My talent experimentations.

As I mentioned in my previous post - I went ahead and respecced to fire mage. I took the cookie cutter fire-raiding build that was recommended on Wowhead/Wowwiki. (basically most of the fire tree, excluding dragons breath, and enough arcane for clearcast.)

What neat little tricks did it provide?

There were dots. Lots of dots.
There were nice debuffs that upped my fire damage (courtesy of scorch)
When the target hit 20% health, my damage output against them increased by some 20% I believe it was.

My attack cycle against trash was generally:

Fireball-->Fireblast-->Fireball-->Fireball-->Fireblast

Occasionally I chucked a scorch in there for the debuff or if I didnt have time to get off a fireball before the mob died. I popped my +damage trinket and Combustion whenever they were cooled.

The first thing I notice with this is that:

a) I burn through a LOT of mana. I can use half a mana bar fighting a single trash mob. The rotation does not allow any of what I will call for clarity, Whiteout time. (Time outside the 5s rule that allows improved mana regen.) I get some nice mana returns with the amount of crits that were applied (25% crit rate for fire) though.

b) Agrro! I only use Iceblock to block out spells that I dont want to be hit by, or for when the tank dies in my arcane spec - in fire, I was using it everytime I got a big crit to keep the aggro on the tank till my aggro dropped below his. Invisibility was also used in abundance.

This had a two fold effect, firstly I would not be doing damage when waiting to drop below the tank on Omen and second I used the cooldown so it was not available in an emergency.

Another point to note is that my primary attack school (fire) was about 6% hit rating under the cap, whereas in arcane I was 25 +spellhit in excess of the cap. (All according to http://be.imba.hu )

Finally, despite spending some 4 hours experimenting with my shot rotation whilst we tried to clear kara trash, prince (who went down first try with 9 players) and netherspite (trash respawned when we were learning him so called it a night.) my DPS only averaged about 550. This is in boss fights with 5 stacks of scorch, and a hefty period under the 20% health margain... As arcane this DPS average was about 750.

I had a late night discussion with the tank and another guild mage who is not playing at the moment - and got some good feedback from them.

According to the tank, I scared him. Often. He reported my DPS as we went, and he also noticed that whilst before I was never on his Omen - I was always up there with him now. That extra threat and risk of screwing up for the drop in DPS... hmm.

The other mage agreed, back to arcane for me!

One thing that made me giggle though was that whilst my arcane spec averages some 750DPS, when fighting arcane immune mobs my dps dropped to 450... This is not a far punt from the 550 I was pulling as a constant fire damage dps. Yikes!

Oh - and I tried some dailys as fire... OMG eww! Those infernals just outside the village on quel'danas... immune to fire. And all my other spells would be interrupted - I had to run, almost every time...

I will wrap up this post now with one last thing I noticed. In my research of a fire spec - I looked at the spell rotation that is recommended for builds similar to my arcane.

Apparently its AB-->AB-->AB-->AM-->Scorch and repeat.

My shot rotation is AB-->AM-->Fireblast-->AM--> and repeat - throwing in my POM pyro whenever it was cooled down for a free 4-7k damage. Im going to give the Arcane Blastx3 shot rotation a try, but I get the feeling that it will be significantly less mana efficient than my rotation, and wont put out as much DPS. (+45% arcane missile damage is one of my talents)

I currently get something along the lines of:

AB = 2.5k
AM = 750x3 1200x2
FB = 3k
Clearcast proc (crit rating goes from about 30% to about 55%)
AM = 750x1 1200x4

the cycle takes

2.5s
5s
1.5s (GCD)
5s >enter whiteout for cycle restart for a tick of high mana regen. (usually enough for a couple of free ABs) - especially if the arcane missiles is mana-free.

The replacement cycle I expect:

AB = 2.5k
AB = 2.5k
AB = 2.5K
clearcast proc
AM = 750x1 1200x2
scorch = 750

Time for cycle: (note im not sure about the AB reduced timings)
2.5s
1.75s
1.4s
5s (enter whiteout)
1.5s then repeat.

Ill ignore the mana consumption for this, but that dps estimation means that

initial cycle = 14 second for 15,700 damage (1121/second damage on average)
replacement cycle = 12.5s (approx) for 13,800 damage (1104/second on average)

Humm - with the theorycrafting it would appear to do about the same DPS - but there is less whiteout time (including less chance of a Clearcast on an arcane missiles which guarantees some mana regen) The second and third arcane blasts proably equal the same mana as an arcane Missiles - I like the fireblast more than scorch.

