Ivorthemage

Comments on levelling builds.

1) Elemental precision seems a waste to me at level 70, assuming you have 6% hit or so on your gear, allowing you take down all yellow mobs you see. EP seems to only be useful once that hit gear is replaced by non-hit greens and blues, or for those who want to routinely take on mobs three levels higher.

2) Brain freeze is solid. Even if you aren't hit capped, its dps contribution is on par and its mana efficiency is superior to elemental precision.

3) I still see use for deep freeze. It completely shuts down actions from range attack mobs, unlike frostbite procs, and if you pop icy veins before using it, you will have time to sink in a second ice lance. Additionally, on an FoF proc its a brief CC on a second target during more complex pulls.

4) I don't know how others were playing frost who didn't like it from 60-70. Mobs died in seconds, and I could survive accidental pulls of 5 mobs even with 1/4 health - killing them all, not running away. The only reasons frost doesn't blow fire away in raiding situations right now is because of frostbite/shatter uselessness and fire having the time to stack up scorches on boss fights.

 

Grai

Switching between armors mid-fight is never a good option, as mentioned earlier in this thread in many places.

 

Masaru

I noticed a few posters mentioned that Living Bomb is not in their spec choices because it is currently being overwritten by each mage.... However, I don't think we have an answer on whether this is bugged or working as intended, correct? Forgive me if I missed a confirmation somewhere.

 

Logis

I have a few questions about the 3.0.2 and WotLK.

My first questions will be directed about 3.0.2. With hot streak the way it is, is it more viable to go after crit gear and gem for crit? I have always been under the impressions that haste > crit but recently someone has told me that gemming for haste is bad unless you have a lot of haste gear to back it up. I have some haste gear but I’m really thinking that I don't have enough gear to back it up.

I have also heard that you want to have about 30% crit unbuffed fire spec and I wanted to know if that is the ideal crit unbuffed. Right now my crit is about 27.5% unbuffed and I really don’t know if that is sufficient or not. All my gear is gemmed for haste and I’m considering regemming for crit. I also have a couple of gear questions. What would be better [Vindicator's Pendant of Conquest] or [Loop of Cursed Bones] from ZA? I have 3 rings: [Ring of Captured Storms] , [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] , and [Band of the Eternal Sage] and I’m not sure which 2 to use.

My next question is about WotLK. I have heard that the spell hit cap is 9% and the original 16%. I haven’t been able to find any kinda real evidence on which it is and was curious what it was?

I have transferred my character to a different server so here is my link to my character
The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Prandur

Haste has diminishing returns just like crit. Whoever told you that gemming for haste is a waste unless you already have haste is plain stupid. As for gemming for haste vs crit, in 3.0.2 it'll be a close call - Crit would be better if you only had 20-30% crit but due to new raidbuffs crit is actually going to be above 40% and so haste might still be better.

The new spellhit cap for 3.0.2 will be 17%, however you can get a 3% raidbuff from SPs or some other hybrid (Ele or Moonkin, forgot which).

 

Eaden

Ive seen several posts refer to a shammi for providing a 3% hit buff, and I thought this was no longer the case. The previous Totem of Wrath did in fact provide 3% hit, but the revised Totem of wrath has a tool tip as follows..

Currently the group/raid +hit buffs are from a shadow priests 3/3 Misery providing 3%, 3/3 Improved Faerie Fire providing 3%, and Inspiring Presence (Dranei Racial) providing 1%. Misery and Faerie fire being raid wide and Inspiring Presence still group only.

Am I incorrect in this assumption?

 

Enthorn

Ghostcrawler commented on dual-spec system in regards to pure DPS classes recently...

(Source)

I'm not particularly worried about this. I just believe it to be a misguided approach to why pure DPS classes benefit "just as much" from dual-spec as hybrid classes do. Suffice to say, I will not be using dual spec to switch between trash and single target DPS (it's a few points difference). An exception would be a hyjal-type encounter. Nonetheless, the comment about a spec for CC is almost laughable.

 

Thegoodman

There was some error in a test that stated 9%. It has been tested since to show that the hit cap is now 17% for all casters. The 1% inherent chance to miss has been eliminated. At level 70, the hit cap for a mage is 215 untalented, 177 with EP.

 

Rhayn

I believe you are right, actually:

Patch 3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking - MMO Champion - Curse

Unless it was changed recently?

 

Thegoodman

I disagree. I would have liked to have an alternate spec to kite adds on Vashj. Kiting is a form of CC and a frost spec that is optimal for kiting will be far below a single-target fire dps spec on the damage meters. The options of 2 specs allows blizzard to create some more dynamic encounters.

