I get the 4/5 IAM hits a lot, and also a similar problem with Evocation only ticking 3 times, though that at least it solvable by waiting until a little after a regen tick to use it. Could both be related to my atrocious Australian latency :-|

I recently respecced to 43/18/0 and have noticed only 4 ticks many many times. I simply thought it was an already existing bug but before now I never used Arcane missiles. Has this been happening for awhile or it something new?

Well, AM has always had problems. It used to not fire at all 10% of the time, if you recall. The last change fixed some odd range issues that were occurring, and I think as a result they moved some of the signal for <spell start> and <spell end> from the client to the server or perhaps the other way around.

Even on a fast latency connection, there are some little lag moments doing various things just due to the server having to decide stuff and so on (which is why a lot of times I will get a Frostbite resist before the damage shows up). From the best of my ability, this is what is happening:

1. You click the AM button.
2. Client tells the server to start some volleys.
3. Channel bar starts to tick down.
4. Server gets the message and sends Volley 1
5. Volley 2
6. Volley 3
7. Volley 4.
8. Channel bar is finished.
9. Client tells the server to stop firing volleys.
10. ..... no Volley 5.

I'm guessing this was part of a push to move some of the AM settings to the client (range checking, and so on) so that the server wasn't overloaded with checking a whole bunch of stuff every second for every mage firing this thing.

Which is probably why it is taking so long to fix it. It is a combined spell, client, server, and network issue. A lot of people will have to test and sign off on any fix.

Just for information sake, this bug is not listed as a known bug in the sticky at the top of the bug report forum, though a blue poster has confirmed that it is unintended behavior and that they want to fix it. No timeframe, as usual - but considering the difficulty of a fix (again, my guess), that isn't surprising.


EDIT:

One thing to keep in mind is that this is a 20% dps and mana efficiency reduction when it occurs. If it happens roughly a quarter of the time (and I don't have hard numbers on this), it is a 5% net loss of dps over the course of a fight. This is roughly the same level of reduction that the recently re-normalized Improved Frostbolt and Fireball did. This fact may explain why the fix is not immediately forthcoming.

So...i tested this a little. With a very small sample size, it happened roughly 20% of the time. I have 100% uninterrupted missiles and pulled with it...so none lost to mob death.

Big hit to AM till it's fixed. WTB new AB rotation. ;-)

So, 20% of 20% is 4%, right? That's better than improved fireball/frostbolt. :D

Still, I want it fixed. It just doesn't invalidate AM as a raiding option, in my opinion.

true..i was over reacting. nothing to see here...

So that means I'm going to buy the arcane damage offhand with my badges? mmmm!

I have to say , I think that basing an arcane build off theorycrafted cycles is a mistake - and I'm heavily into theorycraft, as everyone can see...

The advantage of the build is that depending upon the circumstances around you, either personal (mana gem, evocate up, potion up) or external (shadow priest, mana tide totem dropped, innervate flung at you), you can rapidly alter your mana consumption to make best use of it on any given fight. Yes, there are fights where you absolutely just want the most mana efficient cycle of all - but outside of those, I don't see any need for a "cycle" as such, as if the fight isn't a complete mana drain, I want to be ending it with 0 mana just as the boss dies for maximum effect. No cycle is going to be precisely that, and I'll have to alter my casting patterns based on how fast the boss is dying, what mana options I have left etc etc.

What I'm saying is - cycles are interesting *theory*, but in practice, I've found the best way to play the arcane mage is just to fly by the seat of your pants and just how much you use Arcane Blast depending upon the fight and whats going on around you. I don't really see there being an "ideal" cycle, other than the absolutely most mana efficient one for very long fights. Falling back into "cycles" with an arcane mage in a small way lessons the power of the build, and leaves us playing a lot more like fire & frost mages than is necessery.

Cycles are useful for pointing out the obvious theorycraft - having a 6.5-7.5 second cycle in between Arcane Blast is our highest DPS build while still being mana-effecient. I find myself only using cycles on single-target DPS in a stable situation. Restarting an Arcane Blast stack from zero is annoying and having to do it every 20-30 seconds is brutally annoying.

The main reason I like my 40/21 build is the adaptability between Scorch/Fireball/Arcane Blast. I tried Arcane Missiles for a day before I felt that relying on a DPS spell that required sitting in one place for 5 seconds and spending a ton of mana to do so just wasn't working for me. Especially on fights that require switching targets a lot, it was better for me to rely on switching back and forth between targets using Scorch than trying to set up my cycling at the appropriate times. Also, the arcane-immune mobs in Karazhan and the limited range on Arcane spells made me enjoy the adaptability of fire.

Arcane/Frost would probably be better if I had a more generic DPS set, but Spellfire demands that fire be my elemental set.

