Vhad

I'll restate it then, I've been deep fire since beginning to end of Naxx more or less and understand where you are comming from. I was fire deep into TBC as well, only the last ~3-4 weeks been arcane. What I meant with slacking is that you have to be more aware and on your toes when you have a shorter range. I've not found it to be at any disadvantage on any fights. It forces you to pay more attention to your sorroundings.

I wanted you to test it because I think you would find the 30 vs 41 yard range doesn't really matter. I understand perfectly fine that it's better to be stationed in 1 spot from 100% to dead on a given boss - but IF there is any movement I just havn't found the advantage of 41 yards over 30 so far which seems to be your arguement.

I've found it more valuable to take advantage of the somewhat buggy behavior of AM then 41 yards.

What!?

 

galzohar

Let's do some numbers (although you can probably spreadsheet this):
1270 spell damage 38% crit 500 int (after talent I'll probably still have less) (fully totally buffed as that's how I calculated my fire DPS). Of course arcane gets only 6% crit on average while fire gets 9, but +6% crit to AB so 41% crit.

base damage:
items+base:
700+(1270+500/4)*2.5/3.5=1696
1.2 T5 bonus, 1.025 AP bonus over time, 1.03 arcane instability
talents:
1696*1.2*1.03*1.01=2148
crit/hit:
2148*(1+0.41*0.75)*0.99=2781 average damage per AB.
DPS with no stacks: 2781/2.5=1112
DPS with 1 stack (2.166 cast): 2781/2.166=1283 DPS
DPS with 2 stacks (1.833 cast): 2781/1.833=1516 DPS

If you time your AB perfectly, you'll get 3 ABs in 1.5+2.166+1.833=5.5 seconds, or 2781*3/5.5=1516 DPS.
If you miss your timing, you get 3 ABs in 2.5+2.166+1.833=6.5 seconds, or 2781*3/6.5=1283 DPS.
If you can't afford that much mana, you'll only do 2 ABs, meaning:
With good timing: 2 ABs in 1.833+2.166=4 seconds, or 2781*2/4=1390 DPS
Without timing: 2 ABs in 2.5+2.166=4.666 seconds, or 2781*2/4.666=1192 DPS.

With similar calculations, arcane missiles will do 1088 DPS and scorch since you're limited to 19 in fire (that doesn't even give you master of elements!) is 1049 DPS (or 1167 with capped hit). A little more if you are well over the hit cap with arcane, which you shouldn't be. Fireball would be 1250 dps with capped hit or 1124 dps if you have just enough to cap with arcane (and no elemental precision).
Frostbolt with 40/0/21 or 41/0/20 (ignoring the lost int for a sec since you can't have 5/5 arcane mind with that) will give 889 dps without someone putting winter's chill up or 954 DPS with someone putting it up. Again that's if you don't have +hit on top of what is needed to max arcane +hit. With capped hit you'll have 956 or 1027 dps.

Fireball spam 10/48/3:
815+1270*1.05=2148
Molten fury, firepower and playing with fire:
2148*1.13*1.04=2525
crit/hit:
2525*.99*(1+0.38*1.1)=3544
With imp scorch that's 4000.
That's 1333 DPS with fireball spam.
Note that while AP isn't really its full effect, I didn't count combustion either, nor the effect that AB gets reduced effect from heroism especially when used on the boss under 20% (to increase molten fury effect). Those can result in a few % more DPS for fireball. Of course I also didn't count putting scorches up, which can also cause a few % DPS loss even if you only cast it once every 30 seconds.

So while AB is comparable and even superior in most cases, you lose a lot of DPS when using AM or scorch, and even pure AB requires 2/5 T5 to be competitive (which I think we already agree on, for the most part). I would look carefully at how often you "lose" your rotations and how often you really have the mana for the 3XAB rotation, how much DPS is gained from AB VS the DPS lost due to AM and make sure my numbers aren't wrong before yelling out silly comments like "arcane rules" without backup.
Again this is far from ruling out arcane - I'm just trying to contribute to figuring out when/where/how it's useful if at all. For now all I can say for absolutely sure that it's pointless without 2/5 T5, and I'm almost sure it's pointless when efficiency matters due to much lower DPM compared to 10/48/3 - but we usually don't have mana issues now do we? ;p
With those numbers I averaged a capped hit 40/20 or similar style spec to do 1339 DPS with 3XAB-scorch-fireballX2 (assuming you're good enough with /stopcasting to start the next AB in time - no other combo in the game lets you play perfect with /stopcasting and not have to wait idle for the AB buff or miss it). Just need to compare to 33/28 now to see if the loss of extra spell damage on arcane blast is worth it due to extra fire damage, when I have time ;p I have a feeling it might actually be a better idea speccing 33/28 seeing how much of your damage is actually fire with the optimal dps ABX3-scorch-2Xfireball rotation.