1 fight may call for 1 tank, 6 healers, and a mad dash to dps with 19 people. Another fight may call for 8 healers and 3 tanks and more control. Remember how bad it sucked to raid with 8 tanks in Naxx pre-BC? Now you can have x number of tanks on 1 boss and only 1 tank on another boss. It opens up a lot of windows for boss designs without having to worry about raid leaders swapping people in and out.

 

Logis

Ok, thanks. I'll go get some crit/damage gems. Anyone have a response to the gear question

 

PsyBomb

It's actually a good use. I know, for example, that my Warlock could be called to do some kiting (Vashj) or to single out a mob and fear-kill it (Kael'thas trash). My standard 0/21/40 flat out BLOWS for doing these, and so I hop over to the other spec (used mostly for PvP, but it works well here). Enhanced Fears and Curse of Elements coming up, plus Soul Link if I mess up, and my responsibility is satisfied

A better example would probably have been for fights like Sapphiron or Kel'thuzad, where a Frost mage is going to facing stiff resistance penalties to their DPS. Your warlocks aren't casting CoE anymore due to Ebon Plague/Earth and Moon, so the resists stay up. What do you do? In old raids, you just sucked or played a spec you don't like for the entire raid (often also resulting in bonus suck points, as well). Now, you hop on over to wield flame for that one encounter. Kind of what FfB was originally thought to be doing, except WAY better.

Another little detail that 2-speccing lets you do that I haven't seen brought up is have a spare spec if one that you're testing ends up to be worse than you thought it would be. Now, you'd just suck until you scraped the gold together. Once implemented, you could switch back and still have a good spec running until the other got corrected.

Sorry about the rant.

To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.

 

solbergb

There just is not that much difference between these approaches. They take the same amount of time

36' away, Frostboltx3, frost nova, frost bolt+ice lance

41' away fireballx2, scorch/dragon breath, fireball/fireblast

Frostfirebolt lets me get in another fireball. It's nice but hardly essential. Sometimes you can't cast that scorch. YMMV.

it's more likely going to be with new talents

41' away fireball, scorchx2,fireblast dragon breath, fireball/blast wave, fireblast

You back up or strafe during the GCD of the various instants. It makes up for the lack of chill fairly well.

or for tougher mobs, fireball/living bomb-move, scorch/fireblast - move scorch/dragon breath - move - fireball/blast wave etc.

The above will have a pyroblast swapped in for scorch or fireblast depending on hot streak procs. It might also have 1.5s pyroblasts weaved in when I'm low on health.

AOE grinding is similar too, except that the frost aproach is to blizzard them to death from a safe distance with frost nova+cone cold+shatter combo when they get loose and the fire approach is to blow them up at close range (using arcane explosion heavily when cooldowns aren't up) and hope they die before you do, using dragonbreath or blast wave to get a little breathing space. In this arena frost is clearly superior, but fire's good enough for most leveling aoe situations.

Mana efficiency can matter when leveling if you don't want to do much beyond refreshing your gem from time to time. But it's not been something I've been hung up on. I tend to go until both my health and mana bars are low, then bandage/evocate or eat/drink and the frequency of that is never so much it bugs me. My wife's more sensitive to "never drinking" and tends to level with less burst and more mana efficiency stuff.

All of that said I'm not saying I won't have an alternate spec while leveling that dips deeper into the frost bag of tricks for encounters where the fire stuff I enjoy isn't working out. I just won't do it till I need it. My cookie cutter 2/47/11+1 spec today uses full permafrost and puts the extra point into blizzard so I can do more of a frostmage-lite ranged AOE kiting (open with flamestrike, drop the blizzard immediately in space between the strike and you, then dragon breath the mobs marching toward you through the blizzard once enough are in range and finish with arcane explosions or use frost nova to back off and do it again if you don't like their health bars relative to yours).

With respect to the guy who said he didn't understand why people like me didn't enjoy frost - it wasn't killing efficiency. My xp/time was pretty much the same with frost or fire. It was the playstyle. Frost I felt like I was slowing everything down, and only moved when setting up shatter combos, plus the elemental was a PITA. Fire just felt more fluid and dynamic, and my DPS and CC was only wrapped up in my actions, not me+pet. What I really like about the wrath changes is that these traits are made more extreme. Frost is even better at slowing everything down and then suddenly making them dead, and fire has a larger toolkit of instant and short duration spells...big enough that very little of the leveling rotation will be 3 second spells...mostly just the opener, and the thing you cast while stuff is wandering around disoriented during dragon breath.

