interesting. I never did the quests in that area on my mage (well except the one where you collect the fashionable archmages scrolls, which is actually how i dinged 70 ), but i always remember the mobs that share 50% damage taken with you.
i can imagine many grumblings on corpse runs.
I forget which ones those are, but you only want the Mageslayers and the Arcane Elementals that are near the tower. Skip the ghosts.
Mageslayers can be kind of annoying, so usually I save my AP for them and two shot the slippery bastards. Or you can just let the inevitable hunter farming in the area deal with them.
a penguin on
This space eventually to be filled with excitement
Rule #48: An AP- PoM'd Pyro shalt be followed immediately by a Fireblast.
Survive that.
Global cooldown.
No U.
Insert some BS about the flight time of the pyroblast here.
iceblock :-p
And yeah it is kind of annoying when the Water Elemental bar doesn't come up, but then I have his frost nova hotkeyed anyway and ctrl+1 is how I order to him to attack anyway. I really don't use his bar besides to have him go passive or stay in one spot for killing elites that can't be frozen.
Rule #48: An AP- PoM'd Pyro shalt be followed immediately by a Fireblast.
Survive that.
Global cooldown.
Unless your standing on the person or someone had a perfectly time heal going off (in a .2 second window), a pyro and fireblast can happen simultaneously:
see: Combustion Exploit
Also, yes Ignite should be counted into big crits. Plenty of classes have crit bonus expanding talents that provide instantly added damage. Ours just happens to be a DoT.
If we are going to beat each other to death with our e-peens, we may as well do it right.
But then you get those moron Warlocks who've never seen a Mage talent tree and protest that since SWStats didn't show 10k, then it can't be true.
But then you get those moron Warlocks who've never seen a Mage talent tree and protest that since SWStats didn't show 10k, then it can't be true.
:roll: Or they're just trying to keep things nice and simple about the numbers, it's not that they aren't aware of ignite and can't calculate it itself. As a warlock, I wouldn't say my shadowbolt crits do x amount, where x includes a 20% damage buff from the previous shadowbolt crit that triggered the shadow vulnerability debuff, and also my shiffar's nexus horn.
Rag on warlocks more please, for ridiculous communications issues.
But then you get those moron Warlocks who've never seen a Mage talent tree and protest that since SWStats didn't show 10k, then it can't be true.
:roll: Or they're just trying to keep things nice and simple about the numbers, it's not that they aren't aware of ignite and can't calculate it itself. As a warlock, I wouldn't say my shadowbolt crits do x amount, where x includes a 20% damage buff from the previous shadowbolt crit that triggered the shadow vulnerability debuff, and also my shiffar's nexus horn.
Rag on warlocks more please, for ridiculous communications issues.
I'm not pointing out Warlocks in general, but there's a difference. You would not say "My frostbolt crits for 3k, and I get an extra 1k from Ice Shards" you would say "My frostbolt crits for 4k"
But then you get those moron Warlocks who've never seen a Mage talent tree and protest that since SWStats didn't show 10k, then it can't be true.
:roll: Or they're just trying to keep things nice and simple about the numbers, it's not that they aren't aware of ignite and can't calculate it itself. As a warlock, I wouldn't say my shadowbolt crits do x amount, where x includes a 20% damage buff from the previous shadowbolt crit that triggered the shadow vulnerability debuff, and also my shiffar's nexus horn.
Rag on warlocks more please, for ridiculous communications issues.
Well it depends. If you're calculating average damage, it's a load of shit to add Ignite, Trinkets, Power Infusion, a burn effect(Fireball, Pyroblast).
If you're counting MAX damage than it's just a load of shit to include DoTs.
Water Elemental? Looks like someones got a case of the iwanttobeawarlockitis.
Or do you mean "Looks like Warlocks have iwanttobeamageitis? Because...well, I'll put this gently.
I'm not pointing out Warlocks in general, but there's a difference. You would not say "My frostbolt crits for 3k, and I get an extra 1k from Ice Shards" you would say "My frostbolt crits for 4k"
Yes, and I think 4k is the sensible number to state, as it is part of the bolt/nuke itself. Ignite is not. You get a big number pop up when you deal damage, and that's what you report, for the sake of reporting big numbers, not any number of other added effects like the ignite ticks and the fireball dot damage. I think the best way to compare these across classes is just to look at the hit of the nuke itself, rather than adding in ignite, increased dps from nature's grace or shadow vuln.
