What do you think will be the highest DPS tree (Arcane / Fire / Frost)? Post why and link a talent spec!

edit: yeah, 2 keyloggers posts removed

I tried all 3 specs on the ptr spent about 1500g respeccing

this spec I used

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0iou0hzxGuMxedZVc

I was casting frostbolts and immediately casting Arcane Barrage

waiting for missle barrage to proc, I had some haste gear in which my forstbolts were almost down to

2 seconds. I had about 1050 spell power, and was doing 1400 dps

I tried a boomkin with me one time for fun and end up doing 1550 dps

Fire went oom to fast
full frost was doing about 1300dps

10/51/0

What I'll be shooting for (Elemental):

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=oZfVcfo0huZAIccRfu0bdMfo

With this you have:

15% chance to freeze target with frost spells
15% chance to get a free fireball wit frost
15% chance to get Finger of Frost with frost spells
10% chance to stun with fire

Basically you should be procing at one of these effects about 50% of the time, and if I understand correctly a Blizzard should basically proc all of the frost talents every time.

WoF, Frostbite, and Shatter should make Bilz a total riot.

The crit rate should make Master of Elements quite a good return ton mana.

Frost Nova -> Blastwave macro should be pretty devastating (shatter crits).

Crits from Fireblast, Fireball, and Blastwave due to shatter mixed with Ignite should be awesome.

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Q u o t e:
I did about 1200 DPS as pretty much full frost (lvl 78 on beta, putting last 2 points into brain freeze) while inside Violet Hold.

Though that number may be a bit inflated since i did Blizzard a few times instead of single targeting the 3 mobs down.

One thing to note, Imp Scorch and Winter's Chill DO NOT stack. Whoever gets the first hit on the mob get's their buff. So if you will be raiding as fire and will have a frost mage with you all the time, or vice versa, figure out who gets to save a few talent points, and possibly a glyph.

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I do 1300+ DPS as frost in my bad gear.
1200 at 78 isnt all that impressive. :(

I would think that deep arcane would give you the most damage/dps in raids and such.

Try 52/19/0 or 52/0/19

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Q u o t e:
I would think that deep arcane would give you the most damage/dps in raids and such.

Try 52/19/0 or 52/0/19

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could you show me the 52/0/19 build please?

I'm T6 geared and play fire live, I generally pull about 1800 dps single target. On the PTR as fire I was pulling 3000, it's OP. I think the top PvE spec will be 1/59/11. There's just no way to beat a fireball spam that can proc a free pyroblast.

For level 70, 3 builds are pretty much a given:

50/11/0 Arcane/Fire build:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0icu0hzeGzMtcb0E00o
Features: Instant Invis, 6% haste, 50% crit damage bonus AND Ignite,
2 minute AP/PoM/Invis, 15% int --> Spell Power, 3% spell damage and 3% crit,
15% int bonus, 30% crit bonus to next damaging spell on Clearcast/PoM,
30% regen in combat, 10% spirit bonus, 6% Fireball/Arcane Explosion/Fire Blast/Scorch and more damage bonus,
70 resist all and 2% max mana returned on resist, 10% clearcast,
Focus Magic (3% crit boost to target and when they crit, 3% crit to you)

So, that's 9% damage boost to Fireball, 6% haste, 225% damage on Fireball crits or whatever it is.
Mana is at 80% regen in combat.

Use Mage Armor and Arcane Power Glyphs (+20% regen to Mage Armor and 3 seconds to AP)

11/50/0 Fire/Arcane:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZ0EcbohuuVubhsx
Features: Improved Scorch, Hot Streak Insta-Pyros, Burnout + Ignite, 12% damage boost to sub 35% health targets, Huge crit

11/0/50 Frost/Arcane
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZZVIccodu0fzgdsx
Features: Mana Regen Water Elemental, Winter's Chill, Cold Snap, Icy Veins, Lots of Damage

The Fire/Arcane and Frost/Arcane specs would have to use the Mana Gem Glyph instead of AP as neither the Fireball nor the Frostbolt glyphs are available with BC mats and the rest are pretty terrible for PVE.

