Somebody mentioned the prospect of weapon swapping and while on the topic of the permanent free ignites I thought I would bring this to the table:

At 363 haste + icey veins = 2.03s fireball
At 730 haste = 2.05s fireball

Spellblade + heart of the pit + quick lionseye demonsoul = 227 + 32 + 28 = 287 Haste
730-287 = 443 - still enough to hit the zone with icey veins up while swapping to non-haste weapons (tempest + chronicle + ?)

At this point you could artificially create 2.05s fireballs (with a script / g15) while having a lot more spell damage.

Edit: Alternatively you could hit 730ish haste incorporating drums and simply click them off during veins which would put you at 363 haste without drums or any weapon / oh / wand haste (2.03s fireball with veins)

I've never even iceblocked flame sear and I've never died prematurely on Eredar Twins. I suspect your guild's healers aren't doing their job properly, or your strategy isn't allowing for enough raid healing.

Well typically we bring 2-4 resto shamans depending on how may we have on and a few CoH priests 2 druids and 2 pallies 10 healers total. I'm not positive how healing is setup but i believe the AoE healers (Shamans,CoH Priests) Each have a group while the pallies heal tanks and druids hot tanks + not sure who else.

Outside of Iceblocking/FlameWard and HS/HP if it's up I can't think of anything else I can do personally. Typically when I die it's because i'm gettin flame sear followed by a Shadow nova or the lil shadow guys hit me.

If I recall, my guild preferred I save iceblock for phase 2 to drop shadow debuffs so fewer people needed to try and hit fire. I don't know what to tell you unless you're doing something crazy like still wearing Spellfire. If you look at my gear I don't even have much stamina (Mana Attuned Band, Belt of Blasting, Ring of Captured Storms).

Since my first posts were not well received, I will indeed try harder.

CASTING RANGE
While it is true Fire has 50% more range, it also has 100% longer casting time. If you have a fight like Supremous where the mob often moves away from you, the longer range does not negate the longer cast time. Yes you can fireblast, but so can an Arcane Mage, or a Frost Mage. Assuming the mobs moves 10 yards every 1.5 seconds an Arcane mage needs to be 20yards from mobs for a full cast, a fire mage would also need to be about 20 yards in order to finish a full Fireball before being out ranged.

The only fight I have ever done in all of WoW where range was a big issue was Anubrekon in Naxx, which had a manditory 25-30 yard range, not even Prince in Kara has this. Mana/DPS/proper gear are necessity, range is more of a luxury, one that can certainly be worked around.

CASTING TIME
Arcane has way more leeway to finish a full cast before needing to do a stop cast do to moving mobs, reaction to boss AOE and such. Arcane spends all of it's time on GCD while Fire spends half casting outside GCD. I played Frost for years, having to stop mid cast to move/pot/mana shield does take it's toll on DPS, I have found AB allows me to finish a cast before I need to dodge an attack or react to something.

DOES AB RAMP UP DESTROY ARCANE VIABILATY?
Lets try some common sense here, and a it of math too. You do in fact loose DPS from ramping or the Debuff falling out, but do you come out net negative from it falling off? You loose DPS but you gain mana efficiency. Generally you AB your mana down and then Frostbolt/single AB your mana back up, loosing the Debuff early only forces you into this mana efficient state early. So the question do you loose out? No, you are going to loose full AB debuff at some point in time during a prolonged fight, all this does is change when the state occurs.

NET LOSS = DAMAGE PER SECOND
NET GAIN = DAMAGE PER MANA

It is only a true 100% loss if you have nothing to gain from said loss.

Compared to dropping a Fireball cast

AB full cast no stack = 2.5 seconds, of which you are only doing 60% potential damage
3 casts for stack 2.5 * 3 = 7.5 seconds at 60% DPS

The numbers aboves assumes worst case for all 3 casts for sake of argument. The ramp up time is actually less and the DPS progressively ramps up so the numbers are biased against Arcane.

Loosing 3 seconds on Fireball casts due to stop casting on several occasions = 50% Damage over 6 seconds.

7.5 seconds at 60% DPS Dropped AB to Ramp Up
6.0 second 50% DPS from dropped Fireball casting.

Arcane only looses out it's native DPS over Fireball's native DPS assuming the Fire Mage never needs to drop mid-cast, having played Frost myself for years, I assure you that I had to drop Frostbolt mid cast way more then Arcane Blast, mainly do to either global cool down restrictions or reaction time. I will drop AB if needed, but I am more likely to finish 0.5 second of what's left before reacting, where as with Frostbolt if I was 1.0 mid cast I'd have 1.5 seconds left on a cast which I could not afford to leave.