Bleh. I want to play a Mage, but I don't want to grind one up from the bottom. I'm so used to downtime-less Druid grinding (53 and counting) that having to go down, on average, every 1.5 mobs for 15+ seconds at a time on my 6 mage makes me cry. Stupid Faxmonkey making me jealous as hell.
Bleh. I want to play a Mage, but I don't want to grind one up from the bottom. I'm so used to downtime-less Druid grinding (53 and counting) that having to go down, on average, every 1.5 mobs for 15+ seconds at a time on my 6 mage makes me cry. Stupid Faxmonkey making me jealous as hell.
Being able to make your own food and water to me, almost gets rid of downtime.
When I first saw this I was underwhelmed but upon further inspection, it may be pretty nice.
Let's see.
Every time you get resisted you gain +150 spell damage for 10 seconds.
I have 105 hit raiting and 1 point in Elemental Prec for a total of 91ish% hit rate on a boss.
That means I basically get Resisted 10% of the time.
If scorch is 1.5 seconds, and 10 scorches is 15 seconds, then it stands to reason that somewhere in that 15 seconds span I will gain a 10 second buff. Doesn't that make it a passive +150 damage that's up 66% of any given Boss fight?
Not to mention a definite passive +53?
It sounds pretty sexy.
This + Lightning Cap I think may be the nicest two trinkets a scorch mage can get?
I've wanted that Eye from the moment I knew it was out there. Sure solo grinding or normal instances you don't see a lot of resist. However when I am in kara/grul/mag, I will sometimes get three in a row. That makes me next frostbolt go pewpewpewpewpewpew
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think we should only count "Pre- Ingite" crit damage. I say this because people whine about mages enough already, and if they start seeing us say "10kcritlolz"...well, you know how that goes.
Let's take a page out of the Warlock book here...
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This space eventually to be filled with excitement
Word on the street is the Eye does not have a cooldown.
Actual Math, assuming Scorch spam with 91% hit rate:
+170 Damage for 10 Seconds (6 casts)
5 Casts where it has a chance to refresh itself (losing time on the buff) = .9^5 = 41% chance of losing 1-5 (average 3) casts of buffed spells.
Up for 6 - (.41 x3) = 4.77 / 11 casts = 43.3% uptime or +74 average spell damage from proc +54 actual passive = +128 SD trinket
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think we should only count "Pre- Ingite" crit damage. I say this because people whine about mages enough already, and if they start seeing us say "10kcritlolz"...well, you know how that goes.
Let's take a page out of the Warlock book here...
Rule of a Caster: Brag about as little damage as possible.
What's that, you broke 5k with a spell?
Take off the trinkets approximate bonus. Now, take off the talents approx. bonus. This is not to "be fair". This is to keep people from crying about it and Mages/Warlocks/Shadow Priests getting nerfed to keep Hunters from crying about how they only do 7k in 3 seconds and that mage does 7.1k in 4.5.
So my mage is lvl 67 and full frost. I like it but since I've done this before I'm getting a bit bored and thinking of spicing it up with a respec. Should I go 3-min mage? I hear everyone should do it once. Full fire?
I kinda want to try arcane but it seems like I would get owned in the face in pvp, whereas fire it would be maybe a little better?
Also I like to own the hell out of things in 5 mans and I generally end up soloing a couple mobs or iceblocking, I wonder if arcane's threat reduction would be more my style than throttling back with fire. Hmm.
So, uh, I'm looking at the season 2 mage gladiator gear and.. is it even worth it compared to the season 1 at a cheaper price? I mean, the only thing you really get is an extra thousand armor and.. is that even worth the few extra weeks of waiting for points?
I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of how magtheridon's eye changes how much +hit you want to stack for optimal DPS.
Someone with more theorycraft skills will have to work it out, but I imagine there's a point that keeps the proc from the eye up, but still results in minimal resists.
On second thought, it's probably impossible to calculate for different cast times.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
So my mage is lvl 67 and full frost. I like it but since I've done this before I'm getting a bit bored and thinking of spicing it up with a respec. Should I go 3-min mage? I hear everyone should do it once. Full fire?
