I'm not as fond of Winter's Chill as some people are. On average, it gives you a +1% chance to crit for every blow you get before the mob dies. Now, if there are other members of your group that can benefit from that as well as you can, it's a great talent. But since that's a limited demographic right now, you're probably better off elsewhere -- like Artic Winds.
Deffinatly passable as you level up, but it gets better the closer to 70 you get ( if you're doing alot of instances that is. ).
Ok, so I need advice on specc and spell rotation. I am in a guild that is currently at 5/6 scc 3/4 tk 2/? mh. I joined this guild recently and am trying to break into the mage ranks so I need do maximize my DPS through specc and rotation.
I am frost specc currently and have some +onlyfrost gear, but am willing to get replacement +spell damage gear. No need to comment on my gems as I know they suck and will be getting the +spell hit +spell damage blue quality ones soon.
2/48/11 is the easiest way to break into raiding. It looks like your guild is sitting on the normal guild-breaking walls - Vashj,Kael, etc.
You'll want to get as close to 164 spell hit as possible. You should be able to hit 1000 damage with crafted gear/gems/enchants. Don't skimp on anything if your guild is seriously attempting to take down these encounters.
And just as important - Come prepared. Flasks, Oil, Food buffs, Mana Pots, Destro Pots, Flame Cap.
Ok, so I need advice on specc and spell rotation. I am in a guild that is currently at 5/6 scc 3/4 tk 2/? mh. I joined this guild recently and am trying to break into the mage ranks so I need do maximize my DPS through specc and rotation.
I am frost specc currently and have some +onlyfrost gear, but am willing to get replacement +spell damage gear. No need to comment on my gems as I know they suck and will be getting the +spell hit +spell damage blue quality ones soon.
Your best bet is 2/48/11 deep fire, though if you really want to do arcane you can pull that off, you just need a shadow priest and a lot of mana pots. Are the other mages mostly fire? If so, definitely 2/48/11.
One other aspect that you can improve on is gear - there is a lot you can improve even before you set foot in SSC/TK.
First, take stock of your gold supply and your badge collection. If you have the resources, there is a bunch of great crafted and badge gear available. If you're willing to make the switch, changing over to spellcloth tailoring and making the spellfire pieces (chest in particular) will be a big dps upgrade.
Other craftable/purchasable options :
Belt of blasting - if you don't make spellfire, get this now. It is the best dps belt in the game all the way into sunwell. With badge->vortex conversion you can get all the mats yourself if you want.
Boots of blasting - this is a BoP item from a BoE pattern, so you would have to make it for yourself. If your server has a lot of raiding guilds, you may be able to find this cheaply. I would probably snap it up for anything less than 500g. If not, don't worry about it.
Bracers of nimble thought - BoE item, but requires 4 hearts of darkness. Again, on a progressed server if you can get the materials or item cheaply it is worth it, if hearts are going for over 150g then not so much.
Second, run a lot of heroic magister's terrace. If you didn't get spellfire crafted, the Scarlet Sin'dorei Robe and Gloves of Arcane Acuity will both be upgrades. Even if you did, the Fel-tinged Mantle and Cloak of the Betrayed are solid pieces.
Finish up rep grinds for both Violet Eye and Scryer. The Violet Signet of the Archmage and Scryer's Bloodgem are both upgrades.
PvP - The Vindicator's Silk Cuffs are actually a PvE upgrade for you, and don't cost that much honor (~12k).
Money to Burn -
Darkmoon Card Crusade is a nice dps upgrade, but can be really expensive. However if you have money to burn....
Badges to Burn -
A ton of the new badge rewards are big upgrades for you. Doing Kara every week, some raiding, and heroic MrT should create a moderately high badge income. Good items to target :
Icon of the Silver Crescent - cheap at 41 badges and still worth it
Fused Nethergon Band - great way to get hit, 60 badges
Fetish of the Primal Gods - solid all purpose offhand, 35 badges
Other options that might have alternatives :
Boots of Incantations - 75 badges
Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips - 75 badges
Tormented Demonsoul Robes/Shroud of Lore'nial - 100 badges.
You need 45 for the base fire talents - you can skip incineration or blazing speed if you want to pick up imp blizzard for any reason.
