• Mjollnir

http://elitistjerks.com/f40/t14250-m...ell_selection/
Read this, and rethink mage cycles entirely. What the above poster posted applies.

 

Afabar

Considering your 54 hit rating and your Kz/heroic gear it might be true.
But I don't think this topic is made for throwing affirmation like those you did, without any proof.

 

Nurru

To put this simply and bluntly: No one cares that you think Arcane is good at whatever tier of raiding you're at. There are countless posts explaining when and why arcane is bad and frankly we're sick of posts like yours making outlandish claims with no proof other than "HAY GUYS I DO GOOD DEEPS IN MY RAID."

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Duamil

No worries, your thoughts were uniquely moronic.

 

rudyrocky

I have read through this forum post and still have a question. My guild is presently in Kara and in Gruul's.

I have been increasing my hit rating, and I am now at 166. My spec is 2/46/13. I have read that the max number for fire mages is 164. I have elemental precision, but my hit rating in the armory shows only 13.16%. I know that I read that elemental precision is not giving the additional 3% needed.

My question is, should I continue to load up on hit to get to 16%, which at my level will take away from +damage since I will have to go with +8 spell hit gems, or should I just leave it the way it is and wait for the bug to be removed?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...helm&n=Haganah

 

Kandir

Rudy, this was more a question to be posed in the "Help me please" thread, but the magic number for hit rating is -- as posted on the first page of this thread -- 164. Anything more than that is wasted. Swapping your shoulder gems out for veiled topazes and replacing your glove enchant with +20spell would be better for you.

 

Dustwhisper

Armory/character sheet does not show talented hit. You are indeed sitting at 16.16% hit.

No, you have enough, and never use +8 hit gems, +5dmg +4hit > +8hit in net gain.

 

rudyrocky

Thanks for the help. I wasn't sure where to post it, but I knew that this thread had discussed the hit cap.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...helm&n=Haganah

 

Caloni

Sorry if I missed something, but I looked through all the pages...

The base chance is 83%. You need 12.6 to get 1 one % point. You need a spell hit of 164 to cap out.

164 / 12.6 = 13%

83 + 13 = 96%

I thought we needed 99% to cap out for a fire spec?

I'm sure I missed something. Could someone please explain.

Thanks.

 

Nurru

You're not factoring in Elemental Precision. The post above yours explains this actually.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Kikler

I don't want to sound harsh but fire does do a lot more damage , trying to explain the obvious to people that put a lot more effort on this than you is kind of hilarious , just do your self a favor and specc fire ;-)

 

galzohar

I have to agree PoM pyro is very good if you sit most of the fight wondering what you're doing and only attack for a little bit once every 3 minutes while ap/pom are up..... That way you won't reach the mana limit and AP/PoM-pyro will be a large portion of your DPS and will beat fireball spamming, but your DPS will still suck...

If you actually bother doing DPS as much as you can, arcane simply doesn't cut it in 2.3.

 

◊ Kaubel

Why are people still commenting on a post that's over a week old and was beat to death already?

 

Duodecimal

Because he didn't listen to my advice.

 

Lepew

As more feedback on 40/0/21 was solicited, here is my experience. Right now I have just got the 2pcT5 bonus, and AB spam is out bursting my old fire spec. In long drawn out, wide window fights where I can control and time cooldowns well, fire prevails.

I tried heavy arcane (43+/x/x), and this was not working out well for ZA timed runs...the sore point is AM is a mana pig and you don't have much time to sit for full mana if you are going for timed loot. I needed a high efficiency nuke that I could chuck out all day long, holding mana for AOE times, and the frost spec suits me better with efficient frost bolt. Most of the power for fire is higher in the tree, but frost benefits well from low tier investments.

Real boss fights involve timing your cooldowns to dps windows, and this is where theorycraft can be misleading. IF you have a narrow window of time in which to DPS followed by longer periods of time where you are running around etc, the slow rampup of fire spec is noticably inferior. This is where blast spamming shines.

If you are not speed pulling trash, blast spamming shines because you can DPS sooner and harder, and sit for full mana by the time the next pull comes up. All you really need is enough mana to last the pull and enough time to recoup it post pull. Slow raid groups can really make AB spamming for trash worth it.

If you have tank threat issues, blast spamming shines. I have been farming a lot of badges in anticipation of 2.4 loot, and not always can I enjoy salvation in a 5 man, so having 40% threat reduction built in helps a great deal.

If you have something that goes through a threat wipe, blast spamming is good because ignite tics wont limit your fire dps window (Hydross).

