Have to agree with the rest on Jammi,

Mage's primary job on Archimonde is to decurse and not die. You could have done 400k damage on him, or got second on DPS. But if you did that by dpsing so much, such that when that one fellow in grips near you needed decursing and you didn't do it. And he died, and the soulcharge wiped the raid with archimonde at 12%. Then, for all that fancy damage you did, you failed in your true duty on that fight.

I am sure there will be kills when you are lucky enough that you could DPS the whole fight without having to decurse at all. Its probably cos there was another decurser (whether mage or druid) near you who picked up the ball and did your job for you.

Archimonde is not a good measure of mage DPS at all. Actually, for spec comparisions, even Teron isn't a very good measure either. Though people love to refer to it. He has so much pushback that arcane suffers an inherent disadvantage compared to fire for that fight. (Fire has 70% pushback immunity). And people die and become ghosts in the fight. So it is hardly a case of all DPSers going full out the whole fight.

Teron seems to me more about handling ghosts well than about pushing DPS. We die cos ghosts got into the raid, not because DPS was lacking.

The only few parts in MH and BT where DPS truely matters is Akama stage two, and ROS stage 3. We have had the raid wipe in stage 3 because of insufficient DPS. And we have ever failed to kill Akama's shade in stage two and have to repeat the encounter (though that rarely happens nowadays).

Nowhere else in any fight in MH and BT is there a big requirement of "do x amount of raid damage within y amount of time or the raid dies". The enrage timer for most BT and MH bosses are just not short enough to have to push DPS to that extent. And most of the fights are more based on getting execution down, moving at the right times, etc, than about DPS.

If you really want to measure it where it matters, try measuring your DPS during ROS stage 3 or specifically Akama stage 2 and see where you stand. At least I would agree that DPS matters during those two stages. But not for Archimonde.

RoS stage 3 is a bad idea. The aura increasing damage done over time tends to screw things up, and... I've always been threat capped 90% of the time in that fight, so arcane would have a considerable advantage. :-)
Akama stage 2 is too short, it takes my guild ~30s to burn him down. Arcane would again have somewhat of an advantage over fire, since you can just go all out and not care about mana.

Better benchmarks would be, maybe, Rage Winterchill or Kaz'rogal?

Winterchill would only be appropriate if you didn't get ice tombed and never had to move out of death and decay. Kaz'rogal might work if you can burn him sufficiently quickly that using dps consumables does not endanger the raid, and evo is not required.

Depending on your strat Anetheron might be a better choice - if you OT all the infernals or have a small group of dpsers focusing on them then it's essentially tank'n'spank for the remaining ranged dps so long as you don't have an infernal land on you.

Blink and blink? It's one GCD for both, plus stopping your current spell. It's not perfect, but... At least no spec would be inherently disadvantaged.

True, arcane has a slight disadvantage here, depending on how long the fight lasts.

Or you don't get sleeped? The other two fights are more tank n' spank than this, though.

I think you're assertion that arcane is a tad easier in MH/BT is pretty much right on.

Rage Winterchill might be a good boss fight for fire but it's better as arcane. When I did this as arcane after patch 2.4 I had like 705 mp5 while casting. That's what showed in my character screen. In other words I've got a few hundred more than that cycling in from spriests, a shaman, potions, gems etc. You can spam fully ramped AB the whole 2 minute fight guaranteed.

A great fire fight (depending on your guild's strat) would probably be az'galor. The strat my guild used meant that if you were fire on this fight, you stood in one spot at 41 yards and happily blew the shit out of him without a care in the world while all the arcane mages, shadow priests, and hunters' pets soaked the RoFs.

You might also think of Teron Gorefiend due to the pushback avoidance but 2x IV takes the sting off for 40 seconds.

Either way, this thread is directed more towards SWP mage play rather than MH/BT. We're supposed to have been farming that old content for a long time now =).

