It's Worgen and Troll. I put the racial modifiers in Magegraf.

Good point. After doing Cho'gall tonight, where he's constantly forcing players to cast "Worshipping", I agree it could potentially see some (very) strong situational use. And Cho'gall is a fight where it's quite easy to guarantee you'll actually get the interrupt off to take advantage of it. Will update Invocation into the OP soon.

Ultimately, it would be nice to have a thread (or section here at least) which basically detailed "Situational tips and tricks". Where we identify key talents, abilities, Glyphs, spells - often overlooked - that can see compelling (albeit niche) use in specific scenarios. Other Class forums had similar in WOTLK (Eg: Situational uses for Demonic Portal, Amplify / Dampen Magic, Vanish etc)

Speaking of Cho'Gall. In the strategy we used we had the raid stack behind the boss for most of phase one, only moving for shadow crashes. This allowed the shamans to shock wave and the mages to dragon's breath for quick group interrupts.

I would also like to see a section for situational tips and tricks.

Another thing I noticed about the Cho'Gall fight was that I found it better to burn down my mana and use evocation as my first mana restore ability and use gems on CD after that. I would reach ~40% mana after the first aoe pack of slimes died. With this timing I was able to evocate again just before phase 2.

Readers who also follow the Official Damage Dealing Forums - will have noticed a steadily increasing trend among Mage Posts the last few days/week. Once you sift through all the Frost PvP Complaints, we can now note extensive comments regarding Combustion, Mana, Crit Dependancy - and more recently - everyones favourite "Mage Damage sucks" type insights.

So, here's an open question to experienced mages raiding current Cataclysm content: What are your feelings on the current state of affairs? We should be getting to a point where more players are doing 10 and 25 and can give first-hand insight.

Most of the Beta Mages concerns from months ago - have indeed fully translated to live - and are already well known. They can be summed up as:

- Crit Dependancy is frustrating, and feels like a burden to the spec (not just for dps, but 'fun factor' as well)
- Mana can be made manageable via improved Scorch, but many just don't enjoy the way it has been currently implemented. Some even feel it's unintentional.
- "Crit and Scaling will fix it" is a comment counter-argument people use to rebuke Fire complaints. But players don't see this as a 'fix', in the same way pouring sand in a leaking bucket doesn't fix the root of the problem.
- Fire DPS just seems quite low***, especially considering the hoops it has to jump through for mana.

*** There are potential exceptions for AOE fights, gimmick fights and fights with unusually heavy movement requirements.

With practise, players are learning to manage their mana well - and make it last for the duration of each unique encounter. But do readers feel like the current state of Fire affairs, from first-hand Cataclysm raiding experience, is fine? If not, how would you categorise your sentiment.

There is a section at the bottom of the OP of this thread called, "Current Fire Concerns". Those were the consolidated thoughts from many Beta players several months ago. Are those points still resonating strongly with you on live now? I'm talking strictly about current Cataclysm 10 and 25 man raids - to players who are actually doing them first-hand now.

MOD EDIT: If you have something constructive to say based on raid experience the post will be fine. If you post to tell us your cool story about how you did ________ and your mana was fine, you did (e-peen) dps, it will be infracted. - Narcosleepy

The sky is definitely not falling. Crit dependency really does not feel like a hindrance, as I was already sitting at 37% raid buffed (42% on Fireball and Pyroblast) just a week ago. It's rare that I go a full 30 seconds without getting a Hot Streak proc but even when I do it hasn't tended to be an issue. Already I'm at the point where I feel heavy scorch weaving outside of movement phases is unnecessary unless it's a fight that requires a lot of AoE (Halfus, Magmaw, Maloriak etc.). On fights where you're only fighting the boss, I've never felt any risk of going oom, nor have I ever felt that having to weave scorches affects my overall damage.

Scorch while moving is such a boon, as we just never have to stop DPSing in any situation, and this is something that should be embraced fully, as between that and dots ticking, we're in a really good place. While I am finding that some other classes are definitely pulling ahead (Rogues, DKs, Hunters) it's difficult to say at this point if it's us that needs to go up, or them that needs to go down. I do feel to be in a really comfortable zone at the moment, and we're definitely not at the bottom when you take a look a shadow priest's current situation.

I also don't find Combustion to be a pain, I've always been able to get good damage out of it by lining it up properly, even if I am waiting 30sec into the fight to pop it initially. Essentially I just don't think any complaining about the current state of affairs is warranted, as we're downing content with mages present, and so are others, heroic modes even, so it's not as if we're holding anything back. I think more data from all classes / fights / gear situations is required to make a definitive decision on what re-balancing needs to be done across the board, it's still too early at this point, in my opinion.

Since Hot Streak's Predicted Rate Of Chance is now much lower than in Wrath of the Lich King would it then be better to prioritize refreshing Living Bomb over using Pyroblast! in our Fire Mage Damage Per Second rotation? I do not seem to get back to back Hot Streak's anymore.

Another question I have on the subject of Fire Mage Damage Per Second rotation is this; since Scorch has no travel time, and Fire Mages are already using Scorch in our rotation, would it be better to use this spell between Fireball and Pyroblast! in order to combat "Ignite Munching?" Or would separating Fireball and Pyroblast! in such a fashion not be beneficial?

