Theorycraft: Mages in WotLK

[mackenziemi]

I wanted to throw open a thread up for people that want to talk about the mage changes. I currently have 2 mages. One is a 65 and speced Frost the other is 70 and speced Arc. I am getting some pretty good results with the Arc Mage using a rotation of 2 arcane blasts followed by a Arcane Barrage. Anyway I am just cruious what other people are finding that works and what they like

[Suvega]

4 mages 1 priest is pretty uber atm.

Arcane barrage * 4 is around 6-10k dmg.

On Beta, Arcane Barrage, Fireblast, Arcane Barrage owns everything but warlocks.

[mackenziemi]

WoW I hadn't even thought of throwing fireblast into that rotation ..../drool

[pinotnoir]

i made a post in the macro forums. I made a cast sequence with arcane barrage, ice lance, ice lance, fire blast. Then repeat. You can spam that non stop and all the timers will be up so no more casting. When you get the buff for arcane missles use it. That arcane missle thing is pretty sweet.

[badashh]

I have been arcane since the patch, mostly because I spend too much money on alts and can't afford to respec. But i love Arcane barrage, I 3 shot a warr in AV with just arcane barrace, fire blast, arcane barrage. It really beefs up the arcane spec to get out of sticky situations. So much of the frost tree is gear towards pvp, I think you can't lose with either fire or arcane for pve.

I'd drop one of those ice lances out of your cast sequence, it is only a 3 second cooldown, so arcane barrage, fireblast, icelance

[Dominian]

From what mages say even thought i have played mine latley arcane works wonders in bgs but gives to low surv to play arena with it.

[pinotnoir]

I have been arcane since the patch, mostly because I spend too much money on alts and can't afford to respec. But i love Arcane barrage, I 3 shot a warr in AV with just arcane barrace, fire blast, arcane barrage. It really beefs up the arcane spec to get out of sticky situations. So much of the frost tree is gear towards pvp, I think you can't lose with either fire or arcane for pve.

I'd drop one of those ice lances out of your cast sequence, it is only a 3 second cooldown, so arcane barrage, fireblast, icelance

I changed my macro up some.. The second AB doesnt come up for about a half second so if your spamming the button it may not be up.

/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=8 Arcane Barrage, Ice Lance, Arcane Barrage, Fire Blast

[Tasty]

Arcane Barrage, Instant Invis and soon enough Mirror Image. Woohoo

[algol]

Instant Invis and soon enough Mirror Image. WoohooOr as the multiboxers call it, "Clone Army." :D

[Quix]

Mages are definitely fun to multibox, they were my first, & are still my favorite. The Arcane barrage deal is just too good to pass up.

[Haruko]

Arcane Mages are next to get the Nerf Bat...

[Tasty]

Arcane Mages are next to get the Nerf Bat...

I'm just thankful Blizzard only appears to take on serious suggestions. Everyone cries about any class they can't kill even if its directly related to how you play lol. And no thats not a shot at you :)

[Haruko]

Arcane Mages are next to get the Nerf Bat...

I'm just thankful Blizzard only appears to take on serious suggestions. Everyone cries about any class they can't kill even if its directly related to how you play lol. And no thats not a shot at you :)

My girlfriends main is a Mage, believe me, she wipes the floor against most classes, but rogues & restro druids. Even then, POM + trinket + AP + Arcane blast ~ Arcane barrage & there goes a good half of someones life. I didn't even mention fire blast lol... Also known as the old FTW button!

[Tasty]

Arcane Mages are next to get the Nerf Bat...

I'm just thankful Blizzard only appears to take on serious suggestions. Everyone cries about any class they can't kill even if its directly related to how you play lol. And no thats not a shot at you :)

My girlfriends main is a Mage, believe me, she wipes the floor against most classes, but rogues & restro druids. Even then, POM + trinket + AP + Arcane blast ~ Arcane barrage & there goes a good half of someones life. I didn't even mention fire blast lol... Also known as the old FTW button!

Using some severely skewed logic. If mage can beat most classes and rogues and resto druids can beat mages wouldn't resto druids and rogues be needing nerfs first? :P

[Haruko]

Arcane Mages are next to get the Nerf Bat...

I'm just thankful Blizzard only appears to take on serious suggestions. Everyone cries about any class they can't kill even if its directly related to how you play lol. And no thats not a shot at you :)

My girlfriends main is a Mage, believe me, she wipes the floor against most classes, but rogues & restro druids. Even then, POM + trinket + AP + Arcane blast ~ Arcane barrage & there goes a good half of someones life. I didn't even mention fire blast lol... Also known as the old FTW button!

Using some severely skewed logic. If mage can beat most classes and rogues and resto druids can beat mages wouldn't resto druids and rogues be needing nerfs first? :P

I see my wording got mistaken for something else. She will just have a bit harder time killing rogues & Resto druids. Both classes have actually gotten the nerf bat already hence rogues defeat by snares ;)

edit: Not to get to much off topic, but my point was that, Arcane mages will be getting some nerfs soon, any good mage that is arcane would know that. Then again, paladins are still ripping through people. Hell, my next team is a paladin & 4 mages on blackrock, so I'm all for arcane.

[Kyudo]

I've finally got around to sorting out my mixed team an all their macros etc. I'm really pleasantly surprised about how good the mage DPS is so far, especially given how crap her gear is. Current spec is:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZZiIccocu0f0gbsx

I whack Focus Magic on my moonkin and it's a nice boost to dps, for just 1 talent point this is such a great spell for a mage that'll always be grouped with other casters.

