Tier 5 level raids are generally considered to be unfriendly to Fire. There is one boss immune to fire outright, a couple of aggro sensitive fights, and also many aoe encounters requiring large mana pools.
You are guaranteed to lose scorch stacks on Lurker and Solarian, and they can also be pain to maintain on Leotheras.

So if you want to enforce specs, make sure people get at least 33 points in arc tree.

Mages in my guild are mostly AP/Veins at the moment, with me being the only deep frostmage (for Winter's Chill, since AP/Vein mages use frostbolts as fillers).

In my experience, Fire dps does not really take off until you are geared enough to take on Vashj and Kael.

Give arc mages a shadowpriest and a shaman, and see dps soar.

As an added bonus, arc/frost and deepfrost are superior specs for kara and (imo) ZA

To start , I ask for your indulgence as this is my first post to EJ and if I am posting in an impropper thread please move it to a more appropriate one. (edit I post this in another thread and was advised to move it here)
As my guild progresses into SSC (4 bosses down with Leo and Vash to go) several questions have arizen on ways to improve our performance. I am deep Arcane/ice 40/0/21 (Slow/Icy Veins).

Our current challenge seems to be the High King style fight of Fathom Lord. This is where I believe spell mechanics might help and Elitist Jerks may have answers where other sites seem to fail. On the attempts we succeeded, I had been constantly spamming slow on the SHammy Dranai toon. His fire totems came slower (being laid down) , and he himself went down faster noticebly.

I have been trying to convince our guild that an additional mage specced to "Slow" could be spamming the fem healer/aoe'r as well and thus improve our downing of the adds and focussing on Fathom.(her casting is being interupted as often as possible but still the catyclismic bolts get through and cannot be interupted and heals are keeping fight up too long) I was told that it wasnt necessary as "curse of tongues" was being applied to her and that the two would not stack "probably".

Can anyone verifiy this? I find no relevant threads when doing searches for "Slow" and neither spell description states that it would "NOT" stack, other than that any single enemy can only have one slow spell applied, thus I am very curious, as the enemy heals definately lenghten the fight and decrease our chances of success.

I don't see how Slow will reduce shaman spitfire totem placement - aren't totems instant cast? But in my case it doesn't matter - we ignore spitfire totems and kill the Shaman first. Once we're on Karathress we start killing spitfire totems again. It's how we did it for our first kill, and it's how we do it now. He needs to be killed as fast as possible to free up healing. The only mob I think any slowing affect should go on is the priest, and she should have CoT with a rogue on her for kicking.

This spec is nice. I went Arcane/Frost in preparation for 2.4, and Frostbolt isn't mere filler. AP/IV frostbolt spam with a raid-buffed crit rate in the upper 30s, lower 40s, makes this spec. I'd say even with 2T5 that AB and Frostbolt are on equal footing with 40/21.

On fights with aggro resets, when I'm in a group that has a Shaman, I wind up having to go with Arcane Missiles simply because the GCD screws AB spam up with Icy Veins, and Frostbolt spam under IV/Heroism/AP is just way too much threat. After 2.4 AB will certainly get some more attention during the übercooldown phases

The 150% crit bonus to frostbolt is all up-front. Even at my gear level I'm getting 7k+ crits on occasion, but most are in the 5-6k range with mere 4.4k crits soloing. We're clearing SSC weekly for two nights of Vashj learning, with an occasional TK 3-boss run. It's great not having to worry about fire or frost immunity (frostbolt works on half the Hydross fight, but most of your damage will probably from Arcane Explosion if you don't manage to get your AP/IV frostbolt spam up for the nature phases).

Of the specs I've run in SSC/TK -- 10/48/3, 17/0/44, 2/48/11 -- I'm liking 40/0/21 the most. It's probably easier to play than deep fire, but pays for it on consistent single-target long-fight damage compared to deep fire. There's just more cooldown management to keep an eye on.

Without the Serpent Coil Braid and 2T5, I'm pretty sure I'd still be Combustion/IcyVeins.

Really not sure about the neck and cloak atm, i'm going to presume one of each drop somewhere in sunwell as we've already seen them for many other classes, but this was my plan.

