TankSpot: Magecraft PvE for 3.3.3 in 5 minutes

Tankspot

Not by any stretch a comprehensive guide, but there seem to be a lot of the same mage questions and I figure it'll be easier to answer them in one place.


Spec

Two are equally viable:
• Fire 18/51/0+2. Put the 2 extra points in Flame Throwing unless you have a good fight-specific reason for something else.
• Arcane 57/3/11. Can move 2 Ice Shards points to Frost Warding, and trade points between Arcane Stability and Arcane Focus depending on how much hit vs pushback prevention you need. This is a good raid compromise with 3/5 Arcane Stability giving 100% pushback prevention with Imp. Concentration Aura.
• Correct glyphs are in the links above, there are no options.


Spell Rotation/Priority

Fire Priority: LB -> HS Pyro -> Fireball. Keep up scorch debuff if you don't have a warlock providing it.

Arcane Rotation: ABspam04MBAM. With 2pcT10 switch to ABspam0234MBAM. If you get super unlucky with procs clear the stack with (a non-MB) AM.


Gear

Use Rawr. It is the best model of mage combat around. To begin, load your toon from armory, tick all the buffs you have. Watch the video on the Rawr site.

"Optimal" gear discussion can be found in this thread on ElitistJerks.


Stats

Hit cap yourself, 17% total from talents, buffs/debuffs and gear. Priority is vaguely:

Fire: (Hit to cap) > SP > Crit > Haste
Arcane: (Hit to cap) > SP = Haste > Crit

Use Rawr for your individual case and to plan gemming and enchanting.


Cooldowns

Mirror Image is on the GCD. Don't macro it in with other cooldowns because you will waste up to 1.5 seconds of them while the GCD expires. Hit MI, then once the GCD expires hit your macro containing the other abilities and AB-cast.

Fire: Combustion and Quad Core (4pcT10 MI).
Use Combustion with Quad Core always. You want to use QC: (a) during heroism, (b) below 35% boss HP, and (c) as many times as possible.

Arcane: Arcane Power, Icy Veins, Speed Pot and Quad Core.
In the absence of Heroism(/Bloodlust) this is easy: Quad Core+IV+AP+Pot up front, then AP as soon as it's available, then wait for AP to do QC+IV+AP together.

With Heroism in the mix you must avoid GCD capping yourself, so how many abilities you can stack inside Heroism depends on your haste rating (assuming full raid buffs and black magic enchant here).

With 2pcT10.

<564 haste - AP+IV+QC inside hero, lone AP, AP+IV+QC+Pot outside.
564-882 haste = QC+AP+Pot inside hero, lone AP, lone IV, AP+IV+QC outside.
>882 haste = QC+AP inside hero, AP+IV outside, AP+IV+QC+pot outside.


Procs

You will have procs from things like Lightweave, Black Magic, ICC rep ring, and trinkets. Amazing mages will time their cooldowns for when these are going to proc. Popping everything up front mostly gives you at least one coincidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Can I spec frostfire, or frost?

Not for competitive PVE DPS, no.


Q. What does "ABspam0234MBAM" mean?

This is the arcane rotation. It means:
• Spam arcane blast until you get Missile Barrage proc.
• Once you have a Missile Barrage proc, cast Arcane Missiles if you have 0, 2, 3 or 4 stacks of the Arcane Blast buff.
• Otherwise keep casting Arcane Blast.


Q. Why is my DPS so bad?

It's because you are not casting enough. Probably because you are moving too much.

The #1 rule of caster DPS is ABC: Always Be Casting.


Q. How do I cast more?

Don't move when you don't have to. Plant yourself in range, take your fingers off the movement keys, and spam those spells unless you are going to die if you don't move.

Also get a cast bar addon with a lag indicator (such as Quartz), and make sure you are pre-casting so you lose as little time to lag as possible.


Q. What is the hit cap?

It's the amount of spell +hit you need to never miss.


Q. OK smartass, what is the hit cap number?

At level 80, versus a boss mob, the hit cap is 17% +hit. You get some from talents depending on you spec, 1% if you have draenei in your party, and 3% if you have a boomkin or shadow priest attacking your target.

The fire spec has no hit from talents. The arcane spec has between 3 and 6 percent from talents depending on how many points in Arcane Focus you took.

At level 80 for 1% you need 26.23 hit rating, rounded up.

Starter Gear Sets

These are basic starter gear sets for 3.3.3, assuming: you aren't raiding; you don't pvp; you aren't super rich and buying ilevel 264 gear. These will still take a lot of heroic farming and (depending on your realm) about 3000-5000g to have the chest, wrist, waist and feet pieces crafted.

The main problem at this gear level is balancing hit, as there are not a lot of options in each slot.


Arcane

	Item	Enchantment	Gems
Head	Sunstrider's Hood of Conquest	Arcanum of Burning Mysteries	Chaotic Skyflare Diamond + Purified Dreadstone
Neck	Arcane Loops of Anger
Shoulders	Sunstrider's Shoulderpads of Conquest	Greater Inscription of the Storm	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Back	Disguise of the Kumiho	Greater Speed
Chest	Merlin's Robe	Powerful Stats	Purified Dreadstone + Reckless Ametrine + Runed Cardinal Ruby
Wrists	Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers	Superior Spellpower	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Hands	Sunstrider's Gauntlets of Conquest	Exceptional Spellpower	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Waist	Sash of Ancient Power	Eternal Belt Buckle	Purified Dreadstone + Runed Cardinal Ruby * 2
Legs	Sunstrider's Leggings of Conquest	Brilliant Spellthread	Reckless Ametrine + Rigid King's Amber
Feet	Spellslinger's Slippers	Icewalker	Purified Dreadstone + Runed Cardinal Ruby
Finger1	Band of the Invoker
Finger2	Heartmender Circle
Trinket1	Talisman of Resurgence
Trinket2	Abyssal Rune
Main Hand	Seethe	Black Magic
Off Hand	Shriveled Heart
Ranged	Brimstone Igniter

Use Abyssal Rune when you have 3% hit from Misery or Improved Faerie Fire, and Shard of the Crystal Heart when you don't.


Fire

	Item	Enchantment	Gems
Head	Sunstrider's Hood of Conquest	Arcanum of Burning Mysteries	Chaotic Skyflare Diamond + Purified Dreadstone
Neck	Arcane Loops of Anger
Shoulders	Sunstrider's Shoulderpads of Conquest	Greater Inscription of the Storm	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Back	Kurisu's Indecision	Greater Speed
Chest	Merlin's Robe	Powerful Stats	Purified Dreadstone + Potent Ametrine + Runed Cardinal Ruby
Wrists	Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers	Superior Spellpower	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Hands	Sunstrider's Gauntlets of Conquest	Exceptional Spellpower	Runed Cardinal Ruby
Waist	Sash of Ancient Power	Eternal Belt Buckle	Purified Dreadstone + Runed Cardinal Ruby * 2
Legs	Sunstrider's Leggings of Conquest	Brilliant Spellthread	Potent Ametrine + Veiled Ametrine
Feet	Spellslinger's Slippers	Icewalker	Purified Dreadstone + Runed Cardinal Ruby
Finger1	Band of the Invoker
Finger2	Heartmender Circle
Trinket1	Shard of the Crystal Heart
Trinket2	Abyssal Rune
Main Hand	Seethe	Mighty Spellpower
Off Hand	Shriveled Heart
Ranged	Brimstone Igniter

If you don't have Misery / Improved Faerie Fire to provide 3% hit, use Sinner's Confession in place of Heartmender Circle and pick up 40 more hit rating from gems and enchants.