Have anybody tested a focused arcane build with icy veins?

I guess also troll-race will get some advantages on this.. Berserk+icy+haste gear

I have an Undead Mage guild member who is trying out a deep Arcane build(without meta gem), he really enjoys AB/AM rotations and wanted to see if its still competitive.

Lynxal - The World of Warcraft Armory

Al'ar - WWS
VR - WWS
Rage - WWS
Anetheron - WWS


He did really well on our Kael kill tonight, though I don't have the WWS for it available yet (though arcane will always do well on AoE-centric encounters). He did newb up pretty bad on VR/Rage with deaths, but after a few raids he is satisfied enough with the spec to keep it.

Hi

When people talk about DPS is there an agreed standard, I've had Recap and Recount running in the past and both give different numbers for DPS when I reset them both obviously. Will WWS give me another DPS number?

Ta

Generally, WWS is most trusted since it shows just about anything you would want to know.

Take for example the person posting his SWS/Recount dps on Teron, being '2.4k' dps. This is most probably with Ghost included. Giving us a WWS log would give the ability to double check things like this.

Not to mention the value of the WWS buff/debuff (and in case of beta v2, group layout) display.

edit: I'm not saying the person is wrong by the way, I'm just saying that noone will believe him untill he posts a WWS log. Thats how valuable WWS is.

How many Heroisms/Bloodlusts did you get in that fight? In my guild they usually all go to the melee in a fight like teron.

Are there any special thoughts about using e.g. points from incinerate or playing with fire in order (and maybe one from pyriomaniac -- altough this hurts) to reach cold snap for a deep fire build? According to the very rough calculations me and a friend did you might lose below 1% of damage. However this does not take into account any advantages particularly clever timed double icy veins might yield, like combining it with molten fury and a flame cap.

I'm playing around with 7/43/11. The idea was to trade the teensy dps boost of incineration and utility of blastwave/dragon's breath to salvage 4% mana efficiency from clearcasting. The spec remains an overall dps upgrade from 10/48/3, and the extra efficiency might allow for more mana/dps tradeoffs in other ways.

About the dreamgear posts earlier
I dunno what you guys have with Cowl of the Illidari Highlord but imo this is the best possible gear in-game atm

Head: Cowl of The Tempest
Neck: Hellfire-Encased Pendant
Shoulders: Mantle of The Tempest
Cloak: Cloak of the Illidari Council
Chest: Robes of The Tempest
Bracers: Cuffs of Devastation
Weapon: Tempest of Chaos & Chronicle of Dark Secrets
Wand: Wand of the Forgotten Stars
Gloves: Gloves of The Tempest
Belt: Anetheron's Noose
Leggings: Leggings of Channeled Elements
Boots: Slippers of the Seacaller
Rings: Band of The Eternal Sage & Ring of Captured Storms
Trinkets: The Skull of Gul'dan & Hex Shrunken head

This will put you on 167 spellhit and if you use crimson spinels & 2 blues for the meta to work with highest dmg you can get.

The trinkets combined are insane aswell as you can always use them at the same time.

I disagree with almost every single one of your choices.
[Ring of Captured Storms] -> [Mana Attuned Band]
[Tempest of Chaos]/[Chronicle of Dark Secrets] -> [Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Leggings of Channeled Elements] + 4pct6 -> [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] + 4pct6
[Anetheron's Noose] -> [Pattern: Belt of Blasting]
[Cuffs of Devastation] -> [Pattern: Bracers of Nimble Thought]

It seems that all you're trying to do is make a set that is loosely the highest +dmg set while maitaining hit cap and 4pct6. This is not the way to max your dps.

Tempest of chaos/rage offhand/anetherons noose or zhardoom/belt of blasting are pretty much equivalent. I recommend zhardoom combo mostly because it is more flexible 'hit-cap-wise' and allows you to drop belt of blasting and go for anetherons noose, in case you know you get an elemental shaman and that his totems wont die or that you won't move out of range of them.

