This behavior is exactly the same as Arc Potency was during the beta and I was reading through this thread looking for it as soon as I saw the AB change (I know I'm slow, I've been busy getting resto shamans nerfed). This behavior is part of the general class of latency exploits introduced by the /stopcasting patch including the AB stacking bug and the Arc. Potency combos. In this case, the end of the AM channel clears the AB buff but because the ABr is cast BEFORE the AM channel actually ends on the server, the buff is up for the ABr cast and both spells gain the benefit. Until they fix the general bug, which I don't expect since they changed the AB mechanic specifically to work around it, you'll be able to exploit it fairly reliably. You'd think that they'd avoid this by having the AB buff not last the duration of the volley, but having it not last the duration causes only the first missile to benefit due to the way AM is implemented* so Blizz took the expedient fix and simply causes the relevant buffs to expire at the end of the volley. With the buffs to arc, it looks like I'll be coming back to mage theorycrafting, which is fun for me since the mage theorycrafting community is the best.

* For those that don't know, AM is implemented as two 'spells'. The first is what I call the 'volley', an invisible channel that costs mana, does no damage, counts as a spell cast, immediately hits the target, and lasts 5 seconds (affected by talents/haste). Every 20% of the channel, volley triggers the second spell, which I call 'missile', which costs no mana, does damage, and is generally what people think of when they think of AM. The mechanics of the missile spell are exactly the same as any other bolt spell, so buffs/debuffs active when it triggers are applied and debuffs on the target when it hits are applied. It consumes spell 'charges', counts as a cast, and with one exception acts as a completely normal, boring bolt spell. That one special thing is that it's hard coded for MoE to return mana as if missile cost 6% of base mana instead of 0%, which is relatively minor. Note that I have not seen the actual code implementing the spell, but I am completely confident that the above is accurate. If you're curious about any detail, I can provide examples or test cases demonstrating each point.

No missiles would receive the benefit. The buff expires before the first missile launches. If you could magically get a MB proc between two AM volleys during a bloodlust, you might be able to slip one or two missiles in before latency caught up, but it wouldn't really help.

Edit: Forgot to mention, but the above explanation is also why the nochannel macro won't work. The nochannel condition will only pass when the server thinks the channeling is done, which will be after the AB buff has expired.

Any updates on Gatinas findings about TTW possibly working with MF now? Surely more people will have tested this on the PTR by now? I havent been able to get on just yet.

I have this implemented as a channeled spell that cannot "miss".

Generally, for all actions (read "spells") I separate out the player_buff() and target_debuff() methods.

For direct-damage spells these methods are called when the cast-time completes.

For channels and DoTs the behaviour is the same, except that the "target_multiplier" is ignored. At each tick of the channel/DoT, target_debuff() is called again to get the most accurate target_multiplier.

Arcane Missiles is a special case: At each tick target_debuff() is still called, but all the relevant buffs are in play: hit/crit/mult etc debuffs. However, I do not call player_buff() again. So if the player state changes, I do not track it.

Your statement seems to imply that I need to call player_buff() at each tick..... Can you confirm this? Perhaps use a spell-power trinket and cast AM such that the buff will fade half-way through the channel?

This is correct... if say a +spellpower buff fades mid channel of Am the subsequent missiles will do less damage.

Just tested, the bug is still there at this moment.

18/53/0 Arcane Missile: 934-935
18/53/0 Arcane Missile with Molten Fury: 1047
18/53/0 Arcane Missile with either Frostfire Bolt or Frost Fever, and TtW: 934-935

71/0/0 Arcane Missile: 1170
71/0/0 Arcane Missile with Frostfire Bolt, triggering TtW: 1311

*edit: Never could remember the order of the schools right, despite 4 years playing a mage, so I guess I'll look stupid yet again.

I find it somewhat ironic that your deep-frost spec does more AM damage.

How come 0/0/71 has Torment the Weak and 53/0/18 has Molten Fury?

Okay, sheesh, no need for every single one of you to get on my case, I just got my numbers mixed up :p. 53fire/18arcane and 71 arcane are the specs involved. Sorry! I corrected my post.

Btw Manly, I made a single macro spamming the /use eternal earth /use crystallized earth and didnt get a single trinketproc of Sundial or Forged Ember within 50 keypresses. Is this something that only works in combat in conjunction with an actual spellcast or has it been hotfixed? I also tried this on a couple mobs during dailies and could discern no increased procchance. Stating the obvious but yes, I had an eternal earth in my bags at the time.

While it does count as a spell, it does not "crit" and thus will not proc either of those trinkets.

