Not Standing in the Fire

Faction Champions in Crusaders’ Coliseum gets a lot of bad press.  It’s essntially the Priestess Delrissa fight from Magisters’ Terrace, except on crack.  Are you “late to the party” guy and never did Magisters’ Terrace at level 70?  Okay, here’s how it goes.

Right after you defeat Lord Jarraxus, your opposing faction leader (Garrosh Hellscream in my case) starts acting like a spoiled brat who’s had his candy taken away and demands the raid should be forced to face his champions in the next encounter.  Tirion Fordring agrees to allow it if he’ll just stop being such an emo crybaby and shut the hell up.  And so you end up facing what is basically an Arena team of opposing faction players.  Except they’re not.

All flippancy aside, it’s pretty important that you remember this is not really a pvp fight.  This is where the majority of the crying about Faction Champions arises, and I was just as guilty as everyone else when I first had to do the fight.  See, I suck at pvp.  I mean, I really suck at pvp.  If being bad at pvp was a sport, I could represent my country at it.  So I read the patch notes about how you’d have to face a number of classes of any spec and how pvp diminishing returns on crowd control was in force.  Then I played the encounter and cried as my polymorph was dispelled by the opposing Priests, my fireballs were eaten by the Shamans’ grounding totems,  the Paladins bubbled and healed up when we got down to 15% and I got melee- trained and insta-gibbed by the Rogue and Arms Warrior.

Oh noes, Blizz am making me pvp in my pve contents! QQ!!

Well, no they’re not.  All they’re doing is making you think outside of your nice comfortable kill-the-raid-boss mindset.  This is not actually a bad thing.  Allow me to elaborate.

Yes, Faction Champions, in any flavour, is a lot like a pvp fight.  As already stated you have diminishing returns on all forms of crowd control, so your first polymorph will last a maximum of 10 seconds, then less each consecutive time you cast it on the same target until they very quickly become immune.  In practice, this is not an issue anyway, since the opposing priests and paladins dispel it as quickly as you apply it.  In that respect it’s exactly like a pvp fight, but there are differences and the differences are huge.

For a start, they’re all tauntable.  In the past this shared diminishing returns too, but that’s been removed in the latest build.  Taunting them doesn’t guarantee you aggro for ever, but once every 8 seconds you can get them to forget who they’re wailing on for a moment or two, so it’s nothing like pvp in that respect.  Next, all of your “oh shit” pve buttons work just fine, even if you don’t get the full duration out of them.  Fade will drop aggro, as will Mirror Image, Vanish, Feign Death, Invisibility and any other number of class skills.  You might get aggro back a few seconds later, but it gives you time to be somewhere else.  One other major difference that pissed me off immensely was that Counterspell’s magic school lockdown doesn’t work.  This may actually be the same in real pvp, I don’t know since I don’t do it.  But the sweet thing about Counterspell is that while it has the longest cooldown of any spell interrupt (24 seconds, fact fans) it has the sweetest side effect.   It locks out all spells from the same school as the interrupted spell for 8 seconds.  Imagine a Holy Paladin with their Holy spells shut down for 8 whole seconds.  You do not want to be that Holy Paladin.  Well sadly, in the Faction Champions fight, all Counterspell does is work as any other interrupt, except it’s on a 24 second cooldown.  Meh!

The one thing that Faction Champions does share with a pvp or Arena fight is that personal survivability is your problem, not your healers.  Faction Champions is the Olympic Medal Not Standing In The Fire contest.  You could have 2 tanks, 22 healers and you in the raid, and if you’re going to stand there looking pretty and continuing your nuke rotations when the melee train switches to you, you’re going to die anyway.  No healer will be able to keep your squishy butt in one piece if the Warrior/Rogue/Deathknight/Enhance Shaman/Ret Pally suddenly take an intimate interest in it.  Surviving is up to YOU.   Check Recount after one of your Champions wipes and look at the damage done to you.  I guarantee you that the opposing Mage, Shadow Priest and Warlock will all be doing far more damage than the melee classes combined.  But this damage is coming in relatively small chunks, it’s entirely manageable.  This is damage your healers can handle, whether that be through dispels or heals.  No-one should be dying from damage sustained from any of the casters unless you were low on health anyway from being battered by a melee class, and if that’s the case it was your own fault anyway.  Now look at the number of deaths on recount and see who got the killing blows.

Yep, the casters are doing the most damage, but the melee dps are the ones who are actually killing people.  If you just stand there while that Arms Warrior smacks you upside the head with a 15k Mortal Strike, you deserve to die.  And you will.  This is where we all need to get out of our nice comfortable raiders’ mindset and start thinking like an Arena team.  And I was quite frankly amazed at the number of tools I, even as a raid-specced Fire Mage, had to keep my squishy butt from getting…  well..  squished.  Let’s go through the numbers.

Ice Block.  Our old favourite.  Except in this fight, the Arms Warrior will remove it with Shattering Throw and the priests will Mass Dispel it.  Ice Block is your tool of last resort, never the first.

Mirror Image.  I want to marry this spell and have its babies.  Every mage, regardless of spec should be casting this as the fight starts, because the aggro drop works and it gives the Champions three other targets to choose from.  There’s a very good chance that if you start the fight with this spell you’ll have 30 uninterrupted seconds of pew pew on your focus target, and if he’s not dead in that time your raid failed, not you.  Note that the Mirror Images can be the focus of the Champions’ aggro, and this is a Good Thing.  Standing next to them when the Arms Warrior Bladestorms through them is a Bad Thing.  Cast it, move aside, begin the pew pew.

Frost Nova.  Another awesome spell that’s saved my ass more times than I care to remember on this fight, but as ever it’s highly situational.  Never use it when the Arms Warrior has Bladestorm up or the Rogue has Cloak of Shadows, all you succeed in doing is wasting a global cooldown and forcing yourself to wait to cast the Blink you should have cast.  Also, as in any pve situation, never, ever, ever cast Frost Nova when the mob you’re escaping from is standing next to anyone else, especially a healer.  All you’ll succeed in doing is forcing the mob to switch aggro to the closest target that they can hit, and insta-gibbing them.

Did we mention Blink?  If you have a Hunter on your team they should be laying a Frost Trap in the middle of the arena at all times.  Blink into it.  Even if the mob maintains aggro and follows you through the Blink, he’s going to run right into the Frost Trap and isn’t going to catch you in a hurry.  In that time, a tank can and should have taunted him off you anyway.  Try to save Blink for when the mob focussing you has immunity effects up and can’t be crowd controlled easily.

Invisibility.  Because it has such a long cooldown and takes so long (untalented) to activate, Invisibility is ideally used in one of two situations.  Either when everything else is on cooldown and the melee train is running for you or when it’s a wipe and you want to save yourself some repair bills.  Note that to get the most out of invisibility you should ideally be standing in the area of effect of your Hunters’ Frost Trap.  This makes the most of the few seconds it takes for Invisibility to kick in, just in case the enemy Rogue is trying to introduce you to the business end of Mister Pointy.

