With a very good shadow priest, super mana pots, mana gems and evocation you would have a very long time before you go oom spamming fireballs. Wether it can get to infinite or not doesn't matter - as long as you can't use all your mana in a fight more mana is useless. Of course if you're using all those mana regen elements having more mana could mean you can drop some of those (not evocate, use flame caps, use destruction potions (generally in that order)).
For arcane, it's very hard to tell if the regen increases would warrant an arcane spec, at least for a T6 mage. I'd wait to see copmlete 2.4 numbers with finalized patch notes before I say anything deeper about arcane and/or intelect scaling.
For arcane and haste, haste will still suck for arcane becuase it means you will spend less time ABing and more time doing your backup rotation, so while haste will increase your dps it'll be a much smaller increase than other stats would increase your dps. Remember haste is only an effective DPS stat if mana is a non-issue, which is not the case for arcane. If mana is an issue haste will still increase dps, but to a quite lower effect, depending how big of an issue the mana is.
I'd like seeing haste evaluated in future spreadsheets to take into account the extra mana consumption/regeneration in the form of less destruction potions / flame caps / more time spent evocating.
hit rating
Stat equivalence points (which can be derived from vontre's spreadsheet, btw) are a very very good approximation (to the point where its inaccuracy is quite meaningless if the spreadsheet is good) for stats that are not hit rating. Hit is so extremely better than any other stat when you're not capped that you will always be capped. Once capped, additional hit would be useless, except you could use the fact you have higher hit to swap items/gems to increase spell damage. Therefore additional hit is as good as the other stats you can gain in its place. That makes hit evaluation very flexible, but overall the more excessive hit your items have the less you will gain from additional hit.
A gear setup that is gemming for hit will generally benefit the most from additional hit as it will gain the most spell damage per additional hit by swapping gems back to spell damage. A full T6/best in game gear setup would be making huge hit sacrifices just to gain marginal amounts of spell damage, which makes LESS of a use of the itemization value.
Only reason people are gearing with such excessive hit now is that the best gear in the game simply has it, and swapping it out for non-hit gear is in most cases not an option because that gear simply has a much lower item level. Having the additional T6 pieces with no hit on them means you could make full use of their itemization instead of the waste of itemization we have in current high-end gear.
I have to agree swapping gems all the time would be very anoying now.
In addition, from WotLK point of view, you really don't want hit rating gear anyway, as it'll be useless for leveling. But yeah gemming for hit is very anoying and gives a major headache, but at least it gives results if your non-hit gear is actually good like (at least some of) the new sunwell loot is.
Perhaps the question of whether Arcane is damage competitive could be tackled from a different angle. First, I'm assuming Arcane Blast spam is still better DPS than anything else, right? And lets assume the theory that you should stack int is correct, so you have maybe 800 int while raid buffed. The question is:
How much mana regeneration would you need to sustain 5 minutes of spam? 7 minutes? 10 minutes?
Once we have target values for the regen needed, we can work out whether it's even possible to reach these values. We need an estimate for spirit, and I assume mage armor would be used over molten armor. We have reasonably good estimates for shadow priests, judgement of wisdom, potions, and so on. Just add up the numbers and see if they match. You can think of this argument as assuming time outside of the Arcane Blast cycle is worth 0 DPS.
One possibility is that the viability depends on how good (and geared) you shadow priest is. There's a big difference between 250 m/5 (1000 priest DPS) and 350 m/5 (1400 priest DPS), so it might be that arcane is viable in some guilds and not in others.
That's the problem. The last spreadsheet I looked at, complete AB spam is around the same dps as a fire mage's base rotation. Sacrificing spell damage for int will push fire even higher.
Interestingly, the int --> spi change made the evo change even more of a nerf.
That's the problem. The last spreadsheet I looked at, compete AB spam is around the same dps as a fire mage's base rotation. Sacrificing spell damage for int will push fire even higher.
Interestingly, the int --> spi change made the evo change even more of a nerf.
Wow, I find that shocking, although not too surprising. Even swapping in two pieces of T5 doesn't change make Arcane Blast spam the winner in an infinite mana competition?
Assuming the 4th level of AB spam for the entire fight, we see mana usage of 1043 mana every 1.5s or 3476 mp5 used. assuming a 11k mana pool with a 250 mp5 shadow priest, 150 mp5 base regen, 100 mp5 super mana pots, 25 mp5 flask, 100 mp5 mana gem and an evocation worth around 70 mp5 we see a net mana usage of 2781 mp5.