I kinda want to try arcane but it seems like I would get owned in the face in pvp, whereas fire it would be maybe a little better?
Also I like to own the hell out of things in 5 mans and I generally end up soloing a couple mobs or iceblocking, I wonder if arcane's threat reduction would be more my style than throttling back with fire. Hmm.
Yes, everyone should try a 3 minute mage at least once. It's totally worth it.
If you PvP exclusively, then the 3 minute deal is pretty good. You can pretty much destroy any 1 player, as long as you play smart.
I think PvP'ers go for an Ap/PoM/ Scorcher build.
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This space eventually to be filled with excitement
So my mage is lvl 67 and full frost. I like it but since I've done this before I'm getting a bit bored and thinking of spicing it up with a respec. Should I go 3-min mage? I hear everyone should do it once. Full fire?
I kinda want to try arcane but it seems like I would get owned in the face in pvp, whereas fire it would be maybe a little better?
Also I like to own the hell out of things in 5 mans and I generally end up soloing a couple mobs or iceblocking, I wonder if arcane's threat reduction would be more my style than throttling back with fire. Hmm.
Yes, everyone should try a 3 minute mage at least once. It's totally worth it.
If you PvP exclusively, then the 3 minute deal is pretty good. You can pretty much destroy any 1 player, as long as you play smart.
I think PvP'ers go for an Ap/PoM/ Scorcher build.
I didn't get the chance to try it out extensively yesterday. I think I went 44/14 or some such yesterday. I wanted to try out slow while I was at it. I only had one bout of pvp. It was kinda fun. A fellow mage ran by, and I chased after. He dismounted, I sheeped, pyroed, then immediately AP-POM-Trinket-Pyroed. Dead mage.
I also ran Setthek and was 37% of the damage done versus a 70 rogue and 69 lock. The lock was terribly geared so I assume a bad player. Anyway, I'm thinking that the overall damage is about the same as full frost, just a lot more burst on command in a group (as meleers don't break your freezes). I do miss the Benji though
You should be doing more DPS with that build than with frost. What were you casting?
As for Warlocks, generally I delt with them by killing them before they could kill me. Use Mana Shield to help offset some dot damage. If my ubernukes aren't up. I will generally try and get close. Frost Nova, Counterspell Howl of Terror because that's what they will inevitably do, drop some ice lances while running away then scorchscorchscorch. Toss Slow on them to slow their casting and make it harder for them to close range for a fear. If you need to interrupt another cast, you can Poly them and follow it up with a quick Fireblast.
The ones will Felguards out are funny. I just nova that stupid thing and burn them down.
So yeah, that was a mish-mash of an explanation, but I just kinda hanlde things as they come. I generally eat a Deathcoil in there, but it's not a big deal.
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This space eventually to be filled with excitement
I hate to just barge in here, but I have some questions.
I'm back on WoW after about a year's hiatus and I'm pretty much having to relearn my character. I'm almost clueless as to most of the new talents. My mage is 65 now and I'm running almost entirely frost spec with just enough arcane points to get clearcasting. I'm pretty used to frost nowadays, but I've kinda got the itch to go back to fire. Would a fire spec be viable for me if I'm going to be doing almost all PvE? What should I be looking to invest in with fire talents?
You should be doing more DPS with that build than with frost. What were you casting?
Maybe it is a bit more. But it doesn't seem like long-term it's that much more, counting in the water elemental and all the possible frost crits.
Usually I cast AB-AB-AM or if I'm conserving mana AB-AM-AB and AM on clearcasts. Every now and then throw in a fireblast or BANG (ap-pom-trinket-pyro) to taste.
Not really sure what spells I should be using though. It seems that there is a much greater variety to work with. Solo-Pve I'm still experimenting quite a bit. I take a lot more hits than with frost right now.
You should be doing more DPS with that build than with frost. What were you casting?
Maybe it is a bit more. But it doesn't seem like long-term it's that much more, counting in the water elemental and all the possible frost crits.
Usually I cast AB-AB-AM or if I'm conserving mana AB-AM-AB and AM on clearcasts. Every now and then throw in a fireblast or BANG (ap-pom-trinket-pyro) to taste.
