0/53/18 question for mages.

[Lynzie]

Hello everyone.

I had a question about 0/53/18.

I just recently switched from being Arcane for sometime(53/3/11) of sorts. I switch due to the fact Arcane was not living up to the potential I could be doing gear wise,etc. instead of improving my dps i notice that i had drop a few points or so.

So now i have this new spec, got the cookie cutter spec from EJ forums, got the rotation as well.

MY Rotation
LB>>Scorch(I have the glyph)>>FFB till Hot Streak procs then i throw pyro, then when LB wears off i apply it back same as scorch, i wait till the last 2 seconds of scorch wearing off to reapply it.

My hit rating is 13.53 unbuff/self buff. My Army link >>> http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ircle&n=Lynzie

NOW for the question. (sorry for any errors in advance my internet is being rather laggy for some reason)

When i was testing out the spec at a heroic dummy in IF i was able to get up to 5k using GCD, then after a while i notice my dps slipping down to 3.5k then 3k is there a way to maintain that dps of 5k without it slipping? Not sure if its my rotation or perhaps not enough hit rating? I gear for SP, the only time i use a gem other then SP is to activate the meta gem and or if the socket bonus offers extra SP.

Any suggestions would be great, I'd appreciate it. Thank you again!

Lynzie-

PS- since i just notice Armory has yet to update my new spec and glyphs the glyphs I am using for majors are Molten Core, Scorch and FrostFire.

[Lynzie]

It seems like your crit is abit low, when im running FFB spec, i got around 37% crit chance self buffed, and i have 380 hit rating. and I get my dps easly over 4.5k. so try to improve ur crit.

Thank you for the advice, I'll try some crit food the next time im testing the spec out. I haven't looked at my crit yet when i use Molten Core so I will pop some crit food throw Molten Core and see what that makes my crit at.

[DarkSoul]

You need Glyph of Living Bomb. Replace your Molten Armor glyph with it unless you've got another mage or warlock with ISB maintaining the debuff, then replace your Improved Scorch glyph instead.

Also, don't put too much weight on training dummy results, since you'll be virtually unbuffed compared to what you'll have in a raid. It's a good baseline, but far from your maximum potential.

Also, if you get a couple good crits right at the start of a fight, it's going to skew your dps, and you'll see a constant slide in your average until it levels off, well into the fight. Sustaining 5k dps on the dummies would take some REALLY good gear for any mage (better than I've got with 4t8 and full 213-226 iLevel gear).

[Lynzie]

Thank You.

It's rare when we have our warlock with us. And from what i remember he is demo or something i asked before if he was affliction but he said no(ISB is from affliction?)

I'll try the LB glyph and see how that works out too.

[Filibuster]

Replace the scorch glyph with living bomb, no matter what spec you are. Taking the time to stack scorch at the beginning of the fight shouldn't hurt you that much.

[rathofvol]

Replace the scorch glyph with living bomb, no matter what spec you are. Taking the time to stack scorch at the beginning of the fight shouldn't hurt you that much.

Not everything is a 5 minute single target TnS. If your the only mage putting up scorch debuff and you dont have the glyph, its going to be a dps loss for many fights over using scorch glyph.

i think EJ calculates the glyph of frostfire bolt to be the weakest glyph. I'd suggest using glyph of living bomb over this.

Dont eat crit food. SP is much better.

Test dummies suck, dont gauge your dps by some arbitrary number a test dummy shows. I pull about 4k tops on the dummies, but can easily hit 7k on uld bosses.

Your dps will always dip off your initial 30 seconds. I assume your using Icy Veins + Combustion to start off. Obviously your going to do less dps with those on CD than you are when they're active... I mean Cmon

[Lynzie]

I kind of agree with Rath.

I am usually always the only mage in my raid, we have a lock but he is not affliction, i tested out the LB glyph its okay but i think i might go back to the scorch glyph and perhaps change out the FFB glyph with LB and see how that works.

[whiskey_oktober]

reguardless, the LB glyph is better then molten armor glyph, so go that way if you really have to.

[mmoelf]

looking at your stats, your haste is about half what it could be. your crit is a tad low, and your SP needs work. roughly speaking, you should be pulling around 3k dps on a target dummy.

as for glyphs, use molten armor, frostfire bolt and living bomb. the time it takes to stack scorch isn't that bad and the 3 glyphs i mentioned are pretty much the recommended (top dps) glyphs for fire.

try to remember that hot streak is a very important part of your dps. if you aren't getting them, your dps will suffer. to a degree, fire dps is based on getting lucky with the number of hot streaks you get. sadly, this isn't something you can fix, other than getting more crits to your non-periodic attacks.

[Kraix]

You need Glyph of Living Bomb. Replace your Molten Armor glyph with it unless you've got another mage or warlock with ISB maintaining the debuff, then replace your Improved Scorch glyph instead.

Why do people like you continue to post stupid things like using Improved Scorch glyph. Seriously, for the good of all mages, stop posting.

To the OP: Use Glyph of Molten Armor, Glyph of Frostfire, Glyph of Living Bomb for a raid setting. Anyone who tells you different is a terrible mage.

Your rotation is fine, refreshing scorch is a priority over refreshing living bomb if the two debuffs are going to fall off simultaneously. Pyro procs have priority over refreshing Living Bomb. Spam FFB like nobody's business. NEVER let scorch fall off.

