It doesn't hurt to start spamming a bit too early provided you have a gem, potion, or some other form of mana regen at your disposal. The higher the DPS of the raid, the higher DPS you can do because you can afford to dump your mana into damage a lot quicker or earlier, as it were.

The trick is in the timing, however.

EDIT: I found an answer to the question I had posted here. Apologies.

I tried it, and like I thought, most of the time you have so little mana for it that the DPS lost from stacking it up actually makes a siginifcant difference. Of course it's still just a matter of a breakpoit where above a certain amount of mana left that allows AB spamming it's actually worth it, and any less isn't. Again it was farm status fight so I wasn't using mana pots so if I did I could've maybe had enough mana for AB spamming to be worthwhile.

I was really underwhelmed from arcane the last time I specced it (61/0/0) as you can also see in my previous postings in this thread. Though I was fed up with deep fire (10/48/3) and after recognizing once again that deep frost (0/0/61) might be a great PvP spec but can't compete with other specs in raids I gave arcane another shot. This time as 50/11/0 for the occasional "pew pew Instant Pyro".

What can I say? I'm loving it.
Though I got to admit that I just tried Hyjal with the build so far and the trash is probably the best place for such a spec. Having Spellpower and a lot of crit on your Arcane Explosion will trigger the Lightning Capacitor so often that it will contribute about 10% of your overall damage which is absolutely huge. I was easily outperforming anyone during those AoE-phases.
Can't really talk too much about the damage on tank and spank-fights or bosses but my first impression is quite good. Used to be #1 every single try on Archimonde.

The few things I enjoy the most about this spec compared to Deep Fire or Frost:
- You can actually use all those fancy items (mainly trinkets for me) on bossfights since you're so easily capped on spellhit
- You have so much more control over your mana - I finished a couple of bossfights completely oom (Azgalor, Anatheron) which I can't recall happening with deep fire. On the other hand keeping a sufficient manapool like in the Khaz'Rogal-encounter was a lot easier, too.
- Big numbers. No, actually HUGE numbers which are just fun. With deep fire you'll only get such numbers once Molten Fury kicks in.

Overall I'm quite impressed by the spec. My equip is quite good though not gemmed perfectly (used to be hit-capped on bosses with fire/frost). Gonna try to gather and upload some logs to WWS to see a good breakdown of how good the spec can actually perform in SSC/TK/Black Temple without that many AoE-parts.

I've got a 43/18 going mostly for improved scorch but otherwise my spec is similar to yours, I also find that mana is very easy to manage, just pick a different rotation with different spells and you're good. This is also where imp scorch comes in very handy, since it's very efficient mana wise, but does decent damage because you scorch up a target quickly. \

I'm on 1120 spelldamage/ 28.5% crit with molten armor and I output about 1K DPS on tank'n'spank stuff. Aoe packs stuff just goes through the roof due to arcane impact, spellpower and the lightning capacitator.

I love reading the detailed conversation many people put forward on the arcane topic, but unfortunately - for many newcoming mages alot of the discussion is not very good at giving them a blunt answer to the question = 'can arcane work' so heres a quick breakdown.

Can arcane specs work in raids? Yes
Can arcane do good dps? Yes - but the extent depends on your gear, skill, raid setup, understanding of the encounter and experience at playing as Arcane. If you excel at those qualities you might find your dps surprisingly high.


The btm line really is - arcane specs can work - depending on what you value (super dps? utility? versatility? low-agro generation? high range? efficiency? survivability?). Every spec has strengths and weakeness. Is it the best? Is it fun to play? Thats for you to decide.

Here's how to raid stack for a mage and lose to a rogue?

Rage Winterchill
Vampiric Touch (Mana):
Mana Spring (Mana):
Innervate: 2 innervates on the mage on a 3 min fight. Good Game
Invisibility 2: 2 invis on one 3 min fight?
Bloodlust:
Brilliance Aura: Helps regen though the fight (not available anywhere else)

I mean come on. Most fights aren't this short. Most raids don't stack for one mage to the extent that they are. Trying to justify Arcane based on silly parses like those is amusing.

I've tried Arcane. Sure with a shadow priest and a short fight it's really fun to pump out large numbers. If you don't have quite the right raid composition your dps takes a hit far harder than any other spec.

If you look at the rest of those parses you'll still see shaman+spriest trying to keep his mana up and even innervates.

Thx for the resource, I had a quick look and its nice.

Looking at Domins (very) high dps on Hydross I was expecting his WWS parse to show alot of aoe damage, but in fact he does 0 aoe - its all just ab/am spam (90% of his damage) to get 1k+ dps sustained over 7 minutes. Very impressive!

Heres the link to his parse: http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...e&s=0-552&a=15


What are you trying to say? You make it sound like each player is meant to be a stand-alone unit in a raid. 'Even innervates'? Who else really needs innervates anyway! Most healers chain pots like candy and have fantastic regen.

Blizzard has designed the classes in the expansion to quite obviously be inter-dependant on each other for best DPS performance in raids. Arcane is one of the specs the stands the most to benefit from correct grouping in raids. Is this a bad thing? It depends on your playstyle preference. Personally - I like it.

Just because various guilds utilise clever or smart means to bolster players dps (like shadow priests/shamans for that guy etc) doesnt mean the spec that takes advantage of it more is 'lesser' than anything else - a huge chunk of the game is designed around this inter-dependancy now and its a smart thing to take advantage of it, Blizzard wants you to do it!

