Fire's DPS needs to be in line with Arcane

[:1]Now that Arcane has a much better and more strategic rotation, I think the next step is to fix fire. Arcane is an alright spec, but I really don't want to be penalized for playing a spec I like because it does 4-5k less damage than a spec I don't like to play.

Having said that, Fire does have problems of its own, specifically with Ignite munching being bandaged in a manner that still doesn't reward gearing for crit (which, if the mechanic worked as intended, would probably be our best secondary) as well as too much reliance on RNG. If these two issues are fixed, as well as Fire's numbers being brought back into line, us Mages will finally have a choice between which specs we like.

I hear many proponents of Frost PvE, but I haven't tried it out yet. However, I don't think PvP balance would benefit from any buffs to their sustained DPS. :P
Yes fire needs to be competitive. Arcane has been dominant msot of the way through wrath (I believe fire surpassed it towards the end, with top notch gear) and now all through cata, is it really that hard to balance fire with arcane?

To be honest I'm just so damn bored of playing arcane. I understand there is skill to maximizing arcane and getting the absolute best out of it, but if on a raid night I'm tired and don't want to focus too much I still generally out dps everyone else. Fire has always been my favorite spec, with a nice mix if buffs to keep up, fun procs, and interesting cooldowns, so it's a shame that it's rarely ever competitive with arcane.

Yes fire needs to be competitive. Arcane has been dominant msot of the way through wrath (I believe fire surpassed it towards the end, with top notch gear) and now all through cata, is it really that hard to balance fire with arcane?

To be honest I'm just so damn bored of playing arcane. I understand there is skill to maximizing arcane and getting the absolute best out of it, but if on a raid night I'm tired and don't want to focus too much I still generally out dps everyone else. Fire has always been my favorite spec, with a nice mix if buffs to keep up, fun procs, and interesting cooldowns, so it's a shame that it's rarely ever competitive with arcane.

This is exactly what I was thinking. They should be balanced in terms of numbers so that it's possible to competitively play whichever one you prefer.

Blizzard hates fire. Compare how quickly they nerf it when it's even remotely overpowered versus how long it languishes in DPS hell when it sucks. That's what annoys me. They'll let death knights be OP for a whole year, but as soon as ticks of Living Bomb proc Hot Streak, that gets nerfed literally within 48 hours. No posts from GC saying, "Wow, Fire is a little too awesome..." while we enjoy the splendid procciness for several weeks, no QQ from Arcane mages, no thing. It just gets hotfixed immediately. I don't think Fire was even leading in DPS at the time.
Before we get into buffing fire. I would like to say, blizzard buffing fire does not mean nerfing arcane!


That is all......
Don't worry. My inside sources tell me fire scales ridiculously good in the deathwing raid. They won't buff fire but a 5% nerf to AB should put fire and arcane inline with each other.

Please help me out with arcane.

[:1]Hey guys i really need help. Im pulling 14-16k in the dummy in SW. I really dont know what im doing wrong. Rotation - Spam Arc Blst to 30% evo to 100, now i use a little burn phase so i have an equal amount of time between my evo cd and mana gem with arcane power, soo i stack arcane blast 3-5 times and use arcane missles to get back to around 85%, after this i go to 70% with arcane blast and then use my arcane power with managem to get back to 85%, with this i use flame orb and pop my CDs of timewarp and mirror image, at this time my evo cd will be almost cooled down and i start my rotation of spamming arcane blast again...

please help I really need it. Thanks guys.
1st - Meta is wrong
2nd - +50 INT to bracers
3rd - I'd replace 1 piece of your T11 5-pc with T12. Since you need hit, maybe the chest, but I do like the two red gem sockets on legs w/ +20 INT socket bonus
Ok first, fix your gear, like Jay said. Second, you should be using your mana gem DURING the burn phase a long with everything else. The 2k spellpower from it really helps. Dont drop down to 70% with your gear, don't worry about mini-burns, stick near 90% mana.
Looks like you have four unenchanted items...head, shoulder, chest and gloves.

