duostrike

If you have a priest just have him MC the greenwarders and buff you. It lasts 30 min instead of 2min of spellsteal.

 

duostrike

I just hit 68 tonight and tried this. It doesn't work unless i'm missing something...

 

Emth

I'm currently 0/39/22 in preperation for Arenas, but I found it bareable in 5 mans. Obviously the efficiency is slightly painful (3/3 pyromaniac and elemental precision but no MoE or any of the arcane talents), but not too bad with mage armour up.

Having nice fire talents like blastwave, combustion, molten fury, firepower and pyromaniac along with shatter and ice block is certainly making it an interesting build both in PvE and PvP. I can't count the number of times I would have died last night in Shadow Labs if not for ice block. No more level 69 tanks.

http://ctprofiles.net/404078

 

Sancus

The fact that the Arcane Blast debuff is dispellable puts an extreme damper on this spell's use in instances, and possibly in raids. Basically, on any encounter where the mobs are going to be putting a dispellable debuff on you, you can't use it, because it means your dispeller is going to have to go through the AB debuff first just to get to the actual debuff, also messing up your rotation at the same time.

Unbelievably stupid. I made a bug report about it, hopefully it IS a bug and they don't actually intend to screw us.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...71760723&sid=1

<Vontre> I removed the cooldown on evo
<sancus> and what happened?
<Vontre> DPS went down rofl

 

• Viator

Yep, found that out the other night in Sethekk.

"V, what's that debuff on you? You want me to dispel it?"

"There's a debuff on me? Weird. Try.... crap."

I was a bit surprised, to say the least. And disappointed.

Mages have a set time that they want you to ask for food, and that time is pull #4 of the night. You may notice them putting a little snack table down before the raid, that's them cooking the food for you to demand on pull 4. --Nork

 

• Navaash

It seems blatantly obvious that the reason it's a debuff and not a buff is so that you can't immediately cancel it and hence have an extremely mana-efficient nuke.

They just need to set the "Debuff unaffected by invulnerability" flag, but that probably requires it to be slipped in in a patch.

 

• frmorrison

It was explained above, it seems you first invis (wait for the GCD) then ice block. A the 0:01 mark of the invis buff, click off ice block and then you get your aggro reset.

 

• Kerruul

Yeah I see this as a definite problem. Plus, every now and again you get a dispel-happy priest who goes about lowering your DPS on you... I hate having to tell priests "No, don't dispel me." Arcane Blasts debuff ought to be type-less, like "Recently Bandaged" or "Resurrection Sickness". I don't think even ice-block ought to remove it, to be honest.

EDIT: duh, that's what you were saying basically. Sorry for adding more noise. (Need more caffeine...)

 

◊ Kalman

"Every now and again" for me has translated into "constantly".

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

• Arawethion

[Bangle of Endless Blessings] dropped from the last boss of Botanica today. It increases effective mana pool size by 2080 from the Evocation effect alone.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

• Maledict

Spec time...

I've done various theorycrafting on the most popular specs Ic an think of - full fire, full frost, arcane / fire and arcane / frost. I've decided to go with an arcane spec, purely because I'm finding it far more complicated and fun compared to a pure elemental spec.

The first big question of course is - is speccing for Arcane Missiles worth it? Or can you get by with Arcane Blast & xx elemental nuke? Even with enchancements, is Arcane Missiles actually worth it?

The other point is - every single bit of maths I've done has a 40 Arcane / 21 Frost build outdamaging a 40 Arcane / 21 Fire build, *except* when the scorch debuff is fully stacked on a mob. Given that often when playing an arcane mage, I toss just one or two elemental nukes out at a time and then revert back to Arcane Blast, it seems Frost has a lot more to offer compared to Fire for a deep arcane build. This is a shame, as I'm putting together the Spellcloth set for myself...

For info, here's my DPS list of spells, calculated at +600 to spell damage, 400 intellect, 21% crit rate, and 5% to hit. I've assumed a casting lag of 0.2 seconds (which is slightly more than I get, but better safe than sorry), and haven't featured in resist rates on mobs 3+ levels higher, because so far I'm not fighting them. (Presumably thse kick in in Kharazahn and Heroic mode).

