What robe should I wear?

[Strit]

Okay, here's the deal.

A few weeks back, no more than 3 weeks, I bought my tier 8 robe (Conqueror's Kirin Tor Tunic - Item - World of Warcraft) for 58 emblems, which is a lot to me. I don't get to do many heroics or instances for that matter, as my playtime is somewhat limited. Then today in Pit of Saron heroic Ancient Polar Bear Hide - Item - World of Warcraft drops. I almost instantly needs on it, even though I just bought the tier one.

So, which should I wear?

I am well over the hitcap without the hide, and I'm trying to free up some hit rating. I need 289 hitrating as I am an Arcane Mage with both hit talents and I got 377 hit rating as it is. With the hide i'd be up about 438 hit rating which essencially would be good if I wanted to respec to Frostfire spec.

Currently I'm working on a mainhand/offhand combo instead of the staff I have now, to lower my hit rating a bit, also working on a new trinket, again to lower the hitrating. Also changing my gloves enchant first thing when I get the mats for it.

Here's the armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

PS: I'm ofcourse keeping my hitrating gear, if I decide to go Frostfire or Fire at some point.

[Dynasor]

Wow, I rarely see a Mage post here at TankSpot. Well, I generally lurk here to get info for my alt warrior, but my main is a Mage, so here goes.

It sucks to have spent hard earned badges on an item (especially if you dont get many chances to get more badges), only to get it replaced a couple of weeks later, but since you don't have any of the Tier set bonuses to worry about, your new chest piece is definitely better. Haste pretty much always beats crit for an arcane mage.

I was going to tell you not to switch to the FFb spec, but it doesn't look like you're raiding, so for heroics any of the cookie-cutter specs will work. Although Arcane is probably still your best best bet.

A couple of other things I noticed:

1. Change your Meta Gem in your helm when you can. The Chaotic Skyflare Diamond is the only good mage meta for non-PvP activities.

2. Whether you use rare or epic gems, you should always get the following:
Red: Runed Cardinal Ruby or Runed Scarlet Ruby
Yellow: Reckless Amertine or Reckless Monarch Topaz
Blue: Purified Dreadstone or Purified Twilight Opal

3. Run regular ToC 5-man until you get the Abyssal Rune Trinket. Also, use any Triumph Badges you can muster to buy the Talisman of Resurgence Trinket.

4. Replace Glyph of Arcane Barrage with Glyph of Molten Armor, and then always use Molten Armor. Aracne Barrage is only worth using when moving, since they nerfed it a couple of patches ago.

Hope this helps.

[Strit]

Point 1-2-3 is in the works.

But I don't get point 4. Wouldn't I run dry on mana if I used Molten Armor instead of Mage Armor?

[Vorla]

Mage armor does not free up enough mana for it to be a viable DPS increase. You do want some degree of crit too, to keep FM/Arcane empowerment rolling. I'm at 23% paperdoll unbuffed crit (in a lot better gear than you) and I still keep it up near 100% so that's not exactly your biggest worry.

I checked your spec (57/3/11 is the standard regardless if you go for Incanters Absorption or not) and you have poured the AB crit talent into the arcane tree which I guess is fine, but you still miss out on your absolutely biggest DPS talent: TtW. I'd advise that you skipped the pushback protection or Student of the Mind (you don't have that much spirit to boost) to pick it up.

[Salloman]

Agree with Dynasor!

Motlen Armour is too great a dps gain to ignore. Since we have Mana Gems and Evocation every 2min, mana is really non-issue with a stand raid make up. Arcane Blasts are more efficient now, if your running low you can go to a 2 or 3 stack instead of the full 4. Hence the Trinket, because it enlarges your mana pool allowing you to be more aggressive with your mana. Also Arcane Barrage is rarely used, its a handy instant if you have to move, but other than that you are waiting on our Missile Barrage to proc and unleashing it at max stacks.

Also, after looking at your spec and your hit, you should spec 3 points out of Arcane Focus or Precision, essentially taking away 3% hit from talents. Instead Torment the Weak and Incineration should be picked up. Slow is also handy for ICC.

