Spooncraft

Sorry for this running late folks, yesterday was pretty much a very dark and ugly day and only now am I able to really recover. I interviewed a good friend of mine and an amazing Mage about the different aspects of the class and how it stands right now in the game. He shared some great macros too and explained a bit about their functionality. Special note; his first language is not English so try to mind any errors.

Noriz: WHAT UP DUDE!

Spooner: Sup Noriz.

Noriz: Let’s get ready to party!

Spooner: As far as end game raiding, what’s the best spec for a mage?

Noriz: For most raids you can be fire spec you can still spec frost, but for a better dmg output would be fire.

Spooner: Why so much fire? I mean I know there are frost resistant mobs and immune bosses like Hydross but what makes frost weaker? And what about arcane? Is it too much of a mana waste?

Noriz: Well arcane is like a mana dump, frost used to be low in DPS but now with icy veins they’re back in the game for the battle of DPS. Fire has amazing DPS output more than all the other specs because of all its debuffs that are applied. Incinerate, fireball dot, pyroblast dot, improved scorch (this one helps warlocks and shaman with their DPS too!)

Spooner: So fire brings more long term damage and helps other casters in the raid.

Noriz: yes

Noriz: Arcane does a lot of damage but it demands a lot of mana. Arcane missiles costs a lot by itself and Arcane Blast increases in casting speed every time you use it but it also increases in mana cost too! But it does a lot of damage.

Spooner: I forgot about that. arcane can do a lot of damage but after non-stop sustained casting you get too low on mana so for the biggest DPS for your mana fire would be best. For bosses I think frost gets outperformed because it relies heavy on the Shatter talent to increase the crit damage when a target is frozen and bosses can’t be frozen.

Noriz: Well frost can now cast faster for a short amount of time since blizzard gave them icy veins, it’s like heroism but last 20 sec with a 3 minute cool down and they got their water elemental that can save them for pulling aggro from the tank by freezing the mob to the ground and do amazing crit with the chilling effect.

Spooner: Cool so frost is still viable to raid with but relies more on the situation to keep up DPS. Let’s move on to PVP.

Noriz: ok

Spooner: You arena a lot and have almost all mixed season 2-3 gear. How does a mage PVP and not get ripped to hell?

Noriz: Well first thing first you need is to control your enemy by freezing him to the ground or sheeping him so you can cast a big spell like pyroblast if you’re in a mix talent tree of arcane and pyro or just to get him away so you can slow him down.

Spooner: So control is the big key. Frost would be best for PVP then because you have a lot of control with the water elemental pet’s ranged frost nova.

Noriz: Yes! It’s the best spec for PVP.

Spooner: You’re a heavy fire mage and you PVP really well, I see a lot of other fire mages that are like you (pom+pyro) or are deep fire with dragon breath with high ratings. How’s that work?

Noriz: Well if you go deep fire with the dragon breath disorients your enemy for a short amount of time just enough for you to get away and cast a normal pyro then go for a pom pyro to do more dmg in one shot so you can really load some big damage on your target very quickly. Plus with the fire bonus crit increase you can do big crit such as 6-8k pyro dmg that help a lot if your team tactics is to rush to same target. That kind of damage can force a paladin to bubble or mage to ice-block and get the debuffs that don’t let them do it again so it’s a really inexpensive way to shut down those targets. Also if impact goes off then they are stunned too.

Spooner: Doesn’t resilience really hurt your crits? Even with high resilience I see videos and such of mages that can crit warriors etc for around 3-4k which is a lot in the arena but those mages are always frost so I can imagine what fire would do.

Noriz: Resilience does hurt your high crit, what it does is reduce the chance of crits and reduce the dmg output crit does by a certain percentage but you can always manage to do more dmg even with resilience just by focusing and keeping up the pressure.

Spooner: word. Ok so back to control. Is it hard to keep sheeping and counter spelling during a fight? So far the best way to take out a 3v3 with two healers has been to keep your focus on the healer and counter spell (improved) right as he’s casting. How the hell do you manage to keep all that in your head?

Noriz: It becomes a habit went you do the same thing over and over just like if you’re doing a farm base raid everyone knows what to do and know their roles in the match. That’s where good skills and reaction time and practice come into the picture. What happens if you can’t do your job in arena? You get your rating down because the other team fought with more skill. They did their job better than you did yours is all.

Spooner: That is very true. How do you find PVP as a mage overall? Gimped, broken, easy, challenging?

Noriz: It’s pretty challenging because you never know what the other team is planning or how they play. Usually you can get the same kind of strategies and it will work (like PVE) but sometimes it is completely different and you have to adapt.

