Mythic Iron Maidens talent choice(s)

[GeorgesMelies]

Good morning!

We are first pulling Iron Maidens Mythic tonight, and even if Fire is better as a self satisfaction DpS meter, I do not think it is the best spec for us Mage on the fight, useful-wise.
So I'll be Arcane, maybe going on the boat.

I am thinking about the choice of talent I am possibly making, and was looking for some advice.

I looked at the top Arcane Mage ranking of Warcraft Logs to see what people were using, and I saw many different set up, from PC to Arcane Orb and Nether Tempest.

Can you tell me what you guys use / would use depending on whether or not you are on the boat?

Thank you in advance,

Arcanically yours,

Georges.

[ps2dude756]

Note: I have not done the Mythic version of this encounter, so this is going off my experiences in Heroic and having read about the Mythic changes.

Given the amount of movement and cleave potential on this fight, I personally think Fire is the only way to go for this encounter.

That said, if you insist on being Arcane, I personally would use Nether Tempest and Arcane Orb, since the two extra instant casts will help with the high movement on the encounter. Additionally, AO will give more potential AM procs since it has more targets, and NT is better than SN for pretty much every situation except when using PC.

[Rabona]

Lexi's Guide on Method forums says that arcane with NT_AO_IF is best for the boss.

[Mevlin]

For our progression I went Arcane. In my opinion it is better since downing your first boss is way more important than how fast you deal damage pre-100rage. I do find advantages for both builds.

Ideally I think that AOrb+Nether Tempest is the best build to go but it requires a little work on your part. Since Admiral will be jumping around to drop her turrets, you might need to reposition in order to get 4 charges from 1 AOrb. And since this is your final burn phase, prolong it as much as you can by doing ABarrage + AOrb + spend AM's whenever AOrb is up during your burn.

PC+SN might be easier (hence why some people prefer it) since you are front-loading most of your damage during your PC burst. Tanks usually have to move if Admiral drops her turret too close to melee. So just make sure you use it after that.

NOTE: this is just a gut feeling from fighting the boss. no sims were involved in this opinion.

[Danearys]

As we progressed the Boss i gave both Speccs a look and how well they performed under 20%. Imo Fire performed better, with bad Luck you were 15% behind, but most of the time Fire performed even SIngletarget better for your damage isn't effected by the turrets.
Additionaly you have the Cleavedamage to Admiral and Enforcer, remember both get stronger every 20 Seconds. In the end the decision is up, i personaly would take your group in consider too: If most of your group is specced in Heavy AE, pick Singletarget, else stay on Fire

[GeorgesMelies]

Well hi there!

So I went on the battlefield before seeing your answers.
We were 3 Mages, 1 Fire and 2 Arcanes.

We the Arcane went both for NT+IF+AO, as NT+AO being instant clearly offers so comfort during the bombs phase.
We tested a couple of things before that, be rapidly it seemed the best choice.

For our first night we manage the first boat (Marak) and almost the second boat (Gar'an). Wiping just before or just after the end of the second boat. And gentlemen let me tell you more cleave DpS is not needed at all, Sorka and Marak being close to or under 30% by the end of the second boat.
We also tried a couple of attempt with 3 Fire Mages, and we were top 3 will around 60-65k depending on the pulls. The other class being not even close. We all three successfully mastered the double ignite trick a long time ago, so even during the bomb phase it is a reflex to switch targets and always build 25-28-32k Ignite Combustion. Booya.

But we switched Arcane then for we think burning one Maiden at the end is better assured as Arcane. Also the burst on turrets.

However we did not have a single attempt of the last burn phase, so for our raid it's hard to say right now.

I'm also sure that under 30 / 20% during the Bloodlust, if you have good RNG, Fire can be as good as Arcane on Single Target with the benefits of cleave. However I doubt the switch on turrets can be as effective in Fire than being Arcane.

Since we don't lack cleave Damage (2 Rogues, 1 Fire Mage, 2 Warlocks, among other things), I think right now it's safer to proceed with two Arcanes.

We both performed between 40 et 49k damage, in general I was around 42k and the other 45k. But those numbers are to be taken with some perspective of course. RNG, end of the try after a burn/AP phase et cetera. Still we are also missing the final burn phase with Bloodlust and Second pot.
However when I looked before my first post here on the Warcraft Logs top meter for Iron Maidens Mythic as Arcane, the top 100 were between 40 et 49k on the whole fight. So I think we managed to do the job.

So here is my "debrief" from today on Maidens! Hope it helps Don't hesitate to pour some more knowledge into this soup, so we can have a nice meal for the following Mages that will sit at the Iron Maidens' table

I will had some more insightful things if I have after our second night tomorrow.

Goodbye!

[Wilderness]

As we progressed the Boss i gave both Speccs a look and how well they performed under 20%. Imo Fire performed better, with bad Luck you were 15% behind, but most of the time Fire performed even SIngletarget better for your damage isn't effected by the turrets.
Additionaly you have the Cleavedamage to Admiral and Enforcer, remember both get stronger every 20 Seconds. In the end the decision is up, i personaly would take your group in consider too: If most of your group is specced in Heavy AE, pick Singletarget, else stay on Fire

I reached the opposite conclusion - and unless you get lucky, Fire is not at all going to match the single-target damage to priority targets in the last 20%. It will do more overall damage at that point, which is useful, but looking over our attempts last night (all 3 of us mages were Fire the whole time) the ability to put more damage into the 1st turret and bursting Marak down is going to be a better option for us. The damage on the other bosses helps, but if you can get Marak down fast with most/all of your raid alive, the other 2 won't be an issue.

