Best 10man raiding specc?

[Yzz]

Im in a guild that is somewhat casual and mainly does 10man raiding, and we have at this moment taken down all the content in game and is working on getting all the 3 drakes on sartharion and to get Malygos to farm. So basicly end-game 10man raids and occasionall 25man pugs.

My question then, ive played FFB specc since i hit 80 and have been doing decent in raids, now i wonder is a good arcane specc better or not? Big issue here is i cant count on having any other kind of mana regen then my own + BoW in our raids as the setupt tends to change from time to time.

At this moment i am in a 68/3 specc but i feel that it might be a bit to heavy on the arcane side, my specc when i was FFB was 53/18 (i think).

So basicly, what is the best specc?

[mmochampionschamp]

8) i would go with arcaine because it suports frost and fire so thats good 4 ten mans

[SupersizeMe]

ya arcane is the best new raiding spec

[Shockk]

8) i would go with arcaine because it suports frost and fire so thats good 4 ten mans

100% wrong. Except for Focus Magic, which buffs one target, Arcane offers no raid buffs at all. Fire/Frost, regardless of spec details, always offer 10% crit to the whole raid.

If you cannot rely on mana regeneration from raid members, stick with FFB. Almost on par with 18/53/0 at the moment, and if you ever run into mana problems, it'll be quite late into fights. Arcane is fun to play with, but without at least 2 regen buffs (BoW, Replenishment etc) you'll run out of mana extremely fast. The spec may be OP at the moment, but only in 25-man raids, where mana isn'T an issue.

[Raptorg]

100% wrong. Except for Focus Magic, which buffs one target, Arcane offers no raid buffs at all. Fire/Frost, regardless of spec details, always offer 10% crit to the whole raid.

If you cannot rely on mana regeneration from raid members, stick with FFB. Almost on par with 18/53/0 at the moment, and if you ever run into mana problems, it'll be quite late into fights. Arcane is fun to play with, but without at least 2 regen buffs (BoW, Replenishment etc) you'll run out of mana extremely fast. The spec may be OP at the moment, but only in 25-man raids, where mana isn'T an issue.

Actually you're forgetting an important thing with arcane.

They have a 2 minute cooldown evocation, which means that if you are capable of living on a mana gem+evocation, you will have 0 mana issues.

I'm currently leveling with arcane, and I have 0 downtime.
Using Molten Armor and Evocations, I don't even need to use a mana gem.

I imagine a decently geared mage would have a lot more mana(compared to the spell mana costs) and a lot more passive mana regen(with arcane meditation)


And before you say anything, I'm actually using missile barrage procs whenever I can, even on mobs with 20% health left(where a lot of damage actually goes to waste, but I cba to care about that, cause I feel like I'm got enough)

[Shockk]

You're not seriously trying to compare leveling as arcane with raiding as arcane?

They have a 2 minute cooldown evocation, which means that if you are capable of living on a mana gem+evocation, you will have 0 mana issues.

See, there's the problem - you won't, unless you're perfectly geared for arcane (int/spirit-heavy items) or receive enough raid regen buffs. But since we're talking about Joe Average mage and his 10man-raid, neither will apply.

Using the rotation for maximum damage (AB/AB/AB/AM+ABar on fourth missile) you will burn through the 15-20k mana every decent mage has within 1-2 minutes, probably already including potion and mana gem. Evocation, enough mana for another 20-30 seconds, and then you're oom. You could use some less mana intensive play styles like AB/Abar + AM on proc ... but then why skill Arcane at all? Your damage output would be medriocre at best.

You raid 25 man? Go ahead, spec arcane and top the charts.
You raid 10 man and can't rely on regen buffs? Try fire if you can, or just stick with FFB if your Ret/SV/Shadow are only present once in a while.
You're not even raiding yet, but leveling? Don't assume your "experience" is comparable to endgame enviroments.

[Yzz]

Well i think that its more challenging to do 10mans to be honest, as there is less amount of gear, you have to be able to gear up and be able to do a long fight without relaying on anyother player.

But what i have come to understand from this is that FFB is the best one, will probably go back to it after i have played around a bit more with this specc.

[mgp84]

With the Glyph of Mage Armor and Speccing into Mana Regeneration, you can get up to 80% mana regeneration in combat. That +the mana gem glyph and other consumables can get the "mana" regeneration you need.

[Shockk]

With the Glyph of Mage Armor and Speccing into Mana Regeneration, you can get up to 80% mana regeneration in combat. That +the mana gem glyph and other consumables can get the "mana" regeneration you need.

This will indeed get you higher mana regeneration, but it will also gimp your damage. Mana Gem Glyph should never be prefered over any glyph that enhances your damage, regardless of spec. Same goes for talents; the average arcane spec includes a number of enhancements for regeneration; you cannot choose more without limiting your capability of delivering high damage.