As far as AOE goes, the fire cycle for me was flamestrike, blastwave, AE til aggro, then dragonbreath, and AE spam. For light trash like Kara this is plenty. For prolongued AOE, this is lacking. AE spam in an arcane build works well for higher HP AoE.

My central issues with AB are mana and spell pushback. If I want to DPS through interrupts, I need to go to an uninterruptable. Keeping 2pcT4 for uninterruptable fireball/frostbolt helps really fill out a 40/21/0 or 40/0/21 spec, since your elemental nuke can do what AM does in a full Arcane build.

As far as trinkets use goes, popping AP+IV for frostbolt spam, then blast spamming to about 20% mana, and going into frostbolt spam until I can get mana back works well for me. Alternatively you can begin with the blast spam while the tank builds threat, then do the cooldown/FB spam. When 2.4 comes out and AB can be hasted to 1.0s, then blowing trinkets and AP and IV on AB spam may be worth it, particularly since the new no pushback IV will offset the spell pushback issue with AB. I am eagerly awaiting our theorycrafters to tell me which way is best. I suspect the answer is not pat, being a function of fight duration and how much of a DPS window you can get. Regardless, my personal experience backs up the theorycrafters prediction that stacking trinkets and cooldowns gets the most out of those trinkets and cooldowns.

 

Myrelle

Yo all!

My first post here, so if this is in the wrong area or it has already been posted and discussed plz just send me to that place. I have been digging though the message boards here for 3 hours, and searching came up with bubkis, so plz help me if I need it.

Anyway I was an Arcane mage (shut up, that is not what this post is about) who is planning to go Fire in the next few day here. My questions are about the 2/48/11 build.

Q1: Are Pyroblast/Blast Wave/Dragon's Breath necessary, or even useful for high end raiding (SSC right now)?
Q1b: Is Blazing Speed necessary to take, or is it just nifty?

I have never played deep fire b4, so if I did not take those talents I would not be crippled with out them. And I am considering using those points, plus the Blazing Speed points, plus 1 point from Incineration to get 2 points in Clear casting. I am only concerned with boss dmg (trash is trash), and Arcane Explosion is good enough AE for me for now.

Q2: So what do people (Votre and Pintofbrew) think of a 7/43/11 Talent Build?

Q3: In the frost section from the build link in Votre's spreadsheet for the 2/48/11 build, 5/5 Imp Frostbolt, and 2/3 Permafrost are used to get the necessary points for IV. Is there a reason for this, or could I just as easily put my points into Frost Warding and Imp Frost Nova (for the minor bonuses and soloing dailies)?

 

gcbirzan

Q1: I find Pyroblast completely useless, I noticed the other day on Zul'jin I didn't even train it and only noticed after a week :-). You do however need it for blast wave, which along side dragon's breath are nice to have for more AoE which will come in useful, at the very least on Morogrim, Solarian, and Kael.
Q1b: It's just useless. I can think of no case where you might actually benefit from it.

Q2: I did toy around with that idea, but then came to the conclusion that just chugging mana pots and having some AoE/rudimentary CC capabilities is probably worth more than two points in arcane concentration + three in arcane focus. You should really get a SP, though, makes life much easier.

Q3: In frost, I usually take improved frost nova, for, again, better AoE/CC. Frostwarding... I never saw much point in it, since I never use frost armour anyway and the only boss that comes to mind that has frost damage is Hydross, whose Water Tomb is an AoE so not reflectable (not that in his water form you could do any frost damage to him :-) )

 

Kewangeder

That's been the problem with improved fire/frost ward since MC - any mob that throws fire or cold at you is invariably immune to it. They're relegated to PvP as a result, if that.

 

Nurru

Pyroblast and Blastwave are just matters of preference. Pyroblast is worthless in nearly every situation so I preferred to go the imp Flamestrike route due to MoE + 50% Flamestrike crit being amusing in Hyjal. In PvE, Blazing Speed is nearly as worthless.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

TheAdept

I am not an expert but I am an arcane mage and I believe I do fine in raids here is what I just worked up and posted on our guild site to explain what I do in raids as an arcane mage and still do good dps/damage.


Here is a look at my build and some numbers associated with it. For information about your damage, DPS or DPM you can use an addon called Theorycraft2 (curse gaming or google it). You can get an idea of what your damage or DPS will be by changing your talents using TC without making the changes so you can get an idea what will be the best setup for you with your equipped gear or even theoretical gear. There is very little posted about Arcane builds and there is a ton of misinformation about it too, I am by no means an authority but here is my build and some of the logic I have behind it.

