Help me please? - Page 53

◊ manly · 04/03/08, 2:39 PM

Make all hunters misdirect without salvation for increased threat, then put salvation back on. I'm sure gonktarget would shed a tear of joy reading this.

Zatmando · 04/03/08, 2:47 PM

I'm a fire spec, 2/48/11 raiding mage. I just started raiding SSC/TK and have the 2/2 Spellstrike and 3/3 Spellfire. When should i be looking to break the sets and upgrade. I've passed on numerous teir 4 and 5 pieces cuz they don't look like much of a upgrade. The only thing i found is the Cowl of the Grand engineer is the next best helm till t6, but what about the rest. With my current int the spellfire set bonus only increases my spell dam by 34.

Also i have 49 badges saved up and was thinking of buying a piece or 2, but would rather hold out for some of the ssc/tk gear since they seem better (the new sunwell badge gear isn't open yet)

Thanks a ton for any help i get.

Castia · 04/03/08, 2:52 PM

Originally Posted by Zatmando

I'm a fire spec, 2/48/11 raiding mage. I just started raiding SSC/TK and have the 2/2 Spellstrike and 3/3 Spellfire. When should i be looking to break the sets and upgrade. I've passed on numerous teir 4 and 5 pieces cuz they don't look like much of a upgrade. The only thing i found is the Cowl of the Grand engineer is the next best helm till t6, but what about the rest. With my current int the spellfire set bonus only increases my spell dam by 34.

Also i have 49 badges saved up and was thinking of buying a piece or 2, but would rather hold out for some of the ssc/tk gear since they seem better (the new sunwell badge gear isn't open yet)

Thanks a ton for any help i get.

2pc Tier 5 is definitely a nice thing to have available to you. I would collect T5 for that reason alone.

Also as your guild progresses you are going to be doing more and more fights that require stamina to survive.

When I went from my Spellfire/spellstrike set, I didn't really notice a DPS increase.. but there's no way I was going to be doing Najentus with 7k life.

vishal · 04/03/08, 2:56 PM

Just curious,
I just recieved robes of rhonin, and i am trying to figure out how much dps is the 4P T5 worth (70 damage over 6 sec when crit. hits). If i break the 4P i will gain about 20 damage and 2% to crit.
My approximate stats are 1080 damage, 33.5% crit, max hit. (this is with the new gear not the 4P T5)

Also wondering if I should get the "Scryer's Blade of Focus" or should i wait untill i get "The Maelstrom's Fury". (we have Naj'entus on farm) Using mindblade atm.

TY for any help.

Finkum · 04/04/08, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by Castia

Ah hell.. he had a shaman! Time to get rowdy! Thanks!

Does lifebloom really add threat to the target though? Every bit will help.

Regular lifebloom ticks give threat to the druid caster, not the target, as with most heals. The final bloom is apparently threatless, if WowWiki is to be believed (I always thought that it gave threat to the lifebloom target). This is pretty much a non-issue, however, as no tree druid worth his or her raid slot will be letting the stack bloom on a tank very often.

Note that a priest's Prayer of Mending spell does increase the threat of the target when it procs, so if threat is that tight you could get one of your holy priests to cast that on the tank once every 10 seconds. Assuming no other mobs in the encounter and 2k ProM heals (fully effective), no bounces, and refreshing every cooldown, that's 1k of threat per 10s or 100 tps (presumably this is modified by defensive stance and whatnot but I can't say for certain).

Realistically your priests will probably have other demands on their time such that they can't refresh it every cooldown, sometimes it will overheal and generate minimal threat, and if it bounces to a non-tank high-threat target who then takes damage, the threat advantage will be reduced, but as you say, every bit helps.

freebird29 · 04/04/08, 4:34 AM

First off, I apologize for my post. Its going to seem just as foolish to me on paper as it does in my head at the moment.
Something has been bothering me for a while now, and I was hoping someone might shed some light on the subject.

