Cataclysm Arcane Mage Compendium - Page 15

Pent · 07/07/11, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by Blueobelisk

It was mentioned in the fire thread that it comes up for 15 seconds, does 4casts of fireball for fire mages, and has around a 45 second ICD.

And pent, wow I'm shocked. I'll have to check some numbers myself then.

Considering the massive haste value, I've altered the reforging/gemming to prioritize haste, with a less radical result, the stat weights are closer (although haste is still on top): arcane_bis_hc.html

On a side note, even though I've used Rawr to determine an optimal gear set, it seems that Simulationcraft greatly disagrees on the stat values (haste > mastery > crit from simc versus mastery > crit > haste from rawr), but I tend to trust Simc a bit more, so some items should probably be swapped, most notably the helm (but the Rawr database seems to only contain the crit/hit heroic version of that).

Eylirria · 07/07/11, 3:28 PM

Originally Posted by Morphiious

@Eylirria I've heard it's more around 500 dps instead of 200 but there hasn't been a lot of actual testing afaik

My math was really rushed and simplistic, because I assumed the images functioned exactly like the ones from mirror image (the spell), except, only 1, and half the duration.

A single Mirror Image cast yields me on average 75k damage combined from all 3 images, from that I inferred that a single image, at 15seconds of TTL, would do about 12500dmg, which would be anywhere from ~200 to ~280dps depending on how long it takes for me to re-proc it.

All in all it really underwhelmed me. If it did not have an ICD, but only procced from direct damage, I would have been a lot happier with that because then it would be worth ~1500-1700dps, which seems more in line with other set piece bonuses.

From what I can gather, even with the underwhelming set bonuses (and 4pc flat out not working for the spec), Arcane seems to hang out just fine at the higher levels of gear of the tier, post T11 set breaks, so, maybe it's somewhat intended that our bonuses aren't really significant?

edit:

Striked out my math part because it worked under a premise that I've learned is FALSE, and the 2pcMI do not cast the same spell(s) as the BaseSpellMIs, the 2pcMIs in fact hit a lot harder on their base cast.

Charlemagna · 07/07/11, 3:49 PM

If you break 4pc T11 I assume the value of haste will rise until you make up that cast speed. But shouldn't you basically stop stacking haste as soon as your AB4 hits 1.0sec cast time? It seems pretty easy to hit that mark even in the previous tier of content/gear.

Bowchikabow · 07/07/11, 3:50 PM

@Eylirria.

Are the 2pcMI's gaining direct benefit from the casters stats? have there been logs showing trinket/spell procs active during a 2pcMI with an increase in their damage?

Eylirria · 07/07/11, 8:15 PM

Originally Posted by Bowchikabow

Are the 2pcMI's gaining direct benefit from the casters stats? have there been logs showing trinket/spell procs active during a 2pcMI with an increase in their damage?

I know they aren't scaling from crit/haste/mastery. They hardly ever crit, and they don't seem to cast more/less often based on what i can do with my haste.

Their damage does go up from debuffs on the target, but their damage is a fixed range that is about 2 to 2.5x higher than our usual mirror images.

Dappercad · 07/09/11, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Charlemagna

If you break 4pc T11 I assume the value of haste will rise until you make up that cast speed. But shouldn't you basically stop stacking haste as soon as your AB4 hits 1.0sec cast time? It seems pretty easy to hit that mark even in the previous tier of content/gear.

My math makes a mage with Netherwind Presence, 5% haste raid buff and time warp getting a 1.6s cast time spell (AB4) to just under 1s at 1768 Haste Rating. Though my math may be flawed.

