Some Advice for a Mage

[Corathor]

I have just recently picked up my mage. I have never previously played him in endgame content, meaning he's a WotLK baby.

I have gotten him to 80, gotten him what I believe to be some decent gear, by no means phenomenal. Currently the guild I am is in ICC25 working on fester/rotface, we downed Fester last night. I am looking for any tips/advice as an arcane mage to help push my dps as high as I can possibly get it. I pop all my CD's every time they are up, i start fights with them as to get them back up before the end of the fight.. yet I still find myself not able to match our other mages in dps.

Rotation:
ABx4, AM (I've been using ABaRR right as the missiles goes off then into the rotation again.. but not sure on if this is a good idea or not.. i see some of our mages doing it and some not.. is it a dps increase or is it harming my dps. is my question)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...cus&cn=Taichao

I know I am absurdly over the hitcap, currently working on reducing it some through upgrades.

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

[Zodiak]

1. spec , get the spirit talent (ups crit) in arcane, remove pts in arcane stability to compensate and 1 pt in magic attunement.

2. Youre right bout insane over hit cap - get to 8% for arcane ( with spriest / boomkin in raid) or 11% without it. Use a hit trinket to compensate.

3. As soon as you get the badges ( in your case) get the T10 robes and make yourself the http://www.wowwiki.com/Leggings_of_Woven_Death which are best in slot for mages.

4. After a few upgrades get your haste to about 900-1k haste which with bloodlust and icy veins puts ABlast at 1 second ( capped). Remember to leave some room for your latency.

[Corathor]

1. spec , get the spirit talent (ups crit) in arcane, remove pts in arcane stability to compensate and 1 pt in magic attunement.

2. Youre right bout insane over hit cap - get to 8% for arcane ( with spriest / boomkin in raid) or 11% without it. Use a hit trinket to compensate.

3. As soon as you get the badges ( in your case) get the T10 robes and make yourself the http://www.wowwiki.com/Leggings_of_Woven_Death which are best in slot for mages.

4. After a few upgrades get your haste to about 900-1k haste which with bloodlust and icy veins puts ABlast at 1 second ( capped). Remember to leave some room for your latency.

Have the T10 Robes.. but was told that I should hold off on equipping them untill I have 2 piece tier10 to compensate for losing 4 piece tier9. Currently working on Leggings of Woven Death... mats are a bit expensive on my server. As far as the spirit talent.. looking at the mage BiS list.. we end up with a very minimal amount of spirit, say 200-400.. with this being said is 10% of that really worth the 3 talent points?

[Zodiak]

you got 545 spirit ( if memory serves right) 10% = 54.5 spirit , in raids that would grow to at least 700 spirit ( 70 extra)

And with molten armor glyph that converts to over 1% crit

1% Spell Critical Strike Rating, one needs 45.90598679 crit /// spirit converted from molten armor

EDIT: taken from EJ and besides, youll be casting so fast mobs wont be able to do any pushback and if it does... itll be 0.2 secs ( you barely notice)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...er&cn=Nibelung

[Odina]

As Arcane I would not spec for Student of the mind at all as it is wasted talents that can be used much better elsewhere! The conversion is just not worth it at all.

What you want to remeber aspecially as alliance is what you shoudl be gunnign for with your hit rating in raids. As allie you should have 1% hit from a dranie in party, 3% debuff from s.priest or boomking and 6% from talents. So all you need form gear is 7% hit rating to be capped in raids so long as you get a dranie in party and a debuff form support classes.

After you want priority on gear to be SP>Haste>crit (at one point in time Haste will overtake SP but at your current gear level you are not yet there).

your second spec is the better of the 2 but with that much hit you can drop the points in arcane focus. I would drop 1 more point into stability (with stability the way it works is even numbers of points are the same as the last odd number value wise. So 2 points i like having 1 point 4 is like 3. So get 3 points or 1 point but not 2 or 4). Then toss the last 2 points into incanters absorbtion (still amazing untill 3.3.3 hits live!). As well arcane barrage > slow in my opinion as anytime you need to move you will have a spell that still hits pretty hard with Abar.

[Safter]

(I've been using ABaRR right as the missiles goes off then into the rotation again.. but not sure on if this is a good idea or not.. i see some of our mages doing it and some not.. is it a dps increase or is it harming my dps. is my question)

Abarr isn't a good idea as soon as you have 2xT10. Just think logically if you barr u get a gcd. that means that you can cast one less ab until the buff wears off. Only abarr if you have to move alot.

[Corathor]

Yeah, I'm aware of the t10 2 piece, and no at that point I would not use ABarr unless i just had to move. Yes, as I said, I'm well aware of the Hit Cap and that I am supremely over.. just every time a non +hit piece of gear drops that has haste/sp on it... i have to fight against all DPS casters and every cloth healer too.. so kinda extremely annoying. Hence why I have so much damn +hit at the moment.

[Odina]

Do not weave Abar into your rotation! Only use it if you are on the move. As was mentioned it is eating up a GCD thus you are lowering your dps by doing this becuase you are waiting longer between each ratation to get to your max dps potential!

