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Magician / Magician NoS Guide
« on: June 19, 2018, 06:06:05 AM »
The updated version of this guide can be found here. I'm leaving the text of this version below, but it is no longer up to date.
This guide is intended to be an overview rather than all encompassing (I apologize for my tendency to write too much). That said, hopefully it's helpful, and I'm happy to have conversations with anyone who'd like to discuss why I play this way or other options. I'll try to check my PM's here, but I'm also happy to talk in game (;t Xegony.Sancus or ;t Firiona.Sancus). The general EQ forums are also a good place to reach me.
Note that I'm leaving the trigger file that was attached, but they're outdated at this point. The Coalition section links to new Coalition triggers.
Multibinding/Keybinding
First, I'd like to start with a note on multibinding. IMO it's a crucial part of maximizing DPS as a Mage. I have quite a few multibinds (5 different binds, each with 2 hotbar pages), but I only use two spell sets for raiding, a generic one and one for fights with fire-immune mobs. Mages don't use that many spells, but it's important to be able to change between spells weaves situationally to maximize DPS. The best way to accomplish this is by using multibinds on your hotbars. If you multibind using your spell bar, you're going to constantly have to swap spell sets, which is going to cost you time and flexibility.
The first step is to drag your spells to hotbars, as shown in this screenshot:
Next, you just need to assign a key to all of the hot buttons that contain spells for each weave, as shown:
The other thing I want to focus on is keybinding. A lot of EQ players try to click things like AAs and spells, and it often costs them a lot of time. Clicking isn't always bad, but I'd generally recommend keybinding your most used DPS abilities.
The main ones I'd definitely keybind are: Force of Elements, Molten Komatiite Orb, Twincast, Coalition, Summon Molten Komatiite Orb, Improved Twincast, Spire of the Elements, Frenzied Burnout, Host of Elements, Servant of Ro, Forceful Rejuvenation, /pet attack, /pet swarm, /pet back, /autoinventory, and a burn macro (which I'll share later). You can also keybind other things you use frequently. I have spell gems 1-9 bound to the 1-9 keys on my number pad, which I find very useful if I need to manually cast a spell.
Spell Weaves
I want to begin this section by mentioning the most common pitfall I see with Mages in raids: not actively watching what spells you’re casting. It’s great to set up a multibind with the right spells, but doing so and spamming the multibind key does not mean that your spells are casting in the order that yields the highest DPS. This is particularly important for your Sustained weave, which I will elaborate on below:
Sustained - This is your bread and butter weave to use outside of Improved Twincast.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Shockwave of Many
3. Chaotic Pyroclasm
4. Spear of Molten Komatiite
Make sure that this weave rotates in the correct order. Nearly every Mage I’ve given feedback to or raided with does not actually use this weave correctly in practice. The intent of this weave is that it rotate in the order RS -> Of Many -> Chaotic -> Spear -> Chaotic. Note that there should be two Chaotic casts per rotation. If you find it's casting in the wrong order, you may have to manually hit some spells to fix it. This is so that Of Many gets the Conjurer's Synergy proc, and that you get two Chaotics per rotation.
I find a lot of Mages have this rotation set up, but because of lag, recast timers, or other issues, they end up casting it in the wrong order in a way that is significantly detrimental to their DPS. To help show how it should look, here is a(n old) video of me casting on a combat dummy (this is with RoS spells, but it is conceptually similar). It seems simple, but in practice it is a huge issue for many Mages.
https://youtu.be/OUJh9aIqEM8.
Burn (ITC) - You're going to use this weave during Improved Twincast. It isn't crucial that this rotates in order. The basic idea is you're favoring the 110 Spear over Chaotic because Chaotic cannot proc Twincast while Improved Twincast is running.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Shockwave of Many
3. Spear of Molten Komatiite
4. Spear of Molten Arcronite
(5. Chaotic Pyroclasm)
Note: In low lag environments and/or with a Bard for Quick Time, you can add in Chaotic Pyroclasm as a fifth spell.
