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Official Paladin Forum Engineering Fire Mage Enthusiasts' Thread
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Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
I approve, and I laughed out loud when I saw it.
I'm amazed how squishy I still am. I stopped using frost armor when I got mage armor, and my damage reduction has been under 10% since. Fortunately it's ridiculously easy to kill things, but you really pay for it if anything goes wrong. I'm glad for First Aid and my undead racial.
There were a couple of vanilla zones I absolutely could not quest in because half of the mobs were fire immune. There's a mechanic I'm not missing now that they scrapped it. The rule of thumb seems to be that if it looks fire immune, it almost certainly is.
I can't figure out to do with my last 15 or so talent points while leveling. I took the +hit talent in arcane since that seemed like a no-brainer, but after that I can't find many good options. I might fill out Firestarter for shiggles if I decide to do Wrath normals while leveling, but I never use Flamestrike while soloing. If the urge to AoE grind hits me, I find that four simultaneous LB explosions and a Dragon's Breath puts about as big a dent in anything as you could really want. And even after all of that, Firestarter is still only two points. What is anyone else planning to do for the last little stretch of leveling?
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Zakkhar
Just from what I've read, you may want to build toward FFB, just to take advantage of a little extra utility in the early frost tree while wrapping up Northrend leveling.
Dont spec FFB before level 80. Ever. For further information read the mage stickies.
Post by
pezz
Well you have to skip Blast Wave, Impact, and Dragon's Breath in a raid build and all three of those have saved my ass several times. I'm just going to assume the 'leveling into a raid build' ship has sailed and focus on what is going to make leveling easier.
My current plan is take the buffs to resistances and armor in the second tier of Arcane. I don't run out of mana between Evocates at this point unless I screw something up, and I seem to be doing pretty good on killing power, I'm just still so squishy.
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
pezz
Not quite as fast. It has more buttons that you have to press, but they also feel a lot more powerful than my old HoReck/Exo macro did, so I wouldn't say it's any harder.
Post by
484761
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Post by
200565
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Just from what I've read, you may want to build toward FFB, just to take advantage of a little extra utility in the early frost tree while wrapping up Northrend leveling.
Dont spec FFB before level 80. Ever. For further information read the mage stickies.
FFB has been doing just fine for me since 75. 2.5k dps on bosses and 3-6k dps AoE at 77.
It's slightly worse single target dps than I've been able to get as arcane, but the much better AoE more than makes up for it.
Post by
Zakkhar
FFB has been doing just fine...
It's worse...
Its worse than fire as well due to fact FFB is really really bad nuke and it needs to crit for it to really deal good damage. I dont think you can get very high amount of crit in leveling gear.
You sure can
offspec frost
, just use fireball as main nuke (glyphed).
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
FFB has been doing just fine...
It's worse...
Its worse than fire as well due to fact FFB is really really bad nuke and it needs to crit for it to really deal good damage. I dont think you can get very high amount of crit in leveling gear.
You sure can
offspec frost
, just use fireball as main nuke (glyphed).
2.5k is bad?
And I've got 35% fire crit.
Post by
Squishalot
You're not squishy, I'M SQUISHY! =P
The squishiness is precisely why most people recommend solo levelling as Frost, rather than Fire. Fire is probably more suited to a dungeon-levelling mage who can use Blast Wave and Flamestrike at will. For soloing, long-range Frostbolt or Blizzard AoE is better DPdamagetaken, especially once you factor in your shields.
On the topic of Scorch v Fireball, if you're glyphed and specced for it, Scorch is better for up to 1500SP or so, providing that you use your Hot Streak as often as you possibly can. Fireball benefits more from haste and crit (in providing more consistent Hot Streaks) and is generally higher DPS, but is a higher mana drain as well. And if you're lagging, you should be using Fireball, as GCD-capped spells suffer really badly from lag.
I took the +hit talent in arcane since that seemed like a no-brainer
It seems like it, but it's not, actually. The +hit from Arcane Focus only applies to Arcane spells. Rude, huh? Precision, the Frost talent, applies to all spells.
@ Hyper - what's your DPS if you use Fireball as your main nuke instead of FFB?
