I've been playing as arcane with incanter's abosption on hodir fights, i've been able to push as high as 12k dps on a six minute fight. I'm sure my spec is sub-optimal, as is my gear. In addition i've still been using mage rather than molten armor. I'm pretty certain that other more skilled mages could push the dps much higher using an arcane spec.

DPS time = 86%.
A fire mage would have had 100% DPS time on that fight according to WWS.

I also had low dps time specced as arcane (87%iirc). From what I remember of the fight my low dps time was due to my poor awareness rather than being limited by mana. As i said I still feel a more skilled mage could push higher. I'm pretty sure that due to mana gained from frost warding (54k) I only evocated once and was able to do a AB(3)spamMB rotation for long periods of the fight. Around 4% of my DPS time was replaced with casting frost ward also a large chunk of my non DPS time was caused by me messing up my invisability and taking damage as I cast it leaving me threat capped for the last part of the fight. The other mage that had my focus magic cast on them died early and i lost some dps there; and some DPS time targeting and casting it on another player. The rest of the DPS time was lost through other elements of poor play.

I did have very good support for the fight and had a shield from a disc priest cast on me pretty much anytime I didn't have the weakened soul debuff.

I still think I can improve on my DPS by popping a frost protection potion prior to the fight and using glyphed molten armor, in addition to improving my own skills.

These are just opinions and frostfire maybe is the best spec for the fight, however I do think a more skilled arcane mage than me could be more competive to a frostfire mage than i was.

Edit: spelling

Why do you want to be arcane there? When critical scale'ing for frostfirebolt is better. Get more critical gear and gogo ffb spec.
my last hodir with ffb spec: http://www.elekta.lt/~id/WoWScrnShot_051809_004236.jpg

Anyone else notice that since the patch, the Focus Magic buff wears off on your target after a few minutes after you change from Arcane Spec to a Spec without it?

This is a bug that was fixed awhile ago. (The FM buff was never meant to stick on your target after you respec'd out of the spec you have FM with)

As soon as the player having a FM buff on him does a crit, it removes the FM buff if the FM-buff-caster doesn't have the talent.

Well, http://elitistjerks.com/members/60498-silentwalker/ confirmed it ot be still working as of last week if done correctly, which is why I left it in. I'll ask for a comment or confirmation when doing the next round of clearing up.

I tested it tonight, does not seem to be working anymore.

I have done some thinking and math, and I would like you guys to check if I made any errors in either my thinking or my math Also this is useful information I believe.

In almost every raid I have to apply the scorch debuff. So I asked myself in which situations should I use the Scorch Glyph, and in which situations is it better to scorch 5x at the start and use the additional DPS glyph (FFB / FB for me).

It depends how long the time interval before you have to reapply your scorch stack is. You have to reapply the stack, if you
- switch target (example: Kologarn's right arm)
- lost your stack due to mistakes or bad luck (bad luck example: Slag Pot?)

My Scorch cast time is 1.29 seconds. If I have to build 5 stacks without the glyph, I'm probably casting 1x LB, 5x scorch and 1x HSPyro somewhere in between (sums up to 9.03 seconds). If I have to build the stack with the glyph I'm going to cast LB + scorch (for a total of 2.58 seconds). The rest of the time I will use the normal rotation (includes maintaining scorch).

So I use the following rotations in Rawr:

- ScLBPyro (I will use Sc for this rotation)
- FB(glyphed)ScLBPyro (I will use FBg for this one)
- FBScLBPyro (I will use FB for this)

I also will use X for the time before you have to reapply your stack.

Break-even point:

FBg * (X - 9.03) + Sc * 9.03 = FB * (X - 2.58) + Sc * 2.58

solve for X =>

X = [ 9.03 * (FBg - Sc) - 2.58 * (FB - Sc) ] / (FBg - FB)

Rawr values for my setup, to give an example:
FBg: 5676 DPS
FB: 5510 DPS
Sc: 4783 DPS

This solves to X = 37 seconds, so if you have to reapply your stack at least every 37 seconds use scorch glyph, otherwise use FB glyph instead. This however does NOT take into account that you have a little bit more time to reapply the debuff if you have the glyph, because you need not fear to lose the stack. Also this isn't very exact math (especially the part with cast times), it's only supposed to give a rough estimate.

After reading Kyth's post on general hard mode, I tried to test amplify magic myself(not on tank). However, I cant find any spell that is affected by amplify magic. Is there any spell that is affected by amplify magic in Ulduar?