Adds/No Hatelist - This spell weave is intended for adds that don't live long enough to have enough pets for Of Many, or for targets that do not have a hatelist. If a mob does not show up on your extended target window, Of Many will not damage it. You might also want to start off with one rotation of this weave before switching to your normal sustained weave even on adds that live longer.
1. Chaotic Pyroclasm
2. Riotous Servant
2. Spear of Molten Komatiite
3. Spear of Molten Arcronite
Magic - If you can't AE, just take out Rain of Scimitars. I'm not going to focus on Magic DPS too much because it's really bad, but I figured I'd briefly include a lineup.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Rain of Scimitars
3. Komatiite Bolt
4. Shock of Burning Steel or Korascian Bolt
The above are really the only lineups you need for fights that don't include fire immune mobs or those without hatelists. That said, I'm going to list optional lineups that I have to get the most out of my DPS:
Twincast (Optional) - This spell weave is nearly the same as your sustained weave. It rotates Chaotic -> RS -> Of Many -> Chaotic -> Spear, which is effectively very similar. I like to use this during spell twincast to make sure I'm maximizing Chaotic casts. Especially with lag in raids, it's pretty easy for the normal sustained lineup to drop one Chaotic per rotation, which is bad. This is optional, though, given how close it is to our normal lineup.
1. Chaotic Pyroclasm
2. Riotous Servant
3. Shockwave of Many
4. Spear of Molten Komatiite
No RS (Optional) - This is a spell weave that drops RS. You can use this during ITC if you're doing a short burn, or swap to this when a boss is about to die to avoid wasting casts on RS pets that won't be able to do damage for their full duration. It's not that important, though, so I've marked it as optional. I'd recommend rotating Of Many -> Spear -> Spear -> Of Many -> Chaotic, at least in the absence of Quick Time.
1. Shockwave of Many
2. Spear of Molten Arcronite
3. Spear of Molten Shieldstone
4. Chaotic Inferno
A couple additional points:
When do I use "Of Many"? Of Many does more damage the more pets are on the mob's hatelist. You generally need at least 6 pets to break even, and you need 10 pets to benefit from using Of Many. Depending on how many pet classes are in the raid and how on top of target swapping they are, adds that don't live very long often don't have enough pets to make Of Many worth it. As mentioned earlier, if a mob has no hatelist (i.e. it doesn't show up on xtar), Of Many will do no damage to it.
When do I use RS? RS has gotten a lot more viable on adds recently, but it still suffers from pathing issues, especially with raid lag. That means it isn't really suited for super-fast add fights. On longer add fights you can more reasonably use it. If adds are very quick, you can drop RS from the add weave provided above and rotate Chaotic -> Spear -> Spear.
How should I manage adds? Mages do not perform well on adds. The damage output of Of Many and RS drop noticeably on adds, we can't effectively use Coalition on them, and our spells have both significant cast times and then have to travel at 60 ft/s to do damage. Mages often lose a significant portion of casts on adds due to cast time + travel time. The only foolproof way to avoid losing damage is to stay off adds. That said, often raids require DPS on adds, and if that's the case the best option is to swap early, either to the boss (to get in an additional nuke in between two adds) or to the next add.
When should I AE? I would generally recommend AEing when there are 5-6 valid targets. If there's a specific point in the fight where you can AE heavily, save Thaumaturge's Focus for it. For the duration of that ability, Beam of Scimitars does more damage than Beam of Molten Komatiite. When Thaumaturge's Focus wears off/is not on, just spam Beam of Molten Komatiite.
Additional DPS Abilities/Spells (Sustained)
Force of Elements: I don't like putting Force in my multibind because it can cause you to cast spells slightly slower. That said, try to use it during the GCD on cooldown; it's free damage.
(Summon) Molten Komatiite Orb: Use Molten Komatiite Orb on cooldown including during Improved Twincast. I don't like multibinding it because I like to have a bit more control, but it's not a big deal if you do multibind it. Make sure you resummon it whenever you use up the charges, unless you have spell twincast running. The new Molten Komatiite Orb is worth casting during Improved Twincast.
