Mage on M4A: some tips

Hi there I'm not pretending to write "the perfect raiding mage guide" (Im to nab&lazy for that ), instead I'd like to point out

some basical information and share some others.. let's start!


[0. Before reading any further]

I recommend to read the following threads, as I wont cover the very basics:

a. Elitis Jerks - mage general informations
b. WowHead - Mage FAQ

there are many interesting threads out there, I'll report them @ the end of this "guide" asap.


[1. Stats and their weight]

Hit Rating

Chance to hit
+0 : 96% hit chance
+1 : 95% hit chance
+2 : 94% hit chance
+3 : 83% hit chance
+4 : 72% hit chance
+5 : 61% hit chance

The higher the level of the mob/boss we are trying to hit is, the less our chance to successfully land a spell on him will be. Agains a

boss whe have a 17% chance to miss, that is:

Common Hit "Goals" (always rounded up)
17% - 446 Hit rating
14% - 368 Hit rating
11% - 289 Hit rating
8% - 210 Hit rating

1% of Hit is equal to 26.232 hit rating

Basically we have to get gear/enchants/equip/buffs that stack up to that fucking 17%; everything below that will be a pain for our dps.

There are some talents and debuffs that can help in this way:

Talents:

Elemental Precision 3/3 : +3% spell hit (Fire Frost)
Arcane Focus 3/3 : +3% spell hit (Arcane)

Debuffs:

Improved Faerie Fire [Druid] : +3% hit
Misery [Priest] : +3% hit

I suggest to stack hit rating leaving room for some fine-tuning through sockets, as u won't always have in raid with u a spriest or a

moonkin; bringing with u some gear that has less hit but more sp can be useful in some raiding situations.

Spell Power

/delete your character if are asking yourself about the importance of sp: GET MORE NAO

Crit Rating / Haste

Pretty self-explaining, those stats scale differently according to your spec so I'll discuss them briefly later on.


[2. Raiding specs and rotations]

My favourite topic I suggest to try them all and chose the one which u like the most / best suits your playstyle; basically I'll try

to provide some "spec progression" cause some specs require better gear to be competitive against the others.

a. Arcane

General build

Ulduar build

Very similar specs, the Ulduar one uses Frost ward 2/2 for additional frost protection and mana refunding; basically u can raid with

both and feel no difference.

pro:
1. great burts damage
2. higher sp with the same equip(thanks to Mind Mastery)
3. nice control of the rate u convert mana into damage
4. teaches to deal with threat and aggro
5. less hit-demanding (precision + arcane focus)

cons:
1. mana efficiency
2. requires some time to time well your mana gems/evocations to not waste them or go oom

base rotation:
Arcane Blast x3 - Arcane Missiles (nobody cares about proc ) or Arcane Barrage

notes:
use POM+ABlast for opener and time your icy veins well; use evocation (if u need) on the last tick of icy veins to speed up mana

regeneration.
For this spec haste>crit so go try to get as much as possible.

m4a bugs:
accelerators (bloodlust, icy veins and maybe trinkets) reduce the numbrs of the missiles that land on the target, so i suggest to skip

the missiles in your rotation during those buffs. User bast spamming or blastx4+barrage!


b. Fire - Frostfire Bolt

Base Spec

Typical modifications

1pt ice floes -> frostbite - Ice floes is fairly bad for the build anyway, so might as well max out frostbite for better farming. Keep

in mind frostbite will not proc on blizzard without putting at least 1 pt in it.
1pt ice floes -> frostbite, 1pt world in flames -> imp. blizzard - More controlled blizzard dps. Keep in mind World in Flames affects

blizzard dps.
1pt world in flames or 1pt frost channeling -> dragon's breath - Dragon's Breath
1pt ice floes -> frostbite, 1pt world in flames -> imp. blizzard, 3pt frost channeling -> shatter - Shatter/blizzard. This change alone

isn't too awesome, however, if 2+ mages spec with 3/3 frostbite 1/3 blizzard the results can turn out excellent. Keep in mind you will

do 10% more blizzard threat.

Other modifications

I can understand mages cutting out Flame Throwing since FFB is unaffected by the talent. It does mean your scorch/living

bomb/pyroblasts are limited by range though.

pro:
1. GREAT mana efficiency
2. higher sustained DPS during the encounter

cons:
1. no good burst
2. hard to mantain the scorch debuff
3. more hit demanding (u have only precision to increase your hit rating)

base rotation:
Living bomb - scorch x5 - ffb - pyro on hotstreak proc

notes:
NEVER stop casting your ffb to use the instan pyro, it's a dps lost. For FFB Crit> Haste, cause ffb base damage is low compared to

fb/ablast.

m4a bugs:
conbustion is broken, so spen your point in something else


c. Fire - Torment Of The Weak

my favourite spec u receive a nice +12% damage on snared targets

Snares include:

Hunter - Frost Trap, Concussive Shot, Wing Clip
Mage - Frost Bolt, Cone of Cold, Improved Blizzard, Slow
Priest- Mind Flay
Rogue- Crippling Poision, Deadly Throw
Shaman - Frost Shock, Earthbind Totem
Warlock- Curse of Exhaustion
Warrior- Hamstring, Piercing Howl

Warriors (Shield Bash), Warlocks (Aftermath), Hunters (Concussive Barrage), Rogues (Blade Twisting) Paladin (Avengers Shield) and Mages

(Blast Wave) also have the ability to daze targets, which will count as a snare too.