Polymorph.  As a crowd control effect this is almost useless in this fight, at least at the early stages.  If it lasts longer than 2 seconds before it gets grounded, dispelled or purged then you’re not playing the same fight I am.  However when all else is lost, you’re got a few seconds to spare and there’s an angry Arms Warrior bearing down on you, Polymorph can save your ass and give you time to run and your tanks time to taunt.  Bear in mind it will have no effect on a Bladestorming Arms Warrior.  Blink is always your friend in this case.

Slow.  Arcane mages only, this one.  But it’s a beauty.  If you have it, you’ll most likely be assigned to keep it up on one of the melee targets anyway, but since it’ll be getting dispelled quite often it isn’t going to make much difference if you use it to keep your ass alive and out of reach of the Retribution Paladin who’s chasing you down.  If it keeps you alive long enough for him to lose interest, it served its purpose.

Run Away.  Simple but highly effective, especially if your side have a Frost Trap or Earthbind Totem in play.

Note that all of these tricks aren’t going to be much use to you if the first indication you have that the melee train is arriving at You Station is when you start taking 15k Mortal Strikes.  The idea is to be reacting before you start getting beaten on and that can be handled in a couple of ways.

1.  Use Teamspeak/Ventrilo.  Have your two “tanks” enable Target of Target so they can see who their target is switching to and have them call it out.

2.  Use some sort of addon that alerts you when you have aggro.  I use X-Perl and it handles this as well as an incredible number of other things.  Very little grabs your attention like the word “AGGRO” across the middle of your screen as a PVE raider.  In most raids it’s usually the last thing you see before you die.  On Faction Champions it’s your cue to start getting creative.

3.  Pvp a lot.  There’s no better way to hone your sense of situational awareness.  On the plus side you’ll become a lot better at staying off the radar and at target switching if you take part in any kind of competent Arena play. 

Alternatively you could just do Faction Champions three or four times a week.  You’ll either get good at it or you’ll eat a lot of dirt.  As a Mage you’ve got a massive number of tricks up your sleeve to stay alive and continue doing damage that other classes would kill for.  Any Mage who dies early on in this fight simply wasn’t paying enough attention.  Dying in Faction Champions is always your problem, not your healers.

A Poke in the Eye

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with ketchup.

You may recall from an earlier post that I’d described Malygos as a “proper old school boss fight”, as opposed to the exercise in stealing candy from babies that are the bosses in Naxx at the moment.  With the benefit of hindsight (and lots of practice and phat epic gear) it’s true that Malygos isn’t a pushover but he’s not going to give you serious problems once you get over the WTF?? moment of the phase 3 transition and handle spark placement on phase 1 properly. 

Unless you try to kill him in less than 6 minutes.

A sub 6 minute Malygos kill isn’t nearly as complicated as a Sartharion kill with 3 drakes up, but it certainly brings its’ own challenges.  Before we examine the details, let’s just take a look at what a normal Malygos kill involves.

The fight is split into three very distinct phases.  In Phase 1 it’s a tank and spank with some very important differences.  Before the pull, take a look around the area.  It’s a circular map with a diamond pattern on the floor at the centre, in the middle of which is a large orb.  For an ideal Phase 1 your healers and all dps must be standing in this centre diamond at all times, but more on that later. 

This central diamond is in the middle of the “inner ring”.  Your Main Tank is going to kite Malygos around this inner ring.  It’s not an easy job, as building threat and maintaining aggro while on the move can be a challenge, and good positioning by the tank is vital for a clean Phase 1.  Tank him too far away from the middle and melee will have to leave the centre spot to attack him, and this will reduce their dps considerably, because of the Power Sparks.  What the hell are Power Sparks?  Glad you asked.

Take a look at the space outside the outer ring.  It’s full of stars, but some of them burn a little brighter than the others.  Wait a while and watch Malygos as he flies from star to star and channels into them.  You can’t miss it when he’s doing it, the star he’s channeling flares and glows MUCH brighter.  There’s one Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest.  Once you know what you’re looking for you can spot them easily.  During the fight, a Power Spark is going to come from one of these stars, and it’s completely random which one it is.  That Spark is going to move from its starting star and head in a straight line to Malygos.  If it reaches him, he gets a 50% damage buff.  This is A Bad Thing.  However, it’s not going to reach him because your raid will be doing a number of things to make sure that doesn’t happen.

First, designate a Spark Watcher.  This persons’ job is to spam pings on the minimap whenever a Spark forms to alert the raid as to which direction the spark is coming from.  A Hunter is ideal for this, as with Elemental Tracking up the Spark appears on their minimap and they don’t even have to waste dps time looking for it.  If you don’t have a hunter anyone can do it, but unless you’re an Olympic Gold Medallist at multitasking I wouldn’t recommend it be a healer.  Just pick someone who can dps and keep an eye open around them at the same time, but expect their dps to suffer.

So, you have your tank standing by on the inner ring, your dps and healers are all clustered on the opposite side of the central orb from the tank and you have someone designated to ping the map for Sparks.  Here we go!

Phase 1
Ideally, you’ll want someone to activate the Orb and start the encounter when Malygos is flying around on the opposite side of the orb from the Tank.  That way no-one has to move position at the start, he’ll just fly in, land and move through the raid to get to the tank.  Any threat transfer abilities should be used at this point as your Tank’s going to need all the help they can get with aggro, so use those Midirects and Tricks of the Trade.  Once the Tank has him, unleash hell.  Healers be aware that Malygos is going to do an ability I call “The Wierd AoE Arcane Shit”.  I’m sure it’s got a proper name, but whatever it is, expect to see 3 or 4 people randomly drop to 50% health at regular intervals.  This is normal, heal through it and hope you don’t see it happen right before a Vortex because that can easily be a killer. 

Oh yes, Vortexes.  These are fun.  Very early into Phase 1, you’re going to get your first Power Spark.  Your Spark Watcher will be furiously pinging the map to indicate where it spawned from.  Everyone must pay attention to this ping.  Remember, these Sparks move from where they spawned in a direct line to Malygos, wherever he happens to be at the time.  Therefore the Tank must kite the dragon around the inner ring so that he ends up tanking him on the opposite side of the ring from the Spark.  This means that the Spark will carry on homing in on Malygos and pass over the centre of the map where all the dps and healers are standing.  At the start of Phase 1, however, it won’t get that far because you’re going to get a Vortex first.  Malygos will go airborne and sweep the entire raid up into the air with him into a swirling vortex of arcane doom.  Or something.  You will take damage constantly while you’re up there, and the only spells and attacks you can use are instant casts.

It’s at this point where we take a break from our scheduled programming for a word from our sponsors.   Here’s Ghostcrawler from Blizzard Entertainment:
GC: “Wrath of the Lich King, bring the player, not the class!”
PewPew: “Ok, so we’ll have no problems taking Paladins and Shamans along as healers during Vortexes on Malygos?”
GC: “Er.. sorry, I didn’t understand the question.”
PewPew: “I said…”
GC: “Blahblahbla.. I can’t hear you, sorry.  Oh, look over there, a three headed monkey!”
*Ghostcrawler disappears in a sparkling cloud of Warlock nerfs*  (Well, we can hope)
And now back to our show.

