Obviously this thread is focusing on Arcane specs, but I am wondering simply if they can compete with fire at the T6 level in terms of long-term DPS (even with a sp). I can see that many rotations here involve going into the fire tree for scorch or fireball, and that AM is taking a lot of flak.

I also saw Manly's earlier post about this issue ("You can do good damage as arcane, but when you compete with top notch fire mages, you lose"). Has anything happened to change your mind?

Lgs. The main draw to Arcane in t6 is the following:

As your guild gets more and more gear, the encounters are going to get shorter... and shorter... and shorter... IE our first Bloodboil kill was 9 minutes, now its 4 - 5 minutes. SSC bosses are down to 4 minutes 8 mins for vashj. Hyjal bosses are like 3-4min

In turn, this will allow for a more copious abuse of fully stacked AB spam. Its to the point now where I can sit there at the start of any boss in Hyjal and spam AB until it dies. 1.5s AB spam is unbeatable by any fire spec'd mage. Period.

In closing, as I stated earlier in this thread, this spec is so amazing because it scales not only with YOUR gear... but with your GUILDS gear as well. Where Fire will do the same damage every week, Arcane mages will do more, and more, and more damage as time passes.

While that appears to be theoretically true, posted WWS that I've seen from Manly, from EJ raids, imply otherwise... EJ is pretty damn progressed in terms of raid dps, and their fights are short, yet Arcane doesn't seem to be leading by these huge margins, in fact it's often beaten.

And being locked into 2pc T5 until the end of time and beyond WotLK really, really sucks. As do the annoying gimmick gearing requirements(damage, but no hit! And hey this stupid trinket from kara is the best thing in the game for you and probably will be until 2010...)

And don't even get me started on the chain potting requirements, I use *more* pots these days than our Shadow Priests... on farm content... ugh.

Honestly, the only reason I have not gone back to Fire is because of Illidan.

The set bonus wil be made into an arcane talent in WotLK, in exactly the same way Chain Heal's set bonus from the tier 2 set was. Blizzard aren't completely stupid, and they are going to be aware that it relies entirely on two pieces of tier 5.

Your Mileage will vary of course.

Case in point, in Fusion, our DPS is top 5 ranked usually on many bosses in T6 on Lossendil and when one of our mages got his 4piece t6 he went back to 10/48/3 for a BT/Hyjal Clear, had CoE up and same group as me (Elem Sham / Spriest) and he got completely annihilated.

Me personally? While I LOVE Arcane, when I get my 4th piece t6 I will be trying fire again just to see for myself... we'll see where I stand then.

Currently all of our mages are arcane, we usually run with between 3 and 4 per raid. A few weeks ago one of them completed their Tier 6 and gave Fire a try again. The result was that she went from doing the same damage as the other mages to being behind us.

I've played around with a lot of gear sets with different specs in Vontre's Spreadsheet. Specifically I've looked at Fire with 4p Tier 6, Fire with 4p Tier 6 and full haste (215), Fire with 4p Tier 6 and haste shoulders/bracers/rings (100ish), and Arcane with 2p Tier 5. The results were that Arcane with 2p Tier 5 stood a part from the rest due to the sheer amount of damage output that comes from AB spam. The sustained dps from Arcane is only slightly lower than the damage that fire can out put.

I want to mention that my calculations included 13% COS and 10% COE. I did it this way because we usually run with 1 affliction lock that has Malediction and the remaining warlocks either are Destro or don't have that talent. I also assumed that I would have a Shadow Priest and Restoration Shaman at all times. If getting neither of those is possible then Fire most likely outshines Arcane.

In future content I think that there will be situations where you will have to change your spec depending on the encounter and what type of group make up you have. The issue that I'm currently having is that my damage is not comparing to that of the Rogues and Hunters in our guild even when I have a Shadow Priest, Restoration Shaman, and chain chug Super Mana Potions. It's disappointing to say the least.

Moving away from the current discussion a bit... has anyone run the numbers for a 40/0/21 spec for damage in comparison to 49/12 or 50/11 and the like?

I personally run 49/12, and two mages in my guild run 40/0/21 with frostbolts as their in-between AB spells instead of AM, and they're consistently doing as much or somewhat more damage than I do. Keep in mind that none of us have LC or 2pc T5 at this point, so our damage as arcane is a good bit lower than it would be with more perfect gear circumstances, but the important point is that we're all held back by the same restrictions here; lacking LC and lacking 2pc T5. I find it interesting while I run 1256 arcane spellpower, vs their 1050ish in arcane and frost and using the general ABx3->AM->Scorch rotation, they're still neck and neck with me in terms of damage output, and have several extra safety measures from Frost that I don't have, making me more fragile.

Analysis of this would be interesting, or a link to if this has been examined before.

Well, ok, a few things.

