Arcane in Cataclysm: Updated for 4.01 - Page 17

darqueseid · 01/07/11, 11:45 AM

#1 Is there an overall DPS loss if one burns down to 0% mana and then you evocate up to whatever spot you get to and do a "regen" phase of 2Xab or some similar till your mana is back up to 90-100%?

#2 When is the best time to use fire orb? I too have found that AM procs ALOT with fire orb, almost continuously, so what I have been doing is incorporating it into my regen phase. That is, I will burn down to 0% or close, evocate up to 60-70% and then I'll fire off fire orb and only shoot arcane missles while it is up-thereby regening that little bit extra to make up my evocate difference... My question is, am I making my best use of fire orb? does it make better sense to just fire it off everytime the cooldown is up?

Falix · 01/07/11, 1:43 PM

For question #1, there is a loss of DPS for going to 0 mana. The Arcane mastery is based on available mana in your pool, and evocate only restores 60%. Arcane blast does more damage at 90-100% mana then it does at 60-70%. See Mana Adept

darqueseid · 01/07/11, 2:54 PM

I understand mana adept, the question is, is there a dps loss by burning all the way down...

my rotation goes something like this:

~arcane blastX3, POM+AB, pop all cooldowns(macroed) arcane blast at X4 stacks from full mana until 0 mana, evocate up to ~60-70%, launch flame orb, then AM continuously with the flame orb AM procs(and an arcane barrage or blast if your unlucky on the AM procs) . By the time the flame orb is done, I will have 80-90% of my mana back. "conserve phase" (2 or 3Xab + am) and then rinse& repeat burn phase when evocate is~20 secs from coming back.

My thinking is, more ABX4's in burn phase= more dps, regardless of my mana level when I get back into "conserve phase" . Has there been theory craft that I'm missng that disproves that analysis? My dps seems higher when I use my rotation over the "traditional", but there's less margin for error, that is, if you evocate at the wrong time, or miss with fire orb, you are stuck with low mana for an entire conserve phase... and that DOEs kill your dps.

zenchizero · 01/15/11, 7:33 PM

In response to your post darqueseid,

I have also been using a rotation like yours with decent dps. Much higher then i was doing with fire. There is no room for error though in arcane rotation we are using though. And in some heroics, the mechanics will prevent you and i from doing well. Also with higher tier gear our mastery will most likely mean we adopt the traditional arcane mage rotation to do optimal damage. (burn to 40% evoc back)

P.s english is not my best language, please forgive any grammer mistakes.

Pinochet · 01/15/11, 8:17 PM

Originally Posted by darqueseid

#1 Is there an overall DPS loss if one burns down to 0% mana and then you evocate up to whatever spot you get to and do a "regen" phase of 2Xab or some similar till your mana is back up to 90-100%?

Originally Posted by darqueseid

~arcane blastX3, POM+AB, pop all cooldowns(macroed) arcane blast at X4 stacks from full mana until 0 mana, evocate up to ~60-70%, launch flame orb, then AM continuously with the flame orb AM procs(and an arcane barrage or blast if your unlucky on the AM procs) . By the time the flame orb is done, I will have 80-90% of my mana back. "conserve phase" (2 or 3Xab + am) and then rinse& repeat burn phase when evocate is~20 secs from coming back.

Yes, this is a dps loss.

Your rotation burns down to 0%, where mastery has no benefit--the standard rotation does not cast anything at 0% ever. This means the casts you're doing at low mana are wasting the benefit from mastery compared to someone following the standard rotation. In addition, your rotation starts its regen phase (which both rotations require) at something less than 100 and climbs up, where the standard regen phase sits as close as possible to 100, mixing in more expensive casts to keep from capping mana.

In other words, the "conserve phase" of the standard rotation is a regen phase plus some ABs. Your rotation moves these AB casts out of the conserve phase (where they would have benefited from ~100% mana) and moves them to the end of a burn phase (where they get between 40% and 0% the benefit from mastery), then also forces the regen component of the conserve phase that you split up to start out below 100% mana as well. All the same casts end up happening (more or less), but you've moved them into a suboptimal order.

sadeiko · 01/18/11, 3:18 PM

Originally Posted by Pinochet

Your rotation moves these AB casts out of the conserve phase (where they would have benefited from ~100% mana) and moves them to the end of a burn phase (where they get between 40% and 0% the benefit from mastery), then also forces the regen component of the conserve phase that you split up to start out below 100% mana as well. All the same casts end up happening (more or less), but you've moved them into a suboptimal order.