We just downed the Council for the first time, so spirits were pretty high tonight. Because it was already getting late, we decided to call it a night in BT and just go collect our gold from magtheridon (which is so worth the time, thank you Blizzard). I specced into a 2/47/12 build and was pretty let down when I was only pulling around 1k-1.1k dps. I know how to play my mage well, I never have any issues with maximizing my DPS. After looking at WWS reports of mages in comparable gear and spec (1300 damage, 41% crit, fully buffed), I noticed others hitting harder with their fireballs. As it stands, I cant out DPS my arcane build that I'm used to (but sick of playing).

Few tidbits:
I don't use flame caps.
I don't use destruction pots.
I don't have 4pc t6 yet
For a fight as simple as Magtheridon though, I don't see these 3 things being much of a setback.

Typical raid buffs are up, full scorch debuff, CoE, misery, imp crusader. With that said, is it possible that over the course of a 6~ minute encounter, my average fireball hits for upwards of 600 damage less then a comparable mages? Just from flame caps and destruction pots? Is there some glaring boss debuff that for some reason, isnt getting put up? For what its worth, my average fireball hits for around 3100 or so, non-crit, with the raid debuffs up. Why do I feel like my numbers aren't adding up? Without ever critting, I feel I should be hitting 1k dps. With 41%+ crit chance, I feel my recount is lying to me. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

exc20002001 · 04/04/08, 4:50 AM

Those numbers seem very low to me, considering i run around in SS/SF gear and easily hit that number myself with half thye buffs you have, and after the patch recount at times has been a little buggy.

So how many mages are helping you put scorch up in the fight? In my old mag runs i always seem to have 2 or 3 scorch capable mages, meaning only 2 scorches per mage and maximum fireball damage. Also who was on rotations for cube clicking? If you were cube clicking were you still in range of Mag to hit him him while waiting for him to start casting 'the big boom'. If you have people calling out to get into postion (some people sadly still have tunnel vision..) how early are they really calling it?

I always had my scorches up on all 5 adds, and could get my 5 scorches up on mags before i had to click (im always on first rotation it seems). Be very careful when he does his earthquake ability, make sure you have refreshed a scorch just before this, otherwise sometimes leaving it to long can result the debuff falling after 'quake' which is very very bad

So long as you not always having to reapply scorch you should be out'dpsing your arcane spec. But maybe after playing your boring arcane spec for so long it might take you a couple of raids to get back into the 'feel' of playing deep fire. Managing CD's as you know is very important, and trying to have your cd's available for <20% can have great affects.

MaddHawk · 04/04/08, 6:57 AM

Originally Posted by Zatmando

I'm a fire spec, 2/48/11 raiding mage. I just started raiding SSC/TK and have the 2/2 Spellstrike and 3/3 Spellfire. When should i be looking to break the sets and upgrade. I've passed on numerous teir 4 and 5 pieces cuz they don't look like much of a upgrade. The only thing i found is the Cowl of the Grand engineer is the next best helm till t6, but what about the rest. With my current int the spellfire set bonus only increases my spell dam by 34.

Also i have 49 badges saved up and was thinking of buying a piece or 2, but would rather hold out for some of the ssc/tk gear since they seem better (the new sunwell badge gear isn't open yet)

Thanks a ton for any help i get.

I personally never had the Spellstrike set. I was lucky and picked up [Trial-Fire Trousers] my very first pug Kara run and the mage T4 helm the following week. However, I used the Spellfire set for a long time. I didn't break it until I had [Belt of Blasting] crafted. Once I had won the vortexes for the belt and had it crafted I picked up [Studious Wraps] for 60 badges from the vendor in Shatt. Now, as to your Spellstrike set, [Cowl of the Grand Engineer] from Void Reaver and [Hood of Hexing] from Hex Lord Malacrass in Zul'Aman are both worth breaking Spellstrike. For your legs, I recommend picking up the T5 legs if you can.

