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[WoW] Mages: Spreadsheets and macros are for warlocks.

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Posts

  • korodullinkorodullin What. SCRegistered User regular
    edited December 2010
    I was that fire mage back in TBC when I leveled one originally, though naturally lacking the BC blues and such.

    korodullin on
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  • RethiusRethius Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    I haven't played for a while, but Cata brought me back. Now I've got a 72 frost mage, and I hardly remember how to play him. Think I'm gonna do some instances later, probably Nexus.

    I'm super rusty at this, is there anything I should know about my role in the group? I know I sheep the adds and try to manage my threat, but I don't want to forget something that is obvious and look like a silly goose.

    Rethius on
  • EWomEWom Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Most likely you won't be sheeping at all, until cata dungeons. Just drop a table at the beginning, and blow shits up.

    EWom on
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  • ZekZek Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Quest elites are a piece of cake for any spec with Mirror Image. You don't even have to do anything, just nuke while your clones tank. Arcane is best though since they can do sick Arcane Blast DPS.

    Zek on
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Anything but fire makes multiple quest elites fairly tame after you get mirror image.

    Fire can do it but you need to be smart about living bomb and combustion.

    Xenogears of Bore on
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  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    I have a 35 mage that I've leveled with Frost for now. I'm enjoying it so far, no complaints, leveling is going well. I am able to take down most quest elites alone, save that fucking gigantic Yeti in Hillsbrad.

    I was gonna ask about what spec it would be a good idea to take as my alternate one - but I think based on this page I'm gonna go Arcane.

    Al_wat on
  • RaekreuRaekreu Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Al_wat wrote: »
    I have a 35 mage that I've leveled with Frost for now. I'm enjoying it so far, no complaints, leveling is going well. I am able to take down most quest elites alone, save that fucking gigantic Yeti in Hillsbrad.

    I was gonna ask about what spec it would be a good idea to take as my alternate one - but I think based on this page I'm gonna go Arcane.

    Fuck that yeti and his ability to bounce you into the air whenever he feels like it. And he ALWAYS feels like it.

    Raekreu on
  • EWomEWom Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Al_wat wrote: »
    I have a 35 mage that I've leveled with Frost for now. I'm enjoying it so far, no complaints, leveling is going well. I am able to take down most quest elites alone, save that fucking gigantic Yeti in Hillsbrad.

    I was gonna ask about what spec it would be a good idea to take as my alternate one - but I think based on this page I'm gonna go Arcane.

    I thought like you "Ooh secondary spec yay!" but it's just a hassle. Frost blows them all out of the water at low levels IMO. I have yet to have any other class/spec do more single target boss DPS than me in any dungeon I've leveled on, except for the bosses that go immune to magic of course. That includes both other specs of mages. Once frost gets into the high 40's/50's and you get chain hits on your FoF and BF for those sweet sweet Ice Lance & instant fireballs/FFB... it's simply amazing how much dmg you can do, and how quick.

    Add to that your own personal bloodlust for the boss fights.. twice if you cold snap.

    EWom on
    Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Hunters have this amazing period around twenty where if you make them Survival or probably Marksmanship, give them two balanced heartseekers with the +15 agi enchant where they can do basically an untauntable amount of pure damage to the point where I have spent half of Wailing Caverns and SFC either hunter tanking or doing nothing but steady shot.

    You can get close with mages, warlocks and shadowpriests using the staff with the spellpower enchant but nothing quite near the amount of instant ridiculous damage hunters can do the second they get those few additional points of agility. 18 is a biiig number at level 20.

    Xenogears of Bore on
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  • BadwrongBadwrong TokyoRegistered User regular
    edited December 2010
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    Ive played a hunter alot before and am used to managing a pet, but the water elemental seems more retarded than most pets. Gets especially annoying how its cast times stagger with my global c/d and time I have stuff froze, so I dont get the crit multiplier because the damn WE breaks the shit.

    The DF crits on things immune to freeze are crazy... I was wondering, in PvP can you get those crazy numbers on someone who is immune too? Like when a warrior is spinning around and unsnarable, will a icy fingers DF do the same 50k crit? I heard it can get way higher than 50k after some decent gear is gotten too?

