f13.net forums - Been gone 10 months: Mage spec talk

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July 21, 2025, 02:44:07 PM

we're back, baby

While I left last November and my guild has continued raiding since, I come back and find I'm still the only full-time Mage. Our Alliance has a few others, but they come and go.

My equipment was only ok back then, so it's pretty out of date currently. Due to an Alliance shakeup, we'll be focusing on the 20-man raids. That's fine for me, time-wise. So we're doing ZG and AQ20.

I quickly vamped by previous Arc/Fire spec to a new almost-all Fire spec, just to get into the game and start blowing stuff up. That was a week ago. It's fine for farming Argent Dawn faction, but so much of Fire relies on Crits, and I'm just not that well geared for +DMG yet. I have some +Crit and some +DMG stuff, but will be focusing on the latter in the short term.

So, I'm looking for thoughts on a good template. I've never ever been Frost anything. I'm open to suggestions there, but I'll need long explanations using short words. :)

I'd like something well-rounded, if possible, for 20-man raids and some PvP, something else I've done only on occasion.

Just wrote a guide for my guild, actually. It's long but it's FIRE BOOM GOOD! And this is the fire PvE spec. Still decent in PvP. http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0E00MZxgM0fcht0h

The Discerning Caster's Guide to Blowing Stuff Up

As a fire mage your fundamental role in a raid doesn't change in the least: DPS, decurse, sheep. Stop dps when you have to decurse, scale it back when you have to sheep. The real difference between the two specs is how a fire mage maximizes dps.

But Molten Core has "Molten" in the title. Surely my dps will suck!

The short answer is no, absolutely not true. The long answer is that a fire mage has to be smart about mana usage in any raid instance so picking what to cast and when is key to getting the most out of your mage.

Here's what a cast chain usually looks like on trash mobs: Fireball, Fireblast, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Fireblast, Scorch, Scorch.

You fireball and do the instant cast blast while it's in the air, switch to fireballs while it recharges, do a blast again, then scorch when the mobs health is at 15% or so since a three second cast may not get off in time.

Boss fights are completely different but I'll touch on that soon.

What about Arcane Missles? They blow. NEVER use them unless the mob is immune to fire or it's an incredibly aggro sensitive fight (we're Alliance. Not seen one yet) They have almost half the dps of a fireball for almost twice the mana and get less crit and damage from your gear. Someday after picking up lots of gear frostbolt will be a better bet and you can take AM off your toolbar completely, though I've not seen any fire mage reach that point yet.

Use mana gems wisely and keep mage armor up at all times. By using mana gems wisely I've seen alot of mages who pop their ruby (+1K mana) when they're completely out of mana. Don't wait that long. Just use it when you go down 1K mana. By the time you go completely oom your gem cooldown will likely be up or you can Evocate and then use the citrine when you go down 600. Ice armor is useless in instances. If you get hit you're going to die regardless and the mana regen component is more important than a miniscule amount of armor.

How to spec

Arcane/Fire or Fire/Arcane? That's an individual choice. Arcane/Fire gives you Presence of Mind and Arcane Power. You get functionality, mana and great burst damage at the expense of mana efficiency. 31 Fire gets you Combustion for controlled Ignites and sustained dps that's almost unmatchable. Elemental Precision in the Frost line is HUGE. Every mob in the game has a base amount to resist spells based on level difference. Elemental Precision takes some of that away; assume that if you take Elemental Precision you just upped your dps by 6%.

Ignites

Ignites are the best damage over time in the game. The problem is that they are uncontrollable, proccing only off of crits. If we were Horde we wouln't touch 2500 fireball crits with a ten foot pole but we're not. Our beloved paladins give us an amazing amount of leeway to play with big numbers.

An Ignite will do 40% of a spells damage over 4 seconds. Meaning that if you crit for 2000 your Ignite will do 800 damage over 4 seconds, 400 a tick. The cool thing is that when another mage crits (or you yourself) it refreshes that four second counter AND stacks its damage on top of the old one.

eg. Ann crits Garr for 2000. Ignite ticks for 800/4. Viator crits Garr for 2000 on the last second of the Ignite. Ignite ticks for 1600/4 and the timer is reset.

