Any particular reason you chose that specific spec for your Arcane mage?

52/19/0 seems very odd to me, and by looking at the output, it seems to not make sense as well.

You delve into fire to get MoE at the expense of more spirit, ok, however, spirit regen dominates over MoE which comes second to last on the self based mana regens (just in front of Clearcasting).
Furthermore, why does the Resource(Mana) time line show such a steady decrease? I am not certain, but that is not how I would play my Arcane mage. Mana would fluctuate much much more frequently as I take complete advantage of a 2 min evocate. (Essentially I would aim to have dumped all my mana - post gems/pots - by the next Evocation cycle). Furthermore, I would not be using my PoM on a pyro, I would get much more mileage from it by using it on getting an extra AB stack.

As far as I can see, one of the core real goodies of going into the fire tree is Ignite, however, an Arcane spec will just not make use of it. The other being MoE, which is just not seem to be pulling its weight in that build.

I would propose a different off tree. Arc/Frost. Look at what you gain.

* More itemization points for Spell Power - Taking a look at the stat contributions we see that SP wins out (far above crit, which you are linking to Arcane spec regen through MoE). Going minor in frost means that you save 3% hit, which you can then dump into SP.
* Icy Veins - As shown before, an IV at 2 mins is joy, since you can sync it up with Evocation (and gloves if you have them) for extremely fast evocates which as a side bonus are completely safe from being interrupted by damage! A fast and reliable evocate? Yes please, thank you.

Just having this extra utility I believe makes a strong case for the reality of a arcane raid spec. If possible, run the numbers for it and see what you get.

I linked the spec earlier in this thread, but here it is again.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
NB. the 2 points in ice shards can be varied. Though having that extra crit damage for the occasional blizzard is not bad.

If I were to redesign evocation with the least changes, I'd probably say one of either changes below:

1- remove the cooldown on evocation (great for farming) or
2- make evocation work like innervate, but with a few restrictions:
-> cost a GCD
-> breaks on damage taken (invis-style) or deal 50% damage for the duration

Just a quick point, but it would be every 2.4 minutes, right? The IV cooldown can only be reduced by 20%.

Indeed, sorry, I was more so just typing quickly. That being said, IV does not need to be used exactly on every evocate. I would usually use it when there is 2-5 seconds left on the IV, since it lasts 20 seconds and the cooldown begins as soon as you cast it, you will potentially only be out of sync for 4 seconds if you start the evoc on the last tick of IV (it will still get the speed benefit).

My main point was that just having IV in your spell book is a good idea. Its strength comes from its versatility.

1. Use it for speedy Evocates
2. Use it for 'shielded' Evocates
3. Use it for DPS boosts
4. Use it for general pushback prevention (not that much of an issue now, but every little helps).

Making a Arc/Frost build just as able (if not more) than a arc/fire build. As I stated earlier, the only real thing fire brings to Arcane is MoE, which, as the sim shows, is not really contributing to that much of the mage's overall mana regen. In light of that fact, my post was more of an intent to show that the arcanist gains (in the form of more itemization points for SP and the great utility of IV) a lot more when going for a minor in frost.

I was thinking about adding a 10s debuff that reduces damage done by 50% (with no cooldown). It's an elegant solution because it discourages you from popping it for single ticks during breaks in raid encounters while leaving no real penalty for using it for full duration.

Wee, more sims! Thanks a lot!

If I understand that correctly, you essentially prioritise MBAM, AP, PoM when they come up and follow do "AB*3-ABar" otherwise?
It's going to be interesting how "AB*1-ABar" and "AB-spam" as base cycles compare to that.

Hm, also, is it possible to do a cycle "AB*1-ABar if haste<33%, else AB*3-ABar", somehow disabling "AB*2-ABar"?
The logic would be something like:
mirror_image/arcane_power/arcane_missiles,barrage=1/presence_of_mind,pyroblast/{arcane_blast if stack==2}/arcane_barrage/arcane_blast
If forces casting AB if you have 2 debuffs, which should force our cycles.
I just don't know if it's possible to code the part in brackets.

As for specs, I don't think we have a definitive be-all-end-all Arcane spec yet.
Precision/Veins is very powerful. But Ignite-PoM-Pyro with +30% crit is noticable while providing Imp. Scorch if needed.

