Help me please?
 

This is probably exactly the kind of thread that E&J frowns upon, but hopefully enough good can come from it to justify its existence, similar to the hunter thread that I've blatantly copied.

For various reasons, I'm making the switch from a raiding hunter to a raiding mage. Coming here enabled me to become a significant source of dps on my hunter, and I would like to do the same on my mage. I've been trying to read the various mage threads that searching has picked up, but they are honestly a bit overwhelming. Several of them are 100+ pages long, and its difficult to wade through and find the relevant bits of information for someone just starting out as a BC raiding mage (i.e. I'm 70 and 2/3 spellfire). Can the theorycraft somehow be distilled by those knowledgeable enough?

I had been under the very basic assumption that 10/48/3 was the end word on mage raid dps specs. Once so specced, stacking spell hit was important, and the spell rotation was 5x scorch, fireball ad nauseum with fireblasts on clear cast procs (assuming mana is an issue). Suddenly I'm reading about the power of Arcane specs and arcane blast overlap cycles. I get the gist of it (stack a set number of arcane blasts, then use alternative spells until less than 1.5 secs when you recast arcane blast with haste but no debuff mana cost), but I'm curious about ideal specs/spell rotations for maximum raid dps when using arcane for pve. I'm also curious if, say, an add-on like Quartz removing most of the lag issues in casting would change these answers. I've downloaded Vontre's spreadsheet, but even that is confusing--if you're reading Vontre, what on earth are 5:1, Arcane Blast Ramp, and some of the other cycles listed? Obviously, I need to harass you on your home server with a level one alt.

Finally, where does gear/content fit into this? The mantra I see repeated on the Blizz mage forums and here to a much lesser extent is "2/5 t5 go arcane!" Is this true, or can a well played/researched arcane mage be dominant before then?

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope you stacked arena gear for this. Thanks for the information, though!

Please read the other thread carefully, but to make a long story short, it is no longer get
2/5 T5 and do the 3xAB/AM/scorch rotation, it is get 4piece T6/TLC/MSD/ATOI and spam
arcane missiles unless AP/POM are up, in which case you POM-Pyro.

This is one reason why I wish the Theorycrafting thread was updated to reflect new thinking, at least on mages. Here's my distilled impression from browsing the mage threads for a few months. Corrections are welcome, and I will attempt to edit this post to reflect them.

Historically, 10/47/3 was the safest, highest DPS spec for any newly minted 70 mage. (That leaves 1 point floating, which you can put nearly anywhere without further affecting your DPS.) Start was 5xScorch, then 8xFireball,1xScorch until dead. Add Combustion and use trinkets when a solid burn window appears.

No fireblast on CC. This would require checking for CC after every cast where fireblast is off cooldown, rather than just starting another cast immediately; this reduces your DPS considerably. Even if you had zero lag and perfect reaction time, it still consumes a GCD, part of which could have been spent casting a fireball; IIRC, some sources report this results in lower DPS as well.

The biggest challenger to 10/47/3 was deep arcane, notably an ABx3,AM,scorch rotation until a certain point where you switch to AB spam, with the goal of killing the boss just as you go OOM (including evocation). This proved to beat 10/47/3 only when the two-piece T5 bonus was acquired. It is also highly dependent on the presence of a shadow priest in the mage's group, with a mana totem and JoWisdom as well.

Patch 2.2 buffed the Mystical Skyfire Diamond, ushering in the age of AM-spam. This seems to be the hot fad now; not only does it beat both 10/47/3 and AB/AM alternation, but it also comes much earlier in the mage's gear ladder (namely, a T4 helm).

(One thing I'm not quite clear on is whether it beats AB/AM arcane if you have two T5s and either fully gemmed spellstrike or VR cowl, but no meta-gem hat better than season 2, or - shudder - Incanter.)

Patch 2.3 promises a repeal of the fireball (and frostbolt) damage tax, which puts deep fire strongly back in play. Theorycraft shows very close results so far between arcane and fire; naturally, there are no empirical numbers yet.

