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]
[Pattern: 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)

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 ?'.

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

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?

Justification, please.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

TLDR - This is lots of stuff about optimising gear for fire or arcane come 2.3.

Everything has been calculated with the old MSD meta gem (no CD), I'll try to adjust when we get more infor from the PTR.
The weighting of stats should remain mostly unaffected, so their relative values shouldn't change much.
The weighting will change if the "+3% crit damage" meta turns out to be better than the "half cast time" meta by strengthening crit. It depends on the MSD proc rate change, the cooldown, and the requirements of the new gem.


AM Spam 1770 DPS, 0.2% miss, value of stats as follows:
Fireball spam 1886 DPS, 0.6% miss, value of stats as follows:
That was the TLDR part, and all the condensed info for min/maxed gear for the two talent specs in question.



I stole Manly's AM spam wishlist and plugged into Vontre's sheet to optimise.

Using [Runed Crimson Spinel] in every slot, and one [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] in [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] (1st choice), [Leggings of the Tempest] (2nd choice) or somewhere random (3rd choice) to get most out of set bonuses.

Scenario is a boss level mob, molten armour, 0.2s lag, no shaman, raid buffs, oil/flask/food, enough mana for the fight (3 min, SP, JoW, SMP), no destruction potions (or flamecaps), 13% CoS/CoE on the boss, and Misery from an SP.

AM Spam Base setup with 5/5 T6 (1761 DPS, 0.7% miss):

[Cowl of the Tempest]
[The Sun King's Talisman]
[Mantle of the Tempest]
[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
[Robes of the Tempest]
[Pattern: Bracers of Nimble Thought]

[Gloves of the Tempest]
[Anetheron's Noose]
[Leggings of the Tempest]
[Slippers of the Seacaller]

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

[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Eredar Wand of Obliteration]

Result: 1761 DPS, 0.7% miss with Arcane spells. That our baseline. (Your miss chance is of course always at least 1%, and you're capped for AM anyway. I wanted to mention it though to see what can be switched in or out for other specs, and where it can be swapped in/out, or if you want to drop some points from arcane focus, and have a shaman/draenei in your group, or whatever else messes up your hit chance).

What happens if we swap one piece of gear is this.

[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] 1770 DPS, 0.2% miss
[Pattern: Mantle of Nimble Thought] 1763 DPS, 0.7% miss
[Hatefury Mantle] 1763 DPS, 0.7% miss
[Translucent Spellthread Necklace] 1758 DPS, -0.5% miss
[Vestments of the Sea-Witch] 1755 DPS, -0.5% miss
[Pattern: Belt of Blasting] 1751 DPS, -1.2% miss
[Waistwrap of Infinity] 1759 DPS, 0.7% miss
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] 1768 DPS, 0.8% miss
[Tempest of Chaos]/[Chronicle of Dark Secrets] 1740 DPS, -2.1% miss
[Wand of the Forgotten Star] 1759 DPS, -0.1% miss

Using [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] 1770 DPS, 0.2% miss, we get the following values for stats in a group without a shaman (got the +hit value by artificially uncapping):

AM Spam stat values

1 dmg = 0.746 DPS
1 crit = 0.875 dmg, 1 hit* = 1.918 dmg, 1 haste = 1.332 dmg, 1 int = 0.654 dmg, 1 spi = 0.11 dmg
MSD = 366 dmg, AToI = 166 dmg, TLC = 136 dmg



Doing the same with a fire spec, we get the following data.
Notice that spell hit becomes interesting here, I'm using Belt/Weapon/Off-hand to cap hit chance. I could also use Cloak/Necklace/Bracers to cap hit, but they wouldn't as good as other combinations. That may change with new items appearing, and the whole +hit puzzle starts again.


Fireball spam Base setup with 5/5 T6 (1853 DPS, 0.4% miss):

[Cowl of the Tempest]
[Hellfire-Encased Pendant]
[Mantle of the Tempest]
[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
[Robes of the Tempest]
[Pattern: Bracers of Nimble Thought]

[Gloves of the Tempest]
[Pattern: Belt of Blasting]
[Leggings of the Tempest]
[Slippers of the Seacaller]

[Band of the Eternal Sage]
[Ring of Ancient Knowledge]
[itemdarkmoon card: crusade[/item]
[The Skull of Gul'dan]

[Tempest of Chaos]
[Chronicle of Dark Secrets]
[Wand of the Forgotten Star]


Result: 1853 DPS, 0.4% miss with fire spells. That our baseline.