I'm stil ignoring different spells on clearcasts as you definitely don't have time to stop a spell to cast a new one - it will just result in a bigger DPS loss. And if you're looking for efficiency, really 10/48/3 will eat this spec up in efficiency as both its fire spells are more efficient (less mana cost more dps) and AB with 2 charges is 596 mana. That's similar DPM to using fireblast...

 

◊ manly

you just confirmed that there was a disadvantage.

 

Aoife

Better awareness is not a bad thing. If it forces you to be more aware of what's going on around you, it probably makes you a better player. You can be proactive instead of reactive for more situations.

 

◊ manly

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with that argument. That's like saying making mistakes is good because you learn from them.

If you want to compare specs, trying to make disadvantages look like advantages deviates the fact that there are other considerations that comes into play when comparing, which you're trying to write-off.

I never pretended I believe the extra range is a big deal; hell, most of the fights i've seen so far would not get benefits from it. But its just common sense that it eases positioning. I dare you to DPS Supremus *safely* during his kite phase with 30 yards. He can randomly charge you and 1-shot melee you (hello bug) if you're that close. Or you can pretend that 'hey I'm under an enlightened sense of awareness, I'll simply stop dpsing and move away from him when hes about to switch target during kite phase', but then you would prove exactly my point once you do that. You lost DPS by being forced to not be able to complete your role due to range issue. Hell, having 30 yards is likely to force you to get out of range of totems to hit Supremus at all during kite phase, which again *is* a disadvantage no matter how much 'makes you a better player' argument you want to throw at it.

 

galzohar

Also I mathed that rotation for 33/28 (some points are floating but they're not affecting DPS if you assume imp scorch stays up but all the max dps taletns were taken), and I got 1347 DPS if your fire is hit capped with the listed gear. Very close to the 1339 DPS of the 40/20 style since your ABs are that much weaker and your fireballs/scorches are that much stronger with 33/28.
But really both ways you're not getting a DPS increase compared to 10/48/3, are significantly less mana efficient and forced to stand in 30y range. With those neglicible differences in DPS we really don't need to discuss how good the range or mana efficiency is - they're definitely enough to convince me to not spec arcane atm even with 2/5 T5.

 

Vhad

What I meant wasn't that you play better with arcane, all I ever said was that on content I've done I've not found the range to be any disadvantage because it made me pay more attention to my sorroundings while still dps'ing.

What exactly do you think I'm trying to write off? It's not like I'm blindly claiming arcane is the best spec, to me it was tons of fun respeccing the first few days and it has only grown on me since. I'm not convinced my dmg wouldn't be better with fire, to me it's just more fun playing this threatless spec and somewhat more interactive compared to the 10 48 3 I was for so long. But on the other hand I don't feel like I'm gimped in any way or shape as I always hold my own on dmg meters which will only improve when I get 2 set tier5.

It's another playstyle and another approach to playing the mage which I really like, as I've been frostbolt/fireball spam spec since the dawn of raiding. If anything that's the real advantage of the spec, to me.

What!?

 

ebbv

I think we're spending a lot more posts on this subject than it warrants. Vhad, I've played with and without Range talents (in both Fire and Frost, and by playing as Arcane), so I am also speaking from experience.

Having more range is an advantage, period. No, it is not a big one. It will rarely make a significant difference. I hope everyone can agree on this.

Now can we get back to writing up our plans to sneak into Blizzard's offices and undo the -10% Coefficient change?


I know it's been talked about in the past, but I'd like to revisit playing 10/48/3 on Al'ar. How many of you respec and how many just use AB + AM? How does the latter work for you? My guild will probably pull Al'ar soon and all 3 of our consistent Mages are 10/48/3 (including me, obviously.)

 

Roywyn

I've been playing for over 2 years noew (no, I'm not going to type /played) and I've respecced twice in my whole carreer until 2 days ago. I doubt there is anyone that loathes respeccing more than I do.
We've spent two nights on Al'ar, one night to get a feeling for the encounter and on the second night we refined tactics and killed him.

I did the first day as 10/48/3, using 3*AB, 2*FroBo rotation. There was a lot of running involved, the fight was pretty taxing on mana, and we had Winter's Chill up, so I doubt AM would have been a better filler. Damage was really low, would have been middle fiddle field with the 2/5 T5 bonus (~72% damage from AB, 28% from FroBo, lots of running to get in range and avoid flame patches).
The second day, I respecced AP/Frost (I regret not taking Frost Channeling, Al'ar drains your mana pretty badly) damage went up noticably, to the upper middle field. The additional range really helped as when when chasing him and avoiding flames. Damage was higher than than our deep frost mage with Winter's Chill, not sure if their pet was counted by other people's SWS though.

