mage proving ground struggles

[druzle 3]

I am a person that is struggling at getting my silver proving ground achievement.  It is not that I don't know my class it is due to other circumstances.  So I am writhing this thread to see if there are other people in the same boat as me.  And if there is anyone that can give any advice as of talent builds, rotations, etc.  Bronze only took me a grand total of 2 attempts and the second one I could have done with both hands tied behind my back.  I have been plugging away on this since the third day of WoD and have tried many talent builds between fire and frost (my main and off specs respectfully).  And right now I am at the point of throwing my keyboard through my monitor.  That is how frustrated I am over this. 

 

So any helpful advise on this would be much appreciated, thank you in advance.

 

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/velen/Drouzle/simple

here is my armory link if that is helpful.

[Conatus 0]

There were a lot of people on the official mage forum having difficulty with this. What are the "other circumstances" you refer to in your second line? I doubt it has much to do with your gear, since the proving ground mobs adjust according to your skill level.

 

Are you receiving all the buffs from the PG npcs??  

Have you tried arcane? I don't think I'm a great player, but I was able to beat the silver with my arcane on the first attempt (to my great surprise). I haven't tried fire or frost, which may be more difficult. 

[Archimage 98]

Using your Talents and Glyphs:

Rather use Incanter's Flow since Mirror Image has a very long cooldown, IF is passive. Some people choose Rune of Power, but due to the banana tosser and the Guardian you are not allowed to stand still.

Replace Cone of Cold glyph with Icy Veins Multistrike glyph for higher dps, you can simply use Ice Nova to kill the vermins

Use Ice Floes to keep inside of the Banana tosser's range. not in silver

Use Frostjaw+Deep Freeze and Counterspell to interrupt the healers.

 

Note that the illusions spawn at the same place every wave, so you can learn what to do when reaching that wave.

 

Use the amber-weaver globe to stun the healers or use the other illusions as shields :)

 

Here is some more tips

Edited November 26, 2014 by Archimage

[Oltier 471]

I was just writing my answer, but you were faster :(

[Hekii 0]

i did it on frost and had 36 seconds left on last round.

 

make sure you count the cooldown from your burst abilities.

 

for example PC can be used every 2 rounds.

FO every round.

if you have problems with healers you can sheep them or ring of frost.

safe the beserking buff for the big guy

use the freeze ability on your water elemental 

blazing speed to get behind mobs that have sheidls

IN for the banshee's

 

EDIT: Bananatosser use freeze+IN and a proc or another IN and its dead 

if he is still a problem use deepfreeze

Edited November 26, 2014 by Hekii

[Berlinia 168]

 

if you have problems with healers you can sheep them or ring of frost.

 

You sir are a fucking genious.

[Loliwata 0]

I found it too hard as frost so changed to Arcane, used polymorph on the healers so I could get the adds down then interrupted them while I killed them.  Waves 6-8 were the biggest problem, but with Arcane it seemed a lot easier than with Frost.  Also waited until my iLVL was around 614.

[Chrizesu 10]

If you have a focus target counter spell macro the healers can be a little easier to deal with. I've completed silver in both specs at 606 ilevel and didn't use poly once. With good positioning on the amber, target macros, and using spells that also interrupt, the healers can be focused down relatively quickly. You can always do the amber shaper last by blinking to the other side of him after he's laid down the orb.

 

Oh, and if you time it right, you can keep an amber orb up to start with in the next wave. Cheating, but nice if you need a little boost.

 

The hardest part I've experienced is in gold dealing with the banana tossers. I can't execute frost's burst very well while focusing on them since it's my least used spec. I had to do gold as arcane only.

 

I would say in PG about 50% of it is just positioning right. You don't have to be doing amazing damage, just enough damage.

[Beldurnik 4]

Well I am in a similar position to the original poster been trying to complete silver proving grounds for the last 10 days, 3-4 hours a day, I am so tired of this road block in the game preventing me doing heroics, as no one wants to physically go to instance entrances.

 

I had similar problems with the forge quest for legendary cloak, until I actually went and visited a relative in another part of the country who sat with me, and guided me through it, That also took me a few weeks to complete, but this time that option is not available, as my relative has moved abroad for work . Tried many specs and rotations both as Frost and Arcane to do this.