If accurate, hitting this and the hit cap without a rating trinket seems like a big ask to me. I'm fairly certain that the shorter a fight is the more important this cap will become as the mage will be under TW for a larger portion of the fight. Taking this logic further, I would imagne that with every untimewarped burn phase an arcane mage has on a given fight will make mastery stronger.

dar3652 · 07/10/11, 7:44 PM

1768 is correct,minus any rounding math errors that may occur

oggied0g · 07/11/11, 6:40 PM

Particularly on progression attempts, my raid tends to favor Prismatic Elixirs and Elixirs of Mighty Speed (for casters) in order to deal with the heavy AOE magic damage. The haste ceiling seems reachable with this modification to typical flasking strategy. Has anyone evaluated where the haste breakpoint would be for switching to Elixir of Mastery?

dar3652 · 07/11/11, 10:24 PM

Pre 4pcet11, I believe the gearing for arcane was hit -> haste to soft cap -> mastery. Then they changed AB, but I assumed the same would still be true. Upon dropping 4pcet11 for 2pcet12(helm+legs) I assumed simcraft would ask to reforge up to 1768haste to allow for 1sec blasts during lust, but @ 1200 haste it is valuing mastery > haste (50k iterations elite tank+spank fight no shard of woe). It doesn't seem like everything is cut and dry and will differ person to person, so I've been simming after each upgrade (then optimizing reforges, then resimming again). It seems as gear increases and hit cap is obtained, haste is most valuable at low haste, then mastery takes the lead, then all 3 balances out to about 1/3rd of 1 point of int (ive even seen sims with crit higher than haste and mastery).

I know it's not an ideal answer, but trust simcraft (if you can set it up correctly with the buffs you will have in a raid).

Also saw in another thread that Arcane on Elite takes forever to sim for some computers and switching to Good decreases simming time by a ton and only results in a under 1% dps loss

wyrmsbane · 07/13/11, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by Ataxus

I originally posted this on the official Damage Dealing forums, hoping it might catch Blizzard's eye. I'm also posting it here for discussion and hopefully some more math on the actual dps increase granted by this bonus.

Definitions:
Tier 12 Mage 4-Piece:

Arcane Power:

Leading to...
Arcane Power with Tier 12 4-Piece:
When activated, you deal 20% more spell damage but spells cost 10% less mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec.

The Problem:
This bonus appears to be a great boon to Arcane Mages' mana pools during Arcane Power. Upon further inspection, however, the math of both Arcane Power and this bonus are misleading. I'd like to shed light on this issue for both Blizzard and the community.

Base Arcane Blast Mana cost: 870
10% savings of 870 = 87 Mana cost reduction

This is 87 Mana cost reduction for every Arcane Blast, regardless of stack number! It is applied after stacking mana cost from Arcane Blast debuff. Arcane Power works the same way, but increases spell costs instead of decreasing them, like the set bonus does. The net effect of the set bonus is two of these mana cost reductions: 1) 10% mana reduction and 2) removal of the 10% mana increase from Arcane Power.

Total Mana savings with set bonus = 87 * 2 = 174 Mana cost reduction

This can also be seen upon inspection of actual mana costs under different conditions in the table below:

AB Stacks    Base Cost      Cost w/ AP     Cost w/ AP and 4pc    Mana Savings
0             870              957              783                     174
1             2175             2262             2088                    174
2             3480             3567             3393                    174
3             4785             4872             4698                    174
4             6090             6177             6003                    174

Suppose 12 Arcane Blasts are cast during the 15 second duration of Arcane Power:

174 Mana * 12 = 2088 Mana saved during each Arcane Power

Let's convert this to MP5 for an easier way to visualize the bonus:

2088 Mana saved every 2 minutes (typical practical cooldown of Arcane Power) =
2088 Mana / 120 seconds * 5 seconds = 87 Mana per 5 seconds

Following the same calcuations but with Shard of Woe equipped, the result is an even lower 67 MP5.

Conclusion:
To put this in perspective, over a 6 minute fight, 87 MP5 yields 6264 mana. This is enough for one extra stacked Arcane Blast, which would correspond to a dps increase below 1%. But since this is obviously a rough estimate, we don’t run out of mana to begin with, and the mana savings is actually spread out over several Arcane Power usages, the actual dps gained is even lower than this.

Another way of looking at it is by comparison to Mage Armor. Glyphed Mage Armor with a mana pool of 100,000 yields 3600 MP5. The 4-piece represents a meager 2.4% of Mage Armor's mana regeneration.

Overall, the tier 12 4-piece bonus is not strong enough and does not provide nearly the dps increase expected from such bonuses or granted by the 4-piece bonuses of other classes, possibly due to oversight in Arcane Blast's Mana cost calculation and Arcane Power interaction.

