To start with, int gems v pure damage gems is approximately the same total output at T6 level gear. Rawr will indeed choose int and spirit gems but that doesn't mean to say you sould rush out redo your whole set. You've got to think about the possibility that you may need to respec at short notice and that int is rather useless for full fire or frost. This is probably why most people stick with the gems they would have chosen for 2/48/11.
I have a question regarding balancing white stats (stam, int) vs dps stats (dmg, hit, crit.)
I have outgeared my current guild in terms of DPS output (They are in kara and Gruuls) while I am fairly certain that I would be ok DPS wise in T5 and even some T6 content. So, I applied to a BT guild when I saw they had an opening. Of course they said DPS wise I was ok, but they were concerned with my lack of HP, which I can understand. Right now raid buffed I'm sitting at 7.5k hp. My question is, since I have already broken Spellfire set bonus for Belt of Blasting and I'll be cashing in for the +hit badge robe in the next few days, would it be too much to swap my spellfire gloves for T4 ones, just because they have a bunch more stam and a bit more int? From what I can tell, I would be losing 20 or so dmg for 19 stam. If I am just being retarded, feel free to let me know.
This is the "Help me please?" section, so here goes:
I'm having trouble keeping track of cooldowns and maximizing my dps output. I am looking for a mod that helps me. Are there any mods that look similar to this:
I know some of the cooldowns are useless in conjunction with each other. Hopefully, I could manicure which CDs to use on the fly. Thanks for the help.
In our recent Brutallus attempts, we went all-out consumables. The mage group consisted of 3 Fire Mages, a Shadow Priest, and an Elemental Shaman.
We reached the enrage after losing several people (but definitely seeing us defeating him pending no losses). Using Recount, my personal dps was shown to be around 1600-1800, depending on the attempts.
I have near-optimal gear, and I know how to manage my cooldowns. I'd pop Destruction Potion, Flame Cap, Combustion, Icy Veins after Scorch stack, and continue to dps as is standard for Fire Mages (Fireballx9, Scochx1, Scorch never fell off). I used the Icon on every cooldown except the 3rd time, where I waited for 20%. My latency is minimal (100-200ms). We also received CoE which never fell off, so that wasn't the issue.
Is there a reason my dps isn't nearly reaching the levels of other mages? It's true that I don't have the staff or the best trinkets, but does that add 200-400 dps alone? Is there something that's not going right here, or am I just getting owned by the RNG?
I have a question regarding balancing white stats (stam, int) vs dps stats (dmg, hit, crit.)
I have outgeared my current guild in terms of DPS output (They are in kara and Gruuls) while I am fairly certain that I would be ok DPS wise in T5 and even some T6 content. So, I applied to a BT guild when I saw they had an opening. Of course they said DPS wise I was ok, but they were concerned with my lack of HP, which I can understand. Right now raid buffed I'm sitting at 7.5k hp. My question is, since I have already broken Spellfire set bonus for Belt of Blasting and I'll be cashing in for the +hit badge robe in the next few days, would it be too much to swap my spellfire gloves for T4 ones, just because they have a bunch more stam and a bit more int? From what I can tell, I would be losing 20 or so dmg for 19 stam. If I am just being retarded, feel free to let me know.
The necessity for stamina is encounter-dependent. If you screw up and the boss hits you then you die. No amount of stamina is going to save you.
I think it's always best to carry around a second set of gear in one of your bags. Have it contain the very highest stamina pieces you have for each slot, ordered from top to bottom based on DPS contribution. So, for example, I wear the T5 shoulders regularly. But I have the S2 shoulders as well, with stamina gems. Obviously the T5 shoulders are better _in most circumstances_. But if I need more stamina, the loss of dps isn't huge. It's there, but reasonable. Next for me is my wand - I wear Wand of the Forgotten Star but have Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy in the pack. I lose some crit, but the loss isn't terribly harsh. The last item in the pack is the Violet Badge trinket (45 stamina, some AR, no damage boost). So then, depending on the encounter, I just start clicking from top to bottom until my health is about right. If it's a fight where I can reasonably expect to take minimal damage, then I wear my highest dps stuff.
