dukes

I was arcane spec on my alt mage (somewhere mid 50's now) for a bit of a difference from fire or frost post-2.0 and it definitely works like that. You really notice the difference when you're running at about 7-8% crit rate

 

Jeru

Not necessarily. It's not like Arcane does crap damage when CC doesn't proc, it mainly takes a hit in mana efficiency. It does good damage without procs and excellent damage with procs. Also, steady, consistent damage is most desirable on a tank&spank, but there are many fights with brief windows for damage, or short debuffs on mobs that increase damage, or adds that need to die quick, and specs that can burst better are very valuable on these fights. The thing with arcane/fire is that it's flexible. You can burst, you can be efficient with ab/scorch, you have range when needed, you kind of have it all.

It does work like this.

Most of the time you don't spam AM but use an AB rotation, and if AB procs the metagem, you can easily cancel it with stopcasting without suffering any penalties. Of course it sucks if AM procs the metagem. But I do think that the burst it brings (especially when it overlaps with other procs such as CC and crit trinkets) makes up for the 0.5-1 seconds screw-up in your cast rotations.

 

MeCh

Yes this is how it works.

 

Vhad

CC does indeed work like described, can confirm that. I have about 1300 arcane dmg unbuffed now, raid buffed and with a shaman its around 1500, that brought my AM near 1000 hits with CoS on the target, that combined with being hit capped and ~28% crit makes AM pretty damn good.

The synergy of Lightning Capacitor + Any proc related trinkets/gear + CC mechanic on AM makes it really shine. I posted a WWS for a Leo kill last week where the capacitor ended up doing 54 dps or 6% of my 829 dps for the fight, I was on purpose trying to use AM as much as possible and it worked out pretty well - still can't wait for my 2 set so I can use AB alot more.

What!?

 

◊ forostie

61 arcane here. Why? No point putting talent points elsewhere. With my gear (see left for armory link) I can sustain high dps in fights while maintaining a nice mana pool. Arcane is definitely not a spec for the undergeared, I wouldn't reccommend it until you get at least 2 tier 5. The best part about arcane is the fact that you can stack hit on your gear, needing a mere 76 hit to be at the 16% hit cap (through talents). Also, if you are worried about your aoe damage compared to blast wave and dragons breath, don't worry, you'll smash them .

The rotation I use on fights where mana really isn't an issue due to moving often (eg Lurker, Void Reaver, Leotheras) is AB-AB-AB-Scorch-AM. It's slightly mana inefficient, but high dps.

On fights that require better mana conservation I use a simple AB-AB-AM rotation. Still does good damage and allows you to hang onto mana. Come 15% or below, if you have a decent mana pool (say 8k or so) you can climb up the damage meters very very rapidly by spamming arcane blast. Also, don't forget to use arcane power. My I WIN button has been slightly altered to contain arcane blast instead of pyroblast. If it crits, youre looking at a 5.5-6k instant arcane blast (1150 +arcane) and 2k+ arcane missile crit ticks.

For those that are worried about mana, if you are smart about it, and don't mind potting (which you shouldn't, they are ridiculously cheap now) you should not have to worry. I was worried about this spec on Vashj, as I am an elemental killer, but alternating between arcane blasts and scorches was fine, didn't let any through and did not have to evocate until phase 3.

In summary, arcane is a very viable spec, I would personally not bother putting points in any other tree as it seems a waste. You do however need the gear to back it up, and need to be smart about what you are doing.

http://tinyurl.com/28snfu

This above is a link of a few of our recent kills.

No, not top of the damage meters (I'm a mage, what were you expecting?), but still high up there, with very high dps. Some notes to also consider:

Al'ar : Constant target changing as I was killing adds, but still managed highest dps
Vashj Kill : Had two tainted elementals on my corner and a new guy relay runner, was a bit slow to get into position so I lost some dps there.
Vashj Wipe : I died at 14% yay sporebat zerg
Tidewalker : Graved twice during murlocs.

In summary, arcane is a very viable spec, I would personally not bother putting points in any other tree as it seems a waste. You do however need the gear to back it up, and need to be smart about what you are doing.

 

JonaWoW

Well, we hit Gruul again last night and my damage definitely improved a LOT just by using a different spell rotation (I did the AB-AB-AM-Scorch rotation). I'm still getting used to it, though. Oh, and I didn't actually respec until after the raid (43/18/0 now).

The thing I really need to address is the comments about gear. Apparently the Spellfire set is not the optimum set for an arcane mage. Considering that my guild isn't at Mag yet but we're clearing Kara and Gruul's weekly, what gear from those places (or heroics) should I try to get that would be better suited to my spec than the spellfire/spellstrike set? And why? I actually picked up a Nethershard Girdle in Kara tonight, but was only planning on using it for my Krosh-tanking set, since I'd lose my spellfire set bonus were I to put it on my regular damage set.