And yeah, Icy Veins makes up for the 7 wasted points, partially because it's a great spell and partially because there is no better place to put them. There aren't any more dps increases in the fire tree (imp flamestrike?). You can get slightly more longevity with 10 points in arcane for clearcasting, but there are no non-aoe dps increases in the first 15 points of arcane, and really with a shadowpriest you should not be having mana issues as fire.
You need 45 for the base fire talents - you can skip incineration or blazing speed if you want to pick up imp blizzard for any reason.
And yeah, Icy Veins makes up for the 7 wasted points, partially because it's a great spell and partially because there is no better place to put them. There aren't any more dps increases in the fire tree (imp flamestrike?). You can get slightly more longevity with 10 points in arcane for clearcasting, but there are no non-aoe dps increases in the first 15 points of arcane, and really with a shadowpriest you should not be having mana issues as fire.
PlushyCthulhu, I'm curious about how you're spending the 11 frost points (and I do mean curious, this isn't a veiled attack).
I'm no expert on fire or raiding, but I can't figure out why you're skipping Improved Frost Nova. I was under the impression fire mages use Frost Nova quite a bit. I'm not saying it's the best talent in the world (if it wasn't the prereq for Shatter, I'd probably skip it as a frost mage) but it looks like it'd be much more useful than Ice Shards unless you're casting a lot of frost spells. I was also under the impression fire mages sometimes use Rank 1 Frostbolt strictly for the snare, meaning 3 more points in Improved Frostbolt or perhaps Permafrost might even be better.
PlushyCthulhu, I'm curious about how you're spending the 11 frost points (and I do mean curious, this isn't a veiled attack).
I'm no expert on fire or raiding, but I can't figure out why you're skipping Improved Frost Nova. I was under the impression fire mages use Frost Nova quite a bit. I'm not saying it's the best talent in the world (if it wasn't the prereq for Shatter, I'd probably skip it as a frost mage) but it looks like it'd be much more useful than Ice Shards unless you're casting a lot of frost spells. I was also under the impression fire mages sometimes use Rank 1 Frostbolt strictly for the snare, meaning 3 more points in Improved Frostbolt or perhaps Permafrost might even be better.
Short version - it doesn't matter at all. I put the points in Ice Shards simply for better icelance damage and upping my frostbolt damage from completely gimp to mostly gimp for Illidan phase 2, but the situations where I'm actually using either spell are very rare. While I do use frostnova fairly often, I almost never use it back to back - either the pull is almost done, the tanks have established aggro, or the next set of aoe mobs is here yet. I could definitely see cases where Imp Nova or Permafrost might make a difference, but so far it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other for any of the sunwell fights.
I'm also running a 2/48/11 spec and right now I have those 5 points with 2 in frost warding and 3 in frostbite (semi useful in pvp), and I'm pondering switching it to 5/5 Improved frostbolt since neither of those currently come into play for me in a raiding environment (the Imp Frost Nova does help out on occasion though).
Frost damage (frost bolt) only comes into play on Illidan phase 2 for all T6 content through sunwell.
As far as pvp goes.... deep fire is terrible in most circumstances so it's best to just throw that card out when dealing with pve specs.
So, if you've having trouble on illidan, especially phase 2... you might want to maximize straight frost bolt damage... or for a bit of extra CC, you might want to just spec full frost for the fight.
If you aren't on Illidan, or are joining a group that has him on farm.... As long as you have Elemental precision and Icy Veins... the rest of it is completely trivial. Heck, in my current spec, I actually drop pyroblast/blastwave for a full imp blizzard (Felmyst). I originally thought I was fucked last night since I didn't have Blastwave and was the only mage for Illidan... but I ended up just rank 1 blizzarding the parasites and the hunters destroyed them.
I don't have access to the armory at work... but: Arcticpuffin - Scilla if you want to see what I did with my build.
I'm only in T5 content at this point, so it'd be for Al'ar (since I don't have much +frost damage gear to respec for the fight, and I'm using frostbolts between AB cycles).