Not really sure what spells I should be using though. It seems that there is a much greater variety to work with. Solo-Pve I'm still experimenting quite a bit. I take a lot more hits than with frost right now.
Why are you casting AB? Is it technically more dps than using Fireball or something? I'm a deep arc mage but all I cast is fire spells most of the time and tend to do damage like a sonofabitch. AB seems to cap too low in terms of damage, even having arc talents down through Slow.
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Just an ancient PA person who doesn't leave the house much.
You should be doing more DPS with that build than with frost. What were you casting?
Maybe it is a bit more. But it doesn't seem like long-term it's that much more, counting in the water elemental and all the possible frost crits.
Usually I cast AB-AB-AM or if I'm conserving mana AB-AM-AB and AM on clearcasts. Every now and then throw in a fireblast or BANG (ap-pom-trinket-pyro) to taste.
Not really sure what spells I should be using though. It seems that there is a much greater variety to work with. Solo-Pve I'm still experimenting quite a bit. I take a lot more hits than with frost right now.
Why are you casting AB? Is it technically more dps than using Fireball or something? I'm a deep arc mage but all I cast is fire spells most of the time and tend to do damage like a sonofabitch. AB seems to cap too low in terms of damage, even having arc talents down through Slow.
It's just what I gathered was the best approach from various forums like http://forums.subcreation.net/ and you know, what little can be scraped from the official forums.
I decided I like being a frosty mucho better. I respecced back to frost.... and I mean screaming brother.
AB is absurd DPS. In fact, I'm fairly certain it's the highest DPS, but lowest DPM.
I ran SWStats, and AB accounts for an amazing portion of my damage. On trash mobs, I pretty much just spam AB. You'll be almost out of mana after every pull, but if you start drinking right after you drop combat (which you should be anyways), you'll do fine.
If you're going for more damage, add more AB's. AM is usable if you have Emp. AM, otherwise don't use it.
I am 41/20, and I use AB and Scorch almost exclusively. I don't Fireblast unless the mob will die before I get to cast on it again, then I finish with Fireblast.
On Boss fights, I usually rotate ABx3, ScorchxwhatverIcansqueezeindependingonlatency repeat; AP-Trinket-Fireblast-PoMPyro when it won't get me squished.
I think you also need some gear to pull off an AB-AM build. I'm not sure how much gear you need though. I keep saying I'm going to respec 50/11, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Re: Smacky
Yes, fire is perfectly fine for leveling & PvE. Ignite is the talent you want more than anything else. The range talent is also great. Impact is great for scorch builds. It's most excellent fun.
edit: hehe, I like those forums, too. They say pretty much the same thing I just said.
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I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of how magtheridon's eye changes how much +hit you want to stack for optimal DPS.
Someone with more theorycraft skills will have to work it out, but I imagine there's a point that keeps the proc from the eye up, but still results in minimal resists.
On second thought, it's probably impossible to calculate for different cast times.
Looks like if you have 99% to hit it will still resist every 150 seconds, where a cooldown trinket is 120 seconds.
Soooo, maybe 97%? 96%? But nobody ever gets that high on Boss mobs unless they wear nothing but tohit gear and have 3/3 elemental prec.
It's very easy to get +13% hit with a couple rep items and some cheap BoEs (e.g. Robe of the Crimson Order, Scryer's Bloodgem, Ashyen's Gift) some sockets, and an ele shaman. The difference is that when comparing something that gives you 1% crit and something that gives you 1.5% hit, you can go with the crit and still win out by a margin.
@Derrick, you'd be seriously cheating yourself going out of Frost before you get Ice Lance. Maybe try a 34/27/0 Scorch spec later when you get some more 70 gear, and when you do use scorch!
Rule of thumb: A Fireblast is 2 Scorches at the cost of 3 in the time of 1. Simply because of the 'pickup time' on AB if it looks like I'm gonna have too much mana at the end of the fight I start throwing in Fire Blasts whenever it's up. AB Spam is fun. There's about 2 times when I'll use it: when I want to do 1200-1400 dps and not pull aggro, or with a Scorch rotation for low aggro (ABx2, Scorchx4/5). AB is a spell that not only scales very well, but has an extremely high base damage.
