Simple question: Should I be casting slow on my targets in a raid (10 or 25), or assume that the boss will always have a debuff on that will give me the TTW bonus? I am Arcane spec.
You shouldn't even have a point in Slow for a PvE Arcane spec. Also search the forums for TTW and you will find many posts showing what spells/abilities activate TTW, but if you have a properly specced and competent in your run you can assume TTW is active.
I've seen some of the top raiding/progression-guild mages go back to Frostfire Bolt spec and away from Fireball/Ttw --- is there any reason to think Frostfire Bolt is making a comeback?
No. The reason why you are see the spec changes is due to the particular hard mode fight they are doing. For instance, fire/TTW is not a good choice for hard mode Vezax, since you need high mana efficiency and the spec is not mana efficient compared to FFB or frost. Manly of Elitist Jerks chose FFB, Kyth of Fusion chose frost. This does not mean FFB or frost 'is making a comeback', merely that they are tailoring their spec to the fight itself.
In terms of pure numbers, fire/TTW still reigns at the top, but Ulduar isn't made up of straight Patchwerk-style fights.
Praetorian: I once pointed out that the proper Roman numeral for 500 was D, so they should really rename themselves <Clan DIX>. That didn't go over too well. Sebudai: Imagine a combination of Life Grip, Death Grip, Disengage, Typhoon, and Thunderstorm. It would be like the Large Hadron Collider of WoW.
If you have two mages in raid with focus, is there any situation where you'd prefer to give focus to two non-mage targets rather than buffing one another? Surely there's some combination of relative dps increases where it's worthwhile to do so, but the math on this seems pretty complex. Just wondering if my "never" stance is totally justified assuming all players are within ~400 dps of one another.
I'm willing to start to get deeper into arena pvp. I'm just playing for fun with my girlfriend retri pally in 2vs2, thus i found the mobility of Arcane, Slow, pushback prevention and the double evocation to be worthwhile. I was thinking of trying frost for a while and i had a couple of questions (after being spanked so bad a couple of times )
The spec is something like 17/0/54 (can you correct me where wrong, i couldn't find anything better by "armoring" around.) With WE/Evo/Gem glyphs.
I've read that the current trend is to use 2/5 PvE gear and 3/5 PvP, comparing stats gloves/shoulders seems the most suitable for the tradeoff, but was unsure about the tier, t7 would be nice for the controlled burst (and sp to use on the WE/images) while t8 seen that frostbolt is the main spell. Any suggestions?
As for gearing, is best to gem to resilience (to a softcap like 800) or go straight stamina? What about spell penetration/spellpower?
One last thing, left aside the normal shatter combos with frostie or movement requiring phases, i've read in the raiding as frost thread that using the ice lance on ghost charge can lead to dps loss if not executed properly. It's the same in pvp? In late tbc i used to shattercombo in my occasional BG runs, so i know how to do it... but have a couple of doubts if it's better to just continue frostbolting or ice lancing.
I'm willing to start to get deeper into arena pvp. I'm just playing for fun with my girlfriend retri pally in 2vs2, thus i found the mobility of Arcane, Slow, pushback prevention and the double evocation to be worthwhile. I was thinking of trying frost for a while and i had a couple of questions (after being spanked so bad a couple of times )
The spec is something like 17/0/54 (can you correct me where wrong, i couldn't find anything better by "armoring" around.) With WE/Evo/Gem glyphs.
I've read that the current trend is to use 2/5 PvE gear and 3/5 PvP, comparing stats gloves/shoulders seems the most suitable for the tradeoff, but was unsure about the tier, t7 would be nice for the controlled burst (and sp to use on the WE/images) while t8 seen that frostbolt is the main spell. Any suggestions?
As for gearing, is best to gem to resilience (to a softcap like 800) or go straight stamina? What about spell penetration/spellpower?
One last thing, left aside the normal shatter combos with frostie or movement requiring phases, i've read in the raiding as frost thread that using the ice lance on ghost charge can lead to dps loss if not executed properly. It's the same in pvp? In late tbc i used to shattercombo in my occasional BG runs, so i know how to do it... but have a couple of doubts if it's better to just continue frostbolting or ice lancing.
Thanks
I would drop 3 points from frost ( precision / enduring winter ) and put them into torment the weak. Maybe try to go for frost warding too.
