Arcane Blast debuff is now a magic buff and dispellable and lasts 10 seconds.

GC says World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Upcoming Mage changes (dispellable mentioned elsewhere in that thread):

Changing it to a buff is a good design choice. This will help mitigate the PvP concerns over its usage (its their fault they didn't dispel it), and end the counter-intuitive nature of a "good" debuff being self-applied.

That sounds like the type of conclusion that is highly dependent on mana support and fight parameters. Still, 2/3 improved scorch just means a bit more casting with the glyph. Looking forward to what you have.

I also have trouble seeing how 3/3 frost channelling is even viable, as that rules out getting the arcane blast buffage from incineration, *and* probably denies your raid the raid the scorch buff. I would assume that the frost route is only viable when you have a scorch bitch in the raid?


I think Blizzard did well here in making a change that won't have much pvp impact. Arcane blast is almost uncastable in pvp. Too long of a casting time, pushback prevention requires shoving 5 points in stability, and a school lockout completely screws you over.

Please delte. consolidating posts.

Only if they want to waste 8 talent points to get 3% hit.

That's pretty marginal. (the other 5 frost points don't do anything for a deep arcane build)

Only some kind of 50/0/21 type build is going to really have a lower hitcap.

This couldn't be further from the truth. And the fact that you can spec for pushback prevention makes it even more castable than frostbolt, not less. >>

That's a good question!

It's uncastable in skilled pvp, ie 2200 rated arena.

In alterac valley, on the other hand... I don't think we'll see any shortage of QQ threads in the main forums. The biggest problem here is that arcane barrage damage can't be nerfed or it becomes useless in PVE. Arcane balance is just wonky right now.

PS: my mage is still 70 so this might sound ridiculous, but is there any gear level where spamming 3 stack arcane blast with 2 minute evocates for mana is feasable? And would that even outdamage a normal rotation?

I would assume, that since MBAM receives benefit from AB's new buff as well, it may end up being beneficial to actually get an AB or two off (barring mana problems) before using up the MBAM charge.

But then would we charge up AB's to get off a massive Arcane Explosion as well? O.o

Quick edit to point out something GC said when showing the scenarios with AB

That's a lot of extra damage for one MBAM!

If I may:

The changes seem to me to be uniformly positive with one exception.

1. FFB changes were obvious and everybody expected EP to get fixed. Most folks have enough +hit anyway, so this is a simple bug-fix which was only beneficial for you if your gear was severely under the hit cap.

2. If you are elementalist, FFB is your nuke of choice - in which case nothing changes. Go out and pwn bosses. Nobody with FFB has mana problems in a reasonable raid, anyway. Mages are topping the WWS charts using FFB, so there's nothing to complain about yet. I still hope Rogues will catch up as the gear improves.

3. If you are frost or fire, and not an elementalist, you're dipping into arcane anyway (probably as far as reasonable) to pick up the mana talents, Focus Magic, and now TtW. You have to shuffle points when the changes go live, yes. But now, instead of being way behind FFB spec (which was like TBC-era 0/21/40 Warlocks in its dominance over the other choices) you are competitive. This is a good thing, even if you have to give up a flavor talent here or there.

4. Arcane specs are no longer terrible. They are competitive in stand-and-nuke fights, have the benefit of greater mobility and some versatility with Slow and fast Invis, but have to manage mana. As one of those AB-spamming T5 mages from 2.4, that's just part of the fun and challenge of playing Arcane. It goes with the territory and I doubt anyone who enjoyed it previously looks at this as a deal-breaker. Faster Evocation is part of that. You can burn the boss harder during one phase, and evocate during a transition. For actual raid encounters where you can burn mana for big damage, this is helpful.

5. The negative one is for frost. I like Brain Freeze and think it added something to the spec that was missing (interactivity). Making it less valuable in raid situations is a shame, but let's face it - Frost wasn't competitive in raids already (as far as DPS goes). If you cared about max or near-max DPS, you weren't Frost. Now, Frost does more raid dps, but loses some of the fun in the bargain. Net gain for frost or net loss, I don't know. I imagine if you are currently raiding as Frost, you won't be passing up Brain Freeze since you were already sacrificing dps for the unique Frost perks. If you love the blue bolts you can now use them in raids. Frost really doesn't _lose_ anything.

Oh, and Blizzard slowed stuff down WAY too much. AoE farming was too easy. 50% gives all the benefits in instances, but makes AoE farm-fests less of a /snore.

The TC that puts MoE and Frost Channeling so high for arcane specs does so because Evoc reduces time spent DPSing. What this TC ignores, quite understandably, is that Evoc doesn't always eat into your damage time. On transition phases or times when you simply can't DPS a boss for some reason evoc is a natural choice and having it down to 2 minutes means 3+ evocs per fight - more than enough for any mage. With such a small cooldown on Evoc it even becomes viable to throw it up in shorter windows for 2 quick ticks. say you have a 4second period where a target is running through a script; a half evoc is completely viable if you know the cooldown will be back up long before you'll next need it.

