Gnomeaggedon was Fire, only Fire. PvE – Fire, PvP – Fire.

Gnomeadeaden has never been good at either spec, but being the hero class, it really didn’t matter too much. So slowly my fingers learnt which buttons to press independent of thought and sight.

Of course, just as I was getting the hang of it, I swapped Unholy for Frost.

Frost and Blood are great for PvP. Blood is great as you can hold a node, or tank a Battleground boss for a long time without healers. You may not do much damage, but you are damn hard to kill… while you are alive, no one is touching that flag.

Frost on the other hand is great for stopping and killing. Chains of Ice don’t just snare, but also trap. Hungering Cold will Iceblock a bunch of folks, giving you time to pick your target, or a chance for your flag carrier to get away.

I think this guy disapproves of many people at the PvP vendors

If only I could remember the keybinds!

There are times I find myself flailing ineffectively, like swatting a swarm of Aussie flies on a hot summer day. Facerolling just doesn’t cut it sometimes.

Other times it all comes together, but bugger me if I know what I did… Whatever it was worked… I just wish my fingers remembered what it was.

Gnomeaggedon has done the unforgivable (I have already confessed my dirty secret to Krizzlybear, but please don’t tell Zupa)

Fire PvE has become Frost PvP.

Two PvP specs, both completely different.

I’ve changed from a Fire spec that can make it from one end of WSG to another, relatively unscathed to a Frost spec that leaves me thumping my desk in rage after falling before even leaving the flag room.

From what everyone tells me, that is not the way it is meant to be!

I blame mobile scorch for part of the problem. I am now so used to casting on the run, running in circles, circles around my opponent.

Now, unless I am icelance spamming, I need to remember to stop and cast.

Let’s not even talk about the fact that I need to think for two now. Where the f*#k is my Elemental and why is it attacking the other player?

So I’m brimming with frost novas, snares and lockdowns yet I can’t save myself, let alone stop a flag carrier.

Once again, I am thumping the keyboard madly in the vain hope that I might start to remember some of my keybinds.

Ahhh well… That will teach me to try to retrain my tired old brain.

The only solution is to try and fail until I fail less, a lot less. It’s very uncomfortable for me a I don’t remember the last time I was this ineffective in a BG, bit I’m sure there was a time.

Try, try and try again…

Practice till it’s natural…

Then I’m going back to fire!

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2011/06/02/so-many-specs-so-little-time/

It all started when I was bored in Dalaran, my finger hovered over the ESC key, preparing to log off. Something that has become remarkably easy since the RealID stupidity.

Just as I pressed the ESC key and the system menu popped up, I noticed someone

LFM Tempest Keep.

I thought to myself

Why not?

Invites out, summons accepted, in we went.

Buff time

We engage in the usual start of raid ritual of buffing. No one is bothering with fish feasts or flasks – it’s a level 70 raid and it’s filled with 80′s.

A quick glance at my raid UI shows there’s one other Mage in the raid, so I automatically select them and plant a big fat Focus Magic on them.

My Focus Magic is accompanied with my usual pithy macro:

Focus Magic on you, bring on the crits!

Then I stumble.

Rather than the usual automated “thanks for FM” message, I get

Thanks, you want me to respec Arcane?

You play your game, I’ll play mine.

I play Fire, I always have.
I love Fire. It could be as weak as a Warlock and I’d still play Fire.

Krizzly plays Frost, he always has.
He loves Frost. It could be as weak as a Hunter and he’d still play Frost.

Larisa plays Arcane. She loves Fire, but right now loves Arcane more. I think she’d respec Fire with the slightest nudge.

TotalBiscuit plays Arcane because it’s the only spec to play. Playing anything else, particularly Frost proves you’re an idiot. He plays Arcane because as the best Mage spec, you would be gimping your raid by a good 50 dps if you played anything else.

He isn’t sentimental, he doesn’t play a spec because he loves it. He only plays it because it is the best!

Which of course makes me wonder why he isn’t playing the current best raiding spec… Fire.

Let’s face it, if Jong finds Arcane Mages simple and boring… they are simple and boring.  He wont be their poster boy.

Do whatever is fun for you!

Apart from the fact that I was a nobody amongst nobodies in a PuG retro raid, thus really had no right to tell anyone what to do, I replied the only way I know.

You do what makes you feel good

Frost

Gota love a Frostie that loves Frost

I felt a little sorry for the player, living under fear that they should respec from love to practicality.

