Looks like arcane mages saw "the light at the end of the tunnel"
Does anyone know when the upcoming changes is going LIVE?

Remember that it's not a flat 12% though. Living Bomb, Scorch, and Pyroblast all do not benefit from TTW but are still used in the rotation. From what I compared in Rawr with current gear in game (assuming no Razorice or ghost hit), Fireball would be 5883 dps to Frostfire's 5680 dps. I've looked over the character files three times now, and I can't really figure out why these numbers are coming out so much closer than what everyone else has been predicting.

Considering, that FFB and FB only contribute 60% of your damage, thats not such a big surprise.

FB gets a 12% Dmg-Bonus now, but FFB got a 2% Bonus from Glyph and a 2.2% Bonus from IV. The Rest is Crit-Modifier.

Fireball should scale better with Spell Power due to the higher bast cast time. Base fireball scaling is 100%. Base FFB scaling is 3.0/3.5 = 85/86% if I recall correctly. The crit modifer goes a long way to making the different not all that much, but one could run a Rawr with comparative gear levels and see how the scaling works out.

I would guess that they come out fairly close in terms of overall gear scaling.

Just like t4->t5 and t5->t6, Ulduar, Mystery Meat Instance and Icecrown will introduce items with a good mix of stats. Also probably more pure dps items, bypassing spirit. Consider all the dps heavy items in Sunwell that made them so amazing compared to BT-without ramping up spell damage by an insane amount.

I just wish holy paladins did not want the exact same trinkets/weapons/rings/neck's as mages.

How does Master of Elements scale with multiple Arcane Missles crit tick?

MoE does not scale, it is a static mana return on a spell crit.

For arcane missiles, I believe that if any one of the 5 missiles crit, you should get back a little over 300 mana. If more than one missile crits, you should still only get back a little over 300 mana. It does not return mana based off of how many missiles crit.

Some Numbers for Arcane

I'm no theory-crafter, as is about to be evident, but I ran some numbers on arcane based on my current spellpower (1636) but nothing else. No crit/haste/mana etc. No missile barrage procs. So this is obviously not a guide to what dps mages should be be doing in these specs. It's just a reference to compare numbers as a lot of people have been asking if it will be worth casting more than one Arcane Blast even after this change or whether we should go straight back to Barrage.

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1) Now. Rotation of Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage

--- 1249 dps

2) After patch. Same rotation but each Arcane Barrage will get an extra 15% damage due to the new changes.

--- 1328 dps

3) After Patch. Rotation of Arcane Blast x2 (with second blast getting 15% damage) and Arcane Barrage (getting 30% damage).

--- 1423 dps

4) After Patch. Rotation of Arcane Blast x3 (second blast getting 15% and third getting 30% damage) and Arcane Barrage (getting 45% damage).

--- 1450 dps

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I have no doubt made mistakes (despite the simplicity). The gap between casting ABx1 and ABx2 however is 100dps, but between ABx2 and ABx3 it is only 27 dps. Whether the gaps are narrower or wider with higher spellpower and crit/haste taken into account I don't know (and would like someone who can actually TC properly to throw some numbers in here) but as it stands casting ABx3 IS the highest dps rotation, but isn't too far ahead from ABx2 rotations so the mana penalty may not justify it at all.

6% mana cost per missile crit.

I was getting slightly restless so I decided to run some quick numbers to ascertain

Whether or not the arcane changes will in fact change the existing arcane rotation?
as well as
Does the new ability of the arcane mage to buff MBAM and ABr have any real benefit to his rotations?

Unfortunately, from my preliminary number crunch, the outlook does not seem good.

Assumed Stats:
Spell Power: 2000
MP5 while casting: 500
Haste: 12% (6% talent, 6% gear)
Crit: 29% gear

Factors
Arcane Blast:
+21% damage (ToTw, Spell Impact, Arc inst)
+9% chance to crit (Incin, Arc inst)
+SP*0.09 extra dmg (Arc Emp)

Arcane Barrage:
+15% damage (ToTw, Arc inst)
+3% chance crit (Arc inst)

MBAM:
+15% damage (ToTw, Arc inst)
+3% chance crit (Arc inst)
+SP*0.45 extra dmg

Now with these, just raw, here is what you get:

