Low Damage for a Raiding Mage?Follow

Ok, I've been trying to figure this out on my own for ages now and have come to a point now where I need help from the experts as I cant figure out where I'm going wrong.

Here's the problem, I'm a Raid specc'd Fire Mage with around 1000 Bonus Damage (raid buffed), Hit capped (for a draenai) yet I rarely see more than 700 DPS and I'm postitioned around 10th on the damage meters. I am not a happy mage :(

My spec can be seen using the link from my signature (Gothmógg on Bronze DragonFlight - EU)

I'm hitting SSC / TK mainly and Maggy / Gruuls are on farm for me. Our progression team is hitting MH and BT at present. I typically use the 23 +Dmg food buff along with the flask of Pure Death. My spell rotation looks something like this: 5xScorch - 7xFireball - 1xScorch - rince repeat - fireblast if trash about to die.

In terms of trinkets I have them macro'd to my fireball spell, I know having two "use" trinkets isnt best and I'm currently trying to get the Sextant (no luck yet).

I have a seperate macro to pop IV and Combustion either right at the start of a boss fight (to ensure I get to pop it twice) or just the once when the boss is < 20%.

Using Recount I'm averaging around 700-750 DPS on a good day, however in terms of Damage Done overall I'm usually #1 in my class.

So whats going wrong here? Is this what I should be expecting with my current gear? My intentions is to replace the spellfire/Spellstrike sets with the belt of blasting, the shoulders/chest from SSC, Wand/Weapon from TK etc yet this takes time and I intend to replace the set items all in one hit (so I dont lose the set bonus).

Am I seeing low DPS because my fellow Guildies are all currently equiping T5/T6 gear and they are way out of my league?

Your thoughts and advice are greatly appreciated :)

Goth

750 isn't too bad. do you ever go oom? if you have mana to spare, you can use flamecap/destro pot instead of managem/manapot.

what about your connection? if you have high pings, this could cost you up to 50-100dps. i recommend getting a cast-bar addon like quartz, so you can see when you can start casting your next fireball before the cast ends, but the server still accepts it.

you will probably not do great compared to some other DDs on trash. you either have to put scorch up and then fireball when the mob is already half dead, or cast fireball with less DPS. rule of thumb: 5+ fireballs -> scorch beforehand.

but boss fights are where it's at. you should be able to catch up a lot under 20% which you probably already do, because that's when you pop your cooldowns.

there are many reasons more why you could be behind. do you have CoE up? is CoS up, giving warlocks an advantage? (this will be obsolete with 2.4.3). do you have an ele sham and/or moonkin? are melee dps stacked, so they have a big advantage over other DD?

the question is, are you on spot 10 but all the other DD are bunched within a few thousand points of damage? then it's not a problem.

don't worry about the T6 geared DD, you won't ever catch up with them. with spellfire/spellstrike you could get close to the T5, though.

morogrim is a manadrain because of the bombing, that's clear. but there you should do good damage, because your AE gives you a huge damage boost over everyone but warlocks.

my point was, if you don't need the mana pots/gems and really want to maximise, you should use the cooldowns for destropots and flamecaps.

well, if the target has curse of shadows but not curse of elements, that would explain a dps difference by itself. if you don't have enough warlocks to put up all curses, elements is often the last one you get (except for highly unbalanced raid composition or hard hitters where recklessness is not possible), because CoS = more warlock + SP damage = more mana returned for everyone.

i think most of it is just gear difference, because you seem to understand your class pretty well.

try quartz again and strip everything but the castbar.

good luck!

I don't often raid as fire, so I'll leave spell/cooldown rotations to the more knowledgeable people, but I have had a bit of experience with fire aoe.

For the Morogrim fight I'd suggest using BW and DB every time they are off cooldown and there are enough murlocs left for it to be worthwhile. They will benefit from the increased damage/crit from your fire talents and also you'll get mana back for crits (not sure if it's per crit or just once for the spell regardless of how many targets it crits on. Also you could wind up a flamestrike while the pala tank is building up threat.

I was a bit suprised in general about your Morogrim stats, normally ours go warlocks, mages and then all the non-aoers below, though I guess if you have large gear disparities that's probably the cause.

Always fully buff up for boss fights, scorching to start should give your tank enough of a threat lead, and remember to use invisibility if you get too high on threat and ranged can't pull agro on Lurker so knock yourself out :)

Actually, the fewer mobs remain, the more the scales tip in the favor of DB/BW over AE spam due to greater base damage. After you've hit the AoE damage cap, the only difference is reduced threat vs. mana efficiency(and it's only 1 crit per spell that gets you the MoE mana return, but you're almost guaranteed to get it if you hit 4-5 mobs or more).

That one confuses me too, but that's not the OP. He's the one that did 748 DPS on Lurker.

european armory is down, so it's hard to compare you to other damage dealers. the hunters seem to be doing very well.

another thing i would like to add is, you seem to have low dps uptime (time dealing damage per total time). the top 5 have between 37 and 40% uptime, you have 30% over the whole run.
this explains why you did less overall damage than reset (rogue) by a fair margin, although he did less average dps. he was just in there hitting away more often than you.

in my experience, you can do well by doing all the things you are doing now. but to do really well, you have to be on the ball 100% of the time, be casting constantly, use your cooldowns/trinkets wisely and as often as you can etc.

best fire mage combo = elixir of major firepower + major mageblood + brilliant wizard oil + 23 spd food.
adept's and draenic wisdom are ok, but a little less effective. if you're going to say "but i have enough mana with the SP anyway" then use the extra mana from mageblood do drop mana pots and chug destropots. or use flamecaps instead of mana gems (i presume you don't have the serpent-coil braid yet).

hax!
didn't know that. so i'll have to get some too. quick.