Hi, this seems to be a point many mages are concerned about. However depending on the balancing of mana regeneration I don't see a problem here.

I would think you have the following options rotation wise:

• Extreme high burn cycle with cooldowns => will be followed by the use of Evocation.
• High burn cycle with stacking AB to 4
• Balanced mana / damage cycles (varying the stack size between 2 and 3)
• Mana reg cycles with 2 stacks of AB, supported by the use of AM (which will be up pretty often) and the occasional Arcane Concentration proc. If you are really in need of mana and / or mana adept has such a high impact, there would may even be the choice of casting an off school spell.

Maybe it will also be an option to switch between balanced cycles and burn-reg rotations depending on the encounters.
I can not play in beta however, so this is all theoretical.

On mana adept

I would be glad to see mana adept becoming available at level 10 (like Druids eclipse is I think), to have enough time to get used to that pretty active and spec defining mechanic.
Oh and mastery should only add bonus damage at high mana, thus mana adapt could be balanced to apply a feelable penalty even at low levels (to even care about it), but reward you if you mastered it at high levels.
The damage influence curve should then be not linear but something like:
0 damage at 0 mana, 50% damage at 50% mana, 100% damage at 70% mana and then granting a damage bonus factoring in mastery rating.

Another idea would be to let the damage penalty have a mechanic that it will only be triggered if mana regeneration is not active for a defined time frame. Thus you could try to avoid the penalty all together by switching to a mana reg rotation.

I have been arcane mainspec ever since SCC. I never disliked Arcane as much, as when playing it in the Cata-beta. It simply isn't fun for me to play the spec in it's current state. No matter what you do, you always feel like it is going downhill during a fight (fire gives me the opposite feeling, which leaves a far more enjoyable feeling when you just killed a hard boss). In short fights the spec feels overpowered - in longer fights the spec feels like a burden. "My guild whipe a lot - should I spec arcane to top the meters?"

I really lack the arcane specific tools to control my mana in different and skilled ways with the current mastery - "managing mana like the other specs but pick mage armor" is boring. This is simply lack of design with the added Mana Adept mastery.

Spaming AB with either ABar or procced AM to reset added mana cost is not new - only the restriction on when you can cast AM - leaves me with a feelign of fewer personal choices and less room to feel awesome for playing it well. Talents like Improved Mana Gem and Invocation doesn't make the class more fun - would I use my gem or interrrupt more with those talents? No. In fact I just get annoyed, whenever someone steals my interrupt or I need to use a healthstone. Fewer skills to use - not any (improved) ampl/dampen magic and no Icy Veins (Maybe add a talent to make Mirror Images become a new arcane cooldown - I loved the Quad Core idea from Tier10).

Just Arcane Explosion and no synergies (unless you count PoM+Flamestrike) with any other AoE spell from the other trees? Compared to fire this is a joke. I admit I like the arcane being the prismatic tree where spells from other schools also becomes useful in a new way - the old Spell Power talent helped enforcing this. A counterspelled arcane mage do what?

What I liek better is Torment the Weak being something only arcane mages would spec (would probably place it deeper in the tree (deeper than slow) myself). Incanter's Absorption combined with Nether Vortex and harder mobs actually made me cast mana shield while soloing. I'm actually using my mage armor as arcane now (feel forced to do it though - a talent that reduced the mana cost of shield and armors to something insignificant would be nice).

Looking back over the years the part about arcane I always hated the most was the fact that you had to spend more than 1 conjured water and more than 30 sec drinking to get full mana. The thing I liked the most about arcane is when you managed to go oom the exact second the boss died knowing that you did all you could. How about a talent that restores your mana to full if you have less than 10% mana left, when leaving combat (maybe added utility to the arcane spell Invisibility?). Would make the Mana Adept mastery feel less annoying when you are speedpulling an instance with a good group - currently you kind of hope another dps die so you can get mana to full before next pull

While it has been listed before in numerous places, I will give you the cliff-notes version of why your ideas do not work for Arcane in Cataclysm.

