Tales of Mage

Doing an experiment with another mage blogger for the time being with the possibiliy of a long term commitment. For those of you interested, Theawakening and myself have teamed up to present you with a comprehensive view of the Mage class in World of Warcraft.

 

A Mages Guide to Life




So, in keeping with my goals mentioned in yesterday's article, I hit level 80 and immediatedly tackled Heroic Violet Hold. Unfortunately, the drops did not go my way as we were plagued with an onslaught of mail and plate; however, I do not digress as I did get some reputation with the Kiron Tor and im that much closer to Revered and the really nice MH caster weapon. For today's article, I'm choosing to write about something that happened on that Heroic Violet Hold run.

 

I entered the prison in Dalaran with just over 850 spell damage and approx 65 +hit. Being that I hit level 80 approximately 15-20 minutes prior and the abysmmal state of my gear, I knew that I wasnt going to light up the meters. During the run, the druid tank was having a considerable amount of difficulty keeping the adds that come out of the portal from running towards the door. So, in an attempt to help the situation, I moved myself to a position where I could pick up the stragglers and kite them about until the tank was able to get sufficient aggro on all. The same thing was the case when we had the boss that summons the arcane orbs. The tank moved the boss around the room, while I DPSed but also made sure to use my novas/freeze's and CoCs to snare/slow the adds and allow the melee to really unload their damage.

 

When the dust settled and Cyanigosa was dead, I did 1700 DPS for the run. This was not far from what I was expecting. As I said before, I knew that my DPS was going to be bad; however, what did surprise me was a whisper I receieved from the tank. Instead of going out of his way to flame me for my admittedly sub-par DPS, he thanked me for picking up the stragglers that made it possible to get the achievement. He said that he was expecting me to be a complete scrub in every facet given my gear level, but was pleasantly surprised to see me contributing in a "non-traditional" sense to the successful completion of the dungeon and associated achievement.

 

This seemingly insignificant comment given by another player got me thinking. Surely we have all encountered people in the game we deem to be a "scrub", "bad", etc. based soley upon their current gear level, without actually giving them the opportunity to prove themselves otherwise. I know I am not without fault here, but it definitely presents a different perspective when it is you who are being judged before you have a chance to show what you can do.

 

So, I present my readers (all 3 of you :) ) with a bit of advice. Give everyone a chance to prove themselves. Far too often players are tossed aside and deemed "unworthy" to attend a raid or group because of leaders/officers preconceived notions and ideas.

 

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

                                                                 ---Confucius




So this weekend I was able to bust out almost 3 full levels, in addition to watching the NFL playoffs, doing laundry, and getting groceries with the wife. As it stands right now, I am about 3 bars away from level 80 and the the point where the game truly begins.

 

The thing that I am dreading most is finding a guild that is willing to understand the gear difference between them and myself and how it will correlate on the damage meters. DPS classes live and die by the damage meters. If you are not up to par, for whatever the reason, you have a strong chance of being replaced with someone capable of doing more damage (and with good reason). However, with WoTlk raining epics on everyone, most mages are allready hit capped and have accumulated a substantial amount of spell power and crit, to which Frostfire Bolt benefits greatly. While I consider myself to be an above average player, I know that I am going enter the raiding scene below the "expected mage DPS" mark because of my lack of gear, which consists mostly of +stam and +int blues/greens rewarded from doing various quests while leveling.

 

So, as for now my plan is as follows:

1) Reach 80 tonight (shouldnt be a problem)

2) Get in 10/25 man Archavon for a shot at Tier 7 before the server reset tomorrow

3) Run Heroic Violet Hold for +hit robes and trinket while championing Kirin Tor for   the MH caster weapon.

4) Apply to a guild or two while trying to explain that I'm really not a scrub, just a reroll and that I have cleared all WotLK content.

5) Win?

 

Wish me luck




My mage reached level 77 last night. For the past week, I've been working very hard to make sure that I level before going to bed. Getting home from work at approximately 6:00, eating dinner, spending about an hour with the wife, then on Warcraft til 2am then getting up for work at 7am the following morning. That has been my schedule for the past week since getting to level 70 and making my way through Northrend...again. As far as new spells go, 77 is a pretty boring level for a mage. We get a new rank of amplify magic (yay?) and a new mana gem, Mana Sapphire.