I'll be using the Arcane Spec that I listed and primarily doing Fireball / Arcane Explosion as my damage of choice (so for example, on Felmyst, I'll just obliterate the charts - my 41/17/3 spec already achieved that there, but this one will just completely tear 'em apart) - 2 minute mage with the extended 3 seconds of AP is gigantic AND I'll be walking around with 80% regen in combat. Threat is pretty ridiculous at this point from tanks, so none of the three specs require the threat reduction talents (at 80, that may very well be different).

We've cleared every boss in Sunwell and I've used a weaker Arcane spec in there before (though right now, I'm a retarded M'uru spec), but the old one I had could do extremely competitive damage on Brutallus, and dominated on Felmyst. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one performs, but there are a lot of new delightful multipliers in there, a huge boost to Fireball in low arcane, and 2 minute cooldowns with a longer duration.

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Q u o t e:
For level 70, 3 builds are pretty much a given:

50/11/0 Arcane/Fire build:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0icu0hzeGzMtcb0E00o
Features: Instant Invis, 6% haste, 50% crit damage bonus AND Ignite,
2 minute AP/PoM/Invis, 15% int --> Spell Power, 3% spell damage and 3% crit,
15% int bonus, 30% crit bonus to next damaging spell on Clearcast/PoM,
30% regen in combat, 10% spirit bonus, 6% Fireball/Arcane Explosion/Fire Blast/Scorch and more damage bonus,
70 resist all and 2% max mana returned on resist, 10% clearcast,
Focus Magic (3% crit boost to target and when they crit, 3% crit to you)

So, that's 9% damage boost to Fireball, 6% haste, 225% damage on Fireball crits or whatever it is.
Mana is at 80% regen in combat.

Use Mage Armor and Arcane Power Glyphs (+20% regen to Mage Armor and 3 seconds to AP)

11/50/0 Fire/Arcane:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZ0EcbohuuVubhsx
Features: Improved Scorch, Hot Streak Insta-Pyros, Burnout + Ignite, 12% damage boost to sub 35% health targets, Huge crit

11/0/50 Frost/Arcane
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=of0V0zZZVIccodu0fzgdsx
Features: Mana Regen Water Elemental, Winter's Chill, Cold Snap, Icy Veins, Lots of Damage

The Fire/Arcane and Frost/Arcane specs would have to use the Mana Gem Glyph instead of AP as neither the Fireball nor the Frostbolt glyphs are available with BC mats and the rest are pretty terrible for PVE.

I'll be using the Arcane Spec that I listed and primarily doing Fireball / Arcane Explosion as my damage of choice (so for example, on Felmyst, I'll just obliterate the charts - my 41/17/3 spec already achieved that there, but this one will just completely tear 'em apart) - 2 minute mage with the extended 3 seconds of AP is gigantic AND I'll be walking around with 80% regen in combat. Threat is pretty ridiculous at this point from tanks, so none of the three specs require the threat reduction talents (at 80, that may very well be different).

We've cleared every boss in Sunwell and I've used a weaker Arcane spec in there before (though right now, I'm a retarded M'uru spec), but the old one I had could do extremely competitive damage on Brutallus, and dominated on Felmyst. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one performs, but there are a lot of new delightful multipliers in there, a huge boost to Fireball in low arcane, and 2 minute cooldowns with a longer duration.

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I'm curious about your 50/11 arc fire spec. You say you're only using fireball as your main nuke?

Isn't this just a glorified version of the entry level karazhan pom pyro fire specs? Wondering what makes this better right now than a pure fire (or other) build.
I'm guessing it has to do with the one minute shorter cooldown from Arcane Flows, right?

Also, this spec requires all 17% spell hit to be geared and gemmed if I'm not mistaken. That's what, 215 spell hit?

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Q u o t e:

I'm curious about your 50/11 arc fire spec. You say you're only using fireball as your main nuke?

Isn't this just a glorified version of the entry level karazhan pom pyro fire specs? Wondering what makes this better right now than a pure fire (or other) build.
I'm guessing it has to do with the one minute shorter cooldown from Arcane Flows, right?

Also, this spec requires all 17% spell hit to be geared and gemmed if I'm not mistaken. That's what, 215 spell hit?

