Since we don't know the full mechanics of deathnight tanking, or how the class even works beyond a general outline, any speculation of future possible synergy with one class is pointless. That's a infinitely changing target which we may not even see.

Regarding the upcoming patch.

What concerns me is the contradictory factors Blizzard will introduce regarding AM spam vs AB spam.

AB spam used to be the key stone for top DPS in the arcane build and on most fights 70%+- of all your spells would be an AB. Ideally it would be 100%=P.

First of all they removed "arguably" the best meta gem "RED", but compensated by buffing MSD.

This factor alone will have a serious impact on alot of mages out there including myself.

As I see it; after the patch AB spam has been nerfed while AM spam has been buffed. I haven't tested it personally (Although i soon will) but I would assume MSD and other haste items can really mess up your rotations adding to the frustration (Say byebye to that 5 sec mana tick + "cheap AB" every so often=P).

Have you tried AB spamming while Heroism is up? It isn't possible as gcd comes and spits on you

1. So how will the "mini heroisms" caused by MSD/Ashtongue affect our cycles, AB spams? (Keeping in mind that all you really want to do is AB spam, and use AM at a minimum).

We will experience being unable to chain cast AB at our leisure cause of the GCD halting our AB spam every now and then. I suspect this will be a very annoying factor, as f example when you really want to AB spam with AP. Ill be pissed of if MSD procs at first 1,5 sec AB during AP, which I then have to instantly revert to AM for a clearly diminished effect of AP-.-

The new factors included by Blizz makes the stacking of proc + haste items alot more desirable (Possibly even Wrath of Cenarius). But that whole concept would only be an issue if we conclude that AB spam is not the way to go anymore. -.-

As long as AB spam is the ideal situation on an average fight (And 60-70% of your casts are AB) then its still not advisable to focus on proc based items. The concept of focusing on proc based items is centered around the theory that AM oriented rotations > AB oriented rotations. And this isn't really the case unless for encounters with spell push backs like Terron.

I'm really unsure about how strong AM spam will be compared to AB spam, how to alter the rotations optimally and I have until now not seen a detailed and good response/calculation regarding this on all the forums Ive visited.

At the moment, Im very skeptical of focusing on any haste items as it will have NO affect whatsoever on my ramped up AB which I spam about 30% of any given encounter (On some fights even more)...-.-

Would appreciate any feedback on possible alternatives.

I have a question about the Mystical Skyfire Diamond.

I've been looking over my gear, and I'm noticing a lot of yellow sockets. Checking Wowhead confirms that quite a lot of the mage gear available has yellow sockets, but not a lot of blue. Now this isn't really a problem, I'll just ignore socket bonuses, but then I look at the available gems, and I realize: blue gems suck. Aside from unique-equipped gems found in heroic instances and BT gem cuts, my best option is the Glowing Nightseye (5 spell damage, 6 stamina, purple gem). For each of these I use, however, I'm giving up the extra damage and crit that red and yellow gems provide. My question is, is MSD worth giving up that much damage, crit, and socket bonus goodness for?

Link to my armory: The Armory
(ignore my extra hit gems, I'm still in the process of switching over from fire to arcane spec)

You only need one more blue than yellow, so the general strategy for satisfying the MSD requirements is to ignore the socket bonuses and replace all your yellows with reds so you only need to socket one purple (or balance yellows against purples if it gets you a +dam socket bonus like the t5 shoulders).

I recently went to AV on the PTR, using full 61 point arcane spec and came out #1 in dps over elemental shamster, warrior and warlocks...even boomkin had nothing on me and I used only one spell the entire time: Arcane Missile. Focus proc from MSD lasts 10 seconds and if you use AP on a clearcast AM it is a sweet thing.

This may be a bit late, but to the posts about standard rotation on a'lar, why not ABx3, Ice Lance, AM? It's like Baruk's idea, yet it retains the extra tick from the 5SR.