 

The one redeeming aspect about reaching level 77 is your ability to learn Cold Weather Flying, which enables you to use your flying mount in Northrend. I was really excited for this on my priest as it allowed me to zip around Northrend on my speedy epic flyer. Since I'm on a new server with very little gold and a new character without an epic flying mount, its no surprise that I'm having difficulties being excited to be able to use the abyssmally slow normal flying mount. At least it will allow me to get to higher up places, but I still forsee myself using my epic ground mount for normal travel around the zones. So as of right now, the mage is sitting at about 3k gold after purchasing Cold Weather Flying.

 

P.S. If anyone is on Azgalor (Horde) and can trade some gold, I can give you gold from my Alliance character on Mannoroth.  




With content being "easy" now, many people are looking to spend their free time leveling alts or perhaps you are just getting into the game and are looking towards a mage as your first character. If either of these describe your current outlook on the game, then have a look at my talent guide on Leveling Frost: How to do it Right. (Part 1)

 

Beginning at level 10, every time you achieve a new level you will be granted a talent point. Spending these talents points will dramatically alter your playstyle as well as provide additional spells and abilities. The following is a guide of how to spend those talent points to maximize your damage, mana efficiency, and utility as a frost mage.

 

NOTE: This guide will not conver AoE Spec advice. For that, I encourage readers to visit AoE Grinding Guide 1-18 and AoE Grinding Guide 68-80  Presented by Frostisthenewblack.blogspot.com

 

Level 10-14 Improved Frostbolt - Frostbolt is going to be your go to spell until you reach the level cap. Reducing the cast time of the spell allows for a greater number of Frostbolts per fight, thereby resulting in more damage.

 

Level 15-17 Frostbite - Gives each Frostbolt, Cone of Cold, Ice Armor Application, Blizzard, and Frost Nova a 15% to root the target in place. This talent really shines when you pick up shatter but as of now it is nice to keep melee at range and allow for more frostbolts.

 

Level 18-19 Permafrost - (2/3) Usefull is increasing the amount of times your enemies are slowed via Frostbolt or other chill effect, as well as reducing their movement speed even more.

 

Level 20 Icy Veins - When cast, it allows you to cast more spells in a given amount of time. Also, when presented with multiple melee mobs, will prevent you Frosbolts from suffering spell pushback.

 

Level 21 Permafrost - (3/3) Finish out. See above.

 

Level 22-24 Ice Shards - Get this so when you crit you CRIT.  

 

Level 25-27 Shatter - Ahh the all powerful Shatter. This talent DEFINES the frost tree. Whenever your target is frozen via Frost Nova, Frosbite Procs, or Water Elemental's (More on this Later) Freeze, your spells have an additional 50% chance to crit. To best make use of this you will want to cast a Frostbolt, immediately followed by a Cone of Cold/Fire Blast/Ice Lance (Use Ice Lance once available @ 66). This will enable BOTH spells to have the additional crit bonus.

 

Level 28-29 Artic Reach -Gives more range to your Frost spells therby allowing more time for damage to be dealt before the enemy reaches melee range.

 

Level 30 Cold Snap - Think of Cold Snap as an Emergency button. While I have found that I did not use it that much while leveling, having the option to instantly reset all of my Frost spells including: Ice Barrier, Water Elemental, Ice Block, Cone of Cold, Frost Nova is nice for panic situations. This spell provides a lot of survivability should you find yourself in a bind. Also, its needed to get Ice Barrier.

 

At Level 30 your spec should look this THIS

Readers can expect to see the rest of my Leveling Frost: How to do it Right guide in the days to come.

 




So among a plethora of disconnects (about 15 in the span of 2 hours which I later determined to be the result of my wife's laptop conflicting with my IP address), I got to level 75 and also finished up the Wrathgate quest chain. For those of you who have yet to complete this very length chain in Dragonblight, I strongly encourage you to do so. Not only does it provide great experience, good quest rewards, and a fantastic storyline, but all of your effort and hard work is rewarded for the single best cinematic in the game.

