Elemental Mage questions

[FJs 0]

Dear Community,

I am thinking of starting a new character - mage, after playing exclusively a holy priest since 2006. So, I am rather new to the class, though I have considerable experience in both PvP and PvE.

I am think about many specs, but one that interests me the most is the so called "elemental mage" speck. It somewhat reminds me of meteorb sorc in Diablo 2, and I like it for versatility. However, lacking exp wanted to check the mechanics. Elemental mages rely mostly on fire (if we take traditional builds), right? That said, does it make sense to invest into improved frost bolt skill? It is 5 skill points, and I found out that many use just rank 1 spell. However, if you get interrupted, would it make sense to have a fast casting alternative to your fire spells? Like that max rank frostbolt. On the other hand, I guess one can always use longer cast spell for that period. 

From the info I gathered, I see elemental mage fighting rather close to the targets, to get the maximum of spells like novas (fire and frost) and cone of cold. In that sense it seems logical to ignore the forstbolt and focus more on buffing cone of cold and frost spell crit (effectively buffing the cone of cold mostly). Is that how this speck traditionally functions? 

Here is what I came up with after giving it some thought:

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZETMzr0zZbIGbobth

However, many questions here.

In the fire tree, how important is 70% to avoid interruption? My initial thought that it is a must have, since you won't always be fighting 1v1 or away from the melee, if someone is sitting on you, probably using scorches may help. Or does this mage only use instants and freezes in melee and always casts fire based spells with casting time from the range? If that is how this speck is supposed to function, then I guess just 1 point for 35% can do and 8% stronger dot may be an option. Though I still guess it is best to keep the point there.

I took improved fireball and the stun as I guess I will be using firebolt quite often, by that I mean, perhaps 25% of the time, the rest being aoes, slow and engineering supplies (I plan to take engi/enchanting). Does it make sense to invest 5 points for a faster cast? I think 3 seconds is way too long for a pvp cast with that high amount of use.

As for the spells, I figured I will be using scorches to buff the damage, then firebolt when possible, the rest being frost spells that ideally should trigger freeze to get the max effect from shatter and using firebolt on it. Does it work like that btw, the fire spells, do those work with shatter? 

In the ice tree I tried to maximize slowing/freezing potential without compromising the build. So, I invested in damage where I could but put the rest into slow/freeze. Do you have any suggestions on improving that part?

Generally, any knowledge about the speck will be highly appreciated! My main question so far is how often does the speck use 2nd school of magic, when gets locked from the primary one. Do mages fake cast, does it make sense? As a priest I did that quite often in arenas and bgs, but I had more time to do that I guess.

Please share your thoughts and if you have any suggestions, please tell me:)

 

[Yxi 0]

Hi, my english is not very good, but i will do my best, as a one trick elemental mage in vanilla wow.

First, Elemental mage is garbage in raid, (its pretty decent in 5man), you have to respec for raids.

Second thing is, Elemental mage is not the best pvp spec to play in bg or in 5 man group for world pvp. For BG (especially wsg), the best spec is 17/0/34, and youre more a utility than DD, you just polymorph and peel your allies with rank 1 frostbolt.

Elemental mage is still the best mage spec to fight every melee (warrior, rogues, shamans), and the best spec for 1v1, 1v2, 1v3.

There are 2 differents elemental mage specs, Scorch elemental mage and frostbolt elemental mage. You cant do both specs in the same time. I personally pref the scorch one. I think elemental mage frostbolt is just less good than full frost mage.

 

You made some errors in your spec, for PvP :

Improved fireball 5/5 : This is garbage, you never use fireball, this is garbage, since the scorch dps is higher and allows you to be more mobile.

Improved frostbolt 0/5 : This is a huge error. Your rank 1 frostbolt is a very important spell in scorch elemental mage and obviously core for frostbolt one.

Permafrost 2/3 : I really advice you to play 3/3 in both specs.

 

Here is the spec i run since 2005 !