Bah, Ill try it - and report back if it makes any noticeable difference. I apologise for any headaches, but take no responsibility in your choice to read through the tangle of theorising above :p

Back in the fold.

So after a hectic weekend, Im back home and back in the game!

It was a fun weekend, albheit a bit hectic and tiring. I pranced around in a kilt for some 15 hours, I spent 22 hours behind the wheel travelling there and back, and I seen a lot of friends. Tiring but worth it!

So... back to WOW.

Last night I was pulled in for another Kara run, which we almost cleared in one sitting! We quit just after chess to do Prince tomorrow and possible have a jab at Zuluman, Im not really looking forward to this, but it should be interesting!

After being poked last night for my spec, I am considering trying out fire. I got a coulpe of drops that upped my +spellhit, which I had capped for arcane anyway - so I can probably get away with dropping the talents in arcane and going for fire.

The reasons I like Arcane are as follows:

1. Mana management. So many talents focus on increasing your pool and your regen. Careful deliery of spells and abuse of clearcast brings great returns to your mana pool.
2. Tools: Presence of Mind, Empowered spells, huge damage boosts to my Arcane Missiles, and crit bonus for clearcast spells.
3. Sustained damage output: Other than the empowered POMPYRO and empowered stream of spells I put out every 3 minutes, I can maintain a pretty decent damage rate (Arcane Missiles hitting for about 750 a time and critting for some 1200 a quarter of the time is pretty nice, and sustained.)
4. Bad-gear compensation: I have pretty low PVE stats (+spellhit) but +10% from talents means that I am at least still getting the hits in.
5. Aggro management: I have a huge aggro reduction through talents, that allows me to go all out very quickly.

Comparing my mage to another mage in the guild (now an ex-member) they hade MUCH better gear, and were full fire spec. I had better +damage, better +spellhit, better +crit, a bigger mana pool, a bigger health pool and higher resists... And they died ALL the time from getting aggro. They were pure fire. The other player was (13) young and probably not as efficient with their gaming (Theorycrafting FTW) but the difference was almost exclusively down to spec.

Ill take a look at fire and see what I can come up with anyway... But other than having nice DOTs, and being more useful against arcane immune mobs in sections of Kara... I dont think Im going to see a marked improvement - and if it is, dying to get it makes it counter-productive.

To note:

I dont run out of mana unless i try to go max DPS, i generate very little aggro (a rogue i am out DPSing can hold the aggro against me.) and i have lots of toys... Lets see what my opinions of fire are shall we ;) Not been fire since 51...

Wow crack!

I was reading a recent post on the Aspect of the Girl blog >http://www.tinythoughts.com/wow/?p=89<

To summarise its a post about addiction to World of Warcraft and how it is never discussed. I thought I would pick up on this and give my 2cents.

Addiction to WOW is something that is actually on my mind quite a lot. I am fortunate enough to play WOW with my wife, and my mother, brother in law and a number of friends. We recently made a big move a long way from them so we dont see them often - so the social aspect of it is a strong attraction.

Over the course of WOWs lifetime, I have probably taken about half a dozen holidays. I quite often get playing WOW so much that it interferes with real life things, but I am lucky enough that I know to step back, and often I just end the sub for a few months and take a needed break, get my shit together, and take care of RL stuff.

Nowadays, I have other responsibilties - I am the sole "bread winner" in a household now and I have a child, a wife and a fluffy 3-legged hyperactive alsation x huskie to look after and spend my time with. I think I am currently playing way too much, but it is after the babies bedtime - and it is with my wife... I really dont know what level of addiction to put this at. I guess I must be addicted though, because I get grumpy and withdrawal symptoms when I cant find the time to login because I need to do other things. At the same time, I can leave the location of a PC for days on end, know I cant log in - and be absolutely fine. I often wonder how things would be if I couldnt put things in perspective on occasion, and a lot of people cant...

Anyway, Im not sure where I was going with this post, I just thought it would be an interesting topic to put my thoughts down in text on.

I have more, may add later, but I need to go - wedding to organise and attend! (Best man dutites eh!)

Patch Day!

So its patch day today... After getting next to no sleep last night due to the stress of being the best man at my mates upcoming wedding - I got out of bed early - booted up and installed the patch whilst I had a shower.

Dang! gotta wait until I come home from work :( forgot the servers will be down for a while.

I like the low level cheap mounts. My priest is currently 37 - I have not needed a mount yet (all fedex quests on griffons, or down instances - or mob kill quests in STV in a confined area.) but I will buy it as soon as I get on - just because I can!