I chuckled to myself on the 1st boss fight, while the string of

IMMUNE
IMMUNE
IMMUNE

Popped up on the screen.

Ahhh Fire, on a Fire boss.

I was soon laughing hysterically, wondering if I should have done a quick respec to my secondary spec.

Of course exchanging PvE Fire for PvP Fire really wasn’t going to fix things.

It was irrelevant anyway, I just popped open my spellbook and cast Frost spells directly from the book (you don’t think I’d waste space with Frost spells on my toolbar do you? Next you will be wondering if I even bothered spending the gold buying Arcane spells from the trainer).

Seriously folks, when it comes to WoW, a game, play it the way you want to play it.

Fire, Frost, Arcane, Wand Spec – whatever floats your boat, do it.

You may be the only person in the game to spec that way, but just remember.

Contrary to popular opinion, 10,999,999 people can be wrong!

If it’s right for you, then it is right.

Arena Fire

I’m lucky I play with a few folk that don’t care and subscribe to my play whatever you want attitude.

Every now and then they ask if I have a particular Frost talent that is an Arena winner. I gently remind them I am Fire and, everything cool, we move on.

I’ve been seeing more and more people in BGs running with Fire. It’s still a bit of a surprise.

Natural for me, unnatural that I am fighting against Fire.

The other night we came up against a dual Fire Mage team. I didn’t realize at 1st, but the Dragons Breaths and Blastwaves gave the game away.

I almost felt sorry for burying them both, almost and not for long.

I am happy they are playing fire because let’s face it, you wouldn’t be playing fire in the Arena unless you loved it.

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/07/20/play-the-way-you-want-to-play/

let me check…

Ummm no, not really, err, maybe kinda.

No Yankees, but there is some Fire Mage Talent commentary

** WTF! **

So, how ’bout that new 31 point talent tree?

Is the question I got asked, to which I responded…

31 point talent tree?

Yeah, a Gnome with his finger on the pulse… wrong pulse, but there is a pulse there somewhere and a vein, maybe just give me another dozen attempts to jab that needle in…

So what’s the best way for me to approach this… yeah leave it to someone else…

Celeglin writes:

So, how ’bout that new 31 point talent tree? Can’t wait to see your write up.

Honestly, I’m worried. We’re losing a good chunk of our PvP talents and are getting no new ones inside the Fire tree itself.

The Good

• Increased range of Fire Blast. Luvs it.
• Molten Shields affect to Molten Armor now affects spells as well. Too bad I still have no desire to use that armor.
• +20% crit chance on Scorch
• Arcane Repulsion and Improved Blink. Not in the Fire tree, but both very well suited for our PvP play style.

The Bad

• Impact’s proc chance reduced by 3% (this is huge)
• We’re losing our Spell Reflect from Molten Shields
• No more Interrupt immunity from Burning Soul
• Scorch effect only has a 66% chance to proc
• No more instant, free Flamestrikes
• Redesigned Pyroblast does not seem conducive to PvP
• Combustion is just ASKING to be dispelled
• Fiery Payback GONE. No more anti-Execute and no more disarms.
• First tier of Arcane is still pretty lackluster to get at Arcane Repulsion and Improved Blink
• Improved Counterspell is no longer reachable (I didn’t use it anyway); Magic Absorption and Arcane Fortitude are gone.
• The entire Fire tree seems far more geared toward buffing Fireball/FrostFirebolt… But dammit, I don’t want to be casting those spells.

Sorry to vent… got up this morning, saw this and just went “blaaah”. Doesn’t help that the PvE Frost tree is sad too (no more Winter’s Chill and Focus Magic make me a sad Frostie).

Celeglin

To which my real reply was:

Awesome… I was wondering how to post on this… you just did it for me!

My take on going all the way and 31 point talent trees.

On going all the way… Larisa, she of the “I don’t theorycraft Magecraft mentality” has already discussed this.

Personally I like Gnome girls that go all the way, I even like 1/2Gnome/ 1/2Elf girls that go all the way.

When it comes to Fire, it’s just natural that you would go all the way, in fact it feels so natural that I wont call it the fire tree any longer, to me it’s the Nature tree.

When I was a young Mage, I went all the way.. with Nature, (or fire for you non-believers) and I have to say it was so much fun that I forgot that I was 8th on the DPS meters (yeah, that was in 5 mans… ohh well).

