I am intending to start doing Arena on my mage (2v2) and is wondering if anyone has experience doing arena in PvE gear as I dont have much PvP gear yet( only 2 piece S1(glove/shoulder), the old PvP Cloak/bracer/trinket). I do have a full set of T4/T5/ some T6 and a ton of badges to buy the new ones.
Is there a big gear difference the S1/S2/S3 gear and the PvE gear in terms of survivability in arena at the mid/lower range?
I will be happy if my 2v2 team reaches 1600 and maintain it.
I'll be really interested to see how Dragon's Breath 0/50/11 works out (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft). Loses imp CS and water ele/frost talents, but gains molten fury, a maxxed out ice armor (great for frost biting) that'll proc like crazy with icy veins, an impact to support your fire damage main nukes, and blazing speed which is perhaps one of the best mage talents out there.
I am intending to start doing Arena on my mage (2v2) and is wondering if anyone has experience doing arena in PvE gear as I dont have much PvP gear yet( only 2 piece S1(glove/shoulder), the old PvP Cloak/bracer/trinket). I do have a full set of T4/T5/ some T6 and a ton of badges to buy the new ones.
Is there a big gear difference the S1/S2/S3 gear and the PvE gear in terms of survivability in arena at the mid/lower range?
I will be happy if my 2v2 team reaches 1600 and maintain it.
Achieving and maintaining that rating should be easily doable with your gear. Of course PvP-Gear is better for arenas, but when a friend and I started doing 2v2 a while ago (frostmage/frostmage) we easily achieved ~1650 without more PvP gear than you have, and worse PvE-gear for the other slots.
If we're talking good looks, George Clooney comes second.
I'll be really interested to see how Dragon's Breath 0/50/11 works out (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft). Loses imp CS and water ele/frost talents, but gains molten fury, a maxxed out ice armor (great for frost biting) that'll proc like crazy with icy veins, an impact to support your fire damage main nukes, and blazing speed which is perhaps one of the best mage talents out there.
At the very least i'd say it has potential
I'm thinking into the same direction. Really don't see a huge benefit in speccing Shatter, and thus i'd rather max Imp. and Emp. Fireballs, b/c Icy Veins + Skull of Guldan + Combustion + Fireball = BBQ. Add Bloodlust and i get happy in my pants ...
I would still stick to Molten Armor and thus neither spec Frost Warding nor Frostbite. I'd also rather have full Permafrost over Frostbite for r1 FBolts (and ofc also spec 5/5 Imp. FBOlt). Might even go 2/2 Imp Nova over 2/3 Frostbite just b/c there is hardly anything Frostbite could proc off when using Molten Armor over Ice Armor and DB over CoC, well except those r1 Fbolts ofc.
I'm thinking into the same direction. Really don't see a huge benefit in speccing Shatter, and thus i'd rather max Imp. and Emp. Fireballs, b/c Icy Veins + Skull of Guldan + Combustion + Fireball = BBQ. Add Bloodlust and i get happy in my pants ...
I would still stick to Molten Armor and thus neither spec Frost Warding nor Frostbite. I'd also rather have full Permafrost over Frostbite for r1 FBolts (and ofc also spec 5/5 Imp. FBOlt). Might even go 2/2 Imp Nova over 2/3 Frostbite just b/c there is hardly anything Frostbite could proc off when using Molten Armor over Ice Armor and DB over CoC, well except those r1 Fbolts ofc.
Shatter is probably one of the top mage skills for arena. When almost everyone has over 400 reslience having what amount to nearly absolute crits can't be downplayed. It is going to be very hard to use fireball in an arena due to the ease of LoSing a 3 second cast. Frost bolt is easy as hell to LoS and thats a faster cast.
I think a scorch build MIGHT show potential (I'm still not sold on this over WE in the least, but it will be interesting to try) but there is no way a fireball build is going to be viable IMO.
Shatter is probably one of the top mage skills for arena. When almost everyone has over 400 reslience having what amount to nearly absolute crits can't be downplayed. It is going to be very hard to use fireball in an arena due to the ease of LoSing a 3 second cast. Frost bolt is easy as hell to LoS and thats a faster cast.
