Mage Raiding 2.0

Since we're the only class with multiple raiders this topic is to improve our performance.


Post your tips and ideas here.


- Mirror Image is bugged right now so clones appear with 133% of your threat instead of 33% (you still drop to 0), this means they can pull aggro. Only theoretical as I've never done this , bad for pulling bosses but can be used to pull mobs off a healer and soak a few hits until tank gets them again.
I like to start a boss fight with trinket-> Mirror Image, this way a few chain crits wont pull and the tank can build aggro. Can maybe use MI twice in a fight as well this way.


- On trash or AoE packs cast Living Bomb on the X not skull so it has time to explode


- If trash dies fast then use scorch instead of main nuke, 3 scorches > 1 Fireball and has a very good chance to proc Hot Streak


- With multiple mages only 1 person should be scorching, this gives the others a large dps boost (100+). It's vital to keep scorch refreshed though.


- Mirror Images only scale with Spell power so use them after a trinket for minor dps boost


- Try to chain large crits together so the tanks actually have to work


- If there is fire - use fire ward, cast while moving. The 5% reflect chance on minor glyph can save your life if you get a dot.


- Knockback effects are still banned from offensive use but may be allowed for defensive, knocking a stray mob away from healers and back towards the tank is good. If frost nova is on CD this can save a wipe or a death but will be a judgement call. Using on an aoe pack = instant gnome slap. Every spell has a use somewhere.


- If in doubt cast an instant spell, will do more damage than a nuke that didnt finish casting.


- General stacking trinkets with IV, combustion etc. Time cooldowns for when a boss is at 35% hp.


- Spirit is useless unless you are arcane, will get more mana back from molten armour and Master of Elements than you will from mage armour.


- get hit capped.



Loved playing Unvi again, determined to get everything out of him that I can

Should have said, the scorching on trash is also so I dont pull aggro straight away at the start of a fight. Xath and Tep would have to keep taunting or even worse they might just let me tank.


Also I have been stacking a decent amount of crit so I now have >50% on nukes but this is not optimal for dps. Spell hit (capped) and spell damage (only 1390) are much better stats for higher dps but I calculated my own build based on some solo play as well. There are pre defined builds and stats to aim for but my way is more fun.


Tested Blastwave in heroic occulus last night as a defensive spell, worked really well keeping runners off the healer. Make sure you fire them back at the tank.
Still not allowed for aoe but could be great in raids as an inverse death grip, use it when needed. A better option than frost nova when the mob is running past other casters to get to you or the healer as when frozen it will target anyone in range.

as I see it I get more use out of the blastwave talent spent elsewhere untill I can get the glyph, though I see the possitive aspects of having still having it, I'm a bit afraid I'd use it on reflex, so used to it

Don't have any wisdom to share, I just need to get comfortable with my new spells and ofc need to be hit capped soon, had almost 10% misses this sunday, thats just too much.

Elysia wrote:

as I see it I get more use out of the blastwave talent spent elsewhere untill I can get the glyph, though I see the possitive aspects of having still having it, I'm a bit afraid I'd use it on reflex, so used to it

Don't have any wisdom to share, I just need to get comfortable with my new spells and ofc need to be hit capped soon, had almost 10% misses this sunday, thats just too much.

I cant see you dropping Dragons Breath for it

Took it for testing and because I miss the easy mode kiting that frost gives, had to kite 3 elites yesterday with a BW FN CoC rotation for a couple of minutes. The whole time I was wishing for Improved Blizzard.

A shadow priest or boomkin in raid will give you +3% hit so might help if orphya starts to dps. Hitting the cap should increase your dps by about 12-13% when you factor in all the procs being missed and time recasting LB or scorch.

Most of your "wisdom" is stuff you dont even think about I bet, things like staying a microscopic amount of threat less than the tank without pulling aggro or mana management or best aoe rotations. When we were both fire you always started the aoe finishers at the right time for the killing blows and my casts 2 seconds later hit thin air every time, drove me crazy. I started to hate the WRRAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!! macro

Changes expected in next patch should make fire/arcane builds the top dps specc and arc will receive several buffs.

Torment of the weak will apply to all slows/snares affecting a boss eg: a Warr keeps thunderclap up we get +12% damage.