One of the first mistakes I think many mages make is the wrong gear for their build, this includes gems. In general I have found that if you are Fire or Frost you want +spell dmg and as Arcane you need a mix of +spell crit and +intel. I think this is the key area most ppl miss; The fact that the Arcane build is reliant on intel and critical hit. I had a balance of crit gems socketed while acquiring the gear I have now but I get enough spell crit from that gear to go intel on gems now. The next issue with the Arcane build is the fact that high burst damage requires a lot of mana so here is where intel becomes a factor. You need a large enough mana pool to be able to sustain some burst damage but you also need a good spell rotation for long boss fights in raids. Here is a look at my talents and then my spell rotations and data.

I am Arcane and have been since a little after the patch, I was fire before that and was actually never frost. I knew what items I wanted to acquire months ago for my build, this is important too since arcane is so much different from fire or frost, you need different gear. For an arcane build the “Badge” gear from Shat is the best (with a few exceptions of course) but the badge gear can be acquired by anyone. The same will be holding true for Sunwell in 2.4, there are some good badge pieces including weapon and chest for an arcane build to be had when the patch go’s live so save badges. Now for the facts:

Arcane 48
Fire 13
Frost 0

Arcane
Arcane Subtlety: 2/2 Arcane Focus: 3/5 Imp Arcane Mis: 0/5
Wand Spec: 0/2 Magic Absorb: 5/5 Arcane Concentr:5/5
Magic Att: 0/2 Arcane Impact: 3/3 Arcane Fort: 1/1
Imp Mana Sh: 0/2 Imp Counter Spl: 2/2 Arcane Med: 3/3
Imp Blink: 0/2 Presence of Mind: 1/1 Arcane Mind: 5/5
Pris Cloak: 0/2 Arcane Inst: 3/3 Arcane Potency: 3/3
Emp Arc Msl: 3/3 Arcane Power: 1/1 Spell Power: 2/2
Mind Mastery: 5/5
Slow: 1/1

Fire
Imp Fireball: 0/5 Impact: 5/5
Ignite: 5/5 Flame Throwing: 2/2 Imp Fire Blast: 0/3
Incinerate: 0/2 Imp Flame Strike: 0/3 Pyroblast: 1/1 Brng Soul: 0/2


Ok; the biggest thing here I have different from the “conventional wisdom” is that I don’t use arcane missile in my rotation much and didn’t even have empowered till recently and still do not have Improved Arcane Missile. I have a rotation that uses pyroblast on a boss fight with of course Arcane Blast. The only time I cast Missiles is when I get a Clearcast during a boss fight, I will post some basic numbers in a minute and why I do that rotation. I also have Magic Absorption, it is usefull only in specialized cases but I like it, a 5% jump in mana during a fight is a nice perk and I can tank illhoof adds with this skill in full fire gear and low mana and I think it may be useful in Sunwell but that’s speculation. Some ppl also don’t go for the Arcane Fortitude but it really can help keep you alive when you take a shot and in the patch its getting doubled. I also have improved counterspell mostly to just pull casters, maybe not the greatest raid skill but useful everywhere else and it can interrupt bosses in some cases even if they are immune to the silence. I also didn’t have Empowered Arcane Missile for a long time and did have prismatic cloak, hopefully I have enough Stamina now to survive but contrary to other posts I have seen I have to say I can credit that ability for my survivability up until now because much of my gear lacked stamina I could get Intel and Spell crit both on an item. Many also think slow is a waste and I will admit it has only specialized uses but when you need to kite or slow a ranged attack its very nice, many mobs and bosses are immune to it but many mobs and even bosses are affected by it, I like it but I have to say it’s a preference; Right now I cant really give a good raid reason for it other than mobs I’m spamming polymorph on I keep slowed to try to keep them off me long enough for poly to land. The next decision I made was to also use the fire tree all the way up to and including Pyroblast. I like to use pyroblast in my rotation instead of arcane missile because it not only resets my Arcane Blast timer but I can leach off a fire mage in a raid situation and get the extra 15% damage even though I don’t have Improved Scorch, making the pyroblast actually more efficient than arcane missiles. Arcane Missiles will overall on average do more damage than a pyroblast so when I have a clearcast I cast Arcane Missile. I also took Impact (I used to have improved FB but I never cast fireball so I switched over to impact), I also chose Flame Throwing pretty much to be able to pull Krosh and to be able to be at max range and still DPS. I think that about covers it for my talent build, here are some basic numbers I got from Theory Craft, the damage listed includes calculations for critical hits and dots and, assumes only Arcane Intellect and Molten Armor as buffs:

Arcane Blast (times shown are actually w/o spell haste so real DPS is slightly higher)
AB0
1777 dmg 195 mana 9.11 DPM 2.5 second cast 710.8 DPS (740 with haste)
AB1
1777 dmg 341 mana 5.21 DPM 2.17 second cast 818.9 DPS
AB2
1777 dmg 487 mana 3.65 DPM 1.83 second cast 971 DPS
AB3
1777 dmg 633 mana 2.81 DPM 1.5 second cast 1185 DPS

Arcane Missile (Empowered)
4035 dmg 784 mana 5.15 DPM 5.0 seconds cast 807 DPS (840+/- w haste)

Pyroblast (5/5 ignite)
2686 dmg 500 mana 5.37 DPM 6.0 second cast 448 DPS
With 5/5 scorch on a mob
2751 dmg 500 mana 5.50 DPM 6.0 second cast 458 DPS

My rotation is usually AB0 -> AB1 -> Pyroblast

I have enough mana regen to keep this basic rotation up almost forever but if I’m about to lay on some hardcore DPS and don’t care how much mana I’m burning I will get my Arcane Blast all the way up to AB3 and press my “nuke” button, nuke is a macro to (activate Arcane Power; activate Presence of Mind; cast Pyroblast). I then go into a heavy rotation of Arcane Blast and maybe even a fireblast when its up if I really have a lot of mana. In cases where a mob is highly fire susceptible I may do a pyroblast and and hit the “nuke” macro while its in the air and that will give me 2 instant pyroblasts while Arcane Power is active and then go into w/e else rotation after that.

As for gear here is a look at my current stats:
(includes AI and Molten Armor)
Bonus Dmg: 998 Arcane and Fire and 948 Other
Healing: 820
Hit rating: 31 (I get my hit from Arcane Focus)
Crit Chance: 32.49%
Pen: 10
Mana Regen
167 / 5 while not casting
54 /5 while casting
Intellect: 659
Armor: 1659 / 13.58% mit

Here is a look at my gear right now for those numbers:
The World of Warcraft Armory
Until I change that =)
Mana-Binders Cowl (badges)
Ethereum Torque of the Invoker (Gul’bor Ethereum Prison)
Mantle of Tirisfal (Void Reaver)
Shawl of Shifting Probabilities (badges)
Windchanneller’s Tunic of the Invoker (Yor)
Wristguards of Tranquil Though (badges)
Nathrezim Mindblade (Malchazar)
Fetish of the Primal Gods (badges)
Carved Witch Doctor’s Stick (badges)
Shiffar’s Nexus-Horn (Skykriss)
Battlemaster’s Depravity (badges)
Ring of Cryptic Dreams (badges)
Violet Signet of the Archmage (Karazhan rep)
Boots of Foretelling (Maiden of Virtue)
Pantaloons of Arcane Annihilation (badges)
Voodoo-woven Belt (badges)
Studious Wraps (badges)

As I said this is not the best in the game approach or gear its just what I do as an arcane mage to remain viable in a raid =)

The Adept

 

Nurru

Did you read any of the thread? Christ.

Your gems make no sense (Even with MM, +int gems suck) and you're 8+% hit below the cap even for arcane. It's one thing to gear for a bad spec and advocate it, but it's another thing entirely to advocate something that is both wrong and you can't bother gearing for. Please never make another "informative" post until you can at least correct these glaring failures in your gear. I would also suggest a name change because you're on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to being adept at the class.

edit2: wow, you put BT gems in that gear. Not even that, but you put *bad* BT gems in that gear. I hope you didn't pay for those.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Allanonn

Theadept,

Did you really spend 35 badges on healing bracers?

You talk about how arcane needs less hit gear than fire/frost but then you don't max out the talent that makes that possible??

Please read this thread as it is very informative. The moderators may want to go ahead and transfer that post to '[Mage] Help me please?'....

 

Cornelium

"[Mage] Help Me Please?" is for starters or more common questions.
This thread's purpose is to discuss gear, specs and playstyle or to express questions and concerns about other people's theories.

So a few of the previous posts should have been addressed elsewhere.

Make love, not war!

 

◊ Vontre

Look, I don't normally say stuff like this, but I have to make an exception here. For your sake, I sincerely hope that post was a troll.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

◊ manly

The sad part in all this is the obvious time spent to write that post. If only you had spent that much time reading basic theorycraft...

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.