To me there was nothing better than mixing Blastwaves and Dragon’s Breath and other “PvP” talents with PvE raiding, in fact forsaking rading talents for PvP talents seemed just natural

THEY WERE FUN!

Sure, they were also useless in a PvE environment (which is where I was at that point in my WoW-life), but I’m not the sort of Gnome that listens to folk that tell me I am doing it all wrong… if I was, I wouldn’t Arena as Fire.

There are two ways of looking at this right now.

• The WoWhead Talent calculator, which gives you a 31 point talent tree and 76 points to spend (err whoops… that’s not right, but you can do just about anything), or
• The MMO Champion “I’m going to bring you right back down to reality” talent calculator.

You know I like options, so if I have an option in this, I am going with WoWhead… I don’t like reality so much, so leave me with 76 points to spend in a 31 point tree and I am almost happy.

Only almost, because knowing that things will change between now and 3.3.666 (the pre-Cataclysm-talent-reset-patch-whose-number-I-just-made-up) I can’t get too worked up about the current state of the talents.

I will say, that if they stay the way they are, we are going to have some fun talent trees, where the talents will be fighting between PvP and PvE It will be kind of a PvPE tree.

The thing I really like, is if you put all your talents into one tree, the ONLY tree, you only have one point left!

What are you going to do with one point?

Just ignore it until it goes away!

Seriously, any noob can see that this will be the only viable spec!

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/07/15/so-how-bout-dem-yankees/

It’s a doozy because I don’t have a simple answer right now, but since when has ignorance ever stopped me posting a “guide”?

Maybe if Jagerbombz was still writing Shaman stuff he could fill us in.  Maybe one of the other Resto bloggers out there will know.  Maybe the answer is in your head.

I sort of figure that there is a bucket load of knowledge out there amongst the 12 million (12,000,000 seems bigger doesn’t it?) WoW players and someone will have a definitive answer.

Meanwhile I am always open to speculation, shooting my damn fool mouth off and near enough is good enough (the kind of thinking that has made our once great nation Australia).

The way I see it there are two different styles of BGs, which could (ie: don’t need to, but could) support two different spec styles.

• Zerg BGs
• Up close and Frost Shockable.

Zerg BGs

These BGs are the big ones, your Alterac Valleys, Wintergraps, Strand of the Ancients etc.

There are a pile of targets apart from yourself for opponents to hit and a pile of teammates for you to heal.

In the case of Alterac Valley and Wintergrasp (if you win and cant be bothered respecing) you even have a couple of raid bosses to defeat.

Therefore I think your bog standard raid healing spec will do you fine. If you can beg, borrow or steal (err earn, craft or buy) some resilience gear all the better.

Healing and staying power will be the order of the day. You want to make sure your heals are effective and your mana pool is deep enough (and replenishing fast enough) for you to pump out the heals – you may not get to rest for a drink for a while.

Up close and Frost Shockable.

These are the smaller BGs, your Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm.

The percentage of healers to damage dealers may be the same, but there are less bodies to target, so you are more likely to be one of the targets.

Resto Killing Machine

Did I tell you I solo’d a Rogue in EotS the other day? Poor bugger… My health kept going up, his kept going down… Fire totem here, Flame shock there… It wasn’t pretty or fast, but he can shove is poisons where the sun doesn’t shine.

So your spec needs to be a bit more versatile, both through taking more of the survival oriented talents as well as pumping your damage capabilities (especially if they can have a neutral or positive impact on your healing).

Holding down the fort while keeping up the health

You want to know that when you are the last one at the flag/resource/tower (cause those bloody dps you kept alive just ran off in search of more honor kills), that you can solo at least one opponent wile screaming invectives into BG chat and pinging your mini map for support like the mad (angry that is, I would never call you insane to your face) little Shaman you are.

Run Resto Run!

You want to know that when you are the last one standing in the enemy’s flag room that you can pick up that flag and have a fair chance at surviving through judicious use of instant ghost wolf, earth shields, totems etc.

You grab the flag, ES yourself, get outside hit ghost wolf and your off… inc gankers, drop an earthbind totem and instantly back to shadow wolf to leave them rotting in your snare.

What are we here for again?

Of course you don’t want to forget your primary reason for being there, healing, otherwise you might as well just spec Elemental or Enhancement. So your spec would still be mainly Resto, just with a few tweaks so you cam grab the occasional “defensive” killing blow yourself.

Remember you may be healing in your flag room, but it’s still your job to stop that enemy flag carrier, rock that frost shock and earthbind totem!

