Best progress spec for Mythic Imperator Mar'gok

[Zyul]

Fire do well on Imperator but I was wondering if the actual damage on the boss was worth the damage on the adds.
As fire, damage on Mar'gok and Cho'gall is increased by the last tick of living bomb which is not a very reliable source of dps. As frost, the adds allow to generate a lot of FoF procs which is very reliable because you only cast ice lances on the boss.

I'm not quite sure about arcane but I feel it's a bit lower.

What do you guys think about this ?

[Novox]

Every spec is viable in this fight, but I think that you should choose depending on your raid comp. Simply, with Frost you can't go wrong. Good ST, good cleave/AoE and excellent mobility.

[Garrod]

Every mage spec seems quite strong on it.

muh living bomb damage though. Happy Fire mage is happy.

[Zyul]

Yesterday, on our first day of progress on this boss, I felt like the adds were killed way too fast. I think it's better to exploit the mono-target potential that offer the adds.

Yes, evey mage spec is strong on this encounter but my point is that frost can exploit the adds better to increase the damage on the boss.

On many of our tries, the anomalies die very quickly but we have a 4th spawn of arcane abberation.

[Garrod]

Fire can as well. The splash damage from Living Bomb being set off from the adds gave me equivalent single target damage to Margok himself that our Arcane mage had. My single target suffers a bit in P2 due to the lack of AoE in that phase, but that's literally the only phase that doesn't have any. Fire also doesn't have to change up its rotation to do strong AoE.

If the adds are dying that fast its likely you have people AoEing to pad meters over prioritizing single target on the boss. That or your raid is nothing but enhancement shaman lol.

Mind you I'm not saying to play Fire or gtfo for this fight, just pointing out that its nowhere near as pointless on the fight that you're implying.

[Komma]

I like to think of the 3 specs as providing different values for the fight, which I think is pretty good design. If you don't have enhancement shaman/arm warriors and need more AOE, Fire works great. If you just want boss and aberration throughput, Arcane is very strong. Frost provides a very balanced mix of the two, AOEing through Frost Bomb yet having very strong last phase throughput due to TV giving near infinite IV.

[Kasc]

Frost provides a very balanced mix of the two, AOEing through Frost Bomb yet having very strong last phase throughput due to TV giving near infinite IV.

How exactly should you be playing this fight as Frost, with respect to TV? I have never used the talent before.

[yookstah]

Frozen Orb anomalies, ice lance spam pewpew

[Kams]

Frost is the best progression spec for this boss. You do a lot of single target damage which is very important. Fire can be ok boss damage but it is awkward for target swapping to the arcane adds and does terrible in the transitions. Lots of guilds use Mages to reset the Wrath debuff in P2 and P3 which requires Evanesce to make it not sketchy. Playing Arcane on a fight with as much movement as Imperator and not having Ice Floes is a huge burden on your dps and puts Arcane's boss damage behind what it could be.

The dps talents I go with are FB/MI/TV.

Frost Bomb gives you more single target damage than Ice Nova if you are getting more FoF procs than normal and Frozen Orb is a beastly CD in P1, P3, P4, and the transitions. Each one of those phases your orb will make Frost Bomb crazy powerful and those phases, excluding P1, are the most important parts of the fight. There is a case to be made for Ice Nova though. With all the movement it is very cumbersome to have another casted spell over one that is instant. You can also try and save an Ice Nova or two for the Arcane Aberrations (main phase adds, don't pad on the transition Arcane adds!). All that being said I don't think either choice is going to make or break your dps, choose what you like or what you feel your raid needs most.

Mirror Image is good boss damage and the movement of the fight only makes it a better talent. If you are having problems with Warmage dps you can save Mirror Image for the transitions.

This is a very strong Thermal Void fight and a very weak Prismatic Crystal fight. You will save your Icy Veins for the transitions where you can use Frozen Orb on the little adds to get a lot of extra procs and extend that thing like crazy! Your other Icy Veins come up during P3 and P4 which also have a lot of adds to feed you procs. A nice bonus to Mirror Images damage if you are saving them for the transitions where you pop Icy Veins which I advise doing for progression. There are two main things that make Prismatic Crystal so bad for Imperator. First thing is boss movement, boss goes all over the place and having to sit on the CD or have part of it wasted makes it worse. Second is that the damage is split. It makes your damage on the Arcane Aberrations worse because it splits the damage on to the boss and in P1 and P3 they need to die asap. The little adds in P1, P3, and P4 that are pretty much only there for Enhance Shamans and cleave. Having them split so much of Crystals damage away from the boss is annoying.

This is what I found out while raiding many hours on that man, hope it helps!

[Dutchmagoz]

Depends what your guild needs.

Need AoE DPS for the adds? Fire.

Need pure single target DPS (And you won't be doing any odd jobs like brand handling)? Arcane

Need a good mix for aoe/cleave with good single target? Frost. Also decent for odd job handling.


I think frost is is generally the best spec for imperator since it gives you a lot of freedom in movement and even AoE when needed. It's also very nice for the warmages and you can bank procs for the abbarations. (those 2 are the most important "dps checks" of the fight)

[Zyul]

I tried frost and it confirmed what was said above, at least before the last phase of the encounter.
The guildies also had a huge debate about raid optimization (mainly about how warrior and living bomb nerf the dps of rogues and enhancement shamans).

Maybe I'll update this thread with concrete numbers and convert it to a progression journal.

Thanks for the input !

[Boomop]

I like to think of the 3 specs as providing different values for the fight, which I think is pretty good design. If you don't have enhancement shaman/arm warriors and need more AOE, Fire works great. If you just want boss and aberration throughput, Arcane is very strong. Frost provides a very balanced mix of the two, AOEing through Frost Bomb yet having very strong last phase throughput due to TV giving near infinite IV.

Saw this on Brackenspore as well. Our raid leader was having a conniption because we were running Fire, Arcane, Frost and our dmg spread was so different. Had to convince him it was just the way the specs are.

Fire had dmg on EVERYTHING.
Arcane tore up the Spore Shooters and Brackenspore.
Frost had really strong numbers on the Fungal Eater and Brackenspore.

I do really like this, both in practice and theory. But I wish they were slightly closer. Wish Fire had a little more single target oomph and Arcane had a little more passive Cleave.

[Garrod]

Yeah we've been having to explain the same thing to our raid lead on Mythic Imperator progression as we run 1 mage of each spec as well. Raid lead was trying to get all 3 of us to play Frost just for the cleave in P2 while not taking into account boss damage or AoE in the other phases. We're meeting the DPS check for P2 easily now though so it's not a big deal anymore.

[Bashlow]

Do you guys think that using Blizzard on the adds in the last Phase (or even before) is a dps increase on the boss, as you reduce the cooldown of FO and therefor can spam FoFs sooner ? Also in regard to what was said about getting more uptime on TV according to that...

[Dutchmagoz]

Do you guys think that using Blizzard on the adds in the last Phase (or even before) is a dps increase on the boss, as you reduce the cooldown of FO and therefor can spam FoFs sooner ? Also in regard to what was said about getting more uptime on TV according to that...

If icy veins is available, yes, definitely. Without icy veins, you'd have to be running frost bomb for it to be worth it. Even then, you need to make sure you don't have to channel blizzard for like 10+ seconds though.