I really didn't feel the need to go down the arcane tree at all.
I took two points in Arcane...Subtlety I believe.
the 40% threat reduction helps when you go nuts with Arcane Explosion. Moreso than a shorter CD on Fireblast, I think, which I don't often use in raids anyway.
the other option is 2-3/5 Arcane Focus, since Elemental Precision doesn't affect Arcane spells and sheep resists = bad.
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.
Oddly enough, mages have two trees where you can go really deep without hitting diminishing returns. The standard raiding frost builds are 2/0/59 and 0/0/61. For fire the standard is 2/45/11 (+3, most people go 2/48/11 but I'm really appreciating 2/45/14 w/ imp blizz) but the only dps talent you're missing going deeper in fire is Icy Veins (which is totally worth it though). Back before the MSD/TLC nerf, a 61 point arcane AM spam build was also viable, not so much anymore.
Anyway, your 56 fire mage should be able to do ~95-97% of the dps of a 2/45/11. The real question to ask him is why he chose that spec. If he says it was because he wanted the extra PvP utility of impact and blazing speed, then that makes sense (even if pvp as deep fire is painful). If he chose it because he thinks it is better dps than a more traditional build then smack him upside the head and see if he's willing to learn.
The other raid build that's coming around with more dps burn type fights is 0/40/21 for deep fire damage with IV + cold snap for 100% IV uptime during heroism/bloodlust and drums. Also if you have the gear to support it, 40/0/21 has proved to be a metric ton of dps as well with 2pT5 + 4pT6 AB+Frostbolt spam (plus the previously mentioned 100% IV/Hero/Drums uptime combo).
The other raid build that's coming around with more dps burn type fights is 0/40/21 for deep fire damage with IV + cold snap for 100% IV uptime during heroism/bloodlust and drums. Also if you have the gear to support it, 40/0/21 has proved to be a metric ton of dps as well with 2pT5 + 4pT6 AB+Frostbolt spam (plus the previously mentioned 100% IV/Hero/Drums uptime combo).
Yeah, I can see 0/40/21 working on single target burn fights and fights where a double iceblock would make a big difference (haven't tried twins yet so can't comment). However you're sacrificing a ton of AoE potential (no blast wave, no dragon's breath, and no threat control on arcane explosion along with 1% damage, 1% crit, and ~5% mana efficiency for 20 extra seconds of Icy Veins and one extra Iceblock per fight. Not worth it for the general case, but very possibly worth it for specific fights.
40/0/21 is definitely competative, but you're much more restricted in your group composition, gear requirements, and mana demands, while deep fire is simple and just works. If you're interested in 40/0/21 at all, check out Fireangel's posts on the main mage boards (and his sig in particular).
I really didn't feel the need to go down the arcane tree at all.
I took two points in Arcane...Subtlety I believe.
the 40% threat reduction helps when you go nuts with Arcane Explosion. Moreso than a shorter CD on Fireblast, I think, which I don't often use in raids anyway.
the other option is 2-3/5 Arcane Focus, since Elemental Precision doesn't affect Arcane spells and sheep resists = bad.
I fire blast all the time when I raid so, I took the points in it.
I fire blast all the time when I raid so, I took the points in it.
When you're moving (get out of the fire!) or as part of your normal spell rotation? I can think of a lot of situations where you have to move and can get a fireblast off, but normally you plant shortly thereafter and an extra 1.5 sec off the cooldown won't make a difference. If you're using it as part of your normal spell rotation I would check your math again, since at reasonable gear levels a deep fire fireball rapidly outscales it for DPS (and at better DPM).
I fire blast all the time when I raid so, I took the points in it.
When you're moving (get out of the fire!) or as part of your normal spell rotation? I can think of a lot of situations where you have to move and can get a fireblast off, but normally you plant shortly thereafter and an extra 1.5 sec off the cooldown won't make a difference. If you're using it as part of your normal spell rotation I would check your math again, since at reasonable gear levels a deep fire fireball rapidly outscales it for DPS (and at better DPM).
RAWR shows a rotation of fireballX2 Fireblast as a higher dps rotation than straight fireball spam. Obviously for a higher mana cost.
I fire blast all the time when I raid so, I took the points in it.
When you're moving (get out of the fire!) or as part of your normal spell rotation? I can think of a lot of situations where you have to move and can get a fireblast off, but normally you plant shortly thereafter and an extra 1.5 sec off the cooldown won't make a difference. If you're using it as part of your normal spell rotation I would check your math again, since at reasonable gear levels a deep fire fireball rapidly outscales it for DPS (and at better DPM).