Hehe well I'm glad no-one over-reacted ; I was just trying to bring some friendly rivalry into the debate. Which I think I did, but it also raised a few eyebrows having read your reactions....

1 ) Fire mages live in a world of a 3 second base cast time. Any fight that involves ; decursing, moving or blinking means that the fire mage has a decision as to whether its worth his while finishing his cast or doing something different. An arcane mage does not have this problem. Please believe when I say that having decursive sat over Archimonde's knees and my mouse hovering waiting to decurse [which I spam when someone gets grip meaning my current cast finishes and immediately de-curse) it is MUCH easier, and better in terms of impact to damage, to be arcane. I did the second most decursing on the actual kill, for example, and I bet you I beat the fire mages to the decurse action 10x more than they did to me. So please don't say "Oh thats a fight where its more important to decurse than dps" because you a) assume I prioritised dps over decursing [which is simply not the case] and b) That decursing causes your dps to falter. Decursing isn't really a problem to an arcane mage. We live on the GCD so losing one to a spell with a much reduced mana cost as opposed to our AB is neither here nor there.

On many fights these days (PRE-SUNWELL ; I have not stepped foot near that place and have only read from these amazing forums about those encounters, so thats a small proviso but I'm sure they must be similar ; Blizzard has never I believe wanted casters or ranged to be stood still for very long in any encounter since Gruul's one eyed head came into the world) we have to move. Movement gimps a fire mage; gimps his damage, gives him more mana than he can spend, and offers the potential for scorch debuffs to fall off if followed by a silence or someone dying or needing decursing or something that interrupts the casting flow. Arcane's only similar issue would be losing the AB debuff [which happens every ice-block... by the way.. and is REALLY annoying!!] and having to restack it with AB>FrB>AB>FrB etc due to the AB casting bug which is a real pain in the bum.


2) Rage winterchill has frost resistance so if an arcane mage (arc/frost) beats you on that fight, he got very lucky with resists, or had a very good SP (or lots of movement = regen time "I had to move for 23 seconds, ooh goodie I've now got LOADS of mana to spunk on AB spam!") or the movement screwed you over and actually helped him...

3 ) I'm slightly disconcerted by all the people saying "This fight isn;t fair to compare you have to x, y or z" or "Teron is an unfair comparison due to pushbacks which fire gets 70% chance to avoid"...

Guys (and girls) ; reality check please ; If your spec causes you to not be able to do as much damage as someone else - Change it. Do not whine and say "Aww mommy it wasn't fair."... That is totally against I believe as a raider. Any mage that I heard excusing low dps with saying "I did more decursing than you" or "oh but but Supremus has fire resistance" needs to learn that every fight (from Morogrim AoE causing serious mana issues back in the day to necessitate mana oil and/or mage armor to survive, to any fight involving movement) has its ups and downs and if your spec allows you to beat most of them ; it is a better than spec than one that doesn't. Mages who expect to be able to stand still and nuke without any concerns in order to do their optimum dps, frankly, are not maximising their opportunity to eek the benefit from the options available to them.

4) Cooldowns. On almost all fights that matter (and most that don't) ; as someone else said "The difference between an excellent mage and a mediocre one is only in CD control & management." – Pintofbrew, Kilrogg EU.

I have ; two icy veins, one cold snap, two iceblocks, one arcane power, and a POM ; every 5 minutes. You have combustion and icy veins. That's your only CDs to manage. (BTW this "you" fire mage and me "arcane mage" is again just banter )
If I get ghosted on Teron : In the 20 seconds I have before I leave ; I can dump an entire mana bar into him with AB spam with Arcane Power up, POM as I run to the corner, with a 40% threat reduction... That is a HUGE dps boost that isn't achievable with fire. This is one example where arcane vs fire has a clear difference. IF you exclude the ability to do this from your comments on Teron.. then I think you're not seeing the whole picture. You say "70% pushback resistance is a plus - I say, having two icy veins (to guarantee a safe evocate), 40% threat reduction, and more cooldowns, more often - gives me flexibility to adapt to a boss encounter you can only dream of!!

