WoW: Mage Advice Needed
Monday, October 1st, 2007 - 9:41am
Alright guys, I'm looking for more assistance. I'm leveling rather quickly - I hit 50 last night and I'm moving up fast.
My own farming pattern is:
1. Pyroblast
2. Fireball
3. Scorch
And then depending on the mob, I'll either finish them off with an instant cast, or freeze them in place, move back and throw another fireball at 'em. Except in high-resist areas (Burning Steppes was a PITA), I'm doing just fine and I'm collecting serious +fire gear.
Now here's the thing...I've leveled entirely solo. Some by choice, but most by necessity. There just aren't a lot of characters leveling and I think a lot of people have put their alts on hold until 2.3 comes out and makes it easier to level. I've also been a bit unlucky in that I've *just* missed a number of GWA instance runs. For example, Grinders wanted an Uldaman run last night and I had just turned 49 - just a touch too high for Ulda. Same with this evenings' SM run.
As such, I have no experience in playing this toon with a group and once I turn 60, I'm hoping that GWA will still be running the Outlands instances. If so, I'd like to be included in these runs - but I want to be useful to the group. So beyond the obvious (don't cast Pyroblast as soon as the tank pulls, watch your sheep, make water for everyone, etc.), what's the difference in casting rotations in an instance versus solo?
I'm thinking that Pyroblast will be all but useless in groups due to the cast time and the fact that I'd have to wait at least 10 seconds before starting the cast to not pull aggro. Once I've sheeped my target, I'm thinking of a rotation of:
1. Scorch
2. Scorch
3. Scorch
4. Fireball
Or something like that. But in your opinion, what makes a great group mage? For those of you who have fire mages, what spell rotation, skills and other advice can you offer so my instance learning curve isn't quite as steep? For those who don't, what have you observed that helps (or hurts)?
I am so going to quote that out of context.
I've been raiding with fire for only a couple weeks, so others will probably have some better advice. But from what I've seen, you're going to be heavily relying on scorch. The biggest threat problem you're going to have is that you're basically built to crit your little heart out, but you're pretty much guaranteed to pull agro if you do.
For the most part, my spell rotation is:
Trash:
Scorch until I proc Ignite, cast Fire Burst, continue with scorch (typically most things won't have much health at this point).
Bosses:
Scorch
Scorch
Scorch
Scorch
[If ignite proc'd anywhere in there, I'd hit Fire Burst]
Fireball
Fireball
Fireball
[Fire Burst when it's up]
[until the scorch debuff is about 3/4 the way through, then cast scorch again]
Just a word of caution... If you plan to PUG, plan for having a nice repair bill. A good number of warriors/paladins/druids don't bother leveling up as a tank (since it's really, really slow), but switch over to a tanking spec once they start looking at higher end instances (BRD and beyond, since they're run more frequently than the <50 instances). As such, most won't be able to deal with the threat you can generate. Once you get Invisibility (68? 70? Something like that) you can use that to shed threat, but until then, you're kinda screwed if you pull agro. Stun with Fire Breath, nova or Poly it if you can, but if the tank doesn't pick it up before you can kill it, you're probably going to die.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Pur,
Thanks for the advice. I don't mind dying (well, not all that much).
I just don't want to cause deaths. Plus, I don't want GWJ Alliance groups carrying me through instances, getting finished and thinking "that guy sucks". I know my gear won't be great, but a good player can contribute regardless of gear.
I am so going to quote that out of context.
I can tell you right now, that this pretty much shows that you'll be fine in groups. It's the ones that don't care if they wipe a group, or don't try to improve, which really cause problems. And just to be clear... you'll probably wipe groups occasionally. I did it quite a few times. I leveled as a frost mage, which is, by far, easier to manage threat with. And even with crappy gear I occasionally caused a wipe by pulling agro. Three frostbolt crits in a row is a lot of threat to deal with, and at that point, it was either we wiped because we didn't have enough DPS to take everything down after I died, or I Ice Blocked to live but the mob went and 2-shotted the healer. As long as you work to improve though, no one's going to think "that guy sucks".
