Highmaul Mage Style - Normal, Heroic, Mythic

[Berlinia 168]

Highmaul - Mage Specific Tips and Tricks by Encounter

 

Continuing the previous practice of creating encounter specific tips for the different encounters WoD the Blizzard team created for us to kill, below is a Mage specific guide to the different Highmaul encounters.

 

If you believe you have anything to share, please comment below and the useful posts are going to be added to the main post. Keep also in mind that due to my personal recent downgrade to a lower ranking guild due to personal issues, I might be a bit behind on Mythic related tips so feel free to comment on that!

 

 

Kargath Bladefist - Normal, Heroic

 

Specialisation: 

Due to current tuning, Frost seems to be the superior spec, however as this is mainly a single target fight, Arcane and Fire are not completely out of the picture.

Talents - Arena Group

- Blazing Speed is a very strong choice for the times when Kargath fixates on you, or a random team member decides it's a good idea to kite the boss through the raid.

- Due to the way damage works in this fight I'd actually recommend Flameglow, as you rarely can predict the damage pattern.

- Cauterize is an excellent choice for that one time when you make a mistake.

- Frostbomb is the strongest single target and multiple target option, especially with more gear. So learning to use it right now is quite good.

- Due to the fight being a single target fight for the people in the arena, Mirror Images is by far the superior choice.

- The fixate ability of the boss is on a timer, so you can predict when to place the Prismatic Crystal. As such pick that.

Talents - Stands Group

- Ice Nova delivers the necessary damage needed for the adds on the stands to die. Frostbomb is not really a choice here because of the speed at which the ogres up there are dead. 

- If your group struggles killing an appropriate amount of adds within the set timer, consider picking Incanter's Flow to maximize your damage on them. This will however grealy reduce your boss damage in comparison to Mirror Image.

Glyphs

- The Glyph of Splitting Ice is excellent for Prismatic Crystal interaction and cleaving off adds on the stands.

General
- Keep in mind to position yourself in a way that you do not lose line of sight with Kargath when he fixates.

- If you are going to the stands do not cast waterjet whilst you are being pulled.

- Whenever you fire of an instant cast, make sure to reposition yourself slightly to be constantly spread with the group and move closer to the pillars of fire.

 

 

The Butcher - Normal, Heroic

 

Specialisation: 

 

Due to current tuning, Frost seems to be the superior spec and even though this is a low movement fight, there are certain things that can interfere with the Arcane Playstyle.

Talents

- Ice Floes let's you cast whilst you are being knocked away by his knock away ability. It's additionally very strong if you are the one initiating the cleave group change, or for moving around to fill in. Generally a very good choice.

- Altered Time lets you completely soak his leap attack and negate the damage, or much more importantly it let's you soak two cleaves and then heal back up to where you were!

- Greater Invisibility is an excellent soaking tool.

- Frostbomb is terribly strong for this fight.

- Mirror Images are a must have due to the tight enrage timer. Also very important to remember is that with a 5 minute enrage you can cast images only 3 times during the fight. So make sure you delay the last images to either overlap with bloodlust or your next set of cooldowns/trinkets.

- Prismatic Crystal offers the burst necessary. Keep in mind that in this fight you should not delay the crystal as you will lose a cast of it if you do so.

Glyphs

- Glyph of Blink might let you cover some bigger distances but is not essential. 

General

- Due to the nature of the fight you want to not waste a cooldown. So always remember that roughly every third water jet will overlap with his knockback ability so make sure you delay it a bit so that you don't get interrupted and lose the FoF stacks.

- Iceblock does NOT remove the cleave debuff.

 

(In the making)

     Tectus - Normal, Heroic

Brackenspore - Normal, Heroic

Twin Ogron - Normal, Heroic

Kor'agh - Normal, Heroic

Imperator Margok - Normal, Heroic

[Event 1]

Regarding Tectus:

Tier 1 talents should probably be taken in response to what you/your group needs. Evanesce will be used often enough that it would overtake IB.

