The following is my opinion, coming from someone who has played both arcane and fire extensively: Brutallus is a six-minute fight. For six minutes, you stand there and pew pew your little heart out. AB spam is a wonderful BT/Hyjal farm spec, but it does not have the longevity to compete with fire on a fight as lengthy and concentrated as Brutallus. You can get away with not having to evocate on Brutallus as fire (10 seconds of DPS loss in 2-piece T6), you can even use destro pots and flame caps instead of mana pots and mana emeralds. That would be impossible as arcane.

With the gear you've described, fire's just better. Eventually, after you get your hands on some more Sunwell goodies, the thought of wearing two pieces of T5 will make your stomach turn. I love arcane, but I recognize its inferiority to fire after you're rocking T6 and Sunwell digs. Lookin' pretty sexy in the x-pak, though

As for a specific spec? To be honest, I've been rolling with 0/40/21 since we started Sunwell. I can ice block out of two burns (or arcane buffet debuffs, or encapsulates), I get at least three IVs per fight...it's pretty sweet. And what do I lose, 2% crit? Meh! I'd suggest trying 2/48/11 and 0/40/21 and seeing which one you like more. Hope that helps!

Edit: Found what I was looking for. ^^

I don't know who you armoried for mages, but the core raiders in EJ is manly, ishaxa and fix. Xanenuroch is sunwell geared but raids with another guild. All other mages are either alts or non core raiders..

I'm not sure if i really am posting for help, but i would like to know what people think...

This is my armory.

I just want to know what people think about the spec I'm running right now. I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, due to the fact that my guild disbanded the day i repeced. I don't think it will gimp my damage in any way, rather i think it will help my damage, at least on fights suck as Archimonde where the infernos are immune to fire damage. Or its either supremus or illidan thats immune to fire also, but i can never remember which. Over all i think this spec should help my damage on those fights primarily as opposed to the 0/40/21 for people who want to repec.

You're giving up Fire utility talents such as Dragon's Breath and Blastwave for points in Frost which aren't really going to help you at all. If your guild is farming Illidan then being Fire is fine. If it's learning Illidan then you should be considering going Frost if phase 2 is an issue rather than using this mediocre jack of all trades spec. Really, you gain nothing from this point distribution because your Frostbolts are still terrible compared to your Fireballs. Going 21 Frost for Cold Snap Icy Veins is already less dps than a traditional x/4x/11 spec, and by not getting Cold Snap you're just making it worse than it already is.

I can't think of a single "infernal" type mob in tier 6 that is immune to Fire, and Archimonde has no adds. So I have no idea what that part of your post is about. Your grammar is atrocious anyhow so it's hard to tell.

He probably means Anetheron.

e: whose adds are not immune to fire. A . . . l'ar?

The only thing immune to fire in T6 are Illidan's Flame and Mindcontrolled Destruction Warlocks.
You'll only use Frostbolts on Illidan's Flames, where you're better off respeccing if you're (re)learning the fight.

So, the points in Frost above 11 are mostly wasted.
You'll only gain random utility in fire, but you're very likely to painfully miss 2/2 Arcane Subtlety in Hyjal.


The extra talents to chose are mostly flavour.
I picked Improved Blizzard because it was handy in Hyjal and Zul'Aman in addition to Subtlety/Blast Wave/Dragon's Breath.
The alternative would have been Molten Shields and Incineration for very minor DPS increases.

Wouldn't Arcane subtly not matter play a large roll once you are hit capped or near it? Right now am at 157 spell hit, so wouldn't that equal less then 1% resist?

Did you mean arcane subtly for the threat reduction on arcane spells, or for the penetration? Cause I could be wrong here but what was told was that Penetration was for partial resists, which don't really matter that much when you are near hit cap.

You're terribly confused. The point of Arcane Subtlety is the -40% threat on Arcane Explosion with that spec.

40/0/21 is the way to go if you have at least 2 peices of Tier 5. AB spamming and frostbolt spam for mana regen. Frostbolts will hit considerably low but the crits are excellent. You need very little +spell hit for this spec. A shadow priest is highly recommended.