Twincast: Use spell Twincast as often as possible. Make sure you have Rank 3. Its recast is so fast that there really isn't any reason to save it; in my experience that generally leads to less damage. I usually start an event with it, and then use it as soon as it's up. Also make sure you never cast twincast when RS is the next spell in your weave. Instead, cast RS and then use Twincast, or cast Twincast when Of Many is coming up in your weave (those two situations often coincide).
Firebound Coalition: Coalition is a spell that debuffs the mob. It has 8 counters that add damage, which can only be used by spells cast by other Mages (with the exception of RS, which cannot use counters). If all 8 counters are used within 18s, it resolves for 3.3 million damage. There are five important conditions for casting Coalition: 1) You have at least 3 Mages in the raid (or 2 if the other Mage is Twincasting), 2) You are all on the same target, 3) That target will live for at least ~18 seconds, 4) Another Mage's Coalition is not on the mob, and 5) The mob does not have all of its debuff slots filled. If all of those conditions are true and Coalition is off cooldown, you should be casting it. That means you should use it whenever it refreshes, including with Syllable of Refreshment procs, again assuming those aforementioned conditions are met. It's helpful to have GINA triggers to help know when other Mages have used coalition on the mob; you can download my Coalition triggers here.
Burns
On a burn, you're going to want to activate Heart of Skyfire, Focus of Arcanum, and Glyph of Destruction if available. You can make a macro for activating if you wish, although the increased cost of Glyph makes it difficult to use on every event.
If you're AEing I'd definitely use Silent Casting. Otherwise it honestly shouldn't be necessary, but you can if you aren't comfortable regarding aggro. A lot of Mages try to use Spire of the Elements on a burn, but you're wasting it if your crit rate is at 100% already, which it almost certainly is if you have Auspice or other ADPS. Wait until Auspice is over to use Spire, and then use it on refresh as long as you don't have Auspice or some other large crit chance increase. If you're casting any Magic spells during your burn, include Thaumaturge's Focus.
You also want to use Host of the Elements and Servant of Ro. I'd recommend casting RS and then following it directly with Host of Elements, as you can't cast RS while the pets from Host are spawning. Make sure you use both during the GCD so you don't waste DPS. You can also use the summoned clicky pets (Imperative Minion and Imperative Servant), but they add very little damage.
The general opening order should be something like Firebound Coalition OR Chaotic Pyroclasm -> RS -> Host of Elements -> Spell Twincast -> Of Many (start Sustained rotation). When Twincast wears off, use Improved Twincast and swap to your ITC weave. You should use Forceful Rejuvenation during ITC to refresh Coalition, RS, and Of Many.
For your pet, you should pre-buff it with Frenzied Burnout (which also casts Virulent Talon) and Zeal of the Elements VIII, and suspend it prior to the fight. Unsuspend it a few seconds before the fight begins. Refresh Zeal of the Elements when it wears off, and refresh Frenzied Burnout when it and Virulent Talon have worn off. Use Thaumaturgist's Infusion when the second FBO wears off.
ADPS
I'm not going to go over ADPS in great detail. In general you want to stack crit damage and multiplicative effects on burns. For sustained, you want to maintain the highest crit rate possible. Your passive crit rate is 58%; don't overstack crit chance early on for no reason. Here's the basic stuff:
Burn ADPS: Illusions of Grandeur (Enchanter; Crit Damage/Rate), Group Spirit of the Great Wolf (Druid; Crit Damage/Rate), Chromatic Haze (Enchanter; Crit Focus), Quick Time (Bard; Spell Haste), and Auspice of the Hunter (Ranger MGB; Crit Rate). Enchanter Composite Reinforcement is also useful. You want your enchanter nuking to proc Gift of Chromatic Haze and Beguiler's Synergy. Any other caster Synergies you can get (Conjurer's, Evoker's, Defiler's) are beneficial too.
Sustained ADPS: Spire of Enchantment (Enchanter; Crit Rate), Group Spirit of the Great Wolf on refresh (Druid; Crit Damage/Rate), Bard Epic (Bard; Crit Rate), Fierce Eye (Bard; Crit Rate/Damage)
Auras/Songs: Mana Replication Aura (Enchanter; Proc), Twincast Aura (Enchanter; TC Chance), Icerend Aura (Druid; Proc), Aura of Margidor (Bard; Swarm Pet Haste/Focus), Aria of Margidor (Bard; Focus), Sontalak’s Aria (Bard; Damage Add), Arcane Symphony (Bard; Proc).
