Mage Gearing and Rawr

[Tyrrandion]

Heya.

Recently I came back to my mage. He was my first 70 (and 80 later w/ WotLK) but a while ago due to a guild lack of good tanks, I rolled a pally and have been working him pretty hard for awhile now. Durring which time I discovered Rawr and have had a great time with it, and it usually is good about gearing choices, visa vi gemming options beyond obvious choices for at least my pally (gemming avoidance/stam rather than straight stam, etc). However, now that I want to get back into it with my mage, I'm using Rawr, and it seems to be giving me some problems.

First things first, heres the link to my armory:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...nor&cn=Serevok

Allrighty. I have both V. 2.3.10 and V. 2.3.11 and beside a small discrepency in overall DPS, they're telling me the same things, so I don't believe it's a problem with the new version. My goal is to max my DPS and be able to pug into ToC and ICC runs, as our guild doesn't have the people for multiple runs, and as I'm our MT, I'm stuck tanking on all progression content. It's been a while since I had to worry about gearing a mage, so I could be totally wrong about the program having it screwed up, also, I just switched to Arcane, so the stats I used to look for may not be as important on Arcane gear (frostfire was king when I was actually playing my mage). Here's some of the gearing choices it's giving me, using the newest version, using filters to disable raid content (note, the suggestions are the same with raid buffs and self buffs, just different numbers), Reinforce gem req's is not enabled:

Head Slot: I'm running the Hood of Smoldering Aftermath from 75 badges, and it's telling me to dump it for T9 (and no, not the 25 man version that requires a trophy, just straight 50 badges) and to gem it with a purified dreadstone (+10 Spirit, +12 SP). Rawr is telling me that grabbing the T9 will net me 10.11 DPS, even though I'm dropping 10 haste, 10 hit, 103 INT, and 18SP (socket bonuses are the Same) The change could be attributed to Rawr giving the piece extra bonus's for the Set Bonus, but I personally don't see it.

Neck: Telling me to stay with Arcane Loops of Anger from H FoS, not seeing anything weird about that.

Shoulders: Once again Rawr has the regular T9 edging out the 45 badge pair, albeit by a much smaller margin (at .05 DPS) Telling me to go from Pauldron's of Catastrophic Emination gemmed with a reckless amentrine (+10 haste, +12 SP) to the T9 w/ the purified dreadstone (+10 spirit, +12 SP), once again, it may be assigning a bonus to dps due to the set bonus, I don't know.

Back: Telling me to upgrade to disguise of the Kumiho from conquest badges (barring the frost purchases), w/ the added value of haste vs the other caster option, it seems a solid pick.

Chest: Rawr Recommends t9 yet again, but I would think with the extra haste, and about equal SP, Ancient polar bear hide from H PoS would beat it out, but Rawr has t9 winning by 54.23 DPS (self buffed). Heres a link to check out the polar bear hide http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50266#comments

Wrist: Tells me to grab wristgaurds of Subterranean moss, seems a solid pick.

Hands: T9 yet again, it even has the straight t9 beating out t10, other than that, the gloves look to be a solid choice.

Waist: This one's a bit tricky, Telling me to stick with the braid of salt and fire over the strip of remorse: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50314#contained-in-object not a whole lot of difference, by sticking w/ the salt and fire, im losing 2 haste and 55 crit for 60 spirit, considering as I have molten armor glyphed, I suppose it kind of makes sense.

Legs Telling me to stay with the t9 but drop the runed cardinals for 2 reckless amentrines (+10 haste and 12 SP apiece) which would fill the reqs for the extra 7 SP, I suppose this makes sense, but it seems the extra SP might be more benificial.

Feet Has me stepping up (no pun intended) to the prelate snowshoes from H PoS, which seem to be more of a healer option, but I suppose the extra haste and spirit (w/ my glyph) makes this make a bit of sense I suppose.

Rings: Telling me to use both badge rings (healer and Caster DPS) which makes a bit of sense, but I would have thought another DPS itemized ring might be better than the healer ring, but it does have solid stats

Trinks Obviously the most subjective of the gearing options, but telling me to go with resurgance (50 badges) and the Abysal Rune (normal ToC), pretty obvious choices

Main Hand Seethe with +63 SP beating out Seethe with Black Magic by a little, I was always under the impression Black Magic was better for arcane, but I can see the logic of a constant effect over the proc based chant

Off Hand Shriveled Heart from H HoR, seems to be the only offhand to chose from in the newer content

Wand Brimstone Igniter from badges, seems to be an obvious choice

A few of these choices (noted above) seem a bit wonky to me. I would really appreciate any advice/experience you've had, as well as any other gearing comments. I'd love to get into ICC pugs ASAP, and the higher my dps, the higher my chances.

Also, as a side note, I've heard a good number to shoot for before trying for pugs is 5k, im currently pulling down around 4 (on boss fights), is this about right, or should I be shooting for around 6k before trying to pug? Thanks again

Peace

[arnorian]

Alright, I'm not going to comment on everything because I believe (silly me) that finding these things out on your own makes you a good player.

But for arcane:
-Since you are starting out, you really want that 2 piece T9 set bonus, it is one of the nicer bonuses for arcane.
-Stat importance hit to cap then SP and HASTE, thats it really, at some point haste starts to outscale SP, but at that point, you generally start gemming more reckless ametrines in place of straight SP gems (some of the time).

[Onomarl]

Seems like it's accurately telling you what to gear, don't see any problem with it. 2/4p bonus > 13 iLevel difference items.

[Neinen]

The reason it wants you to take t9, is because the 4p setbonus makes 4p t9 the best, until you can swap for 2p/4p t10 ;o ..

[Skarrd]

I could go in depth into why all of the things it's telling you are correct, but it isn't broken. Just do what it says, it's late and I just drove 11 hours. If you can't trust it, trust me!

[Katave]

Meh. Rawr says Nibelung is a 200 DPS increase for me over Abracadaver, but I ended up passing the Nibelung to the second highest roller due to not wanting to lose 101 hit and 136 haste. I'd rather be 11 over hit cap than 90 under. Seemed like a logical choice despite what Rawr says. Losing 136 haste and going 90 hit under cap seems like it would be a DPS decrease.

[Skarrd]

Meh. Rawr says Nibelung is a 200 DPS increase for me over Abracadaver, but I ended up passing the Nibelung to the second highest roller due to not wanting to lose 101 hit and 136 haste. I'd rather be 11 over hit cap than 90 under. Seemed like a logical choice despite what Rawr says. Losing 136 haste and going 90 hit under cap seems like it would be a DPS decrease.

The thing is that some of your dps then transfers to the val'kyr, so hit is worth less of your overall dps. Also, nibelung has a rather large SP advantage over abracadaver (unless you're using heroic abra, ofc). I tend to agree with your decision, but that's because procs are impossible to place value upon without math. Rawr is that math, and I suggest listening to it. I, myself, will never use anything that isn't a MH/OH combo, though.

Keep in mind that hit rating has no real special value for arcane aside from just being the "best" stat under cap. By this I just mean that missing a spell with a longish cooldown doesn't exist for arcane, and we don't have any dots to maintain that increase damage like immolate and whatnot. Our rotation can't really be fucked by misses, so it's just a regular stat in just about every circumstance. Yes there are exceptions.

What I suggest for such a problem is to use Nibelung and find some hit swaps elsewhere, because nibelung 264 version is certainly better than abracadaver 251 version.