◊ manly

This thread is dedicated towards deep-arcane builds specifically. For now, the thread is under (heavy) construction because quite frankly there is a lot of ground to cover.

For the time being (until the math is more worked out/confirmed/written down/tested), I will put my focus more on commonly accepted playstyles more than anything else without any maths to back to it. This is not an intent on my par to just 'lay-it-down' without proof -- understand the math is rather tedious.

Arcane differs greatly from the other specs in the mentality behind it. It rewards the informed. It rewards properly planning ahead, both from a micro and a macro perspective. Most of the playstyle revolves around managing DPM more than anything else. As such, I will put an extreme focus on DPM values and making sure everyone understands why. A spell always has 2 costs, one of which is the time spent casting it, the other one being the mana spent for it. Arcane, unlike the other specs, needs to take into account mana cost of spells because it can't sustain its max dps cycle. The idea being here, if you can't sustain the max dps rotation, then the next logical step is to maximize the damage you can deal with the mana you have (aka: maximize DPM).

Also, before anyone asks, only specs with 51 arcane points in them apply. There isn't a good 21pt talent that would mandate skipping arcane barrage, or any competing talent really.



Some numbers

level difference	hit cap % PVE	hit cap % PVP	hit rating PVE (lvl 80)
-4	0%	0%	0
-3	1%	1%	26.23199272
-2	2%	2%	52.46398544
-1	3%	3%	78.69597816
0	4%	4%	104.92797088
+1	5%	5%	131.1599636
+2	6%	6%	157.39195632
+3 (skull level boss)	17%	13%	445.94387624
+4	28%	20%	734.49579616
+5	39%	27%	1023.04771608

Rating	Level 60	Level 70	Level 80
Spell Hit	8	12.61538506	26.23199272
Spell Critical Strike	14	22.07692337	45.90598679
Spell Haste	10	15.76923275	32.78998947

%	Spell Hit Rating (lvl 80)	Typical case	draenai %	Spell Hit with draenai
17%	445.94387624	hit cap	16%	419.71188352
14%	367.24789808	EP or (no EP + misery/improved faerie fire)	13%	341.01590536
11%	288.55191992	EP + misery/improved faerie fire	10%	262.3199272
8%	209.85594176	EP+AF (57/3/11) + misery/improved faerie fire	7%	183.62394904
1%	26.23199272

Spell	Talents / metagem	Crit multiplier (no T7)	Crit multiplier (with 4pcT7)	Note
arcane spell	(no CSD)	150%	152.5%
arcane spell	CSD	154.5%	157.225%
arcane spell	spell power	175%	177.5%
arcane spell	spell power + CSD	181.75%	184.475%
frost spell	ice shards	200%	202.5%
frost spell	ice shards + CSD	209%	211.725%
Fireball/Frostfire bolt	ignite	210%	213.5%
Fireball/Frostfire bolt	ignite + CSD	216.3%	220.115%
Fireball/Frostfire bolt	ignite + burnout	245%	248.5%
Fireball/Frostfire bolt	ignite + burnout + CSD	254.45%	258.265%
Frostfire bolt	ignite + burnout + ice shards	315%	318.5%
Frostfire bolt	ignite + burnout + ice shards + CSD	330.75%	334.565%
--
am (glyphed)	spell power	187.5%	190%
am (glyphed)	spell power + CSD	195.375%	198.1%
blizzard	spell power + 2/3 ice shards	208%	210.5%	57/3/11
blizzard	spell power + 2/3 ice shards + CSD	217.72%	220.445%	57/3/11
blizzard	spell power + 3/3 ice shards	225%	227.5%	56/3/12
blizzard	spell power + 3/3 ice shards + CSD	236.25%	238.975%	56/3/12

(crit multiplier formula listed in the formula section)


Specs
There are a lot of possible specs for arcane. Below are the typical cookie-cutter builds.

But before I get there, there is something that mages want to be aware of.

