Fresh Mage Reroll for Mythic+ Group

[Kainslife]

We recently had a RL friend come back and is filling in the tank role I begrudgingly mained when Legion hit. With her return I can now switch to Mage. With the recent buffs to Arcane, which is going to be better for intermediate skill Mythic+ next to a Ret Paladin and second Fire Mage- Arcane or Fire?

[Wenoxar]

Fire (10char)

[Deleted]

don't expect to magically dominate the damage meters out of nothing. you have to actually understand what youre doing to get good dps. play fire

[Woobels]

Fire.

The fact that you have to ask this question probably means you should study up a lot before you start doing M+

[Kainslife]

don't expect to magically dominate the damage meters out of nothing. you have to actually understand what youre doing to get good dps. play fire

Not sure what the first two sentences have to do with my post but thanks.

Fire.

The fact that you have to ask this question probably means you should study up a lot before you start doing M+

Yeah not sure why I need to study to run 5 mans with my friends but thanks for the spec suggestion.

[Deleted]

Yeah answering just plain "Fire" is nice right? No "Why", no "how", and toxic comment below.
What I can tell from doing my mythic+ dungeons this reset - I have my both arcane and fire artifacts with 2 golden traits and I can tell you that Arcane was doing pretty on par with fire on the huge pack pulls, but lacked the boss damage. The only real problem was that I have to be in melee and when skittish hit on the key stone I had to switch asap to fire, because I had to be in range or adds will kill me.
I am quite sure that arcane will be on par with fire 100% now for mythic+ with the buff next week.

As for the OP question - Suggest to your teammate to try both specs and see which one he can handle better(in his opinion). That will be the better choice rather than arguing on a forum about it.

[Kainslife]

Yeah answering just plain "Fire" is nice right? No "Why", no "how", and toxic comment below.
What I can tell from doing my mythic+ dungeons this reset - I have my both arcane and fire artifacts with 2 golden traits and I can tell you that Arcane was doing pretty on par with fire on the huge pack pulls, but lacked the boss damage. The only real problem was that I have to be in melee and when skittish hit on the key stone I had to switch asap to fire, because I had to be in range or adds will kill me.
I am quite sure that arcane will be on par with fire 100% now for mythic+ with the buff next week.

As for the OP question - Suggest to your teammate to try both specs and see which one he can handle better(in his opinion). That will be the better choice rather than arguing on a forum about it.

Well the other Mage is dead set on Fire. I'll be the second Mage in our group but thought maybe having one fire and one arcane might be better than two Fire. I'm content to play either.

Thank you for the explanation though! Sounds like it be better to go with Fire as it's likely a safer bet for now but then again sounds like Arcane might be better for trash. Decisions...

[Yhcti]

May as well help him out here also but could someone explain the general aoe rotation for fire in mythic+? Single target is an absolute breeze, the only place I personally struggle in mythic+ is aoe, seem lag behind rogues and others there

[The Archmage]

As much as people will try to deny it, Arcane is going to heavily dominate 5 man content, thanks to absence of ramp up time and on demand burst. Fire will always be amazing due to its single target burst, but after the hotfix Arcane sims basically on par with Fire also on pure ST now.

If you want to take the time and the effort to understand how Arcane works, you are in for a blast. I enjoy throughly the whispers of the many so called "OP Fire Mages" that see me toe to toe with them on the meters and ask me how i pull it off.

[Nightfall]

May as well help him out here also but could someone explain the general aoe rotation for fire in mythic+? Single target is an absolute breeze, the only place I personally struggle in mythic+ is aoe, seem lag behind rogues and others there

In AOE scenarios I basically do single-target, but cast Living Bomb on CD, preferably on a target that's about to die. Also cast Dragon's Breath if there are no critical spells that need to be interrupted. If you play with Cinderstorm, then cast Phoenix Flame to place Ignite on everything, then cast Cinderstorm, then do single-target Combustion burst. If there are a lot of adds (8+ I believe), then cast Flamestrike instead of Pyro).

The Archmage, every expansion I kind of want to reroll Arcane, but never do and stick with Fire or Frost. I only really played Arcane back in WotLK and in Highmaul. I really like the flavor, the animation of Arcane, but long cast times and constant Charge counting scares me off. It's never clear when to cast Arcane Barrage of fish for one more AM proc. Plus, I really hate Rune of Power and Ice Floes. That must bring my DPS down as Fire as well, but I just can't use those talents. Rune of Power I might get used to on fights like Ursoc (not in Dungeons), but Ice Floes goes against everything I learned maining Mage since TBC.

