How2mage

News: 3.1 and mages.

2009-04-15T09:32:00.004+01:00

Ok 3.1 is hitting today im waiting for the realms to come back online, but what does this mean for your mage?

Ok lets talk about Duel spec, This is going to be great for mages for most mages this will mean having a Pvp and Pve spec. I will be specing FFB for pve and Arcane/fire for pve. Maybe you don't pvp so you might like to run a Raid spec like FFB and a farming spec like Frost or Fire. If your not a fan of Pve you might like to run a Arena spec like frost or arcane if you have both you will be ready for what ever you feel like in pvp.

I will be doing this:

Pvp: Arcane/Fire http://tinyurl.com/clobx5

Pve: Frost Fire Bolt http://tinyurl.com/cspecn

Ok now lets talk Tier 8. I was asked today if T8 will work with FFB and not only will it work it will improve FFB.

Here are the Set Bonuses for T8 and how it will help you.
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2Piece Bonus - Your Arcane Blast, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, and Fireball spells have a chance to grant you 350 spell power for 15 sec.

This is an amazing Set bonus especially if you have a trinket that already has a chance to grant spell power, you could have a +SP most of the time.

4Piece Bonus - You have a chance for the effect of your Missile Barrage, Hot Streak, or Brain Freeze talent not to be consumed when you cast the spells which benefit.
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Ok this means that that when you get things like a hot streak that gives you an instant pyroblast, you have a chance to not consume hotstreak so you will be able to shoot another instantly. Arcane missiles has a benefit spell that reduces the channeling of the spell so you may have 2 very fast arcane missiles. In frost you have a spell that can silence or freeze them and this will also have a chance to not be consumes, sorry i haven't been frost for a long time, i cant remember the

Ok im going to leave it at that till next time!

Please comment and give me some feedback.

New: QQ on Mage Forums?

2009-04-11T09:29:00.002+01:00

Ok iv been checking out the mage forum and I'm seeing a hole lot of QQ and "I'm leaving because we are rubbish" i just don't see it my self.
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I love my mage at the moment in always top 3 on Bg's and in raids I'm top 10dps easy. i don't know why but mages think they have some right to be OP and when it doesn't happen its /cry and /runtomum.
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maybe its me tho maybe some people don't have the gear im fully decked with Nax25 Maly 25 and Os 25 gear full t7.5 and in pvp i only need legs to get my full hateful. it may just be that the majority of people on the forums don't have the gear to be good and blame the class i don't know.
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got any ideas on this one pls post a comment i would love to hear from you.

News: a Few 3.1 Mage Updates.

2009-04-08T00:17:00.002+01:00

Evening chaps right lets get down to buisness, mages ah yes mages...
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Right some things that are happening in 3.1 are the following:
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Improved Scorch: Increased critical strike chance is now 1%, down from 2% per application of the Improved Scorch effect. In addition, the critical strike chance of Scorch, Fireball, and Frostfire Bolt is increased by 1/2/3%.
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Winter's Chill: Increased critical strike chance is now 1%, down from 2% per application of Winter's Chill. In addition, the critical strike chance of Frostbolt is increased by 1/2/3%.
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Anyone running FFb will be happy there is a buff coming to [Living Bomb] Not sure if its official but shown from the PTR living bomb is doing double the damage, apparently hopefully it will stay that way its nice to see something that needs 51 talents in fire does more damage go PVE!

Any how if i find out any more i will let you know so far not to much is coming up

Tips: Arcane Power and how to Crack it.

2009-04-07T00:48:00.007+01:00

OK hi everyone today I'm going to talk a little about arcane and in pvp mainly. To start i want to say that iv moved away from FFB and iv been playing with Arcane for the last 2 weeks getting my hatefull gear doing BG's and arena.

Now to start il give you a link to my current spec it is 62/9/0 Talent calc - http://tinyurl.com/clobx5.

Check out the spec and have a look, there a few thing you can do to change this spec i would stay with the 62 in arcane for now as it works great, But you don't have to run fire. You could drop the 9 in fire and dump them into frost if that's what you prefer. it has its advantages both ways 9 in frost or fire, with frost your going to use your Pom(presence of mind) and frost bolt for a nice freeze effect or like me il using it for an instant fireball for the more damage.

Ok lets help you out here so you see a spec like this and ask " well that's all great but what do i do with it, what skills and rotations do i use"? ok no prob i got you covered.

