Ginkgo

Just want to confirm,

If I have the following Talents / Glyphs / Buffs / Debuffs:

Critical Mass 6%
Pyromaniac 3%
Molten Armor 3%
Glyph of Molten Armor 2%
Glyph of Frostfire Bolt 2%

Improved Scorch 10%
Totem of Wrath 3%
Elemental Oath 5%
Focus Magic 3%

These all stack, and I would receive a 37% boost to my Frostfire Critical strike chance correct?

 

Aeldaar

The 53/18/0 specs I've seen use basically a Fireball/Arcane Barrage rotation. However, they gear up to 368 hit and take Arcane Focus. Since that spec doesn't have Elemental Precision, wouldn't it be better in terms of dps to gear straight up to 446 and not take any hit talents?

 

Akston

Noticed some... interesting.. behavior from Mirror Image on 10-man Sapph last night. I am assuming that aggro on sapph works like aggro on felmyst in that it is not reset during air phases, or at all, and therefore if you are above the tank's threat you run the risk of pulling aggro when she lands. I am also assuming that MI works the way my friend described priest's fade, I.E. it takes you off the aggro list for the duration of the spell/buff and you generate no aggro while it is active but your pre-existing aggro is restored when the spell/buff ends. This is all accurate so far right?

Now down to the issue: There were several times when i would be around 95% of the tank's threat and pop MI along with IV and combustion and somehow one of my Mirror Images would pull aggro and the boss would turn around and 1-shot the image and end up killing a few other people and then return to the boss. I would never actually get aggro myself and after the duration of the spell my aggro would be the same but relatively lower compared to the tank's current threat. I have no idea why the boss would, seemingly randomly, turn around and target one of the images.

From what I understand the only reason an image should ever actually be directly targetted in PvE is if you yourself had aggro prior to popping them right? I was never actually even above, much less equal, to the tank's threat when i popped cooldowns and yet somehow the images would pull aggro and subsequently cause a wipe. What gives?

 

Tyrian

I like the concept and fun-factor of the mirror image spell, but I am sick-to-death of them dying so easily in PVE.

I understand perfectly fine they have to be balanced appropriately or risk being overpowered in PVP, but surely theres a greater medium to be found (PVE Survivability and damage vs PVP balance) than the way it is currently. The MI threat utility is neat, the spell is fun - I just want it to have a little more kick. Dead images (The game is quit AOE happy now) have none.

The first solutions to come to mind is to make images get a one-time charge that makes them immune to an AOE damage ability, like a one-time personal grounding totem for each. This should allow them to live through one boss wave/ability. They still retain the dirt-weak HP for balance in PVP. Theres other options to consider: Maybe a glyph that makes your MI only produce 1 image, yet it has the combined HP and damage of the 3-weak ones.

What is the sentiment from other mages on topic of Mirror Image, with regards to PVE use and specifically survivability? This topic was brought up a lot by players during beta, but now that it's on live is the sentiment just as strong - or have people come to accept that they are just weak and that we should just deal with it?

 

Alayne

Dunno if this has been answered before, but YES. The 2pc stacks with the trinket and with the glyph. I've had 6.5k mana returns from the gem.

e: Ok, that seems really high, but I've definitely had the mana proc extra. The dmg bonuses don't stack though

 

Lyer

I treat MI like how I treat the WE. Pop when I know there's no inc aoe damage (c/d timing be damned). The crappy thing is, when there's a debuff aura, I won't even bother casting it. I'm not sure how to really fix the spell for pve that won't make it op for pvp. For me it is a situational spell; instant, even if temporary, aggro dump, and burst DPS.

Do the images have an aggro table of some sort? I've popped it against bosses with adds and find that 1 image randomly DPSes an add, while the other 2 attack the boss.