 

FrostFire Bolt Upon leveling, I felt compelled to go to Dalaran to train new ranks of spells and abilities that ultimately make leveling just a bit easier. For those of you unaware, level 75 is a pretty good level for mages. You get a new rank of Frosbolt, Ice Barrier (If you are frost, which you should be!), Conjure Mana Pies (Non-Ritual Food & Water? Where have you been all my life!), and oh yah, and a little spell called FROSTFIRE BOLT.

 

For those of you living in a cave, under a rock, or any other god-forsakened corner of the globe without an internet connection (surely such a place could not exist), Frostfire Bolt is the "King" of mage DPS for level 80 raiding. So I train my new spell and fly back to Dragonblight to finish up the last couple of quests needed for the achievement and my signal to move on to Grizzly Hills.

 

Leaving Agmar's Hammer, I descend upon an unsuspecting elk with the intention of testing my new behemoth of a spell. Muttering the incantation, I begin to summon the frost/fire mixture from within my soul. My hands glow widly as the magic builds and then, suddenly, the bright Orange (because we all know if you combine red and blue you get orange, right?) light bursts forth from my boney fingertips and screams towards the elk. 1400 non-crit! Wait, huh, maybe I didnt say the incantation right. AGAIN! 1425, hrmm perhaps if I jump as the spells leaves my body!....still around 1400. What is going on? My frostbolts hits harder than this.

 

I wanted to give you my first impressions of Frostfire bolt because a lot of mages initially dismissed this new spell as being gimmicky and not worth casting over either Frostbolt or Fireball. Since then, with the proper spec, Frostfire bolt has begun to show its true potential. Being Deep Frost, you should NOT be casting Frostfire bolt. Frostfire bolt derives a lot of its power from talents deep in the fire tree and then picks up the critical strike bonus talents in the frost tree. The ability of this spell to bridge both trees, and thereby benefit from both sets of talents, is what allows this spell to crit like a supercharged Mac truck, and ultimately, is what allows mages to achieve truly breathtaking damage in a raid environment.

 

P.S. Within a week or two you can expect a more detailed analysis of Frostfire Bolt, including: Which spec to choose to optomize damage, rotations, and other information pertinent to a level 80 raiding mage.




While I do not think of myself as a man of many convictions, I do believe that in order to write, and write well, you need to be passionate about your writing. I do not believe that successful writers simply spew out information on a given subject with little interest concerning various aspects of their writing. It is for this reason, and more, that I chose to refocus the content and redesign the layout of the blog.

 

For those readers who enjoyed the content of Power Word: Priest, I apologize for leaving you without warning; however, If you enjoy the style of writing, I urge you to continue following the blog for information reguarding the trials and tribulations of an undead mage. For those of you who are lost, only yesterday this was Powerwordpriest.dingblog.com, today however, it has been transformed into talesofamage.dingblog.com!

 

What to expect from Tales of a Mage:

1) Updates on leveling progress (Not all that exciting, I know)

2) Guides on Gearing out Your Fresh Level 80 Mage

3) Theorycrafting of Max Raid DPS/Spec Advice

4) Mage Arena Strategies/Compositions

5) Talent/Spell Spotlights that will provide insight to novice and veteran alike.

 

Expect the first mage-driven post sometime tomorrow.

 

 

 




For those of you who have read the last couple of posts, are probably aware of my frustration with my priest (and the game in general). In an attempt to reinvigorate myself, I picked up leveling a frost mage a couple of days ago. Starting at level 60, I burned through all of the BC content in about 2 days and I'm now sitting at level 73 ready and waiting in Agmar's Hammer to start the quests in Dragonblight. Yes that's correct, Agmar's Hammer and not Fort Wintergarde.

 

After playing alliance on Mannoroth for the past six months, I am back playing Horde. To be honest, ideally I would have rather continued with Alliance of Mannoroth but I truthfully was too impatient to level a mage starting at level 1, when my undead mage was sitting @ 60 with full rested experience. Still, the decision was VERY hard. For one, going back to the horde side of things, I had very little gold, (Less than 500) when I had over 10k on my priest on Mannoroth. Also, a lot of the players I used to roll with have moved on to different servers, games, etc and also the many friends that I have made on Mannoroth I will truly miss raiding with.

