Need help with gear : Arcane

[:1]Hi All,

I am looking for some help regarding stat priority with my gear. Elitestjerks says its based on gear but isnt very descriptive since you need to balance. I ran a Rawr calc and it doesn't look right as it looked very simular to my fire setup, and I know that it probably shouldn't be.

I am new to arcane but I am liking it a lot. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cross check it with SimC. If it's telling you the same as rawr, chances are they're correct. Personally they both tell me haste has a slight lead over the other stats for arcane, so if you think haste is bad because "amg it makes me oom faster!" it's certainly not out of the question for it to be your best stat.

And that quip is not directed at you, but at the seething pool of idiots out there that don't know how scale factors work.

Cross check it with SimC. If it's telling you the same as rawr, chances are they're correct. Personally they both tell me haste has a slight lead over the other stats for arcane, so if you think haste is bad because "amg it makes me oom faster!" it's certainly not out of the question for it to be your best stat.

And that quip is not directed at you, but at the seething pool of idiots out there that don't know how scale factors work.

Lol I know what you mean, I was actually more concerned at the amount of Crit it wanted me at it seemed way too high. Ill check SimC.

ZG: Fire Mage Looking for Advice on Jin'do

[:1]Hi All,

I am relatively new to the mage thing. Basically, I started with a warrior and got tired of getting hit by everything....

Anyway, I am just wondering if anyone else is getting frustrated with that final boss. Most LFG tanks come up with bright the idea that a mage is range so should focus all their time on adds during the second phase. This sucks for me, because in my experience fire is not good for many adds coming from many directions (2 sec cast times for fireballs are not great for killing things that spawn as fast as the spirits). And I am wondering how other fire mages handle the 2nd phase of this boss. I know there is a dungeon and raid forum, but I am sure more mages read this forum.

THANKS!
Deleted by Cakezilla
I used to do that fight fire, I would Flame Strike and scorch them down, yea I found Fball to slow to keep them off the healer. Dragons Breath can also be helpfull, but in all honesty, for this fight I always go arcane, it is much less of a headache for me :)

Ablast already has a quick cast time , and instant barrage and AM on proc is much better IMO.

Modz
I actually find that more tanks think hunters have some sort of magical kill-all AoE and spammable aoe slows, so I tend to run into this problem more with her. If it weren't for that damn bow I'd just leave once the group got to Jin'do, VP be damned.

Anyhow, from a magey perspective, I roll Arcane for more and more fights nowadays including Jin'do. The little adds usually only take a Blast and a Barrage before they're down, and when it gets hectic near the end I cast BlastX4 for the full effect, then spam Explosion with a Blast on the chain every few seconds to keep the effect up. If the tank can't keep aggro on the little guys I don't even bother with AoE, I just nuke the chain and hope the rest of the group can survive long enough for me to finish it. It's worked so far.
Its how you do the fight.

Here is how.

As big add comes up, let him pounce on the tank who is in the chain. DPS him down, fast, have melee or hunter do that. IGNORE THE CHAINS UNTIL THE END. Mage, blastwave, arc explosion, dragons breath, the adds, mark up the HEALER and stay on the healer, blasting away with aoe, frost nova, flamestrike....your job is ONLY to keep HEALER Safe, ,, let them aggro onto you, let healer heal YOU>

When all 3 big adds are dead, NOW, have melee.hunter.other dps, DO THE CHAINS>

REMAIN with HEALER the whole fight. protecting him.

SAVE CHAINS TIL END.

Ez
Ads come slowly at the beginning, so you can get their attention with LB and then spam a scorch or two. I found that I get a lot of hot streaks from scorch spam, and pyros pretty much 1-shoot the ghosts.

Once they start coming in packs, flamestrike, blastwave, DB, cone of cold, nova, etc, just to keep them off healer. Once bubbles are broken, the healer should be mobile and should try to put the group between them and the adds. Just from my experience healing this fight, if you get 3 bubbles broken out of 3 jumps, you're sitting pretty at 70-80% mana, with everyone at full health, and you can afford to run around a bit. It only gets stressful and spammy when people waste jumps and you're literally chained to a bubble, without much room to run from the ghosties.

The strat I use differs from other people's, but it's worked nicely for us. I think it's counter-intuitive for ranged to focus on adds at the beginning, because they can sit on a different bubble and DPS a broken chain. Melee, on the other hand, don't have that luxury unless they are very good at running to a bubble once targeted. Hence, I ask melee to stay with me and the tank and kill the ads. Obviously ranged can take care of stragglers. The big adds don't need to be DPS-ed because they end up dying from tank DPS and melee cleaves.

