[Mage] New 85 Heroic Farming

I am rapidly approaching level 85 on an ALT mage. After leveling many ALTs to 85, I found end game content not for me too much so I never really cared about gear / DPS / etc etc. I did like PvP at 85 so that’s pretty much all I did on Hunter/Pally/DK/Druid. The mage however seems to really be strong DPS wise, I mean ridiculously so pumping out huge numbers in random (regular) 5 mans I get into while leveling.

I pretty much went from 80-83 in Hyjal to unlock future Firelands hub, and then did the whole 110 quests in Deepholme thing to get to Therazane dailies (first time on any toon I did this). My question is this, after dinging 85, I will craft the iLvl377 Fireweave stuff and have an iLevel that will prolly allow me into the HoT heroics. I am looking for a spec/build that would be good for farming them as I gather JP/VP for PvE gear.

I leveled Arcane as it felt the most “clean” to me. I know Fire was putting out huge numbers in Raids partially do to movement-sustainable DPS. But the new HoT Heroics don’t seem too hard, and I think staying Arcane would make sense since I know how to play it / rotation etc etc. I am not worried about padding meters or being the top DPS. I don’t want to cause wipes (more player knowing instance that class/spec), and want to be competitive. I know there are other resources out there for Mage specs and such, I’ve been to them. This site is full of great people who seem to not be “Flame the Dumb Question Guy” kinda peeps. Also it is one of the few sites I can access through ridiculous firewall while working (shhhh don’t tell). Thoughts

i personally love fire on my mage, but stick with what you know
the only benifit i see for fire vs arcane is fire has better aoe
other then that, i really dont see much difference between arcane and fire as far as running 5mans is concerned

I believe with the 5% nerf to Fire in the latest patch it is no longer superior to Arcane in 5m and 10m, but only in 25m with the more complete buffs. So just go with what you like. I have always kept my mage Arcane, and I put up good damage.

My friend (who plays mage as rabidly as I play paladin ) tends to prefer Arcane for heroics. Lots of burst, and most fights are over fast, even bosses. I don't know how well it would play in Fireweave, mind you, but then I don't know how mages' mana regen works. I suspect that the massive mana pool from the Fireweave would actually work out well.

Arcane will give you better numbers at lower gear levels, especially across the shorter boss fights in 5 mans. Fire is more gear dependent (especially crit), and while it has great AOE in raids, from playing my baby fire mage a lot on and off through cata I've found that much of fire's aoe is diminished in 5 mans because aoe targets just melt too fast. Then again, arcane aoe isn't much better.

I actually have my most fun playing frost in 5 mans. Acceptable aoe, combined with amazing control and survivablity (nothing saves a person on the run like Ice Barrier, Ice Block, frost nova, ring of frost, more slows and snares than I can count, and being able to use it all twice with Cold Snap if needed) and decent dps makes this my favorite spec by far. I wouldn't raid as it (as much as I want to), but its a ton of fun to play. It also gears very similar to fire (crit>haste>mastery) making it easy to swap to a fire raid spec if you pug in or want to run LFR or something.

hmmm i might have to try a heroic as frost...

as far as the aoe, for truly massive numbers you do need mobs that will last a little longer with fire, but you can do blastwave/flamestrike from a distance, which isnt possible with arcane explosion (sure an arcane mage has blizzard and flamestrike too, but still)

This is just the kind of opinion based info that I wanted. The issue with Fire and stuff dying too fast is the same dilemma I run into with a lowbie (lvl40) Warlock. Most of the DoTs don’t have time to do any damage, similar to stuff dying too fast for AoE ticks to do big numbers. I will have to investigate frost as well for heroics it could be fun, and after all that’s what I am really after is an enjoyable experience.

And as far as the Fireweave stuff goes with lack of Mana regen, Arcane (at least how I play it) has phases that are not affected by mana regen. You Burn through your huge mana pool doing huge numbers….Evocation to regen, and then sustain decent DPS till Evocation will back up at about the same time you go OOM again [Start Burn phase] again. Also, for Arcane in particular the higher iLvl gear has more INT which is a direct boost to our Mastery which increases damage the more mana you have. In random 5 mans, there probably will not be too many fights that last long enough to have to cycle through more than one Evocation phase….stuff just dies quick like we all kind of said earlier. Thanks guys and keep em’ coming.

From my own experiences of playing a mage in the current 5-mans (he farms Valor for me to buy BoEs for my pally), you're right that I can't think of a boss fight which lasts long enough for two Evocates. Raid bosses I can't comment on, as my mage does very little raiding.

The problem you might find is actually the opposite - especially the new HoT dungeons. In some cases I've seen, the trash between two bosses is so minimal that you're having to start a boss fight in a conservation phase because you're still waiting for Evo to come off cooldown from the previous boss!

Pre-emptive grats on dinging 85, btw

Fire is a lot more fun than Arcane, especially in raids. Its versatility of movement and variety of spells make it less mind-numbing. It does, however, have a bit of a learning curve to it. (Particularly the aoe part.) It's not so much "gear dependent" as it is "learning how to use combustion properly" dependent. Once you get it down, you'll probably never want to go back. The only downside is its proc reliance; if you get a bad streak with no Pyros, not even a legendary weapon will keep you at the top. In longer fights, it's generally not a problem as it evens out over time, but it's still annoying.