Anyway, that's my strategy. As to your question I can't really imagine why you would want to replace your Spellfire gloves for T4 _outright_. Having them as a quality backup item? Absolutely.
The standard 2/48/11 spec doesn't make sense to me at my gear lvl. I run out of mana on most raids at some point and I end up with more dmg if I go with 9/41/11 - Here
For the most part, I consider blazing speed, dragon's breath, pyro as filler talents when it comes to pure raid dps. Blastwave, I've never found as useful (in a raid setting) as arcane exp due to threat reduction.
freeing up those 4 points gives you 1 point in clearcasting. Then dropping 2% dmg (2 talent points) from playing with fire and one from the ranged leads to 3 more points in ClearCasting.
8% mana reduction vs 2% dmg and 3 yards. you could also swap out a point in incinerate and go with full flame throwing if the 3 yard loss is an issue, the 2% crit on a spell you once every ~25 seconds seems unimportant (gaining about 1 extra scorch crit in 20 min of the standard rotation), but so does the extra 3 yards to me.
Do you not run into mana issues with high end raiding? Wouldn't you gain more benefit from specing this way and gearing/potting differently to make up for the new found extra mana? Thanks for your help in advance.
Those tailoring epics have fantastic 'mage' stats but obviously lack the core stats that become a little more important in 25 man raids as raid dmg is unavoidable in many fights. The T4 gloves are actually great because they have a perfect distribution of stats. By replacing your spellfire gloves, you will be picking up a good amount of spell hit, which will allow you to replace some of your veiled noble topaz with runed living ruby. I'd imagine the swap would lose you much less than 20 dmg after regemming.
You may want to consider the dmg/crit chest as well. As you progress, you will find many other areas to boost your hit with high end gear. For instance, the badge ring has a ton of hit and dmg on it. I also find it useful to stack hit in my ring slots because as you get into 25 mans, you will find yourself grouped with elemental shaman who give you 3% hit. It's much easier to shuffle out spell hit in ring slots than your chest piece.
Finally, as a side note on your guild move: be careful what you wish for. Getting into a BT guild will certainly net you phat lewts. However, remember that part of the fun of wow is progression and you will have skipped Mag/SSC/TK - all fun instances with unique challenges. Also, I can't assume anything about your current guild, but I'm sure they had a large part in your 'gearing past them' - make sure to thank them on your way out. Finally, remember that with the badge lewts opening up, all guilds should see a nice boost in performance and therefore your small guild may be soon onto bigger things.
Mentalfloss, if you're having serious issues with mana efficiency as a 2/48/11 spec, then switching some talents around but keeping Icy Veins probably isn't in your best interest. That 2% lost damage from Playing with Fire is huge, and that last point in Clearcasting could make a difference as well.
Any DPS gain that you get from Icy Veins, you just negated from losing those points in Playing with Fire. So you're much better off sticking with the talent that increases your DPM instead of the one that doesn't. And you never know when an extra 3 yards on your fireball, a Dragon's Breath, or a Blast Wave can come in handy.
The standard 2/48/11 spec doesn't make sense to me at my gear lvl. I run out of mana on most raids at some point and I end up with more dmg if I go with 9/41/11 - Here
For the most part, I consider blazing speed, dragon's breath, pyro as filler talents when it comes to pure raid dps. Blastwave, I've never found as useful (in a raid setting) as arcane exp due to threat reduction.
freeing up those 4 points gives you 1 point in clearcasting. Then dropping 2% dmg (2 talent points) from playing with fire and one from the ranged leads to 3 more points in ClearCasting.
8% mana reduction vs 2% dmg and 3 yards. you could also swap out a point in incinerate and go with full flame throwing if the 3 yard loss is an issue, the 2% crit on a spell you once every ~25 seconds seems unimportant (gaining about 1 extra scorch crit in 20 min of the standard rotation), but so does the extra 3 yards to me.
Do you not run into mana issues with high end raiding? Wouldn't you gain more benefit from specing this way and gearing/potting differently to make up for the new found extra mana? Thanks for your help in advance.
Even without a Shadow Priest or Shaman in my group, mana is never an issue. Popping gems and pots every cooldown and an ecovation last me through even a long 7 or 8 minute fight. Use mage armor and an Elixir of Draenic Wisdom as your guardian elixir. Also make sure a Paladin keeps JoW up and that you have BoW.