[ i may make a video to explain this a little better at some point in the near future]

Ok so what do you go about doing in Pvp, BG's for example? ok so you in a BG and you see druid first off think about running druids are very hard to take, well good ones anyway same with hunters. Never put [SLOW] on a hunter he will eat you for it. use your slow on melee classes only or people trying to run away, eg: paladin, warriors, death knights and rogues. So you have slow on a guy this is what i will normally do: Slow - POM - Fireball - Arcane Barrage - Fire blast, using Arcane Barrage and fireblast when ever you can if they are on recharge use arcane missile but on if at range.

One more thing ALWAYS keep your distance remember you have cloth not plate that's what slow,blink and frost nova are for. ok if at any time you have a melee right up on you, freeze, slow blink trinket. one more great thing with this if you hit ice block and need to get away hit ice block again to get out and hit invisibility asap, this spec has an instant invis its great for escaping alive. Also remember to EVOCATE its 2 Min's CD now so you it as much as possible you can even SHEEP then Evocate then start your damage on them again.

Tip for killing healers, ok so you see a paladin, priest or what ever is healing, you wanna hit him as hard as possible once he is near to 50% hit Counter spell this will silence him for 3 seconds and 8 times out of 10 he wont get a heal off quick enough before hes dead when silence ends. This is the main prob with druids the fast heals are hard to deal with if you don't do enough damage your not going to get him down while hes silenced.

Few Very Important! tips for this spec: When you use this use Blink ALOT when you cast blink for 3 seconds you have 30% less chance to be hit it helps allot. Remember to keep up you mana gems when you trying to survive the only thing is mana shield so you going to need to pop them alot. Evocate is also on a 2min CD so you can use that allot and it helps for keeping you and your damage up! You're Invisibility if now instant and will get you out of allot sticky spots. your Counter Spell silences the target for 3 seconds shut down the most crucial spells also stop healers from healing at vital points, trust me a healer not being able to heal for 3 seconds if allot.

Ok to summarise that chunk of text.

Melee = Snow them down and keep distance with [SLOW] [FROST NOVA] [BLINK] (instant frostbolt if you spec 9 into frost or Fireball if 9 in fire)

Healers = Do as much damage as possible same your pom till you need to do big damage EG: use [Arcane Barrage] [Fire Blast] and [Arcane Missiles] once down to 50% ish hit [Counter Spell] And use [PoM] and instant [Fireball or Frostbolt] and do as much damage as possible.

Ranges Dps = Do more damage than they do and do it quicker, with this spec you will trust me, also using [Counter Spell] to stop spells like Fear and Mana Burn.

I will come back and write some more about this there so much to this spec and its all good news.

Been a while

2009-03-24T18:08:00.002Z

Hi everyone sorry i haven't been posting recently iv been very busy trying to get a full time job to pay for my car and rent . I'm just scraping by every month with no money left i my bank sometimes weeks before i get paid. Good news, I get my bonus tomorrow!! /cheer.

Anyway so i guess you want something new and interesting to know about mages right? so what shall i say well I'm going to hit into PROFESSIONS oh yay i hear you scream, So your a mage and you don't know what professions to go with? My self i am Tailoring and enchanting i don't think anything will be better than that, i mean you make your own gear and enchant it simple!

If your looking to make money rather than spend it go for gathering profession EG: Mining and Herbalism They are by far the best ones to make a quick gold on. i would also way go tailoring no matter what maybe you wont be at the right lvl to make the gear you need but you can always make bags and sell then the Spellthread go for a bomb if you farm the mats like i do. I manages to go from 1000g to 6000g in a few days farming the eternal fires and making Sapphire Spellthread selling on AH for 300g when they first came out they sold for 700g+ so i made loads more, but still that's an amazing way to make shed loads of gold. Enchanting i would say is optional maybe for Jewel or inscription with tailor that's kinda always a nice way to go, at the moment my enchant is at 375 just so i can Disenchant the green and epics to for materials to sell of use.

So i will break it down for you.

Make money: Gathering prof EG: Mining or Herbalism maybe Skinning.
Make some use of your profs: Tailoring
Make use of your second Prof: Enchanting, Jewel or Inscription.

Till next time

Tip: How 2 Frostfire Bolt

2009-03-07T00:15:00.001Z

Hi iv made a video on YouTube of how to run a FFB mage (frostfire bolt) its a little guide to what rotations to run glyphs and macro. Go ahead and take a look i have put the link below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X01LE-NF14

My Talent Tree/spec for FFB

http://tiny.cc/VYVag

till next time!

