Ok so I had my mage as frost for at least 50 lvl's easily bringing the most damage in groups I would run 90 percent of the time. From 68-70 I noticed that I had a lot more competition in the dsp/damage department, though most of time they were usually higher lvl or better geared. Anyways, I decided to try out switching to fire since it is the be all end all of raiding specs (2/48/11).
The jist of the thread is that upon changing spec and doing a instance I saw that my dps had dropped from a 3 run avg. of 712 dps down to 563 after a single run. Even if you take my lowest recorded dps as frost it is still 80 dps higher. Even my avg crit was higher as frost than as fire which doesn't make much sense. I know that my gear isn't the best and there needs to be a lot of improvement, but I don't see how there would be such a big drop in output.
Here is my armory http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Proudmoore&n=Perkin
When I was attacking trash I started out just scorching then fire balling, but I noticed that mobs were dying faster that I could get all the scorches on so I started to just open fireballs and noticed an increase in dps.
My spell hit isn't capped so that might be a big part of it... Hopefully its something obvious.
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Do not have the time to check ur armory and all, but ill bet this is why ur dps went down...one if not more of the following
1) Specific +frost damage (highly unlikely, but never know had to say it)
2) If you were frost, your trash dps will always be higher because of insane amount of crits and a faster nuke. The mobs die fast on trash and a shatter combo for 5k+ beats a 3K fireball + ignite ticks that may or may not pan out
3) Aggro: Pet + damage < just spell damage for aggro. Not a lot of dps from the pet in comparison but splitting aggro means more dps
4) Dont sweat trash...Parse a single boss fight and see if your dps isnt over 712, i bet it is unless its a crappy fight for mages.
Fire excels in long fights and bosses. Fire mage may possibly be the worst (ok not an afflic loc but) at getting dps numbers on trash.
Bottom line: parse bosses, not entire instance runs and trash
1) Specific +frost damage (highly unlikely, but never know had to say it)
2) If you were frost, your trash dps will always be higher because of insane amount of crits and a faster nuke. The mobs die fast on trash and a shatter combo for 5k+ beats a 3K fireball + ignite ticks that may or may not pan out
3) Aggro: Pet + damage < just spell damage for aggro. Not a lot of dps from the pet in comparison but splitting aggro means more dps
4) Dont sweat trash...Parse a single boss fight and see if your dps isnt over 712, i bet it is unless its a crappy fight for mages.
Fire excels in long fights and bosses. Fire mage may possibly be the worst (ok not an afflic loc but) at getting dps numbers on trash.
Bottom line: parse bosses, not entire instance runs and trash
Zisikpus wrote:
Fire excels in long fights and bosses. Fire mage may possibly be the worst (ok not an afflic loc but) at getting dps numbers on trash.
Bottom line: parse bosses, not entire instance runs and trash
Bottom line: parse bosses, not entire instance runs and trash
Excellent advice.
OP, if you're not really talking about raids and mostly just about normal instances you'll see that your damage is higher as a frost mage in most cases.
perkin wrote:
When I was attacking trash I started out just scorching then fire balling, but I noticed that mobs were dying faster that I could get all the scorches on so I started to just open fireballs and noticed an increase in dps.
On trash mobs, here's the basic rule:
If you can get 4 fireballs off on a single mob before it dies, you'll do more damage with 2 scorches and 3 fireballs.
If you can get 7 fireballs off, you'll do more damage with 4 scorches and 5 fireballs.
Learn when your fireball won't hit. That's fireblast's time to shine. And even if it's on cooldown, a scorch that lands does more damage than a fireball that doesn't.
perkin wrote:
My spell hit isn't capped so that might be a big part of it... Hopefully its something obvious.
Interesting that you mention this. Due to a certain bug known as the "Elemental Precision Ghost Hit for Frost", frostbolt has a 3% higher chance to hit than fireball. While this doesn't make as big of a difference later on in gear, it makes a huge difference at early raid levels.
11 posts
After another run the numbers weren't so bad, I ended up doing over 700 dps. Still not as high as before but not bad. Hopefully things will keep on the up and up.
given your current gear 2/48/11 is not really for you.
I pump out something like 800dps for a fight like Leo and I have 1100 spelldamage (ditched spellfire already so all schools equal).
At <800 spelldamage, arcane/fire will be more beneficial and scales your stats better. 10/48/3 will kick in at 900 spelldamage, where you will actually see a difference even then you are probably using fireblast whenever possible. As you replace spellfire, 2/48/11 will serve you better and better as long as you can harness the mana problem without a spriest in group.