I'm positively surprised to see Frost not as far behind as it used to be though!


Also, adding a fourth question:
4) How does Living Bomb/Hot Streak work on AoE explosions?
How does it proc when the explosion hits and crits several targets?

The thing about the lifetap comparison is, nominally the cost of Lifetap is actually the health, whereas Evocation the cost is literally the time spent channeling. In a fully-buffed raid situation with spare healers who have spare mana we make the simplifying assumption that lifetap only costs time. Personally I would like it if that were changed, since it seems silly to me.

Another redesign to fix evocate is that mages simply do more damage while they have mana, and run out of mana faster than other classes, to the point that building for sufficient longevity is a comparable DPS loss to using evocation. This is actually similar to the mana-interesting option of having a high-DPS inefficient filler and a mid-DPS efficient filler, taken to the extreme that your efficient filler has negative cost and zero DPS.

Yeah, it's a bit of a radical redesign, but I'm of the opinion that no evocation fix is going to matter worth a damn without breaking down mage's evo-less sustainability. Part of fixing evo is creating a problem for evo to address. Part of the problem, though, is player attitudes. Even if your damage is balanced around evo taking time from your DPS, and it's accurate to look at the time-cost of your spells by including the evo-time it requires, the player perception is still that evo is lost DPS. It's a hard thing to break and may be insurmountable from a design perspective.


BTW, if you want to discourage evoing for one second at a time, you can add a cast time before the channel. Personally I think evo would mesh will with movement fights if you had to spend 1.5s casting (maybe instant with arcane talents) to gain an evo buff that you could move during, and were possibly silenced for.

I have seen a resurgence in these type of requests/comments lately where mages from all corners of the spec triangle propose giving mages a "lifetap"-ish spell (i.e spammable mana regen) which 'solves' our mana issues (Not singling you out, just quoting you to set up the post). I think this is not needed and will not happen. This is my reasoning.

The mage mana regen paradigm is different to the warlock mana regen paradigm. Think of mana regen in general as being split into 2 categories: Active and Passive.

Active mana regen - A mana regen model in which the player has to actually do something (commit to an action that is a non-DPS game action) to regain mana. This usually occurs at the cost of a GCD (though not always). Lifetap is an example of a spell that lives in the Active mana regen bucket.

Passive mana regen - A mana regen model where the player does not have to necessarily press a button (i.e. commit to a different game action) in order to regain mana.

These two models sit at opposite ends of a scale. All mana classes sit somewhere on this scale.

Warlocks, for example, make heavy use of Active mana regen through Lifetap. This is offset by them having very poor (indeed) passive mana regen since they inherently have very mana inefficient spells to begin with as well as limited choices for passively regaining mana during combat.
Priests and mages make excellent use of passive mana regen (now more so than ever with the addition of passive mana regen for fire). On top of this mages' spells are very mana efficient to begin with, as well as having options to make their spells more mana efficient through talents.

This makes warlocks tend more towards the Active mana end of the scale whereas mages tend more towards the Passive. That being said, mages are not completely on the passive end of the scale. The fact that they have mana gems as well as evocation means they are not exactly a 'pure passive' mana regen class (though I wouldn't be surprised if they were initially designed with that in mind, esp since evocation started off as a talent). Though we must remember that it is important for these abilities to be on longer-ish cooldowns, since they are not meant to be the primary method for mage mana regen.
Furthermore, there is also a variance in how far along this scale different mage specs are. Frost being very efficient makes less use of the active mana regen abilities, whereas arcane being mana hungry needs to use these abilities more often and with more thought, hence adding to the idea of having diversity in specs.

So what is the point of these different ways and this varying scale when it concerns mana regen you may ask? Well it serves many purposes;
We already know that Lifetap makes a significant impact on warlock DPS, since he is having to spend a GCD on it and hence having to weave it into his rotations on a regular basis. In this way, active mana regen serves as a method to temper a classes DPS output.
Mages' having their 'active' mana regen being on long (relatively) cooldowns makes it imperative that the mage be smart about when and how he uses it. A mage mistiming or misfiring an Evocate would devastate his mana, a warlock misfiring a lifetap, not so much. But this is a good thing since it forces mages to consider their mana more carefully.
Furthermore, having different mana regen models does provide more interesting gameplay due to the fact that the two classes with different models will end up playing slightly differently. This is a good thing from a game design standpoint.

