Help my friend out (mage w/logs)

[Zabatakis]

Hello. My friend normally plays DK and Rogue at high level (between 90 and 99% almost always), but we needed a mage so he volunteered to do that for us. It has been a good while now and he has both gear and experience on all fights but Heroic Blackhand, yet his dps is horrid at worst and average at best. Specifically fire, but his arcane is nothing to brag about either.

If you could, look over these logs and give me some advice (if hes doing something wrong that an addon can help I would appreciate the name of that addon as well).

Here is our guild logs, feel free to pick any heroic tuesday/thursday parse. Sundays and normals are goof off days and we usually play silly games like seeing who can get hit by the most spears/trains and such while we shard farm/gear offspecs, so those parses will be useless. Also sometimes he goes fire on fights he should be arcane (like gruul) just to try and learn fire better. He knows what fights he should be fire or arcane.


*Edit* character name is Qwalfus
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/guilds/22453/

And here is a parse of him on blast furnace that he did just awful on while actually trying. If you look at nothing else, please look at this log.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/hvdBwqmybQTktfg3


Thanks a ton

[Kaiserlego]

To begin with, as someone who mains a Mage myself, I do find that numbers can be rather inconsistent at best but overall fairly decent. I main spec Fire and off spec Arcane and with these two specs they are really really gear dependent; fire being heavily Crit/Mastery dependent. The 4 piece for both is REALLY something special and I highly recommend it!

Knowing which fights to use either spec on is key too. I typically use Arcane for single target or < 3 enemies in the duration of the fight.

You said he knows which ones but here's what I do with explanation:


Gruul: Fire. Movement based fight with the smashes, scorch seriously comes in handy. Try using it with Rune of Power for the stacking parts.

Oregorger: Arcane. I go back and forth but normally run Arcane here. Since 90% of the fight is a stack with minor movement, Arcane does well.

Blast Furnace: Fire! Cleave here is gorgeous. Focusing the Operators first then switch to Feldman (Save Combustion for Feldman).

Beastlord: Fire UNLESS on Spear duty then Arcane. Fire is great for cleaving off to the adds, but Arcane works better if on spear duty for single target burst.

Thogar: Fire. Cleave and Movement key. Hands down.

Maidens: FIRE! This fight is so smexy as fire. Reminds me a Dark Shaman days in SoO

Hanz/Franz: Fire because of the movement here. Scorch makes it really easy to avoid Pulverize. Never Combust unless both are down.

Flamebender: Arcane. Pure Single target with exception of Aknor and wolves. Timing movement here can be difficult but I find Arcane is easier/better.

Kromog: Arcane. Pure single target on boss; little movement if you place yourself right. Hands can sometimes cause an issue but save Arcane Barrages/Explosion for them.

Blackhand: Fire. Way too much movement and cleave to do anything but. If on add duty, save Combustions for adds up top in phase 2.



As for talents, my suggestion would be to use Blast Wave over Living Bomb. I've done both many times and after many trials, I still feel like Blast Wave is better. Other talents and glyphs look good. Fire is very proc reliant and one thing to keep in mind is to watch your Combustions. Since your friend went with the Mastery>Crit build (which is AMAZING I might add) he should NEVER take a Combustion under 9k. With his gear he should be doing this easily. Burst Combustions can be upwards of 11-14k and these are the good ones. Don't forget to use Inferno Bast directly afterwards as this spreads it even more!

Make sure he is prioritizing Crit/Mastery gear. Multistrike means very little to a Fire/Arcane mage.

As for Addons:
CombustionHelper is a MUST HAVE by all Fire Mages. This really really helps keep track of your Combustions.
Mage specific otherwise, I use Bitten's Spellflash as this can help show me rotation errors I am missing.
NeedtoKnow is also good for watching proc lengths, etc. WeakAuras also does this.


I am by no means an expert, but I have been maining a Mage since Cata. I hope that you find some of this helpful, and if not, I tried :P

Check me out on AMR:
Kaiserlego-Misha

Guild Logs on WarCraftLogs:
<Lego My Aggro> -Misha

P.S. Ignore the incorrect gem and enchants on my rings; fixing those after work

[Deleted]

I feel like you didnt get the quality response which you deserve.

FIRE

First: Tell your friend to check out this guide: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1135


It covers the basic mechanics on how to play fire.

I disagree with the previous poster. I dont recommend your friend to use fire on single target Bosses like Gruul/oregorger/blackhand. Those are Arcane Bosses, unless 700+ Ilvl and it needs serious experience to be just even close to competitive with fire on single Target bosses. He is also wrong with flamebender, its a fire boss, if your raid tanks the wolves next to the boss. If you kite them around play arcane. On mythic, its a fire boss for sure.