Well it was shortly brought up and the concense seemed to be that gaining coldsnap and in turn losing
* -1% mana cost (strictly speaking somewhat more),
* 1%crit from pyromaniac, 1% for scorch and fireblast due do incinerate and
*2% damage from playing with fire
did not provide a dps benefit. However it was nowhere considered if it might pay of in combination with consumables and molten fury -- at least it has not been brought up. Because even it it just about evened out it might be worth considering due to the greater burst/flexibility it provides. Especially considering that in realistic fights you often don't just have a tank and spank encounter but might have very limited timeframes in which you just have to do as much damage as possible.

Using Vontre's sheet or Lhivera's script, I cannot reproduce it is better to put 5crit/6dmg in T6 gloves instead of +12dmg... However, I remember I read it during wish-lists posts.

Depending on total +dmg (buff/consumables), I got 1 +dmg equal from 0.6 to 0.66 crit rating.

Manly, I also see you put blue gem in mantle instead of T6 leggings which have a blue socket. Is that on purpose ?
Is it not better to put 2x +12dmg in mantle, and blue gem in leggings ?

I totally agree on that one aswell, i also see alot of mages going for socket bonuses which is rly stupid imo, in almost any case filling your gear with spinels > all. (+ ofc the 2 blue gems you need for the meta to work.)

Question - I am Arcane (QQ for me, I know) but what I want to know is with at the very least 43 in Arcane - would I get more gain from putting the other 18 points in fire or frost (now with Icy Veins). I wanted to know which would give more gain in DPS. This may have been discussed but from the front page (1st page) didn't look like we had any conclusions yet and from the last few I didn't notice anything that jumped out at me so maybe someone can assist and either A) point me to the page and thread this has been discussed or just offer an opinion. Thanks in advance

Well ok first thing first. Look at the T6 gloves. In almost any given case, you want [Potent Pyrestone] (+2 dmg from socket bonus) over [Item not found!]. The difference is negligible, but in any given case the first choice scales better in addition to give better dps. Again, I want to stress that the difference is small enough that current TC isn't accurate enough to tell the difference. Depending on who you ask you get different results. As far as I am concerned, the TC I believe is most trustworthy indicates a DPS increase using the gemming guideline I gave. If you think about it for a second, if you agree that youre better off going for an orange gem in a yellow socket (that gives +2 dmg), by definition is means you're better off putting your blue gem in the t6 shoulders rather than the pants.

There is another small factor in my case. I also have hyjal pants. Since I want to keep the flexibility of being able to swap in my hyjal pants, it is easier to accomodate the requirement if my shoulders allow both set configurations to give me one of the blue gems.

As for my gloves, I haven't regemmed my +12 for 5crit/6dmg simply because I don't want to ask gurgthock for a new gem in order to override another one - particularly when the dps gain is that negligible.

Indeed, I saw gemming blue in mantle give exactly the same equation as putting orange in gloves.
I also know the gain is negligible, and it looks like wise decision to not override red by an orange gem in such a case.

Thks for the clarification btw

As has been said time and again, it all depends on your setup, and drops obviously.

I ran the numbers again with the latest version of Vontre's spreadsheet.
Zhar'doom, Illidari Cowl, Blasting => 0.9% miss, 1970 DPS
Tempest, EleLeggings, Noose => 0.8% miss, 1960 DPS

Rest of the gear:
Hellfire Neck, Highbourne Shroud (if your healers hate haste), Nimble Bracers, Seacaller Boots, Mana/Knowledge Ring, Hex/Skull, Forgotten Star Wand.
If someone finds better setups (that beat those in Vontre's, or somewhere else, I'm all ears.


Now - the Solarian Wand never dropped for us. Nor did her Battle Shout trinket, but we got half a dozen DemoLock trinkets. *mutters about the RNG*
So, I don't have that one, nor am I likely to ever see one drop since we stopped running TK regularly half a year ago or something.

So, having to use the badge wand, the balance changes.
Tempest, EleLegs, Blasting, 2*Knowledge => 1958 DPS
Zhar'doom, Cowl, Blasting, Mana/Storm rings => 1956 DPS
Edit: Zhar'doom, Cowl, Blasting, Mana/Knowledge, +10hit gem in gloves => 1960 DPS


We're battling for 0.5% to 0.1% DPS increases ...

