I have a question for you mages out there. What spec are you running at 60? I just respecced my gold farm AOE build to the 31/20 arcane/frost power build to be better at raiding but I was disappointing in that the damage increase wasn’t all that much AND I lost Ice Barrier, Ice Block, Cold Snap, and most importantly the ability to AOE farm. AND the mana preservation isn’t that noticeable. Am I missing something?
It’s only a 5-6% damage increase over deep frost, plus a damage cooldown. You shouldnt be expecting a drastic change.
https://classic.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/23000503--05350233112351301
This is what I’m running atm, works really well for AoE and I’m not gimped for single target.
The gain in 3% damage, 3% more crit, a DPS steroid, bigger mana pool, and more regen all helps quite a bit… in a raiding environment that assumes at least one Mage is still rocking deep Frost for Winter’s Chill
My wife opted to be the deep Frost Mage for our raids because she likes solo farming/grinding and that let her do both. 10% spell crit for every Mage is a pretty huge buff.
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Damn. Doesn’t seem worth it considering all you have to give up. I should have done the math first.
31/0/20 is the absolute best for raiding and dungeons until we’re no longer fighting fire resisting mobs (so AQ20). Since the content is insanely east as is, you can get away with a deep frost build, but ultimately you will not be able to compete with the DPS numbers of this build.
For PvP, Ice Barrier/Counterspell is king, and everything else is subpar
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Ice barrier and Ice Block save my a$s so often it doesn’t seem worth giving up for a 5-6% damage increase
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It’s more than 5-6% when you take into consideration of mana, PoM, and arcane power. I had a hard time giving up block and barrier as well, but it’s really not an issue because the mechanics of the fights don’t really require it, so I got used to it pretty quickly.
If you need to save block and barrier, you can always run a winter’s chill build (19/0/32) to ensure the other mages in your party get the damage increase.
Are there tricks to using the 31/0/20 build or do you just spam frostbolt? When do you use Presence of Mind and Arcane Power? As soon as they come off cool down?
You can pull aggro really easy if you start too early, but on Onyxia, I will use cooldowns as soon as Phase 1 DPS starts, and a 2nd time when it cycles off cooldown again, typically in phase 3 depending on DPS of the group. Otherwise you just spam frostbolt on single target, and blizzard/CoC/Arcane Blast for AOE.
I try to use my cooldowns as much as possible, but if there is a boss coming up, I will make sure its up for the fight.
Pretty much. Arcane Power is quite the boost in damage and the moment the Tank establishes threat, you can go ballistic with it. Most fights shouldn’t be long enough to use it more than once unless your raid group is really slow, so provided you get the full duration out of it, you’re good to hold off on using it for the first 20 sec or so.
Plus you want your raid’s deep Frost Mage to have fully stacked Winter’s Chill before you hit your biggest CDs. Combined with ToEP and then followed up with a Power Infusion (make friends with a Disc Priest), you can amp up your numbers like crazy for short fights (<3 min).
I run winter’s chill for my raid and i keep up pretty well with the arcane/frost mages in my raid. We have similar gear and one has arguably better gear than I do.
31/0/20 is only really good if you’re just going to raid. If you have a frost mage that’s getting WC stacked, you will see a difference. But if you’re still farming, and still running 5 mans, and doing some PvP in there, a shatter build with WC is probably your best choice.
Your theoretical DPS only matters if you’re at the top in this game. For 99% of players, where you stand on damage is up to who’s more skilled.
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Maybe I should spec back. I really miss having Ice Barrier when in 5 mans or out in the world. Do any of you guys hold on to the ability to AOE farm when you get to 60? I’m kind of addicted to being able to farm gold at 60 gold per hour.
It seems so slow going back to single target. Ugh.
Nice helpful thread here. (I have a mage lvl 45 alt). What’s wrong with you guys, being all factual-like, and supporting your positions with facts?
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I am no where near the top in skill or gear. I did my first raid on Weds and my DPS numbers were very low on the damage meter (except when AOE was called for). I was hoping to respec so I could at least get in the upper half of the DPSers on the meter.
I would normally agree with you, but there isn’t any real skill difference in spamming frostbolt, which is just about as complicated as it gets for most fights.
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How you react to having to do other things is going to matter. Unfortunately, that didn’t become common until TBC.
At raid level, how do you avoid running out of mana?
Stay deep frost unless you’re on a pve server. Arcane frost is a straight victim in pvp. Even warriors will dunk you in that spec.