Mage specs for raiding...

Atm, being the only lvl 80 mage in here, i am specced "Frostfire bolt" meaning i have combustion, icy veins, and dragons' breath to maximise the damage output of Frostfire bolt through crit damage. I also have the glyphs of molten armour, imp. scorch and frostfire...

Any other specs i am happy to try out! (providing i have the gold! )

(will post the link when i have access to it, currently when writing i am at college lol)

Our mage Izat has an arcane spec and does ridiculous ammounts of single target damage (bosses). It's worth looking in to.

These normaly know what they talk about, so feel free to check it out if you haven't allready.

http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t40824-mage_pve_dps_wotlk/

i tried arcane spec i while back... its like a machine gun, compared to the pyro spec rocket launcher and the ice spec sniper rifle.

only prob is i think its a very limited attack... PoM, pyroblast, arcane barrage(amazing), arcane blast...
plus crit from talent is not as much as fire i think... dont quote me on that...
also i am pretty sure you cannot get worse equipment than mine so its reel easy to out DPS me atm...

anyways yeah if you can find his spec, plz post it here! would love to check it out!

kool! thnx for the post Shat!! seems a really nice arcane spec... have to give it a go

The only downside with the arcane specc is the mana issues. To substain a high dps you need alot of mana, which usually comes with good gear.
Frostfire or Frost is probebly the best specc for a mage without raiding gear, since these are more mana efficient.

But I have to say, I think arcane is the specc I enjoy most

do like manus and cut yourself and get the attention of the healers... thats a great way to keep the mana up.
Izat btw cheats! he can somehow make 2 copys of himself, atleast it looked like that the other day... unfair!

maby do that copy thingy that he does.. i would if i was a wizard.

all that imp luvin has gone to ur brain manus! seeing double, cutting yourself *shakes head unapprovingly* thats what you get for having hot demon ass like the succubus around...
anyways yeah mirror image is a great move for dps, just wish there was some kind of talent like... *improved mirror image: 3/3 your mirror image duration is extended by 15 seconds.* man that would rock
anyone in love with any other magey moves??

So here is what I have learned from my first 25 man raid at naxx…

Frostfire bolt spec is good at overall DPS, unfortunately it is EXTREMELY static, as most of the time you will be standing still spamming frostfire, instant pyroblast when you crit, and keeping up your scorches with the living bomb as your only accessible DoT (not that mages have that many DoT’s to begin with!)

During the Heigan fight I found myself severely lacking while doing the dance to actually shoot him, I know you aren’t really supposed to but if you had instant casts like PoM pyroblast and Arcane barrage I’m sure that would be pretty damned good…

The Gluth fight was my first attempt at kiting, and after two wipes, I was getting used to it, mainly using Frost nova and Dragon’s Breath to grab the mobs, followed by Blizzard and Mirror Image to decimate them. I do think however a frosty mage would have had better luck/skills at kiting than me, firstly the water elemental to freeze far off zombies, cone of cold with all the talents to increase damage and chill effects and what not, with ice lance and imp blizzard to decimate… I think maybe a arcane fire would struggle more than me, considering I have imp blizzard as well…

Unfortunately I died mostly every time we took on Thaddeus due to me not moving quick enough… we called it a day after a few wipes…

Thinking about it retrospectively, for my spec/gear/ skill level, I guess I did ok, what I have got to improve on is skill mostly, with gear coming from doing successful heroic instances and various raids.

So…
Arcane/Fire spec: Great for mobility and instant cast ability, but probably not as effective as others for kiting and maintaining high damage output [compared to fire/ice] (don’t hold me to that as I know their mana efficiency is amazing too, so that might give them a better chance for flinging magic at the enemy)

Fire/ ice (Frostfire bolt) Spec: Great solid damage output, maybe a little too static (I found against Thaddeus I got carried away with my casting times rather than the polarity shifts), very handy instant pyroblast, combustion + icy veins + Mirror image is great for a major boost in DPS for a short time.

Full ice spec: Great at kiting and crowd control, (from past experience of using a full frost) Random crit chance and damage leads to less than certain sustained DPS, Summoning a water elemental AND mirrors image is just amazingly cool (talk about out numbering an enemy!)

My one wish… That Blizzard (the company, not the spell!) had made a talent that made the ice elemental a permanent pet like the ghoul talent in Unholy for DK’s.

(I don’t see how an already powerful class in its own right gets a permanent pet while mages have to suffer with a couple minutes for an elemental, and if you think I am being biased look at the abilities between the two pets, you will find the ghoul equally as powerful, if not more so than the elemental) I don't have anything against DK's cos i love em so much i have 5 of em!

I think you did very well yesterday considering it was your first raid experience in 25 man. It takes a while to get used to, both how things are done but also getting reflexes for your abilities. I also found mages static and was envius on hunters that would run and shoot. But over all the dps is better and there isn't to many high mobility fights in the game. If you don't hated it I would suggest you stay with frost fire for a few raids to get the feeling for it, I'm still finding new ways to increase my own dps, but it takes some time to get the ideas for it. In general I think you should be very happy with your performence last night and see you on tuesday I hope.

it might be just me being the only one greedy/stupid enough to want to do this, but does anyone have serious urges to respec, even tho you know it might not be as good, but purely for some form of move set or gimick ( like PoM Pyroblast, or ice elementals...) if it is just me then i am sorry for being a fruity nut bar... *CRAIZ*

P.S. a lot of people say that as a fire mage i should really have to watch that i dont burn through mana to fast... In Naxx i have always tried my hardest, but i have never become OOM... am i really bad? or am i really mana efficient? you decide cos i have no clue, maybe Blizz made a few changes to the mana usage of most magey spells, all i know is that whenever i need mana, i got my crystals, evocation and (sometimes) potions to help me out, outside of fights mana strudel seems to do the trick!

I have no idea what mages do really, but as a paladin I think I have respecced for healing 4 times since I started to raid lvl 80 content. A tweak here, a tweak there.. depending on my experiences in Naxx and what I would like to change about it. I was concerned about mana the first couple of raids, but discovered I couldn't go oom with the gear that I had at that time. So, I specced for more crit and have only kept a base mp5 level for the little mana regen I need. My 40.5% unbuffed spellcrit does the rest and keep me away from losing mana too fast.

But yeah, if I found a need to respec for a certain wanted effect, I would do so again.

haha thank god its not just me then!
As for the gear=OOM situation, yeah maybe i have more mana per second regen than i actually need or something, hopefully it also means i am playing effectively too

Hehe. I think I would prefer to have 1 manapoint left when the bosses go down. That way I know I had just enough of it and it was all put to good use. Sure, it's nice to never go below 75-ish % as I did during my first raids. I often had 95% mana left when the bosses fell. I was then at around 30% crit and almost 400 mp5 raid buffed which basically meant I gained mana faster than I could spend it. Now I am sitting on 48.5% buffed and maybe around 200 mp5 and I find myself at 40-60% mana left, but with a lot more healing done. 56-57% is max now with the current gear selection if I am not mistaken, fully buffed, but I am not sure what that would do to my mana regen.

Just keep changing the spec until it feels good Tyrission. I suggest you go practice rotations on the dolls until you find the most effective DPS rotation you can have. Good luck.