Need some advice

Need some advice

Post 28 Jul 2011 17:40

Avatar acton90
 
Posts: 2
Hello,

I'm in need of some expert advice, I'm quite new to world of warcraft being playing few months and i've rolled a mage and its my only class.. i've been looking around and trying to do some research on the best way to reforge my stats and such but i'm not having much look.

I was just wondering if you could take a look at my account and tell me how i can improve me damage per second and what i should reforge and such for the gear I've got on... I do understand that i have enchantments missing quite alot but i am working on them as we speak. My job has just put me up to full time so finding time to farm and do the boring stuff has really be hard but now i've got a 2 week holiday i plan on sorting my character out to the best i can make it.

Link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/g ... g/advanced

Thank you for your time :)

Re: Need some advice

Post 29 Jul 2011 07:27

User avatarGuromin
 
Posts: 190
Actopm90,

Wow. Just wow. Considering you haven't killed a single raid boss in the game your gear is incredibly impressive. I'd love to do that on my alts...

Anyway. You've asked some broad questions so in addition to doing my best to answer them I will also link you to some resources that can explain a lot of the basics. Considering that your posting on the #1 guild in the world's forums I'm going to assume you literally want to know what the best things you can do are. Second best enchantments just don't cut in here. Since you haven't started raiding yet, I want to point out a few items you could still get. Darkmoon Card: Volcano is a very strong dps trinket for any mage spec. It's damage output almost doubles what Soul Casket is capable of. Strongly recommend looking into getting that.

Gearing

Reforging and gemming are pretty simple for arcane one you start to get the hang of it. While both are doable by hand it is much easier to let a computer calculate it for you. They have the ability to quickly find the best way to reforge and gem to get you to the hit cap without going over and then into your best secondary stat (mastery). There are two programs I use right now to adjust my reforging, because having a computer do it is much easier than doing it by hand. The first is Ask Mr Robot, which is an online program that you load your character into and it will tell you how to correctly reforge, gem and enchant based on the standard stat weights. I have run hundreds of Simulation Craft tests to calculate what my that weight would be and at what gear level and for the most part I have found that the normal stat weights work well pretty much no matter what gear level you have. A link to Ask Mr Robot is at the bottom of the post in the recourse section. Here is the standard Arcane Mage stat priorities:


Intellect > Hit Rating > Spell Power > Haste (to soft haste cap) > Mastery > Critical Strike > Haste (past the soft haste cap)

Your main goal in gearing an arcane mage is essentially to get as much intellect as possible. Intellect is 3.6 times better than Mastery and Critical Strike and even far surpasses the value of Hit Rating. Getting more intellect increases the damage our spells deal, our mana pool, and the amount of mana we regenerate from Mage Armor. That part is generally pretty easy, because you can't reforge to intellect. The other stats make it a little trickier, so like I said before you should check out Ask Mr Robot to calculate that for you. There is one other program that I use to optimize my gear and thats Rawr. Ironically I posted just a few days ago about how much I hate rawr and it just over-values haste. I went back to verify it was still horrendously out of date and was happily surprised to find it up to date. Before I go into talking about rawr I want to mention that Ask Mr Robot is a lot simpler than rawr especially if you don't have a lot of time to figure out how to use it. If you are interested (or someone else reading this post) I will explain what makes rawr better than Ask Mr Robot.

Ask Mr Robot calculates your optimal gear configuration using linear values. They don't change and they don't scale. Rawr calculates the best way to gear your character by using a dynamic method of calculating your stat weights at each gear level. It also has the ability for you to select all of the gear you have currently obtained (multiple items for the same slot) and tell you what the best way to gear it. Ask Mr Robot cannot do this. As someone who will greed on any gear that would otherwise be disenchanted so that I have flexibility to switch my set bonus's around I find this feature to be incredibly helpful. It was a good day when I realized they updated Rawr. If your wondering, I take the gear and spend tons of gold to enchant it and donate a Maelstrom to the guild bank so it's never missed.

Learning a new program can be difficult so in order to help you out I am going to calculate the best way for you to gem, enchant and reforge and I will post it as an image bellow. If you use Ask Mr Robot correctly you should come up with the same result. Treat this like an answer key, if you just copy the answers on your character you haven't really learned anything and you would be reliant on someone else to keep optimizing your gear, so please treat it like an answer key.

Image

In regards to the soft haste cap here is a quote from Elitest Jerks:
Haste Cap

With the Patch 4.1 reduction in the AB cast time and given the levels of Haste present on current raid gear, it is now once again feasible to encounter the game mechanic of the Haste Cap; where under stacked spell haste conditions (such as Heroism/Bloodlust/Berserking) your AB cast time hits the 1 second GCD hard limit. Current analysis indicates that excess Haste be reforged to Hit or Mastery as required. Tools such as Rawr can calculate this for you if your appropriate raid buffs and spell haste effects are set correctly.



Your Goals:

Take a step into raiding. You haven't killed any bosses yet so try to get into a group for Baradin Hold (BH). It's a very easy fight and generally people won't be too concerned if your dps isn't that great. Also a great place to test out your damage.

As far as gear goes you should be concerned with getting your t11 4 set, not your t12 4 set. Long story short, the t12 set bonus is bad. So bad that until you get into Heroic Firelands and obtain 3/4 of the t12 Heroic Tier set you won't replace your t11 4 set. Things could of coarse change, but keep in mind it's not a bad thing. Especially not for you. It means that you can spend Justice Points on that gear to catch up instead of valors and your gear damage will be ahead of the game in a way.



Resources:

Great place to start: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t118084-cataclysm_arcane_mage_compendium/
Reforging and Gemming: http://www.askmrrobot.com
Why t12 set bonus is so bad: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/927789-Tier-12-Mage-4-Piece-Problem-(Arcane)?p=12028655#post12028655
Simulation Craft: http://code.google.com/p/simulationcraft/
Rwar: http://rawr.codeplex.com/


If you have any questions send me a Private Message or post a reply on this tread. I would be happy to help.

-Guromin

Re: Need some advice

Post 29 Jul 2011 11:00

Avatar acton90
 
Posts: 2
Wow, words can't really explain how thankful i am for you making that... must of taken alot of time and effort and i would just like to say thanks very much.

I have changed and calculated stuff on Mr Robot and Rawr and twinked with my gear a little... I'm in the making of buying my enchants now but my server are rip offs... Also i'm leaving my server to go to more of a PVE realm where they other pugs and such so i can get involved.

You have made a great difference to my DPS and my overall gameplay. I was a little worried about my 14-15k ish dps at the start but after listening to what you posted and said it's really helped me.

Thanks for your time and effort :)
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