Also don't use Arcane Power at all in conservation phase. That will just delay the next burn phase. You want to go all out for burn. Something like this:

ABx4 - Mana Gem - Arcane Power - Trinket (in your case Soul Casket) - Mirror images - Burn till 35% - Evo

What the guy about says about conservation phase is pretty good. Don't drop too low if you can avoid it.

ABx4 - Mana Gem - Arcane Power - Trinket (in your case Soul Casket) - Mirror images - Burn till 35% - Evo

Why would you waste a GCD on Mirror Images while you have Improved Mana Gem/Arcane Power/Trinkets up? You're wasting DPS there.
ur not hit capped

ABx4 - Mana Gem - Arcane Power - Trinket (in your case Soul Casket) - Mirror images - Burn till 35% - Evo

Why would you waste a GCD on Mirror Images while you have Improved Mana Gem/Arcane Power/Trinkets up? You're wasting DPS there.

<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736">http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736</a>

Macro

#showtooltip
/cast Arcane Power
/cast Mirror Image

Why would you waste a GCD on Mirror Images while you have Improved Mana Gem/Arcane Power/Trinkets up? You're wasting DPS there.

<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736">http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736</a>

Macro

^

<a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736">http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/42736</a>

Macro

^

Looking at OP's glyphs they aren't glyphed for AP so they would be wasting a GCD, but most would not.

Macro

#showtooltip
/cast Arcane Power
/cast Mirror Image

No. No. No. If you macro mirrors, you will waste a GCD because they're being cast at the same time. It does not benefit from glyph of arcane power in that case. Just...click the spell from your bars or something between casts during AP...that or keybind it, your choice...it's the only spell I click.
Just hit the macro again. Thats what I do.

4.1 Mage Spec Discussion

[:1]http://gcguild.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14359

4.1 Spec Discussion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fire
PTR data shows the current Ignite munching fix has actually caused a dps drop of about 200. The fix has done its job in reducing the amount that gets eaten, but the overall damage change has been a negative effect.

Fire is still a very RNG spec and shows the highest variance between high dps and low dps. It does however still command the AoE, again depending on lucky crits and procs.

Gearing will still lean towards a crit/haste balance, with our haste value dependant on gaining extra dot ticks.

Frost
Frostbolt damage increased by 10%.
Blizzard damage increased by 70%.
Fingers of Frost Ice Lance damage has been increased from 15 to 25% damage.

Frost actually shows up higher than Fire on movement fights with the ability to Ice Lance, Pet Freeze, Deep Freeze, etc. It is our most reliable form of AoE as Blizzard is a set and forget ability. Also, a decent survivability change, Ice Barrier base absorption value has been increased by 120%.

Gearing is similar to Fire, once you reach the Shatter cap (33.34% crit), haste and mastery will balance one another out.

Arcane
Still a turret, Arcane suffers heavily on movement fights, but will decimate other specs on Patchwerk encounters.

The haste cap is an issue with Arcane as the cast time on Arcane Blast has been changed from 2.35 to 2.0 seconds. AoE is a mixed bag, as Arcane Explosion damage has been increased by 30% and has been tied in with the Arcane Blast buff. To AoE effectively as arcane, one must be in melee range (although talents cause 80% threat reduction on Arcane Explosion) and follow a rotation of sorts (keep Arcane Blast stack up while filling with Arcane Explosion). Furthermore, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage damage has been increased by 13%.

Gearing will balance out haste/mastery while crit falls far behind.



Summary:
Fire and Frost are the two most alike specs as far as gearing goes. Arcane will find itself looking for two distinctly different stats. Depending on our raid comp (ret pally/bm hunter?) an arcane mage will be necessary, and should be competitive on most fights. I personally find fire to be more frustrating than anything, and am leaning towards Arcane for a "fun" factor. Arcane will be easy to play, but very difficult to excel at. Frost seems to be the most reliable spec and provides the most survivability.

What spec are you leaning towards in 4.1 and why?

My gut reaction for the arcane changes is to gear mastery and crit. With arcane blast being our main source of damage I feel like haste really isn't that necessary... I would probably aoe with blizzard on magmaw and cho'gall. Halfus would still be fire, unless arcane explosion spam can somehow beat fire aoe.
Haste is still very useful for Arcane as it will allow Arcane Blast to hit harder, and quicker.

