Here's some research of the DPS benefits from Focus Magic for all specs. Created with simcraft on a standard patchwerk fight using 10k iterations and 4.0.6 data.

Profile	DPS with FM	DPS without FM	DPS Difference
Priest_Shadow_T11_372	28003	27208	795
Mage_Fire_T11_372	26592	25821	771
Mage_Fire_Frostfire_T11_372	25151	24423	728
Mage_Arcane_T11_372	29110	28429	681
Warlock_AffDrain_T11_372	27196	26539	657
Warlock_Demonology_T11_372	27566	26914	652
Warlock_Destruction_T11_372	28200	27554	646
Warlock_Affliction_T11_372	27231	26601	630
Shaman_Elemental_T11_372	27063	26519	544
Druid_Balance_T11_372	26813	26325	488
Mage_Frost_Frostfire_T11_372	25304	24867	437
Mage_Frost_T11_372	25972	25623	349
Death_Knight_Unholy_2h_T11_372	26333	26107	226
Death_Knight_Unholy_1h_T11_372	23485	23264	221
Shaman_Enh_T11_372_Caster	26764	26570	194
Shaman_Enh_T11_372	26701	26510	191
Priest_Disc_Smite_T11_372	12376	12189	187
Rogue_Assassination_T11_372	27455	27280	175
Death_Knight_Frost_1h_T11_372	25781	25642	139
Priest_Holy_Smite_AA_T11_372	8817	8680	137
Death_Knight_Frost_2h_T11_372	25315	25230	85
Rogue_Combat_T11_372	26988	26904	84
Rogue_Subtlety_T11_372	26738	26683	55
Paladin_Retribution_T11_372	27522	27472	50

Yes, Arcane has by default a constant buff (focus_magic_feedback). All I did was to add the override.focus_magic=1 option, so the resulting report shows 2 constant buffs, focus_magic and focus_magic_feedback.

Now, one flaw the above simulations have, is that the chart just shows the personal dps gain for the various classes, while ignoring the fact that many classes cannot provide 100% uptime for the mage himself.

I might be able to create a RDPS chart that includes the feedback buff, but I'm not totally sure about the proc mechanic of FM. Does FM proc from periodical crits? Or just direct hits like it was back in WotLK?

Just tested with a Holy specced priest. Neither DoT nor HoT crits proc FM.

These new haste changes are going to make gearing for Arcane tricky . There's still another .2 seconds to be removed from the Arcane Blast cast time once the next PTR Patch is available, and yet already on PTR I'm sitting at 1.29 second Arcane Blasts without benefit of Wrath of Air or any temporary haste buffs. With Berserking, I dip below a 1 second cast time. While the reduction in mana cost to 5% base certainly helps the value of haste, these other changes significantly undermine it. While Haste has been of nearly the same value as Mastery on Live, I doubt this will continue once Arcane Blast easily becomes so close to the haste soft cap enforced by the GCD.

On live, since Fire sees similar benefits from haste/crit and Arcane sees similar benefits from haste/mastery, it's possible to focus on haste and not need to reforge anytime you swap specs. I think this next patch may force me to choose one spec or the other. Right now, Arcane seems to be a clear winner for single target DPS, but even with the latest Arcane changes, AoE will still lag behind fire (especially since fire has a mechanism for subverting the AoE cap and arcane does not).

There's going to be some tricky choices to make once the patch goes live. Long term, however, Arcane is probably going to be the winner. With the latest PTR reduction in mana costs, I'm able to sustain AB spam for a shockingly long period of time. As my intellect goes up, and my haste goes down, that period of time will lengthen and it won't be very many tiers of gear before it becomes sustainable nearly full time. I really feel like Blizzard is kind of floundering in its attempts to improve Arcane. Unless they're committed to readjusting it every single patch, its going to be hard to keep it balanced.

Ahh, I see. I had thought that the Arcane Blast mana reduction hotfix came before 4.06, so that the live tooltip was already correct. I guess they must have done more than one.

Something that got changed a while back and needs updating on the OP.

Nether Vortex 2/2 will now apply Slow to any target that is hit with AB. So even if the target is beyond the range of unglyphed Slow they will be Slowed if hit by AB with 2/2 Nether Vortex. With 1/2 Nether Vortex any target hit with AB will have a chance to have Slow applied to them. This can happen even if the target is beyond the unglyphed range of Slow.

