What stats/settings are you using? It must be radically different to obtain such a different result. Unless you're just looking at the fireball number, which would be silly because the arcane blast cycle has come out top dps by a good margin...
Vontre: What kind of arcane blast rotations are we talking about here? When I added ab to my spreadsheet (and grr it is not updated on the laptop I am posting from) at aproximately 900 unbuffed spelldamage/500 buffed int/240 crit rating/13% hit the only viable arcane blast to plug in your cycle was 2x at 195 mana, or 3x at whatever the next average would be.
The first would give higher dpm then scorch spam (ie a little higher then 10) but much lower dps (by about 100 per individual part-cycle)
I'll post the numbers and an updated version as soon as I get back to my computer. (3h)
P.S. Korval: 40/21 fire mages put out significantly less sustained fireball dps then 10+/3/44+. And nowadays, with a shadowpriest the mana consumption per minute is easily made up by mana potions + gems.
Ah, you guys have reminded of the key point I was missing. An optimal deep arcane raid build has more than 40 points. It includes empowered arcane missiles, which is key to a powerful blast cycle. Blast xY -> Arcane Missiles -> Scorch outperforms generally any other cycle, when specced for it, because of the spirit tick. Try it out.
Speccing that deeply into arcane may or may not produce a decent "stand-and-chain" build but you'll never convince me that an AB/AM/Scorch rotation is a good basis for a real raiding build. You have the bad range issues of arcane, the horrible mana and time commitment of AM and yet still need to have some supporting talents for Scorch even though you are only using it in a rotation. No thanks.
Besides, my fights are of two varieties really these days. Either I have a shadow-priest (almost always on any serious fight) and mana is simply not an issue or I don't and hopefully the fight isn't terribly long. If I were to walk up to Gruul without a spriest then that regen tick would be nice I guess but in actuality, trying to dps the fight with that build would be a nightmare. Besides, I like my spell haste procs and absolutely love bloodlust. AM in those situations is completely gimped.
Your results will vary of course and experimentation is always encouraged.
The critical necessity of going ~20 fire, for me, is that scorch is a fallback that can't "fail."
Any time I find myself in a situation where I simply can't spare time to think about how much time is left on the AB debuff, or can't stand still for very long, I know I can just spam scorch and get close to my optimal dps, dpm, and from 36 yards. This gives me perfect freedom to concentrate on whatever emergency is at hand, whether it be repositioning, adds, having to watch the screen carefully, having to watch for curses to cure, etc.
I recently started doing this, using a staff with +55 or so spirit and a wand with +21 spirit. After looking at the numbers on my character sheet, I didn't realise exactly how big a difference it was making - I was gaining more than 2200 extra mana on an Evocation by swapping my weapons round. I'm definitely enchanting my green spirit taff with the enchant as well, as it seems to provide an absolutely massive boost on fights where you need to evocate.
On the topic of Spi weapon for Evoc (which everyone should do--1 Spi during Evoc is more total mana than 1 Int), do people know about:
Yeah, the awfulness of Arcane Missiles is what keeps me from wanting to spec Empowered Arcane Missiles. Thirty yard range, a huge up-front cost, and lack of mobility make it a really awful spell.
After looking at the numbers, 40/21 is still a good spec for mid-levels of +dmg gear. But at +900 dmg (before Mind Mastery messes up Armory profiles) it looks like deep Fire is the way to go. Which is depressing, because I liked having to care about what spell I was casting. There are still situations where a maximum damage AB dump are useful, but I can see with more +dmg fireball spam taking that place.
AM is still buggy after all these years, consistantly firing 4 out of 5 missiles. That cuts it's dps/dpm down drastically and in addition to the range/mobility issues it has to deal with makes it a bad spell in my eyes. Also the lack of haste effects on ab/am rotations hurt it's dps greatly. I strongly believe haste rating is the future of mage dps.
Here is a bad quality video that illustrates my point that I made a few weeks ago.
I think what I'm getting from this discussion (having read all the way through, dear god) is that arcane is good for low/mid level +dmg.