Nejyn here! Hmmm... seem to be some forum issues. Looks like all my posts have gone away, and I can't log in. I'm going to assume that Kaubel deleted me for having a stupid name, so I re-registered with my current character's actual name, which is a nice thing to do anyway.

Maledict: This is an excellent point you bring up. I rarely if ever stick to the reccomended cycles provided by my spreadsheet. Mainly because I don't know how long the fight will be, and how long I will spend outside of FSR. However the cycle calculator has been an intensly useful tool in giving me general information into what works.

For example, I wanted to know if the increased dps from arcane missiles justifies the loss of dpm compared to scorch in any cycles. Turns out, it does. By fiddling with settings I've answered a lot of questions on how to optimize my playstyle. Also, the spreadsheet has always been intended to be used as a comparison for talents and gear, and the cycle calculator helps give a fuller picture of how those will affect you. For example, without the cycle calculator you wouldn't see that adding 100 intellect to your gear actually has a noticeable effect on your dps, because the cycle ramps up due to the increased mana pool. It's an excellent way to incorporate mana stats as a increase to dps, so you can better compare the value of intellect, spirit, and mp/5 to more direct stats like crit rating and spell damage.

It's also given me a lot of information to generic questions, like how arcane/fire compares to arcane/frost, what kind of impact improved fireball has on cycles, or how arcane missiles can fit in.

I think most everyone here realizes that most bosses aren't Patchwerk, where you could put "7 minutes" into the time setting, set for max consumables, and get back a cycle that you could stick to reliably. Like all spreadsheets it's just there to give you useful information, not to play the game for you =).

I'm curious as to what the mages who are 40/21/0 or 41/20 spend the points on in Arcane, obviously it's partly Mind Mastery. When I'm buffed well up, I attain around 600 Int (just shy of anyway), meaning this talent would give me 150 extra damage.

But considering there's several talents that must be taken to get from Spell Power to Mind Mastery, I'm wondering what people spend the points on. I much prefer to stop at Spell Power (and AP, meaning a total of 33 points spent), then invest the rest in Fire, especially Critical Mass and 3/5 Fire Power.

I can never really make Arcane Missiles be worth it in my head. Yes, on a CC it's good DPM, but interleaved Scorch+AB is already so effiecient, that it's hard to go OOM with all your options. Breaking a spell cast to cast a AM with CC+Arcane Potency also seems bad, you'll have to stop your current cast, etc, thus loosing time. And I'm not sure the gain are anything but truly miniscule. And there's the self-root issue, better pray you don't need to move before the cast is over.

And considering I need to spend (waste in my head) 2 points on non-damage increasing talents (since I don't plain like AM), before I can get another 150 dmg (which is only when fully buffed mind you), it seems more prudent to invest those points in 6% more crit for fire, and 6% more dmg to Fire Spells. On a Fireball, 6% or 150 spell dmg probably amounts to more or less the same deal, but you'll get another 6% crit, which you won't get via Mind Mastery. And both talents scale rather well (not to mention Critical Mass and MoE plays beautifully together).

At the moment I'm running with (33/28/0)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ki0VcofzxhzbZxgM0fcc0h

I'm not much of a theorycrafter, and I believe the difference between a 40/21/0 build and mine will be minor, but seems to me, that if you dislike AM (1 x 100% spirit tick, when you'll by default get 45% seems rather meh), this build is quite strong. Others have posted 3x/2x/0 builds before, but they seemed to have been downplayed in comparison to 4x/2x/0 builds, which I don't really understand.

I guess I don't see why you wanna give up full MoE/Critical Mass/3/5 Fire Power, just for Mind Mastery.

But in the end, I gotta say, putting points into Arcane has really swayed me. I don't believe the damage is as such better, then say deep Fire, but the options and choices you have are so much greater, it's like a breath of fresh air. I am speaking from a pure PvE view point btw.

I think the main reason is simply because Arcane spec is not all about one school, but usually multiple schools at the same time. Those talents in the Fire tree are, well, Fire talents. They do nothing to enhance other spells, and do nothing to help Arcane Blast weaving or things like Ice Lance.

Arcane's real strength right now is flexibility. It's nice being able to use basically any spell in your spellbook because you have 1k +dmg in every school, in addition to 3% generic crit and 3% generic damage add. Arcane Power generally synergizes with anything you want to use it with, and PoM can sneak in extra Fireballs, Frostbolts, or Pyros as your spec allows.

So, I think the nice thing about Arcane is that it's a bit different than the whole Fire or Frost pigeonholing debate. It's probably similar in reason as to why people tried an Elementalist spec back during the first major revamp, but probably considerably stronger in terms of flexibility than even a spec like that.

After playing around with this for a while, I must say it's a really cool spreadsheet.

