Mage PvE FAQ

[gaymer77]

Magic absorption gives 80 resist. MA + imp MOTW = 115 resist. MA + resist aura = 210 resist. resist increments are in 10%, but a single resist value can have multiple resist %s

This is WITHOUT ICE ARMOR

Again I point you to test it ingame for yourself. Frost resistance aura/totem does not stack with MOTW. Have a druid give you MOTW (gives 75 resistance for all the druid that get imp MOTW which should be all of them anyway) and then party with a pally that has on frost resistance aure or a shaman that throws down his frost resistance totem. Now click off your MOTW and look at how your frost resistance doesn't move. They don't stack that's why. Don't believe me, TEST IT OUR YOURSELF AND YOU'LL SEE.

who the HELL cares? You should NOT rely on that talent for mana. Replen/managem/evo is enough for most, if not all, fights.
and give your healers a heart attack, or get 1 shotted in HM marrow? Some of the NON casuals don't have that luxury. Besides, you should be fire that fight.

I've done HM Marrowgar on multiple toons in 10 and 25 man. You don't get 1 shotted if you take 1 tick of coldflame. Its people who stand in there that die. Otherwise you'd have 1/2 your raid dead during the first whirlwind. Have you even done HM Marrowgar and seen this supposed 1 shotting (most likely a cleave or someone stood in the flames or someone got hit during the whirlwind + flames at the same time) or are you just exaggerating to try and prove a point that you failed to make? The point I was making in my question is why is that talent better than IA which provides more utility for the mage.

But please explain to me how my math is wrong in the two quotes you brought up. Frost & Fire wards absorb a set amount of fire/frost dmg (scaled with your SP) not ALL damage. You brought up taking a 1 million dmg fire hit with fire ward on & the gaining 150k spellpower. Yeah theoredically that would be correct if you had the HP to survive that hit & your fire ward could absorb that much damage but neither of those are true and that's what makes it an invalid example (or are you on some private server that lets their players absorb 1 million fire damage with fire ward because THAT would make your example a valid one) and even if you take how much fire damage a typical fire ward would absorb and subtract it from the 1 million damage, your mage would have to have well over 980,000 HP to survive the damage after your fire ward mitigates what it will.

[Skarrd]

Okay, here's the deal. Believe me or don't believe me. IA is WORTHLESS. Worthless. W-o-r-t-h-l-e-s-s. MA is invaluable for every fight that is healing intensive (infest says hi). MA shined very brightly in 3.1 for ulduar hardmodes like mimi, freya, and thorim.

Survivability is important, and IA will do -nothing- for you on any fight but sindragosa, and even then it is fairly worthless. Some small SP gain at the cost of a GCD? Meh.

Take MA, IA is terrible and a shadow of what it once was.


Also, he didn't say the auras stacked with motw. I see how it could have been read that way, but 80+130+75 is not his listed number of 210, while 130+80 is 210. Just thought I'd point that out.

[Tassir]

Again I point you to test it ingame for yourself. Frost resistance aura/totem does not stack with MOTW. Have a druid give you MOTW (gives 75 resistance for all the druid that get imp MOTW which should be all of them anyway) and then party with a pally that has on frost resistance aure or a shaman that throws down his frost resistance totem. Now click off your MOTW and look at how your frost resistance doesn't move. They don't stack that's why. Don't believe me, TEST IT OUR YOURSELF AND YOU'LL SEE.

Lets do elementary math... AGAIN!
MA (80 resist) + MOTW (75 resist) = 115 resist!
MA (80 resist) + resist aura (130 resist) = 210 resist!
O noes! Tass wuz right!

or to say it the best way that I you can:

Don't believe me, TEST IT OUR YOURSELF AND YOU'LL SEE.

I've done HM Marrowgar on multiple toons in 10 and 25 man. You don't get 1 shotted if you take 1 tick of coldflame. Its people who stand in there that die. Otherwise you'd have 1/2 your raid dead during the first whirlwind. Have you even done HM Marrowgar and seen this supposed 1 shotting (most likely a cleave or someone stood in the flames or someone got hit during the whirlwind + flames at the same time) or are you just exaggerating to try and prove a point that you failed to make? The point I was making in my question is why is that talent better than IA which provides more utility for the mage.

