[Mage] The PVP Thread - Page 3

Xei · 07/14/07, 8:18 PM

Druids are the real problem, and short of the AP/PoM/Pyro combo I don't think we can kill a Druid unless they are bad at playing their class. I also find Shaman a problem - they have always been kinda anti-Mage with purge/ES/Grounding totem, but it depends on who they are with as I do like stealing Earth Shield which is about the only time I will use Spell Steal (other time is BoF).

I guess I know the answer to my own questions but it just gets annoying sometimes. 2v2 just seems to be really up to what classes you get. If everyone is roughly at the same gear/skill level its just a matter of what classes. If we get a physical DPS team (Rogue/Warrior/Hunter), with or without a healer, we will win most times unless we make a mistake or they are very good. If we get a caster team its much more difficult - especially with Mages/Locks/Priests having several ways to CC/Silence my healer and BoP is useless.

I think ill stick to the AP spec as it gives us a chance against the caster teams and still allows us to beat the physical teams. I also find it a little more fun to see 6k Pyro crit on some poor person's face and the resulting 1200 ignite ticks. However, if we where ever to get a higher rating it would be far less effective due to larger scaling hps/resilience.

Chri · 07/18/07, 4:53 PM

I saw a few posts about CS macros, here's the one I use:

/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus, exists] [target=mouseover] Counterspell

It will cast CS on your Focus target if it exists, if not, it will CS your mouseover, and if you have neither a focus or mouseover, then it CS's your target. I was thinking about using shift or ctrl as a modifier to override focus/mouseover, but at least I wouldn't really utilize it much.

Borland · 07/20/07, 8:10 AM

I use /focus on the healer , and big focus bar in middle of my screen.
+ special key to counterspell my focus target.
So if i see him healing i know how much is left and i can cs with one keystroke.

MacrosTheNaked · 07/20/07, 9:21 AM

I'm arc/fire in arenas and rely on burst to beat other teams, my 2 vs 2 is with a spriest and we're hovering around a 1700 rating.

The bane of my existance are rogues/ warriors since as a heavy arcane mage I've got no real means to escape them, I just have to hope I get lucky with IWIN and that the rogue doesn't pop cloak of lol at the right time or I'm toast.

otoh, priests, druids, hunters, shamans are completely my bitch as they cannot cope with the burst I output.

Improved arcane missles are a godsend to avoid LoS issues, since the target only needs to be in LoS when you start casting and the other missiles will keep going even if he runs out of LoS, with him not having any means to retal.

Faerun · 07/20/07, 10:44 AM

So having just read a couple of blog posts from Radikal & Papa, I think I'm going to try the 0/7/54 build. However, one thing I'm conflicted on is how Radikal thinks Ice Floes is not an arena talent. Do you think I should take this over, say, elemental precision, which is pretty much the only other half-decent talent worth taking in frost?

Maligne · 07/20/07, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by Faerun

So having just read a couple of blog posts from Radikal & Papa, I think I'm going to try the 0/7/54 build. However, one thing I'm conflicted on is how Radikal thinks Ice Floes is not an arena talent. Do you think I should take this over, say, elemental precision, which is pretty much the only other half-decent talent worth taking in frost?

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

^ 54 in frost without floes or precision. Just showing it can be done, though. Personally I would go 4/5 Winter's Chill and drop Improved Blizzard to get Ice Floes. I think Raddy just doesn't advocate Floes in a 44 point build. With 54 and improved cone of cold, however, you'd be crazy not to take it. Also don't ever take precision in a pvp build - you should have at least 3% to hit from gear.

◊ Gwaihir · 07/20/07, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by MacrosTheNaked

otoh, priests, druids, hunters, shamans are completely my bitch as they cannot cope with the burst I output.

