hi guys, on a slightly different note, wonder if you could give your comments on the feasability of using AM spam instead of AB spam for short trash fights. For a bit of background I AM deep arcane i do not have 2*T5. i am fortunate that i have lc and good gear (1400 dmg buffed, aprox 33% crit etc) and more importantly 2* tier 4 helms so i have the option of both MSD and RED.

I plan to do some theorycrafting and boom blasting shortly, but im thinking for short fights (<3 mins) AM spam with MSD offers comparable dps with ab spam + RED, but offers better DPM, enough that it would allow me to am spam for full length of trash mob life. This is on the assumption that AB spam is not possible to maintain for full x minutes so requires higher dpm cycles like ab*4/am/scorch etc depending on mana bar until i hit the point where i can do full AB spam.

I am also toying with the idea of doing 1*ab and 3*am as a low cycle, before switching to AM spam. With AP i would go for AB spam.

For longer fights it would stick with AB and RED, and this is only until i get 2*t5 at which time i will drop MSD.

what do you think?

Out of interest, I recently changed from fire to acrane and found that it made a big impact on dps, but not because of the dmg, but because it allowed be to keep below the threat ceiling which was a real issue - i mention this because its a huge factor for some guilds but not mentioned as much.

This is incorrect. The "working theorycraft" at the top of this forum has the details, but basically there is a UI script that lets you know what the *game* thinks the global cooldown is. Repeated testing using this, on both live and test realm, shows that the global cooldown is 1.5 seconds both with and without bloodlust. Bloodlust basically does *nothing* for a mage AEing.

hi guys, on a slightly different note, wonder if you could give your comments on the feasability of using AM spam instead of AB spam for short trash fights. For a bit of background I AM deep arcane i do not have 2*T5. i am fortunate that i have lc and good gear (1400 dmg buffed, aprox 33% crit etc) and more importantly 2* tier 4 helms so i have the option of both MSD and RED.

I plan to do some theorycrafting and boom blasting shortly, but im thinking for short fights (<3 mins) AM spam with MSD offers comparable dps with ab spam + RED (after patch is released), but offers better DPM, enough that it would allow me to am spam for full length of trash mob life. This is on the assumption that AB spam is not possible to maintain for full x minutes so requires higher dpm cycles like ab*4/am/scorch etc depending on mana bar until i hit the point where i can do full ab spam.

I am also toying with the idea of doing 1*ab and 3*am as a low cycle, before switching to am spam. With AP i would go for AB spam.

For longer fights it would stick with AB and RED, and this is only until i get 2*t5 at which time i will drop MSD.

what do you think?

Out of interest, I recently changed from fire to acrane and found that it made a big impact on dps, but not because of the dmg, but because it allowed be to keep below the threat ceiling which was a real issue - i mention this because its a huge factor for some guilds but not mentioned as much.

Max rank AM spam with 0.2 latency, MSD, TLC and your offensive stats (1400 dmg, 33% crit, >=6% hit, zero haste rating) should yield just over 1200 dps, pre-debuffs, at a cost of 164 mana per second. Just factor in your regen rate and you can figure out what trash it's appropriate for.

Honestly, I don't know why some people here are so anti-AM. With proper gear and buffs, it pumps out astonishingly high dps with no real ramp up time and without the need for a rotation. If your raid doesn't use JoW, so be it, but otherwise, it's now a wonderful spell.

I'm aware, I also stated this in my post. But that if you were to read the post I linked, there's evidence to show that instant casts are more frequent under heroism.

Um, no. The post you linked does some nice testing and shows very explicitly that (and I quote) "Heroism does *NOT* reduce the GCD". Furthermore, it also says "Haste does *NOT* reduce the GCD".

It even spelled it out in a TLDR version for the idiots.

"Haste and Heroism do not reduce the GCD, but still will give you a DPS gain on 1.5 second cast spells because of the way it interacts with lag."