I pump out something like 800dps for a fight like Leo and I have 1100 spelldamage (ditched spellfire already so all schools equal).
At <800 spelldamage, arcane/fire will be more beneficial and scales your stats better. 10/48/3 will kick in at 900 spelldamage, where you will actually see a difference even then you are probably using fireblast whenever possible. As you replace spellfire, 2/48/11 will serve you better and better as long as you can harness the mana problem without a spriest in group.
I switch from frost to fire every now and then to try it out and tend to find that I do less dps than with frost (without shatter and hit capped).
One thing that occured to me after my last test is dot uptime. Frost obviously has no dots, so when you're not casting you're not doing damage and as far as I know the damage meters stop putting this towards your 'dps' figure (I remember reading that somewhere).
Fire on the other hand does have dots (from fireball and ignite) and so it could be that these are causing your dps to be lower as the meter is still running while the dots tick even if you're not currently casting (i.e. you're stunned or moving), for frost the 'dps' meter would be on hold, for fire you're still doing damage, just not much of it.
For a difference of 150 dps it's probably not just that, but I'm curious if that's what's impacting my fire tests, where fire normally lags 40-80 dps behind frost.
One thing that occured to me after my last test is dot uptime. Frost obviously has no dots, so when you're not casting you're not doing damage and as far as I know the damage meters stop putting this towards your 'dps' figure (I remember reading that somewhere).
Fire on the other hand does have dots (from fireball and ignite) and so it could be that these are causing your dps to be lower as the meter is still running while the dots tick even if you're not currently casting (i.e. you're stunned or moving), for frost the 'dps' meter would be on hold, for fire you're still doing damage, just not much of it.
For a difference of 150 dps it's probably not just that, but I'm curious if that's what's impacting my fire tests, where fire normally lags 40-80 dps behind frost.
Tynuv wrote:
I switch from frost to fire every now and then to try it out and tend to find that I do less dps than with frost (without shatter and hit capped).
One thing that occured to me after my last test is dot uptime. Frost obviously has no dots, so when you're not casting you're not doing damage and as far as I know the damage meters stop putting this towards your 'dps' figure (I remember reading that somewhere).
Fire on the other hand does have dots (from fireball and ignite) and so it could be that these are causing your dps to be lower as the meter is still running while the dots tick even if you're not currently casting (i.e. you're stunned or moving), for frost the 'dps' meter would be on hold, for fire you're still doing damage, just not much of it.
For a difference of 150 dps it's probably not just that, but I'm curious if that's what's impacting my fire tests, where fire normally lags 40-80 dps behind frost.
One thing that occured to me after my last test is dot uptime. Frost obviously has no dots, so when you're not casting you're not doing damage and as far as I know the damage meters stop putting this towards your 'dps' figure (I remember reading that somewhere).
Fire on the other hand does have dots (from fireball and ignite) and so it could be that these are causing your dps to be lower as the meter is still running while the dots tick even if you're not currently casting (i.e. you're stunned or moving), for frost the 'dps' meter would be on hold, for fire you're still doing damage, just not much of it.
For a difference of 150 dps it's probably not just that, but I'm curious if that's what's impacting my fire tests, where fire normally lags 40-80 dps behind frost.
Crit rating would be a significant issue here. Ignite is the sweet stuff from fire, the fire DoT is negligible. The rotation of scorchX5 then fireball till scorch almost runs out and rescorch then fireball gives about the best dps. Never hit combustion without fully stacked scorch, my personal advice is to scorch one last time to refresh the timer and then hit combustion. Scorch receives additional crit chance and using it while Combustion is up is a waste of potential damage. I do not have any WWS to show but using my current gear, 10/0/51 would be on par given good cooldown burning and good use of microing the WE.
About hitting Combustion. In the beginning of boss fight I normally (ofc cos I dont have darkmoon yet) start with five scorch and hit Combustion sending first fireball, after this I hit my trinket because normally the first combustion dont crit and I have more time to get all crits with trinket if for some reason I need to move during fight.
Maybe that don't really change anything but that's how I currently do it.
Maybe that don't really change anything but that's how I currently do it.
Like someone else said, 2/48/11 is NOT a good spec for you at barely over 700 +dmg. go with a 40/21/0 if you want to stay fire. Now this may get misleading because when you spec 40 into arcane you might very well be up to almsot 850 spell dmg just because of talents, but you got to realize that's not your true +dmg and when you spec out of arcane you'll still be at 700, was a huge let down for me a few months ago, lvling arc/fire for some reason lol hit 70 got some epics respecced raid fire and my +dmg and mana dropped a ton.
