Hi, I'm new here today and have been browsing and reading a lot of new stuff and learning alot of what i can do to improve myself.

I am Currently raiding MH/BT as 40-0-21 and it is working pretty decently. I was just wondering what i could do to improve my DPS overall. My current rotation is spam AB till about 15-20% then Frostbolt to catch up. My guild has 1 shadow priest but he always goes to the priest (don't know why) and most of the shamans go to our melee. So im basically running alone.

I can hold about 1000 DPS alone wihtout help which i thought was good but im always getting out DPS'd by most of our DD, im the best geared mage in our guild and i usually end up around 6th after a good night of raiding.

Armory - The World of Warcraft Armory

WWS - WWS Loading... (most recent WWS i have was trying to make FB my main dmg for the raid to see if it was viable at all)

Any help at all would be very helpful. Thanks.

You don't seem to have 2nd peace of T5, that makes a huge difference in your dps. 20% more damage to AB's.
A Must if AB spam is your main dps.

Your present gear is more suited for Fire mage, you have 166 hit rating (fire needs 164), arcane 76 (127 for frost bolts).
Your legs, bracers and belt have hit gems? Why? also the +15 stam gem is a bit waste.
Change legs hit to +12 dmg and regem belt either with +10 int a& +10 spirit (more mana regen)or +12 dmg's , wrist regem with +12 dmg.
And those if you want to stay Arcane, but changing to fire not much change needed.

And the other mage in your guild has Fire gear and arcane spec.

From your WWS. You seem to use Frostbolts for main nuke.
I'd recommend you to spec fire if you do not have 2nd T5 to equip. Once you do spec back to arcane and spam AB's.
And for arcane replace hit gems with +dmg , +spirit, +int.

And try to get the SP to your group, talk with the raid leader about it. Priests do not need SP, they can use potions.
But your guilds raid caster dps is limited because of mana issues.

General note: get RAWR and input your gear , fight stats and see what will improve your dps.

On our initial Al'ar kill this week, I had a unique opportunity to lead the damage table when our Arcane Mage suffered very bad lag and our destro locks were absent. So I was intrigued to see a new guild member, Xoxicity, on his first raid with us make a strong challenge for the position. As it happened, his sad untimely death left me the spot anyway.

He was 40/0/21 specced using Frostbolt exclusively and getting very large crits. Comparing gear, he is somewhat inferior with several poor or missing enchants. He is also short of hit cap for Frostbolt. I'm wondering how he came so close to my damage and, more importantly, whether this spec might be an interesting variation for me during the final T5 stages before I switch to fire when we move into T6 content.

One difference in the fight was that I was assigned to adds during phase 1 while he was on Al'ar, thus he would have had more benefit from CoE, Misery and Winter's Chill.

I've tried to use RAWR to evaluate this question but I didn't see how to have it concentrate on frostbolt spam rather than AB cycles (which are poor as he has no T5, nevermind 2/T5) when specced arcane.

WWS Loading...

I have T5 in the bank atm. I just was trying frostbolt out as my main nuke for that raid as i said before. I put the +10hit gem in my legs to stay above 164 incase i decidded to go back to fire spec (didnt want to have to regem/swap gear) All my hit gems that ih ave currently are so i can stay above the hit cap for fire. the 15+ stam was a quick fix so i could survive HWN fight.

Which guildie is Fire gear with Arcane spec, its probably a new recruit, but if it Xabriael she is HORRIBLE, she got out DPSed on A'lar by our add tank (Ya really)

I also have

Hellfire-encased Pendant.
Firecord of the Magus
Oh badge +fire one.

In your recommendation fire seems like it would be the best thing for me to do at this impasse, but i don feel my gear is up to snuff to keep up with the DPS in my guild, also which spec would you think for Fire my arc fire i have now the the elementalist spec for Imp FB and IV.

One last thing. If i swapped out my gear for the Hellfire encased pendant i would lose some of my spell haste as well with it would the +dmg make up for the loss of spell haste from the Loop of cursed Bones?

