◊ Acustar

Blink was 224, and Slow/Spellsteal were 484 (or 464).

 

Emth.

Wow, that's a pretty big difference. This is going to be a huge help against teams that leave melee on you full time just to outlast your mana pool...

 

Bisy

My partner
Me (probably in farm gear with extra crit and low hit, even my "raiding" gear is nothing special, I'm usually on my paly)

A hunter friend of mine recently asked me to join him for 2v2. He's burned out on BG's having pretty much finished the grind for the current gear, and looking to try something new.

My mage is currently a farming tool, with a very occasional dungeon/Kara run. I have not done much pvp beyond a random BG or world PVP on her. After some reading, I've realized I'm not going to be much more than an annoyance to the other team for some time to come, and am debating my options. I'll be enchanting/gemming for PVP as I gain in new gear, but really do not want to break my pve sets if it can be avoided. I come here seeking opinions from those much more knowledgeable than me for arena play.

Looking over the Mage Help Me thread, and this one, I've been able to say the standard frost spec will help mitigate some of my glaring gear issues by a very small amount. I can see my only other option is to go PoM/Pyro and get out as much damage as I can before dropping like a rock. Considering current gearing in arenas, this just does not seem feasible, am I right to assume this? Are there any other viable alternatives considering my current poor gearing to get us out of the gate?

When it comes to gearing though, in theory, where is my best ROI for what is basically a fresh 70 coming on the scene today? The gladiator sets are obviously the better choice, but are they worth the significantly greater time investment over the other options? I have no ambitions of being a 2000+ team, and would be perfectly happy if were were able to maintain 1500's as we get started. The "other" options are:

• Suck it up for a few weeks to get enough points for a few pieces of gear?
• Just get over the dread of the BG's and do the mindless honor grind for the gladiator set?
• Wait until 2.4, make sure I have all my rep up, and wait on the new set so I won't be completely smashed out of the gate?
• Mix things up some?
• Deal with the respec costs and go Paly/Hunter 2v2 because Mage/Hunter 2v2 is just not viable?
• Something else I'm not seeing/considering.

With my time limited to only a few hours a night to invest in this, being able to optimize my goals is something I take seriously. I greatly appreciate any thoughts you are willing to share.

(If this should belong in the Mage Help Me thread, my apologies, but this one seemed much more PVP oriented, and ROI theory with the new gear I have not seen discussed).

(Small edit for grammer)

 

Vermis

I would see this as mage pvp thread and to which this is just perfect. I had simirlar problem in the beginning of season 2.

My advice would be do:
Bg's more than just the daily pvevalley is more than suitable for honor, assuming your bg follows the general consensus and it doesnt take 5h to complete one.

Get yourself into 5v5 that can punch to ~1.8k or just 3v3 rmp (quite easy to play devastating in lower ratings) and pick up the pieces in this season what you can collect. Allthough when s4 comes blizz will announce 5 weeks (or 4) in advance so you can get tht 5k together.

Hunter mage 2v2, could work with ap/pom with the trainable ib. Im a bit cautios about pve specs in pvp enviroment since the common trend is that mages get trained a lot thus the normal pvp spec helps the survival a lot. You should try though in the beginning it should work.

Anyways start right away to earn those arena points. Missing week or 2 in the beginning is noticeable

 

Sorcerer

Anyone is going to more or less stack haste next patch with gems/epic ones and haste pvp gear?
Im wondering if it would be a good idea actually.

Gems:
1 red head
1 yellow neck
1 Red + 1 yellow shoulder
2 Red + 1 yellow chest
1 yellow bracer
1 blue wand (Assuming heroic wand)

4x Red = 5 haste 6 spelldmg = 20 haste and 24 dmg
4x Yellow = 10 haste = 40 haste
1x Blue = 5 resilience 7 stamina

Thats from gems, if we gem for bonus. I dont know all and most new pvp gear and its stats but i assume we could think of around ~150 haste total gemming for it, 10% haste straight.

2.25 frostbolts could be really nice.

Hope i didnt fail and math today

 

galzohar

Then again your all-mighty shatter combo doesn't really gain noticeably from haste since it affects 2 casts rather than X duration of casting, so haste doesn't multiply its power, unlike spell damage. And I see most mages socketing for resil/stam mostly which makes a lot of sense

 

Sorcerer

Getting a shatter combo with frostbolt is very tricky nowadays, especially in lower brackets and depending on your 5s team makeup and opponents u face. With so much spellpushback its not funny with pets and/or any melee on you.