2/48/11 is the best spec for 4 pc Tier 6 and start stacking haste.

40/0/21 with 2 pc Tier 5 will beat any spec in dps until 4 pc Tier 6.

Here is a link to my armory to see the spec:
The World of Warcraft Armory

Here is a link to a recent WWS to prove the point:
Wow Web Stats

Hi, I lately got the Amani Devining Stick and tried using the macro I found on this site:

#showtooltip Evocation
/cast Evocation
/equip Amani Devining Stick
/equip Scryer's Blade of Focus
/equip Fetish of the Primal Gods

Which works as intended up to the point I click it again to reequip the MH+OH and what happens usually is that only the dagger gets equiped and I'm left with the off-hand still in bag and having to equip it manually.

My question is, am I doing something wrong or is the macro broken?

Greetings.

I'm a recent mage, so to speak. Prior to working on Illuria(The World of Warcraft Armory), you can see that my main has been a lock. Currently my girl here is a frost mage and while I did a long stint up to level 65 or so as fire, I started to experiment after with first Arcane/Frost, then pure frost in my current spec. I've decided I like full frost better for the time being(though I'm not adverse to some adjustments to my current spec).

My situation is this. I've been 70 for about a week and have been making general progress in a few directions. I'm building up some honor to get the Warstaff, which will be of great help. I've started stockpiling Shadowcloth to make some Frozen Shadoweave. I've been doing dailies to build gold for a fast flyer and the occasional instance for some gear(as can be seen from my armory link).

Where I'm uncertain is precisely the path to take for gearing up. I'm starting off, obviously, with gearing for Kara/ZA. Hit is an obvious thing I need to build and I have been gathering a few good hit items so far to hit 16%. But other than that, I'm considering just what to go for when it comes to my gearing.

Haste is a big question as I've obtained a few upgrades from Magister's with haste on them. Enough to shave .1 sec off my frostbolts. Small, but a start. The question is, should I keep trying to get haste? Is there a certain number of points in it, to get a certain level of speed that's good for my gear level or is it too early to bother with it? I've looked over the items I'll be likely to have access to(I'm not planning on any 25 man raiding before Wrath) and the pickings for haste are spare, meaning it would be unlikely for me to gather much before time came for raiding.

There's also the question of which would be better for one such as myself. Example: Robe of Departed Spirits vs. Frozen Shadoweave Robe. Would it be better for me to pick something out with 16 more spell damage for frost spells and sockets or an item with 35 haste in its favor? I may never get to the point of making that decision, but the fundamentals of knowing what the proper stat balance is at my current gear level and above would be helpful for the future.

If haste isn't for me, then it simplifies things. Gathering together damage and crit after hit is a no brainer, really. The only thing after that is making sure I have enough mana to last out two icy veins. I got to do Kara with a group as a pick up(hence my lovely new hat) and went OOM on Prince after spending an evocate, two mana pots and a hit off my gem. Sorta suggests that haste might not be king for me after all since I don't have to longevity to back up spending my mana faster yet. Though, truth be told, it wasn't too quickly that I did so, so I don't have too far to go.

As well, any tips for a new frosty are welcome. I've taken a liking to frost overall, so though I wouldn't mind some spec suggestions to improve myself, I'd like to stay with frost as a prime source of damage. I'm not married to the water elemental, but I do like having ice barrier. I do mostly solo work and having the buffer of a shield in AoE damage fights is good at times and it helps in the solo realm, which I spend good deal of time in.

I've glanced through some of the thread here and most of the talk is about T5 and T6 level content, which is above my current paygrade(though my lock has been through Hyjal and BT up to Mother). Prior to this, I'd been focused on how to bring up an Affliction lock, so things like haste didn't factor for me. Though on the basics, being a mage isn't too hard, I'd like a deeper understanding of it from the low end raid perspective. I might not need to put that much focus into it, but knowing more will help in the long run.

Thanks in advance for any help.

For one thing, the Amani Divining Staff is wrongly spelled.