It really depends. Gemming for hit, you trade 1,2 damage for every point of hit rating (disregarding socket bonuses). Most of the time, the conversion will not be as good through gear, but in the cases where it's better, I'd certainly take it.
First time poster here, my apologies as I'm sure this has been covered before. I hope this is the right thread to be posting in and you can pardon my noobness.
Anyway, I'm just looking for some confirmation of what my research seems to tell me in regards to Quartz, button mashing and /stopcasting.
I used the /stopcasting macros prior to the patch where the client side lag between casts was supposedly fixed, which I found increased DPS significantly. However, I've since reverted back to my previous form of button mashing these past few months while trying to pay attention to boss timers, cooldowns, etc. I think I'm hurting my DPS by doing this...
So, from my understanding quartz should still be used like before, just without the /stopcasting macros? And timing your keystrokes will allow you to get off more spells than button mashing...is this correct?
Just a random question for the 40/0/21's out there, how do you normally gem up your gear? Rawr is going for heavy intellect and spirit which has merit, but i see a lot of people just packing their gear out with spell damage. Is there any method to the Intellect and Spirit across the board madness?
Spirit is a lot weaker than Int in every Rawr model I have played with. Int gems are competitive with damage, however. Whether it exceeds spinels depends on the particulars of your model. There is no one right answer for all mages. For my gear and typical puffs, potent pyrestones are superior to int gems in yellow slots.
That said, I can think of a lot of reasons why not to gem for Int.
1) A lot of arcane mages are experimenting with the spec. Keeping spinels covers them if they go back to fire.
2) The dps difference is minor
3) Where the dps difference is favorable to int, swapping epic gems is expensive. Not everyone is going to leap at spending 4k gold for a 4 dps improvement total across 8 gems.
4) I don't think the valuation of Int gems has really been fully conveyed to the mass mage community yet.
5) On shorter fights, Int isn't quite as important. While mages don't gear for trash, and heroics, I think a mage saying "it aint worth a minor dps gain on bosses (.5 dps) at the expense of a major dps loss on trash and the 4-5 heroic runs I make a week (9 dps)".
6) Do you really want to get into 6 conversations a day in Ironforge/shatt/Org responding to tells saying "lol nice int gems noob".
My realm finally completed the armory phase and obtained access to the new badge loot equipment, of which two items I had my eyes on. I replaced [Band of Arcane Alacrity] with [Fused Nethergon Band] (consequently, the alacrity ring had replaced [Band of Al'ar], which isn't that high up on the DPS list anyway). It is a significant amount of spell hit, and from my understanding, it's better to grab spell hit from item stats, rather than from gems.
I was still using [Scryer's Bloodgem] as well, and being slightly under the cap, 28 for 32 isn't any kind of replacement, so I needed more spell hit from somewhere. I picked up [Boots of Incantations], which replaced [Footpads of Madness]. Now, for mana intensive fights when I do need mage armor (and don't have a shadow-priest), I do like the spirit on the incantation boots. But I'm not sure if it was a great trade off. I socketted it with a veiled noble topaz, and then replaced two runed living rubies with veiled noble topaz as well. That put me at 163 spell hit.
The benefit of getting spell hit from the boots is that it frees up the trinket slot for me. For the time being, I'm using [Xi'ri's Gift] until I can get [Hex Shrunken Head]. I do spec 2/48/11 for raids, but icy veins + 95 spell haste was burning through my mana. And now I will be at 52 spell haste.
So as far as DPS goes, switching the boots and the trinkets kept my DPS exactly the same. My DPS was coming up about 20 higher with footpads of madness, but I was then at 142 spell hit, which isn't good at all. I'm not sure how I should go about breaking my spellstrike set. I've been thinking of replacing the hood with [Hood of Hexing], which would give me a substantial spell hit boost. I also hope to get [Mana Attuned Band] sometime soon. All of those are significant spell hit bonuses without stepping backwards in stats (I just don't have access to T5 cowl at the moment, let alone T6... but yes, I would prefer CSD).
With that boost in mind, would it be more beneficial to go back to Footpads of Madness for the increased spell haste, or start replacing my veiled noble topazes with runed living ruby gems?
