Arcane Mage Patch 3.2.2 Guide

Sorry again for the lack of updates.  Here is my updated Arcane Mage Guide for Patch 3.2.2!

http://www.wowconfidential.com/2009/09/29/arcane-mage-raiding-guide-322-spec-glyphs-and-rotation/

This covers talent points, glyphs, cooldowns, rotations, and everything else you need to play an arcane mage effectively!

How Specs Are Affected by Set Bonuses

Note that I wrote this prior to the 3.2 patch, and forgot to link to it here!  Sorry about that.  Anyway all the info on the T9 set bonus ended up going live, so my advice still stands.   Check it out here on Wowconfidential!

When does YOUR damage matter?

Everything on this blog is meant to be very practical, because all it’s really concerned with is helping you do more damage – so my apologies if this topic is a little bit theoretical.  It was inspired by an excellent post over at Gnomeaggeddon’s mage blog.

There are three roles in any raid:  tank, healer, and DPS.  The first two, I would argue, have no accurate numerical way to measure their individual performance in raids.  Tanks certainly do not – there are no “tanking meters” and no popular stats for tank performance.  Healers have the healing meters – but total healing done is largely assignment-based.  If your job is healing the off-tank, and the off-tank doesn’t take too much damage (but also doesn’t die), then you’ve done your job but will probably finish lower on the meters than, say, a priest who just spammed prayer of mending the entire fight to top off the raid. 

No, the performance of tanks and healers is measured first and foremost by the success of the raid.  If bosses are dying and raid members are not, then it’s a safe assumption that the tanks and healers are doing a good job.

But it’s different for DPS.  Our goal (on most fights) is to simply do damage, and that damage can and is measured objectively, accurately, and numerically with programs like Recount and Wow Web Stats.    Not only can those meters gauge the performance of the DPS group as a whole, they allow for comparison between individual damage-dealers.

However, the point I’d like to make is that not all damage is equal.  This has always been true, and is now especially true with the more complex Ulduar fights.  So I’d like to run through some scenarios regarding where I believe YOUR individual damage is and is not important:

• Your damage is NOT important on standard trash pulls.  I know it’s fun to AOE and pad your numbers, but honestly if you just sat out most trash pulls, your raid would be fine without you.   Don’t get hung up on how much damage you’re doing to trash, and if someone in your raid is bragging about their damage on trash, then politely remind them that the point of raiding is to kill bosses. 🙂
• Your damage IS important on trash mobs or boss adds that have can “enrage.”  The Emalon encounter is a perfect example.  When an add starts to grow, the DPS has a fixed amount of time to get it down before it wipes the raid.  No amount of tanking or healing can prevent the wipe from happening, so it’s up to the DPS to hit the add hard and fast.   Following an Emalon fight, look at the individual player breakdowns in Recount or Wow Web Stats (the “who hit who” column) – the DPS who did the most single-target add damage are really the most valuable players in that fight, NOT the DPS who did the most total damage.
• Your damage is NOT important on generic, AOE-able boss adds.  Noth the Plaguebringer is the best example in Naxx, and Razorscale is the best example in Ulduar.  Assuming you are with a competent raid, the mobs in the “add phases” of those fights will die one way or another, whether you’re helping or not.  Sure they’ll die a little quicker with your blizzard or flamestrike involved – but seriously, I’m sure your raid would be fine without you. 

  Note that the Gluth adds do NOT fall into this category, because even though they’re AOE-able, it’s very important that they die before they reach him, and therefore DPS’ing them is a central element to the fight. 

• Your damage IS VERY important on “burn” phases of bosses.  Here’s where mages should excel.  Let’s use the Razorscale fight as an example:  there’s a minute or so of fighting adds where a lot of people are going to do a lot of damage, then a 20 second or so burn phase on Razorscale himself.  Your raid’s effectiveness during this burn phase determines how many add phases there are, the length of the fight, and whether your raid beats the enrage timer.  So, uh, which phase do you think it’s more important to save your cooldowns for?  When you look at the damage meter after the fight, pay specific attention to the people who did the most damage to Razorscale himself, because those are the players who won the fight for you.

  The same is true for many other fights:  the first of the Four Horseman (killing him fast frees up the tank and healer(s) to help out on the other three), the first drake in a two or three drake Sartharion attempt (gotta kill it before the second drake comes down), and XT-Deconstructor’s heart (killing it fast makes the time between heart phases shorter).  These are  just a few examples of times when your damage on a specific phase is more telling than your overall damage.

