hello my names niall and first off i would like to thank you for taking the time to read my post :) thanks.
I play an arcane mage at the moment but also have an effective fire spec in order to keep up to raiding scratch.
I must seem pretty stupid asking for advice on argueably the simplist spec in the game but i really need it.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/c ... l/advanced
this is my main and only character. As of late i have noticed players (also in arcane spec) coming very close and catching me in dps, when they are far less geared then I am. I was just wondering if you could do an in depth look at my character and maybe give me advice on reforges and in future stats i should aim so (i.e rough caps on haste/crit/etc). what are my most favoured stats and to what extent? and is it important for me to reach the rest of my cap in hit when possible?
Also a more detailed rotation look would really help me please, maybe advice on the amount of stacks of ab i should break with an am would be much appreciated :) ill throw a rough description of my current rotation. Please feel free to be as cruel as possible in order to correct me and help me to improve as i feel im letting my guild down and since im on the progression team and am needed greatly for the upcoming 4.2 firelands expantion, your advice will not fall on def ears.
(also please help me in that i will be a full arcane mage, i dont wish to have higher firemage dps unless you believe it will give me higher dps in which case just write that here and proceed to do the same as i said above except in regards to fire)
flame orb, mirrors, arcane power, 3stacks of ab, mana gem+arcane torrent, ab till 30%mana, evocate to full, maintain 80%+mana while doing stacks of ab2-ab3 followed by am to break them. I proceed to pop cds when they are up (including POM when i need to move) and only hold off a cd if evocate has less then 40secs left till off cd in which case i begin my burst when it has 25secs left and pop my cds then. Mirrors is also held if threat is an issue and i use mana shield if it has fallen off and my mana is still above 90%. I do not change from Mage armour at any time during an encounter.
tell me anything, any little thing no matter how small as long as it will help. Thanks again
PLEASE PARAGON MAGE GODS, PIMP MY CHAR!
-regard, Hail.
arcane mage help
Re: arcane mage help
18 Jun 2011 04:10
-
Guromin
- Posts: 190
Hello Niall,
I apologize that I am not a Paragon mage, however I do offer you some advice. I love to teach people willing to learn. ;)
Right off the bat your rotation is right, but also wrong at the same time. You have the general concepts correct however I feel as though there are a few things that could significantly increase your dps. You haven't mentioned how much you are currently able to do, but I do feel as though there is room for optimization.
There are 2 things you need to know to play arcane well.
Mana = dps
CD's = dps too
The ability to correctly manage your mana and CD's will help you to become more succesfull. On the outside this may seem obvious, however, I have a few tips for you that may help.
Rotation
Your rotation includes Flame Orb. This spell is good, but not great for arcane especially. Think of this spell as mana. When I need some extra mana to keep me above that 80% mark I use Flame Orb. I also use it during times where my normal rotation is less effective. For example Chimaeron casts Caustic Slime which will give you a debuff that greatly reduces your hit. I prepare for this by spamming arcane blast a few extra times before and then using low mana, low damage abilities while my damage is reduced. Keep this in mind for the current teir and 4.2. While I'm on the topic; if you know there will be a dps halt at soon or a time when you are unable to attack try to burst your mana a little lower. If you ever get to 100% mana your loosing dps. This is bad. Always make sure that your mana is regenerating during the fight.
On the note of mana, your rotation should be just to keep your mana level. I never count out how many stacks it is exactly. I just try to keep it level. As your gear increases you will be able to spam more and more arcane blasts while staying even. If at some point you get Shard of Woe from Sinestra this will greatly change your rotation, so be aware that as your gear improves that rotation will change. As a side not I try to avoid the use of Arcane Barrage because of it's relatively high mana cost. I generally only use it when I am moving. I do also use it when i don't get an Arcane Missiles proc, but that happens rarely.
CD's
This may be the most important section I type to helping you improve your damage. Messing up on spamming one button is hard. Everything I stated already will only help to optimize the efficiency of that and thus help you to be more aware of how things scale.
There's a lot wrong here so I'll just pick somewhere to start and go from there.
The Goal of your burn phase is to maximize the damage you deal during the few seconds you spam arcane blast to low mana.
I mentioned above that you should NEVER be at full mana. Make sure your evocations are not taking you to full mana. Mana is damage and you don't want to waste it. If you need to drop down to 10% mana or less. You can always regenerate your mana later by altering your rotation to include more missiles and Flame Orb.
