Hello everyone,

I apologise if I missed out on this and that it might have been asked before but what seems to be the optimum talent build in terms of dps in end-game raiding right now? Assuming the mage has 4/5 t6 obtained and is in a tank and spank situation, I'm constantly going back and forth between the two builds (AM spam) or the old 10/48/3 build. I just can't tell which would produce a better dps output especially after the removal of the fireball tax. However I'm now guessing that builds including Arcane Blast have gone out the window in terms of optimum dps?

Thanks in advance.

(Tried Vontre's spreadsheet but I seem to suck at it, can't modify talent trees)

I would think AB is on the way out. It has a high reliance on 2 piece T5 and timing that doesn't work with haste at all. I don't know if they nerf MSD or not, but that's the only way it will really come back, if even then.

I just messed around with the spreadsheet, and after some cursory tests, it seems pretty clear that deep fire trounces am spam when fully raid buffed without the tax.

I am following the pacing thread pretty closely, and I have been armorying most of the mages who are currently in BT (my guild is a little farther behind than many of the raiders here- we have VR on farm in TK and are doing our first ALAR attempts tonight, and we have everyone but Vashj down in SSC), and I notice a great deal of mages are specced deep frost.

I normally raid the boring old 10/48/3 (as I don't care much for arcane blast spam and only have one piece of t5), pvp frost (either 17/0/44 or 0/7/54), but I have never raided frost in TBC. Is there a reason mages are switching to frost later in progression?

Additionally, I am toying around with a spec for Alar tonight, and came up with this 44/0/17 that I am going to try, although I feel like I wasted some talent points in elemental precision. Any thoughts?

Lol, you're making the wrong assumption. For EJ, and probably quite a number of high-end guilds, hyjal/BT is a 2 day clear. You see a lot of frostmage because they spec for pvp and switch back to pve spec for the 2 days of clear.

For some it probably depends when you catch them. A lot of raids will finish up their week with Illidan, so some will spec frost for that (if they prefer the control over Arcane) and just stay frost for PvP for the rest of the week. If you're looking for a change from deep fire I would recommend looking into the arcane thread to learn a little bit about AM spam, 2 piece t5 isn't needed to make the spec work anymore.

I suppose I will give it a shot, but I have tried in the past and just don't like it. It, for whatever reason, just isn't as much fun for me.

open offer to mages
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If anyone would be kind enough to provide parses of AM spam on DR. Boom, I will make sure to compile the data and give a conclusive answer about arcane potency mechanics. (to ensure double dipping still exists, and if the 60% crit still exists in 2.2).

There are some restrictions to the parses I can accept, mostly to be sure there are no interfering numbers.

1- Please, only cast AM every 7 or 8 seconds. Do *not* chain cast AM. I have a bunch of those, and unfortunately, due to travel time, it is hard to figure out what bolt got which buff at which time.

2- If you send a parse, I need to know your critrate%. The crit% shown in your character page is good enough. If I don't have your critrate, I cannot do anything with your numbers.

I have written a parser which will take read a combatlog and output the proper numbers. However, to make sure about numbers, the more data I have the more accurate the result will be. Hence why I am asking for this.

I assume arcane potency is a requirement as well? Common sense sez yes, but you didn't mention it as an explicit requirement in your post.

Correct. Mystical Skyfire diamond is optional, it shouldn't affect the results, although I do take special care when it procs in case 'delays' before your CC procs could affect the numbers. If I get a significant number of focus procs from parses I'll consider checking if MSD affects it.

ie:
focus proc
cast AM
after 1 bolt is sent, CC procs.

Too much talking about AM spamm lately , do you think it can work better than 10/48/3 with out any special gear (sextant->bt rep trinket , icon -> crusade card trinket).With my current gear it will be a bit overkill on the hit thats what i am afraid of and i never had the luck to get TLC..So in general what would you say that are the requirements to make AM specc > deep fire?

If it had been removed it would be a huge buff for sure making it an extremely valueable trinket!

I just tested and it is decidedly still 45s. I suppose some people saw videos and watching the procs they concluded the cooldown changed, because the exalted hyjal ring uses the same icon.

I leave the calculations up to you cause i would most likley do them wrong. But I would like to see the calculations.

