Help our Arcane Mage out

[Sonnillon]

First off to start - I don't know anything about mages, thus I cannot say is he doing decently or not, to his gear level.

Last night we barely killed Protectors and just couldn't get past Tsulong (though we've killed him with a different group).

When I asked our mage to do more DPS on Tsulong, he said that he just cannot do any more. From what I understood, he didn't stay at 100% mana as he suppose to be as Arcane. Also he said that cannot use his mana circle thing (I don't know the skill name, sorry), as it required movement. He was tasked to deal with Sha spawns on one side in Day phase. And ofc in night moving in and out of pillars and out of the Shadows is not easy probably as well.
But i general I feel he could do bit more with his gear. But again, I don't know anything about mages and that DPS of his could be the one he can do...

To his defense I can say that he rolled a mage, as he felt that boomkin was not for him.

In general what kind of DPS can an average mage (pls don't compare him or our entire raid to elite groups, as we are not one) with sub-par skill level do with his gear? Any "normal" arcane mage log would help me out as well, so I can use the compare bot so see and show him what skill usage he should improve.

Also do you have tips or tricks for the rest of the bosses in ToES which could help him do more damage? Maybe he should try different spec out?

His armory. (he got his leggings just last night, probably that's why they're unenchanted (replaced PvP ones)).
Logs from Tsulong, Protectors, MSV

[Deleted]

Well he's almost 1% above hitcap.

Then just checking your 2 longest tsulong attempts (8:16 and 8:15) he's almost not scorching at all. In my opinion atleast tsulong is somewhat frustrating as arcane mage due to the amount of movement, but for normal it's not that bad.

Using Arcane Explosion while moving to keep 6 stacks up if he's close enough to tsulong (glyph helps), then keeping in mind that alter time resets your stacks wich allows you to stand outside for quite some time while using cds without moving.

[Napwneon]

There are two problems with his dps:

1. He's dropping stacks with Arcane Barrage instead of camping 6-stacks and scorchweaving. This is massive DPS loss. He needs to never use arcane barrage except in very specific circumstances, and scorch whenever he drops below 90% mana.

2. He has god-awful nether tempest uptime at 21.7% - this figure should be 85 at the very least, and skilled mages will maintain 90-95% uptime or higher.

Fix these and you'll fix his dps issues.

[Deleted]

Im not gonna try be the asshole here but the best solution for your guild is to find yourself a new mage.

His damage is very bad, and the excuses for doing low damage are even worse.
Looking at the longest of your Tsulong fights he has a 15% uptime of Nether Tempest, that right there is immense damage loss. Also look at his total active time played during that fight, 70% active time playing, 30% just standing there afk..
Also stating that he can not stand on the Rune of Power (circle on floor as you put it), thats because he cant play his class. Simple as that. To prove this you can go check a log from my recent fights on Tsulong where a) My arcane mage is not in bottom of damage done like him, b) Im using Rune of power with a 75% uptime..
Sorry for the trouble though, fairly new user here so cant post link. Go to World of Logs > EU English realms > Twisting Nether > Ovärda > 13th Feb.

[Summer]

In fairness I don't know if there's any point to teaching a newbie mage the scorch-weaving rotation now since in a couple weeks it'll be gone.

But anyways. Having a rune of power on Tsulong is perfectly fine, you do have to run around a bit but you can go back to it. Just place it away from everyone else :P Having nightmares cast on the mage a lot can still destroy his dps but that is RNG that has to be accepted, more or less.

I cba to check this in the logs but make sure he's saving AM until he is at full stacks and not wasting procs while ramping up.

[Spliff]

It honestly looks like this guy has put nearly zero effort in learning how to play his mage. I know this isn't exactly constructive, but to me he doesn't strike me as the kind of person you'd want to be raiding with.

[Sonnillon]

Thanks for the tips. I will forward those to him.

In fairness I don't know if there's any point to teaching a newbie mage the scorch-weaving rotation now since in a couple weeks it'll be gone.

So if he read the guide on Arcane mages in this forums, using the scorch thing mentioned in "3.2 6-Charge camping using Scorch" he should ignore and just do the other things? Or is the one on Elitist Jerks better? If he hasn't checked those out, I would like to suggest the "best" guide for him as well.

It honestly looks like this guy has put nearly zero effort in learning how to play his mage. I know this isn't exactly constructive, but to me he doesn't strike me as the kind of person you'd want to be raiding with.

He switched from Balance to Mage, as he does more damage on mage then his boomy. I don't want to comment on his general skill while playing mage or any other class. I just hope that he managed to improve.

[Spliff]

I can understand if he's a friend and you're all happy raiding at your own pace.