Bring a smile to your face lightning quick

Let me tell you now, nothing will bring a smile to your face more than a pinch hit Chain Heal followed by a devastating Chain Lightning.

If it’s you and a DPS against 2 opponents, rather than playing 2v2, play 3v2. Your heals + DPS & your team mates against their sorry corpses.

If it’s 2v3, then I guess things are more even, but you want to make sure you spec keeps the fight even.

Elemental my dear Resto

Of course you wouldn’t forget you Elementals would you? There is something about the Earth Elemental that causes people to forget their human opponents…

Must be all that PvE training…

God forbid they remember the fragile totem it’s attached to…

Question asked… Question Answered?

So anyway folks, help me out here. I think I am reasonably close to the mark on why you would spec differently, but now I want to know in pretty pictures what these specs would look like.

Bring on your wowhead spec links!

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/09/squidlys-shaman-pvp-tips-2-resto-shaman-pvp-specs/

See I am still here!

Karch has been doing a great job answering his readers questions (why don’t I get questions? Oh yeah, I had one about whether you should stay Fire spec back in TBC. Apart from that they are just questions about help getting $millions out of Nigeria)

Anyway he had one the other day about how to fix low DPS, which prompted me to respond asking when do you know if your DPS is too low and does it really matter.

Now admittedly if you are only doing 1,000 DPS and you aren’t doing burning crusade content at level 70, then your DPS is too low.

I have seen on various forums that numbers such as 1,200 – 1,400 is acceptable for starting heroics and 1,400 to 1,600 is acceptable for starting Naxx.

So beyond that, how low is too low?

I saw one forum post where the Mage was excluded from guild raids until he hit 3,000 DPS. The problem was that as FFB spec in a mix of heroic and 10 man gear he was so reliant on crits to hit 3k, that he wasn’t in a position to get up to get 3k more reliably.

Using myself as an example, FFB, mix of quest, heroic, 10 & 25 man gear, I am only averaging 2k DPS in a Naxx run. Sure some fights I am notching up. 2.5 or 3k, but then on other fights 1.5 or 1.8!

It probably doesn’t help the the 1st & 2nd meter place winners are pulling 3-4k DPS. There isn’t much left for me to kill when they wind up. Hell sometimes I am at best equal with our Pally tank (though that maybe because he is dual specing Ret and letting our Warrior tank take a few hits).

Maybe it doesn’t help that I am pretty casual. I haven’t even started on Hodir rep for the shoulder enchants, and I am often running to catch up during trash, or just can’t be bothered popping cooldowns.

• How/against who do you measure it?
• What fights are acceptable measuring posts.
• What can you do about it?

How/against who do you measure it?

Do you compare yourself against other Mages?

I am usually the only Mage in our raids, so unlike Pugnacious Priest, I am not in a position to have a meter war with a Magely colleague.

Same Spec?

Even if I do find myself with another Mage, they are often another Spec, so what do I make of the comparison then?

Same gear?
Assuming I have a Mage, that is the same spec, will they be the same gear “level”? If not, how do I compare?

Note: I do wish that tools like WWS allowed you to put in rating for yourself as a search criteria for other raids/toons with same level of gear.  So much better than just randomly searching through WWS reports in the hope of finding someone to compare against.

Against other classes?
Back in Kara days, I used to compare myself to our Rogue. He was my benchmark. Just before the great nerfs of TBC, it was 50/50 which of us would be on the top of the meters.

Around that time a shaman mate, with a lot more time than me, leveled and badged out his toon and was either up there or beating both of us.

These days, the only time I come close to either of the is if the rogue forgets his poisons, or they both go AFK (or die… I pray for them to die every fight… Just kidding)

How do you take gear into account?

I have already touched on this, but can you compare a toon in heroic gear with one in 10 man gear?

Compare 10 man gear with 25?

Compare Naxx with Ulduar (or anything in between)?

How would you baseline each of these gear levels?

What fights are acceptable measuring posts?

Some fights are AoE, others tank & spank, others high movement, others your role is utility.

Then there is the difference in fights.

Which fights do you baseline yourself against?

When you quote or compare your DPS, do you pick the one where you hit 3k through AoE, or 2.5k via tank and spank, or 2k in high movement, or 1.6k because your other utility is more important than your DPS (and should be acknowledged as well)?

Trash or boss, whole run or specific fights?