Cuase in my silly head CoD does 4200 damage over 1min (dont know what it scales in to with +damage).

A mage that deals a descent damage should do at least 800-1000 dps with raid buffs, flask etc. A 10% increase to 1000 dps should mean 100x60 = 6000 damage over 1min. Does really the CoD beat that?

If there is only 1 mage in the raid I would bet you that its enough to justify CoE in a fight where you stand still alot. However CoD would probably be better in a fight where you move around alot

It's also the same icon as Magtheridon's Eye, so I often have at least one up when blasting away. It can get very confusing...

The Sextant is still a good trinket for arcane mages, it's just not as good as the Lightning Capacitor / Exalted Hyjal / Darkmoon Card.

I think you mean exalted BT there

It isn't. My totally un-debuffed Curse of Doom hits for ~6600 and I'm only in Tailoring gear + a few bits and bobs from SSC. That's 110 dps before debuffs, which is more than a 10% boost to a 1000dps mage.

Doom gets 200% from spellpower.

Ok, 2 mages sounds resonable then

Normal rule of thumb is 3 mages or 2 really substantial mages in a fight with minimal movement.

Very easy to check - just parse your fights and then you can prove mathematically on a per fight basis which is better and when OR just spec Arcane and you can do equivalent dps to fire AND have an additional CoD/CoA ticking on the target at the same time (you also won't be using up precious debuff slots with ignite/fireball dot - even though there are 40 spots now things still get pushed off).

I want to bring up a topic I haven't seen really discussed. About a much maligned talent which used to be a prerequisite for Blastwave.

Yes, I'm talking about Improved Flamestrike. 3 Points. 5/10/15% increased critical strike chance with Flamestrike for those of you who haven't looked at it recently.

Everyone always assumed this talent was garbage, because the common wisdom was that Flamestrike was garbage. Everyone knows when you have to AoE you Dragon's Breath, Blastwave and Arcane Explosion until you're surrounded by corpses.

But recent advances in science (aka, bothering to do the math and test it out), forced by the fact that we are AoEing stuff that can annihilate us (Phase-shift Bulwark, Abominations, I'm looking at you), have revealed that Flamestrike is actually our optimal AoE spell, believe it or don't.

It is my firm belief that even for 33/28, Flamestrike spamming is better than Arcane Explosion. For 10/48/3, it's not worth the loss in DPS nor risk of personal injury to run up and Dragon's Breath + Blastwave before starting Flamestrike spam.

The combined DoT ticking of Flamestrike is where the unhidden treasure lies. Much like a Japanese (college age) schoolgirl's unsoiled breeches, it is a land few chance to explore. Unhasted one Mage can have 3 layers stacked up ticking for over 150/2 each. That's a solid 225+ DPS from the DoTs alone.

But the true beauty is Bloodlusted Flamestrike. On Kael's Pile o' Weapons or if you find yourselves for some reason behind the clock on Hyjal Trash, for lack of a better metaphor, it's like "lasing a stick of dynamite."

Is anybody with me on this? I recently gave up Dragon's Breath, Blastwave and Pyroblast for Improved Flamestrike and am very happy with the results. We had a fairly sub-optimal set up of AoE for Kael last night, but the other Mage and I were like Bachman Turner Overdrive.

Even if someone can prove me wrong, I think this is a topic worthy of discussion given more and more guilds will be working on Kael soon.

I always thought the reason to use Arcane Explosion instead of Flamestrike was due to threat. I can't imagine spamming Flamestrike under Bloodlust without pulling. Hell, I still pulls mobs in Hyjal just from channeling improved blizzard (or did, last week). Then again my guild doesn't give me a tranquil air totem.. or a shaman.

In the case of Kael's Pile o' Goodies the tanks have some time while we DPS down the bow. Frost Trap + Taunt/Mocking Blow/Misdirect keep the pile together. I had Wrath of Air, not Tranquil Air last night.

In the case of Hyjal we usually DPS 1-2 targets down single target before starting AoE, and again Frost Traps buy the tanks time to grab any mobs that start wandering away from the corral.

edit:

Also, it occurs to me that if you are Flamestriking from ranged you have a 20% higher threat ceiling vs. Arcane Exploding in melee proximity. So that makes up for some of the advantage of Arcane Subtlety.