Yeah no its natural I was dropped on my face as a child I'm sorry to have wound you up amigo.

I like how you shouted that the other mage did 200% more decursing than me in his kill.
If you notice ; he was one of two mages on his kill. He did 23 and the other mage did 9.
I did 12 ; the other FOUR mages in raid with me did (on that kill) 11, 1, 4 and 6 respectively.

So your argument that I'm not doing my job (when I, in fact, did more decursing than any other mage in the raid with me) doesn't hold any water now does it?
Also don't presume to dare tell me I'm not doing my job unless your argument is sound. Which it isn't. As 1/5th of the mages present on my kill - and with him being 1/2 of the mages present on HIS kill - I did proportionaly more decursing than him.

What you could mention ; would be the fact that he was very unlucky and had to decurse a hell of a lot and that the mage he was fighting with did APPALLINGly badly to have done when he had only 9 decurses to do. Either that or the second mage needs to get decursive installed and put somewhere convenient on his screen (and bind all abilities to buttons so he can dps and watch decursive 99% of the time) so that he doesn't get beaten to the punch on decursing. However, for all we know - the mage that came second could have been leading the raid and had other priorities. You can't ever know.

I stated when I made it I said, "comparison hardly supporting my comical aside"... so, I hope you can see now, was mostly joking, partly baiting, and partially trying to make a point about arcane's superiority in many many TBC situations as described above.

I would urge anyone thinking "Arcane is great when you get an SP and CoS and mana-tide but I'd <insert defamory action here> when you don't" to try the spec out. Its makes movement a thing to rejoice, and allows you to go nuts and have more fun DPSing throughout the fight, not just on 20% onwards.

Hardly ; on Kazrogal- frostbolt spamming the other day my mana bar didn't even drop as I was casting. My regen equalled the cost of the frostbolts for a short period of time. Thats not possible with fire.

As arcane you gear for huge intellect, huge regen, and you use mage armor to increase / sustain your dps - and only use molten on fights such as Supremus or Archie when the dps time is similar to movement times overall. Mage armor being your best armor comes in VERY handy in TBC encounters ; as many involve resistance gear. We also benefit from Mag absorption which not only increases our resistance - but returns mana to us on a full resist (Which, considering I only took two marks last time is ALOT of mana!!) . On Kazrogal arcane is neither superior or inferior ; IF you consider the whole picture.

People open your eyes to the hidden facets to each spec.

Arcane versus Fire has been discussed over and over and over and over and over again and the conclusion is always that THERE IS NO PERFECT SPEC. The discussion is useless.

Jees I hope this post isn't really only about Sunwell.. The other threads around at the moment on here get lost in individual cases and I'm enjoying the spec comparisons raised in this one. If its just about Sunwell please disregard most of what I'm saying because until I've done it day-in day-out, I cannot compare the spec I have and the spec I plan to have (fire passed 4xT6, hit cap with a huge amount of haste)... Please don't make it Sunwell only ; 2.4 might be only the most recent but the 2.3 thread has descended into "If I use this gem will it...." which isn't to me... really relevant to a theorycrafting debate ; thats what Rawr is for - your own gear related to what you have available.

Although if I had all the gear in the world... I would probably go fire for SWP ; and my performance on all the bosses I know about would be sub-par...

Damn I think I just annhilated my own posts... Grrr

Edit: useless continuation of fire vs. arcane :P

Yes but all those GCDs add up, and aren't uniformly distributed across attempts. If you never get tombed and are lucky enough to avoid all/most of the Death and Decays then this is going to have a considerable effect on your overall dps. Unless you only compared WWSs with identical numbers of tombs/D&D ticks you aren't going to learn anything even remotely useful .

I was forgetting the sleep. However, I would still argue that the chances of being slept/having an infernal drop on you are much lower than the chance of having to move out of D&D at least once.