 

Enthorn

If you're specced for Focus Magic, you should be 18.53.0 (or take 2 points from WiF and put them into BW and DB) casting Fireball (due to the 6% damage bonus to Fireball from Spell Impact). If you're going to be using Frostfire Bolt, you should be 0.53.18 . Frost Channeling is trivial for threat (because it doesn't stack with Burning Soul) and if mana isn't an issue, you could certainly try out 0.56.15 (Fiery Payback, BW, and DB).

Mirror Image

From what I have experienced, Mirror Image immediately drops all of your aggro by setting your current threat to 90 million less than what it was. Let's say you were at 1000 threat. You are now at -8,999,900 threat for the next 30 seconds. Assume you do 30,000 threat in the next 30 seconds. When your mirror images die, you should be at 31,000 threat. You gain back the 90 million, plus any threat you aquired during the duration of Mirror Image. This is why using Invisibility during the last few seconds can be key. Invisibility wipes your threat. Mirror Image does not.

On top of that, Mirror Images are always on Aggro. They do not have a defensive stance like Water Elemental. They will engage everything that they are in range of. I haven't seen them move to engage something yet, and they do not always attack the same target you are attacking. They will also trigger your Water Elemental. That is, if you have your Water Elemental on defensive mode and you pop Mirror Images and they engage a target, your Water Elemental will also engage that target, regardless of your own actions. When the images die, your water elemental is next on the aggro table.

The images seem to have a "taunt" ability as well. They seem to continuously taunt your target to keep threat on them. In this way, I've seen them taunt a target off of my water elemental, or another player in my party. It's very sporadic though, but it could account for how they are pulling aggro from mobs, off of the tank.

 

Nyuu

Does anyone have any tips for kiting zombie chow on Gluth as a frostfire mage? I have a feeling it would be significantly easier as full frost, but as frostfire it seems hard to keep a larger pack slowed due to a small area of untalented CoC, and not being able to pick up new spawns while kiting existing zombies.

I normally started by using FFB to pick up the first couple, and then picking up subsequent zombies with fire blast, then using coc to slow close ones, and nova when there is a larger pack. If there are some that get missed with CoC it quickly seems to get out of control though. It also seems to be hard to outaggro healing aggro to intially pick them up, and keep it while kiting if I get healed as I dont have time to cast many spells.

 

drowsy

I had similar issues with frostfire Gluth kiting, especially since I'm new to it and this week's 10 man lacked frost trap and earthbind totem. If you don't feel you have enough tools to handle things, ask for help. I had trouble with cooldowns being down and having to get around the chow to be in range to pick up new spawns, so we had a healing paladin scoop up loose ones that I missed which could be reeled in later. Also try and drop living bomb every now and then, it is useful on targets outside of fireblast range and if you need extra threat on the zombie train.

 

Allezrouge

i posted this earlier in the FFB thread but havent gotten an answer yet. wondering if this was the more appropriate place to ask...

question on FFB spec. i currently spec'd 0/52/19 --> no points in world in flames and 3 points in imp blizzard instead of frost channeling.

did i make an error in doing this? i read somewhere that the 10% threat reduction does not apply to FFB, also, i've only been running 10 man naxx so far and have run into zero mana problems with no t7 and sometimes not even evocating. last night i blew away the rest of the dps on most fights. i was just wondering, is my rational for this correct? blizzard to me seems to be the best aoe we have at range and i thought adding the slowing effect etc would be a good thing. i took blast wave and dragons breath for purely close range and "oh crap" situations. is this hurting my dps that much? any and all feedback please.

basically if anyone has experience with the 25 man naxx and suggests that frost channeling is a better option due to mana issues then i'd love to know. i figure 2 pc t7 would solve that but i simply just dont know yet.

thanks

 

LiquidHAL

Something fundamentally wrong with this - evocation is awful on DPS, you should try to reverse from sometimes not evocating to only sometimes (ideally never) evocating if you can. Frost channeling helps a lot. Imp blizzard is nice to have, but is far more situational than world in flames; you'll be benefitting from world in flames every fight. Trash right now is not long and not difficult at all so there's no reason to alter your spec for it.