You still are failing to address the point that haste is only an increase in damage done if the fight lasts long enough to use the extra casting speed, it doesnt matter if you have higher 'dps' because even with higher 'dps' you can still end up doing less damage in the end. And honestly when im looking at haste I dont care about a 6 second encounter, the point of PvE is not how fast you kill trash. There is no doubt haste is better than damage but it is only that way when the encounter lasts long enough for you to do the extra damage haste has given you a chance to create vs, an un-hasted individual.
If you are talking about the .2 seconds between moving and finishing the cast or moving and not finishing I would like to meet the person who can so perfectly time their movements down to tenths of a second. For the situation given by the poster of 121 haste rating that scenario doesnt even apply. If you consider someone like manly with his massive passive haste rating something like that could make sense but for what I was talking about it doesnt.

Im currently using a 40/0/21 arc build and my guild is moving back into Hyjal.

I was reading a post by Vontre that said:
Arcane mages follow a slightly different scale:
spell hit rating (to cap) > spell damage > intellect > spell crit rating > spell haste > spell penetration
Arcane mages gain little from spell haste because they are already using up their entire mana pool, therefore gain much more benefit from stats that increase dpm. Every stat increases dpm except for spell haste. The new mana regeneration formula released in 2.4 greatly increases the value of intellect, making it a viable secondary stat for Arcane specs only.

So my questions are, with my current gear The World of Warcraft Armory I have focused alot on haste. Reading through the forums on arcane mages it seems that this may be a waste of gem slots. I also have some gear pieces with blue gem slots and im wondering if I should regem them for spirit.

Is spirit more of a consideration at higher gear levels than what im currently wearing?
Would it be better to drop the +haste gem for +int?

I noticed when using rawr my dps increases with gear that has more spirit on it for instance getting the Shroud of the Lore`nial (which im currently saving for to try out). This is what prompted me to post here.

Looking over my gear does anyone have suggestion on pushing more dps from regeming? I noticed rawr almost never list haste gems in gear and wondered if haste was really that under par with int or dam/crit gems.

Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions.

How close to 130% threat can one safely be in MH&BT?

We've cleared MH&BT and I try to stay under 100% at all times. Can I safely go higher on some bosses?

Mischieval
I raided Arcane spec till i got 4pc bonus T6. I gemmed every yellow slot with +int and every blue slot with Spirit. The bigger your mana pool the more damage you put out.

Natabata
If you are good about controling your threat you can sit at 129% threat the entire fight and never pull aggro. As arcane i never had this problem but for fire i sit between 100%-110% and im fine.

It's the one in the WWS Lorrenzo.

You'd better choose staying Arcane of switch back to fire. Otherwise you are just hurting your dps
And regemming is part of mages life. Since 1 new peace might just make everything out of balance again.

If Arcane then you should regem and use that other T5 what ever part it is, and start nuking with AB spam.
You'd be close to your locks dps level or even pass it.
But for that you need as much mana regen as possible, so gemming for Int and Spirit (and maybe change to gear that has spirit in it too, like badge boots)
GET the SP to your group and the resto shaman too

If your going to Fire then the Hellfire pendant is better than Loop of cured bones.
And getting Belt of Blasting made for you would make out the hit from gems.
Otherwise stay with Anetheron's noose just regemming it with +12 dmg
Spec 2/48/11 for IV
And get the SP

For Najentus fight , better option is to wear few peace of pvp gear for that extra stamina or one or 2 high stamina gear.
Do not gem your self for 1 fight. get different gear for it.

The reason for int and spirit:
AB spam (buffed, no haste, no lag) ~2110 mp5s
Single cast costs 633 of mana.
So bigger your mana pool(int) , but bigger mana regen too (spirit) = more dmg.

This is not true, I experienced bad problems going above 100% threat on some bosses because some bosses have specific attacks that targets or not targets the highest one on threat. Example: Kaz'Rogal, normally your tank is immume for his 'War Stomp' ability (5 second stun), but a few weeks ago when I was at around 105% threat of our main tank he got stunned, the started to rampage around killing 2 people highest on threat including me and ran back to the tank as soon his stun ended.