The reason why people are using 2/5 t7 is because of the mana gem bonus. If you find yourself going oom a lot you should definately use it.
As for resilience vs stamina it depends whether you are playing with a healer or not. If you're playing with a healer resilience is better, if you're playing with double dps stamina is better. Generally you shouldn't gem for both though unless your gear is lacking them. You should aim for at least 50 spellpen and gem for spellpower and haste.
From my experience in pvp shatter combos will usually consist of 1 or 2 frostbolts and then icelance and brain freeze, you simply don't have the time to cast another frostbolt. This depends ofcourse on the amount of haste you have on your gear and your cooldowns. But it's something you need to find out for yourself. Afterall pvp isn't about dps, it's about control and burst on command and that's where icelance is great.
The only real tip I can give you for setting up shatter combos is waiting for a finger of frost proc, start casting a frostbolt and deep freeze right after. That way you don't lose an extra GC on frostnova and get an extra frostbolt.
The spec is something like 17/0/54 (can you correct me where wrong, i couldn't find anything better by "armoring" around.) With WE/Evo/Gem glyphs.
You might consider using the Icy Veins glyph instead of the Gem glyph, especially if you're going to use 2 T7 pieces. I find that in arenas I'm always getting charged by some punk warrior or messed up in any other way possible, and using IV-Blink-turn-and-cast has worked well for me. But then again I don't run out of mana all that often in arena, so it just depends on how you play (and if you have a druid to Innervate, etc.).
@shoein : it's a pvp question i've not found in those thread beside the 2xtier part that was not really clear.
@lucronaz : as i said i'm playing with a retri, so no way of mana returns.
as for the glyph i was considering the Icy Veins glyph but wanted to know the "basic" spec/glyphs.
@beelz : thanks for the in-depth answers.
just one more question, considering that due to my current rating i cannot afford furious gear, and i've full hateful and deadly chest, is there any particular piece of gear (from PvE) which really shines in pvp and it's worth using? I don't know... i'm using atm Turning Tide and Pennant Cloack due to the lack of alternatives, but you may suggest me to use some more which are way better than those (or in other spots) (ie : pvp honor-cloak is easy to come by, but it's worth trading it for the few resilience you get?) anyone has done some settings for rawr (surv. rating and such)?
If you have two mages in raid with focus, is there any situation where you'd prefer to give focus to two non-mage targets rather than buffing one another?
I would say that if both mages are arcane then giving them the bonus is pretty well wasted. Generally (assuming equal dps from all DPS in the raid, which is a big assumption, of course), you want to give it to whatever specs present scale best with crit. So Affliction Warlocks and Frost Mages are usually pretty low on the list since they scale poorly with crit. I think the general priority list goes something like (anyone feel free to chime in about the relative rankings here):
I probably missed some subtleties in there, but that is a rough guide. So, in a long answer, yes there are situations where trading FM with another mage is a loss of raid DPS.
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Can anyone on the the PTR clarify how the Invisibility change ("Invisibility: Can no longer be interrupted by a hostile action or damage done during the 3-second Fade time") is working? Specifically, is it referring to a hostile action/damage done by the mage (mage casts Invisibility, then casts Living Bomb, but still disappears) or a hostile action/damage done to the mage (mage casts Invisibility, get hit by an AoE attack, but still disappears)?
I would say that if both mages are arcane then giving them the bonus is pretty well wasted. Generally (assuming equal dps from all DPS in the raid, which is a big assumption, of course), you want to give it to whatever specs present scale best with crit. So Affliction Warlocks and Frost Mages are usually pretty low on the list since they scale poorly with crit. I think the general priority list goes something like (anyone feel free to chime in about the relative rankings here):
I probably missed some subtleties in there, but that is a rough guide. So, in a long answer, yes there are situations where trading FM with another mage is a loss of raid DPS.
I believe this information has been posted before.
1) An Elemental Shaman will give you 100% uptime. Any other caster will give you around 97% uptime, Wrath Druids and Shadow Priests higher than that.
Affliction Warlocks are a bad choice because they spam Drain Soul below 20%, which won't produce any crits.
Since you have around 97% Focus Magic uptime, it is nearly irrelevant which class you put it on.
