Antorus mage DPS tricks?

[mcbubble]

I see that they're making some balancing changes in 7.3.5 and they don't touch mages.
I'm just looking at the aggregate and for a pure dps spec, aren't mages doing fairly poorly?
I'm going off of mythic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17

and heroic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#difficulty=4

[davesignal]

They aren't making any balancing changes in 7.3.5. They're adding in Rank 2/Rank 3 versions of spells to make leveling not so barren, after having removed all the interesting utility spells. Instead of stuff like priests having Mind Soothe or Fear Ward, they just have Smite, Smite 2, and Smite 3. The end result will be no net change to the spell.

[Kluian05]

Frost, Arcane or Fire?

Frost+Arcane runs pref Gloves+Cloak T20. Fire does not run any T20. This assumes 930 pieces, and for all practical purposes for Arcane/Frost you are not going to replace the 2pc T20.

I was actually using T19 2 pc (shoulder/cloak) for ST and T20 2 pc (shoulder/cloak) for AoE. However my T19/T20 is only around the 900-915 ilvl. I recently acquired a 980 cloak and 960 shoulders with socket. That beats out my T19 for ST, but T20 is still better for situations with AoE/adds that reduce Orb CD.

[Swizzle]

I see that they're making some balancing changes in 7.3.5 and they don't touch mages.
I'm just looking at the aggregate and for a pure dps spec, aren't mages doing fairly poorly?
I'm going off of mythic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17

and heroic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#difficulty=4

It's weird that Arcane is showing that high for Mythic parses, I can't think of a single fight that favors the spec. However, if they want the specs to perform a bit better, all they have to do is buff the set bonuses slightly. 2% buff to each 4-piece bonus should be fine, but for Frost what I wish they would do is stop allowing Brain Freeze Ice Lances to consume Fingers of Frost. It's such a stupid DPS loss. Or at least code it to give a higher damage modifier if it does consume a FoF.

[Alphatorg]

I see that they're making some balancing changes in 7.3.5 and they don't touch mages.
I'm just looking at the aggregate and for a pure dps spec, aren't mages doing fairly poorly?
I'm going off of mythic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17

and heroic 75% parses:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#difficulty=4

I see people are still unable to comprehend wcl stats in 2018..

Frost is so utterly terrible it's
1st on Argus
2nd on Aggramar
4th on Coven (with Fire also being represented a lot at #6)
2nd on Varimathras

in # of parses.

[sifting]

these 2 arcane mages know their shit
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJH..._YaKu_IHlPQTNQ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIG..._-95oK6jkKmang
anyone can make any spec shine, it's the player not the game

[Fayenoor]

Well a few off the top of my head (for fire)

Flame patch build is insane on eonar. My dps is always miles ahead of the next one. On kin garoth you can build a really fat ignite on the vulnerable adds so hold combustion for them and go to the add with the least amount of people on it so your ignite has a chance to tick on them.

How are you beating an Aff lock with a Flame Patch build? Can you link logs so that I can see? Aff locks wreck Eonar.

- - - Updated - - -

I see people are still unable to comprehend wcl stats in 2018..

Frost is so utterly terrible it's
1st on Argus
2nd on Aggramar
4th on Coven (with Fire also being represented a lot at #6)
2nd on Varimathras

in # of parses.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#

Where do you see that?

Aah - in number of parses - not DPS ranking.

[cafecito820]

/logout
-create new character
- choose warlock
- login
-level to 110
/profit

Then, slowly start to die inside as every time you join a group, you're immediately met with
"summonz pls"
"summs"
"1"
"1"
"summon?"
"11111"

[Deleted]

Then, slowly start to die inside as every time you join a group, you're immediately met with
"summonz pls"
"summs"
"1"
"1"
"summon?"
"11111"

Its pushing one button and go afk until the raid finished porting, not so hard.

[osmo]

Then, slowly start to die inside as every time you join a group, you're immediately met with
"summonz pls"
"summs"
"1"
"1"
"summon?"
"11111"

thats still beter then vanilla water making for your raid

[cafecito820]

thats still beter then vanilla water making for your raid

I actually played mage through MC, so I don't disagree. However, I'm sure a Classic warlock player would happily remind you that they had to farm Soul Shards before every raid just to be able to use some of their core abilities.

The thing that annoys me with the summoning is that everyone just expects it. People join groups and sit in Dalaran expecting everyone else to either go to the summoning stone or invite a warlock to the group, as if going to the flight master and clicking your destination is so much effort. It just promotes laziness.

[Fayolynn]

I see people are still unable to comprehend wcl stats in 2018..

Frost is so utterly terrible it's
1st on Argus
2nd on Aggramar
4th on Coven (with Fire also being represented a lot at #6)
2nd on Varimathras

in # of parses.

Why does number of parses matter?

[Ambereldus]

Why does number of parses matter?

It doesn't, it was a joke.