I do some pvping on the side, but mainly its in AV (where I can hide behind large groups of friendlies and where its mostly PVE anyway).
whats the rotation with 2/48/11 scorches/fireballs. The raid I roll with is usually 4locks/2mages so keep that in mind with scorch debuff.
Mage 1 - scorch, scorch, scorch, fireball until scorch debuff is low (~8 sec is good so you can catch a resisted scorch and save the stack), repeat from fireball
Mage 2-N - scorch, scorch, fireball until boss is dead or some event causes scorch to drop off
It's a very simple style, not quite as braindead as frostbolt spam, but pretty close. More interesting is cooldown stacking - basically you want to leverage as much of your cooldowns as possible to hit during heroism and molten fury. For example, my Brut rotation (6 min fight, full consumables)
0:03 - Flame Cap
0:30 - Icy Veins, Skull of Gul'dan, Combustion, Destruction Pot
2:45 - Skull of Gul'dan, Destruction Pot
3:04 - Mana Gem
5:05 - Flame Cap
5:20 - Heroism, Icy Veins, Skull of Gul'dan, Combustion, Destruction Pot (Brut is < 20% so this is all Molten Fury time)
Would be slightly more interested if I had a Shrunken Hex Head, sadly we only have 3 in guild because ZA hates our casters (~15 bears, 3 heads, 1 mana attuned band)
So on trash does someone still need to do scroch, raid trash, non-raid trash?
If the trash is one or two big mobs or are going to live longer than ~15 seconds then usually the mages each toss a couple scorchs before fireballing. If it's a bunch of smaller stuff then usually we just fireball (or AoE depending).
Edit - this is assuming there are multiple fire mages - if you're solo then you're probably better off just skipping the scorches on trash unless the mob is going to live fairly long (> 30 sec or so)
PlushyCthulhu on
Steam/LoL: plushycthulhu
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
So I'm getting pretty annoyed. I've heard that Deep Fire is the best, or Deep Frost, or Arcane Frost, or Arcane Fire and quite frankly I'd like a definitive answer - for my gear, what is the BEST DPS spec I'm going to get?
It seems no matter what I roll I always seem to run into a lesser geared mage who is somehow matching me in the DPS metre or overtaking me, often with AM spam and no T5. I just don't fuckin' get it.
I can't get to your profile, but can probably alleviate some of your concerns:
Generally deep fire is the safest bet. 2/48/11. A PoM/Pyro mage shouldn't be able to touch your dps on a sustained fight. Regardless of gear, deep fire is pretty much win. And it's easy. Scorch just enough to keep up 5 stacks, fireball the rest of the time.
1. Are you hit capped or at least close? 160s without spacegoat 150s with. (For fire)
2. Are you counting trash dps? Because in all honesty, Fuck trash dps. Reset your meters for boss fights because that's where it really matters.
3. Are you stacking your abilities with icy veins? IE:
Alright, I took a lot of the suggestions you guys gave me. I should be hit capped after I get my belt of blasting created today and gem it up with veiled noble topaz. Thanks for the macro help as well, I have yet to test out my new DPS in raid situations but I did a Kara for badges the on Saturday and things seemed pretty ok.
Right now I'm debating what to spend my badges on:
Icon of the Silver Crescent
or
Fused Nethergon Band
I will be more than hit capped when I get my belt made so Icon could replace my scryer bloodgem or I could get the Fused Band and dump the horsemens signet. Right now I am leaning toward Silver Crescent since I don't need the hit.
Yeah, I think the int and haste make up for it easily. I guess it depends on where you're at with your gear, though.
If you're sitting under 1,000 damage, the flametongue might put out more dps... but haste only gets better as your gear improves. In the long run, the fetish will win out.
Hmm. I'm barely under 1000 and that's as a Frost spec. When I was Arc/Fire, I hit 1000 easily.
I would say buy the Flametongue. I went with the "it'll last longer" logic for my offhand, got the Fetish, and i ended up replacing it with the Jewel of Infinite Possibilities shortly after. I guess it depends on the content you have access to, but I wish I'd saved those 10 badges.
looking at maxdps.com, the fetish evens out with the flametongue around 850 damage as fire.... and then gradually beats out the flametongue. It's close enough to not matter, though. We're talking 2-3 dps, at the high end.
edit:// bad wording.
dougly on
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
Which should I get? Scryer Blade of Focus which has superior stats but no spell hit or the S2 Spellblade which has less damage and stats but +21 spell hit?
