April 29, 2015 | Posted in: World of WarCraft

As a Frost Mage, I’m challenged by the deftness of fire specialization in the AoE Fights in Blackrock Foundry at the Heroic Difficulty.  It’s almost required one be a fire spec mage for Beastlord Darmac, Blast Furnace, Iron Maidens, and Kromog.  People pay so much attention to a single Tab of either recount or skada … DPS … they forget what mythic progression is really about.  Instance appropriate DPS the entire fight … from the start of the fight to the end of the fight.

Below is the link to a PuG Heroic Maidens kill.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ybx349WXmKLZBNcg#type=deaths

1 person died to bombs.  The fail mechanic on Iron Maidens … meaning you’re going to get kicked out of your PuG if you continuously fail to this mechanic … and and an amazinglyleet number of people died to turrets … five!!!

Now, if you’re skilled in life you can use the new window on your computer and sort through the data … and find Damage Done.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ybx349WXmKLZBNcg#type=damage-done

Along with 2 numbers for DPS.  These numbers are what they are … Damage Done …. it’s the number that matters.  Active Time.  And enough DPS being alive …. 9 people did 30k (plus) DPS, the number I believe needed for Heroic BRF Progression.

I played fire on this fight because I had to learn it again.  Bottom line is, this is RastaJay, Frost Mage, its what I play.  And at iLvl 687, frost bomb may be enough to get me by in the AOE fights because there’s no question when I earn Blackhand AOTC, I will be downing him in frost spec.

I play frost mage at a high level.  Mobile Ranged DPS.  Flamethrowers on Brackenspore.  Orbs on Ko’Ragh.  Captain of the Boat Team on Maidens, although I do bombs really well and boat teams are already established for the organizations I’m looking to join.

I server transferred.  US-Dalaran, you don’t have a single organization 1/10 (M) in Blackrock Furnace, horde side, on the entire server … and there are a total of 2 organizations with enough people to even attempt Mythic Content in WoD.   There wasn’t enough opportunity and I wasn’t going to join the other 20 man Mythic Fails squad on the server because mythic progression on US-Dalaran, horde side, doesn’t exist.  And don’t blame server population … there’s a lot more horde evenly split with alliance on the server than you think … blame the fact it’s populated by new players to the game because dalaran pops up first when they create a new account.  Watching another influx on new players trying to put together 10 to 15 man normal progression raid teams made me realize the only answer to attempting mythic progression was a server transfer.

I chose US-Thrall.  A lot of opportunity.  I have an opportunity tonight.  And when you google RastaJay + WoW … maybe to check my armory, I’ve created some things that google gives an opportunity to read.

The kind of ranged dps who switches to the Cinder Wolf with less health after the switch from melee on Flamebender.  I’ll iceblock molten torrent if I can.  Sometimes twice.  I don’t stand in the lava slash and try to be standing in a good place as ranged if selected for this mechanic.  Sadly, amp magic is taken away … too op’d at the pvp level …

The kind of ranged DPS who stopped getting hit by stampers on Hans + Franz after a couple pulls.  Stopped getting hit by trains after a few pulls.  Stopped dying to the bomb phase on Maidens (because fire mage is horrific for boat duty) … mobile, ranged dps … after a few pulls.  I don’t get pinned on Beastlord …  I dodge the rings on Kromog (and put some heavy AOE dps on the hands) …. and I’m DPSing the right add at the right time on Blast Furnace.

The kind of ranged DPS who interrupts and stuns the Furnace Engineer (3rd Bellow Operator at phase anyone??) … spellsteals the man at arms, counterspell the fire mender on a focus target macro … i’ll sheep a trash add like a motherfucker and ring of the frost the rest of ’em …. these are some intangibles of what I bring to a 20 man mythic progression team.

The logs I’ve created this past week aren’t overwhelming.  16th percentile.  25th percentile.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ybx349WXmKLZBNcg#type=damage-taken

Finally, a look at the Damage Taken for Heroic Maidens kill.  Not a single point of damage from bomb dodging portions of the fight.

Oh yeah, I did 37k DPS on the fight.  The entire fight.  From start to finish … so while 7 of you died … the 20 of us progressed and you have the opportunity to be better next week.

Here’s hoping US-Thrall leads me down the road of Mythic Content.  And here’s to hoping tonight’s raid is being logged by someone because my system really can’t handle it.  The data is what it is … and I have a theory … the more one pays attention to the DPS Tab in Recount/Skada, the fewer mythic bosses they kill.