WotLK [Guide] PvE Mage Guide

[Juanpablogp]

wich specs you prefer

[fieryfrostyflow]

Hello,

I play mage on Lordaeron in one of the top 4 guilds, and we are currently progressing ICC hc.

Now keep in mind that on Lord fights are buffed, and we are far from bis gear (got 4P Yesterday and I'm still below 6k gs). We also don't have 3°% buff ofc. In my guild we are progressing with two TTW mages (Neryx and Predicte), and one arcane mage (me, Jinkho).

Fire is better on Rotface (gotta move a lot), and arcane on Saurfang (focus add, dodging marks with invis instant). All other bosses are pretty much tied so far. I don't like your idea of swapping spec all the time, because you gotta gem haste for arcane and crit for fire, only the two bosses that I talked about are worth a swap in my opinion. Unless you have all the gear in the world (which may be the case in Icecrown but not in Lord), you cannot play both spec at 100%.

As far as Lich King is concerned I could top dps on nm 25m if you don't take ghouls and shamblings into account, so arcane isn't bad on this boss at all. I also did progress on Bane (lich king 10m hc), where fire and arcane mage are pretty close from each other dps wise.

We need to go further into progress to give more statistics, but my opinion so far is TTW is always good, and arcane is as good (and better on some bosses) if you have mana tide, PI and/or innervate. So one arcane per raid is a good idea because of the burst and fast switching it provides (slime on PP, mages/supressors on Vael, isolated Val'Kyr in LK, adds on DBS...).

I'm not sure whom this answer is meant for, but I was the one speaking about changing specs all the time. I agree with what you said about changing specs all the time, ideally it would require changing your items as well. Ideally it might be true that 1 out of x mages should go Arcane and consider Arcane his main spec. In hardcore guilds you pretty much always have the same setup or a very similar one where you can actually say that your main spec is arcane, you would have a certain position in that raid group. But in less hardcore guilds or in pugs you just have to notice what's around you and change what needs to be changed. For example you won't always change your gems but it only takes a minute to change your spec. Imagine having certain items, for a fight it might be better to change your talent spec but it doesn't mean that you have to change your gear as well. As for the haste difference I think that it's not hard getting couple haste items and gemming them with haste gems so you can switch between specs. At least that's what I do. A real tryhard would focus on both specs just like a Paladin would focus both on Holy and Protection/Retribution. Fire can go just as well on DBS especially with 2pT10. You can time your living bombs to explode right when the beasts spawn and you will pretty much always get a Hot Streak proc there, of course unless you're super low on crit, an instant Pyroblast followed by Fireball(s) will easily make you aggro the add, distancing it from melees/tanks and kiting it until it's killed. But then again you would lose your ignite stacks on the boss so it all comes down to your personal opinion unless the fight is planned like 1 year ahead.

[Audioholic]

In which guild/raid group you raid, can you give us some numbers (not screen, i'll trust you on words), per example your dps on PP on a good encounter

Even though this msg wasn't aimed at me but at Shaos who's a friend of mine i'll chime in with numbers on a longer fight such as PP with the controversial "high burst no sustained dps" Arcane spec that people like to put in a box by saying that it's obviously worse than fire after a minute or a minute and a half.

Spoiler: Show

[TinyToys]

Even though this msg wasn't aimed at me but at Shaos who's a friend of mine i'll chime in with numbers on a longer fight such as PP with the controversial "high burst no sustained dps" Arcane spec that people like to put in a box by saying that it's obviously worse than fire after a minute or a minute and a half.

Spoiler: Show

Really good fight, how much time was him ? Do you remember ? I saw arcane mage doing amazing fight on PP too, to my mind it requiert a good discipline to the whole raid, and i keep thinking that on this type of fight a fire can do a greater job, but at this point the main reason of one mage being above another is their respectiv skills


Tiny.

[Audioholic]

Really good fight, how much time was him ? Do you remember ? I saw arcane mage doing amazing fight on PP too, to my mind it requiert a good discipline to the whole raid, and i keep thinking that on this type of fight a fire can do a greater job, but at this point the main reason of one mage being above another is their respectiv skills


Tiny.

The fight was about 3½ minutes and the fire mage at #2 is also a highly experienced mage who i respect but I think he also knows he didn't perform optimally that fight and I reckon he's capable of pulling 19-20k as fire on this fight too.

[Artharias]

The fight was about 3½ minutes and the fire mage at #2 is also a highly experienced mage who i respect but I think he also knows he didn't perform optimally that fight and I reckon he's capable of pulling 19-20k as fire on this fight too.

Yeah as he said, made major misstake by blink with unbound, had to run to pass it, also had some bad movement, bad fight for me. Also he had PI and i dont. But yeah that was difference on other bosses too.

[Gnimo]

Making excuses brah?
Murtie badie???

[Selaya]

melee 420

[Getup]

The frost PVE talents for mage is always bug and no viable ?

[SysError]

Sorry I can't find "ArcaneBlast" skill. Something goes wrong?

[Achmo]

At how much self Crit/Sp do you recommend respecing from Arcane to TTW?

[TinyToys]

@Getup : Frost PVE is non-viable, whatever it's bug or not, but idk if she suffer about bugs right now

@Syserror : arcane blast us a spell not a skill

@Achmo : 48-50% crit selfbuff with the 2pieces T10 bonus


See U

Tiny.

[kuponeiro44]

So, my mage just reached 80. I'm arcane for start, that's obvious.
Which build is currently best once I'll reach 45-50% crit?

TTW Fire (20/51/0) or (18/53/0)

LB FFB (Living Bomb Frostfire Bolt) (0/53/18) or

CS FFB (Cold Snap Frostfire Bolt) (0/50/21) ?

Also, when can I switch to fire build? Approximately how %haste and %crit? Which items I need or ~ how much gs to do this switch?

[TinyToys]

So, my mage just reached 80. I'm arcane for start, that's obvious.
Which build is currently best once I'll reach 45-50% crit?

TTW Fire (20/51/0) or (18/53/0)

LB FFB (Living Bomb Frostfire Bolt) (0/53/18) or

CS FFB (Cold Snap Frostfire Bolt) (0/50/21) ?

Also, when can I switch to fire build? Approximately how %haste and %crit? Which items I need or ~ how much gs to do this switch?

TTW Fire specs for sure but give un screen about the specs you speak about please,


Tiny.

[Sky]

TTW Fire specs for sure but give un screen about the specs you speak about please,


Tiny.

18/53/0 is the spec with master of the elements (mana return on crits)
20/51/0 is the spec with points in student of the mind (%intellect)

To Kuponeiro44, it's a matter of preference which TTW spec you use, however I would recommend picking up flame throwing (+range) on the fire tree, and magic absorption on the arcane tree (+survivability).
Such a spec would look like this .

PS: As you mentioned in the first paragraph, you should make the switch around 48-50% self-buffed crit. By this time you should be around 620-650 haste as well. This is a good moment to consider the switch, if you also have 2 pieces of T10. Gearscore doesn't really matter because by itself tells us nothing, but generally you will reach the abovementioned milestones at around 5.8k gs.
Again, don't focus on gearscore, stats are far more important-- keep that in mind when upgrading your gear as well.