This post stemmed from a conversation I was having with a fellow mage in guild chat today. I was inquiring which set of stats was more beneficial for raids.
I was thinking Set 2, but I wanted to see what other mages and raiders thought. Yeah I know, Set 1 would be more damage, .23% more spell hit and every frostbolt/frost spell heals me. Well I came to the fact I will carry my other shoulders with me to swap out quickly until I get my [item]Gloves of the Aldor[/item], then I can have both set bonus’.
Set 1: 802 bonus damage, 12.43% spell hit, 17.43% spell crit and 2% of spell damage returned as heals
Set 2: 783 bonus damage, 12.20% spell hit, 18.50% spell crit and immune to spell cast(Frostbolt and Fireball) interruption
Difference: 19 bonus damage, < .25% spell hit, over 1% spell crit and the set bonus
So anyway the other mage was telling me that frost mages can’t do as much DPS as fire and arcane and that I should respec and respec my tailoring too. Um yeah right, pony up the money, mats for my spellfire set + respec and you got yourself a deal.
He was saying our top 2 mages in the guild, by which he meant his damage meter, are fire and arcane. Well the arcane mage left the guild. I told him to use WWS as a guide and not a damage meter. He didn’t know what WWS was nor what it did. Even though after every raid our faithful priest puts our WWS in the forums.
I was getting so angry at seeing these people swear by damage meters. You can be proud of your insane DPS and Woot Woot that you are #1 in heroics. When it comes to raiding there is more to understand then just DPS. I love the military term ‘situational awareness‘. It really applies here, I have even stopped mobs dead in their tracks before they reached our healers. If all your are thinking about is being at the top of the DPS list then you aren’t aware that some mob is beating the crap out of your healers. /fail
I even had Recount bug on me and show a full resist from my fireball as a hit.
So I was doing some reading and found a good post from BigBearButtBlogger on this very subject. I don’t mind peopel being all proud of themselves but when someone says, “so-and-so is the top mage in the guild, look at his spec and gear.” Then I pull a WWS and he is in the top ten but there are 2 other mages above him maybe he’s not all that super-duper and you should stop using your know-all-see-all damage meter.
I hope this guy gets a clue and fingures out DPS isn’t what makes the mage. It’s riding that fine line between too much threat and the right amount of DPS.
by Tenryuu
, on January 12 2008
@ 9:47 pm
You know as well as I, people are proud of their Epeen. And Damage Meters accentuate it. Bringing in WWS is like telling them girth is where it really counts.
by Markus
, on January 14 2008
@ 6:41 am
I use Recap only to monitor my own DPS. I feel I should be reaching a certain level and I make sure I am at least putting out the DPS I expect.
I currently have +1063 damage to all schools (I think, I can’t access Armory at work), 143 Spell hit rating, 202 Spell Crit rating. I recently dropped my Spellfire set for the Robe off the Lynx boss in ZA, the [/item]Studious Wraps[item] and the Voodoo-Woven Belt from heroic badges. I also switched to Arcane/Frost before we attempted A’lar (it was strongly suggested to ALL the mages to resepc to Frost, but that’s another story).
We went into Gruul, then attempted A’lar. There was lots of movement in Gruul and I did a whopping 480 DPS which was a complete disappointment and I had my doubts about being effective in A’lar. Well, I went to an Arcane Blast / Frostbolt rotation at the beginning on A’lar then all Frostbolts after we started moving around a bit. I ended up moving around less than in Gruul and ended up pushing 800 DPS in Phase I before getting owned in Phase II (the first time we had ever fought A’lar).
What did everyone else do? No idea really. I watch my DPS, maybe look at the other mages, but I keep the numbers to myself. I know some people are obssessed with being at the top of the damage meters, even moreso than taking down a boss it seems, sort of like wanting to get the killing blow on a boss. The meters are only a tool I use for myself, but I may look into WWS just to see what the raid is doing as a whole.
by Bluehairmage
, on February 1 2008
@ 3:00 pm
Hey there, I found your site while looking for some spec information for my Frost Mage who raids at times.
In particular I’m looking to find out where to best spend my talent points so I can go with the 127 hit rating and have it be “maxed out” properly.
I have no intention of changing from Frost, and right now I’m actually noticing that on WWS and Recount I’m doing better damage than the Fire or Arcane mages, so I want to squeeze out as much from my spec as possible.
Your thoughts?
Bluehairmage
WoWGrrl player blog
by Hyouzan
, on February 2 2008
@ 2:15 am
Give me sometime to work on this, maybe a day or so.