Castia has it right about needing lots of health in Black Temple. The tidal surge that Najentus does when you break his shell hits for about 8.5-9k frost damage. So you will want to make sure you have more health+damage absorption than 9k cumulatively.

Pintofbrew · 04/04/08, 7:35 AM

Naj is the only boss who realistically needs a lot of hp, and even so he specifically needs over 8.5k. Breaking his shield does exactly 8500 and until you get healed from that the only damage you may receive can be a Needle Spine for 2850-3910 so unless you have over 12401hp (and hence can survive both with no heal) anything over 8501 is rather trivial.

Of course, this is assuming wrongly that any one heal will bring your freshly shield-broken health up to over the amount a spine can kill you with, which is not always correct, but strictly the difference is nominal. Naj'entus, like Rage, will occasionally kill one or two people per raid because (a) luck of the draw meant they got spined when (b) luck of the draw meant Chain Heals didn't arc to them soon enough.

Zatmando: Given you're "badge-starved" I'd say get an Icon first thing you do. Both your trinkets are severely sub-optimal. Even Timbal's would be a good replacement for Xi'ri's. MaddHawk is correct in advising breaking the spellfire for the combo of Belt of Blasting with Studious Handwraps. Likewise, as you're a tailor, go monkey-mad over Boots of Blasting: there's practically no good boots aside from those in T5 content. Spellstrike pants are good for a long while, though the head is rather so-so. Either of the badges off-hands are a must for you, as is a new weapon asap. Any one will do to be honest, even mind-blade. Run heroic UB for a new wand and DON'T BE LAZY: Change your bracer enchant to +15dmg, get an epic patch on your pants and enchant your chest. And your boots. And your cloak.

Praestantia · 04/04/08, 2:52 PM

Time for new call to help, my server is getting ever close to opening up the new badge content and I have a couple of questions on it. Is there anything on the 100 badge pieces that would be good to break the spellfire/spellstrike set?

Any feedback would be appreciated, BTW, I should have Ashyen's Gift soon enough but I just can't get the Black Stalk to drop for me. So would you use 25 badges on the wand instead?

thanks,

Allanonn · 04/04/08, 4:10 PM

Praestantia,

Check out the Rawr application when you have a chance. It is a fantastic way to 'grade' your upgrades.

You have a lot of opportunity when it comes to the badge vendor items. I think you may be best off upgrading your weaker items as I'm thinking this will give you the best bang for your badge. Obviously, the weapon/offhand combo would be huge. The existing badge bracers are a very nice upgrade which you won't replace for a while.

One underrated upgrade that the T6 guys are past is the ring. It is an enormous dps upgrade from ashlyn's gift and a decent upgrade from the ring you get from Mag's head. It would also allow you to regem those +8 hit gems into at least hit/dmg gems.

To answer your question directly, I'd say if you can get your hands on a Belt of Blasting, break your spellfire set and grab the Studious Wraps and one of the new chest pieces. However, the spellfire and spellstrike are some of your better pieces so IMO you could use the badges elsewhere to greater effect, at least right away.

HellaBooya · 04/04/08, 5:15 PM

Hello this is my first post on this extremely informative website. I have a couple questions to ask about Arcane and Arcane/Frost builds. Here is a link to my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory. I would say that I have pretty decent gear for where my guild is at progression-wise (Vashj but not Kael and this week progressed to 2/5 MH and 3/9 BT). I have the cape off of Prince but I always have an Elemental Shammy so I wear the pvp cape for more Stam and Crit. My questions are this for both Arcane/Pyro and Arcane/Frost (40/0/21) what should I be casting during bloodlust? Should I spam AM for Arc/Pyro and should I spam Frostbolts for Arc/Frost?

I wasn't planning on going Arc/Frost however until our server gets the badge vendor unlocked so I can get the new crit chest, I would then wear my belt of blasting, either T5 gloves or the new badge gloves, and the haste badge offhand. I would prefer the T5 because it would complete my 4 set bonus which would be a better upgrade than the stats and sockets that the badge gloves have.

