WoW: DPS up my Mage
Just checking the collective wisdom to see if there is a better way to keep my DPS up. I'm currently running Fire 2/48/11 with a standard Scorch x5/Fireball/repeat rotation. Once the boss drops below 20% I blow trinket, Icy, and Combustion (and Flame Caps if not on cool down) for max DPS via Molten Fury wrapping up with Scorches or Fireblast the last few percent.
My issue is that lesser geared mages can out DPS me (via Recount), sometimes by several hundred points. Most of this beating is on trash and on bosses can I can *almost* consistently hit the top (as long as Dilgus and Nuka aren't there!).
My current theory was get hit capped, then build haste, followed by damage and crit. My hit rating is currently 152, which I think is capped according to Wowwiki - 152 for Draenei fire and frost mages with Inspiring Presence (Do I benefit from my *own* presence or just another Dranei?) and Elemental Precision. But I'm not hit capped according to Be Imba (link below) which says I need 37 more points!
After reviewing some mages from other guilds, hit cap really seems to be a secondary to damage.
Ideally I'd like to consistently push 1K-1.2K (or more) DPS.
Thoughts, opinions, suggestions on the how to improve welcome!
You need 164 spell hit to be capped for lvl 73 mobs on your spec so you are 12 short or close to 1%. Not huge, but it can help.
Also, haste is virtually worthless until you can get 150+, but you have 172 so that's not bad. What you are lacking is spell dmg. A lot of fire mages in my guild with gear around yours are pushing 1100 fire damage. But they also have quite a bit of crit (20%+).
Spell Hit > Spell Dmg > Spell crit > Spell haste.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Disclaimer: I haven't raided in months.
What level of content are you hitting? Do you find yourself out of mana in boss fights after gemming and potting? If you find yourself with plenty of mana to spare, you may want to consider going for an arcane build, which would allow you to sacrifice mana for more damage. Such a build becomes even more attractive when you have two pieces of the T5 mage set.
If you're not interested in a respcec, I don't know what to tell you besides what you're doing seems right. How is your threat during the fight? If it's good, start nukiing earlier and harder. With some bosses, trinket as soon as possible and you may be able use it twice in one fight.
Xbox Live: Stilgar Black
Haste is currently 172.
So at 164 hit cap I'm assuming I do not benefit from my own Draenei presence only when another of the race is in the group. Correct?
Currently ZA, Gruul/Mag and hopefully SSC will be hit soon so no T5 yet (actually have a full T4 set amazingly enough).
Mana is an issue on long boss fights with pots, gems and rejuvs flowing. I've been toying with respec and might give it a shot just to see.
Cyrana Mage 72 ~ Artesia Druid 70
Cyranna Shaman 62 ~ Acereri - DK 61 ~ Artasian - Priest 59 ~ Lenna - Rogue 60
Oh, you're Draenei? I totally missed that on the armory link. No, you are good to go on spell hit! I updated my previous post after adding up your spell haste.
As for your mana issues, that is where the spell crit refunding 30% base mana comes into play and why fire mages love spell crit.
Also, if your threat isn't an issue, pop that trinket every time it comes up. Also, remember the golden rule of dps: trash means nothing. See how you do on Bosses.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
No you do. If you're dranei then your hit cap should be fine.
actually I can tell you real quick...
[pulls up your ZA WWS report]
On the overall run, it says you have a 2.2% miss rate on fireball and a 2.1% miss rate on fire blast. everything else is below 1%, and I think there's a built in miss rate of 1% anyway. I'm willing to guess some of those are from fire resistant mobs in the trash pulls. . . Let's look at a boss:
Now, on nalorakk, which is the best example of a "stand still and dps" fight, you missed exactly 0 times and hit 1118 dps. Not bad at all.
I would say your +hit is fine where it is, honestly.
Your spelldamage and crit seem low -- a few badge upgrades should get that to between 1100 and 1200 and around a 20% crit rate. Do you get benefits from crits? mana back or extra crit damage? If so you may want to consider boosting your crit before your spelldamage.
[edit] yeah you have MoE. highly reccomend boosting your crit before your spelldamage, esp if you're having mana problems. [/edit]
[edit] for typos.
Yeah, 1118 dps on Nalorakk is nice.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Pretty sure.
You should probably trinket / icy whenever possible, or at least whenever you're hitting the fireball part of your rotation. The sooner you pop them, the sooner they're available to be used again.
Using the calculator at maxdps.com, you're current fire #s are:
Buffed Stats
Fire Damage: 953
Miss: 1.9 %
Crit: 27.5 %
Current Stats
Fireball DPS: 959.4
Scorch DPS: 29.6
Total DPS: 988.9
Extra Stat Contributions
(+) 10 Magic Damage: 5.69
(+) 10 Spell Hit Rating: 6.47
(+) 10 Spell Crit Rating: 3.11
(+) 10 Spell Haste Rating: 5.49
Same gear plugged into the Frost calculator gets:
Current Stats
Buffed Stats
Frost Damage: 953
Miss: 1.9 %
Crit: 32.0 %
Current Stats
Frostbolt DPS: 995.1
Water Elemental Overall DPS: 102.1
Total DPS: 1,097.2
Extra Stat Contributions
(+) 10 Magic Damage: 6.30
(+) 10 Spell Hit Rating: 6.69
(+) 10 Spell Crit Rating: 3.82
(+) 10 Spell Haste Rating: 5.69
And that's not including Frost's hidden 3% extra spell hit, which might let you sub in a higher crit/damage piece. I'm not sure how committed you are to fire, but if you're not totally against it, you might want to try Nukanatrix's talent spec for cool, attractive people. (or Zel's mage spec) Both Zel and myself have tried a fire spec, been told it's the top DPS spec, etc, then found it amazingly inferior to Frost in practice. Plus, while you may not be able to roast your own hot dogs, you can keep your own beer cold.