The damage can be stacked up to 5 times but it can be reset indefinitely. It's why Combustion is so great for raids. It gives you as close to a controllable Ignite as you can get. Multiple mages with Combustion can keep one up for a very long time by using Combustion at the same time. The damage output from multiple Combustions is tremendous. This is referred to as a rolling Ignite if you ever see it on a forum somewhere.

http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=7672 is a great discussion on the mechanics behind Ignites and is a recommended read. I can't stress enough how important knowing the mechanics of Ignite is to a raiding fire mage.

Bosses

Bosses are a different animal than trash mobs but not by much. Unlike trash, bosses stay up for awhile so you can get 5 Scorch debuffs up and potentially plan your crits for rolling Ignites. To get the most out of fire dps on a boss fight you need at least one mage with Improved Scorch. That mage will use Scorch until the debuff is stacked fully, giving 15% extra fire damage from all sources while it's up. I have a macro which sends a whisper to all the fire mages once that's up so they can use Combustion or Arcane Power. Your big AP hits become even bigger because of the Scorch.

So a boss fight will go: Scorch until debuff, Combustion/AP, fireball until crit, Scorch spam to hopefully keep the Ignite up, fireball when it fades, scorch occassionaly to keep the debuff up (one application refreshes it)

Nice writeup. I'm right with you in that a Fire Mage is not gimped in MC. Even on those Firelords, what a good time to use Blizzard! But then, I also don't run a damage meter mod either, so don't give a crap about where I stand in the top 5.

The template you linked is fairly close to what I've got. Big differences are that I went with Pyro>Blastwave, mostly because I never had the latter before and the former is a good opener for farming (particularly with Combustion up). More is more.

For raiding though, I'll be switching to pick up that Frost talent (forgot about that part of the vamp) and some other things. I still like Pyro, but rarely use Blastwave. Would the latter be worth keeping as another insta for PvP though?

You're going to find that Pyroblast is only good with Presence of Mind which you won't have. It just doesn't do that much more damage than fireball in most situations. Plus two worthless DoTs instead of the one. I'm the opposite of you: I can't get rid of Blastwave. I love it. I PvP just enough that it's essential and it makes a great finisher for your AoE sprees (OH GOD! THE DOGS AREN'T GOING DOWN AT THE SAME TIME! Blastwave crits dead boom).

I took two points out of Arcane Meditation to get my Pyro/Blastwave; and a fuck you to Blizz for making Pyro the prereq for Blastwave, by the way. I'm Alliance, though. If you're Horde Arcane Meditation is must have. I still miss it and may just drop the Pyro/Blastwave for two points in it. I usually run first amongst mages and top 3-5 overall on the meters.

A lot of the raiding mages I've run across have been very deep frost. Something like 10/0/41. I don't raid, so I wouldn't know where to start. But the consensus is that frost is more mana efficient, and less screwed by the resists in MC and BWL. You can still use fire, but almost half your damage will get partially resisted pretty routinely. The Winter's Chill talent is great when you have several frost mages to take advantage of it.

After the big mage patch, I tried a new elemental build to play with the new Shatter mechanics. 0/24/27 with both improved wards was a lot of fun in BGs. You run out of mana quickly, but the playstyle is really fun. Very dynamic, and versatile.

A new trick that the new Ice Barrier (which is really awesome now) introduced is farming air elementals in Silithus while taking no damage. Just spec improved dampen magic, and IB, and rake in the cash.

Me personally, I respecced to Combustion just the other week to try it out. 17/34/0. I almost exclusively PvP, and fill out ZG and AQ raids when they're at the right time. It works out real well in group PvP when I get sit back and sling fireballs nonstop.

No, half your damage isn't resisted routinely.