However, its still concerning that Frost has a HUGE amount of parses...yet still underperforms.
E.g. on Mythic 75th percentile, Frost is on average second lowest on the rankings, only beating BM (which is also popular ), yet it ranks 3rd highest in # of parses, beaten by Havoc and Aff. Havoc is also doing poor overall, but Aff is definitely the Flavour-of-the-Month having over 50% more parses than Havoc/Frost AND ranking #1 overall highest. Granted Aff isn't perfect in every fight, but when it excels, it destroys everyone else.

Having a high # of parses yet low ranking indicates that the spec is underperforming because popular specs also tend to have the more skilled players, regardless of the spec's performance. Gamers are sheep, and we flock to the specs we perceive as being powerful. If all streamers and high-end players started using Arcane, the playrate of that spec would skyrocket and so would its overall performance. We already saw this with Frost at the beginning of the expansion, when it got buff after buff after buff even though it was already VERY strong...but nobody played it and its stats looked awful because the high-end players were ignoring it. Then in NH, people started playing it, and realized how OP is was. Inb4 Legendaries and AP preventing people from switching.


Back OT though, I can't really think of anything Mage-specific for boss tips aside from using your immunities liberally. Since Frost gets 2 nearly back-to-back, you can make the healers' lives easier by soaking some of the player targeted mechanics like Marked Prey on Varimathras.

[Fayolynn]

Gotcha, was sitting here like how does that make any sort of sense.

[Alphatorg]

Why does number of parses matter?

Maybe because ambitious mythic guilds - you know, like the ones that had Aggramar and Argus in particular down at the time of my post - don't have random lineups for serious bosses
If mages were a waste of space then those guilds would bench them and/or their designated mage players would switch to a different class.

It doesn't, it was a joke.

However, its still concerning that Frost has a HUGE amount of parses...yet still underperforms. E.g. on Mythic 75th percentile, Frost is on average second lowest on the rankings, only beating BM (which is also popular ), yet it ranks 3rd highest in # of parses, beaten by Havoc and Aff. Havoc is also doing poor overall, but Aff is definitely the Flavour-of-the-Month having over 50% more parses than Havoc/Frost AND ranking #1 overall highest. Granted Aff isn't perfect in every fight, but when it excels, it destroys everyone else.

Having a high # of parses yet low ranking indicates that the spec is underperforming because popular specs also tend to have the more skilled players, regardless of the spec's performance. Gamers are sheep, and we flock to the specs we perceive as being powerful. If all streamers and high-end players started using Arcane, the playrate of that spec would skyrocket and so would its overall performance. We already saw this with Frost at the beginning of the expansion, when it got buff after buff after buff even though it was already VERY strong...but nobody played it and its stats looked awful because the high
-end players were ignoring it. Then in NH, people started playing it, and realized how OP is was. Inb4 Legendaries and AP preventing people from switching.


Back OT though, I can't really think of anything Mage-specific for boss tips aside from using your immunities liberally. Since Frost gets 2 nearly back-to-back, you can make the healers' lives easier by soaking some of the player targeted mechanics like Marked Prey on Varimathras.

You sir must be an expert!

People switched to Frost in NH because a) Fire got nerfed and b) double IL was discovered.

I also seriously have a hard time understanding how people are still incapable of interpreting wcl aggregate stats. Since you are a very smart guy you surely realize that you're trying to judge the Frost spec via a mertric that also tells you that Arcane is clearly the best spec?? Maybe that would be the point where you take a closer look at what you're seeing and try to think for a moment why that is? Maybe, since you're a smart guy, you browse through the particular encounters to see where Arcane is actually doing well? Maybe, since you're a smart guy, you see that it's mainly the trivial bomb encounters (+Imonar). Maybe, since you're a smart guy, you then realize that aggregate spec rankings are heavily skewed towards AE fights, which happen to be pretty trivial in this tier, and thus are pretty worthless themselves.

[sifting]

every thread in this forum becomes derailed and into a flavor the month spec discussion, boring

play what spec you find enjoyable and if your guild doesn't like it, f them find another

[MrExcelion]

I've noticed you can ice block off Golganneth's debuff but I don't think it does anything

[sifting]

I've noticed you can ice block off Golganneth's debuff but I don't think it does anything

iceblock his decimation? yeah i guess you could
as arcane i just blink over and displace back
also as arcane you can greater invis eradication

[Bugg]

It's weird that Arcane is showing that high for Mythic parses, I can't think of a single fight that favors the spec. However, if they want the specs to perform a bit better, all they have to do is buff the set bonuses slightly. 2% buff to each 4-piece bonus should be fine, but for Frost what I wish they would do is stop allowing Brain Freeze Ice Lances to consume Fingers of Frost. It's such a stupid DPS loss. Or at least code it to give a higher damage modifier if it does consume a FoF.

I'm not a mage, but I have a question: what kind of encounters would favor an Arcane mage before a Frost or Fire one?

[Swizzle]

I'm not a mage, but I have a question: what kind of encounters would favor an Arcane mage before a Frost or Fire one?

Limited/no movement, required burst windows that line up with the burn rotation, and zero or limited cleave.

If there's a lot of movement or AoE, Fire will beat it.

If there are no real burn windows, the sustained DPS from Frost will beat it.