The Mage solo thread, because who needs a DK ?

[Polarthief]

Since most of our soloing capabilities lies in artifact traits and items, not so much. We will take Cold Snap (the new passive) all time anyway, so I don't see a major increase in soloing cost. At least, no more than right now

I guess, though there's definitely some times where I really want to swap talents for specific things *shrug*.

I'm going to miss all my leech gear going into Legion.

I just wish they'd turn Valor Points into a way to put tertiary on gear. Not ever getting leech sucks. I barely got any tertiary my entire time in BRF but I'd always get sockets. I was known as the king of sockets as I think I had 11 by the end of BRF. But, I had like 1 WF and 1 Speed tertiary or something, idk, all I remember having was an assload of sockets. That's all fine and dandy but I'd much rather have had Leech :\

[isaac2314]

God damn it.

Out of curiosity, can you do this with Frost? Or does it not do enough damage to survive P1?
PS: Might Heroic be doable?
PPS: With 23.33% Leech, do you think you can finish Spoils of Pandaria? Go as Fire, open everything and just burn (although Spoils do have a lot of caster mobs on the Mogu side, so that might not be easy)

[Araitik]

God damn it.

Out of curiosity, can you do this with Frost? Or does it not do enough damage to survive P1?
PS: Might Heroic be doable?
PPS: With 23.33% Leech, do you think you can finish Spoils of Pandaria? Go as Fire, open everything and just burn (although Spoils do have a lot of caster mobs on the Mogu side, so that might not be easy)

Surviving P1 as Frost would be near impossible imho. Notice how I don't use any cooldown before second Acid Torrent, purely because of the huge Combustion burst I'm putting out. That kind of DPS would be impossible as Frost, forcing you to use cooldown much earlier, probably making P1 unsurvivable.

Heroic is probably unkillable for the same reason : I get destroyed in P1 and P2 hurts at 100 stacks in Normal, Heroic is probably unattainable for us (while DKs and Monks can do Mythic )

For Spoils, probably doable, I will try to attempt it but I had no plan to go back to SoO anytime soon ^^

[Malmmoc]

I'm going to miss all my leech gear going into Legion.

Are they removing leech as a stat, or do you mean you'll have to re-farm leech pieces?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Are they removing leech as a stat, or do you mean you'll have to re-farm leech pieces?

Re-farm. I've got something along the lines of 21% in my best leech set, and that all becomes irrelevant at 110 due to ratings going to shit.

[Malmmoc]

Re-farm.

Oh good, you scared me there. Oh, and 21%... damn!

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Oh, and 21%... damn!

Being the guild DE guy has its perks.

[Deleted]

I just wait for bosses to be 2 expansions old so I don't care, but I wanted to contribute something in this thread.

This is how Lappe from Paragon said that he does Kazzak:

Unleashed Mania
9 Stacks of that green shit
Leorajh bloodlust
Drums (bloodlust)
100% crit rune (Mage Tower)
10% stats (LW tent)
for sub 10sec kills I need: 100% dmg (Last deck of Nemelex Xobeh)

[Raji]

That's what Cauterizing Blink should be. Wow. It's made a lot worse that it has to use a chest piece slot. Hoping it at least stacks twice with Shimmer.

Those non-Mage healing ones are just ridiculous though.

Is Cauterizing Blink bad? 50% heal over a short time according to the calcs, but I don't have beta. Whats wrong with it?

It+shield+heal on ice block is the reason I've finally decided to play a mage.

[isaac2314]

I don't really follow legion data carefully, but I think it was at first overpowered, then utterly useless (3% per rank), and now solid (18% per rank)

Just going by the talents/traits I don't think mages have better survival than now (no more heal on Cold Snap, for one, and being basically forced to pick Ice Barrier over Flameglow and Alter Time, which are usually superior)
The vital point would be, I think, the amount of leech in T19 and the degree of ease with which they are acquired - and, to a lesser degree, the legendary items.
We'll get to see really soon, at any rate.

[arsikk]

can u post your weakaruas combustion total damage and ignite track please?

[Deleted]

I went into a 25h Terrace of Endless Spring with a premade 110 and it seemed to not have a bonus on damage like older raids but the character couldn't easily die and the bosses eventually died relatively soon. In overall it seemed that the operation would be a walk in the park with a character that gets some tier raiding gear (and some more experience on how Legion plays). I'm not interested in soloing challenging content, just to see if it's easy to faceroll it on 7.0.

