Confirmed that MSD is capable of proccing on each AM missile.

Can someone (vontre/manly?) make a summary post for this stuff?
I know there's a bunch of new stuff to figure out with the patch, but it's impossible to go through reading, and comprehending, the entire 61 page thread now. Especially since a lot of stuff earlier on in the thread no longer applies, but we use it to refer back to. Ex: I still am not sure I understand what 'double dipping' is referring to. Does that mean if CC procs on an AM tick, all the subsequent ticks get Arcane Potency taken into account, but does not consume the buff, so the subsequent AM cast gets it too?

Even just comments like 'preliminary testing suggests AM spam with MSD+TLC and JoW up to be equal dps and dpm to fire spec fireball spam' would be helpful.

Our guild is about 3 bosses into BT and 2 into hyjal and making progress. The other mages think going arcane spec now is a waste of time, since 'you are stuck with 2pc T5' and I've been seeing stuff here that suggests arcane is now viable WITHOUT 2pcT5. Unfortunately, while I can understand the complex theorycraft ideas, I'm not good enough at math to work it out myself, too many mistakes. So, i can't give them hard figures for it. But, I think if I go arcane, and can output similar or better dps then the fire specced mages, it'll help us all as there will be less items we will fight over. Only one of the 5 mages is arcane, the other 3 don't want to go that route.

A summary of what's known would really help.

To be fair, I only said I had the impression it wasn't working anymore. I did not do specific tests on it as I was mostly focused on AM rotations. I also got the impression on the PTR that something was broken as far as focus procs were concerned; it seemed as if sometimes AM wouldn't consume focus. Anyway, now that its live we get to do yet another round of tests. Results to be available soon.

I'm currently doing several mana bars of tests for all the various AB and AM combination rotations, fyi... will post my findings shortly.

I really gotta get back to work, but here are my findings, quick and dirty...

Character was Raena@US-Kilrogg. 1122 arcane +dmg, 22.28% crit, 11126 mana, 182mp5 while not casting, 85mp5 while casting, NO 2T5, with Elder Scribes, TLC, MSD, and no other procs from gear.

Did 4 tests of each possible rotation, comprised of using the rotation, starting with full mana, until I was OOM. No sources of additional mana, other than spirit regen.

Due to the relatively short duration of these tests, there's a large variation in these results, primarly due to procs happening or not happening. Some tests I got luck with focus procs, which boosted my dps, some tests I got lucky with CC procs, which boosted my dmg, and some tests I got lucky with both or neither.

AM Spam:
Test 1: 100124dmg, 1025.5dps
Test 2: 113556dmg, 1101.8dps
Test 3: 88607dmg, 886.3dps
Test 4: 85448dmg, 1031.0dps
Average: 1010.93dps, 387.7k total dmg

AB-AM-AM: (aka, AB if there is no focus proc, no CC proc, and no AB debuff. Otherwise, AM)
Test 1: 109067dmg, 1016.4dps
Test 2: 122722dmg, 1037.7dps
Test 3: 83699dmg, 969.2dps
Test 4: 98967dmg, 871.3dps
Average: 974.00dps, 414.5k total dmg

AB-AM: (aka, AB if there is no focus proc, and no CC proc. Otherwise, AM)
Test 1: 70203dmg, 859.8dps
Test 2: 91875dmg, 879.7dps
Test 3: 74353dmg, 978.7dps
Test 4: 79025dmg, 987.6dps
Average: 921.88dps, 315.3k total dmg

AB Spam:
Test 1: 52221dmg, 1232.1dps
Test 2: 39191dmg, 1156.3dps
Test 3: 38836dmg, 1224.1dps
Test 4: 37345dmg, 1167.1dps
Average: 1197dps, 167.6k total dmg

Some observations: Focus procs from AM on each bolt 'cast', not 'hit', so the only time you can get a focus after starting the next spell is when you stopcasting and start casting the next spell early, and it procs off the last missile. Also, AB-AM sucks. When I got no focus/CC procs, it chugged mana like mad, as you would expect, however that was exceedingly rare. Of the 4 tests, I think I got off maybe a dozen 1.5sec ABs. The procs are so common, and if either proc occurs, you lose the AB stack. Instead you spend the whole time trying to rebuild the AB stack, between AMs. If you don't have 2T5 yet, AB seems like a waste of time and mana to use, except for during AP. Kavan was doing these tests along with me, and he's got 2T5, and found that unless he's got a spriest and JoW is up the whole time, he won't have much more mana to spare than just AB spamming during APs.


TLDR version: Spam AB during AP. AB-AM-AM *may* be a bit better than AM, but requires alot more concentration to get right, which may be hard during actual encounters.


