pugs355

Which weapon enchant do most of you go with? 30int? 40 damage so frost bolts get damage too or Sunfire?

Also along the same lines is there an upper limit where adding more intellect/mana really doesnt make sense? I mean pots/mana gems dont really scale. Other than the extra MP5 from just having a larger mana pool.

 

Pintofbrew

With optimism, 30int is worth 36damage. This makes it sub-standard. 40 damage will be dramatically better in any occasion where you won't Evo, or you have a low dps-time.

Both these are inferior to Sunfire, with the exception that Sunfire loses out on frost bolt. For a 21-frost spec I'd stick with 40damage, for an 11-frost spec I'd go with Sunfire. Under no circumstances would I consider Soulfrost or 30int. If there was a 40int enchant, I'd take it over others but there isn't, sadly.

 

diag

So how well does Rawr model your dps as arcane?

Rawr shows that I can do 1850+ dps, while I usually do 1700, at best 1750. Is this common with a 150 dps difference?

Even at Teron, I have 100 dps difference(interrupt frequency =0.1).

 

Pintofbrew

Quite. Note that Rawr will optimize your cooldowns in such a way that may be a little far-fetched. That can mean getting BL at the start, blowing all cooldowns as soon as you've ramped-up, and ultimately getting exactly 3 uses of cooldowns in, while you may get 3 uses of CDs, plus another 10-20-30sec of no CDs, which alters the CD/no-CD ratio, dropping your dps closer towards the no-CD value.

 

Ceara

I'm not sure if this is the right thread, but it seemed to be the best fit.

I had two builds that I've been wanting to try, just haven't had the gear/proper situation to try them out.

The first is with my current gear which is mostly T5 level with 2 piece tier 5. Has anyone ever tried 40/10/11 using a similar rotation to Arcane Blast / Fireball instead of Frostbolt? The 10 points would give essential points in ignite and improved fireball, while the 11 points in frost keeps icy veins. My only concerns here are with mana efficiency and casting timers coinciding with the AB debuff. Additionally its worth mention that I would only try this with a mage keeping scorch up.

My second idea is more of a question as I'm sure its been tried before.. But once you get 4 piece tier 6, is the 40/0/21 spec still able to match up with fire seeing that you now get +damage to both your acane blast and your frostbolts (20% and 5% respectively).

Thanks.

 

masakenji

currently my guild is up to eradar twins and good loots are dropping everywhere.

I have being raiding as arcane for 1-2 months now, and have tried everything to increase my AP spamming. would replacing my t5 bonus with the sunwell loots be a good idea?

i mean if 2 different arcane mages goes at it and only one have the 2pc t5 bonus. when and if they reached 0 mana at the end of the fight, wouldnt that mean they kind of unleashed similar dps?

unfortunately i cannot test this out due to the fact the gears i have to replace the t5 are kara gears

 

xiaoxin21

The one wearing 2 piece T5 would have dealt more damage Masakenji. 2piece T5 increases your DPM as well as your DPS. To figure this out just read the long post on the start of this thread

 

Azzuro

I'd suggest going for the second Icy Veins/Iceblock instead.

 

chase

Kinda an interesting question though.

Consider a raid where no frost mages are present (i.e. no WC) yet imp scorch is up. Does fireball make a better filler in this context? (Assuming the rather non-standard 40/10/11 build mentioned)

 

Gediablo

If you are arcane - no matter if you are deep arcane, arcane frost or arcane fire - your goal is to spam AB non-stop. In fights where you can do this then 2xt5 is mandatory, simple as that. And even in long fights it will still be far more than 50% of your damage. 20% extra damage from 2 items are simply a bigger boost than anything else for arcane (also the biggest change in tier6 gear compared to tier5 is the added hit-rating, which you don't need that much for AB spam).

However, what you should aim for in the long run is to get both 4xtier 6 and 2xtier5, and that is doable with just 1 Tier6 loot from Sunwell (assuming you got most tier items pre-Sunwell).