Edit: Um, we actually all seem to be in furious agreement. Heroism doesn't reduce GCD, but can appear to speed up your short spells because of latency effects. If you're already using /stopcasting to reduce the latency effects, you won't see any benefit.

AM spam is fine with MSD. The DPS can be there. Its just that you better be prepared accordingly on your mana consumption. At that mana consumption rate, intellect becomes actually a real deal breaker. So does spell haste, for procrates and DPS.

Working out some very basic assumptions, you can push some good DPS from AM spam with MSD, its just that without JOW the fight is better not be much above 3-4min, 4min being the very very extreme. (under the assumption you use a considerable amount of spell haste gear (ring/bracer/shoulder/belt) and ashtongue/tlc).

Problem is, if the fight lasts 3 min, that means I'm going to be AB spamming almost all the time. AM spam can work. Its just that I do have a hard time to figure out exactly where it would be optimal besides:
-when you have heavy lag
-when ramp-up times can screw you over (ie: target switches)
-things that makes you stop your AM mid way, thus making you lose lots of DPM

Vontre worked out a series of numbers for AM spam using the 'new' MSD. I admit the numbers were far above my expectations, but a number of things were assumed as well, such as 0 latency, max buffs, 4pc t6, ashtongue/TLC, and a quite extreme amount of spell haste.

I'll definately will have to give this an actual try come 2.2, but one thing is sure, pure AM spam is mostly only an option for short fights using no jow. I use a 3min virtual checkpoint for myself, but the numbers suggest 4min might be possible, ignoring bloodlusts and AP.

And if you have a JoW uptime of near 100%?

From my theorycrafting that is sufficient for about 7-8 min (10 min, 80% dps time) including AB spam on AP.

It's really going to vary so widely for anyone working with AM spam that it really isn't worth making a blanket statement on how long you should be able to maintain AM spam. The way I'll probably start working it eventually is working off some sort of a bar to select my two rotations.


|-------AB Spam---------x1-------AM Spam------x2--------AB Rotation-----|

Where x1 is the point you would go OOM under just AB spam, x2 is just AM spam.

For fights under x1 length, pure AB spam, for fights under x2 length combine AM and AB spam, for fights at x2 length pure AM spam, for greater than x2 some combination of your AB rotation and either AM or AB depending on all sorts of good stuff.

What JoW will do for this is increase x1 by a small amount and x2 by a large amount (dpm increases on AM are much greater than AB).

The bar of course assumes you have gear such that AB is greater dps than AM which is greater than a rotation. So pretty much anyone with at least TLC/MSD/Ashtongue, which is definitely not your average raider.

Hey~ I had a question about wanding to regen mana w/ JoW up.

Is the DPS loss using Consecrated Wand(1.2 speed, 24.2 DPS, nature damage. Alliance only quest) over say, Wand of the Seer(1.3 speed, 121.2 DPS, nature damage), or even Luminescent Rod of the Naaru(1.5 speed, 177 DPS, shadow damage) worth it for the gained shoot speed?

i was thinking purely under 3 minutes with AP ab spam with the potential to do solid AM spam as apposed to partial full ab spam with a period that uses lower dps/>dpm. Anything above is probably back to ab cycles.

I don't think you should wand with a shadow wand in a raid setting really. You'll be using up a lot of improved shadow bolt charges.
We had two [Syphon of the Nathrezim] drop and our guild warlocks/shadow priests told the winners not to use them since the proc eats up the charges as well.

On the other two wands:
The difference between a 1.2s and a 1.3s wand is 1/1.2-1/1.3=0.064/s.
So, with the 1.2s wand, you get 0.064 more attacks per second, with 37 mana/attack (74, 50% chance), you're at ~2.4 mana per second difference.

I think I'd gladly pay 2.4 mana per second for around 100 DPS

Sorry, but I don't get this point.
AM 10: ~150 mana/sec
AB spam: ~450 mana/sec

You are telling us, that you can't sustain more than 3-4 min AM, but you can sustain 3 min AB?
4 min AM = 36k mana
3 min AB = 81k mana
Where do you get the missing 45k mana from with AB spamming?

