Hello,
I've finally read this whole mess, feeling like I was getting slightly more retarded near the end *can't believe people have such a hard time reading*

But here's what I've got for you. First of all:

^ - is that a copy/paste mistype on the 0:00 - ap/iv/GEM/trinket or is there some type of benefit to burning a mana gem at the beginning of a fight?


Second; on the TTW discussion coming from a warrior tank: The last thing on my priority list is Tclap. It is mediocre threat, bad DPS, and slows down rage generation. Not to mention waste of a GCD. *With current content* there is no need for a warrior to use Tclap religiously. I didn't even know mages benefited from it until today, none of my arcane mages told me. Now, with that said, I probably did have a DK in the group doing the slow debuff so it didn't matter (hopefully) but you may want to let your tank know if you want him to keep tclap up.

There's no reason a tank should say no to adding 12% to your dps, I simply don't use it because as a tank in these boring times i shoot for the highest DPS I can do, which doesn't include tclapping.

that is all

*edit* i second the idea to lock the thread/start over, i spent a good 4hrs or so reading about clipping ABarr, have to read backwards to get useful information unless its on page 1

Mage 2pc T7/7.5

Ahh, Okay thank you!

I've been toying with an arc fire build 18/51/0+2 similar to this: 18/53/0 using Glyph of Fireball, Molten Armor and Arcane Blast (I have another ffb mage providing scorch) and using AB Spam during Molten Fury time to use up extra mana. I've been trying to configure Rawr to take that rotation into account without success. I was hoping someone who is more familiar with the program might be able to help with the Rawr settings, or possibly throw this spec in and post the results.

With 1 good dk in the raid there is nearly no need to Tclap at all. (there are 2 exceptions: Feugen/Stallag, cause many raidleader kinda split up the raid into meele / caster and Gothik with the same split-problem) I talked to my Dk-mate a while ago and he told me that keeping up the diseases, has first priority as dk in any spec. Thinking about 25 man raids, there should've been no problem at all for arcane/fire-mages, even if they didnt care to ask their tanks/dks.


@cobra:
i already tried that, but since they changed the way arcane produces dmg. (AM is now > AB, before the patch it was possible to generate real high dps with AB-spam for longer time) Plus, if u think about the manacost for a fully stacked AB (~1700) and the missing extra mana from the deeparcan, u are going to run out of mana so freakin fast, that there is really no use for abspam after that patch.

(sry for my bad english, im kinda tired)

I'd like to point out this common mistake. Casting AB during molten fury won't make it magically good. If AB is worth casting for a fire spec, then it will be good to cast under all scenarios. The spells you cast during molten fury should exclusively include your best dps rotation. If it happens to be AB spam, then ok (although I very highly doubt it). Point being, the molten fury gains are just the same for AB than it is for any other fire spells, so AB is either good or no good for the build.

Hi all,
it seems the majority of this thread is dedicated to raiding mages.
I would just like to add my twopennies worth.
as a mage who is doing mostly heroics with crafted and rep gear Arcane has significantly boosted my dps. I tried both fire and FFB and was hovering around 1400-1600 dps. Changing spec to arcane has seen it jump immediately to 1900-2000. This is with no changes to gear. hit is obviously no problem but i didn't think it was in normal heroics anyway. I never seemed to miss much.
essentially i guess i'm saying give it a go when you hit 80. you'll do your best damage and it will give you good practice for when you start raiding.

I actually had a guild mate ask me last night what spec she should go when she gets her mage to 80 and wasn't sure which would be better for that gear level, so thanks for the heads up on that. It does make sense, though, since Arcane can use a very mana intensive rotation in heroics to squeeze out extra dps since fights are all very short.

yeh i forgot to mention that...(i was intending to)

i haven't had any problems spamming AB until MB procs and then rinse and repeat.

on boss fights i get away with blowing all CD's and trinkets from the start.(with mirror image) only once have i had to use a gem and a mana pot but that was in VH at last boss after the mana drain.