You mentioned your using your CD's when they come off CD. Don't. As I stated before you want to maximize your damage when your spamming 4 stacks of arcane blast. Save ALL your CD's for the burn phase. This includes POM. Don't use it when your moving unless your moving during the burn phase. It is a HUGE damage booster especially when you have a limited time to take advantage of a period of time when something takes more damage. Like Magma's head being down and taking 100% increased damage. Using it during that short window will help to maximize your damage. Note that it does have a short CD time so on bosses like magma where you save your CD's for that phase it is okay to use POM at the beginning of the fight for some initial burst. Make sure it will be up for your burn phase.
I've said a lot of negative things so far so I want to point out something you are doing that is OP and not enough people do it. Starting the burst phase BEFORE evocation come off CD. This is brilliant and great and sometimes allows for more burn phases in a boss fight. 25 seconds is significant and I applaud you for doing this :) On this note of good things. Keep mage armor up always. Never take it off. It's something you cannot sacrifice.
My last note about CD's:
Before you start your burn phase and pop your CD's get 4 stacks of Arcane Blast on you. Then while you have increased damage your doing the most damage. This is especially important when you use CD's at the start of a fight.
I did not take the time to organize these so they are fairly scattered. I thought I would go through what I do for CD's on (heroic )Magma. I know everyone knows that fight and it's fairly simple. If you do not know the heroic fight, just assume it is the same but without the little adds to worry about. (there's more mechanics that don't make a huge difference in use of CD's)
After pulling I spam arcane blast down to 80% mana and use POM during that small burst. I save all my CD's for when the boss first goes down (takes double damage). Before the head goes down I make sure to have 3 stacks of Arcane blast already up. Then when it goes down I spam the 4th and pop all my CD's. Go to town with your damage and keep spamming until his head goes up. DO NOT STOP TO EVOCATE. If you do your missing out on great damage. If I get low on mana early I just spam arcane blast when i can to try and keep attacking the boss. After the double damage is over I use evocation and resume my rotation of staying even in mana. The second time the boss goes down not all of my CD's are up so I do NOT use what I have. My guild uses Blood Lust on the 3rd one in phase 2 so I anticipate and save. This doesn't mean that I don't stay even with mana. I try to dip a little bit on this and push the number of arcane blast stacks I use. Generally I get to 4 stacks and then reset during this. When the head goes back up I adjust my rotation to help my mana regenerate. This means using less Arcane Blasts and More Arcane Missiles. I attempt to have a lot of mana for the last time that the head goes down so I can be very bursty again. I repeat what I did on the first double damage phase and additionally cast Time Warp for the raid. If your wondering, I generally do about 28k on Magma Heroic with a burst of 200-300k.
Hopefully this section helped you to use your CD's more wisely to optimize your damage.
Moving on to gear:
You had asked for key information about the Arcane's Stat Weights.
Intellect > Spell Power = hit > Mastery > Crit Rating > Haste
This is just a general stat weight chain. These values may very a little bit as you get better gear. Spell Power and Hit are both very strong stats that you don't conflict with how you reforge so I say they are about equal. As important as it may seem hit is, ALWAYS go for intellect first. Intellect is the god stat of mages. Intellect is 3 times better than Crit Haste and Mastery.
Haste is ranked lowest because as you haste faster you also cast more often. Casting more often is more mana. Thus having haste drains your mana in a way. It's still a good stat. Only slightly worse because of this.
Earlier I said intellect is important, but there is a stat far stronger than it. It's so powerful it can save you from death and damage. It can even lessen the amount of heals you need. It's best known for helping you move out of things more quickly. Run Speed is the best stat in the game. The ability to more easily avoid Sonar Pulses and Corrupting Crash is OP. Your boots have Hit on them which is good, but I would always go for run speed over any other stat. It will save your life, weather you realize it or not :)
Other than your boots your enchanting is perfect. Nothing wrong wit it. Your gems have only one that is sub par. In your helm I recommend you swap that +40 int to a +20 int and +20 hit gem.
Your reforging is on the right track, but it could be better. If your doing it by hand chances are your not doing it optimally. AskMrRobot.com is a gear optimizer that helps you to reforge correctly. It also does gems, enchanting and Best in Slots. A great website that I strongly recommend. (they don't pay me to say it. I just think they are great)
This is what it is telling me you should reforge to:
http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/c ... hail#v1-z1
You briefly mentioned that you will not be playing fire in 4.2. This makes me sad face because you have killed heroic halfus. Have you seen it's amazing aoe and movement?
I just thought that after over an hour of typing this for you I would tell you not to give up on fire. Keep researching it. The best mages know how to play both fire and arcane. Being able to do both well is the best thing you can do for your dps. I play fire in more fights than arcane in t11. It's especially helpfull while doing Cho'Gall heroic. I do love being having full corruption and spamming Pyroblast for 45k dps. Lots of fun.
