◊ Vontre

It's 30% dispel resist from Stoicism, so 35% total.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Jacktwok

Spellsteal is considered a dispell?

 

◊ Vontre

Well, I would assume so, but don't quote me on that. It does, in effect, dispel the target.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Jacktwok

Hmm, What makes me wonder about this is that somethings are dispellable but not stealable - such as a pally's bubble.

Its an interesting question though.

 

Inoko

Mass Dispell is not a dispell.

BoP (The targetted bubble) is spell steal-able. DI, etc. is not. The ones you can purge/dispell are the ones that you can spell steal. If it has to be mass dispelled, you cannot.

 

greyberger

Here's a question with a great number of answers that I'm hoping the good folks at EJ can shed some light on.

What's the best 17/0/44 spec for 3v3 and 5v5 arenas?

Judging from my own experience and based on the armories of my betters, there seems to be a lot of variation. The first 43 talents (counting Ice Barrier and Water Elemental) as seen here can be taken for granted, but for your remaining 18 points I see up to 29 talent points that arguably should be included. your choices:

frostbite
permafrost
frost channeling, to offset mana issues
ice floes
imp. cone of cold
winter's chill
arctic winds
imp. frostbolt

among these i see most mages omit permafrost, frost channeling, and imp. CoC, which still leaves us with the more conservative 23 points with only 18 to spend. I used to run this build, but recently decided winter's chill was too valuable to pass up. Rather than take points out of arctic winds, which I think is often undervalued, I dropped frost channeling and 2/5 imp frostbolt to maintain both talents, but I can't say i'm completely happy about it.

Is there such a thing as the definitive pvp frost spec? Are there any compromises that makes more sense for 3v3 when contrasted with 5v5, or perhaps situationally depending on your team composition?

 

Vermis

Most play with these Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I dont really see there is other options really. There's no point in spending in channeling or imp coc or anything else besides that, if you want to spend more in frost drop imp cs and go for some kind of 0/6/55 variant

 

Maligne

I alternative between maxing permafrost or piercing ice. In small scale areans on drain/outlast teams permafrost is more valuable than piercing ice. On a 5v5 where there will be other slows in play permafrost is almost useless so piercing ice is the way to go. Permafrost is also handy for griding daily quests and battlegrounds, but piercing ice is better if you do any sort of PVE as your arena spec (I do ZA on the weekends).

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

greyberger

That's an interesting choice. I can definitely see the benefit of permafrost for prolonged kiting, or if you're one of only two snares, or to push the number of trash debuffs on a sheep to ridiculous levels (+duration).

But I can't see giving up 6% frost damage, especially when frost mages are often the best burst dmg on a 3 dps team. I imagine 3 points in piercing ice equals more damage on frostbolts than 3 points into improved frostbolt, and the loss of 3% crit is balanced with a 6% buff to ice lances and CoC. Surely there's somewhere else those points could come from?

edit: on a side note, i seem to be the last person alive who seems to think that Ice Floes is worth anything.

 

Maligne

Like I said, on a drain team you don't need burst. What you need is for your drain target to stay in LOS and not kite your hunter or priest around pillars the whole match. When a healer is out of mana I can kill things very easily, piercing ice or not.

And yes, you're the last person who takes ice floes, for arena at least.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

Emth.

We're having problems with our 3 vs 3, so many teams seem to counter us. We're playing mage/warrior/shaman and i'm not sure how we should be playing it.

Obviously the notion of us outlasting any team is absurd (thanks for the balance blizz) but any team pressuring me or that can control a warrior completely shuts down our burst, thanks to the huge weaknesses of the mage and warrior classes respectively. Any team with a druid (which is ALLLLOT) seems to be an instant loss.

Anyone actually had any success with a lineup such as this?

 

◊ Vontre

Uhh.. sounds like you're just running a poor comp. You have a warrior with no dispels, and you can't outlast. That spells disaster to me.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Tizzlewump

This is the build they give on arenajunkies.com and it's going to be very difficult to argue that isn't optimal. I like the simplicity: get improved cs, then maximize dps. Every other frost talent is great which is why impact/frost is popular but if you want improved cs you have to make choices. Players better than me seem to agree that the correct choice is to kill the burn target faster. Any argument against such a pleasantly intuitive idea is going to sound forced, which is why I'm willing to go along with it.