You could argue that this mage got screwed by the PRNG, got less crits, or smaller values. Same thing. No two fights are identical, and even in the same fight, conditions differ between raid members.


Hm, don't know, it's been a while since I wasn't on infernal duty.

You have witnessed what is known as "Being Close to Jaina". To your amazement, you have not gained the display of MP5 from either SP or shaman, you simply have been blessed with being in Jaina's Aura of Brilliance which if memory serves is either "regen x2" or "spirit x2", which for you is the same thing.

Not at all the same thing. The PRNG, crit percent etc. are all variables outside your control. Fight choice is not. Therefore choosing a fight with greater variability of movement/cast interruptions is just making any comparison you make less accurate than one with lower movement/cast interruptions. That is, after all, what this whole conversation is about!

True, but you tell me which fight involves no random elements. :-)

It's called Brilliance Aura from being in proximity of Lady Jaina Proudmoore (this depends on your tanking positioning) If you stay in range of it, it increases your spirit by 100%. This allowed me to achieve about 700 mp5 while casting where I normally have just under 400 or so.

Edit:
Pintofbrew beat me to the punch on that one, Grayrest. But yes, my point was Brilliance Aura could make it more favorable for an arcane mage vs a fire mage that's all. I should go ahead and point out that when I was speaking of that specific fight I was referring to Brilliance Aura, which is a mechanic of this specific fight. I was taking that as a given, assuming everyone would know what I was referring to when I posted that.

Yes Pint, I know why my mp5 was high, I wasn't wondering "how the hell did I pull that off?" the statement was nitpicking fight mechanics since that's what the discussion has petered into.

I apologize for engaging in pointless banter over the topic. I will restrain from chiming in and playing devil's advocate (sorry).

If someone were a new mage asking me what to spec for MH/BT, I would definitely respond, smilingly, with something like, "What color is better, Red or Blue?" This would be to give them an idea of how opinionated the discussion is. At this point, it is proven that both are viable and competitive for the content. The only way one could give any advice regarding the issue is if your intrepid inquirer simply wanted to mindlessly copy your exact moves and that is not what is to be promoted in these forums.

You may not realise, but you know ahead of time when the curse is due to be cast, which allows you to adapt your casts for when decurses are going to be due, and switch to scorch/fireblast. But regardless, you have yet to prove me that more decursing = better job. All that matters is people not dying. Not the amount of decursing. The difference is quite stark since it means your real goal is to decurse ideally somewhere before the first tick of the curse - not when it is just put up.

And FWIW, you contradict yourself. "decision as to whether its worth his while finishing his cast or doing something different. An arcane mage does not have this problem." You clearly indicate that you spam decurse so that it is cast after you finish casting your current spell, which means you wait to finish your cast just as well as the fire mage. You would have that problem if the fight required twitch reflexes. Unfortunately, no fight in the game save Noth and Sapphiron fits into that category.

Movement also gimps arcanes damage. And I'm sorry to say but I can't seem to recall a fight where scorch specifically falls off. Maybe if you have bad mages. A good example would be a fight where the boss clears all debuffs, but again, thats unrelated with movement. The closest I can imagine is archimonde, but if Archimonde is the one example you're basing yourself on, then your argument holds no weight. If a fire mage loses a scorch stack (on archimonde), it means arcane is far more likely to lose AB stacks.

Also, you seriously need to understand that "gives him more mana than he can spend" does not apply to fire. Fire does not like remotely have mana issues. The only time I use evocation is after phase 2 on Illidan and maybe* kaz'rogal if I don't get any resist. Fire does not have mana issues, and always has more mana than it can spend. Movement does not affects that.

WTF? Arcane casts only arcane blast on rage winterchill. Also, 23 seconds of movement ? The most I ever move on archimonde is either fireblast/move for 1.5s or blink. If my movement lasts more than 1.5s total, it means blink failed.