Debuffs: Season's Wrath (Druid; Fire Focus), Skin to Sumac (Druid; Fire Focus - is generally superseded by the effect on Season’s Wrath or Elemental Arrow), Malosinara (Magician; Magic Focus), Stormjolt Vortex Effect (Wizard; Focus), Elemental Arrow (Ranger; Fire Focus), Tashan's Lingering Cry (Enchanter; Focus), Mana Burn (Wizard; Damage Add)
Items
Primary/Procs: You should be using a 2HB with the highest damage proc you have access to. The best option is Mrtyu’s Rod of Disempowerment, as the melee proc on Velium Endowed Arcane Staff has a lower than intended proc rate. Use Complementary Velium Infused Gem of Devastation and Complimentary Velium Threaded Gem of Devastation in it.
Use Complementary Velium Infused Gem of Striking in your Range and a belt with Threads of Potential or Treaded Boon of Potential as a focus. If you're able to get them, the TBL/ToV evolving items allow you to gain four casting procs: (Whispering Midnight & Blazing Euphoria Casting Fire from TBL; Rallos Zek Acolyte’s & Rallos Zek Devotee’s Casting Ice from ToV) and four melee procs (Whispering Mindight & Blazing Euphoria Assaulting Magic; Rallos Zek Acolyte’s & Rallos Zek Devotee’s Casting Ice from ToV) that are worth having.
Important Foci: Your important foci are your Robe (Spear Focus), Ear (Pet Focus), Arms (Fire Focus), Legs (Det Spell Haste), Back (Mana Pres), Head (Magic Focus), approximately in that order of importance. Apart from those slots and your primary, gear isn't that important.
Restless Focus/Crystallized Mana Tonic: These are the two relevant ToV potions. The former is a 12k damage proc potion, and the latter is a 1-5% mana preservation potion. You should always be using the former. The latter is now superseded by the mana preservation on the Empowered banner, but if that isn’t running it can help with mana.
Glyphwielder's Tunic of the Summoner: This robe has Thaumaturgist's Infusion, which is a weaker version of FBO. It lasts for 1 minute and has a 5 minute re-use.
Pet Clicks: Anything you can use to increase pet counts can be useful. The two easiest ones are Cloth Cap and Vicious Rabbit.
Bifold Focus of the Evil Eye: If you're lucky enough to have this, use it as much as possible. Chaotic Inferno is the best spell to use it with, since it can proc 18s of Twincast.
Type 3's: This should go without saying, but get your Type 3 augs for all of your spells. You should have the Restless Focus Type 3 augment too.
Utility/Mana Regen/Buffs
This is a bit of a misc. section for things that aren't important enough to include in their own section.
Buffs: You want spell haste, Elemental Form, and Arcane Distillect. Your pet should have Burnout, Iceflame Rampart, as many runes as you can layer, and assorted melee buffs. Thaumaturge's Unity should suffice for most self buffs.
Mana Regen: You have a lot of sources of Mana Regen. These include Radiant Modulation Shard (AA Mod Rod), Wand of Freezing Modulation (Spell Mod Rod), and Elemental Conversion. If you run out of mana, you can use Monster Summoning + Reclaim Energy to get back up. You should get an instant cast reclaim click (e.g. Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth).
Survivability: Your best survivability tool is Shield of Destiny, which significantly mitigates AE damage. You also have Shield of Elements, which is a rune. Beyond that your options get worse, but you do have Shared Health and Heart of Frostone. For aggro, you have Drape of Shadows and Arcane Whisper.
Debuffing: The Malo AA now casts the same version as the spell, so we can fairly easily ensure that mobs are debuffed. Wind of Malo is especially useful on adds and because it's instant cast. As our spells have no resist adjusts for the most part, it's important to ensure mobs are as debuffed as possible.