In 5-mans, where you can just spam AB and the boss is dead before you run out of mana, Arcane will give you better numbers since you never actually leave your burn phase and Fire will still be ramping up procs and dots. In raids, Arcane is fucking annoying as shit to play (personal opinion). Raids turn one-button spam into trying to manage your mana and cooIdowns so everything lines up, while trying to figure out where best to use insta-casts since you very seldom have a situation where you just stand there and dps (I hope you kept ice lance on your bars, you'll be using it). I was so glad when they buffed fire so I could go back to playing it.

Invisusira wrote:IMO Fire is a lot more fun than Arcane...

FIFY.

just stain' the facts yo

So I went and got a cookie-cutter Fire spec, and messed around on the training dummies for a couple / three mana pools worth of DPS (I know dummies are not a great way to tell, but for this experiment it was fine). I got down the general rotation and feel like I can understand the nuances of combustion. I am still only 84 (lil prot warrior grabbed my attention this weekend). I got my baseline DPS numbers from the dummy (about 8K DPS) in Fire. Switched to Arcane (the one I feel I know better)…..did a couple burn phase / replenish phase runs on same dummy, with same buffs. Pulled about the same DPS! I was shocked actually. I thought Fire would be less if even only by a little bit just due to length of time I have played with Arcane. So….numbers being the same I think Fire IS more fun than Arcane due to more variety than you get playing Arcane. I still am leveling Arcane to 85 as it feels stronger with its Arcane Blast Slows…..but I will defiantly try going Fire when I begin my Random Pugging career on this guy. Thanks again you guys for all your input ‘twas helpful.

my one question about that is did you reforge?
arcane and fire have different stat priorities, and thus different reforging needs, but at 84 that shouldnt be that big of a deal

Right, I didnt reforge anything, I am in primarily leveling gear some greens, mostly leveling / dungeon blues. No reforge no gems no enchants (yet). I knew it was not going to be perfect numbers-wise but figured it would be tolerable check. I meant to say, that I did find Fire to be a little like Ret Pally with the waiting for Procs to hit big boomer. But unlike Ret Pally, there are things you can do besides wait for CS to be avail...haha. Did you try Frost in a heroic yet BL?

havent yet, have some errands to run this morning and i will do that later today
ty for reminding me!
edit: ok i did trash and one boss as frost, but got so frustrated with crap numbers and not being able to move i switch back to fire

I have played frost a bit in heroic. It's relatively interesting to play but sadly the DPS potential is quite low. I never made it past 15k DPS as frost while i run over 20k as Fire.

Yeah, reforging is one more reason Arcane is annoying. Mage has typically been about haste/crit, but Arcane is all like HOPE YOU WANTED MASTERY ON YO GEAR so you pretty much have to have an entire second set of gear for it or reforge every time if you want to switch back and forth.

So I finally stepped away from ALTs long enough to get my 5 Bars of XP to…/DING 85. Had the crafted gear waiting for me in my bags, including x2 Rings and necklace. Still have crappy trinkets and wand. iLvl 333 staff and BoA cloak. Due to cloak I cant quite yet que for HoT randoms, but I figured Id get the Thrall quest line one and save some mats.

But MAN….I didn’t realize that none of that PvP crafted stuff nor my weapon has ANY HiT on it. That’s right Spell Hit – 0. Is this a glaring problem or what. Didn’t realize it till IK was unlocking Firelands hub and was missing the level 85 Blazerunner guys with my spells, I was all “WTF”…Blaze runner was like “I burn you sucka you got no HIT rating”!...So I open my hub, and turned in for the night as I was spent….not looking forward to tonight when I get to reforge all my gear not for optimal performance, but for friggin HIT…../cry

It's possible that reforging for hit IS optimal performance. Don't worry, it'll get better as your available itemization improves.

Frost is actually a lot of fun. The numbers it puts up are okay. If you play it well, you can equal decent DPS of other classes. Also, you can play havoc on World of Logs, because it's a lot of fun to get ranked on every fight.

It's important to note that the 4pc for Frost is insane. You basically spend close to half of your time under the effects of Icy Veins, which is pretty huge.

It's also a really good time to go into LFR and get made fun of for being Frost, then make people eat their words by being in the top three if not the top of the DPS charts.

Sure, you will get better numbers with the same skill level by being Fire or Arcane, but it's way more satisfying to throw everything into succeeding as the underdog.

If you try it and stick with it awhile, you might be surprised what you can put out. I have always played my mage as Frost, and I figured I would just LFR him for fun factor. After seeing what he can do, though, I've been bringing him to our alt run and kicking ass, and even beating some mains on our Firelands run for orange farming. It's fun.

Oh man.

Don't say that.

I've avoided LFR for at least 6 weeks now on all characters, but this? Is making me want to take my mage as frost into LFR and play that way.

Frost is soooo much fun, and I miss it.

Amirya wrote:Oh man.

Don't say that.

I've avoided LFR for at least 6 weeks now on all characters, but this? Is making me want to take my mage as frost into LFR and play that way.

Frost is soooo much fun, and I miss it.

Do it.

You are cruel, sir.

I might try that tomorrow pre-raid, if my homework is done.