    Badwrong on
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  • LorahaloLorahalo Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    It only works on things that are permanently immune to stun. Also DF gets RIDICULOUSLY high. Get the glyph, +20% damage.

    Lorahalo on
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  • BadwrongBadwrong TokyoRegistered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Oh poo... I guess no one is PERMANENTLY immune in pvp.

    I was also wondering, I see alot of specs with the 3% crit instead of early frost... but is that really needed, since our crit % is being multiplied by frozen stuff anyway? Seemed to me that sometimes you wanna get a frostbolt off quicker on something frozen before something stupid breaks it (thinking pvp here). In that regard, should I also be glyphing for my frost nova'ed targets to take more damage before breaking?

    Badwrong on
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  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    I would assume the specs skipping Early Frost are PvE specs, not PvP specs.

    forty on
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Badwrong wrote: »
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    Stormwatcher on
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  • exisexis Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Badwrong wrote: »
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    When did you do this, and how many actual hours did you put in?

    Levelling is pretty fast now, especially if you're focused on xp.

    exis on
  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Do the easiest quests possible+always be in the 5 man queue.

    I got to sixty in a day without trying once. Granted that was a paladin who queued as tank/heals for 20-60 but still.

    I got a huntard up to 40 on a dead day last week which has the same queue options as a mage.

    Xenogears of Bore on
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  • ScudMuffinScudMuffin MarylandRegistered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Badwrong wrote: »
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    No, odds are you bathed and went outside, and not sat in front of the PC when you were not passed out. With heirlooms, guild xp bonus', and the reduction in xp for leveling to 80, it's simple enough to knock it out in a week playing about 3-4hrs a day.

    ScudMuffin on
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  • fortyforty Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    ScudMuffin wrote: »
    Badwrong wrote: »
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    No, odds are you bathed and went outside, and not sat in front of the PC when you were not passed out. With heirlooms, guild xp bonus', and the reduction in xp for leveling to 80, it's simple enough to knock it out in a week playing about 3-4hrs a day.
    I'm very hard pressed to believe someone (without some sort of outside help, Athene-style) can go from 1-84 in 32 hours (8 days at 4 hours per day).

    forty on
  • EWomEWom Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    forty wrote: »
    ScudMuffin wrote: »
    Badwrong wrote: »
    So I started a mage on tuesday last week, I'm 84 now... fun as shit to play one.

    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    No, odds are you bathed and went outside, and not sat in front of the PC when you were not passed out. With heirlooms, guild xp bonus', and the reduction in xp for leveling to 80, it's simple enough to knock it out in a week playing about 3-4hrs a day.
    I'm very hard pressed to believe someone (without some sort of outside help, Athene-style) can go from 1-84 in 32 hours (8 days at 4 hours per day).

    I know people who do the self-Refer a Friend thing can lvl a character insanely quick just by having the "friend" on auto follow, but that's only 1-60. I just can't see making it through BC/Wrath that fast afterwards, even with full heirlooms, unless you literally did nothing but play in your waking hours.

    EWom on
    Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
  • TehChowdTehChowd Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    Question: If I'm spec'd arcane, how should I be playing in dungeons? Compared to when I'm spec'd fire, I just never feel like I'm doing any damage, except maybe on bosses where I can just spam arcane blast. I'm lvl 60, and this is what my Arcane rotation looks like:

    -target what tank is targeting
    -Arcane blast if I have time, otherwise skip to the arcane barrage step
    -Arcane barrage
    -Arcane missiles if they proc, fire blast if they don't

    By then any mob the group is targeting is usually dead, so I just switch to the next mob and repeat. I just feel like compared to fire, what with hot streak, impact and the blast wave/flame strike combo, my damage on anything but bosses is just terrible. I get that arcane tactics and focus magic can offset that a bit, but still, is there something I could be doing better?

    TehChowd on
  • mynameisguidomynameisguido Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    It's so weird that my Mage basically became my main late WoTLK and now I can barely stand playing one.