I haven't run conclusive tests, but I'm running AM spam with the blue meta helm from the terrorkar guy (the one that costs 20 spirit shards) and it's still a strong contender. I was too impatient and wanted to test out the spec, grabbed it and I'm very happy.

Assuming I've got a shadow priest, which I'm getting whenever it's possible (we put them with healers for naj'entus, for example) it's sustainable enough for any boss fight up to Teron/Kazrogal (I haven't been on any fights further in progression) with chain potting/gemming/etc.. When JoW is gonna be up and I have a shadow priest, I've got plenty of mana and I switch to molten armor and use AP at the beginning (so it can refresh during fight for sure) regardless of CC.

I'm seeing a large increase in damage over using my spellstrike hood. The gem itself is accounting for about a 15% increase in damage. The difference in stats between the blue helm and spellstrike is not 15% of my dps stats.

I don't have 2pc T5 though, so it's hard to say. I want to get a T5 helm and shoulders, as the base stats are good already, and it gives me the option of AP+AB spamming if I've got a plethora of mana (i.e. if JoW is up, which has been hard to convince my guild of how big of a boon it is. Our prot pally tries to keep it up on a lot of fights, but there's still some that we could have it up for that we don't.) . Without 2pc T5, I think the ABx3, AMx1, scorchx1 trickery actually does basically the same DPS. Fully debuffed AB spam with 2pcT5 is more dps then simple AM spam, but hardly 'sustainable' in any way. It still gives a mini burst dps effect if you've got the mana to burn to end the fight. I call it the mage finishing move. :)

There's another mage in our guild who has 2pc bonus and does the whole AB/AM/scorch rotations. He even does full AB spam on trash. He does more dps then me, but he has also has me quite out-geared and it's not as big of a gap as it should be for his gear. Doing quick and dirty math, I've calculated I'd have higher dps then him with comparable gear, which assumes he is still doing AB/AM/Scorch and I'm just AMing. I don't have TLC or ashtongue trinket at all. Trying hard to get in some karaz runs for the TLC, but the guild is 4 bosses deep in hyjal and BT now, no one really runs karaz anymore. The other mage wants a meta helm to go AM spam too, and I think he'll stay ahead of me if he does, depending on gear, of course.

Also, i agree that the theorycraft thread needs to be updated. I have been tempted to gather the arcane info myself and write up a summary thread. Like, how many of the arcane 'pieces' (MSD, TLC, Ashtongue trinket etc..) you need to make it worthwhile to switch, and in what situations it's weaker (if you don't always get a shadow priest and/or JoW on the mobs). Afraid I'd get told to 'stfu and read the 100 page thread nub!' though. It's really quite ridiculous to expect people to catch up on a thread that big, especially since the first half of pages are mostly outdated info now.

Well, to be fair... if the first half of the thread is outdated, then you only have 50 pages to go through. :) (More accurately, every 15th post or so contains something durable; the rest are short-term discussions of side tactics or temporary gear combinations, particularly trinkets.)

If the spirit shard hood is yielding such good results for you in BT, then I'm very tempted to try that. The other options still seem grim. I'd hate to pour an entire MSD into an Incanter's, for example, just to test it against my 3-ruby SS. I'd also hate to spend my arena points on the hat, instead of the weapons I -really- want, unless I knew for sure it was an improvement. (Not to mention the thought of doing that and then seeing the hat drop on our next pick-up Kara.)

It's a lot easier to get a strong set of fire gear early in the raiding game in my experience, and it will last you all the way through SSC/TK. AM spam will for sure outdamage a fire-spec, but having the mana to sustain it might prove difficult if your shadowpriest isn't top notch/you dont got JoW up (I never get JoW, our paladins think it's too much a hassle). As already mentioned, AB spamming is obsolete, and was never really viable before 2 pieces of t5. The AB rotations are really only for conserving mana until the point where you can dump all your mana spamming AB, and ideally end the boss-fight at 0% mana the second he dies.