Do you look at whole run, Trash fights, individual Boss fights, all Boss fights or only Boss kills (WWS will give you all these breakdowns)

I know some trash fights the Rogue has cleared up the trash before I can find my ISHOUlDWIN! button. I read somewhere that in a 20-30 second AoE fight, the Rogue with his AoE daggers will slaughter casters. After the 30 seconds Mages will overtake, because we aren’t dependent on energy.

Some boss fights I am running for my little squishy life, or sucking mana out of the ether while the Rogue just chop chops away. The reverse is also true of course, sometimes the Rogue is bolting from Boss AoE, while I look on and laugh, my biggest concern being whether I can get my hand out of the chip packet in 2.5 seconds.

What can you do?

I figure that there are some old standards to improving performance, as well as some new options. At one point in my playing career I would have said that the first two of the following were the cornerstones to DPS improvement, but now I wonder if a sloppy option 3 is better than a perfect option 1 or 2.

1. Stay alive

In fact from a DPS standpoint, in some fights, your best option maybe to dump your load and die. Big damage over a short period of time = high DPS.

But let’s face it, your real objective isn’t high DPS, it’s high damage.

3,000 dps for 1 second is only 3,000 damage contributed to a fight. 2,000 DPS for 10 seconds is 20,000 damage, over 3 minutes 3,600,000.

So DPS is great if that’s the only number that counts, but longevity will always be better in the long run.

Of course if you can combine DPS with longevity, you have nothing to worry about.

2. Use cooldowns

Use them like you got ‘em!

If you are 10 minutes away from a boss fight, you could be blowing your cooldowns 5 times on trash, the overall numbers for the run will look much better.

On a boss fight, you need to know how long that fight is going to last. You need to blow your cooldowns as many times as you can while ensuring they are ready for that last 35% of the bosses life.

When the boss hits 35%, you want to pop those cooldowns and drop that boss while raising your numbers.

3. Dual Spec

This is Karch’s solution to low DPS numbers. If your usual spec isn’t cutting it, change spec to rock the numbers.

If my FFB Spec will unreliably give me 2 – 2.5 – 3k DPS, then, if nothing else, change to Arcane for the 3-4 minute fights to reliably get 3-4k DPS. Of course longer fights (or different style fights) if your mana management and gear is good enough.

Others are considering moving from Arcane to Fire+TTW specs for the same reason.

But is it want you want to do… Does it really matter?

The dilemma is, if you are a diehard “spec” player (I’m Fire, Krizz is Frost, Larisa is Arcane), do you change your spec just to squeeze that last ounce of DPS out of your toon?

I’m not talking RolePlaying here… I can’t Roleplay my way out of Gnomeragan, I have grown up fire, and base a lot of my identity as a Mage on being Fire (It was hard enough to go *cough* Frost *cough* Fire Bolt.

Am I too old school in loving my Fire, and hesitating to go Arcane just to rock the damage meters?

Should I stay true to my great balls of fire, or consider Dual Spec just another cooldown?

A Mage helping a Tank to Tank?

Completely urelated, but I thought worth giving a plug.

If you are a Mage doing the Hodir encounter, help your tank out by doing insane DPS and going way past their aggro…Just coordinate it with them 1st!

Check out the the tactic at Tanking Tips

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/05/21/when-is-your-dps-too-low/

Why can’t you handle an interruption caused by a phone call? You app is designed to run on an iPhone?

Why do you tell me you recovered the post, let me save and finish the post… Yet when I open it again, there is nothing but a blank page!

Here we go again…

I have a dirty dual spec secret…

Friday and Saturday night we cleared Naxx10 (We should have cleared it on Friday night, but whatever). So that’s 3 Naxx clears out of 3 for me now, one of which was 25 man.

I should be pretty happy, but instead I am kind of bored. I think back to the months of struggle we had with Kara, yet Naxx is giving me a clear run.

So when our raid broke up after the clear and my mates headed into daily Heroic Violet Hold (which I had already done, but that’s a post for another day), I decided the time had come to mix it up a bit.

Like Larisa, I have had my cowardly moments with spec changes. Just prior to WoLK I threatened to try out Frost, made Zupa go to the trouble of writing a guide, then found every excuse under the sun to stay fire.

On Saturday though, I was determined. As soon as the party split, I ported to Ironforge, hit the AH and bought all the glyphs I would require, then trotted back to the Trainer.

I asked all about Dual Spec…

(Notice that he is a GNOME Mage trainer… how specialized can you get?)