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZVgGzf0uZqhGhobzh spec for low-geared

When you are good geared, you remove improved CoC and play Fire Power 3/5 instead, because scorch scales better this SP than CoC.

 

I hope i helped you.

 

[FJs 0]

Yxi, thank you so much!

Sorry for not replying back earlier, your info was exactly what I was looking for. Hope me and other mages who want to try this speck can now check this thread to get some answers as to how it works.

I will defenitely try a variation of the speck, maybe tailored a little, and maybe post some feedback fater.

P.S. Your English is fine:)

[TessTickles 0]

On 2017-5-11 at 9:30 PM, Yxi said:

 

Here is the spec i run since 2005 !

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZVgGzf0uZqhGhobzh spec for low-geared

When you are good geared, you remove improved CoC and play Fire Power 3/5 instead, because scorch scales better this SP than CoC.

 

For a spec you played since 2005, I'm surprised you didn't notice this:

 

I just gave your scorch/fireblast +30% crit chance when the target is frozen (from your Frost Nova/Ice Armor proc/CoC proc).

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZVgGzf0uhq0Ghobu

 

This is assuming Vanilla gear gives you 3% hit chance. If not 1 or 2 points in Elem Precision is needed - but not 3! 

It's a great concept your spec tho - Full Fire, with enough in Frost to get Iceblock while skipping Frostbolt/CoC improvements, as you won't be using them except as rank1 snares. I like it !

3 Questions: 

1. Does not having Ice Barrier become a problem? I would think it would be a big deal.

2. Imp CoC (1000 dam instant) vs 6% more fire damage. Dunno, sounds like giving up a lot.. It DOES use a lot of mana tho...

3. Do you really have enough damage with scorch/fireblast etc with all the damage talents? Is taking down a healer harder then full Frost?

 

I also think you are giving up :

max rank frostbolt nukes -> Frostbite -> Large Crits !!

for:

Longer cast time Fireball nukes -> Impact stuns -> ?? Scorch cast ??

Which overall equals longer cast time for less damage overall. Which I think would be a problem. No matter how much you buff Scorch, it won't compete with Frostbolt. Plus the crit dots aren't instant, and can be dispelled, shielded, hotted etc.

 

My 2 cents

[Moiz 0]

I think not having ice barrier is only a problem if you think it's a problem. In my opinion, the number 1 priority of elemental is not getting hit. Even if you stack sta, which i think you need to do (alongside crit), you still can't afford to get hit (i think burning soul is redundant because of this).

I also think going deeper into fire and foregoing some of the nice frost talents is a consequence of wanting to play your mage like that, as in, you want to use fire spells instead of frost irrespective of efficiency and survivability, but at the same time you want some of the... 'really cool' frost spells (block, snap, frostbite).

Flirting around with talents as elemental is a good idea i think too as you can find out what you actually want and then play to those talents, rather than relying on someone else's way of playing the spec. As an example, looking at these builds there's some things that immediately jump out at me; impact, not having 5/5 shatter and burning soul. I've tried all 3, and variations, and consider them lacklustre, but someone else's milage may vary. My mage is currently this: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZxgGz0cuZibGhobt - which isn't set in stone and there's some points i've been thinking about moving around and trying again but haven't done so yet.

Killing healers can be a problem, even more so if you don't take 5/5 shatter and lower cast time of fireball. Impact can save the day if it procs at the desired time, but it's chance based so relying on it is poor strategy i think, especially considering it's unlikely you're going to kill a comparatively geared healer to yourself with scorch, so the amount of fire spells you hit them with is kinda low. This obviously isn't the case if the healer is in bad gear. 

Engineering makes things a lot easier obviously, but that can be said for every class. 

My two cents.

[TessTickles 0]

Quote

I think not having ice barrier is only a problem if you think it's a problem. In my opinion, the number 1 priority of elemental is not getting hit. Even if you stack sta, which i think you need to do (alongside crit), you still can't afford to get hit (i think burning soul is redundant because of this).