Either way, I believe the mage mana regen problem is being solved by blizzard by keeping the basic paradigm of mage mana regen in tact (i.e. the paradigm being that mage mana regen is primarily passive supported by long cooldown but big returns active mana regen abilities). This is probably why they are still stacking spirit on mage gear as well as trying to spread the "regen x% mana while casting" talents. In this way, it is balanced.

Giving mages a spammable active mana regen ability on top of their passive ones would to some extent break this balance.

You do appreciate that the vast majority of raiding mages who have any hope of being competitive have precisely 0 passive regen, right? Tacking 30% regen onto Pyromaniac will go some way to redress that, but (ignoring the brief happy period where Arcane Missiles ruled the world) Molten Armour killed spirit as a raiding mage stat stone dead thoughout BC, that will change as mentioned, but claiming that the majority of mage regen comes from passive mechanisms is flatly incorrect.

The solution to any and all mage mana issues really shouldn't come down to 'Throw up Mage Armour and Stack Spirit,' it really is now akin to basing Priest regen on Strength in so far as the actual relevance of the stat goes.

Keep in mind too that the Pyromaniac change is simply offsetting the JoW change. Math on my gear says that even adding 30% regen I'm still going to end up down about 20 mp5 fully raid buffed. Spirit is still a completely incidental stat as far as I'm concerned and frankly until/unless we gain some meaningful amount of DPS from spirit as Fire/FFB specs, that will never change.

[e] clarified wording, I didn't mean to imply that I ever expect to gain DPS from spirit.

Which is unlikely to ever happen because mage mana was balanced around the fact that we would not run out of mana. The fact that mages have the lowest base mana is the most immediate indicator of this, considering that spells mana cost are a percentage from the base mana. We have no spammable mana regen option, in revenge we get a lot (the most?) mana saving options from talents, or from the base mana.

This is hitting the nail squarely on the head. The rest of your post is also very pertinent to my original point.

Like all things, blizzard, I believe, wanted to give the different classes different things to "manage" in combat. For some it's threat, for some its HP, for some its cooldowns, for some its mana.

I do not agree with the assertion that mages were designed to never run out of mana simply due to them having the lowest base mana because, simply, those statements do not follow. Believing such an assertion to be true just due to that one fact requires a very large inductive leap at best, or an even larger stretch of the imagination at worst.

Mages were designed and are balanced around having them manage their mana and the designers have stated this on various occasion with a fair degree of clarity. If that means knowing when to switch between mage and molten armors at the sake of DPS then so be it. If that means managing their long 'mana back' cooldowns then so be it. If that means gearing in the right way and allocating stats to something that does not directly influence their DPS output, then so be it.

In my humble opinion, removing the 'mana management' aspect from mageplay will cause the class to be one-dimensional. I may not speak for all mages, but I do believe many would agree with me when I say that I do not wish to be "Max DPS" at the expense of becoming one-dimensional since in no way do I judge my importance and/or level of 'fun' based off of a DPS list and whether or not I, without fail, will sit at the top of it.

That is just poor gameplay.

They have been modifying gems and evo relatively often. This is the preferred alternative to forcing mages to sacrifice stats on their gear to get spr or mp5 and rely on the passive regen. It requires more knowledge, more planning in advance, and it's way more dynamic because the timing changes on every fight. All in all, mages are much less willing to pick up regen stats than having to evo more often.

Evo on a two minute CD for all specs would be a good option imo. Benefits for trash (no more spamming drink) and it keeps mages from ever going oom while still requiring strategy. This pyromaniac change is the wrong direction while evo goes the right way.

What I want as a mage for mana regeneration-

Spirit as a stat that slightly boosts my DPS. Not enough that Spirit is a desired stat, but enough that (in the future) I don't have a zero mana-regen gear set and a mana-regen set and can just have random spirit on my gear.

The ability to move with Evocation. I don't care about the DPS loss, but it bothers me to have to synchronize my Evocation with standing still AND not taking damage. Especially when it comes to pulling trash in 5-mans. I hate being the guy in the back drinking or evocating.

---

I'm still bothered by a few things with this update. Improved Scorch and Winter's Chill need to provide a DPS boost, so that multiple mages don't feel lousy taking the skills. And to give Arcane Mages who take three points in Improved Scorch something beyond a warm fuzzy feeling if there's another fire mage in the raid.

