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Finally getting serious on Arcane Mage, questions
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Post by
Ghelda
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/bronzebeard/Loumina/simple
As you can probably tell, I've been pretty casual thus far on this character, but I really want to start doing heroics without running around like a chicken with her head cut off.
Right now my plan has been running lots of Regular Dungeons for Justice Points to get better gear with that. (And yes, I know that belt isn't really appropriate since it has spirit on it, it's a temporary thing I got for the item level)
I've been basing a lot of what I've been doing on this guide (
) and advice from guild mates.
Here's my first issue...my guild mates are telling me different things.
One says to always use arcane missiles when I get the chance, that that's the best dps.
Another says (and this is also from the guide) to only use it to erase the arcane blast buff for 'conserve phase.'
I'm thinking I should follow the guide, but just to make sure, what do you guys think?
And finally....I recently reforged a lot of my gear to get more hit.
Good idea or bad idea?
Thank you for your time, take care!
Post by
bladden
I could give you a long rant about the stat priorities and how your rotation should flow between burst phases and conserve phases (by the way the second guildie sounds like he knows what he's talking about), but I'd rather just point you to a website which'll basically teach you Arcane Mage for dummies. ->
http://noxxic.com/wow/pve/mage/fire
Other than that, I'd recommend you start going Hour of Twilight Heroics asap, as they're quite easily completed and award ilvl 378 gear, well enough to start getting into the LFR raiding content, which'll then snowball you upwards into real raiding. If you lack a little ilvl, look into buying the "Vicious Embecloth..." items on the auction house, should only be a few hundred gold and is ilvl 377, which makes it easier to get into these instances.
Finally I recommend four addons for dungeoning and raiding alike, they won't interfere with your UI.
ReforgeLite - Makes it easy as heck to reforge, just put in the class and spec you want it tuned to, Calculate, then Apply, and it'll reforge for you to perfection.
Deadly Boss Mods - Absolutely vital for real raiding and early dungeoning, as it shows timers for boss abilites, when the next phases begins, enrage timers, marks players with effects like Living Bomb on them and warns you in nice big red letters when you're supposed to move out of fire.
AtlasLoot - Quite a nifty addon which most people use, which with a short click of a button lets you browse through any instance / raid gear in the entire game, useful for transmogging and planning out your gear.
Recount - Very useful when used properly, very annoying if you don't. It gathers in-combat data such as Damage Dealt, DPS, Healing done, Threat done, Dispells total and amount of deaths you've had, and shows it in multiple ways. I'd recommend you to -not- link it in chats, unless asked for, or you'll be seen as just a showoff.
Post by
Ghelda
Thank you for the link, looks very helpful.
And of those addons I only don't have ReforgeLite, though it certainly sounds useful, so I'll go fetch it asap.
Post by
251602
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
nickseng
MageManaBar is also pretty good for Arcane.
Post by
Ghelda
ReforgeLite has already really helped me out quite a bit, so thanks again!
MageManaBar I'll look into next.
Also, I'm thinking at this point I can start doing heroics instead (minus Hour of Twilight related ones, need the achievement it says so I need to look into it...probably not ready for em anyways) since the bosses will give me 77 JP instead of just 33 that way.
A little nervous since the only Cata heroic I did was Zul'Gurub with some guildies and I sucked.
Though that's a more advanced heroic compared to the other Cata dungeons (besides the other troll one) isn't it?
Post by
Archibolt
Despite having played for a while now, I still feel slightly nervous/uncomfortable when I do dungeons/LFR with alts that I haven't played in a while.
In those cases, I just toggle my skada/recount off for the run. I'd only look at them afterwards. During the run, I was just focused on hitting the right buttons at the right time, rather than putting pressure on myself to do X/Y DPS.
Once you get used to playing Arcane, you'll find that DPS will come naturally. No need to put too much pressure on yourself too soon ^^
Post by
oldnewb
I've recently started playing my arcane mage again and have found the add-on bitten's spellflash-mage very useful.While not essential in anyway,I found it really helpful just nudging you in the right direction.It's also handy to remind you to keep re-casting your flame orb on cd(something I was forgetting frequently in the heat of battle).
The guide on this site has some good "burn" macro's as well,which I would recommend
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
TheReal
MageManaBar is the one add-on I won't play Arcane without. An alternative to it might be using IceHUD and adding markers to its mana bar to show you when you should use your Mana Gem or Evocation. I guess it depends on if you prefer the HUD style of unit frame for yourself.
I also use PowerAuras to show me when I have the Clearcasting buff (for squeezing in an extra Arcane Blast during conservation phases), when Arcane Power is available, and to monitor my stacks of Stolen Time.
To address the OP: Any hit rating over 17% hit is wasted, and in my opinion that hit should come from reforging. Keep the mastery enchant on your boots and only use an int/hit gem if the socket bonus justifies it.
I'd also second Italiandk's suggestion to take
AND KEEP YOUR ABSORBS UP. I can't think of one situation where I need to justify my choice of Arcane with AoE damage; there are plenty of other classes who can deal the AoE damage far better than I'll ever be able to and it simply doesn't matter to me if they do. When it comes to single-target (read: boss) damage, I rule the roost.
Post by
Linaris
I could give you a long rant about the stat priorities and how your rotation should flow between burst phases and conserve phases (by the way the second guildie sounds like he knows what he's talking about), but I'd rather just point you to a website which'll basically teach you Arcane Mage for dummies. ->
http://noxxic.com/wow/pve/mage/fire
Other than that, I'd recommend you start going Hour of Twilight Heroics asap, as they're quite easily completed and award ilvl 378 gear, well enough to start getting into the LFR raiding content, which'll then snowball you upwards into real raiding. If you lack a little ilvl, look into buying the "Vicious Embecloth..." items on the auction house, should only be a few hundred gold and is ilvl 377, which makes it easier to get into these instances.
Finally I recommend four addons for dungeoning and raiding alike, they won't interfere with your UI.
ReforgeLite - Makes it easy as heck to reforge, just put in the class and spec you want it tuned to, Calculate, then Apply, and it'll reforge for you to perfection.
Deadly Boss Mods - Absolutely vital for real raiding and early dungeoning, as it shows timers for boss abilites, when the next phases begins, enrage timers, marks players with effects like Living Bomb on them and warns you in nice big red letters when you're supposed to move out of fire.
AtlasLoot - Quite a nifty addon which most people use, which with a short click of a button lets you browse through any instance / raid gear in the entire game, useful for transmogging and planning out your gear.
Recount - Very useful when used properly, very annoying if you don't. It gathers in-combat data such as Damage Dealt, DPS, Healing done, Threat done, Dispells total and amount of deaths you've had, and shows it in multiple ways. I'd recommend you to -not- link it in chats, unless asked for, or you'll be seen as just a showoff.
another nifty addon if you don't mind me adding to your list is MageNuggets - you can move its frames any where and it works for all three specs. It will show you maa gem count and CD, how many stack of arcane blast you've casted on an enemy, your timers for procs, you spell stats in a little tooltip like frame and it scales with buffs and such and CDs on all big abilities like Mirror Image, Invisibilty, Fire orb, etc.... Download it and try it out I think its nice, small, and just helps out a little bit more especially for Arcane Blast blast cause you want cast that only a few times during conserve phase.
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