Likewise with T3, I would recommend GInv, as it will help take some pressure off the healers during instabilities, and can help save yourself. Likewise, hold AmpMagic to overlap with the healer's CDs during instability.

I took Ice Nova as frost, as the multiple motes do not usually have hitboxes quite close enough together, but FB can be ok.

Mirrors for sure. Too much movement for RoP.

When using prism or other cooldowns, get a feel for how fast your group cuts down each target; you'll want to have as many cooldowns to go with the crystal as possible once your tanks pick up the 4 motes (or more for the ambitious) after a split. You may be able to get all targets off of the prism, but be wary, as the way adds surround tanks make it possible to miss all 4 if you aim for the dead center of the group.

[TLTeo 29]

Kargath: If going in the stands Ice Barrier and Greater Invis can be helpful to make sure you never get thrown off too early

 

Brackenspore: if your guild's hunters are assholes and make you do the flamethrower crap, you can keep targetting the adds as you run around and help with interrupting in emergencies.

 

Twin Orgron: you can Evanescence through the fire on the ground

 

A list of the fights on which Evanescence is useful would be nice. Taking less damage from Cleave on Butcher would be handy for instance. Also we should figure out on which bosses Splitting Ice cleaves off PC on the boss and on which it doesn't.

Edited December 5, 2014 by TLTeo

[Berlinia 168]

Amplify Magic is a raid cooldown by itself, it shouldn't be overlapped with healer CD's!

Will consider your tips when I update

[spachi1281 2]

Amplify Magic is a raid cooldown by itself, it shouldn't be overlapped with healer CD's!

Will consider your tips when I update

 

Depends on the situation, for instance, a call for a recovery healer CD would make Amp that more useful due to increased healing.

 

On the Butcher, Arcane can do pretty go burst with RoP/PC/SuperNova after getting to 4 stacks of AC and using AP. Alter Time did not seem to remove the Gushing Wounds DoT, but Ice Block and GInvis did. Similar results with Brackenspore and his Infesting Spores.

[TLTeo 29]

Uh i felt like neither GInvis nor Iceblock worked on Butcher, but i might have been wrong.

[Andreyk 0]

Can't get - why FB is especially strong for Butcher ?

I still keep getting from SC that IN is substancially higher dps for PAtchwerk fight as is Butcher imho.

[Berlinia 168]

How much is substantially?

[Andreyk 0]

How much is substantially?

310 dps. 656 ilvl

[ZombieShark 0]

Evanesce was useful in almost every fight. Once I switched to that during the raid, I just didn't see any reason to switch to another tier 1 talent. Although I'm sure as I get more familiar with the raid, I'll be switching the tier 1 choice a lot between bosses.

 

It seemed like GInvis was dropping the fire stacks against Twin Ogron (as expected!).

 

I don't think I ever used Blink to break out of a stun/root during the entire raid, so Glyph of Rapid Displacement might be handy for some fights, especially Tectus.

[TLTeo 29]

Did Imperator today, it felt like Flameglow was more useful than both Alter Time and Ice Barrier since there really isn't any obvious huge burst of damage to dodge, and wasting GCD's is kind of annoying. Rapid Displacement glyph was awesome. It seems like you can't dodge the Nova with Evanescence, not sure about Wrath.

[TLTeo 29]

Sorry for the double post.

 

On Imperator you can dodge 3 novas in a row with the double blink glyph, by the time the 3rd comes up the cd should be close to ready again

[Tayschren 0]

From my research and experience, these are the talents that I would use on bosses:

 

Kargath - IN, MI, PC

Butcher - IN, MI, PC

Brackenspore - FB, IF/MI, PC (IF/MI on this boss I personally think don't matter that much, I personally would go MI although Kuznam from Method said he went IF here.

Tectus - UM, IF, TV

Koragh - IN, MI, PC

Imperator - FB, MI, TV

 

Anyone thinks something is wrong here?

Edited December 21, 2014 by Tayschren

[Berlinia 168]

never UM!

[Merrillian 2]

Here's my results from Sims and Real World.

