Pre-Patch Mage Spec

[Sylvaeres]

So, with the pre-patch coming in a few weeks, what spec are we going to be switching to for mythic raiding? Arcane is dead in the water, leaving us with Frost or Fire to do the job.

[Dugussa]

I Saw Rikh, legion stream the other day, he said that fire would be the new spec for raiding, because of kit, funnier playstyle aswell

[Deleted]

I Saw Rikh, legion stream the other day, he said that fire would be the new spec for raiding, because of kit, funnier playstyle aswell

In legion they all do pretty well with the weapon unlocked etc...

Without weapon fire feels abit... Meh to me, frost feels nice however.

Dmg numbers I can imagine fire being ahead in the pre patch, but I think frost will be very close behind tbh :P

And fire funnier playstyle.... Not really, I mean its literally get 2 crits, pop pyro or flamestrike depending on aoe or single, and then align combustion for some spam :P But its mainly just pyroblast.

I find frost much more varied in the playstyle and it has the exact same raiding toolkit IMO :P

[Deleted]

You may copy your character on the PTR realms and form your own opinion?

[Maverixx]

I tested everything in PTR so far, so I'll say this.
Fire is by far the strongest of 3. With great deal. Frost and arcane are just too weak without artifacts.
1) Fire is doing about 159k per 30mil DPS
2) Frost is doing 109k - 130k per 30mil DPS
3) Arcane is doing 101 per 30mil DPS
Frost's range of DPS is explained by amount of critical ticks of Ray of Frost. By far RoF is the strongest ability in PTR. Mastery is complete garbage. RoF is the best synergy with haste, on top of that, in PTR we can get alot of haste. I could reach 56% without cooldowns, 146% with weapon enchant, TW and IV. With this RoF just decimates!
Ray of Frost - Rune of Power - Splitting Ice - Frost Bomb - Glacial Spike
Int = SPD - Haste - Crit - Vers - Mastery
Fire is a bit complex on burst and depends on world lag, but by far is the strongest one. With the ring we can achieve a 650k burst on pull. But there's one HUGE problem. Fire goes OOM in 2 mins of a fight with juicy burst, so.... Blizzard need to fix that.
Pyromaniac / Firestarter - Rune of Power - Flame On - Flame Patch - Kindling
Int >= Crit = SP > Haste (up to 20%) >= Mastery > Haste > Vers
Crit trinket is by far the best choice as the second one, due to crit double dip on combustion. The first one is the ToSW.
Honorable Mention
Socket is the best item upgrade except trinkets.
Again, sorry for bad lang. I'm Russian. Hope I could help you =)

[Deleted]

Arcane is dead in the water,

When you do such a question thread, don't answer it yourself. Arcane may be tuned. We are also not fully certain we know the perfect rotation yet but I doubt it's that.

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In legion they all do pretty well with the weapon unlocked etc...

Arcane does pretty badly on conservation phases. It can't go more than 1-2 Arcane charges even with ~840 gear. The spec might be tuned.

Alternatively, we don't know how to rotate yet, which is a possibility.

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Frost and arcane are just too weak without artifacts.

I see no evidence that suggests Fire will not be boosted with the weapon almost equally or that it's special at that. Arcane is just absolutely crap during conservation phases right now on PTR and early Beta gear unless we must discover a special new rotation (I won't discount it). Frost is underrated a bit, it may eventually do lower DPS in some encounters but it appears to introduce new tricks, and it will likely remain a reliable spec.

[The Archmage]

When you do such a question thread, don't answer it yourself. Arcane may be tuned. We are also not fully certain we know the perfect rotation yet but I doubt it's that.

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Arcane does pretty badly on conservation phases. It can't go more than 1-2 Arcane charges even with ~840 gear. The spec might be tuned.

Alternatively, we don't know how to rotate yet, which is a possibility.