Using this strategy, ranged can easily take down 2 chains by the time the third is broken, assuming respectable DPS. On my mage, I can pop CDs on the first one and solo it before the second jump (I play arcane these days). Once the last has been broken, melee can then focus on it and ranged can aoe adds. My tank focuses on gathering adds to help them out, and I try to stay out of their way.

As fire, you can keep DoTs up on the chains and switch to adds from time to time, especially if they are on the healer. I try to save RoF for the end, when they tend to come in larger numbers.

Leveling Arcane?

[:1]Almost every post I see is someone talking about leveling as frost or fire but I dont see anything on the first couple pages about leveling as arcane spec. I just got into outlands and I am literally 2-3 shotting every mob I see, its kinda fun.

So far I have been putting talent points into whatever I feel like...my dps has been pretty meh in instances, usually 2nd or 3rd unless I can go crazy with aoe. What should my instance rotation be? (yeah I know I am not raiding but I want to know if I am doing something wrong).

I normally AB till a missile procs cast the missile then cast instants hoping I get another proc then proceed to cast AB again. That sound about right? With three or more mobs I open with flamestrike and if I am close I toss out cone of cold, then do my usual...

Thanks.
In instances, as in life, Arcane Blast until things fall down. Throw in AM after a 4 stack if you're running on trash to conserve mana, but until late Cataclysm content you should be able to spam AB for an entire boss fight. There's a reason that Arcane was not considered a high skill spec in Wrath.
For an arcane mage it is a load of fun to level as. I started off as frost and it was ok, then a friend of mine who was an arcane mage got me to respec to arcane. I never looked back going arcane was awesome!

The amount of damage they do, plus the little side effects like slow and all added in with working the talent tree with care, you can easily down an elite that is at least two lvls higher than you as arcane mage.

Also as a plus in instances and all with recount on dps you are always garunteed to be at least #2 even #1 I pulled off top of the list quite a few times in BC dungeons just before entering LK dungeons
it is kinda unfair in a way but spam arcane blast as said. there's not much of a guide because its just one button. fresh 80 i could hit 15k dps on boss fights in the two entry cata regular 5mans. at 81 i can tune it up to about 20k dps popping cooldowns if i get lucky and dont have to move much. my lvl 85 geared toons can't touch 20k dps lol. arcane blast FTW and keep it under your hat so it doesnt get nerfed ;)
I leveled as arcane and now I PVP as arcane. I've used all three specs extensively, but I just really like the tricks arcane brings to the table.

I think your best DPS bet is to 1.) use mage armor and 2.) arcane blast three or four times, arcane barrage, arcane missle, arcane barrage, repeat.

If you time it properly (and you get the AM proc), your two arcane barrages will line up nicely just before and directly after your AM launches. This just adds some extra DPS. If you don't have to worry about conserving mana, use arcane blast more, but try not to lose below 40% mana every 2 minutes so you can evo it back up. This'll squeeze a bit more DPS out.
Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback!
Leveling as arcane has worked out great so far.. Arcane Missiles has always been the coolest spell in the game
Another note - When you get into the 80s, the big boon of being arcane spec is that you actually kill stuff before it beats the crap out of you. Fire is horrible, horrible, horrible for leveling past 82 or 83. Frost is easier, but it's not nearly as clean as arcane's AB, AB, loot.

If you need to kite as arcane b/c you can't stand still, use slow, arcane barrage when up, and missiles when up. Blink can give you time to cast.

And don't forget you've got frost nova and cone of cold still.

Maybe I'm exaggerating but...

[:1]From my experience having played a warlock in pvp and a couple melee classes in pvp I find playing my mage to be harder. There's usually a lot more I have to keep an eye on and be thinking about in arenas or normal pvp. I also find at least right now that (as expected) melee is scaling well with gear and their damage has gone up well with weapons and gear, where as ours has gone up some. I know we're about burst in general, but none the less I feel as though our burst has begun to pale a bit in comparison to what melee users can dish out.

Don't get me wrong, I know we're quite capable of holding our own 1v1. This is not what that is about though, it's about group pvp.

One other thing that kinda gets me. I didn't really play in LK on my mage. I tapered off playing in BC, but played from the start in Vanilla. Anyway what gets me is just the sheer amount of spells and stuns and interrupts that every class has. Is anyone else a bit overwhelmed by the fact that almost every class has a stun or an interrupt or both now? Even with juking I find it difficult to cast. I dunno, maybe i'm just bad.

One other thing that kinda gets me. I didn't really play in LK on my mage. I tapered off playing in BC, but played from the start in Vanilla. Anyway what gets me is just the sheer amount of spells and stuns and interrupts that every class has. Is anyone else a bit overwhelmed by the fact that almost every class has a stun or an interrupt or both now? Even with juking I find it difficult to cast. I dunno, maybe i'm just bad.

