Comprehensive Phase 3 HEALING MAGE Guide - Season of Discovery World of Warcraft Classic

Hello everyone! In this video I cover just about everything that you will need to know to perform well as a Healing Mage in Phase 3 of the World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery including Talents, Runes, Best in Slot Gear, Consumables & Buffs, Core Spells and Rotation, Cooldown & Mana Management, Addons & Weakauras, and UI / Raid Frames & Mouseover Macros. There is certainly more that I could have gone over but I did my best to cover the fundamentals for viewers ranging from total newbies who know nothing about the spec to the more veteran players who are looking for specific tips to improve their performance. I'm certainly not the best player in the world, but at the time of writing this I am Rank 3 in the World for Healing Mage All-Star Points in the new Sunken Temple Raid, and I also have 4 Cutting Edge Achievements as a Raid Leader in the retail version of World of Warcraft in addition to playing World of Warcraft in some capacity or another on and off for the last 20 years. I did my best to share the knowledge that I have gained in the hopes that it helps some people, although in hindsight I definitely could have made this guide more succinct and I apologize if it comes off as a little rambly and low-energy. That being said, I do hope that you enjoy the video and find it useful in some way!
Addons:
DBM: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
DBM SoD: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
(^ You will need both of those Addons installed for it to function correctly in SoD)
FiveSecondRule: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
Quartz: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
Method Raid Tools: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
Weakauras: www.curseforge.com/wow/addons...
Weakaura Links:
Missile Barrage Proc Weakaura: wago.io/Kptm918ct
Clearcasting Proc Weakaura: wago.io/6g2J4at5c
Temporal Beacon Duration Weakaura: wago.io/IE3z3jGbB
Link to my WarcraftLogs Page:
sod.warcraftlogs.com/characte...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:26 Talents
7:30 Other Talent Options
10:53 Runes (Helm Slot)
12:09 Runes (Chest Slot - Enlightenment vs Regeneration)
14:18 Runes (Wrist Slot - Molten Armor vs. Balefire Bolt)
16:47 Runes (Hand & Waist Slot)
18:09 Runes (Leg Slot - Mass Regeneration vs. Living Flame)
19:28 Runes (Feet Slot - Spell Power vs. Chronostatic Preservation)
21:34 BiS Gear / Stat Priority / Enchants
28:16 Consumables / World Buffs
31:43 Core Spells / Rotation
35:55 Optimal AoE Healing Rotation
37:41 Cooldown & Mana Management
44:02 Addons & Weakauras
49:44 Raid Frames
53:26 Mouseover Macros
54:44 Outro

[@SigsPlays]

Hello everyone! There are links to Addons, Weakauras, & my WarcraftLogs Page in the Description, as well as Timestamps to the various topics in this video. This is my first time attempting to make a long-form guide video, and I do apologize if I come off as rambly or low-energy. Regardless, I do hope that you enjoy the video and find it useful in some way! =)

[@ananhsou3920]

do you have a copy pasta for mouseover macro

[@SigsPlays]

@@ananhsou3920 Yup! #showtooltip /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Regeneration Just replace Regeneration with whichever spell you'd like.

[@ozkifovxvypyvp3574]

This was an excellent info dump, much appreciated!

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure! I'm glad to hear that you found it useful =)

[@lucalavit2023]

Thanks Sigs, love the care you put in this guide. I feel that mage healer resources are dwindling, as our population on the servers. It's nice to finally see a good, all rounded guide. Ps. Totally relate on the low energy commentary ❤

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure, and thanks so much for the kind words! I also definitely notice a lack of Healing Mages compared to previous phases. It's a really fun and powerful playstyle, but I can see how it's a bit too niche or complex for a lot of players. And yeah haha, sometimes I wish that I could be more of a 'peppy youtuber', but I do what I can and I'm glad that at least someone gets it =)

[@statusnone420]

My skill level as a mage healer went up substantially after watching this. Great video!

[@SigsPlays]

Glad to hear it - and thanks! =)

[@Ekyfoll]

Very nice guide mate, keep it up

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks so much, and will do!