1- I always assume 1 aff. lock, which means 13% COS and 10% COE when we get one, which typically we don't.
2- As Vontre admitted, the value of the spreadsheet lowers when you compare specs against skilled mages. By that I mean, the value of the spreadsheet is in the averages, but that doesn't take into account things like stacking icon/bloodlust/combustion/flamecaps/destro pots/molten fury.
3- While this is minor, I was always sure that fire spec can make better use of elemental shaman, mostly because you can actually use the hit, and the extra crit gives 210% rather than 175%. I also believe that firespec has more to gain from bloodlust than does arcane spec.
4- I am really not as well geared as the mages I'm competing against. Not much I can do about losing rolls week after week. While this will inevitably affect the results, it is somewhat inexcusable to lose DMs to fire spec mage that has no COE.
5- I have somewhat 'high' lag that I really have found no solution for. In raids I can do 3x AB 2x fireball with no clipping issues, despise wearing 2pc of spell haste. When I'm not in raids I clip it a lot. This might give a good idea of how much lag is badly affecting my AB spam - up to a level where it is not competing in DMs.

While I am the only arcane mage in EJ, and while I have been disappointed with the damage ever since I started using arcane spec, there are definite upsides to the spec. The first factor that kind of screwed me over that I wasn't aware of is that bloodlust isn't lowering the GCD. This means my great plans of AB spam during bloodlust led me to lose DMs to fire spec. I only recently started to change my bloodlust rotations, so I don't really have much to add besides 'we'll see'.

For reference, I always had equal or better dps as fire spec in almost every fight I did. This could be related with my lag, but I am not sure if there is any way to test it really. And yes, even on fights where the kill time is 3min-, I usually outdo myself with fire spec.

As I said before, I believe its mostly a matter of personal preference. I prefer firespec, possibly because of my 10fps in raids coupled with 100ms lag. Its kind of hard to tell. But I do know that both get somewhat the same results, given that you chain pop SMP as arcane spec. I don't believe it is a big deal to chain pop SMP. I think personal preference takes over that small inconvenient.

If anything, next week I will very likely get my 4pc (given that maybe this time we get vanq gloves to drop), and I'll definitely give it a go again. If 2.2 comes next week, then there will be additionally AM spam that will be to test out. Assuming AM spam turns out to be a lackluster, I plan on firespec / frostspec and that will be pretty much it.

EDIT:
Just to be clear here. I generally avoided posting my DMs as arcane spec because I believe my numbers are not representative of what arcane spec can do. As such, I am aware that my numbers comes slightly below my own expectations and slightly below what I generally expect from equally geared mages. I also believe the fire mages I compete against are slightly above what the spreadsheets would dictate. I really hope I don't give a wrong impression to any mage about either spec. Both can do very good, but your mileage can vary a lot. I know in other guilds they get better dps as arcane, even with 4pc t6. It's kind of hard to draw an average when results vary a lot from guild to guild. Although I have a very big suspicion that lag affects arcane spec tremendously due to 1.5s AB spam being screwed over.

Well, Manly, I would add 3 few things pro arcane spec :
1) reduced aggro
2) no dot dmg
3) if no destro fire lock, CoE no more needed

I don't know Hyjal & BT fights, but having a low aggro nuke is good. The best example fight would be Leo for instance (and yeah, we are using a warrior to tank demon)
The dot component could be negative as well : remaining aggro, dot limit, etc...
And finally, a warlock could drop CoE for CoA/CoD, still slightly better for raiddps

I don't think you understand. I did every fight with both fire and arcane. Low threat is non-issue. Seriously, it isn't. Salvation does pretty much all of the work. In almost every single encounter I don't use invisibility, and if aggro could become an issue, then my shadow priest will get aggro much before I do. If that ever is to be possible, Tranquil Air will be dropped down regardless.

I am not sure what's the deal about dot damage. It's like you're just trying to prove your point or have the final word. If there are aggro dumps, then hunter misdirections will fix that. I don't mean this in a bad way but usually if you want to prove a point just list your strong arguments. Giving poor arguments tends to give an opportunity for other people to disprove what you said.

To be honest about COE/coa/cod, I don't think its a matter of free-ing a curse, but more a factor of 'do we have 3 warlocks so we can have COE up?', which, in our case, is somewhat rare. Not that it matters - I still get equalled or out-dps'ed despise having +13% damage advantage.

I mean, sure, you want to list the good points about arcane side, but keep in mind that if you start that way I can do the same for fire. You have low threat but you also have 30 yards rather than 41. We can argue this indefinitely and to be quite frank, I doubt we will ever see the end of it. I do agree that COS is generally up, and COE possibly. but in my experience it didn't stop really firespec from competing.

Somewhat Leo the increased range of fire puts you farther away from getting hit. Reduced aggro is nice for fights where MT aggro is reduced by knockback ect, however complete wipes are about the same for both specs you both need to stop dps beforehand and in general your mt should be able to generate threat faster then you.

Dot damage isn't a real disadvantage other then maybe it reducing your "dps" by making it appear you have more time in combat

No coe is somewhat of an advantage several warlock dps cycles still include fire spells and you need the damage from arcane and the curse to be greater then what you'd get from the same mages specced fire

In general once you hit 2-piece t5 it's a very good spec for BT/HY since most fights are on the short end(and big surprise some fire immune fights!). Also chances are the TK/SSC bosses you kill probably take less time then they did on your first kills. I'd say from most parses I've seen arcane is great damage for <5mins beyond that it drops off as you've used several gems and are waiting for evocations c/d it's also needs raid support(sp, shammy, jotw) more then fire.