• In cataclysm, AM is a proc and ABr is a 5 second cooldown. As shown in this thread (post #420), these two changes reduce the number of reliable Arcane cycles to just ABx3 and ABx4. Essentially, the ABx2 rotation that you are proposing to be the "mana regen" one, does not exist as a reliable cycle. It is also important to note, to cast ABx2AM, MBAM needs to have procced on the first AB (since you would be well into your AB3 cast if it procs on AB2), which does nothing but make the cycle even more unreliable.

• General consensus is that if Arcane is supposed to be about mana management, it should be in control of this management. This would mean that the entirety of mana management gameplay should not revolve around a single proc (MBAM) (and the unreliable cycles that it produces).
  An example I like to use when illustrating this point is that its like saying "Frost mages are about freezing things" and then presenting a frost spec that has everything removed except for the old frostbite talent.

• There are many inherent problems with trying to base the entirety of arcane's mana management around a single proc, one of which is that it it makes it extremely difficult to distinguish between an unskilled player and one who just got unlucky. (as described in this thread, post #430, paragraph 2)

These are just a few of the points raised in these forums that try to explain why mana management through just cycle manipulation is not only not really possible, but also, not really a worthwhile engaging experience if taken alone. I suggest you read the rest of the posts in the thread I linked above, as well as the posts in this thread.

edit: spelling, grammar, etc

Well, there's another possibility for a mana regen cycle, similar to what the relatively new guy a page back (or in the general Mage Cata thread, I forget which atm) said: cast some sort of short off-school spell between 2xAB and ABar/AM. There's three possibilities that I can think of:

• Flame Orb, particularly if you spec for the explosion (I believe Blizz has said that it's supposed to be a spell that every mage would want to cast on CD, or at least close enough to on CD).
• Early Frosted FrB (shortest cast with a decent coefficient, though you're also sacrificing some sort of more general purpose talent)
• Scorch, regular FrB, or FBlast, depending on how much Haste you have, if you have to move, and how you've spec'd.

Of course, if you need more mana but don't want to swap Armors and can't wait for the CD for Gem or Evo, then another possibility would be to cast a longer spell like Fireball or FFB.

While I'm not saying that we should just manage with what Blizz has dealt Arcane so far, and I agree that this "solution" is counter-intuitive to the +% Arcane Damage specialization, I'm just pointing out that there are a few options for making AB2 reliable. This is assuming, though, that "reliable" means "not standing around doing nothing while waiting for a CD".

I definitely aggree on your point, that it is not sufficient to have just a mana reg rotation as mana management tool if it is supposed to be the core mechanic of your spec (my detailed post to what I think about the arcane mage can be read here: http://elitistjerks.com/f23/t27839-t...2/#post1740310).

That is however, why I quoted exactly your point that: Mana reg rotations are not possible.
(you may see by this quote, that I read the rest of the posts in this thread, I will however read the thread you posted as soon as possible).

However I think I noticed my failure (due to unfamiliarity with cast time based classes), after AB -> ABarr -> AB you would only have a 0.64 chance that AM procced, as you can not wait for the execution of your 2nd AB, I was thinking in cooldowns there, not in cast times.
However whether an AB -> ABarr -> AB -> AB -> ABarr / AM rotation works as reg rotation or not only depends on balancing I think.
And then there is the much stated off school spell if need be.

To conclude:
While maybe not really funny, it could at least work. I didn't say anything more

As was pointed out by several other posters, that the suggestion of completely new mechanics is not very helpful at this time of the beta, I just tried to figure out how to get along with the given tools.

Another suggestion:
Thinking about your idea of casting off school spells if the mechanics were implemented nicely, ABarr could at least apply a buff, that lets the next Frostbolt return some mana, so you would always have the decision to break the AB Buff with AM for maximum damage or with ABarr to regain mana and in the low mana rotation you would have a valid choice to cast after the second AB.

Edit:
Ok read the post from Logix and figured out I didn't look at haste here, that is some other new thing I'll have to learn about.