I'm very conflicted about the gear issue and need people to clarify. Once we're finally past Gruul's, what should I look for in a good piece of gear for a 43/18/0 spec? Is the Robe of Elder Scribes from Nightbane worthwile? (It actually dropped tonight as well, but someone else in the group could use it more than I could).

 

Graf

Guljin:
Al'ar : no fire mage to compare
Vashj Kill : Fire wins
Vashj Wipe : Fire wins
Tidewalker : Fire wins

...while you have the best equipment, sure its viable, but not top-notch.
Still very good done, and maybe in a few months orso...

 

Shawn

The Robe of Elder Scribes is a nice robe for Arcane. It has a good amount of stats, DMG and Crit and the proc will often be up during AM-spam and AE-parts. In general (as earlier stated in this thread) you should aim for more stat-heavy (int and spirit) items than the Spellfire-set.

 

Jeru

Elder Scribes is very good for Arcane. The good thing with arcane is also that the mage tier gear compliments it well, since it has lots of int and spi, good crit but less straight damage.

Guljin: I doubt that 61/0/0 is better than 43/18/0, really. Most of the arcane talents are fillers, and with the latter spec you can still help keeping up fire vulnerability, you have the mighty pom-pyro, and you have 41 yard range when needed. I wouldn't want to do curator or prince without it. But then again I don't really know anything about fights past gruul, are there no fights at all where 41 yard range is needed/a big bonus? And how about some more arcane immune bosses/trash?

 

◊ forostie

This wasn't a comparison of fire to arcane. It's there to show what arcane is capable of. 41 yard range isn't necessary in any fights I have come across yet. I really see no point putting points into fire with an arcane build unless you are going 33/28 nuke spec for pvp, as the end talents in fire are far to critical too miss out on for damage. As for kara bosses....haven't done one on my main since April

 

Vhad

But itll always be a comparisson to fire mages, ofc the spec is viable, alot of people are questioning how good it is though. Would you perform better if you were 10 48 3? Who knows, the numbers suggest you would. It's not been the case for me thus far raiding with Arcane, I often enough beat the fire mages and that's with more or less equal gear.

What!?

 

Icicles

As a new arcane specced mage, just got 2pc T5, first night trying 61 arcane, here's Solarian

http://www.paradosi.net/raids/wws-20...5/icicles.html

I lost a bit more to moving around vs. the 10/48/3 mage Arel, I got the wrath once, he didn't, but a whole 100 dps higher, and out AE'd him (barely) shows the potential of this spec. Not to mention the op of TLC on AE fights, but I still did more to Solarian as well.

The rotation I used first night was ABx3, AMx2, AM on CC obviously, and it worked reasonably well, I wish I had the wws from the Gruul kill earlier that night, was only outdamaged by George and it was a dead heat until execute range.

I did well with 10/48/3, but I really enjoy the Arcane spec more, I feel I have more control over my dps potential instead of just spamming Fireball and hoping my crit rate holds.

Also, when JoW is available, AM becomes amazingly efficient filler in the AB rotation.

 

DecimusGarona

You may want to try adjusting your rotation to 1AB 1AM, AM on CC.

3X AB gives you 3 AB casts
1 2.5 second
1 2.17 second
1 1.84 second

Averages out to 3x 2.17s casts.

On 1AB 1AM you get your AB 2.17 second cast every time, except when you restart the rotation on a clearcast AM. However, you only get charged the base mana cost on each cast, since the AB debuff wears off before the next AB finishes casting. Movement intensive fights do mess this up somewhat, but you still have a couple of seconds to move after an AM before the AB debuff wears off. You can also do 2 ABs and keep it going like that to average out at a 2s cast AB, but you will have to wait a slight fraction of a second after AM (usually handled by latency anyways) to avoid running a 3rd debuff and messing up your rotation.

Note: this theorycraft assumes you are free to cast whatever you like, whenever you like, and obviously your spell usage may vary depending on specific mechanics and the duration of the encounter.

 

Icicles

Thanks, gonna give it a shot tonight. I found with the 3AB, 2AM rotation, mana wasn't really an issue (shadow priest obviously helped) until I wanted it to be with prolonged AB spam.

1AB, 1AM looks like it should be just as efficient (maybe a bit less if JoW is up), and more reliant on AB for damage.

 

Zwink

Just respecced from 10/48/3 to 40/18/3 last night and I love it! I use a ABx3 and Fireballx2 sequence macro. It works pretty well for managing my mana. As for gear I'm currently using 4/5 Tier 5, but I'm considering using 2/5 Tier 5 and Spellfire when stamina isn't necesesary. Overall this talent change from deep fire to arcane has been very very nice. I went from hovering near the top 5 to being at the very top, assuming I chug super mana potions.