[@thevictoraptor]

Just one note. The supposed "extra healing" from your critical strikes, or the extra crit damage from the shoes rune does not apply at your heal, only the damage because crits are different rolls. You can prove it easy if you use an AB and heal for 900 and your crit damage (1500~) also heal about 900. So for instance your wrist rune cannot be other than Balefire, even ifts not good is an emergency AB stack reset, because times are you dont get missile barrage proc at all. And about shoes either one you said is good, but the crit one is specific for damage while the healing one is just useful if you need to stock a heal and thus cant cast AB into MR because youre doing a mechanic or movement (usually in pvp). And i would add Burnout as third option here because its flat 15% crit rate and supposedly that does increase the crit rate of heals, and damages (but again, each roll is independent), but this is pretty consuming if your party doesnt have enervates or shaman rages or pally mana buff or whatever. Enlightemeen and Regen are yet the safest go, just Burnout is more damage, and more damage is faster kill, and faster kill is less mana needed

[@SigsPlays]

All great points, thanks! I did know that the crit rolls for heals and damage were separate, I was speaking more to leaning into the niche role of providing extra DPS along with the healing, but I probably didn't do a good job of making that clear. That's a great point about Balefire, although I do think that casting a Rank 1 Arcane Missiles and cancelling the cast immediately is a good way to emergency clear AB stacks too if mana is an issue. And I hadn't even considered Burnout for the extra heal crits, that sounds like it could be really powerful, I'll have to try that out in raid next time! =)

[@thevictoraptor]

Well a hardcast of AM is 5s long, balefire is just twice faster, and at second stack is 600+30% which is roughly the damage of AB, but less mana costly

[@SigsPlays]

@@thevictoraptor Yeah, for sure, I meant just casting R1 AM and then immediately canceling the cast without letting the full channel go off, so that you can clear your AB stacks in 1 GCD for next to no Mana, and it was more the Spirit reduction drawback from Balefire that was worrying me as far as Mana regeneration over the course of a fight goes. But now that my Mana Pool is getting larger and our fights are getting shorter that's much less of a concern, so I'm definitely interested in trying to use Balefire that way. The increased damage over AB at higher stacks seems really powerful too! =)

[@georgeanganis8227]

Great and helpful video! Thanks!

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure!

[@clintzervos1948]

hats off to you for tracking all that jaz, my brain hurts

[@SigsPlays]

Hahaha, thanks - it's definitely a lot to keep track of =)

[@simonovich8977]

Wonderful guide, thank you so much. I was pretty close to quitting my healer mage because I felt like we were completely screwed in P3, but this video (and your previous videos showing your perspective on boss kills) have reinvigorated me to keep at it and do my best!

[@SigsPlays]

Woohoo, I'm so glad to hear that! I think that it's a really cool and unique spec so I'm always happy to see more of us out there. Best of luck! =)

[@simonovich8977]

@@SigsPlays I feel the same way!! By the way, I would love the boss videos with commentary eventually :)

[@SigsPlays]

@@simonovich8977 Absolutely! I'm hoping to get a few up this week - I have a really spicy one where I got Rank 10 world on Festering Rotslime =)

[@MaggleTheMage]

love the vid! im a big chronostatic preservation fan having a big single target heal that you can release while channelling a spell is huge, if i know i need to evocate ill prep a chrono-pres heal so i can release it during my evocate that way i dont have to interupt that spell and always get the full mana or if i mass regen one group i can still chrono heal a player in another group or someone that needs abit more that the mass regen. a big combo i do is arcane blast twice into mass regen on the 2nd blast and before mass regen ends ill cast my missiles so it gets the arcane blast charges as well as mass regen then release the chrono-pres heal while im missilling on someone without a beacon then repeat.

[@Drong13]

I do agree about chrono. I feel like Sigs is missing how interesting healing spell chrono is. having big heal pre casted in "chamber" can save raid from wiping, specially if you run with paper warlock tanks. At the end it is about the raid comb and healer comb. Anyway awesome vid and thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@MaggleTheMage]

@@Drong13 yeah deffs depends on the other healers and the group as a whole. love the video myself need more mage heals out there!