I'm looking forward to upcoming raid content though. What specs do you guys feel will be dominant in 4.2 and onward?
Frost by a mile.
Once the soft cap gets reached (which will be so easy in 4.2), i can switch to Mage Armor without a dps loss and cast blizzard without sweating.
With the predicted higher dps on helter-skelter, and the fact that the skill cap for frost is much higher than fire, it should be extremely helpful for progressing, and getting better as a player.

I'm looking forward to upcoming raid content though. What specs do you guys feel will be dominant in 4.2 and onward?

TBQH it all depends on the set bonuses for t12, and the types of encounters in firelands. I think the specs are close enough that i can say that.

We all know that the set bonuses were targeted COMPLETELY at fire, i hope they will benefit the other two more in 4.2
Honestly I dont really know what to spec right now.

Fires changes got me excited, but in the end it made it worse. I would assume some buff would come in during the future but its hard to tell.

I run a 10 man group and we do not carry anything that has the 3% increased damage. With the new arcane changes I took my offspec into arcane for the sake of less movement/aoe fights. The problem is, I dont have many gearing options to help with arcane. Most of my gear is focused on fire with a few off pieces that I can use with an arcane set (boa ring / theralions mirror)

Frost it seems may be the best spec to go with, but im not sure how much I can trust its aoe. Also to note, we are currently working on heroic magmaw, and I solo kite/kill the adds. working with that as frost or arcane is just a big NO st@!*%d onto it.

So I think I will stick with fire and try out some arcane and see how it works with my current gear I guess. Why cant fire just be top end again!
Arcane is the deal

H Al'Akir Add Control

[:1]Hey so we're working on H Al'Akir and I'm in charge of killing adds and have been having a little trouble.

One big problem on a few attempts is that I ran out of adds even though I killed each one when there was between 3 and 1 seconds left on Al'Akir's feedback, and one either spawned when there was ~2 seconds left on the debuff or after it had fallen off.

I found later that starting to kill the adds when there's three up seems to work the best - that was our best attempt but the debuff still fell off because one didn't spawn until there was 2 seconds of feedback lef.

Any suggestions?
Adds spawn every 20 seconds exactly. The Feedback debuff lasts 20 seconds exactly. You will never perfectly kill each add in exactly 20 seconds, so you need a buffer.

Take them down low until the third spawns, then start killing. You could even wait for the fourth if you have trouble with the timing on three (four gives you more room for error, but requires higher overall raid dps).

If you are doing them yourself then I presume you are in 10-man format. You need help on 25-man to keep up with the spawn rate.

I also strongly suggest putting the boss on your Focus frame and using a Power Aura / Weak Aura that tracks Feedback duration and stacks. You could alternatively set up a 20 second timer aura that resets when a Stormling death is reported in the combat log (Weak Auras can do this, no idea if Power Auras can).
Our tank takes five of them, kills the first couple himself, then calls for focus dps at 3-4 seconds. Takes two gcds to kill them with all ranged focused.
I solo adds with a bit of assistance from the multi-dotters. As they spawn I straight nuke them as low as I can until the next one spawns, the goal being ~200k health. As soon as the 4th one spawns I kill the first then begin killing them with ~5-7 seconds left on feedback as they die.

As the 8th or 9th one spawn, all the range switch to them and zerg them down as they spawn. We lust around the 6th stack generally.

Whats the best Frost Talent Tree 4 a lvl 70?

[:1]I was recently Arcane but I just kept gettin murped by Frost Mages in pvp's & Arenas... So I decided I was going to switch to Frost, but there was one problem... I have NO idea how to set up my actionbar or my Talent Tree.. So, if you could tell me how to do it or tell me a good setup, I would love you forever. Lol, nah but forreal I need a lotta help.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2593049272

Just start to fill it out as I have it setup.
Wow, thank you so much! That guide is amazing!!

Hit capping

[:1]So does anyone else find it impossibly hard to hit cap? I know this toon is in mostly blues but it feels like hit capping is very near impossible with heroic dungeon gear. (Obligatory gem and enchant your gear post) Im aware but I feel I will be replacing this gear later tonight in za/zg so please ignore that.