 

Remiel

I played as arcane mague during SSC/TK but i made a respect to fire when i went into MH/BT cause before 2.4 with that gear lvl fire was better than arcane few days ago i discovered this post so i try it without changing my gear with not bad results at all (i did similar dps than with fire). After trying it i had some questions to try to improve my dps:

I don't know if they still exist, perhaps blizzard delete them form macros language but i remember long time ago existed some macros that could check %hp and %mana as a conditional to make something, it would be nice to have a macro that check your mana and use a mana potion or mana stone when a %mana is reached while you are still smashing the same button to ab spam. Somebody knows if it can be done?

On the other hand is better to be hit capped for frost too to maximize dps? Or is better to be capped only for arcane and improve other stats than hit? If FrB and EP are still bugged the difference would be 4%hit.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad english ^^

 

Etherealz

Frostbolt and EP are still bugged as of 2.4, thusly you only need 3 points in arcane focus and should shoot for 126 hit (without a shaman - since ur alliance)

 

Pintofbrew

Practically no 40/0/21 mage ever raids with WC up. Firstly, it is fuck-all difference to their DPS, which by vast majority is AB and the part which is FrBolt is already at 40%ish crit. Making this 50% will barely give a 6% increase to a small percentage of the damage. Likewise the 4/8 T6 bonus is next to irrelevant, both as 50/0/11 for AM and as 40/0/21 for FrB.

Arc-Fire has never been shown to be better than bad compared to arcane-frost post 2.4. In fact, I'd be amazed if you managed to prove 40/21/0 or any arcane-fire build is better than a classic arcane-fire fireball hybrid 33/28/0.

Arcane builds nowadays are nothing about the filler and everything about the AB. If what you spec doesn't pump AB it's next to useless. Arcane-fire has no IV, and IV is a massive AB pump, because it gets more AB's in under AP, and AP-fully ramped AB is the motherload of arcane DPM gain.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. Whether you fill with AM or with FrB is practically one and the same. The DPS difference is so negligible it's irrelevant. The only reason 40/0/21 is superior to 50/0/11 and why both are superior to 40/21/0 and it's variants is -how many IVs you get- and that's it in a nutshell.

 

grayrest

You shouldn't trade other stats to hit cap frost. Since frostbolt should only be 10-15% of your damage, +hit would have to be 6-10 times as good as the other stats to be worthwhile and it's more in the 1-2 times range.

 

exc20002001

Hey there.

I was just in kara last saturday and the trinket pendant of the violet eye dropped. Immediately i was thinking whether this would be a good trinket for a arcane mage or not, especially compared to the icon of the silver crescent. Comparing the baste stats the violet eye looks nice, 43 spl dmg vs 40 intellect isnt a bad trade, and with consistent arcane blast spamming the 21MP5 stacking bonus could be tremendous.

I have not seen this trinket mentioned around before as of late, and now im considering aquiring this trinket since im so unlucky on our ZA runs with the Hex shrunken head. Has anyone got some numbers on this trinket at all, for me its proving fantastic for long fights and my ability to spam would be even greater.

'Veyron is proof that if you throw enough money at a problem, a solution will emerge''

 

krakan

50/0/11 with high int is becoming a more prevalent arcane raid spec.

The World of Warcraft Armory

thats my armory profile, i've tried out several specs, fire, arcane etc, and with this one i top the dmg metres most the time, and just AB spam

 

Roywyn

You do realise that 40/0/21 is better? Scrap the AM talents and get Cold Snap for a 2nd IV during heroism (and some random frost utilities).
And CSD is about twice as good as the dmg/2%int meta, the same for +12 damage enchant over +4 stats on rings.

"I use X and top meters" doesn't mean that X is the best and more and more people will use it.

The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

Rate-my-WotLK-spec! If it's not listed here, it's probably not worth it: http://elitistjerks.com/846078-post4020.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.

 

Aramezzet

To illustrate the effect of mana regeneration on DPS, I'll show the comparison of cost between casting Frostbolts and Arcane Blasts, the difference in damage and how an increase in active Mp5 benefits the caster. I'm sorry if my theorycrafting is off. I'm out of practice.

