Dual Spec

I only shelled out the money for dual spec on my mage so far and I decided to keep my main spec as Frostfire (as I’ve been for the past few months) and take an Arcane raiding spec as my second.  I think I just don’t have the arcana mojo though (or maybe it could just be that I’m geared incorrectly), because doesn’t just eat my mana like a mofo – which I expected – but it also is shelling out consistently less damage and dps on target dummies.  It seems like it might be a good non-aoe trash spec because of the large amount of instants and just the general lack of a 3 second cast (damn you frostfire bolt!  damn you to hell!).  To be fair, I didn’t buy glyphs for this spec yet, so maybe that’s where the 600 dps difference lies, but I doubt it…  I also won’t find out for awhile because glyphs have become so overpriced since the patch.  😮

If you’d like to check out the spec, check out my armory.  And don’t mind the gear…  I have been spending a lot of time with the dummies shuffling around stuff for arcane, so I might be wearing some weird combos.

On a minor note: last night we tried the new boss in vault (no longer lolvault) and actually failed.  But I was able to complete my T7/7.5 set with drops from Archavon and Sartherion.  We had some issues with the firewall glitching, but we were able to do that eventually.

My first Naxx run on mage

**Edit: since this post seems to get a lot of hits, here is a guide I wrote to frostfire mage.**

Today was my first run in Naxx with my mage and the first time that our guild (MAN THE HARPOONS) went into Naxx.  Most of the people have very little or no experience raiding, so it’s very impressive that we were able to down the first two bosses in the spider wing relatively painlessly and got the third to 8% (couldn’t get through the damage spike of the enrage).  We’re running it again tomorrow and I think that with some tweaking we can up the dps just a little to get the third boss down and have a shot at the fourth.  I had tons of fun and everyone was super chill!

I got lucky and from the second boss (Grand Widow Faerlina) the Grieving Spellblade dropped for me (I rolled 100 on it!).  I’ve been running tons of heroics, so I already have the badge offhand (Ward of the Violet Citadel) for casters.  This was a huge upgrade over the blue-quality blade I had from Kirin-tor revered reputation.

I also respecced Eau from deep frost to the cookie cutter frostfire spec  – 0/53/18.  The spec is fun and also raised my dps from around 1500 to around 2500 with ony some minor gear upgrades/tweaks (whoa!).  Being a fire-heavy frostfire specced mage means that my play style is very different now from how it was before.  For one, this spec is heavily crit dependent and when things proc, my damage goes nuts.  For once I’m finding myself in that stereotypical mage ‘place’ of not being able to control my own aggro when everything starts criting.  When I run heroics, I usually keep one finger on ice block!  Haha!  I don’t quite like this spec as much as frost for soloing purposes, but it’s not as bad as pure fire since the frostfire bolt has a slowing effect like frostbolt.  For those of you who want to try it out, the rotation that I find works best for bosses is stack improved scorch (only needs two casts with the improved scorch glyph) –> apply living bomb –> between 3 and 5 frostfire bolts depending on the fight and how much haste I have (I try to get it so that the last bolt is going off when my living bomb just finished) –> use pyroblast if hot streak procs, reapply one scorch if needed –> rinse, repeat.  I’m still messing around with a good roation for trash, but what I’ve been doing is just stacking one hit of scorch (which again is actually 3 stacks because of the glyph) and frostfire bolting.  I don’t think this is the best rotation, and this is reflected in my dps – while I can pull 2.5k dps on bosses, I’m usually hovering around 1.7-1.8k for the overall instance.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I feel like the length of the frostfire bolt is kind of a hinderance…  In melee-heavy groups, it’s hard to get more than one or two out before the mob dies.

Enough about mage though!  I will leave you now with this gem:

I’m still completely baffled about how this guy guessed that I (1) am a real girl, (2) am in college…  Especially since so many dudes play female blood elves!

**Edit: since this post seems to get a lot of hits, here is a guide I wrote to frostfire mage.**

New pet, the patch, etc.

I got an awesome new pet!

It’s Wasp and Mini-me!  Thanks for the Kodak moment, Raven!  Haha!

The Wasp (I haven’t thought of a better name for it yet) is a ferocity pet, which means it’s a damage dealing pet.  I haven’t really bothered to get it to 70, so I had to do Hyjal last night with my old kittie, Olivia.  I broke 1600 dps on the first boss, which is pretty cool, and were able one shot the third boss on first attempt ever too, which is also pretty cool.

Tonight we did the Jenkins! title, which basically involves going into UBRS and killing at least 50 whelps in 15 seconds or less.  Obviously, the internet crashed right as we did it (thanks dorm!), but Nick and I still got the achievement.  We were going to get a Kara run together after that, but the world screwed up and people got sent into limbo when they were trying to zone in.  Thanks Blizz!

Any good ideas for a wasp name anyone?

Edit:

I forgot to say what my new build is!  I am currently 51/10/00 (Beast Mastery/Marksmanship/Survival).  The points I took are as follows: in BM – Improved Aspect of the Hawk (5/5), Endurance Training (5/5), Focused Fire (2/2), Improved Revive Pet (2/2), Aspect Mastery (1/1), Unleashed Fury (5/5), Ferocity (5/5), Intimidation (1/1), Animal Handler (2/2), Frenzy (4/5), Ferocious Inspiration (3/3), Bestial Wrath (1/1), Serpent’s Switfness (5/5), Longevity (3/3), The Beast Within (1/1), Kindred Spirits (5/5), Beast Mastery (1/1); in MM – Lethal Shots (5/5), Mortal Shots (5/5).  This isn’t any spec I looked up, I just kind of took points wherever it seemed right (I did mess up once and therefore my “free” respec wasn’t really free, haha).