Updated for 3.1

This thread will explore Mage raiding specs focusing on maximizing single target DPS.

There are many specs out there at the moment but they are all variations of one category. For the purpose of dividing them let’s say a mage can be Arcane, Fire, Frost and Frostfire. Every spec has advantages and disadvantages but in the case of Frost I will not elaborate because it is not competitive enough to take part in end-game raiding at the moment. Arcane and Fireball specs are very high DPS. Arcane is very mana dependant and fireball is spiky and dependent on crit and hot streak procs. Frostfire is a bit behind on DPS but it’s much more forgiving when it comes to mana. The problem with frostfire is that it’s dependant on your crit chance and results in very spiky damage and agro issues on multiple crits in a row.

Stats and their role:

- Hit rating: this will be the main priority in all specs detailed below because if you don’t hit the target your spell power and crit chance will be wasted. Mages need to reach 17% hit chance to hit the cap for bosses (lvl 83 skull elites). We can benefit from two talents to reach this cap Precision and Arcane Focus though we will not have them available for all specs.

- Spell power: when we are hit capped we can start focusing on making our hits count more. We do this by stacking spell power. This stat will increase all our damage and it is the top priority on all specs.
*It is important to consider that spell power is added to our spell’s damage but this damage can be more apparent when using spells such as Pyroblast and less apparent when using Ice Lance. This is so because there is a coefficient by which the spell power is reduced or increased inherent to each spell.

- Crit rating: when we have a decent amount of spell power we can start focusing on increasing the chances that we hit for a lot more. This stat is based on “chance” and “probability” which breaks strategy a bit because you can’t count on it all the time. This is not a problem on boss fights because as they last long, your critical hits will be averaged out.
*Note that critical chance is and will always be a chance and it can lead to banging your head against a wall when you don’t crit. Also; if I have a million euros and you have naught an average would suggest we’ve got 500.000euros each but you are sleeping under a bridge and I’m driving over it on my Lamborghini.

- Haste rating: when we are sure our spells count a lot we can try to get them to happen quicker. We do this by stacking haste, which will increase our cast rate. As with most specs some will benefit more from haste, some will take crit.

- Intellect: this stat increases the size your mana pool and in the case of most arcane specs will increase your spell power. It will come along with gear and it’s not as important as the above stats. This stat also increases critical strike chance but the difference is minimal.

- Spirit: at the moment any tree can benefit from spirit using Mage Armor but only the arcane and the fire trees will benefit from spirit when not using Mage Armor. Spirit will increase our mana regeneration and it will play an important role for arcane mages who have a 100% mana regeneration while casting using mage armor. The last patch has made Spirit useful for mages not only to get that extra mana regeneration but to increase critical strike chance using Molten Armor which now converts a percentage of your spirit to crit rating.
*MP5 or mana per 5 seconds is the result of stacking spirit and using items or abilities which grant it like Blessing of Wisdom.

- Stamina: this is the least important stat and we don’t have to worry about it as it will come along with gear much like intellect. It is important however to have a large HP Pool when doing the Eye of Eternity in both normal and heroic difficulties. This is because one of Malygos’ abilities drains up a lot of hit points and healing is very hard to do during this stage of the fight.

Buffs:

When raiding with Lazarus we are all expected to bring our own flasks and our own food (even if Hypatija is so kind to put up feasts, never take them for granted!) For mages the flasks will be Flask of the Frost Wyrm and the food buffs depend on our needs. There are 3 kinds of food buffs we will benefit from: hit rating, spell power, haste and should be used accordingly with our mage’s needs.
*If you are short on cash you can use cheap food instead of the more expensive ones but try to save up for these things. The best your performance in raids, the more the raid will benefit.

Mages are also expected to bring potions with them. Bring Runic Mana Potions. I would suggest having 20 in your inventory for the raid (even if you don’t use them all, better safe than sorry) and if you are have no mana problems bring Potion of Speed and use them to boost your DPS though you do not have to do this, it’s a personal decision.

This is a list of the available specs and the important information for them:

Frostfire

The thing you must understand about frostfire is that it benefits from both fire and frost talents. To take full advantage of this new mechanic you want to stack the critical strike bonus multiplier of both talents resulting in a spec that takes the best of both. 0/53/18 is the most common spec taking as many relevant talents from both trees. Taking advantage of Burnout, Ice Shards and Ignite you get 190% increased critical damage. When using Chaotic Skyflare Diamond and 4 T7 bonus you reach 198%. If you don’t count the DOT effect you get 158% increased critical damage which is why you will hit for about 3000 damage with FFB but will crit for 10000 damage.

Prioritizing Stats:

0. Hit Rating – for a frostfire mage you require 14% hit rating as you are granted 3% from Precision in the frost tree.

1. Spell Power

2- Crit rating

3. Haste rating

4. Spirit - this stat is now useful as molten armor has been changed around to grant us 55% of spirit as crit rating when glyped. This does look like a nerf but with Naxx gear it's actually quite good as you'll get more than the fixed 5% we had before. Also, spirit means more mana regeneration.


