Welcome To The Suck

One of the Hunters in our 25 man raid is a Dwarf named Rui.  He’s a good hunter, solid dps, doesn’t make a habit of standing in the Fire, never pulls aggro… in short, nothing like the guys who are the first to get squished by Vault of Archavon bosses when you’re bored and PuG it late on a Wednesday night.  Anyone who runs with a regular raid knows that there are always “characters” in those raids.  For example, we have an excellent healing paladin named Tinuviel, but she’s pretty much known as Afkviel for reasons that I hope are obvious from the nickname.  Rui is the guy who always disconnects.  His connection sucks harder than an industrial strength vacuum cleaner.  I think Hoover is his ISP or something.  It’s become something of a joke over time.

“Everyone buffed?”
“Yep.”
“Tanks ready?”
“Ready to go.”
“Rui disconnected yet?”
“Of course.”
“Ok, let’s get this show on the road, pulling in three…”

Well let me tell you, since patch 3.2.2, I’ve been Rui, and it’s not as funny in the flesh as it is from a distance.  For years, I’ve been the guy with the connection made from solid granite.  Never miss a raid, never go offline, always there.  After patch 3.2.2 rolled out, every time Gormok the Impaler so much as looks at me in a funny way, I get dumped out to the login screen and cannot reconnect as long as the fight is going on.  And then it takes 15 attempts to connect to a character in Dalaran.  And so it goes on.

Yesterday the daily cooking quest was Rhino Dogs and the daily fishing quest was the Ghostfish, both conveniently located in Sholozar Basin.  So I hearthed to Nesingwary Basecamp, flew over to Rainspeaker Canopy to pick up this weeks’ Oracle egg and went fishing.

I’m no expert on the subject, but I’m pretty sure that your fishing bobber shouldn’t time out before you can see the fishing channeling bar appear.  And I’m also relatively certain that casting a line isn’t supposed to take fifteen seconds.  On a similar note, as a level 80 mage covered in 10 man Heroic and 25 man Crusader Coliseum gear with an average item level of 240, I shouldn’t be dying from the bleed of a level 76 non elite Rhino’s gore effect in the time it takes for me to get an Arcane Blast off.

There are (at latest time of checking) 32 pages of complaints on the US forums and 10 pages (in the busiest thread) on the EU forums about the instant disconnects people are suffering from Crusader Coliseum and the associated lag that plagues you afterwards.  There are no Blue solutions, but the cures suggested by the community range from clearing your dns cache (whatever the hell that is) to sacrificing a virgin to the Blood God at the next full moon.  Personally, I’ve tried everything bar reinstalling Warcraft, which is something I’m not going to do because the only difference between having a rock solid connection and one made of swiss cheese and spaghetti is that patch 3.2.2 rolled out.  And I’d not be exaggerating if I were to say I’m not best pleased with the state of affairs.

But the suckage doesn’t end there.  Usually, after being online for three hours or so, my latency will drop from 4500ms to something approaching playable and I can think about getting into a group to do something useful.  Last night we threw together an Onyxia raid for alts, and I came along to tank on my warrior, Gorn.  Now call me a bluff old traditionalist, but when the raid leader says “Gorn, you tank the boss, I’ll tank the adds”, I take that to mean that the raid leader is going to tank the adds.  I don’t take it to mean that I’m going to tank the boss, help him tank the whelps, tank the elite adds when they show and hope he’s not busy admiring his nails and is quick with a taunt when the last elite is up and the boss lands at the other end of the fucking instance, because apparently, that’s exactly what “You tank the boss, I tank the adds” does, in fact, mean.  Sadly, since my balls are made of flesh rather than Madame Eva’s finest crystal, I obviously interpreted the instructions the wrong way.  Silly me.  Entirely my fault obviously.

Well, we got her down on the second attempt and at least I got a new hat out of it.

“Useful and Interesting”

There’s finally some actual Mage notes in the PTR patch notes, and the good news is, we’re not just getting some more icon changes.  The bad news is that in the short term, we’re getting a serious beating with the nerfbat.

The changes are two-fold.  First, the Improved Scorch crit buff/debuff is being slashed by 50%.  Instead of stacking to 10% crit with 5 applications, it will now only stack to 5%.  This hits Frostfire Mages pretty hard since they’re more reliant on crit for decent dps than any other spec.  This change isn’t restricted to mages alone, all similar crit buffs are getting the same beating, and of course the result affects everyone who gets a benefit from spell crit, not just mages.  But any way you dress it up, it’s 5% less crit, which means less Hot Streaks, less Master of Elements procs so less regen, and less Ignites.  This hits Frostfire Mages HARD.