• Your damage is NOT particularly important on bosses without a strict enrage timer during low damage phases.  Let’s go back to Kara for an example:  Remember the Prince Malchezzar fight?  He was basically a pussycat until he got his swords in phase 2.  Your damage in phase one was not really important – as long as everyone was doing mediocre damage, it would eventually be over – that’s why your raid probably saved heroism/bloodlust for phase 2.  Additionally, your raid could take it easy on Romulo and Julienne until the final phase, when the healing becomes much more of an issue.

  In Naxx, the same applies for the two adds at the start of the Thaddius fight.  Thaddius’ strict enrage timer doesn’t activate until they’re dead, so no reason to use your cooldowns to kill them – the damage you do to them is basically meaningless, so long as your raid is burning them down.  This is also true for the first phase of the Kel’Thuzad fight – as long as the adds are dying, your DPS number is not particularly important (now, if your raid is actually having issues with that phase, then it may become important).With Ulduar being new, I wouldn’t classify any of the bosses this way for the time being, at least for my guild.  However, for a boss like XT, the damage you do to the heart and the effectiveness with which you handle the adds is probably a much better indictor of your performance than just the raw total damage number.

These are just a few examples of situations in which your DPS matters and when it doesn’t.  I’m sure there are exceptions, but I just want to get the idea out there that sometimes the meters aren’t telling the full story.

Questions & Answers: Heroic DPS (part 2)

Here’s a question from Noorie:

Nice blog. I enjoy the info here, as well as the personal touch.

Not to hijack a thread, but I was wondering if I could get your opinion of what spec would benefit my current gear:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anvilmar&cn=Noorie

Prior to Dual Spec, I tried the Deep Fire FFB, as well as the Deep Frost FFB, and found (as you pointed out) with such low crit my dps was suffering.

I’m trying to do H runs as much as possible for gear / badges, but haven’t had much luck w/ rolls / drops.

Even though this is a question about personal DPS, as usual, there’s a lesson here for all mages at this gear level to learn!

Looking at the armory link above, here’s what you see:  Frost/TTW spec, very solid spellpower (1700 unbuffed), very low crit chance (11% unbuffed), very low haste rating (79), and an extremely impressive amount of hit rating (361).

So a couple observations:

1. That much hit rating is nice for raiding (especially without a shadow priest applying misery or boomkin applying faerie fire), but not necessary for heroics, since heroic bosses are only level 82 not 83. 
2. Getting that hit rating is severely hurting your supporting stats (crit and hase).  Since, as you mentioned, you have not been able to acquire high-level gear yet, the gear you do have access to is the type that makes you trade crit/haste for hit, or vice-versa.  This definitely rules out Deep Fire as viable specs for the time being, as it requires high hit rating AND high haste.

So what to do?  Well, maybe I’m biased, but I would take a good look at arcane.  Here would be my plan of action:

1. Use the standard 57/3/11 arcane spec.  This instantly alleviates the hit problem:  with elemental precision and arcane focus, you’re getting 6% hit from talents, meaning that you can cut over 100 hit from your armor and still be capped for raid bosses.  I’d shoot for right around 250.
2. Replace those Ebonweave pieces.  Don’t get rid of them entirely (you might need them in the future), but those should be the first to go into your bank.  Why?  Because you can replace them right now with spellweave!  By dropping the ebonweave robe and belt, you are giving up 119 hit rating that you no longer have any use at all for, and picking up a massive 155 haste! 
3. Follow my arcane guide (it’s not shameless self-promotion if it’s on my own blog!) for glyph and rotation info.

That would be my plan.  I think a lot of mages believe arcane has really steep gear requirements, but really that’s only if you’re trying to run it regularly in 25-man raids (and even still, it’s much more manageable at low gear levels than you probably think).  Additionally, it keeps you from having to scrounge up hit rating at the cost of all other stats, and allows you to perform way above your gear level on short boss fights. 

I would remind mages of this:  the only possible way a deep fire or frostfire mage can perform beyond his/her gear level is by getting lucky with crits.  Sure you can manage your rotation perfectly, keep living bomb up all the time, always time your cooldowns perfectly, and always hit hot streak pyroblasts – but honestly those are things you SHOULD be doing if you’re FFB or deep fire.  The specs are very simple to play and therefore you should be near-perfect while playing them.  Your DPS on any given fight is basically dependent on A) your gear, and B) your luck.