And group Amplify Magic. And a better UI to acknowledge when Amplify Magic is working and on what abilities.

In my concocted example the Arcane Mage is very tight on mana...... and my default config is VERY generous with the sources of mana regen. My problem..... my REAL problem is that I have to realistically pick one fight signature (tank-n-spank in this case). I could code up fight interrupts with little difficulty...... but the problem doesn't go away..... I still have to pick one fight signature and the flow of that fight will dictate some specs.

As I already mentioned, mana was tight for the Arcane Mage. As many people have mentioned in this thread, Evocation is an active regen mechanic. Used on every cooldown in full-burn fight it represents a ( 8sec/120sec ) = 7% dps loss. Obviously, fights with regular breaks requiring little movement would potentially drive that dps loss down to zero...... but my example is a full burn.

With that as my starting point, MoE or Frost Channeling became a must-have talent. I chose MoE primarily because I could get Incineration on the way and the top dps "rotation" had 55% of my damage being down by AB.

But..... I really didn't test the alternative. I'll give your spec a shot.

The point remains though, as it always had - regardless of how the designers conceptualised mage mana regen, every jot of evidence we saw from raiding throughtout the last expansion necessitated constant DPS time to justify our spot. Evocating had a ruinous effect on our ultimate output, gemming over capping (no longer a concern, thankfully) a smaller but still noticeable one, and mana potting over destro potting became the least of the possible evils.

Doesn't that in itself speak to the weird nature of mage mana regen? We completely diregarded the SPECIFIC tools Blizzard gave the class to manage our mana, and ended up popping mana pots when necessary (i.e, when someone else got the Shadowpriest). Moreover, we chose that option not because it was good, but because it was 'less bad' than either evocating or switching to mage armour.

This conversation is presently fairly moot given FFB mages abound and balance is an ongoing concern, but if mana becomes a problem once the devs finish their tinkering, I maintain, barring a major overhaul, mages will NOT start looking to spirit to solve their problems.

EDIT - Radikal has the point I think. Further though, in the past where we presume we were balanced around something, it certainly wasn't using Mage Armour and poping Evo every two (or even eight) minutes to regen. The class has clear options - Mage vs Molten being an obvious one, but past experience has indicated that in any situation where we have to actually justify our spots, the choice is made for us. I'll take the Crit Armour up to the point where I can raid with Glyphed Mage Armour and still justify occupying a DPS slot, which I'm not aware the devs have ever made possible in the past, and I doubt are likely to make viable in future.

My concerns for arcane arn't the mana management; I'm actually quite happy with where mages are with mana right now. A little planning ahead and good play will keep you above water for mana (by good play I mean timing your evocates properly, making sure you hit a gem early so its off cooldown for a 2nd/3rd use, etc). Mana management IS something you think about even if you've been doing it for so long now that its become habitual. You can't walk into a fight with no Gems, Molten Armour, no Evocate and low Int gearing and expect to be able to blow chain nukes the whole way. Maybe some fights fall in such a way as to allow that (extremely quick, lots of time spent out of FSR), but for a majority of fights you ARE handling your mana actively.

No, my concern with arcane is that every place I've seen the lists stat scaling has put arcane squarely at the bottom of of the ladder for every stat bar Int. Spell power, crit and haste all scale better on other specs. So how will arcane compare in Ulduar++?

Just a sobering reminder on how quickly the game can evolve and things can change:

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Upcoming Mage changes
Only 2 months ago. Meaning they've probably been revisiting the mana concerns - particularly evocation - recently.

I wanted to answer this specifically because it's a topic that has come up because spell power is a better stat to stack than hit at certain gear ranges and because of the elemental precision bug. Not only is it a generalization to say that a class as a whole values things in this manner, but I'm willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of informed mages would (and did) gear for the hit cap regardless of bugs and transient stat ratios. There's a difference between preference, which influences the choice between hit and spell power or spell power food and crit food (pretty negligible), and no-brainers, which occur when the game is not tuned tightly enough.

I disagree with your question for the reasons above, but you answered it yourself at the end of the quote. Min-maxing.