I think a scorch build MIGHT show potential (I'm still not sold on this over WE in the least, but it will be interesting to try) but there is no way a fireball build is going to be viable IMO.
My evaluation towards Shatter was for a fire build, when speccing 0/41/20 means giving up on Imp and Emp Fireball. Shatter won't do as much as in a full frost build due to the lack of Frostbite procs (when you don't use Ice Armor, CoC and rarely cast Frostbolts) and esp. WE Freeze, reducing your Shatter opportunities to Frostnovas - and then you won't even have Coldsnap to recast one.
Thus i'd rather go for full talented Fireballs [and a 0/50/11 build*] that should have some potential with stacked haste effects. It's a 2.25 sec cast with IV and Skull and gets down to 1.73 sec with added Bloodlust. Also note that you can't really utilize IV in a 0/41/20 Build when casting those weak Frostbolts w/out talents like Piercing Ice, Arctic Winds, WC or Emp. Fbolt ... you can as well keep on spamming Scorch instead.
41/20 will be having rather bad synergy.
you will have shatter only once every 21s (no frostbolt casting , CoC replaced with DB and no pet aoe nova) ,
and this single chance will be used with fireblast/scorch couse your fireballs takes too long to cast.
Only exeption i see is nova + blastwave for huge aoe crits , but huge means +500 aoe dmg once every 21s - and thats not
too much take in acount.
Thus i'd rather go for full talented Fireballs [and a 0/50/11 build*] that should have some potential with stacked haste effects. It's a 2.25 sec cast with IV and Skull and gets down to 1.73 sec with added Bloodlust. Also note that you can't really utilize IV in a 0/41/20 Build when casting those weak Frostbolts w/out talents like Piercing Ice, Arctic Winds, WC or Emp. Fbolt ... you can as well keep on spamming Scorch instead.
While i would like to see some variety in mage PVP specs, i have to say this strikes me as wishful thinking. Fire and arcane mages are easily the best target on any team you put them on, and i don't imagine a get-out-of-jail-free card Ice Block will change that much. On a 5v5 or 3v3 there's no reason for the opposing team to not sic its physical dps on you - not only are you the squishiest available target, essentially dead in the water when blink and ice block are on cooldown, but any physical damage they send your way will interrupt your damage output as well. Hard-casting fireballs is a pipe dream; you'll be more concerned with staying alive.
An unfortunate aspect of fire talents, at least in pvp, is that you're forced to either use your cooldowns for the CC effect or for the damage, and rarely do you avoid wasting one or the either. The disorient of dragon's breath and the daze effect of blast wave are needed to escape melee attackers, but melee focused on you is not the kind of target you want to select for focus-fire, since you're restricted to instant-casts against them and distracted by the need to survive.
The dragon's breath mage is a paper tiger. Scary enough when hardcasting combustive 2 second fireballs on a focus-fired target, but send some melee dps his way, and it will expend its cooldowns, blink, and promptly die.
Note, that you will still get Blazing Speed which is a very solid replacement for the lost Ice Barrier.
It's still just theorizing (well and dreaming ) and nothing more, as i haven't played this spec yet obv. Being heavily bored by full frost builds i will however definitely give it a try ...
17/41+/0 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Idea: Blazing speed, Blast wave, Scorch as a primary nuke, or fireball if you want (you have 3 points to play with).
The kicker is that it brings 8(12) seconds of blanket silence, dragon's breath/imp CS. Blazing speed is godly. Good stuff
I'd suggest trying This build with Improved missiles, its more useful imo than the crit to arcane explosion. Missiles are good when a hunter, pet, or demon is on you, for catching people going out of line of sight, and when fire's locked out. Maybe imp fireblast for the remaining 3 points? that or incinerate, i'm thinking...
This build has the same problem as 0/41+/11+ - you're such a choice ff target in almost any situation. But i guess with the right healing and support it could work. If only dragon's breath didn't require point blank range and such steady aim... hitting a travel-form kitty with it is no joke.