With arcane, however, you can definitely perform above (or below) your gear level with perfectly average luck.  On a one-minute heroic boss fight where you blow through your cooldowns, blow through your mana, evocate, and blow through your mana again, I guarantee you post an outstanding DPS number regardless of how lucky you get with crits.  Of course, if you do that and the boss fight happens to go on for another minute, your damage will drop way below where you should be performing. 

But the point is, when your gear level is low, do you really want to lock yourself into a spec that’s ties your DPS directly to your gear level??   I would much rather take my chances with one that gives me the opportunity to transcend it.

Frostfire/Deep Fire Rotations

Just another addition to the 3.1 post for deep fire and frostfire mages.  This one concerns spell rotations:

If you do NOT have a warlock stacking the new shadow bolt crit debuff

• You should be using glyph of frostfire/fireball, glyph of molten armor, and glyph of improved scorch.
• Your rotation stays the same as it was pre-3.1, except you only have to cast one scorch initially.  Your job is the same as always:  spam frostfire bolt, keep the scorch debuff up, keep living bomb up, hit pyroblast when hot streak procs.

If you DO have a warlock stacking the new shadow bolt crit debuff

• You should be using glyph of frostfire/fireball, glyph of molten armor, and glyph of living bomb.
• Same rotation, minus scorch.  Spam frostfire bolts while keeping living bomb up and hitting pyroblast when hot streak procs.

Again, if you are a frostfire/deep fire mage and you sometimes run with a warlock that stacks their crit debuff (remember, not all locks do), I recommend using your dual spec to account for this.  Create one spec where you have improved scorch and the scorch glyph, and one spec where you do not, and choose which one to use prior to each boss fight.

More About Warlocks and the Crit Debuff

I wasn’t very clear about this in the last post, and I feel like a lot of mages still don’t know about it, so let me elaborate on the whole situation with scorch and some warlock changes that might affect your spell rotation.

Crit Debuffs

• Before patch 3.1, mages were the only class that could apply a debuff to mobs that increased casters’ chance to crit.  This was done by stacking improved scorch, which after 5 applications gave every caster in the raid an increased 10% chance to crit against the enemy.
• Patch 3.1 reduced the effect from 10% to 5%.
• In addition, certain warlocks can now apply the same 5% crit debuff, which does not stack with improved scorch.  See the patch notes:Improved Shadow Bolt: Now increases the damage done by your Shadow Bolt spell by 1/2/3/4/5%, and causes your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 1/2/3/4/5%. Effect lasts 30 seconds.
  
• Basically, you should have a talk with your raiding warlock(s) and see if they have this ability and if they keep the debuff up.  I don’t pretend to know anything about warlocks, but I know for some shadow bolt is their main nuke, so if they have this talent then chances are they’ll be keeping the debuff up without even trying.
• So, if you’re sure that you’re running with a warlock that’s keeping the crit debuff up, then you no longer have to include scorch in your rotation.  This should increase dps for fire and frostfire mages.
• If you are a fire or frostfire mage and you sometimes run with a shadow bolt warlock, then consider taking advantage of the dual-spec system.  Build one spec that includes improved scorch and the glyph of improved scorch, and one that skips it entirely and uses glyph of living bomb.  That way you don’t have to re-spec and re-glyph based on raid composition.

Hopefully this clears some things up!

3.1 Quick Thoughts & Tips

Well we’re one week into the new patch, and I hope everyone is having fun in Ulduar!  Our guild killed the first 4 bosses in 10-man this week, and took shots at them in 25-man – so it is with that limited experience that I bring these preliminary thoughts on Ulduar:

Observations

Long Fights:  Unless you are in one of those super guilds (and if you are, then you’re probably not reading this), the first thing that will strike you about Ulduar boss fights is that they are LONG.  There’s no three-minute Patchwerk kill here – at least not until everyone gets T8 geared.  The early fights seem to be clocking in the 6-8 minute range, making them longer than just about any Naxx encounter. 

This gives melee dps a considerable advantage over casters, because they don’t have a mana pool to watch.  Don’t be surprised to see Rogues (who were buffed in 3.1 anyway) and Death Knights leading your charts.