Suggestions:

Tweak the numbers of the bonus to make it non-negligible, such as 50% mana cost reduction (yielding 522 Mana savings per Arcane Blast).
Change the mechanics of the bonus to affect base Arcane Blast mana cost so the mana savings propagates through the Arcane Blast debuff mana cost multiplier to provide intended mana savings.
Add another aspect of the bonus to make the entire bonus enticing without affecting the underwhelming mana cost reduction.
Revamp the entire bonus.

This is actually completely incorrect - A mage in our guild got his 4p the other day and upon testing it, his 4stack AB cost was reduced by 600 some mana (exactly 10% of the cost of a 4 stack). Arcane power only increases the cost of AB by 10% of the Base spells cost (10% of 870(a 0 stacked ab) = 87). So a normally 4 stacked AB with arcane power up costs 6177 mana instead of 6090 according to my tooltip and tests done on a dummy.

However, once you add in the 4p, that base 87 mana increase is REMOVED and then the final cost of arcane blast is reduced by 10%. So at a 4 stack AB costing 6090 Mana, the t12 4set makes it only cost 5400 while arcane power is active.

Plonk · 07/13/11, 4:01 PM

If the new information is correct we will save:
87+6090/100*10 = 696 Mana per 4 stacked AB during AP

applying Ataxus' premises;
12 4-stacked AB during AP
12*696= 8352 Mana saved per AP
and
AP used every 2 Minutes we get:
8352/120*5= 348 MP5
resulting in 25056 Mana saved in a 6 minute fight, which would be about 4 extra 4-stacked AB we can squeeze in.

TradeWind · 07/13/11, 5:38 PM

applying Ataxus' premises;
12 4-stacked AB during AP
12*696= 8352 Mana saved per AP
and
AP used every 2 Minutes we get:
8352/120*5= 348 MP5
resulting in 25056 Mana saved in a 6 minute fight, which would be about 4 extra 4-stacked AB we can squeeze in.

this is not true cuz you forget to add the mana that you DONT lose by casting the current Arcane power with the new t4 bonus.

Snickernew · 07/13/11, 5:45 PM

Please realize that with 4t12 it might be more beneficial to use AP on cd (every 90 seconds), so the net mp5 gain could be slightly higher than you have calculated. Again this is only a speculation on the existing strategy of using AP + mana gem every 2 minutes. Using AP every 90 seconds will not allow us to do a full burn cycle though as evocation will not be available for at least 30 seconds after the AP is finished. Nevertheless, I would be interested in the results of this strategy with the new hypothetical 4t12 bonus.

Also, the haste vs mastery discussion boils down to whether you have SoW:
Haste > mastery with FoW
Mastery > Haste without FoW (you still need at least 1200 haste rating, as only past a certain point depending on your gear will your mastery give more dps per point than haste).

conjurer · 07/13/11, 6:14 PM

Originally Posted by Plonk

If the new information is correct we will save:
87+6090/100*10 = 696 Mana per 4 stacked AB during AP

applying Ataxus' premises;
12 4-stacked AB during AP
12*696= 8352 Mana saved per AP
and
AP used every 2 Minutes we get:
8352/120*5= 348 MP5
resulting in 25056 Mana saved in a 6 minute fight, which would be about 4 extra 4-stacked AB we can squeeze in.

The savings should be 50112 mana over 6 minutes , or 8 extra AB at 4 stacks

Loevty · 07/13/11, 9:40 PM

Originally Posted by wyrmsbane

This is actually completely incorrect - A mage in our guild got his 4p the other day and upon testing it, his 4stack AB cost was reduced by 600 some mana (exactly 10% of the cost of a 4 stack). Arcane power only increases the cost of AB by 10% of the Base spells cost (10% of 870(a 0 stacked ab) = 87). So a normally 4 stacked AB with arcane power up costs 6177 mana instead of 6090 according to my tooltip and tests done on a dummy.

However, once you add in the 4p, that base 87 mana increase is REMOVED and then the final cost of arcane blast is reduced by 10%. So at a 4 stack AB costing 6090 Mana, the t12 4set makes it only cost 5400 while arcane power is active.

Is there any evidence to prove this? or is this just all speculation if not, has anyone else been able to test T12 4P?