Keep in mind I'm sitting on 145 spell hit ATM and will eventually upgrade my helm which should get me hit capped.
Before I got the Felmyst staff, my hit rating varied a lot as I got new gear.
I ended up with the S3 glad weapon with +40 damage and the ZA haste weapon with +50 fire/arcane. I'd swap those out to ensure I remained hit capped. 145 isn't bad if you can find a space goat to hang out with.
If not, I'd definitely do whatever it takes to get 19 more hit or as close as possible.
Which should I get? Scryer Blade of Focus which has superior stats but no spell hit or the S2 Spellblade which has less damage and stats but +21 spell hit?
Keep in mind I'm sitting on 145 spell hit ATM and will eventually upgrade my helm which should get me hit capped.
The S2 spellblade only has 15 hit. 247 dam (w/ better stats) vs 225 dam 15 hit. It's a dps push if you can use all the hit, but the extra stats make the Scryer's Blade the better weapon. They are close enough that I would use whichever currency you care less about. Badges are useful for gems now, so you can never have too many, but if you're close to the arena point cap then the spellblade may make more sense so you don't let points rot.
Remember that a draenai is worth 1% hit and an elemental shaman is worth 3% hit. If you reliably have those in the raid your hit goal changes. It's good to be able to hit 164 hit regardless just in case, but maximize for your raid group.
This comes with the usual cavaet that this is info leaked from the alpha, subject to change, my ability to notice stuff, and so on and so forth.
Arcane: Magic Absorption now provides 1 point of resistance per level.
Arcane: Prismatic Cloak will now reduce the fade time for Invisibiility (by 4 seconds) in addition to its current effect.
Arcane, Req 35, Potent Spirit: 2 ranks. Increases your spell critical strike rating by 7%/15% of your Spirit.
Arcane, Req 40 and 2 pts of Potent Spirit, Student of the Mind: 3 ranks. Increases your Spirit by 4/6/10%.
Arcane, Req 40, Incanter's Absorption: 3 ranks. When you absorb damage your spell damage is increased by 5/10/15 % of the amount absorbed for 10 seconds.
Arcane, Req 45, Netherwind Presence: 5 ranks. Gives (several spells) a 3/6/9/12/15% chance of making your next (several spells) instant.
Arcane, Req 50, Arcane Barrange: 1 rank to the talent, 3 ranks to the spell. Instant cast, 3 second cooldown. Rank 1 costs 335 mana to do 96-470 damage. Rank 3 costs 610 mana to do 936-1145 damage.
Fire, Req 35, Fiery Payback: 2 ranks. Increases damage from Molten armor by 10/20% and whenever you resist a spell the caster takes 25/50% of any instant damage that would have been caused (not to exceed 50% of the caster's HP).
Fire, Req 40, Hot Streak: 3 ranks. Any time you score 3 criticals in a row, you have a 33/66/100% chance the next spell will have a 100% chance to crit.
Fire, Req 40, World in Flames: 3 ranks. If a fire spell you cast hits 3 or more targets, the spell causes 5/10/15% additional damage.
Fire, Req 45, Burnout: 5 ranks. Increases your spell critical damage for all fire spells by 5/10/15/20/25% but every time you critical with a fire spell you lose an additional 2/4/6/8/10% of your mana.
Fire, Req 50, Living Bomb: 1 rank. Instant, 1 minute cooldown, 30% of base mana. You cause [guessed] fire damage to all enemies within 15 yards every 3 seconds. After 15 seconds, you cause [guessed] additional fire damage to all enemies within 30 yards.
Frost, Req 35, Winter's Grasp: 2 ranks. Gives your frost damage spells a 10/20% chance to apply the Winter's Grasp effect. This increases the chance all attacks will hit the target by 2/4% and the target is considered Frozen for 4 seconds.
Frost, Req 40, Brain Freeze: 3 ranks. Your Frost Nova and Frostbite effects also reduces the target's chance to hit with all attacks by 5/10/15%
Frost, Req 40 and Water Elemental, Improved Water Elemental: 3 ranks. Increases the duration of your elemental by 10/20/30 seconds and increases its health/mana by 10%.