[Corathor]

The only reason i keep the points in arcane focus is the 3% reduction in cast costs, because I do have mana issues during long fights.

[Teckdragon]

NEVER under any circumstance take Student of the Mind for an arcane spec. It's 3 entirely wasted points. Anyone who suggests otherwise clearly hasn't done the proper research on the subject. (And I've already posted the math on 2 previous threads to support this.)

First of all, here's a slightly reworked spec:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...J,q3JeRO,11623


The short answer to your problem: the solutions will fix itself with time, gear, and experience. Lose a lot of the excess hit, get a better wep/wand/trinket. As you accumulate frost emblems for tier you can replace your gear and get crafted legs made. Aside from that, practice, practice, practice.

[Safter]

NEVER under any circumstance take Student of the Mind for an arcane spec. It's 3 entirely wasted points. Anyone who suggests otherwise clearly hasn't done the proper research on the subject. (And I've already posted the math on 2 previous threads to support this.)

Link please

[Corathor]

I've been playing around this morning with my spec, I have a new build as of right now. I do not take IA currently as 1) We do not have a Disc Priest in our raids (fail I know), and 2) I want to get used to dpsing without it come 3.3.3. My offspec will probably have it just for fights like sindragosa where absorbtion will still be decent with frost ward. or blood princes and fire ward. I have 2 points in Arcane Focus, 3 in Arcane Stability, and I threw 2 points into Magic Absorbption.

[Odina]

Link please

Any high end raiding guild mages armory good enough?

If not : http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t42876-arcane_thread/

It's not that there is no potential in the talents to boost dps. However the issue is with the amount of bloat in the arcane tree. There is simply no room to have student of the mind at this time without sacrafising taking another talent that has been shown to be a greater advantage when it comes to dishing out dps for our raiding content.

Sure you could argue that "extra range is not more dps" however in any case where you need to move out / spread / run from etc in a fight the added range will equate to being able to dps sooner due to being able to dps from further away. The math has been gone over and over in the EJ thread and thus why you se top mages using the same cookie cutter spec as it provides the best potential dps posible.

If student of the mind was viable / a slight dps increas (hell 5 dps) you would see all the top mages with it specked!

Can you spec into it and get more crit? Sure you can however it's not the best use of thoes talents if you are seeking to increase dps. 3.3.3 may change it with the IA changes and some may dip into it with the "floater talents" if they find IA is useless, but for now SOTM is one of the lowest dps boosts an arc mage can talent into!

[Safter]

Thx Boby. I didn't want to argue with you... I was just wondering myself where to put those points.

[Odina]

Thx Boby. I didn't want to argue with you... I was just wondering myself where to put those points.

Asking questions and challenging where the answers come from is the only way to be sure you have good info

I did't take it as an arguemnt but more of a "I want to be sure what you say is right"


No harm no foul there! ;D

[zetral]

Looking at your spec you are doing a number of things wrong... The most obvious is not putting points into Spell Power. Take the 2 points out of magic absorption and put it into Spell Power. You should also at the very least take a point out of magic attunement and put it into Arcane Focus so you can get the extra 1% hit and mana reduction. If you talent it your hit cap is 11% or 8% with buffs which you can easily meet with gear. If you're over, don't take the points out of the talent because you'll have to change everytime you get a new piece. I'm not even going to look at your gear because good gear comes with playing, a good spec does not. Also i would definitely recommend taking your 3 points out of arcane stability and putting them into incanter's absorption until 3.3.3 because if you get any sort of shield in 25 man, my spell power jumps from 3500 up to 4800 the instant i take any dmg and it stays like that if i keep getting shielded. Most disc priests aren't retarded and like to help out by keeping shields on the mages to keep up dps. So change your spec imo and just work your gear around hit cap. All your other stats will come with it.

And in addition, Student of the Mind is almost useless. It's not worth getting. If you check mage tier 10, NONE of it has spirit. Every piece of prime cloth dps gear has no spirit. Sure there are probably upgrades with some spirit on it for you but there is always a better piece with no spirit. It's hardly a boost and it could be spent much more wisely, even with a fire spec.

[arianea]

1. Your haste is sufficient for now. What you could do is to swop out Talisman of Volatile Power and get Tailsman of Resurgance from Triumph Vendor. It will help your spellpower when you pop cooldowns.
2. Drop all points from Arcane Focus and Precision - you don't need any more hit from Talents since you already have enough from gear. Work on the upgrades though. Respec Arcane Focus and Precision again when you drop to 8% hit.
3. Nowhere to put those points that you dropped, you can spec Student of the Mind and Incanters Absorp (2/3).
4. Drop Iceshards. Put it in Frost Warding.
5. If you have SpellSlingers, put that one. They are cheaper to craft these days if you need to make it.

[Teckdragon]

Link please

Didn't get home until now, but here's the link:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/class-ma...51/#msg2094851

[Corathor]

That's where those two points went.. lol, i didnt realize i didnt put them in spell power.. now the question is should i drop Magic Absorbtion or Arcane Focus..