Its possible to have 7.5k HP raid buffed in BT, but I would be surprised if the healers are happy with that. Its worse if the mage has 3/3 playing with fire in BT. I think getting over 8k HP buffed will often result in a net DPS gain for the raid. Personally, I like to have 9k HP for most raid bosses, and over 10k HP for some raid bosses. I play from oceanic zone with around 500ms latency, so I have less margins for error, and its harder to rely on the healers.

Fellas I'm pretty sure the 7.5k hp buffed comment was just sarcasm or exaggeration. That's a ridiculously low hp total for BT/Hyjal.

Well, first of all this thread about Theorycraft and Stamina / survival / "skill" does not form part of statistics but rather a discussion apart. The need of Stamina is very debatable and it varies from fight to fight. However, having run through BT/Hyjal the only bosses in which at least a minimum of 8500 HP buffed cannot be considered 'recommended' are Kaz'rogal, Supremus and Shade of Akama. They also happen to be the easiest fights in the two zones. All the other fights have some sort of AoE raid damage. The convincing argument is that you don't need to sacrifice any damage at all or very little to get at least above 8500 (which is easy to get). Tier5/6 gear and other TK/SSC pieces will easily get you past that. The STA crutch lies in Spellfire/Spellstrike, which you can reliably dump once you have access to the T5 sets.

I don't know personally I've never geared specifically for stamina. The first few times we did najentus all I was changing was eating a 30 sta food instead of 23 dmg, and we used imp + frostward to make up for it. Same for pre-nerf archimonde. Then I put some more stamina for illidari council since I was tanking. That's it really.

Yeah - I've taken imp over spriest b4 on naj when i was wearing spellfire gear :P But at that time I was in a guild with bad healers - So i wanted like 9.5k - Otherwise I would have spammed reds in tailor gear instead of the stam bonus.

not that most raid setups couldn't have both tho.

Please lock thread and Delete, or something 80 pages is too much to go through for a series of repeats and arguements.

Or break down into more specific threads, like, PvE PvP, then by talent tree, and then have the MAge Theory as a, which tree to to choose, I had to skip past alot of it but I'm sure there is alot of great info. but alot of stuff I'm not intrested in yet.

I have a simple rule : Always take items with stats (stamina/int) over items with no stats.
If i need to give some examples that will be like Ring of Ancient Knowledge over Najentus ring or Kael Thas neck over RoS neck and Anatheron Noose over Belt of Blasting etc.. Getting the socket bonus of most of the bt//hyjal items also gives you some extra stamina from the blue gem dmg//stam.
Like Winnie the pooh says "the more the better". And about all the people that are saying : "I dont care about my HP" I will repeat again good performance comes not only with dmg it comes with beeing able to survive always even if someone did a mistake.(pointing healers)
You will agree that in the end higher HP leaves more room for mistake both of you and your healers.
Ofcourse you will say "It doesnt matter aslong as I play perfect" but you cannot play perfect neither the rest of the raid can play perfect. So in the end of the day stamina as a PVE stat should be considered important raid performance wise it just gives more room for mistakes.

I'm fairly certain everything in here is PVE Theorycraft. A simple search turns up [Mage] PVP Thread for PVP goodies.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I'd bet money it's in one of these two threads.

DANG IT! I just wrote a full long question and stuff and now its gone... ><

I went into my theory and everything!

Ok im not going to go fully into again but....


I tried to make a new Thread, called LVL 69 Mage. But I wasnt special enough.
Reason for that is, I'm almost 70 and dont have those gears, so the thread would take all the T4-6 items out of play. and also a guide as to which instances are needed for gears to get ready for Kara,

But here's what I've been doing and Out DPS'ing everyone I meet, (Minus 1 fire mage, but had to go back and repair twice) and always have mana,
During tank's charge, start spamming frost bolt rank1 untill 4 or 5 winters chill, then continue with full powered Frostbolt. With this you can start stacking Winters chill, with no hate, and using no mana @ +10% crit for the entire fight, and you can Either ice lance or rank 1 frostbolt if you had to stop and Winters chill is about to expire.


Use this macro to save space

/cast [modifier] Frostbolt(Rank 1); Frostbolt

hold down alt for rank1

For a frost mage to be decent at DPS, you really need almost your full tree speced out most talent set's Ive seen dont do that, and you also have to have a gear set up for a crit junkie. Fully speced Frost. all the goodies that have anything to do with crits, or dmg. I notice alot of Frost, arnt full Winter Powerhouse, but I feel that A frost mage really needs to be full frost, not 1/2 if you really want some arcane tree, then leave out things that have to do with you taking dmg, but if it says crit or dmg, or mana reduction, take it~!

I honestly feel that this is the Best DPS, and DPS technique for lvl'ing up in instances, because your threat is lower, better DPS per Mana. if you die 1/2 through the fight, your DPS is really gonna hurt

My other question is, can a bored mage who's willing to try something new, try this technique with thier T4-6 gears, opting for + crit over + dmg? and tell me how it went?