Spooner: How about BG’s and duels? Has trainable ice block really made a difference in how long you live or does blizzard need to do more like cutting down on spell pushback.

Noriz: Not really it did help a lot for mages in BGs and duels since now all mages can remove all dmg done to them with it and when you’re in a BG and all the horde or alliance is all on you and you see your health going down you ice-block so if there’s a nearby he can heal you. Spell pushback sucks, but if you’re a good mage and you are mobile and not standing there asking for a warrior or other melee to beat on you then you should be fine. Hunters just suck, but every class needs to have a weakness.

Spooner: Good point, ok moving on to stats. This is more for the beginner mages or for mages that really don’t know what to look or in end game gear; there’s A LOT of cloth gear that is for shadow priests/warlocks/mages and even boomkin or elemental shaman end up getting. What exactly are the stats and type of gear mages need? Sockets and enchants too.

Noriz: As for PVE content you need more a balance of spell dmg, spell crit, mana (that always help for long mana battles), and a good amount of health.

Spooner: Yeah being able to not get 1 shot by trash helps. How about for PVP?

Noriz: You need more stamina and spell dmg, spell crit and a good amount of mana since you’re going to be using mana shield a lot to keep yourself alive almost every time.

Spooner: So going from most important to least important, you need spell damage > spell crit > and mp5 for PVE right?

Noriz: Yes

Spooner: and stamina > spell damage > mana > spell crit for PVP

Noriz: You got that right

Spooner: How about for a meta gem and enchants? I see a lot of run speed increase why is that important for mages that can blink?

Noriz: Well it does help to move faster when you blink is on cool down and maybe you have a rogue or warrior chasing you.

Spooner: True, what about spell hit? Is there a hit cap like for melee? And penetration, what’s the difference. I hear warlocks need a lot of spell hit compared to mages and spriest.

Noriz: Yes we do need more spell penetration so the spell you cast doesn’t get resist as often because it reduce the resist that your target has.

Spooner: So spell penetration would be for PVP vs. spell hit being better against bosses?

Noriz: Yes

Spooner: See, I never knew that, I suck.

Noriz: LOL

Spooner: They’re adding a lot of spell haste in the next patch for PVE gear how’s that work out? You mentioned icy veins and heroism/bloodlust making DPS go crazy but don’t faster spells get less spell dmg from your stats?

Noriz: Well icy veins, heroism/bloodlust does make your casting time faster but I can’t imagine with the spell haste how fast the spells are going to cast. Spell haste is going to speed up the global cool down too in 2.4.

Spooner: That’s more for PVE I think.

Noriz: Yes it will be for more for PVE but it will help in the PVP for getting spells off before you have to move again. A mage is always mobile in PVP if he can.

Spooner: Speaking of patch 2.4 changes, I forgot to mention this when we talked about PVP stuff. The improved blink talent is changing; it will now give you a chance to be immune to all damage after blinking for a few seconds. But it’s still pretty deep in the arcane tree.

Noriz: Yes I heard of it

Spooner: Think people will have to switch out of the deep frost for high rating arenas so they can get that?

Noriz: Not really if the player is used to his or her way of playing then they will stay in the deep frost. We will see more variety with mages that are trying that new talent change to see how they’re going to be for the high end raid and PVP.

Spooner: Well it seems I covered everything on my list from PVE, PVP, and stats. Even a little on the new 2.4 stuff. But let’s talk about tricks and tips now; I hear a lot about focus and certain macros. What macros and tips do you know about that would help mages reading this?

Noriz: Well focus helps to keep a target seen at all times such as a sheep focus so it helps to cast your sheep on a desired target while you target something else that you’re killing at the moment. As far as macros; for PVP and a pom+pyro spec there’s a macro that makes your pom+pyro a lot easier. It activates all your desired trinkets and casts your presence of mind and then pyroblast, there’s a macro to focus counter spell on the desired target that heals too.

Spooner: Nice let’s have a look!

Here is the instant cast Pyroblast+trinkets macro, the spells themselves can be swapped out for something else depending on your style.

This is more for PVE but has PVP applications too. It allows you to set a target as your “focus” and then you can target something else. As long as you are in range you can cast sheep on your focus without having to switch your target.

This is essentially the same idea only with Counterspell instead of sheep which is great for dealing with healers in most arena situations if you have enough burst damage taking down another member of the opposing team.

Spooner: Awesome Noriz thanks very much for letting me pick your brain for a while.

Noriz: No problem.