I have run probably 75 tests at this point and the PoM/AB gets the 60% damage buff (and, unfortunately, the 700% mana cost debuff). It *does not* start stacking the AB chain again, nor does it refresh the AB3 buff. It acts like a non-arcane spell with PoM (like a pyro, etc.). I have decided to use AP/IV/Trinket with AM->ABar after AB3 to start a fight. It seems to be a reasonable way to get pretty good DPM during a high burn-rate phase of casting.

I've been messing around with a spreadsheet and crunching numbers trying to figure out some sustainability figures for an arcane spec.

First off, the spec that I've been looking at is 53/0/18. I will do some more number-crunching on a 57/3/11 spec, but first impressions are that either Master of Elements or Precision/Frost Channeling are essential, just due to the extreme amounts of Mana an Arcane Mage goes through. I am assuming scorch will be kept up by someone else.

I've been trying to see how long the ABx3 + AM + ABar rotation can be sustained for. I've been using my stats as a baseline mainly because I want to see how long I can maintain these rotations.

Using Molten Armor, such a rotation can be kept up for just over 6 minutes, before you're reduced to wanding. This requires very aggressive use of both Mana Gems and Evocation - I.E. not waiting until you need them, but using them as soon as you've burned enough Mana to get full benefit. Trying to link a Mana Gem with the 2T7 bonus and AP/IV/PoM unfortunately doesn't work very well, as the different cool-down lengths means you're not using Mana Gems soon enough. As well, to get over 5 minutes, a Mana Potion is needed (mostly to tide you over until the next Evocation or Mana Gem cooldown.)

A couple of interesting things have shown up for me while number-bashing:
- 2 minutes Evocates are NOT optional if you want to use the ABx3 + AM + ABar rotation. With a 3 minute evocate, you need a mana potion at 3 minutes, and cannot last past 5 minutes without wanding.
- Linking Arcane Missiles in with every cycle is not only a DPS increase, but also increases DPM, as the MPS usage averages out to be the same or lower in every case.
- Using a spec of 53/18/0 is very close in terms of efficiency and duration. MoE, of course, scales based on your critical strike rating, but for my gear the difference is well within 1% for most rotations. The difference, and the clincher for me, is the hit from precision and the nice burst from Icy Veins.



On the other end of the scale, aiming for efficiency, if you only use ABx3 + AM + ABar while IV/AP/Trinket are up and ABx1 + AM + ABar the rest of the time, you can maintain casting for a highly impressive length of time, on the order of 24 minutes before you'll need a mana potion, and somewhere around 36 minutes before you'll need to start wanding. This, of course, requires that you use 2 minute evocates and re-conjure mana gems in combat, but being able to shoot for over half an hour is kinda neat. Not sure how the DPS of this will look.

It seems standard that instant spells casted right after a cast time spells will enjoy the buff that was supposed to be consumed by the cast time spell. I get this reliably with the 2nd charge of FoF (3rd spell being ice lance that deals its triple damage), and you guys say it happens with AB on the PTR - so I suppose this kind of thing would work for all similar mechanics. Anyone tried it with elemental focus or something of that sort?

I like runciter's suggestion of using POM before AM.
It looks best to start out the fight with:
AB3, AP/IV/Trinket/PoM, AM (consumes 30% crit), ABr, AB(consumes PoM), AB, AB, AM, ABr
Mirror images before POM would be good too I suppose for the threat issue.

Does ABr benefit from the 30% crit in a arcane-shatter combo as well?

Mentalfloss, I'm almost certain that casting PoM will only result in a +30% crit bonus on the first missile of the volley.

During beta the crit bonus would not dissipate until a spell with a cast time had been successfully completed and so one could cast PoM, then alternate ABarr/AM and keep a permanent 30% crit. Ever since, PoM causes a secondary buff which is expended the first time a possible critical roll is rolled.

With one caveat, that since late beta I haven't checked this for myself.

Given that the AB debuff is linked to the "ending" of AM, it may also hold true for the PoM crit effect, i'm at work, so can't check, but should be possible to see if the PoM buff gets consumed on the first missile or the last.

Hmm, so the next logical step is probably to verify that AM is getting the full crit buff for all 5 missiles. Otherwise it becomes a really bad idea to pop PoM before doing AM. Anyone with some statistical knowledge able to formulate how many PoM - AM's you need cast before you get a proper statistical basis for determining either outcome?

The testing should most likely be performed without Arcane concentration, to limit fouling up the data. I'll see what i can get done on the PTR once i get done with tonights raid.

[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] stacking has changed. Of interest now, damage over time ticks apply and refresh stacks of the trinket. This includes the FFB DoT, FB DoT, LB DoT, and even the flamestrike DoT. Providing less concern of the stack dropping due to repositioning / movement. As of 1/11/09 on ptr, blizzard provides no stacks of the trinket. (I suspect this is bugged due to the cosmetic changes for blizzard.) The other mage AoE spells seem to provide 1 stack for each target hit.

LF some with theory crafting experience to setup and maintain an Arcane thread. I think it is definitely time for this, as the changes should be pushed live very shortly.

