[WoW] Thinking on coming back, how much has it changed? - Page 75

Vehn · 09-02-2008, 04:52 AM

wonder if those mods will be working and helping you with quests in WOTLK

Sharmai · 09-02-2008, 06:08 AM

i've got a question and a Mage story to tell..

1. For you 70++ Mages out there is Fire/Arcane still the number 1 PvE spec? How much greater is it the Frost? Are we talking like a 5% DPS upgrade here or a 50% DPS upgrade?

I ask because I really like the mana efficiency of frost and the survivability. I can do a dozen quests before needing to drink as frost and adds don't scare me in the slightest.

2. How is fire/arc for questing? With frost I drink maybe once per quest or every other quest depending will fire be the same way or is it once per every 3 mobs or so?

3. How good is the spellfire set vs the frozen set for fire/arc vs frost mages? I heard spellfire was better but then heard the frozen set was buffed so I was wondering if any expert mages know.

4. Story
Sigh well I think I have to revisit the order of which classes are most valued. At first I thought it was tanks then healers but now I think I need to subcategory it more.

1. Overgeared Tanks
2. Overgeared Healers
3. Mages (Any gear)
4. Healers/tanks
5. All other CC
6. Rets, enhance, boomkin, fury/arms,

I put mages above standard healers/tanks because I have finally played all of them at 70++. My druid/paladin tank use to get groups fairly easily but often healers or DPS would leave just as fast if they saw I didn't have a few purples on me. My resto shaman, holy paladin, resto druid were the same way.

Minor wall o text

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Moral of the story
Spamable CC + Group buffs + water/food + great single target ranged sustained and burst DPS, + Great AoE damage = Fucking super win.

Lejina Bloodbath · 09-02-2008, 07:04 AM

Arcane doesn't kick in unless you have 2T5 bonus set and the gear to back it up. End game gemming for Arcane is very counter intuitive too so most just fuck the spec up and do poorly. Unless you're far into T6 content/gear and have 2T5 bonus, just say no to arcane.

If you like frost, just go 10-0-51 (you can try out 17-0-44 if you pvp a lot, but your raw dps lose some punch) and you will do fine until end game content PVE wise and won't have to respec for PVP which is a nice perk. Just make sure to use your pet whenever it's up and your PVE dps won't be lacking.

XI- · 09-02-2008, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sharmai

i've got a question and a Mage story to tell..

1. For you 70++ Mages out there is Fire/Arcane still the number 1 PvE spec? How much greater is it the Frost? Are we talking like a 5% DPS upgrade here or a 50% DPS upgrade?

This is the top DPS spec. WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Mage -> Talent Calculator

And it will be a pretty significant upgrade over frost.

Quote:

I ask because I really like the mana efficiency of frost and the survivability. I can do a dozen quests before needing to drink as frost and adds don't scare me in the slightest.

2. How is fire/arc for questing? With frost I drink maybe once per quest or every other quest depending will fire be the same way or is it once per every 3 mobs or so?

Frost is excellent for questing, and pretty good for 5mans/10man raids. Once you get into 25man raids you should be using the fire spec above.

Quote:

3. How good is the spellfire set vs the frozen set for fire/arc vs frost mages? I heard spellfire was better but then heard the frozen set was buffed so I was wondering if any expert mages know.

Make spellfire, see above. Also consider spellstrike. You might want to weigh both of these against just doing Karazhan and buying badge gear.

Sharmai · 09-02-2008, 08:28 AM

Can either of you put a percentage DPS upgrade fire is over frost? if possible?

The folks at EJ will swoon over a 5% dps ugprade but I could count the number of fights where 5% mattered on one hand. However a 10-20% ugprade would be very significant.

Also how does fire do for questing?

Lejina Bloodbath · 09-02-2008, 08:47 AM

When rawr'ed my current 1150 spell power and 32% crit, the fire spec linked above would grant me something like 5% extra damage, in game test was a lill higher but not much, mostly because scorch stack required less work to keep up with another fire mage around. Keep in mind that's with fire scaling better than frost, so with starter gear frost usually wins out. Frost is all about cooldown management, use your pet, coldsnap and icyvein well and it holds its weight very well, it's an underated spec in PVE.

