Originally Posted by Alvira
The issue is that you probably won't be getting net positive mana gain if you are doing AB, frostbolt x2 with AB fully debuffed. Unless your group is that stacked. So, you are still losing mana. This means you may be at boss 40%. Gauge that you can't finish with AB spam, but at the same time, guage that you can finish with AB-FrBx2. And when you find that you misjudged even that, you have to lapse into an even lower mana cycle.
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It doesn't matter. If you did misjudge a 2 FrB cycle and had to drop to pure FrB spam, then you would have had to cast the same number of FrB in the low part of the pure AB->pure FrB cycle, except you would have had to predict it before you ramped the ABs again.
The point that everybody but you is making is that there little practical difference between weaving and using your all AB and then all Frostbolt method. The only real differences are when you spend the mana and that doing an all frostbolt low cycle forces you to ramp AB every time you start up the AB part of the cycle.
Nobody is suggesting you start with a cycle. You start with AB spam to prevent your mana from capping out and to get your pot/gem cooldowns going, spam down to a comfrotable mana level (I drop to just under 4k mana unless I'm holding mana for something) and start cycling. All this does is move the ABs you'd cast after a ramp forward in time to the low dps part of the cycle. It's still two cycle, but the low part of the cycle is higher dps/mps.
If Blizzard's cast system wasn't bugged, you started with 100k mana, mana didn't cap out, and the target had infinite health,
40 FrB, 20 AB
20 AB, 40 FrB
20 AB->2xFrB
10 AB, 10 AB->2xFrB, 20 FrB
10 FrB, 10AB->2xFrB, 10 AB, 10 FrB
Would all take the same amount of time, use the same amount of mana, do the same amount of damage because they all only ramp AB once. The only difference is when the mana is spent. Because Blizz's cast system is bugged, you start and are capped at a realistic amount of mana, and the target will die at some point, some of those options are more likely to produce higher damage than others (namely the ones starting with FrB would be worse because you'd lose regen mana due to being capped; start with AB spam or a ramp cycle).
Weaving is just an easier way of determining the number of frostbolts that must be cast. You say "is the fight going shorter/longer than I expect?" and then decrease/increase the number of frostbolts. If perfectly played, either method will cast roughly the same number of ABs (only difference being the ramp ABs), regen the same amount of mana, spend the same amount of mana (modulo ramps), do the same amount of damage (ditto). Most people just find weaving to be an easier way to approach the theoretical maximum number of ABs. Assuming, as always, that true drop-the-buff-AB cycles aren't better, which is a problem I'll leave to the more rigorous.