	Stack	Damage	Critical	Dps	DPM
Arcane Blast	0	2800	4901	1255	73.26
	1	2979	5214	1335	5.31
	2	3337	5839	1495	3.08
	3	3873	6778	1735	2.41
Arcane Barrage	0	2910	5093	1940	6.64
	1	3090	5407	2060	7.05
	2	3448	6035	2299	7.87
	3	3987	6977	2658	9.10
MBAM	0	5827	8449	2611	7.38
	1	6138	8900	2750	7.77
	2	6759	9800	3028	8.56
	3	7690	11151	3445	9.74

Now comes the interesting part;

Rotations:

You can plug the numbers in for 8 different rotations

Rotation	Time	Damage	Cost(MP)	Dps	Dpm	MPS
AB ABr	3.73	5890	476	1578	12.36	128
ABx2 ABr	5.96	9228	1038	1547	8.89	174
ABx3 ABr	8.20	13103	2122	1599	6.18	259
AB MBAM	4.46	8938	828	2002	10.79	185
ABx2 MBAM	6.70	12538	1389	1872	9.03	207
ABx3 MBAM	8.93	16807	2473	1882	6.80	277
ABx4 ABr	10.43	16976	3728	1628	4.55	358
ABx4 MBAM	11.16	20680	4080	1853	5.07	366

Now..if my calculations were right (they probably aren't since I am heavily medicated right now and cannot think straight as it is) then we glean some interesting analysis

Analysis:
1. {ABx2 ABr} - should never be used. Lower DPS and DPM than {AB ABr}
2. {ABx2 MBAM} - should never be used. Lower DPS and DPM than {AB MBAM}
2. You should NOT ramp up ABs at an MBAM proc. cast MBAM immediately (preferably immediately after an ABr). NB The DPS of {AB MBAM} is LESS than the DPS of MBAM 0
3. The trade off at the Assumed Stats between {ABx3 ABr} and the existing {AB ABr} rotation is that of a 21 DPS gain for half the DPM. Imho, it is not worth it, the DPM loss is far too harsh.
4. Similar to Fire/Frostfire, Arcane sees a large increase (~500 dps) from its proc (MBAM), however, unlike Fire/Frostfire, Arcane has no way (through gear/raid buffs) to better the chances of its proc. (NB. At ~45% final crit, proc rates for MBAM and Hot Streak equate).
5. The ABx4 rotations (AB0 > AB1 > AB2 > AB3 > ABr/MBAM) are interesting, but burn way too much mana per second (MPS). Furthermore {ABx4 MBAM} may not be possible unless you are get the proc while stacking AB and/or get enough haste (~26%).

Conclusions
Perhaps it is too early to conclude anything right now, since as stated, I'm not even sure that the numbers are right. If they are however, then I do not see Arcane being as raid friendly as Fire/Frostfire.

Furthermore, from what I can see, there is no real new incentive to deviate from Arcane's standard
AB ABr alternating w/ MBAM procs rotation (boring!). This means that the new changes will not make any discernible difference in Arcane's playstyle.

Which is unfortunate really. I remember back in beta when I did a similar analysis on arcane I was consistently pushing for effort to better the arcane playstyle. From the looks of it, while the new options given to the arcane mage are interesting, they unfortunately do not shine bright enough to be really useful.

I will run more detailed numbers soon.

I can easily run it again at 2.6k SP, but then again, as I stated in the intro to my post, I wasn't really trying to ascertain maximum potential theoretical DPS of *new* arcane, but moreso trying to figure out if there will be any real change in Arcane's playstyle/rotation given that Arcane has access to this "new" mechanic (buffing spells by using a particular spell).

The number are quite straightforward, not being on the PTR I cannot test exactly how blizzard has applied their 15%/30%/45% damage stack, but if it is anything like the AB of beta (which is what I assumed it to be) then the calculation is relatively simple.

E.g
Base: (no SP)
Arcane Blast
912 - 1058 Dmg

The damage increase is in fact always calculated based off the base damage, hence at stack one, the damage will increase by:

(912 x 0.15) to (1058 x 0.15) = 136.8 to 159 damage, or an average of ~148 damage
Hence AB1 becomes
1060 - 1206 damage

for the next stack
(912 x 0.3) to (1058 x 0.15) = 273.6 to 317 damage
AB2 becomes
1355 - 1501

etc

I.e the stack damage increase is always x% of the damage of AB0

Once you get the ABx value (where x=1,2,3 for the different stacks) , you then apply the +dmg and all other modifiers to it to get the damage of AB with all SP, essentially treating the different stacks as separate spells.