That’s right, instant cast spells only, and this includes heals.  So you Paladins have one heal that you can use every six seconds, two if you’re lucky and it crits.  Shamans are also limited to one heal on a 6 second cooldown.  Whereas Druids can use Wild Growth which is also on a 6 second Cooldown, but Rejuvenation, Lifebloom and Swiftmend are not.  Priests have Prayer of Mending, Power Word: Shield, Renew, Holy Nova, Circle of Healing and at least the first Pulse of Penance.  In other words, if you don’t have at least 1 priest or resto druid in your 10 man Malygos attempt, you are going to have people dying in Vortexes.  Yes, I’m sure people are going to comment about how their imba Holy Pally solo heals Malygos, but they’re lying or they and the rest of the raid significantly outgears the content.  Get a Priest or a Druid or people are going to die.  With Pallies and Shamans in a 10 man you can take three healers and struggle.  With one priest or druid you can take two healers and manage fine.  With a priest and a druid it’s a faceroll party.  Sad simple fact, I’m afraid, and “bring the player, not the class” can go kiss my fat white arse.

Moving on swiftly…

When the Vortex ends, the raid will drop to the floor in the centre of the diamond area.  Remember where the map was being pinged?  The raid runs towards the ping, no more than about 6 or 7 steps, because that’s where the Spark is.  The Tank runs to the edge of the inner ring away from the ping.  Malygos lands right in the middle, and if everyone’s done what they should have done, he lunges for the tank.   Raid then steps back into the centre because there’s no longer a big, angry dragon there, and continues to dps.

What we have now is the ideal setup.  If the tank went to the right spot, opposite the ping, the Spark is now heading right towards Malygos, directly over the heads of your raid.   When it gets to this point, you kill it.  You do not let it reach the dragon!  If positioning is poor, get a Deathknight to Deathgrip it over to you.  All your ranged dps must drop that Spark when it’s right in the middle diamond.  This is absolutely crucial to an efficient Phase 1.  The Spark must die in the middle because that’s where your dps is, and when the Spark is killed it scatters itself in a shower of arcane goodness which buffs your dps instead of the boss.  Getting this dps buff is key to killing Malygos in time to get a good phases two and three.

You now repeat this cycle of pinging the map to indicate where Sparks are coming from, the tank moving the boss around the ring to ensure the Spark passes over the centre where the dps can kill it and get a dps buff.  This buff will stack up to two times, and in a 25 man raid that means 25k Frostfire bolts.  Actually, the buff will stack an infinite number of times, but due to the mechanics of the fight you’ll never get more than two Sparks on you at once, because of the interval between their spawning and the duration of the buff before the dead spark effect expires.  Prior to patch 3.0.8 you could get a stack of three, post patch you’ll never get more than two.  This actually makes it harder to get a Malygos timed kill achievement, despite being given an extra minute over the 5 minute kill requirement before the patch.  Blizzard giveth with one hand, and they taketh away with the other.

Phase 2
When Malygos reaches 50% health, Phase 2 begins.  He goes airborne once again, continue to dps him!  You can easily knock another 5%+ off his health before Phase 2 begins properly.  A number of adds will now spawn, flying around the area on hover discs.  There are two types, Nexus Lords and Scions of Eternity.  The Nexus Lords will need to be tanked and killed on the ground, the Scions will remain airborne.  There are two main hazards in this phase, the Scions will constantly be casting Arcane Barrages at random targets on the ground, and Malygos will periodically do a Deep Breath which will kill your raid unless they’re either not on the ground or shielded.  Luckily, when you kill a Nexus Lord he drops his hover disc.  Melee dps should grab these and use them to get to the Scions.  If you’re on a Disc you will not be hit by the Deep Breath and you count as being stationary, even while moving.  This is great news if you’re a caster as you can cast on the move, but it’s far better for melee to grab the Discs as they’re useless once the Nexus Lords on the ground are dead because they can’t attack the Scions from the ground.

At regular intervals, “bubbles” of Arcane energy appear on the ground, too.  They start quite large and shrink over time.  While inside one of these bubbles, you take 50% reduced magic damage, which is what will prevent you from being killed during a Deep Breath.  You’ll still need healing, as it’s only 50% damage reduction, not 100%, but your odds of surviving Phase 2 increase dramatically if you’re shielded, as it also works against the Arcane Barrages from the Scions.  Phase 2 is actually pretty simple, but it is is a dps race, as you need to kill all the Nexus Lords and Scions quickly to get to Phase 3 with enough time on the clock to finish Malygos himself before the timer runs out.

So to summarise Phase 2 – Kill Nexus Lords, melee dps then take Nexus Lords’ hover discs to enable them to reach and kill the Scions.  Once Nexus Lords are dead, kill Scions.  Stay inside Arcane Bubbles, especially during Deep Breaths.  Blow all your mana doing dps and healing in Phase 2 if you need to, you won’t need any in Phase 3.

Phase 3
Once all the adds from Phase 2 are dead, Phase 3 begins.  Malygos destroys the Eye of Eternity and the whole raid falls into space, to be rescued by a swarm of Red Dragons.  It’s usually at this point where the raid utter a collective “WTF??” and die because it’s the first time they’ve seen phase 3 and they have no clue what to do with their new vehicle control bars.  Relax.  Phase 3 is easy.  If everyone does what they’re supposed to do, it’s not possible for anyone to die in Phase 3 unless Malygos reaches his enrage timer.  The problems lie in everyone doing what they’re supposed to do, and dps being good enough in Phases 1 and 2 to give you enough time left on the clock in Phase 3 to kill the big ugly blue bugger.

You can, however, prepare yourself for Phase 3.  There is a daily quest in Coldarra called Aces High which involves defeating Blue drakes while mounted on the back of a Red with exactly the same abilities as during Malygos Phase 3.  Get together in groups of at least two to practice with one doing dps, one healing, and vice versa.

Back to Malygos, however.  He does two nasty things during Phase 3.  One is an attack called Arcane Surge which can easily kill whoever is targetted with it.  He will also fire an attack that covers a large area with AoE lightning.  Avoiding dying from these two attacks is key to managing Phase 3.  First, let’s look at the Red Drakes’ abilities.

Your new mount has 5 abilities, each bound to a number key, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  Dps only need to worry about 1, 2 and 5.  Healers only need to worry about 3, 4 and 5. 

DPS
Pressing 1 shoots a dart of flame at Malygos, and awards you a combo point.  2 converts your combo points to a flame damage over time effect (DoT) on Malygos.  The idea is to stack the DoT as high as you can, as it will be your primary source of dps.  The DoT lasts longer the more combo points you generated from pressing 1 to fire the flame dart.