Imho, it was to be expected that Arcane would have ended up being the hardest spec to properly tune with this new "everything is on par in various aspects of the game" thing that Legion is trying to do.
Before, Arcane was balanced only on pure ST, everything else was left out of the design. Now they've given the spec some AoE capabilities, but they have to watch out as to make it not entirely too strong since otherwise Arcane would be the go to spec. They seem to obtain balance through mana usage, very much the Arcane theme, and at the moment it's badly tuned since while conserving it's almost impossibile to reach 4 stacs to then drop them with a heavy Barrage... which is clearly not intended.
Hang in there, things will be fixed eventually.

[Sylvaeres]

You may copy your character on the PTR realms and form your own opinion?

I'm aware of that, since I don't live under a rock. But common sense dictates that there's probably someone who's spent much more time already testing it, therefor I asked for opinions. But way to add to the thread bud, you did a really good job

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I tested everything in PTR so far, so I'll say this.
Fire is by far the strongest of 3. With great deal. Frost and arcane are just too weak without artifacts.
1) Fire is doing about 159k per 30mil DPS
2) Frost is doing 109k - 130k per 30mil DPS
3) Arcane is doing 101 per 30mil DPS
Frost's range of DPS is explained by amount of critical ticks of Ray of Frost. By far RoF is the strongest ability in PTR. Mastery is complete garbage. RoF is the best synergy with haste, on top of that, in PTR we can get alot of haste. I could reach 56% without cooldowns, 146% with weapon enchant, TW and IV. With this RoF just decimates!
Ray of Frost - Rune of Power - Splitting Ice - Frost Bomb - Glacial Spike
Int = SPD - Haste - Crit - Vers - Mastery
Fire is a bit complex on burst and depends on world lag, but by far is the strongest one. With the ring we can achieve a 650k burst on pull. But there's one HUGE problem. Fire goes OOM in 2 mins of a fight with juicy burst, so.... Blizzard need to fix that.
Pyromaniac / Firestarter - Rune of Power - Flame On - Flame Patch - Kindling
Int >= Crit = SP > Haste (up to 20%) >= Mastery > Haste > Vers
Crit trinket is by far the best choice as the second one, due to crit double dip on combustion. The first one is the ToSW.
Honorable Mention
Socket is the best item upgrade except trinkets.
Again, sorry for bad lang. I'm Russian. Hope I could help you =)

See this is exactly what I was looking for. Well detailed, lots of information to digest. Thank you

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When you do such a question thread, don't answer it yourself. Arcane may be tuned. We are also not fully certain we know the perfect rotation yet but I doubt it's that.

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Arcane does pretty badly on conservation phases. It can't go more than 1-2 Arcane charges even with ~840 gear. The spec might be tuned.

Alternatively, we don't know how to rotate yet, which is a possibility.

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I see no evidence that suggests Fire will not be boosted with the weapon almost equally or that it's special at that. Arcane is just absolutely crap during conservation phases right now on PTR and early Beta gear unless we must discover a special new rotation (I won't discount it). Frost is underrated a bit, it may eventually do lower DPS in some encounters but it appears to introduce new tricks, and it will likely remain a reliable spec.

you literally criticize me for saying Arcane is shit, and the next line is you saying Arcane is shit. You're better than that Tobin, keep up with your own narrative

[Deleted]

you literally criticize me for saying Arcane is shit, and the next line is you saying Arcane is shit. You're better than that Tobin, keep up with your own narrative

Huh? I did not answer your question "what spec are we going to be switching to for mythic raiding?". You did answer it yourself regarding Arcane before hearing anything.

It's too early to make conclusions at the moment because among other things Arcane appears almost unfinished and in need of changes.

I would not be surprised if the prepatch launches with almost the same character the specs have in PTR currently either.

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Haste (up to 20%)

How did you figure that out?

[Maverixx]

Common sense. It's 50% under effects like Time Warp. GCD 1 sec and less is crucial in TW-burst, because less GCD, more spells we can execute in 10+10 seconds window. Don't get me wrong, crit is still MUCH stronger than haste, but if you can achieve 20% without puting much effort in it and do nothing in prejudice of crit, then go ahead, it'll be much better then mastery.
And of course I figured that out in about 500 dummy battles. Fire is bursty spec in PTR, so we must put as much crit in burst as possible. Haste goes second, till 20%, because of TW, and then mastery which is uneffective on burst because of crit doubledip.

