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.
so you don't even normally use your arcane spells?
Besides the nice side benefits (insane mana pool, mana regen, Imp CS, extra spell damage, PoM, AP and another +%50 on crits), in 5 mans I almost exclusively use Arcane Blast.
It's crazy dps.
Also, Slow is good should you have to kite something that's immune to the frost slow effect (coilfang defender, nasty bird in Heroic Sethekk).
I use the elemental nuke as a starter because it has better range (42 yards), thus giving me more time to pump out damage before the mob gets to me.
I just respec'd to a scorch build (to see what's up with that), so I expect to be casting more scorch/ scorch+ AB rotations.
a penguin on
This space eventually to be filled with excitement
Arcane Blast is crazy DPS, but your DPS suffers for every second of the fight you're out of mana. You get a lot more damage out of a mana bar if you use a more efficient nuke. Has anyone actually crunched the numbers?
I have a question about AB too. I've seen posts from frost mages who say they added it to their cycle and it upped their DPS, but I'm a little confused by it. I have the shadoweave set, so my frost damage is way higher then my arcane damage and I really don't see the point of substituting every 3rd or 4th frostbolt with an AB. It would be awesome if it was instant cast, but since it's not, wouldn't it be better to just cast another frostbolt?
I'd love to hear from any mages with experience with this.
If most of your +dmg is to a particular school, then it might not be worth it.
The beauty of AB is the decreased cast time from the debuff. So in the same amount of time, you get more AB's out than you would frostbolts. They're probably doing something like AB-AB-Frostbolt-Frostbolt repeat.
Also, the first AB costs next to nothing in mana. I'm not really seeing how throwing only 1 in there would do to much. It'd be good to use as an execute move though. Once the boss hits a percentage where you can safely drain your mana dry doing damage, just start pumping out AB's. 2600dmg every two seconds is fun!
a penguin on
This space eventually to be filled with excitement
So, it's been a while since I've played a mage, and want to roll another. I'm thinking I'm probably going to do the frost spec at least for a while, then switch to fire when I get to higher levels.
One important question though - the Frostbite nerf, that was for PvP only, right? Or does it have diminishing returns in PvE as well?
So, it's been a while since I've played a mage, and want to roll another. I'm thinking I'm probably going to do the frost spec at least for a while, then switch to fire when I get to higher levels.
One important question though - the Frostbite nerf, that was for PvP only, right? Or does it have diminishing returns in PvE as well?
PVP only. It's still effective in PvE.
As for spec, I'd stay frost for PvE. The survivability and control are really helpful for grinding.
Just gonna be a pain in the ass for me to get those Primal Waters
It'll take longer than you want it to. I'd just level up, and forget about it.
edit; if you really insist on it though, it doesn't really matter what you spec. You're still going to be playing with a majority of twinks who are going to tear you up no matter what you spec at that level.
Do what you like, get your gearzzzz, and get back to leveling.
I'll always open with a Frostbolt of course, so that they're nice and slow from the very beginning.
While that FB is flying I'll start casting Arcane Blast.
After the AB, I'll cast another Frostbolt which I follow up with a Fire Blast -- usually I'll be jumping backwards or something while I'm casting the fireblast to put a little more space between me and the mob. Then I should have enough time for one more Arc. Blast before I nova and run away to repeat that process. Most times when I solo mobs won't even live to see the nova.
Also, it's been a few weeks since I posted in here, but I finally managed to get my +spell up over 600! Getting that Blade of the Archmage took a long-ass time, but it was sooooo worth it. Plus it looks pretty fucking awesome with the +30 int enchant on it. The respec advice I got in here was very helpful, thanks a ton to everyone.
My next target is Shiffar's Nexus-Horn to replace my Xi'ri's Gift. I've also been working on collecting my Mana-Etched gear, which has a set bonus with a simliar proc. I'm wondering, once I have both the horn and the ME set, how will those overlap? I assume that the procs will never stack, but will I be getting the proc more often since two "rolls" are happening with each spellcast?