I can also keep my frost elemental up for about 60% of the time, so this is a great boost to DPS and mana regen. Loving it so far. Interested to see everyone else going Arcane though, might have to try to compare it.

As for macros, I messed around for ages on mine, but I've settled on this messy number:

/castrandom frostbolt, summon water elemental, icy veins, Vengeance of the Illidari, Glowing Crystal Insignia
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt

Once the 1st elemental dies I tap this a couple of times (moonkin innervates themself, and priest casts Inner focus on same button):

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast cold snap
/stopcasting
/cast mana emerald

[pinotnoir]

I've finally got around to sorting out my mixed team an all their macros etc. I'm really pleasantly surprised about how good the mage DPS is so far, especially given how crap her gear is. Current spec is:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZZiIccocu0f0gbsx

I whack Focus Magic on my moonkin and it's a nice boost to dps, for just 1 talent point this is such a great spell for a mage that'll always be grouped with other casters.

I can also keep my frost elemental up for about 60% of the time, so this is a great boost to DPS and mana regen. Loving it so far. Interested to see everyone else going Arcane though, might have to try to compare it.

As for macros, I messed around for ages on mine, but I've settled on this messy number:

/castrandom frostbolt, summon water elemental, icy veins, Vengeance of the Illidari, Glowing Crystal Insignia
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt
/cast frostbolt

Once the 1st elemental dies I tap this a couple of times (moonkin innervates themself, and priest casts Inner focus on same button):

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast cold snap
/stopcasting
/cast mana emerald

Just put this in any macro you want to use trinkets with. It will use it whenever its up. No need to type out each name.
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/use 13
/use 14
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")

The Sound turns off the warning sound so you never hear it when the trinket is on cooldown.

[Multibocks]

So uh why were you suggesting Ice Lance in your rotation? Its only good for frozen targets, otherwise the 300-400 damage(noncrit) makes me laugh. That tickles!

[Tasty]

So uh why were you suggesting Ice Lance in your rotation? Its only good for frozen targets, otherwise the 300-400 damage(noncrit) makes me laugh. That tickles!

400 x 4 non crits = 1600 non crits. Keep laughing while we Ice Lance spam you to death :P or you could just rotate frost nova in with some 4k damage worth of ice lances

[pinotnoir]

So uh why were you suggesting Ice Lance in your rotation? Its only good for frozen targets, otherwise the 300-400 damage(noncrit) makes me laugh. That tickles!

Fireblast is 6 sec cooldown, Arcane Barrage is 3 second. Add in the globals and ice lance is filler. And like the guy below me said.. Ice lance x3 x4 or x5 hurts.

[algol]

Ice Lance is also really CHEAP filler...and with mage crit being what it is, a few of those are bound to crit sooner or later anyway.

[Kulzor]

Ok, what am I missing here... Does Ice Lance not invoke a 1.5 second global cooldown or something? Same with Fire Blast?

I haven't tried Ice Lance, but so far I'm finding
/castsequence reset=5 [target=focustarget,harm] Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage

to be the most effective on damage. At the very least the second Arcane Blast is getting upped damage, so for a 2.5 second spell it's doing good damage. I don't know that I'd say the same with Ice Lance or Fire Blast (without seeing it).

I'd add in a third Arcane Blast, but I don't believe most trash lives long enough then...

[algol]

Of course it does. But if you have 1.5 sec until the next CD anyway...nearly free damage.

[Xzin]

If mages had ANY real boxing survivability in arenas they might be worth playing. They can't heal - shammys can. A single point of weakness (only one healer) in arenas is.... problematic, to say the least.

As it stands now, mages are not likely to do well in WOTLK arenas. That said, in large scale PvP (hi 2 u Wintergrasp/AV) they will most likely, as always, dominate.

[maxel]

I threw together a spreadsheet using base number for spells and some preliminary assumptions for a couple different sequences floating around. I tried to dumb it down as much as possible by eliminating talents so that I can provide a more constant baseline for which adding talents, spell power, and crit rate only helps. This makes the numbers a little easier to understand, at least for myself, by ruling out things that, as boxers, are difficult to utilize in rotations, such as mashing a button when specific events fire like Warlock Nightfall procs.

That being said, based on this information I was able to extrapolate some results. Other rotations could be applied in similar fashion for additional baseline results. ymmv and my numbers might be way off, but maybe it will help people. *shrug*

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pWNSwprztz1Ly368evoyDXA

[Quix]

Ok, what am I missing here... Does Ice Lance not invoke a 1.5 second global cooldown or something? Same with Fire Blast?

I haven't tried Ice Lance, but so far I'm finding
/castsequence reset=5 [target=focustarget,harm] Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage

to be the most effective on damage. At the very least the second Arcane Blast is getting upped damage, so for a 2.5 second spell it's doing good damage. I don't know that I'd say the same with Ice Lance or Fire Blast (without seeing it).

I'd add in a third Arcane Blast, but I don't believe most trash lives long enough then...I believe you are talking a standing/casting damage rotation for PVE, & they are talking about insta casts that can be mashed while on the run strafing or sidestepping in PVP. The global cooldown is still there, but you can mash this while chasing someone down. I could be wrong but Thats what I use the arcane barrage icelance fireblast macro for. I would never ever ever stand there to cast Arcane blast (unless I used it with POM.)