I'm in the process of getting Carlotta to 70 and my last mage to 60 was frost from 50-60, and fire from 60-62 (where I abandoned her on my old PvE server). +dmg gear is pretty much going to be whatever I can fish up while questing/repping since I didn't have that long stop at 60 for raiding (my old mage had T2/equivalent, and man am I going to miss the hp and +dmg once we hit the outlands. Yeiks)
It's looking like I'll probably hit 60 at my current 111+dmg, and it'll pop up to at least 500 by the time I hit 70 (planning gear out in another window- aiming for 700ish, but that might not happen with trying to get semi-decent crit in the equation)
Also, I have a hunter + pet tank. We've been leveling beast/frost for the kiting since we're leveling without any guild support (go go elite quest duoing) and all instancing is likely to be pure pugs. WTB guild =/
Any suggestions given all of that regarding spec for 50-70? I'm thinking 21 frost/arcane, but I'm open to suggestions.
BSG Reference Sheet
in EJBSG 10 -My instincts tell me that we cannot sacrifice democracy just because the president makes a bad decision.
With: 550 int before talents
900 spelldamage before talents
270 crit rating
every relevant arcane every possible fire talent
all relevant debuffs sanc imp crusader strike
The AB> AM> Scorch rotation gives us:
1016 dps (assuming no bugged am)
8.689 dpm
9758.113 dmg caused
avg 1123 mana used (before jow)
time to cast: 9.6 s
after counting jow you restore 259 more mana
Spirit tic will be another 200
gives us effective dpm of 15~
Fireball gives us 1117 dps
11.313 dpm before jow/spirit
Said fireball build uses a little bit more mana per minute (1500~) then said arcane build, while doing 100~ more dps.
Where are people getting such high int numbers from... I'm lucky if I have 400 int unbuffed, or are people actively gearing for int as one of their primary stats?
The critical necessity of going ~20 fire, for me, is that scorch is a fallback that can't "fail."
Any time I find myself in a situation where I simply can't spare time to think about how much time is left on the AB debuff, or can't stand still for very long, I know I can just spam scorch and get close to my optimal dps, dpm, and from 36 yards. This gives me perfect freedom to concentrate on whatever emergency is at hand, whether it be repositioning, adds, having to watch the screen carefully, having to watch for curses to cure, etc.
Really like 33/28 over 4x/1x-2x personally, so I have to concurr here. As far as I investigated scorch spam w/ an arcane/fire build is extremely mana efficient and though it won't be top DPS it may give you the highest damage from your mana pool. It is also flexible enough to deal with a lot of situations well, with arcane blast that isn't totally gimped, and good burst dps.
I guess i also find arcane power - PoM - pyroblast + fireball spam at least as good as arcane blast spam, especially considering bloodlust . . . not having to ramp up AB really makes a difference imho.
Where are people getting such high int numbers from... I'm lucky if I have 400 int unbuffed, or are people actively gearing for int as one of their primary stats?
400 unbuffed + 40 from own buff + 18 from imp motw and bok may lead you to 500.
550 you may reach by taking int heavy gear with lack of stamina/spirit like those items you may reach it easily (baseint ~ 150, take ~ 15 int per item, 180 int at a minimum for 12 slots. allready at 330)
lets take eg some maulgar/kara/5 man heroics items
Head: Uni-Mind Headdress 37
Shoulder: Mantle of the Mind Flayer 26
Cloak: Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi 17
Chest: Robe of the Elder Scribes 26
Wrist: Bands of Nefarious Deeds 20
Hands: Handwraps of Flowing Thought 19
Belt: Belt of Divine Inspiration 21
Legs: Trial-FireTrousers 35
Feet: Ruby Slippers 27
Finger1: Violet Signet 20
Finger2: Ring of Cryptic Dreams 16
Any suggestions given all of that regarding spec for 50-70? I'm thinking 21 frost/arcane, but I'm open to suggestions.
My suggestion would be at least 21 in frost, rest in arcane. Since you got a hunter buddy, you probably don't need the water elemental, I leveled Pyla from 59 (was a 59 twink for the longest time) to 70 as deep frost. Water Elemental lets you pull off some stupidly good soloing, at level 63 I was able to solo the elite colossi quests in northwest HFP using some careful pingpong aggro between me and the water elemental and well timed ice blocks
Ice block/cold snap is invaluable in pugs, when invariably you'll find yourself pulling aggro at some point. You'll probably want slighty more than 21 in frost though, as you want to max shatter, shatter is what turns crappy gear into good dps.
