@greyrest
Interestingly enough. all three rotations you gave have very similar dpm.Fireball rotation has around 11.4, the others have around 11.9.
So there are no real choices for an arcane mage? Just sit there and alternate barrage and secondary nuke, with Am on procs?

@manly
I am not ready to give you numbers yet, but i want to direct your attention to this observation. Given 50% crit, you can expect hot streak to happen once every 6-7 fireball casts. That's anywhere between 12 and 21 seconds per proc. During that time, you will have to refresh Living Bomb at least once, and there is also a good chance of natural scorch refresh happening in that time frame. This will allow you to near-perfectly pad your hot streaks and dodge the ignite bug from pyroblasts.

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If anyone is interested, the Hot streak model i'm using is a recursive formula where Hot streak probability for cast number N with crit chance CC is calculated as follows:
HS ( N ) = CC*( CC-HS(N-1) ).

It basically says "Fireball number N procs hotstreak if it crits, and the previous one is neither a hot streak proc, nor a noncrit", which seems like a good definition so far. Combined with knowledge that HS (1) = 0, i can calculate a hot streak probability over Q fireballs with (SUM <x=1->Q> HS(x)) / Q

It gives a 0.16(6) probability of hotstreak averaged over 100 fireballs with 50% crit chance.

You get to choose fire vs frost, which can potentially have some interesting subtleties. The DPM is fairly similar because the ABr and MBAM portion of the cycle tends to normalize it. ABr->AB is actually around ~13 dpm, ABr->FB is ~11, ABr->Sc->FBl and ABr->MBAM are ~9. I'm campaigning on the official forums for AB as a mana dump, which makes the choice (and, truthfully, everything about the spec) a bit more interesting.

Edit: On a hunch, I checked FB/MBAM without the ABr, the dps is 3508 and the dpm is 11.5. So, you have more choice there, but the choice is the same. Other options are a couple hundred dps lower. Frostbolt shows well in the ABr->FrB rotations because the larger proportion of ABr damage.

Unrelated: Anybody know how Molten Shields and Frost Warding interact? A 51/60% chance to completely negate fire/frost damage seems like it might come in handy for pvp builds that can grab both or for fire mages in certain pve encounters.

Does it mean arcane suddenly begins to scale very well with haste, adding both basic cast time AND abarr refreshtime?

Related question - what is the best course of action for arc mage in different haste situations? Abarr => Fireball seems like exactly 3 sec cast time under heroism with 3% cast time reduction talent.

Well, refreshing living bomb before using hot streak is an option, but it assumes non 100% LB uptime. Sure, if I know I won't be doing 100% LB uptime, its an easy choice, however, that was already assumed. The tricky part is determining if you're better off always casting scorch/pyroblast over fireball/pyroblast. Its really messy to test because scorch/pyro has a 50/50 on ignite munching, whereas fireball/pyro seems to have 100%. I really ought to run zit, problem is I keep getting problems with wotlk raids where the instance gets full whenever someone resses (which makes extremely short raids).

Just a quick note: I recalculated the whole deep freeze vs. frostbolt on FoF Charge 2 thing accounting for Glyph of Frostbolt. Deep Freeze falls behind at 2100 Spell Power:

FB Spam: 1.555 * 7,175.31 + 1.445 * 5,190.65 = 18658.0963
DF 2nd chg: 5,380.65 + 0.411 * 7,175.31 + 1.989 * 5,190.65 = 18653.90526

Arc scales the same as any other spec with haste, but it's limited by the rotation thresholds caused by the unchanging 3 second ABr cooldown. With a 2.5s fill, you'll hit the haste limit at 33% haste and with a 3s fill at 50% haste. There was a report that the ABr cooldown didn't start till the server got the cast, so in practice those might be a few percents lower. The Naxx 10 gear setup used is at 30% haste fully buffed, so it's about as fast as you're going to get the frostbolt subspec.