Frost, Req 45, Chilled to the Bone: 5 ranks. Increases the damage caused by your Frostbolt and Ice Lance spells by 1/2/3/4/5% and reduces the movement speed of all chilled targets by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.
Frost, Req 50, Deep Freeze. 1 rank, instant, costs 15% of base mana, only usable on Frozen targets. Stuns the target for 5 seconds. Cooldown unknown?
Editting complete. Comment time!
Magic Absorption is downright tempting now. Prismatic Cloak has a reason to exist. Potent Spirit/Student of the Mind are intriguing but very dependent on how much Spirit gets reitemized onto gear. Arcane Barrage looks like Arcane's answer to Ice Lance. Burnout I hope I'm misunderstanding (I hope that means the spell costs x% more, not that you lost x% of your mana). I don't feel qualified to comment on the rest of the arcane & fire stuff.
Frost though? It's interesting to see more being done with to-hit type talents. Winter's Grasp looks like the new best rogue talent in the game. Brain Freeze won't affect bosses (because bosses are immune to being frozen) but I can see where that -15% to hit could be very useful against ranged mobs. Chilled to the bone isn't quite the "must have" talent I was expecting on the req45 tier but has potential.
Deep Freeze I'm of mixed feelings about. I don't like the idea of a 51 pt talent that bosses are immune to. I'm very curious of the cooldown, especially as it relates to the common frost trick of timing a frostbolt & icelance to hit a frozen mob at the same time. Let's say the jury's still out.
Quick question from an aspiring GM who knows jack about mages - Is Arcane Concentration a must-have talent?
I'm looking at trialling a mage who I'm pretty sure we'll need to do some work with, as he's currently specced 2/56/3. Just want to make sure I'm justified in telling him to go 10/48/3 or go home.
P.S. Any info on what a fire mage starting kara should have for hit and crit would be appreciated.
You're talking raiding, so whether you're justified in telling him to go 10/48/3 or go home is really up to your style. Personally I wouldn't join a guild that told me how to spec, which is about 30% of the reason I'm unlikely to see Kara :P
Generally though, in my experience it's not "must have" but it is darn handy. Pending more information about the WotLK talents and spells, I'm probably going to move back to a 10/0/51 when WotLK/Patch 3.0 hits because it really is that useful when grinding.
TheEmerged on
Sometimes, the knights are the monsters
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
0/47/11 + 3 is the new 10/48/3.
edit: to go into more detail, 10/48/3 is nice, but basically you sacrifice Clearcasting for Icy Veins, which is an awesome buff to stack with your trinkets.
As for beginning Kara, 600+ damage, around 20% crit and 70-80 hit is probably enough.
To keep up with people who have been running Kara for months, you'll want around 800-850 +damage, 25% crit and as close to hitcap (164 hit rating with 3/3 Elemental Precision) as possible.
Is the mage a tailor?
If he's not, and you are of the mind that you want to tell people how to gear, tell him to drop his least-used profession and get tailoring.
Groovy, so Icy Veins is the go then. I'm not planning to go and tell people "you must spec x/x/x", but I was pretty sure 56 points in one tree wouldn't be the most effective raid spec, and I wasn't sure how much the mana-saving mattered for mages. Thanks for the info.
Posts
Deffinatly passable as you level up, but it gets better the closer to 70 you get ( if you're doing alot of instances that is. ).
I am frost specc currently and have some +onlyfrost gear, but am willing to get replacement +spell damage gear. No need to comment on my gems as I know they suck and will be getting the +spell hit +spell damage blue quality ones soon.
Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gurubashi&n=Wexan
You'll want to get as close to 164 spell hit as possible. You should be able to hit 1000 damage with crafted gear/gems/enchants. Don't skimp on anything if your guild is seriously attempting to take down these encounters.
And just as important - Come prepared. Flasks, Oil, Food buffs, Mana Pots, Destro Pots, Flame Cap.
Your best bet is 2/48/11 deep fire, though if you really want to do arcane you can pull that off, you just need a shadow priest and a lot of mana pots. Are the other mages mostly fire? If so, definitely 2/48/11.