    Frost is boring, Arcane is really, really boring, and Fire just feels odd.

    mynameisguido on
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  • DerrickDerrick Registered User regular
    edited December 2010
    TehChowd wrote: »
    Question: If I'm spec'd arcane, how should I be playing in dungeons? Compared to when I'm spec'd fire, I just never feel like I'm doing any damage, except maybe on bosses where I can just spam arcane blast. I'm lvl 60, and this is what my Arcane rotation looks like:

    -target what tank is targeting
    -Arcane blast if I have time, otherwise skip to the arcane barrage step
    -Arcane barrage
    -Arcane missiles if they proc, fire blast if they don't

    By then any mob the group is targeting is usually dead, so I just switch to the next mob and repeat. I just feel like compared to fire, what with hot streak, impact and the blast wave/flame strike combo, my damage on anything but bosses is just terrible. I get that arcane tactics and focus magic can offset that a bit, but still, is there something I could be doing better?

    Instant casts are always weaker than casted spells as a general rule. So, in pve, you want to avoid using them unless there's a lot of movement involved.

    You basically never want to cast arcane barrage if you can get around it. Cast AB, then use missiles on a 3 or 4 AB when it procs to clear stacks. Use barrage for this only if you have to, or if you have to move.

    Derrick on
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  • BadwrongBadwrong TokyoRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    What the hell
    how do people do that all the time?
    why did it take me months to go 45-80?
    Am I retarded?

    Well with the holiday time off it was simple and quick. I am married and didn't neglect "life", but the speed of leveling is just super quick now. First 30 levels in a day easily... about 20 per day after, the later 60's start to slow down some. BC and Wotlk content makes you wanna gouge your eyes out after how streamlined cata stuff is (including the remade 1-60 stuff). The only really LONG grind is 84 and 85.


    I didnt do recruit a friend, but I have before and thats even faster if you do it on another account. When I did that, I had a new account and a friend one follow around my geared up ret paladin in dungeons. Just run it in 3 windowed WoW's... 1-60 that way takes about 12 hours I think it was.

    Badwrong on
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  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    When you say "in a day" do you mean 24 hours /played, or do you mean like... "Tuesday" ?

    Al_wat on
  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I made a Worgen mage from lvl 1 to 69 in about two weeks playing about 2 hours a night.

    Quest to fill in time between pops on your random dungeons. ftw.

    MagicPrime on
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  • Dropping LoadsDropping Loads Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Jakarrd wrote: »
    Xynn wrote: »
    He also has a fun little habit of casting water bolt at a time so that it hits the mob right after you polymorph it. Ive had to stick mine in the corner for that one a few times

    Really? I've casted many a polymorph and even though he goes in to attack animation he won't ever fire on the poly mob till I or some other inbound damage breaks the poly. I liked that change up. I've haven't seen my WE break a snare since.

    I love the increased health of my WE though. He can practically tank pretty good on a lot of things now.

    If you're playing Frost, you should have your Frostbolt and Polymorph (and a few other spells) cast using Macros that also tell your pet what to do.

    I'm at work and can't look now, but if you look up "Water Elemental Macros" on wowwiki or wowhead, they have em there.

    That way you can cancel your WE's attack at the BEGINNING of your polymorph cast, and have no risk of breaking it.

    But I'm arcane for now anyway =P Slow does more for me than the WE does (while still leveling.)

    Dropping Loads on
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  • Lord DaveLord Dave Grief Causer Bitch Free ZoneRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Does anybody have a Frostbolt/Elemental macro that actually works without stopping his cast, because I've never found one.

    Lord Dave on
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  • JakarrdJakarrd In the belly of OklahomaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    PTR 4.0.6 Patch notes.

    Mages
    ¤ Flame Orb now ignores critters

    ¤ The mana costs of Arcane Brilliance and Dalaran Brilliance have been reduced by approximately 16% making them roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild

    ¤ Ring of Frost: Radius shrunk to 8 yards, and inner "safe" radius is now 4.7 yards (exactly matching graphic). Dispelling the effect of Ring of Frost will now make the target immune to refrozen for 3 seconds. if a second Ring of Frost is cast by the same mage while the first is still active (via Cold Snap), the first will now disappear and cease functioning.

    ¤ Bug Fixes
    ¤ Ring of Frost can now be cast, and works properly, on trasnports (this includes elevators, trapdoors, etc.).



    Good for the orb change so it doesn't waste a tick or two on critters.
    The AB and DB changes are more cosmetic but hey.

    I was hoping for a bit more but oh well.