What I am afraid of with mana management that instead of having clear moments when to use your conservative rotation and burst rotation, it will be turned into one simplified rotation. This could even happen if you add new abilities to arcane and make AM more reliable. Here is an example:

Conservative rotation = 2x AB > AM, Burn rotation = 4x AB > AM
with this you actually have adept your rotation based on your mana pool and at what stage of the encounter. But there is a high risk of it turning into this:
One rotation= 3x AB > AM


PS: I made a seperate topic about arcane on the beta forums that can be found here. I put a lott of the sugestions about the arcane in this topic.

I know the numbers passes aren't quite there yet, but are 85 mages finding Flame Orb is still worth casting in the single target rotation, even with the -25% damage for Arcane? I know there was some talk of speccing into Fire for Fire Power for +3% Fire damage and a Flame Orb explosion, but this seems a bit much for a spell that can be cast only once a minute.

Woe to thee who see us come. In other words, a new build is out.

Here are the Arcane changes.

Thoughts.

The AM and MBAM changes won't have any effect for Arcane mages, you will still cast AMs at 0.5 second intervals in the end. The change is just a tweak to non-Arcane mage leveling.
quick edit: Just to note, that while the AM changes this build will have no effect on Arcane mages' gameplay, the reduction of base damage will naturally make AM hit for less, even for arcane mages. The buff to AB is probably their way to offset this damage loss.

I am unsettled by the Arcane Explosion change. It seems like Blizzard wants to push Arcane mages into melee range to AoE, making Arcane Mages they only ranged caster that needs to do so on a regular basis. While the threat reduction will, to some extent, prevent us pulling, it does little to nothing concerning cleave like effects that we will have to eat.
Remember, even Demo locks have options for reliable ranged AoE. First, they have a pretty adequate set of ranged AoE options, since their spec gives them both fire and shadow %dmg modifiers. Couple that with a pet who bladestorms, they are more then adequately equipped as far as ranged AoE is concerned. However, if they really do want to go into melee, they have abilities that make them, essentially, an uncritable plate wearing monster (Demon form), protecting them from the cleaves and so on. Keeping this in mind, I do not know why Blizzard wants arcane mages to run into melee range to AoE. Its too counter-intuitive.

Focus magic as a tier 6 talent seems a bit 'meh' if I am to be honest. I mean it is ok, and will be mandatory, but I would have hoped for something more substantial so deep in the tree.

One thing that is clear to me with this build, is that our "mana management" and other "gameplay" issues are not going to be rectified before release. The "mage has no AoE" issues were brought up at the very same time as our other, more important issues were, and even though the solution to the AoE issue is not very good, the fact that there is some change means that Blizzard did in fact sit down and think about how to fix arcane, but decided against addressing the other issues at this time.

The best we can hope for, in my humble opinion, is to get something going after Cataclysm ships. Barring that, there is always next expansion.

Edit for addition:

Another set of interesting information was also present in the latest build. The set bonuses for the first set of Cataclysm mage tier gear:

Pretty straightforward.

The increased haste to Arcane blast doesn't help making higher DPM cycles more reliable though, essentially pushing Arcane further into a straight and static ABx4 MBAM rotation.

This is pretty pessimistic considering there is most likely a good two months left of beta still. I agree with your sentiment on arcane explosion though.

I wouldn't call it pessimistic.

Its just an opinion based on how previous betas have progressed. When things like item set bonuses and numbers balancing starts, its nigh on impossible to get any meaningful changes (at least of the scope that Arcane needs) done.

From a production standpoint, it makes sense. You don't want to have to do balancing when the basic, shippable version of a spec/class is not in place. It also makes sense that they don't want to have to do a last minute rework of a spec.

The most they can do now is the small tweaks to abilities (which, by looking at the patch notes, is exactly what they seem to be doing. Increasing ability ranges here or decreasing talent points there, increasing damage here or decreasing proc chances there).

But yea, I wouldn't be pessimistic about mages right now, since, even if the Arcane spec doesn't shape up, the Fire and Frost specs are looking positively awesome. So its not like our class is broken or anything.

Kalgan clarifies:

Source: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta - (English) Forums -> Mage