Faster casts adress the issue slightly.

 

Taja

I might try this aswell, battlemaster trinket with haste, new pvp neck and ring and perhaps the jewelcrafter ring. And put haste/damage gems in every slot that doesnt have epic gems in it so far. Still need to calculate how much haste that would be actually but seems like a fun experiment atleast.

 

• RoboStac

Haste doesn't work like that. 100% haste is half the cast time, so your actually doubling its value. See Casting speed - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft. Your frostbolts would be 2.375 seconds with 10% haste, and I really can't see it making much difference to pushback.

 

Sorcerer

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))

According to this formula
157 Haste rating = 10%

New Casting Time = 2.5 / [1+(157/1570)]
New Casting Time = 2.5 / (1+0.1)
New Casting Time = 2.5 / 1.1
New Casting Time = 2.272(72)

 

galzohar

The difference to pushback would be neglicible. The spell dmg or more likely stamina/ressilience loss will not be.

 

maxi

I am going to stack haste, but not as much for frostbolts as for GCD reduction
Planning on getting alacrity trinket and pvp haste jewelry

 

halcyon

Hey guys,

I've been a regular reader for a while now, and i have a question for you all. I guess first i'll throw in some background:

I'm not new to pvp, although i admit i'm not the best on my server either, i have played wow since jan '05 and pvp has been an integral part of my time spent as a mage. S1 was a great time for me, as the 5's team i played with made it into the top #15 in my battlegroup scoring me a swift netherdrake. But as of recently, pvp has taken a back seat to pve progression the last few months as we are getting ready for the release of 2.4 content, and frankly i think i may have fallen out of the loop regarding pvp primarily arena specs and strats(especially during S3, as most of my pvp gear is still full S2).

My question is this, how vital is it to maintain 17/0/44 as the spec of choice for arena pvp?? Mind you, i did not go to any great lengths to crunch numbers or examine talents to come to the conclusion that all i really wanted out of the arcane tree was 5/5 arcane focus and 2/2 arcane subtlety(which i'm assuming most would think it's taboo to neglect going all the way down to imp cs grabbing arcane fortitude along the way).

Here is what i'm rolling with now: 7/0/54

As you can probably see, i picked up a couple somewhat "risky" frost talents as they are not initially designed for pvp(like frost channeling and elemental precision). I admit, i do raid with this spec, but i also found it rather useful that i don't run out of mana nearly as fast as i used to(now considering S3 gear is dropping +int even more) and due to EP, i rarely receive resists if at all when i'm burning a target. You may also notice that i went with 1/3 imp blizzard with the initial intention of using rank 1(263 mana cost) as an instant cast snare for running druids(which i picked in order to counter their shapeshifting as it refreshes the chill effect per dmg tick and also for bringing stealthed players out into the open)..

So there it is, my intentions for using this spec is so that i can continue to raid(like 3-4 days a week) and in my off-time continue to whip ass with this 5's team i just joined up with(they're currently holding a solid 1900+ rating) without going broke in the process. I feel that this is an improvement upon 17/0/44 since Imp CS is hardly ever utilized for its 4sec silence effect, but rather the 8sec lockout it provides without the improved talent. I am currently noticing that people are criticizing this spec for it's lack of the full 17 arcane points(which is so "cookie cutter" it makes me sick) and the pve frost talents i picked up instead.

I'd just like to throw this out there for you all to consider, maybe there's something i'm missing or forgetting about that's inherently vital to pvp, if so, i'd love to hear about it. I welcome all suggestions/criticism about this, and my reason for posting is not to boast or preach but to discuss. I'd just like to hear it from the ones who i consider to be the most knowing about these things(you guys, and hopefully i can also hear something back from maligne who i hold in high regards)..

Much love,

halcy

 

Cwealm

I prefer 0/5/56 for non-arena pvp.

You need to remove your signature, fix your grammar, capitalize and punctuate and remove the l33t-speak or your post has banhammer written all over it.

 

Roywyn

New PTR patch:
Blink 470 mana, Slow/Spellsteal 448 mana. 4/5 Gladiator -0.15s on polymorph.

