What can i do different?

[ThaKeeper]

Hi! Fire mage here :)

I'm not a hardcore raider like you guys, but i still like to maximize my dps as much as possible in my situation, so i'm wondering what i'm doing wrong because i know frie depends a lot of procs if you don't have the best gear and so on.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/z ... per/simple

^me

I know i have to change some gear like the blue ones and my shoulders but i'm a unlucky guy so i never get drops, lol. :p

My rotation is

1. Living Bomb
2. Scorch
3. Fireball/Scorch(if movement)
4. And using Pyroblast! on procs and combustion when combustionhelper says it fits. (I managed to get a 9k combustion once :D)

Still, this is what everyone knows. That's why i think it might be what happens when or after i proc pyro. Because, sometimes i get a proc right in the middle of a spell because the last one procced. I'm kinda confused what to do at that moment so sometimes i end up using some kind of scorch+pyro combo or whatever i do, lol.

My dps can vary from 8-20k (8k when spamming scorch because of oom or plain movement and 20 with a really nice combustion and a lot of procs)

~ThaKeeper :)

[Senijizu]

Arcane is the best spec? Hit cap off? 3 unenchanted items? That's a start lol

[ThaKeeper]

Arcane is the best spec? Hit cap off? 3 unenchanted items? That's a start lol

Arcane is boring. Crit>Hitcap even though i don't want it to go higher than 2% miss on skull. Unenchanted head because of blue item.

[Senijizu]

Arcane is the best spec? Hit cap off? 3 unenchanted items? That's a start lol

Arcane is boring. Crit>Hitcap even though i don't want it to go higher than 2% miss on skull. Unenchanted head because of blue item.

Int->Crit.... Int = Spell crit + mana. Also, missing enchant on boots & gloves, which ARE epic. You can just check some of the paragon mage's armory and you'll learn alot tbh lol

[Guromin]

ThaKeeper,

First off I want to say how much I agree with you. Arcane is really boring and I anxiously await the day fire becomes a viable raiding spec again. I defiantly understand where your coming from in picking fire and with your current state of progression I think it's okay to play fire and not compare yourself to arcane mages doing more damage. You just have to know your putting yourself at a disadvantage and if you and others are okay with that, it's perfectly acceptable.

Already realizing your a casual player (and thats perfectly acceptable) I will tell you what you can do to improve your gear and also give you a cheaper alternative if the best option is costly. Before I start I want to mention that Elitest Jerks has a great deal of information regarding fire mages that I strongly recommend you check out if you haven't already. http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t110326-cat ... ompendium/

Gear

I know the feeling when the things you need just refuse to drop. Terrible feeling, but stick with it and keep trying, you'll get it eventually. If you get enough Valors I recommend buying the Ring first because it will give the greatest upgrade. The wand would be next on the list and then it gets pretty close in terms of how much of an upgrade each item is. I won't go into any more on your gear because there really is a lot. Instead I will link you a Fire Mage t12 normal mode Best in Slot list.


Here is your current gear and what you should change. Things highlighted in green should be changed. I understand if you can't afford some of the enchants or wish to wait until you get an epic item.



These images are screen shots from a website that does a great job of optimizing gear. I have recommended it before and will again. http://www.askmrrobot.com

Rotation

Right off the bat I can tell you did some research on what the rotation is, but don't really know enough to play it smart. Fire mages rotation works based off of priority. For example refreshing living bomb after it falls off it more important than spamming fireball. Here is a list of spells in order of importance.

1. Combustion (when Ignite is strong, Living Bomb, and Pyroblast dot are on target)
2. Refresh Living Bomb (make sure to wait until after it falls off. If you refresh it too soon you will not get an explosion from it.)
3. Use Hot Streak procs for Pyroblast!
4. Keep Critical Mass on the target (Be aware! it does not stack with other fire mages Critical Mass or Warlocks. If there is a warlock in the group assume that you don't need to worry about it at all.)
5. Spam your main nuke; Fireball. Never scorch. You mentioned running out of mana so I will address that shortly.
6. ONLY applies while moving or in a mana crisis: Scorch

If you get a proc while your in the middle of a spell (lets say fireball), don't cancel fireball. Just wait and finish casting it and then use it. It's okay to wait with the proc sometimes. For example on Maloriak, if I got a Hot Streak proc right before the green phase I would save it because I knew in just a few seconds he would take 100% increased damage and I could spread the Combustion to the adds. My most successful attempt with that gave me a burst of 800k. Play it smart. ;)


You said you got a 9k Combustion which confuses me. Did you use Combustion while a 9k ignite was up or did Combustion deal 9k damage? When I was at your gear level I was getting ignites of around 15k. Maybe things have changed a little since then, but either way I think you can do better :D

Mana Management

Use a Mana gem when you can benefit from it's full effect. Using it sooner in a fight is good to get the cooldown refreshing for when you need it again.
Evocative when you mana is lower than 30%.