You are oom after 19.7s. You need 2700~ mp5 to sustain this any longer.
edit: I forgot we have 3 more spots in the group. Lets assume 4 SPs, 1 mage: 2031 mp5 spent, oom at 27.0s.
Last edited by Tabaggins : 02/11/08 at 2:32 PM.
Reason: adding more data
Wow, I find that shocking, although not too surprising. Even swapping in two pieces of T5 doesn't change make Arcane Blast spam the winner in an infinite mana competition?
If I had to guess I'd say he was spreadsheeting AB spam in his fire gear and so 164 hit or something.
Assuming the 4th level of AB spam for the entire fight, we see mana usage of 1043 mana every 1.5s or 3476 mp5 used. assuming a 11k mana pool with a 250 mp5 shadow priest, 150 mp5 base regen, 100 mp5 super mana pots, 25 mp5 flask, 100 mp5 mana gem and an evocation worth around 70 mp5 we see a net mana usage of 2781 mp5.
You are oom after 19.7s. You need 2700~ mp5 to sustain this any longer.
edit: I forgot we have 3 more spots in the group. Lets assume 4 SPs, 1 mage: 2031 mp5 spent, oom at 27.0s.
I understand you did TC to come up with 1043 mana for AB, however in reality the increased AB cost only applies to the base mana cost of AB, so it is a lot less.
In fact, from my old notes, 1.5s AB spam with 2pct5 costs 672 mana per cast, and 731 mana when used with AP.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
I understand you did TC to come up with 1043 mana for AB, however in reality the increased AB cost only applies to the base mana cost of AB, so it is a lot less.
In fact, from my old notes, 1.5s AB spam with 2pct5 costs 672 mana per cast, and 731 mana when used with AP.
This sounds familiar, because it works out to a gross mana loss of -2240 m/5. If you need to last for 5 minutes (134,440 mana) and start with a 15k mana pool, you need to make up another 119400, which requires 1990 m/5. Assume a good priest with 350 m/5 and 150 m/5 from blessings and potions. That's 1490 to go from mana gems, evocation, and 45% spirit mana regen. Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. Realistically you're looking at 3 minutes of longevity, followed by 1 minute of thumb twiddling.
Perhaps the question of whether Arcane is damage competitive could be tackled from a different angle. First, I'm assuming Arcane Blast spam is still better DPS than anything else, right? And lets assume the theory that you should stack int is correct, so you have maybe 800 int while raid buffed. The question is:
How much mana regeneration would you need to sustain 5 minutes of spam? 7 minutes? 10 minutes?
It is, if you assume 2T5, AB spam is the highest DPS.
Currently, it beats firespec fireball spam by ~5-10% depending on what gear you can pick. With haste gear affecting it, according to Vontre's, it's ~15-20% more DPS with some best-in-slot haste gear as of now.
Assuming a 40/0/21 spec (since AM is so much worse than the other two nukes, and assuming Winter's Chill in the raid), frostbolts is about 10-15% less DPS than fire.
With a very generous estimate of the spirit change, arcane can beat fire until the 3 minute mark. The sheet suggests a AB*7/FrB*3 rotation for a 3 minute fight length.
This splits as (AB4, 6sec) and (AB3/FB3, 1.5+1.83+2.17+7.5=13s), so roughly 1/3 of the time AB spam, 2/3 of the time AB3/FrB3 rotations.
As to the mana cost of AB spam, it's 195 (base) * ( 1 + 3*75% + 20% ) = 672.5 mana. Or ~2250 mp5.
Get 300 from a really good SP, 50 BoW, 50 Totem, 350 mp5 from spirit (generous). -1500 mp5 left, 300/sec.
Assuming 14k base mana, 10.6k from evo, 3k gem, 2.4k potion => 30k mana to burn, that's about 1 minute.
These figures fit the sheet, since it estimates the equivalent of 1min AB spam (untill out of mana) and 2 more minutes "efficient" AB3/FrB3 on the rest mana and regen.
With 2 shadowpriests (a waste, honestly) and an innervate or three and digging up everything you have, you could possibly extend it to 1.5 minutes. 2 minutes being maaaayybe on the horizon, if you go all out on every resource under the sun, drum rotations. Not likely though.
Everything above 3 minutes of AB spam is just wishful thinking. Not going to happen.
There is, however, the point that AB spam may be so much more DPS that even having a fraction of the time able to cast can allow for greater net damage dealt. Sadly this makes the litmus test of regen needed to be sustainable a lot less telling, however.