2) Check SampleOutput - simulationcraft - Google Code to find out what 3% crit gives your partner.
In particular, find the DPS Scale Factors table in the list and check for crit scaling.
You'll see what everyone has always said.
Frost Mages and Demo Warlocks are at the bottom.
Elemental Shaman have really bad scaling, just above them.
Destro Warlocks are next, followed by Druids and Arcane Mages.
Then Shadow Priests, then Fire Mages, and finally Frostfire Mages.
A Frostfire Mage benefits 2.6 times as much as a Frost Mage, and 1.9 times as much as a Shaman.
Also, there might be occasions where it's better on a healer. Maybe not now, but in the future.
If you focus purely on AoE zergs, you should probably stick it to your best Hurricane, Mind Sear or Blizzard spammer.
(Keep in mind that Shatter will crit-cap Blizzard in certain specs.)
3) The best ordering overall should be Frostfire>Fire>Priest.
You could stick it to your Shaman, but that means losing 25 RDPS to gain 4 DPS for yourself, which is pretty silly.
Hello, I'm at the point where our guild is venturing into 25 man Freya hard mode. However it was decided as we began that Mages in general are horrible for the fight, and there are possible considerations to trim the roster down to one Mage (specced Frost with Imp Blizzard) for that particular fight.
I'm assuming they're worried about Mage deaths as a result of the Lasher adds. The Mages in our guild sits on average at 23k HP raid buffed, and can easily put on one or two pieces of PvP gear to reach 25k.
Am I missing something about this fight that the raid leaders have seen? Also, I've only had a few opportunities to try out Imp Blizzard and found that it didn't necessarily slow down the adds enough to control the situation for the better. Would stacking as much movement slowing talents be the correct course of action? Is there a certain tried and true spec for Freya 25 man hard mode that this community agrees on being the most effective?
Is there a certain tried and true spec for Freya 25 man hard mode that this community agrees on being the most effective?
The 'token Freya Frost mage' essentially gives up their own personal DPS (by forgoing superior specs such as frostfire, fire/arcane, arcane) to deliver a few things:
- improved blizzard (no frostbite) for superior AOE snares and strong AOE dps
- Water Elementals Freeze spell, which provides a second ranged Frost Nova, in conjunction with the players Frost Nova. Excellent for the Lasher wave.
Increased survivability (Ice barrier) is also a nice benefit of being frost on Freya hardmode, but it's not the reason you go frost. You do it for Improved Blizzard and Water Elementals Freeze.
Also, I've only had a few opportunities to try out Imp Blizzard and found that it didn't necessarily slow down the adds enough to control the situation for the better
I'm not sure what strat your using, but Imp Blizzard most certainly slows down the adds enough to control the situation for the better, especially in conjunction with Frost Nova+Freeze combos. This is why many guilds use the frost mage!
Many guilds also opt to AOE the "Three Add Wave" as well. Make sure you do NOT have Frostbite in your spec if this is the case. Snaplasher getting Frostbite procs will result in deaths. Frost Mage can do excellent DPS on the detonator wave, strong AOE dps on the three-add wave (if thats the strategy your guild uses) and poor DPS on the conservator wave.
It just so happens that the Conservator wave is the most difficult wave, and the reason why casters are often subbed for melee (our dps is poorer, we are vulernable to silence/bad mushrooms, have lower hp and more likely to die from Natures Fury/Tremor combos)
In summary: You only want one frost mage for the AOE snares and control for the Detonator/Three wave. Any additional frost mages beyond that will make the Conservator wave harder. You could bring extra mages as fire, but this might be an unwise option if you have the ability to stack melee. They generally can perform better on the Conservator.
Are the t9 stats available for rawr. I'd like to see the dps spread between our specs. I'm assuming arcane takes a hit just by looking at relative stat values.
Are the t9 stats available for rawr. I'd like to see the dps spread between our specs. I'm assuming arcane takes a hit just by looking at relative stat values.
The set bonuses are in the program. You just have to import the T9 gear into rawr. All you have to do is go to "Tools" -> "Edit items" -> "Add" Then enter in the item id number. You can find the number by looking up the item number at wowhead. Sunstrider's - Wowhead Search for the Horde, Khadgar's - Wowhead Search for the Alliance.