We had our literal 1% wipe before the kill - image it would have been a 1% wipe with all mages being fire, oh the guilt! :o
What essentially makes or breaks the fight is people knowing what to do and not getting themselves killed by lagspikes/slowness/stupidity/random charges. On the 1% wipe, we had 2 people die right after the rebirth, and some more deaths over time. On the kill, we had all dead ones Ankhed/Rebirthed.

Al'ar isn't very hard, but he takes a bit to learn and get used to. Specs won't make or break the fight, but they can turn a 1% wipe into a kill. If you can kill him with 24 people (just assume someone died on the pull), you can kill him with all fire specs. Consider repeccing to get a first kill in though.
His trash is on a 2 hour timer, so you can try him with your old specs first. If he dies within your first 2 hours, kudos! If he doesn't, you can quickly port to respec for the next set of tries if you think if helps your guild

 

Patterns...

So I'm a bit wary about adding yet another post to this arcane discussion (I'm punny), but I think some people might find this interesting. I've linked below a post from the general WoW Mage forum that has some links to vids by a deep arcane mage named Domin from Showdown. Obviously a vid doesn't provide hard numbers or anything, but it is definitely eye-opening to see what deep arcane with 2pc t5 can do when played really well. I'm not suggesting this is Article A in the case for deep arcane or anything, just that it's a worthy watch. I've also linked to a thread on Showdown's public forum where this same mage Domin discusses his experience with the spec so far.

WoW Mage board post:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...12582087&sid=1

Showdown forums thread:
http://showdown.cr0w.net/phpBB2/view...er=asc&start=0

 

Nyuu

One thing i've been curious about lately are socket bonuses and gems. Assuming you are using mage armor instead of molten, in case you don't have a shadow priest in your group, is putting an 8 spirit or even a 4int 2mp5 gem in a blue socket to get a +4 spell damage bonus better then using a 5 damage 6 stamina nightseye? Does the regen help enough to make it worthwhile? Just thinking about arcane compared to fire, it seems arcane's damage potential is limited more by mana then anything else, while fire is limited to how fast you can cast fireball. Barring spell haste if you are in a group with 2 shadow priests I've run into situations where I can chain cast fireball the whole fight and never have to evo, only rarely using gems or potions.

 

galzohar

Mana from gear is a waste of time generally compared to the huge amounts of mana you get from raid buffs and potions, not to mention shadow priest, but even without shadow priest just blessing of wisdom, gems, evocation and pots give you mana that makes your regen from gear look like a joke. And you'll have a lot more than that in an optimized raid, such as judgement of wisdom, shaman totem and vampiric touch. Mage armor is more of a noticeable regen but still a big dps loss for not having molten armor that it's only worth if if you go oom after doing every single thing you can to be more mana efficient. And I don't use mage armor on magtheridon if I have a shadow priest. I might in the future though as the fight is more on farm and isn't worth wasting pots on ;p but that shouldn't be what makes you decide between regen and gems - on new content you should always be potting making mana a non-issue regardless of raid composition (unless it's some kind of an extremely retarded composition).
While arcane may be more mana dependant, note that you need the same amount of spell damage as fire to be competitive. Any less and you'll lose to the fire mages. If mana is an issue, just stick to fire spec. Heck, I'd stick to fire spec regardless. And if you don't have 2/5 T5 there's no point looking at arcane anyway.

 

ebbv

4 INT would only be +1.6 spell power, so the comparison is not even close. Blue sockets should be Glowing Nightseyes, yellows Veiled Nobles, and Reds either Runed Living Ruby or Veiled Nobles.

Unless of course you're talking PvP gear then everything is Solid Star of Elune.

 

Nyuu

Socket bonus as in the bonus for matching gems to the right color sockets. Once you are at a certain level of stamina more seems to be a waste for pve, so if a piece of gear has a red and blue socket, and the socket bonus is 4 damage would you consider putting some other gem then a nightseye in the blue socket for the bonus that you would otherwise ignore.

You wouldn't get as much spell damage from say a dazzling talasite but you would get the mana and 1.6 dmg from the int, plus the bit of extra regen vs 5 damage and stamina that may or may not be helpful.

 

Mortos

first of all Im sorry if Im bringing a subject that was already discussed but finidng the right post between 100 pages is not easy

Im looking at 10/48/3 standard spec.... and Im wondering about the fire spells, Dragon Breath Blast Wave and Pyroblast... and why not improve you Fireblast CD more then the 1 point?

