Okay, so now you’ve hit your spell hit cap! Going over the spell hit is pointless, so try to stay right around the cap without going too far over. Likely, if you’ve gemmed and enchanted and have all the right gear, you ARE way over your cap. So, regem, re-enchant… and start to work on boosting your spell dmg.
Since nearly all magey gear gives good spell dmg, I’m not going to give a list here. Instead, here are some chants that you should look for.
FOR SPELL DAMAGE:
HEAD:
- Glyph of Power – Revered Sha’tar rep.
LEGS
- Good: Mystic Spellthread
- Best: Runic Spellthread
SHOULDERS
- Aldor good: Inscription of Discipline
- Aldor best: Greater Inscription of Discipline
- Scryer best: Greater Inscription of the Orb
WRIST
HANDS
WEAPON
FINGER – (only available to enchanters)
There are countless spell damage gems to add to you gear as well. Just make sure you keep an eye on your spell hit when you’re adding spell dmg items to your make-up. You don’t want it to fall.
Overall goodness for gear:
Enchant your cloak with Subtlety and tanks will love you forever.
Once your spell hit is capped and your spell dmg is up to par, then you can focus on other stats like Spell crit, spell haste, int, stamina, mp5.....These are only gems selected for their +spell hit.
RED:
- Veiled Flame Spessarite (fits red or yellow) (+3 spell hit/ +4 spell dmg)
- Veiled Noble Topaz (fits red or yellow) (+4 spell hit/ +5 spell dmg)
- Shining Fire Opal (fits red or yellow) (+5 spell hit/ +6 Spell dmg)
- Veiled Pyrestone (fits red or yellow) (+5 spell hit/ +6 spell dmg)
YELLOW
- Great Golden Draenite (+6 spell hit)
- Veiled Flame Spessarite (fits red or yellow) (+3 spell hit/ +4 spell dmg)
- Veiled Noble Topaz (fits red or yellow) (+4 spell hit/ +5 spell dmg)
- Shining Fire Opal (fits red or yellow) (+5 spell hit/ +6 Spell dmg)
- Veiled Pyrestone (fits red or yellow) (+5 spell hit/ +6 spell dmg)
- Great Dawnstone (+8 spell hit)
- Vivid Chrysoprase (fits yellow or blue) (+5 spell hit/ +6 stamina)
- Lambent Chrysoprase (fits yellow or blue) (+5 spell hit/ +2mp5)
- Great Lionseye (+10 spell hit)
BLUE
- Vivid Chrysoprase (fits yellow or blue) (+5 spell hit/ +6 stamina)
- Lambent Chrysoprase (fits yellow or blue) (+5 spell hit/ +2mp5)
The goal here is to raise your spell hit rating. For fire mages spec’d with elemental precision, the spell hit cap you’re shooting for is 164. (For other specs, and more spell hit information, check out this post or this one. But the overall goal is to hit at least 6%, no matter your spec, to start raiding. 6% is not the cap, but it’s a good start.) The Contiuum Blade gives a nice boost of 8 spell hit, the Star-Heart Lamp a boost of 12.
If you’re not a tailor, there are some decent drops with spell hit also. I’m not as familiar with these so there will likely be pieces missing from this list. Some of these items are great for tailors too, so don’t feel ignored here.
CHEST
- Vermillion Robes of the Dominant also from Warlord Kalithresh in Steamvaults
- Warp Infused Drape – Warp Splinter in Botanica
BACK
- Sethekk Oracle Cloak – for both tailors and non-tailors –drops from Talon King Ikiss in Sethekk Halls
- Cloak of the Betrayed – Magister’s Terrace
SHOULDERS
- Mantle of Three Terrors – again, nice for tailors and non-tailors. Drops from Chrono Lord Deja in Black Morass
WAIST
- For non-tailors – Sash of Serpentra from Warlord Kalithresh in Steamvaults.
