I play a warrior but I lead a guild currently working on Ragnaros 3.0 so I have a suggestion or two.
Fire is near worthless in MC. A lot of shit has high FR, and while it will (strangely) land on a lot of fire-based mobs, the DoT effects from Fireballs, etc. take up valuable debuff slots. I'd kick a mage out of my raid for using fire-based spells.
Ice Block is a pretty badass talent, especially in combination with Cold Snap. On Magmadar, you can use Ice Block to immediately clear yourself of the Conflagration DoT caused the fire globs; you can use it to clear the Living Bomb from yourself on Geddon, you can use it to ditch your aggro long enough for the MT to tag Shazzrah should he blink to you, etc.
Note: if you do decide to spec mostly ice, keep in mind that everything in MC (to my knowledge) is immune to chill effects.
make a class that isn't bullshittingly worthless on raids. if you are going to chain cast frost bolt you might as well go on raids with a level 45 rogue because you'll have about as many hit points and you'll probably do more damage.
Last I heard, Arundel was specced 33 arcane and umm 18 something else Specced like that, Arundel was the best instance mage, because he AOEd shit dead faster than they could batter down my bubbles.
Speccing arcane gives you uninterruptable arcane missles, instant cast arcane explosion, improved counterspell, clearcasting, 15% casting mana regen, and the mana dump power at the bottom of the tree.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
I have bounced around all the talent trees a time or two and I have done MC my fair share of times with each tree being primary. That being said, I think Frost gives the best turn around in there. Ice barrier and Ice block are invaluable talents to have, even in instances not so intense but where mass AoE is required. If you decide to stay Fire for the PvP aspects of things, you still won't be wrong. It's not like you can't still cast frost based spells, you just won't have the frost survivability factor. Of course, keep the standard 16 in Arcane and you can't really go wrong with any build. Not sure if that helps much or not but it's just my observations.
I know that some mages in our guild swear by arcane, as arcane missles seem to be the bread-and-butter on long boss fights and that tree allows for reduced aggro on them and (I think) better conservation of mana.
9/10 times that a mage pulls aggro on one of our raids, it's an ice mage. That said, they may also be idiots, so ymmv.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."- Barack Obama
If any mage pulls aggro and they are not trying to, they are either idiots or the MT sucks. Ice gives mages the only way to dump aggro with Ice Block. Pretty sad that's the only way out when other classes that don't crank out as much dps get reduction skills. Just waiting for a concussion quest
Sylvus wrote:I know that some mages in our guild swear by arcane, as arcane missles seem to be the bread-and-butter on long boss fights and that tree allows for reduced aggro on them and (I think) better conservation of mana.
9/10 times that a mage pulls aggro on one of our raids, it's an ice mage. That said, they may also be idiots, so ymmv.
I met a mage the other day who "doesn't do AOE." WTF ARE YOU GOOD FOR THEN?
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
I had a pretty long post on this, but decided to keep it sweet. I have been ice and fire in MC, and fire mages have no problems there. The zone is trivial anyways except for Rags 3.0 where your gear actually matters.
Yeah I definately agree on the arcane tree being the most useful, as such I have stuck with it since level 10 through 3 respeccs. AoE ftw.
Thanks for the replies peeps, we did MC yesterday and sadly we only killed Lucifron, but it's only like the 3rd MC trip the Alliance has made so I guess everyones gotta start somewhere.
Something about Dwarf priests for Magmadar now or some nonsense. Surely nay.
It's for the Fear Ward dwarf priests have. With a dwarf priest you can negate the risk involved about Magmadar fearing the MT. If you don't have one, then you're going to have to rely on your MT switching to berserker stance and properly timing berserker rage to absorb the Fear. This isn't difficult - the problem is keeping him alive, especially if you're just now entering MC. Your tank probably has little to no MC gear, and going from defensive to berserker stance is a 23% boost in incoming dps. Combined with the fact that you'll have few Tomes of Tranquilizing Shot (to negate the frenzy Magmadar goes into), this makes it quite a bit more difficult than having dwarf priests around.
As for Arcane, aside from IAE, Evocation is also a really useful ability, especially for boss fights. It's like having a second bar of mana, ready to go. If I had to suggest two talents to get, I'd say Ice Block (with Cold Snap along the way), and Evocation. But hey, I'm a warrior.
As long as your Tranq. Shot hunters aren't total slackasses, you can tank Magmadog from start to finish in Berzerker.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
With a several Tranquilizing Shot hunters - yeah I agree. Magmadar's dps is more akin to the weaker end of MC trash when he's not in a frenzy. However, based on his last post, I'm assuming they only have one tome thus far. Not to mention Tranquil Shot can miss.
We have someone with a timer mod running that send a message over raid chat when the fear is about to go off. the fear only happens every 30 seconds or so. I step back, see everyone running off, then step back in.
Also, I believe that the Shammy grounding totem can keep fear off people near it.
mages 
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Specced like that, Arundel was the best instance mage, because he AOEd shit dead faster than they could batter down my bubbles.
