itroll

Get Icon of Quick Silverscent and replace Scyrer's Gem.

Regem your gear, and instead of getting +9dmg and +8hit, get [Veiled Noble Topaz]. (Keep the +12dmg)

If you still need hit, get [Ashyen's Gift] from Cenarion Rep, or [Sethekk Oracle Cloak] from sethekk halls.

Get +20 spell dmg on gloves rather than spell hit.

//Illidan down. Woot, guild's first warglaive =]

I actually prefer fire for illidan.

Granted, we have him on farm, but I like having DB/BW available for parasites, plus more range for demons. If we're short on shamans, hunters, and warriors (Earthibind totem, frost trap, piercing howl/hamstring), I'll respec to an Slow/Imp Blizzard or a Fire/Imp Blizzard spec to help out with the demons. But really, nothing past 14 points in frost is needed for Illidan, unless you're having a hard time downing the elementals before bads in your guild eat shit on the flames/eyebeam.
Cold snap's nice for phase 2, incase you have to block twice for Dark Barrage, but if your healers are on top of it (again, past the learning phase), you shouldn't have to ice block once (though you should anyways).

The one time a water elemental is really handy is if the warlock tank gets parasites, but even then it's marginal. I can get a frost nova onto the parasites running from the warlock tank without taking a shadow blast before they reach the raid.


Basically it boils down to this: If you're learning the fight, Frost. If you're killing illidan consistently every week, you can experiment with fire and see how you like it on parasites and demons. It depends on your raid setup, your playstyle, and your guild's particular method of dealing with parasites and shadow demons.

Is it known which two pieces of T5 are the best to keep for T6 content? I'm trying to plan my rolls on gear for that in mind.

Changes based on what alternatives you have in other slots, but typically gloves+shoulders.

Really? I would have thought pants and shoulders. The gloves are a direct upgrade from T5 because of the added hit.

I would say keep t5 helm + shoulders until you replace them with t6. Badge gear gloves, Vashj Chest (if you are so lucky), and even Spellstrike Pants are better than the t5 pieces. If you have 4pcT5 however, that set bonus lasts for at least a couple of upgrades in T6.

Hi and congrats to all for all the truly awesome info in the forum.
I am currently in a casual raiding guild (not far in terms of progression – Gruul on farm - Void killed 3-4 times – ZA 2 bosses in (ZA rarely raided) currently attempting magg and Lurker. Since my first day of raiding I have spend endless hours reading everything I could get my hands on about speccs , timing and everything for a raiding mage. I have done all my raiding as a fire mage 10/48/3�-->2/28/11(after2.3). My dps was ok but nothing compared to what has been stated here. Since my guild is most of the time trying to get ppl learn tactics than to max raid coefficient there are many things that we are missing in terms of gameplay,classes etc (for example spriest-resto shammans we some times have one of each but not often) . So one day I decided to respec just for the fun of it and just to try things a bit for fun .

I respecced 40/0/21 and the gear I use with it is The World of Warcraft Armory

When I was fire I used my spell fire set instaid with [Veiled Noble Topaz] in every slot of the set for the spell hit cap.

Now before everyone here starts saying fire is better let me say that I believe that also and I know that there is a great amount of data supporting that , my post is not intended to counter that (I am most likely turning fire again). My question is this. First I used Rawr (latest beta version) to play around the 2 sets of gear and speccs , I was amazed to see that with my current gear Rawr sets 40/0/21 to be superior to everything (even If I dont have any T5....), also with the spellfire set on Rawr sets 40/0/21 on par with 2/48/11 and 10/48/3 to be superior to both (I used many setting like no spriest-buffs no buffs etc)?? I then went on Dr Boom to get a fun test and what I got back is that when I used the supposed best rotation for this spec ABFrBx3,FrB I did less dps than when just spaming FrB (I also was OOM in no time) is that cause of lack of 2pT5?

My final question is how much can we depend on these TC tools for gear planing (another oddity was that even if most ppl think spelstrike/spellfire set will last through T5 content in Rwar they count for much less....) . Sorry if this is long and I hope this is the right place to post this.

Rawr is in development. No TC is ever going to be 100% bang on every time. There's to much to consider, namely relative player skill, fight duration, consumable use, group buffs, threat, and spell pushback. There's reasons why people think spellstrike/spellfire will last a long time. For fire, they provide the best distribution of item points for gear that level. You can get hit capped with relative ease, a high number of spell damage from Spellfire bonus, and (if you're a smart player) not be in any large danger of dying.

Theorycraft is exactly what it suggests. Theory. It's not intended to be the be all end all guide in your gearing choices. People need to understand the underlying fundamentals before you can truly maximize what you get out of these forums and the TC within. For example, in the armory you posted, you're rocking over 18.5% chance to hit with spells. The hard cap is 16%. Why you would use Scyer's Bloodgem over anything else as arcane is silly. Similarly, being arcane without 2 piece tier 5 isn't the best use of talents in my opinion. I'd also take the points out of imp mana shield, there's just never a need for that. I'd argue imp blink might even be a better choice. The reason you may be getting lovely numbers is because all those frostbolts you may be casting are uninterpretable due to 2 piece tier 4 bonus. However, that's not enough incentive to avoid upgrades. 1050 total spell damage is fairly low for a deep arcane spec. Likely as fire, you'd have that much in Spellfire gear, have a higher crit rating, get more out of the spell hit you've gemmed for, and get more out of the direct upgrades that are available to you at your progression level.