I still like Arcane:  There was a lot of doom and gloom regarding how arcane would fare in 3.1, and that still might come to pass – but at least for early Ulduar, I still like arcane.  Two of the bosses so far – Razorscale and XT – have distinct ‘burn’ phases where you need to do a lot of damage in a little time, and no class/spec in the game is better at that than arcane mages.  While it’s true that many bosses can break your evocation (see below) and the spec doesn’t scale as well with gear, for the time being I still think it performs well.

Tips

Glyphs:  Glyph of Molten Armor is still worth it, in my opinion, regardless of spec.  Since molten armor now gives crit rating based on your spirit, your unbuffed crit will likely drop – but that’s cancelled out by the fact that all priests can now cast the spirit buff.  Combined with Blessing of Kings (which all pallies now have), and you should actually see an increase in your crit in a raid environment without having to change any gear, talents, glyphs, or gems.

Since the scorch debuff has been cut to 5% increased crit, and since Warlocks can now apply an identical debuff that does not stack with it, frostfire and deep fire mages should no longer have to stack scorch if they raid with a lock regularly (double-check with the lock first to make sure).  The new Glyph of Living Bomb is a nice replacement for your Glyph of Improved Scorch.

Other than that, I recommend keeping your glyphs the same.  For arcane mages, you can still roll with Glyph of Arcane Blast, Glyph of Arcane Missiles, and Glyph of Molten Armor.  Frostfire and Fire Mages are just fine with Glyph of Frostfire or Fireball, Glyph of Living Bomb (or scorch if you don’t have a lock applying the crit debuff), and Glyph of Molten Armor.

Rotations:  If a warlock is providing the crit debuff, frostfire and fire mages no longer have to include scorch in their rotations.  Just keep living bomb up, spam your main nuke, and hit pyroblast when hot streak procs.  Arcane mages shouldn’t be casting anything different than before the patch.

Evocation:  This is a big factor for arcane mages, and can really cripple your dps if you’re not careful.  Whereas in Naxx there were only a couple bosses where you really had to be careful when you evocated, in Ulduar just about every boss can screw up your evocation if you mis-time it.  Razorscale can hit you with fireballs, Ignis can launch you in the air, XT can put a bomb on you, etc.  My best advice is to know the fights, and time your evocation so that you’re using it right after the boss uses his most dangerous ability that could potentially hit you. 

Student of the Mind:  Still sucks.  I know with the new molten armor spirit-to-crit conversion that the Student of Mind talent looks tempting, but honestly, it’s still not that great.  With standard raid gear, three points in the talent, and glyph of improved molten armor, Student of the Mind will account for roughly a 1% increase in crit and a negligible increase in mana regen.  In my opinion, you’re better off with those points in Arcane Focus, Arcane Subtlety, Arcane Concentration, or Magic Attunement.

Don’t hold back! 

How to Play Arcane Mage

Note (9/30/09):  The information in this guide is out-of-date.  For my updated guide that’s current with Patch 3.2.2, check out Wow Confidential! 

In deciding whether to play frostfire or arcane, there are a couple key factors to consider:

• Frostfire scales very well with crit, arcane does not.  Frostfire crits gain a huge damage bonus (over 300%) and can proc hot streak.  Arcane crits have about half that damage bonus, and can’t proc anything.
• Likewise, arcane scales well with intellect (and, potentially, spirit), frostfire does not. 
• Mana is a very real issue with arcane.  You can easily burn through 25k mana is 30 seconds if you want to.  On the other hand, it would take you 7 or 8 minutes to burn that much mana with frostfire.  Think of the specs like cars:  arcane has about 5 gears that you must shift between, frostfire has 1 and only 1 gear.
• And because of that, arcane is a much more “involved” spec.  You can ramp up your damage when needed (for example, when you’re standing in two damage buffs on Malygos), and scale down to recover mana.  This makes the spec more fun, but also more dangerous.  If you are arcane spec’d, there is a VERY REAL possibility that you will end up having to wand a boss, if you’re not careful. 

So, if you’re just starting out raiding, I recommend beginning with frostfire.  The playstyle is easy to figure out with a little practice, and if you are geared at the same level as the other dps in your raid, you should be at or near the top of the damage meters on boss fights (if you follow the guide in the post below).

But if you stay frostfire a while, you will probably get bored.  The fights do tend to get monotonous, and it’s also frustrating because your damage on any given fight largely depends on factors largely out of your control (how many times you crit consecutively to proc hot streak, for example). 

