• Seonid

Sounds like a candidate for /cast [nochannel:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Barrage.

The Mage theme song.

 

Actovision

Your description doesn't (in my view) offer any proof that the way you coupled the AB debuff with Arcane Missiles and ArBarr
is a true shatter combo and not the same latency abuse as FoF's false "shatter combos". A combatlog excerpt would help.

 

Physicist

It should be getting even worse with gear, as your MBAM is getting better relative to your AB. You want to be casting AB as little as possible. But I'll have a look at getting some similar inequalities to earlier rotations. What's the 0.6 for in your above numbers?


Interesting news about the arcane-shatter combos...

 

helldrunk

The 0.6 is the AB charge bonus with glyph when you have 3 charges.

Basically when you MBAM have proced you know that each AB you cast will result in more damage in your future MBAM. Thus casting an AB when you have a guarantied MBAM will gain you the regular AB spell power Coefficients of 80,4% and the charge will provide a bonus worth 188% * 0,2 = 37,6% coefficient when you use the charge. Ramping up for a regular arcane barrage will only give you 86% * 0,2 = 17,2% coefficient for your charge.

If we also include this new "shattercombo" the total coefficient gain of ramping up would be 54,8% ( 37,6% + 17,2%) for each AB and 164,4% gain for all 3 charges.

I'm a bit of newbie when it comes to this mathematics so I might have missed other factors. But to me it seems like it will definitely be worth to ramp up a MBAM proc if we get the arcane combo.

It will probably not be as high dps as AB and MBAM + Abar on proc but higher than AB + Abar and MBAM on proc.

 

morgulhir

Now that we know that we could benefit both MBAM and ABr from the same AB buff, it might be even worth stacking 2-3 ABs before shooting off MBAB+ABr with both getting the benefit. So, when you're spamming AB+ABr and get a MB proc, you'll have time to cast 2-3 AB's before MB fades and shoot the missiles with barrage and do some heavy burst.

Someone should calculate it though, as I don't know how to.

So far, I have been playing 71/0/0 arcane mage in raids for about 2 weeks, I love the spec and playstyle of it. Having 700/580ish manaregen and using managems - AB+ABr and MBAB on proc and using AP as much as possible OOM was never there for me. Threat was never an issue just DPS sucked. Yes, might be because i had lots of spirit, around 600-700. I'm not sure if i would have stacked haste instead of spirit, would it have increased my DPS, because of the haste-cap that at 200 haste rating is already very-very nearly present: when I pressed ABr as soon as it came out of cooldown while still casting AB, the barrage flew away.
Having another mage, deep fire mage with TotW keeping up scorch, we buffed eachother greatly and still me as a slow-bithch did lots more damage than he.
Mobility of arcane spec is great - you'll be doing damage also when moving a lot, like in Heigan fight in Naxx. Soloing is great (slow, mobility, and when it gets bad - invis)
It is prettymuch a L2P spec, you'll do like twice the DPS when you have practiced it on a dummy than you'd do in the beginning. Took me a day to master it. I like it.

The idea of taking some points to Frost for IV might be considerable, though the need for evocation was seldom there. Percision and haste might raise DPS a bit, i'm sure, compared to having utilities like instant invisi, resistances, slow (for soloing now) etc.

The question is - should I get spirit-gear ready for it, or is it nowadays pointless even for arcane mages, that is after the patch that buffs it?
Looking forward to arcane-buff so I could return to it.

 

Jonny_Monroe

Absolutely not. Spirit is not useless for an arcane mage, its true, but as far as damage returns per budget spirit is one of the worst stats for any mage spec by a long way. It is unavoidable to not have some spirit on your gear and that might afford you alittle more time before having to lose DPS on an evoc, so it can be a minor damage upgrade but combat ratings and spell power will always trump spirit.

If your primary concern on your build is mana and mana returns then you need to focus on int more than spirit.

On a personal note I'm also looking forward to Arcane being viable. The sad thing is though I'm the only caster in my raid that can provide Imp. Scorch so I'll be stuck in my FFb spec even when the other mage in our guild goes Arcane.

OMNOMNOM.