If you have the mana for 3 min AB, that mana would be easily enough for 9 min AM.

Sure there is no lag, no CC, no MSD, no AP, no movement etc. included, but the point is that AB spam has a lot more than double mana cost of AM spam.
I really can't imagine why you wouldn't be able to sustain a spell with less than half mana/sec for the double time at least (and in this time there is a lot additional manareg - pots, gems, shadow priest, ...).

I'm wondering what a rotation of AM x 1, ABx 1 or AMx 1 AB x 1 AM x 1 Fireball x 1. would do for mana regen. Even with good haste gear on ~160 non-proc you would fall out of the 5 sec rule for 1 tick of mana regen. My mana regen is ~300/5 buffed in a raid. Sure spamming AM with haste gear on you will not get out of the 5 sec rule. But if you are doing that rotation above you will fall out every 10 seconds.

Actually now that I think of it with haste gear on you could build a debuff on your on your AB if you did AMx 1 and AB x 1. So I think a AM x 1 AB x 1 AM x1 AB x1 AMx1 Fireball x1... rotation would be better so that you would only be casting AB with 1 debuff on it. I do realize that you are hurting yourself for a MSD focus proc and chancing missing it for an AM.

This is about mana regeneration to beable to sustain more AM spam.

I do plan on going with heavy haste gear (160-130) and Ashtongue trinket and MSD. Right now I have belt and shoulder in my inventory. Down the road I will switch to all haste and 4 *T6. Right now I am with 4*T5.

AB spam is only 450 mana/sec if you do full time spamming.
I said "Problem is, if the fight lasts 3 min, that means I'm going to be AB spamming almost all the time."
Which in other words means a few usual AB rotation, mixed in with AB spam, which is perfectly doable under 3 min. Fact remains that you still spam a lot of AB even during the AB rotations.

Please, I urge you to reread the thread. Those possibilities have already been checked. The most likely rotation for pure arcane assuming no 2pc t5 is 1x AB 2x AM. Problem is, if you want better DPM, then you're just better off with regular AB rotations and scrap alltogether AM spam 'rotations'.

I have, and the rotations I have suggested have not been considered in WHOLE. Fragments of the rotation have been considered with solid date. But no one has put it ALL together..Haste gear, Ashtongue, MSD, Shadow Priest, Mana regen, 2*T5...

Tuesday will be a fun day I am sure as all mages will be playing around with some new rotations and gems. I look forward for patch 2.2

Yes, the data HAS been put together, although admitedly not made publicly available (and please - don't misinterpret - not publicly available because it hasn't been requested). When I come and post here to say what turned out to be the best rotations, I don't just go and do some napkin math and derive conclusions from there. Numbers are taken using different gearsets, different levels of spell haste, different trinkets. Vontre checked a number of times the calculation for 'recursive' ashtongue procs, and as far as I know, this is the version 3 of it. And yes in case you ask, we tested a bunch of 2pc t5/2pct6 4pc t5 / 4pc t6 gearsets too.

You seem to think that magically because every possible rotations haven't been analyzed with every possible gearsets that were missing 'the big picture'. I assure you that the gear you wear won't really have much impact on the results, in the sense that they won't go towards the goal you're aiming for (ie: increased DPM, as you alluded in your last 2 posts). Spell haste will never give a DPM gain directly (ie: it can through TLC but that's kind of the exception). So right there you can scrap alltogether all the possible iterations of gears possible that have spell haste. You can also scrap away ashtongue in the same way.

So again, to repeat myself. Assuming a shadow priest, normal raid debuffs, full consumables, solid t6-level gear, 2-4 pieces of spell haste, ashtongue/tlc, with SMP/gems, you will have less than 4 min of AM spam. That's assuming 0sec of lag, and never using AP and never getting bloodlust, and most importantly, no JOW. If you take bloodlust into account, and AP, then that number will be closer to 3min-ish top.