I noticed the same on many trash mobs, if I went above 100% of the tank on for example akama trash the tank would get banished and the raid would be fucked.

Same counts for other bosses with special ability's that do or do not attack the highest on threat, and there are quite a few of them. So my advise would be to be sure about this before you go above 100% threat, and tbh with a good tank it's not a problem staying below 100% threat.

What I dont think you understand is the difference between DPS and actual damage output. Damage output is not measured in analog whereas DPS is. And no when comparing against an individual geared +dmg and an individual geared +haste there will be a difference in the damage done by each based on the length of the enounter.

I still cant believe some of the stubborness about this. Answer this question for me: Does adding haste make your fireballs do more raw damage? Yes or no?

If your answer is no then how can you argue that hastes benefits are independent of time?

I'm sure Keldarn understands damage output and DPS just fine, as do all the others who have tried many times in this and other threads to put a stop to the silliness about haste only benefitting in large discrete intervals or over a fight exceeding some arbitrary length.

There's really nothing more to say that isn't simply repeating what has been explained clearly already. You recognize that increasing the damage per cast, for a fixed number of casts, produces more total damage. Increasing the number of casts at a fixed damage per cast produces more total damage also. It is fallacious to posit a fixed fight length of precisely enough time to allow an integer number of unhasted casts and declare that adding a little haste doesn't produce any extra casts.

I see Goedel responded while I did your research for you so I'll just post the link. Here's a helpful post on the subject (read Manly's rebuttal following):
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t18441-m...10/#post576209

Perhaps we could use a section in the informational thread post or even a short thread itself titled "The Spell Haste Fallacy" that we could point to every time this comes up.

Dorrinal what if that one extra cast in manly's 'rebuttal' doesnt make up the damage done by the extra damage on the other caster? Then what? You got an extra cast but did that make up the extra damage the other guy was doing more than you on every cast he got to do? In 30 seconds its not likely but what about longer?

That's why you look at overall DPS: If one point of haste doesn't yield about the same as one point of spelldamage you're obviously not going to focus on haste. You can simulate spell sequences but it will always be based on parameters you can't really know for sure.

The idea here is that you do the same or more damage over time with haste as without (but other damage stats), the issue that if you look at fixed fight lengths one or the other comes out on top based on unrealistic assumptions (and ignoring issues like "what if those 0.1 seconds less cast time mean 1 more nuke", the influence of pushback, etc.), the answer that you don't look at one isolated incident of a fight that lasts exactly X seconds but that you average out the DPS you expect with all your stats.

I don't see why we're even discussing this as there's no point in knowing how long you'll be chain-casting in any given fight, so what, because *maybe* your faster casting will not close the gap to slower nukes that hit harder under certain circumstances, so you're not gonna get haste at all?

hi , im a mage raiding ssc/tk and early stages of mh/bt

im doing around 1.1k dps unbuffed in 40/0/21
and around 1.5k dps buffed
my main nuke is using frost bolts. i realize myself not doing enough dps..

my armory link : The World of Warcraft Armory

pros out there.. please help me if u can.. im thinking of going fire spec , but not sure if my gear is suitable.. as i heard that fire spec usually gem for more haste.. i have some haste gears.. but i would lose crit. hit is not a problem for me i guess.. just wondering if i should spec for fire or even just regem my gears now for more dps

my main nuke being frost bolt is becos i have a winter's chill buff from my other mage in raid and i realize that if i spam frostbolt i would do better dps and more mana conserving compared from doing AB rotations.. becos of the high crit chance i get and the huge crits i do..

i chose 40/0/21 becos i heard from a friend that 40/0/21 will be the best spec before 4/8 t6.

pros out there please give me some advice..

thx in advance and sorry for the lousy english.

