Quoting this as an example, but not responding to you per se, just the general theme of the discussion here:

However, the tank's equal retort to that is that "Doing damage is your problem, tanking is mine". He or she will do what they think is best for their role.

The reality is, between mana and damage maximisation, Arcane mages require a good amount of raid support (from shammies in the group, to someone applying to potential innervates) to maximise their performance. Already, I'm receiving 'joking' comments from other raid members about how we're so dependant on this and that to perform. Other DPS classes are saying "we're doing DPS without asking for anything why're you guys getting all the benefit?".

From a tank's point of view, they shouldn't need to spec into JoJ for example if they feel they can better maximise threat generation with other talents (and assume that FF is there, or be 'meh it doesn't bother me if its not'), and that content is easy now so they don't need to a movement speed debuff up on the boss (so Warriors could exclude Thunderclap from their rotations).

It's a shallow argument for sure, but it gets tiring after a while. And as Blizzard slowly 'adjusts' the damage to be within a hand's grasp of each other, the raid may not feel it to be as worth it anymore to do certain things just to help 2 players within a raid maximise their damage. Most just tend to feel "why don't you go back to FFB?" - obviously because other classes don't care for your own DPS they care for theirs.

I note though that this doesn't apply to hardcore progression guilds. But it is probably a very real hurdle for mid-tier guilds.

Arcane blast and Molten armor are my first 2 choices. I'm not sure between
- Arcane missile (+25% crit dmg)
- Arcane power (+3sec)

I use the AB AB AB ([mbarr] or abarr) rotation.
Is it safe to assume that Missile Barrage benefits from the 25% crit ?

Sorry forgot to quote but this is refering to the above post.


Its been discussed before but most favor the Glyph of arcane missles and adjust their rotation.

Drop arbarr from your rotation unless a movment fight.

AB, AB, AB, AM
Cast AM early at 2 debuffs if Missle Barrage is up to boost Dpm/dps a little.

On burns its AB until missle barrage procs.

Assuming your hit capped go with Spell Power>Haste>int>crit for Arcane spec. However I dont think I could see myself gemming for int but thats just me.

Hope that helps.

I think you missed the part where I am a tank, primarily. Any tank not putting up their TtW-triggering-debuff isn't doing their job. This isn't a situation where they put up the debuff so that you get TtW, and they get nothing. This is a situation where they put up the debuff for the huge benefit to their tanking performance, and you get TtW as a nice side-effect that they shouldn't even care about.

thanks

How about whether the glyph helps crit dmg of MB ?

As in.. Does the glyph increase the damage of the critical hits from an Arcane Missile cast when MB procs?

Yes, it would. You're not casting a different spell, you're casting a buffed version of the same spell.

Correction – taking that sentence for what it is you’re right. I meant for it to be taken into context on our particular raid composition, albeit the comment was more off the cuff. Sorry for the confusion

If you read my post again you'll see that, in the prot pally's instance, he chose not to spec JoJ because he knows that other classes provide it within our raid (DKs through FF). So from a tanking perspective what he needs is there.

From our (arcane mages perspective), I'm saying we cannot take it for granted that TtW is always going to be up for various reasons - DKs/mages could be assigned to different targets, DKs can die, DKs may not be present (in which case our prot tank has said he will respec into JoJ if that situation occurs).

There is some rationale in this that perhaps explains some widely differing results for Arcane mages in terms of DPS (although this is probably rare, it is not entirely impossible).

Also, to clarify, is Thunderclap, IW and JoJ the only movement debuffs that affect bosses, or are they the only movement debuffs that trigger ToTW?

They're all attacks speed debuffs, not movement speed debuffs. Movement speed debuffs don't work on bosses, attack speed ones do.

Thus, only attack speed debuffs trigger ToTW, on bosses.

And let's not forget the spell, "slow".

Slow [Magic Effect]
Movement speed reduced by 60%. Time between ranged attacks increased by 60%. Casting time increased by 30%.

So, as I said: only attack speed debuffs.

[Edit, to below, because I don't feel like prolonging this:

It's slowing the ranged attack speed of the boss by 60%. The fact that the boss doesn't have (or utilize) a ranged attack makes no difference to the fact that it's slowing it. it is this effect which triggers TTW on bosses, not just the fact that slow is on the target. FFB has a snare as part of the DOT which it applies. This is "on bosses," but because they're immune to movement slowing effects (snares, in the parlance of the TTW talent) it does not trigger TTW. The bosses are not immune to the range attack speed debuff of slow. If that wasn't there on slow, it would not trigger TTW.]

Nevertheless, unless they patched it with 3.0.8, it still sticks to raid bosses and still procs TtW despite having no actual effect, unlike frostbolt slow and other similar mechanics.

Looking at your prot pally's spec, he's sacrificed JotJ for improved Hammer of Justice (30 second cooldown on his stun/interrupt instead of 60 - the stun is fairly inconsequential on raid bosses, the interrupt only of much use on Kel'Thuzad but a plethora of class can provide it). That looks like a decision poorly suited to main tanking raid bosses to me.