Ok... so I've been in MC only marginally. I noticed my partial resists were really high. A lot more than fighting mobs in ZG or UBRS (which are admittedly lower level). I assumed this was due to their "fire" theme. Maybe I'm on crack and just had a bad run of luck. *shrug*

I still Heart

fire. I like the BLAMMO moments when you get 2 or 3 crits in a row. Frost never achieved that for me.

For PvP I really think you need PoM, PoM/AP, or to go frost. Ice block and shatter are great great talents for PvP, same with PoM and AP. I've tried the combustion 31/17/3 spec in PvP and did not have much fun with it.

Elementalist builds can do sorta well in PvP and PvE. The combination of master of elements along with frost channeling gives you good mana conservation, and you can do well against both fire immune/resistant and cold immune/resistant mobs.

30 fire/21 frost only uses frost for utility and is generally more of a PvP spec, although it can still work in raiding fine.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kZVg0zfcuxVhGoo0t

26 fire/25 frost I think could work. The only thing about this is that you need to make a tradeoff between PvP talents and PvE talents, more so than if you just specced AP. For instance...you can't get Imp. CoC or Frostbite (both fairly useless in PvE) without dropping Elemental Precision or Frost channeling (both fairly useless in PvP).

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=RZVgzzfMuZVAM0ort

For both of those builds replace impact with imp. fireball as you see fit. I think scorch/fireblast does fine on raids, especially with imp. scorch, but YMMV, and it's mainly again a PvP vs. PvE consideration.

34 frost/17 arcane is one of the best and most versatile specs out there IMO. I highly suggest it. If you don't get winter's chill, you can make a very good PvE/PvP hybrid spec. If you do get winter's chill, you will be veering much more towards the PvE side of things but still be ok in PvP. Shatter is your main damage tool in PvP, but overall your damage will be quite a bit lower than say a 30 frost/21 arcane spec with PoM.

More PvP oriented: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0E00bZZVArM0ftho
More PvE oriented: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=Rf0E00bZZVAMc0ftmo (can't find a last point to remove to max out winter's chill).

30 frost/21 arcane is another fine versatile spec, and my spec before the talent revamp, but after arcane got gimped a bit I decided to switch to /fire. Less survivable in PvP, better damage. FN/frostbolt/PoM frostbolt/fireblast= goodness. Both of these specs are nice because you can combine an imp. CS with a shatter, meaning the target can't dispel themselves while you unload on them. Elementalist specs using shatter don't have this advantage, but usually have higher damage/AE potential during the shatter.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0E00foZZVAM0ofth

I personally don't spec 34 frost/17 arcane because I don't enjoy the playstyle as much with ice barrier in PvP. I find my current spec enjoyable, even if it's sort of an unorthodox spec. Right now I'm 30 frost/21 fire, using frostbolt/fireblast as my main combo and using a FN/Imp. CoC/Blastwave for burst/AE dps.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=RZVghzbMzZVir0orth

Quote from: Jobu on August 22, 2006, 11:17:13 AM

fire. I like the BLAMMO moments when you get 2 or 3 crits in a row. Frost never achieved that for me.

You'll get partial resists but that has to do with native resists or (in the case of giants/destroyers) an enrage ability that they trigger. Nobody ever talks about Ice resists since Frostbolt is a binary spell (it's either resisted fully or not at all). The only mobs that seem to do the regular half damage thing are Gehennas and the rock elementals in the lava packs and even in the case of the latter I blow them up with fires.

Sad to say but the Horde/Alliance raiding dynamic is so broken that Frost/Fire are practically faction dependent. I can do shit with my fire mage (never downranking from rank 12 fireball, pull off 2500 crits multiple times, no mana issues) that I'd NEVER be able to do as Horde.

EDIT: And the 31/7/3 is viable in PvP but, no, not nearly as much as most other specs. You need to have a group willing to help you out in a jam which is a rare commodity in WoW.

Quote from: Modern Angel on August 22, 2006, 11:33:11 AM

Sad to say but the Horde/Alliance raiding dynamic is so broken that Frost/Fire are practically faction dependent. I can do shit with my fire mage (never downranking from rank 12 fireball, pull off 2500 crits multiple times, no mana issues) that I'd NEVER be able to do as Horde.