Pressing 5 will cover your drake with a flame shield to absorb damage. It lasts longer the more combo points you have generated from pressing 1.  The trick to surviving the Arcane Surges is making sure you always have enough combo points to throw up a shield if you get targetted.  Dps in Phase 3 is therefore a balancing act.  You have to spend energy building combo points with 1 to ensure that the DoT from 2 lasts long enough so that by the time you’ve built up another 2 combo points, the DoT is still active and will stack higher with a fresh press of 2, instead of needing to be refreshed from the start.  You also have to ensure that you can always shield yourself by first having at least 2 combo points ready and at least 50 energy to power your shield.

I find that the best way to manage this is by pressing 1-1…..2  1-1…..2.  Get those combo points up quickly, wait no more than a second to see what’s going on around you, do you need to press 5 to shield?  No?  Press 2 to stack the DoT.  Then get two combo points up again asap and repeat.

The other hazard in Phase 2 is the electrical field that Malygos casts at the raid.  It hurts.  Move out of it and it stops hurting.

Best plan for dealing with this is to have all the raid gather a good distance from Malygos at the start of Phase 3 and stay clustered around your two (or three) healing drakes.  When an electrical field starts zapping you, everyone strafes clockwise (to the left) and groups up again.  Why do we group up?  Because of how healing works.

Healing
If you’re assigned to heal in phase 3, the first thing you want to do is target yourself and start spamming button 3.  Healing works pretty much exactly like dps does in phase 3, except instead of hurting stuff, you’re healing it.  Duh.

Pressing 3 will start both building combo points and stacking a rejuvenation effect on your drake.  Pressing 4 will consume the rejuvenation and the combo points and cause you to bloom into a soothing beacon of healing goodness to everyone around you.  This is why it’s important to ensure that everyone is around you.  Your button 5 shield is also powered by your rejuve combo points in the same way that a dps drakes’ shield is powered by his button 1 flame darts.

So we strafe around the boss when he throws nasty electrical squigglies at us.  We stack our combo points by pressing 1 or 3, we shield ourselves (with 2 combo points and a press of 5) when we’re targetted by Arcane Surge, and we heal the raid or stack burning DoTs of Doom on the boss by pressing 2 or 4.  If we did enough did enough dps fast and smart enough in Phases 1 and 2, and if we don’t suck and can follow simple rules in Phase 3, pretty soon the Boss falls over and turns into a big red floaty loot Pinata.

But then you try to kill him in less than 6 minutes.  Oh boy.

First, forget everything you ever learned about letting the tanks get a comfortable aggro lead.  I pulled aggro with 4900dps the other day (and I wasn’t doing the most dps either) when we were trying this and guess what?  It wasn’t my bad for pulling aggro, it was the tanks’ bad for not generating enough threat.  Yes, dps have a licence to kill on this one, and I really, really feel for the poor tank.  Tanking Malygos on a regular kill is tricky enough when the dps have a  two-stack of arcane power from dead sparks, but on a timed kill if the dps aren’t within 2% of pulling aggro at all times they’re not trying hard enough.

Hardcore Phase 1
The goal in Phase 1 is two-fold.  You must get Malygos to 80% before the first Vortex.  To do this in a 25 man raid you must have every class synergy there is, be fully flasked, fed and buffed, and begin dps the instant Malygos is able to be attacked, praying that Misdirect and Tricks of the Trade will be enough to keep aggro on the poor schmuck who’s tanking.  If you cannot get him to 80% before the first Vortex, you’re not killing him in 6 minutes, but keep going, it’s good practice.

The second benchmark to watch for is Vortex number two.  If you enter Phase 2 after the second Vortex, you’re not going to kill him in 6 minutes.  As above, keep going anyway for the practice.  Your raid should be standing in a double stack of dead Power Sparks with the boss at 50% and phase 2 triggered before the second vortex happens.  If you can manage this, you’re into Phase 2 with a 6 minute kill in sight.  You also have some seriously sick dps.  Well done. 

Hardcore Phase 2
Remember, at 50% Malygos goes into the air and starts another boring speech.  You’re all standing in a buff field that makes your Frostfire Bolts crit for 30k.  Keep up the dps!  Once he’s flown out of range, Phase 2 properly begins, just like a normal phase 2, except that it’s completely different. 

Melee dps and tanks go for the Nexus Lords.  Ranged dps ignore them completely and start nuking seven different shades of $hit out of the Scions.  Do not run for the safety of the nearest Arcane Bubble.  You’re still standing in a field that buffs your dps, use it.  Only once your power spark buff is gone should you think of stopping dps to take cover in a Bubble, and then only if there’s a Deep Breath on the way.  Otherwise stand your ground, eat Arcane Barrages and keep nuking.  When they’re all dead and you’re not, Phase 3 begins.

Hardcore Phase 3
To get that pesky big blue dragon down before that 6 minute timer is up in Phase 3 you have to forget about shielding yourself during an Arcane Surge and just spam 1,1….2 over and over and over.  The aim is to get your debuff stack as high as it can possibly go, and if you’re wasting combo points to power a shield, it’s not going as high as it can go.  In order to ensure you don’t die to an Arcane Surge, the healers are going to have to have constant Area of Effect heals going on the entire raid.  This means perfect rotations so that at any time, a healer is always firing off the aoe heal while the other healers are generating combo points for when it’s their turn.

Get all of this right, and you have a fighting chance of getting the Poke in the Eye achievement for a 6 minute Malygos kill.  You’ll also have enough dps to comfortably manage some of the harder fights in Ulduar. 

Our best attempt so far?  6 minutes, 29 seconds.

Pimp My Mage – The Director’s Cut

The Pimp My Mage posts have been edited after initial publication to take into account the changes to spirit from Molten Armour introduced in patch 3.1.  Spirit isn’t totally useless anymore!  It still sucks compared to crit rating, but just because something comes with spirit is no longer a reason to ditch it for something better.

As the more eagle-eyed among you may have (and as commenter Sokre did realise) spotted, I neglected to include trinkets and rings from dungeon drops in my last post.  This may have been an intelligence test that I set for you all, (congratulations Sokre, you passed) or I may simply be a dumbass who forgot.  You be the judge.  Anyway, time waits for no mage, so here are the amulets, trinkets and rings you should be hoping for when doing your dungeon grind.
Amulets and Necklaces
With the exception of the crafted Titanium Spellshock Necklace which doesn’t drop from a dungeon anyway (it drops from friendly Jewelcrafters or the Auction House) you’re not going to see any epic drops.  However, there are some very good blue replacements you should be on the lookout for.  The two best ones for us are the Necklace of Taldaram from Prince Taldaram in Heroic Old Kingdom and the Amulet of the Spell Flinger from Amanitar, also in Heroic Old Kingdom.  One has hit, one has crit, both have a ton of spellpower.  Either are a good upgrade for any quest reward you’re currently wearing.