The key thing with fire is to build up good combustions (your friend has to learn how to use 2P to double spread ignite to build big combustions on cleave fights) and a good living bomb usage on multi add fights. For example on Thogar, you have to prepare living bomb on the boss that its duration is almost over when you spread it to the adds. You gain gigantic dmg on explosions, and can spread a new living bomb causing another round of explosions.

Check Rikh's insane combustion on two targets. Watch closely how he double spreads and then switches target to combust the second target. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbHLCkBvvBM

On Blast Furnace, big combustions are the main source of dmg. If he lands a 50k+ Combustion, he can easily pull with 300+k DPS at the start of the fight. Also put your firemage to the side where the foreman is tanked.

My Blast Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=15
His Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=5

See the difference in Combustion Dmg. Also our fight was 2 min shorter, but yet i had way more LB explosions. This probably also because of your tanks. I also used WAY more inferno blasts (in less time) which means i played way more aggresive with my Pyro Procs. When you have 2P Set, you sould never have 2 inferno blasts charges ready. If so, just use pyro in a more aggresive way. (not waiting for an additional heating up proc).

On his heroic gruul fire log, it doesnt look that bad, but honestly, fire single target without PC is just garbage. And playing fire with PC needs really advanced mechanics, so he will be better with arcane for sure. There is really no reason to not play arcane on single target, unless super high gear, and even then, Top parse on Gruul is still arcane.

to the previous poster: I almost never have to cast scorch as a fire mage. If you learn the encounters, and learn to use Ice Floes, you rarely end up in situations where you need scorch. Gruul is a close to zero movement boss, even on mythic.


Arcane:

The main thing here is the rotation. Burn--> Conserve-->Burn and lineup the burns with your cooldowns.

Once again i recommend the best quality guide for arcane: http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1455

It covers the basic and advanced mechanics.


Your Mage is not performing the correct arcane rotations. Its easily visible by checking his mana curve on the Gruul fight.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ce=8&spell=100

Here is an example of my Gruul mana Curve: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...rces&source=15

He should allways burn down to 50% Mana and use evocation after that. The curve should look kinda symetric like mine. At the end of the fight he should burn his mana away. So there are some obvious rotation mistakes which he should work on at first.


In this chart you can see all his casts for the gruul fight:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...=8&view=events

We take a look at his opening sequenz:

1. He shouldnt cast Rune of Power at the pull. Put both down 10 seconds before the fight.
2. He should precast Arcane Blast so that it lands at Pull.
3. He put down PC too early. 4 AB, Put PC down cast another AB intoit, then use double SN. He messed that up too. He immediatelly used double SN instead of casting one additional AB, making it likely that he was capped out with mana for a few seconds.
4. He should use POM right at the end of PC, to land an additionall AB at exactly 0.0 Duration left on the Crystal.

5. 4 ice Floes uses seems kinda low for that fight. But i guess its normal. You can ignore most mechanics there.
6. Only 1 Int Pot. No prepot used (or he used ingi crap instead of second pot, because i see this in logs). A well used second pot is definetely stronger.

It is important to understand, that the first 30-40 sec of fight duration are a gigantic portion of the dmg. Prepot, Precast, perfect usage of the PC are important, because you have Pot, Double Trinket, Bloodlust and Arcane Power which boosts the dps.

I guess thats enough for the moment.

[Zabatakis]

Thanks guys I will link him this.

[Rinoa]

Sure you can be Arcane on Blackhand, Kaiser. In fact, it's better than Fire.

[Polarthief]

Sure you can be Arcane on Blackhand, Kaiser. In fact, it's better than Fire.

Same with Gruul, though honestly, if you're fairly new to movement as a Mage, it's recommended you play full Frost or Fire, simply because the less mobility and added rotation priority system that Arcane has might be a bit too complex for an inexperienced/new player.

Remember: A dead DPS does 0 DPS, and a mana-less Arcane Mage cries in the corner

[Deleted]

Sure you can be Arcane on Blackhand, Kaiser. In fact, it's better than Fire.

Top Parse is fire https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/7#boss=1704 but its nothing id recommend players that are rather new to the spec. Fire dmg falls down giganticly, if you dont use 2P Ignite Spread.

And if the Tanks are tanked next to the boss, fire coul actually spread ignite from it to the boss, producing gigantic combustions.

We will also see Fire beat Gruul on arcane soon. Altough on average arcane outperforms fire single target, fire has more damage potential due to combustion RNG.