Is there any particular reason for ABx3, AM, Scorch over ABx3, Scorch, AM? I'm quite new to this, I really don't know.

Don't forget that change in mind mastery in patch 2.2 improves TLC too.

I'm not sure I've heard of this, what do you mean exactly?

Mind Mastery on live increases damage to Fire,Frost, Arcane school, but on test it increases damage to all schools. TLC charge is nature bolt.

Erm, I don't believe that the nature bolt gains any benefit from regular +damage (all schools). You are suspecting it would now?

TLC definitely doesn't scale with +dmg so I dunno why it would with Mind Mastery.

TLC only seems to scale with the players +hit and +crit but does not scale with +damage.

it does scale with direct dmg increasing modifiers though. Arcane Instability for example.

Right, but why doesn't AB, Scorch, AM work? AB has a cast time, even if it's as short as 1.5 seconds, the very same length as scorch.

I think that the reason you do AB(x)AM, Scorch is that it allows for more flexibility if you have to move or hit extra lag or have to pot or whatnot, you can drop the scorch and still time it for the AB debuff. If you do it the other way around you may have to give up on the AB debuff stack, or clip your AM, hurting either your dps or your dpm.

Well, the 5SR is determined by mana expenditure. So, you cast AM (mana expended at time zero) and at the end of the channel you leave the 5SR and are awaiting a tick of mana return. Scorch expends mana at the end of the cast, leaving a nice 6.5s (+latency) window and a tick possible during that 1.5s+latency window during scorch's casting. If you instead AB, Scorch, AM you get this: AB-casttime (enter5SR), 1.5s casting scorch (re-enter 5SR), 5s channeling AM (leaving 5SR at the end). Now, if you then go into a new AB every time then all is well and you'll get your tick only between full cycles rather than during the cycle itself.

I guess in the end it doesn't matter really. (Fireblast however is an instant and expends mana up front of course, making it cut the 5SR.) I personally prefer to leave scorch to the end just because it is the far weakest part of the cycle and should I need to move or change cast-cycle it is the part I want to leave out. This is especially true in variably high-latency situations where I might even end up doing an AB(x), AM, oh crap... pause and re-enter AB phase and skip the scorch entirely. You are quite correct though Cindarin, I had a mental block and ignored the logical mana tick that would come between AM and AB in the variation.

Just bumping Andersnordic's points a bit.

What do people feel the new changes to MSD will change in regards to arcane?
Will AM with MSD and some haste become equal or better DPS? DPM?

Did anyone really even get to test on the PTR before it was closed down XD

This is particularly a wise practice because of clearcasting and Arcane Potency. =]

If the final AB of your AB-chain (for example, the third AB in ABx3->AM->Scorch) procs clearcasting, it's much more desirable to follow with AM anyway. Not only do you get to cast AM for free at +30% crit chance per missile, but you don't even have to cancel another spell cast to take advantage. You certainly wouldn't want to waste that clearcasting proc on a weak, inexpensive scorch (by accident or otherwise).

Taking into account that AM can only proc clearcasting when channeling begins, giving the caster plenty of reflex time to follow an AM clearcast with another AM, ABxN->AM->Scorch guarantees no clearcasting procs are ever wasted on scorch, and does so without forcing the caster to cancel any spells. All procs are spent either on AM or AB.

In short, mage clearcasting mechanics favor ABxN->AM->Scorch over ABxN->Scorch->AM for optimal DPS and (arguably) mana efficiency.

I have a question for manly with breaking T5 bonus as a arcane mage. I have t5 and progression wise( killing council ) i have 2pc of t6 and as senior mage i can pick up the hat/shoulders on next drop, the problem is.. it breaks my nice t5 bonus. Seeing that you have already done so, did u notice a decline in your damage by going t6 and dropping t5 totally?