This is what caused frost to generally resort to "icelance spam". As I said before, it's not that we won't cast frostbolt, it's that we quite frankly, can't cast frostbolt. Though I know that's not totally true, the fact remains, it wasn't NEARLY REMOTELY as hard to get a cast off back then as it is now. And god forbid you go to juke and get caught anyway.

Not saying I do horribly either though. I just kinda hate how everything can do everything, nearly all the time.
To Tiamate, I had reforged to some haste before the patch, but I'm going back now to reforge it over to crit. Also, no offense, but "fine" is relative to a person's expectations/standards.

Ghobe, yes that is part of my frustration and what I see as a big problem. Blizzard said this game is based around group play, especially the pvp, and yet I feel like every class has been equipped with the abilities to fight in a 1v1 style. While this is great for people who love to duel, or who feel they must be able to beat people 1v1 I feel it has left group pvp as somewhat of a mess. Part of it is I lack a deep knowledge of every other class, but with so many cooldowns and so many abilities on every class it's very difficult (at least for me) to predict things now.

One other thing, can we please not receive more new spells? I have so many keys bound it's dumb. I enjoy playing this game, but when i have to bind over 30 keys for pvp I think things are a bit obnoxious.

Frost Mage Stat Priority 4.06?

[:1]Before it was

Hit to cap>int>crit>haste>mastery

Now since they changed mastery to increase frostbolt damage did it move up the chain at all?

For instance:

Hit to cap>int>Crit/Mastery>Haste/Mastery
mastery doesn't up frostbolt damage, that's from selecting frost. however with the 6 point loss of mastery it might be worth it just to get it back up now that frost bolt and ice lance will get more benefit from it (frost bolt in a trashmob/pvp perspective seeing as how fingers of frost doesn't effect it)
So raid wise the stat priority is still the same right?

I misread in the patch notes.
after careful observation the stat priorities have not changed, but haste has become more important so your stats priorities should be as such:

Int > Hit > Crit > Haste > Mastery

with frostbolt doing more damage, raid viability is increased better by haste than mastery now.
I just started a frost mage after the patch, and im leveling him now. And im curious as to what the numerical value of my stats should be for raiding. For ex. what is the hit cap the recommended crit, mastery haste intel etc.
Eh just to correct you

Priority was (and I think still is)

Int > Hit (to cap) > Crit (to soft cap) > Haste/Mastery (relative values depend on exact gearing).

Int is by far your best dps stat, Hit is off by nearly 30%. Crit is third only until you get 100% crits on FoF procs. That'll range between 22%ish to 33% paper doll., depending on raid buffs/debuffs. After that, it drops fairly hard.

101 on the mage NERF

[:1]* Fingers of Frost bonus damage applied to Ice Lance has been increased to 25%, up from 15%.
* Ice Barrier base damage value has been increased by approximately 120%. In addition, the benefit from spell power has been increased by approximately 8%.
* The root effect from Shattered Barrier now shares diminishing returns with the root from Improved Cone of Cold.
* Frostbolt damage has been increased by 10%.

first note, these are not even from the ptr patch notes but a blue post.

Now, these changes all revolve around the root effect DR. for you that didn't know, mages do a lot more damage to frozen targets, so with less roots we get less shatters. so that would not only be a huge lose of cc but a huge lose in damage

these so called buffs are just to make up that difference some(maybe enough, maybe not)
the increase to frostbolt is much needed increase, why have a cast time when you can do the same or more damage with a instant cast(on the move) that cant get you spell locked. you melee might be qq'ing now but you want us casting these. since we cant move and can get interrupted by casting it.

imo this is a good way too go, a less spazy more skilled mages should result. with a good result to pve as a side affect.

best horde race

[:1]for dps/raiding purposes which is the best race?
I'm not sure if any race has a distinct advantage over the other but I do love my berserking racial.
Deleted by Cakezilla
Quoting my post from another thread, please learn to use the search option :S

As for the race, all Horde races have a pretty good benefit of it's own, I feel like it's a personal choice really.

Troll: Berserking is undeniably awesome and will always scale well.

Goblin: 1% passive haste and a Rocket Jump/Rocket? Heck yesh.

Orc: I believe it is 1.5k spell power on a 2mins CD? It's currently the best PvE racial, but since it's scaling is level based instead of a %, it won't scale as well as others. Orcs also have command which increases pet damage very, very slightly.

Blood Elf: An additional interrupt can always be useful, especially for PvP, but the mana return proves itself to be much, much more useful than it's been in WotLK, with resource management having a more important role in Cataclysm.

Undead: They just look plain awesome. Can't deny their awesomeness. I keep buying Noggenfogger's elixirs to have at least a very small percentage of their awesomeness. Oh and free ''Get out of Fear!'' card!