I'm pretty sure that this is because of the way that channeled spells work with the FSR - no matter what you will not regenerate mana at the full rate while channeling a spell. Casting a clearcasted AM won't activate the FSR, but as long as you are channeling you will only get FSR regeneration.

For example, try it with Blizzard, you will get inside FSR regeneration up until the spell ends, at which point outside FSR regeneration will resume. You could cancel the blizzard at 5 seconds and get normal regeneration past that point as well.

I don't know if this is a bug or working as intended, but to the best of my knowledge this is how the game currently works.

Did shamans get 100% regen with multiple clearcasts back when their clearcasting was 100% mana return? If so, the only difference is that their LB/CLs weren't channeled but normal cast time spells. Your explanation makes sense, but I still think it shouldn't be like that. As it is, when it comes to mana regeneration, clearcasting has a better synergy with frost/fire nukes than with the supposed main nuke in its own tree.

I doubt that a change which would allow 100% regeneration while channeling (clearcasted!) spells wouldn't have really big unforeseen consequences for other classes. The only thing I can think of is druids proccing omen of clarity, channeling a free tranquility and getting full regen while they're at it. I'm no druid expert but they have to be in melee range to proc it, which probably doesn't happen often if they're resto.

Yes, we did. Getting 3 crits in a row would result in OOFSR regen ticks in spam casting, and intelligent use of Elemental Mastery gave us guaranteed ticks.

So I finally got some time to mess around the mystical skyfire diamond on test and came back with some more interesting data that makes the whole haste AM theory even better. No haste gear other than the gem was used.

Which looks a whole lot like AM isn't consuming the focus buff. This would mean that if you pick up your focus proc on the last 2 bolts of AM you could double dip on the proc. Lets say your lag on getting your next channel off is .2 seconds.

-.2 seconds AM bolt 4
0 Focus Proc
0.8 AM bolt 5
1.0 Hasted AM channel
3.5 Hasted AM bolt 5
3.7 Hasted AM bolt 1
4.0 Focus Fades

I think I'm getting too excited about this bug, it's too good to make it through.

Mind flay doesn't consume the focus buff either, and it already works that way on live servers. It's technically an instant cast spell (you pay mana up front) so it doesn't eat Focus. But because it's channeled, it still gets the benefit of focus. So I bet the same thing is happening with Arcane Missiles.

Yes, this is completely amazing with Bloodlust. If you get a proc during lust, Mind Flays cast in around 1 second instead of 3, so you essentially do triple damage, and Vampiric Touch makes the extra mana cost really quite marginal. I imagine the mana cost for spamming Arcane Missiles would be significantly larger though.

Is there any trinket without an internal cooldown that has "Chance on spell hit: Gain some mana"? I can't think of any, but it seems ideal in conjunction with Lightning Capacitor for Arcane Missiles spam.

It's already like that now with the focus buff and AM.
If you get a focus buff just as you start AM (procced from your last spell) it will have the speed and you can start another one with the buff as well (2,5 sec cast and 3 second buff).
Personally i don't think this build will be viable mana wise, i played around a bit with the focus buff and missiles and when you get bloodlust + proc your mana is gone so fast.
Not sure about the interaction with JoW cause it wasn't really on much when i was fooling around with missiles.

well, there is infact, Mark of Defiance, but it dosen't realy work wtih AM atm, in the next patch though, it will, then it's 15% chanse of getting ~150 mana on each hit. Donno if it's worth it though 5x(0.15x150)=112,5 mana back on average on every AM

Don't forget judgement of wisdom as well.

What I think is that most people, when discussing arcane and then arcane missiles, forget one of the best things about AM, it's 1 spell hit per second, which can be depending on your gear a huge advantage. AM I geuss, would realy shine with lots of "on spell hit" gear.

Ok so I finally got to test it a bit since it took 4 days to copy my character over.

Problem is, the numbers are far too inconsistent. And the lag is pretty terrible, even when I go at the whee hours and nobody is logged. Often I get a focus proc, and it seems like it lasts for 2 casts. Its very hard to tell whether I just got a refreshing focus, or its just bugged, or its lag, or whatever. Its not consistent if anything.

I can post some numbers, but those are greatly affected by my very inconsistent crit rate as well.