Sundial says "Your harmful spells have a chance to increase your spell power by 590 for 10 sec."

The use of eternal/crystallized things are not considered as "harmful spell", so it cannot proc

And [Dying Curse] still procs on everything else, like creating bandages.

Hey all, I'm new here but I have been lurking around for a few weeks getting the hang of things but something recently is concerning me. I went back over the patch notes lately and I fail to see any mention of the Glyph of Arcane Blast that was listed earlier. Someone prove me wrong, please >.>.

/hope

From
WoW -> Patch Notes -> Current Patch Notes

Mages
* Arcane Potency: The additional crit bonus is now consumed immediately on cast of a travel time spell, so it is no longer possible to make two spells benefit from one charge. (Ex. Fireball followed by Fireblast.)
* Blast Wave: no longer receives double the intended critical strike bonus from Combustion.
* Burnout: Now consumes extra mana as intended when Living Bomb gets a critical strike.
* Brain Freeze: Now only frost spells that can chill can trigger the free Fireball proc from this talent.
* Cold as Ice: No longer reduces the cooldown on Deep Freeze.
* Deep Freeze: Now consumes a charge of Fingers of Frost when used.
* Focus Magic: Now works properly when mages with this talent use the ability on each other.
* Frostfire Bolt: The periodic damage effect from Rank 2 of this spell now benefits from spell power gains.
* Living Bomb: Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.
* Master of Elements: Now works with Living Bomb.
* Molten Fury: This talent no longer prevents Ice Lance ranks 2 and 3 from dealing triple damage against frozen targets.
* Reduced the mana cost of Fireball, Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion.
* Torment the Weak: Now works correctly when the Mage also knows the Molten Fury Talent.

Nothing else

I am going to check the american forum for more clues

Those are the notes for 3.0.3, which were already in? Not the 3.0.8 patch notes correct.

True, here is the part from ptr patch notes

Mages

* Arcane Blast: This ability has been significantly changed. Arcane Blast now increases the damage of the next Arcane spell by 15%. However, using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge itself. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of Arcane spells is increased by 15% and the mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 200%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 10 seconds or until any Arcane damage spell except Arcane Blast is cast.

But still nothing about the glyph

Try with embrace of the spider.

And for other trinkets, you know, theres a lot more than just eternal earths. All the old glimmering shards, greater cosmic essences. Theres a lot more.

I highly doubt blizzard will introduce a new glyph right at the same time they introduce a lot of changes to the spell. It was on the list of changes for a few minutes before they edited it out.

Last I checked (a day or 2 ago), a macro with [Greater Cosmic Essence] and [Lesser Cosmic Essence] would proc [Embrace of the Spider]. I tried on the PTR and couldn't get it to proc however, so either I'm really unlucky or it will be fixed in 3.0.8.

I read about the Glyph of Arcane Blast on woltwiki, which usually gets its patch change data through data mining the new builds.

This would make sense, as it would likely be an inscription discovery, and not trainable.

I would expect to see the glyph because Arcane specs really have little in the way of glyphs that help them out. Missiles gets range buff, Arcane Power is a pretty small addition of time added to the buff, and Molten Armour is used by all.

I agree and disagree with this. Every caster spec seems to follow a pattern in which the main nuke (Arcane Blast in this case) gets a glyph that increases it's contribution to our DPS. I'd say their best move is to undershoot the glyph and buff it later, so at least we have something. That might just be me though.

As was stated earlier in this thread, Fire/Frost bring 10% crit to the entire raid, whereas Arcane does not, therefore it would make sense to give Arcane something to offset this.


To be completely honest, I would like to see something like...

Something along this line. They want to make spirit have a use, and the Arcane Tree makes the most sense for them to do it in. Or they could just make living spirit do a lesser form of this.

Thinking aside, it just feels wrong to not have a glyph for one of the main nukes of the rotation.

I would prefer to see Arcane Blast benefit more from spell crit than it currently does. Mage gear in general is getting crit heavy, and rightfully so considering how much FB and FFB gain from it, but Arcane especially gets little from crit. The 1.75 crit multiplier further weakens an already weak stat, point for point, which forces mages to have large amounts of crit on our gear w/o getting a large benefit from it (not totally different than the current situation with spirit).

With the assumption that we will continue to gain all stats evenly across the board (spell power, haste, crit), how will Arcane Scale compared to Deep Fire and FFB builds that benefit more from spell crit? I don't foresee future gear having a shit ton of spell power and spell haste while neglecting spell crit.

EDIT: Crit damage for only arcane spells.
EDIT: Changed slightly to be more relevant to the discussion.