RAWR shows a rotation of fireballX2 Fireblast as a higher dps rotation than straight fireball spam. Obviously for a higher mana cost.
I haven't really tried it myself.
RAWR shows fireball spam as higher for me. I am in 4xT6 though, which will make a difference. I thought the breakpoint was lower though.
In the past there was a theory that a fireblast crit following a fireball crit would clip the ignites but honestly I haven't paid attention to see if that was confirmed or fixed or what the status is in 2.4.2.
I fire blast all the time when I raid so, I took the points in it.
When you're moving (get out of the fire!) or as part of your normal spell rotation? I can think of a lot of situations where you have to move and can get a fireblast off, but normally you plant shortly thereafter and an extra 1.5 sec off the cooldown won't make a difference. If you're using it as part of your normal spell rotation I would check your math again, since at reasonable gear levels a deep fire fireball rapidly outscales it for DPS (and at better DPM).
RAWR shows a rotation of fireballX2 Fireblast as a higher dps rotation than straight fireball spam. Obviously for a higher mana cost.
I haven't really tried it myself.
RAWR shows fireball spam as higher for me. I am in 4xT6 though, which will make a difference. I thought the breakpoint was lower though.
In the past there was a theory that a fireblast crit following a fireball crit would clip the ignites but honestly I haven't paid attention to see if that was confirmed or fixed or what the status is in 2.4.2.
Hmm, yes that might be it. My mage currently has about 1125 fire damage and 28% crit (and hit capped, obviously). It's only a 35 dps difference though. Still, it's something to break the monotony .
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 just wanna reiterate that yes, Fire is REALLY good, but if your guild is in Kara (or you're in Kara, anyway) it's very unlikely that Frost is going to hurt anything. Or Arcane, for that matter.
However, if you want to consistantly top the DPS charts, 0/48/11 +2 is the "go to" spec. But also, if you're in Kara, feel free to jump around. Test out a spec, see how you like Arcane/Frost, or Arcane/fire, or Elementalist, or whatever.
Take this time to see what spec YOU like. Otherwise before you know it you'll NEED to be Fire and might not want to be but can't switch because your raid needs every bit of DPS for Brutallus.
Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
Jesus Christ there are so many differing opinions on PvE frost mages it hurts my head.
Can someone point me in the right direction? My friends are arcane and fire mages, so we were going for a tri-mage thing and I'll probably be crowd control. Any ideas for a talent tree?
Zen Vulgarity on
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
Frost is one of the few trees you can put 61 points into and not feel like you wasted any so go ahead and do that if you like.
For any PvE that *isn't* raiding, Frost is great. However it is always lower DPS than Fire or Arcane. This is not to say it can't be GOOD DPS (Muffin!) but Fire will always be higher, player skill and gear being equal.
Jesus Christ there are so many differing opinions on PvE frost mages it hurts my head.
Can someone point me in the right direction? My friends are arcane and fire mages, so we were going for a tri-mage thing and I'll probably be crowd control. Any ideas for a talent tree?
It's subjective and dependent on the level of content you're raiding. If your raid group isn't min/maxing and pushing hard through Sunwell, and you aren't an over-achiever, frost is just fine for raiding.
dougly on
0
Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
I'm not even raiding! I'm leveling!
Also I almost prefer rounding up 20 mobs for AOE grinding than doing some quests that take hours to do.
As I've mentioned before in this thread, here is my advice for leveling as high-frost. If you want an Arcane/Frost build, I'd recommend taking the arcane talents first.
TheEmerged on
Sometimes, the knights are the monsters
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
edited June 2008
This is sort of a math question - at what point should I stop stacking SD and Crit (assuming hit cap) and start stacking haste? I'm at 1155 fire damage unbuffed and about 28% crit (also unbuffed). Right now I have about 85 spell haste.
This is sort of a math question - at what point should I stop stacking SD and Crit (assuming hit cap) and start stacking haste? I'm at 1155 fire damage unbuffed and about 28% crit (also unbuffed). Right now I have about 85 spell haste.
Any ideas?
"Stacking" a stat doesn't really have much meaning beyond the current equivalence values for each stat. There is no magical path of "raise your spell damage to 1200 then raise your crit to 350 then focus on haste" - rather you just take the item with the combination of stats that increases your dps the most. Plug your stats into rawr.mage or vontre's sheet or whatever and see what comes out.
