Cylestra

I am a newly raiding mage, was a rogue previously, and I have a hopefully easy to answer question. I was FFB specced but was not putting out the DPS I was hoping for (my guild leader also spoke to me about this). I know that spec is particularly crit dependent and I don't yet have the gear to support that build. I was wondering which build would be good until I can get better gear and get my crit rating up?

 

threep*

The only thing that comes into my mind would be a frost spec. Frost is a litte less crit-dependent due to FoF and Shatter. There's a nice "Raiding as Frost"-thread in this forum, if you're looking for specs and advice.

 

Tyrian

What dps 'are you hoping for' and in which raid scenario are you referring to (10/25man)? I would honestly say that your spec at that gear level isn't too important, because your priority should be heroics and badge farming. Whatever spec you choose to be for stuff like that doesn't really matter much.

 

flyinfungi

Try this link out.

Theory Craft-o-Matic

It will give you an idea of what to aim for and where you fall.

Fungi cause the great majority, an estimated two-thirds, of infectious plant diseases. They include all white and true rusts, smuts, needle casts, leaf curls, mildew, sooty molds, and anthracnoses; most leaf, fruit, and flower spots; cankers; blights; scabs, root, stem, fruit, and wood rots; wilts; leaf, shoot, and bud galls; and many others. -Encyclopedia Britannica

 

Lyer

Edit: info posted elsewhere, please disregard.

 

Cylestra

Thanks for the help guys. Threep, I was highly considering frost and I have been watching that thread. Tyrian, well I feel that I should be pushing 2000+ DPS at least, and I was only getting 1500 tops (part of that was me still getting used to raiding as a mage). We are currently clearing 25-man Naxx, and doing 10-man and heroics on non raid times. Flyinfungi, I will try that out, looks like it might help. Thanks for the timely responses. Much appreciated.

 

Inoko

Just double posting this to here, as well as the mage changes thread:

How "Precision" will effect FFB.

So... better get your gear ready if you were abusing that bug.

This may or may not be a signature.
You may or may not be wrong.

 

Arlie

Our raid doesn't wear any Frost Resist gear, we use the 130 from Frost totem, I believe, and it seems to work just fine.

 

Seanothan

I'm in a pickle. I want to make a [Hat of Wintry Doom]. Problem is with the meta socket. As FF I know [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] is hella good, but I don't know how to resocket so I can fit 2 blue gems in my gear. Any advice on where to stick the gems in? I was leaning towards the +8hit/+3mp5, but if anyone else has a better suggestion, please.

 

Kelfar

Socket with [Glowing Shadow Crystal]. Put one in the helm and one in another spot, you gear is probably mostly blue so losing a socket bonus shouldn't be too big of a deal. I wouldn't socket with hit and I don't know why you would need to, getting hit capped with gear is easy now, especially if you pick up the 73 spell hit trinket from heroic VH.

Also I have a question towards gemming, what is the threshold where you can gem for straight spell damage rather than spell damage/crit(if socketing for spell damage/crit is even worth it?)
I normally check Manly's armory just to see what he is doing so I can make decisions and it seems he is socketing for straight spell damage. I am probably going to go with straight spell damage because our unbuffed crit rate is the same, but I would still like opinions on it.

 

Seanothan

I already have the +73 spell hit trinket and my gear is mostly purple. At least take the time to see if what you're saying is right before giving an answer. Anyways, can anyone else weigh in? I'm looking to keep my spell damage as high as possible after the socket switches. I know what I think I should do, just want a second opinion.

As for your question, it depends. You socket what you need. If you're low on crit, socket some crit. Low on hit, socket some of that. If the socket bonus is worth it to you, socket for the bonus. If you don't desperately need anything, socket for damage.

 

Jonny_Monroe

1 [Glowing Shadow Crystal] in your hat. 1 in your belt buckle. that way you hit the meta requirement without losing any socket bonuses.

If you use higher level gems you're likely only losing something in the region of 20spell power. Easily made up for by the meta gem.

Alternatively, reroll JC and use [Runed Dragon's Eye]

OMNOMNOM.

 

Aeldaar

Simple Question - With the change to Torment the Weak, is it expected to be active for raid bosses? Does Frostbolt itself (with or without Glyph of Frostbolt) activate it, or is there some other slowing debuff from another class that will be up virtually all the time? I know death knights always keep Frost Fever up, wondering if there are any others.

 

Seanothan

Belt buckle! Perfect. Thanks.

 

Enthorn

No, the slow from Frostbolt and Frostfire bolt won't apply to the boss since those are movement slowing effects. It seems only casting speed effects apply to bosses, and these include Frost Fever, Thunder Clap, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, and of course Slow.

