Cataclysm Arcane Mage Compendium - Page 5

evilelite · 04/15/11, 9:13 AM

After looking at the latest US PTR notes it would seem we may have to rethink the priority of stats. This is obviously under the assumption that they dont change again in the next couple of weeks before it goes live of course.

The last heard from a stat priority was that Haste > Mastery > Crit. However, given that AB will be reduced to 2.0 secs, it would seem with the current haste rating soft cap (20%? ish) and having any race talents, raid buffs, etc could push the casting past the GCD.

With this in mind it would lower the haste soft cap substantially to the effect that once the soft cap has been reached the stat priority would then emphasis more towards more mastery, then crit. I suppose the real question then is what the new haste soft cap will be. Has anyone from the PTR played about with the haste changes and found the new magical (excuse the pun) number?

Looking forward to the changes in the next patch with AM and ABarr having a 13% increase buff. This should increase the DPS quite a bit during the conservation phase.

On a separate topic once the AB stack has been reached then should be able to keep casting AE without recasting AB as the stack is not to be consumed by AE. Can anyone confirm this?

Malcophant · 04/15/11, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by evilelite

On a separate topic once the AB stack has been reached then should be able to keep casting AE without recasting AB as the stack is not to be consumed by AE. Can anyone confirm this?

Indeed the stack is not consumed, but it is not refreshed either, so for extended AOE, it is likely better to fall into a 3-4xAE,AB rotation to keep the buff stacked.

Beilebog · 04/26/11, 6:24 PM

So with a little napkin math, with 4pc t11 it takes just 10.77% haste for ABlast to get down to 1 sec cast with blood lust (23.08% without 4pc). I am not actually sure if this is a cap to respect as far as reforging or not, however, because outside of lust, haste is so much stronger than crit. It seems obvious to reforge haste to mastery when you can, but what do people think about reforging haste to crit on pieces with mastery to avoid gcd capping during lust?

Kavan · 04/26/11, 10:59 PM

You'll almost always reforge either to hit or to mastery. It's still hard to get to hit cap so the option of reforging haste to crit doesn't really show much often. What will show up is in the choice of what to reforge from. In some cases it'll now be more benefitial to reforge haste to hit on a crit/haste piece.

NecromancerLord · 04/28/11, 2:47 AM

The balance of haste vs mastery is a tough one. Haste is much better during burn phases (assuming of course you have a cast time of over 1 second), Mastery tends to be much better during the sustained damage phase. If you have haste items that you use during burn phases that makes it that much harder. For example as a troll I use berserking during burn phases only. I suspect I need to drop most of my haste for mastery this patch, but I am going to wait for a rawr update and see what rawr says about it. Above like 1300 haste rawr had me reforge to mastery instead which makes sence because I could hit 1.0 ab cast last patch with cooldowns. Considering all arcane mages effectively got close to 15% free haste this patch I bet haste isn't worth nearly as much as it was before. I doubt it will be worthless, but I'm sure it will be closer to the value of crit.

Ertzak@Aggramar

Malcophant · 04/28/11, 4:30 AM

Originally Posted by NecromancerLord

The balance of haste vs mastery is a tough one. Haste is much better during burn phases (assuming of course you have a cast time of over 1 second), Mastery tends to be much better during the sustained damage phase. If you have haste items that you use during burn phases that makes it that much harder. For example as a troll I use berserking during burn phases only. I suspect I need to drop most of my haste for mastery this patch, but I am going to wait for a rawr update and see what rawr says about it. Above like 1300 haste rawr had me reforge to mastery instead which makes sence because I could hit 1.0 ab cast last patch with cooldowns. Considering all arcane mages effectively got close to 15% free haste this patch I bet haste isn't worth nearly as much as it was before. I doubt it will be worthless, but I'm sure it will be closer to the value of crit.

Ertzak@Aggramar

With the change to the AB cast time, we actually have a haste soft-cap now, to drop 4-stacked AB to 1s cast during heroism/bloodlust. From brief testing with simcraft, haste is our best stat before this, and right below mastery after. Assuming 4pc and full raid buffs, only 9%/1153 haste rating is needed for this soft-cap; however, keep in mind that depending on fight mechanics we won't always burn during heroism, and will likely not cast more than a few times with a 4-stack.

All-in-all, mastery seems to be the safest choice of stats, especially as it doesn't increase our mana consumption.