 

Enthorn

Intellect will become even more important than it already is over spirit for arcane mages in the coming patch. If arcane mages are using evocation every two minutes, and if this is intended, then in-combat regeneration has next to no purpose. Increasing your mana pool has a direct impact on the amount of mana returned through evocation. Kind of funny how they give 30% in-combat regen to fireball/frostfire builds through Pyromaniac, but then reduce the value of spirit even further for the one spec that it actually had some implication for.

(With a 20,000 mana pool, evocation would be returning 12k mana, and another ~4781 from mana gem with 2PT7. That's nearly 17k mana returned every 2 minutes, on top of mana returns from other players.)

 

Kel S'jet

This will be harder than it looks.

I did some very basic (and quick) testing last night on the PTR and my preliminary findings showed that it is harder than we think to maintain a 'decent' DPS output using even the more conservative rotations for 2 mins.

I found that after my initial burn I was barely managing to maintain a good DPS output within the 2 mins before my Evoc came back up. Now true, the gear I was using was more geared towards the elementalist playstyle, and so were my glyphs, as well as not having any raid induced mana regen, but the point still stands. I don't think we can completely write off spirit just yet and I most certainly do not think we can rely solely on raid wide mana regen to sustain us for 2 full mins. (Arcane burns mana at a much more alarming rate than the other specs).

What I would surmise is that while spirit will not be the be-all-end-all stat for arcane (in that way, SP and Int are still more important), it will still be important enough to consider. What I believe will happen is that instead of having a 'get as much spirit as you can' mentality, the way we look at spirit will change to 'get your spirit levels to x threshold value, where x = the amount of spirit you need to adequately sustain a solid DPS rotation for 2 mins in a raid environment'. I believe Arcanists will aim to get their spirit to this threshold value and only then will they not worry about it anymore.

As a closing point, let us remember that we do not have the t6 bonus anymore. Furthermore, due to how pots work now, we will receive less mana back at the end of consecutive regen cycles, to a certain extent.
(first cycle: Evoc + gem + pot; second: evoc + gem, third: evoc + gem, fourth: evoc etc)

Either way, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. Personally, I am more concerned about how/why the numbers for risk-reward for using 'high burn' DPS rotations are not giving back enough of a payoff. I believe that the Arcanist should be rewarded significantly more than he is now for using aggressive rotations. As I noted in my napkin math a few pages ago and as Roywyn confirmed on this page, the DPS increase to MPS increase ratio is very off right now.

If there is any hope to truly gain something from Arcane's new mechanic, it rests squarely on ensuring this principle of risk-reward for Arcane plays out correctly. Otherwise, from a playstyle perspective, there is little to no change, which, I think we can agree, is a bad thing.


This is merely semantics my friend. At the end of the day I was more concerned with shedding light on the possibility of such behavior with AB's new debuff, and less with giving the behavior a label.
Call it what you will, but the behavior exists.
Perhaps we should give it a new name? "Debuff combos"? Ha!

 

Lhivera

Every spec has its situational advantages. Sometime's Frost's ranged AOE, survivability, or efficiency are useful. Sometimes Arcane's very low threat or relatively high AOE-and-single-target mobility are useful. Sometimes Fire's pushback protection is useful. Sometimes it's an advantage for Fire and Arcane not to have a significant portion of their DPS dependent upon a fragile pet. Sometimes it's an advantage for Fire's DPS to increase automatically at the end of an encounter. Sometimes it's an advantage that Frost's DPS is capable of a controlled increase.

Each tree has advantages that at least one of the other trees doesn't; the relative value of all these advantages needs to be estimated before you go balancing single-target DPS against them.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

◊ Vontre

Both magegraf and napkinmath indicate that at 2000 spell power, ABx3 ABr is a solid 8% dps gain over ABx1 ABr. Certainly dpm is much lower, but magegraf is able to maintain this cycle for 6 minutes straight with typical mana options. You can see a substantial boost in dps by switching to ABx1 ABr and not totally slaughter your dps when needed. The two-cycle theorem tells us that these are the only two relevant cycles. I've tested every possible combination.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

Kel S'jet

Thanks for the update Vontre, I very much look forward to tinkering with magegraf to get some results.

That being said, 4 quick questions;

1. In your 8% DPS gain result, how did magegraf handle MBAM? Was it 'ramped', or just 'fire off MBAM asap'?
2. Does magegraf accommodate firing of the "debuff combo" maneuver of using ABr at the end of an MBAM for the increased damage, as described above?
3. Just to clarify, did you mean that magegraf sustained the {ABx3 ABr} rotation for 6 mins? Or just the {AB ABr} rotation?
4. How many times was evocate used in the simulation? Just once as needed? Or did the sim try the 'dump mana every 2 mins and get more use out of Evoc' idea?