Before you re-spec, however, remember that Frostfire provides 10% crit to all dps casters in your raid, whereas Arcane provides no such utility.  Therefore, for 25-mans or dps caster-heavy 10-mans, you are doing your guild a disservice if you respec to arcane unless you regularly run with a frostfire mage.  Just keep that in mind.

For those of you still ready to take on Arcane, let’s get right into it!

Spec:  Unlike Frostfire, there is plenty of room for debate when it comes to the ‘best’ arcane spec.  No spec involving scorch (or pyroblast) is really viable for raiding, so forget about that.  The most popular distribution of talents is 57/3/11, though which exact arcane talents you take is up for debate.  Here is an example build that should serve you just fine.  The only flexible talents in the arcane tree are the three top-level ones: 

• Arcane Focus (depending on how much hit rating you have, you can lose a point or two)
• Arcane Stability (I like the pushback protection because there are a number of raid fights where damage pushback will screw you up, but it’s your call.  This talent will not help you at all on, say, Patchwerk)
• Arcane Subtlety (you could reasonably run with only one point here if you manage your threat well)

You can mix and match points in those, and if you’ve got a couple leftover you could invest in Magic Attunement, Student of the Mind, Incanter’s Absorption, Slow, or another peripheral talent.

Glyphs:  A few viable choices here, let’s list them:

• Glyph of Arcane Blast:  Required – this was nerfed a bit in patch 3.09 but it’s still by far the best arcane mage glyph.
• Glyph of Mage Armor/Glyph of Molten Armor:  You can only afford to glyph one of these.  Most people agree that Molten Armor will provide more dps, but a lot of people run mage armor – so if you’re one of those people, you might as well glyph it.  I recommend learning to play with molten armor though because 5% crit is significant.
• Glyph of Arcane Missiles:  The new glyph of arcane missiles isn’t groundbreaking, but it still provides a bigger dps boost than anything else available for your third glyph slot.

Note that Glyph of Mana Gem and Glyph of Arcane Power might seem a little tempting, but they’re both weak choices. 

Rotations:  Here’s where it gets interesting.  The general idea of arcane is as follows: 

1. Arcane Blast is your bread-and-butter spell.  Casting it increases the damage your arcane spells do by 15% (18% with glyph), but also increases the mana cost of arcane blast itself.  You can stack it up to three times, which gives you a massive damage buff – but at that point arcane blast costs over 1,500 mana to cast! 
2. The way you “dump” the damage/mana cost buff is by casting another arcane spell (arcane barrage or arcane missiles).  This spell will benefit from the stacks of the arcane blast buff you have, and then clear the buff itself.
3. Ideally, you always want to stack Arcane Blast three times before casting another spell. 

Think of it as “charging up.”  You “charge up” by casting arcane blast up to 3 times, then you dump the charge by casting either arcane barrage or arcane missiles.  How do you know which one to use?  Well…

• All of your arcane spells have a chance to proc “Missile Barrage,” which makes your next arcane missiles cast super fast.  If, after stacking your three arcane blasts, you do proc missile barrage, then you should cast arcane missiles immediately.
• If missile barrage does not proc while stacking your three arcane blasts, you can do one of two things:
  –If you are totally comfortable with your mana situation (mainly if you have evocation available), you can continue casting arcane blast until missile barrage procs, at which point you cast arcane missiles.  This is the highest possible dps rotation, but it will destroy your mana pool, especially if you have to cast a bunch of arcane blasts to get the proc.
  –If you are doing ok on mana but your evocation isn’t available, you should cast arcane barrage to dump the arcane blast buff.
  –If you are in trouble with your mana, you should cast arcane missiles without the missile barrage proc.  Even though arcane missiles has a high mana cost, since the spell takes 4.5 seconds to cast it gives you a little break from stacking arcane blasts, which is where most of your mana is going.  See the section below for more information on when you get in trouble with your mana.
• Regardless of whether you cast arcane missiles or arcane barrage to dump the arcane blast buff, you should immediately go back to stacking three more arcane blasts, and repeat the process until the boss is dead.
• Note:  It no longer makes sense to cast arcane barrage without three stacks of arcane blast, due to a nerf to its spell damage coefficient.

