Table of Contents:
Part 1: The Basics
1.1 Filler Rotation
1.2 Stat Weights
1.3 Gems
1.4 Enchants
Part 2: The Intermediate
2.1 Talents
2.2 Glyphs
2.3 Gear Selection
2.4 Race Selection
Part 3: Advanced + Tips + Macros
3.1 Time Warp
3.2 The Pull
3.3 Invocation
3.4 Combustion:
BASICS
1.1 Filler Rotation: (lvl 90 talent/CD's and Combustion will be discussed later)
1.1.a) Keep your mage bomb up
1.1.b) Pyroblast when you have the insta-cast buff.
1.1.c) Queue Fireball into Fireball until you get a "Heating Up" proc. DO NOT CANCEL YOUR FIREBALL WHEN THIS PROCS. Instead, spam queue Inferno Blast to force the "Pyroblast" buff.
1.2 Stat Weights:
Int > SP > Hit + Expertise to 5100* > Crit* > Haste to 3056* > Haste > Mastery
(this is subject to change, and most likely we will be going for the 5500 haste break point this tier).
If you didn't already know, 1 expertise now equals 1 hit rating for casters. Use the combination of Hit and Expertise to reach 5100.
While everyone agrees that Int is the best stat, there is currently a disagreement about how good it is.
SimCraft tells us that: 2 Crit > 1 Int. However, there are quite a few mages out there that believe Simcraft is simply simulating it wrong and that 1 Int is still more than twice as good as any secondary.
Personally, I believe that 2 Crit > 1 Int.
1.3 Gems
Meta Gem: Burning
Pick your side!
1.3.a) If you believe 2 Crit > 1 Int, then you gem:
Prismatic: 320 Crit
Yellow: 320 Crit
Blue: 160 Hit + 160 Crit
Red: 80 Int + 160 Crit OR 160 Expertise + 160 Crit
1.3.b) If you believe 2 Crit < 1 Int, then you gem:
Prismatic: 160 Int
Yellow: 80 Int + 160 Crit
Blue: 160 Hit + 80 Int
Red: 160 Int
There is no middle ground! If you are doing some hodgepodge like:
Red: 160 Int
Yellow: 320 Crit
Prismatic: 160 Crit + 80 Int
THEN YOU FAIL AT GEARING!
1.4 Enchants:
Shoulder: Greater Crane > Lesser Crane
Back: Superior Int
Chest: Glorious Stats
Wrist: Super Int (once a guildy has revered Shadow Pan) > 170 Mastery
Hands: Superior Expertise > Greater Haste
Legs: Greater Cerulean Spellthread > Regular Cerulean Thread
Feet: Pandaren Step or Greater Precision > Greater Haste
Weapon:Jade Spirit > Windsong
Offhand: Major Int
The Intermediate
2.1 Talents
Your talents and glyphs will change on a per encounter basis.
2.1.a) There is a proactive way of handling Combustion that I cover at the end of this guide. I believe it to be the best method of handling combustion. It is CRUCIAL to have Presence of Mind for this method. We should always choose this talent if we can. Scorch should only be chosen in a fight with heavy movement.
2.1.b) Ice Barrier, Temporal Shield and Flameglow are all viable. Choice will change on per fight basis.
2.1.c) I generally pick Ring of Frost. Otherwise this tier doesn't matter.
2.1.d) Level 60 talent changes on a per fight basis.
2.1.e) Changes on per fight basis between Nether Tempest and Living Bomb.
2.1.f) I recommend Invocation for all fights.
2.2 Glyphs
- Combustion should be Glyphed for every fight.
3 Situational Glyphs
- Glyph of Armors: Good against H-Horridon, Ji'kun, Dark Animus (or any fight you take physical damage)
- Glyph of Infernoblast: should be used on any 3+ target fight.
- Glyph of Cone of Cold: A solid option for HM-Feng and Will of the Emperor
- Glyph of Evocate: should also be used if not using 2 of the above.
DO NOT GLYPH FROSTFIRE BOLT! That is essentially wasting a major glyph to make your fireball look blue.
