Mage on DA HC Zerg (10man) - Need Advice

[Riemu2k3]

Hi,

we are currently progressing on Dark Animus (10man heroic) using the zerg tactic.
Our best try was 8% when he enraged. So with a bit of finetuning it should be possible.

We have an average itemlevel of 540.

While some of our players can perform better or should perform better, my focus lies on the mages for all intends and purposes.
Our Mages are usually among the Top 3-4 DPS on every fight. They are both decently geared.

Armory 1: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/gorgonnash/Ardaluc/advanced
Armory 2: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/gorgonnash/Zolachai/advanced


Here are the logs of our best tries:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...=10920&e=11069
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...=10441&e=10576
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...=12371&e=12526
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...?s=9232&e=9376
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/t...=11859&e=12007

Someone stated in another thread, that our mages could do more damage or are quite low for their class / for this fight.


So my questions now:

- Can someone tell me if their Damage is ok? And if not, what Numbers are achieveable?
- Is Fire the right specc for this fight? They can spread combustion and complain about hard RNG
- Should they play Frost or Arcane instead?

- Are there any tricks to deal decent DPS on DA Zerg as fire mage?
- Are they doing something wrong?


Thanks alot guys!

Greetz

[Deleted]

snip

From what i can see in a quick view ( I'll let somebody else analyze it better.. i'm at work atm. ) is that they both have a rougly 80% chance uptime on Living Bomb/Mage Bomb try and get it 90+%.

[Deleted]

- Are they doing something wrong?

it would be a waste of time writing about all the things they are doing wrong. there are fire guides (not on mmo. better look somewhere else). they explain how you should play. herbalism is bad for mages.
also you should use timewarp/bl + combustion at the beginning of the fight. you can get 2 combustions instead of 1.

you could probably do at least 2 times the damage they are doing with the gear they have.

[Deleted]

since the armories are german, I'll link the english ones:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...daluc/advanced
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...achai/advanced

[Riemu2k3]

since the armories are german, I'll link the english ones:

Oh I'm so sorry! I have edited the links into my intro post. Thanks alot!



Are the mages really performing that bad? :-(
They are both good players and do decent damage on all bosses. So I dunno if you are trolling or not :-(

[Deleted]

Well honestly I am not sure why you wait an average of 25 seconds before you time warp, because it should be cast as soon as DA becomes targetable.
Also are both mages in range of the Skull Banner of the warrior? Is that Skull Banner planted at the start? (Because I don't think so)
Both things would remove a large part of the RNG.

The only thing that mages have going for them is the Combustion on this tactic, and well, if they have a bad streak, they are not going to do a lot of damage or perform well. Both most likely they are doing something wrong. They are probably not using a proper Alter Time/PoM macro or are not popping it at the right time.

[Erolian]

I'm not entirely sure how you're attempt to execute the zerg but the reason their combustions aren't peaking very high etc is because of the delayed lust and swap to the boss. The graph of their dps perfectly lines up with killing a few of the golems then you guys lust and I assume zerg the boss. I'm assuming this means you are having them kill adds and then swap to boss. This wastes both pre pots and most likely their trinket/meta procs resulting in sub par burst when you do lust afterwards as they have nothing but the lust and maybe a pot if they didn't pre pot. If it were up to me I would pre pot and lust as soon as animus is able to be targeted and drop everything on the boss right there. This also would allow a second pot during their second combustion raising their damage further as right now they only line a pot up with one combustion.

[Deleted]

On this logs they are doing a really, really bad initial burst. The fire mages should be the first on dps if play properly (even with bad rng with that ilvl and a warrior with skull banner...).

I would use time warp sooner (first 5-10sec of the fight) and the fire mages should read some guide to know how is the opening sequence. With a warrior on party and that ilvl I'd use mage armor for the first combustion.

btw, zolachai has the valor point trinket 0/2, either upgrade it or change to elegon 2/2 trinket.

[Riemu2k3]

Our Rogue and our Warrior both kill their Golems into an Inactive Large One in the beginning. Rogue does that so he is free for Rings. Warrior does it so he can move around more freely and we reduce the raid dmg abit.

