[Mage] Need major help on Empress

[HeatM1ser]

Tonight my guild attempted Grand Empress for the first time, and I did awful. Every dissonance field I was supposed to run into to help one of them go down faster. I was using runes of power for the first 15 attempts, then switched to invocation. Every time I hit 6 stacks of of arcane charges I used arcane barrage, and every time AM proc'd I used them. Please take a look at my armory and my logs and tell me what I'm doing wrong, and how I can improve!!!

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...emise/advanced

Combatlogs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...ne/?enc=bosses

I would really appreciate the feedback...I've never underperformed this poorly! Please be very blunt....your not going to hurt my feelings---I just want to know how I can do better DPS

[Summer]

Well while you're in a dissonance field you're not doing any damage since it "absorbs" all of it. So if you're in all of them you'll be losing a lot of dps just because of that, and additionally invocation and running around are hardly idea for an arcane mage to max dps :P I'm not sure there's a lot you can do tbh if this is what your guild wants you to do.

[HeatM1ser]

Any suggestions? I was using runes for the first 15 attempts and only switched to invocation to see if it yielded better DPS. Is the guild using me wrong?

[Summer]

Well we've only had one night on this and no kill yet, tho some good tries, but we didn't see a need to put in extra people in the fields. If you want any one person to be in all fields that person is just inevitably going to suck on dps because you can't damage anything while in the field.

If your guild really wants you doing that, I'd consider going fire. 6 % physical dmg reduction from molten armor plus taking invocation not hurting you so much? But don't know, is dps an issue? Berserk seems quite forgiving.

Maybe someone with more experience on the fight could offer more insight :P

[Gronors]

Honestly i do not see the point in running in dissonance field if you do not have the debuff, so you may have to run in every time if youre the most unfortunate person in the world but if you dont have the debuff just sit there in RoP outside of dissonance.

[Sarthan]

Tell your guild to not go into a field unless you have a debuff

[Soulstrike]

ok hey there are some things you need to watch out for.

your bomb uptime is too low.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v.../?s=905&e=1017
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...?s=1285&e=1404
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...?s=1607&e=1754

those were your first three attempts and you had massive 5-6seond with no bomb on the boss. just an addon to keep track if you have a bomb on the boss or just look at the boss's debuff

another one is your rune of power uptime. remember you do whooping 15% more damage and gain more mana if you stand on that thing so place it before you do any damage on boss

if you keep these very close to 90-95% uptime then your dps should increase roughyl 6-7% more

how are you using your alter time??? it seems you are completely refreshing your arcane charge. remember it resets buffs and debuffs. so use it when you ahve 2 stacks on arcane missiles and 6stack of arcane charge (hit alter time) use the 2missile then use barrage. then your AT should expire then shoot out 2 missiles again then proceed back to your normal rotation

my suggestion for you is to get the higher uptime of your mage bomb and rune of power. feel free to sit on dummy and do some pew pew damage on it for at least good 10min. you will notice your rotation will be a bit different due to no raid buffs but try it anyways and focus on the uptime of those two.

[HeatM1ser]

Yes, I was having a tough time with my runes because I had to wait for the dissonance field to spawn in order to drop the 2nd rune. I'll definitely keep my LB up more...I recognized that during raid. I also had to move heavily, so I wasnt placing my runes until I got into place. Thats why I tried invocation for the final 5 or 6 attempts. As for the LB uptime, I am remapping my LB so that its easier to apply for movement heavy fights, so that should improve.

The way I've been using alter time is: I'll prepot, then cast arcane power, then hit alter time to get the extra 6 seconds of arcane power. It seems like your saying that its better to get 4-6 arcane charges and then pop arcane power followed by alter time?

[beingmused]

Yes, I was having a tough time with my runes because I had to wait for the dissonance field to spawn in order to drop the 2nd rune. I'll definitely keep my LB up more...I recognized that during raid. I also had to move heavily, so I wasnt placing my runes until I got into place. Thats why I tried invocation for the final 5 or 6 attempts. As for the LB uptime, I am remapping my LB so that its easier to apply for movement heavy fights, so that should improve.

The way I've been using alter time is: I'll prepot, then cast arcane power, then hit alter time to get the extra 6 seconds of arcane power. It seems like your saying that its better to get 4-6 arcane charges and then pop arcane power followed by alter time?

