Magic Absorption for a Raiding Build
 

Now generally his talent is regarded as more of a support talent but is there any scope for us thinking of it more as valid full time raiding talent?

I sit on 140 resistance to all magic self buffed (on top of this I have my 2% chance for spells to miss blood elf racial). Throw on Improved Gift of the Wild and my resistances to all magic stretch over 200 to the extent I have 'good' resistance to all magic. Then the are other more specific buffs such as the priest shadow res buff and paladin buffs that could potential push resistance over 300. This is an awful lot of resistance.

Now obviously this has it's support benefits. Mages with this amount of resistance take approximately half damage from aoe and direct magic effects. They become less work for healers and are surely the first choice for any mage tanking scenarios that might apply.

But isn't it about time we started thinking about this talent as a dps increasing talent too. It might be situational but there were plenty of fights in BC were this talent helped push arcane mage dps above other classes. The fourth MH boss for example, saw me miss a hell of a lot of his silence effects (this was back when I was only sitting on 100 or so resistance) and just dps through whilst everyone else was silenced. Likewise for the third boss a lot of his mana drains miss. I didn't have to worry about holding back on dps to conserve mana.

So thoughts on the talent? I think as raid support it has it's obvious advantage. Less splash damage means less healing needed and potentially mages staying alive during heavy aoe fights where they might otherwise have died. And then there are the advantages of resisting effects and being allowed to dps at full capacity (as well as the mana return of course). As a 2-point talent I don't think it should be underestimated.

This question really doesn't need it's own post. I would consider posting this question to the simple questions thread. You should then post some potential talent builds for discussion, and a list of WotLK encounters/situations it would benefit you. Also, you should remove the incorrect information: resistance doesn't effect damage when you are mage tanking bosses, and the mana return only happens on full partial-resists and misses(which are less likely for DD/AoE dmg effects with the new 10% granular resist system).

As a mage who has the talent I can tell you that full resists and misses happen frequently at the 200-300 resistance level.

When dual-specing comes out, you could burn one of your slots on an absorption build for AoE bosses, or respec for them. It's so situational of a talent I don't see it being part of a "full-time" raiding build, but it could be something worth specing into regularly, depending on which bosses are progression content for you.

Pasture: I have a slight issue with your original post. You seem to imply that the Resists from Paladin Auras/DK Aura/etc. stack with Mark of the Wild. Unless they change this at 80, they do not. As such, I have a hard time believing that Magic Absorption (80 Resist) + Applicable Aura (130 Resist) + Mage Armor (60 Resist talented) can get near 300. That's 270, and I can't think of anything else that stacks with this. Did you perhaps mean over 200 or 250?

As an Arcane Mage with Magic Absorption (and who enjoys the talent immensely), I would love if this indeed worked. Can you confirm this?

Here's what stacks:

Magic Absorption stacks with Mage Armor, which stacks with Mark/Gift of the Wild, which doesn't stack with Auras/Totems. Thus, you could have 80 from Magic Absorption, 60 from Mage Armor (talented), 54 from Gift of the Wild (76 talented) and be at 216. However, you could be 216 against all schools, and then have 130 from Prayer of Shadow Protection. The 130 would be additive to the 80 and 60, but not Mark/Gift. So you'd have 270 resistance against Shadow, and 216 against everything else.

Unless, of course, they changed how buffs are handled as they appear on your character. They could be bugged just like AI and Fel Intellect interaction was, in that, they kept removing each other for a while, so that you couldn't have the spirit from FI, and the Int from AI. But I think they fixed that... did they?

It might be good for learning boss encounters that have a lot of splash damage and need magic resist for, but as far as a viable DPS raiding spec, I think not. Just for learning fights maybe as a guild all together :p but I dont see you needing this anytime soon since 10 and 25 man naxx is fairly easy, as well as the new Obsidian instance and Malygos/ The boss in Wintergrasp that spec would not be needed as well.