This may be true at the level you play at, but with real pvp gear and decent play on my (Shaman) part, I can just autoattack a mage to death after I run him OOM. All I need to survive an AP/PoM/Pyro + fireblast is one NS'ed max rank healing wave, and after that I can just save grounding totems for when I need to heal myself so it eats your CS. I would imagine that it would go exactly the same for the druid, who would not even need the grounding to keep himself up after the first AP/PoM/Pyro/FB, since after NS he can use 100% instant heals from his hots and swiftmends. If you even tried to spellsteal them, you would be oom about 30 seconds in to the fight.

Stein · 07/20/07, 7:22 PM

Originally Posted by Gwaihir

All I need to survive an AP/PoM/Pyro + fireblast is one NS'ed max rank healing wave

Who dumps their load into a shaman that hasn't already been CS'd yet?

◊ Gwaihir · 07/20/07, 8:22 PM

True that, any arcane AP/pyro spec can just imp CS to lock out a NS heal while you unload on em. With good timing from your partner you can probably kill someone like that, but it just seems too unlikely against a geared opponent with 11k hp/300 resil

MacrosTheNaked · 07/22/07, 6:00 AM

Originally Posted by Gwaihir

This may be true at the level you play at, but with real pvp gear and decent play on my (Shaman) part, I can just autoattack a mage to death after I run him OOM. All I need to survive an AP/PoM/Pyro + fireblast is one NS'ed max rank healing wave, and after that I can just save grounding totems for when I need to heal myself so it eats your CS. I would imagine that it would go exactly the same for the druid, who would not even need the grounding to keep himself up after the first AP/PoM/Pyro/FB, since after NS he can use 100% instant heals from his hots and swiftmends. If you even tried to spellsteal them, you would be oom about 30 seconds in to the fight.

I usually soften them up a bit with arcane missles to some 70%, I find popping iwin makes healers panic and spamheal themselves, a few ticks of AM does not. at 70% I CS + iwin + fireblast them and that usually takes them down unless they'v got insane HP, even if they don't die instantly, I still have a good 2 seconds to mess them up before their CS comes off cooldown.

this is obviously easier in arenas then in duels, where they know you're going for them.

Regardless, I generally just make these classes my bitch, and I think most arc/fire mages will find the same. Maybe a very skilled druid or shammie can take me out, but that just means 95% of the shammies and druids I run into aren't very good =P

Siddown · 07/22/07, 2:36 PM

Originally Posted by Xei

Which is my next questions, what advice do you have for using/abusing/avoiding the LoS game? Druids are the absolute worst for this, because of their resistance to CC/snares and loads of instant cast heals/HoTs.

I also hate that so many games have come down to LoS. I haven't seen it posted on here, but here's a video from Affix, at the time of filming this was the number one 3v3 team in BG9. http://www.ourworkisneverover.net/wow/affix3v3.wmv . It's the wrong bracket, but you can see the ability he has to keep his opponents from going LoS, but that being said, even he has quite a few Frostbolts that go uncasted.

Also, you can see how he uses mods to really help out his playing, he gets all three of his opponents into his Gladiator Mod (at least I think that's the one he is using) and does all targeting (left click) and focusing (right click) via the mod, so no more clicking about the screen or tab targetting.

Obviously having two stealters (druid/rogue) as his teammates make things a little different than 2v2ing v. a Paladin, but the video should give you (or anyone else just starting with Mages in the Arenas) some nice tips.

Faerun · 07/23/07, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by Maligne

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

^ 54 in frost without floes or precision. Just showing it can be done, though. Personally I would go 4/5 Winter's Chill and drop Improved Blizzard to get Ice Floes. I think Raddy just doesn't advocate Floes in a 44 point build. With 54 and improved cone of cold, however, you'd be crazy not to take it. Also don't ever take precision in a pvp build - you should have at least 3% to hit from gear.

DOH! I definitely should've checked back before respeccing. Although I did PM Papa (what a nice guy!) and he agreed that you would not lose much at all not putting 2/2 into Ice Floes and instead going 2/3 Elem Precision or 2/3 Imp Fireblast.
Sidenote: so 3% is the PvP hit cap to mages, assuming 0% hit from talents? As frost.