News: Mage Tier 8.

2009-03-06T19:42:00.004Z

Welcome to another How2Mage post today im just going to show you the Mage tier 8 that's set to hit us in patch 3.1. (female t8 at top male t8 lower image) Looks very nice wouldn't you agree? I cant wait to get my set which i know i will, I'm nearly full T7.5 so I'm really looking forward to kicking lumps out of lich king while rockin my T8. One thing iv always liked is the gear in wow, one reason i wouldn't be a druid.

Druid says: " Yay look at me i got my T8 but il never see it because I'm always in Owl or Bear form Go me!"

I say: " your stupid ". end of.

Till next time.

Tell me what you think, post a comment.

Tips: Gear and Gear stats.

2009-03-02T00:58:00.005Z

Hello again, Today I'm going to talk about gear in general I'm not going to tell you where to get your gear (25man nax, OS and Eye) i wouldn't do that kind of thing. But i am going to help you choose what you roll for and what to use your DKP on ( if you guild uses DKP) Anyway I'm going to start with whats the most important, at the moment i haven't seen a staff that is better than a sword, with wand and off hand. When your looking to get new gear you want to look out for a few things first, to start your main item buffs will be Int and Stam. spirit is ok doesn't matter if u have it or not always a bonus if u can get it with some nice int/stam gear. When your looking at the green buffs under the main item info here's is what i rate your go for first.

1. Spell Power (anywhere around 2k Bonus Damage you want to aim for, i currently have 1900 on my mage and that's fine for me and i still could improve a fair amount of gear)

2. Hit Rating (once you hit 12% hit go more for Crit u wont need much above 12%).

3. Crit Rating (Crit is always nice you want to aim for 25/35% if u can get more that's awesome).

4. Haste (Haste is good for certain things most specs its useful to have but not to important).

5. Mp5 ( at the moment this isn't to important but with the 3.1 mana changes who knows how much we may need this and spirit).

That's my top 5 on what to look for with gear.

Just to go back to one of my first points, if you just hit 80 and not sure what to do for gear here's what you do.

First you go run all the Heroics get full purple some blues are fine get rid of all greens asap.

Second start with VoA (WG raid) and move up to 10 man nax and satharion 1 drake ( those are pugable now i wouldn't go malygos/25man Nax or sath 2/3 drakes with pugs, personal opinion).

Anyway hope that helps .

Till next time ;)

General: We have Forums!

2009-02-25T10:19:00.003Z

Ok iv just been and set up the How2Mage forums go on there have your say tell me what your think, anything! go on click the link on the TOP RIGHT of the page. you wont regret it !

The forums dont look amazing yet but iv got a few things to do today and work, then il make them look nice.

Till next time..

General: Arcane,Fire,Frost,FFB?

2009-02-24T23:30:00.004Z

So the Question is Arcane,Frost,Fire or Frostfirebolt?

Now these specs don't work for everything, well they will work but you wont be doing the best your could possible do dependant on your spec and what your doing.

Ok to start with raiding. So at the moment i think the best raid spec is Frostfirebolt its what i use and its brilliant, now some people seem to think arcane is best for raids and i just don't see it. Arcane is raids it so mana intensive your spent most of you time getting your mana back, YES arcane is better in the DPS meter if you know what your doing BUT Frostfire will still beat arcane on damage. Now iv tested this and frostfire will last for a good 5/10mins and you wont need to use pot/mana gem or evocate, and your be doing very nice DPS and Damage overall. Arcane in raids Will eat your mana in 1/2Min's dependant, yes you get evocate every 2Min's BUT your spending alot of time using evocate and mana gems also pots that your wasting alot of time. What makes FFB (frostfirebolt) better is the fact that you will easily got 10mins on a boss with no mana probs, maybe pot a mana gem if u run low but your will be doing costant damage and the DoT's are a good 20/30% of your damage.