On a side note if I loose an AB stack I only loose DPS, but still gain mana efficient cast, if you drop an Imp scorch you loose DPS and Mana efficiancy.


SPELL PUSH BACK
Spell pushback is affected by
Talents/gear
Frequency of push back
Length of spell cast

In a case like Zul,Aman on a boss, rapid push back destroys Arcane for a phase in a boss fight. In the case of taking hits from a 2 second spell cast, you will cast one full AB and 0.5 seconds into another cast before the push back occurs, like if I am getting hit from a caster or gargoyle in Hyjal. For AB this would be about a 33% pushback. A moot point but something I have noticed in Frostbolt vs AB.

TIER 5/6 AND YOU
Tier 5 Gave Arcane a buff that allowed it to be viable.
Tier 6 took something that was as good or better then Tier 5 AB and made it better.
Tier 7? People like to call it Tier 7, but it is just Tier 6 with better stats. When you get past set bonuses, Sunwell offers merely the same set bonus with better stats. A problem with AB was the need of a filler spell, Frostbolt. Sunwell allows AB to gain the Frostbolt 5% Bonus while keeping AB tier 5. In this Regard Sunwell upgrades AB spamming more then Fireball spaming. Fireball is getting added stats to it's allready established 5% bonus, AB is getting 5% to it's partner spell, which it never had pre-Sunwell. AB Gains a set Bonus, Fire just gains more damage.

ARCANE HAS RECEIVED HIDDEN UPGRADES
Did you know Arcane has gotten several upgrades? Sure Icy Veins and Spirit-Int Ratio, but what about the dozen or so other upgrades? Here are some to name a few.

+6 damage/+4 spirit gems from Blood Furnace are no longer uniqe, these gems are the best blue gems for Arcane, being able to use several of them helps, especially considering things like Choatic gemming requirements. This is a small buff.

Zul Aman, added the best Int staff in the game, for Evocation this is a small buff.

Magister's Terrace added the best Spirit staff in the game, something you can use for innervates/eating, and pop on when you get silenced or go oom, this is a small buff.

One of the best Arcane wands was added to badge Vendors a few patches ago, 15 int / 18 damage + a blue socket (blue = good for Chaotic SD). This is a small buff.

One of these in and of itself very marginal, but added together they make more then a marginal difference. While they also can benefit Fire to a lesser extent, they are far more help full tools for an Arcane Mage. For example I myself drink fully raid buffed about 2000 - 2100 MP5, an eating outfit helps, and that spirit staff makes a big part of it. I can hit 700-800 MP5 outside of 5SR when I do get silenced with a mear weapon swap. Most of this stuff is easily accessed and can be farmed.



HIT CAPPING ZOMG
Is hit capping a big issue? Only if you let yourself hit cap. Going beyond 6% to hit via gear carries over to your off spell (Fireball or Frosbolt.) Second, you can actually drop points in Arcane Focus and put it into talents like Magic Absorbtion or Prismatic Cloak. 4% damage mitigation means I can actually dump PvP gear for instancing gear in a 10k HP. Fire doesn't have as many options for dumping a DPS talent for survivability. Arcane has ways it can go with too much hit, Fire can do nothing if with extra spirit you wind up with.

It generally comes down to people not being tards, but if the following is true,

1 Spec is better for 75% of the fights
1 spec is worse for 75% of the fights.

Then the debate is well worth taking up
Archimonde is a control fight and control > DPS. Being able to sustain DPS while controling the fight is king. If I can finish a full cast and prevent 2-3 k damage to a raid member, I come out net ahead of fire. People harped on me for pointing to tier 5, so I point to tier 6. Now the argument is "well that's just one fight." Come on how silly?

And here I thought survival was optimal, awe shucks you died just cause you had to be optimal and not survive. Trying to be optimal has gotten me killed twice in recent memeory, a dead mage does nothing.
Using myself as an example, optimal would be Tier 5 Shoulders and Gloves, I got the Shoulder but the pants which I am now stuck with. Please travel outside of RAWR mage and into the world of Gear Competition / DKP.

A Arcane mage can make good use of Crit, Fire can't do dick with spirit, but oh I forgot you need Tier gear with an ass load of spirit to get your set bonus. I can spec out of hit and into MA/Prismatic Ward, you can't get Arcane Med very easy.

I will addmit pushback to be an issue, but Playing frost I notice casting time to be an issue as well, but oh no beeing rooted for 3 second doesn't have any effect on fights that require rapid reaction/movement.

The key word is -killing- Striders, on Vashj I could dump all my mana into a strider without pulling agro, and I also had better burst DPS for tainteds.

