Awesome results Manly, were you wearing the gear on armory right now? Seems I've found a use for all this future BT haste gear which was most likely going to get sharded before! Being only my second night as arcane I tried to do some more of the ABx3 AM scorch, and dropped it for AM spam around Leo tonight, all the crits are tons of fun. I'd have to check but I think I'm currently 'clipping' to many of my AMs and losing the last bolt. I'm actually excited to hit exalted for that trinket now as well.

We seem to have come full circle. I remember the first videos I saw on the net long long ago of the first server wide Onyxia kill with the mages spamming arcane missiles. Then, we moved away from that to frost mage in vogue for MC, then fire mage for AQ40 and beyond, then the arcane mage with 2 pc T5 spamming AB and AB rotations, and now, back again to spamming AM !!! lol

Its a wierd but nice feeling. ^_^

For reference, what I wear right now is pretty much my 'standard raiding gear'. Here is the quick rundown:

[Pattern: Mantle of Nimble Thought] < [Hatefury Mantle] (2x +12dmg) < [Mantle of the Tempest] (2x +12dmg)
[Pattern: Belt of Blasting] (2x +12dmg) (assuming hit cap without belt) < [Waistwrap of Infinity] < [Anetheron's Noose] (2x +12dmg)
[Pattern: Bracers of Nimble Thought] (close enough) < [Cuffs of Devastation] (1x +12dmg)

unverified stuff below
--------------------------------

[Tempest of Chaos] + [Chronicle of Dark Secrets] < [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
this one above really needs serious theorycrafting. zhar'doom seems like it would give a quite insane dps boost, but the question remains - can it beat the king ? 55 haste is tremendous, not to speak that it maintains proc uptimes easier. MH*OH gives tons of spell hit, but you can't use any of it. Serious food for thought. If I had the choice, I would go for zhardoom and let the fire mages/destro locks get their sword.
[Wrath of Cenarius] < [Violet Signet of the Archmage] < [Ring of Captured Storms] < [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] < [Band of the Eternal Sage]

Did you mix Ring of Captured Storms and Violet Signet up? I can't see why Violet signet beats the other out for the life of me..

Yes, but its not as bad as you might think. That 23 int turns is multiplied by 10% from BOK, and 15% from arcane mind, giving ~29 int total. That 29 int gives 7.25 spell dmg, as well as ~0.40% crit. Yes, ring of captured storms is better but not like by a tremendous margin. Plus you get to use the stamina and extra mana from the exalted karazhan ring, which is always nice to have.

I believe haste potions only affect melee(and hunter) haste?

I read through this post earlier (before Manly posted his results) and thought to myself how cool the idea of AM spam is but figured it didn't really apply to me because I AB spam almost exclusively. However, after the results were posted I felt that I needed to post, just to clarify.

Manly, you mentioned that those numbers were better than what you had before. Were you using a roation before or ...? I have 0 BT pieces, 0 Hyjal pieces and I'm pushing about the same DPS in raids using AB spam. Believe it or not, I do not have mana problems and actually have trouble spending it all sometimes. I'm not new to end-game raiding, but have just started doing Hyjal/BT; is my expierence so different from the general populas that it should be considered an exception and disregarded?

So far, I'm very pleased with what arcane has to offer, but I'm very hesitant to believe that with the proper haste gear/meta/trinkets, AM spam will be superior to AB spam. I had assumed that people were assuming AB spam is better and that these numbers were generated to be compared to some sort of rotation; but after seeing the numbers I'm not sure if my assumption was safe or not. Is this supposed to replace AB spam as well as rotations, or just rotations?

2.2. Release - good stuff

Some Questions:

1. I have only TLC and 2 T5 pieces, so i think the normal rotation 3 AB 1 AM 1 S is better than using AM only and/or finish with AB - or is AM Spam with MSD an alternativ with "low equip"

2. Is MSD with "old rotation" and gear usefull? Or is the rotationbreak on MSD proc a result to lower dps?

So at the end what gear you need to make AM spam usefull or equal (BT stuff, T6 bonus, hastegear so on)? Or is gear at T5 Level also an option to break the old playstyle with better results?