If anyone has any questions/comments, or wants to have a more in depth discussion, you're welcome to post, PM me, or send a tell.
This guide is intended to be an overview rather than all encompassing (I apologize for my tendency to write too much). That said, hopefully it's helpful, and I'm happy to have conversations with anyone who'd like to discuss why I play this way or other options. I'll try to check my PM's here, but I'm also happy to talk in game (;t Xegony.Sancus or ;t Firiona.Sancus). The general EQ forums are also a good place to reach me.
Note that I'm leaving the trigger file that was attached, but they're outdated at this point. The Coalition section links to new Coalition triggers.
Multibinding/Keybinding
First, I'd like to start with a note on multibinding. IMO it's a crucial part of maximizing DPS as a Mage. I have quite a few multibinds (5 different binds, each with 2 hotbar pages), but I only use two spell sets for raiding, a generic one and one for fights with fire-immune mobs. Mages don't use that many spells, but it's important to be able to change between spells weaves situationally to maximize DPS. The best way to accomplish this is by using multibinds on your hotbars. If you multibind using your spell bar, you're going to constantly have to swap spell sets, which is going to cost you time and flexibility.
The first step is to drag your spells to hotbars, as shown in this screenshot:
Next, you just need to assign a key to all of the hot buttons that contain spells for each weave, as shown:
The other thing I want to focus on is keybinding. A lot of EQ players try to click things like AAs and spells, and it often costs them a lot of time. Clicking isn't always bad, but I'd generally recommend keybinding your most used DPS abilities.
The main ones I'd definitely keybind are: Force of Elements, Molten Komatiite Orb, Twincast, Coalition, Summon Molten Komatiite Orb, Improved Twincast, Spire of the Elements, Frenzied Burnout, Host of Elements, Servant of Ro, Forceful Rejuvenation, /pet attack, /pet swarm, /pet back, /autoinventory, and a burn macro (which I'll share later). You can also keybind other things you use frequently. I have spell gems 1-9 bound to the 1-9 keys on my number pad, which I find very useful if I need to manually cast a spell.
Spell Weaves
I want to begin this section by mentioning the most common pitfall I see with Mages in raids: not actively watching what spells you’re casting. It’s great to set up a multibind with the right spells, but doing so and spamming the multibind key does not mean that your spells are casting in the order that yields the highest DPS. This is particularly important for your Sustained weave, which I will elaborate on below:
Sustained - This is your bread and butter weave to use outside of Improved Twincast.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Shockwave of Many
3. Chaotic Pyroclasm
4. Spear of Molten Komatiite
Make sure that this weave rotates in the correct order. Nearly every Mage I’ve given feedback to or raided with does not actually use this weave correctly in practice. The intent of this weave is that it rotate in the order RS -> Of Many -> Chaotic -> Spear -> Chaotic. Note that there should be two Chaotic casts per rotation. If you find it's casting in the wrong order, you may have to manually hit some spells to fix it. This is so that Of Many gets the Conjurer's Synergy proc, and that you get two Chaotics per rotation.
I find a lot of Mages have this rotation set up, but because of lag, recast timers, or other issues, they end up casting it in the wrong order in a way that is significantly detrimental to their DPS. To help show how it should look, here is a(n old) video of me casting on a combat dummy (this is with RoS spells, but it is conceptually similar). It seems simple, but in practice it is a huge issue for many Mages.
https://youtu.be/OUJh9aIqEM8.
Burn (ITC) - You're going to use this weave during Improved Twincast. It isn't crucial that this rotates in order. The basic idea is you're favoring the 110 Spear over Chaotic because Chaotic cannot proc Twincast while Improved Twincast is running.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Shockwave of Many
3. Spear of Molten Komatiite
4. Spear of Molten Arcronite
(5. Chaotic Pyroclasm)
Note: In low lag environments and/or with a Bard for Quick Time, you can add in Chaotic Pyroclasm as a fifth spell.
Adds/No Hatelist - This spell weave is intended for adds that don't live long enough to have enough pets for Of Many, or for targets that do not have a hatelist. If a mob does not show up on your extended target window, Of Many will not damage it. You might also want to start off with one rotation of this weave before switching to your normal sustained weave even on adds that live longer.
