Help with Proving Grounds as fire?

[Prelimar]

hey everyone --

i've been a fire mage since 2007, through good times and bad. it's just the spec that speaks to me, and i've always found it a ton of fun, and i ain't changing now! i feel i know my spec and class pretty well, and i try to keep up by reading all the guides and the best mage forums (*cough* ) -- but now i've finally gotten to the Proving Grounds, and i'm having a heck of a time... specifically on wave 5 and beyond (the waves with the healers). i know it's all about interrupts, but for some reason i'm just running out of time and i'm just getting super frustrated. i was wondering if anyone else here had a hard time getting silver as fire, and if you made it through if you'd be share any tips. most guides and threads i see elsewhere are frost-focused, and commenters say either "switch to frost" or "L2P", essentially, and that just bugs me. i feel that the proving grounds should be achievable on whichever spec you want.

thanks for the help!

[Dutchmagoz]

Ok quickly did gold on fire to see what it's like so my tips actually have experience behind them:

- I used ice floes, living bomb, incanter's flow and meteor. Combustion + dragon's breath + inferno blast glyphed. You probably want to unglyph combustion (I didn't bother changing it/didn't think of it) since having it double duration is kinda pointless, and if you don't glyph it you can use it every wave.
- Make sure you spread dots as much as possible.
- Use dragon's breath to interrupt the healers
- On the wave with 2 healers, hit one of them first to 80% hp, let both of them start casting their heal, then swap to the other healer. If you can't kill it before the next interrupts, counterspell the far away one and dragon's breath the close one. If you're really struggling you can alternatively just sheep one of them and nuke the other.
- On the big add waves, make sure you use meteor and combustion when his shield is down.
- Always nuke down the little monkey guy, and make sure you don't stand in the bananas he throws since it affects your hit chance.
- Kite behind something else when the amber mobs are up, they will amber the enemies instead then. You can amber the healers like this as well.
- Always do something. Don't just run around trying to avoid stuff, always be casting something, even if it's just scorch or fireball with ice floes.

Hope this helps!

[Prelimar]

thank you! there's some great tips here that i hadn't considered (like unglyphing Combustion). i was able to get to wave 7 last night, but i was stumped on how to deal with an amber weaver AND two large healers. i'll try your strat for them next time i get there. i know i can do this... i'm definitely getting better each attempt. sometimes i even have as much as 20 seconds left on the clock on the lower waves, so i know i'm doing something right/better.

[Laurine]

Don't forget you can also sheep and Ring of Frost as will to make some fights ten times easier (like sheeping monkeys/healers/amber guys)

[Prelimar]

i've tried sheeping, but since it also heals i'm not sure if i'll stick with it. i haven't tried Ring of Frost yet, but i'm not sure what i'd use it on just yet, either. it won't stop amber orbs from advancing, and nothing else moves, so... ??

[Laurine]

Use sheep and ring in the beginning when they are full HP and on annoying targets. Then you kill the easiest ones.

[Prelimar]

update on this: i FINALLY got it last night! thank you everyone for your help.

i found waves 7 and 8 the trickiest, and i ended up trying several things. i knew once i started regularly getting to a wave that i was close to figuring it out, and then it was all about maxing out my damage. the final wave (with two amber weavers a healer, and 3 smaller mobs) was the hardest for me by FAR. dealing with having to almost constantly be on the move was really hampering my damage, but scorching on the run helped me at least proc so i could chuck Pyroblasts! at things.

what ended up working for me was sheeping one of the amber weavers, positioning myself so the healer would get hit by the other weaver's blobs, then nuking down the healer. once the healer was gone, i focused on taking out one of the weavers. once that was gone, i popped Alter Time, fired up mirror images, and worked on the other weaver and the two larger shielded mobs. when the last of those went down, i realized i just had seconds to go, and my mirror images really helped here with just that extra DPS. with 5 seconds to go i ran up to the last mob and (in a bit of a panic) hit him with dragon's breath, and ta-daaa! (with three seconds to spare, haha).

my GM gave me a grey item, Medal of Patience, haha (http://www.wowhead.com/item=114004/medal-of-patience" target="_blank).

thanks again for all the help. i'm currently vowing to never set foot in the proving grounds again, but we'll see...