DecimusGarona · 07/23/07, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Faerun

DOH! I definitely should've checked back before respeccing. Although I did PM Papa (what a nice guy!) and he agreed that you would not lose much at all not putting 2/2 into Ice Floes and instead going 2/3 Elem Precision or 2/3 Imp Fireblast.
Sidenote: so 3% is the PvP hit cap to mages, assuming 0% hit from talents? As frost.

Yes, although additional +hit can help you overcome certain talents, such as feral druid AoE avoidance - which comes in handy if you want to frost nova them. It probably isn't worth talent points or selectively gearing for +hit, but if you do happen to have a little extra hit on your current gear, it isn't completely worthless.

Maligne · 07/24/07, 12:26 PM

So after losing (badly) 3 times to a mirror team of mage/rogue/priest with the mage being frost I finally bit the bullet and went 17/0/44. It took some getting used to after being AP/Pryo for so long but we definitely improved and made it to 1900+.

I know you're all thinking "well yeah, 95% of all arena mages are frost." Yeah, I know. I still think for our matrix AP/Pryo was better for season 1 (we were 2100). But now with other teams actually getting some gear the rush down is happening less and less. Being able to survive much longer and *gasp* not getting focused in the first place is really quite amazing.

So any frost veterans have some tips for me? What are the tougher match ups for us now? We were rolling 2 healer/warrior and pally/warrior teams with ease last night.

Tower · 07/24/07, 3:18 PM

Just sit back and enjoy Ice Barrier, or DontEvenThinkAboutTryingToKillMe Barrier.

◊ Vontre · 07/24/07, 3:31 PM

Originally Posted by Maligne

So after losing (badly) 3 times to a mirror team of mage/rogue/priest with the mage being frost I finally bit the bullet and went 17/0/44. It took some getting used to after being AP/Pryo for so long but we definitely improved and made it to 1900+.

I know you're all thinking "well yeah, 95% of all arena mages are frost." Yeah, I know. I still think for our matrix AP/Pryo was better for season 1 (we were 2100). But now with other teams actually getting some gear the rush down is happening less and less. Being able to survive much longer and *gasp* not getting focused in the first place is really quite amazing.

So any frost veterans have some tips for me? What are the tougher match ups for us now? We were rolling 2 healer/warrior and pally/warrior teams with ease last night.

Polymorph, polymorph, polymorph. Ice mages -may- make better killing machines when they fix our resilience bug, but lately resilience has nerfed my damage output too much (go go shatter) to really be a significant threat. The dreaded frostbolt->pet nova->ice lance combo is still really scary, though, and you need to have this ready to coordinate with your other dps. If you're not putting heavy pressure - hitting someone with 50% health or less - don't bother with any mana-innefficient dps like fire blast or cone of cold. Polymorph, snare people your rogue is chasing, help the priest kite, etc.

Bind rank 1 polymorph, rank 1 cone of cold, play the control game. Ice mages are all about stalling people while something else kills them. Make a macro to have the water elemental assist off your rogue.

Your results may vary depending on your team synergy.

Maligne · 07/24/07, 3:48 PM

Originally Posted by Vontre

Polymorph, polymorph, polymorph. Ice mages -may- make better killing machines when they fix our resilience bug, but lately resilience has nerfed my damage output too much (go go shatter) to really be a significant threat. The dreaded frostbolt->pet nova->ice lance combo is still really scary, though, and you need to have this ready to coordinate with your other dps. If you're not putting heavy pressure - hitting someone with 50% health or less - don't bother with any mana-innefficient dps like fire blast or cone of cold. Polymorph, snare people your rogue is chasing, help the priest kite, etc.

Bind rank 1 polymorph, rank 1 cone of cold, play the control game. Ice mages are all about stalling people while something else kills them. Make a macro to have the water elemental assist off your rogue.

Your results may vary depending on your team synergy.