Thanks.

 

Herbo

1). I would think that depending on which cycle you are curently in (heavy burn vs mana conservation) would drive whether or not Mbar was ramped up with the AB buff. No sense ramping it if you are trying to cling to your mana until your evocation cooldown is up.
2). Wouldn't you have to fire off a Missle Barrage just after an Arcane Barrage in order to perform the combo you mentioned before? I would think that Missle Barrage would consume the AB charge before you could cast Arcane Barrage.
3). I doubt any mechanics that currently exist in game could be used to provide a 6min spam of AB3>Abar.
4). The burn vs conserve cycle would suggest using evocate as part of your routine. Of course I have no vision into the inner workings of Vontre's head so my gut feeling has no bearing on that what so ever.

 

Kel S'jet

I politely request you read the last few pages of this thread.

There is a lot of conversation, proof, results and testing discussion that you are missing.

 

Mentalfloss

Sorry, but wrong.

AB ABr *proc* what are you going to cast? you have 1.5 to decide.

you cast MBAM AB ABr
I cast AB MBAM ABr

then we go back to casting AB ABr

I get the 1.2 bonus to MBAM
You get 1.2 bonus to ABr
we both spent the same time

it's plainly obvious .2 mbam is WAY better than .2 Abr ONLY when you factor in that I lost out on a 16% chance of an extra proc that you win on the damage.

Now with the shatter-like combo... sorry is that not pc =) ... Arcane blast combo... it breaks down to a choice of 1.2 MBAM or the 16% extra chance to cast MBAM again.

Buffing your MBAM with a AB is ALWAYS going to be more damage.

As I said before, you can't compare straight dps. You must consider total dmg gained. To make a trivial example, 80 dps buff for 10 seconds is better than 100 dps buff for 7 seconds(provided you have more than 10 sec in the fight).

More math to further prove the benefit of buffing MBAM
in my crappy gear, unbuffed, I average 8235 damage from AM, 4175 from AB, and 3379.5 from ABr.

A standard rotation of AB ABr nets me 4175 + 1.2(3379.5) = 8230.4 damage over the 4 seconds (non hasted)
which is 2057.6 dps

Casting AB MBAM gives me 4175 + 1.2(8235) = 14057 damage over 5 seconds

Casting MBAM as soon as it procs means I will get 8235 dmg and continue with my 2.057.6 dps standard rotation for 2.5 seconds. yeilding 13379 damage over the same 5 seconds.

NOW... with the ab combos... Casting AB to buff MBAM gives you .2 of MBAM + .2 ABr + AB's original dmg 1647 + 675.9 + 4175 = 6497.9 damage or 2599.16 dps an increase of 541.56 dps for 2.5 seconds Thus a sub total of 1353.9 extra damage for casting AB and missing out on my normal damage rotation

Add in the lost proc dmg:

I lose out on a 16% chance to get a gain of 1237 dps over my normally casted 2057.6dps for 5 seconds... sub total of 989.5 of extra damage over my normal dps rotation by casting not casting AB and keeping the proc.

total net gain by buffing MBAM is 364.4 damage.

Buffing MBAM with AB is the best choice with the obvious exception that clearcasting has also proc'd and you therefore have arc potency... then I would think it best to spend that on MBAM and not AB for the buff.

as MBAM increase with stats more than your other spells (excluding pom pyro) you must consider that at higher gear levels .2 (MBAM) pulls further ahead of your normal rotation.

sorry it's so long
edit - I didn't even discuss the added benefit of getting that extra .2MBAM without having to spend the mana for it, which I would have to do if I had gotten the extra proc instead

edit again- IF subsequent buffs of ab are +20% then fully buffing MBAM would be even better, at 15% it would not be.

 

Physicist

No, I cast MBAM ABr. Then we both go back to casting AB ABr.

But doing the maths for this, you're right. I'd looked at lower spellpower.

