New to 80(almost) Mage looking to prep for raiding quickly.Follow

Yo, I've done a bit of mage research, not much but I'm wary of getting to far into number crunching when I don't even know the basics.

Two questions to start:
1. What spec should I start raiding as? I seem to recall that based on your stats certain specs pull ahead of others, so what should a newly dinged 80 be?
2. I'm planning on crafting either Merlin's Robe or the Bejewled Wizard's Bracers when I ding. Which one should I get? I know I'm gonna need to be hitcapped and niether of these offer hit, however in ToC there are bracers with hit on them, where as the chest from HToC has no hit. So would it be better to make the chest so that I can get the ToC bracers with hit?


Thanks in advance, and I'll probably be back with more questions ^.^;

<.< and I didn't post in the general forum by accident this time.

Alrighty thanks, probably gonna go Arcane than since other mages in my guild rave about it. And I have the orbs from other characters, so just need to work on the other mats now.

Thanks a ton!

I have a question. What kind of stats should a newly 80 Mage have in order to do Heroics without being a drain on the average (not steamroll, but not necessarily slow) group? Specifically, what kind of SP, Spir, Crit, Int and Hit would be considered acceptable?

[EDIT]

And haste. Actually, just tell me what's important, if you don't mind. XD I know what stats should be like at higher content levels, but I'm woefully ignorant of the lower ones.

Edited, Nov 16th 2009 8:34pm by idiggory

I'll look into that and report back.^^

Or Pigtails can tell me and I don't have to look into it. : D

Thanks.^^

True, but you also have to be able to get invited to a heroic and good luck on that with anything short of ulduar gear (sadly, this is what made me stop playing my DK alt at 80)

It depends on your mana situation honestly. You can try it out at first, and if you have mana issues you can go back to just a general AB x 4, Arcane Missiles, regardless of proc.

As you noticed the mage armor glyph is literally 100% useless. You can not go above 100% regeneration. So for maximum mana regen it is mage armor + the talent (no glyph).

That being said, you should stick to molten armor if at all possible as it is a pretty significant dps increase, that and if you time your consumables correctly (mana gem, mana pot, evocation) you should be able to go for upwards of 5 minutes of a normal rotation. Remember, the rotation is kind of a rotation, but it is DYNAMIC. Meaning that if you are running low on mana drop back to doing an ABx3/AM rotation instead of ABx4/AM rotation until your evocation/consumable cooldown comes up then go back to the more mana consuming rotation. Also, don't be afraid to ask for an innvervate sometimes, just don't become dependent on it (especially after a battle-res when you don't have evocate available).

Then when you DO get awesome, your dps with Blizz will suck compared to your single target dps. At least with arcane anyways. :-)