Several minor details add up. What I noticed with Arcane is it has issues on various bosses, but each time the issues is a different reason, and most of the time it can be worked around / dealt with.

Being able to have a short cast spell allows me to move and pause to cast, fire does not have that option outside of fireblating/scorching, last time I checked I had Fireblast in my spell book.

We have no trouble killing the adds on Anetheron, my point was an area where arcane can come in handy.

Serpent Coil braid is not desired by fire mages over other trinkets, i'll still be using mine till after Sunwell
Tier 5 is not desired over tier 6 by locks/fire mages
For people in Tier 5, Fire would want the Wand forgoten stars, Arcane would rather the badge wand.
In Tier 6 My pref is head, Fire/Locks want Cowl Illidari.
Tier 5 most wanted boots blasting, I favored the boots from Lurker

What you fail to realized is people gear up for Sunwell by doing tier5-6 content and the overwhelming majority of players carry loot over across instances, some even as far back as Kara. Given free rein on Sunwell loot is one thing, but in the realm of DKP, even if it's just one or two items per instance, I came out pretty well cause people did not want Serpent Coil, on odd runs back through old content people don't want tier5, Loosing out on seacaller slippers doesn't hurt me as much as someone who never got Blasting Boots, and still looses out. Of course there are badge boots now, but those didn't exist 3 months ago when I was using my boots. Same could be said for my wand I suppose. Some of my best gear comes from outside raids, such as 6dam/4spir gems over the purple gem drops inside 25 mans, freeing up gems for other raiders.

It is easier for Arcane to deal with blue gemming then Fire, if you don't get an ass load of blue socket gear that's one thing, but if you do it's another.

Depends on if the goal is to ramp up AB as fast as possible. I'll make myself a bit more clear, IV is 20% more damage for 20 seconds, AB ramping is 40 less damage for 7-8 seconds. The damage I can squeeze out of IV on AB makes up for dropping AB twice in a fight.

I would always go with Kick Ass Arcane/FIRE players will allways own crappy of either spec, generaly it's just nit picking. A good player can make either spec work.

The main issue I would go for is how many scenarios favor fire and how many Arcane? I do see probalems with Arcane, but often times for different reasons then a Fire Mage might see.

Complaints about issues like range or proper spell cycles, a lot of the time come more from people being unfamiliar with a spec/play style, some complaints I see as legitimate, others I don't.

Getting back to TC I was wondering if anyone could tell me for arcane (arcane meditation/mind, mage armor) what value ranges of int/spirit are needed for when the mp5 while casting from kings is greater than that from imp BoW(47mp5??). For the moment for me this is the case with current raid buffs (imp DS, gotw, draenic wisdom, food buff) however on many occasions when we only have 2 paladins available BoW has been the favoured choice (all but one mage is arcane atm and we raid with 4-6). The way I see it for arcane the benefit of extra health, mana pool, crit chance, spell damage etc outweighs the possible lack of mp5 in taking kings over BoW due to gear. If this has been done before please direct me to the forum post.

Even setting aside the larger health pool, mana pool (which is effectively extra regen for evocate/innvervate/tide), crit and damage, BoK will give you competitive regen with BoW for fairly achievable intellect/spirit values.

To calculate this, take your raid-buffed (but pre-BoK) spirit and intellect totals and plug them into the following formula (shamelessly stolen from Constantius' thread):

5 * 0.0093271 * Spirit * Square_root ( Intellect )

Guesstimating your values at 600int, 350spi raid-buffed, sans blessings:

Regen while casting = 0.6 * 400mp5 = 240 mp5
Regen while casting with BoW/iBow (+41mp5/+49mp5) = 281/289 mp5
Regen while casting with BoK (+60 int + 35spi) = 0.6 * 461mp5 = 276 mp5

for a grand total of 5/13 mp5 extra from BoW/iBow.

Moderate increases in your spirit (25 - 50), or larger increases in your intellect (~100) will make BoK strictly better from a pure regen perspective. But even as it stands, you get ~20 extra damage and ~0.8% crit from using BoK, 5.5mp5 per evocate, and 7.5 mp5 per mana tide (innervate is trickier to model and also less probable, so I won't include it here).

More generally, because the regen formula depends on both your spirit and intellect scores, there are a range of possible int/spi values where BoK will be strictly better than BoW; I believe this has been graphed somewhere in the 2.4 int/spi theorycrafting thread.

Edit: I have to ask, what is with the grey wrists on your Armory profile ?

Ty for the quick reply! I'll direct my guildies to this

I dunno? LOL i got no idea. I'll log on know thanks for pointing it out I think I might have just vendored Fury of the Ursine bracers on last logout...