I managed to get 1450-1500 DPS AM spam about 10% of the time I tried and emptied my mana bar unto dr boom. That's using nothing else than self buff + flask. The AM spam DPS seems to go from 1100 to 1200, and the occasional 'lol I just procced 8 focus in a row' 1500 DPS. DPM seems very stable at around 5.50-5.60, which is still clocking not too bad in comparison to AB spam. (although I was expecting much better DPM -- I had probably JOW counted in)

I can't tell for sure whether its eating focus or not when I cast AM. It seems like it, but that could be just my mind playing me tricks. I did see quite a few times focus buffs that seemed to stay past my spell (ie: stay on despise 'consuming it').

Now something needs to be kept in mind. 1- The results would vary *a lot* during bloodlust. Particularly if AM doesn't consume focus....that would yield some pretty insane numbers and focus uptime. The other important thing to keep in midn is that the results would vary quite a bit if clearcasting was working properly, because AM gets a 'double dipping' out of clearcast. This extra amount of crit ends up giving MORE TLC procs, and more ashtongue trinket uptime. The numbers can vary quite a bit when this works properly.

Somewhat to my surprise, I tried and compared briefly crusade to ashtongue trinket on AM spam... Most of the time it seems like ashtongue is winning out. This was not possible before since AM was not proccing ashtongue.At the worst case the numbers are almost the same. Also, it seems ashtongue is a great fit for 3x AB, AM, scorch rotation, which definately surprised me, despise the fact that while thinking back about it it does somewhat makes sense.

Another thing that greatly surprised me is how well ashtongue + TLC scale well together. 8-9% of my damage from TLC alone was not uncommon. I don't know if TLC lightning bolt can proc ashtongue as well, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Its definately not clear, due to poor testing platform, whether or not AM spam is more interesting than AB spam as a way to dump mana. Since ashtongue seems to work quite well on 3x AB/AM/scorch rotation, and that it does particularly well on AM spam, that it would be possible to equip that instead of crusade and plan on 3x AB/AM/scorch and finish the fight with AM spam as a mana dump (which you could start much much earlier than AB spam, which means potentially more DPS done depending on DPM/DPS ratios). I'll definately have to consider the option.

Having only 2 piece of spell haste it was god damn hard to tell whether it really helped or not to keep proccing the mystical skyfire diamond / ashtongue.

rank 3 AM spam resulted in 520 DPS when COS is up. 7.6 DPM.

Another thing that was really not readily apparent was the difference in DPM between a 3x AB/AM/scorch rotation version AM spam. It does seem like the AB/AM/scorch rotation is a bit more mana efficient, and that, to my surprise, the damage of AM spam was somewhat comparable. However, sometimes you just get those retarded streak of focus procs that gives you the aforementioned 1500 dps with no buffs on. It definately seems like a very possible alternative. Now keep in mind I only tested with 2pc t6, so that means the numbers could very well tip in AM spam favor with 4pc T6 (and that would mean you could raid with arcane spec without 2pc t5....how odd).

I think that, my initial impression is that its hard to conclude anything. AM spam is definately not as bad as it once was. Lack of clearcasting fucks up numbers. Lack of testing with bloodlust changes things too. I don't know if it consumes focus when i cast AM. The benefits from spell haste were hard to notice (ie: passive spell haste). The results were very inconsistent because sometimes you just get no procs, but other times you get 3-4 focus in a row and it just gets nuts. But even with very very low focus procs, the 7% haste that is almost always up from ashtongue gives somewhat decent numbers. And that without talking of the DPM which can be very substantially better with JOW.

My personal gut feeling about the whole thing is that ashtongue makes TLC somewhat uber good. And thats where the damage really comes from.

Soo much things to test.

It has been said in this thread already that AM doesn't consume focus and you can double dip in it, simply because AM doesn't have a cast time in the traditional sense, instant casts don't consume it as well. Not sure if you expected it to be different on the PTR, I'm just wondering why you keep mentioning it.

So it's true that every single tick of AM can proc focus? Doesn't that make it harder to double-dip into it when it procs off the first or second missile? It's already a wasted proc if it procs from any AM cast on live, having it proc from every single missile would make it worse if you're unlucky.

For mages, there's an odd exception to this.

If you consume a clearcasting proc with AM, and that AM itself procs clearcasting, the FSR timer isn't refreshed, and you could see full ticks before the channeling finishes.

I don't know if that's changed/going to change in 2.2, but back when I was running proc/mana regen tests for my arcane DPS theorycrafting, that's how it worked.

