=D wouldn't that be like 30000 mana?

Arcane Blast spam goooooo! Oh crap I would not want to drink after that.

I usually refrain from 'lol' posts, but laughing at this post got me noticed at work.

So 2k non-buffed non crit AB's? What was the build?

43/18. It was simply a factor of having 2 pieces of tier 5 and 700 (zomg) spell damage.

I like the potential of that gear set they gave us. I equipped my own nexus-horn along with that epic trinket of a similar nature, and looked at my 4 piece tier 5 bonus: +70 spell damage for 6 seconds after every single crit - not a chance on crit. I kinda had to read that twice. The thing is, with molten armor up and full tier 5 + phat loot from SSC, my crit rate was... 30%. Base. 31% when I got blessing of kings. That's 37% crit on arcane blast. That doesn't even count arcane potency procs, which would average it to 40%, or 38% on the scorches. I'm thinking mad nexus-horn/whatever procs and extremely high up time for the set bonus.

I'm really, really eager to find a serious BT testing group and try out this build.

As a new AB cycler, I feel the need to point out that AB is extremely mana efficient when the stack is 1-2 deep. Even a stack of three produces very aggressive dps with relatively low mana cost. 20% for 20% will barely make a dent in efficiency cycles (where you have a 2x AB, other stuff, 2x AB) but produce great damage.

The only problem I see is that the 2pc Tier5 set bonus is so good for a raiding arcane mage that he will basically become wedded to it (like the 3pc Trans bonus for priests).


EDIT:

I just tested out an AM spec against Dr. Boom (I know, not very real-world of me). Spec was... http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=kwxVc0fzxIuioxg0z - which I consider to be a good all-around AM spec (good for 5-man, heroic, raiding, PvP. Not SUPER specialized, but solid choice for all of the above). Boom had CoS and Misery. Both the trinket and Tirisfal 4pc bonus will proc on any AM crit. So, basically I had both on for the vast majority of the time. I was out there for a while - so this isn't theorycrafted, but is generally how it will perform I think. Keep in mind that I did not have enchants on the gear except for a +40 on the staff. I used Potent Flame Spessarite and Glowing Shadow Draenite for all the gems.

Average AM wave was 1018 (no AP was used)

That's a lot of sustainable DPS. I think for an arcane mage, T5 is the god-suit. The 4pc bonus basically reads "Equip: +70 dmg/heal when casting Arcane Missiles". Plus since it is always up, you can wait for a clearcast then send an AP+PoM+Pyro for some very silly damage whenever you feel like it.

I won't notice for a looong time as i'll be kind of euphoric after my recent divorce from the tailoring stuff. Watch out spawn of primal fire, there's a new girl in town!

As Vontre and some of the arcane mages here will attest, I'm pretty much a hater on cycles in their current form. While stat-wise, the new T5 is extremely disappointing still compared to Spellfire/Spellstrike. However, even to me, the bonuses are certainly intruiging. =)

Edit: Thank goodness for T6, which is great both in terms of stats as well as having the greatest bonus ever.

I have a comment on AB cycles. Whenever your optimal cycle involves 3+ Arcane Blasts I find it a lot more efficient to separate the AB spam from the cycle, using strict 3xAB cycle and then have longer AB spam sections. In this way you can align the AB spam with trinkets/AP and it's a lot easier to get the most out of the timing (assuming you're using /stopcasting). I always feel like I'm wasting way too much time due to lag when ramping up the AB because of the cast time changes and you can't get into the rythm of it as when you do the pure spam.

While this is more like "Practicecrafting", it fits to this thread reasonably well... I did some Dr. Booming today to test /stopcasting macros. This is what I found out:

During the test my latency was constantly between 130 and 150, usually around 140. And the

Without stopcasting macro I was able to put out 79 scorches in 140.7 seconds. That is about 1.78 sec for each Scorch and considering that we are talking about 1.5sec cast here, I was about 15% behind of my theoretical performance. With stopcasting macro I scored 87 scroches in 145.8 seconds, so 1.68 seconds for each Scorch.

This translates to a 6.3% dps boost. I made 2 mistakes in my casting sequence, so if you could do stopcasting flawlesly it'd be even more powerful. But even under non-optimal situations I'd guess that gain would be anywhere between 3-6% depending on casters skill using 1.5sec spells and ~140latency. I had my cast-bar addon configured for 0.05sec padding. Anyone with higher latency than that, would most probably see even higher benefits.

However, what I found out to be maybe even more intresting was, that after macroing my AB, Fireball and Scorch, I was able to do 1-3 x AB - 2x Fireball - 1x Scorch rotation reliably and still overlap AB's for casting speed abuse. I've got to do more testing to measure the benefits later on, but I'm guessing that it'd be quite a boost compared to 3x AB + 2x Fireball. If I can pull that kind of rotation off in raid-setting, I don't know, but it's still intresting. However, with the limited time I had, I was not able to produce 2-3x AB - 5x Scorch reliably. With more practice and shortening the padding time it'd probably be possible in Dr. Boom environment, but in raid-conditions with changing ping, I'd doubt it.

Adding to the statement Kavan just made, I'm currently starting every fight with ABx3 so I can use the mana gem and mana pot as soon as possible. As soon as both cooldowns are rolling, I (briefly) switch to ABx1 while I mentally judge the dps rate.

