On the subject of PvE specs for mages, I was wondering a few things.

My original character was a mage (up to level 43 lawl) until I made a total of three 60 rogues, two 60 warriors, all of whom are alliance, and a 70 priest. Hence, I haven't paid much attention to caster mechanics in a long time, and as a shadow priest I've been looking more at warlock mechanics than mage mechanics. So I'm certainly no expert on this subject (or even knowledgeable).

My guild has recently demanded that the mages go PvE spec. We killed Gruul post-nerf last week, and have cleared Karazhan including Nightbane, killed Kazzak, and gotten Doomwalker to 10%. Despite the fact that we haven't even tried Mag or SSC, we're still the most advanced guild on the server, which is rather pathetic to me, but Lethon isn't a major server. I say this to show what gear our mages have access to (though tailoring items are obviously better than most raid counterparts at this point).

The announcement they posted on the forums is now at reply 1878.

Seeing this surprised me, as I thought that Fire was the best PvE DPS spec after guilds were past fire immune/resistant mobs in old WoW endgame, and that Ice was more of a PvP spec with its high survivability. I know that the new high-tier arcane talents have made 40/x/x builds popular with the +50% spell crit bonus and +damage bonus from 25% of a mage's intellect. But I was under the impression that deep Fire, with all of its multipliers, ended up as the best PvE DPS spec in raids.

Apparently, though, this has changed. So, could someone enlighten me as to what has changed and what the best PvE builds for a mage are?

I read through parts of this 75 page thread, but didn't see a clear explanation of the new BC builds. If I missed it, could I be directed to the relevant post?

Oh, you're right, my apologies. One second.



It was decided in a recent officer meeting that the most beneficial spec for raiding mages to be was either 40 arcane/21 frost, or 10 arcane/51 frost. We are beginning to get tired of mages coming to raids as PVP spec, as it really doesnt befit someone in a hardcore PVE guild. one 51 frost mage per raid will greatly increase the dps of all the 40 arcane mages, so if you believe you will be a reliable addition to 25 mans you may wish to go 51 frost, otherwise 40 arcane is ideal for overall damage. I myself will be going 51 frost, so it shouldnt be a problem for most of you to go arcane if you choose. If mages continue to come to raids as a spec not oriented towards PVE content, there will be consequences.

Arcane/damage spec : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Ri0Vc0fzxIziZZVA0zof0o

Frost/Winters chill spec : http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Rf0VZZVArfofxsiot

these specs are not set in stone, but the general concept should not be changed. only pvp oriented talents (I/E improved counterspell, shatter, etc) should be removed or changed.

Vontre,

I think the highest rank of Divine Spirit now gives 50 spirit, right?

Also, max level MotW gives 14 int, not 16, correct? I'm just grabbing these numbers off of thott, so if I'm wrong, I apologize.

I think where you account for the nerfed spell dmg coefficients for fireball and frostbolts, it ought to reference the cells that hold the final talent values, not the manually entered values. This could potentially trick people into thinking fire has a bigger edge on arcane that it does.

I'm using a different base value for fireballs as well. I got my base off of thott when I divided the sum of the low end and top end of the rank 13 fireball by 2.

(805 + 633)/2 = 719

Edit: My base numbers for AM (1300), frostbolt (620), and arcane blast (700) differ as well. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just wanting to know where the discrepancy came from.

Yes, on the 50 spirit.

The 14 from MotW is untalented, though a 35% bonus wouldn't be 16...so...I'm not sure on that one. I think he's counting rank 7 (12 of each stat, with a 35% bonus making it 16).

It's very strange that they're singling out Arcane/Frost and Deep Frost as the powerhouse raiding builds. You can do very well with both of those builds, but 10/48/3 + Tailoring + Quag's Eye/Blade of Wizardy is what will have your Mages outputting a metric fuckton of damage.

Does everyone need to have that spec? I don't know. Probably not. I'm not a fan of mandated specs, but every guild is different. I can respect that they have progression in mind and want to maximize the DPS out of their DPS classes.

You mention what you've killed raid-wise, but how are your Mages geared? Are they all Tailors, do they PvP mainly (instead of run Heroics, etc)?

If someone asked me what the two most common PvE raid specs were I would say:

10/48/3 is probably the most common pure PvE raid spec. (You can migrate 2-3 points from fire to arcane)
40/21/0 is probably the second most common, but as your gear gets stronger mind mastery doesn't scale as well as percent damage multipliers in deep fire, but respectable damage.
(38/23/0 is in the same catagory)

I'm sure the frost specs would do fine, but from a dps only standpoint (with acceptable sustainability) the fire specs are usually the defacto.

What exactly does a 10/48/3 spec look like? Something like this?: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kbhVZxghzfcIoeRt0h

I think the issue is that the officers feel the mages should be doing more damage.

On our Kazzak kills, High King kills, and Karazhan clears (at least with group 2, ie my group) I'm usually at or near the top with 2-3 warlocks and two well geared rogues. I can't recall a mage in the top 2 Karazhan slots on the meters, or in the top 5 on the 25 man raid meters. Though, my memory isn't perfect, of course. However, I have been wondering what the mages have been doing, since I expected rogues, mages, and warlocks to all be ahead of me...at least I'd hope they would be.

Maybe some of their gear is bad, maybe they have bad talent specs, but their dps seems to be lacking...

A few are tailors, I know at least two mages run a few heroics. Not sure how much this helps you figure out the issue.

It's most likely some involuntary addiction to ice block. A lot of non-mages especially seem to think that ice block is the be-all end-all of mage talents, for any aspect of gameplay, ever.

Arcane/Frost is fine, I'm going to do that myself for a pvp build that can also raid decently, but Fire based or Arcane/Fire based will do more damage straight up.

Give us their names and we can pick apart their specs using the armory =p

I kid I kid, but that might be something useful for you to do. I found out that the reason my new guild was pushing to recruit me was to replace one of thier current *ahem* bad mages. I looked up his spec and, well... fun at the expense of others... should be morally in the wrong, yes, but. The other mages and I had a good laugh anyway.

Can you fathom a build with only 32 points in arcane? Think about that for a moment.

Standard 10/48/3 spec. Those last 3 points can go where you want. I usually pick up pyro/BW for 5 man fun but if your hardcore you could do 2 in magic attunement for those times when it is the buff of choice for tanks.

As for how much more dps, I don't think I could say with any authority. (This isn't the blizz boards) If I was at gunpoint and forced to give an answer my guess would be easily around 100 dps all things being equal. (equal gear for there specs)

I want to stress again though, a frost build that is raid speced isn't piss poor dps.

It widens the gap. Deep Fire has a bunch of %-based talents which increase damage and/or crit. Deep Frost just has Empowered Frostbolt. Deep Fire has an Empowered talent as well, though with a higher % and no crit (which you get elsewhere from Pyromaniac, Combustion, Critical Mass).