Best Wishes in this helping your dps,
-Guromin
I apologize that I am not a Paragon mage, however I do offer you some advice. I love to teach people willing to learn. ;)
Right off the bat your rotation is right, but also wrong at the same time. You have the general concepts correct however I feel as though there are a few things that could significantly increase your dps. You haven't mentioned how much you are currently able to do, but I do feel as though there is room for optimization.
There are 2 things you need to know to play arcane well.
Mana = dps
CD's = dps too
The ability to correctly manage your mana and CD's will help you to become more succesfull. On the outside this may seem obvious, however, I have a few tips for you that may help.
Rotation
Your rotation includes Flame Orb. This spell is good, but not great for arcane especially. Think of this spell as mana. When I need some extra mana to keep me above that 80% mark I use Flame Orb. I also use it during times where my normal rotation is less effective. For example Chimaeron casts Caustic Slime which will give you a debuff that greatly reduces your hit. I prepare for this by spamming arcane blast a few extra times before and then using low mana, low damage abilities while my damage is reduced. Keep this in mind for the current teir and 4.2. While I'm on the topic; if you know there will be a dps halt at soon or a time when you are unable to attack try to burst your mana a little lower. If you ever get to 100% mana your loosing dps. This is bad. Always make sure that your mana is regenerating during the fight.
On the note of mana, your rotation should be just to keep your mana level. I never count out how many stacks it is exactly. I just try to keep it level. As your gear increases you will be able to spam more and more arcane blasts while staying even. If at some point you get Shard of Woe from Sinestra this will greatly change your rotation, so be aware that as your gear improves that rotation will change. As a side not I try to avoid the use of Arcane Barrage because of it's relatively high mana cost. I generally only use it when I am moving. I do also use it when i don't get an Arcane Missiles proc, but that happens rarely.
CD's
This may be the most important section I type to helping you improve your damage. Messing up on spamming one button is hard. Everything I stated already will only help to optimize the efficiency of that and thus help you to be more aware of how things scale.
There's a lot wrong here so I'll just pick somewhere to start and go from there.
The Goal of your burn phase is to maximize the damage you deal during the few seconds you spam arcane blast to low mana.
I mentioned above that you should NEVER be at full mana. Make sure your evocations are not taking you to full mana. Mana is damage and you don't want to waste it. If you need to drop down to 10% mana or less. You can always regenerate your mana later by altering your rotation to include more missiles and Flame Orb.
You mentioned your using your CD's when they come off CD. Don't. As I stated before you want to maximize your damage when your spamming 4 stacks of arcane blast. Save ALL your CD's for the burn phase. This includes POM. Don't use it when your moving unless your moving during the burn phase. It is a HUGE damage booster especially when you have a limited time to take advantage of a period of time when something takes more damage. Like Magma's head being down and taking 100% increased damage. Using it during that short window will help to maximize your damage. Note that it does have a short CD time so on bosses like magma where you save your CD's for that phase it is okay to use POM at the beginning of the fight for some initial burst. Make sure it will be up for your burn phase.
I've said a lot of negative things so far so I want to point out something you are doing that is OP and not enough people do it. Starting the burst phase BEFORE evocation come off CD. This is brilliant and great and sometimes allows for more burn phases in a boss fight. 25 seconds is significant and I applaud you for doing this :) On this note of good things. Keep mage armor up always. Never take it off. It's something you cannot sacrifice.
My last note about CD's:
Before you start your burn phase and pop your CD's get 4 stacks of Arcane Blast on you. Then while you have increased damage your doing the most damage. This is especially important when you use CD's at the start of a fight.
I did not take the time to organize these so they are fairly scattered. I thought I would go through what I do for CD's on (heroic )Magma. I know everyone knows that fight and it's fairly simple. If you do not know the heroic fight, just assume it is the same but without the little adds to worry about. (there's more mechanics that don't make a huge difference in use of CD's)
After pulling I spam arcane blast down to 80% mana and use POM during that small burst. I save all my CD's for when the boss first goes down (takes double damage). Before the head goes down I make sure to have 3 stacks of Arcane blast already up. Then when it goes down I spam the 4th and pop all my CD's. Go to town with your damage and keep spamming until his head goes up. DO NOT STOP TO EVOCATE. If you do your missing out on great damage. If I get low on mana early I just spam arcane blast when i can to try and keep attacking the boss. After the double damage is over I use evocation and resume my rotation of staying even in mana. The second time the boss goes down not all of my CD's are up so I do NOT use what I have. My guild uses Blood Lust on the 3rd one in phase 2 so I anticipate and save. This doesn't mean that I don't stay even with mana. I try to dip a little bit on this and push the number of arcane blast stacks I use. Generally I get to 4 stacks and then reset during this. When the head goes back up I adjust my rotation to help my mana regenerate. This means using less Arcane Blasts and More Arcane Missiles. I attempt to have a lot of mana for the last time that the head goes down so I can be very bursty again. I repeat what I did on the first double damage phase and additionally cast Time Warp for the raid. If your wondering, I generally do about 28k on Magma Heroic with a burst of 200-300k.