 

Akston

I was actually half joking about the images having a taunt when they pulled aggro twice the other night... I rather doubt that they actually have a legitimate taunt but I can't really think of another way to explain what happened unless all the threat you do while the images are active and you threat prior to popping MI gets attributed to the images, in which case a nice crit string would bump up the images' threat and cause them to pull aggro. Is it really possible to go from 95% of the tank's threat to 131%+ within 5 seconds of popping cooldowns after a few minutes into a fight? I really just don't see a logical explanation for what happened to me other than the images having some sort of taunt.

 

Aeldaar

When using (Improved) Blizzard, Fingers of Frost only procs if you have points in Frostbite. Do you only need one point in frostbite to get the whole 15% chance, or do you need three?

 

• Emn

This is the bane of my existence.

Blizzard clearly decided making some bosses tauntable was a good way to help players starting out in the first few instance, obviously not intending that mirror images would taunt Malygos and breath your raid... or Maexxna and kill me.

While its easy to say, "Don't use them", Whats the point in a flashy new ability? Hopefully something like a Minor Glyph to remove the taunt from it might be released.

 

Azirth

Quick question:

Does anyone have a listing of ep values for *ANY* mage spec, at naxx 10/25 levels? Im putting together a spreadsheet, and my brain hurts enough without having to figure out rawr ><

 

◊ manly

It seems the 2pct7 bonus puts your trinkets on cooldown for the duration. I haven't had the time to check if you can activate trinket/pop gem and see if they stack.

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.

 

dmxcom

Same here.

In many Situations i Pop Up my Gem and Boom Macro and Wonder why i have a CD on my Trinketslot.

It´s not ever - but often.

It seems a little bit Buggy.

 

Weepel

Well, it's the Serpent-Coil Braid's effect integrated into the set bonus. With this behaviour you can stack it with your clicky trinket and one of those new 500+ spelldamage proc trinkets, as long as you activate the gem last you get a whopping 1,000+ spelldamage when everything is "on".

 

El_Savor

You can use your trinket first and then use the mana gem and it will stack.

 

banaj

Can confirm this as well. I just use my macro first and then pop a gem.

 

Dustwhisper

How good or bad is using fireblast as a filler when your FFB/HotstreakPyro is cast with time left on livingbomb? As in using Fireblast to fill the short void? Will fireblast -> LB -> FFB ble a DPSLoss over FFB -> FFB while LB drops off and is down for 2 seconds.

 

ravenndude

Has anyone done the math for [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Black Magic]? Is it competitive with [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower] in a raid setting?

 

Roywyn

http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t30655-w...sion_part_two/

It works exactly like SCB, which also had your mana gems put trinkets on cooldown.
Trinket first, then gem.

It seemed like 1/3 Frostbite was enough to get the full 15% FoF chance.
When AoEing Theramore dummies, the difference between 1/3 and 3/3 Frostbite was very small.


Cooldown?
Proc rate?
Procs on what exactly?
Resistable?
Stackable?
Affected by buffs?
By debuffs?
By stats?

If you provide some info on how it works, we can check whether it's worth it or not.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

 

• Seonid

I don't have access to this enchant myself currently, but some information was posted on WoWHead comments, specifically that is appears to cast a Corruption style spell doing about 1100 damage over 15 seconds, with no visible direct spell coefficient (though it does appear to be affected by target debuffs) and a 45 second internal CD on the proc. If that (limited and anecdotal) information is accurate then it really doesn't seem worthwhile by comparison.

 

Roywyn

Ah, the cooldown info is new then.

If there was no cooldown, it would just be as good as the +63 spell power enchant roughly.
With the cooldown however, it's completely worthless for level 80 DPS.
Decent twink ganking enchant, as it reliably procs on the first few casts you get off against someone.

Even if there was no cooldown, it would still waste a debuff slot and be not worth it.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.