EDIT: This is more a "Do I need to be hit capped to do raids" question than anything else, because it feels like the loss of hit cap makes for some shakey burn phases.
Hitting the hit cap for most raid spec will be your biggest dps boost outside of getting as much int as possible. If you can't hit it from reforging all your lesser stats, that's fine so long as your gear still meets the minimum requirements for raiding. You'll get the gear with hit eventually.

With Arcane spec, if you get trinkets with int instead of secondary stats, int is so valuable that you can take it at the expense of lossing hit and still do more dps. Frost and Fire though will suffer below the hit cap.

I would say if you're currently doing Heroics, reforge your hit away since you only need 6% for those. When you are actually ready and you believe your gear is decent enough to start raiding with, reforge everything away to hit and have fun. When in heroics, just remember to put higher priority on gear that has hit as a secondary stat.

I am hit capped right now and I reforged a lot, but what really helped was getting the "Stump of Time" Trinket from Tol Barad dailies.

Equip: Increases your hit rating by 321
Equip: Your harmful spells have a chance to grant 1926 spell power for 15 sec.

Those are the stats on it.

Also, I am unfamiliar of the linking policies upheld here, so I won't put a link, but if you havent visited WoW insider and followed the mage articles, you should. It has an awesome article about mages and hit cap.

Mage tips?

[:1]Hello everyone. I have a level 30 Troll Mage, and am confused on how to play him. (I've played since Vanilla, but haven't really given the Mage a chance) But I have now, and love it. So, I was wondering if anyone can give me a few pointers on how to play him. (He's fire spec) Like, for PvE rotation, PvP rotation. And basically just HOW to use him at this level, all the way until end game. Sorry if it sounds a little confusing, but yeah. Just would love a few great tips on how to become a better mage, thanks all ^_^
Hi Chimon! My main is an 85 fire mage (Arcanadia - Firestorm-Turalyon). I may not be the best player in the game, but I thought I'd respond to your post. From what I remember when I was a little lvl 49, my rotation was pretty much pyro, pyro, fire blast. If they get too close to you...freeze them in ice and run far enough away so that you can turn around and pyro, pyro, fire blast. I didn't make enough use of my frostfire bolt levelling up. It is really handy when you get it to slow targets down. You want to avoid melee as much as possible. Don't forget, you're super squishy. Let's see...what else...oh...use scortch as well...to be honest, I didn't really believe in it's power when I was levelling, but at the higher levels, the instant cast/no mana issue is WAY bigger than it is when you're little...try it now so by the time you get to 85 it won't be too big an adjustment. Also, glyph for Evocation as soon as possible. That is really the only self-heal we have aside from eating something/potions, etc. At 85, I don't use pyro now unless it procs, but levelling up, it was a monster that took stuff down quickly.

Fire mages are super fun, and I love mine. I hope I helped and that you have a ton of fun playing yours.

T11 better than t12?

[:1]So, I finally got the 4 pc t12 last night and this morning I am having a bit of time to test it out. I reforged for it and some of the items are used with my t11 set. So, I do just a burn phase on the dummies since using evocation knocks you out of combat. This is on a raider's dummy and my t11 set is now about 15% hit with my t12 at 17% even. I still do slightly more DPS in t11 than t12.

Over 300 more int and spellpower plus not missing and I do less damage? Can anyone else verify these results?
It will perform better in a fully buffed raid environment. Training dummies are never good for measuring dps. I only use them when i rearrange keybinds or mess around with my interface and want to make sure everything is working properly.

However, your haste is pretty low, your cloak is not enchanted, and you are only using 1 chimera's eye.
EEEEKK I have the wrong cloak on...I missed losing the 2 eyes when switching sets. Thanks for hte feedback. Haste is low from staying under cap with T11 and Hero. I will fix those problems now. Thanks.

Edit: can't have 3ks in my eek

Mage soloing ?