Reading these forums I have read a lot about rotations for Arcane but not to much on what rotation I should be using for Arc/Frost. When I input my gear into Rawr it says that the best rotation for me as Arc/Frost is AB->FB->AB->FB->AB->FBx3. Would this be the case? Seems like a weird rotation and when I go on Lhivera's Theorycraft website it says that I should be using a ABx3->FBx3 rotation.

Also another difference I found in Arc/Frost between Rawr and Lhivera is for which trinkets it suggests I should wear. Rawr says that the Hex Shrunken Head and Serpent-Coil Braid is my best combo where Lhivera says the BT trinket and the Skull are the best.

As Arcane currently I like to AB spam in the beginning of fights until evoc and then use some man conservation rotations with my mana gem and pots until my mana dump at the end with AB spam. If I'm not mistaken this is how my playstyle should be for both Arcane and Arc/Frost is this correct?

Sorry for the lengthy post just been thinking a lot lately about Arc/Frost

Also if anyone has any suggestions about my gear/gems please says so I would like some feedback on that as well, thank you.

Teemo · 04/04/08, 9:36 PM

I'm quite lousy at TC'ing, and so far, I haven't seen any of the spreadsheets take this spec in account.

My question to you is quite simple (altough I hope):

Would an extra IV (not even mentioning the extra IB) weigh up against the loss in "Playing with fire" and/or "Pyromaniac" ?
(I think 2/3 in each is the best choice?)

Thanks in advance, you'd really help me out

MaddHawk · 04/05/08, 12:04 AM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

Naj is the only boss who realistically needs a lot of hp, and even so he specifically needs over 8.5k. Breaking his shield does exactly 8500 and until you get healed from that the only damage you may receive can be a Needle Spine for 2850-3910 so unless you have over 12401hp (and hence can survive both with no heal) anything over 8501 is rather trivial.

Of course, this is assuming wrongly that any one heal will bring your freshly shield-broken health up to over the amount a spine can kill you with, which is not always correct, but strictly the difference is nominal. Naj'entus, like Rage, will occasionally kill one or two people per raid because (a) luck of the draw meant they got spined when (b) luck of the draw meant Chain Heals didn't arc to them soon enough.

You don't even really need 8500 health unbuffed, so long as you have competent healers. All you need is about 7500 health and then you can use Frost Ward to make up the difference. That worked very well for me until the end when the healers close about me had all died and I wasn't able to get sufficient hp before the next Tidal Shield. I personally was wearing [Spellfire Robe], [Belt of Blasting], [Mana Attuned Band], and [Wub's Cursed Hexblade] all of which have no stamina on them at all. Fully buffed I was sitting just over 8200 health.

Originally Posted by Praestantia

Time for new call to help, my server is getting ever close to opening up the new badge content and I have a couple of questions on it. Is there anything on the 100 badge pieces that would be good to break the spellfire/spellstrike set?

Any feedback would be appreciated, BTW, I should have Ashyen's Gift soon enough but I just can't get the Black Stalk to drop for me. So would you use 25 badges on the wand instead?

thanks,

If you can find other ways to obtain the spellhit, the new dagger and an off hand would be an excellant way to go. As for obtaining that spell hit, my recommendation, with Vortexes being badge purchasable for 15 badges each is to craft [Belt of Blasting] and pick up the older [Studious Wraps] for 60 badges. Of course the newer badge gloves, [Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips] for 75 badges, has more damage and crit and more stats, it has only one socket to the two sockets on Studious Wraps. The socket bonus on the Studious wraps is also bigger than the bonus on the new gloves. For the Spellstrike set, there are only two real upgrades for your helm. First is the ever standard [Cowl of the Grand Engineer] off of Void Reaver in Tempest Keep. The second option is [Hood of Hexing] from Hex Lord Malacrass in ZA. For the legs I recommend the T5 legs if you can get that far, if not then [Legwraps of Sweltering Flame] for 100 badges are good if you need the spellhit or [Corrupted Soulcloth Pantaloons] if you don't, also for 100 badges. For your feet [Boots of Blasting] if you can buy the pattern. If the pattern is not readily available on your server then [Boots of Incantations] for 75 badges.