 

galzohar

This seems to be changing every 3 days, though, so don't party too quickly ;p

 

Raiste

hmm did anyone notice that as of today, the 4 piece bonus on LIVE servers is -2 secs from blink instead of -0.15s off poly that it used to be?

 

Searix

No offense but -.15s off poly has never been live

 

wotanisi

Hey, I am currently just doing 2s for fun with a ret pally. However, I am starting to like the comp and I am now thinking of perhaps playing with a serious intent to get to higher ratings. Most teams we don't have that much trouble on. However, I have noticed that we have a much harder time whenever there is a warlock in the opposing team. Other than our trinkets, we have to blow long cooldowns to get out of fears.

My question mainly pertains to warlock + healer as any other double dps combo we usually get onto the warlock. With SL and healing, we have a very hard time trying to burst a warlock down. However, whenever we get onto the healer the warlock fears us all over the place. I try to cc the warlock but fel hunter + dispells on healers usually make this only delay the inevitable fear (druid healers aren't so bad in this respect).

Another situation I saw was with healer+hunter (mostly druid) teams. I try to get a sheep on the hunter but the pet + silencing shot + scatter makes it a good 10 secs before it goes off and then trinkets makes it another few seconds before the second one is applied. Would it be a good idea to burst the pet down first?

 

Kyrillian

I am curious to test haste as it relates to the shatter combo. More specifically how much haste will be needed to get a Fire Blast in at the end of the combo without having the s2 gloves or increased fire range talent. If I recall correctly you currently need to be 25+ yards away to be able to Fire Blast at the end of the combo. Judging from the velocity of Ice Lance, a small amount of haste could reduce the distince needed to Fire Blast the frozen target significantly.

 

Frothor

With the change to Molten Armor effecting Ranged and Spell casts, has there been any thought given to taking Impact to use Molten Armor Defensively? Running around at 30%+ crit is going to make it tough on three classes mages can struggle with, Rogues, Warriors and Hunters. I just don't see where you would strip the points out from more traditional PvP builds to do it. Is it perhaps time to consider some kind of Fire/Frost build?

 

Juli

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you could get an extra fire blast off inside the shatter, then you could get another ice lance off as well. Ice lance damage bonus and shatter crit chance are determined at the time of the cast just like a fire blast would, and deals more damage than a fire blast, and for less mana. Getting a "triple shatter combo" with a frostbolt and 2 lances could be devastating, but it seems to me like the travel time for an ice lance is significantly less than 1.5s; so much so that it would be unrealistic or flat out impossible to get enough haste to reduce the GCD that much. It would be worth testing though if this is possible (and will probably be nerfed quickly if it is possible).

 

Juli

Impact armor is effective against melee, but is easily dispelled and has a prohibitive mana cost, unlike recasting rank1 frost armor w/ frostbite. It's useful for the beginning of the game, but if you are focused against a team with a priest or shaman (virtually every team in 5v5 and many in the lower brackets) it will be stripped VERY quickly. And against a hunter it's likely going to come off pretty fast as well due to arcane shot spam (I really hate the implementation of the free dispel here :angry:). Recasting it constantly will run you out of mana quickly.

It can be very good in 2v2 or 3v3 when there is no dispeller, and you could also start matches with it up while you have a lot of buffs still to protect it. Maybe it will last long enough to make a difference, but it could always come off on the first arcane shot or devour magic even without a priest or shaman, and then you're back to frost armor anyway. You have to decide if that chance and the benefit it provides is worth 5 talent points to you.

The obvious solution in my eyes is to take armors off the magic dispel type (and rebalance other aspects of mages and mage abilities downwards if that buff made mages too powerful somehow), but that would make sense.

 

wotanisi

I believe (I am not certain where I read it) but ice lance damage bonus is determined when it hits the target and crit chance is determined upon spell cast. Taking that as true, the fireblast would end up doing more damage than the icelance because it won't get its bonus damage to the frozen target. However, as I don't have any documentation of this, take it with a grain of salt.

 

• spin

Our server has a regular AV premade up almost daily. Sitting in vent with random noisy kids all day Saturday gave me a headache that almost negated the 25k* honor I got.

*(Avg of 500 honor per 9 minute game)