So why is this more complicated than frostfire?  Well, try it and see just how quick you run out of mana.  Between the stacked arcane blasts and the hugely expensive arcane missiles, you’re going to be blowing through your mana very fast.  How do you counter this?   A few ways:

• Mana gems:  Use them aggressively, and aim to use all three every boss fight.  I generally use one within the first 15 seconds of any fight, as soon as I’ve burned enough mana to warrant it.  Do not wait until you are low on mana to use one.
• Evocation:  While frostfire mages rarely if ever have to evocate, arcane mages may find themselves evocating three times during a boss fight!  Thanks to the 2-minute cooldown from talents, evocation can and should be used aggressively to restore your mana pool.  If you can time it to where you start casting it in the final second of icy veins, then all the better.
• Runic Mana Potions:  You only get one per fight, so make it count.
• Mage Armor:  If you’re having serious mana issues, consider switching from molten to glyphed mage armor.

And finally, if you’re still finding yourself having to resort to wanding on boss fights:

• Change your rotation.  If you start stacking arcane blast twice instead of three times, the spec is much, MUCH more mana efficient.  Of course this seriously hurts your dps, so you want to avoid it as much as possible, but sometimes you can’t.  The essence of playing arcane is to know when to hit hard and to know when to scale back.  This depends on too many factors to count:  your gear, the raid you’re in, the fight itself, whether you get an innervate, etc.  Therefore, it’s impossible to generalize about this stuff – it just takes experience.

Let’s talk about cooldown management.  The cooldowns you’ll have available are:

• Icy Veins:  20% cast speed increase, no spell pushback for 20 seconds.  Can use every 2.4 mins with talents.
• Arcane Power:  Increases your damage 20%, but also increases the mana cost of spells 20%, for 15 seconds.  2 minute cooldown (1.4 with talents). Cannot use Presence of Mind while Arcane Power is active.
• Presence of Mind:  Makes your next spell an instant cast, and (with talents) increases it’s chance to crit by 30%.  You want to use this with arcane blast.  Puts Arcane Power on a 1.5 second cooldown when you use it.   2 minute cooldown (1.4 with talents).
• Mirror Image:  Creates three mini-yous who do a little damage, and ensure that you don’t pull aggro for 30 seconds.  When they go away, the threat you accumulated while they were up is given back to you.  Great to use at the start of fights to make sure your tank gets solid aggro.
• Any trinkets you have with a “Use”.

You want to use these early in the fight.  Since patch 3.09, it’s not as easy as just putting them all in one macro and hitting it every few minutes.  Here’s how I manage my cooldowns:

• I created the following macro:/cast icy veins
  /cast arcane power
  /use [name of your useable trinket, if you have one]
  /cast mirror imageI use that usually 5 seconds after the start of each fight.  That pops every cooldown you have except presence of mind (see below).
• I macro’d my Presence of Mind to my Arcane Blast.  So the macro looks like:/cast presence of mind
  /cast arcane blastAnd I use that as my bread-and-butter arcane blast.  That way I’m getting an instant arcane blast every time presence of mind is cooled down.
• Now, arcane power will cool down prior to icy veins, so once it’s available I usually hit it individually.  Then I wait until it’s cooled down again, and use all the cooldowns at once again. So the “cooldown rotation” I use is:1.  Start of fight:  Icy Veins/Arcane Power/Mirror Image
  2.  1.4 minutes into fight:  Arcane Power
  3.  1.4 minutes after that:  Icy Veins/Arcane Power/Mirror Image

  And of course I’m using presence of mind whenever it’s available, because it’s macro’d to my arcane blast. 

What arcane does is give you the ability to control the rate at which you convert your mana into damage.   Your goal in boss fights is for you to always have enough mana to fully dps the boss when he’s alive, and to have as close to zero mana as possible when the boss dies.  This means that, if the boss is down to 10% and you have a near-full mana bar (after an evocate, for example), you can go into full-on kick ass mode and just spam arcane blast, ignoring other spells.  You’ll just be chain casting super powerful, super expensive arcane blasts – which should drain your mana nice and fast, and give you a pretty sweet dps boost.  Just make sure to time it so you don’t run out of mana before the boss dies!