A tank's primary objectives are to survive the damage output of the boss while maximising the damage potential of the raid, whether it be via raising threat cap or other means. Purposefully neglecting to take an ability that will reduce boss attack speed by 20%, increasing survivability, and will guarantee a 12% increase for your arcane and fire/arc mages seems to fail on both these points to me.

While most boss fights enable a second tank to apply the debuff at close to 100%, not all do:

Faerlina with one off-tank
Noth
Grobbulus with one off-tank
Gothik until the gates open (as trivial an example as it may be)
4h (especially if you're doing a Thane zerg strat)
KT
Malygos with one tank (if you're doing this you're more than likely trying for achievement, so maximising DPS potential is especially important).
Sarth with drakes (again, on the drake burns maximising potential dps is especially important)

Not wanting to derail the thread even more, but again I'm not trying to discuss our prot pally's spec - I was just giving an example of why ToTW may not always be up, in a 'taking it for granted' kinda way.

I haven't had that problem even without JoJ as I've had the benefit of Frost Fever being applied anyway. Also, the other 2 tanks are a DK and a Warrior so some times they switch MTing roles.

But again, I digress, the point really was in reference to earlier posts discussing ToTW may not always be up (not thunderclapping cause content is easy etc)

So let me get this straight. We're having an argument where one side is arguing their tank won't give them a debuff that they should be, and the other side is arguing they should.

Way I see it (1) we all agree a tank should provide it (2) the gentleman/men in question aren't getting it because their tanks are retarded (3) so your solutions are the following possibles:

You can swap spec to a non-TtW spec, or
Get your tank to do his job, or
Get another tank, or
Live with 12% less damage on your Fireballs.

Why are we arguing on what the tank's job is? It's not relevant to the Mage class and whether or not we reach a decision it won't change the predicament of "retarded tank believes you should Slow".

Well, another item to consider comes from a talk I had with one of our death knights. While we may not need a FFB mage to provide the snare needed for another mage to trigger TtW, it may still be worthwhile to make sure you have one in the raid. I came across this while having a discussion with some of our FFB mages about switching to deep fire after learning more about other snares that count towards TtW. However, if they switch to deep fire, we still get the bonus from TtW, but any DKs using [Glyph of Blood Strike] will not get their 20% bonus.

In other words, unless you don't run with any DKs using this glyph, it doesn't matter what the tank does since you'll still want a FFB mage in the raid applying the slow debuff anyways.

Source: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t38659-b...ched_yo_uncle/

Hi guys!


According to Optimizer, Mage armor is currently listed above Molten armor as far as DPS goes. I am curerntly specced 57/3/18 and would like to know if it makes sense? I was under the impression Molten was a better choice DPS wise as long as your mana pool allows you to sustain a long fight

As far as i can remember gearing for crit on an arcane spec isnt the way to go, as the spec only gets 50% damage bonus whereas the likes off ffb gets 150%. Its possible mage armor allows you to generate more mana whilst casting, therefore allowing you to cast "heavier" spell cycles such as AB spam and that is why its rated above molten armor dps wise.

Slow (Mage)
Ice Armor (lol)
Cripple (Felguard)
Frost Fever (Death Knight)
Thunderclap (Warrior)
Infected Wounds (Druid)
Judgements of the Just (Paladin)

Did you enable all of the raid buffs on the buffs tab in Rawr? I assume you're using Rawr since you mentioned the Optimizer.

Which are you? 57/3/11 or 53/0/18?

57/3/11 is more likely to need mage, as the lack of 10% mana reduction makes it more spicy on mana.

53/0/18 /w Frost Channeling makes your spells cost 10% less, so I'd imagine that Molten would be better.

Make sure that you have all the relevent buffs ticked in Rawr, as leaving mana regen (e.g. Replenishment or JoW) unchecked will seriously skew your gearing results, and can lead to results such as stacking Int and Spi over SP and Crit/Haste. Also, the fight length can affect the mana results, and therefore the gear.

In general, Molten Armour is far superiour dps, but if you're doing 10 mans without Replenishment or Pallys, then nothing ruins your dps like going OOM, so Mage Armour is the obvious dps choice, combined with a lower mps rotation, such as ABx1, ABar.

That's not the post that confirms this, but apparently it's said Slow is the only mage debuff which triggers TtW. However, this was all posted before patch 3.0.9. as far as I can tell. Is it just me or does this seem like a bug? If so is there any word on if this will be changed in the future?

He could also mistakenly put 57/3/18 into rawr, as I notice it lets you use more points than you actually have...I assume thats just to make it easy to add/subtract points without having to futz with the tree. I know I did that once early on, when switching stuff upo, I forgot to pull all the points out of frost when i was playing with a Fireball spec I was 18/53/18...was GREAT!