Enthorn Replace the 15sta gem in your wand, second replace your trinket(Timbal focusing crystal) with Icon. Hit rating is not a "Must Have" to get 13%(164) hit.If you are below the hit cap, enchanting gloves with hit is the fastest way to get it, given the cheapness of the mats.
You just have to pick the gear with the most dps (based on rawr or other tools).
Reignman: I button mash and dont see the difference
One thing worth noting is [Ashyen's Gift]. It has the same hit that your boots with a topaz do, so that plus [Footpads of Madness]would yield the same hit and trade the crit on your ring for the haste on your boots. You're really close to exalted anyway, and the ring will be nice to have when trying to maintain +hit when you get good non-hit items, like Madness.
Enthorn Replace the 15sta gem in your wand, second replace your trinket(Timbal focusing crystal) with Icon. Hit rating is not a "Must Have" to get 13%(164) hit.If you are below the hit cap, enchanting gloves with hit is the fastest way to get it, given the cheapness of the mats.
I did have spell strike enchant on my gloves, but I replaced that with spell power at the same time as all of this other gear switching. And yes, when I get a chance, I'll be putting a +12 spell damage gem into the wand. My FireballScorch cycle DPS is listed at 1209.82 in Rawr with my current setup (2.48.11, not 0.58.3 though). If I swap out for Footpads of Madness and replaced Violet Signet with Ashyen's Gift, my DPS goes to 1210.06. That's such a minimal upgrade, especially for the loss of mana, that I don't see it being worth it.
Switching out Timbal's for Icon actually drops me to 1209.20. I'd be dropping 1 spell damage and the proc would replace Xiri's Gift. I do plan on replacing Xiri's Gift anyway -- with Hex Shrunken Head. I do not believe Rawr is calculating the actual DPS of Timbal's focusing crystal either. It's not grand for PvE or anything, but it's still pretty decent to hold me over. The DPS of the proc ranges from 17-28, depending on shadow debuffs from the raid.
I'll have to play around with Rawr more when I get a chance, but I don't think Rawr is properly calculating the DPS on haste items either, so it's hard to weigh my choices some of the time.
My guild has two bosses left in SSC and three in TK, and my question is, when do I give up my crafted gear? Currently both sets of crafted gear for my 0/50/11 build are too good to replace according to rawr and other sources. Five slots seems like a lot to wait on upgrading, but nothing good enough seems to be available to be worth breaking up the set bonuses. Can any other fire mages tell me when they broke up their sets? What gear combos put you over the edge?
Reklaw: Spellfire is largely a matter of preference. Some swear by it and some don't mind breaking it for a drop in +dmg but a significant gain in stam/hit. Personally I hit the road as soon as I got a Belt of Blasting and a Vestments of the Sea Witch. Replaced gloves with badges jobie (the shat ones, not the anvil ones at the time). It's largely a preference thing, but nowadays there's lots of great loot out there. Anvil chest is not bad at all, Blasting is commonly available due to Vortices being so cheap.
Ivor: I do get into conversations about "lol nice gems noob". I then link a Recount log from Illidan just P2 with BL,IV,AP,Hex,SCB,Destropot,AB-spam and 2100dps.
I just broke spellfire in favor of [Tormented Demonsoul Robes], [Belt of Blasting], and [Studious Wraps]. Overall, I took a hit in spell damage, but I gained enough stamina (about 800 health in total) so that I won't have to wear my stamina gear basically at all, which is an overall gear upgrade. I also gained enough spell hit between those changes and the new badge ring to drop my Bloodgem.
I would really appreciate it if somebody could post a 40/0/21 spec. I have been searching for hours and found hundreds of posts talking about the spec but none actually linking to a talent calculator or listing the talents chosen, it is quite frustrating. I tried armory'ing some of the contributors to the mage threads here, but they are all 2/48/11. I have been 40/0/21 for some time, but I think there are better individual talent choices than what I currently have, after reading the other mage threads here.
I found one link on the official forums, but there is something I do not understand in it: they don't take 5/5 on the +spell hit talent, which I previously understood to be essential (otherwise you have to waste iLevel points on spell hit, instead of damage/crit (or in 2.4 apparently, int/spi)).