 

Kindbud

Just got a few general 1v1 Mage questions. I'm not sure where to ask these on this forum but it seems all Mage stuff belongs on this thread and i'm hoping this community can theorycraft me the right answers


1) What is the best way to kill a Resto Druid? Obviously dps vs healing rarely if ever works unless i very much outgear him and i'm playing a burst spec. I used to be able to burn them down faster than i can now when i was Arc/Fire, now i'm Elemental. With Elemental i dont have the burst to overcome theyre healing or even close sometimes, and now have resorted to try and spellsteal theyre buffs/hots. I can recall 1 time where this really worked, other times i end up stealing a hot here or there but it doesnt seem to phase them much while i quickly go oom. How do most of you Mage's play it if your trying to kill someone and there is a Resto Druid healing him?


2) Is a Priests Pain Suppression spellstealable? Also in regards to Priests, how do you counter mana drain? I've read to keep max distance but its difficult since theres cast times and the Priest can very easily move out of range or in range to drain you again.


these are the only 2 classes and issues i have right now playing my Mage that i frequently come across. Sometimes Resto Druids that have good gear are absurd, i mean multiple people focusfiring and they hot thru it while escaping. However even if i might not be able to kill them 1 v 1 i'd like to know what other mages feel is the best way to play them when they do run across them. is spellsteal'ing between nuking the most viable maybe get lucky strat?

the manadrain from Priests kills me right now. I generally just sheep and run away at this point but like i said would love to hear some viable strats to counter them thx.

 

spiderella

I haven't hit arena as a mage since season 1, I play a priest now. Mages that get mana burned tend to panic and it's a good way to shut them down; sheep + drinking will however give you a shot at overcoming mana burn.

Pain suppression is stealable, however it also grants 65% resistance to dispels. There's a good chance that purging anything on a pain suppressed target will be worth it however I don't think the cost to a mage's mana pool makes them as good as classes w/ a cheaper dispel.

As for resto druids . . . let me know if you find a good way to kill them with any class XD.

 

akim89sp

Which Season 3 weapons are the majority of good arena mages: the spellblade and offhand or the staff?
Does anyone think that mages have shifted from the season 2 to season 3? And what are the major pros/cons for staff v. spell blade, as in which one is more for survivability or burst?

Also I'm just hitting the point where I really need more spell damage and I can sacrifice some resilience. Not having done any sort of pve from 60-70, I just gained pvp/arena gear. So far I'm at 400 resilience but a very low 550 spell damage.

 

Darkmantle

DS can be spellstolen. There is a rather amusing video on Warcraftmovies which shows it. It can only happen in the very rare times that your lag and the opponents lag is just right that you steal the DS before the immune stops you. The same thing can happen with all the dispels. Every PTR somebody dispels DS with purge or a hunter shot and the tides of woe start but it is just a rare occurance.

 

Falcore

I've noticed a very large trend going for the staff. Now that mages are closer (or at) the resilience cap as well as above our health minimums, the +crit is becomming more important.

Mana is an issue, so the more we can crit, the more mana efficient we are

When geared, I believe the general consensus is "we are good" when it comes to our health and resilience for how much we are focused in any arena setting. The added benefit of that +crit can come in handy. And +penetration helps against warlocks, which you see at every level of arenas as well.

 

greyberger

with the addition of the new 2.3.2 gladiator held-in-off-hand, which if i remember correctly has stamina, resilience, spell damage and 35 penetration, there will be even fewer arguments for either staff as an alternative to the dagger and a book. As long as you value spell damage and resilience over crit in pvp situations, The spell blade is your best choice, and between tomes you have a choice of recouping the staff's intellect or penetration.

The staff with spell hit seems to be an especially poor pvp choice to me, since it alone will put you over the 3% hit cap, without considering the hit from the helmet enchant. Even if I were choosing rewards solely on thier value as pve items, I'd probably still go with the dagger.