Mage mana regen mechanics are absolutely fine. Our problem is that our top dps spec doesnt make use of any passive regen, nor does it need it. The solution is so amazingly simple, Im honestly confused as to how Blizzard has yet to implement it. Simply balance Arcane DPS around the idea that it will be using a gear set with X amount of spirit (which takes the place of offensive stats) so that it is equal to that of a Frostfire build using a gear set with 0 spirit on it. When the Arcane mage uses his 0 spirit FFB set, he does insane dps but cant sustain it for more than perhaps 90 seconds in a raid buffed setting. When this same Arcane mage switches in some items with spirit, he finds that his dps is still competitive with FFB and other classes, while having similar mana constraints.

A couple things:

1) On the PTR, deep fire has 30% mana regen
2) Mana is not absolutely fine otherwise change #1) and the Evo cd being reduced wouldn't be happening.


To wit, in a Naxx10 group, a FFB spec mage can go oom fairly quickly in a long fight. You use your mana gem each time, and evocate and can still go oom. It's happened to me on KT in Naxx10 when we didnt have a replenishment in the raid I was in. Also, on any fight that has some AoE mixed in, mana is indeed an issue. In 25 man raids it can still happen, though not as easily.



The brick wall that we hit happens after you have exhausted all your options. There is nothing left to do. Sure you can manage your stuff better, but only so much. It also sucks to have to wand b/c some random AoE interrupted your Evo on the first tick. Evo interruptions blow chunks =(

The thing with mana atm is that with a decent raid and good gear, you wont run oom on any fight in wotlk.

On my guilds first kelthuzad kill I would run oom and have to wand a little with my ffb spec.
This week when he died I had 25% mana left and could use a haste pot. No evo used.

Heavy trash aoe is the only place where my mana bar will suffer and a 2 min evo would be great. I see no point in gearing for regen what so ever.

Edit : on the note of awesome 90 seconds arcane damage, blizzard cant do that, people would just find a way to get past the mana problem and do insane damage on shorter fights. Hello druids, Pi priests and resto shamans!

Something that stands out is that Bliz has been conceptually designing the trees to the idea of Arcane uses the most mana, Fire uses a mid-level amount of mana, and Frost uses the least mana. A consideration that stands out between these trees based upon that opinion/conclusion is the versatility/feasibility in a PVP setting.

If considering a pve fight those considerations are extremely important dependent upon the fight length. If all fights were 10 min of a Brutallus full out dps (without the regen that fight was designed upon) all mages would be frost. However if the fight were shorter where regen mechanics were of a more negligible nature Arc or Fire would be the spec of choice.

However Blizzard has to continually consider the aspect of PVP. I am not fully pvp knowledgeable, but I really think that a lot of the balancing problems come from this issue. Blizzard has to balance around both issues.

This applies to the fact that mages could have a more "organic" mana regen such as life tap (and I would love to have it, I cannot imagine the number of times I move in a fight when I wished I was clicking a mana regen talent) but that would change pvp extensively and pve fights as well.

Essentially burst is an arcane mages tool right now. There are other specs that can burst but arcane mages can do it quite often. I see this as a balancing point that hinders Bliz's options when choosing how to proceed with a class. If anything they should reconsider the BC Arcane Blast idea. However that got quickly exploited (in their eyes which is obvious with the quick nerf to MSD) so now they are much more considerate especially considering the homogenization of gear between classes.

If anything this should point out to Bliz the effects of their ideas. Arcane should be the "I die easily spec but do lots of damage fast", Fire should be the "I have some tools to save myself but can die without them spec but do very good damage spec", and Frost should be the, "I am hard to kill but do average damage spec". They can then base all mana regen around those specs. Of course this would take some major changes.

Essentially from what I have seen Blizzard has tasked themselves with an impossible job of balancing PVP vs PVE while not making every class the same. For the case of Evocation or any sort of mana regen it is entirely based around that idea. The easiest way to fix it is to have two separate rule sets for certain abilities in the arena/battlegrounds. Evocation has no cooldown and Arcane is balanced around that for pvp (diminishing returns anyone?).

I'm not offering a fix solution in this post I'm just trying to point out the fact that any changes in a class come with major repercussions to the other aspect of the game. I realize that Ej is generally a PvE based discussion and I think some changes need to be relegated to one side or the other and have PvP effects added to adjust to that portion of the game. Resilience wasn't perfect but it did allow Bliz developers to have a tool to balance PvP vs PvE.