Ultimately you need to look at what will be the easiest to obtain. All of it will require considerable play time and work, so which ever route you decide to follow, keep your goal simply and don't let yourself get sidetracked and in no time you should have a very decently geared mage ready to rip it up in 25 mans.

Gaspar · 04/05/08, 12:22 AM

Thanks to all the helpful math-loving mages out there. The CD discussion in the Mage TC thread is enlightening.

--
My question isn't directed towards any mage in particular, but I am looking for some extensive help. I am in a Sunwell progressed guild working on Kalecgos. We have a current discussion going on in our mage thread which slowly turned into a friendly but jeering argument between the mages and a destruction warlock. The discussion revolves around the merits and detriments of giving a ele/resto shaman to mages vs. warlocks in different capacities.

This post is rather lengthy, but I will do my best to keep it as terse as I can. It'l take you a good five minutes to read. The quoted phrases from the thread going in chronological order. The reason I am posing this question here is because I have neither the time nor mathematical ability to counter the arguments laid in front of me. And I dread posting on the general forums for varied reasons.

The discussion revolves around mana regen, ISB, and other items. I have removed names as my intent is not to hurt feelings or enlarge anyone's ego but rather to try to prove a concept. enjoi!

Ok here goes:
--
Destruction warlock replying to a repost of Manly:

Zomg, that math is totally wrong. Completely neglecting ISB because "ISB does not 'scale' all that well past 2 warlocks. Once you get 3+ warlocks you pretty much have almost the exact same ISB uptime as if you had 2 warlocks" is flat out ridiculous. ISB uptime is based on crit %, not number of casts. That 3% crit from ToW does in fact increase ISB uptime significantly, which in turn increases not only warlock and shadowpriest dps, but also shadowpriest mana regen for (gasp) the mages. Yes, mage personal dps is probably increased more with an elemental shaman than a warlock, but the extra crit for the warlock gives raid benefits that far outweigh personal dps for one person. I also don't understand how mana tide for the mages was so quickly dismissed as having zero impact, because I guarantee you that a mage will get a lot more benefit from it than a warlock in a long fight (if I am to believe all the complaining about lifetap). So yeah, for a short fight where the only thing you want to optimize is personal dps for one person, then yes I agree with the posted math.

--
Me:

The reason for that is because JOW and a SP is more than enough for mages on a fight like Brutallus for example. On that fight most top end 2/48/11 mages are reporting using 2 destro pots, 1 flame cap, and 1 mana gem, and no evocate. We just can't burn through our mana fast enough as deep fire. We do require the SP as a minimum, however. Arcane is a different story for a different thread.

--
Destruction warlock:

Yeah, like I said, I can understand that for a short fight, although I don't think mana tide would save me more than one or two lifetaps through the entire fight. The point about neglecting ISB stands though. The reason ISB uptime doesn't scale with more warlocks is beacuse the extra warlock is still casting more non-crits and eating up the extra charges that he contributes at the same rate. Increasing the ratio of crits to non-crits will increase the fraction of the time ISB is up however, and is completely independent of the number of warlocks in the raid. Diminishing returns do apply, but as our ISB uptime is only around 70% right now, saying that the increase will be "infinitely small" is again flat-out ridiculous. For simplicity, assume that every dps caster in the raid has a dps of x. For the sake of argument, lets assume 3 warlocks and 2 shadowpriests, and each warlock has 30% crit before totem with an ISB uptime of about 70%. Taking manly's numbers of 200% multiplier for a lock vs. 210% for a mage on crit, that means a mage has a 0.003x advantage over a lock for personal dps. To be completely accurate, I should use a probabilistic model for the increase in ISB uptime, but using these numbers a 3% crit increase for one lock would result in a 2% increase in ISB uptime at a rough approximation. 2% more time of a 20% buff is 0.004x per shadow user in the raid, or a 0.02x raid dps increase vs the 0.003x single mage increase for this example. This increase is also approximately additive for every warlock with the elemental shaman. Play with the numbers as you will (ie, shadowpriests are less than 1x, higher ISB uptimes give more diminishing returns) but you will find that the raid dps benefit is far and away in favor of the ToW going to the warlock under almost every reasonable scenario. Note that I am also neglecting the benefit of the increased mana regen from the shadowpriests, which will further increase the benefit, since now you have 0.004x more mana going to the 10 people in shadowpriest groups. I'd also include the benefit from increased VE healing, but (name removed) is a whore.

Edit:
Oh yeah, forgot to add that the delta from mage to warlock is actually less than the 0.003x since we use maledicted CoS and not CoE (yes, we're whores). You could also argue that if you only have two warlocks, the ISB benefit would be less since there are fewer shadow dps'rs, but then you wouldn't have CoE at all, and the warlock would come out on top of the personal dps argument without even having to go into the ISB discussion.

--
Destruction warlock:

Again, you guys are misinterpreting what's being said there. The number of locks and the crit rate of the locks are two completely different things. More locks will not increase the ISB time, because the new lock consumes the same number of charges as he brings in. Increasing the crit rate of the locks that are there WILL increase the uptime, because you increase the rate at which new charges are being generated relative to the number of charges being consumed.

This whole discussion is based on who gets the most benefit out of an extra 3% crit, not how many of one class to bring over another. Shall we compare apples and oranges next?

--
A page of dribble and mudflinging ensue.

--
Destruction warlock:

But yes, I do tend to get bent out of shape when people make blanket statements based on bad assumptions with nothing to back it up. I find it interesting that from Manly's one post here with no support other than his own opinion you get the impression that there is a huge number of people "posting online and crunching numbers suggesting that for DPS mages benifit more from ToW then Locks". My only point in posting this is to prevent exactly this sort of blind argument that "Manly said it on EJ therefore it must be true." My math is here, feel free to critique or post a counter-argument from the many math-filled posts online.

--
Comedic paladin:

The age old battle between Mages and Destruction Warlocks... one brings Biscuits, the other, green hard candy.

(Name of warlock) and (Name of mage), just eff each other in the A, fraps it, and all will be well again.

--
Destruction warlock:

So yeah, keep thinking that personal dps is more important than raid dps as we locks keep putting up the CoE and CoR. Since you guys are so familiar with the thousands of threads comparing the two, find me one that takes into account a realistic model of ISB uptime and raid dps impact rather than offhandly dismissing it as an insignificant factor. I would be happy to have a discussion around a thread that does not base its whole argument on the impact of mana regen and crit multipliers for 1:1 individual comparisons only, assuming you guys are actually willing to put some thought of your own into it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what's the answer? Is it generally more beneficial to give mages elemental shamans ?...and/or is it better to give them to the destruction warlocks? Where do resto shamans fall into this picture?

We have three 2/48/11 mages, three destro locks and one affliction, one elemental shaman, and usually two-three active resto shamans.

And that's it. For the love of mages everywhere, someone, anyone please help.

Telicis · 04/05/08, 12:40 AM

Okay, I've looked around, trying to find an answer for this, but I just can't seem to find one.

The general accepted I've heard is 2/48/11 Fire Rotation is Scorch x 5, Fireball x 8 (7 with lag), Scorch, Fireball x 8 (7 with Lag), repeat.