Also, just in case any of you aren't, you really should be griding your Ogri'La faction. With the 2 hour speed boost and the Sorceror's Flasks, that place is like a mage playground. Not to mention the sweet off-hand you get once you reach Exalted! Also you can work Sha'tari Skyguard, Aldor, and Consortium rep all at the same time, which is pretty awesome.
Stupid Aldor rep. Everything and their mother drops those marks. Farming Scryer's sucks.
Can't say I agree with you there. Both of the major Scryer camps (Eclipse Point in Shadowmoon and the manaforges in Netherstorm) were pretty good to me. There was a point in Eclipse where I was wondering if I'd hit Exalted before I got my formula drop. I got to Revered without trying too hard.
Yeah, mostly my complaint comes from Aldor marks dropping in Shadow Labs and half the other instances (even the Tempest Keep ones). I can get 40 marks easy from instancing, and about 1/4 of that for Scryers.
You're right though, grinding for them isn't bad. Getting Aldor marks just seems fairly painless.
a penguin on
This space eventually to be filled with excitement
Stupid Aldor rep. Everything and their mother drops those marks. Farming Scryer's sucks.
Can't say I agree with you there. Both of the major Scryer camps (Eclipse Point in Shadowmoon and the manaforges in Netherstorm) were pretty good to me. There was a point in Eclipse where I was wondering if I'd hit Exalted before I got my formula drop. I got to Revered without trying too hard.
Aldor has Legion Hold and shittons of mobs that are basically melee only. Scryer has, I believe, no such area to farm. That's what really sucks.
Stupid Aldor rep. Everything and their mother drops those marks. Farming Scryer's sucks.
Can't say I agree with you there. Both of the major Scryer camps (Eclipse Point in Shadowmoon and the manaforges in Netherstorm) were pretty good to me. There was a point in Eclipse where I was wondering if I'd hit Exalted before I got my formula drop. I got to Revered without trying too hard.
Aldor has Legion Hold and shittons of mobs that are basically melee only. Scryer has, I believe, no such area to farm. That's what really sucks.
Right now I'm farming the sunfury geologists that are sw of Area 52. They only have an occasional ranged attack (throwing rocks).
The nice thing about farming scryer rep is that at 70, the mobs you farm drop a lot of other nice things. When I'm not farming primals I head over to a camp, and space out while I kill for a bit. cloth is nice, random greens, and I like farming mobs that drop cash instead of greys. After I hit exalted with them, I sell the signets for decent g, too.
MulysaSempronius on
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
The nice thing about farming scryer rep is that at 70, the mobs you farm drop a lot of other nice things. When I'm not farming primals I head over to a camp, and space out while I kill for a bit. cloth is nice, random greens, and I like farming mobs that drop cash instead of greys. After I hit exalted with them, I sell the signets for decent g, too.
Amen to that. I'm grinding my mage to 70 so I can use the quest cash to finance epic flyers, and killing two birds with one stone by grinding scryer rep at the same time. So far he's stockpiled 100 bolts of imbued netherweave (from the cloth and DEable greens that have dropped) and sitting on another backpack full of bolts of netherweave for when I'm ready to grind out the last part of tailoring).
I also got the runed living ruby recipe for my jewelcrafter that way.
The nice thing about farming scryer rep is that at 70, the mobs you farm drop a lot of other nice things. When I'm not farming primals I head over to a camp, and space out while I kill for a bit. cloth is nice, random greens, and I like farming mobs that drop cash instead of greys. After I hit exalted with them, I sell the signets for decent g, too.
Amen to that. I'm grinding my mage to 70 so I can use the quest cash to finance epic flyers, and killing two birds with one stone by grinding scryer rep at the same time. So far he's stockpiled 100 bolts of imbued netherweave (from the cloth and DEable greens that have dropped) and sitting on another backpack full of bolts of netherweave for when I'm ready to grind out the last part of tailoring).
