Mages: Focusing Your Magic on raiding! (a mages guide to everything)

[snoopy0133]

Your role:

Your role in the raid is DPS, be it our amazing aoe dps or single target dps that is what we are designed in a raid to (that and make tables :/)



Your specs:

As of patch 3.20 there are 3 main raiding specs that many mages currently utilize, Fireball/TTW which as of now is the best dps spec, Frostfire bolt, and Arcane as of right now Fireball/ttw and ffb are superior to arcane due to mana issues



How to play each spec:

Fireball: atm highest dps spec

spec:20/51/0
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vc...RhIhVubhct:VLi
It is called so as in arcane you put in eough points to pick up a talent called torment the weak, which makes you deal 12% more damage if the target has a slow, i.e shockwave, icy touch judgement of just or infected wounds on it

Rotation: Keep living bomb up at all times, with glyph of living bomb it is our highest form of dps, followed by fireball spam and Hotstreak when it procs and refresh Living bomb as needed

Glyphs: Glyph of living bomb, Glyph of molten armor, Glyph of fireball (and glyph of scorch if you need to scorch)

Advantages: In the arcane tree there is an amazing talent called Focus magic, it is a buff that one can place on another player to increase their crit by 3% and when they do crit your crit is temporarally increased, usually other mages put this on each other. Also it is an amazingly mana friendly spec

Disadvantages: You need a lot of hit, the full 17% w/o a boomkin or Spreist (with you only need 14%)

What stats do I want for this?: SP>Haste>Crit



Arcane: Decent spec, but not nearly as good as ffb or ttw

Spec:57/3/11
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#of0Vs...xedcZmhc0o:Nzi
Rotation: Arcane blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane blast, Arcane missile and missile barrage when it procs

Glyphs: Glyph of arcane blast, Glyph of arcane missiles, and Glyph of molten amor

Advantages: Very very low hit requirement 11% or 8% in a raid with an Spreist or Boomkin and again focus magic also very nice for burn fights where you have a super short time to kill X boss

Disadvantages: IS very very mana intense can easily go oom if you don’t pay attention

What stats do I want for this? Haste>SP>Crit



Frostfire bolt: Good spec for mana intense fights or fights where you need control/burn

Spec:0/51/20
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#oZ0Ec...bhcthIccoc:ILi
Rotation: Keep living bomb up on target at all times, frostfirebolt spam and hotstreak when it procs

Glyphs: Glyph of frostfire bolt, Glyph of molten armor, and glyph of living bomb

Advantages: You have an amazingly controllable burn with icy veins and the ability to have insane crits

Disadvantages: It is much less dps then fireball/ttw on most fights

What stats do I want: SP>Crit>haste





Tier set bonus’ and what they do for me??

Our tier 7 or Frostfire set has 2 very nice set bonus

2 Piece: You gain 25% more mana when you use a mana gem. In addition, using a mana gem grants you 225 spell power for 15 sec.

4 Piece: Your offensive spells gain an additional 5% increased critical strike bonus damage.

Now these set bonus’ are really nice for all specs in general, however when uldaur dropped, so did our Kiren’ Tor garb



2 piece: Your Arcane Blast, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, and Fireball spells have a chance to grant you 350 spell power for 15 sec.

Now hold on a sec….this is amazing compared to 4 piece t7, if you can pick this up this proc is just awesome for any spec, now for the set bonus im not too happy with

4 piece: You have a chance for the effect of your Missile Barrage, Hot Streak, or Brain Freeze talent not to be consumed when you cast the spells which benefit.

Now to summarize this, it basically means then when a hot streak for example procs, you have a very low chance for it not to be consumed and to be able to get another pyroblast of that hotstreak, and it can proc simultaneously so far my record is 5 pyros off 1 hotstreak however it is very…..very…..very…. rng I have had it proc on trash all the time and not once on a boss fight, so that’s why I am in a rush to get 2 pc t9 which is a much better 4 pc t8



Sunstirders garb

2 Piece: Increases the armor you gain from Ice Armor by 20%, the mana regeneration you gain from Mage Armor by 10%, and converts an additional 15% of your spirit into critical strike rating when Molten Armor is active.

Ok..wow…just wow, The Buff to molten armor is amazing, that means spirit gives us even more crit form having molten armor up, so 70% of our spirit now becomes crit, at this point if you get 2 piece t9 you should put spell power spirit gems in EVERY blue socket you have, it is much higher dps then pure sp at this point, however at any point before that just gem SP in every non good socket bonus such as +hit or +crit or +int only match socket bonus that give+sp also



4 piece: Increases the critical strike chance of your Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Blast spells by 5%.

Now personally I don’t find this quite nice for anything but ffb, maybe fireball but apparently it is higher dps then 2 pc t8 and 2 pc t9, but for arcane, I think 2 pc t8/2 pc t9 may be better, I have to research this more.



What gems should I use?

For any red socket always use Runed Cardinal Ruby’s

For any yellow socket that gives+SP or when you reach 2400-2500 SP use reckless ametrines

For any blue socket use Purified dreadstones, especially after 2 pc t9.

This applies to all specs



OH NOEZ I PULLED THREAT WUT DO I DO!??!?!?!?

Lets face it, fire mages are threat whores and more then likely will pull the boss right off the tank, that is why we have 2 cooldowns and DON’T be afraid to use them. Mirror image creates 3 copies of the mage that take 90k of the mages threat and make it so the mage will be unable to pull hate until he/she is the last one alive or the images die. And invisibility which received a nice chane in 3.2 so you cant be interrupted while casting it this lets you drop 100% of all your hate so you can get right back into dpsing

[Chronik]

Actually you should get your facts straight. if you know how to play Arcane you don't have mana issues.

[Baygon]

Actually you should get your facts straight. if you know how to play Arcane you don't have mana issues.

quoted for truth

[extrudedcow]

Arcane's DPS issues have little to do with mana problems in higher end gear now. Arcane scales poorly with dps stats compared to fire; it simply does not benefit as much from gear as fire does.