Other less attractive but still reasonable options are:
Dragon Prow Amulet – Heroic Utgarde Keep BOE
Necromancers’ Amulet – Heroic Old Stratholme
Zuramat’s Necklace – Heroic Violet Hold

After running a few of these heroics you’ll probably have enough badges to upgrade to the badge reward Encircling Burnished Gold Chains, which is a pretty solid upgrade.  Alternatively, there’s a BoE drop from Naxxrammas which you may be lucky enough to find on the Auction House – the Chain of Latent Energies.

Rings
We’re slightly better catered for in the Ring department, with many options available to us.  First of all, if you have absolutely silly amounts of cash lying around, go to Dalaran, find the jewellery shop and buy a Signet of the Kirin Tor.  Alternatively, take your cash to the Auction House and find a jewelcrafter selling a Titanium Spellshock Ring.  Both are excellent, easy to get your hands on and stupidly overpriced.  You pays your money, you takes your chance.

Moving on to actual instance drops, we still have some very good options.  Annhylde’s Ring drops from Ingvar the Plunderer in Heroic Utgarde Keep, a fast and relatively easy instance that you’ll probably be farming a lot.  The Band of Guile drops from Mal’Ganis’ chest at the end of Heroic Old Stratholme.

Rare dungeon drops are equally plentiful.
Globule Signet – Heroic Violet Hold
Ring of the Frenzied Wolvar – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
Ring of the Traitor King – Heroic Azjol Nerub
Solitaire of Reflecting Beams – Heroic Violet Hold
Spectral Seal of the Prophet – Heroic Drak’Tharon Keep.

Alternatives from Normal mode dungeons are mostly limited to Signet of Ranulf from Utgarde Pinnacle.  There are other Rings out there, but they have less spellpower, no hit, no crit and no haste.

Unfortunately, you won’t be upgrading your ring with badges anytime soon, as they are purchased with Badges of Valor from 25 man instances.  Luckily, you shouldn’t need to as the dungeon drops are so good and even 10 man Naxx ring drops compare well to the level 213 badge reward rings, as they come loaded with pesky spirit which is never as good as straight crit rating.

Trinkets
Before you even step foot in a dungeon you can equip yourself with some epic trinkets, although it’s likely to cost you a substantial sum of gold and even some of the dungeon blues are arguably superior in most cases.  First we have Je’Tze’s Bell which is a world drop BoE and sells for stupid amounts of gold and is really better off in the hands of a healer.    Then there are the Darkmoon Cards.  First, we have the Darkmoon Card: Illusion from the Prisms Deck.  Yes, it’s really a healer item, but 100 spellpower is pretty substantial so worth a look if you have nothing better and more money than sense.  In a similar vein are the Darkmoon Card: Death from the Undeath Deck and the Darkmoon Card: Greatness from the Nobles Deck.  Nobles Decks are highly sought for by melee classes as the cards they produce are best in slot items, as such they sell for ridiculous amounts of gold.  Luckily for us, they’re all but worthless, and the Illusion Card usually sells for much less.  It’s also a lot more rare, as every Jewelcrafter with any sense is trying to sell Nobles Decks.  If you can get an Illusions Card cheaply, by all means do so.  But there are better trinkets out there that you can get for free.  Such as:

Forge Ember – Heroic Halls of Stone
Mark of the War Prisoner – Heroic Violet Hold
Pendulum of Telluric Currents – Heroic Oculus
Tome of Arcane Phenomena – Normal Oculus

Once you have enough Heroic badges, and you’ll need 40, get yourself a Sundial of the Exiled from the badge vendor in Dalaran.  Because it really is that good.

And that finally completes our round up of Frostfire Mage gear to ready yourself for raiding.  Hope you enjoyed reading or found something useful from it, feel free to leave comments praising my knowledge/cursing me for lack of it.

Now I’m off to do some heroics on my Priest.  No I’m not doing one of these gear lists for priests!  /shoo!

Pimp My Mage III

The Pimp My Mage posts have been edited after initial publication to take into account the changes to spirit from Molten Armour introduced in patch 3.1.  Spirit isn’t totally useless anymore!  It still sucks compared to crit rating, but just because something comes with spirit is no longer a reason to ditch it for something better.

So we’re finally hit level 80 and we want to know which instances to hit up in order to get the best possible pre-Naxx raid gear.  This is, of course, going to depend on what stats you need to make up any deficiencies in, but generally speaking, anything with with hit, crit and haste rating in addition to the standard spellpower is going to be attractive.  Let’s take a look at our options.

Head Armour
Sadly, our options are pretty limited, with every single blue item drop from level 80 or heroic dungeons coming stacked with mostly-useless spirit.  I would recommend taking the advice from Part I and simply have a Hat of Wintry Doom made by a tailor as it compares very favourably to any blue you’re going to pick up from a dungeon, be it heroic or not.  The only comparable dungeon drops with a metagem socket are the Crown of Unbridled Magic from the final boss in Heroic Oculus, or the Forgotten Shadow Hood from Heroic Culling of Stratholme.  Hat of Wintry Doom has less spellpower, but all of the stats are directly useful to us and it has a far more useful red gem slot.  It’s also 100% easier to obtain, as it only requires cash.  However the Crown and Hood are still decent upgrades, just not really designed with the FrostFire Mage in mind.

Other reasonable options are:
Cowl of the Dire Troll – Heroic Drak’tharon Keep
Elder Headpiece – Heroic Old Kingdom

There are no epic cloth headpieces available in any non-raid dungeons.  Boo!

Shoulder Armour
The easiest and arguably best upgrade you’re going to find here is the Dark Runic Mantle, which drops from Heroic Halls of Stone.  It is, however, a  Bind on Equip item, so you’ll probably see it on the Auction House before you see it in Halls of Stone.  Buy it.  It’s a very nice piece, with no drawbacks.

Actual dungeons drops are plentiful in this slot, although the majority come with a lot of spirit rather than something directly useful like crit rating on them (this trend is going to become depressingly common) one item in particular stands out, the Mantle of the Tribunal from Heroic Halls of Stone.
Other items worth looking for if you don’t mind the budget being shared with spirit are:

Mantle of Deceit – Heroic Stratholme
Runecasters’ Mantle – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
Mantle of Electrical Charges – Normal Halls of Lightning
Silken Amice of the Ymirjar – Normal Utgarde Pinnacle

Once again, there are no epic cloth shoulder pieces available in any non-raid dungeons.

Robes
By contrast to the poor showing from the previous item slots, we’re overflowing with an abundance of excellent choices for our chest armour.  Pride of place, in my opinion, going to the amazing Water Drenched Robes (overflowing, water drenched, see what I did there?  Hehe…  Ok I’ll get my coat) from Ichoron in Heroic Violet Hold.  They’re comparable to the epic Robe of Blaumeaux from Naxx 10, perhaps even better if you gem appropriately, and should be at the top of your shopping list.  Hit, spellpower, two good gem slots, plenty of intellect and stamina, there’s absolutely nothing not to like here.