 

With that being said, I still will log on my priest at least a couple times a week to get in his arena matches for what little points he can for the atrocity that is Season 5.

 

As for the mage......WoW. I'm actually having a lot of fun. For me, seeing a large crit off a Frostbolt & Ice Lance combo releases much more Adrenaline than critting a Flash Heal ever did.

 

In addition, PVP is a BLAST. I am still having some issues getting acclimated to the new playstyle, but every world PVP battle FEELS like it comes down to the wire on a mage. Even if I "easily" win in a given PVP situation, it feels as though it was so close. Much more emphasis is based upon movement, kiting, etc. Whereas the priest, I shield and tank the melee and casters and just heal through as much damage as I can before I inevitably die, the mage is so much more dynamic.

 

Over the past couple of days in Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord I've been "ganked" by pretty much every class, sometimes 2 at a time. The only one of which I had a lot of trouble with would be BM hunters. Still, when the dust settles, most of the time I find myself still alive and I can literally feel my heart beating inside my chest.

 

This will re-invigorate me. I belive THIS will bring back my passion.

 

As for the blog... who knows? May have to change it to Power Word....Mage?

 

We'll See.




Today, being the last day of 2008, I thought it would be fitting to give a brief recount of what has happened in my life this past year, both in game and out.

 

Out of Game:

1) Got Married

2) Moved to new city (Pittsburgh)

3) Got a new Job

4) Finished School

 

In Game:

1) Cleared Hyjal/BT/Sunwell (Minus KJ :( ) On my old warlock

2) Received Gladiator title on my Rogue

3) Sold Said Warlock & Rogue and put the money towards my wife's engament ring.

4) Rerolled Alliance on Mannoroth

5) Leveled to 70 then 80.

6) Cleared Hyjal/BT on Dwarf Priest

7) Cleared WotLK 10/25 man content with Priest.

 

....I've been busy.

 

See Everyone in 2009




Hello Everyone. I hope all had a great Holiday spending time with family and friends all the while getting slightly fatter off of turkey and all the trimmings. With that being said, onto today's article.

 

WotLK Content Cleared...I'm Bored

My guild has had all content cleared for about 3-4 weeks now and to be honest I'm suffering from burnout allready. I honestly did not expect to hit the wall this soon, but with raiding being so easy and the extremely painfull experience it is to be a healer (priest specifically) in Arena/PVP right now, for the first time in my four plus years of what I would consider "hardcore" playing, I dont really want to log on.

 

Adding to my feeling of "blah", is the fact that these past couple of weeks have been the first time that I have been a healer and an officer in a very active guild. You see, for all of Vanilla WoW and BC, I was a either a warlock or a rogue. Focusing on the damage meters and having little concern for anything else. I hit the boss until he died, and I was damn good at my job; however, healing is a different animal. Now, I am in charge of ensuring that nobody dies at any point during a Naxx run and other behind the scenes tasks, setting up priest buffs, assigning healers, etc. I think that I would be fine if it werent for the swift criticism that comes from the other officers (who are a Tank/4DPS) and members alike about "WTF i didnt get any healz", Like I am standing there with my thumb up my ass.

 

I am not completely sure what is causing my current lack of passion with the game. Perhaps it is being an officer, perhaps it is raiding 4 nights a week, or something else. Either way I'm discouraged.

 

With that being said, I am considering a couple of options:

 

1)  Level/Re-Roll an alt. Perhaps a "stress free" DPS class. Although I have no idea which class to do so with.

2)  Take a couple of weeks off.

3)  Bump down my raiding committment to 2-3 nights a week.

4)  Demote myself from an officer position to a regular member.

 

What do you guys think?

 

P.S. I apoligize for the grammatical errors, horrible sentence structure for the article. I'm really tired which is adding to my overall "blah" mood.

 

 

 




AllianceHorde

 

Last week, a new season of the arena was introduced with players from all servers scurrying about trying to craft/buy what little PVP gear they could in order to be more competitive in the coming weeks. Now, when I say "players", what I really mean is "healers".

