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.
The way dps time is calculated means it favours classes who have dots up/hit faster. Fire mages almost always have higher dps time than arcane/frost mages due to the fireball/ignite dots. If you make "average dps" column visible you'll see a more accurate figure.
Not actually a member of Refusion on Burning Blade.
Hmm I think it would be better that time spent not casting anything doesn't count as DPS time, regardless of if you were DPSing or not ;p but I guess it's really a matter of definition, and therefore you can only really take the % DPS time into consideration if you know where it derives from.
Anyway 4 minute fights are the minority afaik, and even then he needed a mana pot, a shadow priest and an evocation and still probably went oom. Of course I'd still spec arcane probably if all fights in the game were 4 minutes, but again from the fights I'm going to be facing in the near future in SSC/TK they don't seem to be anywhere near that timeframe. No fight before those is that short either, except a few fights in kara but in kara you can't really guarantee yourself a shadow priest anyway even in a good guild.
One of the beauties of Arcane is its adaptability.
4min fight? 1500+ dps, crushing fire.
7min fight? 1000 dps, staying even with fire.
10min fight? 900 dps with superior dpm, pulling away from fire again.
We're seeing a lot of good wws parses for arcane mages now, but i haven't seen too many from what i'd consider a sophisticated arcane mage (with a good fireball/AB cycle).
it's the rotations you don't deem worthy of calculating. stuff like ABx2 Scorchx4 is great dpm, but less dps.
ABx1 Scorchx3 with arcane missiles on clearcasts is so efficient that you can net zero mana loss with a judgement of wisdom =p. The difference in efficiency between arcane and fire is night and day. Don't fight a mana war with arcane specs, that's like fighting a land war in Asia. These efficiency rotations are not terrible dps either. When you get up to heavier dps rotations the efficiency drops noticeably. This is why my spreadsheet auto-selects an arcane cycle based on fight duration and available mana (such as shadow priest, jow, pots etc) to give a realistic estimate in the "typical" situation.
Scorch is bad enough DPS with a scorch optimized spec... And AM is far from the best mage spell. Not casting your next spell or canceling it becaue you want to clearcast AM is even worse.
If you want the best DPM in the game you can just wand for infinite DPM... But at the end it's the damage done on the fight (or at least the important parts of the fights on certain phase-fights) that matters, not what % of the time you were casting because you were more efficient and definitely not how much mana you had at the end.
With 10/48/3 fireball spamming I never run out of mana, if I have to use a lower DPS build in many fights just because I want mana efficiency I'll just stick with my 10/48/3. All you need is enough mana to go through the fight, and with 10/48/3 you have enough mana to go through magtheridon with molten armor and a shadow priest and some pots. That took over 15mins for us and I was clicking a cube in attack range of mag. I even killed him once when I wasn't clicking at all with very minimal wanding - and I can almost be sure that the DPS I lost due to wanding isn't even close to the DPS lost by using AM+scorch.
Heck there's that frost mage in my guild that on grul whenever I wasn't paying enough attention and reapplying scorch too early he would've tied me on DPS. Having the elemental that's unaffected by shatter helps probably, but as soon as I started paying more attention and only reapplying scorch when I *really* have to my DPS went way up. And you can see it if you run the numbers - just keeping up your own scorches once every 8 fireballs is a drop in DPS compared to if someone kept them up for you.
For a build to be considered "better for mana efficiency" it not only needs to have more DPM and mana regen, it also needs to be able to actually deal enough DPS to make the fact the other spec is going oom lose on DPS. And I simply don't see how you get there by using 2XAB and AM/scorch rotations, at least not any any realistically long fight.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: reactively relying on clearcasting aura is a fool's game. By the time you interrupt your spell and switch you will have lost more damage total in almost any situation. Sure you'll gain some dpm but the conversion rate of AB spam over 10/48/3 spam is insufficient to make up that gap from my practical experience. Latency is of course a major factor and favors long casting spells as always.
As to the spriest thing though, yes I do always have one. On many fights we'll rotate people (typically healers) in and out of the spriest group and frankly, on most I am just fine without a shadow priest anyhow (mitigated by potions). That's not a big deal anymore though to be honest, we always field at least one and typically have two spriests in our raids in addition to 2 resto shaman and 2-3 innervates.
Again though, the metrics of interest are damage per second and to a lesser degree damage per mana, time-to-oom is relatively unimportant. I will agree though that the biggest determinant for AM specs is the presence of JoW at all times. Even with that though, AM spam just has too many problems for me to want to change at this point.
I'm not trying to make converts here, I'm just saying we shouldn't confuse "what should be" with "what is". Deep fire performs just fine.