Mana spent over 2.5 seconds of casting Frostbolt: 272
Mana spent over 2.5 seconds of casting Arcane Blast: 672 * 1.4 = 940.8

At 1200 bonus damage and 30% chance to crit:
Average damage dealt by Frostbolt : 2222.03
Average damage dealt by Arc.Blast : 2357.67

Average damage over 2.5 seconds:

Frostbolt: 2222.03
Arc.Blast: 3929.45

Difference in mana cost: 940.8-272 = 568.8
Difference in damage: 3929.45-2222.03 = 2707.42
Damage in damage, per mana over 2.5 seconds: 4.76

So each point of mp5 while casting increases DPS by about 0.952

While casting fully stacked AB's, the Pendant will be giving you 21 mp5 per 1.5 seconds... so that's 2.8 mana per second per second. I think an integration is the best way to find the effect of this trinket because of 2.4's changes of how changes to how the game handles changing mana regen are applied. Over 20 seconds, presented rather sloppily:

M = ∫(∫xdt)dt

M = total mana regenerated
x = mana regen per second per stack gain = 4.2
t = [0,20]
However, Arcane Blast takes 1.5 seconds to cast. To adjust to this I'll reduce time span t and increase x.
t-> t/1.5 = 12.66
x-> 1.5x = 6.3

∫(∫xdt)dt
∫(∫6.3dt)dt

M = [0,12.66]∫([0,12.66]∫6.3dt) //Yes my notation is shit but I hope you get the idea.
M = 1009.701
That's about 42 mp5. According to my previous theorycrafting that could be 40 DPS (though at your gear level I'd think it's only 30-ish. I dunno). That's huge. Go ahead and try it out.

Jesus Christ, I think I'll try to get this trinket and try it myself. It gets that much better with Icy Veins and the Skull to make AB's faster and stack the trinket's buff faster.

 

exc20002001

You could run this trinket with the skull which could make interesting results but then the Scb would be sacrificed. Tough choice..

I guess the question is just how much more mana are you getting by stacking X faster and how that compares to having the Scb stacked with other haste effects. Again tough choice..

'Veyron is proof that if you throw enough money at a problem, a solution will emerge''

 

krakan

not entirely true

the am is used inconjuction with the pendant of the violet eye to restore mana,
and its a choice of slow vs cold snap. i prefer slow.

and as for the csd vs the dmg/2% int meta, yes csd is more dmg, but dealing dmg is not a problem i have, the problem i have is restoring the mana, Arc blast + 3 debuffs + ap ~1.1k mana a cast

 

madgazza

Hi Guys,
Could we possibly get a bit more discussion on trinkets for arcane raiding?
As i dont really have access to Skull of Guldan i always presumed Hex Head and SCB to be best.
However, as i'm completely fed up with tailoring, and the low cost of levelling alchemy, ive considered doing it just for Sorcerer's Alchemists Stone. Is it worth it?
From SCB the Spell hit is useless, and it lacks any passive damage. Obviously the mana gem help is what makes it godly.
Hex is good for obvious reasons.
Alchemists stone just has SO much damage on it, and if im chain potting surely this would be one of my 2?
Which would i replace? I suppose you could switch for certain fights, but assuming an spriest and shaman in most raids, would you still want SCB and the stone from a mana pov?
Stacking Hex Head and the Mana Gem dmg bonus from SCB during Arcane Power/IV also has to come into account, but for argument, assuming you AP, pot, gem at 0 minutes, gem pot again at 2 and 4, you can only stack them all again at 6 minutes, meaning you waste damage on the AP in the middle after 3. Make any sense? Is the 60 dmg on the stone therefore better?
Not helped by the fact Rawr doesnt like Macs whoo!
Lets get some discussion going

 

xiaoxin21

It is 63 damage and 900++ mana

vs

12 hit, 30 crit, and 600++ mana and about 30 damage(225/8).

However you need to take into account that the SCB is double trinket-able. In a 6 min fight, you can use it twice with AP and IV which makes it worth more than Sorcerer's Alchemists Stone.

 

Alvira

We have 2 trinket slots. Why not use both? I use SCB and sorceror's stone.

You can generally use sorceror's stone's 40% more to pots twice in a fight, more on longer fights.

 

HellaBooya

While yes using the Alchemist Stone will grant you more mana over a fight, the power of being able to stack [Serpent-Coil Braid] with [Hex Shrunken Head] in conjunction with IV and AP makes it, in my opinion a better option. The extra mana you gain from the Alchemist Stone is not worth the extreme amount of damage increase that you receive while stacking your cooldowns.