Ok my dps on arcane has dropped drastically in the past week. I recently got my 4-set 378 gear and I'm not sure if that has to do with it.. Last week I was doing 35-40k burns and averaging 20-22k dps at the end of the fight. Now I do 25-30k burn phases and end with 17-18k dps. What has changed? Was there a hotfix for arcane or something? My play style has not changed. I am noticing that I am not critting as much now, but my crit % is around the same as it was before.

Spearmint @ Eonar - Game - World of Warcraft

Can anyone notice if there is something wrong there? I have looked over my gear thoroughly and checked for right enchants and reforges but I can't seem to see what has happened. Maybe my crits have just been unlucky? I really have no idea what happened.

To give you a rundown of my rotation -

I AB until around 90% and I pop all cooldowns (AP, mirrors, gem). I dps to about 30%, then orb and evocate. Then AB/AM spam to keep myself around 90% until next burn phase.

This is the same rotation that I have been using for a month or two now with success. Now my dps sucks and I don't know why.

First thing that comes to mind is missing a raid buff. As far as I am aware, arcane mages benefit quite a lot from optimal buffs. Did your raid composition change at all between those attempts?

Hello.

Here's a parse from this week's baleroc. I am not soaking shards so its pretty much a patchwork fight for me. I think I'm doing okay, but with my gear, I feel that I should be doing better, however I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I'd appreciate any insight into something that I could be doing differently.

Also, am I missing something or is the arcane mage thread gone?

Parse: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Armory: Azoot @ Antonidas - Game - World of Warcraft

I'm not even going to pretend to give you advice about your Mage, but as far as the arcane forum goes: when you are on the forum page, go to the bottom left and you should see a drop down menu that allows you to see older sub forums. They're automatically hidden when they go for a month or so with no new posts.

mxlpct, thank you for the response.

Haste? Interesting. I'm not doubting you, but I'm wondering how you determined I was reforged incorrectly? I just rechecked RAWR and its weighting my mastery at 1.72 vs. 1.68 for haste. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a naif in regards to RAWR, but that would seem to support a focus on mastery, no?

There are some cusp points for haste rating that give it extra value when you add enough of it. The obvious ones are getting an extra AB inside your AP (and/or lusted AP), but I'm sure there are more subtle ones that Rawr evaluates. That's why it's best to use the optimizer, or at least compare whole pieces of gear. The stat values page is meant as an FYI, not as a strategic guide.

Check out your fight duration too. Except heroic Rag, all the fights in Firelands are very short now. That can change haste's value. When we get back to long fights in 4.3, optimize again.

Finally remember to check the numbers. Your 1.68 and 1.72 are within 4% of each other. At that rate, a 1000 rating reforge would net you a 40 dps gain. (Disclaimer: that rate is not actually available, see paragraph 1.) Those stat values would tell me to carefully check both a haste-stacked and a mastery-stacked gear set, since I have no idea which stat is going to be favored after a whole tier of upgrades.

I have a simple question, do the dots we get as fire mages change dynamically with our mastery rating or do they take a snap shot at application?

Edit: A simple test occurred to me after I posted this. I took off my weapon and cloak to eliminate DPS procs. I then put Living Bomb on a dummy and watched the ticks to see baseline static damage. I then popped my Moonwell Chalice and put Living Bomb back on the dummy. I observed the increased dot damage. I then put up a new Living Bomb as the Chalice got close to expiring such that it would expire mid duration. The dot continued to tick for the same damage as when the Chalice mastery was still active.

Results: Fire dots are not dynamic to our mastery but instead work on a snapshot of our mastery at time of application.

What does the conservation phase of arcane consist of? Looking at all the threads it says to try and keep your mana around 100%. But what spells do you cast during it to keep it there. Since evocation has a 2 minute cooldown. I don't see it that beneficial to just use one burn phase then just spam arcane barrage and missile damage wise. Although I may be missing something.

For the most part, yes it is something that you rage about. However, that is for any fight you are fire that is NOT Alysrazor. For that fight and that fight alone you want to get rid of hotstreak completely as it far more important to avoid munching during Burnout. This will ensure that you get the biggest ignite possible prior to hitting your combustion.

The exact rotation you swap to during conserve phase is very gear reliant. The better your gear gets the more intellect you will have and thus the bigger your mana pool. This in turn corresponds to a greater regeneration rate from Mage Armor.

That said, the general rotation will be 3x AB, AM at lower gear levels and 4x or 5x AB, AM at higher gear levels. Then, for those mages looking to min/max to the utmost, there is tracking your intellect, spellpower, and mastery procs. During those times a mage will want to cast 2-3 extra Arcane Blasts to get the most out of them prior to dumping stacks. The final part of the rotation is to actually start a new burn phase at some time such that you will be 30-35% mana just as Evocation comes off cooldown. Again, the timing on when to start this new burn phase will be dependent upon your gear. For myself at an item level of 385, I start my burn phases 35-40 seconds depending upon my mana.

I got the Foul Gift of the Demon Lord today from Mannoroth, and am wondering what the relative values of Mastery and raw Spell Power are for a fire mage. My old trinkets are the JC Figurine - Jeweled Serpent and the Moonwell Chalice, and on raw power I think the Serpent is better than the chalice even with the difference in Int. But I'm not sure how to compensate that against the Mastery proc - I know Mastery is the weakest stat for a fire mage, but surely not that low?

In the interest of dealing with an arcane spec used only in Spine of Deathwing, would the Helter Skelter character of the encounter require a stats setup close to Patchwerk Arcane or could keeping the fire stats (short of a burn phase trinket perhaps), keep it well suited? In practice, it appears that the boss can use an Arcane mage that remains high in mana for most of the fight, unless it has to burn tendons.