All my gear slots are solid atm with recent bracers and belt/boots filling in slots and filling with 12dam gems in anticipation of a MSD meta. Ive passed on the t6 previously favoring my t5 but the gear is there, id just like to know what im giving up in return for filling out the t6 bonus since damage is a minimal gain or should i hold out using t5 and arrange peices to maximize it as long as possible. Raid buffed atm im hitting roughly 1540 arc dam atm with my t5 peices being shoulders, gloves, legs and having t6 gloves, legs atm.

Is it just a matter of juggling gear around as it comes keeping t5 as long as possible?or with the changes to AM and MSD + haste do u simply prefer AM over AB as main spell of choice ? ( exalted with Bt etc and haste rings etc bagged if i need them)

First, I guess you concluded I broke my 2pc t5 bonus looking at armory. It simply isn't the case, I typically wear t5 shoulders/gloves, which itself is mostly a temporary thing. As I said many times, I never enjoyed or been impressed by arcane spec, I am merely keeping it until 2.2 comes out, at which point I plan to try AM spam first. I don't really know what to expect out of AM spam dps, since it could be pretty ugly on target switches. I'll try it out and make my decision.

As for whether or not going for 4pc t6 or not, well, it depends on what you like. If you like arcane spec/AB, then really there is not point for you to break 2pc t5, since you will rely on it. If you plan to try AM spam, well, then I suggest you wait for next week and see some reports. Even though I ran through a whole bunch of theorycraft to get a good idea of what it can output, it doesn't mean in practice its workable.

If you could wear any gear you wanted, and wanted to keep 2pc t5, in my mind its pretty clear you want shoulders/gloves. The only alternative would be shoulder/helm, but that's not very optimum since [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] is just that good (not to mention the perfect socket bonus that fits perfectly with MSD requirements). Likewise, [Leggings of Channeled Elements] with triple +12dmg gems is just too hard to pass. You could also use the tier 5 robes rather than t6, but then you will look silly. Technically, for arcane spec, t5 robes is almost the same as t6 robes (because you don't need the extra hit), but I wouldn't do it. Shoulder/chest would be technically the best 2 pieces of t5 to wear given you can get perfect gear for all your other pieces, but again, the differences will be soo small between this and shoulder/gloves that you might as well go for whichever is easier to accomodate.

As for me, next week I'll try AM spam. If I don't like it I'm done with arcane. It sure has its advantages, but at this point everything is farm content for a while now and doesn't really matter which spec I chose. Anyway, I was getting better results with fire on most bosses.

Yea, I'm having the same thoughts. With the insane buff of MSD and the spell haste mechanic, fire builds just got a nice buff.


What did the arcane build get?

Im not certain atm. Will have to see how the new changes will affect more AM oriented rotations and to check out how MSD will affect our AB oriented rotations. We may have lost our biggest advantage. Which is a controlled ramped up AB + AP + trinket spam 2-3 times during each fight. An MSD proc will sabotage that completely so for arcane mages I assume the only realistic META will be the crappy Allerian one.

If our findings are disappointing I may end up going back to fire again:/

MSD in no way reduces your DPS. It doesn't help AB spam, sure, it just leaves it unchanged.

MSD can harm your rotations while you get used to it. Take ABx3-->AM-->scorch If it occurs on the final two ABs of the ABx3, it has no effect. If it speeds the AM, you can sub in a fireball for the scorch, if it speeds the scorch, you can sub in a fireball for a scorch.

If it occurs on the first AB of the new cycle, you can have a problem. Your choice is to either eat the mana intensive AB, which is admittedly painful, or to cancel and lose a short amount of DPS time. But there are workarounds. If you can get the /stopcasting off in 0.75 seconds, you actually lose no DPS, since you can re-cast immediately before the buff falls off and still get all of the benefits of the shorter cast time and the lowered mana cost. If you can't stopcast that fast, you can simply make a /cancelaura macro to remove the MSD buff before you cast the first AB of a new cycle.