Your damage is garbage until you have 6 charges. Generally the opener goes like this:

-Pre Pot and cast a rune
- Bomb
- Arcane Blast to 6 charges
- Refresh Bomb
- Usually you'll have 2 AM procs waiting by this point, if not you can alternate AB/Scorch until you do
- Pop Arcane Power, then Alter Time
- AM, AM, Barrage, AT expires
- AM, AB, AM, so on from there.

[Moller]

I would highly suggest finding the thread about arcane/scorch weaving and doing that instead of the regular arcane cycle (at least until it is nerfed in 5.2).
That being said I'm pretty sure your overall strategy is off. The cry of terror target goes into the dissonance field you want to blow up. No need to use anyone else.

[Deleted]

Yes, I was having a tough time with my runes because I had to wait for the dissonance field to spawn in order to drop the 2nd rune. I'll definitely keep my LB up more...I recognized that during raid. I also had to move heavily, so I wasnt placing my runes until I got into place. Thats why I tried invocation for the final 5 or 6 attempts. As for the LB uptime, I am remapping my LB so that its easier to apply for movement heavy fights, so that should improve.

The way I've been using alter time is: I'll prepot, then cast arcane power, then hit alter time to get the extra 6 seconds of arcane power. It seems like your saying that its better to get 4-6 arcane charges and then pop arcane power followed by alter time?

I dont even bother placing out runes in the fields, mostly becuse they're usually at 20-30% when I get the debuff. You shouldnt need to move that much on empress, I also recommend trying out NT as arcane, It's awesome

About the rotation it's mostly what Beingmused said, you guys should pop BL in so start so you dont get 1 more adds phase, also becuse you'll be getting out more ABS during AT, should be something like this

- Rune prepot mirror
- NT
- 6 charges
- NT
- Should be having 2 AM procs
- Arcane power, AT
- AM, AM, AB, AB, Abarr
- AM, AM, Abs until 75% mana use gem, and then back to the usual rotation.

I'm a haste arcane mage, so if you're mastery it's probably not the same rotation.

You should check out the arcane/scorch weaving thread that Moller suggested.

Logs - worldoflogs.com/reports/1pnjr3pw2tv7pgi9/sum/damageDone/?s=6475&e=6944

[HeatM1ser]

You should check out the arcane/scorch weaving thread that Moller suggested.

I couldnt find that post...anyone have the direct link?

[Deleted]

mmo-champion.com/threads/1201889-MoP-Arcane-Mage-PvE-Guide

3.2 6-Charge camping using Scorch

[HeatM1ser]

thanks buddy!

[Polarthief]

Well while you're in a dissonance field you're not doing any damage since it "absorbs" all of it. So if you're in all of them you'll be losing a lot of dps just because of that, and additionally invocation and running around are hardly idea for an arcane mage to max dps :P I'm not sure there's a lot you can do tbh if this is what your guild wants you to do.

Is that true? I actually never noticed .-. I know HEALING doesn't heal the person in the field, but I didn't know damage is negated too.

Any suggestions? I was using runes for the first 15 attempts and only switched to invocation to see if it yielded better DPS. Is the guild using me wrong?

Not using Fire Blast IMO. I've never bothered with DoT spreading unless Fire, which has IB in its rotation anyways.

As far as gear goes, you're using a spirit ring... Yeah, that should be replaced with almost anything. (Suggestions: Exalted Klaxxi = Mastery Hit 489, VP from Golden Lotus = Haste Hit 489, VP from Shieldwall = Crit Haste 496, Vizier drops a Hit Haste 496). Armory also says you have 14% hit and 0% expertise... Not sure if that counts Draenei's 1% but if it does, make sure you get 15% (though I'm assuming it doesn't count it so I don't REALLY want to question your intelligence xD)

By your longest attempt (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...?s=5296&e=5653), I see you're using the Barrage rotation, but... You're using a HASTE build? Barrage isn't exactly ideal with Haste being your stat of choice, as it's much better with Mastery. Scorch-weaving is way better with Haste (though it's a secondary option for Mastery builds). Your bomb uptime is also a bit low. Try using Nether Tempest since you're a Haste build, which gives you a ton more ticks. Also, worst of all, your Rune of Power uptime is under 75%. Seems a bit low for a fight with little to no movement until P3, and seeing as how no one died to anything during a P3 tactic, I'm assuming you didn't MAKE it to P3.

You also shouldn't be bothering with Dissonance Fields unless you have Cry of Terror.

[Tehstool]

Is that true? I actually never noticed .-. I know HEALING doesn't heal the person in the field, but I didn't know damage is negated too.



Not using Fire Blast IMO. I've never bothered with DoT spreading unless Fire, which has IB in its rotation anyways.

