Hello everyone
I have been doing some reasearch into raiding as a catclysm fire mage as that seems to be the specc that brings the most DPS and I have discovered some useful ways of increasing your DPS in raids
As a fire mage you will want to have 516 (with 3 Netherwind pressence and the 5% raid buff) haste coming from gear as that will give you an additional tick on you Pyroblast and Loving Bomb DOT's.
Also Gemming Intellect wherever you can is really important and it is more important than hit even if you are under hitcapped as the benefit from the extra SP and mana will be more than the amount of times you miss.
Cauterize is also a point you want in your talent tree because of the amount of DPS u can gain by staying alive aswell as helping the raid so if you die the raid will not have to waste a ressurect on you aswell as the fact of dieing decreases your dps. (mages are squishy!)
With the ability to cast scorch whilst moving with a 100% free mana aswell as instant casts of Flamestrike, Fireblast and Blast wave mages should always be casting something as they are moving to allow maximum DPS output throughout the fight.
Scorch- On fights such as Magmaw when DPSing the adds is vital to the survival of the raid saving ur mana up for the adds is very important. I find that keeping around 60% mana for both add phases at the start and always keeping around 50% for all the rest of them is very useful and helpful to the rest of the raid so that others can dps the boss quick. Because of this i find that when DPSing the head and indeed when just DPSing the boss witout adds or head my mana is often very limited as well as wanting to try and regain mana lost for the next grop of adds. Using scorch however is a very viable thing to do as it is a quick cast costing no mana which on average will do roughly 10k damage with my gear. As well as critting more often increasing the chance of Hot Streak. I think that we should be using scorch and not fireball at all when the boss has not got the increased damage so that we have enough mana to use a normal rotation on the increased damage phase aswell as hadling the group of adds. ( Also Scorch rotation do roughly 90% of the damage of a Fireball rotation at a very minimal amount of mana so using spamming scorch is not a major hinder to your overall DPS)
Fire mages should be using Hot Streak when ever possible and keeping their living bomb up at all times, aswell as using Fire Bomb when ever it is off CD. As far as i know combustion is not a spell that should be used whenever it is available as the damage from a fireball will be worth more.
On Multi target fights mages should try and keep living bomb up on 3 targets aswell as using blast wave whenever possible and spamming Flamestrike if you have anough mana. if you are running low on mana us hould be spamming Scorch on one of the targets you have Living Bomb on as the Ignite Procs will deal massive damage if you are lucky
Gearing: In Order of Importance.
Intellect is by far the strongest stat and you should be docusing on gemming and enchanting for that wherever you can. As Intellect now gives Spell Power, Crit and Mana.
Hit Rating, is important for boss fights and you will need to be aiming for 17% or 1742 Hit rating
To bceome hitacpped you should be enchanting with hit and reforging Haste after Soft cap and Mastery rating but not crit rating aswell as trying to get your meta gem activated.
Crit Rating is very important as it will icnrease the crit chance on all DOT's and spells it will also significantly increase the usefulness of combustion if you have a higher crit rating.
Mastery & Haste are of equal value however if you are Soft haste Capped then i suggest trying to get as much Mastery as possible with getting Haste where it is not going out of your way or diminishing anything else by too much.
Soft haste cap refers to the amount of haste needed to reach 12.5% haste with the 5% raid buff and Netherwing Pressence talent. Having this much haste will give your Pyroblast and Living Bomb and additional tick and increase your dps overall by a fair amount. With 2/3 Netherwing presenc you want to aim to have 646 haste from gear and with 3/3 you would want 516. Maybe in the patch for Deathwing we will be able to have enough Haste to get 2 additional Ticks which is 3467 Haste Rating but for now we want to be aiming for 516 or 646
Here is a link to a site whih gives the ranking of what is the best gear to have in each slot and you can adapt that to how you want
I would advise Having Tier Head, Chest, Shoulders and Gloves. http://www.guildox.com/wr.asp?usr=&ser= ... 4517&Ver=6
When enchanting you want to ehnchant for intellect wherever possible, after that hit unless you are hit capped then Crit-----Mastery-----Haste. Runspeed is also the best enchant on boots as alot of encounters require movment whihc is effectively time lost attacking and DPSing.
Order of Important for Gemming are as follows:
40 Intellect [Brilliant Inferno Ruby]
40 Hit [Rigid Ocean Sapphire]
20 Intellect + 20 Crit [Potent Ember Topaz]
20 Intellect + 20 Hit [Veiled Demonseye]
20 Crit + 20 Hit [Piercing Dream Emerald]
Obviously bearing in mind how much hit you have.
On Burn phases on bosses you will want to use Fireball until Pyroblast procs aswell as keeping Living Bomb up as this is our highest DPs rotation however it will not be sustainable for long. It seems that having a rotation more along the lines of 2-3 Fireballs for every 5 Scorch will be more mana effecient and ultimately increasing our DPS
The glyphs a fire mage should have are : Molten Armour, Pyroblast and Fireball as Primes. Evocation Polymorph And Blink as Majors. Conjuring and Arcane Brilliance as Minors. the others are just for fun
Fireball and Frostfire ball are both relatively similar in terms of what spell you should be using for the mjority of your rotation however Fireball is marginally better.
Hopefully this will increase our DPS and make us a bigger asset to have in a raid. (not that are awsomeness needs any boosting)
xAndro