It's very easy to get +13% hit with a couple rep items and some cheap BoEs (e.g. Robe of the Crimson Order, Scryer's Bloodgem, Ashyen's Gift) some sockets, and an ele shaman. The difference is that when comparing something that gives you 1% crit and something that gives you 1.5% hit, you can go with the crit and still win out by a margin.
Yeah, like you said, if you drop crit especially in the name of hit it creates a different problem. I don't think anyone has the desire to have 99% to hit to a boss if it means dropping a a quarter of their crit rating, some damage, and other stats.
When frost, nothing ever hits me. If it gets close, nova and two crits later and it's dead.
Fire I assume kills things before it ever hits you, with some stuns thrown in.
What about arcane though? Near as I can tell arcane has nothing going for the nukes except that burst damage.
What kind of spell rotations do you use for a mob with a lot of life? What about when trying to solo an elite (if you even are so brave with an arcane spec)?
I want to like it, but it's frustrating.
Assume full arcane, maybe just enough fire to get pyro for pvp funness.
2) Scorch 'til it gets to me (AB if I'm feeling saucy).
3) Frost nova it and gain somedistance. Ice lance when it's ok for hte nova to break (enough distance to scorch).
4) Kill mob. Usally it's damn near dead at this point.
Slow isn't all that useful in solo PvE. However, many elites are not immune to it where they are immuen to frost slowing. So you can use it to kite them. Eats mana though.
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Posts
I forget which ones those are, but you only want the Mageslayers and the Arcane Elementals that are near the tower. Skip the ghosts.
Mageslayers can be kind of annoying, so usually I save my AP for them and two shot the slippery bastards. Or you can just let the inevitable hunter farming in the area deal with them.
iceblock :-p
And yeah it is kind of annoying when the Water Elemental bar doesn't come up, but then I have his frost nova hotkeyed anyway and ctrl+1 is how I order to him to attack anyway. I really don't use his bar besides to have him go passive or stay in one spot for killing elites that can't be frozen.
0/0/61 ftw.
Unless your standing on the person or someone had a perfectly time heal going off (in a .2 second window), a pyro and fireblast can happen simultaneously:
see: Combustion Exploit
Also, yes Ignite should be counted into big crits. Plenty of classes have crit bonus expanding talents that provide instantly added damage. Ours just happens to be a DoT.
If we are going to beat each other to death with our e-peens, we may as well do it right.
But then you get those moron Warlocks who've never seen a Mage talent tree and protest that since SWStats didn't show 10k, then it can't be true.
:roll: Or they're just trying to keep things nice and simple about the numbers, it's not that they aren't aware of ignite and can't calculate it itself. As a warlock, I wouldn't say my shadowbolt crits do x amount, where x includes a 20% damage buff from the previous shadowbolt crit that triggered the shadow vulnerability debuff, and also my shiffar's nexus horn.
Rag on warlocks more please, for ridiculous communications issues.
I'm not pointing out Warlocks in general, but there's a difference. You would not say "My frostbolt crits for 3k, and I get an extra 1k from Ice Shards" you would say "My frostbolt crits for 4k"
Well it depends. If you're calculating average damage, it's a load of shit to add Ignite, Trinkets, Power Infusion, a burn effect(Fireball, Pyroblast).
If you're counting MAX damage than it's just a load of shit to include DoTs.
Or do you mean "Looks like Warlocks have iwanttobeamageitis? Because...well, I'll put this gently.
Yes, and I think 4k is the sensible number to state, as it is part of the bolt/nuke itself. Ignite is not. You get a big number pop up when you deal damage, and that's what you report, for the sake of reporting big numbers, not any number of other added effects like the ignite ticks and the fireball dot damage. I think the best way to compare these across classes is just to look at the hit of the nuke itself, rather than adding in ignite, increased dps from nature's grace or shadow vuln.
Pew pew, fuckers.
close to getting my hellfire pvp trinket too!
My new favourite spell is spell steal.
Uh oh, that priest wants to trinket, dot, and SW:D you and levitate down? well thats ok my friend! Spell steal and watch him go splat!
Ret pally bustin out the wings? spell steal! Thanks free AP!
Jealous of that little extra lock damage? ty for the fel armor!
Being able to make your own food and water to me, almost gets rid of downtime.
When I first saw this I was underwhelmed but upon further inspection, it may be pretty nice.
Let's see.