As far as gear goes, you're using a spirit ring... Yeah, that should be replaced with almost anything. (Suggestions: Exalted Klaxxi = Mastery Hit 489, VP from Golden Lotus = Haste Hit 489, VP from Shieldwall = Crit Haste 496, Vizier drops a Hit Haste 496). Armory also says you have 14% hit and 0% expertise... Not sure if that counts Draenei's 1% but if it does, make sure you get 15% (though I'm assuming it doesn't count it so I don't REALLY want to question your intelligence xD)

By your longest attempt (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...?s=5296&e=5653), I see you're using the Barrage rotation, but... You're using a HASTE build? Barrage isn't exactly ideal with Haste being your stat of choice, as it's much better with Mastery. Scorch-weaving is way better with Haste (though it's a secondary option for Mastery builds). Your bomb uptime is also a bit low. Try using Nether Tempest since you're a Haste build, which gives you a ton more ticks. Also, worst of all, your Rune of Power uptime is under 75%. Seems a bit low for a fight with little to no movement until P3, and seeing as how no one died to anything during a P3 tactic, I'm assuming you didn't MAKE it to P3.

You also shouldn't be bothering with Dissonance Fields unless you have Cry of Terror.

Nope, it's not true. It doesn't negate any damage directly. It does indirectly with the movement and rune placement if you spec RoP, but other than there is has no affect on damage.

[Polarthief]

Nope, it's not true. It doesn't negate any damage directly. It does indirectly with the movement and rune placement if you spec RoP, but other than there is has no affect on damage.

Ahh okay, I figured that was the case.

I JUST recently went Arcane, and I haven't tried it for any fight except H Garalon as of yet. Been Frost and Fire mostly, but I'll see how much I suck tomorrow I guess.

[Summer]

Hmm you're right, I just thought from the wording

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=123184

"Magic effects cannot penetrate the dissonance field.

Casting or recieving magical effects will deplete the Dissonace Field of resonance."

that spells don't pass, just hit the shield and wear it down. But looking at logs they *are* hitting the Empress and not the shield while casting inside :P Sorry for the misinformation!

[HeatM1ser]

I found out the reason why my DPS was so low....I'm the only DPSer in the raid who can be affected by cry of terror, so I lost a ton of DPS because of having to stand in dissonance fields

---------- Post added 2013-01-16 at 03:05 AM ----------

Is that true? I actually never noticed .-. I know HEALING doesn't heal the person in the field, but I didn't know damage is negated too.



Not using Fire Blast IMO. I've never bothered with DoT spreading unless Fire, which has IB in its rotation anyways.

As far as gear goes, you're using a spirit ring... Yeah, that should be replaced with almost anything. (Suggestions: Exalted Klaxxi = Mastery Hit 489, VP from Golden Lotus = Haste Hit 489, VP from Shieldwall = Crit Haste 496, Vizier drops a Hit Haste 496). Armory also says you have 14% hit and 0% expertise... Not sure if that counts Draenei's 1% but if it does, make sure you get 15% (though I'm assuming it doesn't count it so I don't REALLY want to question your intelligence xD)

By your longest attempt (http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/v...?s=5296&e=5653), I see you're using the Barrage rotation, but... You're using a HASTE build? Barrage isn't exactly ideal with Haste being your stat of choice, as it's much better with Mastery. Scorch-weaving is way better with Haste (though it's a secondary option for Mastery builds). Your bomb uptime is also a bit low. Try using Nether Tempest since you're a Haste build, which gives you a ton more ticks. Also, worst of all, your Rune of Power uptime is under 75%. Seems a bit low for a fight with little to no movement until P3, and seeing as how no one died to anything during a P3 tactic, I'm assuming you didn't MAKE it to P3.

You also shouldn't be bothering with Dissonance Fields unless you have Cry of Terror.

No, I didnt use the haste build until tonights raid (1/15/13). Before that I was pure mastery. The reason why my DPS suck is because I was the only DPSer in the raid who could be affected by cry of terror...the only other ranged we had was a hunter and healers. I'm hit capped...armory doesnt count my Draenei racial

[Polarthief]

No, I didnt use the haste build until tonights raid (1/15/13). Before that I was pure mastery. The reason why my DPS suck is because I was the only DPSer in the raid who could be affected by cry of terror...the only other ranged we had was a hunter and healers. I'm hit capped...armory doesnt count my Draenei racial

That being said though, try the Scorch-weaving build using Mage Armor and Haste build. Also use NT over LB due to extra Haste, and disregard Fire Blast.