Am I at the Arcane Mage Plateau?

[Jaingo]

I have been playing for a while now, and it seems that our dps always ends up hitting a plateau. I am frustratingly trying to figure out if that is now for me, or if there is anything obvious I am missing.

First off for the thread lockers....I read the stickies as I have before, and this type of info is not in there. Unfortunately some things just have to be asked around a community.

I am the only mage in a 10 man guild and we are now working on HMs like Yors. We already have hUltra and hMorch down. However, it seems that I am now consistently being out dps'd by our rogue (I know I know), and more often than usual now our Warlock and Hunter. I have become terribly lazy with logs over the last few weeks as I got a promotion at work and putting in 70+ hours a week. With that said, I can only lead you to my guilds WoL name (US-Paranoid Turtles on Mal'Ganis) with some sketchy dates input.

My toon: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...aingo/advanced

I am replacing gems more rapidly now, but they are still 3k on our server each. I am over the haste threshold, but see no real way to dump more as it seems to be a by product of gear at this point.

I am thinking my mastery is low, but looking at others it seems on par.

Our raid comp is not the most ideal, but its not terrible either. ProtWarr, ProtPally, DiscPriest, RestoSham, HolyPally, Mage, Lock, Hunter, Rogue, FrostDK. We are not missing any real buffs that another is unable to bring.

I consistently am pulling 30k over a full evening, with average bursts up to 60k+ during burns. Not sustainable at all, but mana is what it is. My typical boss dps is 30k+.

My primary question is if anyone can see or recommend to me something to change? It is late in the expansion, but I hate to just stop learning.

[Xomniuri]

With the current tiers heroic stats you'll never keep up overall damage wise vs those classes

You have to start using your spec to it's raid advantage not just for pure dps
My arcane mage has specific tasks in most fights which require large amounts of burst dps, which allow greater benefit else where in the raid

eg.
Zon'ozz i solo a flail and an eye in the same time it takes our dk or warrior to solo an eye
Yor'sahj i use cd's on every single ooze so we can keep 2 melee on the boss at all times

As you know good arcane dps revolves around perfect mana/cooldown management, which about half of the current heroic fights are a pain in the ass for, you just have to pick the timing as best you can be be resolved in the fact your increasing the raids overall dps using your burst as effective as you can.

p.s. personally can't wait for MoP, Blizzard should never have reduced Arcane Blasts cast time back in T11, haste just got so crap for arcane and there's just so much of it on cloth gear. We seem to have the same pattern as t12, normal mode gear has good arcane stats, but heroic it's hella crap

p.p.s. Sad to say i don't have one, but Shard of Woe is still insane for arcane mages

[Neichus]

I actually found that reply rather interesting Xomniuri. I've found myself in a similar situation as the OP, where I perform alright but can't seem to quite push my DPS further. But your answer took a different direction than I'd been thinking and helped open up some new possibilities to consider. Thanks for the post.

[nimryas]

I agree with xomniuri here. The spec is great to support the group with doing very specific things, and alot of movement will cost you alot of dps and nearly all fights require movement so that's a big disadvantage already :< I would think about going fire on fights where fire mages particulary can shine, like yorsahj heroic

[Jaingo]

Thanks for the feedback. I have found myself providing more and more utility, I just wanted to know if it was just me or if the class has gone that way lately. I just wish fire was less RNG....wouldn't it be nice to sink all that leftover haste magically into crit? Wishful thinking.

[Magemaer]

1-Get more crit over haste
2-Try to get shard of woe
3-Get more epic gems
4-If you use everything right you should do about 35k on completely static fights
5-Use arcane aoe wisely when it's possible, that is, use arcane explosion (talented) with ab4, keeping the ab4, when there are more than 4-5 mobs near.
Some fights are simply better for fire and that's it.
You should still do good on many fights, including spine, the most critical one.
And use encounter mechanics wisely.