Mages in 3.3.3

Pianoforte

Pianoforte

New Member
With the upcoming changes in 3.3.3 (at least as they stand on the PTR), it's looking like there will quite likely be a change AWAY from Arcane being the #1 dps spec. At the very least, it will be VERY competitive between Fire and Arcane.

However, before we all go and switch all of our haste gems for crit ones and start prepping for the change, I think we should consider a synergy issue. Between our main raiding mages (Shagz, Cryogenic, myself, and Flamethrower when he's not busy tanking things) at least one of us should consider sticking to our Arcane spec. I know that a couple of us will probably have AN arcane spec or what have you, but one of us should keep Arcane as our main raiding spec, mainly because, even though Incanter's Absorption will be officially on-the-fritz, Arcane Empowerment is changing to a passive Aura...an extremely powerful passive aura. That aura, combined with the utility of Slow, should be enough to make it worth whatever minimal, personal dps loss our designated Arcanist will suffer by upping RDPS by a far more substantial amount.

So, thoughts?
 
In other news, I have no idea why so many words in that are randomly capitalized...I think my keyboard is messing up again.
 
1,2,3 Not it! That is good thinking Piano. As for myself, Arcane has never been my favorite because of all the CD management. So really, the question is, is there anyone that really LIKES it who would be willing to stay with it?
 
I wouldn't say IA is out the window quite yet. If you rarely run a mana deficit burning a mana shield for the SP boost isn't a bad thing. It's just not nearly as convenient as it is now with Val'anyrs in the raid which make it ridiculously OP.

I also wouldn't go dumping your haste gems (also they should *very very very* rarely be pure haste...go orange) for crit. Haste still has a higher relative stat value than crit unless you're exceptionally low on crit.
 
nattyg said:
I also wouldn't go dumping your haste gems (also they should *very very very* rarely be pure haste...go orange) for crit. Haste still has a higher relative stat value than crit unless you're exceptionally low on crit.
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Is that still true for fireball specs though? I was under the impression that fire mages still gemmed for sp/crit, and that haste was more luxury for them.
 
If you run exceptionally low on crit..yes, you need to throw some gems at it - but yes, the relative stat values... haste > crit.
 
How would you define "exceptionally low?" Whenever I pop a fire spec, I usually hover abound 36-38% unbuffed fire crit.
 
Pianoforte said:
How would you define "exceptionally low?" Whenever I pop a fire spec, I usually hover abound 36-38% unbuffed fire crit.
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You're in the ballpark, particularly if you're at the 38% side of that range. Personally, I look for about 40%. I suppose one could really argue that if you're "exceptionally low" (e.g. 25-30% range), fire is probably not the proper choice anyway. We really don't want to get in the situation of replacing every yellow or orange gem with a +crit one.

Of immediate concern is hit rating. You're at the threshold for arcane but only if you have a squid in your group. I presume you're already aware of it, but switching to fire is going to have a much larger hit stat to recover. Then again, it may actually make those crappy ICC caster trinkets useful ;)
 
nattyg said:
Of immediate concern is hit rating. You're at the threshold for arcane but only if you have a squid in your group. I presume you're already aware of it,
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Funny you should say that...I was JUST in a raid the other day and started seeing misses and was like "Whaaaa?!?!!" and then realized that my pug somehow had not a single Draenei, Shadow Priest, OR Moonkin.
 
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