[Yzz]

on a pure nuke fight aka standing by training dummy i cant go above 2k dps... while in my FFB specc i was easily above it 2.4k last time i checked and i have had gear improvment since then...

and yes this is with using Managem + Evocation..and i have the 2t7 set bonus.

so in a fight like patchwerk and without anyreal kind of Manatotem,replenishment so is this specc feeling a bit well fail. Good for 5mans + 25man i would say.

[Raptorg]

You're not seriously trying to compare leveling as arcane with raiding as arcane?

See, there's the problem - you won't, unless you're perfectly geared for arcane (int/spirit-heavy items) or receive enough raid regen buffs. But since we're talking about Joe Average mage and his 10man-raid, neither will apply.

Using the rotation for maximum damage (AB/AB/AB/AM+ABar on fourth missile) you will burn through the 15-20k mana every decent mage has within 1-2 minutes, probably already including potion and mana gem. Evocation, enough mana for another 20-30 seconds, and then you're oom. You could use some less mana intensive play styles like AB/Abar + AM on proc ... but then why skill Arcane at all? Your damage output would be medriocre at best.

You raid 25 man? Go ahead, spec arcane and top the charts.
You raid 10 man and can't rely on regen buffs? Try fire if you can, or just stick with FFB if your Ret/SV/Shadow are only present once in a while.
You're not even raiding yet, but leveling? Don't assume your "experience" is comparable to endgame enviroments.

It's well known a mage that levels has less mana efficiency then one in 10-man raids.

I leveled as fire in TBC, I had major mana issues, I had to drink after 3-4 mobs.
Then I went karazhan, and suddenly I could clear thrash without drinking, and survive most boss fights(Nightbane was one I had issues because of AoE in air phase)

I can compare leveling and raiding, because I've done both.
And I know that mana is much less of a challenge with raid buffs then it is when self buffed.

That's why I can compare leveling to raiding.

[Malentra]

In my personal opinion, since we're talking about 10 man specs, you want a spec that:

1) provides the mage class buffs that no one else can provide
2) strong single target dps
3) has high innate mana efficiency and low mana usage so you can live without mana regen buffs if necessary
4) strong AoE

FFB spec satisfies all these conditions.  

Frost isn't too bad here, if your group lacks replenishment, and can kill bosses fast without you topping the meters.  

Fire spec may have slightly higher single target dps than FFB, but lacks the mana efficiency and the stronger AoE.

Arcane is an option if you know the crit debuff is being brought by another mage, and you have all the mana enhancing buffs you need. Arcane does better on very short fights (due to AP burst and being less tight on mana), so if your group has rockin dps, you can probably rock the meters with this spec. Just don't sac the 10% crit buff for it.

[Shockk]

It's well known a mage that levels has less mana efficiency then one in 10-man raids.

I leveled as fire in TBC, I had major mana issues, I had to drink after 3-4 mobs.
Then I went karazhan, and suddenly I could clear thrash without drinking, and survive most boss fights(Nightbane was one I had issues because of AoE in air phase)

I can compare leveling and raiding, because I've done both.
And I know that mana is much less of a challenge with raid buffs then it is when self buffed.

That's why I can compare leveling to raiding.

Sure, you can compare. Your results still are wrong.

Raid buffs and raid scaling help. We all agree with that. Still, because you have "no downtimes when leveling as arcane" ist doesn't mean that you can easily cope with the requirements arcane raiding has.

As a matter of fact, I can compare - because I leveled 70-80 as arcane. Granted, that was before the recent change to arcane blast, but the core mechanics still are the same. Just like you now I didn't experience downtimes (even with the old 4min Evocation). Why? Because when leveling, you're not aiming for maximum dps, you're not running the latest state-of-the-art rotation and you have lots and lots of little breaks here and there. Loot that quest item, visit those quest givers, do this, do that ... of course there's no mana issues when leveling.

If all your mana problems vanished in Karazhan, then your raid had excellent means of mana regeneration. Ret paladin spirit regen or Vampiric Embrace comes to mind. I'd bet there's a lot of mages not lacking skill who did have to drink between trash pulls.

We're drifting off a bit. The OP's question was: Should I spec arcane for a 10 man raid? Sure, if your raid brings multiple sources of mana regeneration and/or you're geared toward it. Else, stay Fire/FFB, for your own good and for the raid-wide 10%-crit-buff.

[forneus]

arcane is best for now both 10 and 25man although at least one frost or fire mage in group is huge dps increase, seriously arcane rocks now, I've had 2,5 max 3k dps in FFB and since patch I switched to arcane now I've got 3,7k+ - 25man and in 10man its around 3,2-3,4 <.< this rocks but u must manage ur mana well, 330 mp5 self buffed is a must http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...aker&n=Forneus here's my char and u can see that I'm not full epix, seriously I love this spec. And to answer peepz who say that arcane needs mana buffs, if u've got as I said 330 mp5 self buffed u wont need anything else if rest of group provides decent dps(2,8k+) if they don't then u may need wisdom from pala, I have no mana issues and I don't use mana pots, evo+mana gem and regen while casting are enough.

Seriously don't give tips with "probably" cuz u never tried thing and u say that's not that good, it's just trash talking