When I say Frostbolt shows well due to the higher percentage of ABr, it just means that ABr->FrB is 37.5% of the rotation while it's only 33% of ABr->FB. Since ABr is 4.2k dpct while FB and FrB are 3.2k and 3.0k dps respectively, the higher proportion of ABr offsets the lower FrB dps.

As for the threshold changes, I've been ignoring it until they figure out what AB is going to do. If AB is a dump, you spam AB while weaving ABr to slow mana consumption since you're probably blowing your cooldowns.

How does choosing a 53/18/0 fire build which includes Master of Elements instead of Imp Scorch for an ABarr Fireball (MBarr on procs) rotation affect the DPM figures? I'm at work so can't test but I'm assuming that all five waves of Arcane Missiles have the chance of providing the 30% mana back now that Master of Elements covers Arcane Spells. So both Arcane Missiles and Missile Barrage wouldn't be as poor dpm wise taking into this unique characteristic of the spell.

Also, wouldn't this significantly increase the DPM of using Molten Armour as an Arcane Mage despite the poor in comparison extra crit damage in this talent tree?

Master of elements does not affect channeled spells. In other words, it doesn't affects: AM, blizzard, living bomb (not that its channeled).

Bah, well you know what assumption makes... Nevertheless, it would affect ABarr and Fireballs so DPM figures would be more positive.

Um ... I guess you want to do that because you think Scorch/Pyroblast doesn't cause Ignite bugs?

Has anyone actually tested that?
With Fireball/Fire Blast (projective/immediate) bugging, I'd expect Scorch/Pyroblast (immediate/projectile) to bug out as well.

Anyway:
Casting Scorch instead of half a Fireball is a 864 damage loss with Incineration. 1019 loss without Incineration (that talent is junk anyway).
Pyroblast whose Ignite always bugs is on average 690 damage less than a Pyroblast that never bugs.

So, minor loss from the raw numbers. Sidegrade because you can drop most other Scorches who'd only keep the debuff up.
On another note, that if waiting ~150s before casting the instant Pyro, the loss from dead time would break even with the Ignite gains.
It also means that you're losing about 40 DPS in Naxx-10 gear to Pyroblast Ignite bugs.

Still, the question whether Scorch/Pyroblast is actually safe. I really really doubt it.

Blue quote from the beta US forum:

source

Potential fix to ignite? I'm remaining optimistic. It reads like the way crits are calculated have changed, so anything might come out as a result.

[edit] Having read the replies, it may end up being completely unrelated.

I think this is a bit overstated.

For me, in BC today, without respeccing these are my practical options:

mana gem or flame cap
mana pot or destruction pot
evocate, preferably at a time in the raid where DPSing is impossible or threat-capped
mage armor or molten armor
refrain from especially high-mana-use spells. This is marginal - most of my high DPS spells are decent DPM

This is about the order I use them. I have run into situations where this isn't enough, where
I'm asked to do a bigger job without support than the numbers support and I run OOM.

Here's the known options in WOLK

mana gem or flame cap
mana pot or destruction pot (but only once a fight)
evocate, preferably at a time in the raid where DPSing is impossible or threat-capped
mage armor or molten armor
mage armor+glyph or molten armor+glyph or no armor glyphs
refrain from especially high-mana-use spells. This can be quite significant, WOLK has mana dumps for DPS

If there is a warlock in the raid, being a mage, a reglyph is a 2 minute process - teleport to city, be summoned back. It's less intrusive than respeccing (which can spoil macros, force redesign of your keybinding setc).

I don't see more options as a bad thing. If I've been having trouble with mana on the content I'm working, I'd likely do the whole raid with mage armor+glyph and maybe use a flame cap, destro pot or more living bombs on the portion of content that isn't stressing me for mana. If what's causing trouble is a hard DPS check, or burst DPS check, I'd go with molten armor+glyph. If one of the other major glyphs is needed for a gimmick fight or if I'm switching back and forth between molten and mage armor, I don't bring a mage glyph and instead bring polymorph or something.