Thanks

Kelmain

First off I'd like to say hi to all the arcane mages/aspirinng arcane mages out there!

I found this thread yesterday and have been slowly catching up, it would have been nice to have been sharing/discussing this spec when the talent trees first got updated, which was when I first decided to try an arcane build - but the benefit was that I got to figure what worked for me through trial and error

The rotation that eventually seemed to work the best for me turned out to be straight AM spamming, which people are just beginning to realize the potential of. The advantages are:

1) A really simple rotation - you can basically press the AM button and then scope your surroundings, or if you're really bored even chat. You don't need to worry about changing casts for clearcasting procs, or timing your scorches perfectly to catch the end of your AB stack. It gives you more bandwidth to be situationally aware, time your stopcasting macros, or go make popcorn. (microwave, not stovetop)

2) Theorycrafting: Best balance of DPS/DPM. With JOW, according to Llhivera's script, AM spamming is more mana efficient than the ABx3, AM, scorch rotation, with more dps than an AM-AB rotation. Even without JOW, it is not that much more intensive than the ABx3 rotation (I went through the simulation a while ago, feel free to crunch through different scenarios for you own situation Lhivera's Theorycraft Script)

3) Procs up the kazoo. It was the procs that really made the difference for me. At the very least you can double-dip the CC crit bonus - I'm not sure this is accurately reflected in the theorycrafting/spreadsheets that I've come accross - eg Llhiveras. Throw in the Lightning Capacitor and your dps shoots up significantly. Now, with the MSD, it becomes a little broken, and you actually have a prayer against rogues and locks on the meters. It becomes even better with Ashtongue/Skull of Gul'dan/Haste ring etc.

4) You can dps non-stop without worrying about threat. While this is less of an issue with amazing guild tanks, in my experience as fire I always had to hold back - even with scorching, and constantly worry about the threat meter. With AM spamming I can essentially ignore my threat level and focus on dpsing. This is great on trash, as you start dpsing early, and as you first missiles come fairly quickly (1.5s?), end dps late on mobs at low health. This also gives you a slight edge on bosses as well.

5) No dependence on 2 T5. Since I don't have T6, I use my T5 as my stam set, but prefer Spellfire for more raw +dmg when possible. The AB rotations really only shine (imo) with 2T5. Without 2T5, I haven't found them to be that compelling.

There are issues of course, that other people have already mentioned - mana if JOW is not up and/or no shadow priest, short range, having to interrupt casts to avoid debris and whatnot (this is really a mana issue, not a dps issue). The biggest drawback so far has been the limited range, and on some fights you may want to swap to +hit gear and spam your improved fireball/frostbolt.

All this may change if they "fix" AM double-dipping or whatnot, or if fire gets an amazing trinket/buff, but for now I've been happy with just spamming AMs, despite the negative pre-2.2 theorycrafting.

So, if AM Spam is a good option - you don't need some Fireskillpoints.

I have a 47/11/3 build, to make Scorch a usefull Rotationspell and ad some extra Damage inklusive Pyro, and to ad 3% Hit - because the nice Arkanhit i have only 6% on Equip.

But - if the new way is to use Arkanonly, you don't need some extra Firepoints and can easly go full 61p Arkan or?

Thanks

Kelmain

Thats what i was thinking too, free's up a fair few points to spend wherever.

Ill probably invest in getting Frostbite to help a bit in arena and stuff .. and maybe prismatic cloak or something can be useful =)

Thats some impressive numbers Manly

However, I believe there is a gear benchmark that has to be met in order for AM heavy rotations to be better than AB heavy rotations (If this is at all true). And we will have to try to identify which benchmark/terms has to be met (Which pieces of gear) before AM spam would be better/"break even" of AB spam/focus.

Have you compared those numbers with primarily AB spamming with the appropriate gear (Focusing on non-proc gear, no haste gear, and with 2 p T5)?

I'm really doubtful that simply AM spamming (With optimal "AM gear") would produce better numbers than primarily AB spamming (With optimal "AB gear").

Its really the blue/red pill here, as if AB spamming still shows to be optimal then haste/proc gear will simply gimp your dps while "AB friendly gear" will boost it a lot more.