[@s1m0bg]

@@Drong13 Ye I always have a macro of presence of mind and chrome pres, which a lot of times has saved the ride. TBH on a raid I find myself casting chrome preservation not more than 3-4 times in a critical situations only(especially in ST where we have more healer and all have direct heal so I often put spell power). But in a normal dungeon with random ppl I don't really try without chromo preservation. Especially with random tanks in BRD

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks! I'm glad that hear you enjoyed the video =) And great points about Chrono Pres! I definitely see it's value, I just personally prefer to opt for more DPS because I am at my core a meter-monkey who likes to see big damage numbers as much as big healing ones lol. Those are some really smart interactions with casting it during Evocate / Arcane Missile / Missile Barrage though, I honestly hadn't even thought of that, I may have to test it out in our next raid! =) Great point from @drong13 too about having a big direct emergency heal in the chamber - that's definitely something that Healing Mage is lacking in otherwise and can be life-saving to have handy. And @s1m0bg brings up a great point about using it in Dungeons too. It can definitely be difficult to heal almost exclusively through direct Arcane Damage - starting your 2.5 second cast on a low-health target when everyone in your group really needs a heal only to have a Warrior or something execute it and defeat it before your cast finishes so that you end up doing no healing is such a bad feeling lol. Plus after all the mobs are dead if there's any residual DoT damage occurring it can be really hard to heal through that without a target to hit for Chronomantic Healing if you don't have access to Chronostatic Preservation. You guys have opened my eyes, I'll have to start using it more! =)

[@MaggleTheMage]

@@SigsPlays it is a really cheap heal too mana wise deffs worth testing it out, it kinda changes the playstyle abit but easy to pick it up! gl with next raid!

[@Pneuma6969]

hi from an healmage main. 1. you absolutly need chronostatic preservation. theres no *can use* its an must have. its the strongest singletarget heal in the entire game, its storable for situations you need to walk and gotta heal the tanks. its an must use rune. its there for an reason :D mage heal has the same issues as paladin heal. its an static heal that needs to hardcast to heal. 2. healmage is the strongest tank healing class, even better than paladins.

[@SigsPlays]

Hi there! I appreciate the feedback but Chronostatic Preservation is in no way *required*. It's definitely a very powerful and useful spell, but if you look at the top logs for HPS there are *many* Mages who don't use it, including myself who is currently Rank 7 World in All-Star points for Healing Mage (and was Rank 3 for a period of time). It definitely depends on your Group's composition and what you are trying to do though. In our Raid Group we have 2 Priests who focus on Tank / Emergency Healing, and my job is to do AoE Healing on the raid. I'd lose a lot of AoE Healing and overall HPS if I was spending time to cast Chrono to heal one target instead of a Mass Regen / Arcane Damage Spell to heal multiple targets. That's just my group though! If you're running with a Group that wants you to focus on Tank / Emergency Heals then it'd definitely be better to run Chronostatic Preservation. And I absolutely agree that it's a great Spell which can do a ton of single-target healing and is very useful to be able to cast while moving or casting another Spell. I'd also say that it's almost always worth running in Dungeons since it's a lot easier to fall behind without the direct heal that it provides when you're the only Healer. However as far as raid goes It's just a matter of preference / what your role is, but it's in no way *required* and I'd actually lose HPS / not be doing my job as well if I were to run it with my group. Thanks for lending your opinion though, you make good points! =)

[@emberalus2229]

Chronostatic is really not a must, extra healing spells only provide value if you need more healing. If your raid survives without you taking the spell you're better off dealing more damage. One of the biggest things I constantly see people do is go all in on healing as a healer while no healing is necessary. Your role is to be a damage dealer as well, that's WHY mage healer is valuable, if I want a ST healing bot I'd get myself a priest or paladin.

[@SigsPlays]

@@emberalus2229 My thoughts exactly!

[@ShlakShlakShlak]

very useful, cheers

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks! I'm glad that you found it helpful =)

[@mertozcan1350]

amazin guide thanks so much!

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks - my pleasure! =)

[@Thyr4]

great vid, thanks.

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure - Glad you liked it! =)

[@mikoajkarwat1871]

Not sure if this is mentioned in any mage healing guide or if community is aware of this but you can cast arcane blast and immediatly follow it with regen/mass regen and the game will register regen first resulting in chronomatic healing from arcane blast, even though it was cast first. You can do tons of healing this way :)

[@SigsPlays]

Absolutely! I do mention that briefly in the Rotation section but probably didn't do the best job explaining it - great tip, thanks!