 

Kelfar

So I have a question about raid DPS. Tonight was our second week in Naxx 25. I am doing decent on the damage meters, hovering around 2500-3000 dps for most bosses where you don't have to move. So we arrive at patchwerk, last week I did 3500 DPS on him without LB. This week I am at 3000 dps with LB, but no boomkin or elemental shaman this time. I am almost 100% sure this has to do with me missing out on the 5% crit buff.

I am quite concerned with my raid DPS as I am looking at WWS parses of mages in the 5k range, meanwhile I am so far behind. My gear doesn't seem that bad, though raid buffed my crit is pretty low.

I was doing a parse for WWS but I forgot to delete my old combat log and when I did /combatlog at the beginning of the run it was fine but I DC'd 5 times during thaddius and it screwed it up. Is there anything I can do to catch up with the other DPS in my runs?(I am currently the only raiding mage, the group makeup is usually 2 fury warriors, 2 ret pally, 2 rogues, 3 hunters, 2-3 warlocks and myself. Also sometimes have a boomkin.) The fury warriors and hunters are on top, but thats to be expected with how well hunters are doing right now, and the 2 fury warriors are amazing players.

Also I have one more question, for some reason I was getting partial resists on bosses. A spell would be like

Frostfire bolt Crits for 9000 <600 Resisted>

Why is this happening? I am hit capped for FFB.

 

Duravi

It's even worse; many will be switching to arcane/deep fire builds since TtW will now work on all bosses and with thunderclap so it will always be up. That spec gets no hit from talents.

 

Duravi

Even with FFB spec 1 crit does not equal 1 dmg in dps value until about +3000 dmg worth of gear/buffs. So the answer is no, you would never use the dmg/crit gems unless you were hit capped and getting a socket bonus from a yellow slot was worth more than the dps loss of not just throwing in a red (if ur a JC this would never matter as for any situation like that you'd use a runed dragons eye)

 

Pheroz

All bosses have minor levels of unmitigatable resistance that cuases minor partial resists. There is nothing you can do for it. It's due to them being higher level rather than any actual values of spell resistance.

As for you dps on one Patchwerk parse where you know you were missing a critical buff, forget about it. 5% crit is a big deal. FFB is a very swingy spec (meaning depending on how the crit variance turns out, a correct played build could fit in a wide range of dps). Overvaluing 1 parse is kinda dumb.

 

morgulhir

When will this come to LIVE? Or is it already?

I'm currently playing 71/0/0 fullarcane mage, it is very-very fun to play as in raids, also in solo-questing. The only concern is it's totally different gear from any other reasonable spec and low DPS (can be because of my crappy half-epixed gear). The low DPS is taking the fun out of the spec and I thought of going FFB according to what you're saying in the forums here, but if the deepfire/arcane is now even higher DPS, I could spec that instead.
Just need to know

 

Maje

You're better of not wasting the runed dragon's eye on the belt buckle since you get no socket bonus, socket it somewhere with a bonus and use a runed scarlet ruby in the buckle.

 

Enthorn

I'll take a look at it Maje. I understand what you're saying, swapping it from:

[Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads]: [Reckless Monarch Topaz]
[Cincture of Polarity]: [Runed Dragon's Eye]

to

[Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads]: [Runed Dragon's Eye]
[Cincture of Polarity]: [Runed Scarlet Ruby]

This would net you 10 spell power, and you would lose 8 spell haste. I'll take a look at it when I get home. In the current setup, Rawr is basically saying that 12 haste (8 from gem and 4 from socket) is better than 10 spell power. It makes sense then that 10 spell power would be better than 8 spell haste, but that may or may not be true, because at the same time, despite the huge value crit has in a Frostfire build, it is valuing 8 spell haste over 8 spell crit for that one piece. (This more than likely has to do with the duration of the fight, which I have set at the default 6 minutes.)

 

Zephriel

Enthorn, I tried copying your setup, making the switch Maje suggested. It increased the FFB spec's DPS to ~5816.

It also appeared that Rawr wanted to retain one (and only one) [Reckless Monarch Topaz] in a yellow gem socket. I switched the orange gem in [Gothik's Cowl] from Potent to Reckless and eked out another .5 DPS, but you should be able to make that switch in any yellow socket in the set and get the same result. The line between haste and crit for 0/53/18 FFB with that setup must be extremely close.

 

vandox

what exactly is the spell hit rating for a draenei frost mage with 3/3 in elemental precision?

 

Kelfar

Don't know why you can't figure this out youself but.

3% for EP and 1% for Hit aura.

So you need 13% to hit the cap.

1% spell hit at level 80 = 26.23199272

26.23199272 X 13 = 341.01590536 hit rating.