Glyphs:

Glyph of Improved Scorch / Glyph of Frostfire / Glyph of Molten Armor / Glyph of Living Bomb
*Why are there four glyphs here? Well... Blizzard likes to let us choose and that's what they've done. The Glyph of Living Bomb is the highest DPS glyph up here and you'd usually take it over Glyph of Scorch. The problem is that Scorch has to be applied and though now other classes like the Warlock(and not all specs do) can keep up the same +5% Spell Critical Strike rating debuff on the boss with their main nuke, if they are not in the raid we will have to do it ourselves. What I would do is take Scorch over Glyph of Frostfire. Even if it is your main nuke, switching it out will output more DPS. Also, 5% crit is a powerful Raid buff and as much as we like to see ourselves at the top of the DPS meters, it's not worth it if the boss wipes us.
*Calculations suggest that it's best to use Glyph of Frostfire instead of Glyph of Molten Armor unless you have more than 732 spirit raidbuffed and you have chosen to go for Glyph of Scorch.

Rotation:

Living Bomb – Scorch – FFB(fit as many as you can) – Living Bomb(wait until the target has exploded) – FFB(fit as many as you can) – Refresh Scorch
*During the rotation, if you get 2 critical strikes in a row you can cast an instant Pyroblast. Get hold of an addon like MSBT so it becomes more obvious.

AoE Rotation:

Living Bomb – Flame Strike – Blizzard
*There are other rotations around, find what is more comfortable for you.

Macros:

To maximize our damage we have two spells Combustion and Icy Veins. We want to use them at the same time but we also want to prepare ourselves to use them as we can take agro off a tank in seconds. First thing we want to do is cast invisibility on an ideal situation where we are not taking damage or are subject to a DoT effect. Once we are out of combat we’ll loose all agro on the boss and will want to click invisibility off. I strongly recommend using a macro for this because trying to click off a buff in a 25man can result in deleting a useful buff like BoW of GotW. Once we are back in combat we want to refresh scorch and living bomb and then activate both skills at the same time and spam FFB and Pyroblast if it procs.
*Some people choose not to use these two at the same time.

The macros to use would be the following:



Click this macro once, you will turn invisible, click it again you’ll loose invisibility. This can be applied to Ice Block too:



The cool down macro would be:


*If you have 2 Tier 7 set bonus you might want to add “/use Mana Sapphire” to the macro and take benefit from the extra spell power.

Variations:

Some people choose to spend points in Blast Wave and Dragon's Breath at the expense of points in World In Flames for better farming and solo play. I suggest blastwave using the Glyph of Blast Wave but not Dragon’s Breath. The instant AoE is very good in situations where small mobs spawn in boss fights (Anub’Rekhan, Maexxna, Gluth…)

There are other variations in the frost tree that I won’t go into because the change is minimal and it only affects trash clearing, which is not what we are interested in.

Gems:

Gems are based on the stats I detailed before so you have to gem accordingly to suit your needs. If you have enough hit rating you want to use:

Red: Runed Scarlet Ruby +19 Spell Power
Yellow: Potent Monarch Topaz +9 Spell Power and 8 Crit Rating
Blue: Purified Twilight Opal +9 Spell Power and 8 Spirit
Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond +21 Critical Strike Rating and 3% Increased Critical Strike Damage

Enchants:

Go for spell power at all times and use Icewalker on boots and Greater Speed on cloak.

Concerns:

This spec, while being very forgiving in terms of mana, is very dependant on crit gear and that renders the damage spiky and schizophrenic at best. I wouldn’t suggest going frostfire over arcane if you don’t have at least 25% crit chance with fire unbuffed (no molten armor, no scorch applied).

Arcane

Arcane is the highest DPS mage spec at the moment. The price to pay for all this damage is being out of mana less than 2 minutes into the fight. So timing Evocation, Mana Gems and potions is crucial. Arcane is based around three spells: Arcane Blast (AB), Arcane Barrage (ABarr), Arcane Missiles (AM, MBarr (Missile Barrage). Arcane has always been very mana intensive but has been able to put out a lot of damage. After Patch 3.1's nerf on spirit-based mana regeneration this spec can be tricky to manage on long fights. The main arcane spec is 57/3/11 going down the frost tree to pick up Icy Veins and Precision. There are variants of this spec but this is the one that outputs the highest DPS.

The reason why arcane puts out so much damage is the change in Arcane Blast: it now buffs the next arcane spell cast.

Also, with this spec you want to use Evocation when ever it’s off cool down. With the arcane talent it will be reduced to two minutes.

Prioritizing Stats:

0. Hit Rating – for an arcane mage you require only 11% hit rating as you are granted 3% from Precision and 3% from Arcane Focus.

1. Spell Power

2. Haste Rating

3. Crit Rating

*This spec will benefit from spirit and intellect a lot more than FFB spec.

Glyphs:

Glyph of Arcane Missiles / Glyph of Arcane Blast / Glyph of Molten Armor
*Most Arcane mages are starting to use Molten Armor instead of Mage Armor and considering Mage Armor Glyph is useless because with Arcane Meditation our Mana Regeneration would exceed 100% it's best to take Glyph of Molten Armor and use it for short fights, or less mana intensive fights using Mage Armor when appropriate.