I'm not sure what type of rotation I'll use for farm content using this spec since I certainly don't want to have to chain pop mana potions on old content.

http://vodka-guild.com

 

Aoife

I went with a 35/26 build for tonight's raid and I liked it a lot. Instead of just spamming scorch the whole time, I mixed in lots of Arcane Blasts. I did not use Arcane Missiles, but I can see how it could be very useful. Fully raid buffed I was sitting at about 40% crit for Scorch and about 33% for Arcane Blast. If I can get the Lightning Capacitor tomorrow, I can see my damage jumping a lot.

It's going to take some getting used to, but I think I'll be able to manage better dps once I get used to rotating AB and Scorch. I was mostly just winging it throughout most of the fight. One thing I did have to do though was use AB spam on Heroism and wow that was great DPS.

I might make the switch to a deeper Arcane spec after I master this one, but I think this is a pretty good build. My only problem was the high resist rate on scorch, but I can fix that (eventually) with gear. I definitely think that this spec will be much stronger once I get 2-piece T5.

 

Kavan

Now that Heroism was mentioned I remembered something. Whenever I do AB spam with /stopcasting I'm getting spell not ready errors. I thought Heroism was supposed to decrease the GCD. I remember some previous posts on the subject but I don't think we ever came to conclusion what's the reason for spell not ready errors.

 

galzohar

I'm almost sure that heroism doesn't reduce the global cooldown, hence why those errors are. When I scorch I hit the /stopcasting /cast next spell whenever the GCD is up, but when I do that my scorch had already fired, meaning if the GCD would be faster I would've been able to click early (for fireballs I always click the next fireball before I see the current one firing when timing it right).

Some numbers for arcane DPS vs fire DPS:
TBC Mage Theorycrafting

In short it shows that ABX3-scorch-fireballX2 is the best DPS you'll ever get with arcane, and both 40/20 and 33/28 give about the same DPS as 10/48/3 fireball spamming (granted, maybe like 1% more tops), but limit your range to 30 yards and eliminates your mana pool. While those aren't an issue on many fights, since it doesn't do more dps really, I don't see the point of losing range and mana efficiency by speccing arcane.
And if you don't have 2/5 T5 you can completely forget about AB for DPS.

 

Drogon

I've been reading a lot of the stuff on arcane (as much of it as I can) and I haven't been able to find a stat for stat comparison. I can't believe that this hasn't been done because it's so basic, but I'm having a very difficult time finding it. If anyone has a link to, or knows the weights for each stat I would really appreciate it. I refuse to believe that all stats weight the same for arcane as they do for the standard 10/48/3 fire build, spirit has to count for something and int has to count for more.

I like to think that I have a fairly good idea of how each stat compares to the others, but I'm interested to see the actual weighted vales after all the math.

 

galzohar

For me with full spellfire int is 0.27 spell damage equivalent (due to crit and set bonus, without the bonus it would be closer to 0.2). For arcane you get additional 0.25 damage per int, so that's easy to figure out. Your crits are weaker, though (with arcane spells at least, with fire spells they're actually stronger). Just go to one of the spreadsheets that support your wanted spec and rotation and see for yourself.

 

Kavan

For a boss scenario in my gear I get the following (Shiffar/Lightning Capacitor, no tier 5 bonus):

2.724 Int = 4.738 Spi = 2.079 Damage = 2.545 Crit Rating = 3.329 MP5

 

Alihandras

I have been Deep Arcane/Fire for a while, well since I hit level 70 until now. My spec was 40/18/3, and Arcane is a very hard spec to deal with in raids at times. I had when specced that way 1015 spell dmg 25.6% crit 11.1k mana and 7% to hit before EP. Here is my true comparison of arcane to Deep Fire 10/48/3 (my current spec).

In the higher end 25 man raids endurance and mobility play THE key role of DPS and it's becoming more and more apparent to me. When I was arcane my attack rotation was stack 5 scorches then fireball scorch fireblast fireball scorch fireblast etc etc wait for the fireblast CD 6.5 secs fireball/scorch then jam it. This is A) Extremely mana intensive im comparison to deep fire, B) opens the oppurtunity to extreme yet short lived burst dmg. I was finding myself every time the mana gem/super mana pot CD up having to burn them immediately on top of timing 2 evo's per encounter such as even VR.