About AE, I had pretty strong success using 4AE 1AB during Maloriak's dark phase to sustain strong dps. The biggest benefit is that the rotation is almost mana neutral with the changes, so all the damage is getting almost 100% benefit from mastery, while allowing you to go straight into a burn when the AOE is done. It really wasn't too bad to keep up the buff during AOE, I did save PoM in case I was slow or had to move. The whole night's log is here if anyone wants to look over it. I'm not sure if it would have been more DPS to simply maintain a single target rotation on the adds, and I'm not entirely sure how to calculate that (or simulate it).

On a side note, does anyone know what raid debuffs count for Torment the Weak? I intermittently used Cone of Cold to try to see if there was a difference in damage, but 6% is within the range of RNG, and procs made it hard to eyeball. If no one else provides a slow for the 6% damage bonus, I'd be interested to see if using CoC on cooldown would be a DPS loss or increase.

Sakku · 04/28/11, 6:09 AM

Interesting thing about AE.

I've uploaded my character in Rawr, made some changes and saw some interesting results.

* Master of Elements points to Shatter 2/2 => due to its mechanics concerning AB, it doesn't really affect mana consumption
* 2 points from arcane usually used for comfort to Improved Cone of Cold
* Glyph of Arcane Missile switched to Glyph of Cone of Cold => only 154.31 DPS loss on AM

And here are the results against 9 targets:

* Arcane Missile unglyphed: 11072.84 DPS
* Cone of Cold: 34255.43 DPS
* Flamestrike: 40084.16 DPS
* AB4AE without TtW: 32027.48 DPS
* AB4AE with TtW: 34071.70 DPS

If you can hit every target with Cone of Cold, that could be interesting to use it into the cycle. But I'm wondering if we have to do it with flamestrike too.

Hibbo · 04/28/11, 6:23 AM

How do I calculate the AB cast time with a 4 stack AB and 4pc/T11?

AB cast time = (2 – 0.1n) x 0.9 where n is the number of AB stacks or
AB cast time = (2 - 0.4) x 0.9

Lemina · 04/28/11, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Malcophant

On a side note, does anyone know what raid debuffs count for Torment the Weak

Thunderclap, frost fever, infected wounds, judgement of the just. Basically all the tank attack speed slowing debuffs.

On non boss mobs, anything that generates a slowing effect, either attack speed or movement speed, counts.

Lurama · 04/28/11, 2:30 PM

I'm not sure if it's a best fit here, but I was noticing that on H Chim I was getting immune resists to Incanter's Absorption. I have no idea what was causing this. I was using Mana Shield for the absorb.

Here's a link to the logs for all of the H Chim attempts and kill that night: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Maybe it's an existing SP buff from a shielded absorb... but I thought it was only absorbs by yourself and your own casts that counted.

Elge · 04/28/11, 4:27 PM

The Immune notification should have been caused by the Knockback portion of the IA talent.

KroLeXz · 04/28/11, 11:21 PM

I can understand the haste cap for lust, but what about the benefits of having the shorter cast for movement fights? Which one out weights the other?

mastakaj · 04/29/11, 2:13 PM

Anyone have a working Mana Gem Power Aura? I am trying to make it pop up on my screen when it's off cooldown. I have it working for Deep Freeze and Freeze when I am frost, but I just cannot get the Mana Gem one to work. It's just nice to have for timing my next burn phases without looking at my bars.

Faxmonkey · 04/30/11, 8:23 PM

Originally Posted by NecromancerLord

The balance of haste vs mastery is a tough one. Haste is much better during burn phases (assuming of course you have a cast time of over 1 second), Mastery tends to be much better during the sustained damage phase. If you have haste items that you use during burn phases that makes it that much harder. For example as a troll I use berserking during burn phases only. I suspect I need to drop most of my haste for mastery this patch, but I am going to wait for a rawr update and see what rawr says about it. Above like 1300 haste rawr had me reforge to mastery instead which makes sence because I could hit 1.0 ab cast last patch with cooldowns. Considering all arcane mages effectively got close to 15% free haste this patch I bet haste isn't worth nearly as much as it was before. I doubt it will be worthless, but I'm sure it will be closer to the value of crit.

Ertzak@Aggramar

I reforged all extra haste to mastery, and when I have lust or troll racial I sit at 1.01 second AB cast time. Obviously stat weightings always fluctuate with gear levels, but I doubt any Arcane Mage is going to want to actively focus on haste under any circumstances. Crit likely edges it it out too, I'd bet.

Toshagg · 05/01/11, 9:57 AM

rawr shows more dps with Glyph of Arcane Barrage, so is that true?