Helm: [Helm of Arcane Purity]
Neck: BT/MH Trash/ZA neck if no new neck appears
Shoulder: [Amice of the Convoker]
Back: Council/ZA/Illidan cloak if no new cloak appears
Chest: [Pattern: Sunfire Robe]
Legs: [Leggings of Calamity]

MH: [Sunflare]
OH: [Heart of the Pit]
Wand: [Wand of the Demonsoul]

Boots: [Boots of the Tempest]
Bracer: [Bracers of the Tempest]
Belt: [Belt of the Tempest]
Gloves: [Gloves of the Tempest]

R1: [Design: Loop of Forged Power]
R2: [Ring of Ancient Knowledge]

T1: Unsure about this trinket slot, either darkmoon card, skull, or the trinket m'uru may well drop
T2: [Hex Shrunken Head]

Pretty much same as the other people that posted, but unless the last two bosses drop some gear that makes everything else they put in the instance irrelevant i don't see it changing much.

t2krook: If you feel you need more than 0 Mages specced for Slow to down Fathomlord then I can assure you you're handling the encounter wrong.

Would down ranking AE be any good for DPM? I haven't looked at coefficients but the reduced threat of AOE is nice to start with. Although it's usually not a problem with our pally tank on Hyjal waves. Insight on downranking for AOE mana purposes is most welcome. As it stands I use a combination of FS, BW, DB with a mixture of full rank AE and rank 5 AE when I get low. I usually time trinket usage with BW/DB and Full rank AEs. Despite having an spriest in the group I still tend to mana pot on Azgalor's waves.

Amulet of Unfettered Magics gains 7 haste, 5 damage and 15 hit at the loss of 25crit and 1 socket. However I just noticed that the Pendant requires you to keep JC to wear, as it requires 350. This means you'd be missing out on drums as well. So at least for Fire, I would say this new neck is superior.

I noticed that it wasn't JC-only before, only changed recently. The tailoring robe may follow suit and become tailoring-only, which would screw up my concept of dropping tailoring.

I feel pretty stupid for getting those mats, now. I'll let it rest a little, see what happens. I'm afraid the +hit neck is better, too.

For me both necks are atleast so close, that I wont level JC from 0 all the way to 350...

If you sockel an haste/spelldmg Gem into Sunfire pendant, than you have 15 Hit against 25 crit (not quite but almost), and thats quite close to call, atleast as long as you have to sockel some Hit.

I've been the top dps for my guild on Farstriders for a long while now. Due to timezone constrains I transfered over to The Scyers server. Upon transfering my dps has dropped 200 - 300 dps. I don't understand why but I need to fix it.

Here is my current armory.
The World of Warcraft Armory


Talents I am 45/0/16

Play Style: Arcane Missile Spam.

Gear of note:
Robe of the Elder Scribes +132 spell damage on spell hit
Wrath of Cenarius +132 spell damage on spell hit
MSD Metagem
TLC Trinket
Hexlord's Trinket

Spell hit is capped at 76 for the arcane spec.
Spell Damage is running 1051 unbuffed.
9600 hp, 11141 mp

I haven't been beaten in dps charts for a very long time. I come over to this server running with a guild that was similar to my previous guild and I get beat. Wow Web Stats

As a guild we're running ZA, Kara, SSC, Gruuls.

Any thoughts on how I can improve my mage more. I have been running 900 - 1000 dps before I transfered. Now I'm running about 700-800 ish... doesn't make sense but I am willing to change to be better.

xetroV the Steampowered Archwizard
<The Knights of Tranquility> (The Scryers)

Were than any patches between the time you ended playing on your original server and the time you started playing on your new one?

I am pretty sure 1k average dps with AM spam is not really possible since 2.3

Well Maxi, if you're looking for ways to push your dps up at high end raiding, the drums are a very good method of doing that.

If you don't mind dropping professions for it, then why not?

Arcane Missiles are bad since 2.3, whether you like it or not.
I don't know how you topped meters with them, but it's time to adjust.

[Drums of Battle], grant your party a total 7.64s cast time every 2 minutes at the cost of 1 GCD.
Averages at +80.4 passive haste rating, and beats every other profession by a long shot.
Not sure what's to miss there, it's the best profession for a minmaxing raider.