2.3 Gear Selection
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...lE&usp=sharing
2.3 Race/Profession Selection
What race is the best DPS? (THIS IS FOR FIRE SPEC ONLY)
Horde: Troll(vs beast) > Orc (with wand) >Troll > Orc > Panda (with 250 food+) > Goblin > UD > BElf
Alliance: Worgen > Panda (with 250 food+) > Dranei = Hu/Gnome (with sword) > NE
Note: The 2 BiS weapons are a wand and a Sword.
Part 3: Advanced + Tips + Macros
3.1 Time Warp
Fireball travel time is about .5 seconds. It often does not register the crit -> heating up buff for .75 seconds. When you're spamming sub 1.5 second Fireballs during TW, any amount of latency makes it incredibly hard to react to the inferno blast on time. Quite a few mages just ignore Heating Up during TW and continuously spam Fireball.
3.2 Invocation:
The biggest mistake I see mages make with this talent is going for 100% uptime.
YOU DPS THE FULL 40 seconds. YOU LET THE BUFF FALL OFF. THEN YOU EVOCATE.
There are also several situation where you choose not to evocate when the buff falls off.
They Include:
- The remainder of the fight will last less than 25 seconds
- Your group NEEDS to push the boss into the next phase and you have less than 25 seconds to do so (or else Elegon will spawn an extra Protector, or Feng will do an extra Arcane Velocity/Epicenter kind of situation).
- You have 5 seconds left on Bloodlust, you should DPS for 4 seconds, and then Evocate on the last second of Lust.
- You will likely have to move in the next 5 seconds (like stack for Arcane Velocity, Dodge the line of soldiers on Spirit Kings).
How did I get 21.46 seconds?
1.15(x-k) = x
Where k = the time of your evocate. I used 2.8 second evocate in my calculation.
21.46 seconds (straight DPS)= 2146% DPS
21.46 seconds (evocate) = 18.66*1.15 + 2.8*0 = 2146% DPS
3.3 Combustion:
There are 2 ways of handling your combustion CD.
- The reactionary method. This method entails getting some addon like: CombustionHelper, MyBigIgnite and letting the addon tell you when to hit combustion. I believe this is the suboptimal.
- The proactive. This method entails working your CD's and setting yourself up to have a big ignite on demand. In this section I will elaborate on this method.
First off: the keys to the proactive method are Presence of Mind and Alter Time. The main thing that most mages seem to not understand is: You do not have to wait the full 6 seconds for Alter Time to reset you.
I use the simple macro:
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Alter Time
Scenario 1: Alter Time and PoM
- Fireball until you get a crit.
- Inferno Blast queue that crit into a Pyroblast Buff.
- Make sure Pyromaniac debuff (via mage bomb) is up.
- Pop all trinkets/Synapse Spring buffs
- Hit the Macro, then hit pyro - At this point it will fire 1 pyroblast (using up the buff), you will have a PoM buff, and 6 seconds till Alter Time ends.
- Hit Pyroblast again - this will use up the PoM buff (sending out pyroblast 2)
- Hit the Macro - This will preemptively end your Alter Time countdown and reset you to: Pyroblast buff and PoM buff
- Hit Pyroblast for insta pyroblast 3 (consuming the pyro buff for the 2nd time).
- Hit Pyroblast for insta pyroblast 4 (consuming PoM buff for the 2nd time).
- Hit Combust
Scenario 2: PoM
- Fireball until you get a crit.
- Inferno blast queue that crit into a Pyroblast Buff.
- Make sure Pyromaniac debuff (via mage bomb) is up.
- Pop all trinkets/Synapse Spring buffs
- Hardcast another Fireball
- Queue Insta Pyroblast via Pyroblast Buff.
- Hit the Macro, then quickly hit Pyroblast (using a PoM Pyro)
- Hit Combust
Glyphed Combustion is a 1:30 CD that exactly matches PoM. Alter Time of course is 3:00 CD. Thus you cycle between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2.
---------- Post added 2012-10-17 at 04:21 PM ----------
Other stuff I forgot to include:
Haste:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...ZmFYa0E#gid=39
Armor: Use Molten Armor
Edit: 10/30/12 Trinkets updated
Trinket being discussed here:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ket-Discussion
Update: 11/28/12 - Jade Spirit doesn't proc off evocate. Do not take off your weapon prepull.