[Deleted]

How is mage soloing in Legion looking compared to, say, moonkin or warlock? I'm not looking for cutting edge soloing, mostly some mount farming.

[enak101]

well any class will be able to do any mount runs in legion
with these exceptions

if they dont fix M Garrosh he still won't properly be soloable (if they do fix some issues, i think most classes could do it with some gear)
mythic blackhand will be soloed by some classes in legion maybe (but definitely not mages)
mythic archi probably wont be done by anyone anyway

anything older than this and its a piece of cake already anyway. for your overall question, mage will probably be in a similar spot where they are in the bottom rungs of soloing, maybe some niche cases where they do something fun.

[Deleted]

They tend to make soloable whatever is not mechanically solelable, if it's from an ancient expansion (ancient = older than the previous).

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Now when, that's another matter, it might not happen immediately.

[isaac2314]

Greetings everyone,
I've just recently tried my hand at some kills - nothing too complicated for now, although I'll be sure to go for harder kills once there is time and ilvl.
An important thing to note is that Highmaul and BRF has now suffered two debuffs, bringing the total to 30% less damage and 45% less health.
Really, we're all cheating by killing them this late, but it can't be helped.

Anyway, I present to you 5/7 Normal Highmaul:

Kargath - It's easy enough on normal, but I can see it being much harder on heroic or mythic. Would need heals to go past the second minute.

Tectus: 1 medium 4 small or 8 small is definitely the hardest part. I saved hero for the start of 2 mediums to kill both, although there probably is a better dps strategy.

Twin Ogrons: I tried double blinking away from Enfeebling once and didn't work. Maybe it can? They died before first Enfeebling on my second try anyway.

Ko'ragh: Just time your dps right. I always accidentally enter Vulnerability during Expel Arcane.

Imperator: Save enough instants to kill the transition adds, use Ice Block to remove slow (only when it won't expire until too late), and good luck. Imperator hits very hard, and it's advisable to save major cooldowns to end his phases as fast as possible.

Fire, Rank 17, ilvl 846, no leech.

Note: in general, blinking with Cauterizing Blink is how Fire mages will heal. Remember to use it, but not too much that you can't get out of important shit.

[isaac2314]

Another rather non-serious attempt, clearing up bosses we've never killed:

MSV 25H Will of the Emperor

ToES 25H Sha

Sadly, Amber-Shaper 25H remains too hard to kill. 25N should be possible with a bit more gear.

It will probably be ToT next, then SoO, then after the warmup finally BRF/Heroic Highmaul.

Notes: Will of the Emperor 25H becomes untankable (for 110 mages) after around 8 stacks of Titan Spark. I'm not sure if there is a way to cleverly avoid them getting the stacks, but just burning the boss down should work. Flamestrike/Living Bomb to get rid of frontal-immunity adds.

Sha of Fear 25H needs to have adds killed in P2. Nothing else in that fight matters much, so save Fire Blasts/Flame On/Phoenix's Flames for adds.

[Araitik]

Holy hell, I knew that Highmaul would be easy but not THAT easy. And here I am sitting at 833 while everyone else drops 850 gear each dungeon

Great job isaac, and I think now is the time to renew the OP since it is completely outdated.

I have several questions, anyone is welcomed to answer :

- Should we only focus on Fire spec since it is the only one played right now ?
- Should the existing sections remain (except glyphs of course) ? What items could we add, if any ?
- Legendary items ?
- Is there anything that should be added ?

I have thought of making a video "soloing guide" for the Mage in Legion, what would you put in such a video ?

Thanks for your help

[isaac2314]

Part two of warming up for WoD with MoP, this time in Throne of Thunder. All are killed on 25H except Animus, Lei Shen (doable, but can't without killing animus on 25H) and Ra-Den (same as Lei Shen)

Bosses of note:


Durumu: I had meant to do the Light Spectrum phase properly, but for some reason the Red Fogs did not spawn at all. Nor the other fogs, for that matter. In this kill the boss died while he's casting Obliteration. Simple DPS race, if you want it that way.


Dark Animus: it is, in fact, possible to kill all small golems even on 25H. The problem is surviving the enrage afterwards, as you can see in the photo. With 21M health, you'd need to stay alive for a long time. I'm not sure if it's possible to divert the anima onto other golems effectively, since I've tried many positions and none of them seem to stop the boss from getting 100 as soon as every small golem blows up.