[@mikemcnair2026]

This follows the mechanic of a shatter combo. However i have found that since ab doesn’t have a path graphic it’s not as reliable as say balefire. Hope I’m wrong about ab interaction but it sure seemed that way.

[@Nova-pj7qq]

I remember when this used to be a Druid channel. Miss ya sigs

[@SigsPlays]

[@kileNoe]

Temporal anomaly isn't much of a launch haha. It's more like "an orb appears and moves too slow to do anything useful" . I did make a suggestion how they could tweak this. Make it move quickly and just one big shield for everyone it hits. Thanks for the tips brother very enlightening

[@SigsPlays]

Haha, no kidding, Anomaly is definitely very underwhelming. That sounds like a great suggestions, I'd love to see them change it to something more like that. And my pleasure, I'm glad that you found it interesting! =)

[@kileNoe]

@@SigsPlays after "getting good" and getting some better gear+consumes (alchemy flasks. Dropped engi) I do think mages can be the best healers!

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, Mages definitely feel very gear dependent - those Alch Flasks seemed really strong too, I was considering dropping Enchanting for them. I'll admit that the class can feel a bit clunky, but the numbers are definitely there, and I'm definitely the best healer my raid group (just don't tell the other healers that I said that ;P). Plus it's just such a fun and unique playstyle, so I do really enjoy it =)

[@kileNoe]

@@SigsPlays lv 60 Meta MIGHT be ench + alch

[@SigsPlays]

@@kileNoe Yeah, I'm really curious to see what the new crafting recipes will be since they seem to come out with something new every phase. It kind of stinks having to re-level a prof (especially up to 300 next phase) though so I'll probably end up sticking with Tailoring / Ench unless there's something much better, or if I *really* want to try to Min/Max lol

[@elementalismproductions]

Specifically looked for an up to date mage heal guide for this phase. Thanks for your help. How do you feel mage heal is in comparison to other healers this phase.

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure! I personally love where Healing Mage is at. Their HPS throughput isn't nearly as high on the top end as any other healing spec, but the fact that they can provide a moderate amount of extra DPS along with their healing makes them quite valuable in my eyes. They might not be able to match a good Druid, Priest, or Shaman in overall HPS throughput over the course of a fight, but they have good raid-wide healing coverage, and their heals can be incredibly strong if lined up correctly, so they are great for spike healing through high raidwide damage portions of the fight. I find the playstyle extremely fun too, so it's a bit more engaging than a typical healing class, a least to me. And a good Healing Mage can absolutely outheal an average healer of any other spec, so they are definitely more than viable for this level of content. =)

[@ScottyMcAdam]

10/10 mate

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks so much!

[@joe_duck]

Blade of eternal darkness will make arcane explosions 💯 worth it

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, the extra mana regeneration is amazing! =)

[@bkclarinet]

That was a very good video! I'm guessing rewind time sucks?

[@SigsPlays]

Thanks! And yes, unfortunately Rewind Time is nearly useless. It's a very cool ability, but has a long cooldown and isn't worth dropping Arcane Blast to use since almost all of our Beacon Healing comes from Arcane Blast and the Missile Barrage procs that it provides

[@mindfu7]

Balefire is spellfire and counts for healing is why you take some fire context. as it effectively does scale your 'arcane' damage when using balefire; You use balefire bolt to drop blast stacks when you don't have free arcane missiles

[@SigsPlays]

Ahhh, I see I see. I've been too hesitant to even use Balefire Bolt because of the Spirit reduction drawback, but that makes a lot of sense, and now that my Mana Pool is getting larger and our Boss defeat times are getting shorter I'll definitely have to try that - thanks for pointing that out! =)

[@mindfu7]

​@@SigsPlaysit's effectively a choice between 4 or small heals from missiles, or 1 large heal from balefire, has a place though maybe less net throughput then what you've outlined

[@flavienheldt4414]