Have to agree with some of posters here. 2/48/11 is the end all... for end game. At that level mages are 1100-1200 minimum unbuffed +firedmg
with 30-35 percent crit and haste. Entry level raiding such as karazhan grulls etc you will see frost keep up if not surpass. Fire just scales better with +dmg, the higher the +dmg the more fire pulls away. As someone else said if you are around the 700dps mark arc/fire will probaby be much better than pure fire for you and frost would still keep up ok until at least early tier5 raiding.
with 30-35 percent crit and haste. Entry level raiding such as karazhan grulls etc you will see frost keep up if not surpass. Fire just scales better with +dmg, the higher the +dmg the more fire pulls away. As someone else said if you are around the 700dps mark arc/fire will probaby be much better than pure fire for you and frost would still keep up ok until at least early tier5 raiding.
11 posts
It makes enough sense... I just tried out arcane/frost and it performed better than the build previously stated. You guys think doing fire would be much better? I also was wondering when spec'd 40/0/21 and casting frost bolts, does my hit have to be up to 126 in order for it to be capped, or does it only have to meet arcane standard?
Hit for frost and fire is not affected by arcane focus, so you would need the normal cap for fire/frost.
As far as the damage of arc/fire versus arc/frost, I'm not much help there. I never ran arc frost at that gear level but i would take a guess that the ignites off fire may put it over the top for the two. Also, i see you are 360 tailoring, the biggest upgrade to your dps right now in any spec would be to make the tailoring set for whichever you choose, as well as maybe the spellstrike set which would go a long way toward spell hit cap. With the badge gear now though you can totally bypass tailored items and get a little less damage and more stats but still enough damage to do very well if you chose that route. I also see you are repping scryers so take a look at the blood gem for hit rating.
As others have said dont worry about 5 man output much especially on trash when checking a fire build. Or trash anywhere. You wont excel as
10/48/3 or 2/48/11 untill you can get 5 scorches up and fireball spam at the 15% bonus for long periods of time, then take off hard on molten fury range. If you are new to fire remember to not have your combustion/trinkets/etc on cd when the mob is gonna hit 20 percent.
I run 1180 unbuffed +fire with 32% selfbuffed crit and 171 haste, and still lose in heroics sometimes. A mage should only blow everyone out on instance trash if pure arcane spec imo.
As far as the damage of arc/fire versus arc/frost, I'm not much help there. I never ran arc frost at that gear level but i would take a guess that the ignites off fire may put it over the top for the two. Also, i see you are 360 tailoring, the biggest upgrade to your dps right now in any spec would be to make the tailoring set for whichever you choose, as well as maybe the spellstrike set which would go a long way toward spell hit cap. With the badge gear now though you can totally bypass tailored items and get a little less damage and more stats but still enough damage to do very well if you chose that route. I also see you are repping scryers so take a look at the blood gem for hit rating.
As others have said dont worry about 5 man output much especially on trash when checking a fire build. Or trash anywhere. You wont excel as
10/48/3 or 2/48/11 untill you can get 5 scorches up and fireball spam at the 15% bonus for long periods of time, then take off hard on molten fury range. If you are new to fire remember to not have your combustion/trinkets/etc on cd when the mob is gonna hit 20 percent.
I run 1180 unbuffed +fire with 32% selfbuffed crit and 171 haste, and still lose in heroics sometimes. A mage should only blow everyone out on instance trash if pure arcane spec imo.
perkin wrote:
It makes enough sense... I just tried out arcane/frost and it performed better than the build previously stated. You guys think doing fire would be much better? I also was wondering when spec'd 40/0/21 and casting frost bolts, does my hit have to be up to 126 in order for it to be capped, or does it only have to meet arcane standard?
40/0/21 or even 50/0/11 is another milestone build that should only be attempted with 2 piece T5 bonus. This kinda mean that you already have 1000 spell damage at least for all schools. It also means that instead of fireball or frostbolt as your main nuke, you shift to using Arcane Blast, Arcane Missile and maybe frostbolt (last spell to use).
If you are looking into this, go 2/48/11 at around the 950 spelldmg, 25% crit (unbuffed) mark. Try out how a mana hungry build will affect you and accumulate some experiencec with it. Your decision making will improve a great deal during your time with the build. 10/48/3 allowed me to be a little lazy. I could hit pot, mana gem and by the time i need mana again the cooldowns are up. Fire with Icy Veins however do not give you much mana back so you also drop threat with evocate sometimes.
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