Big change for fire builds is that Pyromaniac will now increase our crit chance by 3% and allow 30% mana regen while casting. All that useless spirit we have on items finally gets a purpose.

Source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_3.0.8_(undocumented_changes)#Mage

So last night I tried an arcane build for a laugh to see how it worked, didnt do any research on it apart from reading the patch notes so had no idea what the dps would be like. Turns out it is pretty viable even when you dont have a clue what you are doing.

My build

Dont know if it's optimal for dps and I missed out most of the fun arcane talents that are more pvp orientated. Also was left with 2 points, put 1 in slow and havent used the other, will probably put it in Ice Shards for more blizzard aoe damage.

Arcane is all about managing mana and setting up huge burst damage so the rotations are a bit more fluid than FFB.

On bosses I tried:
3* AB to build the 45% buff to next spell then
if Missile Barrage or Clearcasting was procced I used AM followed by ABr on the 4th tick. This gives a shatter combo effect as both spells can benefit from the buff.
If nothing procced I used ABr.
repeat

At the start off a fight I would wait for the missile barrage proc, build 3 stacks then use Icy Veins/trinket/Arcane Power macro. This is my max nuke time so I also used a mana gem for SP buff, used PoM to build next 3 stack and repeated.

When this AP macro came off CD I tried to save it for heroism to get crazy burst, need to have plenty of mana for this though. Trinket/gem/AP have the same cooldown times but IV dosnt so it's hard to stack them twice in a fight. When IV came was available for the second time each fight I would use it for evocate if mana was required, seemed to synchronize well.

Mana wasnt too much of a problem surprisingly, went oom 1 time on KT after a mana bomb and that was only for 5 seconds. Used glyphed mage armour for 80% regen, mana gems and 2 potions the whole night. About 500mp5 and 20k mana (19,998) so with replenishment it was easy (Love you Orphya). When I started to run low and had some time left before evocate or gems were ready I changed the rotation to 2*AB instead.

Wasnt sure what the best way to AoE trash was so tried a few things, in the end PoM Flamestrike followed by blizz spam seemed to work well. Switched to Arcane explosion when threat got high (-40% threat on Arcane spells only).

The lack of threat problems was a really nice change so I didnt even have to use images to start each fight, this is why I wanted to try arcane. Arc/fire specc looks great but it only has 10% threat reduction, I already struggle with 20% reduction on FFB specc.


Stats for last night were 1950 SP unbuffed, 7.5% hit (capped with Spriest there), 25.00% crit, 14% haste (6% talented), 20k mana, 500ish mp5. Wouldnt recommend trying arc without good gear as it relies a lot more on SP/haste/spi to put out decent dps and less on crit. Used mage armour glyph and Arcane Power glyph, didnt replace FFB glyph.

Very fun specc to use as long as there are other mages present, much harder to play and more complex than FFB. Not sure if the dps is as good because I really screwed up on most fights last night, L2P issues. This isnt a permanent respec, I'll find a good build for raiding but wanted to see how arc was and have some fun. Would never have done it if it might have gimped the raid badly.

Arcane Power + Icy Veins + trinket + trinket proc + mana gem buff + Heroism + Haste pot + Missile Barrage + Clearcasting + 3 stacks AB = more burst than you can imagine in 15 - 30 seconds.
Dont think anything in game can beat that burst apart from raid bosses. There were certainly a few times I was breaking 10k+ dps/sec when RNG kicked in.


edit: Just looked at WWS and I was 1k dps lower on Patch last night than previous attempt with FFB specc. Far from optimal performance but annoying as I have upgraded my gear a lot since then.

Just browsing and stumbled over this:

Mage raiding spec post 3.0.8

Very informative with nice explainations and recount screenys. Looks like 18/53/0 is beating frostfire spec atm.

Durandi wrote:

Just browsing and stumbled over this:

Mage raiding spec post 3.0.8

Very informative with nice explainations and recount screenys. Looks like 18/53/0 is beating frostfire spec atm.