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.
Let me clear few things for you. In this enounter ranged dps have to focus infernals that spawn, they spawn in diffrent locations on top of some plp. Thats why my dps time is only 88%, i had to move quite a lot to dps the infernals. I didnt go oom at all Talibor (person that logged it) didnt log the Rage Winterchill fight when i basicly just stood there and spammed AB all the time, i was ~100k above second person in dmg done, dps from that would be i guess even higher than from Anatheron.
My wsw parse from last Gorefield (basicly tank and spank, you if your lucky and dont get ghost debuff just stand there like on patchwerk and unload all the time) freaked out on me and showed some silly things (like ghost dmg done etc) so i deleted it but i had around ~1.4k dps there with 100% dps time, thats without the brilliance aura you get on 2 first hyjal bosses.
Someone wrote that 42% crit rate on AB is extreamly high and unlikley, well my avg ab crit chance is around ~40% in raids. It can get lower or higher but avg is avg. For example on Grull one time i had 52% o_O.
And yeah, mages in my guild always have a shaman and a sp in grp. I cant picture a raiding guild without 2-3 sp in raid tbh
Hope that cleared few things.
And a bit offtopic:
Why when plp compare fire spec to arcane spec, they compare 41y on fire? For over a year raiding time spent as fire mage i never had to stand on 41y, not to mention doing so would not allow me to scorch for fire debuff.... its moer like 36y vs 30y.
And yeah, since i speced this way i need to pay more attention, fire was such a slacking type of play i miss it sometimes
Last edited by WiPe|Domin : 06/26/07 at 10:44 AM.
Reason: Adding a wsw parse link
Scorch is bad enough DPS with a scorch optimized spec... And AM is far from the best mage spell. Not casting your next spell or canceling it becaue you want to clearcast AM is even worse.
If you want the best DPM in the game you can just wand for infinite DPM... But at the end it's the damage done on the fight (or at least the important parts of the fights on certain phase-fights) that matters, not what % of the time you were casting because you were more efficient and definitely not how much mana you had at the end.
With 10/48/3 fireball spamming I never run out of mana, if I have to use a lower DPS build in many fights just because I want mana efficiency I'll just stick with my 10/48/3. All you need is enough mana to go through the fight, and with 10/48/3 you have enough mana to go through magtheridon with molten armor and a shadow priest and some pots. That took over 15mins for us and I was clicking a cube in attack range of mag. I even killed him once when I wasn't clicking at all with very minimal wanding - and I can almost be sure that the DPS I lost due to wanding isn't even close to the DPS lost by using AM+scorch.
Heck there's that frost mage in my guild that on grul whenever I wasn't paying enough attention and reapplying scorch too early he would've tied me on DPS. Having the elemental that's unaffected by shatter helps probably, but as soon as I started paying more attention and only reapplying scorch when I *really* have to my DPS went way up. And you can see it if you run the numbers - just keeping up your own scorches once every 8 fireballs is a drop in DPS compared to if someone kept them up for you.
For a build to be considered "better for mana efficiency" it not only needs to have more DPM and mana regen, it also needs to be able to actually deal enough DPS to make the fact the other spec is going oom lose on DPS. And I simply don't see how you get there by using 2XAB and AM/scorch rotations, at least not any any realistically long fight.
Fight length doesn't usually cause the mana problem, it's unrealistic to see a fight that long. Hefty aoe requirements combined with a long fight can make a large mana pool a small one very quickly. That's probably a rare case though - I'm just saying arcane is more prepared to deal with the "worst case scenario", should that occur. Most of the time I don't think mana is a real concern.
To me, the great strength of Arcane was never mana efficiency, honestly, mages have far too much mana on the vast majority of boss fights.
Arcane can use this mana for something, Fire can't. That's what interests me about Arcane, really -- in fact I'm very convinced that outright Arcane Blast spam is even viable on a few fights, as long as you have a Shadow Priest and you're willing to use pots on every cooldown. A shaman helps, too.
The fact that Arcane can theoretically drop down to better DPM with superior regen is a useful sidenote, but hardly a secondary selling point let alone a primary one.
<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl
Someone wrote that 42% crit rate on AB is extreamly high and unlikley, well my avg ab crit chance is around ~40% in raids. It can get lower or higher but avg is avg. For example on Grull one time i had 52% o_O.
Probability is just that and of course there is an expected and substantial variance.
If you are really sustaining a 40% crit rate in raids, I would be interested to see what gear you use. The EU armory is flaky at best sadly but that just seems a little high to me no matter how you slice it. I'm certainly not saying it is impossible, it just feels a bit out of range. I would note though that you might want to look at your WWS more closely, the last one you posted has a sub-30% crit rate and I suspect your true average falls between that and the other.
