Help me please? - Page 61

Spoffomov · 04/21/08, 1:30 PM

[Mind Quickening Gem] is probably not good enough to wear, but I would like to find the impact of stacking another 20% haste for 20s during bloodlusted icy veined molten fury. However I can't get Rawr to use it, entering the item ID (19339) creates a statless trinket that i can't get my profile to equip. Am I doing something wrong?

jjtherwiter · 04/21/08, 1:44 PM

Hi,

First the background:
I am currently raiding Mag/Gruul looking to move on to SSC in the near future (and hopefully never go to Karazhan ever again!) I am raiding with 40/00/21 at the moment and I do frostbolt spam interspered with POM/AM and Icy Veins/Cold snap. I never have any mana issues (can sometimes even get by on Magtheridon with no evocation with two pots and three gems) and have about 1300 spell damage raid buffed. I average around 850 DPS though can go as high as 950 (but never more than a 1000) I have winter's chill support from two other mages in my guild.

Lately however I have been thinking about changing to fire, particularly as I am regularly being out DPS'd by a deep frost mage with less spell damage than me and about 50 spell hit which I still cannot get my head around! Could anyone suggest any possible reasons? I use both quartz and macros so I don't think its an issue with this. Could it be the effect of Shiffar's Nexus Horn and the new Aldor version of the Shattered Sun necklace?

With the new badge rewards and a change to spellfire I think I can hit the hit cap and end up with about 1100 spell damage. However, I will be the only fire mage in our guild (we currently have an arcane/fire mage in our guild but, fed up with being outdone by deep frost he is respeccing shortly) so I will solely be responsible for scorch duty.

So my question is, will I be doing more DPS as a fire mage (possibly 2/48/11 if I can handle it). I am not too bothered about being the top dps in the guild but I would like to see improvements and I don't want to waste time/money on respeccing if I'm going to be worse off than I am now.

If I should stick with frost: would a deep frost build be better? Or should I stick with arc/frost but somehow work in arcane blast (never really understood this spell!)

Any other suggestions/comments would be very much appreciated.

Risingstar · 04/21/08, 1:51 PM

Originally Posted by Lysara

Well I'm not too sure about the Lhivera question, so I'll only try to other two instead.

There is a bug with Elemental Precision. It used to give +6% hit to Fire and Frost spells, but Blizzard changed it to +3% hit and -3% manacost for Fire and Frost. However, EP still seems to give 6% to Frostbolt instead of the intended 3% for some reason. Due to this, with a Deep Frost build you only needs 10% hit on your gear, the remaining 6% from EP will then get you hitcapped against lvl 73 mobs or bosses.

Keep in mind that the ghosthit from EP only counts for Frostbolt, it only gives 3% to Fire spells as intended.

I thought they already fixed the EP bug? When I was deep frost WWS definitely showed me missing my intended (nonghost hit) percentages. Maybe I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by Lysara

10/0/51 is far from gimp, especially at your gearlevel. The main problem with Deep Frost is the fact that it doesn't seem to scale quite as good as Fire does, mostly due to the Water Elemental: his health never really goes up very much so he becomes rather squishy, and Haste Rating has no effect on the WE. Both of those are only really noticable in endgame content though, until you reach Mount Hyjal and Black Temple you're fine really.

And even at endgame Frost isn't bad, it's just that Fire has higher maximum damage.

Yes, from Kara to say half way in T5 frost is still awesome. Generally it affords you more survivability and longer time casting since you don't have the stam or int from gear. Frost doesn't scale as well with gear due to the fact that frost spell are penalized for the snare effect so it doesn't get the full benefit from spell dmg.

However once you get 2 pieces of T5 it's generally considered best if you go arcane (40/0/21), and by the time you hit T6 (gear, not content) a cookie cutter fire played correctly would be far and away better than other specs. (by far and away I mean like 4% or 5% better)

Risingstar · 04/21/08, 2:03 PM

Originally Posted by jjtherwiter

Hi,

First the background:
I am currently raiding Mag/Gruul looking to move on to SSC in the near future (and hopefully never go to Karazhan ever again!) I am raiding with 40/00/21 at the moment and I do frostbolt spam interspered with POM/AM and Icy Veins/Cold snap. I never have any mana issues (can sometimes even get by on Magtheridon with no evocation with two pots and three gems) and have about 1300 spell damage raid buffed. I average around 850 DPS though can go as high as 950 (but never more than a 1000) I have winter's chill support from two other mages in my guild.