I also got the runed living ruby recipe for my jewelcrafter that way.
I've been having trouble getting in more than 2 ice lances on the target (even with a /stopcasting in the macro), so when frostbite procs (or after I hit frost nova) I've been winding up a frostbolt and then hitting ice lance as soon as it finishes casting (the effect being the two spells going off almost simultatenously). Is that really the most effective use of the proc, or is there a more effective one?
I'd say that trying to get that +%50 Crit Chance off on the frozen mob is the best use of it. I honestly like Ice Lance more without Shatter, as the mob tends to stay rooted longer. But that's what I did back when I was Shatter spec'd.
And another question for the masses: I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how I should be itemizing my gems. I want to do it right, because those things can add up.
This is going into my Spellfire gear and soon my Spellstrike hood, btw. I'm currently Scorch spec'd, and fighting the urge to throw +crit into every slot that rears it's ugly head. I pretty much just chuck the +9 Spell dmg, + 8 Spell Crit and the one that's a mix of the two at everything I have. I worry that I'm a bit low on HP though.
a penguin on
This space eventually to be filled with excitement
Ice Lance spam is for fire mages and 40/0/21 freaks. In solo pve always go for the Frostbolt/Ice Lance combo.
As a scorch spec I do Potent in red sockets, Glowing in blue sockets (Talasite just had to suck : P), and Gleaming in yellow. I throughly hate the grayed out text, otherwise I'd break color for more Gleam. For spots where I'm worried about HP I swap in a couple pieces of my pvp set.
Edit: The one thing that makes a scorch spec beat out anything else is the Capacitor. Without it, you're just freakish in 5 mans (lol@notraveltime). With it, you'll beat out the 10/48/3 specs. It also has the benefit of being a manageable arena spec.
Frostbolt+Icelance is great when you have enough range that the icelance will hit at the same time as the frostbolt. When I'm too close, I go Frostbolt+CoC. I miss the triple icelance crits though :x
Any shadow priest or affliction warlock who rolls on the capacitor should be promptly kicked from the guild for not having any concept of their class, or that item.
Any shadow priest or affliction warlock who rolls on the capacitor should be promptly kicked from the guild for not having any concept of their class, or that item.
Pretty much. My affliction warlock was in an arc run with no other casters and I won shiffar's nexus horn. The poor thing is just sitting in my bags, utterly useless(I've not actually crunched the numbers, but it doesn't seem worth equipping).
Got my Lightning Capacitor tonight. I particularly like how it bugs out with Wrath of the Titans and reliably produces multiple procs in a row when Titans procs. I don't know, it seemed repeatable.
Trinket better than expected, crits for 1.2k... ohohoh.
Now, I need to revise that story when I tell my boss why I overslept tomorrow.
Frostbolt+Icelance is great when you have enough range that the icelance will hit at the same time as the frostbolt. When I'm too close, I go Frostbolt+CoC. I miss the triple icelance crits though :x
They do not need to hit at the same time, Ice Lance just has to cast before Frostbolt hits. All the spell calculation are done at completion of casting (note how you'll see a resist message for Frostbite before the Frost spell hits).
Frostbolt+Icelance is great when you have enough range that the icelance will hit at the same time as the frostbolt. When I'm too close, I go Frostbolt+CoC. I miss the triple icelance crits though :x
They do not need to hit at the same time, Ice Lance just has to cast before Frostbolt hits. All the spell calculation are done at completion of casting (note how you'll see a resist message for Frostbite before the Frost spell hits).
Yeah, I discovered that when I found out the Frostbolt/Ice Lance trick didn't work with Arcane Blast/Ice Lance (since AB has an instant impact, rather than a flight time).
Any shadow priest or affliction warlock who rolls on the capacitor should be promptly kicked from the guild for not having any concept of their class, or that item.