However, that should not be the reason of the problem. I imagine that the staff gets equipped at the same time as the offhand, which prevents it from equipping. One thing which works smoothly is to change the macro to a weapon type sensitive one:

#showtooltip Evocation
/cast Evocation
/equip [noequipped:Staves]Amani Divining Staff
/equip [equipped:Staves]Scryer's Blade of Focus
/equip [equipped:Staves]Fetish of the Primal Gods

It should work perfectly. If you don't have the Divining Staff equipped, you switch to one; when you do have it equipped, it switches to your DPS weapon/OH.

At your current gear level, an arcane spec (40/0/21) would give you a substantial spell dmg increase through Mind Mastery and adress your mana problems, though your spirit is extremly low.
With a few upgraded items (~ +200 spell dmg) you could than switch back to deep frost.

Hit and spell dmg are your main goals at the moment. Never gear for crit if you have (good) alternatives.
Your Water Elemental scales only with spell dmg, not with haste, crit or hit.
Haste isn't really bad, but spell dmg and hit are more important.

If you continue to have mana problems, consider 18points in arcane for Meditation. (18/0/43).

Oh and http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t18441-m...tional_thread/


PS: I would suggest the arena S2 MH as weapon.

I have looked over that mentioned thread a bit. It has been quite useful.

Last time I tried out Arcane/Frost, it felt anemic. Though I suppose after hearing about mixing Ice Shards and Spell Power, I expected some significant oomph when it came to crit damage. Of course, this was back when I had a bit less in the damage department. I do recall someone telling me they had 4k crits or some such when they had it, suggesting it was near my not quite 70 gear level. Of course, he wasn't really clear, so I suppose I might have misunderstood.

When you say 40/0/21 I assume you mean something like this? Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I believe that's close to if not what I had before. If so, I'll say I'm going to miss Frostbite, though I suppose until Fingers of Frost comes to be, shatter combos won't be of much use against bosses. Assuming, of course, tossing in ice lance is good DPS when it comes to that and steady boss battles. That means Shatter is of little use as well.

As to the recommendation of the Main Hand.. I assume the less hit/no crit is fine as you mentioned not gearing specifically for crit. Feels a bit off, to tell the truth, but I can give it a go. Though this means I'll have to look about for an off hand and do a bit more work on EotS rather than AV. And it would limit me to hopefully picking up the Lamp of Peaceful Radiance from Arc before trading up for Netherspite's off-hand, looking towards hit cap.

Sooka,

I've just abandoned a happy career as full frost when I acquired the 2/T5 set last week. I would recommend the frozen shadoweave set. Not only is it excellent gear for its iLevel, you obtain it on a parallel track to drops and badge goods so end up gearing quicker.

You can safely stick with Frostbite and Shatter throughout Kara. They won't do much good there but soloing will be more fun. Frostbite only starts causing serious mischief on striders at Lady Vashj.

Note that the frostbolt ghost hit in elemental precision is still present so you need just 126 hit rating and should make that a reasonably high priority.

Just a small correction, but the Towering Infernals during Anetheron are not immune to fire damage as someone pointed out. Ive often wondered if this was an oversight or intentional when I learnt the fight.

For what its worth, these are both great talents for Felmyst. Not just for the actual damage, but the disorient/snare allows your raid to run off easier when shes doing a Dusting. Dazes have got our tanks kills before in this manner. But sadly the rest of the instance doesnt really cater for mage aoe strengths. (Lets not talk about M'uru and flamestrike vs soc). Looking towards WOTLK, the new living bomb and Blizzard mechanic changes start to feel more promising.

I actually run a spec similar to that on the frost side for fooling around in battlegrounds and solo questing, so I have an idea what the frost half of your equation is doing. What you get is a frostbolt that works ok as an opener, so you can zap stuff longer before it gets to you. But don't kid yourself. The frostbolt is significantly inferior to the fireball in damage, and while it's better than an untalented frostbolt on fire immune content, it's not anywhere close to fireball in impact. It's even worse than scorch. (indeed with my "fooling around" spec, I don't use fireball at all - using those points for impact and molten shields...scorch becomes the primary nuke, with frostbolt the opener, unless fighting fire elementals)

Dragon Breath is not useful if your pulls are always 100% smooth, but it is a godsend when something gets loose of the tank. You drop it and the tank has 3s to get control, without the dangerous side-effects of frost nova (the monster beats on whatever is near it). It's also useful as an opener on close range AOE (if you pull aggro, you can get 3s into invis) or as something to do if you're fighting trash and want something fast to finish the wounded trash and do some damage to the next target. It is a good utility spell, and slightly increases AOE DPS.