[SaifBT]

Definetly fire, the aoe is SO good.

[Yhcti]

And that aoe works? I'm pretty much always last on aoe at the moment but first by miles on single target. Almost rerolled ww monk I got so annoyed haha

[The Archmage]

The Archmage, every expansion I kind of want to reroll Arcane, but never do and stick with Fire or Frost. I only really played Arcane back in WotLK and in Highmaul. I really like the flavor, the animation of Arcane, but long cast times and constant Charge counting scares me off. It's never clear when to cast Arcane Barrage of fish for one more AM proc. Plus, I really hate Rune of Power and Ice Floes. That must bring my DPS down as Fire as well, but I just can't use those talents. Rune of Power I might get used to on fights like Ursoc (not in Dungeons), but Ice Floes goes against everything I learned maining Mage since TBC.

I understand your concerns. Arcane requires more managing than the other Mage specs, but is also more rewarding (in my opinion, of course) when properly pulled out.

Arcane Charges, like many other aspects of the class, are something that you get used to with practice: it's years now that i don't "count" them anymore, they are relegated to "muscolar memory". Based upon Mana, i know when to burn and when to drop them.

As for RoP and Ice Floes, all "old mages" like us had to get used to them. Personally, i have arrived to a point where i cannot LIVE without Ice Floes anymore and even RoP, after nothing but pure hate for many years, has become something that i can come to terms with and, even if it's hard to admit, even enjoy sometimes.

[Swizzle]

As much as people will try to deny it, Arcane is going to heavily dominate 5 man content, thanks to absence of ramp up time and on demand burst. Fire will always be amazing due to its single target burst, but after the hotfix Arcane sims basically on par with Fire also on pure ST now.

If you want to take the time and the effort to understand how Arcane works, you are in for a blast. I enjoy throughly the whispers of the many so called "OP Fire Mages" that see me toe to toe with them on the meters and ask me how i pull it off.

Aren't all those sims based on NT spam? I haven't read anything about standard Arcane beating or matching standard Fire. Would be happy to see a source though.

[Shangalar]

Aren't all those sims based on NT spam? I haven't read anything about standard Arcane beating or matching standard Fire. Would be happy to see a source though.

Always happy to help you out Swizz

These are latest sims with next reset's number tuning implemented: http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19P.html

Obviously that's only for Patchwerk.

[Bugg]

@Shangalar
in the simulated data that you posted, is there a way to check a class stats / armors / if t19 bonuses and so on?
I am curious about the Balance druid stats, for example how much haste does it have?

[Deleted]

Click the class you want to look at and then scroll down, there's a Stat drop down

[Nightfall]

I understand your concerns. Arcane requires more managing than the other Mage specs, but is also more rewarding (in my opinion, of course) when properly pulled out.

Arcane Charges, like many other aspects of the class, are something that you get used to with practice: it's years now that i don't "count" them anymore, they are relegated to "muscolar memory". Based upon Mana, i know when to burn and when to drop them.

As for RoP and Ice Floes, all "old mages" like us had to get used to them. Personally, i have arrived to a point where i cannot LIVE without Ice Floes anymore and even RoP, after nothing but pure hate for many years, has become something that i can come to terms with and, even if it's hard to admit, even enjoy sometimes.

Do you have separate macros for Ice Floes+AB, Ice Floes+AM, etc. or do you press Ice Floes when you need to move and proceed the usual rotation?

[The Archmage]

Do you have separate macros for Ice Floes+AB, Ice Floes+AM, etc. or do you press Ice Floes when you need to move and proceed the usual rotation?

I press Ice Floes separetly and then cast whatever feels necessary. Ice Floes is binded to a mouse/right hand action, so that almost contemporarily i can start the associated cast (which is of course casted with the keyboard/left hand).

Takes a while but can do wonders!

[Swizzle]

Always happy to help you out Swizz

These are latest sims with next reset's number tuning implemented: http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19P.html

Obviously that's only for Patchwerk.

I still have some questions from that. If it's patchwerk, why are Frost and Arcane using AoE and Fire is using pure single target? I do appreciate that they have NT spam still listed and clearly broken, just curious about who did each spec in that list?