Anyway, what I did was simple: pull boss, put down RoP, cast Combustion, cast a Meteor on my current location, cast Living Bomb on something that you think will hit the most of the small golems (which is usually an incoming golem), Ice Block, and pray everything dies. It worked in my case, although I have Mythic Corrupted Starlight and Skovald's Eye, so I'm not sure how much they contributed (didn't turn on Recount) and whether or not this is possible without those trinkets. I think it should be, at least on normal.

To do it on 25H, I imagine you'd need maximum Avoidance (20%), a respectable amount of Leech, and a way to prevent losing too much health in the small golem elimination phase while killing them all effectively.


Lei Shen: It's fun to Living Bomb, but don't overdo it. Eliminate Bouncing Bolts as much as you can (which is rather futile after p2, unless you have very good internet to prevent lagging), don't get knocked off the platform, and weave your AoE attacks to keep add numbers constantly low. Of course, if you have even the tiniest amount of leech, it's probably impossible to die.


(Speculation) Ra-Den: He has ~34.4M health, so we'd need some way to survive Murderous Strike. Cauterizing Blink/Ice Block might work, but I won't know until I try it.





Re: Araitik: Honestly, as I said, they nerfed it twice, so much that ToT 25H really is harder than Highmaul. Seriously.
About guides, I'd say to put something up about other specs, sure, but only if you are already familiar with it. No need to learn another spec for that.
I'd say a guide about important items would be nice (along with a new talent analysis). In fact, I already have some in mind:

Satin Throatclutchers: drops off Blood-Princess in Violet Hold, guaranteed Leech. I'm not actually sure if it can roll extra Leech - probably yes?
Prizerock Neckband: Archaeology bi-weekly quest, socket bonus is Leech. Also, a crit version would be BiS for Fire mages.

And some other items like that, but I can't think of any right now.

A short guide on important Legendaries would be nice too - the chest, for example, would obviously be very good.




PS1: Tsulong and Lei Shi are also done on 25H. Didn't find them noteworthy.
PS2: Megaera died just fine on 25H, but I forgot to take a kill-shot of it.

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First try in BRF:



I panicked towards the end - it's possible to end it much more smoothly. Anyhow, I killed the rylak first with all cooldowns since it can cast Conflagration, which just generally makes things very difficult. It's rather easy after the first beast dies - blink as appropriate, don't get hit by spears and the boss should go down easily. The damage does get a bit high towards the end, so heroic might be hard. All in all, a rather fun boss fight.

I also tried the other accessible bosses, but Gruul hits really hard, Thogar hits really hard, Hans/Franz hits really hard and resets without Mirror Image, and Blackhand hits extremely hard. Maybe some other day.

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Mythic Nazgrim

Took me a few tries. First, you need Gamon - without him, Nazgrim simply spams War Song even when he could Ravager - I suspect that he is set to be unable to use Ravager when there is only one single targettable thing. Unstable Magic/Cinderstorm, ignore adds (of course, not quite certain it's a good idea to ignore them, but the boss died), and use all cooldowns after Berserker Stance. Ice Block if he uses War Song, but I wouldn't recommend Cold Snap - if he War Songs more than once, there already is something wrong, and you should try again.

Mythic Malkorok is doable, definitely, either with more HPS or, more usefully, DPS. Survived almost two minutes, but I wasn't sure if I ran into any white orb.

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Proudly presenting:



Living Bomb/Cinderstorm. The only two critical parts of the fight are p1-p2, where the Bellow Operators fight and the last part, where the boss itself fights. Thin the numbers of adds appropriately before transitioning and save all cooldowns for p3, although feel free to use everything but Time Warp to off Foreman on pull.
(Note: I played very poorly; if all things go right the fight should be much shorter, but I messed up multiple times and have to wait to recover my mistakes. Also, have no idea why Heat went to 100 in the first minute of the fight.)

On another note, Flamebender is harder than I thought, since I completely forgot about Molten Torrent (or the fact that we no longer have Evansce.) Probably doable, but a while later.

Maiden is actually surprisingly possible, since other than Gar'an the other two doesn't seem to hit too hard. Will try once I can get an appropriate lockout.

[Araitik]

Well, Legion soloing sure looks good

I'll give a few bosses a try if I manage to get some actual loot