1- Master of Elements only refunds the base mana cost of the spell that crits. More specifically: it will refund you the unstacked AB mana cost even if you paid multiple times more.
2- Frost Channeling does not suffers from the above exception. You get a full multiplying 10% mana cost reduction no matter how many stacks of AB.
3- Elemental Precision was changed and now affects all schools. This means you get 6% hit from your spec if you go for a 57/3/11 build. Of course the mana cost reduction is doubly beneficial. Keep in mind that at this pre-ulduar time, most gear is intentionally balanced in such a way that generally you either get int/spirit or spell hit, but rarely all of them. This is somewhat nice since the spec can make use of int/spirit and works nice around this limitation.
4- Generally you want someone else to keep scorch for you. This is mostly because going 18 point into fire, in addition to costing you a glyph slot, is somewhat unfit for a deep arcane build. However, you could go 51/20/0 if you need to apply your own scorch.
5- All the linked builds I put [] in them. This is somewhat a matter of personal preference, you could as well go for mage armor.
6- Keep in mind that icy veins is generally a very sweet thing to have for a deep arcane build. Reason being that it somewhat syncs up well with 2min evocation cooldown, allowing you to finish off an icy veins with evocation.
7- [] gives 3% per stack.

57/3/11 - Pure single-target dps build.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...h=012004000000
57/3/11 - More ulduar-centric build (3/3 IA, 2/2 frost warding, no pushback protection)
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...0&version=9901


Rotations

cycle	dps	mps	dpm	dpm tradeoff (next cycle)	dpm tradeoff (cycle 2)	general use	note
AB3+ [mbarr]	5495.957	387.9541	14.17		1.85	mana dump / during AP	cast mbarr only at 3 stack. * see note2 below
AB AB AB ([mbarr] or abarr)	5132.355	190.8791	26.89	1.85		main cycle / during AP
AB AB AB AM	5070.111	157.7089	32.15	1.88	1.88	main cycle / during AP
AB AB ([mbarr] or AB AM)	5031.662	146.4452	34.36	3.41	2.27	main cycle
AB ([AB mbarr] or abarr)	4760.778	87.75334	54.25	4.62	3.60	mana saving	* see note below
AB ([mbarr] or abarr)	4677.5	74.82857	62.51	6.44	3.92	mana saving	* see note below
AB AM	4184.583	32.69562	127.99	11.71	5.99	mana saving

([] denotes conditional statement. Cast only on missile barrage proc.)
(example: AB AB ([mbarr] or AB AM) indicates: "AB AB AB AM" (without mbarr proc) and "AB AB mbarr" when mbarr procs)
(clarification: AB3+ refers to AB spamming. It also means you must cast at least 3 AB)

note: be aware that (AB abarr) can fail to work if abarr is still on cooldown (this will typically happens during bloodlust + icy veins). You probably want to use a different rotation during haste cooldowns.

note 2: as far as I am concerned, the top realistic DPS rotation of an arcane mage is the 2nd rotation. The reason being that you will consume mana faster than before due to the increased AP uptime%. Realistically I don't believe you will end up doing much AB spamming barring really short fights.

Understanding DPM tradeoffs

A DPM tradeoff represents roughly the extra DPM you get from 1 mana by spending that mana on another cycle.
In other words, it represents the extra damage you will deal from switching rotations (assuming the initial rotation would have ran you OOM). It also indirectly indicates the value of mana, and how much more damage more mana will give you in total. Keep in mind here a very important detail; it also assumes the fight duration will not change for the dpm tradeoff to make sense.

The reason why DPM is misleading and gives you the impression you get a tremendously cheaper rotation is because it totally ignores duration (ie: the dps element). If you had infinite time, then yes, follow exclusively the optimum DPM value to maximize total damage dealt with the mana available. If constrained by time (99.9% of cases), then you want to look at dpm tradeoffs rather than dpm.