Currently Arcane is still king in my opinion, Arcane is about mana management, the better you can manage your mana, the more dps you are going to do. Running out is bad, but having mana left over after the fight is also bad because your not maxing your potential.

If this is your main toon, you will want to get 4pc t9 as quickly as possible, taking the shoulders, hands first then Helm and Legs. For the chest, Merlin's Robe and the crafted bracers are best in slot prior to ICC and TOGC. Stack Haste where ever you can get it. SP + haste are the two key stats you want to stack. Once you get your AB to about a 2 sec cast, Crit begins to be about the same as haste.

Happy maging!

[Dynasor]

Point 1-2-3 is in the works.

But I don't get point 4. Wouldn't I run dry on mana if I used Molten Armor instead of Mage Armor?

Use Evocation and mana Gem whenever they are off c/d and you should be fine. I'm usually at 90+% AB usage on a boss fight, but then I also have a little over 30k mana raid buffed, so don't aim that high yet.

[Dynasor]

Agree with Dynasor!

Motlen Armour is too great a dps gain to ignore. Since we have Mana Gems and Evocation every 2min, mana is really non-issue with a stand raid make up. Arcane Blasts are more efficient now, if your running low you can go to a 2 or 3 stack instead of the full 4. Hence the Trinket, because it enlarges your mana pool allowing you to be more aggressive with your mana. Also Arcane Barrage is rarely used, its a handy instant if you have to move, but other than that you are waiting on our Missile Barrage to proc and unleashing it at max stacks.

Also, after looking at your spec and your hit, you should spec 3 points out of Arcane Focus or Precision, essentially taking away 3% hit from talents. Instead Torment the Weak and Incineration should be picked up. Slow is also handy for ICC.

Currently Arcane is still king in my opinion, Arcane is about mana management, the better you can manage your mana, the more dps you are going to do. Running out is bad, but having mana left over after the fight is also bad because your not maxing your potential.

If this is your main toon, you will want to get 4pc t9 as quickly as possible, taking the shoulders, hands first then Helm and Legs. For the chest, Merlin's Robe and the crafted bracers are best in slot prior to ICC and TOGC. Stack Haste where ever you can get it. SP + haste are the two key stats you want to stack. Once you get your AB to about a 2 sec cast, Crit begins to be about the same as haste.

Happy maging!

I would try to exchange the Hit on your gear for Haste before dropping it from your talents, only because talents that increase your Hit are the best overall dps talents you can spec for, especially that high in the talent trees. However if you can't drop it from your gear, than dropping it from your talents is a good temporary fix. TtW is a must for sure (I didn't actually look over your spec).

[Insahnity]

Arcane needs haste more than crit. As long as you stay arcane for your PvE, you need haste gear and haste gems. For most every other spec (fire, frostfire or frost), crit is what you need. Your gear is optimzied for frost, and not arcane.

You have a Hit trinket. Drop that as quickly as possible. Keep running HToC 5 man for the Caster DPS trinket there. Dropping 73 hit will bring you a lot closer to where you need to be. If you are slightly below hit after doing this, replace your boot enchant with icewalker.

Incidentally, I see you aren't spending much on your enchants, however, with the changes to black magic, it is superior to any +SP enchant for arcane mages. When you decide to spend money on enchants, go for that.

[Dynasor]

Arcane needs haste more than crit. As long as you stay arcane for your PvE, you need haste gear and haste gems. For most every other spec (fire, frostfire or frost), crit is what you need. Your gear is optimzied for frost, and not arcane.

Arcane and Fireball both benefit more from haste than Crit. For FFb they are almost equivalent, only because FFb is extremely crit-dependant. While, as Aracne, you can never get enough haste, you don't want straight haste gems.

Keep running HToC 5 man for the Caster DPS trinket there.

Regular ToC 5-man.

Incidentally, I see you aren't spending much on your enchants, however, with the changes to black magic, it is superior to any +SP enchant for arcane mages. When you decide to spend money on enchants, go for that.

It's only a tiny bit better than 81 sp on 2handers. And it won't be better than 63 sp until you get some more spellpower, however either is not a deal-breaker.