EDIT: Added averages, and revised the TLDR.

Ran out to Boom on live to check out the double dip AM casts

Aldric - WWS

Fired off 140 casts (700 bolts) and got 20 clearcasts (14.3% clearcast rate) 14.3 clearcast at 30% crit elevation would be a 4.29% elevation on crit rate for single dip, 8.58% on double. My character sheet crit rate was 26.49% for the test and I got an overall crit rate of 35.8% on hit.

So by the numbers I should have been at 35.07% on double dip. Not a huge sample size but I think it's pretty safe to conclude that double dipping on AM is still there. As to the 60% on consecutive clearcasts for AM, who knows, that would take a huge sample size and a lot of log ripping to get good data. But, as Manly says, it feels like 60% for the ones I did get.

I havent seen anything to indicate it can proc on each missile, I think its still on the initial cast. I could be wrong though, because as soon as I posted about it before it went and did something I wasnt expecting.

Yes. MSD can proc on each missile 'cast'.

edit: redundant

It seems extremely obvious to me that AM is still proccing on each separate missile, as in tonight's raid I have seen the Focus buff pop up late into the AM cast on several occasions, much too late(4th or 5th missile) for it to simply be lag.

Confirmed. Still Procs per missile and at the beginning for a total of 6 chances to proc. I was just fighting Lurker with AM spam. 17% then Instance crashed. I must say, Haste Pot + Heroism + Focus is money. I was leading in DPS at the time of the crash with way to much mana.

Question: If you were to AM spam the majority of the fight which pot would provide more DPS, Haste or Destruction?

From everything I've tested and read, 1 point of spell haste should be aprox 1.5 spell damage for AM spam. And I value 1 crit rating as about 0.5 spell damage. So just convert and add.

I'm not sure if this is worth anything, but [Mark of Defiance] can proc off a AM bolt hit.

The numbers
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please note: unless otherwise noted, all fights were using adepts/draenic wisdom/food/oil.
please note: on every boss I was using a very very laidback stopcasting approach to make sure not to miss the last bolt. those numbers are really suboptimal in that sense.

Wow Web Stats
rage winterchill - 1641 dps - (note: lots of mana left at the end, used mage armor by mistake, mistimed my AP so results were quite suboptimal)

Wow Web Stats
anetheron - 1584 dps - (adds duty, mage armor by mistake again I believe. mistimed AP/pom pyro.)

Wow Web Stats
kaz'rogal - 1202 dps - (wearing 340 sr. Had basically > 60% mana at any given time due to jow. Was using mage armor. Misused AP/POM pyro. Basically, next time I won't wear any SR gear since JOW is just that retarded with a shadow priest. I was also using crusade over ashtongue in fear that I could possibly be mana screwed.)

Wow Web Stats
azgalor - 1121 dps - (wearing 340 sr. No JOW, but finished with 0 mana. Evocation got silenced after 1 tick. Mage armor. I resisted every silence I believe, save one or 2. It was definately nice, but next time I will be using AB spam with 200sr as it gave me much better results last time.)

<insert exalted hyjal ring>

Wow Web Stats
naj'entus - 1476 dps - (Mage armor, lots of spare mana at the end. Barely used evocation. This was the fight where I had a big interrogation mark on, as I never had any kind of decent numbers on them - as arcane. AM spam really pushed a good 200 dps above what I am used to. This is far above my own expectations out of AM spam. I think spell interruption prevention really gave out excellent numbers there. Flasked)

Wow Web Stats
supremus - 1268 dps - (Mage armor. Some spare mana at the end. I used a brief evocation. I went and kept ashtongue trinket over a non-stacking trinket, since I figured usually I don't want procs on movement fights. Usually I go for icon over crusade. I decided to go against my common sense and go for the throat. I couldn't possibly be more right. Additionally, since we only had 2 warlocks, COS was only up during kite phases, whereas coe was always up. Not that it made a difference anyway. Flasked)

Wow Web Stats
teron gorefiend - 1694 dps - (Molten armor. No need for evocation with JOW. I intentionally DID NOT use POM/pyro so I could see results from only AM spam. I also screwed up on the gear, I was still wearing belt of blasting (2x +12dmg) from akama over waistwraps of infinity, which is much much less damage. This was a mistake on my part.)

EDIT: in case you wonder what I usually get - let me put it bluntly - those numbers clearly beat everything else I tried out of the water.

Your signature is hilarious when looking at those results, I made my decission to go for t6 afterall looking at those numbers. Cheers for the report.

