Contents

1Introduction 2Useful Links 3Pros and Cons of the different Specs 4Combat Ratings 5Spell Coefficients 6Raidbuffs 7Consumables 8Gear 8.1Patch 4.1 8.2Patch 4.2 9Item Enhancements 9.1Enchants 9.2Gems 10Profession Bonuses 11Racial Bonuses 11.1Alliance 11.2Horde

[top]Introduction

This thread shall contain generic Mage issues and information which affects, or is relevant to, all three Mage specs. If you're looking for discussion on topics such as talent trees or rotations, see the spec specific threads in this forum instead.
Although most things I wanted to cover in this thread are added by now, I always appreciate suggestions you can offer regarding what should be added, and will endeavour to update them into my post.

[top]Useful Links

Talent Calculator
Fire Mage Discussion
Frost Mage Discussion
Arcane Mage Discussion
Simulators and Formulators Discussion
Cataclysm Changes (and more!)

[top]Pros and Cons of the different Specs

Arcane
+ Highest Single Target Damage
+ High Burst Damage
+ 3% Dmg Buff
o AoE
- mobility

Fire
+ Medium Single Target DPS
+ Great mobility due to Firestarter
+ Many AoE capabilities, "AoE burst" with Combustion
+ Good survivability (Cauterize, Molten Shields)
+ 5% Crit Debuff

Frost
+ Quite high Single Target DPS
+ AoE Snares (Freeze, talented Blizzard, 2x Ring of Frost)
+ High survivability (Ice Barrier)
+ Replenishment
o Some mobility because of instants in the usual rotation

[top]Combat Ratings

Rating	Level 60	Level 70	Level 80	Level 81	Level 82	Level 83	Level 84	Level 85
Spell Hit	8	12.6154	26.232	34.4448	45.2318	59.4204	78.0218	102.446
Crit	14	22.0769	45.906	60.2784	79.1556	103.986	136.53799	179.28
Haste	10	15.7692	32.79	43.056	56.5397	74.2755	97.5272	128.05701
Mastery	14	22.0769	45.906	60.2784	79.1556	103.986	136.53799	179.28
Resilience	21.5625	34.0024	70.7034	92.8395	121.914	160.15601	210.293	276.12299

At level 85, you will need 648.91 Int to gain 1% crit.

Hit Required @ Lvl 85 in T11 content:

Level Difference	Hit Cap %	Required Hit Rating
0	4%	410
+1	5%	512
+2	6%	615
+3 (skull level boss)	17%	1742

(Required Hit Rating in 4.2 does not change.)

Water Elemental scaling:

Health / Mana	Spell Power	Hit / Crit / Haste	Crit Dmg Multiplier
50%	40%	100%	200%

According to blue posts, it will also benefit from mastery "in some way".

[top]Spell Coefficients

The spell coefficient table is outdated. Until I can find new numbers somewhere, i will put the table into spoiler tags.

[top]Raidbuffs

Buffs										other
5% Stats	x									Kings
828 mp5		x							x	Might
5% Crit									x	Rampage, Leader of the Pack, Honor Among Thieves
Replenishment				x			x	x		Communion, Revitalize
3% Damage					x					Communion, Ferocious Inspiration
5401 Mana		x			x	x	x
5% Spell Haste	x							x	x
10% Spell Power			x						x
only 6% Spell Power			x		x	x	x		x	Flametongue Totem
30% Haste / 40 sec					x	x	x		x
Debuffs
5% Spell Crit Chance Taken		x	x	x		x
8% Spell Damage Taken	x	x	x	x						Ebon Plaguebringer, Master Poisoner
-20% Attack Speed										Thunder Clap, Frost Fever, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just

[top]Consumables

Flask: 300 Int for 1 hour
Potion: 1200 SP for 25 sec
Food: 90 Int & 90 Stamina

Because Guardian Elixiers are not available for casters, Combat Elixiers (+225 of a secondary Stat) are not competitive. Regarding food there is of course a new Fish Feast (limited to guild achievment), a single player version with the same buff and the usual Int food.

[top]Gear

For a full list of non-raid gear focused on heroic instances, have a look at this post.