I would say that if both mages are arcane then giving them the bonus is pretty well wasted. Generally (assuming equal dps from all DPS in the raid, which is a big assumption, of course), you want to give it to whatever specs present scale best with crit. So Affliction Warlocks and Frost Mages are usually pretty low on the list since they scale poorly with crit. I think the general priority list goes something like (anyone feel free to chime in about the relative rankings here):
I probably missed some subtleties in there, but that is a rough guide. So, in a long answer, yes there are situations where trading FM with another mage is a loss of raid DPS.
Yes FFB mages and TTW/Fire gain the most benefit from FM due to Hot Streak scaling and higher +Crit dmg mods and coefficients.
Arcane mages IMO are not SO far behind in benefit as listed above however - probably between Destro Locks and SPs.
+75% AM crit dmg, +50% AB/Abar crit dmg combined with a faster cast speed than Fireball / FFB / Shadow Bolt makes the Arcane benefit reasonable.
- improved blizzard (no frostbite) for superior AOE snares and strong AOE dps
It is fine to use frostbite and even preferred to some degree it just means you can't use blizzard on the lashers until they are taunted to the kill position. Before that you just use arcane explosion which is lower dps but the race to kill the lashers is after the taunt, not before.
The safest way to handle the lasher roots goes something like, taunt->shockwave (or equivalent tank c/d)->earthbind/frost nova/frost grenade->pet nova and minimizing any overlap time. You also want to start blizzarding as early as possible so you should already have your pet out and it is better if someone else does the first root after shockwave unless you want to use pet nova on the first one and someone else get the second one.
Lastly if you do use frostbite make sure you are not on Snaplasher (neither frostbolts or blizzard, even with the glyph your frostbolts can still frostbite) in the elemental phase as mentioned above or you can gib melee, and make sure your water elemental starts on passive so he does not get interrupted and become unable to use nova when you need it.
Hello gentlemen, I am certain this question has been asked before but I am curious about the best spec while when doing General Vezax hard mode.
I have noticed, of course, that most top guilds have their mages spec frost for this encounter. I am curious as to what exactly makes frost the best spec since my gut reaction would be to go FFB and just spam FFB during shadowcrash. FFB costs 399 mana while frostbolt costs 370. Does frostbolt spam have higher dps than FFB spam?
Thank you for your time, an exact answer would be much appreciated.
The frost build that i know of for General Vezax hard mode also specc'd into 5/5 arcane concentration for less mana consumption, brain freeze for free fireballs, magic absorption for less damage taken for animus phase, and ice barrier to help lessen damage taken as well.
The damage during Animus is partially resistable so I wouldn't suggest dropping MA. I didn't take any shadow crashes this week and with shadow prot + MA I resisted 33% of the shadow damage on the fight. Our warlock only resisted 20%.
If you have mana issues, you can pull points from Chilled to the Bone and/or the WE talents to pick up Arcane Mind.
Originally Posted by Kyth
Maybe I'll try it this week. Much of the attraction of frost for me was survivability, since DPS wasn't ever a huge issue on the fight for us.
When we were learning the Ice Barrier was a nice crutch. FFb not having that or MA seems like a lot of extra damage, but it may be fine now that the fight is easy for us. (sort of like how arcane was a nice crutch while learning Firefighter.)
MA is definitely a key mage talent for hardmodes regardless of spec. Especially on firefighter (pre-nerf though even post-nerf it is still useful just probably not necessary) and Algalon it will allow you to stay alive where otherwise you wouldn't have. After initially respeccing to it for thorim hard-mode many weeks ago I decided to keep it in my main fireball spec since there are just so many fights it is useful on. Sometimes it is deceptive in its effectiveness but one look at parses will tell you how much dmg it is actually helped you avoid.
My guild just attempted 10man Algalon for our first time tonight. Besides wiping before 50% every time, I noticed my consistent low DPS. I don't have a WWS (will get that up next time), but I hovered around 3.3k-3.5k DPS. Now this group has NO caster buffs and I had forgotten there was no 3% hit buff. Is this the reason that could explain my low dps? Is there anything I can do to improve? Perhaps spec'ing FFB for the 3% hit and extra CD. Arcane? Any tips welcomed.
EDIT: I just logged out on my Freya frost spec, but I currently use the standard FB spec. I would logon and switch, but its really late here!