Here are a few questions I definitely have for the Arcane:

- DPS & DPM comparison for ABx1>ABarr, ABx3>ABarr, ABx1>AM>Abarr, and ABx3>AM>Abarr, for determining the optimal rotation whem MB does not proc.
- Optimal usage of MB during each of these rotations with DPS, DPM and lost procs taken into consideration
- What spell is best suited for POM?
- AOE & single target DPS comparison of 57/3/11, 56/3/12, 53/18/0 (scorch) and 53/0/18 (w/ shatter).
- DPS benefits moving 3/5 Arcane Focus to 3/5 Arcane stability
- How arcane stability works w/ AM (i.e. 4/5 AS is a waste of a talent point).
- CD stacking w/ differing CD lengths
- Which tanks / classes provide a snare and what is the likely uptime for each
- The value of adding Slow into the talent build
- If a snare is not present, should slow be added into the rotation?
- Hit cap

...and so on. This would be greatly appreciated by the entire community!

Dying Curse does also procc off damage over time effects now. (I guess this works for all trinkets now)

I've read a few posts citing new animations for fireball, pyroblast - and blizzard, wasn't aware of that one? Haven't seen any pictures or videos floating around, has anyone got a link at hand to show off the new goodies?

Fireball does indeed have a more modern funky graphic. It's a little smaller ball with better flame effects around it, rather than the "black ball with red lines" it used to be. All together a little more interestingly complex. FFB seems to be unaltered. Pyro is a little better, but it still looks like you're firing a Planet at your target!

I could be wrong and it may be my perception of the (slightly smaller) projectile, but FB seems to travel a little faster too.

The problem of 53/18/0 is master of elements. Your spell criticals will refund 30% of their base mana cost. That means that you get only 78 mana back on a full stacked arcane blast crit.

In terms of mana, an arcane mage will probebly stick to an 53/0/18 or 51/2/18 build.

Pyromaniac will get "Allow 30% of your mana regen to continue while casting" in patch 3.0.8. This means a Mage can spec, buff and glyph his way to 110% mana regeneration while casting.

My question regarding this would be "Will it be 110% mana regeneration or will it be capped at 100%?". But, since Innervate gives 400% mana regeneration to continue while casting, I suppose there is no reason to why Mages couldn't have 110%? Right?

I would do this, but I don't really want to commit to maintaining such a thread. Add to that that I'm quite an unconventional player so setting up conventions doesn't really go well together. If someone else sets it up I'll gladly help with theorycrafting though.

I'd recommend to wait until the arcane changes are more final. Otherwise it only gets people more confused since things are likely to swing wildly from patch to patch. Lets wait and see. While I doubt that they would nerf arcane in its current state, everyone could agree that starting an arcane thread before the AB glyph went in would just have ended up contributing to more confusion. This is what I would avoid.

Did a couple of Arazzius the Cruel kills on the ptr and it seems blizzard still can't proc fingers of frost on freeze immune targets. After seeing the brain freeze fix in the mage changes i thought they would do something with blizzard+fof too, but at the moment its still not working. Having frostbite or not gives the same results.

This was discussed recently on Page 173 of Roywyn's thread. It won't go over 100%; the ability to have over 100% "while casting" regen was nerfed / fixed sometime late in vanilla WoW. Innervate's 400% regen comes from a combination of two effects. It puts you to 100% regen while casting, and multiplies your power gain by 4:

Innervate - Spell - World of Warcraft

Really? I haven't tested that, but with the way the AB debuff works, it makes sense.

That means that it will be very difficult for an arcane mage to provide the 10% crit debuff and still remain competitive in terms of mana usage and probably also dps (because of mana usage).

There is no precedent that it shouldn't work that way. Both spell cost reduction from Pyromaniac and Elemental Precision, as well as spell cost increase from Arcane Power do not affect the mana gained from MoE. Thus it stands logical that the gain will not increase with AB buff either.

So, it essentially looks like if you want to be (/ have to be) Arcane with Scorch, that's a serious spec nerf from ArcFrost, with MoE having a very poor return of mana from stacking AB, which is essential for good Arcane dps. From what I can tell, Arcane / Scorch builds are essentially dead now, and if you're the mage who's counted on for scorch, you'll be FFB / FB specced.

ArcFrost still has the synergy where you can pick up the Clearcasting from Arcane (1/10 spells are free, statistically), and the Frost Channeling (-10% mana cost to spells), but the Frost Channeling would come at the cost of 6% more AB crit from the points removed from Incineration.

From the early testing that's around these boards, and from a horrible looking mana over time graph from the modelling for an Arcane spec, it appears that an Arcane + Scorch build might even be unplayable with such poor mana regen, or would at the very least need Glyphed Mage Armour to stay afloat over any fight >2-3 minutes.

I have a question about the modeling that was done on the google page. The mana over time seems to have small spikes, which I'd assume are mana gems. With Evocation on a 2 minute CD, there were no spikes large enough to show a 60% mana return. I guess what I'm asking is that are we heading to a situation where people'll be gemming for solid Int to play Arcane like those that went AB spam in SWP?

Arcane seems very up in the air at the moment, with some conflicting account of the mana situation, and I'm very much looking forwards to seeing what you guys come up with.

I was really hoping there would be enough feedback on the PTR to highlight this issue to the designers and get a solid response back. Is it really intended to be that the scorch debuff is only viably brought by fire/frostfire specs? If so, I would respectfully say that's pretty silly. It's fine for getting Imp Scorch to be an investment of X points, but the current design does need a little tweaking to be more forgiving to the Arcane Mage.

I do feel sympathetic for guilds that run with only a couple mages (and maybe only one on sometimes) who wish to try out arcane.