Edit: Just found another way to improve.

Edit: Setup for that - standard raid buffs (inc. Imp. Divine Spirit), blessings, no shaman. No 1% hit draenei aura either.
Clicked full consumable use - should be food, oil, flask, SMP. I think :o
Everything but totems/heroism. Oh, and 5% intellect race buff.

What buffs are you assuming roywyn?

When you frost nova, it shouldn't be meleeing anyone in range since no one should be in range at the start except the tank. Then as a frost mage you can blizzard while non-frost mages can flamestrike from range (or blizzard if they are arc/frost), and then after novas are broken, run in and AE. Or if you need immediate burst you can CoC which will likely break the nova anyway.

First off what the hell was that post in reference to??? I was reading a nice bit on T6 items and idealized setup and you show up with this completely nonsensical post that seems to be a response to a question that was asked godknowswhen by godknowswho.

If you are answering a post that is not directly above your post quoting that post goes a long way towards allowing others to understand what exactly you are trying to say and prevents you from looking like a crazy person carrying on a conversation with themselves on a crowded bus.

That is a quote of yours from the WoW mage forums WoW Forums -> Hit>dmg>HASTE>crit>int>spir>stam

First off that statement is very wrong. Maybe in a complete vacuum with a fight of a very specific duration would that statement have an element of veracity but since raid fights are not applicable to those conditions you have to look at averages and realize that haste does not require a specific quantity to begin having value, it's value is intrinsic and only loses it when the GCD becomes involved, such as devaluing haste since it will have no effect on the dps of scorch or a fully debuffed AB.

Notice how including your quote gave my response value and will now allow others to see my response and understand it and the context that it was made and so add their own thoughts thus allowing everyone to contribute to the "conversation".



As a side note I always love when a mage in Kara/Crafted gear looks at the profile of a T6 geared mage (Manly's profile actually) and says that all the haste in his setup is a waste (excepting the Skull of course).

I'd be interested to know if you can reproduce this result in Vontre's sheet, but with its default raid buff settings (no totems or BL), I'm getting a reported 1996 DPS with this setup (red gems and standard enchants unless otherwise noted):

[Cowl of the Illidari High Lord], CSD, purple gem
[Hellfire-Encased Pendant]
[Mantle of the Tempest]
[Cloak of the Illidari Council]
[Robes of the Tempest]
[Bracers of Nimble Thought]
[Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer]
[Gloves of the Tempest]
[Belt of Blasting]
[Leggings of the Tempest], purple gem
[Slippers of the Seacaller]
[Ring of Ancient Knowledge]
[Mana Attuned Band]
[Hex Shrunken Head]
[The Skull of Gul'dan]
[Wand of the Forgotten Star]

A few things surprised me about this. For one, I assumed [Band of the Eternal Sage] would outperform [Ring of Ancient Knowledge] because of the proc. Perhaps the spreadsheet isn't accounting for it, but it reports a 20 DPS loss. For another, using a purple gem in the legs, and keeping red gems in the three pieces with blue/yellow sockets and +4 damage bonuses, produced identical DPS to using a red gem in the legs and using purple/orange damage/crit gems in one of those three. (I didn't try the orange damage/hit gem because this set already has 165 spell hit rating.) Finally, no matter what gear combination and gem setup I tested, I could not push a Tempest/Chronicle/Noose gear set past 1980 DPS.

For the people questioning the validity of a 2400 mage dps parse,

Wow Web Stats

The funny thing about this all is that mages were the ones in particular whom pushed for rogue nerfs, because of absurd dps numbers that could produce. Even with all the possible synergies I can have, I cannot break 2200 dps on teron, he did 2400 without malediction COE... so add another 3% to that...

So much for rogues being the highest single target dps.

Am I missing something or is the Mana Attuned Band really better than Band of the Eternal Sage? I guess I'll go check the spreadsheet one more time.