WOW: Mage build spec

[40Hands]

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I dueled a pure shadow priest and they are hard to kill. He was 3 lvls below me at the time and it was quite annoying when I would nuke him down to nothing but he could jump out of shadow and flash heal even with me IAEing the hell out of him. basically a dmg machine with healing capabilities which I find to be kind of cheap. Oh and plus they have a better shield then mana shield and the ability to debuff.

I find shamans hardest to duel. As soon as he casted all his totems I really wasn't sure what to do.

Oh yeah I did that once too. Mage vs. Shaman = dead mage. Unless your fighting a shaman who has no idea what they are doing. You need to wand their grounding totem ASAP and go for the nuke and try to counter spell their heal. I have heard of them using fake outs for counter spell by using their hearthstone, once you use counterspell when you see the green spell being cast, they use their real heal spell....

Although I am an undead mage so I only fight shamans when I want to.

 

[bcterps]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
I want to say that it was a paladin and a priest.

In MC, Paladins have the same roles as Priests for the most part. Debuff first, heal second, dps last. Most of the time Paladins will be way too busy debuffing and healing to have the chance to attack much.

The main damage is from mages, hunters, warlocks, and rogues (if they dont die because of aggro).

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: BroeBo

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I dueled a pure shadow priest and they are hard to kill. He was 3 lvls below me at the time and it was quite annoying when I would nuke him down to nothing but he could jump out of shadow and flash heal even with me IAEing the hell out of him. basically a dmg machine with healing capabilities which I find to be kind of cheap. Oh and plus they have a better shield then mana shield and the ability to debuff.

I find shamans hardest to duel. As soon as he casted all his totems I really wasn't sure what to do.

Oh yeah I did that once too. Mage vs. Shaman = dead mage. Unless your fighting a shaman who has no idea what they are doing. You need to wand their grounding totem ASAP and go for the nuke and try to counter spell their heal. I have heard of them using fake outs for counter spell by using their hearthstone, once you use counterspell when you see the green spell being cast, they use their real heal spell....

Although I am an undead mage so I only fight shamans when I want to.

At level 44 I fought a level 44 shaman. I polymorphed him to give me a chance to cast pyroblast (didn't get combustion until lvl 45 unfortunately), but he managed to cast his totems before I did so. I wanded his earth and other totem but left fire, thinking my fire ward will take care of that. Boy, little did I know - the sucker hits for 250-300 fire damage. Anyways, I got through my normal routine - pyroblast, fireball, fireblast, frost nova, fireball, etc... The bastard just healed himself, I missed it and didn't counter. He recast his totems and started beatign the crap out of me with his mace. At that point I had no idea what to do and it wouldn't have mattered because I was about to die.

 

[40Hands]

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: Mwilding
I want to say that it was a paladin and a priest.

In MC, Paladins have the same roles as Priests for the most part. Debuff first, heal second, dps last. Most of the time Paladins will be way too busy debuffing and healing to have the chance to attack much.

The main damage is from mages, hunters, warlocks, and rogues (if they dont die because of aggro).

Yeah, I get some nice aggro in instances now. Esp. when I did a single fireball that hit for 959 dmg + 40% of that over 4 seconds thanks to ignite. Usually I can get away from the aggro (if that smack down didn't kill them) with frost nova or CoC + blink or blast wave +blink.

 

[40Hands]

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BroeBo

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: BroeBo
I dueled a pure shadow priest and they are hard to kill. He was 3 lvls below me at the time and it was quite annoying when I would nuke him down to nothing but he could jump out of shadow and flash heal even with me IAEing the hell out of him. basically a dmg machine with healing capabilities which I find to be kind of cheap. Oh and plus they have a better shield then mana shield and the ability to debuff.

I find shamans hardest to duel. As soon as he casted all his totems I really wasn't sure what to do.

Oh yeah I did that once too. Mage vs. Shaman = dead mage. Unless your fighting a shaman who has no idea what they are doing. You need to wand their grounding totem ASAP and go for the nuke and try to counter spell their heal. I have heard of them using fake outs for counter spell by using their hearthstone, once you use counterspell when you see the green spell being cast, they use their real heal spell....

Although I am an undead mage so I only fight shamans when I want to.

At level 44 I fought a level 44 shaman. I polymorphed him to give me a chance to cast pyroblast (didn't get combustion until lvl 45 unfortunately), but he managed to cast his totems before I did so. I wanded his earth and other totem but left fire, thinking my fire ward will take care of that. Boy, little did I know - the sucker hits for 250-300 fire damage. Anyways, I got through my normal routine - pyroblast, fireball, fireblast, frost nova, fireball, etc... The bastard just healed himself, I missed it and didn't counter. He recast his totems and started beatign the crap out of me with his mace. At that point I had no idea what to do and it wouldn't have mattered because I was about to die.

Seriously. There is too much to deal with. I think AOE spells should take out all the totems in range. (they don't right?) I think I do pretty well against pallys. I deal with them like I do a warrior and it usually works out pretty well.

 

[Argo]

Yeah, AoE spells don't touch totems for some reason (bug?). I usually dispose of warriors pretty easily (up to 2 levels higher than me). Pally's are similar as long as you catch the heal with counterspell. Hunters are fairly easy, just need to ignore the pet. Never dueled rogue, although I'd like to.