Would people feel better if we discussed 25-man raiding scenario bosses pretending that we are really in a 1 man raid and have no access to outside buffs at all? No, if we're going to talk about raids - people should accept (without being cynical) that guilds can and will try to find various means to bolster dps with raid setup and some specs benefit dis-proportionately more than others - without looking at it and going 'oh, that doesnt count cuz he had a shadow priest'.

If your healers have enough mana to heal the fight who else are you going to give innervate to? Already been shown that fire mages for one don't use all their mana and 2 usually tailor their gear for less spirit. Locks and hunters don't have the spirit for innervate to do any good, so it comes down to innervating mages, druids or holy priests. I don't see why it would be wrong for a threat reduced class like a mage to give him innervates provided your healers are fine on mana. (I'm guessing for those big number ones he is chain potting supers, and likely his healers are too)

wrong thread =(

While you may be disappointed by the the very poor mage threads as of late (and youre not alone, ah well), I will point out that the link you gave is like tailor made to make people think arcane spec is better than it really is.


For instance, I recopied your post:

Teron Gorefiend (Tank and Spank Fight) 379,058 Damage Done @ 1400 DPS SUSTAINED
4min fight, received 1 innervate
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...ps4dbw&s=0-279
fire spec: 1263 DPS SUSTAINED, oil + adept's elixir, no innervate
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...602-11943&a=25

Anetheron (Mt. Hyjial) 357,055 Damage Done @ 1545 DPS SUSTAINED
3min fight
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...f1&s=1483-1767
fire spec: 1250 DPS SUSTAINED, unpotted, no innervate
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...ei&s=9113-9385

Rage Winterchil 302,951Damage Done @ 1602 DPS SUSTAINED
3min fight, received 2 innervates
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...6m&s=1096-1312
fire spec: 1125 DPS SUSTAINED, unpotted, no innervate
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=3324-3553&m

Hydross 466,202 Damage done @ 1038 DPS SUSTAINED
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...2ajkie&s=0-552
fire spec: 1083 DPS SUSTAINED, unpotted, no innervate
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=14930-15269

That's an interesting point I suppose. I've always said arcane is far more adaptable, fire is far more standard. This is ultimately true. If your raid is off the beaten path enough to give you shittons of mana you will make better use of it than fire specs. Fire spec will never let you down.

Simply because the examples given are fights that favor arcane mages, or have an abnormal amount of very nonstandard things in them.

If the examples were broad and gave an appropriate average expectation I would not have commented on the matter.

Ah. But in the current raiding game - with members interdependant on each other for performance, how and where do people draw the line to say 'that favours X class'. Blizzard wants you to setup your raid to favour certain people, both in general class composition and internal group setup.

If people have this idea that all fights are intended to be long and anything shorter (like the cited examples) 'dont count' because they 'favour certain classes' I really would love someone to give me a 100% authoritative answer on what fight parameters (length, mechanics, everything) must be in place for people to be allowed to discuss the merits of a specs performance without hearing 'nup favours that spec, sorry doesnt count'.

Blizzard has no problems making 3-6 minute fights it seems - They are a part of the game, if people have a way to take advantage of it and excel while doing it, good on them. If they favour certain players - why is it frowned on.

It's not another thread. Within the cotext of the title of the thread, "Work" has to have added meaning. This thread is all about whether or not Arcane focused builds can put out comparable or better DPS in a real raid environment to the alternative. In this case, the alternative is fire.

Selective citation is a good way to mislead and present conclusions that don't hold up when put into practice by others.

While it's important to note that arcane spec can in very short fights, not all fights are very short. If all the examples focuses on are those short fights, thats either a sign of foolishness or one of intellectual dishonesty.

Now your just being argumentative. The alternative is important. If Arcane spec always did significantly lower damage then fire, it wouldn't "work". If maximizing any mage specs dps does not do comparable damage to the other specs, it doesn't work and no one would bring them to raids.

This is a min-maxing forum about min-maxing a build and evaluating the value of that build. The value of any specific build is wholly dependant on the alternative. It's all aboput oppurtunity cost.

p.s. Please delete this post. Did not turn out the way i wanted it to be.

The main reason I stopped using this (very fun) gem in raids is because when you proc it on Arcane Missiles the focus proc expires before the missiles complete casting and you cant use it, unless you break channeling early. Its quite frustrating.

I wish they would change it to '5% chance on spellcast - after your current spell has finished channeling/casting - your next spell will be cast in half time' to fix the AM issue.

Well it could be good too, if it procs as you cast AM you get double AM in 5 seconds.

I said how it works for the most part. Your raid bends over backward to make your dps rockstar good. Fire can be competitive without external help.

I can't count on having a shadowpriest and a resto shaman every fight. Heck I sometimes can't count on either one. Not having at least one of those means your dps as an arcane spec will be VERY poor compared to the same group setup with fire.

That is the reality that alot of people just kindly ignore.

And this you know, why? For fire to produce good numbers it needs just as much help, it's just capped to an extent where as you can keep helping an arcane mage to do better. (ie. Innervates freed up from healers)

Have you tried arcane spec without a spriest or shaman or innervate? I have, and it's not optimal but it's not making you fall to the bottom of dmg meters either.