My initial reaction to "saving up the AB spam for one session" is that it's only a good idea if you can sustain ABx3 for most of the fight. (I just realized he already said that..whoops) ABx3 gives you a dpm and dps similiar to fireball. Without that cycle, you are giving up tons of dpm to get just a little bit of dps.

I've been reading this trying to find a build that suits me...

I was deep frost, then moved to Arc Frost (40/0/21). I'm ready to wean off Iceblock and increase my DPS.

Plugging into Vontre's spreadsheet, one of the best I could find is 40/18/3

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000


I do primarily raiding (Kara right now, Gruul soon), with farming on the side. NO PVP.

For some reason, though, I don't see a 40/18/3 mentioned alot as a viable raiding spec...what am I missing? I'm not saying this is the be-all end-all build, but if you guys aren't talking about it, it's probably for good reason, so I'd like to know.

Ghalt:

Probably not mentioned because it would perform almost identically to the 41/20 builds that have been posted. You get EP, lose range on fireball, get better resistance but trade arcane +hit for it, etc...

It differs mostly in details that are personal-preference oriented.

Not a bad spec. Most of the reasons that people go 41/20 would apply to yours as well.

^^ :]

I'm 41/17/3 with just 2/3 imp scorch, and i think 40/18/3 is probably the best AB/Fireball cycle build. The reason most people don't spec it is they'd rather have the pvp/solo/5man utility of slow or blastwave, i think. If i weren't contemplating 44+ arcane post 2.1, I'd respec to 41/18/2 today.

So, mp/5 enchants on chest? I don't really see the benefit of anything else.

And about the bracer enchant, permit me some (very) crude math here.

+15 damage to a 3 second fireball is still less than a 1% gain. (I divided my average fireball damage including crits: 2261, by 20, a rough estimate on how much each fireball would gain from the enchant.)

Specifically, 2261/20=113, the number of times I would have to cast fireball before I got a 'free' one.

(113 casts x 3 second casting time) / 60 seconds = 5.65 minutes till a free fireball.

Now if I look at how much mana I would gain from a mp/5 enchant in the same time period:

5.65 minutes x 12 mp5 ticks in a minute x 6 mana per tick = 406 mana, which is almost the same cost as the fireball.


Considering how much cheaper the mp5 enchant is than the +damage one, it seems like a good choice for some bracers you intend to replace.

Spell damage to bracers?

You need to keep in mind that the extra mana is only useful if you go completely oom at the end of a fight. Otherwise it's just useless.

I would put 150 health or +6 stats on chest, and spell damage on bracers.

6mp5 is nearly irrelevant even over long fights. 5 minutes = 60 "5 second ticks" = 360 mana. That's not enough for an extra 1.5 seconds of AB spam. Assuming chain casting, that's 300 seconds of casting. 300/3.5 * 15 = ~1300 base damage added, multiplied by talents, buffs on you, debuffs on mobs, etc. - plus, all that damage is more front loaded (spread over the 5 minutes) than the extra spell you would get (at the end of the 5 minutes when you would have been OOM but for the 6mp5 enchant).

Putting mp5 enchants on bracers instead of something like spell power is the same exact mistake as putting +22 int on weapons instead of +30 dmg, pre-TBC.

Edit: vv-- That's an interesting point on the spirit, never thought of it.

Actually, interesting point on regen:

15 spirit on Evocation is worth 225 extra mana. It's also (assuming someone in the raid has Imp DS) 1.5 spell damage. And if you use a regen armor and/or Arc Med, it's a bit more MP5 (on the order of .5-1.5 mp5 depending on combination of armor and talent). Finally, if you use an arcane cycle with an implicit 5SR tick (e.g., AB/AM/Scorch cycles), it's some more mana regen on top.

Seems like 15 spirit is actually a better choice, if you're going to regen-whore, than 6mp5.

(6 stats is probably best from a damage perspective, 150 health from the PvP/survival perspective.)

Perhaps I should specify. My assumption is that I don't have a shadow priest or a judgement of wisdom. In all my recent kara runs we've had to take whoever is available. In those cases, I have to use a ABx1 or ABx2 to keep up solid damage till the end of a longer fight.

And with that context, I could use the 360 mana I would get from mp/5 to cast scorch 2 more times, which is about 2200 damage, also before talents and buffs. Compare that to your 1300 extra damage which you calculated, before talents and buffs.

And I'm referring almost entirely to cost. If I have purple pvp bracers, I'm not going to drop 400+ gold for an enchant that does almost exactly the same thing as a 40g enchant.

Minor increases to stats will never yield a major shift in results.

My spreadsheet has an upgrade comparison module for exactly this kind of thing. +6 all stats is the clear winner for arcane builds, for fire and frost builds the 15 spirit is better. All tests done with mage armor on.

For bracers 15 spell damage is clearly superior to any other option. That should be obvious, though.

Further Edit: The stat comparison uses the same formulas as the base spreadsheet, so yes, it accounts for evocation bonus from spirit, mage armor, all those goodies.

Didn't see that the first time through the patch notes. That is pretty good news.

12 int to bracers is 180 mana and +3 damage if you have arcane mind. So it's 70% as good as both of those (1/5 of +15 dam & 1/2 of mp5) in a long fight and better in short fights.