Pretty much. My affliction warlock was in an arc run with no other casters and I won shiffar's nexus horn. The poor thing is just sitting in my bags, utterly useless(I've not actually crunched the numbers, but it doesn't seem worth equipping).
Got my Lightning Capacitor tonight. I particularly like how it bugs out with Wrath of the Titans and reliably produces multiple procs in a row when Titans procs. I don't know, it seemed repeatable.
Trinket better than expected, crits for 1.2k... ohohoh.
Now, I need to revise that story when I tell my boss why I overslept tomorrow.
Just tell him you had a serious case of the electric balls.
After realising the folly of searching for the term "crusade" in this forum, I'll just go ahead and hope it hasn't been brought up too recently: the darkmoon crusade card.
I've forked out a lot of gold in the last few days to get all but the 5 and 8 of blessings. I hope it works out to be a decent enough upgrade to my clowing crystal insignia. Anyone else using it?
Posts
so you don't even normally use your arcane spells?
What's the point of speccing arcane then?
(just curious, not accusatory)
It's crazy dps.
Also, Slow is good should you have to kite something that's immune to the frost slow effect (coilfang defender, nasty bird in Heroic Sethekk).
I use the elemental nuke as a starter because it has better range (42 yards), thus giving me more time to pump out damage before the mob gets to me.
I just respec'd to a scorch build (to see what's up with that), so I expect to be casting more scorch/ scorch+ AB rotations.
I'd love to hear from any mages with experience with this.
The beauty of AB is the decreased cast time from the debuff. So in the same amount of time, you get more AB's out than you would frostbolts. They're probably doing something like AB-AB-Frostbolt-Frostbolt repeat.
Also, the first AB costs next to nothing in mana. I'm not really seeing how throwing only 1 in there would do to much. It'd be good to use as an execute move though. Once the boss hits a percentage where you can safely drain your mana dry doing damage, just start pumping out AB's. 2600dmg every two seconds is fun!
One important question though - the Frostbite nerf, that was for PvP only, right? Or does it have diminishing returns in PvE as well?
PVP only. It's still effective in PvE.
As for spec, I'd stay frost for PvE. The survivability and control are really helpful for grinding.
Just gonna be a pain in the ass for me to get those Primal Waters
(the unbuffed 10k is when I switch out my main 1h for my back up with +30 int. I sit at around 9800 most of the time I suppose)
im thinking maybe something like this
im currently fire spec but it isnt really doing it for me in pvp.
edit; if you really insist on it though, it doesn't really matter what you spec. You're still going to be playing with a majority of twinks who are going to tear you up no matter what you spec at that level.
Do what you like, get your gearzzzz, and get back to leveling.
I'll always open with a Frostbolt of course, so that they're nice and slow from the very beginning.
While that FB is flying I'll start casting Arcane Blast.
After the AB, I'll cast another Frostbolt which I follow up with a Fire Blast -- usually I'll be jumping backwards or something while I'm casting the fireblast to put a little more space between me and the mob. Then I should have enough time for one more Arc. Blast before I nova and run away to repeat that process. Most times when I solo mobs won't even live to see the nova.
Also, it's been a few weeks since I posted in here, but I finally managed to get my +spell up over 600! Getting that Blade of the Archmage took a long-ass time, but it was sooooo worth it. Plus it looks pretty fucking awesome with the +30 int enchant on it. The respec advice I got in here was very helpful, thanks a ton to everyone.
My next target is Shiffar's Nexus-Horn to replace my Xi'ri's Gift. I've also been working on collecting my Mana-Etched gear, which has a set bonus with a simliar proc. I'm wondering, once I have both the horn and the ME set, how will those overlap? I assume that the procs will never stack, but will I be getting the proc more often since two "rolls" are happening with each spellcast?
Also, just in case any of you aren't, you really should be griding your Ogri'La faction. With the 2 hour speed boost and the Sorceror's Flasks, that place is like a mage playground. Not to mention the sweet off-hand you get once you reach Exalted! Also you can work Sha'tari Skyguard, Aldor, and Consortium rep all at the same time, which is pretty awesome.