I'd suggest trying This build with Improved missiles, its more useful imo than the crit to arcane explosion. Missiles are good when a hunter, pet, or demon is on you, for catching people going out of line of sight, and when fire's locked out. Maybe imp fireblast for the remaining 3 points? that or incinerate, i'm thinking...
This build has the same problem as 0/41+/11+ - you're such a choice ff target in almost any situation. But i guess with the right healing and support it could work. If only dragon's breath didn't require point blank range and such steady aim... hitting a travel-form kitty with it is no joke.
0/41+/11+ is the ff target build, blazing speed/scorch spam/fire cools for impact procs, ice armor/frostbite/icy veins for frostbite/defense.
I'm still a little hesitant to go imp arcane missiles, being the arcane tree and standing still channelling for 5 seconds just screams CS me and take advantage.
Oh. Missiles is almost exclusively for the situations i mentioned, its not going to be a reliable nuke option, with or without a mage holding a CS on their team.
Kind of hard to argue with the mage that apparently takes Shard of Azzinoth into arenas, though =D
I've been toying around with the notion of stacking haste onto AM come the next patch... take heroism, MQG, and icy veins and add in arcane power with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft build and that is going to produce some serious pain (add in any other haste trinkets and whatnot) of course you need to kill your target inside the window or your dead.
Bear in mind that when going for higher games mages come more and more viable target for focus, nothing goes as fast down as purged mage, and in the mean time mage wont do really anything except blasts instants.
Fair enough - but still hasted AM would own a target very quickly... Now for another silly question - i've looked at few builds for mage pvp and I've noticed silence seems to be a common theme. Now the only reason I can guess is to stop a druid from shifting while you kill him? As far as I know silence doesn't stop a pally bubble (would be nice) and as a last ditch stop against caster dps. Any other reason?
The dragon's breath mage is a paper tiger. Scary enough when hardcasting combustive 2 second fireballs on a focus-fired target, but send some melee dps his way, and it will expend its cooldowns, blink, and promptly die.
I'd say this depends on your composition. If you are afraid of being focused by melee, then it's absolutely true, but for example in 3s with a rogue/mage/priest comp, it is very possible to end up CCing all of the opposing team's dps at the same time, leaving you perfectly able to chain cast fireballs for at least a limited period of time.
Add to this the Rogue's ability to chain stun the focus target and prevent it from LoSing your fireballs, and I think it could work quite well.
No, you won't keep the opposing team CC'd for very long, but long enough to absolutely destroy someone with 2 or 3 combusted, power infused, 2 second fireballs? I think it's likely.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
Fair enough - but still hasted AM would own a target very quickly... Now for another silly question - i've looked at few builds for mage pvp and I've noticed silence seems to be a common theme. Now the only reason I can guess is to stop a druid from shifting while you kill him? As far as I know silence doesn't stop a pally bubble (would be nice) and as a last ditch stop against caster dps. Any other reason?
Well priests and caster dps mainly, in 3's all the healers are mainly something else than paladins, where imp cs helps. Priest wont drop to mb you if you locked holy etc.
Generally in 5s ill tend to use cs on priest/caster dps since usually we're didnt kill anything in first 20s. It also helps a bit that you can pick up arcane focus to negate priest unbreakable will. I suppose you would do just fine withous imp cs in 5v5 enviroment where you can just keep cs'ing paladins but 3v3 are whole other story, and the silence is allways nice to burn on druid when target is ~@40% to prevent ns heals.
The 4 second silence as far as I'm concerned is good for one thing. Instant heals. IE Prayer of mending or Rejuv or any sort of Natures swiftness thing, etc etc. Great talent to have, but it's the 12 second counterspell that can decimate a healer.
As for hasted AM, I highly disagree, it won't anyone quickly. It will be earthshocked/kicked/counterspelled/silenced/stunned/charged/etc etc VERY quickly.
At least in my experience, comparing it to say, Oh I don't know Evocate, the other team reacts to it as quickly as possible. The only was to successfully get it off is to get way the crap out of the way and then channel it. As far as that's concerned, kudos to you if you manage to do this, but don't think you will get away with creating a haste PVP set and casting AM in more than 1 out of 100 arena matches. Trading off your resilience, casting a huge mana sink that if interrupted is worthless, making a giant glaring target for yourself.... oof man oof. Drain mana and Drain life are like massive counterspell screams to me when I see them coming off a Warlock if you get the drift.
