So Far of the Mark

Evening,

So I got on this morning and did my AH stuff and got everything posted. Then got on and did some of the rep grinding for Insane and then decided to finish leveling inscription. Logging on my mage I figure I will continue to level to 80 in BGs and so I queued up. 20 minutes later and having a hit a wall to stop me leveling inscription any more I decided to try to get a random run. Waiting the typical 15 minutes for a dps queue I zoned into Utgarde Keep and find my group. Paladin tank, druid healer, rogue and DK for dps plus me. Not a bad group, buff up and off get go. The tank is doing well holding aggro though I did pull a couple times due to starting to early or some lucky crits. The run went great until the final boss.

Now I have yet to figure out why this is so hard because it really doesn't seem that complicated to me. So of course we wipe and the DK drops and we run back getting another DK to fill the spot as we run. Attempt 2 wasn't much better then the first. So far the tank has shown just how unaware they are after all. She would not move out of the spinning axe until at least one dps died. With this wipe the druid healer drops and on the way back we picked up a paladin healer. I also zoned back in at the same time as the tank so I decided to look at their build and what a surprise.

She must have missed the actual point of a tank. Yes you want to be the one getting smashed in the face but you want to reduce the amount that smashing hurts as much as possible. Looking at her spec I realized she only had one point in each of the damage reducing or stamina buff talents in the lower tiers. She didn't even have Hammer of the Righteous which actually impressed me a little due to the lack of threat issues she had during AOE pulls.

I have seen some wonky leveling specs from people that didn't really know what they needed or didn't. But she seems to totally miss the mark on what it takes to be a tank. She didn't spec in a way to max threat or to max survivability. I am not sure what direction she was trying to go or if she just thought put most of them in prot and I can tank. I didn't really look much farther than this because I was so amazed. I also didn't have time to try to give her advice because after wiping a third time she dropped group.

So is this really something that happens often? Do people miss the basic point of roles by this much often? I realize there are a lot of talents and not all make total sense but for the most part a normal person could figure out the things that are worthless for your role, right?

/baffled

Mage Update

Evening,

So I was able to hit level 62 yesterday. This has given me a chance to play a little with each spec in both questing and dungeons. My thoughts,

Fire-

• Actually is able to AOE but not as much at a time or as safely as frost can. It basically comes down to Living bomb on everything and then use all of your abilities to keep them as far away as possible for as long enough for them to all die. Its not easy, very mana intense and uses almost everything every pull to keep from dieing.
• In dungeons the cast times are still very slow. You can spec to get instant Flame Strikes when using Dragon Breathe but this puts you fairly close and aggro is a real problem. Other than that one ability everything cost a lot and Evocation is never off cooldown soon enough. This may be a lack of crit since that's where fires mana regen comes from but at this point I wouldn't suggest fire.

Frost-

• By far the best for AOE bar-none for both grinding, questing and dungeons
• Single target dps is very low even when popping Icy Veins and Elemental and then using Cold Snap to keep both up through entire fight.
• I will still be using this as my main leveling spec because of the AOE control and survivability

Arcane-

• Even without having Arcane Blast yet has by far the best single target dps so far!
• Can be mana intense or no thought of mana depending on Clearcasting procs, just be sure to be at full before a boss fight and you will be able to go the whole fight.
• AOE I personally have found to be very hard on mana if you try to go all out as well as the tanks tend to have aggro problems in that case. I have been dropping Flame Strike then just single targeting. It keeps up the dps and is sustainable.
• Rotating Arcane Barrage between Arcane Missiles for Missile Barrage procs is ok but using straight Arcane Missiles is likely better dps at this point. But the first time you get a Barrage proc you will love is so much you will find yourself weaving Arcane Barrage also.
• I will be using this as my dungeon spec for awhile.

So for now I against fire though if you prefer it that awesome. Its just not my style at the moment. I will likely try it again at some point but I will be sticking to Frost for AOE grinding and questing and Arcane for my dungeon runs.

Mage Leveling - So Far

Evening,

So last night my mage finally got to level 58. I had to get off after that so I have yet to take her into outlands to start the massive xp whore that Hellfire will be. I wanted to get my thoughts on the leveling process for me up to this point. I didn't get duel spec until around level 50 and then only to try out other specs to see how they played at this point. My primary leveling spec has been frost and will continue to be so. Now on to my thoughts of each spec up to this point.

Frost-

• Awesome mob control
• Best survivability of all the specs
• Best AOE damage and grinding capability
• Average DPS when Icy Veins is up/when it becomes available the elemental helps this a lot, though I didn't glyph it for the frost nova when AOE grinding
• There is a lot of drinking until you get the replenishment effect

Arcane-

• Capable Dps
• Very mana efficient due to Clearcasting and mage armor/shortened Evocate cooldown makes any bad points very easy to deal with
• Almost no AOE grind availability
• Using Flamestrike and Blizzard together AOE DPS is just as capable as Frost but more mana intense if Clearcasting procs are not very friendly
• Mana shield can be talented cheaper but I didn't use it, with proper use of Frost Nova there was no need for it

Fire-

• Very long cast times make it feel very slow
• can kill almost any mob before they reach you
• very mana intense, will be drinking even more than Frost due to most mana return coming from the crit DOT ticking which it rarely gets to
• In instances things tend to die so fast you don't have time to really get the DPS rolling even though I would say it has the highest DPS potential at this stage

So as you can tell I prefer frost for just about everything. Even though I have really been enjoying Arcane Missiles in instances. AOE grinding quest is defiantly the most time effective way to go with frost. Arcane doesn't really kill single target any faster than frost at this point. I really didn't care for fire at all. I just felt so so slow with the very long cast times it has.

I will continue to update this list and my feels as I continue to level. I am very excited about getting Living Bomb and Arcane Blast. I want to try AOE grinding with Living Bomb and see if I can make something work. Arcane Blast is what makes arcane viable so I will defiantly be using that for some good massive damage fun.

/breaths a sigh relief

An Update

Evening,

Its been a bit since my last post. I just haven't had many ideas to work with but I'm getting a few finally and will start getting back to it. I am gonna work on updating my progresses and I have a mage leveling guide coming up. I'm really excited about the mage guide. I need to get my mage up a few more levels before I can complete it but I shouldn't take to long.

Over this last weekend I got some ICC raiding in on my paladin. It was fun and yet very frustrating. I'm sure many have felt what we were all feeling over the weekend. We spent on night working on Festergut to finally down him the next night. Then Rotface followed a night later after lots of work. Both were great achievements for my wife's guild. I'm not thinking I am the best raider out there but both kills were painful. The thrill and adrenaline of the kill get you through a few pulls on the next until you realize you may be lucky if you get it down.

It is raids like the this though that remind me why it is I don't care much for raiding. I don't enjoy beating my face against a wall that is only there because of small mistakes. Now I don't believe none of those mistakes are mine but when you see the same problems repeatedly by the same people its frustrating. I also think I could handle that better if we could recover faster. But when there is a five to ten minute break between each pull that has nothing to do with the game I really start to lose it. I don't enjoy spending 6 hours in a raid when we were only actually playing for 3 of it. I am including spirit runs and buffing the the play time. Now some of these delays are me and my wife's own fault for trying to raid with 2 babies in the house. But it still felt excessive to me.

/RAWR!