◊ manly

Maybe, but I do gear specifically in a way to increase the number of focus procs I get. Theres a good reason I come out consistently on top. I am really not sure at this point about anetheron's noose vs waistwraps of infinity and mantle of nimble thoughts vs hatefury mantle. What I plan on trying out next is go for DPM (ie: anetheron/hatefury) and recast AM if I get a focus proc during AM. What I want to say is that technically you might be better off with pure spellhaste gear, but you could make it work using dmg/crit gear instead.

Actually, come to think of this, I should probably just writeup the optimum gear and go frolm there.

note: [Runed Crimson Spinel] unless otherwise indicated

optimum AM spam gear
----------------------------
[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] - [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst]
[The Sun King's Talisman]
[Mantle of the Tempest]
[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
[Robes of the Tempest]
[Bracers of Nimble Thought]

[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Eredar Wand of Obliteration] - or [Wand of the Forgotten Star]

[Gloves of the Tempest]
[Anetheron's Noose] - or [Waistwrap of Infinity]
[Leggings of the Tempest]
[Slippers of the Seacaller]

[Band of the Eternal Sage]
[Ring of Ancient Knowledge]
[Ashtongue Talisman of Insight]
[The Lightning Capacitor]

result: using the best enchants, with the minor exceptions of:
-scryers enchant (technically the sapphiron enchant is better)
-150 hp to chest (+6 to all is arguably better)
-boar's speed
-20 penetration to cloak, which is inconsequential

456 sta, 366 int, 120 spi, 1141 dmg, 330 crit, 88 hit, 114 haste, (+150 hp) (+run speed) (+ashtongue) (+tlc) (+4pc t6) (+hyjal exalted proc)

"Did the last bastion of arcane hope give up to the FFB gods ?"

please fix rolling deep wounds.

 

aznxk3vi17

According to Vontre's very nicely made spreadsheet, at least with my gear level, AM spam certainly has good dps, but compared to a standard rotation like ABx3, AM, Scorch, doesn't put out as much damage for any amount of time. In fact, the ABx3 rotation does more dps for a 5 minute fight. Keep in mind Vontre takes into account mana usage.

So while people have been saying AM spam is great DPS and not-so-good DPM, but which is offset by SPriest and JoW and whatnot, according to this spreedsheet, AM spam still does not win ever. In fact, even AB, AMx2 beats it out by a bit. I'm not sure if it takes MSD procs into account accurately, but certainly AB, AMx2 has almost as many proc opportunities.

Am I doing something wrong with the spreadsheet? Is it simply my gear that makes AM spam not as viable?

 

Vulkaire

Agreed, you can set your self up to get the most possible procs. However, the procs are still random to a point. In the example I gave of me getting 8 procs to the other mage's 18, I was wearing all of the passive haste gear in game except the belt off Supremus. The other mage was using one haste ring at most. Over the course of many raids, those of us who stack the haste will get the most procs, but there will always be those frustrating times where you can't buy a proc.

 

Frostie

That's the funny thing about effects. They're affected by percent modifiers such as arcane instability. Even your wand gets 3% extra damage from arcane instability since it's counted as an effect.

I know it was mentioned. I am just re-enforcing it.

 

◊ manly

I was also using the mantle, which your profile seem to suggest you weren't. I am not debating that a 38 haste difference will make a huge difference, I know it won't. My point was I was literally using *every* spell haste drop, totalling 184 haste / 11.72% passive haste, not counting ashtongue. With that kind of haste rating I get 90%+-ish ashtongue uptime, putting me at 329 haste / 20.96% haste for most of the time.

"Did the last bastion of arcane hope give up to the FFB gods ?"

please fix rolling deep wounds.

 

Vulkaire

Aye, I had the mantle and ashtongue trinket on also. I was spec'd frost and farming last night, so didn't have my AM gear on when I logged. Looks like i just threw on my t6 pants and shoulders, which are still waiting on gems, before logging also. I'm not arguing that this kind of set-up won't give you the best proc rate as over time it certainly will. Just that it doesn't guarantee it.