I'm interested to see some data of how much haste exactly is the max one can wear before the AM+Fbolt become too close to causing the subsequent AB to finish casting -without- the debuff having worn out. Some analysis of 150-200-250ms latency fluctuation would also be nice.
Then we can possibly look into AB*3/AM/Fbolt rotations which will perform the same accepted function as the good'ol AB*3/AM/Sc rotations used to: To capitalize on 1st AB with 3x debuff but cost only 0x debuff. It is also arguable that a 13-talented frostbolt is much more useful than a ignite-only scorch, and a 47/0/14 is much more eye-pleasing than a rather ineffective 40/10/11 or 42/8/11 or whatever malarkey.
Well my stand on it is trying to get a AB*3 AM Fbolt repeat, with as close of a cut as possible to the debuff finishing wearing off. Why try to cast the 2.1 frosbolt with 1.8 sec on the debuff timer? Waste of time when you could fit in a scorch or something ya know?
I want to try to get my rotation to the point of where you have an 8 sec debuff then AM/Fbolt followed by either the closest cut time ie 5.5 fbolt cast 5.7 ab debuff wears off you know what im saying? OR we try to get to a point where we stack even more haste and get it to the point of AB*3 AM Fbolt*2 repeat. With the one fbolt you can stack alot more spell dmg/crit behind the haste gap. Or with the 2 frostbolt you lose dmg/crit but gain an extra cast.
Originally Posted by galzohar
For arcane and haste, haste will still suck for arcane becuase it means you will spend less time ABing and more time doing your backup rotation, so while haste will increase your dps it'll be a much smaller increase than other stats would increase your dps. Remember haste is only an effective DPS stat if mana is a non-issue, which is not the case for arcane. If mana is an issue haste will still increase dps, but to a quite lower effect, depending how big of an issue the mana is.
My fight is in 2.4 when the haste rating will also reduce our GCD. With a reduced GCD at 1 sec, my 1.13 AB 3 stack still hasn't lost DPS time at the net 230 haste rating or so. The mana issue will be of concern yes, but in this theory I'm working off that just theory. Need be I say test it on a Teron night and take a resto shammy/SP in the group with you and chain pot etc. Still having problems look to maybe a second SP in the group, most of us farm it anyways so it's not a huge net loss to the guild to try to shatter a new concept in the mage community.
There is, however, the point that AB spam may be so much more DPS that even having a fraction of the time able to cast can allow for greater net damage dealt. Sadly this makes the litmus test of regen needed to be sustainable a lot less telling, however.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. It should be fairly easy to determine how much damage a Fireball spam deals in the average boss fight (5min). With that, you should be able to determine how fast AB spam can deal the same amount of damage, and then calculate from there how much mana is needed for that amount of damage. I mean, if a mage spamming AB can do the same amount of damage in the first 4min of a boss fight that a mage spamming FB can do in the entire boss fight, does it really matter if the AB mage does significantly lower dps after he runs out of mana? I guess I'm sort of confused as to what's going on.
I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here. It should be fairly easy to determine how much damage a Fireball spam deals in the average boss fight (5min). With that, you should be able to determine how fast AB spam can deal the same amount of damage, and then calculate from there how much mana is needed for that amount of damage. I mean, if a mage spamming AB can do the same amount of damage in the first 4min of a boss fight that a mage spamming FB can do in the entire boss fight, does it really matter if the AB mage does significantly lower dps after he runs out of mana? I guess I'm sort of confused as to what's going on.
Actually that's a good way to look at it. The question then only becomes whether the Arcane mage can sustain his DPS long enough just to reach break-even with a fire mage by the end of the fight.
Doubt AM ticks are classified as periodic damage. The fireball DoT is though, although I've never seen it proc anything.
Arcane Missiles are technically periodic damage. All channeling direct-damage involve putting a DoT on the target. AM's DoT is just invisible. It can be noticed when the target becomes friendly or all debuffs are cleared, such as with the hounds in Heroic Shattered Halls. I sent the mage who has one a PM to ask for AM testing.
The trinket procs off of Fireball's DoT. It might have an internal cooldown. The person who was testing it reported no procs within 25 seconds of each other, but serious testing hasn't been done for it yet. The proc can also crit.
Hypetech: If by the time you run OOM, you have done the same damage that a Fireball spam would do _in the entire fight_, what is the issue? It's a more efficient use of the most valuable resource that a raid deals with: time.
Ironically, a logical extension of this concept would lead to more Arcane Mages displacing others. Say the average length of a boss fight is 5min with no Arcane mages. Say also that an Arcane mage can deal 5min worth of 'Fire spec damage' in 4min. Considering that his dps won't drop to zero (just lower), that means that the average length of the boss encounter would decrease. Since it decreases, the Arcane mage's 'AB spam uptime' would increase slightly. If you put more Arcane mages doing this, the effect can snowball. This seems quite interesting to me.