 

You see this season is unlike any other arena season in that Naxxaramas has enabled pretty much anyone who is A) In a guild, B) Has Friends or C) Has eyes and fingers to see and respond to one of the 500 PuGs that run Naxxaramas (both normal and heroic) weekly to get high end PVE gear. Unlike Season 1 where the cock block known as Karazhan was the entry level raiding environment, Naxxaramas has provided players an EXTREMELY easy way to get top notch gear, albeit without resilience, in a couple of short weeks. The result of this has been that damage in the Arena, and PVP in general, is out of control. Healers and classes that rely on continuous, non-burst damage (i.e. Warlocks) are not able to be competitive given the atrocious amount of burst damage. 

 

Looking at the Sk-gaming.com lists of the top ranked Arena players indicates that paladins are currently the best healers, followed by shaman and then druid/priest fighting not to be in last. This, if you remember, is very similar to Season 1. The most popular 2v2 comp is Holy Paladin/Unholy DK, which is very close in nature to its Season 1 dominating compositiion of Holy Paladin/Arms Warrior.

 

So, if you are a priest, what can you do to put yourself in the best situation to win in the arena?

 

1) First, buy/craft whatever resilience gear you can get your hands on. Unlike DPS classes, healers do not get much benefit from strolling into the Orgrimmar Arena (which btw is a terrible design) having +1200 mp5 but 35 resilience. For Season 5, you need to stack resilience and Stamina. Remember, the reslience cap at level 80 is now 1230 Resilience! Given the current PVP gear, gemming/enchanting for resilience will get you a little over 900 resilience.

 

2) PVP Spec. My opinion on this is that 90% of the time, the priest is going to be the main target for incoming damage. With that in mind, you need to spec so that you have as much survivability for yourself as possible. Deep Discipline provides the priest with a lot of added survivabilty given the buffs to Power Word: Shield. Again, I only can speak from my personal experiences, but I feel as though that until you have above 700 resilience, you should go for a hybrid spec, picking up both Focused Will and Blessed Resilience for MAXIMUM Survivability. Yes, you will not be able to get penance, but since you are unable to cast penance on yourself I do not feel as though you are losing that much; however, if for some reason you find yourself NOT being the focused target, by all means get Penance.

 

3) Enter the arena with a class that can peel. Rogue, DKs, Ret Pallies are some of the best classes that can provide the priest, or other healer, with a couple of seconds opportunity to escape incoming damage via stunlock, snare, or positional advantage. Use these abilities to their fullest. Probably the worst composition for 2v2 atm would be Priest/Warlock because neither can provide any sort of reliable CC and both would take a HUGE amount of incoming damage.

 

4) Finally, PRACTICE. I know this is going to be a difficult arena season as a healer, and priest in particular; but I feel as though you have to push through it. Hopefully blizzard will correct the atrocities that are plaguing the PVP community and when/if they do, you want to be prepared

 

P.S I am going to my parent's house for the holidays and will be unable to get my hands on a computer with internet access. With that in mind, expect my next post to be on Monday, December 29th. Happy Holidays to all that read the blog!




 

Welcome to the first installment of a series I decided to start concerning the various spells and abilities that Holy/disc priests use each and every time they log on. The first Spell Spotlight column will focus on Flash Heal, a heal that has seen a HUGE increase in usage in WoTLK raiding as opposed to BC/Vanilla WoW. So without further aideu, enjoy!

Flash Heal

Prior to the release of WotLK, it was pretty easy to spot a bad priest healer. All one had to do was to simply look at their recount/WWS or another analytical tool of your choosing and if one saw Flash Heal comprising more than approx 5% of their healing, they were considered bad, mana inefficient, and not worthy of a raid spot. This all changed with the release of WotLK (patch 3.0.2 to be more specific).

 

Just as many priests/druids are up in arms now about the nerf to CoH and Wild Growth (See Previous Article), a lot of healers back then were feeling frazzled about the removal of the ability to downrank spells. Greater Heal rank 3-4 was the bread and butter spell for healing priests as it healed for a fairly large amount, causing little overheal, and was VERY mana efficient. Once the downranking mechanic was removed; however, blizzard decided to give priest healers a spell that would fill the void for smaller to medium size heals and not drain their mana. Instead of creating an entirely new spell, they instead tweaked an old spell that was usually reserved for quick PVP heals, Flash Heal.