How does fire do for questing? Think frost with no snare effect on your main nuke, no ice barrier and spells that hit harder. Since Icy Vein has been in game, Clearcasting isn't part of the cookie cutter fire spec anymore, so mana management is a lill tougher at times.

Last I checked 41-0-20 beats the cookie cutter fire spec, but that spec is a bitch to deal with. Mana support pretty much required, 2T5 required, frostbolting to regain mana in between Arcane Blast spam sessions, gemming Int, etc.

spronk · 09-02-2008, 08:52 AM

fwiw my mage has always been frost (and I mean heavy frost, all 61 points) and I've never had a problem in heroics, kara, and T4/T5 25 mans. If you are gonna arena a lot you'll want some points in arcane probably for imp CS, but a mage has a heckuva easy time getting groups for heroics and kara and gruul/mag. in SSC/TK you'll start seeing most other classes pull ahead of you DPS wise, and even the fire mages, but you can almost keep up with good use of gems, pots, flasks, haste potions, etc. Once people are in T6 gear though its no contest, other classes > fire mages > frost mages (dunno where arcane sits in there).

and fwiw even though Im a 375 tailor I never made a single piece of tailored gear, except for belt of blasting. Its so trivial to get badges as a mage that you can get badge gear quickly for everything, and there is some really good mage gear out of heroic magisters terrace (gloves, shoulders, chest). The PVP welfare set is pretty decent too, although I only wear it if I am going to gruul tank or arena nowadays, my PVE set (all kara/badge gear) puts me around 1100 spell damage and hit cap with epic'd gem socketed in. I do have a s3 staff though, and may pick up some s4 stuff someday.

nu_11 · 09-08-2008, 01:42 PM

Saw this in chat today. Previously, he was getting flak for having this name. I lol'd.

Dabamf · 09-09-2008, 02:00 AM

Alright well I recently leveled up a prot warrior for pve and am keeping my mage mostly for pvp, but I miss my old rogue from release. Now, since blizzard is retarded and my old rogue is on a pve server, I can't transfer him to my current pvp server (can I bribe a gm or something? Or transfer him naked? I really don't wanna level up another MFing character. Such a stupid rule, as if PVE servers level really any faster than PVP).

Anyway, I'm gonna have him twinked out with blue weapons almost always. I assume combat spec is the way to go since most of my dmg is white damage. Is grinding humanoids with riposte still the way to go, or should I follow the very very efficient leveling guide that I have? As for twinkage, weapons are obvious, but is it gonna increase my leveling by a lot if I snag some epic leg armor? I'm basically willing to spend quite a bit of gold to make his leveling as quick as possible.

I'm mostly interesting in grinding w/ blue weapons vs questing, and what are cost-effective twink items outside of weapons.

Wilfan · 09-09-2008, 02:13 AM

After various powerleveling methods (recruite-a-friend, various exploits, instance boosting with a paladin), following a quest guide is the fastest. Twink gear won't make that much of a difference, but if you have spare gold lying around, go ahead. If you're considering purchasing gold, skip the whole process and buy a leveled character.

Sabyn · 09-09-2008, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dabamf

Alright well I recently leveled up a prot warrior for pve and am keeping my mage mostly for pvp, but I miss my old rogue from release. Now, since blizzard is retarded and my old rogue is on a pve server, I can't transfer him to my current pvp server (can I bribe a gm or something? Or transfer him naked? I really don't wanna level up another MFing character. Such a stupid rule, as if PVE servers level really any faster than PVP).

Anyway, I'm gonna have him twinked out with blue weapons almost always. I assume combat spec is the way to go since most of my dmg is white damage. Is grinding humanoids with riposte still the way to go, or should I follow the very very efficient leveling guide that I have? As for twinkage, weapons are obvious, but is it gonna increase my leveling by a lot if I snag some epic leg armor? I'm basically willing to spend quite a bit of gold to make his leveling as quick as possible.