If after doing both of those you have still managed to run out of mana switch from Molten Armor to Mage Armor. Mage Armor should give you enough mana to keep spamming fireball without issues, especially if you switch shortly before your literally out of mana.


Inconsistent dps

I can see no reason your dps would vary between 9k and 20k except that your SO far under hit cap that Combustion and some other hard hitting spells are missing on you. Reforge like I posted above and you should see a LOT of that inconsistency clear up. I know it will still vary, but not that much. My dps would vary between about 19k and 21k depending on procs. For me that was really just because of Combustion. If I got strong Combustions I would do some crazy damage, especially when AoE was involved. Also want to mention that if your comparing dps varience across fights, don't. My dps could go from 17k to 100k depending on the fight (hehe 100k on Heroic Halfus!).

Best of luck with your venture into raiding!

-Guromin

[ThaKeeper]

I must say, i really appreciate your help, and I've already fixed the reforging as the website wanted to and i'm gonna enchant some stuff as soon as I've sold the darkmoon decks I've got laying around ;D

Well, I've read the fire mage compendium and that is what lead me to only getting 12,5% haste before reading this. I think my crit is getting a bit low (18,35% unbuffed) but with the right enchants and buffs, i think it will go great.

Again, thanks. I REALLY appreciate your help and i hope that i can just repost in this thread if I've got more questions ;D



Uuuh.. one thing i noticed. mrrobot wants me to replace my Melodious Slippers with Desert Walker Sandals. Uhm... I'd rather choose crit over haste, but what do you think?

[Guromin]

ThaKeeper,

I'm glad you found the information useful. You really do need that 12.5% haste, but don't forget that when your in a raid you get some extra buffs that help out. So actually you only need 532 haste (if I remember correctly). You aren't even close to making that an issue.

The reason AskMrRobot wants you to switch your boots for haste is because haste has a theoretically larger bonus to dps per point, however that bonus only makes haste better if your a robot. Theoretical robots have this amazing power to never EVER clip the end of a Living Bomb and more importantly they always get a good combustion that is never ignite munched. If you remember from the Elitest Jerks article Ignite Munching is when you crit big and a very small crit from a dot will 'munch' it; reducing it's power and damage done. Blizzard claimed to have fixed the issue, however I still noticed that my ignites were getting munched and I was sometimes loosing a powerful combustion to it. SimulationCraft and other theorycrafting tools don't account for ignite munching. So in actuality haste isn't as good. Reforging to crit helps you to get Combustion on CD more quickly and reduces the chance you bad RNG by a lot.

I apologize if I've lost you, because there is a ton more to that. I tried to keep it brief to just the important parts. Now what you can do so AskMrRobot calculates correctly like I linked. AskMrRobot has the ability to chance Stat Weights (how good it calculates each stat to be). We just need to change this so that Crit is just a little better than haste. To the bottom right of your screen you should see a tab labeled "Stat Weight Editor". Click the tab and adjust crit to be slightly better than haste. I know it probably feels like there should be an exact value to put into it, but it's going to give you the same result in the long run. At some point you may want to look into SimulationCraft so you can calculate your own stat weights, but for now playing fire when it's not the best spec this should get you where you want to go.


-Guromin

[ThaKeeper]

Again, thanks for helping me out :)

Yeah, i noticed that something was "wrong" when he wanted me to reforge crit into haste, so i did the priority changes myself yesterday :)

And yeah, i thought blizz fixed munching in 4.1 or whatever but since i have my focus everywhere i don't notice it that much, haha.

Also, i want to add that right after i did some of the changes mrrobot wanted me to do after the first post you posted, i joined in on a BH and i got amazed that my dps was from 15k to 25k almost at all times. Of course, it could have been just luck, but still...


EDIT: I Tried to use SimulationCraft, but it crashes when i start it up. Perhaps it's because i use a x64 bit OS.