One other aspect that you can improve on is gear - there is a lot you can improve even before you set foot in SSC/TK.
First, take stock of your gold supply and your badge collection. If you have the resources, there is a bunch of great crafted and badge gear available. If you're willing to make the switch, changing over to spellcloth tailoring and making the spellfire pieces (chest in particular) will be a big dps upgrade.
Other craftable/purchasable options :
Belt of blasting - if you don't make spellfire, get this now. It is the best dps belt in the game all the way into sunwell. With badge->vortex conversion you can get all the mats yourself if you want.
Boots of blasting - this is a BoP item from a BoE pattern, so you would have to make it for yourself. If your server has a lot of raiding guilds, you may be able to find this cheaply. I would probably snap it up for anything less than 500g. If not, don't worry about it.
Bracers of nimble thought - BoE item, but requires 4 hearts of darkness. Again, on a progressed server if you can get the materials or item cheaply it is worth it, if hearts are going for over 150g then not so much.
Second, run a lot of heroic magister's terrace. If you didn't get spellfire crafted, the Scarlet Sin'dorei Robe and Gloves of Arcane Acuity will both be upgrades. Even if you did, the Fel-tinged Mantle and Cloak of the Betrayed are solid pieces.
Finish up rep grinds for both Violet Eye and Scryer. The Violet Signet of the Archmage and Scryer's Bloodgem are both upgrades.
PvP - The Vindicator's Silk Cuffs are actually a PvE upgrade for you, and don't cost that much honor (~12k).
Money to Burn -
Darkmoon Card Crusade is a nice dps upgrade, but can be really expensive. However if you have money to burn....
Badges to Burn -
A ton of the new badge rewards are big upgrades for you. Doing Kara every week, some raiding, and heroic MrT should create a moderately high badge income. Good items to target :
Icon of the Silver Crescent - cheap at 41 badges and still worth it
Fused Nethergon Band - great way to get hit, 60 badges
Fetish of the Primal Gods - solid all purpose offhand, 35 badges
Other options that might have alternatives :
Boots of Incantations - 75 badges
Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips - 75 badges
Tormented Demonsoul Robes/Shroud of Lore'nial - 100 badges.
edit: so I guess what I'm wondering is if Icy Veins makes up for that
2/48/11
You need 45 for the base fire talents - you can skip incineration or blazing speed if you want to pick up imp blizzard for any reason.
And yeah, Icy Veins makes up for the 7 wasted points, partially because it's a great spell and partially because there is no better place to put them. There aren't any more dps increases in the fire tree (imp flamestrike?). You can get slightly more longevity with 10 points in arcane for clearcasting, but there are no non-aoe dps increases in the first 15 points of arcane, and really with a shadowpriest you should not be having mana issues as fire.
PlushyCthulhu, I'm curious about how you're spending the 11 frost points (and I do mean curious, this isn't a veiled attack).
I'm no expert on fire or raiding, but I can't figure out why you're skipping Improved Frost Nova. I was under the impression fire mages use Frost Nova quite a bit. I'm not saying it's the best talent in the world (if it wasn't the prereq for Shatter, I'd probably skip it as a frost mage) but it looks like it'd be much more useful than Ice Shards unless you're casting a lot of frost spells. I was also under the impression fire mages sometimes use Rank 1 Frostbolt strictly for the snare, meaning 3 more points in Improved Frostbolt or perhaps Permafrost might even be better.
Short version - it doesn't matter at all. I put the points in Ice Shards simply for better icelance damage and upping my frostbolt damage from completely gimp to mostly gimp for Illidan phase 2, but the situations where I'm actually using either spell are very rare. While I do use frostnova fairly often, I almost never use it back to back - either the pull is almost done, the tanks have established aggro, or the next set of aoe mobs is here yet. I could definitely see cases where Imp Nova or Permafrost might make a difference, but so far it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other for any of the sunwell fights.
As far as pvp goes.... deep fire is terrible in most circumstances so it's best to just throw that card out when dealing with pve specs.
So, if you've having trouble on illidan, especially phase 2... you might want to maximize straight frost bolt damage... or for a bit of extra CC, you might want to just spec full frost for the fight.