Grai thx for your reply. I am using the scryers trinket cause I wanted to do a test on myself. I though of going on a raid (that we have on farm and so it want matter that much and just spam Frostbolts) Small note: we do have a deep frost mage in raid so my crit chance would be on par with my fire spec. Now I know that this is silly with this spec but I wanted to see a comparison of this with my old wws and as such make a conclusion on how much I suck as a fire mage... anyway...

Now considering the fire spec and spellfire gear what upgrades should I be aiming for. I was thinking maybe the T5shoulders, the new badges boots... I am trying to get reed of the scryers trinket (be spell hit caped from other gear) so I can replace it with something better.... Any recommendation would be most welcome.

Just another quick note. Elemental precision is bugged at the moment (and in 2.4 as far as I know) and grants 6% +hit to frostbolt only rather then the 3% it suggests that it does. That in mind, there is still no need for Scryer's Bloodgem. You'll still be hit capped.

If you used the last release version and not development build then you have to know those numbers are for 2.4. That's the most likely reason why you see arcane builds so high.

Ok well, its quite easy. First, if you tank your goal aint dps, so mana is totally irrelevant since your only goal is to keep aggro, and nobody else will be dpsing it.

On the pull, drink an arcane protection potion, mana shield, get PWS and BOP, then move forward spamming only spellsteal. It doesn't matter if you're not hitcap because youll survive a full 14k arcane missiles hit if you get 1 miss, so you get to cast spellsteal again. Afterwards, I recommend fireblasting just to be sure. Then dps as normal. If you think you can get fancy and like fireball pull, or blink, or whatever, all that you will accomplish is put yourself on GCD and prevent you from spellstealing fast enough.

There's plenty of posts in the Illidari Council thread with very specific mage tanking answers. I'd go back and look there. But I'll try to answer your questions as well.

1) Don't bother with slow. I've never read of it influencing his AoE casting (and only seen one post saying that it works at all. I suspect it wouldn't work on his AoE cast time, but could be wrong). The AoE is something that people have to learn to get out of. Slow is a high mana cost, and if it does indeed influence his cast time, it may lead to a false sense of security. When the mage gets a magic immunity and slow invariably falls off, damage may ramp up significantly (and unpredictably) leading to a potential wipe.

2) To tank him, I've been tanking with only about 11k buffed HP. That's even with spell dam food, not stam food. I use only three pieces of stam gear - Cord of Screaming Terrors [Cord of Screaming Terrors] with 9 stam gems - Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs with 9 stam gem - and the +45 stam Netherwing trinket. No greens. All my other gear is my regular raid gear. I do a decent amount of the DPS during the fight because I never have to move. Frost spell pushback does suck though. I also Counterspell the heals (when physical immune) on the priest.

I get healed exclusively by a priest solo. I'll usually pop Ice Barrier (I do it as frost) when there's a spell immunity to give my healer a little bit of breathing room. We've only had the mage tank die causing a wipe once. In addition, we also run Council/Illidan with only 7 healers, which I understand is a little unconventional.

3) As I already outlined that, with a solid healer, you won't need 17k HP. I've never had to do this fight gimping my damage/hit caps too much. I still stay in my shadowpriest group with my elem sham when tanking. I remain Hit capped (without totem) and over 1100 damage. Also, if you're respecing frost for council/Illidan, grab the early talent in arcane for the +hit you're lacking. While you usually have a decent amount of time to spellsteal when he put up the buff, if you get a resist on the pull it will usually lead to a wipe.

The damage on the mage tank is quite predictable. Healing shouldn't be a big problem, and you should never EVER eat a bolt without spellstealing Dampen.

Hey Everyone,
I need some advice. Short of me reading alot of these pages and now having my head spin. I know most of you are probably sick of reading them and answering questions from people like me. But here goes anyway. I've been raiding with my mage for a little while now. My main is a holy pally but one can only heal for so long. lol.... My current spec is 0/50/11. I was messing around with something to try it out but haven't gotten to raid. Was the basic cookie cutter build for a long time.