-------------------------
Tested spells:

Flame Jet and dot
Light Bomb
Shockwave
High Voltage
Biting Cold
Frozen Blows (AE component)
Napalm Shell
Ripid Burst
Heat Wave and dot

Method:
If combat log says, A dmg (B resisted), raw dmg = A *playing_with_fire*renewed_hope + B (actually a few spells are not affected by pwf)

If there is one entry that raw dmg< tooltip min dmg+amplify dmg, amplify magic does not affect the spell.

Since many mages rolled JC with LK, I felt this was a good place to post the latest slap in the face:

If there is a boss spell you suspect of being affected by Amp then yes, this is the right way to confirm it. There may be a raid leader somewhere in the Worlds of Warcraft who says, "We're using Amp on the raid until someone finds a parse proving it's dangerous," but I haven't met him. The hypothesis you have to prove for the average raid leader is, "Amplify Magic does no harm during this encounter," and Diag's method tests this correctly. Moreover raid bosses have historically not been buffed by Amping the raid. This tendency can be concretely proven using Diag's approach, but your method can do no better than strong statistical evidence.

To the post after nathan's, "slap in the face" is pretty violent imagery for a change that moves JC from being the second best profession for mages to being the second best profession for mages. Dragon's Eyes still give +39sp compared to BS sockets offering +38sp. JC also remains exceptional in offering you a choice of caster stats unlike enchanting, tailoring, and LW.

Indeed; This change brings Blacksmithing, Inscription, Enchanting, LW and JC into a five-way tie, each contributing between 37 and 39 spellpower once maxed. By my measurement though, it's a tie for third, as alchemy's 37 SP and the option to use [Crazy Alchemist's Potion] is probably worth more than a flat 39 SP. Once the bosses are on farm you'll probably be chugging Haste Potions again, but if you ever find it necessary to drink a helath or mana pot you'd probably be (slightly) (technically) better served by Alchemy.

Not that I don't appreciate Diag's efforts, but I'm not really convinced that Diag's approach really does show that. To show "Amplify Magic does no harm during this encounter," I'd want to see some ticks a lot closer to the minimum tooltip damage than what he's using (say, raw damage < tooltip minimum + (Amplify Magic/3)). Hopefully he still has his data around that he could share?

Tireless skyflare is pretty good. I'm curious about using this rather than CSD and then using icewalker instead of tuskars. If they both give the same run speed benefit then I think this would be a really solid upgrade.

In a world where you now basically have two specs, what spec is the most DPS is probably heavily dependent on the fight. On a fight like Thorim where you might be heavily AEing, is it beneficial to have some sort of Frostfire AE spec? At what point to spells like Dragon's Breath or Firestarter become worthwhile as an offspec for specific fights that require area effect damage?

It doesn't vary as much you are you stating from a "which is the BEST" spec. While an AoE heavy spec may put you atop the meters in a fight like Thorim, that doesn't mean it is the best spec for the fight. Doing the most damage overall, while important, is not always the most important. Thorim for example, while it does have a heavy AoE phase, is essentially a single target fight. Killing Thorim is important, pumping out 15k DPS during phase 1 is not. Don't overvalue overall damage in a fight where there are lots of adds that are easily killed.

Thegoodman is correct, the boss going down is what matters, not topping charts.

However I will point out that during the learning curve on the fight, a more aoe friendly and mana conservation spec such as FFB helped me during the attempts.

At least until we could successfully pull thorim without one of the groups wiping, after that I switched back to TTW/Fireball.

Still, dragon's breath, blastwave and firestarter still do not belong in the build imo.

The mana saving is what will shine in this encounter.

I made a post in WoW EU forums about a few of the issues mages might have in PVE.
I tried to keep the post constructive, as well as suggest simple fixes that would not take major overhauls, or affect PVP or PVE too much.
Note that it's not ment as complaining or wanting buffs, just a few simple changes to a few minor issues.

I will not post the entire thing here, as it's rather long, but if you are an EU user and would like to provide feedback, add something or agree/disagree, then the post is at the following adress:


Minor Mage issues in PVE with easy fixes.

that parse is exceptional. That mage, who did a total of 15500 DPS, didn't cast a single Living Bomb. Can anyone more knowledgable than me explain this? It looked like he just cast fireball, pyroblast and ignite.

This is a Hodir parse, the Crit + huge Haste buff completely change the normal spell DPS ranking balance, when you can cast a normal spell within a GCD, it completely invalidate the comparison value of an instant spell under normal circumstances.

I obviously did not do the math of this one, but I know that on Hodir if I'm in light i tend to not cast LB either, seems intuitive.