Mage Guide

[Falaras]

As a caster dps you should already be good at "spreading out" by the time you have completed any kind of raiding, 6 yards give you space to accomplish this but really by the time your entering hard modes most people should already know where to stand unless your well bad?
I wouldnt invite and undergeared player to a hardmode unless i was desperate for there buff ( looking at you shammies ) so i doubt any undergeared people get into a normal 25 HM guild, no wait let me rephrase that. I doubt anyone earns a regular place in a 25man HM guild unless there are very exceptionall cirumstances.
To put it bluntly if your in a HM guild you should be expected to have a spec that pushs your DPS to the max as a ranged if your having to rely on being what 40 from the target your doing it wrong. Basically just learn to be better its not hard really is it? Giving advice to any new players that might read this is really bad but then again arent you the same mage in another thread that said being a few points under hit cap was ok?

edit spelling.

First of all, I'm talking about 251-264 geared players joining a HM guild in which they would to gain upgrades from taking 277 Spirit gear. Lingering Illness for instance beats any item pre Crushing Coldwraith heroic, but no one actually wants Lingering Illness because they are saving points for Crushing Coldwraith.I know multiple people on this forum, including myself, that have gone through that process.
Its not the idea of knowing how to spread out, its giving you more options to spread out farther and to attack targets from farther away. Again I reference the fact that Tusskars Vitality is in the same boat as Flame Throwing, except Icewalker is worth almost double the DPS that 2 more points in SOTM is, but very few people would advocate Icewalker as a proper enchant. As a person in a HM guild you should be expected to do a lot of things besides purely DPS, its the same idea as taking MA over Arcane Concentration. Eighty resistance is HUGE, while a 4% chance at a free fireball really is not. Same ballpark as that, 6 range is HUGE, while 66 DPS is not.

And no I have never advocated going a few points under the hit cap.

I know nothing about mage but checking a friend of mine spec, he is 18/53/0 but with a few different points assigned, he has 1/2 Magic Absortion, 0/3 Student of the Mind, 5/5 Arcane Concentration, rest is same.

Magic Absorbtion is a powerful talent adding 80 Resist to everything, which stacked ontop of Auras can help you resist large amounts of damage in ICC. Arcane Concentration is really not that important as in a 25 man you shouldn't ever even need to Evocate so mana just isn't a problem. Like I've said SOTM is overrated. Your buddies spec is fine although I personally would change the points in AC to 1/3 SOTM and 2/2 MA.

[Shiznicle]

Engineering is generally considered the top tier mage profession.

Just curious as to why Engineering is considered the top profession for mage. I have Enchanting as my main profession on my mage, and I've been trying to decide on a second profession. Most people have been telling me to go tailoring, but I was considering engineering since I already have some of it leveled.


Also,

b. Beast Slaying: Not particularly amazing because in no raid will you encounter a Beast mob, but in Dungeons, Raid Trash, or Leveling you fight Beasts pretty often making this racial pretty useful.

ToC had some beasts.

[Lexa]

Just curious as to why Engineering is considered the top profession for mage. I have Enchanting as my main profession on my mage, and I've been trying to decide on a second profession. Most people have been telling me to go tailoring, but I was considering engineering since I already have some of it leveled.


Also,



ToC had some beasts.

Hyperspeed Accelerators, om nom nom <3

[Plow]

Just curious as to why Engineering is considered the top profession for mage. I have Enchanting as my main profession on my mage, and I've been trying to decide on a second profession. Most people have been telling me to go tailoring, but I was considering engineering since I already have some of it leveled.


Also,



ToC had some beasts.

hyperspeed accelerators + saronite bombs

[Falaras]

Just curious as to why Engineering is considered the top profession for mage. I have Enchanting as my main profession on my mage, and I've been trying to decide on a second profession. Most people have been telling me to go tailoring, but I was considering engineering since I already have some of it leveled.
Also,
ToC had some beasts.

Hyperspeed Accelerators work very nicely with cooldown burst (which is a huge part of a mages damage in ICC which 4PC T10). Not to mention some of the passive things like +27 SP to back and some people like +23 Crit to shoes. I've never used bombs (I thought they where meant for mellee classes that have a lull in their abilities) but if someone can tell me why they would be useful for a mage I would definitely appreciate it.

And thank you, I forgot about Northrend Beasts I'll edit that some, can't believe I forgot something so simple!