Correct, however you seem to be forgetting about the damage buff from arcane blast itself. This is the one and only time you can afford abx4 giving you a 52% damage buff on ab. while other times are taking advantage of mastery.

for this instance lets say mastery is giving a 25% buff at 100% mana.
In my current gear I get 2 extra abs after ap wears off at a 52% damage buff + a minimal mastery bonus(will update later, currently staying logged due to item dispute)

now if your standard rotation after evocation takes place is abx3 and then clear it.
and your mana is constantly at the median between 85% and 100%(assumption made due to lack of math skills) then we are getting ~92% of our mastery bonus(23% using our 25% example) so while your average buff from stacked ab's is 13% factor in your mastery bonus 1.13 * 1.23 = 1.3899. so 38.99% average bonus given to your ab's while using a conservative burn cycle that gets you back to 100% quicker.

So without ignoreing the bonuses to ab, even at 0% mana abx4 after ap is done still beats out the benefit of mastery by 12%

However as seems to be all things with mages, timing is everything, and the truth to weather or not burning to 0% is better or not, actually lies in the time it takes to go from 70% back to the "green zone" on mana at a very low orb/am spam cycle. If I'm not wrong then this is the calculation that needs to be made to determine which of burning to 0% or burning till ap is expired is better.

Grammaticus · 01/19/11, 1:05 PM

I have a question that a better tester than I might answer.

When using Fire Orb, I notice that I reliably have back-to-back Arcane Missile procs. With the thought of using that as a regen mechanism, would it make sense to adopt a sort of four phase cycle, rather than a two (Burn, Conserve) phase cycle?

The idea being: Burn Phase to 40%, Evocate, then a sort of Short Burn Phase, AB4s to an amount of mana that you could recover (back to 90-100%) in the span of 15 seconds, then a Recharge Phase, using Fire Orb and chaining AMs at 0 mana cost, then a Conserve Phase.

arcanem · 01/21/11, 12:27 AM

I was wondering the same thing. I am able to pom ab before the 4 stacks fall off after the burn and evocate phase as a troll race. So I was wondering if its better to continue burning a few 4 stack ab and then use fire orb/am mechanic to regen mana or use fire orb during the burn rotation since ap boosts fire orb dmg.

Also I bumped into a minor issue lately hopefulyl someone here can solve. Arcane power and mirror image macro causes a global cooldown for me. was anyone able to figure out a macro to use ap, mirror image,gems, berserking without wasting a gcd during arcane power phase? The arcane power glyph doesnt seem to be working properly for me.

Buundox · 01/21/11, 9:53 AM

Mirror images have been on the gcd for quite some time now, so unless you pop them prior to using AP you will always 'lose' a gcd during the buff.

Adyssa · 01/21/11, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by arcanem

Also I bumped into a minor issue lately hopefulyl someone here can solve. Arcane power and mirror image macro causes a global cooldown for me. was anyone able to figure out a macro to use ap, mirror image,gems, berserking without wasting a gcd during arcane power phase? The arcane power glyph doesnt seem to be working properly for me.

Without seeing your macro, I can only make a guess, but that guess would be that you have Mirror Image listed before AP. Since the AP buff needs to be up for the glyph to cause your MI to cause no GCD, it needs to be first.

If, however, you do have AP first in the macro, then maybe it's the case that it casts MI before the AP buff is registered. You could make a cast sequence macro instead and just spam it quickly to force the glyph to work.

darqueseid · 01/21/11, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by arcanem

Also I bumped into a minor issue lately hopefulyl someone here can solve. Arcane power and mirror image macro causes a global cooldown for me. was anyone able to figure out a macro to use ap, mirror image,gems, berserking without wasting a gcd during arcane power phase? The arcane power glyph doesnt seem to be working properly for me.