I did extensive theory crafting on a Hasted AM build in PVE and found that you can theoretically with every haste item in the game get it to like a 4 second cast, if you include I dunno beserking and a Skull of Guldan and Bloodlust.... maybe an instant cast or something pretty close to 2 seconds..... Keeping in mind that you have absolutely 0 PVP gear on at this point, and you are relying on something that for the sake of argument, won't ever happen in a PVP situation successfully....
AM will never work in an arena. (In my humble 1600 rating opinion)
Edit : AM has 5 pulses, I'm assuming you're at like 13% crit rate (haste gear not kind to crit), clearcasting proc arcane spec you're looking at 800ish dmg per pulse and 1300 crits on someone in so-so gear. So in the space of 4 seconds (you're in all haste gear remember?) You did 5300 damage. OVER the course of 4 seconds (hardly owning, any healer with a brain laughed)
Your full frost friend Just popped his pet and frost novaed frostbolted icelanced and pet hit for a total of 4200 damage and has way more survivability than you, and spent like 400 mana doing it. This was all INSTANT damage too. Healer is forced to reroute to this person and cast a big easy to interrupt heal.
AM has 5 pulses, I'm assuming you're at like 13% crit rate (haste gear not kind to crit), clearcasting proc arcane spec you're looking at 800ish dmg per pulse and 1300 crits on someone in so-so gear. So in the space of 4 seconds (you're in all haste gear remember?) You did 5300 damage. OVER the course of 4 seconds (hardly owning, any healer with a brain laughed)
Your full frost friend Just popped his pet and frost novaed frostbolted icelanced and pet hit for a total of 4200 damage and has way more survivability than you, and spent like 400 mana doing it. This was all INSTANT damage too. Healer is forced to reroute to this person and cast a big easy to interrupt heal.
I think you're stating the case too strongly here; the problem with arcane pvp builds isn't that it can't compete damage wise with frost, its for all the other reasons you mentioned and a few you didn't. And anyway if an unpowered clear-cast AM->fireblast can do the same damage over the same amount of time as a shatter combo, isn't that a good thing? After all, shatter combos are essentially our big damage cooldown, one that i might add
is possible a maximum of four times per game
a hardcast subject to push-back, interruption
relies on the elemental being up and clear of CC
forces a choice between frost roots and burst damage
And honestly doesn't reliably reach 4k until the GCD after the ice lance, since even shatter crits aren't a sure thing in a world of 450+ resilience.
I think the bigger difference is what kind of damage and contribution the two specs make when not allowed to set up a hard-cast burst combo, and of course the issue of survivability. Frost wins on both counts.
Actually, I'm really hesitating about meta-gems for pvp: MSD and his internal CD isn't very good for pvp imho, CSD is a little anti-resi. gem but huh is it really good?
I'm really excited to try it, but I'm waiting until they fix that harsh 2 blue gem requirement--it's just not practical for me now.
A lot of people still swear by the MSD, post-nerf. The 45 second cooldown sucks, but people are typically getting at least 2-3 procs per game. That can make a pretty significant difference, depending on how quickly you react to getting the proc.
Personally, I'm not so confident in my ability to switch things up with the MSD in 3v3 situations, so my plan is to use the CSD once they change the requirement to "at least 2 blue gems"; however, MSD does provide a nice opportunity.
I don't know anyone who uses the CSD yet--it seems like nearly everyone uses MSD. The requirements seem to be part of the equation, but I also gather that everyone still loves MSD.
What exactly is CSD? I'm terribly behind in the short form... As for haste I was looking at using heroism, Mind Quickening Gem and the new frost talent, you can't start off with spamming AM, you have to wear the target down and then blow all your cooldowns and zerg him... And I do realize that this strat all depends on shock value a target going from 80% hp to almost nothing in 2 seconds will make most healers panic.
12/06/07, 5:20 AM
) and nothing more, as i haven't played this spec yet obv. Being heavily bored by full frost builds i will however definitely give it a try ...
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