Cheers mate, very good post. His testing was lacking on glyphs and gear should be changed for different speccs but overall it was well done. His stats are close to mine as well, think I possibly have better.
I'll try some dps tests tonight after I get the AB glyph and see what the results are, hard to quantify given that different builds dont scale the same way with raid buffs.

The improvement in frost dps looks huge although the rotation seems mind numbing, I'll try a heroic at some point to test it out. Worst case scenario I could at least solo kite on Gluth.

Vrael if you want to try arc/fire specc remember that you'll need 16% hit rating to cap so FFB will probably be better for you without new gear.


This is one of the best patches for mages ever and it took me by surprise, we actually have several dps speccs now that are all viable.

Going to test the others but have to master Arcane first, positive I can do much better than last night. Hate feeling like a nubcake

Think I'm gonna stick to the specc I have now, firstly 'cus I am finally getting a hang of it and secondly 'cus my raiding attendance is only going down hill from now on and I don't feel I have the time to learn the arcane ways all the way. But be sure to tell me if there is some great gear I could get rep for or smth for FFspecc I finally got enough rep to get my chest piece only to find out that its exactly the same as the one I'm wearing... DOH!

Elysia wrote:

Think I'm gonna stick to the specc I have now, firstly 'cus I am finally getting a hang of it and secondly 'cus my raiding attendance is only going down hill from now on and I don't feel I have the time to learn the arcane ways all the way. But be sure to tell me if there is some great gear I could get rep for or smth for FFspecc I finally got enough rep to get my chest piece only to find out that its exactly the same as the one I'm wearing... DOH!

Had a quick look on the armoury and there are a few gear improvements you can get with ease.

Head: Kirin Tor enchant on it & Gem it with Chaotic Skyflare diamond (Imperaton)

Neck: Good

Shoulders: Bad, you can get Dark Runic Mantle which is a BoE lvl 80 blue for around 75g on the AH. Best non epic shoulders in game and has a gem slot, drops in HoS HC. Put a SP/Sta or SP/Spi gem in it (need 2 blue gems for Meta)
Can put any shoulder enchant available on them, cloth shoulders are really hard to get.

Cloak: Haste enchant

Chest: Mp5 items are not good for us, replace as soon as you can with T7 or a drop

Bracers: great

Weapon: great

offhand: great

wand: good, drop from HC Azjol may be slightly better but its only a wand. There are also blue wands with +hit on them if you want.

Gloves: good

Belt: good

Trousers: another mp5 item, drop from HC HoL would be an improvement with a lot more crit. Then get something from Naxx.

Boots: good item, if you have wyrmrest rep then you can get the boots from them which are slightly better and have a blue socket. Equip a SP/Sta or SP/Spi gem in them and you'll have the 2 blues needed for meta. Use Icewalker enchant instead of vitality (15 hit and crit, see Imperaton). As you get higher values of crit rating the value of haste increases so it's a good idea to keep a balance rather than focus on crit alone.

Rings: Very good

Trinkets: Mark of the war prisoner is great, you are now hit capped with hit food as well at 13%. When we have a Boomkin or Spriest in the raid you can replace war prisoner with something else (only need 10% hit). The alchemist trinket isnt great, the best item to go for is the Sundial of the exiled for 40 emblems. This gives you lots of crit and means you have the other 2 trinkets to swap around as needed. Remember not to use the hit trinket on anything but Raid bosses:

Chance to miss before talents (precision, -3%), Draenei racial (-1%), Spriest or boomkin (-3% but probably not applied on trash)

Level 80 mobs: 4% chance
Level 81 mobs: 5% chance
Level 82 mobs/HC bosses: 6% chance
Level 83 Raid bosses: 17% chance

This means you can switch a piece of gear and increase dps on trash or in heroics without worrying. The 80-82 percentages may be 1% too low, I'll have to check.

Luckily this is all fresh in my head from gearing Unvi, think I spend too much time thinking about it. Hope it helps.

Using just these changes should give you about 700dps more on raid bosses, I tried a basic simulation on Rawr using raid buffs we always have, flasks etc and it came out very well.

Enough of this rabble!
I demand this thread to be locked!

Emiks wrote:

Enough of this rabble!
I demand this thread to be locked!

