Mage help

[suicidesspyder]

Ok im trying out mage specs as well as others on the ptr. My question is whats the best spec and spell rotation for a mage im in arcane but can only hit 2200 dps which i know seems wicked low as a lvl 80. Even lower due to the fact ptr gives u BIS gear.

[Ualaa]

The PvE rotation for Arcane is... Arcane Blast x4, Arcane Missiles x1.
Frost is Frost Bolt spam (with Water Elemental at every opportunity).
Not sure on the Fire Rotation, but fire needs to track procs for max dps.

[Niley]

specs here:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...mreaver&n=Thix

rotations - i have no clue, i have lvl 80 mage but i only use her for free water and ports.

[Ualaa]

For a lot of classes/spec's, you can visit www.maxdps.com

At the top right you can enter your realm and toon name.
And it will armory you for your stats.
Either that or manually enter them in, although there are a lot of them.

Even if you have it retrieve everything for you, configure which buffs you will have.
In a boxed group, pick the buffs your group gives.
In a raid, pick the buffs the raid provides.
By default it won't have the correct buff types like Earth & Moon or whatever, not just MotW etc.

Then it will calculate which spells to do, in what order and how many times, based on how much damage they do with everything taken into consideration for your toon.
Their rotation is a suggestion, but its a place to start when building your own rotations.

[jimbobobb]

For arcane, the best rotation is simply arcane blast until you run out of mana. If you're at around 20k mana, this should be enough for any normal fight, and for heroic bosses, should also be plenty as long as you actually use your gems/evocation. If you're raiding (where mana becomes a concern), go ahead and do as above and figure out an actual rotation, but otherwise just cast arcane blast - it's the best dps you can do.

[OogaJiggaWooga]

For arcane, the best rotation is simply arcane blast until you run out of mana. If you're at around 20k mana, this should be enough for any normal fight, and for heroic bosses, should also be plenty as long as you actually use your gems/evocation. If you're raiding (where mana becomes a concern), go ahead and do as above and figure out an actual rotation, but otherwise just cast arcane blast - it's the best dps you can do.

This, but you will be drinking every other pull and coming close to oom early in even heroic boss fights unless your group is sufficiently high dps so as to trivialise the content.

[daviddoran]

I have a big macro that pops as many CDs as possible, so i use Icy Veins, (arcane spec, with the leftover points in frost) arcane power, presence of mind, trinkets, etc. I also pop mirror image right at the start of the fight (for aggro help) and i use gems every cooldown. My mage is one of my worst geared toons, but does some of the highest dps.

[MageMe]

The PvE rotation for Arcane is... Arcane Blast x4, Arcane Missiles x1.
Frost is Frost Bolt spam (with Water Elemental at every opportunity).

This is correct but with arcane you want to use Arcane Barrage if you have to move otherwise leave it be, BUT if you can time it right ( on your 4th missile) you can get the bonus crit with both Missiles and Barrage as long as the 5th Missile lands at the same time as Abarr. Using straight arcane blast rotation without using missiles after the 3rd-4th blast cast is proven to be a dps/damg loss

go here for some numbers to support this..

http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t42876-arcane_thread/

[olipcs]

Using straight arcane blast rotation without using missiles after the 3rd-4th blast cast is proven to be a dps/damg loss

Could you be so kind and maybe put me to the direct post, where they verify this? (The Thread is more than 125 pages long...)
- I'm asking, because it is a little bit contrary to my experiences.
On heroic trash, I use the 4xAB+AM-Macro for my mage (which puts him at about 3k-dps), and for bosses I know I can down very soon, I sometimes switch that to a straight ABlast-spam, which runs my mage OOM very quickly, but increases his dps to about 5k-dps, for the 30-50 seconds I need to down the boss...

This could be compromiesed by the fact, that for bosses I also hit the big 'boom' button, which activates 'Mirror Image' also, but this shouldn't be that much of an dps-increase...

..of course for longer (raid) fights, I see that point that an straight AB-Spam could be less DPS than an 4xAB+AM, but only because you need to use evocation, managems, potions and so on...

[MageMe]

Could you be so kind and maybe put me to the direct post, where they verify this? (The Thread is more than 125 pages long...)
- I'm asking, because it is a little bit contrary to my experiences.
On heroic trash, I use the 4xAB+AM-Macro for my mage (which puts him at about 3k-dps), and for bosses I know I can down very soon, I sometimes switch that to a straight ABlast-spam, which runs my mage OOM very quickly, but increases his dps to about 5k-dps, for the 30-50 seconds I need to down the boss...

This could be compromised by the fact, that for bosses I also hit the big 'boom' button, which activates 'Mirror Image' also, but this shouldn't be that much of an dps-increase...

..of course for longer (raid) fights, I see that point that an straight AB-Spam could be less DPS than an 4xAB+AM, but only because you need to use evocation, managems, potions and so on...

On the very 1st page, they discuss the numbers, granted a 100% AB rotation could be a higher dps bracket, but the oom issue far outweighs the dps loss while evoking or suddenly realizing you just used your last gem and have to make a new set of 3 or used your only mana pot for that fight.

In the rotations section, no where does it state that using a straight AB rotation is best or even recommended. Of course rotation is what works best for you for each situation. I myself use a AB rotation at times when i know the fights will be less time consuming.