If you aren't on Illidan, or are joining a group that has him on farm.... As long as you have Elemental precision and Icy Veins... the rest of it is completely trivial. Heck, in my current spec, I actually drop pyroblast/blastwave for a full imp blizzard (Felmyst). I originally thought I was fucked last night since I didn't have Blastwave and was the only mage for Illidan... but I ended up just rank 1 blizzarding the parasites and the hunters destroyed them.
I don't have access to the armory at work... but: Arcticpuffin - Scilla if you want to see what I did with my build.
I do some pvping on the side, but mainly its in AV (where I can hide behind large groups of friendlies and where its mostly PVE anyway).
Mage 1 - scorch, scorch, scorch, fireball until scorch debuff is low (~8 sec is good so you can catch a resisted scorch and save the stack), repeat from fireball
Mage 2-N - scorch, scorch, fireball until boss is dead or some event causes scorch to drop off
It's a very simple style, not quite as braindead as frostbolt spam, but pretty close. More interesting is cooldown stacking - basically you want to leverage as much of your cooldowns as possible to hit during heroism and molten fury. For example, my Brut rotation (6 min fight, full consumables)
0:03 - Flame Cap
0:30 - Icy Veins, Skull of Gul'dan, Combustion, Destruction Pot
2:45 - Skull of Gul'dan, Destruction Pot
3:04 - Mana Gem
5:05 - Flame Cap
5:20 - Heroism, Icy Veins, Skull of Gul'dan, Combustion, Destruction Pot (Brut is < 20% so this is all Molten Fury time)
Would be slightly more interested if I had a Shrunken Hex Head, sadly we only have 3 in guild because ZA hates our casters (~15 bears, 3 heads, 1 mana attuned band)
if i crunched the time and numbers, it might work out more efficient to build a smaller stack on a mob
but thats too mcuh effort for too little gain
If the trash is one or two big mobs or are going to live longer than ~15 seconds then usually the mages each toss a couple scorchs before fireballing. If it's a bunch of smaller stuff then usually we just fireball (or AoE depending).
Edit - this is assuming there are multiple fire mages - if you're solo then you're probably better off just skipping the scorches on trash unless the mob is going to live fairly long (> 30 sec or so)
So I'm getting pretty annoyed. I've heard that Deep Fire is the best, or Deep Frost, or Arcane Frost, or Arcane Fire and quite frankly I'd like a definitive answer - for my gear, what is the BEST DPS spec I'm going to get?
It seems no matter what I roll I always seem to run into a lesser geared mage who is somehow matching me in the DPS metre or overtaking me, often with AM spam and no T5. I just don't fuckin' get it.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eldre%27Thalas&n=Thellice
I was grouped with this mage and she basically did AM with the occasional Pyroblast and I was only ahead of her by about ~5-10% in DPS.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Generally deep fire is the safest bet. 2/48/11. A PoM/Pyro mage shouldn't be able to touch your dps on a sustained fight. Regardless of gear, deep fire is pretty much win. And it's easy. Scorch just enough to keep up 5 stacks, fireball the rest of the time.
1. Are you hit capped or at least close? 160s without spacegoat 150s with. (For fire)
2. Are you counting trash dps? Because in all honesty, Fuck trash dps. Reset your meters for boss fights because that's where it really matters.
3. Are you stacking your abilities with icy veins? IE:
Macro - LOL BOSS
/cast Combustion
/cast Icy Veins
/use Destruction Potion
/use Flame Cap
/use 14 (Last trinket spot)
/cast Fireball
Macro - LOL TRASH
/cast Combustion
/cast Icy Veins
/use 14
/cast Fireball
4. Are your group synergies similar? Any buffs they're getting that you aren't?
* Bonus Healing: 1137
* Hit Rating: 144
* Crit Chance: 27.12%
* Penetration: 10
* Mana Regen: 328
Those are my stats as is. I will go respec deep fire and see what it gets me.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Right now I'm debating what to spend my badges on:
Icon of the Silver Crescent
or
Fused Nethergon Band
I will be more than hit capped when I get my belt made so Icon could replace my scryer bloodgem or I could get the Fused Band and dump the horsemens signet. Right now I am leaning toward Silver Crescent since I don't need the hit.