EDIT: Grammar and Punctuation.

I'm not sure you are calculating your crit% buffed correctly. 37% should most likely not happen until heroic gear unless you are sacrificing hit cap.

On a different note, after another Tuesday of getting upgrades it seems that mage is smoothing out. Competitive DPS is able to be pushed out in single target DPS situations.

At the moment playing a fire mage feels a bit unrewarding, I can do everything near perfect and still be somewhere on the bottom of recount just because I didn't get crits at the right time, or just didn't get them. I mean, on valiona the other day I got 3 hotstreaks in 92 casts, with my fireball critrate still being 30+%. It just doesn't feel right.
When I do get lucky, I can keep up with other classes on dps but Hunters, Deathknights and Warlocks are just out of reach. Worldoflogs seems to confirm this, if you look at Atramedes logs a fight where mage mechanics should be great ( range, great mobility, ... ) you'll see the first mage is ranked last of all ranged classes and even behind two melee classes.

Ignite doesn't seem to be fixed yet either, it still seems to munch 2 crits happening at the same time, the problem doesn't seem as big because 2 crits at the same time isn't happening much but it stays annoying when trying to pop your combustion.

I'm not gonna comment on mana problems since I don't see the big problem, I kinda like how fire plays at the moment, I like using scorch and I like managing mana. So while some might see this as a mana problem I like to see it as a scaling problem of our single target nukes just not doing enough damage.

I should have clarified a little bit more, sorry. What I meant by upgrades is just general gear upgrades. After getting 2 piece tier and the crit trinket last night, my dps has improved pretty drastically. You don't feel as starved for pyroblast or mana. Hunters/Rogues are pretty out of this world right now but it feels good to be scaling well with gear.

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Here is the log from a week ago.



World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

The log from this week shows anywhere from a 1-1.5k change in most of the classes and a 2.25k change for myself.

We are all getting gear as 25m drops plenty of it, but it seems like mages are scaling better.

By all means I'm not using this as a defense that mages don't need to be buffed. We can put out competitive dps but as shown in the log, losing to a melee (not just mages, almost all ranged) on Atramedes, is a tad bit unacceptable.

I definitely think a 10-20% damage buff is not out of this world and is needed but it would need to be monitored as we keep progression our gear situations.

I'm including Critical Mass in the calculation.


I fully agree, I wasn't saying since we're not dead last things are A-OK. I do hope for some balance changes soon, but I expect them to come in a few weeks rather than in the immediate future.

I suppose my post was more along the lines of, I like where we are in terms of playstyle. Damage isn't at the top, but it doesn't feel bad, I do feel that good play is rewarding me and I'm sure once some more balance passes happen, it'll all fall into place.

Sorry if I missed an answer to this already being given, but I skimmed over the thread and it seemed like there was no reply clearing this up yet.

Still, skimming over the values given by you, it just popped into my mind: Did you add BoK/MotW-buff to the value of the blue Int-Trinket while calculating what value you should be seeing? I know this seems silly, and I didn't actually recheck your math on my own to measure wether that explains the difference, but it would be something featured in the theoretical value, but you might have slipped over it while doing your own calculations.



On the different question of current fire mages experiences, I guess my viewpoint has mostly been expressed already, but there are some things I'd like to emphazise again:

For one thing, I find fire to feel like an extremly interessting specc now, with mana actually being something to think about, mobility being phenomenal without making the rotation trivial, and a few very fun toys in our hands (i.e. Impact, actually being able to specc and use Blastwave etc.). At the end of the day, I don't think I've ever been this excited about a mage PvE-tree since I started raiding.

On the other hand, I also feel extremly "gimmicky" in many situations. While I know crit-based difficulties will even out with better gear, fire is still largely a specc depending on unreliable proccs. This impression might stem from my relative inexperience with current mage-design (not having played beta), but still: Comparing a multi-add fight where I get lucky on well-timed impact-proccs, tank-positioning and crits to a single-target fight with no crits just makes it feel like I'm playing two different characters entirely.

So, leaving general balance-issues aside, just by feel and first impressions of the specc my main concerns would be that we may be lacking a way to activate our wide array of fun tools on our own. I'm not asking to crit with my Fireballs 50% of the time, I'm asking for a way to make it so that - when I feel it is needed- I can do something on my own to give me what I need, instead of being forced to wait.

I know this isn't the place for silly solutions, but to explain what I mean: Something along the lines of "When your Fireorb hits 2 different targets, you automatically gain an impact procc" - adding an element of meaningful choice to a specc that is otherwise limited to reacting entirely, reacting to its own proccs and cooldowns. This is the main issue: I react to what is happening, I never get the feeling that I used to have at the core of the mage class: That it is ME whos in control of the action. This holds true especially for Impact, Hot Streak (more crit might fix this) and, to a lesser degree (because its passive anyway, and has major balancing issues) Pyromaniac - these are abilities I want to use but sadly can not in most situations.
Ironically, the new Combustion, messy as it is right now, is a perfect example of the controled play I have in mind: I build up a steady ammount of damage (in theory...), then chose to unleash the full fury of fire in a single spell. Now if only I had any ignites going to actually unleash....