Yeah the frostbolt during GCD<1s is definitely not worth it if GCD is almost 1s and most definitely worth it if GCD is quite lower than 1s. What needs to be calculated is where is that point where frostbolting actually becomes better (as well as calculate the alternative of simply not stacking cooldowns in a way that will cause this).

What I still wonder though if non-fire mages are actually a good use of a bloodlust/heroism. Nobody actually ever done the math to compare the benefits of different classes, which would be not-so-hard for non-mana users but any class with mana would be complicated as the DPS gain is quite less than "+30% for 40s averaged over the fight" but also a bit more than "+30% haste for 40s averaged over the fight" due to cooldown stacking. Then again maybe one of those factors is actually significant enough to make the effect bigger than the maximum or smaller than the minimum I just stated. Bottom line is there definitely needs to be a cross-class bloodlust/heroism gain comparison, just like we sort of did in the TC thread for shadow priests' benefit.

You don't really have to agree on those standards. You can just add these as options to the spreadsheet and have every person put his own standards he expects to see in a raid. Just like the ISB calculations as well as DPS gain/loss by speccing destro/aff in the warlock thread, it's just too dependant on raid composition.

That way if your raid prefers some extra DPS over shadow embrace (main reason to spec affliction in the firstplace, with imp being a decent extra and malediction being the "so you don't cry about lack of DPS talent"), it's easy to just set it to 10%. Fact is some raids (if not most) will have 3 warlocks and therefore the CoE VS CoD is a factor at least when you compare raiding with 2-3 arcane mages to raiding with 2-3 fire mages. If your own raid only raids with 2 warlocks and thus CoE is not even an option that option should just be triggered off.

At the end you can't do a global DPS calculation that will be true for everyone. The conditions that affect DPS are simply different and theorycrafting is accurate enough to need to take personalized conditions into account in order to have any chance to increase its usefullness over what we have now.

The theorycraft I did points to arcane possibly being relevant at specific gear levels, those being 2pcT5 and NOT having 4 pieces of T6. Once you have it 4pcT6 is always mandatory, so you have to kill some Sunwell things to get your extra loot for both set bonuses.

Well, I think 2.4 made arcane a real contender, much in the same way the 2.3 coefficient removal put fire back in line. It wins in some areas, and loses in others, pretty much as it should. If anything, I view the whole arcane debate as somewhat like fire vs frost -- it all boils down to personal preferences. I do have to mention that I believe deep frost is taking the wayside with WE not getting benefits from haste and having few cooldowns to stack together.

Yes, 3 innervates. Thank you. I could be off base but giving it to destro locks is probably far more efficient. It doesn't invalidates the build in any way, its just that its hard to take your comment at serious value given the circumstances. Again, this goes back to the whole futility in comparing specs based on wws -- unless you specifically mention all used buffs in both cases. Even then, its a bit futile.

Would locks get that much from innervate considering they have negligible spirit aside from the small number of items they might be using with it (e.g. Leggings of Channeled Elements). Especially opposed to an arcane mage who might be gearing for spirit above and beyond a mage's naturally higher spirit.

I'm a fire mage and have been with small exceptions since hitting MC, so I'm not trying to justify arcane spec or anything (though I would love to do something that would give me the opportunity to not just spam fireball in raids for a change), I'm just not sure how much destro locks would benefit. Does anyone have some maths on this for a destro lock using common gear?

After reading the OP I have learned that the hit cap is 164 for mages. As a Draenei mage, is my hit cap then actually 152?

About this issue of falling below 1 second GCD and spamming frostbolts during heroism/bloodlust that Manly raised up. My thoughts are a bit different. Why stack everything into one heroism? Specifically IV. Why not spread out the haste benefits rather than concentrate them all at aroudn the bloodlust usage period?

That way, you won't go below the 1 second GCD and end up wasting the excess haste that you receive. Since we are already benefiting from haste effects during bloodlust, then there is no necessity to stack IV on top of that, particularly if in Arcane's case, it runs the risk of being wasted.

It will make it slightly more complicated to play, because you have to keep track of IV cooldowns seperately, but its not impossible to manage. And even fire has to manage trinket/drums/combustion/flame cap cooldowns.

The idea is that you will never stack IV on heroism ever. So AB spam will never fall below 1 second GCD and get wasted. The IV will still go on to benefit DPS when used subsequently outside of the heroism/bloodlust period, only that now, its full benefit can be utilised instead of potentially wasting some of its benefits if you end up falling below the 1 second GCD.


On a seperate issue

Actually, a 40 arcane 21 frost build with cold snap has quite a few IV to blow during a full raid fight which will help a lot in mitigating pushback because during IV, spells will not be interrupted. So, there is no pushback during IV. Yet another very subtle change that indirectly benefits arcane builds because it helps in an area which has traditionally placed arcane at a disadvantage in fights with a fair amount of interruption vs other builds. So, counting up all the potential IVs that such a build can use throughout a raid fight. I believe there is now substantially less pushback issues for arcane if a smart 40/0/21 mage can utilise his IV activation times well.


Also I would like to add that for the new arcane style of play after 2.4, four piece T6 is good to have, but by no means necessary. Since the idea is the spam AB as often as you can while falling back to either frost or fire spellss for mana conservation when forced to. Already, there are some boss fights where AB is over 80 to 90% of my damage. And where I can count on one hand the number of filler spells I need to cast.

So, the 4 piece T6 set bonus adds a much lower benefit to deep arcane specs such that even without it, it is not a game breaker. Two piece T5 is what is absolutely required. Sad, and they should really incorporate it into arcane talent tree, but that's a seperate issue. And in the end, that's just 2 equipment slots out of 18.

There really is no general answer to when to stop stacking cooldowns and with which abilities to use them. It depends on specific spec, gear and encounter. As I posted some time ago it's benefitial to stack IV and Heroism with AB up till about 60-70 haste. Above that the clipping costs you more than you get from cooldown stacking. The exact breakpoint will depend on what cooldowns you are stacking. The best way is to throw your gear into an optimizer and see what is best to stack in your case.

I raised in another thread an open challenge for anyone to do the TC comparing unstacking IV from bloodlust for the express purpose of avoiding doing frostbolts. However, there no real tc done on the matter, so I wouldn't call either option optimal yet, although my first order guess would be that unstacking would be better.

Lets also not forget the new sorceror's stone that was introduced this patch. That is a pretty good trinket for the mana hungry arcane spec. 40% more from pots is nice in addition to the very high +dmg on that trinket. I would venture that not that many people are exalted in sunfury offensive yet. (I am working on it myself but far far from getting exalted yet lol).

In any case. I am not trying to say that arcane is the best spec. There is no such thing now in patch 2.4. Fire, frost and arcane all seperately shines in different setups, group compositions, and for different raid fights. There is no clear cut winner. Hence my statement that arcane is a competitive raiding spec. That's the essence of what competitive means. In the end, it will boil down to your individual performance and your raid's composition and the particular raid boss fight involved.