Please help me help my guild's mages

[ralwn 1]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/4BZa6x1PwAm2drFH#view=rankings

Here is a link to AMR logs for Maidens from someone who recorded from down below (seems my logs didn't pick them up very well down there)

 

We have 2 mages with us and they tend to get very low ranking percentiles in most fights.

 

Mage 1 Niki: Arcane (715 ring + 2piece)

Mage 2 Corv: Fire (690 ring + 2piece)

 

The only mage spec I know is frost so I don't know what to do or say to help them improve their Fire / Arcane dps.

 

How badly is not having 4-piece distorting their dps?

Are CDs just not being lined up properly?

 

Edit: I did find a link to this mage guide for BRF in another comment and will try linking that to them. Any replies are still very much appreciated, thank you.

Edited May 16, 2015 by ralwn

[Musetta 2]

Hey there!

 

Thanks for looking to help mages perform better in your raid.  I'd be happy to talk about both Arcane and Fire and how to use them in a raid situation.

 

ARCANE: (Single Target)

 

Arcane is a tricky spec, and people can't seem to understand that.  So often you hear a warlock making fun of an arcane mage implying that the rotation is simple and just spamming two spells.  Back in WotLK I would agree with our frienemy shadowy caster, but Blizzard has made arcane all about planning and executing in this expansion.  

 

As far as gear, you want mastery, mastery, and more mastery.  The more mastery, the more oomph you'll get out of your burn phase.  

 

Stat priorities are as follows: Mastery>Haste>Multistrike>Crit>Versatility

 

I am not a big fan of telling people that Intellect is the most important thing, because obviously it's on all of your gear, I promise you'll get lots of intellect...  Too often you tell someone that intellect is most important, and they drop a 691 mastery/haste ring for a 700 crit/versatility ring.  And for what?  10 intellect?  That gave you about 10 spellpower, and clearly wasn't worth the loss of your top secondary stats as an arcane mage.  It's a very situational thing, that can be evaluated on a case by case basis.

 

*The four set bonus for arcane is nice, but since arcane missiles don't do amazing damage, it's not necessary to do sufficient dps.

 

 Here's how Arcane works: (Burn Phase and Conserve Phase)

 

BURN PHASE:

1. (Fight begins)

2. You want to build up Arcane Charge stacks to increase the damage of your arcane blasts, however, you want to keep your mana as close to 100% so your mastery will have the most effect when you cast your Prismatic Crystal.  So I do 2 or 3 Arcane Blasts to get my Arcane Charges up but not completely drain my mana below 90%.

3. Drop Prismatic Crystal near the boss. (8 yard range)

4. Cast Arcane Power

5. Supernova 2x on Crystal

6. Cast Presence of Mind

7. Spam Arcane Blast until Crystal dies

8. Spam Arcane Blast on boss until Arcane Power fades or your mana drops below 50%.

9. Cast Evocation (Cancel it when you reach 100% mana)

 

CONSERVE PHASE:

1. Cast Arcane Blast 4x

2. Use Arcane Missiles if they proc

3. Cast Supernova (You only get to use Supernova once in this phase. You want to save 2 for next burn phase. Skip this step next time around.)

4. Cast Arcane Barrage to clear Arcane Charge stacks

5. Repeat

 

This will go on until your Prismatic Crystal and Arcane Power are off cooldown and you can begin the "Burn Phase" once again.

 

*Things that are probably limiting DPS*

1. You're taking too long to target the boss after your crystal dies.  Try making the boss your focus so he's easily targeted.

2. You are not planning the use of your crystal well, and the boss is moving out of its range.  You need to anticipate the movement of the boss, and this just takes practice with your tanks.  (Don't be afraid to talk to your tanks and ask that they be mindful of your Crystal's range.)

3.  You are using your Arcane Missiles without having 4 stacks of Arcane Charge.  The missiles do more damage with each stack of Arcane Charge.  To use them with less than 4 stacks is a waste of time.

4. You're using Glyph of Arcane Power: If you're using the Prismatic Crystal, you want your Arcane Power to be lined up with the cooldown of the crystal.  It's a waste of dps to only have Arcane Power every other Crystal.

5. In the conserve phase, YOU AREN'T CLEARING YOUR ARCANE CHARGE STACKS.  Big, Big, BIG mistake that I see time and time again.  Some mages get caught up in the mechanics of the fight that they resort to old habits of just spamming arcane blast forever and just burn their mana to nothing.  With mastery, you do more damage based on the amount of mana you have not used.  So in your conserve phase, you want to have atleast 90% mana at all times.

 

FIRE: (Multi-Target)

 

Fire continues to be such a fun and crazy spec.  You see all these numbers fly across your screen as your DOT up lots of mobs and watch them go boom!  However, it's not an easy spec to play well right away.  It takes a little practice, but it's really a good time.  Fire is all about keeping your DOTs up and spreading the damage from one target to nearby targets.

 

As far as gear you want haste and mastery.  Which makes your life easy, because you can use most of your Arcane gear as fire.  You get a lot of free crit as fire, so there is no real need to stack it as intensely as we used to back in earlier expansions.  I would recommend switching out a couple pieces for a little bit more crit, but nothing crazy; maybe your weapon and which slot is your non-tier piece.

 

Stat Priority are as follows: Haste (up to 10%)>Mastery>Crit>Multistrike>Versatility

 

*The four set bonus is very useful as fire and is a big dps increase.

 

Here's How Fire Works: (DOT em up and spread it!)

 

1. (Fight Begins)

2. Cast Living Bomb on one target

3. Cast Fireball until heating up procs (small fire parenthesis)

4. Cast Inferno Blast

5. Cast Instant Pyroblast (always cast Pyroblast when it procs.  It is the BIG parenthesis)

6. When your Ignite is above 8k, Cast Combustion (I recommend making a weakaura to know what your ignite is)

7. Cast Inferno Blast to spread DOTs

8. Repeat

 

*Things that are probably limiting DPS*

1. You aren't keeping Living Bomb up on your target.  Remember to recast Living Bomb when it finishes.

2. You are hard casting Pyroblast.  NEVER cast Pyroblast manually.  Only use it when it's instant. (BIG parenthesis)

3. You are using Combustion when your ignite isn't high.  If you don't use a weakaura, the best way to guess that your ignite is high is after a lot of Pyroblasts.  If you get two instants Pyroblasts in a row, your ignite is probably pretty high, and you can use Combustion.

4. You're using the glyph of Combustion on fights when adds don't live long.  This glyph is not the go-to glyph.  In BRF, it is only good to use this Glyph on The Iron Maidens when all the adds live for a long time.  When you use this glyph on a fight like Beastlord where the adds are up for about 8 seconds, you wasted the other 8 seconds of the Combustion.  Better to have more short Combustions that get fully used than long ones that mostly get wasted.

 

I absolutely love being a mage and love to help others with what I have learned over the years.  Please let me know if you have any questions or maybe another mage has other ideas to help you out!

 

Musetta- Proudmoore

692 Mage