My question is... Why 8 and not 9 Fireballs? Fireball, with 0 Haste and Improved Fireball, is 3 second cast time. Scorch debuff duration is 30 seconds. I'm guessing it's because, with a bit of latency tacked on, you'll lose the Scorch stack if you get a resist.. But wouldn't the 1% chance for that to happen (if hit capped, obviously), on average, be outweighed by the extra Fireball?

Gukreb · 04/05/08, 1:05 AM

While looking to re-gear I am wondering if am wondering if it makes sense these days to ever get the full Spellfire set. Now that Nether Vortex can be bought with badges wouldn't it be a better option to just go 2/2 Spellstrike 2/2 Spellfire and the belt of blasting? Other than the Vortexes the mats on the blasting are actually cheaper, so not only do you get a better item, you get to save gold.

◊ manly · 04/05/08, 5:14 AM

He might raise a good point, but I do find it ironic that he hasn't provided any math either.

His model accounts for 30% base warlock crit rate, which would indicate getting more ISB than consuming, with or without totem of wrath. This is quite simple really. What are the odds of ISB falling off, on a personal level? This can easily be mathematically modeled as 'what are the odds of not getting a crit out of 4 casts in a row given 30% crit rate per cast?'. Then do the same with +3% crit. See how the ISB uptime% is affected.

When you're done comparing the ISB uptime% impact from +3% crit, then consider that mages get no benefit from resto shaman, and that you save yourself a number of lifetaps that mages don't have the option of doing. 2 or 3 lifetaps are quite a considerable amount of dps. Then consider that fire mages get 210% crit rate versus destro locks having 200%. Now add all of this together, and you might be able to draw a conclusion on your own.

Besides, I don't follow his logic. 'But mana tide is not really saving much lifetapping' then 'but imagine all the extra mana the shadow priest will give me from the infinitesmall ISB uptime% increase!'. Seriously?

Pintofbrew · 04/05/08, 7:07 AM

Honestly I've had it up to the balls with the warlock bullshit about ISB uptime somehow miraculously increasing SP DPS and hence raid regen. How hard is it for people to realize when we refer to a minor effect increasing ISB we don't mean from 35% ambience to 48%... 3% crit will increase ISB by what? 1.23%? Which will in turn increase the SP output by what? 0.3%? Which in turn will translate to what? 0.075% more mana from VT. Less if it's not 100% up. ZOMG LETS ALL BUFF THE WALROX so we can get more mana which we can't use. Unless we're warlocks. Or arcane...

Far far too many locks arrogantly claim four-stage synergy in the sub-1% level as an excuse, while in the same thread a three-stage synergy in the 10% level is condemned: Any demonologist stacking stam/int to push their spellpower up is ridiculed yet any destro claiming a ToW to increase raid mana regen is considered credible.

The fact of the matter is simple: A firemage needs an SP's regen to be self-sufficient. A Rshaman is totally wasted in the same party. Let's, for the sake of argument, agree that ToW RDPS benefit difference in a mage grp or a lock grp is 5% better to either side, why are we barking about how that 5% is somehow more significant than a mana tide which is either useless or useful? Mana Tide is clearly useful to a lock and clearly useless to a mage. ToW is clearly useful to both, with parties arguing either side of it for supremacy.

Claiming "a manatide would save me at most two LTs" is reason enough to dismiss it is rather silly. The two LTs gained must be proven to be inferior to the RDPS difference between ToW-Mage and ToW-Lock. If this is the case, you have proven a point. A much more relevant one than increasing VT return by a negligible amount.

Gaspar · 04/05/08, 11:58 AM

So to recap so far Pint/Manly, these are some of the points I'll try to drill home in some capacity:

1) "Mages get no benefit from resto shaman, and that you save yourself a number of lifetaps that mages don't have the option of doing."

2) "2 or 3 lifetaps are quite a considerable amount of dps." "The two or three LTs gained must be proven to be inferior to the RDPS difference between ToW-Mage and ToW-Lock."

3) Four-stage synergy in the sub-1% level has diminishing returns in each stage which by the end isn't that significant.