I'm mostly interesting in grinding w/ blue weapons vs questing, and what are cost-effective twink items outside of weapons.

No way to transfer him off a pve server, and no indication from Blizzard that this will change any time soon.

For leveling a rogue (assuming you are doing it solo and not getting boosted or using RAF or anything) blue weapons are a good investment. Fiery enchant is also pretty decent I think, but not a huge deal. Putting some stamina leg armor on some white legs will be huge (again, not a huge difference between epic and blue, just depends on how much you wanna spend). They will easily last you til outlands, and can be reused on other characters. Haste rating on gloves is also good til about 20 or so, then it trails off.

Definitely quest, grinding isn't even close to as fast now. And combat is going to be the fastest leveling spec.

Rica86 · 09-09-2008, 10:10 AM

Been thinking about re-subbing after having been gone about 3 months now, as I am kind of getting an itch to play an MMO and boredom waiting for WoTLK to come out. I figure i'll be picking up on my prot pally alt I had been playing before I quit, as my main was as far as i could get her without having to do t6+ raiding which I have no intention of trying to get back into. But I distinctly remember having an awfully hard time tanking with my paladin, regular 5 mans were a joke but most heroics seemed almost impossible unless I brought a ton of CC, which seemed to defeat the purpose of having a paladin tank. Thus leading to me being kind of stuck due to not being able to gather badges, unless I got lucky on an overgeared kara run or 2 that needed me for an "offtank" (IE I wasted a spot and got free lewts). Just wondering if anyone might be able to point out any gear spots I might be able to fill in from none raid/badge gear?

My armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

As an aside, i really had no clue how to itemize enchants after maxing out defense, and i'm not even completely sure I got that number right.

Needless · 09-09-2008, 10:29 AM

Pretty sure any paladin is going to mention your weapon, farm 25k and get the Merciless Gladiator's Gavel, with 40 spell damage it would be 265 in oppose to your 130

Keep doing kara weekly whether you have to respec (if youre geared in another spec) or not imo

Danth · 09-09-2008, 10:55 AM

The short answer is that a lot of players are used to always having over-geared tanks these days. There's no easy way of getting around that issue in PUG's short of waiting for the expansion gear reset.

Your talent build is sort of odd (I initially thought it was the standard 0/49/12 build, but just realized those 12 are in Holy--not Retribution). Expect some flak for that, but I trust you're aware of that build's weaknesses (in particular, missing out on that 5% parry). It should still work fine for your purposes, though; too many players get stuck in the cookie-cutter mindset. Oh, get rid of divine Strength--it's worthless at present and makes you look bad, because strength does virtually nothing for you at present. This will change with 3.0, but so will the Paladin talent trees. Ditch Reckoning in favor of 1H weapon specialization. The latter will improve all of your threat generation, while Reckoning is strictly a single-target threat ability. At the very least, drop a point or two out of Reckoning--each additional point in that talent offers diminishing value, and the 5th in particular is almost a complete waste. If you want more specific talent recommendations specific stat discussions (uncrittable/uncrushable and getting there, etc), ask for it via PM.

Danth

Dabamf · 09-09-2008, 12:41 PM

Getting in heroics as a tank shouldn't be an issue regardless of gear. My warrior hit 70 about 3 weeks ago and now once I finish up my last few blue slots I will be ready to tank ZA and beyond, all thanks to badges/kara. If you know what you're doing (and have the right spec), people will remember you and you'll get reinvited back for more heroics, plus tanks are often very hard to find, and I've on multiple occasions shortly after 70 told a group "hey, I'm quite undergeared for this, but I know what I'm doing" and they don't care.