Every time you get resisted you gain +150 spell damage for 10 seconds.
I have 105 hit raiting and 1 point in Elemental Prec for a total of 91ish% hit rate on a boss.
That means I basically get Resisted 10% of the time.
If scorch is 1.5 seconds, and 10 scorches is 15 seconds, then it stands to reason that somewhere in that 15 seconds span I will gain a 10 second buff. Doesn't that make it a passive +150 damage that's up 66% of any given Boss fight?
Not to mention a definite passive +53?
It sounds pretty sexy.
This + Lightning Cap I think may be the nicest two trinkets a scorch mage can get?
It still sounds damn good.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think we should only count "Pre- Ingite" crit damage. I say this because people whine about mages enough already, and if they start seeing us say "10kcritlolz"...well, you know how that goes.
Let's take a page out of the Warlock book here...
Actual Math, assuming Scorch spam with 91% hit rate:
+170 Damage for 10 Seconds (6 casts)
5 Casts where it has a chance to refresh itself (losing time on the buff) = .9^5 = 41% chance of losing 1-5 (average 3) casts of buffed spells.
Up for 6 - (.41 x3) = 4.77 / 11 casts = 43.3% uptime or +74 average spell damage from proc +54 actual passive = +128 SD trinket
Unless I did something wrong (please point out).
Rule of a Caster: Brag about as little damage as possible.
What's that, you broke 5k with a spell?
Take off the trinkets approximate bonus. Now, take off the talents approx. bonus. This is not to "be fair". This is to keep people from crying about it and Mages/Warlocks/Shadow Priests getting nerfed to keep Hunters from crying about how they only do 7k in 3 seconds and that mage does 7.1k in 4.5.
I kinda want to try arcane but it seems like I would get owned in the face in pvp, whereas fire it would be maybe a little better?
Also I like to own the hell out of things in 5 mans and I generally end up soloing a couple mobs or iceblocking, I wonder if arcane's threat reduction would be more my style than throttling back with fire. Hmm.
Personally, if you just raid, I don't think so... but Blizz said they would be looking at the set this week to see if they needed to buff it.
Someone with more theorycraft skills will have to work it out, but I imagine there's a point that keeps the proc from the eye up, but still results in minimal resists.
On second thought, it's probably impossible to calculate for different cast times.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Yes, everyone should try a 3 minute mage at least once. It's totally worth it.
If you PvP exclusively, then the 3 minute deal is pretty good. You can pretty much destroy any 1 player, as long as you play smart.
I think PvP'ers go for an Ap/PoM/ Scorcher build.
I didn't get the chance to try it out extensively yesterday. I think I went 44/14 or some such yesterday. I wanted to try out slow while I was at it. I only had one bout of pvp. It was kinda fun. A fellow mage ran by, and I chased after. He dismounted, I sheeped, pyroed, then immediately AP-POM-Trinket-Pyroed. Dead mage.
I also ran Setthek and was 37% of the damage done versus a 70 rogue and 69 lock. The lock was terribly geared so I assume a bad player. Anyway, I'm thinking that the overall damage is about the same as full frost, just a lot more burst on command in a group (as meleers don't break your freezes). I do miss the Benji though
How do you deal with warlocks without iceblock?
As for Warlocks, generally I delt with them by killing them before they could kill me. Use Mana Shield to help offset some dot damage. If my ubernukes aren't up. I will generally try and get close. Frost Nova, Counterspell Howl of Terror because that's what they will inevitably do, drop some ice lances while running away then scorchscorchscorch. Toss Slow on them to slow their casting and make it harder for them to close range for a fear. If you need to interrupt another cast, you can Poly them and follow it up with a quick Fireblast.
The ones will Felguards out are funny. I just nova that stupid thing and burn them down.
So yeah, that was a mish-mash of an explanation, but I just kinda hanlde things as they come. I generally eat a Deathcoil in there, but it's not a big deal.
3 minute mage?
Mages that have the arcane talent Arcane Power (which has a 3 min cooldown) are called 3 min mages.
I'm back on WoW after about a year's hiatus and I'm pretty much having to relearn my character. I'm almost clueless as to most of the new talents. My mage is 65 now and I'm running almost entirely frost spec with just enough arcane points to get clearcasting. I'm pretty used to frost nowadays, but I've kinda got the itch to go back to fire. Would a fire spec be viable for me if I'm going to be doing almost all PvE? What should I be looking to invest in with fire talents?