You propose things like AM, fireball rotations, in order to get a FSR mana tick. Again, I urge you to reread the god damn thread. If you really don't feel like reading it all over, then just read my posts from the last 10 pages, thats all the matters really as far as AM is concerned. Yes, the rotations have been tested, and while you do get a considerable boost from the FSR DPM-wise, you still have the problem that your rotation just makes no sense. If your rotation has anything containing fireball within it, then you got a major loophole. Fireball is admittedly a 'high DPM' spell. If you do like AM, fireball rotation, then its like trying to have both high DPS and high DPM into one rotation, but without having the benefit of neither. The only way that it can work is that you must, obligatorily, have a spell that leasts 'affects' your AM. By that I mean, the other spell within your AM rotation must absolutely least have an impact upon AM itself. If you do fireball as a filler, the problem you have is that you have a high-procrate build based upon spell haste, but then everything slows down for that fireball. And the build depends upon MSD and ashtongue to some level. There are many other reasons why you don't want fireball, mostly because you depend upon COE and scorch now, which makes the build even less flexible.

I don't know quite how to word this out, but to me its quite clear that AM, fireball would not make any sense. I know the goal is that FSR tick. But you also spend far too much time not casting AM, which kinds of defeat the entire purpose. If you head that way, you might as well go fire spec and then get some real DPM.

Now the other problem is that there isn't a whole bunch of other choice. So let's see:

-fireball (not good - read above)
-scorch (excellent 'efficiency'. However, spell haste doesn't work at all on this. Problem is, gearing for AM spam will not work all that great for optimizing your scorches. Even if you don't use spell haste/ashtongue, compared to what AB gives, it's mostly just a good choice as a 'filler' spell')
-AB (read below)
-fireblast (how to kill your DPM)
-none

AB: So since the only choice that makes sense for AM rotations is AB, then it's pretty obvious that the choices are very few. Let's see:
1. AB, AM
2. AB, AM, AM
3. AB, AB, AB, AM, AM (forces 2pc t5)
4. AB, AM, scorch, AM
upon further reflexion, a new rotation that I did not think of before:
5. AB, AM, AB, AM, AB, AM, scorch

1. AB, AM. - This rotation has many problems. The first one is all too obvious, and a dealbreaker. Your AB will keep stacking itself, up to a point where you get 1.5s AB / AM. Although there is the possibility of AB, AM, (wait) that has never been checked as a valid alternative rotation.

2. AB, AM, AM - As was said before, this is the most logical rotation, since it avoids cancelling casts to use the focus proc since you should be 'naturally' casting AM anyway. Assuming AM gets a double dip out of arcane potency, then that just makes the rotation even more sensical. Anyway, if you want more details about it I wrote about it in this thread already.

3. AB, AB, AB, AM, AM (forces 2pc t5) - absurd concept. This simply isn't a AM spam rotation, since doesn't even make good use out of AM. A sore loser.

4. AB, AM, scorch, AM - I already posted about this rotation. While it does win some DPM, it also loses a lot of DPS (70-ish+). There is simply no incentive to go that way, it doesn't interact well with any mechanic besides FSR.

5. AB, AM, AB, AM, AB, AM, scorch - I didn't think of this before. I need to rerun the numbers. See how much 2pc t5 vs 4pc t6 affects it. It wouldn't be very efficient at cancelling casts to use focus procs though. Neither would it work at all with arcane potency double dips. But it might be worth checking out.



(and another detail I forgot to mention that I assume is well known but isn't quite common knowledge: always mage armor if you only do arcane spells (thats because of 175% crits), and molten armor if you use fireballs on 3x AB, 2x fireball rotations, and yes, this is because of 245% crit dmg)


But regardless of all of this, you asked about 'other AM rotations with better DPM'. Well, that's about as far as it goes really. If you want good DPM, firespec or AB rotations are your friend, and I don't think you can possibly get any better than that simply because AM DPM is really horrid pretty much no matter how you cut it without JOW.