Idea for the mage healing , i know blizzard is not confortable to touch this spec its a bit tricky But there is ideas. A lot of our mana flexibility come from Clearcasting proc , we can save mana across this proc , why not allowed Clearcasting being consume by Regen and Mass regen You proc and you have a possibility to instead of dealing dmg to do a free regen and refresh the buff on 5 or 1 target and save 700 + mana Same for the Preservation , why not give this spell to the arcane school instead of the 3 , its a pretty solid spell on PvP , but if suddenly we are silence we are lock on every type of magic , so no blink , no IB or FS , Manashield , nova Nothing … i think its a bit excessif for a Heal 2.5 casting spell And if i have to be honest , the regen mana of the priest is really good , better then mage , mage we have the mage armor ok its a plus , but the gems are mana reserve you can use one every minute the new one is good the old one is a huge nothing now and the evocation dont regen full mana and have 8 CD . Considering the High mana cost of some mage spell compare to the priest who perform with low mana cost spell like penance / POM ( i will not includ Circle of healing even if its a strong spell and give high probability to trigger an instant heal with Surge of light , it stay a +500 mana cost ) . On the top of that the priest have every 2 minutes this shadow form ( dispersion if i remember right ) who give back a load of mana , it give definitely a better mana regen to the priest compare to 8 min evocation where you can do 4 times Dispersion Maybe include a book to give a reduce CD as a Passif Or Creat a Spell who work like mana burn , dealing a low damage arcane ( to trigger a small heal ) but give a drain mana or a % of mana back , to include this on a rotation it can give a good dynamic . i like the Idea of the draining spell , it can give to the mage arcane in pvp to be an anti caster like Draining mana and being really resistant to magic school with the new head rune But OBVIOUSLY the damage have to be low and have a CD to don’t abuse the spamming . The spell will consume AB stack , mean you spend some mana on the AB stacking and you consume them to refound an amount of mana . The objectif is not to regen like crazy. But just to add a tool who turn the process of losing mana a more smooth … Ok Now imagine if we reduce the mana regen and the CD of Evok , OK you gonna say why reduce the mana regen , for the simple reason if we have a smoother mana lost , and the Evok CD more reachable , you can with a good rotation includ Evok on your Rotation to have mana refound lower but consistant . In other Hand , if you dont respect a form of rotation , you can dump the mana very fast like actually if you use too much mass regen or spamming AB too much and now with a low smaller evok it will hard to comeback . SO it can be a good gameplay with a certain mechanic or if you spam you risk to be punish And i dont talk about the player who gonna have to think ‘’good timing’’, doing it on safe spot during mechanic or between mechanic . So it include a notion of positioning too Tell me if you have some idea too , and sorry for my English if it can seems not correct but it s not my native language

[@SigsPlays]

Your English is great, no worries! I've thought for a long time that Regen / Mass Regen should consume Clearcasting. They are some of our highest Mana cost spells, and it would really help with overall Mana efficiency if they did. I think that they just left the Talent as it was originally and didn't even think to add some of the new Season of Discovery spells to it, which seems like an oversight on their part. That's a great point about Preservation too, I don't know why it isn't just an Arcane Spell to begin with. It doesn't make a lot of sense that it would also be Fire & Frost and it definitely hurts to get locked out of it that way. I also like the idea of a Rune or something for a shorter Evocate Cooldown. Even making it a 2 second channel but it only restore 25% Mana on a 2 minute cooldown would be better as far as being able to quickly get some mana back multiple times in a fight. It's nice that it restores a lot of Mana now, but finding a time in the fight to stand still for a full 8 seconds and not really being able to heal for that entire time can be tough. I always try my best to think ahead before I cast it, but even still a lot of the time something happens that makes me have to move or hits me for spell pushback and then you're basically missing out on a full bar of Mana that you would have gotten and it's on cooldown for 8 minutes so there's no chance to use it again. And I really like the idea of some kind of Mana Drain / Mana restore spell! I think that it would be a really cool part of the rotation to have a spell that did less damage & healing, but that restored a bit of Mana, so that you could have a "burn" phase where you spend a lot of Mana to do a lot of damage and healing, and then a "recovery" phase where you do less damage and healing but could restore your Mana to get ready for the next "burn" phase. That's kind of like how Arcane Mage DPS works in retail WoW, so it seems like it would be a perfect fit for SoD too. Hopefully they makes some changes like this for the next Phase, because I think that they would be really cool! =)

[@emberalus2229]

Yeah, Clearcasting should 100% work on healing spells.