---

The Arcane guide on these forums will be enough to significantly boost his DPS if he understands it properly. I would definitely suggest he camps at 6 stacks using scorch while he still can as it is a huge DPS increase and that is what you're looking for, right?

Tsulong is not the nicest fight for Arcane mages, but you can still do good DPS in it if you use your initiative. I use Rune of Power for it and it's mostly stand still other than blinking into the light to reset stacks every now and then. The day phase is also mostly a stand still one.

Specific fight mechanics aside, he should notice a big jump in DPS if he starts playing the spec using the optimal rotation (which he is not even close to currently).

[Sonnillon]

I can understand if he's a friend and you're all happy raiding at your own pace.

It's tad bit more complicated than that, but it wouldn't be "diplomatic" from me to say anything else in forums. We are trying to clear ToES before the patch, so that's why I'm here asking few pointers. Since we sit 3/4 in ToES and would like to kill Sha as well, but if there is no else to choose, the mage is the choice.

it's mostly stand still other than blinking into the light to reset stacks every now and then.

He didn't blink as far as I know, but ran. And he used the Evocation (I think that what is called) instead which he knew is not best skill to keep up.

Is this something he should be doing when he has to move?

1. Living Bomb/Nether Tempest/Frost Bomb
2. Scorch*
3. AM when it procs and you can be static for at least 2 sec.
4. Scorch/Ice Floes + AB

Which one do you think is easier to follow the guide here on the one at EJ (http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t132074-..._1_a/#Rotation) By just reading the rotation as someone who knows nothing about mages, the on in EJ seems more understandable for me. Though the scorch thing is a nice extra read in these forum.

[Drooul]

He should just be focusing on how to minimize his movement and put down good runes of powers. As you think through fights and get a feel for them arcane goes from op to ridiculously op. Specific things to keep in mind for Tsulong are that Alter Time drops his stacks so he can stand by himself for the pull/his initial burn and doesnt have to go to the beam for a while. When he does have to go to the beam he should be using blink, and having a 2nd rune of power down for when he has to drop stacks or dodge nightmares can be useful for unfriendly fights like Tsulong

Edit: After looking at the 2 8 minute attempts I didn't even see him use his cooldowns on those pulls? Maybe he just needs a night at the practice dummies if he isn't comfortable with his rotation when mechanics are added. Also he didn't use Temporal Shield or Ice Barrier on those attempts (I think?) so he might as well take Blazing Speed as an additional way to get to the light to drop debuffs.

[Sonnillon]

How many runes of power can and should mage have up in movement heavy fight? I know dumb question...

EDIT: He said that Evocation was bad for him to use, but he had to use it. Can he go w/o using it, if he places his runes down properly?

How can I find the logs did he use his CC on the small Sha or not?

[Drooul]

You can have 2 Runes up at a time, so you want one where you're standing and if you know you are going to move somewhere soon you'll want one there too, but you don't want to go crazy and always have 2 down when you don't need it.

In reply to your edit, do you mean if he put Slow on his add? You can glyph that so that Arcane Blast automatically applies it. Or did you mean some other CC? And Rune of Power is usable on every fight this tier, including heroics.

[Sonnillon]

I meant any form of CC or slow or anything. I don't know do Arcane mages have the frost trap thingy which can root multiple adds. It just felt the side where he was assigned to with some other DPS just didn't have enough add control x_x.

[Deleted]

tell him to read the guide here on the forums, especially the part about 6 stack - scorchweaving. that should be...more than fine.

my guild's progress was in toes a few weeks ago, and from what i can tell you, tsu long is a fucking annoying boss for an arcane mage. you see, we happen to lose about 75% of our dps if we cannot hit sth with either our arcane blast or arcane missiles for 10 sec. additionally we get serious mana problems if we don't stay in our Runes of Power (that circle thing :P). so having to deal with the adds on one side is a bit of a problem. it's very well possible to do it as an arcane mage, but it's a hassle since you have to move around a lot, place a new rune over and over again...
if your mage gets the idea of playing the arcane mage with scorch and rune of power, the thing he can do best (of all speccs there is in wow currently) is stand still and nuke whatever's happen to be in range. movement is always a bit difficult as arcane mage...

well as i said, he should be fine with the arcane guide in this forum, that playstyle will die in 2-3 weeks though because blizz changes a few things...

and btw, protectors elite mode is really really easy, if you haven't done it, try it that would be a fight where an arcane mage shines e.g.

about CC at tsu long: glyph of arcane blast. it casts slow on the target that's hit by arcane blast. quite nice if you have do deal with those solo.