1. Chaotic Pyroclasm
2. Riotous Servant
2. Spear of Molten Komatiite
3. Spear of Molten Arcronite
Magic - If you can't AE, just take out Rain of Scimitars. I'm not going to focus on Magic DPS too much because it's really bad, but I figured I'd briefly include a lineup.
1. Riotous Servant
2. Rain of Scimitars
3. Komatiite Bolt
4. Shock of Burning Steel or Korascian Bolt
The above are really the only lineups you need for fights that don't include fire immune mobs or those without hatelists. That said, I'm going to list optional lineups that I have to get the most out of my DPS:
Twincast (Optional) - This spell weave is nearly the same as your sustained weave. It rotates Chaotic -> RS -> Of Many -> Chaotic -> Spear, which is effectively very similar. I like to use this during spell twincast to make sure I'm maximizing Chaotic casts. Especially with lag in raids, it's pretty easy for the normal sustained lineup to drop one Chaotic per rotation, which is bad. This is optional, though, given how close it is to our normal lineup.
1. Chaotic Pyroclasm
2. Riotous Servant
3. Shockwave of Many
4. Spear of Molten Komatiite
No RS (Optional) - This is a spell weave that drops RS. You can use this during ITC if you're doing a short burn, or swap to this when a boss is about to die to avoid wasting casts on RS pets that won't be able to do damage for their full duration. It's not that important, though, so I've marked it as optional. I'd recommend rotating Of Many -> Spear -> Spear -> Of Many -> Chaotic, at least in the absence of Quick Time.
1. Shockwave of Many
2. Spear of Molten Arcronite
3. Spear of Molten Shieldstone
4. Chaotic Inferno
A couple additional points:
When do I use "Of Many"? Of Many does more damage the more pets are on the mob's hatelist. You generally need at least 6 pets to break even, and you need 10 pets to benefit from using Of Many. Depending on how many pet classes are in the raid and how on top of target swapping they are, adds that don't live very long often don't have enough pets to make Of Many worth it. As mentioned earlier, if a mob has no hatelist (i.e. it doesn't show up on xtar), Of Many will do no damage to it.
When do I use RS? RS has gotten a lot more viable on adds recently, but it still suffers from pathing issues, especially with raid lag. That means it isn't really suited for super-fast add fights. On longer add fights you can more reasonably use it. If adds are very quick, you can drop RS from the add weave provided above and rotate Chaotic -> Spear -> Spear.
How should I manage adds? Mages do not perform well on adds. The damage output of Of Many and RS drop noticeably on adds, we can't effectively use Coalition on them, and our spells have both significant cast times and then have to travel at 60 ft/s to do damage. Mages often lose a significant portion of casts on adds due to cast time + travel time. The only foolproof way to avoid losing damage is to stay off adds. That said, often raids require DPS on adds, and if that's the case the best option is to swap early, either to the boss (to get in an additional nuke in between two adds) or to the next add.
When should I AE? I would generally recommend AEing when there are 5-6 valid targets. If there's a specific point in the fight where you can AE heavily, save Thaumaturge's Focus for it. For the duration of that ability, Beam of Scimitars does more damage than Beam of Molten Komatiite. When Thaumaturge's Focus wears off/is not on, just spam Beam of Molten Komatiite.
Additional DPS Abilities/Spells (Sustained)
Force of Elements: I don't like putting Force in my multibind because it can cause you to cast spells slightly slower. That said, try to use it during the GCD on cooldown; it's free damage.
(Summon) Molten Komatiite Orb: Use Molten Komatiite Orb on cooldown including during Improved Twincast. I don't like multibinding it because I like to have a bit more control, but it's not a big deal if you do multibind it. Make sure you resummon it whenever you use up the charges, unless you have spell twincast running. The new Molten Komatiite Orb is worth casting during Improved Twincast.
Twincast: Use spell Twincast as often as possible. Make sure you have Rank 3. Its recast is so fast that there really isn't any reason to save it; in my experience that generally leads to less damage. I usually start an event with it, and then use it as soon as it's up. Also make sure you never cast twincast when RS is the next spell in your weave. Instead, cast RS and then use Twincast, or cast Twincast when Of Many is coming up in your weave (those two situations often coincide).