[@SebJr88]

If anomaly actually hit the entire raid, then the avg shield amount (about 900?) across 25 players would be nice. But the fact that it only hits party members, who are probably going to be ranged dps since youll be in a ranged group, it just isnt gonna get that much usefulness. Unless you just pop it during raid wide dmg.

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, I agree completely. A raid-wide shield would be nice but it's incredibly underwhelming as it is. I do still use it sometimes, mostly just before the Pull because at that points it's a "free" shield that might get you a bit of healing if someone takes damage right at the start of the fight, or occasionally while I'm moving or won't be able to finish a cast on the Boss for some reason, (like on Dreamscythe & Weaver during the knockback phase), just to get a little something out of it. But overall it does feel pretty useless currently lol

[@krunchie404]

I really appreciate this video, thank you, amazing guide.

[@SigsPlays]

My pleasure, I'm glad to hear that it was helpful! =)

[@pjsnyder82]

Unless something has changed, I do not think spells that deal critical damage necessarily do critical healing. Also, if an enemy resists your AB, I am fairly certain it will still heal beaconed targets.

[@SigsPlays]

As far as I know that is all correct - Heal Crits and Damage Crits are separate rolls. In regards to running Spell Power I was speaking more towards fulfilling a Healing Mage's niche role by dealing more damage, but I did a poor job of making that clear. Either way, I appreciate the clarification! =)

[@pjsnyder82]

@@SigsPlays Cool, I wasn’t 100% sure but I’m glad that’s cleared up.😀 Awesome video on mage healing, thank you so much for putting it all together in one spot!

[@SigsPlays]

@@pjsnyder82 Absolutely! And thanks - I'm glad that you found it useful! =)

[@user-hm5vg5ur8i]

dang, that feral is a beast

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah he's pretty good ;P

[@ScottyMcAdam]

You could do an alt friendly mage healing guide. For eg is the emerald warden set any good for basic starting fun raids

[@SigsPlays]

That's a good idea! I'll definitely see if I have time to make something like that, maybe like a pre-raid BiS gearing guide. That Emerald Warden gear is definitely a solid set if you can grind out enough pieces to get the set bonuses (or even individual pieces), if you don't already have good Gnomer gear / tier sets going into the new raid. =)

[@shadycat8898]

Not much changed at all for healer mages this phase unfortunately. The combo of Beacon+AB+MB+CSP feels fairly closed loop in design. Temporal Anomaly could have been an exciting addition adding mitigation mage previously didn’t have, but it’s just not very good lol.

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, you certainly could add more nuance to the rotation by weaving in single-target Regenerations, or building more AB stacks for certain heal windows and the like - but really the optimal rotation is pretty static, like you said. I don't personally mind it, it feels fairly fluid most of the time so it's nice to have an actual "rotation" that you can just fall into. It do think that it would be cool to have a bit more options though, especially with Temporal Anomaly, but while it sounds good on paper they definitely missed the mark with the execution and I agree it's just not very good lol.

[@shadycat8898]

@@SigsPlays I agree, I don't think the core loop needs to be more complicated. If anything, I wish the core tools were more accessible earlier on. The nerf to LF healing had terrible downstream effects on mage healing pre-MB. One reason we might be seeing fewer healing mages is leveling up as them before Dark Riders is simply not that fun.

[@SigsPlays]

@@shadycat8898 That's a great point - I agree that LF was maybe a *little* overpowered by allowing Mages to be near-invincible on AoE Pulls as long as it + Beacon was up, but the nerfs made it practically unusable. The halved duration making it so that you basically only get a couple seconds of uptime if you cast it from max range feels real bad. If anything it should just spawn under it's target now instead of having the travel time. I guess that there's always the option to level as a DPS spec, but that makes it a lot more difficult to start to learn the spec piecewise from scratch. And not having Dual-Spec until level 40 so that you could at least Heal Dungeons in-between questing makes it seem even more inaccessible. I do find the spec incredibly fun currently, so I think that the payoff is worth the effort, but I don't blame people for not wanting to invest in it when it doesn't work as well and feels much clunkier at lower levels, and/or without gear investment for that matter.