 

To give you an understanding of my problem, I suffer from being old and slow to react, but I also suffer from quite severe arthritis, affecting my fingers and joints.

 

If Blizzard had offered an alternative method of allowing players to access the dungeon finder I would take it, sadly that is not possible, nor likely to be.

 

So maybe this is not the right forum to ask, but I will ask it, are their any players in the EU region who would be willing to do one Heroic a day with me at a given time of day, just doing the one the Heroic that has the daily quest from the inn, or those needed to progress the Legendary quest.

 

I know this is asking a lot of people, but I am road blocked for the entire game by this requirement. I will happily provide my real ID to anyone who can assist me for about 1 hour per day.

 

I would totally understand if no one felt I was worth their time.

 

Thanks at least to those that read this, and if a moderator wants to send me a personal message if ther is a more appropriate forum to place my request.

[Beldurnik 4]

Gave it another go last night , and again this morning, I am just too old and slow to react. I know most of my guild members breezed through this on their first attempts. I have read most of what has been offered as advice, but I am the type of person, who needs to have things explained to me face to face, so I can ask every question as it comes into my head.

[Jacquetta 1]

Oh Beldurnik, I feel your pain. As another older player, I just keep on trying. Sometimes it takes a while and several attempts for me to succeed. Once I was so frustrated by my inability to finish a quest after 20 attempts, in floods of tears, I asked my 27 year old son to come and help. He explained, "Mum, your spacebar isn't working properly", but kindly finished the tricky bit for me. That is the only time I have not finished a quest myself but was very grateful that he could help. I have been playing since 2008 and love the game. I hope someone in EU can help you finish the proving grounds. I haven't started them yet.

[Chrizesu 10]

The only advice I can give to improving reaction time is to read this site: http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/reactiontime.html

 

But sub energy drinks for green tea. It won't burn you out like energy drinks will.

[Beldurnik 4]

Thanks but old age makes no allowance for improving reaction times and arthritis even less, as you get older vibrancy of youth is lost

 

To Jacquetta, glad your son is around to help.

[Hekii 0]

If you have a focus target counter spell macro the healers can be a little easier to deal with. I've completed silver in both specs at 606 ilevel and didn't use poly once. With good positioning on the amber, target macros, and using spells that also interrupt, the healers can be focused down relatively quickly. You can always do the amber shaper last by blinking to the other side of him after he's laid down the orb.

 

 

You know that the Proving grounds scale down/up to your gear? ilvl doesnt mean anything, also interupting the healers and timing is everything of course! but dont forget that not everybody has the perfect timing.

 

proving grounds is all about get through it with all the tools of a mage. meaning if you have tools use them! Sometimes multiple tools can be used to counter certain mobs.

[Crater88 0]

Just work on getting the CC's down, using amber shapers to your advantage. I've completed gold, which was plenty frustrating. Banana tossers are usually my polymorph target, or the second healer if there is one. Make sure your polymorph and counterspell are keybound, that helps significantly. If you absolutely need to, pop a cooldown, silver is pretty forgiving, on gold that was the hardest part. I use IN, PC, and MI for talents, my IV is glyphed and I usually stack it with berserking (troll racial)

[Nexrival 2]

Proving grounds is nothing more than a puzzle. If you get the right spells in at the right time you end up with many seconds to spare in every round even on gold. The tricky part is that one mistake will punish you for the rest of the encounter.

 

My hardest obstacle was keeping cool and not panicking during a mistake or missed spell. If you make a big mistake early on, just let the encounter reset and try again. If you panick and try to salvage it, you just get pissed when you fail. Once you figure out the patterns and your optimal sequences it becomes a breeze. 

[Beldurnik 4]

Lots of good advice for able players sadly that is not me, have loved the game since April 2007. met and dealt with many challenges but am still thinking of quitting, old age loss of mental faculties, declining physical ability. 

 

Thank you for the comments advice and support.

[denebeim 0]

Beldurnik, I hear you.  Pretty much everything you said applies to me as well.  I'm finding it very frustrating to the point where I'm getting diminishing returns, I can't make it past the 3rd wave anymore.  Made it once to the last wave, but haven't come close since then.  Very frustrating and there's very little to do in the game until you jump this hurdle, not for someone who is mostly in the game for raiding.