Arcane Blast (40+ arcane, 3 debuffs, AP - because it's funny!) : 1172
Arcane Blast (40+ arcane, 3 debuffs): 901
Arcane Blast (30+ arcane, 3 debuffs): 835
Fireball (40+ fire, scorch debuff stacked) : 759
Arcane Missiles (40+ arcane) : 671
Fireball (40+ fire, no scorch) : 660
Scorch (40+ fire, scorch debuff stacked) : 647
Fireball (40+ arcane) : 595
Frostbolt : (40+ arcane) : 595
Arcane Blast (40+ arcane, no debuffs) : 567
Frostbolt (40+ frost, Winters chill) : 590
Scorch (40+fire, no debuff) : 562
Scorch (40+arcane) : 549
Arcane Blast (30+ arcane) : 526
Frostbolt (32 arcane 29 frost) : 548
Frostbolt (40+ frost, no winters chill) : 547

 

• Maligne

I leveled as full frost, and recently switched to 10/48/3 for instances. The damage output is absolutely disgusting. The only problem is when I'm not in an instance, I get owned, hard. It's quite a shock coming from being Mr. Survivability. I'm thinking of trying 40/0/21 because those numbers are nice and it seems to offer a little of both worlds, but I have a few questions:

- From what I've read, the optimal nuke rotation would be blast/blast/frostbolt/frostbolt repeat? What about AM on clearcast when no AM buffs were taken?

- Has anyone tried PVPing with this? I can see improved mana shield combined with arcane mind almost being a substitute for ice barrier when used correctly. With shatter and ice lance I'm also hoping that between the 3 minute AP/POMs you can still be somewhat deadly.

What better cc is there for a druid than polymorph?

 

• Maledict

To be honest, so far I havne't found an "optimal" nuke rotation. I don't think there is one for Arcane - that's why I enjoy it so much. You have to really fly by the seat of your pants when it comes to maximising damage in a fight, and I've often done my best damage in an instance by going all hell for leather and burning on Arcane blast tons whilst using evocation / mana gems to just keep going. I'm a *huge* fan of theorycraft, but the flexibility and array of options an arcane mage has makes a lot of it far more theoretical than a frost or fire build, where you can fairly safely predict how things will go as you only have a limited array of options ot chose from.

Regarding AM - that's exactly my question... :) Is it better to cast AM on a clearcast, or a fuly stacked Arcane Blast? Arcane Blast is more, but obviously you'll actually gain mana from Clearcasting an AM, unlike Arcane Blast. And I never worked out if casting AM under a clearcast meant that every missile gained the +30% to hit from Arcane Potency or just the first missile. If you want to get the best out of your elemental spec though, unfortunately you can't afford to buy the non-interruptability of Improved Arcane Missiles, which I *think* would be annoying in 5 player instances with AE's flying everywhere.

PvP isn't really a concern for me fortunately. I suck at it, and I know it. If I were going PvP, I'd definitely choose frost over fire for iceblock.

 

• Arawethion

I'm in the same situation. I'm still in an 0/0/61 build leftover from leveling. At the moment, I can't give up on total solo utility (Frostbite/Shatter for grinding), but need something more instance-friendly, which probably leaves me at 11/0/50. Soon, though, I'll be wanting to go 40/0/21 or something very similar, and will be asking the same questions. I think the flexibility of Arcane Blast will more than make up for the loss of Emp. Frostbolt.

My guess is a "yes" on clearcasting AM. In any build that involves Arcane Blast in any way, you're basically mana-limited. On the other hand, I'm not sure that trying to Clearcast off of a 1.5-sec nuke is even worth worrying about.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

• Maligne

Yep...as a previously die-hard-never-look-back frost mage who's starting to realize that PVE is and will always be a reality...the more I think about it the more I like like 40/0/21. It's a tough call between it and 17/0/44. I guess it just depends on whether you'd rather lean slightly towards PVP or PVE. At any rate I can't view any talent calculators at work so I'll have to wait till I get home to really think about it. ><

About AM on clearcasting - I've never really known the "proper" way to switch spells after a clearcast. I mean, inevitably you're going to be around .8 seconds into your next cast when you get clearcasting, so do you stop your cast and switch? Or, alternatively you can wait for the bolt or ball to get there and see if it clearcasts, but that seems horribly wrong to me. Thinking about arcane blast though...since it doesn't have a travel time, does the clearcast register much faster? In essence drastically cutting down on the decision making time between casts?

What better cc is there for a druid than polymorph?

 

• Fex

My spell selection is usually AB -> AB -> AM -> AM -> repeat (the spell after the first AM varies sometimes) but there's really no reason to deviate from that rotation if you get a CC. After your second AM (or whatever spell that is) you might choose to cast something else if you get CC but again, cancelling your spell probably cancels out any benefit you'd be getting for a free spell. Noticing the CC from AB is quicker. Certainly faster than AM (however, AM gets the benefit from 30% crit in a manner which I believe it to be much more efficient. You get it on the spell that procced it, and on the next spell -- I think. I have not been able to record any data to prove it.)