Edit: Phew.. all good

Hi Aldor. First, let me begin by saying that I do welcome long post that I can see there was an honest effort put in. And don't get me wrong, its not often I get someone to try and stick by his points.

With this said, here is what I want to say about your post. I can very easily refute most of your arguments, although you do seem to agree with some of my counterpoints. But here is the major thing. I understand that in your view a lot of small details add up and make arcane really be good for the raid. But, by the very fact that you list a lot of reasons that all ultimately add up and form the core of your argument, its hard to counter-argue with any of your point, which kinds of leads the conversation nowhere. I could easily spend 3 pages talking about how range affects your playstyle. Ultimately, I can't reply and counter-argue with all your points because its hard to follow. Imagine I spend 2 pages talking about the range issue (which BTW I do agree is very minor), if I do that then its hard to remember about all the other points you brought up.

But putting all of that aside, nobody even, in the first place, disagree with your stance that arcane does well. I feel a bit like were both counter-arguing over the same thing. I did point out far before 2.4 came out that arcane was now viable in 2.4 with the GCD and int/spi changes. Personally I just always reply to anyone that is pro or con any spec, because I cannot accept people only seeing one side of the arguments. Likewise, you'll never see me point out gloriously and link out every 60% crit fire parses I can find with 2900 dps, because its not representative of the spec. It builds up false expectations. Even though I am firespec I don't even like the spec in the first place. Fire can't kill trash with any amount of efficiency. The only spec I believe that was ever good was AM spam. Of course, with this said, I don't philosophically agree with some details about arcane spec, and ultimately I don't use it as a result. But I don't make a post about it because ultimately all of my points are arguable for or against, and its a matter of what your own philosophy of play is. And even if someone made a reply post to my own, I know it wouldn't even change my opinion on the matter (or at least, I would be very surprised I change opinion). Personally I always put dps first. You will not once see me cast mana shield unless its in the most dire cases. If I can avoid using fireward then you can be damn sure I won't. If I can take an extra 4k dmg so I can finish my fireball, then I'm going to do it. Not everyone will agree with it. Its like a matter of boundary. This is where spec choice will vary, and its got nothing even to do with how well a spec does.

On a sidenote, I never disagreed that arcane spec is better for t5 content/gear. Believe it or not I usually recommend arcane spec to mages asking me what to spec (for some reason it just happened to happen that way). However, I do always assume end-of-game content. I assume that most people that read my guilds forum ultimately goal for that. I could discuss about lower tiers, but I do avoid any of those conversations because to be honest I don't have any interest about it.

"The main issue I would go for is how many scenarios favor fire and how many Arcane?
[...]
1 Spec is better for 75% of the fights
1 spec is worse for 75% of the fights."

Well, some scenarios will matter more than others. If your guild is hitting a brickwall at eredar twins, for example, then you might want to value extremely highly ice block and cold snap, and its got nothing to do with TC. But for any other fight that I can think of, I wouldn't give a damn about ice block ! You can give me a lot of scenarios, but ultimately, the cases where it matters will vary for each person' opinion because you won't really need ice block until you reach eredar twins. In fact, the only fights I kinda care about right now is brutallus, felmyst and m'uru. To this extent, my valuation of what 'downsides of arcane spec' and what 'downsides of fire specs' are will be naturally very slanted. Since you probably don't know, M'uru is very much the worst anti-arcane fight. Either you aoe non-stop for 5-6min (good luck with that), or you nuke through no less than 63 pushbacks in 5 min (taken from tonights parse). I mean, to me, that just happens to continue to confirm my own beliefs that pushbacks do matter - but if I put m'uru aside, then really pushbacks are non-issue for almost every single fights. As such, until I reach m'uru then, if I were an arcane mage, I would say that pushbacks are non-issue, and you would be right - until you see m'uru. And then your view/weighting on spell pushback from that point on will radically change. So my point here is that you can't either give a bunch of scenarios and compare fire vs arcane, and based on the amount of scenarios where arcane wins vs fire, conclude that spec x is better than spec y. Because ultimately the 'weighting' that each player will give to each scenario will be colored by the perception of the reader.



(PS: serpent-coil braid is a mage trinket. I use mine very regularly between trash pulls. Granted, I've never used it for dps, but I sitll use it every day)

I hope my reply covers the grounds a bit as to why I don't think it is productive to argue on specs comparison. And we're not even disagreeing in the first place.

Check the link my signature.

You should rather downrank than ask for BoW.
BoK is just that good with the spirit change and base/evocation mana.