I'm curious, which Paladin ability is letting your Alliance character be so much more effective? Blessing of Salvation? Wisdom? Kings?

Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom. The 2 combined pump a whole lot of mana into mages/locks/hunters.

Quote from: Calantus on August 22, 2006, 12:50:45 PM

Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom. The 2 combined pump a whole lot of mana into mages/locks/hunters.

Ah yes.. In long fights I could see that making a difference.

I agree on Pyro/PoM. My previous build was the 31/18 Arc Fire, and I loved me my PoM'd Pyros. I'd love them even more with the no cooldown timer on Pyro these days. That's a lot of damage in 4.5 seconds (assuming I opened with a full-cast Pyro).

However, I also love Combustion. I like how they handled this in the vamp, and it allows me to more quickly ditch the +crit gear I had in favor of +DMG. I was just starting that last November.

I won't be doing MC much, and therefore not Ony nor BWL. I just don't have the time. Once I get my hands on Fireball (Rank 12) (yea, I've been gone that long), I'll be having me some fun in some BGs and the 20-mans, which don't seen to emphasize one thing over another with the attendant punditry.

Thanks for the linkage trias! I'll check out the Silithus/Elemental video tonight. I'm not much into Elementalists just yet, but like Frost, they've always intrigued me. I'd like to dig into this Fire thing some more since the vamp. Been almost two years since I decided on Fire in beta. They musta struck the right cord with me on this one. I'm never this consistent with a calss.

Quote from: Valmorian on August 22, 2006, 12:59:30 PM

Quote from: Calantus on August 22, 2006, 12:50:45 PM

Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom. The 2 combined pump a whole lot of mana into mages/locks/hunters.

Ah yes.. In long fights I could see that making a difference.

Making a difference is the biggest understatement imaginable. Mana conservation even more than aggro is the biggest difference between the two factions. That said, Salvation is a huge deal, too; any crits in Horde you have to scale back a bit. Not like that in Alliance most fights.

Quote from: Jobu on August 22, 2006, 11:05:17 AM

A new trick that the new Ice Barrier (which is really awesome now) introduced is farming air elementals in Silithus while taking no damage. Just spec improved dampen magic, and IB, and rake in the cash.

Nerf inc.

Quote from: Calantus on August 22, 2006, 12:50:45 PM

Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom. The 2 combined pump a whole lot of mana into mages/locks/hunters.

My hunter friend used to love duo'ing with my pally. He could open up with all his powers and never run out of mana, ever. I wouldn't either.

Quote from: Lt.Dan on August 22, 2006, 04:17:05 PM

Quote from: Jobu on August 22, 2006, 11:05:17 AM

Nerf inc.

Heh, yea no kidding. They'll probably limit the number of targets that can be dampened or something.

But what I don't get is how, with like 10 Elementals, that shield remained. Doesn't it only absorb 818 damage? Or is that enough to get them all slowed/chilled for a guaranteed-crit from Blizzard?

Quote from: Darniaq on August 23, 2006, 05:36:08 PM

Quote from: Lt.Dan on August 22, 2006, 04:17:05 PM

Quote from: Jobu on August 22, 2006, 11:05:17 AM

Nerf inc.

The trick is that when dampened they only do 1 damage per hit, ever. It's a flat reduction to magical damage on everything done to you, and their range of damage was just a bit under the reduction. So they cannot outdamage the shield, ever. (p.s. Blizzard doesn't crit)

I guess they upped their damage so that even dampened, they do in the neighborhood of 50-80. Good thing I got it while the getting was good. Paid for my epic mount in a few hours, and I have tons of leftovers to sell when the market swings back up.

All told, it was a lot of fun rounding up the entire zone, and seeing your DPS spike to like 10k while you burn them all down. People stopping to stare are you were pretty cool too. Looting them was a pain in the ass.

You need to tell me the next time something like this comes up. I need me my epic :)