Thanks for the responses...looks like I'll continue to spaz out on my keybindings...heh.

@Tyfon: The mouse scroll thing is a good idea, gonna have to try that out myself. Would also be interested in the macro you were talking about if you don't mind posting it later.

thanks again!

In looking at the dmg/trade off work Roywyn has done http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html I noticed he calculated 10 seconds for evocation with a switch to a high INT weapon. Does the GCD for switching back to the main weapon have to be accounted for? Can this be done prior to the end of the evocation? If you do have to count the GCD, wouldn't you have to gain a certain amount of INT (and therefore mana gain) from the weapon to justify the dps you lose from the GCD? Wouldn't this have a direct impact on the raiders who I have seen only use 1 or 2 ticks of the evocation and therefore do not get the overgain of the evocation to offset the dps loss of evocation + GCD?

When evocation ends, cast your next spell. Then - right after you started casting, switch your weapon back.
You can even macro that if you want. The GCD for the weapon switch will be triggered during your GCD for your spellcast, so you won't lose additional time.

Your spell cast will then gain the full benefit of your dmg/hit/crit on your weapon, but not the haste (as the cast already started).
So you might lose a bit there.


Potential issue: If spellhaste doesn't affect the GCD on spell of weapon switches and you cast scorch/an instant spell ... no, I'm not going to go there

Thanks for that and the explanations, it helped a lot!

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/cast Fireball
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")

I believe thats it.

Hello everyone, 1st post here. I've read about 20 pages of the Mage sweet informational thread and while very insightful, there are 2 pieces of information that are contridicting and was hoping for clarification.

I believe it was Pint of Brew who mentioned that as a frost mage with EP you have no need for spell hit do to a bug which has not het been fixed. But according to Vontre in the 1st post he mentions that Frost needs 164 spell hit. Which is it? I am a newly minted 70 and am trying to gear up. I am using loot rank to try and put together a wish list and want to ensure I aim for the right pieces.

Along the same lines I was hoping for clarification in using Lhivera's website (Man Out of Time - Theorycraft-o-Matic) It states "1.00 Damage: 0.83 Hit Rating, 1.96 Crit Rating, 1.11 Haste Rating" Is that implying for every point of damage I should have 1.96 points of crit? Or is it implying that I need 2 points of crit to be equal to 1 point of damage. In other words for my current set up is crit 2x as valuable to me or 1/2 a valuable to me vs damage? I am reading it as the former, but that goes against the standad thought of: Spell hit > Spell Haste > Damage > Crit.

Lastly, I know that Fire is the top dps spec. Is 10/0/51 gimp in relation or are we just talking about a small difference. It seems like regarding bust damage I can really dish it out with the elemental, IV, cold snap, and trinkets, but in the long run lag slightly, but not significantly to fire. Is this observation accurate, or am I way off base.

I would welcome any thoughts or advice that you have, but if you could answer the above 3 questions I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Illini

Wdit apparently I can't make a link work so there's the site.

Almost, but that doesn't hide the UI message and it also turns your sound on if you started with sound off.

#showtooltip Fireball
/script x="Sound_EnableSFX";if GetCVar(x)=="1" then SetCVar(x, "0") else SetCVar(x, "1") end
/cast Fireball(Rank 13)
/script x="Sound_EnableSFX";UIErrorsFrame:Clear();if GetCVar(x)=="1" then SetCVar(x, "0") else SetCVar(x, "1") end

quick explanation:
I store the string in x to save characters, to fit within 255 character limit.
The code toggles the sound, so if you start with it on, its on after you're done, and vice versa.
Note that while you might think that would cause error sound in the off-on-off scenario, its only on for a split second so you don't actually hear anything.
And there's no 'skip' in the on-off-on scenario either, so don't worry about that.

That.

Thankyou for the macro, much appreciated. My guild is currently 2/5 2/9 hyjal and BT and we're starting to build up our shadow resist sets. I was just wondering what is a decent enough amount of SR for a 40/0/21 (undead with 4/5 magic absorbtion, and mage armor so sitting on 36 passive) mage? I currently have the the medallion, soulguard bracers and girdle (40, 40 and 54 SR respectively). Discussing it with a friend whos guild is in sunwell and he says he runs with 340 SR buffed, just wanted to confirm this. Also what would be a good amount of spell damage wearing SR gear? Cheers

All,

As you can see by my armory profile, I'm currently an entry-level raider in welfare epics with the ZA bear bracers and 2 pieces of kara loot. While spell-hit is king, i realize that there's any number of pieces I can interchange to hit cap(scryer's trinket, CE ring, badge ring(rather not spend that because i'm short on badges atm)

But I seek advice. I really want to maximize my raid DPS and pick up the best available Pre-raid gear I can. Our guild make up is his or miss, and considering we're only doing 10-mans, it's rare that i get a shadowpriest/Shaman/COE/druid to help with either damage or mana regen. I'd like suggestions as to what immediate upgrades I can do/make(consider I'll earn approx 30 badges a week) to increase raid DPS. I have a frozen shadowweave robe, but in anticipation of speccing fire, I picked up the Sindorei(which subsequently has better gems, and for the most part I don't have access to epic gems).