I did notice that after the respec the rogue was doing most of the killing, letting me sit back and do stuff like control two healers. And you're right, the pet nova combo is still incredible. It's certainly harder to pull off than a POM/pryo but with resilience it actually hits harder and I can technically do it 4 times a match.

Small spec question:

I currently have 3/3 Permafrost, but most of the time my bolt debuff doesn't even get applied because the rogue will have already hit them with crippling. I was thinking of dropping to 1/3 Permafrost and picking up either 3/3 Improved CoC or Ice Floes. The disadvantage of this is warriors that harass me won't be as slowed, and if I start using r1 Frostbolt to annoy healers it won't be as effective.

Liebestod · 07/24/07, 4:02 PM

Huh, I never thought about using Rank 1 Polymorph... does it still last up to 12 seconds max?

Sidenote: so 3% is the PvP hit cap to mages, assuming 0% hit from talents? As frost.

I'm pretty sure 3% is the hit cap WITH talents. 6% is the cap without elemental precision. Thus I don't think it's pretty bad to take unless your PvP gear happens to have 6% hit on it, in which case you need better PvP gear.

[Edit: Nope, guess I'm wrong here. Oops..]

Anyways, I started focusing on 5v5 instead of 3v3 recently... have a pretty typical team with 2 Pallies, an MS Warrior, and then me, a Warlock, and a Rogue for misc. DPS. Obviously only 2 of the latter 3 can be in at a time. I had missed a lot of games during which my teammates pulled our rating up to 1890 or so, but when I started playing we lost a few and fell down to 1850.

I guess my problem was that I was too busy trying to help out on DPS with Shatter crits and whatnot to focus on what I should have been doing - harassing the healers with Polymorph / CS while the Warlock and Rogue took our the DPSers. In our last matches, which we won, I just basically alternated Polymorph spam between anyone who could heal. I'm kind of surprised it worked well, really, between the ease of cleansing Polymorph and the Pallies having BoS up, but I can't complain with results. I do worry a bit about the fact that I wasn't helping much on DPS besides sticking my WE on the assist target, but hey.

At the time, I was running with a 0/5/56 build. I think I'll probably spec some variation of 17/0/44 for next week. Imp CS is nice, Arcane Concentration is nice for the battles which become matters of attrition (and there are many), and Arcane Focus is meant to cut down on CS / sheep resists as much as possible. The 44 points in Frost poses a more difficult problem, but in general I'm inclined to err in favor of "harassment" / survivability / longevity talents (Winter's Chill, Frost Channeling, etc.) over pure DPS talents (no Imp CoC, Empowered FB, or Piercing Ice.) **THIS** is the build I'm contemplating for next week, critiques are welcome.

I also realize that I need to put more effort into making macros / mods that help me carry out my duties in the arena. I have things like CoT cleansing macros for the Pallies, assist macro for my pet, and a focus/CS macro, but there are other things I'd like to get. Seeing the cast bars of enemy healers even when they're not targeted would be nice. Seeing the remaining duration on CS / Polymorph on an enemy when they're not targeted would be nice. Seeing the remaining duration on Pally bubbles would be nice. Having a huge raid warning when BoF or BoP is cast on an enemy would be really nice. I downloaded NaturEnemyCastbars and I hear it can fulfill some of these functions but not others, perhaps I'll narrow down my requests later after I've played around with it.

In any case, this is my experience so far, and I hope it accords with those of other well-ranked Mages. If I'm doing something terribly wrong, I'd like to know. :P

Oh, and I'm also wondering if I should still use Molten Armor if I drop Impact from my build. 5% less chance to be crit is nice, but so is 645 armor and a high chance to chill/freeze the target. I'm not sure.