My next problem is going to be that I hate the elekks... Im going to have to nip to the N.E start area and get myself some rep from quests. I think that I am revered with Darnassus thanks to the new rep gains since rolling the character. I am also a bit pissed about that though, becaus I dont the N.E start area with my gnome rogue and ive been running around doing the missed quests, handing in hundreds of gold of runecloth... and im still only just reverred... I hate his mechano-strider :( I only forgive him for riding that mechanical cock because hes an engineer.

Man, can I rant.

Anyway, theres patch notes all over - enjoy!

A home for healers!

If you have not already visited, or joined - take a look at http://www.plusheal.com/ - its a forum set up by a community of bloggers specifically for the healing classes to discuss their class, tactics, gear and more. hop on over and chat with the best, chat with the rest, and learn 2 heel!

Mage mana tips. (as observed by me! :p)

So, I was doing heroic UB last night with some guildies, it was going real easy so I decided to try to get an efficient spell rotation nailed down, since I could afford to drop a little DPS - Its been so long since I properly played my mage that I was out of practise.

Anyway, my mage - Velkairiwyth - is an Arcane fire mage (Arcane mage with PomPyro. 48/13/0)

My primary attacks come from either Arcane blast, Arcane Missiles, scorch and fire blast.

My normal attack rotation is Arcane Blast (by the time its cast the aggro is secured to the tank.) Arcane missiles, fire blast, arcane missiles - and carry on fireblasting when it has cooled down. This is a pretty good rotation for DPS but when it comes to Mana - it rapidly deminishes.

I modified it slightly - once i start arcane missiling - i stick to arcane missiles and occasionally chuck out an arcane blast or scorch or ice lance for a low mana, decent damage shot at proccing clearcast. When I get a clearcast proc - I use Arcane Missiles - by the time this has finished casting the 5 second rule timer is up and you are racking mana up. If Clearcast procs on an arcane missiles this means that your about to start gaining mana before you even start casting the free arcane missiles - giving you longer mana regen time. Follow the free spell up with an arcane blast or some other spell that consumes the mana AFTER being cast, this gives a couple more seconds regen.

Abusing clearcast like this resulted in me finishing a lot of fights with 90% mana. (I had mana stream totem + mage armour on - as well as the arcane hybernation talent for 30% mana regen whilst casting.)

Keys to mana regen that I find work boil down to these:

* Cast Arcane Missiles on a clearcast. (Or Blizzard if you like - this is an even longer spell, and is even more free mana expenditure for your clearcast.)
* Follow the arcane missiles with a timed spell (Arcane blast, scorch, fireball etc.)
* Use Mage armour - if you can afford to drop the dps of molten armour - (ice armour is pointless... you go splat if your careless enough to pull aggro) and considering your going for a mana efficient approach - you clearly aint short on dps in the group.

My DPS was not fantastic - 670 when fighting normally, and 630 when i go for the mana efficient approach. Being a 3-minute mage I can get some good burst damage (easily hitting 2k/sec dps when i burn the cooldowns) for this drop in DPS the sustainability is great :)

And of course - this technique works even when doing burst DPS - get a clearcast? cast a big-mana spell and follow it up with a spell with a cast time.

It is a bit fernickety though... if you have talents and mage armour on then your already getting 60% mana regen in combat anyway... but that extra 40% for 4-10 seconds is quite a chunk of mana...

Thanks to this idea goes to... one of the contributors to either Epic Dolls or Elunes Grace podcast - the host or guest was talking about priest abilities that when combined can result in a nice free-spell duration where your regenerating your mana. I must dig it out and post it for a priest tips post...

-Velk

Character equipment analysis guides + WOTLK talent trees.

This probably isnt going to be anything new to most people, but none the less - heres some sites I recommend taking a look at:

If you heavily into endgame content – I have been introduced to a couple of fantastic equipment check sites. These sites basically check your character in the Armory and make checks against requirements for various end game raid instances or heroics, and tell you where you can expect to work, where upgrades can be found, and any areas of twinking your character has not received (e.g enchants, mismatched gems etc.)

The first of these is www.be.imba.hu – I have used this one to check various characters – both my own, and other peoples.

The second of these sites is http://www.wow-heroes.com (Found this one on posted up on Big Bear Butt blogger’s blog.) I have not personally checked this site yet (I am trusting him this much :p)


On a separate note – if you are interested in playing with the new WOTLK talent trees, they can be found at http://www.wowhead.com