 

Goreld

As far as leveling, I think you're underestimating the water elemental. (procs are useful too, but brain freezes/hot streaks are sporadic). The water elemental's ranged nova lets me chain kills really, really fast. I'll use the elemental often times to finish up a softened target while I'm casting at a new guy, or to go pull something and/or nova the new target while I'm winding up a shatter combo on the current target. Having the elemental lets me do some interesting multi/chain-pulling that isn't as feasible as fire and definitely not as arcane.

Rather than a pain in the ass, I love crowd controlling with my elemental, and setting up shatter combos, just plain damaing, or playing aggro ping-pong with it (send the elemental after something, run around to a different attack vector, and hit the mob so it turns away from the elemental right as it reaches it).

 

Anedris

As a DPS class, a mage is going to level easily regardless of spec.

The thing I love about frost though is that whenever you get a frostbite proc, the fight is basically over. Plus you never take a single point of damage from anything snareable that lacks a range attack. I macro petattack into my frostbolt macro so I don't even have to worry about the elemental, he just nukes whatever I happen to be aiming at (and the freeze is long enough that if you catch two mobs in it you can shatter combo both of them before it ends). Against most mobs as frost I don't even use frost nova at all - nothing lives long enough to take a swing at me (Kara/ZA gear, mostly farming blood elves around BT).

 

Ivorthemage

Piling on. I think you are correct for mages, with the exception of a handful of kiting fights (like Vashj or Moroes) but having a 2nd spec for CC is something that I can see locks (seduce), hunters (wyvern sting), and rogues (improved sap) doing. Those classes often find themselves out in the cold on 5 man content due to CC need, unless they are specced right. But you don't want to spec that way if your CC isn't needed. So you either spec CC and gimp damage or spec damage and risk not finding a pure dps spot.

The big advantage I see to dual spec for raiding is that it allow for choosing the two best specs for each instance. None of the raiding instances in BC (not counting 1 boss Mag) were designed where the same mage spec was ideal for every fight. Spec dual frost and fire for SSC, TK and BT, spec arcane and fire for MH, etc. The need to fly back to respec, or bringing a bad spec to a specific fight, is a thing of the past.

 

Dersuuzala

Just a little curious and haven't seen this mentioned here, anyone tested perhaps if the Mana Gem glyph stacks with SCB?

 

Celani

With regards to dual spec, note that your glyphs will be saved to that spec. This allows for even more customization at low cost. For frost mages, this means that the detriment of the frostbolt glyph (loss of the snare) isn't nearly as bad as it is in the current build, because it can be effectively turned off with the respec switch. Similiarly, I like the fact that I won't need another stack of Northrend herbs for my frostfire bolt glyph every time I want to switch to something else (and not sure what that something else is yet).

 

grayrest

It does. I tested it when all the glyphs started working.

 

Dragonrhonin

I was actually referring to the following spec:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...50323102405321

Using something along those lines, you would use a Frostfire bolt filler and get the 100% more crit damage+ignite rather than using fireball and only getting ignite. It was used in the Unrealistic w/ slave test, but not the Unrealistic w/o slave or the Realistic test.

This is the build I've been using at 80, and while I'm not running meters on beta, I'm curious to know how it compares to an Abar_Fireball Filler rotation?

 

eurynome

i looked over most of this thread but i have one quest that i did not see answered.

does t7 10/25 2 piece stack with serpent coil braid
and does it also stack with glyph

 

cerebes

I was looking into something like this, but from my understanding you get the same crit bonus as other FfB builds but with FfB scaling so well with crit the fire heavy build is better since Hot Streak scales so well with crit.

Edit: Sorry I misunderstood how you meant the build to be played.

 

xiaoxin21

There is still the mana reduction part which helps slightly in the leveling as you would want to drink as little as possible.

Also I find that I can do double shatter combo with deep freeze(maybe a bug). Frostbolt a frozen mob and click deep freeze immediately. This will allow me to do another Frostbolt +ice lance on the target. It is also useful to have a defensive mechanism to counter ganks.

Why are there Brown and Black Polar Bears?

 

Jarlyn

I've no idea why this Frost vs Fire debate for leveling even exists. Frost wins, period full stop. Fully talented (think 8/0/53 for starters) snareable mobs don't move, ever. Your mana consumption with Clearcasting/Brain Freeze procs is very low (FoF procs with Ice Lancehelp there too). Shatter keeps your crit rate artificially high, because your crit% will drop quickly as you level. And you get a ton of utility from your pet.

I tried out a number of specs for leveling on beta, and nothing else is even close to full Frost in my book. I soloed the lion's share of group quests I ran into, usually didn't even bother conjuring food/water, and generally tore through every area I came across. Personal preferences aside, Frost wins, no contest.

 

Dragonrhonin

No no no, I meant using FFB as the filler inbetween Abar's and MB procs rather than using fireball.