Malon’s MOP Mage Tips 5.2

Today’s guest post is by Malon of <Nightshift> on Wildhammer-EU. He has been a raiding Mage since WoW’s European launch.

Hi Everyone,

I’ve had some requests on Twitter (where I post as @ArcaneTactics) to collate my #MageTips series into a single document. These are various helpful hints and tricks for PvE Mages; things that will help eke out a bit more damage, utility or survivability on the various encounters WoW has to throw at its most squishy class.

Some of these tips – especially the 5.0 ones – may now be out of date, but (flagrant self-promotion) I post new ones every week. If anyone has any questions or comments, I’d welcome them. Thanks again to Liss for hosting this post – and for recently combining Restokin’s Druid news with useful Mage advice. If you have more Mage Tips, feel free to post them as comments in this thread, or tweet them to @arcanetactics!

Stay frosty (or otherwise…),

Malon.

Mogu’shan Vaults

• Blazing Speed is a good way to quickly paint a lot of tiles in the heroic Stone Guard encounter
• Using RoP+glyphed Evocation in Gara’jal’s spirit realm will constantly renew the Spiritual Innervation buff.
• Nether Tempest is the most efficient way to kill Gara’jal’s adds. Apply it to each one; it’s faster than directly damaging them.
• You can Blink out of Subetai the Swift’s Pinning Arrow on the Spirit Kings encounter.
• Ticks/explosions from NT and LB DO NOT proc the negative effects of the shields on Heroic Spirit Kings.
• Spamming Scorch during phase 2 Elegon, increases your chances of a HU proc. Pyro! is absolutely necessary to down the Energy Charges.
• Place Rune of Power nine-tenths inside Elegon’s ring; you’ll benefit from it while standing on the edge & jumping to clear stacks.
• The Glyph of Blink causes the spell to bug out on Elegon’s platform; remove it for that fight.
• Touch a Spark and quickly Blink to avoid damage on H Will of the Emperor.

Heart of Fear

• A FAST Blink will sometimes let you avoid the damage from Tay’ak’s Unseen Strike (there is a short stun before the damage).
• It’s possible to spread CB from Garalon’s body to his up to 2 legs, but only from a leg to his body – never another leg.
• Glyphed Ice Lance will cleave from Garalon’s body to his legs, but not vice versa.
• You can Blink out of Amber Prisons in the Wind Lord Mel’jarak encounter.
• Mel’jarak’s Blademasters will put a debuff on players before charging them; this can be Ice Blocked off, cancelling the charge.
• Ice Block will remove Amber-Shaper Un’sok’s Parasitic Growth ability – a great help in Phase 3.

Terrace of Endless Spring

• Alter Time will reset your Dread Shadows stacks on Tsulong to 1, no matter how many you had when you cast it.
• ArcEx can be used to keep Arcane Charge stacks during Lei Shi’s Get Away! ability.
• Greater Invis and Alter Time appear (unconfirmed) to remove stacks of Scary Fog on H.Lei Shi. Try not to be assigned to this role.
• Ice Block can be used to negate Breath of Fear, giving more uptime on the Sha of Fear’s adds. Double the fun with Cold Snap!
• Greater Invisibility is a viable alternative on Sha of Fear; it will be up for every Death Blossom, allowing you more DPS time.
• The Sha of Fear is big enough that AEx will refresh your AC stack from a fair distance. Use it before Cackle to retain your stack!

Throne of Thunder

• Blazing Speed is my Recommended Talent for Jin’Rokh the Breaker; combine with Blink for speedy recovery from orb kiting.
•  Build a big Combustion on Tortos; it can be spread to mini turtles as they spawn.
•  Useful! #MageTips RT @jnsplace Use Ice Floes on Tortos during turtle or rock dodging phases.
•  Slightly less useful. #MageTips RT @IRONF0RGED Don’t die.
•  Blazing Speed + Cinder on Megaera = super-fast Icy Ground melting.

General

•  RoF is great to temporarily halt (then gather for AE) one stream of Ancestors during An Urgent Plea
•  Haste increases ALL your regen, not just passive; It affects mana gained from Evocation and Gems, too.
•  Temporal Shield with Cauterise is an amazingly sexy combination with massive self-healing potential.
•  Make a macro for /cast Mage Bomb. It will change depending on the Bomb you pick.
•  Damage from Blizzard and Flamestrike do not break Frost Nova.
•  With reasonable latency and glyphed DF, you can get an IL+DF combo off with just one FoF charge. Lance MUST come first!
•  A macro combining Temporal Shield (off the GCD) and Incanter’s Ward is very useful!
•  The first ‘tick’ of Frozen Orb will always grant a FoF charge.
•  Alter Time will only interrupt spell casting if you’ve moved since casting it. If you stand in the same place, it won’t.
• This post on EJ is an excellent chart that tells you exactly when your next haste breakpoint is approaching.
• The Glyph of Rapid Teleportation will also work on portals cast by other Mages and NPCs (like the one on Shan’ze Dao)
• Glyph of Icy Veins contains a hidden +20% chance to proc Fingers of Frost, to make up for the reduced tick speed of Bomb spells.
• ‘Fight fire with fire’ does not apply to A’lar.
• Use “/cast [@target] Frostbolt” to stop yourself auto-casting at your pet.
• Your Bomb spells will explode when your target dies, not just when they expire.
• Arcane Explosion makes the Pest Problems daily, for the Tillers, ridiculously fast (5.2 update: also applies to The Creeping Carpet of Ihgaluk).
• Contrary to opinion, Arcane AoE IS viable (on high-health targets). Bomb, Flamestrike and clear stacks with ABG, rather than keeping them.
• Ancient Teleport: Dalaran (from Koegler’s shelves if Book Burner doesn’t hit books) is a great way to get to the Greench…or troll raid mates.
• If you can hit something with it, Arcane Explosion is a useful way to keep AC stacks up while moving.
• Frost is a good offspec for haste-stacking Arcane Mages, as they both benefit from the stat (unlike Fire or mastery-Arcane).
• Generally, Frost’s AoE and burst makes it superior to other specs for Challenge Modes.
• Glyph of Armours increases each armour’s defensive benefit by 10 percentage POINTS, not 10% of the original number.
• Frost Bomb calculates its damage based on when it explodes, not when you cast it. Make sure your cooldowns are up.
• NT and LB can be ‘clipped’ – refresh them just before they expire and you’ll still get the last tick/explosion.