See that's why having real time combat data like WWS is so beneficial.
btw WWS is also reporting that you've got a 24% chance to crit on fireball overall. So whether you really want to increase that or push more for spelldamage (our ZA mage is arcane spec and sports about 1200 unbuffed spelldamage) is up to someone with more theorycraft than me.
But remember that our mage doesn't have MoE and so isn't as reliant on crits. Instead he just begs for innervates.
[edit] actually apaprently he does. what do you know.
And and I've noticed a *ton* of 25 man mages are speccing arcane/frost or even deep frost. it's definitely the spec de jour.[/edit]
[edit] for typos.
Just so you know frost doesn't scale as well as fire or arcane. Frost is sort of like affliction for warlocks. Good for when you're starting out, but after that not the pure dps spec; more about utility.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Elitist Jerks insists that fire is best, but at Skol's gear level, it's not even close. My boss dps was like 450 as fire, and that was with the full required spell hit. Frost was far better.... at that gear level, about 600 IIRC. He's stronger now, though not even in Nuka's or Cyrana's league yet.
I'm suspicious that fire doesn't become better until late in T5, and even at that, you're giving up a lot of survivability and utility. Ice Shield is very useful .. a free 1000 hit points every thirty seconds. And being able to iceblock twice is a huge advantage in some fights; the second boss in MrT in particular. (a frost mage can kill four of the sparks, iceblock, kill four more, iceblock again, and then do a little damage on the boss before dying horribly.
) It'd also be great for that hellish lynx phase on Zul'Jin; you can escape the death sentence twice. You also get the frost elemental, which gives you huge burst damage for a bit, for practically no mana. And it has a second frost nova, which can be very handy. Note that the elemental is critical to frost dps; you must throw it every time you reasonably can to keep up.
Nuka's build is a little different from mine; he's more focused on mana regen, where I've put more points into the shatter talents. Overall, I don't honestly think those points are all that useful. About all it's good for in instances and raiding is as a boost to AOE damage. (frost nova before AOE increases damage output a very great deal.) But I don't really feel I need Nuka's build either. I don't feel very mana starved as ice. Between pots and gems and vanish/evocate, Skol is generally good for a solid 8 minutes, which is about as long as T4 fights ever last.
Overall, I'd call Nuka's build superior for raiding, where Skol's is more useful for grinding and solo play. Skol's build has somewhat increased potion costs when raiding, but it's much easier to kill the regular Outland mobs. I think overall dps is probably pretty similar; Skol's build probably has a slight edge on trash.
The reason Frost starts out better is because of Winter's chill and Ice Shards. 10% bonus to crit is no joke. It just doesn't scale as well in later raiding.
And the elemental is NOT huge burst damage. It's a decent bonus, but if he's doing more than you then you have problems.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Skol's normal DPS is in the 700-750ish range; the elemental adds another 350 or so. For that 45 seconds, he's pretty respectable.
Oh yeah. They are definitely nice, about 20% of the total dps of a frost mage. Just sucks they burn through mana fast and can die easily.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Yeah I don't fully buy that a frost mage is "unviable," and I highly doubt a noticeable dps difference would be made until late BT levels, if not sunwell. Trans still runs frost mages in Sunwell.
[edit] for typos.
The guild I'm in runs with a "Do whatever you want" attitude. Most of our mages have switched to full arcane after the 2 piece t5 bonus is acheived, but often complain of mana issues. We have a couple fire and a couple frost mages. Generally speaking, at the same level of gear, the arcane mages will do more damage (because of arcane's massive threat reduction abilities), Fire will do more DPS and if played smart beat Arcane in damage as well, and frost will bring loads of utility, nice dps and damage, but not quite as good as fire or arcane.
Frost is definitely viable. In fact, frost mages ROCK mount hyjal on trash and bosses, as well as Alar in TK. We're (myself, elitistjerks, etc) are only talking raw numbers when we say frost won't scale as well. What really matters though is what you WANT to do.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
SPEAKING OF WHICH:
Did you notice that (at least till it gets nerfed) improved water elemental restores 3% mana back to the entire party per tick? That's 27% mana back to the whole party. . . and with cold snap you can do it TWICE.
talk about utility. . . .
[edit] This is in the Lich King beta..... that's probably an important disclaimer.... =)
[edit] for typos.
I might just give frost another run as that is what I was originally running with many moons ago. I just always tended to hold the elemental close and not drop it as soon or often as it should have been. Thanks for the input!
Cyrana Mage 72 ~ Artesia Druid 70
Cyranna Shaman 62 ~ Acereri - DK 61 ~ Artasian - Priest 59 ~ Lenna - Rogue 60
Yeah, and with the other abilties they have frost is looking quite nice.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Oh yeah, pop that sucker when you can; he will easily get you up there damage wise. You just have to be slightly situational about it. If its a aoe fight you have be more careful how you use him, etc.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.