Presence of Mind
optimal use: last AB of any rotation

1- POM-AM doesn't work. I mean, its not going to finish your channel in 1.5s. Additionally, I think POM doesn't apply the 30% crit to AM due to the wotlk-beta bug of POM+AM spam (ie: permanent 30% crit).
2- POM-abarr is nice and all, but doing so will not take advantage of the cast-time-reduction element of POM. Only the 30% more crit part. As such it is not recommended. Sure, you do gain 18% more damage over any AB (AB4+ spam), but the cast time reduction is worth more than that 18%.
3- POM-AB is the only other alternative (well, that and FFB, but the math is inconclusive on that). You gain 1s of dps time by reducing the cast time from 2.5->1.5. Thinking about it, the most logical choice for AB would be the last AB of your rotation, because it has the biggest damage multiplier (ie: 30% more crit from POM is better used coupled with the highest damage multiplier).

4- As a general note, I recommend generally to go for one extra AB on your rotation where you cast POM, in a case where you had planned to do some mana dumping at the end of the fight. It makes sense to use an extra 18% more damage on AB.

It is currently not proven whether or not POM-AB during cooldowns (lust/IV) is better than outside of cooldowns. The reason being that reducing 2.5->1.5 is worth a lot more than reducing, for example 1.4->1.0.


AOE
ranged aoe: AP/IV/blizzard + POM/flamestrike
close aoe: same as ranged. do not go in melee range.

The above rotations are what I personally use. I haven't mathed-out to figure which is optimum. As such, there is a possibility the above is not optimum.


Threat management

Class	Name	Note
Mage	Invisibility
Mage	Mirror Image
Warrior	Vigilance	31 prot
Warrior	Intervene
Paladin	Hand of Salvation
Priest	Pain Suppression	41 disc
Hunter	Misdirection
Mage - talent	Arcane Subtlety
Mage - talent	Burning Soul	Does not stack with frost channeling
Mage - talent	Frost Channeling	Does not stack with burning soul

Generally you want to delay invisibility as much as possible, because the more you wait, the more effective it becomes.

Based on my personal experience, waiting for the boss to reach 70% hp before using invis will allow you to go all out for the remainder of the fight. Of course, this is only a rule of thumb and assumes that you produce more threat than your tank, and that you will catch up to him. You can play with the number a bit if you can afford to use invis at the end of the fight (ie: finish the fight with >130% threat). It has proven to work well, however, expanded math could give optimum values (if anyone is willing to do it).


Consumables

	Flask	Food	Potion	Gem
Best	[]	[]/[]/[]	[]	[]
Alternative		[]/[]/[]	[]	[] (not recommended w/ 2pc t7)
Alternative-		[]/[]	[]

Glyphs

0/53/18	18/53/0	57/3/11	51/20/0
[]	[]	[]	[]
[]	[]	[] / []	[] / []
[]	[]	[]	[]
[]	[]

Formulas
base formula for all mage spells (thx to Zaldinar for corrections)
notes/gotchas:
ffb glyph and spell impact are applied a very odd way, as shown in the formula above. Some frost calculations are not 100% known, given they give sometimes results outside of predicted values. As such, this should be only used to get a rough idea.
The above list is simplified and doesn't lists every possible non-stacking buffs. For a proper list, check the FFB thread or MMO-Champion RaidComp . For example, 'coe' refers to any of (Ebon Plaguebringer/Curse of the Elements+Malediction/Earth and Moon).

crit multiplier formula
Base mana

Class	Level 70	Level 80
Mage	2241	3268
Druid	2370	3496
Warlock	2871	3856
Priest	2620	3863
Paladin	2953	4394
Shaman	3457	4396
Hunter	3383	5046