 

The patch introduced a lot of new talents and glyphs. The most relevant for the sake of this article were Serendipity and the Glyph of Flash Heal. Serendipity says that for every Flash Heal/Greater Heal you cast that heals your target to full, you are refunded 25% of the spells mana cost. This, in conjunction with the Glyph of Flash Heal, reduces the mana cost of Flash Heal by 10%, means that you are left with a spell that is very close in terms of mana efficiency to Greater Heal (Rank 4), so much in fact, that the only determining factor that decides which heal you cast in the given situation is the target's net health defecit.

 

Flash heal becomes a fine choice except for notably large heals. This really classifies greater heal as a big nuke heal or when the extra HPS is mandatory.

Another way to look at this is (assuming 2000 spell power):

- given a small health deficiency (< 5K) and no predicatable damage income, flash heal is the best choice with or without glyph
- given a medium health deficiency (5K-6K), then Gheal is the best choice without glyph of flash heal. Flash heal is the best choice with the glyph.
- given a large health deficiency (> 6K), (or notable incomming damage), go greater heal.

Flash Heal Spam Inc!
The glyph of flash heal really impacts this choice: without the glyph, medium sized heals are best handled by greater heal. With the glyph, the use of flash heal becomes more relaxed and even favorable for medium sized heals; however, the Glyph of Flash heal is a glyph that no raiding holy priest should be without and transforms Flash Heal from a sign of a bad healer into quite a spammable, medium-sized healing spell.

 

 

 




With my first actual post, I decided that I wanted to address an issue that has a lot of raiding Priests and Druids worried about, the addition of a cooldown to both Circle of Healing and Wild Growth. For those of you who do not keep up with general WoW news, the next patch will introduce a 6 second cooldown to both of these AoE Heal centered spells. Obviously, this is a nerf......say it with me "nerf", but is it really as bad as everyone is saying?

 

CoH

My opinion is no. While incoming AoE damage is present in a lot of the fights in Naxxaramas/Obsidian Sanctum/Eye of Eternity, it is not as heavy as it was in Black Temple. Still, in a lot of fights, having a cooldown-less instant AoE heal is really really nice but there is a difference between a really nice spell, and a fail proof crutch that completely eliminates the need for any other spells. This is what Circle of Healing and Wild Growth have become. In my opinion, these spells ARE in need of a nerf. With my current gear level, CoH heals for a little over 11000. Think about that for a second; an 11000 instant, spammable heal that usually procs a mana free/instant cast Flash Heal. While this is anecdotal, I think it provides somewhat of an accurate representation of what the majority of healing priests and druids are experiencing.

 

With that being said, my personal experiences indicate that a lot of priests and druids are considering making the switch from Circle of Healing/Wild Growth specs to Discipline/Healing Touch centered specs. I believe this will be a huge error on their part. Following the patch, raid healing will be harder; if you combine a 6 second cooldown on AoE healing spells combined with less people specced into AoE healing in the first place, and you are looking at a SEVERE shortage of healers capable of healing up the raid after AoE burst damage.

 

I do not believe this nerf to be as severe as healers are thinking it will be. If anything, it will actually keep me more active while healing, instead of the mindless CoH spam that raid healing has become currently.

 

So its okay healers, you can come out of your underground bomb shelter because the sky is not falling, its just getting a little.....windier (?)




Just to give some brief information on my Warcraft experience, Ive played WoW for a little over 4 years now, enjoying both the PVP and PVE aspects of the game. Up until about 6 months ago, I played on the horde side of the Azgalor server at which point I rerolled a Dwarf Priest on Mannoroth named Deklen.

 

It is from this perspective that the blog will revolve around, priesting in the World of Warcraft. I am currently an officer and healing leader in the guild Phoenix Rising of Mannoroth. We have cleared all 10 and 25 man content available to us with the exception of 25 man Malygos (Which we are actually doing tonight coincidentally).  It is my goal to have the blog give priests and non-priests alike valuable information which they then can apply to their own gaming experiences. Readers should expect to see posts concerning priests and their role in PVE as well as PVP/Arena. In addition, I will try to incorporate topics that guild management must address in order to maintain a happy and healthy guild. 

 

Finally, thanks for taking the time to view the blog and I hope that you will return.

2008-12-22