Itemlevels

Item Level	Source
279	Blackrock Caverns, Throne of the Tides
316	The Stonecore, Vortex Pinnacle
333	Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, Lost City of the Tol'Vir, Honored Reputation Rewards
346	Heroic Instances, Revered Reputation Rewards
353	Troll Instances
359	T11 Raids, Craftable Items, Exalted Reputation Rewards
372	Heroic T11 Raids
378	T12 Raids, Avengers of Hyjal Reputation Rewards - Friendly & Revered, Craftable Items
379	Sinestra
384	Ragnaros?
391	Heroic T12 Raids, Avengers of Hyjal Reputation Rewards - Exalted
397	Heroic Ragnaros?
404	Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest

[top]Patch 4.1

Reputation Rewards

Faction	Honored (333)	Revered (346)	Exalted (359)
Hellscream's Reach / Baradin's Wardens	[Baradin Footman's Tags]	[Insidious Staff]	[Stump of Time]
Guardians of Hyjal	-	(head enchant)	-
Ramkahen	-	[Robes of Orsis]	[Desert Walker Sandals]
The Earthen Ring	[Helm of Temperance]	[Cloak of Ancient Wisdom]	[Flamebloom Gloves]
Therazane	(rare shoulders enchant)	[Diamant's Ring of Temperance]	(epic shoulders enchant)
Dragonmaw Clan / Wildhammer Clan	[Gloves of Aetherial Rumors]	[Band of Singing Grass]	[Lightning Flash Pendant]

Crafted BoE Items (+Darkmoon Faire Trinket)

Item (359)	Source	Item (346)	Source
[Dreamless Belt]	Tailoring	[Elementium Spellblade]	Blacksmithing
[Breeches of Mended Nightmares]	Tailoring	[Eye of Many Deaths]	Jewelcrafting
[Flame-Ascended Pantaloons]	Tailoring	[Ring of Warring Elements]	Jewelcrafting
[Darkmoon Card: Volcano]	Darkmoon Faire	[Dungeoneering Guide]	Inscription

Archaeology Items: [Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan], [Ring of the Boy Emperor], [Tyrande's Favorite Doll].

Justice Points

Slot	Points	Item (346)
Head	2200	[Cowl of Pleasant Gloom]
Neck	1250	[String of Beaded Bubbles]
Shoulder	1650	[Meadow Mantle]
Chest	2200	[Robes of Embalmed Darkness]
Hands	1650	[Gloves of the Painless Midnight]
Waist	1650	[Incense Infused Cumberbund]
Legs	2200	[Pensive Legwraps]
Off-Hand	950	[Hermit's Lamp]

Justice Points (former Valor Points Rewards)

Slot	Points	Item (359)
Back	1250	[Haunt of Flies]
Feet	1650	[Melodious Slippers]
Finger	1250	[Band of Secret Names]
Trinket	1650	[Soul Casket]
Head	1	[Firelord's Hood]
Shoulders	1	[Firelord's Mantle]
Chest	2200	[Firelord's Robes]
Hands	1650	[Firelord's Gloves]
Legs	2200	[Firelord's Leggings]

The heroic version of the Chest, Hands and Leg T11 Tokens drop of early heroic encounters. These tokens can also be purchased with Essence of the Forlorn (Al'Akir).

For heroic raid loots, have a look at this list at mmo-champion.

Tier 11 Set Bonuses

2P Bonus: Increases the critical strike chance of Arcane Missiles, Ice Lance, and Pyroblast by 5%.
4P Bonus: Reduces the cast time of Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, and Frostbolt by 10%.

[top]Patch 4.2

Reputation and Valor Points Rewards will be upgradeable to heroic itemlevel.

Reputation Rewards

Faction	Friendly (378)	Honored (378)	Revered (378)	Exalted (391)
Avengers of Hyjal	[Rippling Flamewrath Drape]	[Embereye Belt]	[Rune of Zeth]	[Infernal Signet of the Avengers]

(Daily) Quest Rewards

NPC	Item (365)
Thrall	Mantle of Desire (Thrall questchain)
Zen'Vorka	Nightweaver's Amulet (Firelands questchain, early available)
Damek Bloombeard	Widow's Clutches
Ayla Shadowstorm	Moonwell Chalice
Varlan Highbough	Spirit Fragment Band

Crafted BoE Items

Item (378)	Source	Item (365)	Source
[Boots of the Black Flame]	Tailoring	[Masterwork Elementium Spellblade]	Blacksmithing (Daily Vendor Plan)
[Don Tayo's Inferno Mittens]	Tailoring

Valor Points

Slot	Points	Item (378)
Wand	700	[Trail of Embers]
Wrist	1250	[Emberflame Bracers]
Neck	1250	[Amulet of Burning Brilliance]
Finger	1250	[Crystalline Brimstone Ring]

Heroic Raid Loot Table @ MMO

Tier 12 Set Bonuses

2P Bonus: You have a chance to summon a Mirror Image to assist you in battle for 15 sec when you cast Frostbolt, Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, or Arcane Blast.
4P Bonus: Your spells have an increased chance to trigger Brain Freeze or Hot Streak. In addition, Arcane Power decreases the cost of your damaging spells by 10% instead of increasing their cost.