On a small side note: It helps to look at Deadly Boss Mods even for Heroics. That way you can decide to blow your Barrage proc earlier or empty your AB-stack on a MB instead of fishing for one more chance on a ABarr proc, because the timer shows that there will be an effect incoming that will waste your cast due to forced movement or silence or similar effect.

The "snare" from FFB will not trigger this on a raid boss. There is a distinct list of spells/effects that will trigger a and Frostfire Bolt/Frostbolt were not on that list.

The effect is from the frost warding talent and has nothing to do with glyphs. 30k mana gained on Sapphiron is quite possible with the frost warding talent.

Isn't it possible for there to be a spec where AB spam is the best DPS rotation, but another combination of AB is not the second best DPS rotation? What I mean by that is, let's say spamming AB is top DPS, but the mana-demand makes it impractical, so during most of a fight you do a lesser DPS rotation -- couldn't that lesser DPS rotation not involve AB and still be a solid alternative? Which would then support the reasoning of switching to AB during Molten Fury.

I know none of the math behind what he was suggesting and I will agree that it seems unlikely, but it does seem potentially possible.

You are totally right, I took the talent for this reason instead of the added crit-damage to my blizzard trash clearings. The Glyphs I took because I had 2 minor glyphs available and was planning to have Frost/Fire ward up anyway depending on situation. It won't be the first time some Boss decided to throw a frostbolt or fireball my way, might as well reflect it.

For 5mans/heroics arcane most likely will be the dominant spec for a few factors. If you have a bunch of green/blue gear, you might be underneath the hit cap. You need 6% hit for a level 82 mob. Arcane gives you 6% off the bat so you can run around with 0 hit gear. FFB only gives 3% hit.

The battles also are very short which means you can do a huge mana intensive cycle that most likely wouldn't work in an extended raid battle. This favors arcane greatly.

I think both of these outweigh the loss of improved scorch. (You most likely won't have 2 mages in your 5man).

Honestly though if all you do is 5-mans you can probably run fire, ffb, arc, or frost spec without major impact/loss since only very small portions of 5-mans are DPS burns (achievements).

The FAQ on the DK thread which discusses this glyph disagrees:

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t38659-b...power_mastery/

I never said it triggers TtW. My post was with regards to DKs.


Btw, I posted about this earlier in the thread (about page 53), but I haven't seen any solid report of numbers proving whether it does or does not trigger TtW, although I have seen people stating both ways without evidence. I think even Manly says that the reason he hasn't posted about this on the front page is that he hasn't seen a thorough enough test on debuffs triggering TtW to add it. Personally, it makes little difference to me since my tanks keep up their slow debuffs, but it would be nice to see a definitive answer.

There's one.

There's two. (from the first page of the WotLK talents 3.0.9 thread)

For my own simple testing. Find a boss. Mine was patchwerk in naxx10. Ask for no one to put up any debuffs for 10seconds, including the tank. Cast abarr. Cast ffb. Cast abarr again. Notice no 12% increase. Admittedly, i don't have a log, but if it were that simple for FFB to provide the necessary snare I'm sure several people would have mentioned it by now and corrected myself and many others who have stated it doesn't work. Nothing new here.

The reason Ice Armor and Slow are the only mage abilities that work is due to the attack speed part of the debuffs, FFB/Frostbolt only affect moving speed. Intended or not, its how it currently works on live servers.

EDIT: I assumed since you posted in the arcane thread you were talking about TtW. I don't really care whether it affects the DK ability, thats for a different thread.

You really shouldn't judge mechanics based on a test that consists of casting a spell twice. There are test dummies that are skull level which allow you to perform longer tests in much more stable conditions.

Wouldn't it be better to test this with AM since it does a static amount of damage?

Actually the skull test dummy is a very bad thing to use to test because they are not immune to the same things bosses are. You will notice they are stunnable from impact and they are also snareable from ffb's movement snare.

Those abilities while they happen on the dummies, whould not affect whether or not TtW or the Glyph of BS proc, or happen. Snared is different than Slowed, as far as game mechanics are concerned? At least as it applies to bosses.