Spell	Coefficient	Base damage	Talents affecting the dot	Mana cost %	Mana cost (lvl 80)	Notes
Frostfire Bolt	3.0/3.5	722-838 + 90/9s	pwf, firepower, arcane instability, piercing ice	14%	457	1 tick / 3s
Living Bomb	0.80/12s + 0.40	1380/12s + 690	pwf (not firepower)	22%	718	1 tick / 3s
Pyroblast	1.15 + 0.20/12s	1210-1531 + 452/12s	pwf, firepower, arcane instability	22%	718	1 tick / 3s
Scorch	1.5/3.5	382-451		8%	261
Fireball	3.5/3.5	898-1143 + 116/8s	pwf, firepower, arcane instability	19%	620	1 tick / 2s
Fire Blast	1.5/3.5	925-1095		21%	686
Flamestrike	0.2427 + 0.1220 (per tick)	876-1071 + 780/8s	pwf, firepower, arcane instability	30%	980	1 tick / 2s
Flamestrike (rank 8)	0.2427 + 0.1220 (per tick)	699-854 + 620/8s	pwf, firepower, arcane instability	30%	980	1 tick / 2s
Blizzard	8.0/3.5/2 /8s	3408/8s		74%	2418	1 tick / s
Cone of Cold	1.5/3.5/2	709-776		29%	947
Dragon's Breath	1.5/3.5/2*0.90	1101-1279		31%	1013
Blast Wave	1.5/3.5/2*0.90	1047-1233		28%	915 / glyphed: 777
Arcane Explosion	1.5/3.5/2	538-582		22%	718
Frost Nova	1.5/3.5/2*0.90	368-419		8%	261
Frostbolt	3/3.5*0.95	803-866		13%	424
Ice Lance	1.5/3.5/3	223-258		7%	228
Arcane Blast	2.5/3.5	1185-1377		8%	261
Arcane Missiles	5/3.5	~362		31%	1013
Arcane Barrage	2.5/3.5	936-1144		18%	588
Mirror Image	-	-		10%	326	30s
Mirror Image - frostbolt	0.10	163-169 *	150% crits, ~22-25 per cast	-	-
Mirror Image - fireblast	0.05	88-98 *	150% crits, ~10-14 per cast	-	-
Water Elemental - frostbolt	2.5/3.5*0.4	601-673	150% crits, sta/int = 0.3, 5% base crit	16%	522	45-60s

note: there is a discrepancy between the in-game-tooltip values and the ones reported by sites parsing the data files. The values above are taken from in-game-tooltips (except for arcane missiles).
* Based on a limited number of casts (~100 per).

Stats equivalence

More numbers

Level	Crit / Int	Int / 1% crit
70	0.0125	80
71	0.0116	86.2068944
72	0.0108	92.59259244
73	0.0101	99.00990313
74	0.0093	107.526879
75	0.0087	114.9425283
76	0.0081	123.4567927
77	0.0075	133.333327
78	0.007	142.857139
79	0.0065	153.8461534
80	0.006	166.6666709

crit_rate_from_int = 0.9075 + final_int / 166.6666709
note: 0.9075 applies only to lvl 80 ? currently unknown

	Level 70	Level 80
BASE_REGEN	0.009327	0.005575

Level	BASE_REGEN	Level	BASE_REGEN	Level	BASE_REGEN	Level	BASE_REGEN
1	0.034965001	21	0.019733001	41	0.013724	61	0.010701
2	0.034191001	22	0.019156	42	0.013522	62	0.010523
3	0.033465002	23	0.018819001	43	0.013363	63	0.010291
4	0.032527	24	0.018316999	44	0.013176	64	0.01012
5	0.031661	25	0.017936001	45	0.012996	65	0.009969
6	0.031076999	26	0.017577	46	0.012854	66	0.009808
7	0.030523	27	0.017201001	47	0.012687	67	0.009652
8	0.029995	28	0.016919	48	0.01254	68	0.009553
9	0.029307	29	0.016581999	49	0.012384	69	0.009446
10	0.028662	30	0.016233999	50	0.012233	70	0.009327
11	0.027585	31	0.015995	51	0.012114	71	0.008859
12	0.026215	32	0.015707999	52	0.011973	72	0.008415
13	0.025381001	33	0.015464	53	0.01186	73	0.007993
14	0.024301	34	0.015204	54	0.011715	74	0.007592
15	0.023345999	35	0.014957	55	0.011576	75	0.007211
16	0.022748999	36	0.014745	56	0.011473	76	0.006849
17	0.021958999	37	0.014496	57	0.011342	77	0.006506
18	0.021387	38	0.014302	58	0.011245	78	0.006179
19	0.020791	39	0.014095	59	0.011111	79	0.005869
20	0.020121001	40	0.013896	60	0.011	80	0.005575