Please be nice on the bashing! I'm only lvl 65, my 1st char, and have been playing wow for only 2 months.

And thank you for this Awsomeness site! I love seeing new ways to maximize my potency

Edit. Since rotaions are talking about alot here, here;s my rotation

As the tank charges!
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank1
Frostbolt rank 12
Frostbolt rank 12
Water Ele
Frostbolt rank 12
Frostbolt rank 12 till water ele gone
cold snap
Water Ele
Frostbolt rank 12
forever till dead

Crit Rating 32% over all

Crit Rating after winterschill around 40%

I wish I could count on that freezing effect and shatter but honestly in an instance, it breaks before your 2.5 sec cast gets off
@ lvl 65
Regular hit 1010 crit for 2,200 and lacking on alot of gears.

Athenalyn please read http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t18441-m...tional_thread/ ... No r1 frostbolts will not increase your dps (at best you will do the same dps as the tank's threat allows, which doesn't matter if you stacked winter's chill in advance or not). No stacking crit will not increase your dps over stacking damage.No you don't need anywhere near 61 in frost to do max dps. Only extra damage/threat from frost is because of water elemental having seperate threat - which isn't a lot more dmg/threat but it's something. No frost does not have more damage/mana than fire, either.

But seriously have you tried it? or just reading, and I'm talking about having a Full winters chill stack before a boss mob is down to 98% life. its faster then a wand.

but you need 57 points in frost, or your missing alot of +dmg and alot of + crit.

Has anyone attempted to go full out crit junkie?

Is there a max crit % ?

Athenalyn, just about everything you wrote here are wrong. Don't doubt the people here who tried to help you with helpful replies. I think you really need to read the thread that Galzohar linked for you, to get a basic understanding of how things works for a mage. In fact, try to get into a raid soon to see how things works out. You will find a lot of truth when you get into raiding.

Athenalyn, firstly even if what you posted is true, it does not belong to this thread. This thread is about the changes to mages after 2.3 and 2.3.2.

Secondly, what you say is wrong on many accounts. For pure damage to bosses. There are many redundant talents in frost that you would not need. Shatter and frost bite is not needed and so is quite a few frost talents.

Winterchill do not have to be 5/5 too depending on how many mages you bring that are frost. Even for 1 4/5 is enough to maintain the stack,although I did take 5/5.

Thirdly, crit is a suboptimal stat over hit/haste/spell damage if you read the other threads.

Oh Please dont think that I am Doubting, I am very grateful for the help in these post, and your right! this is the TC for 2.3 changes. Its Just been off topic for the past... 60 pages But I'm also not one to belive everything said to me without people trying it. And have you tried it after the 2.3 changes? Are all changes stated in the update, or do you belive in hidden effects?

I also asked you to be nice, I am a girl and I do get emotional.

And "Thirdly, crit is a suboptimal stat over hit/haste/spell damage if you read the other threads." is Best for An Arcane / Fire Mage spec, not for a Frost. Frost is Critz So I would say Haste/Hit/Crit/spell Dmg for reg mobs, then switch out to Hit/Haste/crit/spell dmg for bosses. I seriously cannot belive someone who figures DPS against trash mobs requires that same gear as DPS'ing a boss.


I'm sorry I failed to mention that my tactic is for a LVL 65. @ lvl 70 it may not be the best thing, but @ lvl 65 people cannot belive the DPS I am doing. It is seriously Wowza I guess that was failed to mention. @ 70 it may change.

I was only asking for a 70 to do it with Tier gear, so that I may see if I need not to do it. or not, but yes Crit gear right now brings me from 8% default crit to 14% default crit and only lowers my + dmg by 20. not only 20 but... "Up to" 20

Athenalyn, you've made a grand total of 4 posts on these forums, all of them today, you joined a week ago.

What you have done is come here, throw around proven to be wrong numbers, disregard any advice given to you, and in return you attempt to flame us.

Please, go read those threads again and realize that asking that type of a question, with no effort into reading those threads, shows you're not here to learn.

We don't care what you say is better when you provide no proof to support such.

Ok this is my last post for the day then,

and how are you to say you are right, no matter what? your word is law?

I gave out good advise for under lvl 70 mages and you toss it in my face. Saying I'm wrong and flaming? I guess this is A 70 only forum?

Here's my points. You know that if you Frostbolt the mob as the tank starts hitting it, you are gonna pull the mob to you. So why not use that time, stacking up Winters Chill, and once the tank has threat, agro, what ever. Your crit % is 10% higher.

I never knew it was a bad ideal to have +10% (notice not +10 crit rating, but pure 10 Percent). But oh, I'm not a Fire mage, so I'm wrong and dumb no matter what.

In no way did I flame anyone, until now, and thats you for your cruel remarks. I even said I am thankful for the advise I have learned from these threads and have actually changed around some things.

But no way Am I wrong about this. In no way is it a waste.

And in no way was any advise given other then, "your soo wrong"

it has taken me a week to post, because I have been reading it allllll, and no where did I see max crit.