?
Fire mages have trinkets, drums, molten fury (yes, this is a cooldown for all means and purposes), combustion, icy veins, bloodlust, flame cap and destruction potion. Thats a lot more than just combustion and icy veins. And on the contrary to your claim, I believe that fire mages are better suited to fit any situation than an arcane mage for the simple reason that we have a stronger and more flexible arsenal of spells. I'm talking {arcane blast, frostbolt and arcane explosion} vs {scorch, fireball, fireblast, dragon's breath, blastwave, arcane explosion}. This is a bit the reason that warlocks don't fare all too well on trash - they are fairly limited to {shadowbolt, seed of corruption}, which offers very low flexibility. I know many guilds have warlocks topping meters on trash (I'm talking non-aoe trash), but if you play against a good fire mage they'll fall significantly behind simply because of that flexibility.

I am not denying that having a 1.5s cast time main spell has its advantages, but it won't magically make you the most flexible by virtue of having a short cast time. I am not arguing about threat - in my experience it has rarely been an issue save on eredar twins reverse order.

What does it matter whether you can go 'nuts' only at the final 20% or on the entirety of the fight ? All that matters is final damage. And for what its worth, arcane is restrained to pop its cooldown during bloodlust, not exactly 'at any given time'. Which kinds of goes back to what I was saying: "what does it matter when you can go nuts?". Both fire and arcane depends on when bloodlust is activated.

-------------- edit
The problem isn't whether or not arcane/frost can compete. The problem is that you're using the wrong arguments to show it.

Why are you so hellbent on using resist gear ?

Why not?

I submit that you do more dps on Kaz/Azgalor/Anetheron with the resist gear, than you would without. I'm not saying go full SR, but [Medallion of Karabor]+[Night's End] w/[Formula: Enchant Cloak - Greater Shadow Resistance] works great. This puts you at 183SR with 0/5MA, which is high enough to partially resist ~40% of the time. Since the silences/mark/carrion swarm are binary spells you can fully resist almost half of them!

So I submit that with the 2 pieces of SR gear above, you'll have more mana on Kaz'rogal, less silences on Azgalor, and be a relatively tough target on Anetheron (damn if my healer always gets swarmed).

There is one other disadvantage to Arc/Frost that no one has mentioned. That 1.5s cast time means you are just about always inside the GCD which means that Ice Block is no longer an instant thing since it no longer activates during the GCD even with a /stopcasting macro in place.

There have been a few occassions in SWP where I went for Ice Block to avoid dying and got the spell not ready message and died. Sure you could argue that it is the healers responsibility to prevent that situation from occurring but with our limited health pools and the amount of damage thrown around being practically insta-gibbed is not completely uncommon and being perpetually inside the GCD does make that an issue that Fire doesn't have to deal with quite as badly since Fire's spells take longer to cast so they spend less total time inside the GCD.



On another note, has anyone retested Arcane Blast in 2.4.2 to see if the whole 2.5-2.5 thing is still in place. I tried stacking the debuff with straight Arcane Blast spam last night and even though the cast bar was showing the bug my latency meter on Quartz was significantly larger then normal (during the stacking) and then returned to normal once AB was full stacked) and it seemed like the spells were casting much faster then the bugged casting bar would lead one to believe.

Maybe someone with a G15, a spam macro and a stopwatch could go a few rounds with Dr. Boom and see if that bug is still actually active or merely a client-side UI discrepancy.

While this is purely anecdotal, I seem to always get a lot more 'lag bar' on my first cast of a series of casts as of late.

This wasn't a little, this was like half the bar being Red. I also for the life of me can't figure out if that proves the point that the AB stacking is bugged or if it shows that the cast times may be stacking correctly server side but showing incorrectly on the client side. Hurts my head to think about it which was why I was suggesting the stopwatch approach. I would do it myself but I am lazy and have never figured out how to spam keys besides manually which is not exactly the most accurate of methods.