 

Keyne

I haven't been able to find on the forums a formula to describe an AM cast as completely as possible. Obviously, I'd like to have one that takes as many variables into consideration as possible (AM talent, +dmg, crit rating, hit rating, etc.) My overarching concern is that (as I understand it) the value of a point of crit rating is directly correlated to +spell damage, and I'd like to be able to figure out exactly what that value is given whatever +dmg I have/will have when making gear and gem selection (How much worse is crit/dmg gem than a pure dmg gem, using dps as the metric). Thanks in advance.

Edit: for shameful grammar

 

Searix

According to this guy at the lan center somewhere on the forums it was reported that the change to AM was unintenional and will be fixed in 2.3, i haven't seen the link directly but the guy is reputable

 

Rounced

I've been reading the US and the Euro forums and haven't seen a single blue post reporting anything of the sort, I haven't even seen any outpouring of other classes crying about the change being overpowered on any level.

Actually the only place I have seen any whining on any level regarding the changes to AM in 2.2 has been on this forum, by other mages.

 

◊ manly

Or some unnamed rogue in EJ :P But honestly that is about the only complain I have heard of it myself, otherwise its been good time since 2.2. Finally I see a good reason to invite a mage beyond 'who will make us water ?' and 'hey where is my AI ?'.

"Did the last bastion of arcane hope give up to the FFB gods ?"

please fix rolling deep wounds.

 

Sancus

If they do decide to "fix" it, I sure hope they have some other plan to make Arcane viable, because it will immediately be dropped as a viable spec compared to frost/fire without focus procs on each missile.

And it will make me a very sad panda for collecting a gear set ideal for that spec, too

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Keyne

Also, assuming a party of moonkin, elemental shaman, shadowpriest, and X, which spec would be more likely to benefit from the added crit rating (both specs hit capped): a 10/48/3 fire mage or an 48/13 arc mage with TLC?

 

Sancus

AM spam mage benefits from crit something like 50-60% more than a 10/48/3 mage.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Keyne

Justification, please.

 

Gnag

I know it's probably be talked over and over already but I don't know where so if someone could point me where I would apreciate.

I'm curently using The blood magus blade and I was thinking about going Arc spec I don't have
2/5 tier five so I planning to mainly use AM is the benifit from the Blade of wizardry worth the price and the lost of crit and spell dmg? How does it work for AM?

Edit: only have access up to tidewalker and VR

 

aliengrey

I'll probably just quit playing the game. I heard the saying "I need a mage to sit" too many friggin' times in 2.1 it made me sick inside.

 

Kinx

So I've been Arcane specced for quite a while now, and I really enjoy it, at my current gear level, and seeing what I can currently achieve it's (from what I've tried and experienced) by far the best dps output spec for me. (Currently 4/5 t5, and we're at Bloodboil/Azgalor).

Been using more and more Arcane Missiles instead of Arcane Blast, and haven't really had any proper rotation worth mentioning, as I've been mostly just bursting as much as my mana can hold.

Like many many others I've done some testing, and I captured one I did, just to show some friends how much burst possibility The Lightning Capacitor+Mystical Skyfire Diamond+Arcane Missiles spam really holds. Figured I'd share it with you lot as well.

Stage6 · Arcane Missiles Fun!Â*-Â*Video and DownloadÂ*·Â*Twinker!

 

averly

It has been a while since I looked at the math on the blade of wizardry, but I seem to recall it was less DPS than the HH sword. AM spam doesn't change that significantly since there is an internal cooldown on it.

However, I am playing with using my Blade of Wizardy as my spellsurge weapon with CasterWeaponSwapper. The rest of the time I have the Mindblade with sunfire.

On VR last night I got 49 spellsurges and 32 Forgotten Knowledge so that is ~65% double proc rate. Which seems well worth reenchanting the blade which had been sitting in my bank once its initial novelty wore off.

 

Sancus

If you look back in the thread, someone came up with the numbers that 1 crit rating is slightly better than 1 damage for an arcane mage, and 1 spellhaste = 1.5dmg. I've generally seen 1 crit = 0.7-0.8 for 10/48/3 calculated.