Hopefully this section helped you to use your CD's more wisely to optimize your damage.
Moving on to gear:
You had asked for key information about the Arcane's Stat Weights.
Intellect > Spell Power = hit > Mastery > Crit Rating > Haste
This is just a general stat weight chain. These values may very a little bit as you get better gear. Spell Power and Hit are both very strong stats that you don't conflict with how you reforge so I say they are about equal. As important as it may seem hit is, ALWAYS go for intellect first. Intellect is the god stat of mages. Intellect is 3 times better than Crit Haste and Mastery.
Haste is ranked lowest because as you haste faster you also cast more often. Casting more often is more mana. Thus having haste drains your mana in a way. It's still a good stat. Only slightly worse because of this.
Earlier I said intellect is important, but there is a stat far stronger than it. It's so powerful it can save you from death and damage. It can even lessen the amount of heals you need. It's best known for helping you move out of things more quickly. Run Speed is the best stat in the game. The ability to more easily avoid Sonar Pulses and Corrupting Crash is OP. Your boots have Hit on them which is good, but I would always go for run speed over any other stat. It will save your life, weather you realize it or not :)
Other than your boots your enchanting is perfect. Nothing wrong wit it. Your gems have only one that is sub par. In your helm I recommend you swap that +40 int to a +20 int and +20 hit gem.
Your reforging is on the right track, but it could be better. If your doing it by hand chances are your not doing it optimally. AskMrRobot.com is a gear optimizer that helps you to reforge correctly. It also does gems, enchanting and Best in Slots. A great website that I strongly recommend. (they don't pay me to say it. I just think they are great)
This is what it is telling me you should reforge to:
http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/c ... hail#v1-z1
You briefly mentioned that you will not be playing fire in 4.2. This makes me sad face because you have killed heroic halfus. Have you seen it's amazing aoe and movement?
I just thought that after over an hour of typing this for you I would tell you not to give up on fire. Keep researching it. The best mages know how to play both fire and arcane. Being able to do both well is the best thing you can do for your dps. I play fire in more fights than arcane in t11. It's especially helpfull while doing Cho'Gall heroic. I do love being having full corruption and spamming Pyroblast for 45k dps. Lots of fun.
Best Wishes in this helping your dps,
-Guromin
Last edited by Guromin on 04 Aug 2011 17:52, edited 1 time in total.
Re: arcane mage help
18 Jun 2011 16:02
-
hailofthechamber
- Posts: 14
First off i would like to thank you so much for posting this reply. The standard of the advice you have given is well nothing less then amazing, thanks a mil!
I'll try my best to do everything you've said in future and hopefully will see a major improvement.
In your essay of great information you mentioned you are not a paragon mage, well after reading all this i'm sure it wont be long before they need you :P
cheers for the brill advice and of course the great websites and i'll do my best to practice and perfect it all, I really do owe you. Hopefully I can show the other mages whos boss on Wednesday when we take a crack at magmaw heroic. And yes, since you took the time to type all this for me the least i can do is keep my fire spec burning.
best regards
-hail
I'll try my best to do everything you've said in future and hopefully will see a major improvement.
In your essay of great information you mentioned you are not a paragon mage, well after reading all this i'm sure it wont be long before they need you :P
cheers for the brill advice and of course the great websites and i'll do my best to practice and perfect it all, I really do owe you. Hopefully I can show the other mages whos boss on Wednesday when we take a crack at magmaw heroic. And yes, since you took the time to type all this for me the least i can do is keep my fire spec burning.
best regards
-hail
Re: arcane mage help
20 Jun 2011 00:49
-
Guromin
- Posts: 190
Always my pleasure to help someone willing to learn :)
If you have any fire questions after you give it a try let me know. I've got more tips for fire than arcane. Arcane is easy in comparison :P
-Guromin
If you have any fire questions after you give it a try let me know. I've got more tips for fire than arcane. Arcane is easy in comparison :P
-Guromin
Re: arcane mage help
20 Jun 2011 20:22
-
hailofthechamber
- Posts: 14
well that would be great thanks :) i might need to make a new topic though :L thanks again the advice really worked
5 posts -