It doesn’t end there, however.  We’re practically tripping over a mass of excellent Robes that would be a great upgrade for any Frostfire Mage, all of which even compare favourably to the excellent crafted Ebonweave Robe mentioned in Part 1.  We have:

Arcane Flame Altar-Garb – Heroic Gun’drak
Drakewing Raiments – Heroic Oculus
Egg-Sac Robes – Heroic Azjol Nerub
Ornate Woolen Stola – Heroic Halls of Lightning
Vestments of the Scholar – Normal Oculus

With the exception of the Vestments of the Scholar, you’ll note that all of the above items drop in Heroic versions of the dungeons.  If doing heroics is slightly out of your grasp for the moment, then the bad news is that all of the comparable Normal mode drops are pretty much priest loot.  Yes, they all come stacked with the dreaded spirit, but assuming you’re using Molten Armour you can at least convert some of that spirit into something useful like crit.  The good news, is that you can get a decent alternative, the Robes of Lightning, simply by clearing normal Halls of Lightning.  The catch is that you first have to complete the Thorim/Sons of Hodir questline.  If you have any sense, however, you’ll be doing this anyway in order to raise your Sons of Hodir rep to Honoured so you can get the groovy new shoulder enchants.  You ARE doing these quests aren’t you?  Yes?  Good mage!  If not, go to K3 in the Storm Peaks and start the They Took Our Men! quest.  Two hours later you’re a few hundred gold better off, you have some spanky new shoulder enchants and are ready to complete the questline in Halls of Lightning.

No, there are no epic Robes drops from any non-raid dungeons.  Meh!

Boots
Options for upgrading your footwear are actually pretty poor.  There are no epic dungeon drops, and our choice of blues are limited to the Clerics’ Linen Shoes, a zone drop from Heroic Nexus, Slithering Slippers from Heroic Gun’drak and Stone-Worn Footwraps from Heroic Azjol-Nerub.  The sole non-heroic alternative is the Conjuror’s Slippers from the Oculus.  Anyone looking for spirit on their gear is even worse off with the Footwraps of Teleportation from Heroic Violet Hold being pretty much their only option.  Sucks to be a warlock!  Muahahahahaahaa!

Ahem.

Gloves
Epic loot!  Surely this is too good to be true?  Well yes actually, it is.  Our gloves finally supply us with our first choice of epic dungeon upgrades.  Of course, they all come loaded with spirit, naturally.  It’s hard to QQ too much, however, as not only are the items concerned pretty sweet regardless, but we can always go and buy a set of Ebonweave Gloves if we don’t like it.  Our first shiny purples from dungeons are the Gloves of Glistening Runes from Keristrasza in Heroic Nexus and the Overlook Handguards from the Prophet Tharon’ja in Heroic Drak’tharon Keep.  For my money, Keristrasza’s drop is superior, having crit and a red socket, but if you, me and the Overlook Handguards were lying in bed together, put it this way – I wouldnt climb over them to get to you.

Our dungeon blues are also pretty good!  Chances are you’ll be getting one of these sooner rather than later as they drop all over the place.
Giant -Hair Woven Gloves – Heroic Halls of Lightning
Silken Bridge Handwraps – Heroic Old Kingdom
Traditionally-Dyed handguards – Heroic Halls of Lightning

Honourable mention to the Lava Burn Gloves from Lavanthor in normal Violet Hold.  Sure, they’re a level 75 item, but they’ll easily do well until you hit level 80 if you’re lucky enough to have them drop.

Legs
I really wanted to recommend Skirt of the Old Kingdom, a drop from Herald Volasj in Heroic Old Kingdom because 104 is a seriously large amount of spellpower, but 35 mana per 5?  Get out and never darken my blog again!  Luckily I can recommend the pant-wettingly good Woven Bracae Leggings from Heroic Halls of Lightning, which is just as well as you’ll need a new pair of pants after seeing these drop.

If Loken keeps handing you your arse on a plate, then don’t despair, you can also pick up the following for much less effort:
Sorrowgrave’s Breeches – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
And…

Oh, that’s it.  Every other instance drop comes loaded with a LOT of spirit, mana per 5, or both.  You may now despair.  Or start farming Heroic Halls of Lightning.

Belt
We have a choice of two epic belt upgrades from Heroic Dungeon drops, the Girdle of Bane from Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle and the Sash of the Servant from Heroic Azjol’nerub.  Both are very good value.   If a drop eludes you, however, don’t despair, as you can buy the awesome Plush Sash of Guzbah with all those Badges of Heroism you’re farming.  In fact, I’d get it once you have the badges even if you already have one of the other two, it’s that good.  Don’t forget that with all belts you can add an extra gem socket by using an Eternal Belt Buckle to get even more bang for your buck.

There’s also a very sweet choice of blues.
Belt of Unified Souls – Heroic Stratholme
Flowing Sash of Order – Heroic Halls of Lightning
Living Mojo Belt – Heroic Gundrak

Cloak
Seriously, find a tailor who’s completed the Northrend Loremaster achievement and get them to make you a Deathchill Cloak.  I didn’t replace mine until Cape of the Unworthy Wizard dropped from Kel’thuzad in Heroic Naxx.  There are no epic cloak upgrades for you in dungeons or heroics and the choice of dungeon blues are pretty uninspiring with the only thing worth picking up in a heroic the Ancient Dragon Spirit Cape from Heroic Oculus (and no-one does Heroic Oculus).  Reanimator’s Cloak from Heroic Drak’tharon Keep isn’t great but it does have a red socket.  It’s also Bind on Equip so a trip to the Auction House may be worth it.  Your other choices come loaded with spirit and not very useful stats, and are:

Shroud of Moorabi – Heroic Gundrak
Subterranean Waterfall Shroud – Heroic Old Kingdom

The Cape of Seething Steam is, however, pretty good for a normal instance drop.  You can find this in Halls of Lightning (Normal)

Wrists
Those of us looking for an epic bracer upgrade should start farming Heroic Violet Hold for the very nice Azure Cloth Bindings.  If by some chance you’re crazy enough to be farming Heroic Oculus for the achievements, then you may be lucky with the Cuffs of Winged Levitation, although they’re not as good.

Decent dungeon blues are harder to find.  Leaving out all those items with spirit and no hit, mana per 5, crit or haste, we’re limited to just Savage Wound Wraps from Heroic Drak’tharon Keep, which leaves our wrist upgrade options pretty poor.

Main Hand Weapons
Seriously, just get yourselves Revered with the Kirin Tor and get the Flameheart Spell Scalpel.  It really is that good.  Of course, if you’re grinding that rep in dungeons anyway, and you probably are, then the following may be of interest to you.

Cursed Lich Blade – Heroic Drak’tharon Keep
Netherbreath Spellblade – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
Jewelled Coronation Sword – Utgarde Pinnacle (Normal)

Offhand Items
The only epic offhands you’re going to find before you start doing raids are the Inscription-based Faces of Doom and Iron Bound Tome.  They’re actually not bad at all, but we can do better simply by farming badges from our heroics so we can buy the awesome Ward of the Violet Citadel.  There’s nothing in 10 man Naxx better, in fact I used it until the Surplus Limb dropped from Heroic Naxx.