Our Mages helped them kill the Golem fast. So first 10 Seconds are:

- Mages pull Aggro on their Golem
- Mages help out on Rogue/Warrior Golem (1 Mage per Golem)
- When Warrior/Rogue are on the boss we lust


We can lust in the beginning if that really makes such a difference for fire mage damage.

[Deleted]

In addition to the previous posts I think they are playing with to much haste. The extra tick of combustion isnt worth it. Especially in a short fight with a high bloodlust uptime.

They should reforge to mastery after the 5036 Haste Cap (or 4999 if you reduce it only to the bloodlust phase, dont know about the ticks with BL and Meta proc) and get a decent ignite followed up by an amazing combustion. With the warrior banner you can reach ridiculous numbers in the pull phase.

[Arag]

Mage should slap his add with inferno blast put living bomb cast fireball till he get Pyro+heating up, hero should be already up <3-5 sek into fight> and switch to boss.

Alter time/pom macro spam pyro combustion and forget about everything except tunneling boss and staying alive.

Giving mage job like killing golems on beginign on fight when he have highest potential is waste of dps.

And like somebody said after reaching 5036 haste they should reforge into mastery.

[Deleted]

Our Rogue and our Warrior both kill their Golems into an Inactive Large One in the beginning. Rogue does that so he is free for Rings. Warrior does it so he can move around more freely and we reduce the raid dmg abit.

Our Mages helped them kill the Golem fast. So first 10 Seconds are:

- Mages pull Aggro on their Golem
- Mages help out on Rogue/Warrior Golem (1 Mage per Golem)
- When Warrior/Rogue are on the boss we lust


We can lust in the beginning if that really makes such a difference for fire mage damage.

your tank is a paladin. He can bubble out of the first anima ring.

most of DA zerg revolves around your warlock going demo, getting lucky with UVLS procs and then just throwing as many 100% crit dooms out on golems as possible, so he gets a massive amount of wild imps which funnel into the boss. if your lock doesn't get an UVLS proc in the first 10 seconds or so, better to just wipe it.

and yes, BL makes A LOT of difference for fire mage burst; a BL combined with trinkets and meta can provide a massive combustion, easily a few 100K ticks less than every second for 20 seconds.

[biermanjason]

mage damage is going to be bad if they cant line up trinkets with combustion. putting them on adds at first then swaping them to boss is going to make thier trinkets expire b4 they can get combustion on the boss. saying that zerg strat is all about your lock(300ish) and tank damage(450ish)

[Deleted]

Our Rogue and our Warrior both kill their Golems into an Inactive Large One in the beginning. Rogue does that so he is free for Rings. Warrior does it so he can move around more freely and we reduce the raid dmg abit.

Our Mages helped them kill the Golem fast. So first 10 Seconds are:

- Mages pull Aggro on their Golem
- Mages help out on Rogue/Warrior Golem (1 Mage per Golem)
- When Warrior/Rogue are on the boss we lust


We can lust in the beginning if that really makes such a difference for fire mage damage.

Well that's still doing it wrong.

Let the mages:

- Time Warp at start
- do LB + Fireblast at the beginning of the fight on their golem
- Immediatly switch on Dark Animus.

Let the warrior put Skull Banner at start (helps ur Demo Lock aswell)

Let the Lock and the priest help the warrior and the rogue get their target down, they can dot DA and like Temperance already said this fight mostly resolves your Demo Lock spreading the always criting Dooms.

It seems it's not your mages fault, but rather your tactic, but with these tips you should get it down.

[Grackin]

If they have the gear for it, arcane performs very well for the zerg strat. Just place 2 runes touching side to side and stand at the far edge of one of them. When anima font come out, just strafe back and forth between runes.

But like everyone is saying, your strat is what is hurting your mages. Mage dps revolves around getting trinket procs + lust + whatever else and being able to use Alter Time to extend all of them. Their dps will suffer greatly without being able to correctly utilize AT.