Blast wave has a daze effect that nothing is immune to, halving its speed. It's another utility tool for when a pull goes bad, and like dragon breath, also increases AOE burst DPS and absolute DPS. Both dragon breath and blast wave have synergies with combust and ignite that your arcane explosion lacks.

If you don't have dragon breath or blast wave, you won't be impacted as much by loss of arcane subtlety - your damage rampup is a lot slower on AOE, so it takes longer before you appreciate the 40% threat dump it provides.

Against a boss, dragon breath and blast wave are really only useful if there are adds or other weak aoe targets, but a fair number of boss fights feature such things. They're more useful clearing trash to the bosses.

Hello everyone, my mage is nearing 70 and being a stickler for planning out optimal upgrade paths I've started to play around with Rawr and magegraf to get an idea of what my badge upgrade order should be, what instances/crafted gear I should be aiming for first, and when I should switch from frost to fire.

Looking at the Rawr setting filling in reasonable buffs is easy enough, but I'm unsure of what would be reasonable values for DPS time and fragmentation, and well as interrupt frequency.

My first question is: given a WWS report for a fight, is there a good way to determine appropriate values for those 3 items? I'd think that DPS time would simply correspond to the DPS time % column in the WWS report, but I'm unsure of how to come up with reasonable value for fragmentation and interrupt frequency.

Secondly: Realistically, I'm not going to be regemming and respeccing between every single fight, so does anyone have a suggestion for reasonable average values of the above, and additionally fight length, for tier 4 content? tier 5 content?

Thanks in advance for your help

Hm...I think RAWR is more intended to focus on the fight you have trouble with, than to predict with 100% accuracy what is best in all fights.

If you don't like your damage output but have plenty of mana, pick conditions that show DPS well (few interrupts, not too long fight time). If you run OOM, then pick conditions that are long enough to expose that. If you only struggle during high interrupt fights, choose a fight like that. If you don't know what will cause you trouble, get some raid reports from your guild on their last KZ run or whatever and look at fight times (this can vary a lot from guild to guild depending on the power of the tanks to establish threat and DPS to make the most of it) and read up on the strats to know how the fight is likely to go with respect to interrupts.

Just as an example from KZ, for me Nightbane has two levels of interrupt (dropping fire under you so you have to move, plus flight phases) and is both long duration with AOE phases, so mana conservation is also something I have to think about and timing cooldowns so I don't waste them in a flight phase is important. By contrast, the Prince is pretty much a straight up tank and spank, with only an occasional need to move a little to avoid infernals....it's often the benchmark I use to gauge my DPS performance.

For a mage the significant itemization difference is mostly "Am I an arcane mage with 2T5 bonus?" or "Am I some other kind of mage". The former is in a battle with the mana bar, not threat and gems/equips accordingly. The latter is weighting straight up DPS increases in gear vs itemization costs and gems/equips accordingly.

Actually there is a third itemization axis. "Do I die in ways more stam would fix?" Consider stam/resil until you stop dying.

Dorvan,

For a new 70, there isn't much to be gained from tweaking RAWR fight conditions. The default setup will be fine to show you the most effective upgrades. Frost will be fine throughout T4 & T5 content, but unless you opt for the frozen shadoweave set (which is extremely good value for the effort to acquire), you can switch per fight (Hydross, Al'ar, Vashj) as required.

Hi, thanks,

I've tried it with the conditional equips it doesn't seem to help, moreover it works perfectly when I'm not channeling ie. Evocation isn't ready, but if I start channeling and then equip it becomes broken, I can't even equip the staff lately.

Can anyone confirm that you can still use macros of this type while channeling?

Thanks.