Unless this is a mixture of PVE/PVP this is mostly bad advice for the OP

If you are considering PVP only read below.

Not get hit? Do you win your fights on 100% hp - you must teach me.

Stack Sta - what the? Did you arena in TBC? What is this nonsense? 

Burning Soul redundant? I had over 110,000 hks and I can tell you 70% pushback is essential in BGs - esp if you are giving up Ice Barrier for this. You cannot avoid getting hit while casting. Ignore melee/pets/aoe for a minute and consider a caster casting on you while you are casting on them - someone's going to finish earlier and pushback the other one. There are many many situations pushback resistance is essential, far too many to list. This is one of the major advantages Scorch has over Frostbolt - pushback resistance coupled with almost half the cast time and no travel time.

The reason my build has 3/5 shatter is because you don't need it. You have 10% crit on scorch/fb already -  the extra shatter crit% is just a bonus. Frost on the other hand needs shatter maxed as you won't get crit chance any other way outside of Winters Chill. There is no passive +crit% talent in frost like there is in fire. An extra 30% crit chance on fire spells if target is frozen is excellent, but there's no need to pull damage talents out of fire to max it.

I've never seen a competent player let an opponent cast a full fireball at them. Outside of opening on a sheeped player - that's 3.5 seconds for someone to not react..

[Moiz 0]

Why would you attempt to cast scorch whilst someone is beating on you? Since high sta is nonsense to you you're not going to survive very long, so that scorch you've chosen to cast (1k damage with crit?), doesn't seem to be of much value. Maybe i'm missing something.

You can avoid getting hit whilst casting. If the situation doesn't allow it then you control, or kite, or run away for a cd, or etc. There's exceptions obviously, such as when cc is more important that mitigating damage for 1 example, but poly doesn't have pushback protection anyway so having protection for fire will be irrelevant. Elemental doesn't play like frost, so going toe-to-toe with another caster attempting to out-damage them before you die is not something that happens. Certainly you want to avoid that type of thing even more so if you have low sta as elemental (assuming ok gear on both party's).  

Talented fireball is 3s cast which is only 500ms more than talented frostbolt. Frostbolts are relatively easy to land, so all you need to do is accommodate the extra 500ms and you've got your fireball. It being uncommon to see has nothing to do with it not being possible but rather it not being speced for. 3.5 is too long (for the most part), but 3s is perfectly doable. It's also beneficial when you're just assisting rather than being faced with a 1v1.

If you're totally convinced that 6% to fire is more beneficial than 20% crit to frozen than more power to you. I played it for a while and i'm not. I also played 5/5 fire power and not convinced of that either. I think you should play elemental for a while and see how it plays for you. Theorising about it without experience (as is evident by the questions and musings in your first post), is kinda moot, no?

[Zioma 1]

This is the spec im running right now and it kicks ass: http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZExMzd0ubMNG0o0th

Improved Cone of Cold +35% damage is better then 6% fire damage from Fire Power in most situations except if you stand in the back launching fireballs. I prefer maxing Frostbite over Iceshards because its all about crit. I try to stack crit as much as possible with gear and talents because Ignite is insane. Burning soul is debatable but I prefer it because landing a few scorch casts while fighting hunters always helps. 

[Astaxanthine 0]

This is the best build http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZVgMzf0uZMAG0obth

Trust me

[Astaxanthine 0]

And when you get tired of pure elmental you take this one. One might argue this is better http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#oZVgMzfZMAGhobtho

You can swap 2 points from permafrost to imp blizzard if you feel like youre gonna use it alot, its sweet vs rogues

[Tronco 0]

Without Ice Barrier, youre helpless against hunters on bgs. And there´s LOTS of hunters (1v1 is a different story)

I only go fire to improve Fire Blast and get Pyroblast for opener (sheep+pyro)

Yet, its a fun spec and blanket silence is a terrible loss against any caster