Firebound Coalition: Coalition is a spell that debuffs the mob. It has 8 counters that add damage, which can only be used by spells cast by other Mages (with the exception of RS, which cannot use counters). If all 8 counters are used within 18s, it resolves for 3.3 million damage. There are five important conditions for casting Coalition: 1) You have at least 3 Mages in the raid (or 2 if the other Mage is Twincasting), 2) You are all on the same target, 3) That target will live for at least ~18 seconds, 4) Another Mage's Coalition is not on the mob, and 5) The mob does not have all of its debuff slots filled. If all of those conditions are true and Coalition is off cooldown, you should be casting it. That means you should use it whenever it refreshes, including with Syllable of Refreshment procs, again assuming those aforementioned conditions are met. It's helpful to have GINA triggers to help know when other Mages have used coalition on the mob; you can download my Coalition triggers here.
Burns
On a burn, you're going to want to activate Heart of Skyfire, Focus of Arcanum, and Glyph of Destruction if available. You can make a macro for activating if you wish, although the increased cost of Glyph makes it difficult to use on every event.
If you're AEing I'd definitely use Silent Casting. Otherwise it honestly shouldn't be necessary, but you can if you aren't comfortable regarding aggro. A lot of Mages try to use Spire of the Elements on a burn, but you're wasting it if your crit rate is at 100% already, which it almost certainly is if you have Auspice or other ADPS. Wait until Auspice is over to use Spire, and then use it on refresh as long as you don't have Auspice or some other large crit chance increase. If you're casting any Magic spells during your burn, include Thaumaturge's Focus.
You also want to use Host of the Elements and Servant of Ro. I'd recommend casting RS and then following it directly with Host of Elements, as you can't cast RS while the pets from Host are spawning. Make sure you use both during the GCD so you don't waste DPS. You can also use the summoned clicky pets (Imperative Minion and Imperative Servant), but they add very little damage.
The general opening order should be something like Firebound Coalition OR Chaotic Pyroclasm -> RS -> Host of Elements -> Spell Twincast -> Of Many (start Sustained rotation). When Twincast wears off, use Improved Twincast and swap to your ITC weave. You should use Forceful Rejuvenation during ITC to refresh Coalition, RS, and Of Many.
For your pet, you should pre-buff it with Frenzied Burnout (which also casts Virulent Talon) and Zeal of the Elements VIII, and suspend it prior to the fight. Unsuspend it a few seconds before the fight begins. Refresh Zeal of the Elements when it wears off, and refresh Frenzied Burnout when it and Virulent Talon have worn off. Use Thaumaturgist's Infusion when the second FBO wears off.
ADPS
I'm not going to go over ADPS in great detail. In general you want to stack crit damage and multiplicative effects on burns. For sustained, you want to maintain the highest crit rate possible. Your passive crit rate is 58%; don't overstack crit chance early on for no reason. Here's the basic stuff:
Burn ADPS: Illusions of Grandeur (Enchanter; Crit Damage/Rate), Group Spirit of the Great Wolf (Druid; Crit Damage/Rate), Chromatic Haze (Enchanter; Crit Focus), Quick Time (Bard; Spell Haste), and Auspice of the Hunter (Ranger MGB; Crit Rate). Enchanter Composite Reinforcement is also useful. You want your enchanter nuking to proc Gift of Chromatic Haze and Beguiler's Synergy. Any other caster Synergies you can get (Conjurer's, Evoker's, Defiler's) are beneficial too.
Sustained ADPS: Spire of Enchantment (Enchanter; Crit Rate), Group Spirit of the Great Wolf on refresh (Druid; Crit Damage/Rate), Bard Epic (Bard; Crit Rate), Fierce Eye (Bard; Crit Rate/Damage)
Auras/Songs: Mana Replication Aura (Enchanter; Proc), Twincast Aura (Enchanter; TC Chance), Icerend Aura (Druid; Proc), Aura of Margidor (Bard; Swarm Pet Haste/Focus), Aria of Margidor (Bard; Focus), Sontalak’s Aria (Bard; Damage Add), Arcane Symphony (Bard; Proc).