-Someone links a WWS of an arcane mage on a fight that deliberately favors arcane mages (and of course, complete with no comparison to a fire mage on the same/similar fight)
-Other people take it for granted its a reproducible output, and somewhat the norm.
-Pointless conversation ensues.
I mean, its like comparing classes dps, but using morogrim tidewalker as an example. Yes, its going to favor mages/locks. Yes, rogues can get 1500 dps on morogrim too, but its far and wide not the norm whereas thats what I expect of mages/locks.
Also, I am sorry to say, but 40% crit rate is pretty much standard for a decently geared fire mage. I expect similar results from an arcane mage, given that they don't need to stack hit like fire mages do.
I can point you many WWS parse with me hovering around 40-41% crit rate. Even with a lesser geared mage, adepts + elemental shaman will do it. I know theorycraft would say I should be getting 38-39% fully raid buffed + adept, but in practice more often than not I seem to get a number closer to 40-41%.
Someone links a WWS of an arcane mage on a fight that deliberately favors arcane mages
Check out some wws for Lurker, that doesnt really favour anyone, since there is no ranged agro (both specs can nuke their hearts out) - and its a average-to-long fight (so its more about sustained dps over a longer period than just blowing your load in 4 minutes, which arcane obviously is superior at doing)
I would really like a dedicated thread where arcane mages can link to WWS parses of their performance in fights.
Currently I find some here and some in the mage theorycraft thread which makes it a little frustrating when itd be nice to simply have a consolidated discussion just on arcane performance using real data (wws). Maybe people can start posting their arcane wws parses all here instead?
I had used that as an example because that is what he referenced in his post as a "tank and spank" for the most part with straight unloading, and followed it with a 1400 DPS WWS of the fight.
No, if you want a tank and spank fight, the closest you have to it is Kaz'rogal. The only thing this fight has that isn't tank-n-spank is that from time to time he casts a debuff that eats 3k of your mana, and if you go oom you explode. But since the fight is short this isn't really an issue.
For reference, you can expect 1250-1300 dps average on teron from a firemage, unflasked.
You can also expect 1300 dps on Kaz'rogal under the same circonstances.
I think lots of people dont consider the fact that the shorter the fight, the more you can yield towards pure AB spam, and that bloodlust will have a *much bigger net effect on dps. This is why the numbers die down a lot when you try and get an overall picture. Sure, if you play with 2 shadow priests and an elemental shaman in every raid you do, I expect 1400+ dps from any arcane mage, pretty much irregardless of the duration. However, as far as giving expectations to other mages go, I can't find any better words than just say the numbers are inadmissible.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Going by Your train of thought there is no fight in game that can be used as a "fair" comparison for mage specs, thus rendering the whole debate pointless?
Back to the point, seriously Teron is a tank and spank fight, you get interrupted a lot as fire? Well i get interrupted MORE as arcane due to having no talent to prevent pushbacks thus in theory putting arcane at a bigger disadvantage. The fight lasts around 5 min, i would say its a very good fight to use as a most "raw" comparison between arcane and fire since you just stand there and nuke.....
About my Teron parse if there is need to discuss it further, my grp composition was( if i remember correctly) : Mage, Mage, SP, Resto Shaman and either a Lock or another Mage. Given my very low crit chance on ab on that particular fight i am looking forward to next time since i would like to see dps with a "normalised" crit rate.
I tried 40/0/21 in anticipation of Al'ar this past week. Including last night's SSC run of the first 4 bosses.
I found myself struggling to keep neck and neck with our 10/48/3 Mages who have similar gear to mine, and whom as 10/48/3 I'm normally ahead of. Even when I was doing full-out Arcane Blast spam I was barely keeping even with Fireball spam.
I apologize for not having WWS parses available, when I get 2 piece T5 and give it another go I will make sure to do so.
I was more than a little disappointed with this, and am now planning to try out deep frost for Al'ar instead of Arcane/Frost.
edit:
I should add that part of my poor performance was my unwillingness to re-replace my Veiled Noble Topaz with Potent. So I had a lot more hit than Arcane really needs. All the same, I was disappointed that Arcane Blast spam didn't blow Fireball spam out of the water.
Last edited by ebbv : 06/27/07 at 7:38 PM.
Reason: Additional information
Frankly, I pointed out that teron would be a bad example parse specifically because it would mess up the numbers in firespec' favor. If you want a 'fairer' fight, I recommended kaz'rogal, a 4min fight where you literally never ever move, and have absolutely nothing that can 'screw you over' or randomly affect numbers besides the occasional spell resists you might get on his mana-draining debuff. Plus, teron has the unfortunate side effect that you can get sacrificed.