Anyway, I've got the spellstrike/spellfire sets. The World of Warcraft Armory is a link to my armory. I'm posting this from work and as of last night I was still in some PVP gear. Aside from not being able to see what GEMS I am using in the Spellstrike/Spellfire which I can't remember at this moment, my armory gear is basically what I have. I do however replace the trial-fire pants with the spellstrike simply for the proc of the gear. I also have the Robe of Elder Scribes from Nightbane. And I think I have a few different belts. I also have the T4 gloves and helm. And my new addition is the T5 shoulders. I haven't raided since I got them and when I did I tried Full arcane spec for that night. Now from reading a bit I see people are up near 1000+ dmg to fire/arcane with spellfire/spellstrike. I think I can just about hit 900 fully raid buffed. (Food and all) Now I am sure that my GEMS aren't correct. I think my +hit is around 114 maybe. So I am lacking hit for sure. I do have a high crit % I think its 33.62% buffed. Fights I recently remember are HK/Gruul where I would crit HK for over 3500 several times in a row or sometimes I high. I tend to see crits over 4k. In fact on that night I had my highest of almost 5200. Even on gruul where I had died with a minute or so left in the fight and I was up near 800 dps for that fight. I'm basically trying to top the charts even though I know I won't catch a hunter ever or a lock in most cases. I understand group compostion is crucial. I often get the good groups.

One reason for my post is that granted on most nights I am ahead but there are some times where other mages in the raid out DPS me in less better gear(lol) I've been reading and reading the last few weeks and I can't figure it out. I think of myself as a better than average playing. In my guild anyway. I use the basic spam scorch, spam fireball spell rotation. Just wondering if I should use the other gear I have or stick with what I've got and re-gem a little. We're in SSC and we just did VR in TK. We're slowing gaining speed in the progression aspect of the game. We still do farm Kara for badges. And I also PVP. Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks......

Glaring thing that I see is a Hit rating of 47, as you say your normally around 114, which is STILL far below the cap of 164 for fire. Looking at a number of the mages there are are a couple of Arcane specc'd mages, who's cap is a lot lower than yours as a fire mage.

If those other mages are closer to cap, they might see consistently higher output than you on bosses, hell at 47, your low even for some of the 71-72 trash I think.

My armory link shows my PVP gear like I said which I don't need +hit for. I'm pretty sure in my PVe gear I am at 114.

Being in PvP gear makes it difficult to make many assessments, but if your hit is 114 even when fully PvE geared, that's very low. Hit cap first. I'd recommend capping out your Cenarion Expedition rep and picking up Ashyen's Gift to replace the Spectral Band of Innervation, which is pretty awful. Also, you're generally geared for way too much crit, which also explains your inconsistent results. When you get lucky, you beat other mages. When you have average or bad luck, you lose out.

Why gearing for crit is bad for PvE has been covered in a number of threads here; just look around if you want a better explanation. I see in your Armory profile that you seem to gem with +8 crit gems, and you should replace those with +4 hit/+5 damage. Likewise, lose your Vengeance of the Illidari and get something with +damage or +hit, and dump Lightning Capacitor as well, which is a poor trinket for deep fire. If you don't already have an Icon of the Silver Crescent, get it, and don't take it off.

Speaking from a min/max DPS sense - yes, it's absolutely worth it. The question is can you stand the loss of the gathering profession on your main? If you can move professions like herbs, mining, etc. to a farming alt, then yeah, definitely pick up a profession that will directly benefit you in raids.

Thanks Epiphenom for the response. I realized that I shouldn't have posted till I was able to get PVE gear in the armory. I was attempting to GEM +4 hit/+5 spell damage. It was getting expensive. I'm going to have to ask the guild JC'ers to help out. I'll work on that for tonight with the GEMS. I don't have much more to go but still I need to get there which I has always realized. Thanks for the advice on the trinkets as well. I have badges saved up so I'd be able to get the Icon for sure. I'll have to work on the rep for Cenarion though. What is an ideal % for crit. I'm still thinking that I might be around 30 if I change some of these things around. I might be able to lose even more. I guess having more spell dmg for when I do crit will up my DPS. I'm still new to the whole casting(DPS) after playing my pally for so long.

Because you have the dampen magic buff all the time, you should never have to move from a blizzard or a flamestrike because the damage they do is negligible. Even envenom does less.

Once you're in position of the priest (if on CS duty), your healer, and your tank target, you should never have to move.

The first set of drums provides the same benefit as the 4th set, 400 group haste for 30 seconds. Your drums aren't there for you; they're for the other 4 people.

How much do you care about raid dps? The fact that others don't know or don't care doesn't mean you have to follow their lead.

While that is true, you having the buff, doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to avoid taking unnecessary additional damage if you can. My raid leader tells me to try and move, so I do, as our other mage tank does as well. Why you make the healer's job harder if you can avoid it by taking a few steps?

That doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm well aware of how drums work, as I have a Shaman who uses them, but thank you for trying to explain that to me. I guess I just don't understand what you're saying, or how it applies to my question as I think you misunderstood my comment.

I also don't understand how you can say that the drums aren't there for me. I would benefit just as much as the rest of my party would from them. I would also benefit from them more knowing I could combine them with a trinket or other on use item for greater benefit to me. I would alert my party to me using them, but their timing would be off on trinket/on use item use.

I care about my raid, I care about my group, which is why I'm thinking about doing this in the first place. We have a static (pretty much) caster group. Sometimes there's a hunter who uses drums, most of the time (95%) there is not. I rarely see dps increases when we have a hunter in the group using drums to when there's not. This is why I'm wondering if having 1 person using drum is even beneficial to the user/party.

I also don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. Don't know or don't care about what? and following who's lead?