And it gets worse.  Currently, glyphed Molten Armour gives us another 5% crit.  Regular readers may recall my constant whining about all of the Spirit on mage gear and the fact that Mages using Molten Armour (and we all do because we’re a dps class, remember) get exactly diddly squat use out of spirit.  Well Blizzard’s way of “making spirit a useful and interesting stat for all mages” is to remove the base crit % from Molten Armour completely and change the effect so that it provides crit as a percentage of our spirit.   You want numbers?  I got numbers.

• Molten Armor now causes 170 Fire damage when hit for all ranks (Up from 75/130/170) and also increases your critical strike rating by 25% of your spirit.
• Glyph of Molten Armor – Your Molten Armor grants an additional 15% (40% total) of your spirit as critical strike rating

So in other words, fully glyphed, you’ll get 40% of your spirit as crit rating.  No need to get out your calculators, the numbers are actually pretty simple.  If you currently have fully buffed, more than 574 spirit, this is a buff over the current 5% crit that you already get from Glyphed Molten Armour.  If, on the other hand, you’re in the 99% of non-retarded mages who have been doing the sensible thing and avoiding spirit on gear because to do otherwise was gimping your dps, then this is another massive nerf. 

Let’s look at Calli as an example.  With her 645 crit rating, a full Scorch debuff up on the target and glyphed Molten Armour, and assuming an intellect buff, she has 45% base fire crit.  Considerably higher than that with FFBolt in a full raid, but we’ll go with 45% for now.   She also has 465 spirit, despite trying to avoid it wherever possible, and this is in some of the best mage gear currently available in-game.  That’s a LOT of spirit for a Frostfire mage, but it’s all high end raid gear that the majority of mages probably aren’t going to have access to.  However, what it does illustrate is that when the patch goes live even mages with the best available current gear are going to go from 45% crit to 39% crit overnight.  5% lost from the nerf to Scorch and 1% lost from the Molten Armour change.

So it’s all pretty bleak, right?  Well, not really, no.

There are positive aspects to this.  You just have to look at it all in context.  The nerf to Scorch is a nerf no matter how you try to dress it up.  But it affects everyone, not just us.  Take into account the fact that 5% crit buff/debuff that it provides is being spread across other classes (and nerfed for them too) then it means that your Fire and Frostfire Mages no longer have to be the raid’s crit debuff bots.  Scrap Improved Scorch and spend those talent points elsewhere, perhaps invest in the Arcane tree and get some useful utility talents on the way to Student of the Mind?  Rip up your Glyph of Improved Scorch and get the new Glyph of Living Bomb so your LB ticks can crit, too.  Unless you want to you’ll never have to waste time casting Scorch again.

Let’s take a look at the Spirit on gear issue too.  What we’re seeing on patch-live day is a consequence of our avoiding spirit in the past, which was a sensible policy since it pretty obviously gimped us and offered nothing useful.  There were very limited gear choices available to us if we wanted to avoid spirit.  Post-patch every single cloth drop that doesn’t include mana per 5 will be an upgrade for us.  Look at the Ulduar loot tables, you can count on the fingers of one head all the cloth gear that doesn’t come loaded with spirit.  One way or another, we’re ALL getting more spirit on our gear.  At least now it’s not going to gimp us and we’ll actually get some offensive dps benefit from it.  Sure, pound for pound, raw crit rating is still better, but have you looked at all that “healer” gear with spirit, crit and haste?  That stuff’s for us now!  Gimme!

Even in current raid content, if you suddenly start rolling on all the cloth with spirit on it (and let’s face it, that’s almost all of it) you’re still going to be able to break even on patch day from spirit alone.  I know I have a couple of items of ilevel 213 gear that I’ve acquired along the way but never managed to work into a useful gear set.  Well it’s starting to look pretty useful now.

Of course, if you’re not raiding at the moment, you’re not going to be anywhere near these stat numbers and the change to Molten Armour is going to hit you proportionately harder.  There’s no real way to sweeten that.  But one thing that needs to be pointed out here is that the change to Molten Armour finally gives us something that scales with our gear.  Something we lacked ever since the original nerf to Improved Scorch that removed the 15% damage buff.  As your spirit gets higher, and it will because our gear is dripping with the stuff, your crit will continue to improve.  Not just into Naxx and Ulduar, but beyond.

Overall, while these two changes to Scorch and Molten Armour are very definitely nerfs over the immediate and short term, I think there’s a compelling reason to be optimistic about the future.  Spirit may never be remotely interesting, but it’s beginning to be moderately useful, and it’s only going to get more useful as time goes by.

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.