Lately however I have been thinking about changing to fire, particularly as I am regularly being out DPS'd by a deep frost mage with less spell damage than me and about 50 spell hit which I still cannot get my head around! Could anyone suggest any possible reasons? I use both quartz and macros so I don't think its an issue with this. Could it be the effect of Shiffar's Nexus Horn and the new Aldor version of the Shattered Sun necklace?

With the new badge rewards and a change to spellfire I think I can hit the hit cap and end up with about 1100 spell damage. However, I will be the only fire mage in our guild (we currently have an arcane/fire mage in our guild but, fed up with being outdone by deep frost he is respeccing shortly) so I will solely be responsible for scorch duty.

So my question is, will I be doing more DPS as a fire mage (possibly 2/48/11 if I can handle it). I am not too bothered about being the top dps in the guild but I would like to see improvements and I don't want to waste time/money on respeccing if I'm going to be worse off than I am now.

If I should stick with frost: would a deep frost build be better? Or should I stick with arc/frost but somehow work in arcane blast (never really understood this spell!)

Any other suggestions/comments would be very much appreciated.

Well, first of all why are you spamming frostbolts when you're 40/0/21? It boggles the mind... I understand that you have the frozen shadowweave set, but that set is much better for a mage that's 10/0/51 than you.
You should do arcane blast until you run out mana, then use frost bolts as fillers to regain mana, and then cast arcane blast again (rinse and repeat).
I looked over your spec and if you move two points from Magic Attunement to Arcane Focus then you don't need as much hit for arcane either (from 13% to only 6%) so you can gem more spell dmg gems.

Canyc · 04/21/08, 2:47 PM

Originally Posted by Risingstar

You should do arcane blast until you run out mana, then use frost bolts as fillers to regain mana, and then cast arcane blast again (rinse and repeat).
I looked over your spec and if you move two points from Magic Attunement to Arcane Focus then you don't need as much hit for arcane either (from 13% to only 7%) so you can gem more spell dmg gems.

Dumb question: won't he still need the spell hit for the frostbolt spam?

I'm currently specced 50/0/11 and switching between AB spam and (AB,AM) sequence spam because I don't (with this gear) have the spell hit for FrB. If I'm reading what you're saying correctly, I should be using FrB anyway?

Seanothan · 04/21/08, 3:37 PM

I'm sort of in the same boat. Yesterday I switched to 40/0/21 after being Frost for all of BC. I've been looking around and there's a few things I need to know. Mainly is the rotation. I've been told like four different things in regards to it. People say do 3xAB 3xFB and an AM whenever Clearcast comes up. Some people say only 2xAB. And then there's the spam AB till you're at like 20% mana and Frostbolt your way back up to more mana. And I'm assuming that this is based on whether you have a good group. If I'm in a group where mana regen isn't all that great what am I to do?

Also is spell hit. I know it's much lower for arcane but what am I aiming for here? I've got 9% hit from talents, so that means I can afford to drop my hit rating to about 8% correct? I tried researching as much as possible and I've been looking but I can't find the information I need.

Risingstar · 04/21/08, 3:58 PM

Originally Posted by Canyc

Dumb question: won't he still need the spell hit for the frostbolt spam?

I'm currently specced 50/0/11 and switching between AB spam and (AB,AM) sequence spam because I don't (with this gear) have the spell hit for FrB. If I'm reading what you're saying correctly, I should be using FrB anyway?

With the spell haste change you should really try to keep all the AB "debuff" up for max DPS. For 40/0/21 he doesn't have improved AM, which makes frost bolt much more viable even if it misses a lot.

Yes, the arcane blast rotation have changed since the patch and that's why there are tons of different ones floating around.

How do you get 9% from talents? Since EP is only frost/fire and arcane focus goes from 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10% and only benefits arcane spells.

So yeah it's 13% for frost/fire mages and 6% for arcane mages.

Symphonia · 04/21/08, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

Also is spell hit. I know it's much lower for arcane but what am I aiming for here? I've got 9% hit from talents, so that means I can afford to drop my hit rating to about 8% correct? I tried researching as much as possible and I've been looking but I can't find the information I need.