I'd agree that it'd be incredibly situationally beneficial and needs to be taken in context with the fight. We also need to consider what we are giving up. Assuming we are 0/53/18 for the raiding Frostfire build, we are looking at giving up all of Piercing Ice and a point in Elemental Precision. Straight off the top we lose 6% Damage on our main nuke and 1% to hit.

That's not to say it's not completely useless. I took it in the name of science for our Sapphirion kill last night and saw a return of some 5000 mana as well as a reasonable amount of his aura absorbed. It was outstanding for that fight, however, currently, it's the only fight I'd even consider taking it for. It definitely wouldn't be my main spec and I don't even think I'd consider it for my secondary spec when dual speccing come out.

I know this kinda veers from the main topic of this thread, but it was already stated that this might not be worth its own thread, so why not make it a little more broad?

So what about magic absorption and arcane shielding for pvp, even with a mostly frost/arcane pvp spec. It seems like it would be an effective way to combat other casters, who I've always had more problems with rather than melee. It may be too situational, but you could always switch from mage armor to either ice or molten depending on how an arena match may develop. Plus, resistances become more effective when the level difference is less, right? You've been talking about how 200-250 resistance to a particular school could be effective against level 83 bosses, it would be even more effective against lvl 80 players, albeit less likely you'd want to get to 250 for a particular school, you could still set it up to be that way. Anyway, opinions and comments?

Again, sorry if this off topic too much, but I've found no pvp thread, though I'd really like to see one and I'm surprised there isn't one yet...but I can't make it myself, so this is my way of getting a little pvp talk going, =).

Mage Armour, Magic Absorption Gift of the Wild do stack with totems. I've had 270 resist to fire/frost/nature through totems. I'm guessing similar results could be gained from paladin auras and the deathknight spell resist aura.

I would presumed that resist totems/auras don't stack however. I haven't had the opportunity to test Shadow Protection yet.

But 270 resistance is easily obtainable through only a couple of other classes. Perhaps I was shooting a little high for over 300.

EDIT: --- Nevermind miscalculation on my part. I was factoring in lower resistance values from totems. The 270 resistance is from the totem alone and not GotW.


It's a very effective talent against casters who don't have much in the way of spell penetration. I've battled arcane mages in BGs myself and magic attacks can hit for between 50-75% of what you would normally expect.

Gift of the Wild has never and does not stack with Totems or Auras.

As a former Frost/Arcane build, I can attest to this being very useful as raid survivability with appreciable amounts of magic and in PvP. AoE? Washes over you. Stun/Silence? Resisting them is wonderful. PvP Mage [or Warlock] got you down? Look at that, he keeps giving you mana back! Generally speaking, any build with arcane has enough splash points to pick this up, and should if there's room without skimping any DPS talent points. It's been an underrated talent for a long time, and the change only makes it more so at 2 points. I mean, really, at 5 points in old arcane, there just really was never room for it. But two points in builds with freebie points? It's probably more helpful than anything else you can choose.

I wouldn't take Magic Absorbtion in a Frostfire build, but I consider it a strong talent and definatly worth taking in a Fireball or Frostbolt build.

If you are going to have a frost build there is alot of speculation between dipping into arcane for Focus Magic or fire for Ignite. My personal choice would be to go Arcane because you gain Magic Absorbtion as well.

As long as Ffb builds are top DPS, there aren't enough spare points for it.

If other builds can compete with Ffb specs post say Arcane Blast retuning, it might be an okay place to put filler points. The problem with the talent is that it is very situational.

I might stick it into my secondary PVP/AOE/daily/trash build post dual specs, but cannot justify the use of it on raid bosses.

Last week while fighting Sapphiron I watched my resistance jump after being buffed by Mark of the Wild. I already had the paladin aura, was wearing two pieces of FrR gear, and had mage armor up. Maybe a recent change, but I can definitely attest that unless my brain was playing tricks on me it did stack.

I will check this this week when we get there again.