Anyhow, I was actually mildly surprised at how well the 40/0/21 build actually did at pure DPS while using AB+FB cycles.

Given that Frost typically has a bad rap in terms of comparitive DPS, I was a bit surprised to see it coming rather close to Arcane/Fire in 2-4 minute fights. (The main factor in that seemed to be mana efficiency with the Arcane/Fire Scorch routines, rather than raw damage however.)

The question is, is it worth 20-30 DPS in optimal situations and arguably similar DPS is other situations to be giving up Ice Block? My experiences in Karazhan and Heroics lead me to believe that my DPS over time would rather suffer in taking dirt naps from the any number of nasty things Ice Block has saved me from.

Another observation is that deep Fire Fireball spamming does not really seem to be looking nearly as strong as it used to be. It is only marginally higher DPS than AB/Scorch cycles with considerably shorter OOM time.

I mean, pulling some random comparisons, is it really so preferable to be doing 754 DPS over 3:15 with deep Fire with Fireball compared to being able to do 730 DPS over 4:00 with 41/20 ABx3/Scorchx3 cycles? Especially when an AB build can push to much higher DPS in shorter fights? (Not to mention, ABx2/FBx2 cycles with the previously mentioned build were doing 721 DPS over 4:00 with the same stats.)

This is my current build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ki0Vc0fzxIziZgg0zbc0o

My Arcane Points are fairly straight-forward, I believe. If you're wondering why I picked what I picked in the Fire tree, so am I. I was just looking for something a bit different as my intention was to just spam Fireball (which isn't really the beauty of the 4x/y/z build, I know). So really, all I wanted was Master of Elements, a lower casting time and Pyro for my 3-minute bomb.

I've tried playing with Arcane Missles in Karazhan and some other instances (Heroic and Normal) with basically an Arcane Blast-Arcane Blast-Arcane Missles rotation, switching up for AM on Clearcasts. I don't know that it was anymore effective, but it was rather effecient on the Maiden.

What points do you mean, here? Arcane Subtlety?

It seems to be a matter of taste, really. You can do more with the deep Arcane, whether more means more damage or use more spells or have a bit more utility (Imp Counterspell), that's up to how you play. I suppose it could mean all of those things if you play it well.

The trouble with my build right now is I have no real use for Scorch. And using an AB-AB-FiB-FiB rotation just feels slow. I don't know, maybe I'll give Arc/Frost a shot again. The only caveat there is spamming Fireball with this build makes grinding somewhat quick (I don't know if effcient is the right word).

Do you actually think that Burning Soul is important for arcane builds?

Assuming that you'll deal more than 30% of your dps with arcane spells with full subtlety, you'll be behind similar dps firemage in aggro even without burning soul. Not to mention T4 2part bonus...

It probably isn't. But, as I said, I basically wanted something easy (ie. Fireball spam with improved crits, improved spell damage - generally speaking, improved mana regen and improved mana pool).

Sooner or later, I will work Arcane Blast into my rotation and that will likely force a respec as it just doesn't feel.. snappy, with Fireball. Whatever that means.

I was going to mention that personally, it was better for grinding moreso than it was for the threat reduction (which are always good, of course).

Since I have a lot more HP now, I don't mind taking a few hits with this talent. Makes me feel like a Warlock, kinda.

(But with less damage!)

My build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ki0Vc0fzxIzioVgMzf

Welcome to the club. I use AM for one thing only: Low threat DPS to start an encounter and even there I tend to just use scorch. I don't even both with it on clearcasts. I'd rather get an ignite proc or a big AB crit. Since someone here helpfully did the math to show that AM on clearcast is actually lower DPS (but higher DPM), I've stopped worrying about it. I'd rather just have the DPS.

Critical Mass and Fire Power don't affect Arcane Blast at all, though. Mind Mastery affects all my spells. When I first specced 41/20/0 I was lazy and mostly scorch spammed, so those points looked attractive. Once you start being serious about a scorch/AB rotation though... AB quickly dominates the equation. Last night in Karazhan i primarily stuck to a 2:3 rotation (2 AB; 3 Scorch). Arcane Blast went from being 10-20% of my DPS to being 45-60%. At that point I began begging the warlock for CoS instead of CoE.

It depends on your spell rotation. If you're planning on focusing mainly on fire spells, and using Arcane as a means to amp the damage, then 3x/2y/0 builds make a lot of sense. However, looking at my damage breakdown for last night, I'm finally convinced I made the right choices. When I use the actual spell rotation I'm specced for (and not fighting arcane immune/resistant mobs...) I do more damage from arcane than fire.