Alright, let’s get to the summary:

• The highest dps rotation you can use is three arcane blasts followed by arcane missiles if missile barrage procs, or another arcane blast if it doesn’t.  Continue casting arcane blast until missile barrage procs, then cast arcane missiles and repeat.  You should only use this rotation when you have evocation available (especially at the start of fights) or when a boss is nearly dead.
• Your standard rotation is three arcane blasts followed by arcane missiles (only if missile barrage procs), or arcane barrage if missile barrage doesn’t proc.  In general, don’t cast arcane barrage without three stacks of arcane blast stacked.
• Use your mana gems and evocation aggressively and as early as possible, and don’t be afraid to switch to mage armor if you continually struggle with your mana.

That’s about it!  Good luck out there.

How to Play Frostfire Mage

Note 5/29/09:  This guide is now, finally, updated for patch 3.1!

Currently, as of the date of this posting, there are only three viable raiding specs for mages:  Frostfire, Arcane, and Fire (with enough points in arcane for torment of the weak).  Right now I’m only planning to do write-ups for Frostfire and Arcane – even though deep fire can compete with both, my experience is that not a whole lot of people play it.  As someone who raided as deep fire for quite a while at level 70, let me tell you:  fire is boring as hell.  It’s like frostfire but without the big crits.  If you play it, then more power to you, I just think frostfire and arcane cover all your raiding needs.

So without further ado, let’s talk about Frostfire!

Spec:  There’s not a whole lot of variation here; if you’re going to play Frostfire, you’re going to be using something very similar to this 0/53/18 spec.

Sure you can debate a couple talent points – but the bottom line is that if you use the above spec, you will be set up just fine for raiding.

Glyphs: Don’t forget your glyphs!  If you’re serious about raiding, you’re pretty much locked in to the following two major glyphs:

• Glyph of Frostfire Bolt:  2% damage and 2% crit to your Frostfire Bolt – a no-brainer.
• Glyph of Living Bomb:  Allows the DoT ticks from Living Bomb to crit.  They WILL proc ignite, but will NOT interact with hot streak)

That leaves one major glyph slot open, and there are two viable choices for it depending on what your situation is:

• Glyph of Improved Scorch:  Makes your scorch cast apply all 5 stacks of the “improved scorch” crit debuff at once.
• Glyph of Molten Armor:  Increases the crit you receive from Molten Armor based on your spirit (“an additional 20% of your spirit as critical strike rating”)

Which one of these final two glyphs to use depends on the makeup of your raids.  Improved scorch, when fully stacked, provides a 5% crit debuff on bosses.  However, casting scorch at all breaks up your standard rotation (see below).  In addition, shadow bolt warlocks will stack the same 5% crit debuff, which does NOT stack with the scorch one.  So, if you are regularly raiding with a warlock that’s spec’d into Improved Shadow Bolt, there is no reason to ever cast scorch, period.

Meanwhile, the Glyph of Molten Armor will probably give you between 1.5% and 2.5% crit depending on your gear and the buffs you have. 

It basically comes down to this:  If you are being relied upon to stack the scorch debuff, then you need to glyph your scorch.  There is NO situation in which you should cast scorch 5 straight times to max out the debuff – this is a huge DPS loss.  If, however, you are raiding with a warlock that can stack his debuff, then by all means avoid scorch completely.

Rotation:  Alright, here we go.  This is what separates good mages from the many, many, MANY bad ones.  An enormous number of players simply have no concept of a “spell rotation” – they just cast what they feel like, and figure that the damage will take care of itself.

This, of course, is wrong.

With frostfire, there are two rotations, one that includes scorch and one that does not (see above).  Basically, you will do the most DPS if you do NOT include scorch in your rotation, but you will also not be stacking the Improved Scorch debuff, which gives all DPS casters in your raid 5% crit.  Again, if you have a warlock casting improved shadow bolt in your raid, you do not have to worry about scorch at all.

So, this is the rotation that includes scorch:

1. When the fight starts, cast Living Bomb on the boss.  This is a damage-over-time spell which does no initial damage, and therefore causes negligible threat.  This works nicely at the start of fights, because there’s very little risk that you pull aggro off the tank (whereas if you just started spamming frostfire bolts you probably would).
2. Cast Scorch once.  Assuming you have the Glyph of Improved Scorch, this will stack the scorch debuff 5 times, giving all casters in the raid, including yourself, a bonus 5% crit on the boss.
3. Spam Frostfire Bolt.  This is your primary nuke.  When in doubt, cast frostfire bolt.  Over and over and over again.  Most of your damage is going to come from this, so you want to be casting it as much as possible.  Of course, you’ll also want to use your “cooldowns” as early as possible (more on this a couple paragraphs down; we’re keeping it basic for now).
4. Pyroblast is not castable unless the “Hot Streak” buff procs from getting two consecutive crits.  This temporary buff will make your next pyroblast an instant cast, and therefore it’s your top priority to cast it when it comes up.