09-08-2008, 01:42 PM	#1118 (permalink)
nu_11 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 200 -19 Internets	Saw this in chat today. Previously, he was getting flak for having this name. I lol'd. Attached Images __________________ Q: "What 's happen @ ATI ?" A: "ATI has stopped giving us the teraflops. I hope they start again soon tho as I'm running low on teraflops." http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=49001

09-09-2008, 10:10 AM	#1122 (permalink)
Rica86 Looking to buy a wood chipper Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 65 -3 Internets	Been thinking about re-subbing after having been gone about 3 months now, as I am kind of getting an itch to play an MMO and boredom waiting for WoTLK to come out. I figure i'll be picking up on my prot pally alt I had been playing before I quit, as my main was as far as i could get her without having to do t6+ raiding which I have no intention of trying to get back into. But I distinctly remember having an awfully hard time tanking with my paladin, regular 5 mans were a joke but most heroics seemed almost impossible unless I brought a ton of CC, which seemed to defeat the purpose of having a paladin tank. Thus leading to me being kind of stuck due to not being able to gather badges, unless I got lucky on an overgeared kara run or 2 that needed me for an "offtank" (IE I wasted a spot and got free lewts). Just wondering if anyone might be able to point out any gear spots I might be able to fill in from none raid/badge gear? My armory: The World of Warcraft Armory As an aside, i really had no clue how to itemize enchants after maxing out defense, and i'm not even completely sure I got that number right. Last edited by Rica86 : 09-09-2008 at 10:19 AM.

09-09-2008, 10:29 AM	#1123 (permalink)
Needless loves internets! Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 1,511 +12 Internets	Pretty sure any paladin is going to mention your weapon, farm 25k and get the Merciless Gladiator's Gavel, with 40 spell damage it would be 265 in oppose to your 130 Keep doing kara weekly whether you have to respec (if youre geared in another spec) or not imo __________________ Overtone - Hyjal 80 Death Knight

09-09-2008, 10:55 AM	#1124 (permalink)
Danth Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 191 -21 Internets	The short answer is that a lot of players are used to always having over-geared tanks these days. There's no easy way of getting around that issue in PUG's short of waiting for the expansion gear reset. Your talent build is sort of odd (I initially thought it was the standard 0/49/12 build, but just realized those 12 are in Holy--not Retribution). Expect some flak for that, but I trust you're aware of that build's weaknesses (in particular, missing out on that 5% parry). It should still work fine for your purposes, though; too many players get stuck in the cookie-cutter mindset. Oh, get rid of divine Strength--it's worthless at present and makes you look bad, because strength does virtually nothing for you at present. This will change with 3.0, but so will the Paladin talent trees. Ditch Reckoning in favor of 1H weapon specialization. The latter will improve all of your threat generation, while Reckoning is strictly a single-target threat ability. At the very least, drop a point or two out of Reckoning--each additional point in that talent offers diminishing value, and the 5th in particular is almost a complete waste. If you want more specific talent recommendations specific stat discussions (uncrittable/uncrushable and getting there, etc), ask for it via PM. Danth Last edited by Danth : 09-09-2008 at 10:57 AM.

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09-02-2008, 04:52 AM	#1111 (permalink)
Vehn Hurm... Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,563 +2 Internets	wonder if those mods will be working and helping you with quests in WOTLK

09-02-2008, 07:04 AM	#1113 (permalink)
Lejina Bloodbath Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 1,060 -2 Internets	Arcane doesn't kick in unless you have 2T5 bonus set and the gear to back it up. End game gemming for Arcane is very counter intuitive too so most just fuck the spec up and do poorly. Unless you're far into T6 content/gear and have 2T5 bonus, just say no to arcane. If you like frost, just go 10-0-51 (you can try out 17-0-44 if you pvp a lot, but your raw dps lose some punch) and you will do fine until end game content PVE wise and won't have to respec for PVP which is a nice perk. Just make sure to use your pet whenever it's up and your PVE dps won't be lacking.