[@sniperdps]

Hi - I just got my mage to 60. I see this video is about a month old. Just curious, is the information here still up to date? Any changes since it's been made. Want to make sure I get up to date information.

[@SigsPlays]

Hey there! Yup, it's still current! There won't really be any changes until Phase 4 comes out and the level cap is raised to 60 (I assume that you meant that you just got your Mage to level 50, which is the current maximum level for Season of Discovery in Phase 3, which is the current Phase). As far as all the abilities and Runes and consumables etc. go, it's all still the same. People are doing some slightly different stuff now with full Sunken Temple gear (such as using Burnout over Enlightenment for the Chest Rune on very short boss fights), but if you just got to max level then you should find everything here quite useful. I hope that you have fun playing Mage, it's a(n Arcane) Blast! =)

[@sniperdps]

@@SigsPlays yeah, thanks! I don’t really playing it as a main, but healing mage looks to me to be the highest skill cap by far, is that correct?

[@SigsPlays]

@@sniperdps I haven't played all of the specs in SoD, but based on my experience and what other people say I would certainly think so =)

[@ericjccordova1602]

QUE ADDON USAS PARA CURAR PODRIAS DECIRME Y COMO CONFIGURAR??

[@SigsPlays]

Sí, claro. Hablo de eso en 49:44 y 53:26. No uso ningún Addons, uso la "Default UI" y "Mouseover Macros" como: #showtooltip /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Mass Regeneration

[@anon12549]

When I play mine it often feels like I am just playing pretend healer. I may be on top, but 60-80% over heal isn't fooling anyone. I thought dropping to 3 healers might make it less, but I find that it just feels as clunky. You are still over-healing massive percentages and relying on healers who can place their healing faster and more effectively to actually save people. The AoE shield thing moves too slowly and I don't think its affected more than 1 target on cast. Personally I think the mass regen should be 30 second beacons, mass regen less mana cost/less channel healing, arcane blast cast time halved/damage halved, and arcane missile cast on move with proc.

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah, it is definitely a niche healing spec. I think that the gimmick of doing DPS and HPS at the same time is pretty cool, but Healing Mages are definitely suboptimal at both compared to dedicated Healing or DPS classes. The massive overheal is definitely a real thing, although for that reason they do excel at spike-healing large raid-wide damage mechanics if beacons and rotation is pre-ramped, which can be very useful in certain situations. I definitely agree about the AoE shield thing (Temporal Anomaly), it sounds like a great idea on paper but they definitely missed the mark in execution. Those changes to Mass Regen, Arcane Blast, and Missile Barrage procs all sound great to me too, and would definitely make the class feel less clunky. The way that it works in my group is that myself and a Druid focus on doing blanket-AoE healing on the whole raid, and then we have 2 priests to focus on triaging low-health targets with their faster / more effective direct heals, and they also focus on the Tanks to keep them topped up since, like you said, Mages can be a little clunky / slow to provide emergency heals. It works out well for us as far as collectively having enough HPS throughput and emergency heals to keep the raid healthy, but with a different comp (especially one with multiple Healing Mages), those shortcomings that you mentioned would definitely start to show a lot more.

[@emberalus2229]

Arcane Missiles Move on proc is a super interesting idea, I really love that.

[@anon12549]

@@emberalus2229 Thank you for attending my ted talk lmao

[@SigsPlays]

@@anon12549 🤣

[@blitzme99]

The biggest difference you are doing and what I am doing is casting mass regen on a 2nd party in the raid. Im sure its getting your parsing way up, but how much overhealing are you doing?

[@SigsPlays]

It depends on the fight and on how much damage is going out at that moment, but in general it is a lot of overhealing. Healing Mage typically overheals by a lot anyways due to the nature of their heals being somewhat slower but also restoring larger chunks of HP with high AB stacks, and also by indirectly healing full-heal targets with Beacon while trying to heal other targets, (much like a Druid's HoTs or AoE heals do). It's still definitely worth Beaconing 2 groups if your Mana can sustain it though, as the rotation works out perfectly to be able to maintain 10 Beacons indefinitely. And spreading the Beacons around is more likely to deal more effective healing on targets that are missing health rather than maintaining them on 1 group and building more AB stacks in between refreshes, which leads to much larger chunk overhealing on those fewer targets. A big part of it is switching groups based on which ones are taking damage at that current moment, or even better - being able to predict which groups are about to get hit hard so that you can have Beacons out and pre-ramped Arcane Blast stacks to go into a Missile Barrage as soon as the damage actually occurs. I fully admit that I go a bit overboard sometimes by Beaconing groups that don't really need a lot of healing at that moment to try and get as much additional HPS as possible, but my Mana Pool can usually handle it and it does keep the raid topped up better which makes it easier on the other healers as well. It's all a matter of balancing Mana with Healing and how much extra DPS you are trying to contribute. Sorry for the long-winded reply but I hope that that answers your question =)