Base Spec

u could drop 1 point in combustion and flame trowing to full student of the mind (more spirit=more crit with molten armor); personally

i wont drop range cause in ulduar is a issue in some encounters

pro:
1. mana is not an issue
2. highest sustained DPS during the encounter
3. best DPS output than other specs

cons:
1. no good burst
2. hard to mantain the scorch debuff
3. no talents to help with hit rating
4. your guildies have to remember to mantain the ttw debuff

base rotation:
Living bomb - scorch x5 - fireball - pyro on hotstreak proc

notes:
As in FFB, never stop casting your fb to use the instan pyro.
Try to balance haste and crit, even if haste is slightly better than crit for ttw/fb (around 400 haste is good, go for crit after that,

30% unbuf is good, then haste again).

m4a bugs:
see ffb, combustion is bugged. ttw seems fine btw ;-)

d. Frost

I dont really think that frost can be viable as pure dps in raid, its more crowd control-oriented, plus frostbite wont proc on bosses.
A nice discussion about raiding as frost is here.


[3. Raid issues]

Basically our main issue is threat; fortunately we have nice spells to reduce it, as invisibility (10% thread reduction/sec) and mirror images.
In case u take aggro STOP casting (yea it's never enough said), remember not to run away or towards the healers (they are clothies too); better stay still, ice block yourself or blink towards the tank who can easily taunt the boss.
After the taunt u can lower your threat by getting invisible and start again your dps rotation.


[4. Gearing up]

Referring to a FFB spec, here is an example of pre-ulduar10 gear'd mage (hit capp'd, nice crit and haste):

head: Ghotik's Cowl
neck: Cosmic Lights
shoulders: Valorous Frostfire Shoulderpads
back: Disguise of the Kumiko
chest: Heigan's Putrid Vestments
wrists: Bindings of the Expansive Mind
hands: Valorous Frostfire Gloves
waist: Cincture of Polarity
legs: Valorous Frostfire Leggings
feet: Boots of Impetuous Ideals
ring1: Inscribed Signet of the Kirin Tor
ring2: Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor
trink1: Figurine - Twilight Serpent
trink2: Sundial of the Exiled
main hand: Haunting Call
offhand: Surplus Limb
wand: Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians


I recommend u to use always RAWR to check your equip in respect of your spec/talents; u can also use it to optimize your gems/enchants and maximize your dps..
BTW i suggest u to have rawr on background especially during raids, this way it will be possible to check in real time if that item

u're looking so greedy at will be an upgrade or not, making your raid chat more QQ free.

Still work in progress..


[5. Profs/Buffs]

2 best profs atm : Tailoring (Lightweave Embroidery, 295sp on proc for 15sec, porcs like hell), and JC (unique gems, nice trinkets/ring/neck).
U may consider also enchanting (rings enchant) or Inscription (shoulders enchant).
Secondary prof i suggest to level up is cooking (bugged dailies atm)

[6. Addons]

mandatory
Omen: threat meter. nuf said.
Quartz: nice cast bar that take in account latency/lag, help to maximize your dps reducing non-casting times.
Scorchio: debuff meter, traks scorch, hotstreaks and so on.
Grid: raid frame to replace shitty blizzard one

recommended
Pitbull/unity frames: pretty configurable uis, nice to clean up blizzard mess
Bartender4: bars addon
Cooldowns/omnicc: cooldown trackers



I hope to receive some feedback, it would be nice to improve this thread through discussion of specs/talents/gear and so on!
Ty for your patience reading

cya

nice one again

yaaayy u revived this topic thxxx

but maaany of teh statistic are from wowhead like you said and this statistics are for" retail" and some statisctics here maybe r useless

Not really, mages mechanics are basically the same even on m4a, plus now burlex fixed some fundamental talents as ttw.
Btw arcane and fire require haste here too, and ffb crit, as on retail!

btw Kihar if you wan't we can talk abaut Fire speec i change my speec And now i use only Frostfire bolt and make more dps on Long fight

what did u change? r u raiding with ffb spec? frostfire bolt is faster than fb, but its damame is (should be) lower, that's why u have to gem/itemize into crit, to compensate the dps lost with more pyros.
How much dps r u doing on a dummy (unbuffed and sustained)?

kihar wrote:what did u change? r u raiding with ffb spec? frostfire bolt is faster than fb, but its damame is (should be) lower, that's why u have to gem/itemize into crit, to compensate the dps lost with more pyros.
How much dps r u doing on a dummy (unbuffed and sustained)?

3.500 unbuffed but diden't have too much time to test it cuz server fuck up as you know ...

I also recommend ForteXorcist. It's originally made for warlocks, but it's very nice for tracking your debuffs (if you're not a fan of Scorchio).

Mana wrote:I also recommend ForteXorcist. It's originally made for warlocks, but it's very nice for tracking your debuffs (if you're not a fan of Scorchio).

Yes i know this addon. But i hate tath Glyph for Scorchio is not working i'm loosing a loot of dps .... wich is rly fuck up

uhm 3,5k isnt bad, but as fb u can do 200/300 more i think (at least that's the difference from my tests), even if u build up the scorch debuff at the beginning an re-scorch every 30 sec.
I'd like to try arcane too in raid situations, but until burlex fix the haste bug i dont think dps could be on pair with fire.

mana: nice addon, i currently use scorchio, not the best but i'm too lazy to change it

kihar wrote:uhm 3,5k isnt bad, but as fb u can do 200/300 more i think (at least that's the difference from my tests), even if u build up the scorch debuff at the beginning an re-scorch every 30 sec.
I'd like to try arcane too in raid situations, but until burlex fix the haste bug i dont think dps could be on pair with fire.

mana: nice addon, i currently use scorchio, not the best but i'm too lazy to change it

Not rly you will get more if you put Haste instead of Crit you can make tones of dps and ofc it depens rly on Rotations and how evryting is going to go
And abaut the Addon we all know tath you are Lazy Kihar