While I currently consistently top damage done for my guild, I really think I can do better

My thoughts are to aim for Season 1 glad shoulders, a belt of blasting, boots of blasting, cloak of arcane alacrity and spellfire gloves and respeccing fire. From the calculations i've done, I'll increase my DPS from 10-15% by doing so. My main concern is that in doing so, I'll be having serious mana issues(considering the above statements). Your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated.

I also intend to pick up the season 2 glad dagger when it becomes available and the primal fetish badge offhand.

Staffz, I'd go for the shoulders off of heroic Vexallus before getting the S1 shoulders. Very easy to obtain and better for PvE. S2 dagger is nice, but why not get the haste dagger from heroic Selin and save up for the 150-badge blade? The haste dagger with haste offhand is clearly an upgrade from the S1 staff unless you are concerned about +hit.

I like your belt, btw. Is the Belt of Blasting THAT much better? You lose quite a bit of stats going that route, and you're already stamina-light. You don't want to be the guy that's always needing a rez because random boss AoE killed you.

Thanks for the feedback! I intend to continue running heroic MgT, and as I said, Hit can be quite negligible. I recognize my Stam is somewhat lacking, but for the current content I'm experiencing, its a non-issue. One of my concerns about stacking haste is the lack raid support. Currently, with Mage Armor, I can maintain Frostbolt spam with Gems and Pots for 7-8 minutes(swapping to Molten armor brings this to 6-7 minutes). I anticipate in switching to fire, my longevity will be somewhat compromised. Is this an accurate assumption?

If 2/48/11(+2) ends up being too mana intensive with the group compositions available to you you could try a build with Clearcasting like 10/48/3. At lower tiers of raiding the encounters typically don't last as long though, so you should just experiment and see what works for you.

I'm seeking some information on Gurtogg Bloodboil. My guild has only downed him twice, and generally get my face melted off while Fel Raged. So, here's my questions:

I've read he can't crit you while FR, is this true?

If he can't crit, does this make dodge/def better than resilience(which should have no effect?)? And, How much mitigation/stam(of which type) should I stack before I might as well be replaced with another class?

Best strategy for survival?

Has anyone tested using imp blink with Gurtogg(assuming you don't get anyone cleaved/acid coned when you blink)?

Gearing for dodge isn't going to help, your best bet is to wear some stam gear and make sure to put up Ice Armor when he targets you. I'm not sure if permafrost still works, but if it does it helps. As a last ditch effort just spam the hell out of Mana Shield. Ice Armor is a big deal though.

When we were first learning the fight I was wearing full gladiator gear for stamina, but eventually when the healers got better at the fight I stopped needing to.

Can he crit while FR'd? If no, then I'd likely just drop to a +12 dodge cloak enchant on my old cloak, and put on [Commendation of Kael'thas].

Hi Everyone,

it's my first time writing here, and due to the fact that I'm not English I'll try to write the best I can.
As you can see in my armoryprofile, my guild clears BT every week for six weeks now, and we currently try to down Kalecgos (best try 3% ._.).
In my gear there are in my opinion three issues: my weapon, my legs and one trinket. And because of this issues I have two questions:
1.) I'm currently waiting for [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] to drop, and since I have a lot of dkp right now, I would definitely get it. The other choice would be to don't bet so much on the staff, an waiting for [The Skull of Gul'dan] to drop two more times (onetime already dropped), because another mage in my guild has slightly more dkp, and thats the only item he really needs from BT. So: Should I get staff when it drops, or waiting for the skull? Atm I'm wearing [Blade of Twisted Visions], and I have got [The Maelstrom's Fury] on my bank, because I think that the blade from Zul'jin is slightly better.
2.) I have the choice between cheap T6 leggins, and (when he dies) expensive leggins from Kalecgos. Are the Leggins from Kalecgos worth spending a lot of dkp, instead of getting cheap T6 and waiting for some pretty other Sunwellloots?

Some answers would be great, because I actually would go for staff and T6 leggins, but don't know if this is the best choice.