 

◊ Kalman

AB AB FB FB repeating doesn't really work unless you didn't talent frostbolt, since AB will stack up in that rotation; AB AB FB FB FB holds up.

I'd been running 40/0/21 *fairly* happily, and just recently respecced to 35/0/26 to pick up Reach and Channeling. We'll see how I hold up in Karazhan next chance I get, but I still hold up okay instancing.

A couple notes: you can "trick" your blast rotation by slightly changing the ordering, depending on the rotation; if you trigger a blast while the debuff is up, but with less time remaining on the debuff than the blast will take to cast, you'll cast at the pumped speed/mana, but won't stack the debuff higher. Arguably useful for shortening up a blast rotation, although I have not yet done any math to prove it has any *useful* point.

Think of it this way: normal AB/AM rotation could be something like AB AB AM FB repeating, or you could do AB AB AM AM. Alternately, cast AB AM FB repeating; the ending AB won't stack the debuff, since it will trigger after the initial debuff falls off. This shortens the overall cycle length, which fits more high efficiency blasts into a given timespan.

As 35/26 arcane/frost, I've mostly been doing AB AB FBx3, trying to switch to AM on clearcast to maximize the free mana/30% crit bonus.

I think the two major flaws in a 40/0/21 setup are the lack of a useful >30yd spell for DPS (standing next to a firemage who wasn't getting nova'ed on Zereketh annoyed the hell out of me, and shifting to pure fire nuking is pretty mediocre) and the lack of threat reduction on your frost spells, although you can make up for that by prioritizing arcane spells; I've definitely begun my nuking on threat-sensitive content with the pure arcane rotations like AB AB AM AM or the mostly arcane AB AB AM FB.

At some point I really want to modify my rogue cycle spreadsheet into something similar for mages, calculating DPS, MPS, and TPS for mage cycles. Long-term project, though.

http://mmorchive.net

The WoW forums, explained:

 

• Arawethion

I have a spreadsheet doing just that, I used it a lot at 60. Never got around to updating it for 70, or figuring out what to do with Arcane Blast. It's not very user-friendly yet, but you can look here:
http://www.sigilguild.net/hamlet/Mage2.xls


Are you certain that overlapping the end of AB debuff still gives you the increased mana cost? I use AB/Scorch when I have to farm Motes of Water, and I was under the impression that I could get a short-cast AB that still costs 195. Will check in a moment.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

duostrike

Pretty sure that it gives you the reduced cast time and reduced mana cost if the debuff wears off between the start of the cast and the end of cast. I am not at home to re-verify this though.

 

• Fex

The mana is (supposed to be) deducted at the end of the cast, when it goes off, so starting a 1.5s AB with 1.0s remaining should give you oodles of DPSy goodness with none of the inefficiency.

Edit: Damn. Beaten to it.

I wonder if this is intentional, or if it's going to get "fixed" in an upcoming patch?

 

• Arawethion

Just checked. If your debuff wears off while casting, you get charged only 195 mana. So you can get cheap 1.5 Blasts by "weaving" in and out.

Carrot Cake Soup is like the taste of watching girls make out.

 

chase

A person by the name of Klau posted a pretty nice rotation spreadsheet. I'll link to where s/he posted it since a link to the source doesn't seem fair credit. Klau spreadsheet

I have been using it to see DPM/DPS on trying to work an AB into my rotation. (fire spec)


My theorycrafting shows that 44/0/17 does weaker than my pure fire build with just about any reasonable rotation. (e.g. AB,AB,FrB,FrB,FrB vs scorch,scorch,FB,FB,scorch) With the fire build coming in ahead of the arc build by ~200 dps and they have nearly identicle OOM times. (Within a few seconds of each other, accounting for all the arc talents and lack thereof for my fire build)

Tried many other rotations, and couldn't raise the DPS and still maintain a good OOM time.

Could be that my gear is rather crit heavy, and a more dmg/int balanced suit would help the arc/X build more.

 

Evalara

A while ago, perhaps even earlier in this now-massive thread, someone mentioned playing an arc/frost build using a FB AM FB AM rotation. The idea being that if FB procs clearcasting, your next spell was going to be AM anyway so you make optimal use of it, and if AM procs clearcasting you have plenty of time to notice and cast another AM instead of FB. This was at 60 though so Arcane Blast wasn't available to give us another option and muck up the math.