Get some epix scrub lock, start raiding again so proper clothies can laugh at your dps

wow... thanks a lot Unvi, gotta get some heroics in I guess, I'm hoping that one of the two cloth shoulders from Naxx drops soon, that would be great, but I think I'll look for the blue ones on AH untill then. I am currently trying to get Wyrmrest rep so that should help a bit as well. But its great to have a few pointers to look at, I'm so bad at seeing stuff like this myself.
I'll be sending a Skyflare Diamond to Imp soon to cut, couldn't remember wich char was a jewelcrafter
Thanks a bunch
/hug Ely

LOL shows mages HAHAH xD hihihihi

Lol that cute.

Xathrina wrote:

LOL shows mages HAHAH xD hihihihi

I just exploded in laughter! XD

I'm looking for a good spec for Enéa to raid with and I've thought of something like this. I'm not completely sure about the Frostfire mechanics so some things may not be optimal. For example, does Frostfire gain bonus from Piercing Ice (+6% dmg on frost spells) if you got so many talents improving your fire spells? (I got the impression that Frostfire scales with whatever is higher). Same thing with Ice Shards really, when it adds 100% crit bonus and Burnout adds 50% will frostfire then gain the 100%?

Anyway, wtb input so Enéa can respec

Endelar wrote:

I'm looking for a good spec for Enéa to raid with and I've thought of something like this. I'm not completely sure about the Frostfire mechanics so some things may not be optimal. For example, does Frostfire gain bonus from Piercing Ice (+6% dmg on frost spells) if you got so many talents improving your fire spells? (I got the impression that Frostfire scales with whatever is higher). Same thing with Ice Shards really, when it adds 100% crit bonus and Burnout adds 50% will frostfire then gain the 100%?

Anyway, wtb input so Enéa can respec

FFB spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVMbRhIuVubhctbIccoc

All frost & fire damage/crit increasing talents apply to FFB. This is the standard build with room to play with a few points in World in Flames, Blastwave, Dragon's Breath and Frost Channeling (FC is only for mana reduction, does not stack with Burning Soul)


This is probably the 3rd best dps spec available now, at lower gear levels she will almost definitely do more dps with a frost spec though. Might be worth thinking about until she gets 25% crit unbuffed.

Arcane/frost and Fire/Arc are the top dps speccs now but both require good gear to be competitive.

frost arcane : here

Frost Raider

Changed a few of your talents,

Spirit is completely useless to a frost build so no SotM. Should have very very few mana problems so can take a point or 2 out of Arc Conc. if wanted for the defensive talents.

Much else is similar give or take, I've left a few spare points for Brain Freeze if wanted or can be used to buff blizzard for more aoe.
Dont put points in frostbite and Imp Blizz as it will decimate melee in raids.

Not sure if Brain freeze is a dps boost but at low gear levels it probably is, can at least be saved for use when moving. DO NOT waste a FoF proc on BF.

Again at low gear it is probably best to try and shatter combo on the second FoF proc, this means casting Ice Lance as soon as possible after the 2nd frostbolt so they hit simultaneously. Should be easy enough to learn the timings but can miss depending on your latency. Big dps loss if they dont shatter.

For raids the best glyphs would be Frostbolt, Elemental and probably Molten armor. Glyphed FB still procs FoF although it dosnt chill.

You will have a decent crit rate through talents so it dosnt need to be overly stacked, the most beneficial stats will be :

Hit >>>>>> SP >>> Haste >> Crit

Icy Veins is your biggest dps boost so try to stack usable trinkets with it (macro) and depending on the fight see if it can be stacked with things like Heroism as well. Only use it when you will be able to cast for the duration or it is wasted. If you are low on mana for some reason in a long fight then use evocate at the end of IV, it will receive the haste and push back protection for the whole channeling time. Frostbolt dosnt have any pushback resist so keep Ice Barrier up when there is a lot of raid damage.

Your dps will depend on how your elemental does, he (mine is called Steve) can die very easily so dont summon during raid damage phases and be fast to move him out of AoEs. Steve also benefits from your SP so pop a trinket before you summon then let him cast.

I wanted to try raiding as frost but at higher SP you only cast frostbolt and summon pet, not the most enthralling challenge.

Blizzard will give you very very very strong aoe, which is nice.