Wow, can't believe i missed that
Thanks

TY for advise but again, without 2 pc t-5 is it worth it to go arcane? And if so what would be the spell rotaion? And MSD, worthless?

Can't give you a definitive answer on 2-piece t5 question to be honest. Dl some spreadsheets, check it out yourself :p

In my experience 40/0/21 frostbolt spam is strong even without AB spam.

From what i gather deepfrost will probably outperform arc/frost without 2xt5 on paper.

However, deepfrost is crippled on Hydross (frost immune phase) and Lurker (elemental doesn't work), and also subpar on Morogrim (weak aoe). So when it comes to actual fights before you get 2xt5, arc/frost spec is still a good option.

The Water Elemental works at Lurker. Just summon the elemental when you are in the water. It does not die by the effect of scalding water.

Deep frost can perfectly fine spec 13 arcane and AB*3/Sc*6 during the first Hydros phase, switching to AE spam on every subsequent frost-immune phase. If you're deep in T5 content, Hydros is not an issue to begin with so don't spec out of Frost on his account.

Maxi advised to "enforce" 33arcane. This is a fallacy: There is no hybridized arcane spec that's better than any 40-spec of any type. 33.0.28 doesn't exist (as in, it gains exactly nothing over either 40.0.21 or 13.0.48) and 33.28.0 has been proven to be inferior to Fire-IV, even at T5 content, without gaining any of the advantages of arcane or losing any of the disadvantages of fire, barring slightly better AE. If you do enforce anything, the setup Maxi suggested is the optimal: One deep frost, rest 40.0.21.

Depends on your murlock management strategy. We use a palatank, which makes all sort of cc irrelevant.

Nice trick

Only one comment here that as a deep frostmage i usually find myself having to save mana for aoeing (i.e. wanding the boss even on nature phases). Not sure how it is for arcane mages though.

Hm, we also use a paladin tank but only to gather them but he seems to die rather quickly if left tanking all so we use a nova rotation and AE to kill the murlocks. Once we did it with 3 mages and no warlocks damn fun encounter. Quite an adrenaline rush ;-)

With a couple of warlocks that spam Seed it's rather easy.

AoE or not on Hydros is entirely down to your makeup/strat. We only bothered with locks SoC hydros and some of the melee on adds. If you are doing any kind of AoE you should be getting an SP anyway, irrespective of spec.

As for the water elemental, parking it in the water is good, but sometimes you need so submerge a lot to find a spot where he can LoS the boss; if he can't see him he refuses to swim. Seeing as I'd rather not swim 2-3sec to and fro each time I want a WE, I mostly parked on the inner ring and opened him up as far as possible from his hitbox as I could. He won't go down to any of his aoe abilities, including spout, to which of course he's immune.

Improved Blizz is interesting but not critical. I found using WE Freeze more useful than rank 1 blizz. And even then, it's only vital in one of two cases: Pala gets a very late Water-tomb, or you move to the tunnel when the bubbles spawn and one pack comes too fast while the other too slow. Still, it's arguable that delaying the 1st pack will only make your other healers pull more ambient agro than your tankadin.

Edit: helldrunk, a nova rotation does not help against tank death, it worsens it. Instead of murlocks roaming picking a target, you now have rooted murlocks who will either (a) be in range of their target anyway or (b) not be in range and thus randomly pick another one in range. Spreading your healing over an AoE phase between a plate+shield wearing pala and cloth aoe or healers is not a bright idea. Losing one AE per mage in lieu of a FN isn't particularly helpful either.

if you feel FN is vital for your AoE, either your pala needs work, your healing needs work, or your tech is wrong. Though I'm sure 3 mages as sole AoE has something to do with the irregularity.

The Sunfire Robes are showing a requirement of 350 Tailoring on wowdb.com. So much for going on a profession leveling rampage.

As of now, the question to me is:

Sunfire Robes > Robes of Ghostly Hatred + Drums OR Ring enchants?

13 haste, 14 crit vs 20 haste over 2 minutes for the party vs 24 damage

To me, obvisouly you should keep LW over Tailoring or Enchanting. Enchanting & Tailoring are a bit closer. Close enough that I wouldn't bother leveling tailoring just for the robes at this point. And on a side note, the Ghostly Hatred robes have 32 more spirit, 6 more int, and 3 more stam.