Originally Posted by Wizeowel
I've been wondering about this myself. Perhaps you can explain?
The AB cycles option seems to assume you want to do the old trick of dropping the debuff while casting your next AB. How do you reconcile this with needing to spend another ~8 seconds before being able to AB spam again? To take example from your post above.
01:23.770: Arcane Blast (16121 mana)
01:35.200: ABAM3FrBCC (13121 mana)
02:19.460: Arcane Blast (14636 mana)
The spell cycles proves mathematically that ABAM3FrBCC is the ideal foil for AB spam, but how much value does this proof have when it is impossible to execute? How can Rawr actually calculate AB ramp-up times when the spell-cycles calculation doesn't take account of casting order? Or does it?
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Enabling AB cycles does not force it to use overlap cycles, it just allows it to. It will pick whatever gives better results.
For the second part of your question, first ABAM3FrBCC is ideal in that very specific case. The optimum filler will depend on exact spec and buffs available. I've seen examples where not using overlap cycles is optimum.
Rawr assumes that transitions can be made at any point and you're correct that spell cycle solver does not take account of casting order (well SMP does a bit, but not in this sense). While in reality you can't make transition at any point, there are points where you can make a transition without any ramp-up cost. For that specific example:
AB spam-...-AB-AM-FrB-AB(overlap)-AM-AB-AM-AB-AM-FrB-AB(overlap)-...-AB(overlap)-AM-AB-AM-AB-AM-AB spam-...
So you can see there exists a point in the overlap cycle where you can seamlessly transition from AB spam to overlap cycle and back. There is no extra cost to it. Similarly if the solution was a mix of AB spam and FrB then what you want to do in practice is weave the FrB in. Basically when interpreting the solution you have to find a way to make the transitions without introducing any extra costs.
Regarding haste, it is in my view not a good stat for arcane. However it is placed on most great items and as a result we are forced to make use of it. If I had an option I'd convert all haste on my gear to equivalent dmg and int.