While you’re acumulating badges, you may wish to consider:
Seal of Valgarde – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
Telestra’s Journal – Heroic Nexus
Temple Crystal Fragment – Heroic Drak’tharon Keep
Tome of Salramm – Stratholme (Normal)

Staff
The Staff of Draconic Combat is our sole epic staff upgrade and it drops from Heroic Oculus, which may be enough to put everyone off by itself.  It’s also not that great, coming with spirit and no hit or crit.  I would not recommend dropping the Flameheart Spell Scalpel and a good offhand for this, but you should always be guided by which stats you need the most.  If you’re hit capped and haste-starved, then this is certainly worth looking at.

In fact, it’s very hard to reccommend any non-raid staff over a mainhand/offhand combo at all.  In every case, you’re going to be losing a lot of spellpower, gaining a lot of spirit and losing a lot of hit and crit.  However, for the sake of completeness, here are the staves that are available in heroics and normal level 80 dungeons:

Staff of Sinister Claws – Heroic Old Kingdom
Staff of Wayward Principles – Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle
Malygos’ Favour – Oculus (Normal)
Sempiternal Staff – Strathholme (Normal)
And that completes our roundup of loot for the budding Frostfire mage.  Admittedly it’s taken so long for me to write it that anyone who started with Part 1 is probably farming Heroic Naxx by now.  Probably the best piece of advice I could give anyone looking for gear upgrades is that there is no hard and fast rule anymore about which stat is best.  Hit, crit, haste and spellpower values are entirely relative to how much you currently have.  At any time, any of these stats could be more valuable, it just depends on how much you have of each.  Spirit is always universally worthless, of course.  Curse you, Blizzard!

If you’re confused, head over to the wonderful Theory Craft-o-matic, plug in your stats and scroll to the bottom of the page.  Have a look and see what values are given for your hit, spellpower, haste and crit.  Bigger numbers = more valuable, and therefore that is the stat you should be looking to get more of when you’re going over this gear list to see what drops where.

And get the Flameheart Spell Scalpel!

Pimp My Mage II – The Return

The Pimp My Mage posts have been edited after initial publication to take into account the changes to spirit from Molten Armour introduced in patch 3.1.  Spirit isn’t totally useless anymore!  It still sucks compared to crit rating, but just because something comes with spirit is no longer a reason to ditch it for something better.

So, we’ve looked at crafted gear in Part One, this time it’s the turn of Faction Reputation gear.  There are a number of factions available in Wrath of the Lich King, some more useful to us than others.  Let’s look at each in turn:

The Kirin Tor.
The Kirin Tor are a faction of Mages created to oversee and control the use of magic in Azeroth.  Their capital is the city of Dalaran, currently floating high in the air over Crystalsong Forest.  Not surprisingly, they cater very well to the offensive spellcasters amongst us since they’re all..  well..  you know..  Mages.  And since we’re Mages too, we begin the game at Friendly reputation level with them.  The lesser classes start at neutral.

Muauhahahahahaaa!

Sorry.  Anyway, as you’d expect they have some very nice stuff that they’re prepared to sell to people they like, and here it is.

Honoured
The Shroud of Dedicated Research.  Not bad, but you’ll probably have better at level 80.  You can get this at level 78, however, and it will do just fine if you lack the cash for a Deathchill Cloak by the time you hit level 80 and nothing better has dropped from a dungeon.
Revered
Flameheart Spell Scalpel. Hands down, no questions asked the very best weapon you can get from anywhere prior to doing heroics or Naxxrammas.  All you need is to be Revered with the Kirin Tor, be level 80 and have 74 gold.  There is absolutely no excuse for not having this weapon.  It has stamina, intellect, hit, crit and a bucketload of spellpower.  Get it.  Treasure it.  Call it Charmaine and sleep with it if you must.  All together now…
“This is my Flameheart Spell Scalpel.  There are many like it, but this one is mine…”
Arcanum of Burning Mysteries.  This is the upgrade for our old Burning Crusade Sha’tar rep head enchant.  It swaps hit for crit, and has more delicious, crunchy, chewy spellpower.  Feast on it, my pretties!
Exalted
Robes of Crackling Flame.  Er… well..  they’re not terrible, I guess.  Lots of intellect, lots of stamina, lots of haste, lots of spellpower and lots of mana per 5.  Er… mana per 5?  What we have here, friends and neighbours, is Blizzard copping out of putting in some proper epic caster robes, putting in some healer gear instead and hoping no-one notices.  If by some chance you’re Exalted with the Kirin Tor and not yet managed to scrape together the cash for an Ebonweave Robe or been lucky in Heroic Violet Hold (more on that later), then you may as well spend the 40g required to get these.  They’re really not terrible, just a bit of a wasted opportunity.  On the bright side, they are pretty.

Also note that if you’re a jewelcrafter and wondering where to get the recipe for Runed Scarlet Rubies, look no further, Kirin Tor exalted is where it’s at.  The Kirin Tor quartermaster is located at the top of the steps in the Violet Citadel, in Dalaran.

The Wyrmrest Accord
Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and go well with ketchup!  On the other hand if you want some spanky new caster gear, you’ll be wanting to get cuddly with Alexstrasza, Chromie, Ysera, Nalice and Co.  The Wyrmrest Accord are the council of the dragons, currently at war with the rogue Blue Dragonflight who are laying siege to Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragonblight.  Led by Queen Alexstrasza The Life Binder of the Red Dragongflight, you have a number of goodies to look forward to if you manage to impress the dragons.

Honoured
Sash of the Wizened Wyrm.  This is actually pretty nice.  The usual intellect and stamina and a respectable chunk of hit rating and spellpower.  Only requires honoured and level 78.
Revered
Ancestral Sinew Wristguards.  There are really aimed more at the priests and possibly warlocks amongst us (Warlocks!  Boo!  Hiss!) due to a quarter of the item budget going on spirit and that pesky blue socket.  However, they do have a large chunk of spellpower on them and if you don’t care about the socket bonus you can stick a 19 spellpower gem in there for a total of 69 spellpower, which is pretty good.  Not bad, and we’re not exactly tripping over bracer upgrades out there, worth a look if you’ve been unlucky with drops.
Exalted
Sandals of Crimson Fury.  Don’t be disappointed with the lack of hit and crit.  Ignore the socket bonus, stick a red +19 spellpower gem in there and these give you 96 spellpower and 1.56% haste at level 80.    You won’t get better outside of a raid.  Joy!  Rapture!
But of course, the real reason you want to grind Exalted with the Accord is for the Reins of the Red Drake.  It’s a dragon.  You can fly around on it.  It’s RED!  Red ones go faster.  Fact.*

You may have trouble finding Cielstrasza, the Wyrmrest Quartermaster.  You may realise that he’s situated on the top floor of the Temple, but still be unable to see him.  Here’s how you find him.  Stand on the circular dias with your back to Alexstrasza the Dragon Queen.  On your left is a massive Red Dragon, ignore him.  On your right, you’re either going to see Cielstrasza or a large Drakonid Temple Defender.  If you see the Temple Defender, look up his arse.  That’s where you’ll find Cielstrasza.