You need 11% hit rating in a raid environment for Frostfire (~289 hit rating). This is obviously assuming you have a moonkin or shadowpriest in your raid... which you should. If you're in a 10man, just throw on a Dying Curse or a PoS Living Flame for the extra hit.

Aim for ~35% crit self buffed.

Make sure you are timing your cooldowns accordingly with Bloodlust, and your dps will be just fine =)

[DarkSoul]

Why do people like you continue to post stupid things like using Improved Scorch glyph. Seriously, for the good of all mages, stop posting.

Fitting race for your mage, I'll give you that. Do us all a favor and shut the fuck up with your elitist attitude till you can post criticism without flaming, thanks.

To the OP, with my apologies for the outburst, Molten Armor, Living Bomb, and Frostfire are the optimal glyphs to run, as has been said. Improved Scorch has its place in my opinion when you're still learning the spec and managing the debuff on your own. With Imp. Scorch instead of Molten Armor, if your timing is off and the debuff drops off, having Imp. Scorch glyph is the difference between spending the next ~7 seconds restacking it or spending 1.5 seconds doing it and getting 2 more frostfire bolts cast. I currently run Molten Armor, Fireball, Living Bomb, but I did run improved scorch for a long time while I was gearing up for TtW Fire. I recommend giving both a try in a raid situation and see which you prefer.

[Lynzie]

Hey All,
Thanks for the replys, I just got some new gear upgrades tonight in Ulduar so i am now at 15 percent Hit rating and 23 percent or so Crit. I still need to work on crit a bit however. At the moment i have the imp. scorch Glyph to get use to the spec once i feel comfortable with the spec I'll probably switch out for FFB. I have to say this spec is offering a bit more dps then arcane was, all night i was able to maintain 4k to almost 5k dps. So that makes me happy.

Tomorrow night(or tonight more like it since its almost 2am in the morning lol) we are going back to finish the rest (IC,Hodir,etc) So i'll try the spec without the scorch glyph and replace it with FFB and see how I do.

Sadly I do not have the dying curse trinket, It has yet to drop for me and the last and only time i saw it drop I got SoL out of it, the RL gave it to a healer. *glares* but hopefully soon i'll see it again lol. but at the moment my hit rating is doing semi okay without it (15%)

[Filibuster]

Make sure your raid leader is putting a Draenai in every group if you have the people for it!

[Lynzie]

We saddly only have one draenei but usually i get to be in the draenei's group most casters do for the racial. the raid group is a bit new, not the players just the group itself. We mainly have tank DK, warrior tank, x2 Priest Healer(one dwarf one NE), Tree Healer, Dps DK(The Draenei), Ret Pally(human) me(gnome mage) and a NE Hunter. unfortunately no boomkin or Spriest lol.

[mmoelf]

Sadly I do not have the dying curse trinket, It has yet to drop for me and the last and only time i saw it drop I got SoL out of it, the RL gave it to a healer. *glares* but hopefully soon i'll see it again lol. but at the moment my hit rating is doing semi okay without it (15%)

HAHAHAHA the raid leader gave it to a healer?! if my memory is correct, besides the spell hit (which it useless to a healer afaik) there is a SP proc which, as a random element, is pretty unreliable for healing. talk about a bad move on by the RL

[Luminair]

Switch your glyphs to Living Bomb, Frostfire Bolt, and Molten Armor.

You're pretty far over hit cap - I'd suggest to change your trinket. I'd change your 2nd gem in your chest to 23SP as well - use your belt for your meta, or find a blue socket with an intelligent bonus.

[Lynzie]

I have the gem in my chest piece so it can give me the activation i need for my helm socket(requires two blue gems).

Just wanted to say thank you for all the advice everyone but i ended up going back to arcane, I couldn't get the hang of FFB just yet, i think when I am more experience as a mage, perhaps. But just wanted to say thank you.


and PS- ya the group was a pug group and the RL didn't know what he was doing, he was messing up all kinds of things, pug for the lose i suppose lol

[impossiblity]

You have gone too far on SP then it should be. You need a lot more haste for arcane and a lot more crit for fire, else your dps will not increase significantly regardless of your sp.

[piffer]

Test dummies suck, dont gauge your dps by some arbitrary number a test dummy shows. I pull about 4k tops on the dummies, but can easily hit 7k on uld bosses.

Your dps will always dip off your initial 30 seconds. I assume your using Icy Veins + Combustion to start off. Obviously your going to do less dps with those on CD than you are when they're active... I mean Cmon

first of all, ive been around ulduar once or twice now, & im wondering -> if u hit 7k easily on ulduar bosses, can u teach me to play mage...?

...... deleted 20lines of text here...

im running Ttw & i go for average 5.5k on all non gimpfights & on gimps u get peaks from 25k or more...
if u tell people that with ffbspec they can do 7k easy trough ulduar, then u got the skills to pay the bills!!!!

cause i dont see that happen tbh

i also see that the creator of this thread hase already given up on ffb & gone back to arcane & frost '(frost??!!??) with the impressive amount of 410 hit...

the only advice i can give is - dont run the testdummy raid to often to aquire your specexperience & when u eventualy get into a raid
try to make your output better by positionning & making your effective casttime per fight maximized

if you got the pisseasy rotation down u ll do good dps / dmge
the longer u stand still at 1 spot & do your job the better teh results will be.
no specc should fall victime to judgement if that skill hasent been maximized!

[sylvianfrost]

In the scenario where you are running mostly HCs I would assume the scorch glyph becomes a lot more useful, but what glyph do you drop to pick it up?