Once you get to Outlands, you'll gear up significantly though, I would be shocked if by level 63 you weren't doing as well in dmg/hp as that old T2 gear had. HFP has some incredibly well itemized quest rewards for casters, something like Shadowcast Tunic (21 stam, 15 int, crit rating 14, dmg 44) you could be using all the way to 70 and then some.
I thought haste *did* affect AM? Back when my mage was my main (need to update profile, I guess) and I had MQG, I'm sure I timed AM and Blizzard as getting an equivalent boost from the haste. Was that just placebo?
I think what I'm getting from this discussion (having read all the way through, dear god) is that arcane is good for low/mid level +dmg.
I'm in the process of getting Carlotta to 70 and my last mage to 60 was frost from 50-60, and fire from 60-62 (where I abandoned her on my old PvE server). +dmg gear is pretty much going to be whatever I can fish up while questing/repping since I didn't have that long stop at 60 for raiding (my old mage had T2/equivalent, and man am I going to miss the hp and +dmg once we hit the outlands. Yeiks)
For leveling, Frost is the best tree. Leveling doesn't require mana effeciency from stuff like Arcane Meditation or Arcane Mind. Fire suffes because crits have a four second delay before finishing. Frost is also usually better in PUGs. The increase in surviability gives you some leeway when it comes to having a bad tank or healer. Plus you can randomly kite a mob if needed. When you start doing serious instancing, like Heroics or Karazhan, switch over to arcane/fire.
Fire specs (1x/4y/3 and 33/28) only starts to pull away at 800+ damage vs Arcane. That's where the relatively static boost that Mind Mastery gives starts to suffer.
Also, not to forget that Arcane tends to lend more towards a "tier" gear approach to your gear (Arcane Meditation, dependent on spirit, Mind Mastery, dependent on Int), whereas if you opt for tailoring, which is the set with the most offensive stats, you will have comparatively little int/spirit, and thus the benefits from Arcane becomes smaller (edit: this is all in terms of level 70, frost has many points that make it a superior leveling and PuG talent)
And no, haste doesn't affect channeled spells. And neither does slowing effects (which is useful in limited situations).
Well, I just said it was useful in limited situations. Know that channeled spells aren't affected by haste (or it's inverse) is handy to know. Who knows what will come up the line. Anyway, that's not really interesting to discuss. Back on topic!
On the topic of Spi weapon for Evoc (which everyone should do--1 Spi during Evoc is more total mana than 1 Int)
I was wondering if someone could post their Evocate macro for me. I've been having problems getting mine to work consistently in combat for some reason.
I don't use a macro myself but Outfitter (and I'm sure Itemrack had a setting also) automatically swaps in my staff and wand. By the way, I hate evocate now and have half a mind to go off on a long rant about it.
Was thinking a bit, now that i respecced to deep frost, I get about 32% crit with raid buffs (on frostbolt with winters chill up) and was thinking if a deep frost(43) + fire(18) with master of elements would be better for the mana than going arcane for clearcasting?
Was thinking a bit, now that i respecced to deep frost, I get about 32% crit with raid buffs (on frostbolt with winters chill up) and was thinking if a deep frost(43) + fire(18) with master of elements would be better for the mana than going arcane for clearcasting?
At 900 spell damage, max hit, 32 crit etc, moe vs clearcasting is 9.06 dpm on moe and 8.90 dpm on cc.
After factoring arcane meditation, if you have more then 55 total buffed spirit arcane mana efficiency is better.
Funny enough, counting for water elemental, both deep frost / arcane and deep arcane / frost builds do dot on dot same dps before you start doing arcane blast rotations or spec empowered am.
After looking at the numbers, 40/21 is still a good spec for mid-levels of +dmg gear. But at +900 dmg (before Mind Mastery messes up Armory profiles) it looks like deep Fire is the way to go. Which is depressing, because I liked having to care about what spell I was casting. There are still situations where a maximum damage AB dump are useful, but I can see with more +dmg fireball spam taking that place.
Is this true regardless of having already other deep-fire mages with you? I've been wondering how deep arcane (40/21) would synergize with a deep fire mage (leech off his +15% fire dmg)
03/18/07, 2:46 PM
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