[:1]Could i solo old level 70 raids on my mage? I want to do The Eye and Hyjal Summit for some crazy good looking staffs for 4.3. If not, what about with a healer? A healer and a plate dps? Finally, what spec should i use?
Thanks, 00troll
You can two man Kael'thas with a healer. For Phase 4, have your healer stand out of line of sight of Kael'thas, but in line of sight of you. Tank all pyroblasts rather than interrupting them.

And wear the legendary staff at all times. Cuts your dps but saves your butt.

Spellsteal-Blizzard

[:1]First off, why? I haven't complained of this much. I just wish I knew why this is happening.

Here is yet another easy fix ( I think ):

Make it steal the same buff and all of it's stacks.

So for PvE, you don't kill us on ODS.

Keep the CD, Just make it steal one buff, and all of it's stacks.
Thoughts?
So basically you want to be able to steal 15+ stacks on Omnotron instantly? (Not that it should ever have much unless you're going for a WoL or have bad players.)

- Spellsteal
Steals a beneficial magic effect from the target. This effect lasts a maximum of 2 min. If used on a player, triggers a 6 second cooldown.

FIXED!
Oh no you're getting nerfed on one boss fight that won't matter in a few months.

This is a huge pvp nerf, not pve.

Read the 100000 other threads about it.

They need to increase the mana cost so we go oom spamming it in arenas.

that is all.

- Spellsteal
Steals a beneficial magic effect from the target. This effect lasts a maximum of 2 min. If used on a player, triggers a 6 second cooldown.

lol.

One boss fight. One.

And you think it's a pve nerf.

It's not, and it won't effect you nearly as much as it will in pvp. Go read Nighttempest's thread about it.

What Arcane Mages need for PvP

[:1]They need to be able to cast arcane missiles while moving. This will atleast give them a nice mobility option and it wont be op since its obviously a proc. I think blizz had the right idea with the old T12 set bonus just that it should be baseline or maybe glyphed/talented. Thoughts?
Can't agree more i guess im not the only one thats tired of being frost for PvP
First, at max level arcane missiles is mostly used to clear your arcane blast buff/debuff so you don't run out of mana rediculously fast.
Second, the tier sets are for PvE, if you were to wear them you would get @%%!d in PvP regardless of being able to move and cast arcane missiles.
Third, I really don't think arcane mages have anything to complain about. Easy, large amount of DPS, decent for leveling (in my opinion).
You've ever tried to burn your enemies? Ever pulverized 'em with your heat?
Fire might be a little bit more difficult to play than the other speccs, even though it was made easier with Cataclysm.
But it is great fun!

And that Arcane Missile thingy sounds good. Since they don't hit that hard anymore...

First, at max level arcane missiles is mostly used to clear your arcane blast buff/debuff so you don't run out of mana rediculously fast.
Second, the tier sets are for PvE, if you were to wear them you would get @%%!d in PvP regardless of being able to move and cast arcane missiles.
Third, I really don't think arcane mages have anything to complain about. Easy, large amount of DPS, decent for leveling (in my opinion).

well...actually in PvP you really dont ever cast Arcane Missiles because its @#@% damage AND it's a channeling move which would be interrupted in a heartbeat....u usually just spam arcane blast and pop cooldowns and hope to god ur not targeted....

whereas if we got arcane missiles to cast on the run...we could frost nova, cast arcane missiles AS we are getting distance again...which makes Arcane much more viable in pvp

well...actually in PvP you really dont ever cast Arcane Missiles because its @#@% damage AND it's a channeling move which would be interrupted in a heartbeat....u usually just spam arcane blast and pop cooldowns and hope to god ur not targeted....whereas if we got arcane missiles to cast on the run...we could frost nova, cast arcane missiles AS we are getting distance again...which makes Arcane much more viable in pvp

Took the words right out of my mouth. Well said. Basically its about as good as scorch AND it has a proc so I cant see any reason not to have this castable while moving, yet fire mages get to spam scorch all day.

4.2 trinket questions

[:1]So I was thinking about trinkets avaiable to arcane mages in 4.2 and I'm really stuck.
I currently have the serphant and volcanic deck equipped.
Thing is, I want to replace the serphant with the Moonwell Chalice. The more int plus an on use mastery effect would really help with burn phases.
I just want to get other people's views on what I should be using in Firelands. The mirror looks really nice as another +int trinket, which I was thinking of switching with the deck.