The damage is pretty comparable from what I've seen. We've got a deep fire mage in the guild (our other active mage is 44/17/0) and the few times we've both been in the raid/group together it's been a wash for who had more DPS. Some fights he'd win out, others I would. Although, for long fights, I think Arcane has a seriously huge advantage. The 2:3 rotation is pretty solid DPS and I'm amazed at how long I can chain cast it (admittedly raid buffed to the hilt, but that's real world usage.)

I don't really miss burning soul except for grinding/farming. I used to let things beat on me while I scorched them to deat if FN was on cooldown, fast and efficient. Now I end up having to use arcane missiles or burning a fireblast. Not so efficient. For fire exclusive builds I would still swear my life on it, but with imp arcane missiles as backup I don't quite feel that pressing need to have it anymore. I ended up taking improved fireblast for pvp this go around.

This is why I chose Burning Soul over Flame Throwing for my build.

41/17/3: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=oi0VcMczxIzioVxMzrZ0h

I started with the basic premise of wanting Mind Mastery. Thus, 40 points in Arcane. Most of the builds I see posted agree fairly consistently on how to get down to 40 points in Arcane. Some choose Imp CS over Imp Mana Shield, I didn't. I could go either way on this, might go back. Not a big deal.

I had been 43 (or 44) Arcane previously, spending the 5 points on Imp AM, and the 3 points on Empowered AM. Considering the 4/5 AM bug and that I was missing out on Arcane Focus (10% is huge) I decided that I didn't really want to boost my Arcane Missiles any more. So out of the build it went, and I think I'm much happier now for it.

Not having Imp AM for solo'ing almost forces me to take Burning Soul so that I continue to have a means to do damage on something beating on me in melee range, whether it be an add or a mob that just didn't die to my initial volley and broke the frost nova.

I determined that 2/3 Imp Scorch was enough, especially if I'm using ABx2 (or 3) -> Scorch x3. The debuff gets applied eventually, but honestly as others have reported, and my Recap shows, AB is most of my damage anyway.

Because I don't have extensive points into frost, I decided to grab Slow so that I'd have a kiting option.

So this gets us to 41 points in Arcane, and 17 points into Fire. What to do with the other three points? Why did I choose Precision over MoE, or other options?

Let's be serious: the only viable options for those last three points are Empowered AM, MoE, or Elemental Precision. If I spec Empowered AM, I'd feel like I would need to
spec Imp AM so that I don't waste mana on partial AM casts, and that would mean I couldn't fit Arcane Focus into the build. Eight points to buff a single spell? I'm really starting to not be a fan of Arcane Missiles at this point. Left with MoE and Precision as our two remaining options, I considered that without a heavy investment into Fire for the +crit% talents, I would be better off taking a small reduction in mana cost as well as a +hit boost.

And that's how I arrived at 41/17/3.

Oh, I disagree. I think Flamethrowing is a very very viable choice. As I've said elsewhere: You can always get more +hit on your gear, you can't get more range. And there are times when 36yards on scorch and 41 yards of fireball/pyroblast are very nice to have indeeed. And since that leaves you with just 1 point left it seems reasonable to grab 3/3 Imp Scorch in that case. (Although I agree with your assessment of 2/3 Imp Scorch - it's a good place to save a point if you need one.)

Were EP still 6% hit, this would be a much tougher choice for me. But 3% hit is something I can gear around. I'm already at hit cap for level 73s for Arcane Blast, which is the biggest single damage component for me.

I have to agree with you here. AM still feels like the red-headed step-child of DPS options. If Improved Arcane Missiles gave 5 more yards range or something in addition to the interrupt resistance, I could get behind this as a real nuke. But the self root at <30 yard range with all the bugs is just too much to bear. 8 points (13 if you want focus too, and 10% hit is insanely good) to make 1 nuke viable is just excessive.

Well you make a good argument at least. I don't entirely agree with the assessment, but I can see why you'd go that way and it's probably viable for the most part.

But I know there are others who feel the way I do about the range talents: Very nearly compulsory, especially given the accessibility of Flamethrowing. (It's a much harder choice for arc/frost, given the location of Arctic Reach.) Yes, fireball is usable for range, but for 2 points I'd rather have a more versatile arsenal.

Can we talk sockets?

http://www.wowwiki.com/Jewel

Red = damage
Yellow = int, crit, resilience
Blue = stamina, penetration, mana/5, spirit
Orange(RY) = damage+crit, and one damage+int epic
Green(YB) = every possible combination of Y+B, but mostly pen+crit, stam+crit on cheaper jewels
Purple(RB) = almost all damage+stam


Assuming crit and penetration are crap for pve, (because damage gives you far more bang for your buck than crit does, due to crit costing more in itemization calculations) red and blue sockets seem fairly straightforward, I'll just pick up the damage jewel.

But what about yellow? Int or damage+crit?