Rotation:

There are two main rotations:

Arcane Blast – Arcane Blast – Arcane Blast – Arcane Missiles – Arcane Barrage
*This rotation asks for AM even if MBarr has not proced.

Arcane Blast – Arcane Blast – Arcane Blast – [Missile Barrage(AM)] – Arcane Barrage

[x] = Conditional

The difference between these two rotations is that the one on the bottom does a tiny bit more damage but it’s more mana consuming and the one above it does a tiny bit less damage but the difference in mana consumption is worth it.

AoE Rotation:

Flame Strike – Blizzard
*There are other rotations around, find what is more comfortable for you.

Macros:

We went down the frost tree and picked up Icy Veins so to take full advantage of it we want to use it with Arcane Power. Before 3.0.9 we were able to use PoM in the same macro but we can’t any more as they share an internal cool down to avoid the use of PoM / AP / Pyroblasts in PvP. The cool downs on Icy Veins and Arcane Power don’t match very well at the moment so there are two ways of using them: either casting AP when every it’s up and trying to match it with Icy Veins or using them both when Icy Veins is off cool down. Technically keeping up AP is the highest DPS but personally, I have other things to pay attention to so I use the macro whenever Icy Veins is ready and use them together.



The most efficient way to use them is to wait for a MBarr proc, get 3 stacks of AB, cast PoM use AB then pop the macro and cast AM and continue the normal rotation.

*The macros for Invisibility and Ice Block are also useful for this spec.
*If you have 2 Tier 7 set bonus you might want to add “/use Mana Sapphire” to the macro and take benefit from the extra spell power.
*If you can manage to use Evocation on the last two seconds of Icy Veins you’ll get a significant reduction on the channelling time and you won't get interrupted or pushed back by damage.

Variations:

Some people choose to spend points on threat reduction or on reducing the pushback suffered from damaging attacks. If your gear is not very high I’d suggest going with reducing pushback but as your damage increases you might be inclined to take threat reduction.
There is another important arcane spec that goes down the fire tree to pick up Improved Scorch but not only is it useless when it there is at least one Fire / FFB mage in the raid, it does less DPS overall though 10% crit chance for the raid is a nice buff if you are not obsessed with self performance but team work. I wouldn’t suggest going down the fire tree to pick it up because in practice keeping up scorch and DPSing with arcane becomes a hassle.

Gems:

Gems are based on the stats I detailed before so you have to gem accordingly to suit your needs. If you have enough hit rating you want to use:

Red: Runed Scarlet Ruby +19 Spell Power
Yellow: Reckless Monarch Topaz+9 Spell Power and 8 Haste Rating
Blue: Purified Twilight Opal +9 Spell Power and 8 Spirit
Meta: Chaotic Skyflare Diamond +21 Critical Strike Rating and 3% Increased Critical Strike Damage

Enchants:

Go for spell power at all times and use Icewalker on boots and Greater Speed on cloak.

Concerns:

While the DPS on this spec is very high… it’s very much like a Formula1 car. It’s very fast but without a team backing it up it won’t work. What I mean by this is that if you don’t have a Paladin that can buff you with BoW a Shammy to benefit from mana totems you will most likely OOM during a fight before evocation is off it’s 2 minute cool down and you will have to use low mana cycles, reducing by 1 the amount of Arcane Blasts used. There are other characters out there that will also increase your mana regeneration, so keep an eye out.



I would love to read suggestions, comments and answer as many questions as possible regarding this post and other Mage-Related topics!

Billÿ

Thanks for pulling together all the information on the arcane spec Billy, and pulling the information from my other threads into one place.

The only modifier I'd suggest on frostfire spec is casting lb first rather than scorching - its instant cast and then can start ticking away whilst you're scorching, to be ready for a refresh sooner. On ffb gems, I'd suggest for yellow using crit gems if you're crit is low - I've found around 34/35% buffed with molten armor and intellect seems to be an ok point dps wise to start focusing on hit instead (by focus on hit, I mean getting it up to capped from a starting point of the early 200s).

Arcane looks to be interesting and not one to play if you're half asleep! Would be interested to know how much haste rating arcane needs before it starts pulling away from frostfire, and also what crit rating you're currently working with.

The next spec to look at is the fire spec, which has become more viable since patch and looks as if it will be more viable too after 3.1. One of us will post something on it soon.

Brilliant post mate. Many thanks.

Well between Ash and Billy's posts, I think we have our expertise covered. It makes me want to go through the agonizing hell yet again to level my mage

Great effort! I love to see this. Im so proud of our Billy! Lets see some more feedbak from our mages here, and I would love to hear what you have implemented from all this and how it is helping you.

Thank you Billy, and Ash as always.
Now if only we could get some more of our classes to post it would be perfect.

Ash and Billy did great job.All mages can find pretty much everything they need in this post.It's just everything is there.Nothing more to say

Excellent post Billy, very helpfull thx...

Updated for 3.1

Let me know if I've missed something!