Your point: Take IA, TAKE MORE damage, get a SP boost from it
My point: Take MA, TAKE LESS damage, have less stressful healers.

Lets ask a healer and see who has the better point. Better yet, let your raid leader go over your WOLs for that fight (hint: they call whoever takes coldflame damage bad, especially in heroic).

But please explain to me how my math is wrong in the two quotes you brought up. Frost & Fire wards absorb a set amount of fire/frost dmg (scaled with your SP) not ALL damage. You brought up taking a 1 million dmg fire hit with fire ward on & the gaining 150k spellpower. Yeah theoredically that would be correct if you had the HP to survive that hit & your fire ward could absorb that much damage but neither of those are true and that's what makes it an invalid example (or are you on some private server that lets their players absorb 1 million fire damage with fire ward because THAT would make your example a valid one) and even if you take how much fire damage a typical fire ward would absorb and subtract it from the 1 million damage, your mage would have to have well over 980,000 HP to survive the damage after your fire ward mitigates what it will.

because both FW and IA work in synergy. the negated damage is considered an absorb. theoretically you could pop fire ward, stand in rocket strike, and have a 30% chance of living, gaining 150k spellpower if you do.

Last time I checked this was in 3.2.0a, I've yet to test this in the current build.

[WesM63]

All the nonsense aside, the main reason we take MA over IA is due to the fact MA is 2 better spent talent points for 99.99% of the time. That other .1% IA is better, but what mage in their right mind is going to spend 2 talent points for a .1% benefit?

I get regular, full resists from NORMAL damage in HM ICC 25. (i.e not something I can avoid like Cold Flame) TBH, It happens much more than one would expect and when it happens, my healers rejoice at the fact I just resisted a 10k shadow bolt from LDW and i get a chuckle on the inside knowing I got mana in return.

As everyone previously mentioned, IA WAS the way to go. At the time (3.1 -3.2) it was practically required by mages. Twins is the most notable example of why.

I fought the change at first, then i did what any sane person would do. I sat down, looked at the talent tree and thought to myself, "In ICC what will I get the most benefit from". I reviewed each of the potential talents and what encounter they would be a pro/con on. After doing that, MA was the clear winner, there are waaaay to many encounters that you take normal magic damage from.

To each their own I suppose. There will always be mages running the wrong build and using the wrong rotation.

[Belize]

Just as an FYI if you are on the bare limit of 17 % there is a extremly small chance you will miss... thats like 17.02 ive seen it happen.

[Laadeeda]

Just as an FYI if you are on the bare limit of 17 % there is a extremly small chance you will miss... thats like 17.02 ive seen it happen.

or you ran out of range of heroic presence, or your spriest/boomkin died.

[Maxpowr]

Instead of making a whole other thread about it, I figured I would just make a post here.

I have been leveling an alt mage and hit 80 this past week. Been farming heroics and started to get into raids and loving every bit of it (compared to healing).

I am ttw/fire spec. My question is when to pop combustion. It seems like a very potent ability but I just don't know when I should be using it during a fight. Use it with mirror image?

Any input from veteran mages would be awesome.

[Tassir]

Instead of making a whole other thread about it, I figured I would just make a post here.

I have been leveling an alt mage and hit 80 this past week. Been farming heroics and started to get into raids and loving every bit of it (compared to healing).

I am ttw/fire spec. My question is when to pop combustion. It seems like a very potent ability but I just don't know when I should be using it during a fight. Use it with mirror image?

Any input from veteran mages would be awesome.

pop it with zerking/engi glove enchant/speedpot/Power infusion/tricks of the trade... and mirror image at the start.

[Skarrd]

pop it with zerking/engi glove enchant/speedpot/Power infusion/tricks of the trade... and mirror image at the start.

This, but I'll make it less misleading because everything but the last two don't actually make combustion any stronger.

Combustion should be used under these conditions provided the second condition exists/is possible.

1) Use it while you are casting living bomb so that you do not wasted a charge on an in flight spell that gains no benefit.
2) Use it during damage increasing cooldowns such as 4pc, tricks, flame cap, etc.
3) Use it when the boss is below 35% hp (this is basically just another damage increasing "cooldown").