If AM spam turns out to be the way to go, and if its true that this is so mana efficient that we can use Molten Armor, then spirit will be more or less worthless to us "again" and it will turn every mechanic in the arcane spec upside down (Ill believe it when I see it).

Your ramped up AB will gain NOTHING from haste (In fact you will lose out on important stats) so we have to be 100% sure before using our resources on haste gear and proc items.

More testing and documentation will provide us with that insight though.

Welcome to the dark side.

I have a lot to learn about this, too. But I have been casting AM while using AP. But I wait for clearcasting. So I get a full AM channel at +30% damage without the extra mana cost. And I just eat the partial bonus AM at the end because mana isn't really a concern and doing anything else would lower my DPS.

Without 2/5 t5 I think it's probably a good idea to just accept that you're going to end most fights with mana left in your pool. Spamming AB at BEST is probably going to be similar DPS to AM. But with fewer proc checks.

Good call about molten armor. I've programmed myself for mage armor so I never even really considered molten armor even though I have so much extra mana most fights. I should really start making destruction pots too.

I'm really expecting the nerf bat soon though. I don't really think Blizzard intended for AM to become this powerful. Probably by 2.3 I am predicting that MSD will not be proccing per tick. Which is sad. Because it's not like we're doubling our dps. We're just edging out fire on fights that we previously weren't able to.

It is my belief that with the proper gear, AM will be an arcane mage's exclusive dps spell late game. And AB almost might as well be unbound other than for multi target fights when you want to sneak in a high dpm unstacked AB before a mob dies where using AM just is not feasible.

But as others have mentioned, is this true for all levels of gearing? I don't know and would be interested to see numbers for it. At what point does AM become better than AB or is AM always superior considering a MSD now?

I could be wrong, but I thought the way the numbers worked it still made since to AB-spam with AP up (because of the uneven application of +30% to the base spell cost and the final spell damage). Throwing in a POM Pyro in there seems to make alot of sense too. But I thought that this made sense regardless of using 2T5.

Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

Alright, one question that in my opinion will help the typical arcane mage which is the biggest part of the arcane mage population.

The mage who was 2xT5 and plays with AB-AB-AM-SCORCH.

With :

1) Around +75 hit
2) Without any haste gear (ssc-tk mage)
3) With TLC and Crusade trinkets
4) With low JOW uptime (cos palas dont want to do it or cant do it)

Is Missiles spam better than AB-AB-AM-SCORCH for the above mage ?

p.s. I am european, I havent logged to see the patch yet, I ll see it later when I get home from work.

thats the issue at hand . untill someone with those stats tries it we wont really know for sure =)

There is still the possibility of a ABx3,AM,Scorch-rotation with AM on focus procs and Clearcasts for mages with "average" gear (>2T5).
I'm definitely getting a MSD now and give it a try(was outbid by a lock yesterday, so I'll have to go with T4 for now).

Well, I will try it also, but since I have to buy the msd, and also change a couple of gems, I would like to know if anyone with my gear has tried it.

Ive got "similar" gear .. gonna test it on tonights raid (got gem installed already), ill post here my results.

I didn't take an in-depth look your parse but several observations/questions come to mind:

1) How does your AM spamming compare with other rotations you have tried for this particular boss? How does your meter position compare with your usual position (if it is different?)

2) You seem to be competitive with the 2 locks above you, and the 2 shadow priests below you - are the locks consistently on top for this fight, and if so, is this due to the encounter, gear, or are the locks simply a little op'ed?

3) The other two mages, frost and fire, seem to be performing sub-par with similar gear. They are barely above the melee, in what I assume is a melee-unfriendly encounter (given the wws parse). Do you think this is due to spec or to skill? In my experience pre-2.2, AM spamming was producing on the order of dmg as a decent fire/frost mage (varying with the encounter). Did they die?

I'm getting quite the opposite results, the gem is proccing quite often. I know it isn't the best choice for dps now with the change to [Mystical Skyfire Diamond], but at the moment the requirements for that gem don't really suit me.

It has procced multiple times from single AM casts for me a few times, until I get some better gear that fits better with the 'more blue than yellow' requirement I am going to stick with the [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]. With the extra mana I'll just spam AB some more

2 procs during a single cast (warning: imageshack)