No, really.  This is not a joke.

The Argent Crusade
Tirion Fordring is cool.  He’s a raging holy engine of righteous fury, and he’s going to kick the Lich King’s bony arse.  In fact he already has, twice.  Therefore by association, the Argent Crusade is cool, too.  Highlord Fordring formed the Crusade from the remnants of the Order of the Silver Hand and the Argent Dawn after the Battle of Light’s Hope Chapel, which is another reason (if you needed one) to do the Deathknight starting quests, since this is where it happens.  But enough fanboy banter, what’s in it for us?

Not a lot, actually.

Well there’s the the Purifying Torch at Revered, but it’s SO not for mages with zero intellect and comes with mana per 5 to add insult to injury.  At Exalted there’s a Ring which is okay, the Signet of Hopeful Light.  But seriously, if you’re grinding Argent Crusade reputation purely to get this ring you need to be thrown to the warlocks and used as a Felhunter chew toy.  On the other hand, if you’re grinding to Exalted to get the Brilliant Spellthread pattern and managed to get there without getting a better ring from jewelcrafters or dungeon drops, by all means go ahead and get it. And then shard it the second a proper Frostfire Mage ring lands at your feet.  Shame on you!

Knights of the Ebon Blade
Short history of the Ebon Blade:
Deathknights: Oh Arthas, you are so gothic and cool, we want to be in your gang and listen to The Smiths records.
Lich King: Sheesh, emo much?  Black eyeliner is so nineties.  And for the record, I’m NOT Arthas, Nerzhul is in here with me too, thanks very much.  Pfft..  fanboys.
Deathknights: Oh noes, you betrayed us.  Waaaah!  Boo hoo!
Lich King: Cry some more, noobs.

Actually, we don’t need a long version when the short version is so good.  They’re equally short on the goods when it comes to Mage gear, but that’s pretty much what you’d expect from a bunch of emo posers who think the only thing that goes well with black is more black, preferably lit by candles propped on the top of fake human skulls.   At Revered we have the mostly useless Sterile Flesh Handling Gloves.  At exalted there is the Belt of Dark Mending, which is actually rather nice, if inferior to certain dungeon drops for our purposes.  In fact, there’s not much reason for a Frostfire Mage to bother with Ebon Blade rep gear at all, if it wasn’t for the fact that you get to meet the second coolest npc in the game after Tirion “I’ll whup your ass” Fordring.  Yes, I’m talking about none other than the ridiculously evil Darkrider Arly.

Get on with it!

In case you’re not convinced, here’s her reaction to her associate, Argent Crusader Olakin, being carried away and torn limb from limb by a Necrodrake.

I rest my case.  Moving on swiftly, we have…

The Kalu’ak
A neutral tribe of Tuskarr with quest hubs all over southern Northrend.  It’s relatively easy to get Exalted status with these guys if you’re after the awesome Mastercraft Kalu’ak Fishing Pole, but for pure mage gear you can quite happily stop at Honoured and level 74 with the Turtle Minders’ Robe.  It’s cheap, it’s cheerful, it’s very good for the level it becomes available and it’ll do just fine until you can upgrade to something better from dungeon drops or tailored gear.  Sadly, that’s the only real Mage gear they provide.

The Oracles and the Frenzyheart Tribe
You’ll come across these guys in Sholozar Basin at around level 76/77.  They’re a bit like the Scryers and the Aldor in that gaining rep with one makes you hated by the other.  They’re unlike the Scryers and the Aldor in that these guys actually have a bit of personality.  I’m an Oracles kind of mage myself, they’re just so…  sweet.  Who doesn’t have a smile on their face while doing their Oracle dailies in the company of Lafoo while he stomps around chasing bugs and saying: “Nice tree!  Make comfy home!” or “You have pie? Someone gave us pie year ago. Really yummy.” The Frenzyheart, while being a bunch of assholes, do have their own charm too in a “we’re a bunch of assholes” kind of way.  Whichever faction you go for is entirely up to you, neither are essential for any gear upgrade.
Revered
Muddied Crimson Gloves from the Frenzyheart Tribe.  From the Oracles we have the Fishy Cinch and the Shinygem Rod.  The belt and gloves are mediocre.  The wand isn’t bad at all.
Exalted
Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury which isn’t bad at all.  As well as the base haste on the trinket the proc will give 91 crit rating, stacking up to five times, although to maintain the proc you have to keep killing stuff.  And it’s not unique so you can equip two.  Of dubious value in raids if you’re relying on the proc, it’ll pretty much only be of any use on chain pulled trash mobs, but a nice trinket nonetheless.
Meanwhile the Oracles reward us at Exalted with the Oracle Talisman of Absolution which is slightly more useful to us because it comes with crit instead of haste, but again has a proc that is not really of much use in raids unless you’re dealing with mass aoe trash pulls and struggling to not go out of mana.

Alliance Vanguard and Horde Expedition
The reputation requirements for these factions can be confusing to the unwary, so here’s the deal, quoted directly from Wowhead:

Half of the reputation gains from the Alliance Vanguard’s four sub-factions count towards this the Alliance Vanguard’s reputation. Therefore, you must have two of the four sub-factions at Exalted in order to be exalted with the Alliance Vanguard, or the equivalent amount of reputation spread across all four

So that means that while you may very well be Exalted with the Valiance Expedition by the time you leave Dragonblight, that’s not the same thing as being Exalted with the Alliance Vanguard as a whole.  You’ll also need to be Exalted with at least one of the other three subfactions, which are Explorer’s League, Silver Covenant and Frostborn for the Alliance.  The Horde equivalents are The Hand of Vengeance, The Sunreavers, The Taunka and The Warsong Offensive.

There are various daily quests, mostly in Icecrown, that you can do to raise Vanguard/Expedition rep, but by far the easiest way to do it is to run instances without wearing a tabard. All rep gained in level 80 instances is automatically Vanguard/Expedition rep if you have no champions’ tabard equipped.  However, you’ll probably not want to bother since the rewards are pretty lacklustre.  On the other hand, if you’re an engineer you’ll most certainly want to get to Exalted, since this is where you get the schematics for the Mekgineers’ Chopper or Mechano-Hog.  For the rest of us, here’s what you can expect:
Alliance
Revered
Gnomish Magician’s Quill.  It’s okay.  You’ll probably have something better from quest rewards by the time you can use it, however.
Orb of the Eastern Kingdoms.  A decent offhand.
Horde
Revered
Charged Wand of the Cleft
Darkspear Orb
Both essentially the same unexciting items as the alliance versions.

And that covers the reputation gear.  Some solid stuff in there to prepare you for your first steps into 10 man raiding, some not-so-good stuff too, but almost all of it easily obtainable either before level 80 or as soon as you ding the magic number.  The majority of your gear, however, is either likely to be quested, crafted, or obtained from dungeon drops.  And dungeon drops are what we’re going to look at in part three.  See you there!

*Not actually a fact.