[top]Item Enhancements

[top]Enchants

Slot	Enchant	Notes
Head	60 Int & 35 Crit	Guardians of Hyjal - Revered
Shoulders	50 Int & 25 Haste	Therazane - Exalted
Back	65 Crit or 50 Int
Chest	20 All Stats	(PvP: 40 Resilience)
Wrist	50 Int
Hand	65 Mastery or 50 Haste	Consider 28 SP here (wotlk)
Waist	1 Socket	Made by Blacksmithing
Legs	95 Int & 80 Stamina	Made by Tailoring
Feet	Movement speed & 35 Mastery	no runspeed: 50 Hit, 50 Mastery, 50 Haste
Main Hand	500 Int for 12 sec
Off Hand	40 Int

[top]Gems

Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (54 Intellect / 3% Crit Damage) - "requires" 3 red gems

red	orange	yellow	green	blue	purple
40 Int	20 Int & 20 Crit	40 Crit	20 Crit & 20 Hit	40 Hit	20 Int & 20 Hit
	20 Int & 20 Haste	40 Haste	20 Haste & 20 Hit
	20 Int & 20 Mastery	40 Mastery	20 Mastery & 20 Hit

[top]Profession Bonuses

Engineering
There is a major change in how engineering enchants work: The use effects do not overwrite the usual enchant anymore.
Synapse Springs: 480 Int for 10 sec (4.0.6) on a 1 min cooldown results in 80 additional Int.
Nitro Boosts have their crit bonus removed and are applied to your belt. Due to the high amount of malfunctions, it is dangerous to use them in raids or battle grounds. Belt tinkers do not work in arenas or rated bgs. Personally I don't like the idea of making the speed bonus depend on payed racial changes instead of professions...
Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades with special engineering sockets. You can choose from different cogwheels, each granting 208 of a different (yellow- or blue-gem) combat stat. The resulting values match non heroic T11 raid loot, so this item will only help in the first progression phase.

Tailoring
Lightweave Embroidery: 580 Int for 15 sec, 35% procc chance, ~64 sec internal cooldown. Asuming maximum uptime we get an average of 133.8 Int instead of the 50 Int (+83.8) enchant. The effective gain is, of course, less than that value!

Jewelcrafting
3x 67 Int Gem results in +81 Int over 3x Brilliant Inferno Ruby. There are also Gems for each combat rating with the same profit.

Blacksmithing
The two additional sockets Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves result in 80 Int, or whatever stat you can gem for.

Alchemy
Mixology adds 80 Int to your Flask of the Draconic Mind and doubles the duration.

Enchanting
2x Enchant Ring - Intellect for another 80 Int.

Inscription
Felfire Inscription adds 80 Int to Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone, which also saves you some reputation farming

Leatherworking
Draconic Embossment - Intellect: 130 Int instead of 50 Int (+80).

Herbalism
Lifeblood: 480 Haste for 20 sec on a 2 min cooldown works out to 80 Haste. *

Skinning
Master of Anatomy - 80 Crit. *

Mining
Toughness will only help tank mages.

* The benefits of Herbalism and Skinning depend on relative stat values and thus cannot be compared directly to the other professions. Due to the low values of combat rating in the early tiers, these professions are not yet competitive.

[top]Racial Bonuses

[top]Alliance

Draenei
Heroic Presence: +1% Hit

Dwarf
none

Gnome
Expansive Mind: +5% Mana pool
Escape Artist: Removes snares and slows

Human
Every Man for Himself: Removes movement impairing effects amd silences.

Night Elf
none

Worgen
Viciousness: +1% Critical Strike chance

[top]Horde

Blood Elf
Arcane Torrent: 6% Mana restore (2min CD)

Forsaken
Will of the Forsaken: Removes Charm, Fear and Sleep effects

Goblin
Time is Money: +1% Haste
Rocket Barrage: xxx fire damage (2min CD)

Orc
Blood Fury: 584 SP / 15s (2min CD), ~73 SP
Command: +5% Pet's Damage

Troll
Berserking: 20% Haste / 10s (3min CD), ~1,1% Haste
Beast Slaying: 5% Damage versus Beast


Latest Changes
- Updated for 4.2: New Craftables, new Reputation Rewards & new Item Levels added
- Some more quest items added

Looks like Tailoring and Engineering will be our goto professions for Cataclysm. Time for me to go level up!

A section on Masteries would be nice - explaining the different types, etc.

That's not the point of this thread, which is just a general resource for mages of all specs. You want this thread.

Well I was going to mention Cogwheels and Hydraulic Pumps, but apparently these only work with the engineering-only headpieces. Might be something for the early game.

Cataclysm Beta: Engineering Preview - World of Raids Forums

It might be worth noting that you're going to need more hit rating as you advance in tiers. The 1742 hit rating you quoted might only be sufficient for 5man heroics and the entry raid tier.

Intellect-to-crit: 648.91 intellect / 1% crit, might add that to the first table, from Combat Ratings at level 85 (Cataclysm) table below "intellect needed". Also, Water Elemental scaling: 50% HP/Mana, 40% spell power, 100% hit/crit/haste, crits for 150% damage.