Faerun · 07/24/07, 4:50 PM

First off, I REALLY REALLY enjoy playing w/ 0/7/54. Imp CS isn't very good in 5v5's, if you're CS'ing you shoudl be landing good CS's, in which case imp CS is useless. Sure, if your'e going against a priest imp CS will be good, but nearly every team has a pally & shutting him down is top priority IMO. Secondly, NECB isn't that great for target/focus cast bars - just use the ones Quartz has built in. Debuff filter is great for showing debuff timers on target/focus, NECB gives you a TON of spam if you're not looking @ just target & focus stuff, & if you are dfilter will do it far better. I still use NECB though for Water Elem & Divine Shield, but if i can find a differnet mod for this, I would love to.

Maligne · 07/25/07, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Huh, I never thought about using Rank 1 Polymorph... does it still last up to 12 seconds max?

I'm pretty sure 3% is the hit cap WITH talents. 6% is the cap without elemental precision. Thus I don't think it's pretty bad to take unless your PvP gear happens to have 6% hit on it, in which case you need better PvP gear.

[Edit: Nope, guess I'm wrong here. Oops..]

Anyways, I started focusing on 5v5 instead of 3v3 recently... have a pretty typical team with 2 Pallies, an MS Warrior, and then me, a Warlock, and a Rogue for misc. DPS. Obviously only 2 of the latter 3 can be in at a time. I had missed a lot of games during which my teammates pulled our rating up to 1890 or so, but when I started playing we lost a few and fell down to 1850.

I guess my problem was that I was too busy trying to help out on DPS with Shatter crits and whatnot to focus on what I should have been doing - harassing the healers with Polymorph / CS while the Warlock and Rogue took our the DPSers. In our last matches, which we won, I just basically alternated Polymorph spam between anyone who could heal. I'm kind of surprised it worked well, really, between the ease of cleansing Polymorph and the Pallies having BoS up, but I can't complain with results. I do worry a bit about the fact that I wasn't helping much on DPS besides sticking my WE on the assist target, but hey.

At the time, I was running with a 0/5/56 build. I think I'll probably spec some variation of 17/0/44 for next week. Imp CS is nice, Arcane Concentration is nice for the battles which become matters of attrition (and there are many), and Arcane Focus is meant to cut down on CS / sheep resists as much as possible. The 44 points in Frost poses a more difficult problem, but in general I'm inclined to err in favor of "harassment" / survivability / longevity talents (Winter's Chill, Frost Channeling, etc.) over pure DPS talents (no Imp CoC, Empowered FB, or Piercing Ice.) **THIS** is the build I'm contemplating for next week, critiques are welcome.

I also realize that I need to put more effort into making macros / mods that help me carry out my duties in the arena. I have things like CoT cleansing macros for the Pallies, assist macro for my pet, and a focus/CS macro, but there are other things I'd like to get. Seeing the cast bars of enemy healers even when they're not targeted would be nice. Seeing the remaining duration on CS / Polymorph on an enemy when they're not targeted would be nice. Seeing the remaining duration on Pally bubbles would be nice. Having a huge raid warning when BoF or BoP is cast on an enemy would be really nice. I downloaded NaturEnemyCastbars and I hear it can fulfill some of these functions but not others, perhaps I'll narrow down my requests later after I've played around with it.

In any case, this is my experience so far, and I hope it accords with those of other well-ranked Mages. If I'm doing something terribly wrong, I'd like to know. :P

Oh, and I'm also wondering if I should still use Molten Armor if I drop Impact from my build. 5% less chance to be crit is nice, but so is 645 armor and a high chance to chill/freeze the target. I'm not sure.

Piercing Ice and Artic Winds are pretty key. And again, you don't ever need Elemental Precision in a PVP build. Improved Blizzard is a playstyle thing, I personally don't have it. You don't really need to max Winter's Chill, 4/5 is plenty good. And Frost Channeling isn't really necessary either unless you're planning on PVEing.

Tower · 07/25/07, 12:44 PM

Rank 1 Poly lasts the full duration, for hella cheap mana.

I'd keep 3/3 Permafrost too, that crippling slow is one of your biggest strengths.