09-02-2008, 08:47 AM	#1116 (permalink)
Lejina Bloodbath Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 1,060 -2 Internets	When rawr'ed my current 1150 spell power and 32% crit, the fire spec linked above would grant me something like 5% extra damage, in game test was a lill higher but not much, mostly because scorch stack required less work to keep up with another fire mage around. Keep in mind that's with fire scaling better than frost, so with starter gear frost usually wins out. Frost is all about cooldown management, use your pet, coldsnap and icyvein well and it holds its weight very well, it's an underated spec in PVE. How does fire do for questing? Think frost with no snare effect on your main nuke, no ice barrier and spells that hit harder. Since Icy Vein has been in game, Clearcasting isn't part of the cookie cutter fire spec anymore, so mana management is a lill tougher at times. Last I checked 41-0-20 beats the cookie cutter fire spec, but that spec is a bitch to deal with. Mana support pretty much required, 2T5 required, frostbolting to regain mana in between Arcane Blast spam sessions, gemming Int, etc.

09-02-2008, 08:52 AM	#1117 (permalink)
spronk nerd Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1,533	fwiw my mage has always been frost (and I mean heavy frost, all 61 points) and I've never had a problem in heroics, kara, and T4/T5 25 mans. If you are gonna arena a lot you'll want some points in arcane probably for imp CS, but a mage has a heckuva easy time getting groups for heroics and kara and gruul/mag. in SSC/TK you'll start seeing most other classes pull ahead of you DPS wise, and even the fire mages, but you can almost keep up with good use of gems, pots, flasks, haste potions, etc. Once people are in T6 gear though its no contest, other classes > fire mages > frost mages (dunno where arcane sits in there). and fwiw even though Im a 375 tailor I never made a single piece of tailored gear, except for belt of blasting. Its so trivial to get badges as a mage that you can get badge gear quickly for everything, and there is some really good mage gear out of heroic magisters terrace (gloves, shoulders, chest). The PVP welfare set is pretty decent too, although I only wear it if I am going to gruul tank or arena nowadays, my PVE set (all kara/badge gear) puts me around 1100 spell damage and hit cap with epic'd gem socketed in. I do have a s3 staff though, and may pick up some s4 stuff someday.

09-09-2008, 02:00 AM	#1119 (permalink)
Dabamf Registered User Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 1,851 +1 Internets	Alright well I recently leveled up a prot warrior for pve and am keeping my mage mostly for pvp, but I miss my old rogue from release. Now, since blizzard is retarded and my old rogue is on a pve server, I can't transfer him to my current pvp server (can I bribe a gm or something? Or transfer him naked? I really don't wanna level up another MFing character. Such a stupid rule, as if PVE servers level really any faster than PVP). Anyway, I'm gonna have him twinked out with blue weapons almost always. I assume combat spec is the way to go since most of my dmg is white damage. Is grinding humanoids with riposte still the way to go, or should I follow the very very efficient leveling guide that I have? As for twinkage, weapons are obvious, but is it gonna increase my leveling by a lot if I snag some epic leg armor? I'm basically willing to spend quite a bit of gold to make his leveling as quick as possible. I'm mostly interesting in grinding w/ blue weapons vs questing, and what are cost-effective twink items outside of weapons.

09-09-2008, 02:13 AM	#1120 (permalink)
Wilfan Registered User Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 547 -8 Internets	After various powerleveling methods (recruite-a-friend, various exploits, instance boosting with a paladin), following a quest guide is the fastest. Twink gear won't make that much of a difference, but if you have spare gold lying around, go ahead. If you're considering purchasing gold, skip the whole process and buy a leveled character.

09-09-2008, 12:41 PM	#1125 (permalink)
Dabamf Registered User Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 1,851 +1 Internets	Getting in heroics as a tank shouldn't be an issue regardless of gear. My warrior hit 70 about 3 weeks ago and now once I finish up my last few blue slots I will be ready to tank ZA and beyond, all thanks to badges/kara. If you know what you're doing (and have the right spec), people will remember you and you'll get reinvited back for more heroics, plus tanks are often very hard to find, and I've on multiple occasions shortly after 70 told a group "hey, I'm quite undergeared for this, but I know what I'm doing" and they don't care.