Also, until you reach 10k spell spower or more, you will spam intellect gems because ratings are that weak. I put some details into a spoiler tag to avoid thread clutter.

In the current beta, the SP bonus of Springy Arachnoweave is overwritten by all kinds of enchants while the parachute remains. Because the cataclysm enchants are much better than 27 SP, you won't use them no matter if you are a tailor or not.
Edit: This changed in the live version. You still have the SP bonus after adding an enchant to your back.

I added Engineering to the Profession Bonuses in the OP, as well as some numbers to the Rating Tables - thanks Katatonia and Roywyn.

When possible, please update the coefficients table with Arcane's new coefficients:

Arcane Blast: 1.0569
Arcane Barrage: 0.7649
Arcane Missiles (talented, over 5): 1.1699

These values are consistent with the current state of Arcane in the beta.


Furthermore, I am not sure if the "x/3.5" part is relevant anymore. From what I can tell so far, there is no longer any logic holding the coefficients together in this form.

Perhaps there is some alternate arithmetic from which a clean, rational form of the spell coefficients can be deduced? If anyone has figured this out, please do share. I think I speak for a significant number of mages when I say that the mess being created with these rather arcane values for the coefficients is just giving us all a headache.

Pardon my bad luck, but just as I posted the new arcane coefficients in my last post, Blizzard went ahead and changed them late last night.

Apologies, but if possible, please update the Arcane coefficients again

The new arcane coefficients are:

Arcane Blast: 0.9723
Arcane Barrage: 0.7037
Arcane Missiles (talented, over 5): 1.0765

As a side note, the 3 main arcane spells had their coefficients and base damage reduced by approximately 8%. Does Zaldinar or Lhivera have the new numbers for Fire and Frost? Lets keep the main post in this thread updated.

I added a list of mage specific raidbuffs & -debuffs - it would be nice if it gets double checked

I'm quite sure that the hydraulic sockets only affect the crafted items. These do not have combat ratings on them, but the value of the 2 hydraulic sockets matches exactly the value other items have on the same itemlevel. Why did Blizzard add these sockets? Instead of adding one cloth helmet for healers, a second one for DDs who favor crit and maybe a thrid one for those who want to have some more haste, Blizzard just let's the choice to the engineer and one item fits for all of them.


I fixed the calculation on Lightweave Embroidery. The thing that's missing in your calculation is, that Embroideries do not stack with enchants. That means, while Lightweave Embroidery adds roughly 138 Int, you're loosing the 50 Int enchant at the same time. And then you're back at 88 Int, which is similiar to the other professions if you take the procc rate and the minor benefits of Intellect over SP into account.

Caster Related Cogwheels
Fractured Cogwheel - +208 Mastery Rating
Quick Cogwheel - +208 Haste Rating
Rigid Cogwheel - +208 Hit Rating
Smooth Cogwheel - +208 Critical Strike Rating
Sparkling Cogwheel - +208 Spirit

These are what I have come across so far. I have also noticed that the current Engineering helms have 2 of these sockets.

Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades
Binds when picked up
Head - Cloth
1016 Armor
+512 Stamina
+301 Intellect
Meta Socket
Cogwheel Socket
Cogwheel Socket
Socket Bonus: +20 Intellect
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 81
Requires Engineering (525)
Item Level 359

Compare that to the T11 helm...

Firelord's Hood
Binds when picked up
Head Cloth
1016 Armor
+512 Stamina
+281 Intellect
Meta Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +30 Critical Strike Rating
Durability 100 / 100
Classes: Mage
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Improves haste rating by 188 (3.98% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 208.

Lets assume you standard Meta @ 85 regardless of requirements with a 208 Mastery, 208 Haste Cog, with a 20int/20hit purple gem in T11...

Engi Helm
+20 Intellect
+20 Haste
-30 Crit
-20 Hit

Not sure it would be worth it as the T11 Helm has more reforging possibilities. Or should I say it actually HAS reforging possibilities. Also not really sure how the new tiering system will work as far as if there will be anything higher then 359 via a token upgrade. Only thing higher I have spotted is PvP gear.

To get "n" additional ticks on your DoT, you need enough total haste to grant you enough time for "n-0.5" additional ticks. Assuming your DoT ticks "t" times without haste, then your total haste "h" would have to be "h > (n-0.5)/t", where "1+h = (1+haste_rating%)*(1+netherwind_talent)*(1+haste_totem)*(1+heroism)*(1+icy_veins)*... " as usual.

The shortest description would probably be "To get n additional ticks from a DoT with t ticks baseline, you need a total haste of (n-0.5)/t.". This gives haste some desirable breakpoints to reach where your DPS makes a jump when you get an extra tick. Not sure whether Evocation gains extra ticks or not.