Our raid needs to improve how we handle that last phase, because there's definitely too much chaos when it doesn't need to be - but looking at our wipes when we did get there, I think Arcane will provide the most useful damage at the start of that phase, which is the hardest part of the fight.

[TLTeo]

I feel like Fire performing well in that last bit all comes down to positioning your PC properly and getting a couple of good combustions with the 2set. If that happens i feel like it's very comparable to arcane, if it doesn't it's just way worse even though you do look better on meters.

[adrift]

I found the opposite to be true. For us, sub 20% bursting Marak was not a problem at all. With hero + CDs, he was dying quickly with most of the raid alive almost every time. For us the biggest block was Sorka, and playing fire for the cleave to have her lower when Marak dies was better. IMO the real test of the fight is getting the first two down with enough people alive and not just Marak so the cleave damage is definitely not irrelevant.

Keep in mind, there is some relevance to pre-20% DPS as it can allow you to skip the third boat. Also, sub 20% is pretty heavy movement. Arcane isn't as bad for movement with AO/NT but its still worse than Fire. Once you can get the first two down, it basically just becomes dodge fire and kill Admiral before the raid dies.

The only problem with Fire is potential turret damage, since if you can't spread combustion to it it won't be great. You should almost always be able to do it though - the turret drops from Sorka so if you have combustion on her and make sure to have an IB ready its fairly reliable. Other classes generally carry turret damage anyway (hunter/moonkin).

Basically, I would only play Arcane if we were doing some kind of specific strat where we were relying on mages to primarily just burst down turrets. Or maybe if my raid was struggling with killing Marak fast enough - but if you have the gear to kill Mythic IM then I don't really think burst DPS on Marak is going to be an issue.

[Wilderness]

Perhaps our lack of experience past Marak will make me re-consider it, but that does seem to be the hardest part of the fight. I don't think Fire is a bad choice, but it seems to me that Arcane might be the better option for us - or we just have to improve on the fight overall, we've just had the 1 night of pulls on it.

The 3rd boat dps isn't really relevant post ilvl boost though, we're well ahead of it and even if all 3 of our mages go Arcane I don't see that being an issue.

[Jebbage]

It really depends on what strat you're using. Right now, we're purposely getting the third boat so we don't have to deal with most mechanics sub 20%, so turret dps doesn't really come into play. Because of that, we end up sitting around for a good 20-30 seconds not doing anything, so it doesn't even matter if you play arcane or fire above 20%. If you go that route, then you might as well play fire because killing the one target ultra fast in the end isn't as important, and cleaving is perfect.

With that said, if you play arcane, definitely keep using arcane orb; PC doesn't hold up quite as well on multi target fights. If you're going up on all the boats, maybe take PC, but if you're only on the boat with two targets, Orb should give you more mileage in the long run.

[Zyul]

As arcane, prismatic cristal is not very good even if you go on the first boat. It's possible that the add you are not focusing move a bit and you lose damage on your main target.

If you really want to maximize your damage on the first boat, don't use glyphed arcane power at the begining of the fight and you'll be able to do ~4 million damage on Uktar without lust.

In my opinion, the best talent choice is SN/IF/AO. I think supernova is better to help killling Marak during the 20% phase. The overall damage through the entire encounter is also better if you use it at 5 stacks of incanter's flows and when it hits multiple targets.

The other part of the topic was about the best spec to play. Arcane seems really good to quickly push Marak out of the fight but the numbers tend to show otherwise (example 1, example 2, example 3).

[Cycobi]

If you're going to play Arcane, NT/AO is your best bet.

For people comparing Fire and whatnot; Fire is the best *overall* spec for the fight. Arcane has better ST nuke but you're still trading off Fire's cleave potential in final phase which, while it is perhaps less important than Marak dying super fast, is still incredibly valuable.

Fire's also much better than Arcane for going for a 2-boat strategy just because of the increased overall boss dps.

If you're going for any 3-boat strategy Arcane will win out as overall damage is less important.

My personal opinion on Fire vs. Arcane is that the fight is so movement heavy that Arcane feels very punished during Bomb phases, whereas Fire can get by with Pyro procs, Ice Floes stacks and, when absolutely necessary, Scorch.

[Trustbucket]

Definitely AO/ NT. During progression I always did boats and there is no choice other than AO for that tier since the mob on the boat would be kited out of the PC and on the "ground" there is no reason to take PC because of the cleave. Overpowered could potentially be better than AO for boat damage since you will have AP up for boats unless you glyph AP and use it on pull, I don't know I didn't test it because it was a big loss in overall damage. Also NT is undoubtably better because of the cleave and is better single target with AO and very good for boat damage as well.

If your guild is struggling to kill boats quickly it is worth noting you can glyph AP and delay it for first boat and it will be back up for second boat (and third if you get it I'm pretty sure) and you will absolutely annihilate the boats and should be top damage outside of sometimes hunters that stampede and hold cooldowns for the boat. Saving glyphed AP for the boats means it will not be up for the lust and burn on Marak so keep that in mind you will lose overall damage by doing this for obvious reasons but if you need boat damage it works excellently to consistently kill boats quickly. You will still have AP up for the end of the fight, but if your guild is wiping to not killing Marak quickly you may want to unglyph or just used glyph AP on pull if you're not on boats or easily killing boats because you are losing AP/ lust/ potion synergy saving glyphed AP for boats.

In my opinion arcane is superior to fire for this fight because you will do more Marak damage unless you get excellent RNG as fire which is super important and be able to kill turrets quick which just makes the kill much easier. If you need more cleave to push the bosses before the 3rd boat, you can go fire and do more overall damage but you probably couldn't do boats well and would need someone to take your place. I'm pretty biased because I get bored and frustrated with fire's simple playstyle and huge DPS variance from RNG though.