Random Question Thread

[Norellicus]

Pretty sure max hit is numero uno for all caster DPS. Missing a spell is a huge hit to your DPS, especially considering that you have cast times and spell travel time to contend with.

Oh shit 1000 posts

[synistar]

Well i'm a Frost fire mage (armory in sig). and i'm sitting at 359 hit (16.49% w/ talents)
Which means .51% to resist. and was wondering if i replacing all my +hit gems and enchants with spell damage/crit would be a good idea? i just see a lot of mages that advertise on trade/general/lfg that they are hit capped but does that really matter?

basically hit or spelldamage/crit? >.>

If you are in a raid, you may want to aim after precision 3/3 for 10% hit from gear. If you raid with a boomkin or a shadow priest, they give 3% to hit with spells. Alliance can push the required hit to 9% with draenei due to the racial. After that you can stack spell damage/crit to your heart's content. "Hit capped" may have different for certain people. 16% cumulate hit (talents + hit rating + misery/improved FF) is required for raid bosses.

[Falaras]

For an Arcane raiding mage, should I resocket all my sockets with INT gems for the Mana, Crit, and SP gained from talents or stay with SP gems? Currently using Mage Armor, maybe the extra INT will let me switch to Molten again.

[Headspace]

When leveling huntard, do I spec for more pet armor/stamina or more dps? My roommate told me to spec for damage, but if I switch to gorilla in about 10 levels, then armor seems better.

Also, is engineering still semi profitable? I've been doing it for a while on my new character, and seems like the biggest money maker is mote extractor, is that still a viable way to make gold?

[Ramor]

mining is quite lucrative (at least for me as a JC,not sure how mote extractor does), speccing your pets for DPS is easily best...just makes things go faster and you really don't need the extra armor (unless you find yourself healing your pet more than once every thirty seven fights)

Q: Does the pally frost resists aura and GotW (or Frost DK aura) stack?

[Norellicus]

Gift of the Wild definitely stacks with either of the other two, no idea on the Pally+DK auras working together though.

[Boyiee]

When leveling huntard, do I spec for more pet armor/stamina or more dps? My roommate told me to spec for damage, but if I switch to gorilla in about 10 levels, then armor seems better.

Also, is engineering still semi profitable? I've been doing it for a while on my new character, and seems like the biggest money maker is mote extractor, is that still a viable way to make gold?

Get a devilsaur and level to 80 with it. It's better than a Gorilla. The argument is threat and that a gorilla can tank multiple mobs, but volley will end up pulling those mobs off the gorilla anyway. For single target, it's been proven that devilsaur puts out so much DPS that it will out threat tank-pets. If you have a gorilla and dont want to drop it, spec for tanking... but if you have a dps pet, all out dps.

For dps leveling, I'd max out cobra reflexes and dash, pick up bloodthirsty and heart of the phoenix, avoidance so you can get rabid asap, then spiders bite.

As for Engineering... supposedly... it can be one of the most profitable professions if you do it right. Mining+Gas clouds or Killing ele's+Gas clouds etc wintergrasp etc lots of money.


Q: Making a mage alt... Gnome or Draenei? Draenei female looks better, also 1% less hit needed for spell hit cap. Gnome gets more INT, and um, escape artist which I only care so much about.

[Eaglestrike]

I'd go Gnome for an alliance mage. 5% int is hotness (I don't think this was changed...) and the 1% hit can still be supplied by any number of other people in your group.

Mark/Frost aura/DK aura/Frost totems do not stack. Only the highest for each resist will be shown. If you have Gift + frost resist aura you'll have 130 resistance, exactly what the paladin aura gives.

[Korietsu]

Well i'm a Frost fire mage (armory in sig). and i'm sitting at 359 hit (16.49% w/ talents)
Which means .51% to resist. and was wondering if i replacing all my +hit gems and enchants with spell damage/crit would be a good idea? i just see a lot of mages that advertise on trade/general/lfg that they are hit capped but does that really matter?

basically hit or spelldamage/crit? >.>

Depends on your raid buffs and your group comp. What's your SD/Crit? Generally, you should gem + Hit/SD within reason, and then +SD or SD/Crit. If you have a boomkin or spriest in your raid, you can drop ~5% (cant remember if its 3,5 or 6% hit -_-) hit because of misery, and then if you have a dranei, another 1%.

Also, remember that FFB doesn't double dip off elemental precision for 6% hit anymore, same goes for frostbolt now, so if you counted the double dipping you'll need to remove 3% off your hit rating.

[Korietsu]

For an Arcane raiding mage, should I resocket all my sockets with INT gems for the Mana, Crit, and SP gained from talents or stay with SP gems? Currently using Mage Armor, maybe the extra INT will let me switch to Molten again.

Don't ever socket int as a mage. Period. Stick with SP/Crit gems. The int bonus doesn't scale to match the straight SD/Crit.

[Eaglestrike]

Don't ever socket int as a mage. Period. Stick with SP/Crit gems. The int bonus doesn't scale to match the straight SD/Crit.

If mana is an issue though, INT could be an option. Though I'm not sure how much mana is an issue for an arcane mage with 3 charges of a mana gem and 2min evocate now...