ManaRegen(SPI, INT, LEVEL) = roundup( (0.001+SPI*BASE_REGEN[LEVEL]*(INT^0.5) *0.60 )*5 )
* applies only to 3.10


Professions / Racials

Profession	Buff	Non-profession buff	Gain
Jewelcrafting	3x[]	3x[] or (2x[]+[])	between [+39 dmg] and [+69 dmg, -8 crit, -24 sta]
Blacksmithing	Socket Gloves+Socket Bracer		+38 dmg
Enchanting	2xEnchant Ring - Greater Spellpower		+38 dmg
Leatherworking	Fur Lining - Spell Power	Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower	+37 dmg
Alchemy	Mixology	[]	+37 dmg
Inscription	Master's Inscription of the Storm	[]	+37 dmg
Engineering	Hyperspeed Acceleration	Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower	340 haste / 10s (1min CD), -28 dmg
Tailoring	Lightweave Embroidery	Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
Skinning	Master of Anatomy		+32 crit
Mining	Toughness		+50 sta

Race	Buff
Undead	none
Troll	Berserking + Beast Slaying (...)
Blood Elf	Arcane Torrent
Human	The Human Spirit
Gnome	Expansive Mind
Draenai	Heroic Presence

EDITS
1- AB mana cost tables
2- POM
3- Added Professions / Racials
4- Added threat management
5- Added AB mana cost formula


Points of contention
1- Which talents are the best to cut when going from 57 to 51 pt in arcane?
2- Is is worth taking the last 2 points in Arcane Stability (conc. aura being a possibility)?
3- If yes, then what talent to sacrifice?
1- <many many many things here>


(as a temporary thing, if you want to have a rough idea of the calculations of arcane spells, check the ffb thread for the spreadsheet. for some mundane reason I can't re-link on this thread)

To do
type something about arcane debuff being cleanseable
finish spreadsheet according to 'to do' list on ffb thread.
add dpm-affecting buff/debuffs
attach spreadsheet

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Averiel

1st! awesome post in progress =D

A couple questions to ask for later:

I noticed in your 57/3/11 spec that you linked, you have 2/2 Magic Absorption. I haven't had the chance to try the spec out in a raid situation, are there any mana problems that appear that 2/3 Student of the Mind (8% of like no spirit that I have) help out a bit?

Also, skipping pushback resistance won't have a huge impact on DPS?

 

Silabiss

Awesome, thanks Manly. I was really hoping someone would get one of these up, to divert some of the "wow how do I play arcane spec" questions that are about to start flooding (or already are) these forums.

 

Etherealz

I made a small spreadsheet yesterday before realms came up just to try and get an idea of optimal cycles. It is by no means a complete spreadsheet but it demonstrates some mana consumption and dps of various cycle options.

Main purpose was to determine if shattering missiles was worth it without Mbar procs. Unless I did something wrong it would appear it's not worth it without the proc.

Arccycle.xls - FileFront.com

Maybe somebody will find it useful for the time being.

Couple notes - spelldamage / int (in row 2) are unbuffed / before arcane cheater talents.
- I assumed the 6% arc haste was calculated like veins / lust but I could be wrong here.

Edit: Just looking it over I also didn't add FM. So if you are 'circle jerking' FM you can add 6% crit there.

Edit: Fixed focus magic and a couple other oversights which weren't actually effecting the results but looked messy.

 

Kel S'jet

That 'pure single target DPS build', is pretty wrong unfortunately

EDIT: To explain this point a bit better. My quandary is with your allocation of points to Magic absorption and Magic attunement instead of Student of the mind.

Why? Simple.