NECK
- Brooch of Heightened Potential – Drops off Blackheart the Inciter in Shadow Labs
WEAPON
- If you get lucky and would rather spend your time grinding Shadow Labs, you can find Greatsword of Horrid Dreams off Murmur rather than grinding rep with KoT for the Contiuum Blade.
- If you’d rather use a 2-hand than a 1 hand and off hand combo, the Warpstaff of Arcanum from Botanica has nice hit.
- As does the Sun-infused Focus Staff from Magister’s Terrace
- Aldor rep: Revered – Auchenai Staff
WAND
- Dalliah the Doomsayer in Arcatraz drops Nether Core’s Control Rod
HANDS:
- Gloves of Arcane Acuity from Magister’s Terrace (I’ve yet to see these drop..ever!)
FINGER:
- Exalted rep with Cenarion Expedition – Ashyen’s Gift. It’s pricey but lovely
TRINKET
- Scryer rep: Revered – Scryer’s Bloodgem
- Starkiller’s Bauble – increases spell hit by a whopping 26. To get the bauble, kill the Congealed Void Horror (70 elite) in Netherstorm. He’ll drop a quest item that, when you turn it in, will give you the bauble. The Horror can be 2-manned rather easily.
If you find you’re still quite a bit short of the 164 goal (or whatever your spec goal is), there are a few ways to help boost the number a bit higher.
Consider enchants. My recommendations here are just for spell hit. Spell dmg and more to be addressed later.
- Head: Glyph of Power – Revered Sha’tar rep.Permanently adds up to 22 spell damage and healing and 14 spell hit rating to a head slot item. Recommended anyway because of the lovely boost to dmg also.
- Hands: Spellstrike - Permanently enchant gloves to grant 15 spell hit rating.
There are also gems that boost your spell hit. Keep in mind that you don’t have to put a gem in its appropriately colored slot if the socket bonus isn’t a great one. A great gem can sometimes be far more beneficial places in a wrong colored slot than a poor gem used in a correct one with a crappy bonus. (Gems to come next)
I can only speak to pre-kara stats/gear here, but hopefully this will help the younger mages looking to start raiding soon.
If you’re wanting to raid, the requirements according to T’s lovely level 70’s guide is this for mages:
- 600 Spell Damage
- 6% Hit Rating
- 9K Mana Pool Unbuffed
- 7K HP Pool Unbuffed
I highly recommend taking tailoring as a fire mage. The spellfire set can be made and waiting for you the moment you ding 70, bringing you close to raiding ready right away.
Find a nice off-hand, such as Star-Heart Lamp from Black Morass, or the Lamp of Peaceful Radiance from Arcatraz, and work on KoT rep to get the revered rep reward Contiuum Blade.
Sheep pulling: Rarely done, but occasionally required. If you need to pull a mob for the tank by sheeping, simply sheep your target and iceblock until the tank has agro on all the other mobs.
Counterspell: How I love thee. This is great for interrupting mob spells such as heals or nasty dmg spells. Cast while your target is casting (recommend getting a mod such as Quartz that lets you see your target’s casting bar) and it will shut him/her up! Counterspell (often shortened to CS in case you ever wondered what that meant) is also good when your tank is trying to pull a group of mobs out of the way, and one pesky caster mob remains behind, threatening to pull more mobs and cause a wipe. If you CS him while he’s casting, he’ll have to run to your group! Awesomesauce.
Spellstealing: This is great for stopping mobs who cast heals over time (steals it from them and puts it on you!) or mobs that have great buffs. Steal the buff and you get it instead!
Easy breezy! I can’t speak for all mages, but here’s how I work my fiery goodness.
On trash mobs:
Scorch/Scorch/fireball/fireball/fireball/d
If the mob is at 2 or 3%, I might skip the last fireball and throw off a fireblast or one last scorch if they’re really close to death. Fireball is a 3 second cast, so trying to get one last one off with so little health left is a waste of dps time. Also, you'll notice I don't stack 5 scorches on trash. Alot of the time, I'll only throw one on him. Trash tends to go down really fast, and my fireballs will help do that alot better than the scorches.