 

Mentalfloss

sorry

you are correct here that was a bad comparison, but the point still stands buffing MBAM is more damage because the math below still holds true

Edit- added below here-
With my gear, that ABr gives you 194 dps gain over the normal rotation for 1.5 seconds, and extra 294 damage
but .2 MBAM is still far greater than .2 ABr + 294

 

Kavan

You've probably missed my last question, but could you explain what spell selection logic you use for ABx1 ABr and ABx3 ABr in terms of MB procs.

 

Anaxo

Even if it doesn't work, fire leaves will still stay a common quality item. It's used in alchemy for the AP flask. Fire seed isn't used in any recipe for any profession.

 

Kel S'jet

Just an update on this.
The nochanneling macro does not seem to produce the effect.

I have been exploring the "Arcane Shatter Combo" in some detail in an effort to ascertain what exactly is causing it and I think I have figured out the issue.

First, I do believe that the AB debuff expires on spell cast.
This is true for every arcane spell, except Arcane Missiles.
For Arcane Missiles, the debuff expires on the cast of the last missile. I.e the debuff will stay up, until the last missile has left your hands.

With this, the only way to produce the combo is if you press the Arcane Barrage button at the exact time that the last missile is about to leave your hands.
What will happen is, due to the effects of latency and the few milliseconds buffer that blizzard gives for spell casts (i.e the few milliseconds where you can essentially 'queue' up your next cast, which was the change that allows for us to rid ourselves of /stopcasting macros) the server will receive the request to cast Arcane Barrage while the player is still firing the individual Arcane Missile. At that point, since you are still firing your missiles, the 'queued up' ABr will receive benefit from the AB debuff due to the fact that the last missile has not left your hands yet.

Warning: Due to the nature of this combo, it is very possible that if you press the ABr button too early, you will 'lose' your final AM missile. However, if that happens, your ABr will still receive the benefit from AB.
If you press ABr too late, it will still fire the ABr, but with no AB debuff bonus.
This means you have to get it just right, and press ABr almost anticipating when the last AM missile is about to take flight. This seems to me as the only way to have all five AM missiles and ABr benefit from the same debuff.

The reason that the [nochanneling] macro does not work, is because it, by force, does not activate the button until the game client receives a message back from the server telling it that AM has finished channeling, which essentially means that it is preventing us using the 'queue next ability' functionality that blizzard put in a few patches ago. The [nochanneling] is actually more useful if you wish to prevent the interruption of a particular channeled ability at all costs.

Tips: I have found it mighty helpful when trying to reproduce this combo to base when to press the ABr button on the sound of the AM missile launching. Most of us mages know that the "AM missile launch" sound is very distinctive. The best way I have found is to find the rhythm in that sound and anticipate when the next missile will launch. It helps if you use a cast bar mod too, e.g. quartz. Though basing when to press the ABr button purely off of quartz's 'red zone' will not consistently produce the case.

Happy Casting!

 

• Seonid

That was my thinking as you could spam it near the completion of the AM channel to cast ABr at the earliest opportunity after AM. I didn't know it also suspended the spell queue mechanism though.

The Mage theme song.

 

Jonny_Monroe

It is worth noting that even if you DO interupt your 5th missile its still a significant damage buff. If you can't consistently time the cast then it is better to aim on the closer side and still get a buffed ABar.

If you want to play with the timing of this effect on live; it works in exactly the same way with arcane potency (though its not as easy to measure the effect due to the random nature of +crit chance).

OMNOMNOM.

 

Mentalfloss

What happens if you follow up the buffed arcane missles with another arcane missle set? Do they get the buff as well?

For example, AB AM AM.

 

Uglybugger

Your second AM would be a 5 second cast (modified by haste), so even if it was doing 60% more damage due to a full glyphed AB stack, it would still result in a large DPS loss over just using Arcane Barrage to absorb the fifth-tick buff.

 

Kel S'jet

I would surmise that only the first missile of your second AM volley would actually receive the benefit, since by casting the second volley (and therefore, 'technically' ending the cast on your first) you are force-ending the AB debuff.

Due to this, it would not be a viable option, since there is a very high chance that you might 'lose' the last AM missile of your first AM volley, only to buff 1/5 missiles from your second AM volley. So at the end of the day you are still only getting 5 buffed AM missiles, but you are loosing out since you have just started a 5 second channel and used up a whole lot of mana.

 

Glumly

Was this tested with or without the glyph?

Or is the glyph still unverified?