No. According to your armory you have 3 points in Arcane Focus which is 6% from talents for arcane spells only. You also have 3 points in Elemental Precision which is 3% from talents for fire and frost spells only. The hit cap is 16% not 17%. While a boss has a 17% chance to resist your spells, there is a 1% miss rate that cannot be bypassed, thus 16% being the hit cap.

Seanothan · 04/21/08, 4:07 PM

Originally Posted by Risingstar

How do you get 9% from talents? Since EP is only frost/fire and arcane focus goes from 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, 10% and only benefits arcane spells.

Mind fart on that one. I've got 3/5 Arcane Focus and 3/3 EP. I merged them together mistakenly. I've got 135 hit right now, I assume that's good for the Arcane side of it? And I'm a little below on the Frost side.

Antiphonal · 04/21/08, 4:25 PM

Originally Posted by Seanothan

Mind fart on that one. I've got 3/5 Arcane Focus and 3/3 EP. I merged them together mistakenly. I've got 135 hit right now, I assume that's good for the Arcane side of it? And I'm a little below on the Frost side.

It's been covered before, but atm EP is giving 2% to hit per point for frost spells. So 3/5 Arcane Focus and 3/3 EP means BOTH frost and arcane spells are hit capped at 127.

As for proper rotation with 40/0/21, my advice would be to experiment. I'd start with pure AB spam to 20%, regen using FB, then repeat. Use that as a base for how mana usage will work out, and adjust accordingly. Worst possible scenario is you are just spamming frostbolts (and nothing else) with Mage Armor on because you're in a group with no shadow priest, no paladins in the raid, and no DS. And you are in a 15-minute long fight. Just spamming Frostbolt 40/0/21 is outperforming 18/0/43. Try different mixtures of AB-spam time vs FB-spam time until you get the mix just right and you are OOM as the boss dies.

I wouldn't bother trying to do the AB debuff tricks though.

obwangkenobi · 04/21/08, 4:40 PM

Forgive me if this is old news, but is Frost mage viable anymore in anything but 5 mans?

The World of Warcraft Armory

I work my water elem every time is comes up, I cold snap immediatly after it goes away the first time, making a longish boss fight allow me to have him 3 times, hitting about 1k each on his water bolts.

I trail each frost bolt with an icelance, buffed my frost bolt is between 1600-1800 and crits for over 5k. Ice lance is around 400-600 and crits for over 2k. I sustain about 600dps for an entire kara run.

Will this continue to scale with gear reasonably? Or will I hit a wall when it comes to 25 man raiding, and have to flip to a fire spec? Are the utility aspects of my spec useful in the raids, frost novas, slowing effects, improved blizzard, etc etc?

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, I just read up to some recent posts about this topic, but still wish to discuss if possible.

Nurru · 04/21/08, 4:43 PM

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

Forgive me if this is old news, but is Frost mage viable anymore in anything but 5 mans?

The World of Warcraft Armory
I trail each frost bolt with an icelance, buffed my frost bolt is between 1600-1800 and crits for over 5k. Ice lance is around 400-600 and crits for over 2k. I sustain about 600dps for an entire kara run.

Do not ice lance in PvE. Again, do not ice lance in PvE. Just to reiterate, do not ice lance in PvE. You should be doing nothing but cast Frostbolt until the boss is dead (It's an exciting spec, really). Frost is fine for T4 and T5 content, especially at lower gear levels where the boosts from Frozen Shadoweave are noticeable. T5 content isn't very friendly to Fire on many encounters, so frost or arcane aren't a bad choice.

obwangkenobi · 04/21/08, 4:52 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Do not ice lance in PvE. Again, do not ice lance in PvE. Just to reiterate, do not ice lance in PvE. You should be doing nothing but cast Frostbolt until the boss is dead (It's an exciting spec, really). Frost is fine for T4 and T5 content, especially at lower gear levels where the boosts from Frozen Shadoweave are noticeable. T5 content isn't very friendly to Fire on many encounters, so frost or arcane aren't a bad choice.

Thanks for the reply.

Can you hit me up as to why I would hold off icelance? Seems the instant cast, of 120 mana for a spot of extra damage is good? Is it about my damage per mana? Should I be so deep frost? How far into arcane would you suggest? I have two other 70s, priesting and tanking seem to be simpler from a spec aspect (or I just have a lot more experience with them). Mageing is all kinda new to me.