 

[40Hands]

Originally posted by: Argo
Yeah, AoE spells don't touch totems for some reason (bug?). I usually dispose of warriors pretty easily (up to 2 levels higher than me). Pally's are similar as long as you catch the heal with counterspell. Hunters are fairly easy, just need to ignore the pet. Never dueled rogue, although I'd like to.

Dueling a rogue is pretty easy because they really need to get the jump on you to win. When they don't get the jump on you they are kind of like a higher dps warrior with less HP. As for hunters, they are only a pain when they are chasing you. I usually just poly the pet and then nuke the hell out of them.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: BroeBo

Originally posted by: Argo
Yeah, AoE spells don't touch totems for some reason (bug?). I usually dispose of warriors pretty easily (up to 2 levels higher than me). Pally's are similar as long as you catch the heal with counterspell. Hunters are fairly easy, just need to ignore the pet. Never dueled rogue, although I'd like to.

Dueling a rogue is pretty easy because they really need to get the jump on you to win. When they don't get the jump on you they are kind of like a higher dps warrior with less HP. As for hunters, they are only a pain when they are chasing you. I usually just poly the pet and then nuke the hell out of them.

I like to make them pay for pet food

I polly the hunter, kill the pet, pyroblast the hunter, frost bolt him, firebolt, freeze him in place, blink, frost bolt, and firebolt, then use the finishing instant cast fire if he is low enough. The trick is to stay between the gun range and melee range.

 

[FearoftheNight]

Originally posted by: benchiu

Originally posted by: FearoftheNight
imo here are the most viable mage builds most mages use a varation of one
31/20 arcane/fire best burst dmg
30/21 fire/arcane highest consistent dmg
33/18 ice/arcane best for end game instance and highest survivability and mana efficiency

for pvp you need 18 mandatory pts in arcane namely:
5 pts in improved arcane missiles
5 pts in improved arcane explosion
5 pts in the clearcasting talent
2pts in improved counterspel
1pt evocation

pom is also highly recommended

This sums it up nicely. Although you could argue that ice does more consistent damage because of the survivability and mana efficiency. Because you can stay alive longer, you're going to do more damage over the long run. In a recent MC run, I (33/18 ice/arc) was the #3 damage dealer overall, basically because I was able to survive when many others died.

as i said 33/18 is the superior build for end game instances...especially in a given situation such as mc where the mobs are highly resistant if not immune to fire, also the length of fights in mc is significantly longer than other instances in which u can make u mana last longer given the increased mana efficiency

 

[FearoftheNight]

an additional is that teaming up w/ a warlock can be quite lovely...i was in wpl w/ a lock buddy and the highest we got that day was a 3050 pb w/ +a 40% dot

 

[MrYAK]

i'm a 60mage with 25/26 fire/arcane, my dps is pretty sick. here is a normal PvP battle for me...

polly
my improved mana shield absorbs 996 physical damage
fireball hits for 600+ and burns for 72 over 8sec
arcane meditation+pyroblast=instant cast pyroblast for 800+ and burns for 272 for 12sec
fireblast hits for 450+
blastwave hits for 400+ and dazes target for 6sec
frost nova hits for 72+ and freezes target to groud for 6 sec
fireball hits for 600+ and burns for 72 over 8sec
fireblast hits for 450+
then whatever instant cast spell i have up, then i just use arcane explosion which is an instant cast so i just cast this till dead for 250+

also, all my fire spells have a chance to stun, and my fire spell crits burn target for an additional 40% of damage over 4sec(if i crit for 1000, target burns for 100hp every sec for 4sec)

also for mages must have spells, improved counter spell +2, arcane meditation, evocate(sp), improved mana shield +2, improved arcane explotion +5,there is one more in the arcane talents that allows you to increase how much mana you have.

 

[FearoftheNight]

i'm interested in exactly what pts you have mryak...would you minding putting it ign talent calculator and pasting it in here...

also i was under the impression that since the last patch improved mana shield only makes it more efficient in absorbing more dmg vs increasing the dmg cap as it did prior to patch

by arcane med are you referring to the 15% regen during casting? i thought that became a useless talent after last patch which made it so that you are regenning mana till your spell actually ends casting very similar to the druid's reflection talent?

 

[INGlewood78]

i think he meant PoM

 

[MrYAK]

yeah, sry meant PoM, and i also for got about the mana shield patch.

improved arcane missile:5/5
arcane concetration:5/5
evocate:1/1
improved arcane explosion:5/5
improved counter spell:2/2
improved mana shield:2/2
arcane mind:4/4
presence of mind:1/1
arcane instability:1/3

improved fireball:5/5
impact:5/5
ignite:5/5
improved fireblast 2/5
incinerate:2/2
improved flamestrike:3/3
pyro blast:1/1
blastwave:1/1
critical mass:1/3

i'm also debating about respecing, see if i cant squeeze a little more dps out.

 

[FearoftheNight]

i just respecced from 31/20 arc/fire to 30/21 fire/arc w/ no pb or improved fireball...so far its pretty good