Even if it is a minor increase in mana, it is still more of an increase in mana over Magic attunement and absorption. Increased range, while nice, is not neccissary at all. Arcanists from the BC age made by very well with just 30 yards. And as far as the increased magic resistance, while nice, will not really make much of a difference except for in perhaps 1 fight out of the 20+ in the game right now.

One of the key tenants of any arcane spec is more mana = more damage, since the one of the single most powerful aspects of the Arcane spec is it's ability to convert mana into damage at will.

To this effect, leaving every other point as it is, place 3/3 SotM, leaving you with 1 point for 'flavor'. Personally, I place the last talent in Slow since it is such a classic Arcane ability. Though at that point, it really is up to you.

 

Sinless

With the current arcane shatter bug in place, according to Rawr, playing arcane is actually much simpler than it looks.

1) Your regular rotation, unless severely limited by mana, should ALWAYS be ABx3-AM-Abar, REGARDLESS of missile barrage proc. Remember to use Abar before the 5th tick of AM.

2) Your stacked cooldown rotation, unless severely limited by mana, is spam AB, use AM-Abar ONLY when missile barrage procs. Remember to use Abar before the 5th tick of AM.

3) You should try to stack your cooldowns with heroism but not at the expense of missing the 2nd use of any cooldown. You should always stack IV and AP together.


This is it. 3 simple steps cover everything there is to play arcane. This will remain to be the case until Blizzard fixes the arcane shatter bug or they acknowledge it but change arcane in a different way. Please note you are very rarely "severely limited by mana" due to current content and fights being extremely short.

 

mnmkana

I kinda disagree with manly on 57/3/11 being the single target dps spec as well.

I've tested the new arcane spec with 51/2/18 for 3/3 in frost channeling but i'm still using my mana very fast.

I had to use my gem whenever its up and evocate for all my fights, even a mana potion on thaddius.

57/3/11 may be the highest arcane dps spec but i doubt its possible to sustain it for long.

That being said, arcane's DPS is great. I topped the charts for all the boss fights maintaining dps constantly around 5k (give or take 100). unfortunately i don't have the WWS to show it.

 

manapaws

Nice work as always, Manly. What I'd perhaps like to see in a thread like this is more talk on mana management, especially as arcane. Also, do most consider the 60% extra damage on Abar after AM a bug/exploit or will it likely stay as is?

According to rawr, with my current gear (2pc 7.5 2pc 7, other random [mostly bad] stuff) my max theoretical raid dps as 53/18 frostfire is 3940 compared to 4500 as 57/3/11. Thing I'm not really sure about though is whether this is assuming max burn cycle or limited mana cycle? Is it possible to specify a certain duration of each in rawr? I'll try it next raid and see, I guess.

 

Pasture

The 57/3/11 build is the exact build that I'm using so I'd have to agree with it.

I just ran my first 25-man today. Previously I did around 3k dps max. Now I'm sustaining 4k for a boss fight. so I'm seeing a 25% increase on what I was doing pre-patch. On top of this mana in a proper raid environment didn't seem to be too troublesome. I used my evocate but wound up feeling like I didn't really need to use it at all. I was running with glyphed mage armour however.

 

mnmkana

Pasture u might wanna try running with glyphed molten armor instead because giving up 5% crit is not worth it in my opinion if u can sustain throughout the whole fight without resorting to wanding

 

Light4

Personally, I would skill pushback protection over range or absorption, I even considered only 1 point in subtlety, but with my experience from pre-3.0.8 this would definitely mean invisibility after popping all CDs (including mirror image) right after the pull.
Loosing 1s off a 2s hasted MBAM sound like bad dpm to me

 

◊ manly

You might not realize it, but its very long to type all of that. I typed what I could on the time I have, its obviously not finished or the only possible build.

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bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Averiel

What spell to use PoM on?

Frostbolt may not crit for 200% (calculating based on talents) depending on your spec.
AB would add another debuff for you if you don't have 3, and you save a "little" time on stacking them.
Fireball sounds worthless without ignite.