So yes, an 18point off-spec may be the optimal patchwerk killer. But the frill in arcane gives it versatility that could come into play in a lot more situations and I'm not completely conviced that those talents are worth dropping for a few % on stand-and-nuke bosses (As an aside - I would probably just have FFb as my off-spec for those bosses regardless).

With regards to MBAM: I think it will be entirely worth blowing it while you have AB up. Simply put; its a harder hitting spell and therefor carries the AB buff further. I'd be interested to see if the AB buff can be pre-cast in the same way that arcane potency can. If that becomes a regular feature then blizzard might have to re-think this change because that would account for a significant buff to arcane damage.

My question for this discusion: The build i'm looking at has 2 points which can either go into Arcane Mind(to 5/5) or Arcane Meditation (to 2/3). Meditation is slightly more mana, but Mind gives a little spell power and crit to boot. I'm leaning towards 5/5 mind but I'm not sure other mages wouldn't laugh me out of the raid for bringing 0/3 Arcane Med. Spirit really is just not an appealing stat to me.

I guess this leads to the question;

1. Is the new AB buff used on spell cast or spell hit.

I secretly pray that it is used on spell hit, allowing crazy "shatter" combos of ramping up an AB and getting off an ABr on an MBAM proc and having both MBAM and ABr make use of the buff.

I guess we find out soon enough.

That wouldn't work.

0.0 - AB 1, 15% buff
2.5 - AB 2, 30% buff, AM proc
5.0 - AB 3, 45% buff, ABarr cast with 45% buff
6.5 - AM cast

Unless the Abarr travel is greater than your GCD, cast or land won't matter, it'll be consumed anyway. And it definitely won't work doing AM then ABarr.


The big question is AM selection logic, when to cast it. Do you break up your AB ramp for it? If so, do you then restart your AB rotation to ramp your ABarr? Is it even worth it to multi-ramp?

In an effort to help you with your dilemma, my first question would be; what is this build you are considering that is making you choose between Mind and Meditation. Personally, I consider both to be critical to an arcane raiding build.

The reason I have for this is that, in my experience, mana burns a lot (a lot!) faster in arcane raiding than it does in FFB raiding. I have, in fact, attempted a few raids as arcane in WoTLk (before *sigh*ing a lot and just giving in to the cookie cutter FFB spec) where I would constantly be fighting to prevent myself going OOM. Take note, almost my entire raiding career has been arcane, so I am very very aware of all the tricks needed to maintain a healthy mana pool when using arcane rotations.
When I finally switched to FFB, I found that I had little to no mana issues, and that was AFTER I got rid of a lot of the spirit on my gear that existed from my arcane raiding days.
Needless to say, FFB specs are by far and wide more mana efficient (as far as burnage is concerned) then an Arcane raiding spec. Hence making the need to actually think about gearing for spirit (whereas in FFB specs you are mostly thinking about getting rid of it) and hence using Meditation a very real gear selection choice. NB> I am in no way saying FFB mages don't have to consider their mana pool, I am just pointing out that they do not need to keep as close an eye on it as Arcane mages do.
(On the flipside, Arcane mages do not need to keep as close an eye on their threat like Fire/FFB mages do).

Either way, I do feel that both of those talents should not be at odds in a solid Arcane spec, they should be defaulted to be being maxed. If needed, let us know the details of this spec and maybe we can help in shaving off a few other talents so that you can squeeze a 5/5 and 3/3 out of it.
Let us remember, the old dynamic of "more mana = more damage" that was a cornerstone of Arcane pre-WoTLk, seems to be making a return with these changes. With the abundance of spirit as well as raid mana regeneration all round, means that Arcane mages could possibly make use of all this extra mana flying around unlike any other class/spec. This is its strength.

I would assume its consumed on cast just as Potency is. Thinking more deeply into cast cycle, I realise that you can't pre-cast the AB buff because AB doesn't consume it anyway and pre-casting only really works for a rotation of (cast time/instant).

I could see a cast priority thing potentially being the better solution. Spam AB untill either A: you're at 3 stacks, in which case blow ABar, or B: MBAM procs, in which case you use that. This can be a mana intensive cycle depending on your proc rates on MBAM. It might work out in your favour to cycle AB/ABar, and replace ABar with MBAM on procs (the higher overall damage/cast on MBAM makes it the clear choice for what to use AB buffs on).

Frost is mana efficient enough that I don't really think you need Arcane Med. Because of this, I don't see why frost has to lose anything at all in terms of single target DPS for TTW. If you don't mind not having full Imp Blizz, you can lose 2 there and permafrost for This spec. It keeps blizzard proccing FoF so that its DPS doesn't change, and keeps every single target DPS talent including Brain Freeze.

I'm a big fan of these changes overall. Hurts FFB slightly by bugfixing it, which is fine, and helps out every other mage spec. My main concern now is that every PvE spec requires 18+ in another tree to be optimal, but I guess this does echo some of the other classes like Boomkin. I just wish the low tier talents were as helpful to all 3 trees so that we wouldn't be picking up garbage talents to get to the strong 4th tier talents.

