Pretty stupid question....but I really don't have a clue.
I recently took my level 62 deep fire mage into Ramps. This is the first instance I have run in Outlands. And I haven't played this character in a looong time. The last instance I can remember running this mage through was ZF in my mid 40's. I'm rusty when it comes to grouping to say the least.
During this recent Ramps run I ended up spamming scorch while tossing in a fireball and fireblast here and there. I didn't use pyroblast for fear of pulling the mob off of the tank. I was at the top of the damage meter...but not by much. A BM hunter was nipping at my heals the whole time.
I felt I wasn't maximizing my dps potential by primarily spamming one spell. I have sooo many damage spells that I use while soloing but none of them seem appropriate for group runs. They either take too long to cast and are heavy threat (Pyro, Fireball), are limited range and put me in harms way (DB, BW, AE, etc), or just eat up too much mana to be beneficial (AM).
Am I destined to be a scorch spammer? Or am I right in thinking there is something more to mage dps that I just haven't grasped yet.
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Get a good threat meter (I recommend Omen) and hope the tank has one too. This will tell you how hard you can push the threat. Otherwise, you are left to trial and error and errors are costly.
If the tank is half way decent, you shouldn't have a problem with fireball. On trash you can probably fireball + fireblast and the mob will be dead.
Don't get too caught up in damage meters. You bring serious CC to the table that takes time away from your dps. Any competent group will understand that.
Side note: I ran Kara with a mage who was blasting away with everything. Would have easily topped the charts if he could stay alive. Hard to dps when you're dead. He actually ended up fairly close to the top as he tended to cause wipes.
If the tank is half way decent, you shouldn't have a problem with fireball. On trash you can probably fireball + fireblast and the mob will be dead.
Don't get too caught up in damage meters. You bring serious CC to the table that takes time away from your dps. Any competent group will understand that.
Side note: I ran Kara with a mage who was blasting away with everything. Would have easily topped the charts if he could stay alive. Hard to dps when you're dead. He actually ended up fairly close to the top as he tended to cause wipes.
Quote:
Get a good threat meter (I recommend Omen) and hope the tank has one too. This will tell you how hard you can push the threat. Otherwise, you are left to trial and error and errors are costly.
I have Omen...regretfully the tank on this run did not have it installed. So I was left guessing on how much was too much. I HATE running back and forth on my tank because of DPS not watching their threat. I don't want to be "that guy" lol
As far as I'm concerned, you are doing all you can.
Tanks without a threat meter need to be shot.
*edit* Anyone in an instance without a threat meter needs to be shot!
Edited, Feb 6th 2008 10:52am by Ambarius
Tanks without a threat meter need to be shot.
*edit* Anyone in an instance without a threat meter needs to be shot!
Edited, Feb 6th 2008 10:52am by Ambarius
Ambarius wrote:
Get a good threat meter (I recommend Omen) and hope the tank has one too. This will tell you how hard you can push the threat. Otherwise, you are left to trial and error and errors are costly.
If the tank is half way decent, you shouldn't have a problem with fireball. On trash you can probably fireball + fireblast and the mob will be dead.
Don't get too caught up in damage meters. You bring serious CC to the table that takes time away from your dps. Any competent group will understand that.
Side note: I ran Kara with a mage who was blasting away with everything. Would have easily topped the charts if he could stay alive. Hard to dps when you're dead. He actually ended up fairly close to the top as he tended to cause wipes.
If the tank is half way decent, you shouldn't have a problem with fireball. On trash you can probably fireball + fireblast and the mob will be dead.
Don't get too caught up in damage meters. You bring serious CC to the table that takes time away from your dps. Any competent group will understand that.
Side note: I ran Kara with a mage who was blasting away with everything. Would have easily topped the charts if he could stay alive. Hard to dps when you're dead. He actually ended up fairly close to the top as he tended to cause wipes.
I would stay away from fireblast unless it is a finisher as it combined with another spell (when you don't have a good threat meter) can jump your threat way up, especially if both crit and you both can be in trouble.
Like previously stated - pull out the fireball. A good tank should be able to hold threat against it.
It does amaze me how few people in Outland have threat meters...
Oh, you mentioned that you just got back on your mage after a long time away - how do you like Ice Block as a fire mage? :)
It does amaze me how few people in Outland have threat meters...
Oh, you mentioned that you just got back on your mage after a long time away - how do you like Ice Block as a fire mage? :)
on thing to keep in mind as a mage that most people don't think about is that counterspell is a huge agro boost. Make sure if your going to CS a mob that you know where your threat is.
You should basically be sticking with Scorch, Fireball, and Fire Blast. Scorch has the more steady threat, so it's less likely you'll suddenly jump over the tank. Fire Blast has the opposite affect, and if you use the spell queue system (which you should - spells can actually get off before the cast bar is up) FB acts weird and introduces latency into it last I heard (instead of taking 1.5sec to cast, it's more 1.5sec + twice your latency). Fireball should be your default unless the tank's having threat problems or the mobs won't live long enough.
Sorry guys, this have been kept inside of me for too long, so now it has to come out. L2P without threatmeters - we didn't have them when I cleared MC, BWL and AQ for the first time, we never used them in Naxx - if we could take those instances without, I think you could do a 5-mans without it too.
Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, just listen to the above posters, and nevermind mine ;)
Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, just listen to the above posters, and nevermind mine ;)
Why the hell would you play without threat meters? It gives you an instantaneous judge of whether you can pop that trinket or whether you should be slowing down a bit, and also a very good estimate at how well your tanks are doing. We have rogues and fury warriors that are forced to back off, but if they didn't have threat meters they'd be pulling and dying. There's no way to just *guess* how close you are to a tank's threat.
Thanks for the advice folks. Looks like I'll stick with what I was doing with fireball, scorch, and the occassional fire blast. I will add more fireballs into the mix though if the tank is doing a decent job holding threat.
I honestly didn't find out about this until after I had made this run....so I didn't have it yet. I've been fire from the start and have zero experience with Ice Block. I'm definitely gonna have to play around with it a little and see what all the frosties have been raving about.
Quote:
Oh, you mentioned that you just got back on your mage after a long time away - how do you like Ice Block as a fire mage? :)
I honestly didn't find out about this until after I had made this run....so I didn't have it yet. I've been fire from the start and have zero experience with Ice Block. I'm definitely gonna have to play around with it a little and see what all the frosties have been raving about.
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