Welcome Mages!
World of Warcraft Mage PvE Guide!
For starters here are the Characteristics of a Mage. I will lay out the Pros and the Cons of being a Mage for PvE!
Cons
- Mages are Mana based DPS. Once they have no more options to replenish their mana, they are useless.
- Mages are very squishy, there is a good chance that if they grab aggro from the boss once, and get hit, they will die from a one shot
- Mages are only magic based damage. So against certain bosses at times they will do less damage.
Pros
- Mages have only one spec type. Which is DPS so they are focused DPS payers which causes them to have major dps output.
- There’s not much movement involved with a mage compared to a melee class because they just need to stand far back and spam couple buttons for casting. Rather a rogue who has to move constantly and spam and face the target.
- They are very easy to play and get used to.
- Gear is more important than weapons for a mage, because they are spell power based so all they need is the spell power from gear. As compared to a melee who could have the best DPS gear but no weapon.
How to Spec
As you know already mages specs are all focused on DPS. Some provide more Crowd control then others while some provide single target dps, or better AOE DPS. The tree different talent trees are Arcane, Fire, & Frost.
Frost
Brand New Update for Patch 3.3! A new Viable Spec for Frost which is actually just as good as Arcane PvE. I’ve tested both with equivalent gear and it seems to be that they both can put out the same amount of damage! Click to View the new PvE Frost spec with Unlimited Elemental!
(18/0/53) Deep Frost & Torment the Weak (TTW)
“This build uses DPS cooldowns for maximum benefit, which means as often as possible for boss fights with no “burn periods”, but also means saving cooldowns for when the boss is vulnerable and DPS needs to increase. Blizzard has admitted that Frost is currently low on raid DPS and it remains that way even after a minor buff in patch 3.2. However, if raid survivability is a problem while learning an encounter, frost mages are more likely to stay alive, especially when the Ice Barrier talent is taken. Frost is extremely mana efficient, so it pays to get extra magic resistance from Magic Absorption at the cost of one point from Arcane Concentration. Avoid casting Fireballs during Fingers of Frost procs, which will potentially add 50% extra crit chance on the instant cast Fireball right after two Fingers of Frost frostbolts. Also, try to summon the water elemental just before Heroism/Bloodlust. The lowest value DPS talent points in this build are (in no particular order): Ice Floes, Student of the Mind and Spell Impact. The point in Ice Floes could be used for a second point in Improved Blizzard. Always keep one point in improved blizzard, so that Blizzard procs Fingers of Frost. This version of the build uses only three points in Arcane Concentration. For some fights, an extra 2% mana efficiency can be more useful than a point in Student of the Mind or Spell Impact, each of which is only worth a fraction of a percent in DPS.” – WowWiki
Fire
(18/51/0 +2) Fireball & TTW build
“This is the the top Fire raiding build. This tree invests into Arcane for Spell Impact and Torment the Weak. Its rotation is considerably interactive, consisting of spamming Fireball at all possible times, using Scorch every 30 seconds to maintain the Improved Scorch debuff if necessary and casting Pyroblast when Hot Streak happens. Molten Armor should be used, and Living Bomb should be kept up on the target. Two points can be put in either Burning Soul or Flame Throwing, or into Arcane Meditation for DPM aid. Combustion’s DPS gain is no longer negligible since Living Bomb does not use up a point of Combustion anymore.” – WoWwiki
(0/51/18 +2) Frostfire Bolt (FFB) build
“This build is PvE-competitive because of the early Frost DPS talents and the powerful crit modifier it gives to Frostfire Bolt. This build is based on Frostfire Bolt, and is classified as Fire rather than Elementalist for its steep expenditure into the Fire tree, while the Frost investment is puny in comparison, making it in reality a Deep Fire build. The rotation in this tree is exactly like the one in the above Fireball build, except replacing Fireball with Frostfire Bolt and using Living Bomb at all times. Frostfire Bolt is highly mana-efficient and has been shown to compete excellently with the Fireball build above in terms of DPS. Although Frostfire Bolt normally hits for less than Fireball, it crits hit much harder due to the number of modifiers and talents which activate on a critical hit: Burnout, Ice Shards and Ignite, all of which are absolutely mandatory. Note that unlike Fireball/TTW, Combustion is absolutely mandatory because of this.” – WoWwiki
Arcane
(50/3/11 +7) Arcane/Frost
“Only bare essential points are taken in this build, so as to provide the most customizable build possible. Certain talents have no objective effect on DPS, such as Magic Attunement, but are useful in other ways and a good investment of remaining points. Magic Attunement and Arcane Stability protect DPS in less measurable ways, for instance, by reducing spell pushback from certain encounter mechanics, and Arcane Barrage is a useful mobile DPS spell, if not the best stationary damage spell.
With changes in Patch 3.0.8, Arcane has once again become a viable spec for single-target DPS. Talents like Arcane Power make it far more flexible than Frostfire Bolt specs, as DPS can be raised and lowered at the cost of Mana efficiency, dependent on the situation. Your rotations should be Arcane Blast 1, 2 or 3 times, depending on the length of the fight and your MP5 and Arcane Missiles, after the Arcane Blasts, regardless of whether Missile Barrage procs or not. Use Presence of Mind at your own preference. At least 8 points are taken in Frost for Precision, providing a 289 hitcap for Arcane spells. Going deeper in Frost for Icy Veins and into Fire for Incineration increase overall DPS, though points can be spent otherwise to adjust for your own play style.” – WoWwiki
Gearing up!
List of Activities
Following these list of activities will get you the fastest way to be ready for epic raiding experiences!
5-man Heroic Dungeons
Every 5-Man is necessary to do. To get you all the Pre-Epic blues and some epics to get you ready for raids. But now Blizzard has made it easier to get geared so what I would recommend doing is 5-Man Trial Of Champions. All the gear that drops is Epic. Even in normal mode! So just Farm Normal mode then do heroic mode with a couple semi-geared people and you’ll get geared enough for most raids to continue from there.
Both 10 & 25 Man Raids
Mandatory raid to complete every week is Vault of Archevon. Always a mandatory. It drops the best epic’s that you could roll on and win from doing easy bosses. The next raid’s I would suggest is Onyxia & Obsidian Sanctum.
Find a Good raiding Guild
Finding a raiding guild could possibly be your key to getting into every raid you need and getting down bosses easily. It could possibly be the quickest fastest way to get geared because you have people dedicated to helping you =)
Build Reputation with Factions
Buying Tabards from each reputation faction and building up rep by doing Heroics will get you revered then exalted to get epic gear with gold!
As far as Specs and actual PVE guides go. I would encourage any viewer to send me their Spec and how they play so I can post it for them! Or leave a comment. More info will be coming soon. You can e-mail me your specs and guides or ideas to webmaster@hordelife.com
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