However there is still a problem with Nether Vortex. Even though the first cast can apply Slow to the target there can be and usually is a slight delay between when the target appears to be hit and Slow is applied. This delay does seem to be affected by latency though I can't say that with 100% certainty, hopefully further testing will confirm it.

The problems with Mirror Images that I detailed in the original thread have been addressed but are not entirely fixed. The images will target the mob that the mage is hitting as they are conjured. The mob the images are hitting will always agro on the images and not the mage. The deferment of threat from the additional mobs that images are not not hitting can fail.

1. If you are closer to the additional mobs than your mirror images they can agro on you. They may start switching between hitting you and the image closest to them.

2. If you move away from the images while mobs are closer to you than some of the images they can agro on you.

3. If you hit one of the mobs the mirrors are not hitting it will agro on you once you exceed the images threat.

I'm currently using groups of mobs (3-4 leper Gnomes) in the Cursed Veil in Uldum to test and using omen/direct observation which is taking the threat info directly from the api. The above circumstances usually result in the deferment failing but sometimes it holds and I can't determine why.

Sorry for posting inconclusive results but after a fair bit of testing I'm hoping someone else might be able to figure out a conclusive set of circumstances under which the deferment fails.

Edit:

I checked with a couple of GM's recently having reported these issues a while back. They were aware of the above but had believed these issues had been addressed so I've added them into the bug thread.

Additionally I also asked again for confirmation of the intended behaviour of Invocation stating that it or the tooltip were bugged. I informed them that Invocation was only granting a bonus if the interruption was caused with Counterspell and no other interrupt effect such as the high powered bolt gun was causing the bonus to be gained. In addition that many effects cause the targets' cast bar to say interrupted and none of these worked either. I got the same reply as I have previously that they were unaware of the problem but that he would pass it on to the developers. I've added that also to the bug report thread.

Given that Rude Interruption grants a similar bonus that lasts longer and it's tooltip states it only works with Pummel and Shield Bash I hope it might very well be intended to grant us a bonus when we stop the target from casting through bombs, dazes and stuns. Has anyone been able to confirm that it is working as intended? If it is I hope they get around to changing the tooltip so that is worded in a similar manner to Rude Interruption.

I've been looking for some solid info on how much of a DPS gain IA is.

I did some real terrible napkin math with seeing how much of a DPS gain a mageward proc is for AB1.

I did: Non-IA DPS*10 vs IA DPS*8.5 and IA comes out about 6% ahead (with maximum uptime this would come out to 2% total damage increase which I feel is marginal considering the talent points and the additional rotation complexity) .


I'm assuming that with better modeling than basing it off of AB1 DPS the DPS gain would hopefully be larger? I know as of the last time I asked this question SimC was not able to model it so maybe the best way is to model it under different conditions (burn phase vs conserve phase) to get an idea of the effect of IA.

I didn't specifically mention the GCD but if you look at my calculations I used 8.5 instead of 10 of non-ia time since you lose the 1.5 to GCD. Though now that I rethink it 11.5 vs 10 would be a better calculation time frame. By changing the time frame accordingly my layman attempt at calculating increase DPS goes from 6% to 8.5% during that 10s time frame.

I see what you are saying about the base damage sounds logically though was wondering if anyone can confirm. I am unsure of all the properties of AB, does the coefficient change as you stack it? Additional what is the correct way to calculate AB damage, I was using DrDamage to calculate DPS and I see the spell coefficient but something doesn't add up for me.

Rawr supports mage ward modeling, although I haven't done any testing in game to verify spell coefficients on the absorb. The result I'm getting is that using Mage Ward is not a dps increase if it takes a gcd away from normal casting.

In reference to what another poster said earlier is it true that IA Mage Ward has less benefit for higher stacked AB or will it give the same % increase for any AB?

Reason I ask is would it make a difference if we chose to only Mage Ward before a burn phase instead of during conserve phase?

So I did a little experiment. In my base gear my Mage Ward absorbs about 8840 damage for 2786 mana. To make it optimal to use Mage Ward the damage absorbed has to be increased to about 9400 damage or mana cost lowered to about 1900 mana or some combination of the two. In that case it starts being optimal to use the ward on the most stacked burn phases.