As far as where we fall dps wise it seems behind hunters, rogues, and warlocks with the exception being arcane with 2 piece t5 is competitive with warlocks/hunters on shorter fights(<5mins) I'd say this is a bit sad considering we use most of our mana to achieve being competitive not to mention being fairly squisy.

To the best of my knowledge, the fireball dot is very very low in the priority list given to debuffs, making it one of the first to be taken off when you reach the limit. The only 'real' debuff space taken is 1x scorch and 1x ignite per mage.

I am surprised that you had debuff issues with only 2 warlocks. Typically, if you have more than 5 spriest or aff warlock in total, you will run into those problems, but as long as you stay below that typically you should be fine.

So, with all the changes on the test server, especially between the different builds, what's the current best gear/rotation, in the following situations?

Pre 2T5, with TLC. I realize that this is long ago for most of the people in this thread, but it's where I'm at now, and realize that 2T5 is a major turning point. I'm guessing that you should use Spellstrike, with an AB+AM+AM rotation. Is that right?

Post 2T5, with TLC. I'm guessing Mystical instead of Spellstrike, with an AB+AB+AB+AM+Scorch rotation. That right?


Thanks.

Without 2p T5, you should stick to fire imho.

Once you got 2p T5, you can go arcane and ABx3, AM, scorch rotations or ABx3, 2x fireball.

Concerning the metagem choice, RED is better at the moment, MSD and IED behind. If RED is no more working for spells (just like PTR), then MSD/IED will be better in 2.2.

As Manly previously stated, it looks like deep fire mages are still really competitors, or even DM winners (but its not possible for me to confirm/deny that, as my guild is not having any fire mages anymore)

Sorry, I meant for 2.2, not really 'current'. And I realize that Arcane will be subpar until 2T5, but what's the best available?

I have a small contention with the word "subpar". I really think that the changes to Arcane Missiles in 2.2 will make it much more competitive with Deep Fire even without 2T5. Sure it relies on itemizing properly, getting a MSD for one thing, but I really don't think that it is subpar until 2T5.

The ability to proc MSD 6 times per cast alone brings it very close to Deep Fire without even looking at what it can do with other trinkets and "chance on spell cast" items.

Think about that trinket from Aran, the pendant of the violet eye. It's pretty much completely worthless to all mage specs currently. However next patch that trinket gives back about 1300 additional mana every 2 min for a deep arcane spec. Not too shabby.

Completely anecdotal but I took the PTR pre-made mage with the MSD in place over to Dr. Boom and did straight Arcane Missiles spam (with a Deep Arcane spec) and a standard 5xScorch8xFireball1xScorch (with a 10/47/3+1 spec) rotation and Arcane Missiles was actually more dps then Fire. Less DpM but more DpS, and that was without a Capacitor. Sure the premade mage has pretty low +damage so mind mastery has more of an effect then it does at the higher gear levels but I was very surprised with what Arcane Missiles could do with that meta gem in place.

Even trinkets with hidden cooldowns become a lot better with Arcane Missiles in 2.2 since the chance to proc after the cooldown ends is that much higher.

I really hope the patch is tomorrow cause I can't think of anything more fun then raiding on a Deep Arcane spec, in 2.2, with a MSD and a Capacitor. I already had mine cut (and swapped out 4 gems to make it work) cause using it on the PTR was about the most fun I have ever had on my mage, big numbers are great and all but there is something about 5 missiles in 2.5 seconds that is just awe inspiring.

I just got my 4th piece tier 5 tonight and stuck between deciding which meta to use. My current setup is 4 pce tier 5+ lightning capacitor+sextant. So..

- I could go relentless earthstorm, which uses my high crit-rate and gives me bonus damage to all crits, but it wont affect my lightning capacitor in any way.

- Or mystical skyfire and it gives me more opportunity's to proc the diamond (with my AB spam ) which in turn gives me more opportunities to crit in the same time period - which in turn will charge up the lightning capacitor faster

Im really stuck with what to do. Assuming the gem requirements dont matter, which metagem would people theorycraft is the most suitable for DPS with the upcoming patch?

Using my lightning capacitor is a big part of me playing as an arcane mage - wouldnt it make more sense to use the skyfire diamond because it synergises better with it than the relentless diamond...? Or is the difference so marginal it doesnt really matter either way?

Seeing as RED doesn't work on spells on PTR, I think it's safe to say MSD is your best bet.

I thought that was a bug. It seems strange they specifically change the gem to include spells in a previous patch and would now change it back? *confused*

Just a wondered a little thing, "Robe of the Elder Scribes" if you're just using AM it will give a total of 24 crit and 110 spell damage (more if you've got haste items/effects) + the base stats.

though, I rarely see anyone use it and when I recall I asked in the eu mage chat ppl where just replying that it sucked. to me that chest should at par with t6, or even better

IIRC the Robe has an internal Cooldown for the proc like many trinkets, though I don't
recall wheter it also was 45 sec. Might that be the reason?

that might very well be it, but I can't find anything about a CD