Would like to see if results are similar.

We're still in Heroic Progression, eventually I might favor RoP over IF on more fights.

 

I run Arcane/Fire swapping for each fight.  

One gear set: Mastery>Haste=Crit=multi>vers

Glyphs

Arcane: Arcane Explosion, CoC, Ice Block

Fire: Combustion, Inferno Blast, Dragon's Breath

 

Kargath (Heroic and Normal)

Arcane

SN / RoP / PC

 

Butcher (Heroic and Normal)

Arcane

SN / RoP / PC

 

Brackenspore

Arcane

SN / IF / PC

 

Tectus

Fire

LB / IF / Meteor

 

Twin Ogron (Heroic and Normal)

Fire

LB / IF / Meteor

 

Ko'ragh

Arcane

SN / IF / PC = AO

 

Imperator Mar'gok

Arcane

SN / IF / PC

[RedTony 1]

I am running fire only, I moved from frost when I got something like 37% crit gear. Even though it is still behind arcane/frost in dps for single target fights, I manage to fare pretty well on the dps list (ranked in almost every boss, even though it is easy as there are currently few fire mages out there).

 

Some general considerations:

 

- Meteor: Its damage is splitted evenly between all enemies it hits, so ironically it is better in single-target fights (to build up your ignite for the upcoming combustion). I have tried PC in Twin Ogrons and noticed a slight dps increase in my last fight, but as I also got some new gear I do not know how big was the impact.

 

Now as for some specifics  on Merrillian's talent choices:

 

- Twin Ogrons: I usually run UM and RoP in this fight. The only moment where I actually have to move is for avoiding a charge and/or fires. In this regard, I normally run Ice Floes but lately I have switched to evanescence, paired with improved invisibility. I am in doubt between double blink or improved dragon's breath glyph for quickly moving to melee range, 'breath', and back to the original position.

 

I have to try LB in this fight.

 

- Tectus: I think Mirror Image is more useful for the "burst" stage during earthquakes. Smoke and strong movement prevents you from making the best out of IF or RoP, while the images are passive damage, always happening. Flameglow for reducing earthquake dmg. Best dps talent is Ice Floes, for casting while running with the fire. If your raid healers are struggling, choose Evanesce instead.

 

----- Rest of the bosses

 

- Kargath: RoP, it is a largely stationary fight. Double blink for quickly moving behind a fire and back during charges. Meteor and BW. 

 

- Butcher: RoP. Evanesce and flameglow for increased survivability at melee range (not applicable if you are ranged). Improved dragon's breath, both if you're melee or ranged (for the moment when he charges to your position)

 

- Brackenspore: LB, Blazing Speed if you are using the flamethrower, Ice floes otherwise. Flameglow, meteor. I use MI but IF should also be a nice option.

 

- Ko'ragh: MI, BW (useful single target and for the adds), meteor, Ring of Frost (place on top of the circle the tanks are moving the adds to), alter time for avoiding falling orbs' damage.

 

- Imperator: MI (for burst during transition phases), BW, meteor - use it when there is an arcane aberration present in phase 1 and 2, unless you are building up combustion, in which case it is better to use it on imperator alone. Double blink glyph (can bypass a nova and return quickly). Ice Floes - click it when the CD of Destructive Resonance is about to finish, so that you can move without interrupting that fireball you are casting. If you need increased survivability, keep one BW always up for when you have to move away from the mine and use Evanesce instead.

[RedTony 1]

Forgot to say, that rapid displacement (double glyph) is really handy for Ko'ragh if you are to take charge of the falling orbs. You can easily cross the room side-to-side for catching an orb in a second.

[Pinkbunnyman 0]

You said that "Frostbomb is the strongest single target and multiple target option" yet the guide says "For single-target damage, all talents are close, with Ice Nova pulling slightly ahead." which one's correct for single target? I assume Ice Nova since it can interact with Prism for 3x damage on 2 of them but would like confirmation

[Berlinia 168]

Ice nova untill roughly 660 iirc