[Strit]

Thanks for advices. I don't have alot of gold atm, that's why I don't use the expensive enchants/gems that much atm. I'm trying to get a hold of some new gear without hit and with haste.

Changed to Molten armor glyph and buff, which now gives me around 8% crit chance. Still running ToC5 for trinket and getting badges for some ilvl 232+ gear. But as this is not really my main, I don't use all that much time on him. (I have a lot of characters I'm switching between when one gets boring enough. :P)

[Strit]

Update: Finally got my Abyssal Rune from ToC5. :P

[Sorastoro]

Grats

[Deadnite]

Grats indeed.

Good to see some nice advice and friendly mages here

[Falita]

I would personally go with the Ick's one since your haste does seem a little low as a mage. My mage has around 950 Haste and 2700 SP. I hope this has been helpful.

[Strit]

But the high hit rating on the Polar Bear would be wasted itemization.

Rawr tells me to use conquerors until I get Tier 9 chest.

[Falita]

And you're going to go off of what an addon tells you?

Its better to be over hit cap than under.

[Salloman]

Over Hit is Wasteful! I would agree to generalize that you want to be +- 10 hit rating. Much more practical. I would say a 0.02% chance to miss is acceptable. It is always important to consider the classes you raid with, particularly Spriests and Boomkins. 3% hit is huge where you can re-itemize to either Haste or Spellpower.

As for your next upgrade I would always keep the Set bonuses in mind. For an Arcane mage, Merlin's Robe>T9. In general, the T9 chest is the least appealing of the entire T9 set. What makes things interesting is the Itemization for T10. You must remember RAWR is an amazing TOOL, but it still requires human interpretation to properly choose your gear.

From what I have seen from both RAWR and practical reasoning is that T10.5>Frost Badge ROBe>Merlin's Robe>T10. Ironic that T10 should be slightly a downgrade from Merlin's Robe. But with 2 PC T10, the T10 becomes much better than Merlin's Robe. This is something that RAWR seldom shows you but you can infer by trying this in RAWR yourself.

Keep in mind that you can only get T10.5 by having T10... lols! So to properly determine what is your best upgrade is going to be the likelyhood of getting a token to upgrade your T10.

Any other thoughts!?

[Dynasor]

Over Hit is Wasteful! I would agree to generalize that you want to be +- 10 hit rating. Much more practical. I would say a 0.02% chance to miss is acceptable. It is always important to consider the classes you raid with, particularly Spriests and Boomkins. 3% hit is huge where you can re-itemize to either Haste or Spellpower.

As for your next upgrade I would always keep the Set bonuses in mind. For an Arcane mage, Merlin's Robe>T9. In general, the T9 chest is the least appealing of the entire T9 set. What makes things interesting is the Itemization for T10. You must remember RAWR is an amazing TOOL, but it still requires human interpretation to properly choose your gear.

From what I have seen from both RAWR and practical reasoning is that T10.5>Frost Badge ROBe>Merlin's Robe>T10. Ironic that T10 should be slightly a downgrade from Merlin's Robe. But with 2 PC T10, the T10 becomes much better than Merlin's Robe. This is something that RAWR seldom shows you but you can infer by trying this in RAWR yourself.

Keep in mind that you can only get T10.5 by having T10... lols! So to properly determine what is your best upgrade is going to be the likelyhood of getting a token to upgrade your T10.

Any other thoughts!?

I would recommend not being below the hit-cap when raid buffed. A very small amount short probably won't make a big difference, but not being hit-capped is the biggest dps loss, so if you're gonna be under cap (even a little), be sure the stats you're gaining from the swap are worth it.

As far as Tier sets, it would really depend. I have 4pc T9 (using helm, shoulders, gloves, legs) and Merlin's Robe. The first T10 piece I picked up was the robe (T10.25 actually), because that way i could use it and not break my 4pc bonus, and it was a significant upgrade over Merlin's as well. The current thinking is use Chest, Helm, Shoulders, Gloves for the 4pc T10 set bonus, and use the new crafted legs.

[Ticoso]

Grats indeed.

Good to see some nice advice and friendly mages here

HEY.! :O im a mage... and i'm friendly too