[@blitzme99]

@@SigsPlays I really appreciate the explanation. My toon name is gannam and my guild is called PP knees on the lonewolf server. If you wanna check the logs I would appreciate any further guidance. My gear is pretty good

[@SigsPlays]

​@@blitzme99 No problem! I took a quick peek using the compare tool on Warcraftlogs (e.g. sod.warcraftlogs.com/reports/compare/V7aHZhNT8RXmywbk/HRyfcAY7gL2DQWFb#boss=2958&difficulty=3&wipes=2&type=casts&source=25,18 ). I would definitely say to drop Regeneration on your Chest and run either Enlightenment or Burnout on every fight and only apply Beacons with Mass Regen. Use Enlightenment if you feel like you need the Mana towards the end of fights, and remember to use your first Mana Gem and Mana Pot *early* to stay in that >70% Mana window for the +10% Damage as long as possible. If you really want to pump then try Burnout for more crits, just note that it will drain your mana a lot faster. Beyond that, the main difference in our logs seems to be the number of Mass Regen casts, so I'd try to do what I talked about above and Mass Regen every time it's off cooldown and try to maintain it on 2 groups at all times. I go over a good rotation at 35:55 in this video - if you try to stick to that then your numbers should definitely come up by a lot, because your gear is pretty good. Other than that, just remember to ABC (Always Be Casting) to try to get as many damaging arcane spells out as possible while maintaining Beacons, and don't be afraid to wand for a bit during lower damage portions of the fights to restore some Mana if you find yourself running out. I hope that helps a bit at least, I'm sure that you can pump those numbers up by quite a bit! (P.S. Nice Dispels, it's good to see a Healer actually doing their job =D)

[@blitzme99]

@@SigsPlays dude you rock! Thanks so much for the feedback. I plan on reporting back once I implement your rotation. I may even try some macros's like Regen group 1, then regen group 2 to make it even faster

[@SigsPlays]

@@blitzme99 That's a good idea! And I'd love to hear how it goes - good luck! =)

[@Gorthok]

This one time.... in band camp....

[@SigsPlays]

🪈🪈

[@Gorthok]

@@SigsPlays Great informative video overall, really enjoyed everything but that valleygirl accent was drilling into my brain after a minute in

[@SigsPlays]

@@Gorthok Ha, yeah, sorry about that. I don't always have the best tone for narration. Funny that you say that though because I'm not from anywhere near where people have that kind of an accent

[@arcadia5607]

Beal fire bolt does heal

[@SigsPlays]

Yup! Balefire Bolt counts as Arcane (and Fire) damage and so it will heal 80% of the damage that it does to any targets that have your Temporal Beacon on =)

[@emberalus2229]

It does heal but there's an opportunity cost to it, and the question becomes is being able to dump your stacks into balefire better than 5% crit? You can only cast one filler spell at a time so.

[@darkblake]

Macros?

[@SigsPlays]

Yup! You can find my section about Macros at 53:26 . I'll post the main mouseover macro that I use here too to make it a bit easier to copy: #showtooltip /cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][help,nodead][@player] Regeneration

[@albarax1]

bro is playing EVE Online with all those windows

[@SigsPlays]

Hahaha, yeah, I'll freely admit that my UI is complete garbage lol. I don't even look most of it most of the time, but I like having it there for certain situations and to have extra information available when watching back recorded footage. There's also an addon that lets you play solitaire or minesweeper in an extra window too - maybe I should add that one to really spice things up ;)

[@redhawg]

That UI is cancer bro xD

[@SigsPlays]

Yeah it's a mess lol