[Sonnillon]

We killed it in Elite as it is easy... But I don't see any mage shining here: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/7...?s=2846&e=3332

Is then any other mage spec superior and more new mage friendly that he can try out?

[cockaroo]

Just have him delete his system32 folder, and that should bring your guild up quite a bit.

If you plan to keep him however, make it mandatory for him to watch this: http://www.twitch.tv/blatty/c/1803505

If he truly wants to learn, that will be all he needs.

[dementor]

First and foremost, arcane mages currently have 2 ways to stat and gem their gear... MASTERY or HASTE. You choose one but you don't dabble in both. Ideally he would use wowreforgelite addon, cause it reforges near perfect. It doesn't work out of the box for arcane, so I would recommend something like askmrrobot instead. Askmrobot will also tell him how to gem, because some of his gems are incorrect as well. Enchant his gloves int, and at the very least put windsong on his weapon.

When he does that tell him to add Dementor#1413 to real id, we can start on a dummy, then do a lfr and I can work with him from there.

Normal mode Tsulong isn't terrible for arcane mages, only competition being hunters and warriors and maybe locks imho. First kill I had arcane months ago I did 81k. Heroic Tsulong on the other hand is a different story, depending on the jobs you get in the fight.

Yes the playstyle of mages is going to change come 5.2, but with still have at least 2 weeks, might as well make the most of them.

[Saegno]

He can start by regemming/reforging to hit cap and not over it. Bracers should be reforged crit -> mastery, not haste, boots and ring 1 should be haste -> mastery. Wep needs an enchant, even windsong is better than nothing. Belt should not be gemmed for the bonus, 120 haste isn't worth it, and his chest shouldn't have a haste gem in it. Dem healer pants >_< .

[dementor]

We killed it in Elite as it is easy... But I don't see any mage shining here: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/7...?s=2846&e=3332

Is then any other mage spec superior and more new mage friendly that he can try out?

Quite possible to do well over 100k. Here's the oldest, unexpired log I have from 12-28 http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r.../?s=635&e=1004
I probably had a similar item level them. Trick is, instead of scorching to fish for missile procs, you put nether tempest on the other two bosses. Is that cheesing? Maybe, but ultimately it helps your single target. I also did more damage to each individual boss that anyone else in my raid and I know other classes were cheesing much harder.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 09:45 AM ----------

He can start by regemming/reforging to hit cap and not over it. Bracers should be reforged crit -> mastery, not haste, boots and ring 1 should be haste -> mastery. Wep needs an enchant, even windsong is better than nothing. Belt should not be gemmed for the bonus, 120 haste isn't worth it, and his chest shouldn't have a haste gem in it. Dem healer pants >_< .

Disagree, gemming for 120 haste bonus is very beneficial. Haste stat weight is marginally below mastery. Using arbitrary numbers, int=4, mastery=2.5, haste=2.4, crit=who cares.

So if you do the math, you way he has 320*3= 960 mastery x 2.5 = 2400 dps
My way he has 320+320+160= 2000; 120 x 2.4= 288; 160 x 2.5= 400; 2000+288+400= 2688 dps.

You might ask why did you could hit as 2.5. Well by having hit in the gem, he can reforge out of hit in other places. You have to remember he currently has 1200 hit incorrectly socketed in his helmet which much be made up else where.

[Sonnillon]

Trick is, instead of scorching to fish for missile procs, you put nether tempest on the other two bosses. Is that cheesing? Maybe, but ultimately it helps your single target. I also did more damage to each individual boss that anyone else in my raid and I know other classes were cheesing much harder.

Well our spriest did the "cheesing" on Protectors and it didn't help his eDPS against the boss out. As he didn't have enough mastery to carry the multidoting for insta cast stuff procs out. Thus I am unsure does the mage who raid with us has the stat budget and gear to carry out the multitargeting in single target fight in a way that would actually benefit his DPS.

I do believe that cheating the meters is oke, as long as you a) know what you are doing b) have the stats needed to use that tac.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 01:17 PM ----------

In general if I understood you guys correctly. He should
a) use an addon or something to get hit spell hit to 15% and no more
b) choose whether he goes for haste or mastery and just reforge into one or the other. Best place probably to try the different ways (mastery or haste out) will be a dummy
c) he should familiarize himself with the Arcane guide in this forum and try the scorchweaving out until 5.2
d) fix his reforges, by adding enchant on weapon. Should be out reforge from crit in most items to either haste or mastery (depending again which stat he will start favoring)
e) on Tsulong he should place down to power circle things so he doesn't have to use the Evowhatever skill. Also use blink from moving beam to beam. Glyph Arcane Blast for a slow.

Anything else I missed?