[Lordshin]

Depends on your raid buffs and your group comp. What's your SD/Crit? Generally, you should gem + Hit/SD within reason, and then +SD or SD/Crit. If you have a boomkin or spriest in your raid, you can drop ~5% (cant remember if its 3,5 or 6% hit -_-) hit because of misery, and then if you have a dranei, another 1%.

Also, remember that FFB doesn't double dip off elemental precision for 6% hit anymore, same goes for frostbolt now, so if you counted the double dipping you'll need to remove 3% off your hit rating.

hmm.. i have 1475 SD and 29-ish% crit (with Molten armor+glyph+intellect)
My hit rating is only counting the +3% Precision talent.

i have +20 hit on gloves, a +16hit gem, and a gem that give +8hit (im poor )

i guess i'll wait and see what my guild group for naxx has in it to decide (first guild run for my group is this weekend)... i just didnt want to waste the enchants/gems if i did happen to have an SPriest or boomkin =/

[Xfaustx]

The recent update made frostfire mages lose 3% hit rating, so mages will need to adjust their gear accordingly to get back to the 99% hit previously. Elitist Jerks has an awsome thread on specifically gearing and how to use frostfire mage in raiding. Ill post a link below.

The Frostfire Bolt thread - Elitist Jerks

and this discusses the 3% hit rating loss from the new update.

Upcoming mage changes - Elitist Jerks

[Korietsu]

If mana is an issue though, INT could be an option. Though I'm not sure how much mana is an issue for an arcane mage with 3 charges of a mana gem and 2min evocate now...

If you're getting the replenishment buff, max mana helps quite a bit with regen, and scales well, but in most cases you don't know how your raid is going to be min/max'd. I'd still take a look over at EJ though on gem choices.

[sb]

Get a devilsaur and level to 80 with it. It's better than a Gorilla. The argument is threat and that a gorilla can tank multiple mobs, but volley will end up pulling those mobs off the gorilla anyway. For single target, it's been proven that devilsaur puts out so much DPS that it will out threat tank-pets. If you have a gorilla and dont want to drop it, spec for tanking... but if you have a dps pet, all out dps.

As a readyness BM hunter(and pre 3.0.8), I would rarely pull hate off my gorrilla, if I gave it a few seconds to get a second thunderclap off. Could basically volley off the first group thunderclap, if I used the pet crit abillity (name escaping me right now).

When I did pull hate, I would just feign and they all go right back to the gorrilla. This is with my gorrila being talent specked to tank, but all my talents were focused on DPS.

I would imagine with the volley damage nerf, it would be hard to get hate off the pet now, but I haven't had a chance to really test out my hunter post patch.

edit: lol 3.0.8 in parenthisies = sunglasses

[Baha]

Feign Death and Misdirect pulling help as well. Getting a few hits isn't an issue with AoE'ing stuff with a gorilla, you'll volley down 5-6 mobs in the time it takes you to kill 3-4 with a dps pet. Always annoyed when I set out from a daily hub with my cat instead of my gorilla. It's not a huge huge difference, but it's just annoying. I'm guessing it's not as awesome as it was pre-3.08 though, explosive blows through mobs too well for me to have to volley much anymore.

Endurance training is arguably worth taking over hawk for a levelling build, improved revive pet, mend pet and spirit bond are worth at least a point each as well. Catlike reflexes isn't worth it though, unless you're going to be trying to have your pet maintank something.
For pet talents, work towards blood of the rhino (coupled with your own healing to pet talents, mend pet will keep your gorilla up through almost anything) and guard dog first, and then decide on armour or damage. Being 51 in BM will give you some more playroom with talents, but most of the tanking special abilities aren't worth it imho.

[Kurp]

I've been leveling my mage as as Frost (75), but am wondering if the recent changes to Arcane would make it better to level as that. A two minute cooldown on Evocation (glyphed) and the new Arcane Blast make it look appealing.

AoE killing with Blizzard seems like more trouble than it's worth now. The only thing I saw was a snare speed reduction in the patch notes, but mobs are breaking free all the time and killing 5 things ends up being an epic struggle for survival more often than not. I can proactively drop another circle to try and keep things controlled, but it rapes my mana and still doesn't guarantee a nicely corralled herd.

Here's my mage's armory if you want to look at my crappy gear and spec: The World of Warcraft Armory

Welcoming any suggestions! This is the third and hopefully final character I level to 80 and I want to make it as painless as possible.

[aers]

Gift of the Wild definitely stacks with either of the other two, no idea on the Pally+DK auras working together though.

You sure?

I think the aura/dk aura overwrite GoTW.

[Norellicus]

No I'm not sure tbh xD

I could swear they did back in BC because I remember a fight (don't remember which fight though @_@) where we were having a hard time with spells being cast on the tank while the DPS was burning down spawned adds...so we threw out a resist totem and pally threw up aura, and my resist jumped a good amount. I'm a druid so ofc we had GotW up

[Xellos]

Pretty sure GotW doesn't stack with either Aura. The DK Frost Aura doesn't stack with the Pally aura either. The DK Frost talent Acclimation does stack though.