Last edited by justacityboy : 07/13/09 at 3:32 AM.
I'm a frostfire spec mage 0/53/18 and I'm a bit curious about the scorch mechanic. You see, my mage has about a 29% chance to crit with fire spells (i believe this includes Frostfire bolt spells) however I thought that when combined with improved scorch*5 it would have a 49% chance to crit. This isnt the case as my recount results say that my frostfire only crits about 29% of the time. I usually cast nothing until scorch has been re-applied so I know the results are not skewed due to the lack of it not being on my target.
Clearly I dont understand what the buff is actually for, though, a 49% chance to crit does seem unusually high for me as im just adequately geared.
Am I supposed to be having that crit percentage of 29 with frostfire? If not what exactly is the benefit of me using scorch?
I'm a frostfire spec mage 0/53/18 and I'm a bit curious about the scorch mechanic. You see, my mage has about a 29% chance to crit with fire spells (i believe this includes Frostfire bolt spells) however I thought that when combined with improved scorch*5 it would have a 49% chance to crit. This isnt the case as my recount results say that my frostfire only crits about 29% of the time. I usually cast nothing until scorch has been re-applied so I know the results are not skewed due to the lack of it not being on my target.
Clearly I dont understand what the buff is actually for, though, a 49% chance to crit does seem unusually high for me as im just adequately geared.
Am I supposed to be having that crit percentage of 29 with frostfire? If not what exactly is the benefit of me using scorch?
Thanks.
If you are calculating your crit rate against a raid boss I believe there is ~5% crit reduction due to level differences. Therefore the benefit of scorch in its current form is to make your paperdoll crit percentage a reality. And your crit chance of frostfire bolt should be increased by an extra 5% from talents (3% improved scorch) and the frostfire glyph (2%).
Thread discussing crit surpession, with link to original discussion
In PVP they did not remove the 1% miss chance(bug, not addressed by Blizzard yet)
Also you cannot cap spell hit against players that have a resist talent or racial, for example gnome racial(2% arcane resist) means no matter the hit rating your arcane attacks against him cap at 97%(1% base miss). Ret pallys notoriously have 4% spell resist which cannot be overcome. (95% cap)
I hope this is fixed.
is this still viable? Can racial resists be compensated by hit or not? Source?
Give a man a fire and he is warm for the day, but set fire to him and he is warm for the rest of his life.
I am curious as to what exactly makes frost the best spec since my gut reaction would be to go FFB and just spam FFB during shadowcrash. FFB costs 399 mana while frostbolt costs 370. Does frostbolt spam have higher dps than FFB spam?
Another way to think about it is:
- Frost spec has built in raw efficiency. Things are either cheaper to cast, or free to cast (Brain Freeze). Even if FFB was slightly cheaper mana than FFB, you need to take into account the mana-free casts like Brain Freeze a Frost Spec offers (which increases if you wear 4 pce)
- Fire and Frostfire rely on mana regen for their efficiency, via Master of Elements procs. Since Vezax renders mana regen useless, your biggest means of being mana efficient as a fire/ffb mage is also severely limited. Fireball might still have Clearcasting, but it's not enough. FFB is also efficient by nature, but also lags a bit behind Frost.
My guild just attempted 10man Algalon for our first time tonight. Besides wiping before 50% every time, I noticed my consistent low DPS. I don't have a WWS (will get that up next time), but I hovered around 3.3k-3.5k DPS. Now this group has NO caster buffs and I had forgotten there was no 3% hit buff. Is this the reason that could explain my low dps? Is there anything I can do to improve? Perhaps spec'ing FFB for the 3% hit and extra CD. Arcane? Any tips welcomed.
If you truly had 'no' buffs then Algalon is just a target dummy. You could quite easily check on the dummy what your dps is and then make adjustments for DPS loss during Big Bang/Cosmic Smash movement time
I also do Algalon10 as the only caster, in a melee group with very few buffs. For this reason i'm on Collapsing Star duty. If your getting 0 buffs, your other DPS must be hunters+melee? Who is doing Collapsing stars in your group, if not you? If they are all synergised, it'd make more sense to keep them on Algalon and put the odd person out (aka the unsynergised caster) on stars.
07/08/09, 8:50 PM
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