What happens if we swap one piece of gear is this.

[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] 1864 DPS, -0.2% miss
[Hatefury Mantle] 1858 DPS, 0.4% miss
[Pattern: Mantle of Nimble Thought] 1852 DPS, 0.4% miss
[Translucent Spellthread Necklace] 1843 DPS, -0.8% miss
[Vestments of the Sea-Witch] 1848 DPS, -0.7% miss
[Focused Mana Bindings] 1831 DPS, -1.1% miss
[Cuffs of Devastation] 1845 DPS, 0.4% miss
[Pattern: Spellfire Gloves] 1844 DPS, 1.7% miss, 1857 DPS if capped
[Anetheron's Noose] 1834 DPS, 2.3% miss, 1858 DPS if capped
[Waistwrap of Infinity] 1831 DPS, 2.3% miss, 1854 DPS if capped
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] 1868 DPS, 0.6% miss
[Ring of Captured Storms] 1835 DPS, -1.1% miss (replaces [Ring of Ancient Knowledge])
[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] 1827 DPS, 3.1% miss, 1867 DPS if capped

Using [Leggings of Channeled Elements], 1868 DPS, 0.6% miss, we get the following values for stats in a group without a shaman (got the +hit value by artificially uncapping):

Fireball spam stat values

1 dmg = 0.861 DPS
1 crit = 0.766 dmg, 1 hit* = 1.737 dmg, 1 haste = 1.182 dmg, 1 int = 0.245 dmg, 1 spi = 0.11 dmg
MSD = 52 dmg, (AToI = 59 dmg, TLC = 42 dmg; just to compare when used instead of DM:Crusade which is = 80 damage; note that for that 3min fight, Icon of the Silver Crescent is also = 80 damage)

Another alternative is using [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord], [Pattern: Belt of Blasting] and [Ring of Captured Storms] to get up spell hit and use [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer], for 1865 DPS and 0.98% miss (tight setup!) as a great second choice.


Note that this is for pure fireball spam. With the baseline 5/5 T6 gear (1853 DPS, 0.4% miss), this drops to 1811 DPS for 8:1 and 1788 DPS for 5:1 Fireball:Scorch cycles.

All the above assumed 13% CoE and CoS. If you only have a 10% CoE (more likely these days), fireball spam drops to 1803 DPS and 1763 DPS for 5:1 and 1741 DPS for 8:1 Fireball:Scorch cycles.
Using [Flowing Flamewrath Cape]s every CD is a boost of 30-35 DPS depending on the CoE/Scorches.


Using [Anetheron's Noose], [Leggings of Channeled Elements] and [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer] puts you at 5.11% miss, and you're at 1.11% miss with a draenei elemental shaman and and at 1886 DPS.
I think that is the maximum currently possible, unless I'm missing something.


It all depends on whether you have a Draenei/Elemental Shaman in your group to boost your spell hit, and whichever drops first or goes for less DKP. The two hit-capped setups vary by a whole 3 DPS (that's 0.2%!) and use a handful of different random drops.



Note: I used 5/5 T5 as baseline, as I didn't want to lose the T6 set bonus. Also, I've taken a new version of Vontre's sheet since the last time, hence the differences to http://elitistjerks.com/493071-post1759.html and http://elitistjerks.com/493242-post1767.html


Edit I: Added a TLDR part at the top.

Edit II: Added Hatefury Mantle, Cuffs of Devastation. (For the trinkets, I just used DM:Crusade as a baseline 80 damage trinket to make it easy.)

Edit III: Added Ring of Cpatured Storms and an alternative setup for fireball spam. I totally forgot about that one, it just never dropped for us, sorry.

Note IV: About trinkets, I just used DM:Crusade as baseline 80 +damage trinket. Icon of the Silver Crescent and Quagmirran's Eye are listed as doing the same damage in that scenario, and all other trinkets are worse than those three. Just pick whichever suits the situation best.

Roywyn's calculations show that Fire is the superior DPS build after the next patch or am I missing something? I understand the calculations are for the very end-game gear set however wouldn't this increase in fire DPS be reflected throughout progression - would fire out DPS arcane at say, late SSC/TK early Hyjal gear levels?