[fuffles]

Swizzle, you should make a list of 2nd and 3rd BIS Weapons/off-hands for Fire and Arcane..

Thats cos many people won't be able to heroic bloodsurge anytime soon.

[Skarrd]

Swizzle, you should make a list of 2nd and 3rd BIS Weapons/off-hands for Fire and Arcane..

Thats cos many people won't be able to heroic bloodsurge anytime soon.

We've been over this a few times. BiS list is simply that: a list of THE BEST item combination possible in game. If you can't get one of the pieces, make your own list of items and make that your goal. Rawr can be used by everyone, and we don't need 10 lists of top gearsets in this FAQ because people aren't killing heroic LK.

[TruffleMuffin]

Swizzle, you should make a list of 2nd and 3rd BIS Weapons/off-hands for Fire and Arcane..

Thats cos many people won't be able to heroic bloodsurge anytime soon.

I think your coming from another class to Mages, I notice a lot of other classes have BiS lists which simply list the top 3 Best In Slot based on the itemization of that slot. It seems silly to me that these lists are used by people because while those items may have the best itemization for that slot they sometimes can't actually be used because as a whole as they don't provide enough hit etc.

A recent example was a shadowpriest in my guild rolling on some hands from princes as it was his BiS. Then he said he could probably not use it as he wouldn't have enough hit with the other items that were BiS. Nobody else wanted it, but still, if you cant use the item, its not your BiS.

I understand what your saying, in that you want less hard to get items as a BiS list, in some cases this is easily achieved, but in other cases it requires a complete re-think of the whole setup. Then you have to base that on what bosses are available to person X and make the list from that. If you want a weapon other than Bloodsurge then there are 3 easy choices, normal bloodsurge, or heroic rigormortis / frozen bone spike. Depending on what you have access to get one of those.

[takolin]

I'll be nice.

If you can't get heroic LK loot but all other heroic loot, then Rigormortis from Putricide is the better option, yes I ran rawr for it once, but then you need to rework some gear because it has hit.
If you're too lazy to do that, which you are because you asked the silly question in the 1st place, get the marrowgar 25 weapon even though it has spirit rather than haste.

[TruffleMuffin]

I'll be nice.

If you can't get heroic LK loot but all other heroic loot, then Rigormortis from Putricide is the better option, yes I ran rawr for it once, but then you need to rework some gear because it has hit.
If you're too lazy to do that, which you are because you asked the silly question in the 1st place, get the marrowgar 25 weapon even though it has spirit rather than haste.

Why would you consider dropping/replacing other BiS items to accommodate extra hit received from Rigormortis. Simply wait to get LK 25 HC. It is not the end of the world to be above 8% hit.

[Atone]

Would you be able to add what Armor buff to use for each Specc? Or is it just Molten for all?

[ItachiZaku]

I think your coming from another class to Mages, I notice a lot of other classes have BiS lists which simply list the top 3 Best In Slot based on the itemization of that slot.

I know as a former spriest, our website has 8-15 list for each slot with certain understandings, as in hit capped already and such.

[takolin]

Why would you consider dropping/replacing other BiS items to accommodate extra hit received from Rigormortis. Simply wait to get LK 25 HC. It is not the end of the world to be above 8% hit.

It's not the end of the world, but it is suboptimal as hit over the cap is a waste of ilvl points.

[Deleted]

you forgot that to max your DPS you should equip 2 parts of t9 and glyph of molten armor before casting molten armor, then taking the t9 parts off aswell as swapping arcane power glyph with molten armor ><

[TruffleMuffin]

you forgot that to max your DPS you should equip 2 parts of t9 and glyph of molten armor before casting molten armor, then taking the t9 parts off aswell as swapping arcane power glyph with molten armor ><

The T9 thing I understand, the Glyph thing I do not.

[Swizzle]

you forgot that to max your DPS you should equip 2 parts of t9 and glyph of molten armor before casting molten armor, then taking the t9 parts off aswell as swapping arcane power glyph with molten armor ><

1) the t9 bug is being fixed in patch 3.3.5 so not worth listing or mentioning
2) glyph of arcane power is a DPS loss for arcane when compared to glyph of molten armor
3) chinese mcdonald's is better than american mcdonald's