From the 2/5 T5 with no extra haste perspective I'd say it's better to switch to AM spam. Compared to ABx3+AM+Sc with RED before I'm seeing on the order of 100 dps increase in practice. You still want to use AB spam though, because you don't have enough haste to drain your mana with just AM spam. So it would most likely be AB spam on AP and AM spam otherwise.

What content are you raiding?

At your gear level I am guessing Karazhan. I was and am an arcane mage throughout BC raiding (we are now early in SSC/TK). And here is my experience:

In Karazhan, once I got all 5 pieces of tailored gear I would be in a close race for 1 or 2 with a well-played rogue. I was doing AB spam on trash and AOEing and ABx3 AMx1 cycles on bosses. It was challenging and fun -- I especially loved doing the imps on illhoof with my FR set.

But when we got together with the other Kara group to start Gruuls, I found that the other mage with equivalent gear and a classic fire build would out damage me very easily. I fell to the middle of the pack. (He would be top 3, I was normally 7-10). I still would out damage our medoicre players and I could out burst just about anyone, but sustained damage wasn't there (even in an SP group). The reasons for this were 3-fold:

1) Fights were longer so mana management is more important. Fire is just more efficient.
2) Fights required more moving which makes maintaining cycles nearly impossible. The key to AB cycles is being able to get a 1.5 sec AB for 190 mana.
3) Longer time spent on the last 20% of the boss's damage means more boost to fire spec.

I had lots of fun doing arcane thru this, but if you want to do top damage, it is not a good choice. (I was always 1 or 2 on HK fight tho FYI -- it is a faster burst em down type of fight.)

With 2.2 another option opened up for arcane mages. AM spam with MSD (especially if you have the LC) is very viable pre-T5 if you have access to a SP and/or high JoW uptime. With that I am now competitive with our top fire mage, and in the top 5 most of the time now. I would say that he still does more damage on most boss fights, especially new ones, but it is much much closer.

If you are having mana issues with AM spam you can do ABx1 AMx2 with AM on clearcast or focus proc's and it will stretch the mana much further with the extra regen ticks. This does not require timing like the other AB cycles so it is much easier to accomplish.

I haven't done the real analysis of AM spam vs AB spam with 2 piece T5, but my impression is that T5 just went from an absolute must have for the arcane mage (people were telling me to pull rank and take it over the other mages, locks and hunters) to really good to have but not worth the political drama :)

Bottom line: starting raiding either AM spam with MSD and SP or classic deep fire is viable. AB rotations should really wait until T5.

I gave this a bit of a try shortly after 2.2 was released by re-gemming my pre-Kara blues (including Oblivion head) to meet the meta requirement and swapping Spellstrike, shoulders, and feet for pre-Kara blues and lost 50 spell damage overall. Respecced to 48/13/0 (link). I don't have a Lightning Capacitor. On our first-ever Void Reaver try (our guild and realm is not very advanced, sorry) I got:

Try 1: 629DPS, 73% DPST, 100% Arc Missiles 0% miss.
Try 2: 681DPS, 66% DPST, 100% AM 4.3% miss.
Try 3: 569DPS, 75% DPST, 100% AM 3.9% miss.
Try 4: 671DPS, 81% DPST, 99% AM 1.1% miss.

I re-specced to 10/48/3 for Gruul on Wednesday (which I would say is a fairly similar fight with a fair amount of running around and all) and put back on my Spellstrike, T4 shoulders and maiden boots (+1016, 163 spell hit) and got:

Try 1: 691DPS, 93% DPST
Try 2 (Kill): 823DPS, 85% DPST

I think with a Lightning Cap AM spec and spam is a viable alternative to 10/48/3 Fire in T4-level and crafted gear, but the short range and lack of mobility is annoying.