Next general pve and questing. Ok when i leveled to 80 i started with arcane from 70 till 74ish and it was ok it does fine but not as good as frost. i switch to frost to do some AOE (area of effect eg: Blizzard, if u don't know how or what it is check out this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69UfWK1Z8LY&feature=channel_page) Now on normal mobs its just frostbolt spam, cone of cold and ice lance to finish off. now for that its best to run a deep frost spec alittle in fire to get the crit bonus for blizzard. Killing one mob at a time is great but sometimes i would get a quest saying "kill 20 of these, 10 of these" and i would run to where they are agro up a good 10/20 kill them all and within 2 pulls have the quest done. its so quick and easy is leveled from 77-80 quicker than 70-77 i think. Its also great if you find a good place to farm frostweave cloth drops so much when you find a good place you can get all you need for tailoring or just to sell the cloth for lots of money, for me frost is always the best way to go for leveling. it is good in pvp personally i prefer the quick fire of arcane/fire (55/16/0).

Last but not least PVP. Now as i said above for me personally in pvp i like arcane/fire.
The arcane/fire spec i like to run is: arcane-55 fire-16 frost-0 (55/16/0) The spec i like to use you can see if u follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/bofdwt You can change part you dont like you don't have the have the instant pyro i have which will give you some more talents to spend, but that's what i like to use. At lvl 70 pvp i was frost until just before wrath i was arcane/fire as you saw above, when i was frost i found it was to slow if u have someone on you there is not much you can do freeze them blink and cast, i didn't like casting frostbolt for me it took to long and left me vulnerable. With arcane you have the freeze and the blink you also get instant invisibility and the instant damage which i think best suites a pvp mage.

When the duel specs come into the game i will be running FFB and Arcane/fire spec for me its the only way to go.

My Specs:
Frostfirebolt: http://tinyurl.com/5fyzxw
Arcane/fire: http://tinyurl.com/bofdwt
Deep Frost: http://tinyurl.com/arlqdr

If you have anything to say or would like to share your views please leave a comment bellow.

until next time...

News: Duel specs?

2009-02-24T14:15:00.006Z

Ok as your may well know 3.1.0 patch will be coming up in the coming month and will bring in Duel Spec! At the moment rumor has it that to get duel specs you will need to be lvl 80 (or the lvl cap eg: 70 in BC, 80 in Woltk) and you will need to pay out 1000g to get the duel spec working. 1000g may not be a final price for duel spec or it may well be the final price no one knows for sure. This screen shot on the left shows the price in the current PTR. (image taken by Dustin of the PTR)

So what does this mean for a mage like me i hear you mumble, well its very big change and will make the game much more competitive. Think about it at the moment people are running around going into pvp with pve specs because they don't want to spend the gold for respec and then to respec back, personally iv been stuck on 50g respec for months now and i pvp with my frostfirebolt spec i don't mind but i would like to go arcane or frost. So say a paly or shaman this is amazing news they can switch from dps to heal in no time. For us mages its just makes us more deadly, Running frostfire in raids, and switching to arcane or frost for pvp. Maybe i can finally get some arena rating with out the 50g respec costs. To wrap this up your going to be running a pve and pvp spec if you hate pvp your going to be doing a farming spec and a raid spec i mean this really does free up the game somewhat. Personally i will be going Frostfire bolt for raids, and arcane for when I'm in the mood for pvp. this is 100% worth 1000g.

Any comment? please write them in the comment bellow.

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Thanks! till next time.

Trick & Tips: day to day stuff

2009-02-23T23:34:00.004Z

Ok here's a few tip your should know, you may not but I'm going to tell you anyway.

So your falling off a cliff right? ok no problem you don't have reagents for slowfall or the glyph? that's a shame but you don't need to die, its simple a split second before your hit the floor hit blink! Now your going to need to judge this right or your a pancake. the split second before impact hit blink and your should just teleport to the floor a few feet ahead of where you where falling. and guess what your alive !

Another tip mainly for pvp, so your in pvp and your stacked up with debuffs and/or slowing debuffs but your trinkets on CD. What do you do? ok your going to need to Hit Ice block! and spam Ice Block again to get out of it this is great for get away best used for the warlock Dot's they will all be gone but u need to be quick because you wont be able to run away.

Anyway that's it for today, tell your mage friends leave a comment if u have any other tips i can add them in from you.

thanks see you soon.!

Welcome to How2Mage

2009-02-22T19:44:00.003Z

Welcome to How2mage a simple World of Warcraft blog with all the tips,tricks and news on mages as they happen.

If your a level 1 - 80 mage.
Horde or Ally.
Not sure if you want to make a mage?

Here you will find the tips, Tricks and news. I will be going over the new tips old tricks and news you may not even know yet. so sit back and enjoy.

"As you may see this is just starting up give me a few days and it will be all up and running and looking very nice."