Nurru · 04/21/08, 4:54 PM

Spending a global cooldown to do 400-500 damage is simply significantly less dps than if you used frostbolt constantly. Ice Lance is only good for shatter crits, and in PvE you won't encounter those (or even typically have shatter).

Symphonia · 04/21/08, 4:58 PM

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

Thanks for the reply.

Can you hit me up as to why I would hold off icelance? Seems the instant cast, of 120 mana for a spot of extra damage is good? Is it about my damage per mana? Should I be so deep frost? How far into arcane would you suggest? I have two other 70s, priesting and tanking seem to be simpler from a spec aspect (or I just have a lot more experience with them). Mageing is all kinda new to me.

- r0b

Technically it's instant cast, but you have to remember instant casts use up the global cooldown, so it's better to judge it as a 1.5 second cast (assuming no haste). So you have a 2.5 second cast that does 1600~ damage or a 1.5 second cast that does 400~ damage. As for your spec, depends on what you do and what your group composition is like, really. You could go 10/0/51 for clearcasting to help with some mana problems.

obwangkenobi · 04/21/08, 4:59 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Spending a global cooldown to do 400-500 damage is simply significantly less dps than if you used frostbolt constantly. Ice Lance is only good for shatter crits, and in PvE you won't encounter those (or even typically have shatter).

I will try that for sure, maybe I am so used to the rhythm of it that I dont notice the extra global cooldown. I just got Recount setup so I will do some tests (my holy priest and prot warrior didnt find much use for recount), but I feel like its not slowing me down. I get the shatter thing bigtime, thats the big money, dropping 2k+ on an instant cast is immense.

Thanks again, any other advice, things I should consider, or watch out for? Gear advice for a frost mage?

Originally Posted by Symphonia

Technically it's instant cast, but you have to remember instant casts use up the global cooldown, so it's better to judge it as a 1.5 second cast (assuming no haste). So you have a 2.5 second cast that does 1600~ damage or a 1.5 second cast that does 400~ damage. As for your spec, depends on what you do and what your group composition is like, really. You could go 10/0/51 for clearcasting to help with some mana problems.

I used to have that, and respecced out, didnt feel like it was getting me alot. However, during say a pre-25 man geared prince fight
I had to use two pots, two charges of my gem, and an evocate. Fight lasted 20 minutes. In comparison to my priest, thats ALOT of mana problems, but I dont think I should evenly compare the two.

Antiphonal · 04/21/08, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

Thanks for the reply.

Can you hit me up as to why I would hold off icelance? Seems the instant cast, of 120 mana for a spot of extra damage is good? Is it about my damage per mana? Should I be so deep frost? How far into arcane would you suggest? I have two other 70s, priesting and tanking seem to be simpler from a spec aspect (or I just have a lot more experience with them). Mageing is all kinda new to me.

- r0b

In the interest of the Help Me thread - a long reply...

The reason to follow a cast spell with an instant as a healer is so you can get more time outside the 5SR, so I can see why - moving from priest to mage - the habit came over with you.

But for a mage it's a really bad idea. Here's why:

Think of it this way. Ice Lance flies off your hands instantly, but for the sake of standing there and nuking, it actually isn't instant at all. It triggers the global cooldown which means you have to wait 1.5 seconds after the icelance cast before you can start casting your Frostbolt. Don't think of it as a 600 damage instant. But think of it as a 600 damage 1.5 second cast spell. That makes the icelance worth about 450 dps if your average is correct - which means it is REALLY dragging your overall dps way down. Compare with Frostbolt which, by your estimation, is doing 1700 per cast. That's 680 dps. Therefore, the more Icelances you do, the lower your dps goes until it hits 450. The more frostbolts you cast raises your dps until it hits 680. In other words, even if you never used your water elemental again, just switching to frostbolt and cutting Icelance improved your overall dps by a large margin.

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

I used to have that, and respecced out, didnt feel like it was getting me alot. However, during say a pre-25 man geared prince fight
I had to use two pots, two charges of my gem, and an evocate. Fight lasted 20 minutes. In comparison to my priest, thats ALOT of mana problems, but I dont think I should evenly compare the two.

- r0b

I think you're being a little hyperbolic here. A 20 minute fight will allow you to use far more gems than just 2 charges off the Emerald. But anyway - Clearcasting gives you 10% of your casts for free. It's like having a 10% bigger mana pool if you ignore it. If you find interesting things to do with the free mana (channeled spells or what-have-you), then it's even better.