Debuffs: Season's Wrath (Druid; Fire Focus), Skin to Sumac (Druid; Fire Focus - is generally superseded by the effect on Season’s Wrath or Elemental Arrow), Malosinara (Magician; Magic Focus), Stormjolt Vortex Effect (Wizard; Focus), Elemental Arrow (Ranger; Fire Focus), Tashan's Lingering Cry (Enchanter; Focus), Mana Burn (Wizard; Damage Add)
Items
Primary/Procs: You should be using a 2HB with the highest damage proc you have access to. The best option is Mrtyu’s Rod of Disempowerment, as the melee proc on Velium Endowed Arcane Staff has a lower than intended proc rate. Use Complementary Velium Infused Gem of Devastation and Complimentary Velium Threaded Gem of Devastation in it.
Use Complementary Velium Infused Gem of Striking in your Range and a belt with Threads of Potential or Treaded Boon of Potential as a focus. If you're able to get them, the TBL/ToV evolving items allow you to gain four casting procs: (Whispering Midnight & Blazing Euphoria Casting Fire from TBL; Rallos Zek Acolyte’s & Rallos Zek Devotee’s Casting Ice from ToV) and four melee procs (Whispering Mindight & Blazing Euphoria Assaulting Magic; Rallos Zek Acolyte’s & Rallos Zek Devotee’s Casting Ice from ToV) that are worth having.
Important Foci: Your important foci are your Robe (Spear Focus), Ear (Pet Focus), Arms (Fire Focus), Legs (Det Spell Haste), Back (Mana Pres), Head (Magic Focus), approximately in that order of importance. Apart from those slots and your primary, gear isn't that important.
Restless Focus/Crystallized Mana Tonic: These are the two relevant ToV potions. The former is a 12k damage proc potion, and the latter is a 1-5% mana preservation potion. You should always be using the former. The latter is now superseded by the mana preservation on the Empowered banner, but if that isn’t running it can help with mana.
Glyphwielder's Tunic of the Summoner: This robe has Thaumaturgist's Infusion, which is a weaker version of FBO. It lasts for 1 minute and has a 5 minute re-use.
Pet Clicks: Anything you can use to increase pet counts can be useful. The two easiest ones are Cloth Cap and Vicious Rabbit.
Bifold Focus of the Evil Eye: If you're lucky enough to have this, use it as much as possible. Chaotic Inferno is the best spell to use it with, since it can proc 18s of Twincast.
Type 3's: This should go without saying, but get your Type 3 augs for all of your spells. You should have the Restless Focus Type 3 augment too.
Utility/Mana Regen/Buffs
This is a bit of a misc. section for things that aren't important enough to include in their own section.
Buffs: You want spell haste, Elemental Form, and Arcane Distillect. Your pet should have Burnout, Iceflame Rampart, as many runes as you can layer, and assorted melee buffs. Thaumaturge's Unity should suffice for most self buffs.
Mana Regen: You have a lot of sources of Mana Regen. These include Radiant Modulation Shard (AA Mod Rod), Wand of Freezing Modulation (Spell Mod Rod), and Elemental Conversion. If you run out of mana, you can use Monster Summoning + Reclaim Energy to get back up. You should get an instant cast reclaim click (e.g. Staff of Elemental Mastery: Earth).
Survivability: Your best survivability tool is Shield of Destiny, which significantly mitigates AE damage. You also have Shield of Elements, which is a rune. Beyond that your options get worse, but you do have Shared Health and Heart of Frostone. For aggro, you have Drape of Shadows and Arcane Whisper.
Debuffing: The Malo AA now casts the same version as the spell, so we can fairly easily ensure that mobs are debuffed. Wind of Malo is especially useful on adds and because it's instant cast. As our spells have no resist adjusts for the most part, it's important to ensure mobs are as debuffed as possible.
If anyone has any questions/comments, or wants to have a more in depth discussion, you're welcome to post, PM me, or send a tell.