arcane mage needs serious help

[slayerkiller]

thank you for all of the help everyone I plan on taking this advice and hopefully showing my guild im worth something lol

[Xaviersymon]

Not to derail this thread too much, but could some of the mages that have 400+ haste link their characters for me? I have a similar problem in that I have a metric-crap ton of crit gear but not much haste gear and I'm trying to find put together a target list of stuff with haste on it.

I'm not going to link my character right this second (I'm on Icecrown if anyone wants to search), but that seems to be a big hole in my stats. I only get to do 10 man raids for the moment but it's crazy how much my dps goes up when our elemental shaman and his wrath of air totem comes along.

Thanks!

[Alyzion]

First and foremost, before regemming and enchants... you need to respec your arcane build and gain some MUCH needed talents.

We'll start with frost tree since it's only one small change: Move the two points you have in Ice Shards and put them into Frost Warding. This is great for Hodir and Naxx and any other fights where you might encounter some frost damage. Because honestly... you should never be using any other damaging frost spells other than Blizzard for trash.

Now for your arcane tree: I would recommend 5 points in first tier and only 5. Arcane Subtlety and Arcane Stability should only require enough points to get to the next tree. If you're good with threat, then 1 into Arcane Subtlety and 1 into Stability. If your threat is getting a little high, 2 into Subtletly and ignore Stability. Take the extra one point from there and the two you put into Magic Attunement and put them into 3/3 Student of the Mind. (extra crit over range is always better) You should be using your Molten Shield buff and the extra spirit converts to extra crit.

The rest of your arcane tree is fine.

Glyphs: as previous posters said, drop Glyph of Arcane Power... an extra 3 seconds is crap compared to Glyph of Arcane Missiles since it's a main nuke.

I would also drop your minor Glyph of the Penguin and Arcane Intellect and get Glyph Slow Fall and Glyph of Frost Ward (mostly for assisting with damage mitigation from frozen blows on Hodir if you're raiding Ulduar) and Glyph of Fire Ward (for Ignis and Mimiron, etc).

Gems, enchants, and gear recommendations:

Your meta should never be anything other than Chaotic

You should gem for primarily 19sp, 9sp + 8haste (or 8crit / hit depending on what you're lacking the most of - haste in your situation) if the bonus is nice, or to meet your meta gem requirements 2x 9sp + 8spirit. Don't gem straight +16 anything.

Enchant everything. Your boots should have Icewalker (12crit and 12 hit) - legs should have sp and 20spirit instead of stam. Gloves could go spellpower instead of hit. Get shoulder enchant and Lightweave Embroidery for back.

Other posters have really good advice on rotation so I won't really go into that.

Good luck!

[Napee]

Not to derail this thread too much, but could some of the mages that have 400+ haste link their characters for me? I have a similar problem in that I have a metric-crap ton of crit gear but not much haste gear and I'm trying to find put together a target list of stuff with haste on it.

I'm not going to link my character right this second (I'm on Icecrown if anyone wants to search), but that seems to be a big hole in my stats. I only get to do 10 man raids for the moment but it's crazy how much my dps goes up when our elemental shaman and his wrath of air totem comes along.

Thanks!

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...=Ursin&n=Napee
there are still many better haste pieces i am yet to grab
(i.e. wrist, offhand, boots, legs wont last too much longer)

The staff off 10 malygos used to be my best friend though.

[slayerkiller]

Just an update here, before when I was rocking on the test dummy i was only getting about 3k even.

Now with the added sp gems, and the choatic meta I am pushing 3.7-3.9 depending on mbarr procs. Hopefully farming badges and grabbing up haste gear and getting my sp up will keep me in the clear with my guild

[Numbnut]

This thread has some very good information in it but is also misleading on some fronts. You had a legitimate question and unfortunately I see some misinformed people responding.

The biggest piece of advise I can give is to find a mage you've seen doing outrageous damage and talk to them. These forums are full of noobs and you can't believe everything you read even though some sound very intelligent on the surface.

[Yuzzek]

Haven't read the whole thread and i hope my bad englisch does noot mislead you. I'ven been raiding arcane for quite a long time and just switched some weeks ago to FFb because of manamanagement in many hardmodes.

1. ab3-AM is better that using barrage if it does not procc. If youn want the maths behind it try EJ Forum mage section and there the arcanethread. (it is not due to dps, it is about mps and because ab3-am costs less mps so you got longer burncycles (ab3-spam-mbam).
2. Cooldown stacking is a waste and should only be used if the encounter provides additional buffs (like Hodir or Vezax) or your raid needs dps spikes at specific times (XT hard, P3 Council hard etc.). In any other situation it is a waste due to the different cooldowns on your abilitys. meaning, that the benefit of cooldown stacking does not even compensate the "ready but not used" times of your cooldowns.
3. Arcane does rely on Evocation. Even one tick of evocation less may dump your dps to the ground. I pretty much liked the flexibility of Arcane because you could always change your rotation based on your mana. Playing fire is different. You have just one rotation and if you are oom you can use your wand, that's it. And if it comes to hardmodes, fireball is not forgiving at missed evocation as well as arcane because of how long the encounter takes then. That is why i am playing FFB right now. For most hardmodes it is necessary to burst at specific situations which favors FFB (Icy veins) compared to fireball specc (no cooldown at all besides combustion) and ffb is manawise a dream. You will never ever get into trouble with your mana as ffb (yeas of course...vezax hardmode ) and you can even use flamecap on cooldown instead of managem because you don't need the managem. And besides you are aven able to prevent yourself from dying with manshield because if your mana drops low by this you could evocate which isn't needed at all otherwise. Another advantage is the better aoe damage of ffb and (and this is very undervalued) the fact, that you do not need a slow effect on adds to do your damage (fireball --> totw) which is a damage + on any short life adds that have to be focused.