[Miraun]

Magic Absorbtion is a powerful talent adding 80 Resist to everything, which stacked ontop of Auras can help you resist large amounts of damage in ICC. Arcane Concentration is really not that important as in a 25 man you shouldn't ever even need to Evocate so mana just isn't a problem. Like I've said SOTM is overrated. Your buddies spec is fine although I personally would change the points in AC to 1/3 SOTM and 2/2 MA.

I took a look at your arcane build, and I'd actually ask a similar question. I disagree with your arcane build on Magic Absorption and Magic Atunement:
While Magic Absorption is a 'nice to have', it doesn't increase damage output.
Magic Atunement is a bit more of a grey area on damage output. Arguably, it's the difference between casting and not casting, but for fights where there's a significant amount of mobility and distance required, I'd just say go fire! (no reason shit can't be situational in WoW too, right?)

I admit, Student of the Mind is NOT a zomfg damage increase due to the high base crit rate of arcane due to clearcasting +30% crit procs, and instant-crits from POM, but it is still a higher increase in damage than just increasing your resistances. In terms of mana recovery of SOTM versus MA, it would vary fight to fight depending on what you're getting hit with, and your gear's base spirit... Although your earlier justification really didn't put an emphasis on MA as a form of Mana regen.

Instead, I personally went with 0 Atunement, 0 Absorption, to put in 5 SOTD and a third rank over in Ice Shards to increase AoE DPS. Due to our high crit rate (as mentioned above), we can get those nice Clear casting crit buffs on blizzard, and doing an extra 33% bonus crit damage is a significant increase.

[Falaras]

I took a look at your arcane build, and I'd actually ask a similar question. I disagree with your arcane build on Magic Absorption and Magic Atunement:
While Magic Absorption is a 'nice to have', it doesn't increase damage output.
Magic Atunement is a bit more of a grey area on damage output. Arguably, it's the difference between casting and not casting, but for fights where there's a significant amount of mobility and distance required, I'd just say go fire! (no reason shit can't be situational in WoW too, right?)

I admit, Student of the Mind is NOT a zomfg damage increase due to the high base crit rate of arcane due to clearcasting +30% crit procs, and instant-crits from POM, but it is still a higher increase in damage than just increasing your resistances. In terms of mana recovery of SOTM versus MA, it would vary fight to fight depending on what you're getting hit with, and your gear's base spirit... Although your earlier justification really didn't put an emphasis on MA as a form of Mana regen.

Instead, I personally went with 0 Atunement, 0 Absorption, to put in 5 SOTD and a third rank over in Ice Shards to increase AoE DPS. Due to our high crit rate (as mentioned above), we can get those nice Clear casting crit buffs on blizzard, and doing an extra 33% bonus crit damage is a significant increase.

I would never say that Magic Absorbtion is essential, if you wish to remove points from it feel free to. At the moment though nothing in ICC is a real "DPS race" except HLK, but almost every hard mode is healing intensive. I prefer to augment the incoming damage to help our healers since they have the highest burden of anyone in this raid instance.

I would never go 0/2 Attunement though, but I believe I have emphasized why in my earlier posts about flame throwing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Put in 5 SOTD and a third rank in Ice Shards" Maybe I'm just blanking here on what SOTD is. If you mean you went 3/3 SOTM and 3/3 Ice Shards I understand why you may do this but really don't believe it would be a DPS increase (especially for low-range arcane) to take 2 points out of Attunement. In my earlier posts I proved for Fire that SOTM is generally a less than 70 DPS increase, imagine how bad it is for Arcane. Ice Shards has some usefulness, HM Anub for example, but in ICC I don't really believe its worth taking extra points in to.

I would recommend if you don't want to do Magic Absorption (Which is completely fine, this is really personal preference) you put them into Stability as ICC is full of Pushbacks and if you can manage to free up 1% hit or something you can get the ability to not suffer from Pushback by doing 3/5 Stability + Imp Conc Aura.

Also that post you quoted was referring to Fire, Arcane Concentration is absolutely essential for Arcane for both 30% Crit from clearcasting procs and the saved mana that can be the difference between Evocating or not.

As far as going Fire for movement fights, most people reading a mage guide won't have the gear to support Fire and even then, some people just like to play Arcane. I'm just giving my opinions and options for starting mages here. They also may be in the situation I was in for a while where I would arena every night and was poor as fuck on my Mage so I couldn't afford to Dual Spec Arcane and Fire PvE. Any mage that can do that, I would highly recomend it, it's really awesome.

[Falaras]

By the way for everyone posting in this thread, thank you. It's really helping me change some things and put some math where my mouth is. I should be writing an update for this guide soonish, talking more in depth about certain talents and maybe adding some new things. If you want to see something or think someone would be a good addition just tell me.