Would an AM rotation benefit you more than the tried and true?
AB AB AB AM Scorch rinse wash repeat cycle

I know you're arguing an AM rotation

Is that not the preferred rotation for the leading arcane mages? Draxonias to name one. My gear isn't the best but I'm finding that to be more than mana efficient enough assuming evocate/gems/potions/Shadow Priest.

If your argument is haste rating here then you're only gaining more DPS, obviously this correlates to a DPM loss, but hopefully your shadow priests have enough gear to pump this extra mana out at this point.

At no point do any of those spells, other than scorch, NOT benefit from haste. AB does all the way till you cast it with 3 stacks. So you cast it with 0 stacks, 1 stack, and 2 stacks. All recieve haste rating increase without affecting the global cooldown. AM is one of my favorite spams on haste so let's not go there. So worst case scenario with this spell rotation, is that you have wait an extra second if your haste is mediocre, or you get two AM procs if your Haste is stellar.

It occurs to me that no matter what your haste rating is you can edit your fifth spell to reflect that. IE if your haste rating really got insane you could put 5 talents in fireball and throw that out there, or if you could do the same with frostbolt, like I already mentioned another AM could be feasible if you got that high, but even if your haste rating was only marginal, you're gaining DPS because you shorten the AB stack to 3 that much. Not to mention the fact that there's actually ~.75 second buffer in there where your haste rating could improve with that spec. (because by the time scorch is done there's ~.75 seconds left on the AB debuff so if you were speeding it up by ~.75 seconds the server would take the debuff off before it recognized the spell as being cast, thus giving you the cast time w/o the mana cost.


Sorry another edit


An interesting point I would like to hear thoughts/comments on is how much spell hit is going to affect your DPS, how would you rate spell hit after you hit the 10% on arcane. Considering how many mages still throw fire spells in there to buffer the DPS as well as their POM Pyro tosses. Obviously keeping 16% hit would be ridiculous, but assuming we are keeping a general equation of 2 spell crit ~ 1.5 spell dmg ~ 1 spell hit till hit capped, How much is spell hit worth if you're capped arcane and not capped fire but rotating in one fire spell each rotation and throwing a Pyro every minute.

Is it worth it to throw talents in scorch over pyro? Hence making your scorches hit 15% harder assuming there is no Fire mage in your raid? as well as buffing any destro locks? Or would the Pyro boost your DPS more. .... could it be feasible to lose improved blink in favor of the imp scorch PLUS pyroblast. These are fun questions.

I don't believe the idea behind AM fireball is one of efficiency necessarily. The idea is more that fireball is a bolt spell and AM's mana cost is front loaded. So you can have a fireball in the air, start casting AM, get a clearcasting check, have the fireball land and then get another clear casting check. Essentially getting 2 clear casting proc checks on AM for arcane potency double dips.

A more ideal spell for that would be frost bolt because a large portion of frost's damage talents are low tier where a lot of fire's damage talents are high tier. Plus, frost bolt casts faster and would have a lower 'non-AM' time.

I feel there are a number of problems with that idea anyway which is why I don't use it. But, if someone were to go that route, the main advantage wouldn't be efficiency.

For full arcane spec using ABx3+AM+Sc I'm getting at around 17.7 hit rating = 3.1 crit rating = 2.5 damage (this is without RED).

I just would like to highlight the post arguing IED could be a competitor over MSD & RED next patch.
If RED is not working for spells again, and the fact MSD is under-utilized for almost any AB rotation (+ the gem requirement), will not be IED the gem to go, at least for any arcane mage who will not be using MSD at 100% ?

Considering arcane mages will make use :
- 12 int -> better than nothing, more mana, more +dmg, more crit
- return mana on spellcast -> no internal cooldown, AB spam => more procs
- easy gemming -> no damn blue gems

Moreover, does the return mana of the IED metagem proc on AM tick ? at least in 2.2 ?
If yes, I strongly believe IED could be better than 2.1 RED (tests to be done of course, just some thoughts atm)