But hey these forums arnt for flaming, lets keep it proffesional. I'm done for the night, and again Thank you Xiaxin and galzohar for the advise.

Guess they don't have misdirect in your raids - - -

What would she be raiding at 65 anyway? ZG?

The math is very simple Hit > Haste > Damage > Crit

Hit has no value once capped.

Haste has no value if you drop the cast time of the spell you are using under the GCD.

That's the whole thing.

Why does damage > crit?

It's based on itembudget values. You get roughly 12 damage for 10 crit rating or 10 hit rating in terms of item budget values. Thats why hit rating is so valuable (when below the cap) since it only needs 12.6 for each percentage point. It's also why crit rating is so low in value since it requires 22.1 per percentage point. Oh and in case you are thinking about the whole less then 70 aspect, sure it is less crit rating per point at level 65, it is also less hit rating per point at level 65. However it is also less damage to get 1% more overall dps so the equation stated above is constant during the leveling process. If you could have level 70 damage on a level 60 mage then maybe you would be able to argue that crit rating is better then damage but that is the reason why they scaled the ratings the way that they did when TBC came out in the first place.

Items with more varied stats get higher overall value, thats why some crit it a good thing. But to stack for crit is simply retarded since you are stacking something of lesser overall value then anything else you could have chosen to stack. While leveling the easiest way to compare gear is to think about crit rating as if it was worth 1/2 a damage per rating point. Then say that 1 hit rating is worth 1 damage and then should keep you safe until you hit level 70 and then you can break out one of the nice scripts that people have created to determine the real values of items in regards to your specific dps.

As for the stack 5 rank 1 Frostbolts aspect. Current raiding starts with the warrior getting misdirected by a hunter on the pull. That means he is starting with a lot of initial aggro. Used to be that we would have to do a 5 count before starting which was a good time to stack rank 1 frostbolts for WC as frost. Now the only issue is getting 2-3 crits in a row before the tanks aggro is firmly established. Even so with blessing of salvation that isn't an issue anymore, but if it was lacking then seeing a crit and dropping to a rank 1 frostbolt and then back to max rank isn't a horrible concept its just that it isn't maximizing mage dps in a raid setting and that's what this thread is about.

I really think you should be posting in that Help mage thread and honestly think you should focus more on completing your leveling and getting some real raiding experience before coming here and posting questions with theorycraft based on....well.... I'm really not sure what its based on.

BTW Lhivera has a great thread on the WoW mage forums about mage mechanics and has posted actual numbers for the idea of stacking WC with either rank 1 or with Ice Lance in the past and proved mathematically that it is a definitive loss in overall dps for that mage and simply not worth doing.

Good point :P

If switching from dmg gear to crit gear nets you 6% crit for the loss of merely 20 +dmg, then yes, that is a good tradeoff.

Regardless, gear itemization will change once you hit 70, and esp. once you start raiding. So keep that in mind, and read the threads that have been suggested for you. You have stated yourself that you're very new to the game, so take the time and learn. I have a couple of alts, and I can safely say that the mage class is one of the more complex ones. That what makes it so much fun to play.
All those hit > dmg > crit rules, are basic rules of thumb, and one needs to know the values of those stats and when it's worth trading an item with more crit for one with less of it.

I'll also take this chance to ask a question about spell haste and arcane blast. I have a spreadsheet that I maintain for some time now that tries to model the different stats and talents and predict the DPS value of changing stats according to one's talents. It's not like Vontre's sheet (not calculating cycles for example), but something much more basic.

Anyway, when modelling Arcane Blast with spell haste, is the new cast time based on the original cast time or the debuff modified cast time? (I've seen this asked, but didn't find the answer)

I tend to say it's the latter, but would like to know whether anyone knows for sure.

EDIT: I could not test it for myself since I lack enough spell haste to be able to take a decent measurement.

Ok, I'm going to throw this in the 2.3 thread, since the issue came about after the release of 2.3.

I think the new casting mechanic has created a bug. Countless times, my cast has been stopped when the previous mob I was targetting dies. Here is how it plays out most of the time:

Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 1
Target Mob 2
Cast Frostbolt at Mob 1
Begin casting Frostbolt at Mob 2
Previous Frostbolt hits and kills Mob 1
Current cast stops

At first I just thought I wasn't switching targets correctly and my second frostbolt was really aimed at Mob 1. However, this has happened way too much recently, and I have even been able to reproduce the issue at will. The only explaination I can up with is that the some sort of targetting variable isn't correctly switching when the cast requests are sent to the server before the end cast is sent back to the client. Everything is fine if I wait a split second on the cast, which is why I think it is only applied if you begin casting before the current one is finished.

I posted a thread in the WoW bug reports forum, and bumped it, but was unsuccessful at getting much feedback. I haven't found any other information about it anywhere else, so I'm asking here: Has anyone experienced this issue? While not particularly important for raid bosses, it frequently occurs on trash and soloing providing a non-trivial loss of DPS as well as ruining the casting strategy I plan on using during the fights.

Sounds like you're using some weird frostbolt macro.