Hypetech: If by the time you run OOM, you have done the same damage that a Fireball spam would do _in the entire fight_, what is the issue? It's a more efficient use of the most valuable resource that a raid deals with: time.
Because if you run oom before the fight ends, that means you could've output more damage by switching to a less mana intensive rotation for some time.
I'm still skeptical about the haste changes. It seems haste is still way better for the more mana efficient nukes (fire/frost) as it doesn't increase dpm at all.
Andastra: There are two assumptions working here, which I'll explicitly state.
1) AB spam (with 2t5) is the highest dps you can do with a Mage.
2) AB spam of duration X (X<total time of boss fight) = Fireball spam for total time of boss fight
It's possible that these assumptions are mutually exclusive, but the second point is the important one here.
T = total time of boss fight
X < T
AB(X) = FB(T)
If this is true, then we are looking for the amount of mana needed to sustain AB for at least X. If so, then Arcane should do more damage than Fire. Now, you could be quite correct that if this can be sustained, then some less-mana intensive cycle, kept up for longer, will result in even more dps (which invalidate the 1st assumption, but that's okay). The point would remain that AB would do better than Fire.
I'm working on the following assumption and it's a pretty established assumption here. Assume 2 dps cycles:
1. AB spam
2. ABx3/Something else to drop AB debuff
My assumption is that for any fight, mixing both cycles to go oom at the exact time the boss dies is the best dps cycle. For short fights, that could be 100% AB spam. If you're going oom before the fight ends, however, mixing in the second cycle would be better.
Of course, external buffs/debuffs could put a wrench to that. If you get heroism/bloodlust, it could easily throw off the mixing. And the further we get better gear, the worse the other stats of 2pc T5 are.
Unless i'm mistaken, the highest dps rotation should be enough haste to make arcane missiles x2/ab x3 a viable rotation wearing both set bonuses and getting AB ramped up before ap then popping ab spam during AP and veins. This gives the advantage over frost of using a lot less hit, and 13% CoS. Btw, if you do weave arcane missiles into your rotations 50/0/11 should be a bit more dps than 40/0/21 due to the large dps loss desyncing icy veins from ap gives you.
I am not good with math as you guys. But I did get some math models downloaded from this forum. Vontre's excel spreadsheet (mage_dps). I took some liberties with the numbers.
I input 700 into INT (Karan showed it can be done if you gear, enchant and gem for it). I then raised spirit to 600 to approximate the new regen rate. (I don't know if this is being too off base or not). The rest were stats of my current gear (not the best possible), with some reduction taking into account regemming and enchants.
I then created a cycle called AB spam. (I put in AB 3 to simulate AB spam throughout).
Based on vontre's spreadsheet, AB spam gave me 2055 dps. Yes, it only lasts for 1 min 50 seconds. BUT here's the interesting thing. During that time, I would have outputted 372,930 damage
I don't know about the rest of you guys. But most wws I come across, the average total dmg down over the course of a boss would be around there (300,000 to 400,000). Here's the thing. If AB spam can be kept up for 2 minutes, it will output that amount of damage, in just 2 minutes flat! Seems amazing to me.
Of course, maybe I set the spirit too high. But as I said, I am just using some approximations to gauge some ball park numbers. Not trying to be so exact. If someone can come out with exact numbers, all the better of course. It is possible, because Karan stated that those levels of gear (for int) can be achieved. And he said in his post it would allow him to spam AB for 2 minutes.
AB spam has been limited by three things. GCD on haste, mana and spell pushback.
This upcoming patch solves two of those problems. haste and mana. Think its worth some exploring on whether arcane can now be competitive with the changes, especially on bosses with no spellpushback.
If true, the question is, can a tank hold aggro over that level of rapid damage. If it is not possible to hold aggro over that damage, then its usefullness is significantly reduced, though interesting.
2055 arcane dps is only 863 TPS (with salv). In order to pull aggro from a tank at range, he would have to be doing 663 TPS. I don't think threat is much of an issue.
If true, the question is, can a tank hold aggro over that level of rapid damage. If it is not possible to hold aggro over that damage, then its usefulness is significantly reduced, though interesting.
The arcane benefit of -40% on threat comes nicely into play here. If there are 3 paladins on the raid then you can also get BoW, BoK and Salv which should help quite a bit.
02/11/08, 2:29 PM
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