[Deleted]

because less GCD, more spells we can execute in 10+10 seconds window [..] it'll be much better then mastery.

I wouldn't be sure about that without confirming it with simulations.

[Sylvaeres]

Huh? I did not answer your question "what spec are we going to be switching to for mythic raiding?". You did answer it yourself regarding Arcane before hearing anything.

It's too early to make conclusions at the moment because among other things Arcane appears almost unfinished and in need of changes.

I would not be surprised if the prepatch launches with almost the same character the specs have in PTR currently either.

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How did you figure that out?

Because anyone who's played mage for any reasonable amount of time understand Arcane simply will not work at level 100. You don't need sims and all that other nonsense. It's common sense. The spec is tuned around level 110 and will be pitiful until then, and until you have the mana pool to properly play the spec. It's not a complicated thing

[Maverixx]

I wouldn't be sure about that without confirming it with simulations.

Simulations right now is not a thing I can count on, The thing I can count on is my own observations based on PTRing 7 hours a day testing a full set of HFC and crafted gear I have (it's about 97% of ALL cloth loot list).

About mastery itself. Our mastery toolrip: "Spells effected by hotstreak deals double amount of ignite". So if we have a choice between 10% more crit or 10% more mastery, I think the choice is obvious. We will choose more HSPB then more ignite less HSPB. It's just more effective in both burst phase and tunnel phase.

[Deleted]

Our mastery toolrip: "Spells effected by hotstreak deals double amount of ignite". So if we have a choice between 10% more crit or 10% more mastery, I think the choice is obvious. We will choose more HSPB then more ignite less HSPB. It's just more effective in both burst phase and tunnel phase.

How is it obvious when because of Fire Blast and Flame On, you have a lot of casts that have 100% crit chance before any gear and you might be capping crit with the trinket?

[Deleted]

and you might be capping crit with the trinket?

Overcapping crit with SMP shouldnt be a problem since it still should be synced with combustion? So its 3080 mastery? Dunno tbh just a wild thought

[Deleted]

Overcapping crit with SMP shouldnt be a problem since it still should be synced with combustion? So its 3080 mastery? Dunno tbh just a wild thought

No that's actually the best argument to favor crit in 7.x. I had in mind beyond pre-patch to be honest. With the addition and latest change of Phoenix's Flames coupled with the multiple Fire Blasts with Flame On, getting crit in order to proc Hot Streak is less important.

[Deleted]

nvm cant read

[stevenho]

I tested everything in PTR so far, so I'll say this.
Fire is by far the strongest of 3. With great deal. Frost and arcane are just too weak without artifacts.
1) Fire is doing about 159k per 30mil DPS
2) Frost is doing 109k - 130k per 30mil DPS
3) Arcane is doing 101 per 30mil DPS

Looks like you were testing on 3 dummies in warspear.
Also kindling on PTR? Really?

[Maverixx]

Looks like you were testing on 3 dummies in warspear.
Also kindling on PTR? Really?

I'm blue so no warspear. I tested it in allyGarrison by to stacked dummies, forgot to mention. But cleaves was very weak, because on fire I have about 15% mastery, so ignite ticks on tunneling were weak, and frosts splitting ice wasn't working at all. So all I can say, you can minus 15k DPS from fire, but consider my lag - aprox. 202ms. It's very crucial for fire. So I cann't say that I was always 100% effective due to world lag.
Yes, Kindling is the best talant, and it's possibilities extend with crit increase.

[Deleted]

I'm aware of that, since I don't live under a rock. But common sense dictates that there's probably someone who's spent much more time already testing it, therefor I asked for opinions. But way to add to the thread bud, you did a really good job

Thanks for your appreciation. I guessed you were Patrick Star. Giving you my 2 cents, presently fire looks decent from PTR and beta testings.