The trainer told me what I needed to know…

I said yes please, I want to purchase Dual Spec…

The trainer wanted 1,000 gold and I was ready and happy to pay it!

But the trainer didn’t want my money.

Pic pinched from Syrana.

• I figure the trainer was trying to save me from disappointment.
• I figure the trainer knows I am a Gnome Mage with great balls of fire, and nothing else will do.
• I figure the trainer didn’t want me to change my blog focus.
• I figure that the trainer wasn’t happy to interact with one of my mods.

No matter how I tried, the trainer wouldn’t teach me dual spec.

I just wish I knew which mod was causing the conflict.

So, my dirty little dual spec secret is you don’t know what my second spec is…

Yet..

PS:  ^^^  This is post 400! ^^^

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/05/18/my-dirty-little-dual-spec-secret/

I forget that our spells have changed.

I keep hitting Invisibility then waiting 5 seconds before breaking it to DPS again…

Doh! Lost DPS time!

I don’t hit Invisibility when a wipe is on the horizon, because it will take so long for it to go off.

Doh! it is practically instant!

I don’t hit Invisibility at the last 30% mark, because I don’t want to lose DPS time…

Doh! it is practically instant!

I think it is going to take me a little while to adjust.  Actually, maybe taking a break isn’t a bad thing… all my current reactions times will be wiped, and I will relearn things the WoLK way.

Can’t Wait!

Gnomer and Out!

Hot Streak

We ran Kara and ZA the other night, purely for the let’s do kara & ZA one more time (and while we are at it, grab the ZA Achievement).

Was I the king of DPS… hardly, things drop too fast for a Fireball to charge let alone land.

So I found myself scorching till the cows came home.

Bonus side-effect of this…

Hot Streak.

Now combine this with Combustion, and the Instant Pyroblasts were flying left right and centre.

It’s awesome to see the tiny graphic of Scorch hit the Mob, followed by a HUGE ball of fiery wrath, not lauching from your finger tips, but hitting the mob.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

I LOVE FIRE!

Gnomer and Out!

That song gives me a rush, and so does the Firestarter talent.

It’s awesome!

I still completely forget I have spec’d into Living Bomb, I hardly ever use it.

AoE on the other hand… I have become a suicidal pyro-maniac.

Can I safely bring a mob or a pack of Zombies or a flag carrier down from a distance?  Sure, but I want to start some fires!!!

I find myself charging into every battle now, slightly behind the tank (if there is one) yet ahead of the melee.

Scorch, Fireball, Polymorph… Where are they on my toolbar again?

There are only 3 buttons I know where to find now: Dragon’s Breath, Blast Wave and Flamestrike.

Typical rotation for me right now.

1. Dragon’s Breath – Firestarter procs.
2. Instant Flamestrike
3. Blast Wave – Firestarter procs
4. Instant Flamestrike
5. Mmmmm DB & BW on cooldown, go get drink, rinse and repeat.

Do I kill everything, no not always, so you can replace the “go get a drink step” with “release and corpse run” if you like, but lower depths of firey hell Batman, it’s fun!

Blast Wave itself is a blast. I have always loved Blast Wave, but watching the mobs get thrown through the air is just pure awesome sauce.

When we were in UBRS the other night joining the Jenkins family I bounced a mob off the top of a platform. Everyone laughed at the remaining mob running around below us at 1/2 health trying to get back and die. Don’t worry, we took fiery death to it.

Now I do appreciate that Blast Wave has basically had it’s day for “same level” instances and raids – the knock back effect is too dangerous. I think Blizz should have made it optional via a Glyph, but for PvP, or overpowered adventuring, Blast Wave and it’s knock back are, well, a blast!

Come on fellow Fire Mages, let’s start some Fires!

Gnomer and Out!

I wish I could personally tell you the best way to go, but to be honest, I have just created a dinky spec to pass the time before my return from India.. Fundamentally I took all the talents that I thought might be a bit of fun for a change.

The biggest issue I have is remembering to use them!  My fingers are still straying to the same old buttons…

Living Bomb… I got it… remember to use it… lol yeah right…

Anyway, in lieu of any advice I can offer, which would probably be dodgy anyway, I will offer you a link.

I have seen this come up a few times on other blogs, so had a look myself, and the link below is directly to raid Fire Mage Raid specs… but you can change it to whatever you want.

basically what you are getting here is the popular choices… correct, maybe not, but if weight of numbers can be counted for anything, these are the best specs.

Gnomer and Out!