Emberflame Bracers

[:1]Even thought I'm saving up for the valor ring, some person was selling ANY new BoE epic for 5,000g. I scored a kill, WOOT.

The hit... the mastery... I'm in heaven.
Deleted by Cakezilla
For realz? I'm gonna have to get in on that.
I had my alt running heroics to pick up the bracers.

I would gladly have spent 5k and not used LFG :(
based on this thread and the thread about soloing trash in FL, I am nominating you for the lucky mofo award
Jesus that is a good price, i don't have time to run an alt through heroics every week, but wow, wish i could get that kind of deal.

Deep Freeze has the worst sound

[:1]for a spell so awesome, it needs an awesome sound.

discuss.
I have one of my addons (I don't remember which one, I believe Mik's Scrolling Battle Text) that does a huge and icy freezing sound when an ability misses or that the target is immune to it. That's my awesome sound and I think it fits perfectly Deep Freeze.
Hadouken!

Of course, I use it for hot streak procs, but still. It's pretty win.

Hadouken!

Of course, I use it for hot streak procs, but still. It's pretty win.

GIMMEGIMME addon
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/hadouken_sound.aspx

I had to modify the mp3s to increase the volume, your mileage may vary.

Looking for advice!

[:1]Hey guys, I'm fairly new to the whole PvP scene. Been raiding for 6 years or something ridiculous like that, bored of that, I now only play wow for the pvp in my off time.

I'm enjoying mage, as I'm sure most mages do :P

Just wondering if you guys could take a look at my gems/spec?

What can I do to improve?
What should I be shooting for?
What did I totally screw up?

Thanks!
looks 95% good to me... the only things i see is the .03% hit missing (trust me... i HAVE missed with that before... it is a pain in the butt and i hate when i do it, the games basically rigged like that lol). and the trinket.

as a frost mage, you PROBABLY won't be taking MUCH damage. you can sacrifice 2% damage reduction and get rid of the pvp trink for the BEST and EASILY obtainable pve trinket (which, since you say you raid you prob already have). it's that one with mastery at 321 and inc spellpwer w/e you want w/ a 2 min cd. it increases your frost spells damage by about 4% when frozen... so yeah... VERY nice.

Also... your crit is a little lowish... i mean, it's only 17 x 3= 51% on frozen targets... which is NICE, but it's kind of like "coin flip" luck. you want "coin flip with a dirty underhanded trick to make it go in your favor" luck :P. i say have 20% crit... it makes out to about 60% crit chance... which is very nice (and then when you combine it with rogue buff, arcane mage buff, other buffs you get from classes, etc.) you can pop crits like a fat kid eats jellybeans.

Odd Rawr results

[:1]I just downloaded and ran Rawr for the first time a few months (took a break from WoW), and it used a lot of my PvP gear. I'm not reforging it or regemming it for PvE, so I went to uncheck all my PvP and run again. However, I noticed something really odd. For Gear:Head, for example, 4 PvP cowls (Ruthless, both Vicious, and Bloodthirsty) were rated higher than the 391 Firehawk Hood. That simply isn't right. Not that I have the Firehawk Hood.

Does anyone know of some option that I may have flicked on or some problem with Rawr that would be causing this? Or do these ratings not really matter once you run the optimizer?


Check you gemming options. By default, the bis meta gem may be turned off. It'll only be available in gear you actually have it gemmed into. That +3% crit damage is rated so powerful that you'll see blues with it ahead of fantastic epics with without it.
Thanks for the help. I looked into it, and I don't think that was the case. However, it is fixed now. I'm not sure what happened. I don't think I changed anything :)

Arcane or Frost for leveling?

[:1]I know this question probably gets asked a lot, but I just started a goblin mage, and I've been deciding on a talent spec to level with.

I tried searching, and I didn't really see sample builds or anything concerning the most helpful talents to level with, so I was wondering...which spec is better for leveling? and would it be possible to link a sample build for me to see?