@ stnly - My mage alt (since really, my Pally was my 'main') is an Arcane mage. Frost was good when levelling, and Fire was just a winter fling to keep me warm :P
Not sure what to do about squishiness though, other than "PULL FEWER MOBS". Glad to know that Evocate is keeping you supplied with mana - I can't wait to get it. How does it feel compared with, say, leveling ret?
Spec frost and play like Prot. Ice Barrier, mount up, run around pulling mobs, group them up, Frost Nova, Blizzard. Loot, repeat. And pull more mobs.
On a side note, the reason why Paladins are attracted to Fire Mages is probably the multi-ability stand-and-deliver attitude. Managing AoE damage on multiple targets and nuking a single one with numerous spells isn't really that different to playing Ret or Prot. Arcane and Frost are too single ability oriented in a single target fight.
Post by
pezz
I took the +hit talent in arcane since that seemed like a no-brainer
It seems like it, but it's not, actually. The +hit from Arcane Focus only applies to Arcane spells. Rude, huh? Precision, the Frost talent, applies to all spells.
Ugh. I thought the text was a little ambiguous, but I held out hope nonetheless. Oh well. I'm too lazy to go and fix it now.
Also, I take back everything I said about Firestarter. Two spells, each roughly half as powerful as fireball, costing a grand total of about a third of the mana, is amazing DPM. I put two points in it and am now using Flamestrike more than anything else other than fireball, single target.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
@ Hyper - what's your DPS if you use Fireball as your main nuke instead of FFB?
Never went further than the dummy with it, but it was pretty much equal to FFB, but without the movement slowing bonus which makes all the difference when I'm questing.
Post by
atomicwolf22
Ok so did yall even deside on which spec on Eng to take?
Also I would like to know toon race for the different Mage's i'm sure there different as some of you play Horde only and some play both sides.
Also I want to see Toon Spec's so I can get and Idea of what yall are talking about so I can make up my mind if I want to finish leveling my Rogue or Shadow Preist. After I level my second pally.
Post by
Zakkhar
FFB has been doing just fine...
It's worse...
Its worse than fire as well due to fact FFB is really really bad nuke and it needs to crit for it to really deal good damage. I dont think you can get very high amount of crit in leveling gear.
You sure can
offspec frost
, just use fireball as main nuke (glyphed).
2.5k is bad?
It's worse...
And I've got 35% fire crit.
Way too low for FFB to surpass FB.
@ Hyper - what's your DPS if you use Fireball as your main nuke instead of FFB?
Never went further than the dummy with it, but it was pretty much equal to FFB, but without the movement slowing bonus which makes all the difference when I'm questing.
You need slows while questing? With 2.5k dps?
Post by
pezz
Ok so did yall even deside on which spec on Eng to take?
Also I would like to know toon race for the different Mage's i'm sure there different as some of you play Horde only and some play both sides.
Also I want to see Toon Spec's so I can get and Idea of what yall are talking about so I can make up my mind if I want to finish leveling my Rogue or Shadow Preist. After I level my second pally.
1. Nope, going to do a little more research into the specifics, for now and for Cata. Plus I'm trying to gogo speed level, so forget that extra trip down to Tanaris.
2. Undead. Pretty much the race I always pick, if I can pick them (shame that I don't like any of their classes, though).
3. Off of the top of my head, I think it's
this
. Ignore the points in Arcane. I thought the +hit talent would work on fire spells as well, and the point in subtlety was going to help me get the survivability talents in Arcane but I've changed my mind and am too lazy to respec. I skipped HS because I only ever really crit enough on a Combustion Proc. And even then, if I have 6 stacks of combustion and I'm pulling a new mob, I'm going to use Pyroblast because I love how big the number is.
Post by
299264
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
greywolfsage
My mage is Goblin, mostly because it follows the theme of blowing %^&* up.
Alliance? Probably gnome best race, what with int bonus and engineer bonus, considering the thread.
Horde? Maybe orc come cata, but now its with the trolls and their bezerking cd.
Still haven't heard any word on changes though... I am quite curious.
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