The only downside to the spellblade and a book is that together they cost several hundred more arena points than the staff does, and the staff wins in the graphics department hands down. But then again i'm a stats-first kind of player

 

Tizzlewump

I put a premium on 1H/OH for visibility's sake. It goes back to my 60 priest's Benediction that I never, ever let see the light of pvp. I understand your toon is not a gnome and I also understand that this isn't at all what you were talking about but I suspect this isn't something you're thinking about. Wearing any arena staff makes you taller, more brightly colored, and clearly a caster. Using 1H/OH makes it just a little more likely that I'll be confused for a melee gnome on my team, and I believe as strongly in the value of misinformation in pvp settings.

That said,

and I'm not endorsing paper doll itemization. I am saying that if I can ever find a reasonable excuse for my caster to not use a staff, I won't.

 

Vermis

well it depends a lot about your "place" in the team, honestly with blink and ib I cant see reason why stack up so much resilience. I feel fairly comfortable standing in 415 and even as the staff looks silly I would still take it, since playing in ccs gives me opportunity to cast fbolts time to time instead of kiting

 

greyberger

Well, the blade and a held in offhand doesn't just stack resil, it stacks spell damage (of course at the cost of crit and other stats). If its available to you, swap out some resilience on some other slot (take the veteran's honor reward ring, for instance, but not the veteran's) for a beefier pve item. Depends on how you value the stats, i guess.

 

akim89sp

I've looked through this thread a few times and I can't draw a definite answer to my question, which is what is the role of a mage in 5v5 arena. Okay, so like, I know I have to keep CC because I'm not the primary dps'ers of the team. So what do I CC? I had this one guy tell me I have to CC all the healers and keep all the enemies dps off our healers. That's the whole team, like.. are you serious? But yeah, using sheep to interrupt heal casts(also counterspell) or to take out a healer or enemy dps on friendly healer and the frost nova to keep the dps off friendly healers so they can try to kite, but heck I can't do everything. What I usually do with healers is if I have to deal with two, I chain-sheep one and use counterspell on the other. If I time it right, I can sustain CC on both healers for a good amount of time for friendly dps to take out a target.

And I also know that I have to kite a warrior around. This is another big question. Where do I fit in kiting a warrior around with all of this. I haven't played on a really high rating 5v5 team but if the warrior isn't on me, then I'm not exactly kiting them around. And usually if they are, then so is another melee and a ranged dps.

So which targets(dps/healers) do I primarily CC? Where does this warrior kiting come in, and if I have free time in between sheeps/cs/frost nova, should I throw my frostbolts at the enemy warrior or on the primary assist's target? And all in all, is what I am doing currently the right thing or am I like.. lrn2playarenayoustupidmage status?

Btw my gear is 410 resilience, 10k unbuffed hp, around 580 spell damage (Yes, I know it's low. I've been focusing on resilience/stamina and since now I have reached a reasonable amount, I am switching out gear/gems for spell damage)

 

◊ Vontre

You're trying too hard to CC. Don't try to follow a mantra, I made that mistake once already. You shouldn't be CCing 100% of the time, you should be doing it when and where it's needed. I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that, but a lot of the skill in pvp is having enough experience to make a judgement call for every unique situation. Do not forget damage; mage damage is extremely strong.

That being said.. most of the standard high-level comps are relying on the mage to control their warrior. Keeping mortal strike off your squishies can win matches. But remember these guidelines are rough, not rigid, you do not always have to CC the warrior.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

galzohar

Is improved counterspell really worth not going 55+ in frost? Granted the benefits from going more than 47 frost aren't extreme, however are there really that many situations in which a normal counterspell won't get the job down just as well? If it's a druid using instants, 4s silence really going to be enough? I can see it being useful on a priest so it stops both mana burn and heals no matter which you CSed... Paladins seem to be the main target to CS though and for those imp CS really doesn't do anything if you don't mess up.

And if you do go without ICS, where will you put the rest of your points? Is impact really the way to go? why?