Comments on: PTR Patch 3.0.8 – Mage Raid Specs

By: Babette Dominey

Babette Dominey — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:00:15 +0000

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By: Angermage

Angermage — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:58:20 +0000

@ Sylvain FFB is super on mana, but I wouldn’t switch to Fireball if you’re havin’ mana trouble as Arcane in naxx, fireball’s pretty rough on the pool as well
I think Fireball may be even tougher on mana than arcane…or maybe I’m just way too used to managing mana arcane style with 2 min. evo’s and mana gem swapping…evo’s go back to super long CD for fireball spec and that talent that makes crits cost 50% more mana or w/e it is for a spec that relies on crits means almost evey spell “should” be costing you 50% more mana to cast.

By: Angermage

Angermage — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:52:32 +0000

Know this is old but, as of now the three glyphs you should use for arcane are: Glyph of Arcane Blast, Glyph of Molten Armor, and Glyph of Arcane Missiles(+25% crit to AM or something like that), with spell rotation of ABx3-AMissiles whether or not MissileBarrage procs.
Glyphed Molten Armor gives me over 9% crit now, lovin’ the huge buff with Spirit!
I wouldn’t use glyph of mana gem or arcane power though…3 seconds on Arcane power is like 1 more Arcane Blast…not rlly worth it when you can trade that for +25% crit to your missiles.

I’m gonna switch and dual spec fireball and FFB tonight tho and compare them, ‘cuz I’m way bored with Arcane

By: titanias

titanias — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:34:17 +0000

i just have to go for FFB spec cuz i just LOVE those massive numbers flashing up on the screen. its just so awesome.shallow i know.

By: Sylvain

Sylvain — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:28:19 +0000

Hi,

I’ve been using a 57/3/11 build in raid (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Al%27Akir&n=Gandhalfdead), very similar to the one you used for the Recount tests.

So far during 5 man, never ran out of mana, but as you rightfully point out, during long boss fights (like last night in Naxx10 against Patchwerk) my mana pool (although not small) was depleted several times, leaving me begging for more mana.

Deep arcane is fantastic for 5 man and shortish fights but I wouldnt advise it for people who are not ubber-geared and heading into Naxx.
I’m personnally contemplating respeccing to frost fire or deep fire to check the resulting DPS and mana longevity during long fights.

Thanks for your blog man, an excellent job

Gandy

By: Hour

Hour — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:12:35 +0000

M8 this looks great. I have been dong some tests as well and I ahve figured out that frostfire is the beast spec for mages that wana raid. got top ds in a 10 man naxx with no gear only blues and 4 epics. even tho ppl had full epic and where not slacking.

Hour | Mage | Deathwing

By: Tuna

Tuna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:23:40 +0000

@ Vera

Yea I actually didn’t really noticed it til it was too late, but when putting together a “Frost PvE Spec” for the article, I was pretty much putting together a spec I would use so I didn’t have to respec for Raiding/PvP/Heroics, and that was what I was using.

You are right though, for a pure raiding spec, I would drop Deep Freeze and probably the point in Imp. Blizzard too, and put them both into Arcane to fill out Student of the Mind.

Then the 3 points in Spell Impact, I would put 1 point into Magic Attunement, and the other 2 points into Arcane Meditation.

It would look something like: THIS

The reason why I don’t use Imp. Blizzard and Frostbite together in raids is because although it does a ton of DPS, it tends to kill a lot of melee DPS. As fun as that is, It makes raid nights more entertaining, but go on for much longer.

By: Tuna

Tuna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:09:41 +0000

@ Falcrop There is two things which would put Fire over FFB spec in PvE. They are the Spell Power Coefficient differences between FIreball and Frostfire Bolt, and then there is Torment the Weak. Fireball gets 115% with Empowered Fire Frostfire Bolt gets 100.71% with Empowered Fire This means if you have 2000 Spell Power, Fireball gets a total bonus of 2300 Spell Power, and Frostfire Bolt gets 2014.2 Spell Power. The difference will get bigger as you get more and more Spell Power. With changes to what effects apply to Torment the Weak now will give Fireball a 12% damage increase pretty much all the time during raids. Those two together could put Fire spec over FFB spec.

By: vera

vera — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:13:02 +0000

Great breakdown of the specs =)
I’m currently deep frost, and will definitely try cutting the instants out of my rotation.
I’m also looking at ways to optimize my spec, and I was wondering a couple things about your deep frost spec. Is there a reason for going all the way down to Deep Freeze? It seems like it’s pretty useless in raids, and without Frostbite, it won’t have much use otherwise either. Speaking of which, it seems that the point in Imp. Blizzard and those in shatter are kind of wasted w/o the Frostbite as well.
Also, without incorporating ice lance into the normal rotation, is there a good reason to go for Spell Impact? Granted, the points in arcane are necessary to get down to Torment the Weak, but would those points be better spent in Magic Attunement for range, or even in rounding out Student of Mind?

By: Falcrop

Falcrop — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:37:01 +0000

Hey Tuna,

Love your article!

From looking at your article I can see that frostfire spec is the best for raiding. For whenever the next patch comes out you said that deep fire would have a conciderate change and would be competing for the top dps in raids for mages. I want to find out what the changes could possibly be to make deep fire spec to triumph frostfire spec.

As well I was wondering if the talents in fire that make fire spells do 50% more crit damage and the 100% more frost crit damage stacks to 150% crit for frostfire bolt. Also for the 6% increased frost damage if that applies to frostfire bolt.

Thanks