Look at it this way, you don't give up anything helpful in raiding to get Clearcasting - so why not?

obwangkenobi · 04/21/08, 5:06 PM

Originally Posted by Antiphonal

In the interest of the Help Me thread - a long reply...

The reason to follow a cast spell with an instant as a healer is so you can get more time outside the 5SR, so I can see why - moving from priest to mage - the habit came over with you.

But for a mage it's a really bad idea. Here's why:

Think of it this way. Ice Lance flies off your hands instantly, but for the sake of standing there and nuking, it actually isn't instant at all. It triggers the global cooldown which means you have to wait 1.5 seconds after the icelance cast before you can start casting your Frostbolt. Don't think of it as a 600 damage instant. But think of it as a 600 damage 1.5 second cast spell. That makes the icelance worth about 450 dps if your average is correct - which means it is REALLY dragging your overall dps way down. Compare with Frostbolt which, by your estimation, is doing 1700 per cast. That's 680 dps. Therefore, the more Icelances you do, the lower your dps goes until it hits 450. The more frostbolts you cast raises your dps until it hits 680. In other words, even if you never used your water elemental again, just switching to frostbolt and cutting Icelance improved your overall dps by a large margin.

Thank you very much, and exactly why I started doing that, I would toss my greater heal (or flash) and tag a quick renew/shield/prayerofmending up at the same time. I never thought about that until now. Again, great idea, definately going to try that one out.

Originally Posted by Antiphonal

I think you're being a little hyperbolic here. A 20 minute fight will allow you to use far more gems than just 2 charges off the Emerald. But anyway - Clearcasting gives you 10% of your casts for free. It's like having a 10% bigger mana pool if you ignore it. If you find interesting things to do with the free mana (channeled spells or what-have-you), then it's even better.

Look at it this way, you don't give up anything helpful in raiding to get Clearcasting - so why not?

Thats brilliant, are you suggesting using your arcane missles when clearcasting procs? Thus, you get a free more expensive spell, making the mana efficiency go way above 10%?

This is good stuff, I will work on that, see what I can lose in frost to get clearcasting back.

Thanks again.

Risingstar · 04/21/08, 5:47 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Do not ice lance in PvE. Again, do not ice lance in PvE. Just to reiterate, do not ice lance in PvE. You should be doing nothing but cast Frostbolt until the boss is dead (It's an exciting spec, really). Frost is fine for T4 and T5 content, especially at lower gear levels where the boosts from Frozen Shadoweave are noticeable. T5 content isn't very friendly to Fire on many encounters, so frost or arcane aren't a bad choice.

Good advice, but slightly modify it if you have winterchill. You can:
* Ice Lance early to apply winterchill before the boss gets stable aggro
* Ice Lance in a fight when you have to move around (Gruul, Prince what have you) to make sure winterchill doesn't fall off

Other than that there should be no reason to ice lance unless you get frozen trash.

Risingstar · 04/21/08, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by Antiphonal

I think you're being a little hyperbolic here. A 20 minute fight will allow you to use far more gems than just 2 charges off the Emerald. But anyway - Clearcasting gives you 10% of your casts for free. It's like having a 10% bigger mana pool if you ignore it. If you find interesting things to do with the free mana (channeled spells or what-have-you), then it's even better.

Look at it this way, you don't give up anything helpful in raiding to get Clearcasting - so why not?

Hehe, a few builds (10/0/51, 10/48/3) are based purely on getting Clearcasting. It's sort of a requirement if you're willing to put more than 2 pts in Arcane, but yeah once gear level gets up there as a fire mage you'd rather have IV than Clearcasting for sure.

Anaxo · 04/21/08, 7:05 PM

Originally Posted by Tinybronco

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

It really depends on which fight you are talking. There's one heavy resist fight in Black Temple (Mother Shahraz), and one moderate one in Hyjal (Kaz'rogal). For Shahraz, you need to max your shadow resist gear due to Fatal Attraction. For Kaz'rogal, 150 should be fine as a DPS caster, since Mark of Kaz'rogal punishes the healers more. Nowhere else in BT/Hyjal requires resist gear as a mage.

kraa91 · 04/21/08, 7:17 PM

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

Forgive me if this is old news, but is Frost mage viable anymore in anything but 5 mans?

