18k mana? Sure, why not.

[Melfena]

A person from Elitest Jerks did some crazy theory crafting. The post speaks for itself.

http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?pid=280543#p280543

Look. This is obviously a giant push to get every raiding mage to go hard arcane. With current existing equipment available in-game, you can get 633 intellect:

http://content.imagesocket.com/images/18kmanaorbust5db.jpg (http://imagesocket.com/view/18kmanaorbust5db.jpg)

With full raid buffs (let's assume that you're an undead mage) this gets you 1083 intellect, which comes out to 18,204 mana and 1002 spell damage. You can Empowered Arcane Missiles all day long at an effective 1454 spell damage and not run out of mana since with 383 spirit you're going to have some niiiiice mana regen ticks. Plus, you're casting it at -40% threat so you will never, ever pull aggro, which is always a plus in raid settings.


Not only that, but Arcane Blast spam actually becomes viable. You can nuke right off the get-go at an average 1685 damage per hit (assuming full raid debuffs such as CoS and Misery and 2949 per crit. Once you have Blast going, that's (assuming around 27% crit) 1340 DPS. 1340! The downside: you will empty that 18k mana in about 45 seconds, 55 seconds if you pop a mana gem and a super mana pot along the way. But you will have mid quad digit DPS!


Let's not forget the phat damage you can pump out when you throw on Arcane Power.


Downsides: it will take 2.5 minutes of straight drinking with the highest available water to get back to full mana, but them's the breaks. I hope you weren't planning on going Scryer either.




Note: this post may or may not have been dripping with sarcasm.

[Potpie]

Those are the type of players that make Blizzard go "No more 40-person raids!"

[Thwak]

and shadow priests can get upwards of 1180 +dmg with gear already discovered in the live version of the game. is there a point to this theory crafting?

[Melfena]

and shadow priests can get upwards of 1180 +dmg with gear already discovered in the live version of the game. is there a point to this theory crafting?
Over 1000 damage with enough mana regen to be able to never stop casting. Burst dps for 45 seconds that's enough to level an entier battleground. The point is the absurdity of how much power is obtainable with the right gear and spec.

[Myrkris]

The funny thing about that 1340dps is that it'll take something on the order of 15 seconds or more to take down a similarly geared warrior at that rate.

[Shizma]

I would like to see a bright side to that Myrkris, but instant fear for six seconds, death coil and another instant fear covers that. 6 seconds, 3 seconds, 6 seconds. Reflect magic may change that however.

[Myrkris]

I would like to see a bright side to that Myrkris, but instant fear for six seconds, death coil and another instant fear covers that. 6 seconds, 3 seconds, 6 seconds. Reflect magic may change that however.

Mages don't get Fear. :)

I'm not saying this isn't haxy, but I'm also not sure it's as out of line as it sounds since I'm betting an end-game warrior can hack that mage down in 15 seconds or so. Trinkets and potions offer the chance to break out of Poly and Frost Nova, and Intercept can re-close the distance on Blink so the raw damage numbers aren't enough to tell us anything yet. After all, if straight up burst damage were all that matters, so many of our mages wouldn't be complaining about how weak the class is.

[Byomage]

:) No, but we can hopefully still handle Warriors with that kinda of HP. I can't wait to see what kind of hax we can pull off.

It's really interesting what kind of stats we're going to be facing (not just mages) as 70 approaches. Bear tanks with a ton of HP, 'locks with bottomless mana, Ice mages with crazy burst and CC, Horde Pallies with who knows what kind of hax we can come up with.... good times are ahead!