Another thought on it: Haste interaction under the brave new arcane world. With heroism and raid buffs its impossible to cycle AB/ABar without hitting the ABar cooldown. The minimum cycle is now AB/AB/ABar. Is this a possitive or negative scaling of haste? It depends what the TC shows of those 2 seperate cycles, of course.

[E]:Some quick TC is showing that (AB3-ABar), with MBAM on procs, will give better DPS than AB/ABar with MBAM replacing ABar when it procs. The DPS gain is fairly marginal however, compared to the absolutely huge mana dump. If the DPS gain were larger it might actually justify dumping your mana avery 2 minutes in preperation for a full evoc. Its all very close cut. The bright side of that of course is that arcane rotations are more flexible to meet the needs of the encounter (a fast burn rotation on short fights or fights with downtime for the evocs, and a controlled burn rotation for longer, more patchwerkesque fights).

From a raw DPS standpoint, I would surmise that the change will have an inherently a positive effect since previously, you would either have to:

A_ Wait out the cooldown of ABr and then cast ABr - loosing overall DPS time
B_ Cast another filler spell so as not to lose DPS time but end up loosing ABr uptime

With the new change, you can easily just cast another AB (albeit causing you to burn more mana) but at the same time have the extra cast pay off in the form that when you actually end up casting ABr after the second AB, it will hit harder.

So it may or may not be the most 'optimal' scale of haste, however, it is by far a step in a more positive direction given the state of affairs today.

You don't need to drop arcane frill for 18 points, but you do for 20 if you want to take improved scorch as well. The natural choice to drop there is 2 points in Mind Mastery, because Mind Mastery is terrible. The thing about Master of Elements isn't that you need to throw points in it to min-max your numbers theorycraft to their utmost highest, it's that Master of Elements returns a horrifically absurd amount of mana and is far and away the best mana oriented talent in any tree. And I think Frost Channeling is actually the second best.

I guess it depends how far you take your deffinition of frill. I'm fond of Prismatic cloak and Magic Absorbtion myself. I prefer to max out mind mastery out of habit (more replenish, more JoW, more Evoc, more initial mana). Honestly, if I could stay at 95% of my damage potential and only go 11 points into fire I would. If I want a patchwerk spec I'll end up fire or frostfire and use my 2nd spec for the majority of other encounters.

Well, let me try to napkinmath the missile barrage problem here.

Assume ABar has just been cast and holy shit, missile barrage. If you are on efficient rotation, you have two options. Use AM immediately, or cast AB then do AM.

Magegraf using Manly's gear has these values for spells:

Arcane Missiles: 2971 dps, this means 5942 with missile barrage.
Arcane Blast: 2976dps
Arcane Barrage: 3919 dps

So clearly it is advantageous to replace Arcane Barrage with Arcane Missiles whenever you can, as AM with barrage will gain far more benefit from the damage boost. It's more dps and more damage per cast.

Casting Arcane Missiles immediately will essentially time-shift your entire cycle by 2.5 seconds (modified by haste). Casting an AB->Missiles will timeshift by 5 seconds, in exchange for more damage. Any potential MB procs for the ramp up ABs can be ignored because you already have the buff.

AM immediately is 11203 over 2.5 seconds, or 4481 dps
AB -> AM is a total of 5610 + 11203 * 1.15 = 18493 damage over 5 seconds, or 3698 dps

Essentially how this is being modeled is that the time you take to deal with an MB is sliced off the end of the fight and appended to the point where your proc occurs. The rest of the fight is totally irrelevant as it will be the same either way, after you're done using AM you go back to your rotation. So all that really matters is the amount of dps you're doing during the proc window, and whether that is more than the dps you'd be normally doing with a cycle (it most assuredly is).

So, the answer is: You should always use your Missile Barrage procs as soon as you possibly can. The only exception is when you want to spike something, that's a different MO altogether.

Second question is, since MBAM is so powerful, should you interrupt an AB cast that's already in progress when you are doing a burn cycle? Hmm. Assume with latency and such the human reaction speed is 1.5 seconds after proc. Is it worthwhile to drop an Arcane Blast that is 1.5 second in progress in order to dump your MBAM proc immediately?

If you complete the cast, you wind up with 15% (roughly, depending on the rotation point) more damage on the AM than you would have had, resulting in 5610 + 11203 * 1.15 = 18493 damage over the 3.5 seconds (1 more second to complete the cast, plus AM time), or 5283 dps.

AM immediately is, again, 11203 over 2.5 seconds, or 4481 dps

BOTTOM LINE
When Missile Barrage procs, you should cast Arcane Missiles as soon as you possibly can, but never interrupt a cast you already started.

Is there any value in casting non-arcane nukes in order to stand around with a fully-stacked arcane blast buff waiting for some proc or other? Obviously this requires, among other things, spending points outside the arcane tree. Is there, like, some crazy 50/0/21 frost build that ABs enough to keep it stacked and blows its wad on missles, then rebuilds, with frostbolts in between? Just trying to think outside the box, please let me know just how retarded what I just said really is.