I use the following macro and am glyphed for the cd... (you can use #showtooltip optionally, if you want it to show AP's uptime) (lifeblood is the herbalism haste):

#showtooltip
/cast arcane power
/cast lifeblood
/use mana gem (you shuold use the name of whatever gem you can conjure, as it appears in inventory)
/use trinket name (if you have an on use trinket)
/cast mirror image

couple points
-I do run into the gcd issue where mirror image isn't activating and I have to click the macro again. I think this is a lag thing because most of the time they all activate at the same time just fine.

-the order is simply the length of the cooldowns, EG, MI has a longer cooldown time than mana gem, and that has longer than arcane power, etc... Why? so that I can reactivate the macro if some of the cooldowns are popped. if it were in a reverse order, when I hit the macro button the second time, it tells me "that spell isnt ready yet" and do nothing even if arcane power is up. I guess because it hists MI, sees its on CD and then stops.

-I prefer to specify the trinket name than the item spot. it will let you know if you don't have the trinket equipped, and i believe it will equip it for you if you have it off in inventory(not in combat, and it takes 30secs to use it). if you do it this way, you need to remember to change the macro if/when you upgrade your trinket

-Time warp I leave out, because its not always triggered with all my other CDs, most of the time I save that for when bosses are under 35% and/or when mechanics dictate. but I place them next to each other on the cast bar so I can activate both at the same time(I'm not even sure you can as MI and TW both trigger the GCD).

-I also have a macro for presence of mind:

#showtooltip
/cast presence of mind
/cast arcane blast

which the triggers gcd, but I use it when I have abx4 stacks, pom+Arcane blast, then pop cds with macro, then continue blasting...
if you don't use pom before you do the combined gcd macro, you have to wait 30secs after AP is used to use POM.
you DONT have to wait to use AP for 30secs after POM, so for max dps, use POM+AB first.

Light4 · 01/21/11, 11:33 AM

Note: I will take this early opportunity to let you know that macros run all at once. This means that when you click the button, the macro runs each command from start to finish before returning control to the game.

from Making a macro - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Because it executes MI at the same time as AP, the buff is not already up and it therefore causes you to get stuck in the GCD.

Edit: Since the PoM/AB macro would have similar issues (the buff being present for the next cast being effected) and actually works, the above might work as well once the glyph is fixed. I was under the wrong impression that above statement actually meant that the macro gets sent to the server, where it is executed in parallel, then the result is returned to the game.

Doroteasenjk · 01/21/11, 12:03 PM

The Glyph of Arcane Power is not working; it is on the list of known bugs that Blizzard posted.

4.0.3 Known Issues Sticky Updated 12/10/2010 - Forums - World of Warcraft

Mages
The glyphed version of Arcane Power does not reduce the global cooldown of Blink, Mana Shield, and Mirror Image to zero.

darqueseid · 01/21/11, 1:38 PM

Originally Posted by Light4

from Making a macro - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Because it executes MI at the same time as AP, the buff is not already up and it therefore causes you to get stuck in the GCD.

Edit: Although the glyph is not working at the moment, I believe it will still not work if combined in a macro together with AP due to the above once it is fixed.

Yes, its true that the gcd is not reduced, but the way my macro is stacked it doesn't seem to get affected. I am using said macro with AP+MI in it every day, and I do sometimes have an issue with MI not going off in the same click. Thats why I was thinking it may be a lag issue.

It may be that the server is executing each command in serial, one after another, even though when you click your macro in the wow client it seems to us to be running everything at once. Clearly the behavior of the macro contradicts that they actually run "all at once". Sometimes MI doesn't go off, so that would seem to justify the server running them in serial. That is, if the server is simply trying to execute commands that are fed to it, one at a time, then it could concievably be interrupted by lag. As opposed to if they were executed "all at once" then nothing should be able to make some abilities go off and others not. It would be all or nothing.

DrRumpus · 01/21/11, 2:47 PM

Originally Posted by Light4

from Making a macro - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

Because it executes MI at the same time as AP, the buff is not already up and it therefore causes you to get stuck in the GCD.

Edit: Although the glyph is not working at the moment, I believe it will still not work if combined in a macro together with AP due to the above once it is fixed.

It's not executed at the same time. Don't know where you get that from, since the quote only says that once you click a macro it will run (from start to finish) before returning controll to the game. So you can't interrupt it, etc. If it was like you said, macros such as this wouldn't work

#showtooltip
/cast presence of mind
/cast arcane blast