Fire Time? Or Stay Arcane?

[Komie]

I really enjoy the Fire spec play style for PVE.

I'm currently Arcane...

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...7zhul&n=Khomie

With my gear, am I currently able to go fire spec and get as much DPS or more than Arcane spec?

I've tried this a few times before, with lower gear, and was only doing like 3k or 4k dps in TOC, compared to my 6k - 8k as Arcane.

If I'm not ready for fire, could you please help me out with what I should be looking at getting or upgrading?

Thank you in advanced :-)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that I have gear in my bags that would allow me to reach, around 16.50% hit (without a shadow priest/boomkin)

[Skarrd]

With my gear, am I currently able to go fire spec and get as much DPS or more than Arcane spec?

Even in gear that is itemized for fire, arcane will still end up ahead unless you manage to have like, actually zero haste and 700 hit. With that said, the difference isn't -that- huge, but ToC has a lot of gimmick fights that lean towards arcane so it spreads the gap. If you like fire, stay fire. You'll need one mage to be fire for scorch anyway.

p.s. i didnt click your armory.

[KhameleonN]

700 hit...

[Komie]

Even in gear that is itemized for fire, arcane will still end up ahead unless you manage to have like, actually zero haste and 700 hit. With that said, the difference isn't -that- huge, but ToC has a lot of gimmick fights that lean towards arcane so it spreads the gap. If you like fire, stay fire. You'll need one mage to be fire for scorch anyway.

p.s. i didnt click your armory.

Hmmm, well damn. Unfortunatly I can't stay fire, even though I like it. My guild wants all DPS at atleast 5k so we can bust out 25man heroic TOC. It's difficult for me to do 5K dps with the fire spec sadly.

[Skarrd]

Hmmm, well damn. Unfortunatly I can't stay fire, even though I like it. My guild wants all DPS at atleast 5k so we can bust out 25man heroic TOC. It's difficult for me to do 5K dps with the fire spec sadly.

I can pull over 6k consistantly as FFB on any fight, so you're doing something wrong or you are undergeared (sorry?). I'm willing to concede that I probably outgear you if you are just entering heroic mode, but 5k is a VERY LOW bar for heroic mode kills. My alt can do 6k fully buffed and he is not geared in anything super special.

Fire rotations are pretty easy, but here's how you beat arcane mages pre-icehowl on beasts. LB all the snobolds once. Snobolds are not affected by the aoe portion of LB, but the dot dmg is enough extra dps. Keep LB on all targets at all times through the whole fight. We zerg acidmaw in P2, but keep a LB up on dreadscale and acidmaw as much as possible (stay in range of both, make a macro so you dont have to target swap while it's still progression because every second counts). Icehowl is simple, just make sure your trinkets and combustion are up for the stun phase where you will be bloodlusting.


Something else, your raid leader wants max dps? Are you running a demo or affliction lock? If not, scorch is necessary. Don't let him tell you otherwise. You need it for every heroic fight but FC's. I even glyphed for scorch to keep it up on both valkyr while that was new to us. Of course, all of my points are based on the fact that you have every raid buff available to you. How is your raid comp? If you don't have anything but a resto shaman's SP totems, no moonkin, no ret paladin, no warlock, etc etc etc then you are lagging behind because of that. We have to have one of our holy paladins swap to ret for anub simply for his haste/dmg buff. Buffs are important, scorch is no different.

[moarqqplz]

if u like fire i would say fire. I myself love fire and even if nit the top dps spec, ill still be it. just try it out and see what u think.

[Skarrd]

So I decided if I'm going to keep posting here I should look at your armory. Don't go arcane. Your haste is pretty low and your crit is rather high. Sundial is god awful for arcane. Get an abyssal rune or just go with an empty trinket slot. I think you are better itemized for fire by a good margin, and the dps difference is going to be minor. Since your guild will need a scorch debuff anyway, you're probably their best bet. My above post still stands, however.

[Polarthief]

Fire is currently lacking in not only the cooldown section, but a less RNG problem...

Fire's damage is PURELY LUCK BASED. Getting two crits in a row is like winning loot in a 5 man that the 4 other people need. Sometimes you win ALL the time, sometimes you don't. And even if you manage to get a Pyroblast in EVERY 2 fireballs *let's just say somehow your fireball crits 100% of the time, so its FBFBPB FBFBPB*, Arcane is most likely going to stay ontop, UNLESS you somehow have a mana issue.

Arcane has cooldowns, a TWO minute 60% mana regen cooldown *over a 4 minute*, 30% less aggro generation, more versatility talents such as Slow, Arcane Mind/Mind Mastery, Icy Veins, and TONS of cooldown reducing talents, arcane overall is better. + you're never asked to be the scorch bitch! *My guild made our new warlock recruit do it, cuz we only have 2 mages and we both went arcane lol*

Not to mention: in 3.3, Arcane is the only specc *other than BM hunters which don't exist for raids, or Retadins which some guilds don't have, or at least most of them DON'T use ret aura* that can bring Ferocious inspiration *+3% raidwide damage buff* that is the EASIEST to keep up than retadins *unless they get to use retaura, which sometimes has a range issue!!!*. Simply crit with nearly ANY of your arcane spells, and your raid has it for 10 seconds! Even though Arcane is NOT crit based, I'm 100% sure you can crit at least once every 10 seconds *1 crit in 9 hits. Your max rotation should have 4 ABL and 5 AM*

So after my wall of text: Stay arcane, BUT if your raid needs you to be a lot more AOE dps *let's just say if Icecrown needs a ton of AOE for bosses*, look into fire (since all its AOE is getting mana buffed), or even frost (it's getting some nice PvE buffs!)

Best wishes

~Dragonize~

[Milamber]

You might wanna check out rawr

[MrWiggles]

unless you raid needs someone for the 5% debuff to bosses, (scorch or imp SB) go arcane.

Retadins which some guilds don't have, or at least most of them DON'T use ret aura*

aura buffs are not dependent on aura any more, rets can have crusader up and still provide the 3% haste/damage buff.

[Komie]

So I decided if I'm going to keep posting here I should look at your armory. Don't go arcane. Your haste is pretty low and your crit is rather high. Sundial is god awful for arcane. Get an abyssal rune or just go with an empty trinket slot. I think you are better itemized for fire by a good margin, and the dps difference is going to be minor. Since your guild will need a scorch debuff anyway, you're probably their best bet. My above post still stands, however.

I'm confused by your post. You told me to not go Arcane, but yet when I'm in raids, I do considerably more dps as arcane then I do fire.

With my current gear set up, I can go upwards of 9K during bloodlusts. Typically around 6k or 7k on non gimmick fights. But yet when I try it with Fire, I find it very difficult to get even 5K on non gimmick fights.

Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate the feedback and advice of course. I will give Fire another go around since I upgraded a few pieces and whatnot.

Another note, you said my haste is kind of low. Whats a good ammount of haste I should be aiming for? I thought anything over 500 was good.

[Skarrd]

There's really nothing to aim for, haste is good no matter how much you have, unless you're over the soft cap. The point is, if you don't have someone scorching, you should go fire. If you have another mage scorching, take his place. If you're using a warlock for the ISB debuff, then you'll want to go arcane.

You shouldn't be below 5k as fire, ever, though.

[Grunthunter]

Go frost