This assumes fireball+scorch glyph. If we aren't doing a lot of trash and the boss fights aren't the kind that make maintaining the stack hard (or there is a frost mage or other fire mage), I could dispense with the scorch glyph and carry both armor glyphs, swapping armor as situation demands.

I don't see more options as bad. I do think though at the start of each day, you may want to think about reglyphing, just as you select with elixir/flasks to use, how many potions to bring, which food to use, etc.

With the frostbolt glyph removing it's "slowing effect" does it still provide a sort of chill debuff?

With FoF now proccing off a chill effect, and frostbite always being based on chill, it would seem counter-intuitive for the frostbolt chill to be removed totally, but I am curious just how that mechanic has played out.

There have been three new Battlemaster trinkets of interest announced for 3.0. These are intended to be an honor sink so people have something to spend their stockpiles on before everything gets wiped. I suspect the 70 spell dam trinket and/or the 60 haste trinket will be best in slot for many people.

Yeah, the spell damage one is better than Icon of the Silver Crescent and doesn't require you to click it at the right time for DPS. Plus a little health in an emergency can't hurt. The ZA trinket is still better if you can get it.

(the Icon might be slightly better if you can stack cooldowns, but you can only do that with one clicky trinket, so this makes a darn good "Second trinket")

I'll be in BG's working for that one once it comes out.

I've been looking through two more Patchwerk parses, 25-man versions.

Mirror Image - Spell - World of Warcraft
This spell does about 15k damage per cast consistently.
That's 11k damage added or 61 DPS added if everything goes smoothly, less if it takes time to turn and restart your last cast.

Lightweave Embroidery - Spell - World of Warcraft
This tailoring profession perk enchant adds about 23 DPS, and is being outperformed by a haste enchant in Naxx-10 gear.
But at least we get flying carpets!

Value of Scaling Bonuses in Naxx-10 Gear
CSD Meta - Around +80 spell damage. Hats without meta gems can be disenchanted without second thought.
SC Braid - The mana gem bonus is certainly nice, but level 80 trinkets are about twice as good.

2/5 T5 - Up to +190 spell damage if you spam Blast and have no mana issues. It depends on what changes Arcane gets.

2/8 T6 - +42 mp5, -18 haste. Up to +22 damage total for overstarved Fire specs.
4/8 T6 - +150 spell damage.

2/5 T7 - +57 mp5, +28 spell damage. Up to +72 damage total for overstarved Fire specs.
4/5 T7 - Up to +120 spell damage in the best case (if it is multiplicative with CSD and uses the same mechanics).


Edit: Battlemaster Trinkets
If you have honour lying around, sure. Doesn't hurt to have it, you don't need to click, and it's a mini-emergency pot.
I liked my Arcane Revitalizer during leveling, but on second thought I'd probably prefer a Battlemaster trinket.

As for which one to choose, the clear choice is the spell damage version.
It boosts your damage, your shields, your pet and doesn't decay as much as ratings while you level.

I currently have base mana as 3268 and Arcane Blast's unstacked cost at 9% of that, or 294. However, I have seen others post a cost of 297. Was base mana increased to around 3300?

Same suck, but only cheaper! Fire without Spell Impact is 2% ahead of Blast spam.

Deep Freeze (Rank IV) down from 1425 to 1300 base damage.

I don't think base mana was changed, only base health. Will have a look later, unless someone is faster.

From mmo-champion:

Improved Scorch lol what? This has to be a mistake.

Edit: I'll just change this post instead of making a new one.

* Improved Scorch now only affects your damaging Scorch spells.

I wonder if mage 1 was specced improved scorch and mage 2 was not and mage 2 cast scorch it would refresh or add to the scorch debuff stack?

Was Tigole speaking about another beta-push when he said we won't like the changes to our own class? If the changes listed on different MMO-sites this was a boring push.

This is outrageous!

I'm not in beta nor am I using the PTR actively, but I think it means that Scorch was applying the improved scorch debuff even when it hit an immunity or possibly missed? That's what it sounds like anyway.