Using WWS and DPS doesn't work too well when comparind arcane specs to fire specs, because a fire spec will have 100% up-time (due tot he fireball DoT) while the arcane spec will occasionally have downtime due to Shatters, Arcane Orbs, etc.

As for specs, I'd strongly reccomend Deep Fire until you're done with Kara. Arcane specs are very mana hungry and 10-man raiding has the strong possibility of not having a shadow priest/JoW/Resto Shaman. From what I've read, a deep arcane spec with MSD keeps pace with a deep fire spec- until set bonuses (like 2-piece tier 5 or 4-piece tier 5) or the Ashtongue Talisman are available. The up-time of Curse of Elemtents, length of the fights, and number of additional mana-regen options you get (JoW or Resto Shaman) are also important factors.

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Of course, all this information could change in 2.3.

People still refer back to things in those pages though, and some of it still applies. If you only started on page 58, or whatever, you'd be pretty lost anyway. I didn't know what 'double dipping' was forever because I had tried to do that. I've since read the whole thing, or at least skimmed it.

As for my helm, let me make a few notes before you run out to get an incanter's or something and gem it. I was/am undergeared compared to the other guild mages. I had been on an extended absence and just came back to the game a little under 2 months ago. I was regularly at the bottom of meters with fire because of my gear. You really can't effect your dps as fire too much with player skill, it plateaus quickly. I was looking forward to grabbing 2pc T5 since it's largely a skill based spec with that, and I thought I could jump up a bit. Then the MSD change and I saw that AM spam was doing 100+ dps more then fire spec in comparable gear. I didn't want to wait until I got a T5 helm (since we don't run ssc/tk every week now and other people who want them are higher dkp) to try it out. I also had quite a bit of gold to spend to try it out. I had the spirit shards, and I finally just decided to run out and get it instead of trying to grind out enough points for merc glad helm or trying to get into karaz runs (which happen even less then SSC/TK) for a T4 helm.

I saw a significant increase in dps, especially on shorter fights and trash, with switching out the spellstrike and re-gemming all +9dmg gems or a purple here and there to offset the handful of +8hit I still have. I've also been bored with fire for a long time, so I'm happy with this spec.

These two encounters, and your gear choices for each, really make this a highly flawed example. You switched out far inferior gear (pre-kara blues?!) for arcane to compare with T4/5 equivalent gear? Also, the two fights are very different. You can have much higher dpst on void reaver if done properly, but it requires using fireblast and other spells to maximize dps. You have enough time after you get targetted to finish your cast and then move far enough away to start another cast. However, you have to be very aware of all other players, cause if you get targetted, finish cast, move, start cast and some other player had been in that spot before then you are either going to get hit and silenced (not good) or have to stop your AM cast (lesser of two evils, but still shitt), resulting in a huge loss of mana for almost no damage.

I've been considering trying the MSD AM spam thing but I think I read somewhere that it is/is going to be nerfed so that channeled spells consume the buff. How much does this nerf actually hurt the spec?

Channeled spells consume the AM debuff as of the 2.2 release. There was a week or so on the PTR where it did not and that was ridiculous. As an example, I was pulling ~1100 dps on Boom instead of the mid-700 dps I get on live right now. The AM discussion in this thread ignores that period of time on the PTR, so that bug-fix has been taken into account.

I personally nuke arcane because we regularly have a spriest and get CoS but not CoE. I do chain-chug super mana pots (and love the time we spend in gruul's and TK) and use my [Pendant of the Violet Eye] as well. In exchange, I'm competitive for the top spot in most fights and compare favorably to the good 10/48/3 mages I can find in WWS for Kara. I also get to keep ice block, which I love.

Considering reading a 100 page thread in order to find the answer to one question isn't quite ideal, I have a quick question.

My armory is as follows: The Armory

Would it be better for me to swap to 9 spell damage over the 4 crit 5 damage ones I have now? If so, how much of an increase will I see? Thanks :)