On bosses:
Stack scorch 5x/ fireball/fireball/fireball/fireball/scor
You don’t want the scorch to fade. Make sure the 5 stack stays renewed every few fireballs. Scorch increases the damage done by all fire spells drastically, but doesn’t do great damage on its own so try not to use it for pure damage. Your damage should be coming from the fireballs which will hurt the mobs A LOT when paired with your scorch stacks. Yes, it’s tempting to scorch away. It’s a fast spell and sometimes crits. But your dps will suffer if you use it as your main spell for downing a mob. If you have another fire mage in the group, so much the better! Let her cast scorch, then you, then her, till 5 are stacked, then both of you can open up a world of hurt and take turns refreshing that debuff.
Also, I want to add here that I am an Icy Veins spec’d fire mage, so on bosses especially, I like to click on my veins at the start in order to throw those 5 scorches on really fast and get to burning him down with fireballs.
GROUPING AS A MAGE:
Agro management:
Grouping as a mage is somewhat different than soloing as one. For one thing, the harder you can hit things when you solo, the better. Keel and keel some more. But when you group, your ability to crit and hit hard could cause a lot of trouble for other players. Find a threat meter, such as Omen, and watch it constantly. If it you even think you’re about to pass the tank in threat, ice block baby. Ice block, ice block, ice block. If you ice block too late, the mob will turn his agro to the nearest target, which could sadly be your defenseless healer. If you happen to pull agro and it’s too late to stop it, run to your tank and iceblock right next to her. Your healer will thank you.
Also, if your crit percentage is say, 30%, you can kind of count on criting every 3-4 shots. So, if you’re high on the agro list and haven’t critted in the last 3 fireballs… pull out your wand or stand there looking pretty until your threat has fallen, because very likely, your next shot is going to shove you over the tank’s threat.
Sheeping:
I still struggle with this. In theory, it’s easy to understand. But in practice, I think I make tanks’ eyes bleed. The ideal situation is to have your sheep target targeted (I use a macro for this, so that when I sheep something, it sheeps and puts a focus on them so I can switch back to my sheep faster and easier, while keeping watch on my sheep timer. There are fancier macros than mine, but I just use:
/focus
/cast polymorph
Keeping the mob sheeped is really easy if you watch your focused frame. But timing your sheep is another story. You want to start your sheep before the tank actually pulls (please know that she is about to do so first!). IF, however, the polymorph is nearly cast and the tank still hasn’t pulled, STOP THE SHEEPING and start over. You don’t want to pull the group of mobs with a sheep unless it’s asked of you. The reason for sheeping as the tank pulls is simple: the further away your sheep cast lands, the further away your tank will be from your polymorphed mob, therefore making the chances of your sheep breaking that much slimmer.
As I said, I know all this in theory. Putting it into practice takes, well, practice.
- Mood:
impressed
- Mood: ecstatic
I'm a poor poor toon after this week!
Elphina hit 50! (SS posted, though she doesn't look too happy)
Raynarra (BE hunter) hit 40
Kittialia (BE pally) hit 30
I cant afford squat but weee! 2 (TWO) chocobos!
- Mood:
bouncy
 | My first BFD experience That's me, standing there doing nothing while uber guildie Aphla takes on final boss.... |
 | Wingleaf and Caledonian He looked at me funny...so I took out my fishing pole and..... he kicked my ass :( |
 | Barbie and Ken He tried to apologize for hitting me so hard with that fishing pole, but I was still too beat up to enjoy it. |
 | DOTH mage Calephia and priest Sarikiz over-fatigued from the long runs in Eversong Woods |
- Mood:
crazy
 | Farallon & Draphina That's me..Draphina and fellow DoTA Farallon engaged in Hand to Hand combat. I think I won? |
 | Duel Aftermath Had to rest after that long, torturous duel... |
- Mood:
complacent
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