I'm shooting for the Archmage blade myself. +30 int though? Boo. Moer spell dmg l o l.
I don't know if the procs will stack or not, but I don't see why not. You can stack the trinket with the Horn proc, at least.
The Horn got nerfed, btw. The proc only lasts 10 seconds now. Shennanagins.
Also, it has a 45 second cooldown. I still love it.
Can't say I agree with you there. Both of the major Scryer camps (Eclipse Point in Shadowmoon and the manaforges in Netherstorm) were pretty good to me. There was a point in Eclipse where I was wondering if I'd hit Exalted before I got my formula drop. I got to Revered without trying too hard.
You're right though, grinding for them isn't bad. Getting Aldor marks just seems fairly painless.
Aldor has Legion Hold and shittons of mobs that are basically melee only. Scryer has, I believe, no such area to farm. That's what really sucks.
Right now I'm farming the sunfury geologists that are sw of Area 52. They only have an occasional ranged attack (throwing rocks).
Amen to that. I'm grinding my mage to 70 so I can use the quest cash to finance epic flyers, and killing two birds with one stone by grinding scryer rep at the same time. So far he's stockpiled 100 bolts of imbued netherweave (from the cloth and DEable greens that have dropped) and sitting on another backpack full of bolts of netherweave for when I'm ready to grind out the last part of tailoring).
I also got the runed living ruby recipe for my jewelcrafter that way.
WIN :^:
I've been having trouble getting in more than 2 ice lances on the target (even with a /stopcasting in the macro), so when frostbite procs (or after I hit frost nova) I've been winding up a frostbolt and then hitting ice lance as soon as it finishes casting (the effect being the two spells going off almost simultatenously). Is that really the most effective use of the proc, or is there a more effective one?
And another question for the masses: I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how I should be itemizing my gems. I want to do it right, because those things can add up.
This is going into my Spellfire gear and soon my Spellstrike hood, btw. I'm currently Scorch spec'd, and fighting the urge to throw +crit into every slot that rears it's ugly head. I pretty much just chuck the +9 Spell dmg, + 8 Spell Crit and the one that's a mix of the two at everything I have. I worry that I'm a bit low on HP though.
As a scorch spec I do Potent in red sockets, Glowing in blue sockets (Talasite just had to suck : P), and Gleaming in yellow. I throughly hate the grayed out text, otherwise I'd break color for more Gleam. For spots where I'm worried about HP I swap in a couple pieces of my pvp set.
Edit: The one thing that makes a scorch spec beat out anything else is the Capacitor. Without it, you're just freakish in 5 mans (lol@notraveltime). With it, you'll beat out the 10/48/3 specs. It also has the benefit of being a manageable arena spec.
Pretty much. My affliction warlock was in an arc run with no other casters and I won shiffar's nexus horn. The poor thing is just sitting in my bags, utterly useless(I've not actually crunched the numbers, but it doesn't seem worth equipping).
Trinket better than expected, crits for 1.2k... ohohoh.
Now, I need to revise that story when I tell my boss why I overslept tomorrow.
They do not need to hit at the same time, Ice Lance just has to cast before Frostbolt hits. All the spell calculation are done at completion of casting (note how you'll see a resist message for Frostbite before the Frost spell hits).
Yeah, I discovered that when I found out the Frostbolt/Ice Lance trick didn't work with Arcane Blast/Ice Lance (since AB has an instant impact, rather than a flight time).
Don't feel too bad, it got nerfed last patch.
Yeah, I'm not too pleased with that nerf. Was it really neccessary?
Ah well. I wants me a Lightning Capacitor.
I've forked out a lot of gold in the last few days to get all but the 5 and 8 of blessings. I hope it works out to be a decent enough upgrade to my clowing crystal insignia. Anyone else using it?