EDIT: keep in mind, I have a couple heirlooms, and plan to be doing questing/queuing for instances all the way up to 85. maybe pvp here and there, but nothing serious
From what I've read on the forums, it's said that Frost for Solo Leveling concentration, and Arcane for Instance leveling.

Personally, I leveled this toon purely Arcane; and I'm leveling a second toon purely on Fire.

Go with what makes you happy :) You can always re-spec if you go the wrong way.
Doesn't really matter. They're both fantastic for leveling.
Frost is better overall with survivability and decent damage, but any of the three specs work for leveling, chose what you prefer.
thanks for the quick replies guys. I think I'll go with frost for now.
I leveled this character over the last couple of weeks, almost entirely as arcane, and it was mostly a breeze. 1-80, everything died before it reached me, never ran out of mana.

I switched to frost from 80-81, because the Hyjal mobs were painful in quest greens from Northrend, and I needed the added survivability of frost. Once I had picked up a bunch of Hyjal quest greens, I switched back to arcane and it worked quite well.

I like frost, but I'm always clicking on my water elemental when I try to loot mobs. He likes to stand in just the wrong spot.
They all work. Leveled my first mage as frost, leveled this mage as fire, friend recently leveled his as arcane.
All 3 mage trees work fine for leveling. Just use whichever one you like playing most.

frost pvp, numbers to aim for?

[:1]went over to elitist jerks but they dont seem to have the info im looking for. for frost pvp, what numbers are we shooting for as far as spell pen, crit, haste, and mastery.
and hit for pvp is still at 5% yes?
Spell pen: 200-240. 240 hard caps you, 200 caps you against 95% of anyone you'll face. Grab one of either the spell pen cloak OR spell pen neck, and decide if you think you need to socket a spell pen gem.

Hit: 4% will cap you against all 85 opponents (except for night elfs I think)

Crit: We're shooting for 33%, but we can't hit this yet. As it stands now, in full pvp gear, between 17-20% is all we can muster, and most want to shoot for that unless you're playing a specific comp that favors more haste.

Mastery: Widely regarded as a very good stat, just not as good as Crit thanks to shatter. Less crits, but bigger crits. Has its place, but most all of it is reforged to crit at the moment.

Haste: Can't go wrong with haste, but sacrificing crit to get it removes most of your burst, and burst is everything in pvp. Again, doesn't hurt to have, making cast times faster reduces the chance you'll get interrupted, etc. Faster CC is never a negative.


Pretty much, most mages grab 4% hit, 200 spell pen, and then stack crit through the roof. If you look at the top mages on the arena ladder, you'll find some stack haste or mastery instead, proving there really is no right answer.

However, for most, crit is the popular and clear cut choice.
tyty

I use to stack crit, but have been trying out stacking mastery. I think I like it a lot more, consistent high hits on opponents. Although, blowing someone up isn't as fun as it was :[ I am still critting fine though with 14% crit chance while hitting 20k+ ice lances when targets are frozen.

Crit: We're shooting for 33%, but we can't hit this yet. As it stands now, in full pvp gear, between 17-20% is all we can muster,

Make friends with a sub rogue. (or possibly feral...)

HPallies

[:1]So I'm currently sitting in this arena match on my mage my partner is dead and so is he, it's quite a lovely situation, as he is unkillable and I'm just sitting here, so I figured I'd write a forum post to say hi.
A hpally in 2's is like trying to take down an M1 Abrams with a revolver.

Looking for advice

[:1]I would like to get some constructive criticism, im looking for what improvements i could make when it comes to gear, enchanting, gemming, and reforging. What am i doing wrong, what am i doing right, and what do i need to make changes on?
Also i know my trinkets suck and i need to get out of pvp gear D:
At this point you just need to run a lot more heroics/pvp and convert the honor into justice points. You have a lot of pvp gear that needs to be replaced, as well as trinkets, from the jp vendor. I would run more troll dungeons to fill in your pve set. Other than that your gems and enchants seem fine, if a little on the cheap end, which is usually for someone gearing up. You're looking in pretty good shape, just run your heroics, do weekly runs of the t11 raids for gear and points, and you should be set fairly soon.