For example, for my current gear (1233 fire, 3/6 sunwell) 1 spell damage = 0.89 dps, 1 haste is 1.14 dps, 1 crit is 0.75 dps, and 1 hit is 1.78 dps (if not capped). Assuming hit cap, in theory my gem of choice would be the quick lionseye for 10 haste, but since I know most of my future upgrades involve boosting my haste totals and with endgame gear 1 spell damage is back to being greater than 1 haste, my red gem of choice is +12 dam and my yellow of choice is +6 dam/5 haste.
As a general rule you can't go wrong with spell damage, and haste > crit, but 40 crit will still outperform 20 haste. On a side note, crit increases your DPM returns from MoE, while haste doesn't change your DPM but does slightly increase your total mana consumption. If the dps increases are the same, crit wins the tiebreaker.
PlushyCthulhu on
Steam/LoL: plushycthulhu
0
Zen VulgarityWhat a lovely day for teaSecret British ThreadRegistered Userregular
I'm leveling a Mage again. It's been so long. My launch day main was a Mage and I love the class to death, but in the interest of "doing something different" I leveled my new 70 as a Druid.
I'm thinking of going for "...of the Owl" this time (AoE grinding is almost pointless due to questing changes) and whatever +dmg I can get, since Blizzard changed the way Spirit works, I think it'll reduce my time spent drinking (gotta get Arcane Meditation before I start up the Fire tree first though).
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited June 2008
You don't need as much spirit as you think while leveling (especially since the spirit changes). +spell damage while leveling is actually goddamn awesome now.
No doubt, pretty hard to find it though, unless you want to completely neglect stats and just go for "...of Fiery Wrath" or whatever. Which is why I was thinking "of the Owl", balance between intellect/spirit for really good MP5 with Mage Armor and Arcane Meditation up. Will be interesting to see how low I can get my downtime, anyway.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
Heh, when TBC hit my friend refered to what I was wearing as the "of the Frozen Wrath" set. As a general rule, +damage is your best choice. The other stuff just makes your +damage better :P
+Damage is always nice, mages drink no matter what anyway, you might as well make your kills faster and it's always fun oneshotting others your level because you are hitting 200 fire damage at level 40.
Spirit is useful in instances though, because people hate waiting for you to drink and you generally kill stuff way faster as a group.
By the way the dreamweave set is absolutely awesome coupled with a few select spell damage quest rewards (alot more then you think now) which fill in the slots nicely without buying blues or of fiery wrath off the auction house. Jewelcrafting items also fill in the (used to be lack of) neck and ring slots for spell damage.
Posts
I took two points in Arcane...Subtlety I believe.
the 40% threat reduction helps when you go nuts with Arcane Explosion. Moreso than a shorter CD on Fireblast, I think, which I don't often use in raids anyway.
the other option is 2-3/5 Arcane Focus, since Elemental Precision doesn't affect Arcane spells and sheep resists = bad.
Oddly enough, mages have two trees where you can go really deep without hitting diminishing returns. The standard raiding frost builds are 2/0/59 and 0/0/61. For fire the standard is 2/45/11 (+3, most people go 2/48/11 but I'm really appreciating 2/45/14 w/ imp blizz) but the only dps talent you're missing going deeper in fire is Icy Veins (which is totally worth it though). Back before the MSD/TLC nerf, a 61 point arcane AM spam build was also viable, not so much anymore.
Anyway, your 56 fire mage should be able to do ~95-97% of the dps of a 2/45/11. The real question to ask him is why he chose that spec. If he says it was because he wanted the extra PvP utility of impact and blazing speed, then that makes sense (even if pvp as deep fire is painful). If he chose it because he thinks it is better dps than a more traditional build then smack him upside the head and see if he's willing to learn.
Yeah, I can see 0/40/21 working on single target burn fights and fights where a double iceblock would make a big difference (haven't tried twins yet so can't comment). However you're sacrificing a ton of AoE potential (no blast wave, no dragon's breath, and no threat control on arcane explosion along with 1% damage, 1% crit, and ~5% mana efficiency for 20 extra seconds of Icy Veins and one extra Iceblock per fight. Not worth it for the general case, but very possibly worth it for specific fights.
40/0/21 is definitely competative, but you're much more restricted in your group composition, gear requirements, and mana demands, while deep fire is simple and just works. If you're interested in 40/0/21 at all, check out Fireangel's posts on the main mage boards (and his sig in particular).