Do you actually use them in Boss situation? Pyro I know can be used as Out of Invis. spell but the Blastwave and Dragon Breath seems situational at best...
Was wondering why not imporoving your Fireblast CD instead... atleast to 7 sec (6.5 wont happen due to lags).
this ofc will only help the fights which dont require max range though if they do require max range then teh Dragon Breath and Blastwave wont be handy either.

once again sorry if it was already brought up. thanks.

 

Celcius

If you are using fire blast in a spell rotation, the "best" rotation would be 2xFireball followed by a Fire blast. By putting only 1 point into improved fire blast you would reduce the cooldown of spell to 7.5 seconds which is the total casting time of that spell rotation.

The talent realy doesn't justify more points than 1 point spent in it, in pve.

 

Aoife

Fireblast has a base 8 second cooldown. If you were to fit it into a rotation for extra dps (at the expense of DPM), it would be Fireballx2/Fire Blast. 1.5s Global Cooldown on the Fire Blast, then 6 seconds of Fireballs=7.5 seconds of cooldowns. Since the best you can do with 3/3 Imp Fire Blast is 6.5 seconds, it wouldn't fit into any shorter rotation than Fireballx2/Fire Blast or Scorchx4/Fire Blast. One point is optimal then and the other two points are essentially wasted other than having a 1 second shorted CD in PVP, but Dragon's Breath and Blast Wave give more utility in both PVE and PVP than an extra 1 second off the cooldown of Fire Blast in PVP.

 

Mortos

yeah yeah, answered myself 2 moments ago I forgot to add the GCD of fireblast.. was calculating as 2 fireballs = 6 sec...

Thanks though.

 

galzohar

That's how I came up with my 10/48/3 fire spec (before seeing it on anyone else):
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kf0VZxgM0fcI0eRx0h
Picked up all the good fire DPS talents... 4 points left, which means I can't get up to arcane meditaion in arcane without losing DPS in fire (although it is possible to drop playing with fire and 1 from elemental precision to grab it but I find it subpar as most of the time DPS is more of an issue than mana, especially with the high efficiency of the non-arcane-blasting spec :P). All other talents will be rarely if ever used. However blastwave and dragon's breath are useful in the few fights where aoe is needed (and are actually MAJOR help there tbh, huge burst and DPM for AOE spells). That leaves you with 1 point. Since fireballs are 3s cast and fireblast is 1.5s global cooldown with 8 second cooldown, to be able to do the 7.5s 2Xfireball-firebalst rotation you need 1 point in imp fireblast. Granted it's rarely useful (and the DPS increase is pretty minor for a major mana cost increase), but I just can't see any other talent being any more useful.
So the reason for 1/3 fireblast, DB and BW are less because they're awesome, but more because they're better than anything else you can get instead when speccing for max fire DPS.

 

ebbv

Ahh, that wasn't clear to me in your original post, and since a Nightseye gets you the socket bonus anyway, it didn't occur to me that was what you were referring to. Yes the STA is not important. However, 5 Spell Damage is better than 4 INT and 2 mp5.

 

galzohar

And some sta is not bad (although definitely can get by without, while you can't get by with more damage, the damage is the real reason for the nightseye). I have to honestly say I die more often than I go oom ;p of course, stamina would've rarely helped when I died in most cases (more due to not doing it right), but I see more fights that need stam than fights that need mana.
All in all, damage is king though! ;p

 

Stein

I think to this point i've been selling the Arc Potency / AM combo short.

Arcane Concentration gives a 10% chance to proc CC on each spell hit. Therefore, AM has a 50% chance to proc CC.

Chain casting AM would therefore receive 50% reduction in mana cost from CC, not 10%. Further, it would have well over 50% uptime for Arc Potency as it affects AM immediately on CC proc, not just on consumption.

I wonder if AM chain casting is being modeled in this way by everyone already?

 

zepi

No,

10% change to proc each hit would mean 0.9^5 = 59% for NOT to proc clearcasting (thus 41% to proc), assuming AM worked that way. However, Arcane Concentration is per spellcast, not per spellhit (You'd have insane change to proc it when AOE'ing if it was for each spellhit).

Believe me, AM has just 10% change to proc clearcasting. If you want to test it, visit Dr. Boom in Netherstorm and try it out.

 

galzohar

And remember it's just not practical to change your rotation when you score a clearcast - With even minimal latency and with uber-fast response time, by the time you can realize you procced a clearcast your next spell is already underway, and not worth canceling. Especially in terms of DPS rather than DPM which is what this spec is supposed to do anyway - if you want DPM spec fire. And even if you don't want DPM you should probably still spec fire although I'm trying to find a scenario in which arcane can do better other than AB spamming.

 

Stein

Yeah, i wasn't talking about casting it on CC, just chain AM. I thought it was on cast as well, but the tip says otherwise: http://thottbot.com/s12577

After testing, I guess it's just a documentation error.