Minigriffith yes I did read that reply and even replied to it myself, I said the point of PvE is not trash but the boss encounters. And if you read what you just wrote:

You would see that after a minute and a half Caster B would get 31 fireballs in, caster A sadly would only have gotten 30 in. But wait theres more 30*100 = 3000! Thats the same amount as the haste casters 1 extra fireball! So actually its only after 1 minute and 30 seconds that you would see a benefit from haste in terms of damage (but wait I thought the length of an encounter didnt matter??). I understand that haste increases DPS but Ill say it again.

DPS is an analog measurement, damage is incremental. Higher DPS does not always equate to more total damage done because of that fact. You can argue and yell at me all you want but thats how it is. Its completely naieve to think that haste which is based off time has nothing to do with it.

And for the record, Im gearing towards haste myself because haste is the best when talking about itemization and how to increase your damage yield. Thats not the point of my arguement. The whole reason for this discussion is that hastes benefits will become more prevalent the longer an encounter progresses. Im sorry you cant argue with that, its simple math. Stop thinking of damage as a linear function and think of it as a step function and you will see what I mean.

This is what I don't understand. There are currently two prominent threads about how to raid as arcane mages:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t18441-m...tional_thread/
[Mage] Raiding as Arcane mage post 2.4

I mean true, there are some misinformation in those threads. Still, why am I seeing more and more 40/0/21 specced mages posting that they're using frost bolts as their primary nuke? It is simply wrong. The strength of arcane build is that you can turn raw mana into raw damage very quickly using arcane blasts, you should only use frost bolts as fillers. You're not doing enough DPS because you're playing your spec wrong. It's as simple as that.

I believe rising means Arcane Blasts but I agree with him. The main point of raiding 40/0/21 is that your mana pool is your damage pool. AB burns through mana very quickly so it is important to gem int and spirit and maximize mp5 while casting. AB is an extremely powerful nuke and is made even more so with the 2pt5 bonus and should be your main nuke for your spec, not frostbolt. Frostbolts should be used as filler dps to regen mana.

Did I say which one is better than the other? I do not remember making a claim. I simply disproved your circular argument using your own circular argument. Those few scenarios I posted clearly shows the other side of the story. As many posters have already tried to show you, how long the fight last and whether you get extra cast in with haste, or failed to get extra cast in without haste is irrelevant. Spell haste and spell damage has the exact same effect. Claims such as "spell haste increases dps but may not increase overall damage" also has the counterpart "spell dmg increases dps but may not increase overall dmg". From my scenario, at 1min30sec, the total dmg matches with each other, and the cycle of "unlucky" scenarios for both hasted and non-hasted casters repeats. (Notice that I actually gave A's fireball dmg an 3.333% increase over B, and B's spell haste 3.333% more than A. However, 53 spell haste will surely give 3.33% but 53 spell dmg not gonna give you 100 more non-crit on fireball. You agreed on the fact that spellhaste is an awesome stat in term of item budget. I would definitely take it over crit.)

EDIT: That one extra fireball has a chance to crit as well, potentially be better off. I personally only gem haste+spelldmg gem for orange slots for socket bonus. If you want to get into "spell haste > spell dmg after some spell dmg #" discussion, I would agree simply because it is superior in cooldown stacking with heroism.\

EDIT2: After reading your post some more, it seems that we may be talking about the same thing. So our conclusion is, claims such as "spell haste only good when fight is long enough to get that one extra cast in" is irrelevant.

Arcane *Blast*, but yeah

Fureur, the whole point of 40/0/21 is spamming Arcane Blast, the more mana regen (Shadow Priest, Mana Spring Totem, Judgement of Wisdom) you can get ahold of, the more time you spend spamming AB under the influence of T5's 2pc bonus. You only switch to Frostbolt spam if you're low on mana and have to wait for pot/gem/evo to cool down, and stack your cooldowns during the AB spam phase. If you want to spam Frostbolt, spec Frost (10/0/51).

Furthermore, to evaluate gear (and other specs) use Rawr and/or Vontre's Magegraf. Only after you went through those (basic) steps you can eg. post a WWS report and ask for more specific advice.