    Jakarrd on
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  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    At least its not a nerf.

    MagicPrime on
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  • The Muffin ManThe Muffin Man Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    MagicPrime wrote: »
    At least its not a nerf.

    Technically, no.

    The Muffin Man on
  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I just wanted to chime in that to whoever told me about how arcane spec works LIED TO ME. I was told arcane barrage always procs arcane missiles.

    Despite that though, I've been having a fucking blast with arcane spec leveling (and I mean from the ground-up). Arcane missiles not losing channel-time when you get hit makes a huge impact on everything. So I like it!

    Henroid on
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    For a while in beta, AB did always trigger AM. Things change, eh

    Dehumanized on
  • Steel-AngelSteel-Angel Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    How to fight feral as a frost mage:

    1- Blink the pounce. Burn DF as soon as you can - he will trinket it. In that global cooldown, pop mirror images.
    2- He will feral charge and probably get a 5 point rip off on you after a few seconds while you throw around lances. Ice block this immediately. Sit in block long enough for blink to reset. When it does, cancel your block and counterspell out of it to prevent faerie fire from going up.
    3. Blink again and go invisible.
    4. Feral's momentum will be totally trashed and his energy down in the shitter. Keep a goodly distance away from the feral and get ready to come out of the invis with icy veins-->deep freeze-->frostbolts.
    5. At this point, you should have a fairly easy win since your pets will have been pounding on him for a while and he hasn't touched you at all. You will probably need to cold snap a second block in order to remove a second rip.

    Steel-Angel on
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  • NyhtNyht Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    My wife's new to 85 and been leveling frost for questing purposes but now she's ready to start doing dungeons. She's curious if she should stick with frost in dungeons or go fire or arcane. I don't play mages so I've no clue. Any advice/pointers?

    (I'll be her tank in dungeons so she has time to learn rotations without being kicked etc.)

    Nyht on
  • DerrickDerrick Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Nyht wrote: »
    My wife's new to 85 and been leveling frost for questing purposes but now she's ready to start doing dungeons. She's curious if she should stick with frost in dungeons or go fire or arcane. I don't play mages so I've no clue. Any advice/pointers?

    (I'll be her tank in dungeons so she has time to learn rotations without being kicked etc.)

    To be blunt, how good is she?

    If she's good, fire is a real option. You'll mow through trash like nobody's business but you have to be really careful not to accidentally dot or explode cc'ed targets. On boss fights, fire is decent dps but due to the short length of heroic boss fights, frost double deep freezing and double icy veins with coldsnap will generally pull a good deal more dps.

    Arcane... eh. It's alright for heroics. You can do good damage with it, but it just doesn't have the perks fire or frost have.

    Derrick on
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  • XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    It doesn't matter what spec she picks for 5 mans. Frost will keep her alive easier, so even she isn't 'good' there's upsides to it. If she's stellar it gives her more control. Fire is like Derrick said, Arcane sucks because it's Arcane but some people like it. So whatever she wants to do.

    Xeddicus on
  • XehalusXehalus Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I just rerolled.

    Shadow Priest -> Arcane Mage

    Hello.

    Xehalus on
  • XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    Playing Fire now feels kind of like playing Arcane. This isn't optimal for me personally, but then I haven't raided with it yet even.

    Xeddicus on
  • JakarrdJakarrd In the belly of OklahomaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I still like arcane over fire but that's really due to me not having 33+ crit percent to enjoy procing HS often enough. The rotations for arcane a little easier to remember than always trying to keep LB up while remembering HS procs. For me I tend to run 2k more dps in arcane than fire but if yer doing anything over 9k in a heoric at least then it won't matter which spec you use.

    I do like spec'ing fire for trash though. Picking a non-community target to throw LB off on, followed by a flamestrike -> blastwave, followd by an impact proc = priceless.

    I do miss my pet out of frost though. I have always wondered if blizz would advance it eventually so that fire has a fire ele and arcane has an arcane ele to use.

    Jakarrd on
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  • MagicPrimeMagicPrime FiresideWizard Registered User regular
    edited January 2011
    I will be sticking with frost even into raiding. Not only can I put out great damage, our tank loves how a frost mage's opening move is typically locking down all the mobs in a trash pull with freeze.

    MagicPrime on
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