The World of Warcraft Armory

I work my water elem every time is comes up, I cold snap immediatly after it goes away the first time, making a longish boss fight allow me to have him 3 times, hitting about 1k each on his water bolts.

I trail each frost bolt with an icelance, buffed my frost bolt is between 1600-1800 and crits for over 5k. Ice lance is around 400-600 and crits for over 2k. I sustain about 600dps for an entire kara run.

Will this continue to scale with gear reasonably? Or will I hit a wall when it comes to 25 man raiding, and have to flip to a fire spec? Are the utility aspects of my spec useful in the raids, frost novas, slowing effects, improved blizzard, etc etc?

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, I just read up to some recent posts about this topic, but still wish to discuss if possible.

- r0b

I think you are sorely overestimating your damage. Based off your armory it is almost inconceivable that you are critting for 5k frostbolts, even buffed. My gear is substantially better than yours and I only hit mid 4k on a crit with a stolen fel armor in heroic mgt.

As people said, don't use ice lance. Frostbolt until you get 5x winters chill up, pop IV + Trinket + WE and go to town. When WE is down, cold snap and repeat.

Frost is excellent until t5 or later, and then the scaling of the spec begins to not be so great.

obwangkenobi · 04/21/08, 7:24 PM

Originally Posted by kraa91

I think you are sorely overestimating your damage. Based off your armory it is almost unconceivable that you are critting for 5k frostbolts, even buffed. My gear is substantially better than yours and I only hit mid 4k on a crit with a stolen fel armor in heroic mgt.

As people said, don't use ice lance. Frostbolt until you get 5x winters chill up, pop IV + Trinket + WE and go to town. When WE is down, cold snap and repeat.

Frost is excellent until t5 or later, and then the scaling of the spec begins to not be so great.

Must have been less than, my mistake, seemed to be that high but I should like reread my wws and see. In 5 mans, like that heroic MRt, I never go above a 3.5k-ish even with the same buff. I did take several talent points to increase the crit damage, could that be it?

I will stick to frost for a while, my point here was to determine if I need to fall out of love with my spec and get used to being a fire mage.

Thanks again.

Staffz · 04/21/08, 7:29 PM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

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 .

Thanks for the feedback!

With regards to the slots i'd replace if going fire: My biggest concern was shoulders and your answer is fantastic. Are you saying that the 10-15% DPS increase I'd see by going fire is not worth it atm?(currently w/o Frost(was testing on Doc Boom) I am sitting at 950-1000DPS) The TC numbers I saw said i'd be doing about 1200-1300 as fire.

I've gemmed the way I have because I recently bought the 5kg mount and I was concerned that blizz was going to fix EP in 2.4. Regemming makes a lot of sense! I'll look to do this in a week or so after I upgrade and gem gloves

Looking at the talent tree makes a lot of sense. Seeing as my farming is pretty much going to decline to only doing dailies, i really don't need the grinding/pvp talents.

I actually have FSW, but I grade the Scarlet Sin'dorei higher, is this a misconception? While I lose 16 damage(including the gem bonus), I gain 36 crit and a gem slot). As you can see, I don't focus in speccing for crit, but am I wrong in assuming this is a raw DPS increase? I picked up the gloves back when I was hurting for Hit rating and will probably be upgrading them. Thanks for the time in taking to respond!

kraa91 · 04/21/08, 7:35 PM

Originally Posted by obwangkenobi

Must have been less than, my mistake, seemed to be that high but I should like reread my wws and see. In 5 mans, like that heroic MRt, I never go above a 3.5k-ish even with the same buff. I did take several talent points to increase the crit damage, could that be it?

I will stick to frost for a while, my point here was to determine if I need to fall out of love with my spec and get used to being a fire mage.

Thanks again.

- r0b

I'm not sure why, since you are maxed in frost and have basically all the essential frost talents. Getting clearcasting from arcane tree may be a good idea, esp if you are having mana issues.

With my spec the way it is, I am always above anyone in comparable gear by a substantial margin. On certain fights in 10mans/25 mans, I break top 3 even with people who have wayyy better gear than me. Frost is a great spec for your goals and alot of people recommend it if you are never going to see BT/Hyjal/Sunwell. Stick with it for a while. I would not ponder the fire idea until t5 raiding is occuring, because as many have said frost does not scale as well as fire.