IronClad Online: PurEvil
I will chime in here, if you don't mind
1st) I would suggest getting KTM Threat Meter. Most in the guild have it, and even some in PUGs. It will allow you to gauge how your threat is building in comparison to others, especially the tank (if they have it).
2nd) Understand the type of tank you are travelling with. I travel with Sun most the time, so having Salvation and knowing what cues to look for (consecration, avenger's shield) make things easier. If it was a warrior tank, I'd want to wait for some sunders to go (hopefully) and at least give a moments pause before attacking. I imagine it's quite similar with druid tanks.
3rd) Spell sequence for me varies depending on the situation. Some battles, you want as much distance as possible so Fireball is still the staple spell. Scorch is always useful for it's special effects (ignite & fire vulnerability), so worth using on any mob that's not going down fast (I rarely bother, though, on mobs that I know aren't going to last long at all). I can often lead with Pyroblast (on tougher mobs) because the casting time allows threat to be built for the tank. Fire Blast is almost always used when Ignite fires, as my first spell to get things kicked off fast, and when it's timer comes up. Beyond that, Dragon's Breath & Blast Wave can be good for quick damage (especially on multiple targets, though they both have longish cooldowns), and especially as an interupt/mini-stun with Dragon's Breath.
Keep in mind that I only have about +500 Spell Damage and 21% (31% w/ combustion) Crit. Even more caution would have to be taken as those number rise (which they would easily do if I enchanted anything, socketed anything, or actually used my spellfire set). Yet despite those poor number, I still have to be careful with threat & damage delivered (and am almost always the first to break agro off the tank if I don't take care).
Hope this helps!
~ Val
When all is said and done, well then you're just done. Duh!
Scorch vs fireball is a bit of a flavor thing as well, though I think having higher spell damage and crit makes up for the difference in damage (buffed I'm around 750 damage and 32-34% crit without combustion). To be quite honest, things die just as fast in groups whether I spam fireballs or use scorches and mix in a fire burst on ignite procs. I build threat a little slower with scorch (unless I crit a lot), so that tends to be what I stick with. I hate to say it, but I've only used blastwave while playing around on twink runs. If you have a tank that can hold AoE agro (IE, if your tank is a paladin), I've found it's much better to save the mana, start with a flame strike, and follow up with a blizzard. But honestly, this is mostly because I don't have to get right into the fray to cast a flame strike, so it gives me time to dump agro if I need to. Dragon's Breath is great if the healer pulls agro.
BTW, if you're having threat issues, Val, use invisibility if you pull agro. They dropped the phase down from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, so we now shed 20% threat per second after casting it. I've found the first tick will normally send the mob back to the tank, assuming you have some distance between you. Two or three seconds will pretty much allow you to go all out for the rest of the fight.
KTM is pretty much a must have mod for anyone nowadays. Most guildies already have it, so you should be able to see everyone's threat as long as you stick to guild groups.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
I mostly use my mage for farming, but she's a backup for raids as well. What I learned from other mages and reading threads is something like this: On trash, just Fireball because you won't have time for the Scorch debuff to really matter (some really tough trash may be worth it). If you are in range, you can toss in a Fire Blast.
On bosses, Scorch until the debuff is up to five, then trinket/Combustion, then Fireball until the Scorch debuff is low. Do one Scorch to renew the debuff, then continue Fireball spam (usually about nine Fireballs). Use Combustion again when it is up, though some people save it for the 20% range. Try to always save a trinket for when you use Combustion. Fire Blast is a mana sponge and shorter range, so it is usually left out.
Fireball spamming should get more powerful in 2.3, since they are removing the previous reduction of coefficient on it. Another 5-10% dps from what I hear, I haven't looked closely at the numbers yet.