Staffz: I wholeheartedly advise you to stay frost. There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, frost gains shoulders and boots, you can get a Belt of Blasting from AH or from badges yourself and both T1 gloves and three different Badge reward gloves AND gloves off Attumen and MTC are easily within your reach. If you repsec to fire, you'll have another belt and bracer to slot in, leaving you with the comparatively lame (compared to FSW, that is) shoulders of MTC or rather quite lame S1. Not to mention maiden boots are about a millennium behind FSW.

Secondly, frost is more easily independent for both 10-man raiding and 5-mans, and particularly so if your guild is a casual guild with low gear. The ability to save yourself with a timely Ice Barrier, or add some ranged snare on trash or a botched pull makes you a much more useful asset to a 5 or 10 man. Bare in mind, none of these is relevant to top-end raiding, as a barrier won't help when you don't get hit or get hit for 8k+ and a ranged snare is of little use when nothing can be snared. It is however very relevant to you.

As for gear: you're quite a bit over the hit cap. Frost only needs 10%, which should be 124hit. EP is bugged, as mentioned above. Feel free to re-socket more spellpower (or haste/crit if you're a set-bonus fan) and get a FSW chest as well.

As for talents, I'd sincerely advise speccing the other point in Arctic Reach. It's silly not to have it. Typically, raiders/instancers don't ever spec Frostbite. This is particularly relevant to heroics as a frostbite proc when a mob is not standing in melee range of the tank means he'll swap target to whoever is close. This means you can quite feasibly kill a melee, a healer or even yourself. Even if said target does not have agro. Similarly, it's not conventional for instances to spec Shatter. The reasoning is mostly that the nova/frostbite will break much before your next bolt/lance hits. More often than not you'll find yourself canceling a 0.2sec bolt that you'd already started so you can get a Lance of ("ooh! frostbite! quick!") only to have it hit for 430. When that happened to me I couldn't help wonder: I just wasted almost 2sec of cast time for 430 dmg... Why? If you're doing frequent ZA perhaps you'll find more value in speccing either arcane impact or imp. blizz. Or perhaps you'll stick with Shatter because you like some casual pvp. The spec I'd go for at your tier of the game, and indeed the spec I did go for, is Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft .

Get the staff if it drops. If you wait on loot chances are you may never get them. My guiild farm BT since Oct and a grand total of 2 skull dropped. We have more glaives than skull now. We also have 2 staff dropped only but most of us are using Tempest of Chaos now.


The leggings from Kalec is not worth it. If anything to wait , wait for the one off Brutallus.

What is a good benchmark to shoot for, regarding DPS for the level of content you are raiding? My guild is working through SSC -- we're casual so it goes slowly. I'm the top Mage in the guild, but seeing other classes beat me is irksome. So what should a Mage be doing, DPS-wise, in SSC? 800DPS? 1000DPS? What is the norm?

My wowstats from last night -- Hydros and Lurker before the instance server went down:

Wow Web Stats


I'm frost -- 11/0/50 because the other mages in my guild don't spec fire, or change their spec a lot. I've gone down the fire road a few times, but if you're the only one applying Scorch, it's no fun. Frost, in my opinion, seems to be far less reliant on other people when it comes to damage output.

I'm doing everything I can think of to maximize DPS... Molten Armor on all fights except Hydross, because the one Shadow Priest we have is in the healer group, so mana is a huge issue. Flasked, oil, food buffs... I just can't seem to get past that plateau. :-(

If you're struggling for mana and want to stay Frost I'd go with an Arcane Meditation build - 18/0/44 or 17/0/43 - you don't lose any of the dps talents in Frost by doing it and you'll get a significant amount more mana regen especially given the 2.4 changes. You also have to remember that your parse doesn't include your water elemental which would boost you a bit.

Gearwise you're ok but given as far as I'm aware Elemental Precision is still giving an extra 3% hit for frost, you could drop some hit (to 125) and increase other stats.

Really though there isn't much you can do as Frost other than perhaps stacking cooldowns or managing elementals better.

Hey guys I just have some quick question about my spec if someone wouldnt mind helping.
I was wondering if I should take 4 points out of magic absorbtion to add into 2 arcane impact and 2 Ice Floes?

I have 205 haste rating. And about 10k mana pool after raid buffs. It seems like I get alot of resists and it returns almost as much mana as master of elements I usualy have a shadow priest and elemental shaman in my group with my haste rating I go through mana really fast.



So far with the haste rating I have only been testing this build for 2weeks but I average around 1200 -1400dps and have spikes of 1700dps. Also should you use Potion of destruction icon of the silver cresent before I summon elemental or does he gain the dmg well out if I pop them?

Any ideas would be helpful thank you.