4) The mana gained from that synergy cannot be used by mages.

Ilyawen · 04/05/08, 1:12 PM

Although I get the basic point, and how it holds true for highend-raiding-shadowpriest-groups, could one seriously say that a resto-shaman is totally useless for a mage? Quite often now without a restoshaman I have reached a point where I was having to managem almost every cooldown, meaning that with a shaman I could have flamecaped at least once, probably especially during the 20%-phase.
The trouble is that, with our raid-setup, we really only have one shadowpriest available. Now the 2 mages we bring get to have him most of the time, but the other 2 slots are filled with the 2 healers that cry the loudest that night to get into the shadow-group. The other relevant casters are 3 destros and a mediocre ele-shaman. So, what to tell my shadow (who happens to be the raidleader)? That we need to get the elemental shaman into the shadow-group and kick out the healers? Or will it work ok as long as one of these 2 is at least a resto-shaman for bloodlust and manatide?

kryst · 04/05/08, 1:38 PM

I've seen a trend of people suggesting to break Spellfire with just Belt of Blasting recently. I always thought the time to break Spellfire was when you got Vestments of the Sea-Witch or 4 pieces of Tier 5 with a good off piece, and have Belt of Blasting and either a suitable pair of gloves (badge gloves, as an example) or just keeping Spellfire.

I'm at the point where Spellfire is becoming a bit of a liability (late T5/early T6). I appreciate the incredible amount of damage it has provided, but 6800 HP unbuffed just isn't enough at this point. I've considered swapping it for Belt of Blasting, Studious Wraps, and Scarlet Sin'dorei Robes (from heroic MrT Kael). I even went and did a Warcrafter simulation of what my gear would look like before and after:

Before (current): current Armory
After: 70 Blood Elf Mage (includes an offhand swap to accommodate for the hit gain from Belt of Blasting)

I came up with the following numbers as the differences between the two sets:

Current:
42 +Fire damage (unbuffed, factoring in the Spellfire set bonus)
5 intellect

After swap:
5 spell hit rating (effectively 4 though, the 5th is wasted)
25 spell haste rating
24 spell crit rating
68 stamina

Doing some rough math in my head, unbuffed, the DPS stats are basically a wash, so maybe it is worth it afterall. I would be gaining almost 700 HP out of the deal.

Just asking for some thoughts on whether this would be the way to go or not.

Ilyawen · 04/05/08, 1:54 PM

Go for it, in my opinion. "Liberating" yourself from the pressing issue of the setbonus on your neck gives you a great deal more flexibility in the further progression. I haven't gotten arround to check your calculations though, but my guess would be that you shouldn't replace the robe. Its a wonderful piece of gear, and IF you want to get rid of it, get rid of it with something worth your money, which the Kael-Robe isn't, if I'm not mistaken. Try to go for the obvious Vestment, Sunfire if you can get your hands on the pattern, possibly the new badge-thingy with hit.... don't ditch the robe only because you lose the setbonus though.

DwarfDurin · 04/05/08, 3:55 PM

Is still mage frost build with Winter's Chill usable at bosset MH BT? i mean is Winter's Chill affect boss, example on fight on naj'entus we could use frost build with absorb spell dmg and 2 ice blocks 4 mages. so maybe it is reason to stack Winter's Chill if it affect boss.

hypetech · 04/05/08, 4:19 PM

Originally Posted by DwarfDurin

Is still mage frost build with Winter's Chill usable at bosset MH BT? i mean is Winter's Chill affect boss, example on fight on naj'entus we could use frost build with absorb spell dmg and 2 ice blocks 4 mages. so maybe it is reason to stack Winter's Chill if it affect boss.

Of course Winter's Chill affects bosses, and Frost Warding would be a nice talent to have on Naj'entus. However, the fight is most definitely possible without it, and you are going to get better dps out of a fire build in most cases than a deep frost build. Especially on a fight like Naj'entus where your pet won't be able to survive very well.