Excellent results Manly. You mentioned that you were messing up and putting up mage armor instead of molten, so mana consumption seemed to not be a problem at all. You also mentioned belt of blasting for Teron (where this build should, and did, thrive the best), so I assume that you were wearing all the other haste pieces?

Dark Iron went down hard tonight, so I didn't get to play past Naj'entus with the new mechanics

I want to make a "jaw-dropping" comment but I'll refrain.

I don't really know what to say yet, was stuck at work and will have to test it out tomorrow night myself. The initial results though seem very pleasing.

I do not have a TLC nor am I yet exalted with Hyjal but it still might have wings. I did drag out the Mag's Eye for a little testing tonight and it does proc off any missile. Not that 1% chance to proc per missile is amazing or anything but hey, it might stopgap. Now I just have to beat on the pallies about JoW while they are still giddy from the new blessings.

I don't know what to say, in every one of those parse I get 200 more dps than what I typically do. And thats using like full pot and everything I normally do, which I didn't have to do as much. I was expecting really laughable and unrealistic DPM, but this was far far from being correct. If I had to do it again I would wear molten armor full time.

What needs to be stressed here is that those numbers really really aren't optimal. I didn't try to stopcast at the red bar on quartz, I made sure it was around redbar+200ms. Most of those AP were not even popped during bloodlust, since, well, timings just didnt turn out well. I didn't either attempt to wait on focus or clearcast proc before popping AP. In any case, since mana is mostly non-issue it seems, I would readily recommend to wait on MSD proc before popping AP. If that weren't good enough, you have 26.50% chance to proc per AM, so it should be easy to proc and not leave you waiting forever. Lesson learned.

Also, I did not, under any of those fights, attempt to dump my extraneous mana into AB spam. I am unsure whether it is worth it, given that I would not wear 2pc t5.

Another thing to note, for those that attempt the build. Do not cast AM during AP if all you get is 1-2 AP-ed ticks. The reason is that you pay full cost upfront (+30% mana), but only the ticks casted while AP is up will have the +30% damage. I made sure not to make that mistake in those parse.

Mana consumption does require you to get a bit used to it. (Or maybe, to be more fair, lose your AB spam alienation) But it does have a lot of advantages to have a relatively constant mana consumption.

Do you think you'll have enough mana to use Haste or Destruction Pots instead of Super Mana ones? I found I had plenty of mana to do so tonight. Maybe keep mage armor to make up for it?

Haha, yeah, no kidding.

Those numbers really are astounding. I'm now tempted to try and take whatever headpiece I can find with a meta socket just to get a MSD and try this out. And with all that extra mana you say you have left over, I'll keep on my 2pc T5 and try AB spam at <20%. And /sigh.. Illhoof didn't drop TLC tonight, yet another week of no dream trinket. Though I did pick up the Serpent Coil Braid the other night and am thoroughly enjoying it. The mana bonus makes up for what I was regenning with my Mark of Defiance on, and I still get the crit and spellpower as extras.

This is kinda funny too because I watched another arcane mage in my guild doing AB spam about a week ago on some bosses and was really perplexed, because at the time it was severely lower DPS than AB, and he was wearing his T5 bonus. I suppose he had the right idea early without realizing it.

Indeed. I'm constantly blowing the other DPSers away on Leo, and did even before I got my 2pc T5. Although I had some trouble this last week simply because of my damage output causing so much threat... 1000 TPS from a mage with -40% passive threat reduction and -20% from salv is scary. It freaked me out a couple times when I wasn't watching my threat much and my tanks started yelling that I was about to pull. QQ

There is definately serious considerations to be given on destruction pots. I guess the new POM/pyro should be:

focus proc -> destruction pot -> AP -> AM -> (AM spam following)

And I do believe that molten armor is definately something we should take advantage of. Arcane spec might have 175% for crits, but given the nature of TLC and ashtongue it might bring that number a bit higher.

Oh and a nice hidden buff: [Band of the Eternal Sage] is bugged. The proc lasts 15s, not 10s as indicated. This thing procs all the time (45s internal cooldown).


footnotes: <calling vontre out> You might want to compare 'clearcast->AP->AM' to 'clearcast->POM->AP->pyro' to 'focus->AP->AM'. My gut feeling tell me the 3rd one might be a serious competitor.
To Logun: Haste potion is only for melee. It doesn't apply to spells.

Can't wait to try it out today myself. Have always been unlucky and haven't managed to get 2pc T5 yet. But from the looks of it, I won't have to because AM spam doesn't need that set bonus.

And yeah, Manly, your signature is the ultimate in irony. lol (second or third poster to comment on it!) ^_^