I also recommend Omen over KTM. Omen tracks aggro per mob instead of overall, so it gives you a better idea of where you are on secondary targets. It seems to update more quickly as well, I've been much happier with it over KTM. It is compatible with KTM, so you don't need everyone to switch.
Finally, don't forget to start stacking spell hit gear. 16% is the cap for bosses, so you need 164 Spell Hit as a fire/frost mage with Elemental Precision. You can go as low as 76 for arcane builds, and 202 if you have no hit talents.
Edit: I'm assuming you go with the 10/48/3 cookie cutter fire spec, seen here:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kf0VZxgRzfcIoeRt0h
"Raise high the black flags, my children."
-- Gebhard von Blucher.
Yes, I should mention that I am expecting the normal Fire Mage build as well, which includes improvements to Fireball galore. It's possible that Vel and others have a build that certainly favors going with heavy Scorch/Fire Blast & closer range because of their build.
As for Dragon Breath, in hot battles I do like to use it where agro is broken and someone is getting beat on. That little break can sometimes allow a heal to get off on us squishies, give the healer a break, allow a tank to come rescue, and so forth.
I also agree with Super in that those quick trash mob battles with plenty of CC and DPS, Fireball is much more mana efficient, plus (as I said before) the range on the spell can sometimes be important.
Also, remember that learning how to use the subtle stuff is equally important as your DPS & Threat. Polymorph is the obvious one, but knowing how to Counterspell pull (or just when to counterspell in general), CC/Kite with Ice, Spellsteal, and use Invisibility (which I admit I am just starting to employ myself) are all important aspects and go a long way to making your party happy.
Above all, though, have fun with mage! You get to do a lot of damage, offer a lot of utility, and even die a lot! Things will be exciting and fun as long as you have the right attitude and play with the right people (which GWJ certainly is!).
~ Val
When all is said and done, well then you're just done. Duh!
The Coefficient is the reduction in spelldamage that applies due to improved frostbolt/fireball. As you know, those two talents reduce casting time by .1 second per point. They also reduce your spelldamage bonus by 2% per point. I'll use frostbolt as an example here:
Frostbolt damage bonus from spelldamage: 81.4% of total spellpower without Imp FB.
Frostbolt damage bonus from spelldamage: 73.3% of total spellpower with Imp FB.
What's happening in 2.3 is that it's 81.4% of your spellpower with or without the talent. So empowered frostbolt is going to give an extra 10% with instead of just taking you back up to the 81.4% that you had previously.
Coldstream wrote:
Raiding guilds are currently switching from KTM to Omen Threat Meter. It keeps separate threat tables for each mob (though multiple mobs with the same name are still aggregated), which is very useful for bosses which have adds. It seems more responsive than KTM. Also, it gives you a nice warning when you are at the 90% overaggro point.
The other big piece of advice I'd give is to make stopcasting macros. The basic idea is that you make a fireball macro which looks like:
#usetooltip Fireball
/stopcasting
/cast Fireball
and you need a casting bar mod which shows you the numerical time left on the cast in 0.1s increments (I use eCastingBar),and a mod which shows you the latency numerically all the time. When the amount of time left to cast matches your current latency click the macro. The stop casting macro cuts in as soon as the fireball is cast server side, and the fireball starts casting immediately. It takes a short time to get used to , but your dps is noticeably higher. I use these macros for scorch and fireball. I also use stopcasting macros for dragon's breath and counterspell to save me having to jump or move to cancel my current spell.
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I understand now. That's a decent buff (or removal of a nerf, I suppose is more accurate).
I'll second stopcasting macros, even though I don't use one. I'm only about 40 miles from my server, with about four hops, so my latency is usually around 50ms or less. In my unusual circumstance, I'm about as likely to cut off a cast & kill my dps as I am to get a second cast started successfully. The red area of the Quartz bar is like two pixels wide, almost impossible to hit it properly. For most mages I know, it has helped significantly.
"Raise high the black flags, my children."
-- Gebhard von Blucher.