Nice column, as always, but could you please write something with advice tailored to the "my main is an already decently-geared mage" crowd? As our downgraded lock (evil locks!) commenter noted, a variant of this same post has been done several times in the past year and to see that this post is "Part 1" is slightly disappointing.

It seems that the other class-specific columns on this site have some posts on more up-to-date content. For example, the Paladin column on 2 May 2010: "Healing through heroic Deathbringer Saurfang." The Hunter column always has a mix of useful tips for raids, pvp, and even "Extreme Soloing."

Some of your previous posts (e.g., "Spellstealing" 17 April & "The Difference between Good and Great" 3 April) are more along this vein, but even in your 3 April 2010 post, you neglected some specifics that are often hard for the "just got geared" mage crowd to find.

"Maximize your DPS outside of combat by min-maxing your gear, enchants and gems as best you can. I'm not saying you need to pull out a spreadsheet, abacus and slide rule, but a little research is probably wise. Be aware of your spec's hit cap, and make certain that you do not exceed it. If you have access in your usual raid group to a hit buff, take note of that fact and adjust your hit rating accordingly. As you are no doubt aware, any points in hit rating that take you above the hit cap are wasted."

This is good advice, but for people who don't know where to do this research (maybe the recently geared), it might be helpful for you to at least link to some great websites that have this information compiled (or even in spreadsheet-format) if you're not planning on getting into the nitty-gritty yourself.

For the rest of us, it'll be at least another post (week?) on Arcane Brilliance before we can get advice on something more apropos at this website.

Still, nice job and good suggestions (but here's hoping for something new)!

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