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Well, first off, you don't need to have 17% hit - you need that combined from all existing raid buffs to be maxed on hit. That doesn't mean you need max hit - it just is one of the more impressive damage increases you can get. With this build, crit actually has significantly more value than when you don't have double dipping crits and you tend to proc crits an awful lot of the time. Additionally, you benefit from never really going out of mana with 80% in combat regen coupled with that you get to use more efficient spells than Arcane nukes. Yes, the 2 minute mage aspect to it is the complete deal breaker coupled with no mana problems.

Fire is INCREASING its mana problems next patch AND shadow priests are drastically nerfed in their mana battery effectiveness. You can and will be hitting mana issues with the fire build - not to mention just that this one is fun and extremely competitive especially now that you have 3 more seconds of AP and you get to do it every single time your trinkets come up, so you're blowing AP+PoM+Pyro+Illidan trinket thingy every two minutes and in case you manage to catch up with a tank (extremely unlikely) you've got the only instant complete threat dump for Mages with instant Invis.

I'll link some WWS parses post patch, but this should potentially be extremely competitive - I've enjoyed the build immensely in beta (later points do pick up Arcane Barrage and Improved Scorch / Flame throwing).

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Q u o t e:


Well, first off, you don't need to have 17% hit - you need that combined from all existing raid buffs to be maxed on hit. That doesn't mean you need max hit - it just is one of the more impressive damage increases you can get. With this build, crit actually has significantly more value than when you don't have double dipping crits and you tend to proc crits an awful lot of the time. Additionally, you benefit from never really going out of mana with 80% in combat regen coupled with that you get to use more efficient spells than Arcane nukes. Yes, the 2 minute mage aspect to it is the complete deal breaker coupled with no mana problems.

Fire is INCREASING its mana problems next patch AND shadow priests are drastically nerfed in their mana battery effectiveness. You can and will be hitting mana issues with the fire build - not to mention just that this one is fun and extremely competitive especially now that you have 3 more seconds of AP and you get to do it every single time your trinkets come up, so you're blowing AP+PoM+Pyro+Illidan trinket thingy every two minutes and in case you manage to catch up with a tank (extremely unlikely) you've got the only instant complete threat dump for Mages with instant Invis.

I'll link some WWS parses post patch, but this should potentially be extremely competitive - I've enjoyed the build immensely in beta (later points do pick up Arcane Barrage and Improved Scorch / Flame throwing).

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I understand that you don't "need" 17% hit, but it would still be wise to gem and gear for it because you never know who will and won't show up, and who will or won't die during a fight.

What kind of dps were you putting out in beta with this spec, out of curiosity? Also, doesn't ignite munching have a much greater negative effect on this build than others?

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Q u o t e:



I understand that you don't "need" 17% hit, but it would still be wise to gem and gear for it because you never know who will and won't show up, and who will or won't die during a fight.

What kind of dps were you putting out in beta with this spec, out of curiosity? Also, doesn't ignite munching have a much greater negative effect on this build than others?

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One of the Major +Hit buffs will be +3% hit from Shadow Priests (Misery). If you're like us, there is always at least 1 or 2 Shadow Priests in every raid - that's a pretty much guaranteed buff to have. That at least drops it down to 14% hit to gear for, which realistically is just 1 more hit than you previously had to gear for. I'll probably put on a different ring and call it a day.

I always care most about seeing things in practice on boss fights relative to other specs rather than just a canned DPS number - as I said, I'll post some WWS Parses post patch and see just how this performs.

Yeaaaaaah. Until I see some parses of this 50/11 build you're gonna have a hard time convincing me it's any good.

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Q u o t e:
Yeaaaaaah. Until I see some parses of this 50/11 build you're gonna have a hard time convincing me it's any good.

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They did some spec reviews on EJ - http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t30655-mage_wotlk_talent_discussion_part_two/p122/#post930232

53/8/0 is only doing about 100 dps less than the top Fire spec (10/51/0), and this is using the last numbers available on beta. And the devs said that arcane needed it's numbers brought up to fire's level, so I am confidant 53/8/0 could easily equal our out-dps fire in the near future.

I will be running 53/8/0 or some close variation. Looks fun.