When you're moving (get out of the fire!) or as part of your normal spell rotation? I can think of a lot of situations where you have to move and can get a fireblast off, but normally you plant shortly thereafter and an extra 1.5 sec off the cooldown won't make a difference. If you're using it as part of your normal spell rotation I would check your math again, since at reasonable gear levels a deep fire fireball rapidly outscales it for DPS (and at better DPM).
RAWR shows a rotation of fireballX2 Fireblast as a higher dps rotation than straight fireball spam. Obviously for a higher mana cost.
I haven't really tried it myself.
RAWR shows fireball spam as higher for me. I am in 4xT6 though, which will make a difference. I thought the breakpoint was lower though.
In the past there was a theory that a fireblast crit following a fireball crit would clip the ignites but honestly I haven't paid attention to see if that was confirmed or fixed or what the status is in 2.4.2.
Hmm, yes that might be it. My mage currently has about 1125 fire damage and 28% crit (and hit capped, obviously). It's only a 35 dps difference though. Still, it's something to break the monotony
However, if you want to consistantly top the DPS charts, 0/48/11 +2 is the "go to" spec. But also, if you're in Kara, feel free to jump around. Test out a spec, see how you like Arcane/Frost, or Arcane/fire, or Elementalist, or whatever.
Take this time to see what spec YOU like. Otherwise before you know it you'll NEED to be Fire and might not want to be but can't switch because your raid needs every bit of DPS for Brutallus.
Polymorph: Penguin
/bonk.
Everyone who mains a mage wants to kill one.
Don't lie, Allies. You know you hate them.
On that end, Polymorph: Gnome
...
Can someone point me in the right direction? My friends are arcane and fire mages, so we were going for a tri-mage thing and I'll probably be crowd control. Any ideas for a talent tree?
For any PvE that *isn't* raiding, Frost is great. However it is always lower DPS than Fire or Arcane. This is not to say it can't be GOOD DPS (Muffin!) but Fire will always be higher, player skill and gear being equal.
It's subjective and dependent on the level of content you're raiding. If your raid group isn't min/maxing and pushing hard through Sunwell, and you aren't an over-achiever, frost is just fine for raiding.
Also I almost prefer rounding up 20 mobs for AOE grinding than doing some quests that take hours to do.
I don't think it matters early on but once you hit level 50, spec frost and get the water elemental. That thing is amazing.
Any ideas?
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
The freeze against bizzard's AOE doesn't seem to bother me much.
That is far more fun with a mage.
My warlock is an engineer and a tailor. That's expensive..
"Stacking" a stat doesn't really have much meaning beyond the current equivalence values for each stat. There is no magical path of "raise your spell damage to 1200 then raise your crit to 350 then focus on haste" - rather you just take the item with the combination of stats that increases your dps the most. Plug your stats into rawr.mage or vontre's sheet or whatever and see what comes out.
For example, for my current gear (1233 fire, 3/6 sunwell) 1 spell damage = 0.89 dps, 1 haste is 1.14 dps, 1 crit is 0.75 dps, and 1 hit is 1.78 dps (if not capped). Assuming hit cap, in theory my gem of choice would be the quick lionseye for 10 haste, but since I know most of my future upgrades involve boosting my haste totals and with endgame gear 1 spell damage is back to being greater than 1 haste, my red gem of choice is +12 dam and my yellow of choice is +6 dam/5 haste.
As a general rule you can't go wrong with spell damage, and haste > crit, but 40 crit will still outperform 20 haste. On a side note, crit increases your DPM returns from MoE, while haste doesn't change your DPM but does slightly increase your total mana consumption. If the dps increases are the same, crit wins the tiebreaker.
Mining and Engineering.
Its not as bad as you would think actually. Having engineering is always great, and enchanting makes decent money and has the ring enchants.
I'm thinking of going for "...of the Owl" this time (AoE grinding is almost pointless due to questing changes) and whatever +dmg I can get, since Blizzard changed the way Spirit works, I think it'll reduce my time spent drinking (gotta get Arcane Meditation before I start up the Fire tree first though).
Spirit is useful in instances though, because people hate waiting for you to drink and you generally kill stuff way faster as a group.
By the way the dreamweave set is absolutely awesome coupled with a few select spell damage quest rewards (alot more then you think now) which fill in the slots nicely without buying blues or of fiery wrath off the auction house. Jewelcrafting items also fill in the (used to be lack of) neck and ring slots for spell damage.
I levelled as frost, for shatter. Between frost and fire though either is perfect viable.