Also, people are now talking a lot about "the changes to int/spi" but I have not been able to find an exact description of what these changes are. For example, how do I calculate which is better out of +9 spirit or +9 spell damage?
@reignman: There is no "mini-cooldown" anymore for starting a cast early, so button-mashing is the best way to get the cast off as soon as possible. Timing it with quartz works but if your lag isn't consistant, it'll be imperfect.
Personally, I have scorch bound to mousewheel-up and fireball to mousewheel-down, and I simply scroll it, which works out to like 20 clicks per second without any actual "mashing".
I use a macro which hides the "already casting" error message, and also toggles sound so you don't get that annoying "whooshing" effect (though it still sneaks through every now and then). I'll edit this post with the macro when I get home and have access to it.
There is some slight flexibility in the upper level arcane talents, however, the frost tree needs to be exactly as it is in my link for maximum dps. The reason why there is only 3/5 arcane focus instead of 5/5 is because you will also be casting Frostbolt when you need to regen mana. Frostbolt can only get 6% added chance to hit through talents, so it makes sense to shoot for 6% arcane hit in talents, and gear for the other 10% (or 126 rating). Most properly geared mages will be close to that number anyway without needing to gem for hit. If you find yourself significantly under 126 hit, you can certainly take a couple points from Magic Absorption or Imp. CS and put them into Arcane Focus instead, as these talents are more or less "filler" talents for a raiding mage.
My guild has two bosses left in SSC and three in TK, and my question is, when do I give up my crafted gear? Currently both sets of crafted gear for my 0/50/11 build are too good to replace according to rawr and other sources. Five slots seems like a lot to wait on upgrading, but nothing good enough seems to be available to be worth breaking up the set bonuses. Can any other fire mages tell me when they broke up their sets? What gear combos put you over the edge?
I tended to follow a rather hard line, not rolling on anything that wasn't a dps upgrade. I know other mages that rolled (yes - no DKP, free rolls) on damage downgrades but stat (well, stam) upgrades.
I broke Spellfire when I got [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] (& a [Belt of Blasting] - long story, I had one in the bank, waiting for the vestments (since vestments or belt alone were not dps upgrades over spellfire considering the +int I had at the time), sold it when 2.4 PTR notes announced non-soulbound vortexes).
To manage that upgrade, I had to replace all my remaining hit gems with damage, though I was still wearing [Ashyen's Gift]. Overall my damage stats changed by about +8 hit (I had been slightly under the cap, so this brought me up to it), +5 damage, -1 stamina, or something like that. (I had been gemming with heroic gems for some of the stam bonuses in Spellstrike/Spellfire). Not huge, but it was an upgrade, allowed me to split the set, and gave me non-fire specific damage (so I can spec more freely between frost/fire). [Studious Wraps] are a separate issue. They are a dps downgrade over [Spellfire Gloves] & so can be considered on their own merits as a situational item. I have them (from when I went frost for a bit) & wear them when I need the extra stamina. No point wearing them at any other time.
I broke Spellstrike when I got [Hood of Hexing]. While it's "better" than [Cowl of the Grand Engineer], I was kind of hoping for the Cowl just to simplify my hit issues (since it has exactly the same amount as [Spellstrike Hood]). Instead I got hexing, switched my [Ashyen's Gift] to the rather poor [Ring of Cryptic Dreams] & gemed the hood to hit the socket bonus, since I could use just a little more hit (9dam, 4hit/5dam, 5dam/6stam gems +5dam bonus - putting me just on the hit cap exactly). According to Vontre's, this was about a +1dps improvement. (stat change is more obviously in favor of the new gear, since just looking at raw stats wouldn't show the value of the lost spellstrike set bonus)
I've also bought [Scryer's Blade of Focus] purely for a stamina set (starting to look seriously at how to gear for Naj'entus - my guild is a bit resistant to trying BT seriously, though we're 3/5 in MH.. but hopefully we'll get in there properly real soon now) while losing very little in the way of damage stats from [Wub's Cursed Hexblade] - especially if I'm in an elemental shammy group, it's nice to have non-hit items to swap out.
04/17/08, 1:15 PM
