage specs are so close in dps that is strictly personal preference. Certain fight an arcane mage is better and certain fights a deep fire mage is better.
Almost forgot-
Throw a deep ice mage into the mix for wc debuff if you do an arcane ice build.
You pretty much have to have a shadow priest in the group as well
pick up herbalism because mana pots will be you best friend.
Use all of your mana cooldowns wie, pots, gems, ect when they are up.
Luthus, this is probably the wrong thread for that question, however I'll give you the cliff notes answer. For SSC/TK (and even the beginning of Hyjal/BT) Arcane works fine provided you have 2pc T5 (without 2 pc T5 it is garbage, never forget AB IS your dps, the short era of AM spam is over, RIP). For alot of the encounters in SSC/TK and for mages who are well under the hit cap arcane is good once you get that two piece bonus, at least for awhile. Once you start approaching end-game geared 2/48/11 (or similar variations) will win the dps fight on the majority of encounters and group situations (boss encounters not trash) by a significant margin. The only way to compete with arcane is to make AB spam uptime high enough to bridge the gap which requires gear or group setups that at this stage of the game are not feasible.
A quick question on AM. The wiki says that crit effects can proc per missile (eg lightning cap), and on cast effects proc per channel. How do the robe of elder scribes (when spells land), spellstrike set bonus (when spells land) apply now? Are they per channel or per missile? I understand the MSD is per channel now with a cooldown so it is nerfed, and the nerf to the lightning cap is no more than 1 discharge per 2.5s. I just got my 2pc T5 bonus and am considering going to a 40/0/21, but the simple elegance of a pure arcane cycle from a hit rating and threat standpoint make me want to stay 49/0/12.
At those gear levels arcane blast spamming is much superior DPS to fireball spamming, but the frostbolt (or whatever other filler you pick) is much much lower dps than fireball spamming. The deciding factor is fight duration, but that seems to be rather long when you're learning SSC, with enrage timers going up to 10 minutes and vashj/kael not really being short fights (although you can argue for arcane AOE on kael since it's the only phase that really matters). Hydross depends on your strategy. Lurker takes too long the first kills. Void reaver can go all the way to the 10 minute enrage. Al'ar isn't a short fight even if you completely neglect phase 1 DPS and just go all out in phase 2.
Maybe those fights get short enough when you're clearing SSC/TK with 25 people that know all the fights perfectly, but when you're progressing the fights will simply take too long. And remember even on an average-low duration fight, fire cooldown stacking will be very powerful while the fight can stil be too long for arcane. Even rage winterchill will probably take too long for arcane to win the first time you kill him if not the other times too.
Arcane is so situational in 2.3 I just wouldn't bother on any part of the game.
Well, after lots of reading, finally my first post arround here *cough*
Anyhow, I wasn't sure wether this should go into the help thread - I finally decided against it, since its probably more of a TC-issue than actually ever a real raid-alternative
Question is: Is there any possible scenario wherein a build like 50/0/11 with a focus on Arcane Missiles (I am aware that 40/0/21 would be an option, but I don't see the second IV really making up for the losses you take in Arcane when you specc for AM; and YES, the 11 points in Ice are more or less just because the single IV is the best to get with them, not because I am interessted in Frost; and YES, that was a long parenthesis) could perform at least somewhat NOT terrible in a raid?
Small background: I'm interessted in Arcane, but neither do I have 2xT5 nor will I be likely to go back and get it. I find the whole thing disgusting, somehow, and even if we return to killing Vashj and Kael regularly, I have better things to roll on still. Also, as raids go on, I am more often left to be the only mage in the raid, meaning that I am facing Bosses without CoE.
So, my goal is for something that sees AM as the main nuke, with AB as a mana-dump (end of encounters, or tank-phases on Supremus and so forth). From the little testing I did in 10s so far, I perform rather ok-ish with AM, and mana is a non-issue, but I lag behind compared to my output in fire and frost.
My thoughts so far were that, even after the nerf, the TLC is still one of the things that help the AM-Spam compared to other speccs. Also, just like AB-Speccs, I can get rid of quite a lot of hit. And finally, there is haste, which I put pretty heavy emphasis on in my gear, and which made me lean towards AM in the first place. With 2.4, this of course won't be a factor in comparison to AB anymore, and from the little I know about the way haste works (a linear percentage increase?), even though it takes more time of my AMs then it takes of my FB or AB, I still have the same gain in DPS. My non-mathematician brain struggles to understand why a larger value of time saved results in the same DPS-gain, but I am grasping the concept, somewhat.
So, sorry if this has come up before, but at least in relation to 2.4-changes I haven't been able to find any constructive material on the AM-issue. I'm not gonna specc it, I am afraid, but I'd greatly appreciate some brainstorming and hints on why the wonderfully cool AMs could be a great spell, even though I know the answer will probably be: They aren't
Just to be more thorough. Travel time might affect fireball/fireblast mechanics, but whats most important to remember is that all procs in the game are queued on the server for later processing. This is why you fireblast, and it takes like 100-200ms before ignite appears. Similarly, this is why you get AB to bug out and give you 2.5 / 2.5 / ..., because the AB debuff applies after your following cast. This is also the same reason the ashtongue trinket behaves similarly to AB bugging out -- the proc occurs after your following cast.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Ilyawen, you are right that the haste changes don't help AM more than they help Fireball and Frostbolt, though the changes do make AB more useful than before.
It seems like you run into the exact same scaling issues that make AM subpar right now, no matter what the gear is. Unless you somehow have a lot of +arcane gear lying around (in other words, in a world unlike the WoW we play in), AM spam is probably not the right DPS choice over the elemental nukes.
I am not sure if this thread is right place for questions like this, but here is my answers to your questions.
1. Stay 2/48/11 until you get 2 piece t5
2. After two piece t5 40/0/21
3. Rotation is 3ab/3fb. Arcane missles is out, do not try to maximize damage with it.
4. Arcane fire is not as mana effecient as arcane frost.
5. They can stay 2/48/11 and do great damage. You do not have to switch to arcane. I found that its more about play style. All the high damage specs are so close in dps that is strictly personal preference. Certain fight an arcane mage is better and certain fights a deep fire mage is better.
Almost forgot-
Throw a deep ice mage into the mix for wc debuff if you do an arcane ice build.
You pretty much have to have a shadow priest in the group as well
pick up herbalism because mana pots will be you best friend.
Use all of your mana cooldowns wie, pots, gems, ect when they are up.
As I only have 1 piece t-5 ATM i'll stay fire. Hoever I have 3pice epic along wth Spell Strike set, with what piece of t-5 should I be replacing those with?
Also as the only mage with a pice of t-5 in our guild should I have other arcane mages respecc to fire until they have accuired neccessary pieces?
The T5 shoulders and pants were, for me, the sweet spot of "easy to get" and "not terrible". The gloves are massively worse than Spellfire, and realistically most guilds will only see a couple helms and chests drop before they move into T6. Personally I'd recommend running T5 leggings plus shoulders, and keeping your spellfire bonus intact. Especially since as arcane (with Arcane Mind or whatever it's called) you have a giant intellect pool, so that 7% becomes 50 or more damage. Compared to the spellfire bonus, the spellstrike proc isn't so hot.
03/03/08, 10:29 AM
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