This is probably because Spell Power + Lightning Capacitor is equivalent to Ignite in terms of how much damage your crits do, but on TOP of that crit also increases Ashtongue uptime, combined with the fact that Arcane Missiles doesn't benefit as much from +dmg as Fireball does, since Fire gives you a lot more damage multipliers.

So, it's not so much that crit is way better, though it is slightly better, but that +dmg is worse.

Mind you, that also implies that once you have 100% Ashtongue uptime, then the value of crit drops some. I haven't seen detailed math including that factor or what sort of crit rate you'd need for it to happen.

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

Roywyn

The Fire Mage (with 2.3 calculation, tax removed) benefits 2.53% more from the Moonkin Aura in a party without a shaman (+73.75 DPS vs. +71.93 DPS), and 3.5% more in a party with an elemental shaman (+77.18 DPS vs. +74.55 DPS)

So, it basically doesn't matter, assuming optimal gear on everyone and being hit capped and such. This is with Vontre's sheet, by the way, changed for 2.3.

I assume the last spot in that group is your Shadow Bolt slave for ISB?


That's true, but that doesn't imply that 5% crit is better for arcane than for fire. It just means that arcane has pretty mediocre scaling with damage, and everything else as well.
With the damage tax removed, the best gear available and raid buffs, fire becomes competitive again just because of it's strong scaling talents/mechanics.

 

Kandir

I recently respecced to arcane to utilize/abuse 2.2's changes to AM and MSD, and after I saw a significant increase in my dps, I started a campaign to get our other mages to follow suit. Another of our mages did the same, and the difference in his DPS was dramatic. As a raid leader, I'm wondering what the effect would be on overall raiddps if all of our mages were to do the same. Our warlocks immediately started protesting against this, arguing that their dps would take a big cut if improved scorch was removed. My gut feeling was that the benefits of increased mage dps, along with switching out CoE for damage curses, would outweigh the cost of losing imp scorch.

I unfortunately don't have the theorycrafting prowess to support my "hunch", so I'm wondering if anyone else might give some advice on the subject? Am I out on thin ice with here? We typically run with a mix of 5-7 locks/mages, with a range of specs, so the actual cost of losing scorch (vs the gains of boosting mage dps + damage curses) would of course vary from raid to raid. Anyone else having these sorts of dicussions that might give some feedback? Comments appreciated.

 

khel

I am the guild leader and raid leader, so have to look at people's specs and research a lot about each class to try to get the most out of our guys.

Anyway, your warlocks should not be using fire spells anyway. If they want to min-max for raiding, even as destruction, they should gear for maximum +shadow damage. Their personal dps might stay somewhat similar in solo-tests, but the raid dps will go up because of one big thing: the improved shadowbolt debuff.

Let's say you bring 1 affliction warlock, 2 0-21-40 warlocks, and 2 shadowpriests in your raid (pretty normal). Those two destruction warlocks do not buff anyone else's dps by using incinerate, but using shadowbolt they are keeping the 20% boost to all shadow dmg spells up for the entire group of shadow dpsers. A normal affliction warlock is only going to have maybe 15-20% crit normally, but destruction locks will generally stack higher crit rating to make full use of ruin. More Improved Shadowbolt uptime, which translates also to more mana+health regen that your priests give the groups, which further increases the raid's dps.

You also free up debuff slots with a raid setup like this. Tell your warlocks that if they switch to shadow nuking, then one of them gets to use CoA who couldn't before (CoS, CoR, CoA). Fireball tics, improved scorch, CoE, and ignite can all be replaced with different debuffs that will up the overall raid dps.

 

Pintofbrew

I am under the impression that even 0.21.40 locks use one fire-based dot. Immolate if I recall correctly? Though I would be amazed if it accounted for over 10% of their damage. Given circumstance, I should think that by adding 1) the increase to mages 2) one less CoE replaced by CoA or CoD or whatever they prefer to do will be significantly more of an improvement than a piddly 15% buff to their fire DOT.