As for Deep Fire, which Off-hand should I go for? The Fetish of the Primal Gods or the Flametongue Seal?
Flametongue Seal.
Haste isnt that good until you stack it.
Fetish of the primal gods. No contest.
It has stamina, int and 54 combined haste/damage.... versus 51 damage.
If you're sitting under 1,000 damage, the flametongue might put out more dps... but haste only gets better as your gear improves. In the long run, the fetish will win out.
I would say buy the Flametongue. I went with the "it'll last longer" logic for my offhand, got the Fetish, and i ended up replacing it with the Jewel of Infinite Possibilities shortly after. I guess it depends on the content you have access to, but I wish I'd saved those 10 badges.
edit:// bad wording.
Keep in mind I'm sitting on 145 spell hit ATM and will eventually upgrade my helm which should get me hit capped.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
I ended up with the S3 glad weapon with +40 damage and the ZA haste weapon with +50 fire/arcane. I'd swap those out to ensure I remained hit capped. 145 isn't bad if you can find a space goat to hang out with.
If not, I'd definitely do whatever it takes to get 19 more hit or as close as possible.
The S2 spellblade only has 15 hit. 247 dam (w/ better stats) vs 225 dam 15 hit. It's a dps push if you can use all the hit, but the extra stats make the Scryer's Blade the better weapon. They are close enough that I would use whichever currency you care less about. Badges are useful for gems now, so you can never have too many, but if you're close to the arena point cap then the spellblade may make more sense so you don't let points rot.
Remember that a draenai is worth 1% hit and an elemental shaman is worth 3% hit. If you reliably have those in the raid your hit goal changes. It's good to be able to hit 164 hit regardless just in case, but maximize for your raid group.
This comes with the usual cavaet that this is info leaked from the alpha, subject to change, my ability to notice stuff, and so on and so forth.
Editting complete. Comment time!
Magic Absorption is downright tempting now. Prismatic Cloak has a reason to exist. Potent Spirit/Student of the Mind are intriguing but very dependent on how much Spirit gets reitemized onto gear. Arcane Barrage looks like Arcane's answer to Ice Lance. Burnout I hope I'm misunderstanding (I hope that means the spell costs x% more, not that you lost x% of your mana). I don't feel qualified to comment on the rest of the arcane & fire stuff.
Frost though? It's interesting to see more being done with to-hit type talents. Winter's Grasp looks like the new best rogue talent in the game. Brain Freeze won't affect bosses (because bosses are immune to being frozen) but I can see where that -15% to hit could be very useful against ranged mobs. Chilled to the bone isn't quite the "must have" talent I was expecting on the req45 tier but has potential.
Deep Freeze I'm of mixed feelings about. I don't like the idea of a 51 pt talent that bosses are immune to. I'm very curious of the cooldown, especially as it relates to the common frost trick of timing a frostbolt & icelance to hit a frozen mob at the same time. Let's say the jury's still out.
I'm looking at trialling a mage who I'm pretty sure we'll need to do some work with, as he's currently specced 2/56/3. Just want to make sure I'm justified in telling him to go 10/48/3 or go home.
P.S. Any info on what a fire mage starting kara should have for hit and crit would be appreciated.
Generally though, in my experience it's not "must have" but it is darn handy. Pending more information about the WotLK talents and spells, I'm probably going to move back to a 10/0/51 when WotLK/Patch 3.0 hits because it really is that useful when grinding.
edit: to go into more detail, 10/48/3 is nice, but basically you sacrifice Clearcasting for Icy Veins, which is an awesome buff to stack with your trinkets.
As for beginning Kara, 600+ damage, around 20% crit and 70-80 hit is probably enough.
To keep up with people who have been running Kara for months, you'll want around 800-850 +damage, 25% crit and as close to hitcap (164 hit rating with 3/3 Elemental Precision) as possible.
Is the mage a tailor?
If he's not, and you are of the mind that you want to tell people how to gear, tell him to drop his least-used profession and get tailoring.
Yes, Spellfire is that good.
I really didn't feel the need to go down the arcane tree at all.