[LordsofAcid 0]

I cleared silver on my mage in two tries, only because the healers caught me of guard and I was a second too late clearing the last mob. Using other mobs to catch the amber globules will help you clear this on any toon regardless of spec. They'll take increased damage will frozen in amber

[Belicosa 11]

First thing, do not get discouraged and give up. Try to learn something new from every attempt. It took me a long evening of frustration to complete silver, especially with the long cd on counterspell, but I figured out that you kite the amber across the healer for a quick interrupt. It was still a giant pain since there is so much movement necessary, but I did finally knock it out. And Beldurnik, I'm 56 and have fibro, so my reaction times are not optimal. You just have to figure out how to adjust. If it takes running more normal dungeons to improve gear, or crafting or whatever, just do it so you can get into the heroics and the raids. Worth the trouble once I finally finished. And the final try where I finished, it all just seemed to fall into place like it was really easy the whole time...

[Stargazer777 0]

I doubt it has much to do with your gear, since the proving ground mobs adjust according to your skill level.

 

Actually, according to Wowhead, gear does matter - here's a direct quote from their WoD Proving Grounds Silver guide: 

• Gear does not play much of a role in Proving Grounds success--the mobs scale up to your gear as long as you have normal dungeon gear or better. 

In WoD, normal dungeon gear is at ilvl 615.

• For maximum effectiveness, you want gear at ilvl 615 or better, but slightly below will be acceptable for silver.

Also,

• Tier set bonuses are not active, and neither are extra gem sockets or tertiary stats.
• Stats from flasks, enchants, and food are not reduced. You get full amounts from these in Proving Grounds.

So don't forget those enchants! Use the highest buff food and flasks you can. For mages, this means Greater Draenic Intellect flask (+250 intellect for 1 hour) and Calamari Crepes (+100 multistrike for 1 hour). Second choice for foods would be Fiery Calamary or Rylak Crepes (both +75 multistrike). It says "extra gem sockets" are not active, but I would guess that standard gem sockets are - so I wouldn't leave them empty, just in case. Multistrike is the mage's 2nd stat, and that's what I would gem for, since WoD does not have intellect gems.

 

And don't forget Time Warp - used in conjunction with Icy Veins, it can give you an extra edge to finish that last round.

[Oltier 471]

Multistrike is only the best 2ndary stat for Frost... :)

[Telvan 0]

. It says "extra gem sockets" are not active, but I would guess that standard gem sockets are - so I wouldn't leave them empty, just in case.

There are no standard gem sockets in WoD anymore.

[Chrizesu 10]

Multistrike is only the best 2ndary stat for Frost...

 

And if you have enough haste it's the best stat for arcane mages after mastery. Haven't tested for last hotfix, but I don't see how this would have changed.

 

Been really digging it because most of my gear is flexible enough that I can go frost when an encounter is high movement. (My preference is arcane because of its awesomeness factor. Who doesn't like throwing supernovas at your opponents?)

 

A little more on topic:

Even with impairment there is room to improve. Heck, I did gold on my old laptop that dips down to 5 fps if there's enough visual effects. Yes, everything is on low. Lower than the visual sliders let you go, I change settings in the config file and through console commands. Obviously the laptop isn't the computer I raid on. It's simply my college computer.

 

It's pretty hard to have reaction time when you're playing the game in shutter frames.

[Krafnica 1]

Hey guys just wanted to add smth if you have trouble with gold proving groud (it can be used in silver too).
First thing, use that glowing orange ball to your advantage. For example, in the begging of the second wave in gold, one has banana tosser. If you let abmer weaver to cast his glowing ball, then burst him 2 sec before second wave, you will get banana tosser with glowing ball.
Second, use macros, it makes life so much easier. For example, if you have to interrupt healing, as soon as the healing mob spawns put him in focus. Afterwards, make your CS to interupt focus if there is one (Icy veins guide has macro). Same thing is for sheep. If you have ice nova, you can also use it to interupt healing (I am bloodelf so I dont have problem with that).
Use cds smart and you will be over in no time.
Happy grinding :)

 

p.s.
Macro:

CS

• #showtooltip
• /cast [@focus,exists][@target] Counterspell