That’s it.  Those are your four spells, and all you’ve got to do is manage them.  What do I mean by “manage”?  Well, let’s go to the three key concepts:

1. You need to keep the scorch debuff active.   If you are responsible for keeping the debuff active, you should NEVER, EVER let it go away.  Once you cast your initial scorch, watch the debuff under the boss’ health bar – it lasts for 30 seconds, and when it’s getting close to running out, just stop casting frostfire bolt for a second to throw in a scorch to refresh it.  You can use an add-on like Scorchio (get it from curse.com) if you have trouble seeing the debuff. 
2. Living bomb needs to be re-applied as soon as possible.  When you cast living bomb, it will tick for 12 seconds, doing minor damage – then it will explode for a significant amount of damage.  Once it explodes, you need to cast it again as soon as possible, and repeat that until the boss is dead.  A lot of mages think living bomb isn’t worth casting, but it will consistently account for 10-12% of your overall damage – you’re telling me that’s not worth it?
3. Hit Pyroblast any time the “Hot Streak” buff comes up.  It takes a little (but not much) practice to see the Hot Streak buff (you can also listen for it, or get an add-on), but you’ll pick it up soon enough.  Your next pyroblast will be an instant cast when hot streak comes up, and in general there’s little downside to hitting it as soon as possible.

It really is that simple – but what if you are NOT being asked to stack the Improved Scorch debuff?  Well, then it just gets easier!    Simply remove scorch from the equation entirely.  Start the fight with a living bomb, then go right into casting frostfire bolt.  All you have to worry about is refreshing living bomb every 12 seconds, and hitting pyroblast when hot streak procs – no more worrying about scorch at all!  This will be a significant increase in DPS for you, provided that someone else (either another mage or a shadow bolt warlock) is providing the 5% crit debuff.

We’ll just touch on one more thing:  Cooldowns.  “Cooldowns” are spells that you can use every couple minutes that provide you with a temporary buff of some kind.   As a Frostfire mage, here are the ones you have:

1. Combustion:  Increases your crit chance 10% per cast until you crit 3 times.  You can use this every 3 minutes.
2. Icy Veins:  Increases your cast speed 20% for 15 seconds.  With the talent build above, you can use this every 2.4 minutes.
3. Mirror Image:  Creates 3 mini-yous that do a small but sorta non-negligible amount of damage.  These guys will also effectively prevent you from pulling aggro for 30 seconds (your attacks will still generate threat, but it won’t be applied to you until the 30 seconds is up).
4. Any trinkets you have that have a “Use”.   Some trinkets will increase your spell power, haste, etc. for a limited amount of time when you use them.  These usually have a 2-3 minute cooldown.

In general, you want to use your cooldowns at the same time, to get the most ‘bang for your buck.’  Putting them in a macro works well – just type /macro to bring up the interface, create a macro, and type the following:

 /cast icy veins
 /cast combustion
 /use [name of your trinket, if you have one]
 /cast mirror image

Then put that button somewhere convenient, and you’re good to go.  Just hit that after you’ve cast your living bomb and scorch (or no scorch), and you can really go crazy with frostfire bolts right off the start of boss fights.  By the time your mirror image runs out of time, the tank should have plenty of threat so you don’t pull aggro.  If the fight lasts long enough for you to use your cooldowns a second time, use them when the boss is under 35% health so your cooldowns benefit from the 12% damage you’re getting from the Molten Fury talent. 

So let’s do a quick review of how the standard boss fight should go:

1. Start boss fights by applying living bomb, then, if it is your job to provide the 5% crit debuff, casting scorch.  When living bomb explodes 12 seconds later, cast it again.  When the scorch debuff has nearly run out, cast it again.  Repeat this until the boss is dead.
2. Hit all your cooldowns and start spamming frostfire bolt.
3. Only stop casting frostfire bolts to cast an instant pyroblast when hot streak procs, to reapply scorch (if necessary), to reapply living bomb, or to use a mana gem. 

Well, that’s about it!  It really isn’t that complicated, and with a week of practice you too can be topping the damage charts even if you don’t have the best gear!