If you don't get much spell casting interruptions on teron as arcane then yeah its definately a decent alternative, although the fight duration is somewhat off the norm, but that was expected from a fight with people being sacrificed as you go.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Well, there is always Attumen. Definitely a tank-and-spank there. Not sure if the fight is long enough to be a meaningful comparison, but at least he's a +3 mob instead of poor Dr. Boom.
BTW, I thought the main point about Arcane spec for raiding is that it has a totally different set of "intangibles" than Fire.
No IScorch buff to keep up.
Managing AB cycles.
Shorter range.
IAM has no spell pushback at all.
Lower DPM.
10% Hit from talents.
etc etc...
If those intangibles make you happy, then go for it.
One last thing:
The fact that people are having trouble finding a fight or group composition that doesn't "favor" Fire or Arcane over the other should indicate that those "intangibles" are pretty important to the comparison.
EDIT:
On second read, I think Manly is saying that VERY FEW fights would cater to the Arcane spec. He is trying to find one where you could actually do the theorycrafted cycle dps. If that is the case, and the overwhelming majority of boss fights and gear drops favor Fire's intangibles over Arcane's, then that changes things somewhat on my original post.
In my view, the main difference is that fire spec is unable to do more dps than its full-burn cycle. And its realistically ok to say that its pretty much impossible to go oom on any given fight as fire spec, so that means your damage is mostly constant.
Arcane specs has 'basically' 2 burn cycles: one is full arcane blast spam (aka: burn your extra mana here), the other is a more standard 3x ab, missiles, scorch (or 3x ab, 2x fireball if someone else keeps scorch up). The fact that arcane spec is able to burn excess mana whereas fire spec is unable to is the core of the difference between the 2 specs. For arcane spec, more mana = more damage, whereas the same does not apply to fire spec. This means judgement of wisdom and shadow priest will make a tremendous difference to an arcane mage dps. It also means that the shorter the fight, the more an arcane mage will win, given that you have more mana to burn than what the fire mage is able to. (and also of note, the shorter the fight, the more net effect bloodlust will give you on meters, making numbers look that much more absurd)
And no as I admitted elsewhere I don't think the intangibles of arcane spec comes into play for most boss fights. -40% threat is near useless on every boss. Range is mostly* not needed but is always nice to have since a lot of boss have AOE effects and/or spreading outs. What irks me is more that the examples given of arcane spec dps is the ones where it is clearly in ones favor. Its as-if I would post WWS parse of me on Morogrim and tell the people this is the dps to expect from a fire mage. No, 1500-1600 dps unpotted is far and wide not what you should be expecting from a fire mage under most fight, yet it is what I expect on morogrim. In fact, don't bother posting arcane mage WWS on Morogrim, I know the fight is rigged in fire's favor, unless the rest of your aoers really don't know how to aoe which puts you at 1700 dps (yes I have seen those parses).
EDIT:
I originally had an extensive list of every boss, but it essentially comes down to this:
Under almost every fight, fire spec will finish with mana to spare, which arcane spec can definately turn into more damage. However the intangibles are somewhat hard to give a good grasp on until the mage has actually experienced them. A lot of hyjal/BT fights have tons of aoe / interrupts and things like spreading out. I can only assume that an arcane spec would somewhat suffer more from having a boss throw a wrench at your cast sequence, but given that is nothing more than speculation.
RE-EDIT:
Lol, I see now that the teron gorefiend domin parse is on lossendil's site. I'm sorry but anyone claiming teron gorefiend 4 min fight where you get an innervate on an arcane mage in addition to a shadow priest is the norm. Typically you innervate the shadow priest so that they 'innervate' your group, but hey, its not rigged right?
Last edited by manly : 06/28/07 at 5:31 PM.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Heres a wws parse of me (full arcane mage) on our last void reaver kill.
Please note, im still a bit of noob with WWS (just started using it) so it didnt record all dps because my combatlog range is too small. (How do I change it please, someone?) But anyway its correct at least for my damage/dps/skill breakdown, which is what mages here would be interested in.
DPS worked out to ~900dps in a 8-9 minute fight using AB/AM only (and the occasional fireblast/pyro). Not my best performance, im sure theres better potential to reach (more fireblasts and perhaps a little more stacking of ab to (3) - hence why I read this forum for tips from others
06/25/07, 11:34 AM
Talibor (person that logged it) didnt log the Rage Winterchill fight when i basicly just stood there and spammed AB all the time, i was ~100k above second person in dmg done, dps from that would be i guess even higher than from Anatheron. 
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