There's a lot of good Molten Armor vs ice Armor debates. It's pretty clear if you're a 0/7/54 that Molten should be up a lot. I don't think there's a 100% answer for this, but unless you're running in a team where you are a high priority target for their offense (which isn't likely) you should be running Molten. I've had a lot of teams sick 2+ pets on me in 5v5, but otherwise ignore me, so I needed the ability to move/kite to avoid pushback.

Liebestod · 07/25/07, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by Faerun

First off, I REALLY REALLY enjoy playing w/ 0/7/54. Imp CS isn't very good in 5v5's, if you're CS'ing you shoudl be landing good CS's, in which case imp CS is useless. Sure, if your'e going against a priest imp CS will be good, but nearly every team has a pally & shutting him down is top priority IMO.

Well, tbqh, I don't time 100% of my CSs correctly (especially without good enemy castbars), and 4 seconds beats the hell out of 0. Also, Imp CS is nice to use on annoying players who are spamming instant-cast spells.

Secondly, NECB isn't that great for target/focus cast bars - just use the ones Quartz has built in. Debuff filter is great for showing debuff timers on target/focus, NECB gives you a TON of spam if you're not looking @ just target & focus stuff, & if you are dfilter will do it far better. I still use NECB though for Water Elem & Divine Shield, but if i can find a differnet mod for this, I would love to.

Thanks for the advice. I won't be PvPing much until Friday, but I'll try to get things worked out at that time.

Piercing Ice and Artic Winds are pretty key. And again, you don't ever need Elemental Precision in a PVP build. Improved Blizzard is a playstyle thing, I personally don't have it. You don't really need to max Winter's Chill, 4/5 is plenty good. And Frost Channeling isn't really necessary either unless you're planning on PVEing.

I don't know. I've gone dead OOM on arena fights before, and so I think that talents like Frost Channeling are important, even for the arena. I can move points from Elemental Precision to max out Arctic Winds and maybe put one point in Piercing Ice, though. I can take a 5% DPS hit for 10% or so overall mana efficiency.

There's a lot of good Molten Armor vs ice Armor debates. It's pretty clear if you're a 0/7/54 that Molten should be up a lot. I don't think there's a 100% answer for this, but unless you're running in a team where you are a high priority target for their offense (which isn't likely) you should be running Molten. I've had a lot of teams sick 2+ pets on me in 5v5, but otherwise ignore me, so I needed the ability to move/kite to avoid pushback.

Yea. My focus is less on the +crit than the mitigation... 3.5% more physical mitigation or 5% less chance to be crit? I suppose the latter is more valuable, but without Impact.... eh...

Tower · 07/25/07, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Yea. My focus is less on the +crit than the mitigation... 3.5% more physical mitigation or 5% less chance to be crit? I suppose the latter is more valuable, but without Impact.... eh...

That armor is melee mitigation only. -5% crit is spells and physical, that equates to around 200 resilience - which should speak for itself. Not to mention it adds to your dps, which Frost Armor does not. So if you're not being focused, getting more damage out of your build should be your priority.

Maligne · 07/25/07, 3:39 PM

Originally Posted by Tower

That armor is melee mitigation only. -5% crit is spells and physical, that equates to around 200 resilience - which should speak for itself. Not to mention it adds to your dps, which Frost Armor does not. So if you're not being focused, getting more damage out of your build should be your priority.

It doesn't quite equate to 200 resilience. Molten Armor doesn't reduce crit damage, which is the important part of resilience anyway.

Faerun · 07/25/07, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

Well, tbqh, I don't time 100% of my CSs correctly (especially without good enemy castbars), and 4 seconds beats the hell out of 0. Also, Imp CS is nice to use on annoying players who are spamming instant-cast spells.

That is true about instant cast spam heals (stupid druids :P), but mastering the CS (which I haven't done yet) is one of the most important parts of being a top 5v5 mage, so you don't want to get into a bad habit of falling back on the 4s imp CS. Also, using a /stopcasting macro helps a LOT with CS's I have found.