Well, since spell haste effects now affect channeled spells, and I'd consider Focus a spell haste effect, it seems like it should consume Focus? I haven't tried it, obviously, but does that mean you can't get 2.5 second AM volleys?

If so, then the change is a little less awesome in terms of Focus than before... if it procs off your first or second volleys, Focus is going to fade before you can start your next spell unless you cancel the AM.

Well, it's always been like that since last patch. If you proc focus with AM, the buff will run out before the volley is finished and will be wasted unless you cancel AM and cast a new one.
And no, focus doesn't consume channeled spells and instant casts, only normal cast time spells. This means you can get two 2.5 second AM volleys out of one focus proc. Also nothing new here.

Technically the [Pendant of the Violet Eye] doesn't have an internal cooldown but that's mostly because it has an external one. Still, if each missle is procing the mp5 buff my napkin math suggests that the use effect is worth about 70 mp5 after you factor in the cooldown. Big +int bonus on it too, I can't help but think this trinket was intended for an arcane mage because I can't think of any other caster class that would get as much out of it as arcane's talent buffs for Int as well as their extreamly high hit/sec rate.

I think Mark of Defiance has an internal cooldown, but its rather short. Same thing unfortunately for Spellsurge enchant.

The only thing I can think of that doesn't have a cooldown is [Blade of Eternal Darkness] but I don't think you can justify the loss in stats from a MH to justify that. Though as a regen item with low rank AM+JoW...

Well, since its a weapon you can swap it in once you get really low on mana. Not that I would seriously consider doing this, but i could under the most extreme cases imagine doing rank 3 AM spam with JOW up just to proc this thing up and hope to get a clearcast.

But I would find it far fetched to farm a 0.5% maraudon drop and justify the inventory slot.

This is more of a gearing issue regarding arcane mages.

What I was wondering was with regards to the Mystical Skyfire Diamond, with the 50% reduced cast time proc. Since I won't be getting my tier 5 helm for quite some time, is it a good idea to downgrade from Spellstrike Hood to Tier 4 helm in order to use the meta gem? My next tier 5 piece is either going to be gloves or pants, and if using the meta gem is more important than the pure stat gains from the spell strike, should Tier 5 pants be the piece that you would look for to get the 2 piece bonus?

I was lucky and got the Blade on my first Maraudon back in the day when I rolled my Mage as an alt. Still have it in the bank, I believe... Might try to do some tests on PTR and see how much mana one can actually get back with it under similar conditions.

(On a funny aside, I remember the Blade being downright insane as a noob Mage in ZG for AE packs, and later in BWL in the Supression Room. Getting 5-6 procs per Arcane Explosion at times was always a bit amusing.)

I used to use mystical skyfire diamond (in 49 arc, 12 fire spec) then stopped for one main reason. Arcane missiles proc the diamond but the focus buff only lasts 2 seconds. So if you proc focus at the *start* of arcane missiles when you cast it, the two second diamond focus runs out before the 5 seconds worth of missiles have finished channeling, effectively wasting it (unless you break your missiles early to re-cast it again and use it - which is a stupid thing to have to do)

For that reason I would recommend that if your a heavy arcane mage (ie you use arcane missiles in your rotation) you stick with relentless earthstorm diamond metas. If you don't use arcane missiles at all (scorch/fireball/ab rotations etc) then the mystical skyfire is still a great option/

This, of course, is all subject to change - pending whether the PTR AM/focus 'bug' is a legit change and whether it will make it to the public realms.

IMO yes, at your progression most mages currently wear Spellstrike pants. Spellstrike pants->tier 5 pants ia a huge raw stat upgrade. Remember the power of arcane mages comes a great deal from their raw stats (our +int becomes our +dam, and we value mana regen from the extra spirit more than fire/frost mages). I think tier 5 pants should definetely be the first piece you pickup if you intend to get the 2 piece bonus, the other piece doesnt really matter so much. The upgrade from your current shoulders/gloves->tier 5 probably isnt going to give you the same raw stat upgrade spellstrike->tier 5 pants will. Unless, of course - your decked out in spellfire and gimped to hell with stats across the board =)

You didn't really answer his question, which also happens to be my question. Would it be worthwhile to downgrade from spellstrike to t4 helm just to get the meta gem effect. How much is 3% crit dmg worth? With a little less then 25% crit chance without molten armor in my arcane gear is it worth giving up about 16 dmg and 16 hit rating from spellstrike?

Thought it lasted 5 seconds? What I was lead to believe while reading this thread.