Maybe it is a bit more. But it doesn't seem like long-term it's that much more, counting in the water elemental and all the possible frost crits.
Usually I cast AB-AB-AM or if I'm conserving mana AB-AM-AB and AM on clearcasts. Every now and then throw in a fireblast or BANG (ap-pom-trinket-pyro) to taste.
Not really sure what spells I should be using though. It seems that there is a much greater variety to work with. Solo-Pve I'm still experimenting quite a bit. I take a lot more hits than with frost right now.
Why are you casting AB? Is it technically more dps than using Fireball or something? I'm a deep arc mage but all I cast is fire spells most of the time and tend to do damage like a sonofabitch. AB seems to cap too low in terms of damage, even having arc talents down through Slow.
It's just what I gathered was the best approach from various forums like http://forums.subcreation.net/ and you know, what little can be scraped from the official forums.
I decided I like being a frosty mucho better. I respecced back to frost.... and I mean screaming brother.
I ran SWStats, and AB accounts for an amazing portion of my damage. On trash mobs, I pretty much just spam AB. You'll be almost out of mana after every pull, but if you start drinking right after you drop combat (which you should be anyways), you'll do fine.
If you're going for more damage, add more AB's. AM is usable if you have Emp. AM, otherwise don't use it.
I am 41/20, and I use AB and Scorch almost exclusively. I don't Fireblast unless the mob will die before I get to cast on it again, then I finish with Fireblast.
On Boss fights, I usually rotate ABx3, ScorchxwhatverIcansqueezeindependingonlatency repeat; AP-Trinket-Fireblast-PoMPyro when it won't get me squished.
I think you also need some gear to pull off an AB-AM build. I'm not sure how much gear you need though. I keep saying I'm going to respec 50/11, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Re: Smacky
Yes, fire is perfectly fine for leveling & PvE. Ignite is the talent you want more than anything else. The range talent is also great. Impact is great for scorch builds. It's most excellent fun.
edit: hehe, I like those forums, too. They say pretty much the same thing I just said.
Looks like if you have 99% to hit it will still resist every 150 seconds, where a cooldown trinket is 120 seconds.
Soooo, maybe 97%? 96%? But nobody ever gets that high on Boss mobs unless they wear nothing but tohit gear and have 3/3 elemental prec.
@Derrick, you'd be seriously cheating yourself going out of Frost before you get Ice Lance. Maybe try a 34/27/0 Scorch spec later when you get some more 70 gear, and when you do use scorch!
Rule of thumb: A Fireblast is 2 Scorches at the cost of 3 in the time of 1. Simply because of the 'pickup time' on AB if it looks like I'm gonna have too much mana at the end of the fight I start throwing in Fire Blasts whenever it's up. AB Spam is fun. There's about 2 times when I'll use it: when I want to do 1200-1400 dps and not pull aggro, or with a Scorch rotation for low aggro (ABx2, Scorchx4/5). AB is a spell that not only scales very well, but has an extremely high base damage.
Yeah, like you said, if you drop crit especially in the name of hit it creates a different problem. I don't think anyone has the desire to have 99% to hit to a boss if it means dropping a a quarter of their crit rating, some damage, and other stats.
When frost, nothing ever hits me. If it gets close, nova and two crits later and it's dead.
Fire I assume kills things before it ever hits you, with some stuns thrown in.
What about arcane though? Near as I can tell arcane has nothing going for the nukes except that burst damage.
What kind of spell rotations do you use for a mob with a lot of life? What about when trying to solo an elite (if you even are so brave with an arcane spec)?
I want to like it, but it's frustrating.
Assume full arcane, maybe just enough fire to get pyro for pvp funness.
1) Start off at max range with elemental nuke
2) Scorch 'til it gets to me (AB if I'm feeling saucy).
3) Frost nova it and gain somedistance. Ice lance when it's ok for hte nova to break (enough distance to scorch).
4) Kill mob. Usally it's damn near dead at this point.
Slow isn't all that useful in solo PvE. However, many elites are not immune to it where they are immuen to frost slowing. So you can use it to kite them. Eats mana though.