I'm going to use Void Reaver for the comparison mostly because it's the easiest base for ranged DPS in SSC/TK. Standing 20 yards from VR doesn't cut it, your forced to stand with range, thus cutting my damage forcing me to fireball spam. What I noticed the end result being was me about 7th in DPS with only 650 DPS due to constant movement and non usage of my regular rotation. This week with my Deep Fire spec, the scorch's were laid down and the fireball spam commenced. I noticed A) Less mana intensive B)EXTREMELY steady DPS. I clocked in 4th with 749 DPS that night. Albeit my stats now are bordering 846 dmg 30.1% to crit 9.9k mana and 7% hit before EP. The DPS is steadier.

As much as I love arcane and that feeling of popping arcane power and pom pyroblasting something, it is just inferior in the high end raids. You A) can't stand as close/stay rooted as long as you need to be with the arc/fire tree. Deep Fire requires 3 seconds then you can do wtfever you need to be it arrange yourself for an arcane bolt to the face, a pack of murlocs on Tidewalker etc. etc. Also the major benefactor imo of Deep Fire that is NEEDED in these lengthy encounters is the +20% dmg when the targets HP is under 20%. It is a beautiful thing to me at my current gear level to see a constant non stop flow of 3-3.5k base Fireballs with crits of 5k+. The entire final 20% of a fight it is huge to hit that hard constantly.

Now when it comes to using arcane based attacks in raids imo it just can't happen. Arcane Blast spam requires about 3 SP's to keep you up unless you spread the debuff length and wait to attack which adds to the immobolity factor. Or Arcane Missles which requires a full 5 seconds of channeling no movement at the cost of the damage of the attack. These are also extremely mana intensive and only promote the wear of mana in the arcane tree. I think that in Karazhan Gruul maybe Mag you can definately get away with arc/fire. You have to be extremely smart with mana conservation, and believe I was extremely good at keeping my mana pool and keeping the DPS flow constant.

But when it came to mobility and the dozens of other factors in these new encounters I was finding myself short of attacks. When I can watch myself sustain an extreme rate of high DPS on gruul, yet in the VR encounter I wasn't able to move around enough. In the end what I think of the 2 specs is that with arcane you truly are burst. With Deep Fire you are steady. An encounter such as Prince in Kara you may out DPS a Deep Fire mage, because there are alot of burst segments and the 30 yd cap allows for you be flexible with your placement. But in an encounter such as VR you are constantly being forced to move and keep your DPS high, with arcane you just can't stand that close to do it and you cant be planted long enough to leave your mark.

I will never say that Deep Fire is "Funner" in comparison to my old spec, but doing your job to the raid and keeping a high sustained DPS is alot more important than having your jollies in game if ya catch me. There's nothing like coming out of the gate in arena slamming a arc power trinket pom pyro into someones face and seeing it crit for 6.5k, but you will never sustain that kind of damage in a raid enviroment.

The truth of the BC encounters imo is showing to focus heavily on A) Mobility B) Durability. In the past 1 week alone I have noticed a few things fo sure, there is no more heavy burst finish it off or being front heavy and blowing everything out of the gate. There is a simple bliss of every 3 seconds shooting a fireball that will hit, keep, and maintain a high DPS throughout the encounter. As well as in the final stage of the encounter with the enrage timers breathing down our necks, you are guarenteed to see yourself deal heavier damage and still maintain that heavier damage while never blowing your mana pool.

But that is just my 2 cents on the Arc/Fire vs. Deep Fire spec debate. I know I'm not the best in the world etc. etc. but I do know what I've seen tried and read up on.

If you want to see my setup http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...n&n=Alihandras

 

• Chicken

Alihandras, you might want to consider using two line breaks per paragraph instead of just a single one. It makes your posts read far less like a large wall of text, which is easier on the eyes.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

• Erongg

I haven't seen this WWS linked in this thread, but it seems pretty pertinent: http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...f1&s=1483-1767

Since the WWS may disappear at some point, I'll describe it: Domin of Showdown (specced arcane) doing 1545 DPS on Anatheron. The fight was 4 minutes and change. He had 45 Arcane Blasts and 5 or 6 Arcane Missiles cast (there were 22 AMs landed). One bloodlust, a shadow priest, an evoc, a super mana pot, a mana gem, and a mana tide. Despite this massive DPS, he had only 88% DPS time so he only barely topped the meters. He didn't die and everyone else was near 100% DPS time, so perhaps he ran OOM? Impressive DPS though.

Finite Simple Group of Order Two

 

Northerner

Well, the parse is perhaps a little misleading. The 100% spirit buff is rather helpful for a mage but it's still only three minutes of damage from Domin (during which he caught a nice 43% crit rate, which I presume is above his natural by a good amount). Regardless, short fights are streaky one way or the other (I also assume the #2 mage doesn't normally have a 21 and 16% crit rate on fireball and scorch respectively) and make for poor examples.

It's always fun to look at other raids WWS though. I mean hell, the 1250 dps kitty cat had a nice fight too!