Ok I was bored today and got to thinking about amplify magic and how useful of a buff it is and how little we actually use it. The only encounter we have ever been in where we wouldn't use it is Hydross, but any other time I can't think of a reason NOT to use it. So, lets start putting it AT LEAST on the tanks and healers before encounters...Reasoning being even if the tank is taking spell damage, that fireball or whatever will hit for like 120 more damage, lets say 5120 instead of 5k. But, every heal, and every HoT tick will gain +240 healing (not sure on the exact mechanics for HoT ticks). This is pulled from an elitist jerks thread on amp magic: Amplify Magic is probably the most underused buff in the game. Which is pretty silly considering it's one of the most powerful buffs in the game. It just goes forgotten far too much.
A totally untalented Amp Magic gives +120 damage taken / +240 healing taken.
Even if you have no points in this, applying it to the main tanks or even the entire raid effectively gives every healer 240 +healing. If there was any potion that gave 240 healing, healers would be lined up for it. Now with one point in the talent it goes up to 150/300, and with 2/2 in the talent it goes up to 180/360...
360 +healing to every healer in the raid..... we should be using Amp Magic.
The only time Amp Magic should not be used on the main tanks, AT THE VERY LEAST, is in a fight where there are constant small elemental attacks. Basically if a tank gets hit by 3 elemental attacks to every 1 heal, you're losing healing. 1:1 attack to healing gains you half the buff, 2:1 breaks even like you never used the buff and 3:1 makes it worse. The only fights in BC before Hyjal/BT where it is recommended not to use Amp Magic on the main tanks are Shade of Aran (lolkarazhan), Hydross, and Solarian.
We should be amping the tanks before every boss attempt and as much of the raid as we can for most bosses. Even untalented +240 healing to every healer is a huge buff, but if one of the mages can fit 12 points in arcane into their spec, 360 +healing is an amazing raid buff.
As far as Dampen Magic goes, it sucks. Very situational and should pretty much never be put on a main tank unless elemental damage is 4-5:1 heal which is pretty much no fight ever if our healers are awake. However dampen magic can be used on fragile classes such as mages or priests in situations where you're going to be taking incidental elemental damage with limited raid healing going around. In most cases these classes will be overhealed even with the damp buff up, so it helps. I tend to use it on myself on Void Reaver for example when I manage to remember.
In conclusion: PUT AMP MAGIC ON YOUR ACTION BAR AND START USING IT.
Amplify Magic
Amplify Magic
You must be reading my mind, because I was thinking about this too. If the spell worked as intended it would be a good idea in all the situations you described. However, its seems that the mechanic for magic damage from raid bosses does not function in the same way it does from other targets. It seems that many bosses have a +damage coefficient of 0%. So basically on many encounters there is no added damage from magic when using amp magic. For example in za on hex lord, he does that aoe shadowbolt thing. If the mechanic worked properly, that would be a very bad time to amp magic a raid. However given that that boss does not seem to have any spell damage (in the way that casters stack spell damage) there is nothing to amp from the boss. It only buffs the heals. I was doing some reading and I got the information from here. There is also a list of encounters and when amp and dampen should be used. Please note that not every encounter acts the same way as hex lord (as in no added damage from amp magic) I bet some mage here has talents in magic attunement ( i think thats the name) but I don't, because I am a scrub and roll deep frost all the time. forums.subcreation.net/viewtopic.php