What do you PoM? I am leaning towards AB when not at 3 stacks.

 

Kel S'jet

POM AB to start the stack seems to be the best bet.

Start the fight with a POM AB and attempt to use it as much as possible to get the first stack up. With a 2 min cooldown, you are looking at easily using it multiple times in a fight

 

Kel S'jet

In an effort to get some useful information out there, here are some basic playstyle ideas concerning the proper use of Evocation.

Facts
1. Using the accepted Arcane spec, you will have access to an evocate every 2 mins, as well as IV (2:24 cooldown). Engineers will also have access to a 1 min CD haste trinket.

Ideas
Currently there are 2 schools of thought concerning the proper use of evocation with the new Arcane spec.

1. Conventional Use: Use evocation only when needed
Premise:
Like the evocation of old, this school of thought places emphasis on using evocation only when needed, preferably at a point in time where you can minimize or negate the DPS loss from not casting, e.g boss transition or when fully Bloodlusted and hasted etc. At the core of this idea is the concept of minimizing (or completely eliminating) time not spent DPSing.
Execution:
The execution of this idea is very straight forward. It is no different then what mages are accustomed to already. Use Evoc at the end of a lust or when the boss is transitioning etc

2. Aggressive Use: Attempt to use evocation nearly every 2 mins when the CD is up.
Premise:
This school of thought is centered around the idea that the arcane mage's DPS cycles are part of a super-cycle that lasts approximately 2mins 10 seconds (barring gear haste or haste effects). With this, the Arcane mage will attempt to use very aggressive DPS rotations in an effort to ensure all his mana is spent every 2 mins, after which, he will spend the next 10 seconds 'regenerating' his mana.
Execution:
For this idea to work, the mage has to minimize the 'regen' time as much as possible. Plausible suggestions include saving 'haste' cooldowns (IV and Gloves) and/or syncing the regen time with things such as bloodlust. In order to burn all your mana, you would also have to use Arcane power as much as possible, hence the Arcane power glyph and Molten armor glyph is of better use. As a secondary point, proper use of IV for the "Aggressive Use" is also required. For fights with less raid wide damage, you would want to use your IV before you evocate and start the evocation on the last tick of IV in order to gain the speed access. For encounters with more raid damage, you would have to use the last 10 seconds of IV to evocate, so as to sheild your evocate from push back and damage based interruption.

Pros and Cons:

1. Conventional Pros:
Tried and tested. People are very familiar with the conventional use of evocation.
You still have the flexibility to sync up your evocation with encounter specific downtime.

Conventional Cons:
There is a theoretical loss of burst damage as well as a potential not to use your mana -> damage conversion maximally.

2. Aggressive Pros:
Potential to do a lot more damage since you are going to be using your evocation much much more often, and, since you have access to a lot more mana, you can burn it for much more overall damage.
Aggressive Cons:
Very unstable, since your lifeline is based around the concept that you must under all circumstances not have anything go wrong in your regen phase. If something prevents your regen phase executing properly (e.g you are forced to move and interrupt evocation or you are silenced or something else that makes your evocation not complete) you will suffer a very large DPS loss from which it will be much harder to recover (though not impossible).


Gear Requirements

1. Conventional Evocation use does not have any stringent gear requirements other than the basic requirements applied to all Arcane mages.

2. The only real gear requirement for aggressive Evocation use requires that your gear can support maximally burning all your mana at 2 min intervals, as well as have enough regen to make it to your next regen cycle without having to resort to 'mana conservation' spell rotations (e.g just using AB ABr).

edit: forgot tips and conclusions

Tips and Tricks
1. Conventional:
- No real playstyle and/or casting change is necessary with the conventional use of Evocation. DPS rotations are still based off of maximizing DPS and DPM based on the total duration of the fight and preventing the use of Evocation if possible (since in this school of thought, evocation is more of an "oh sh!t" button rather than an active part of the playstyle). Most commonly discussed rotations will work here.
- It is still important to look for 'encounter specific' opportunities with this playstyle. E.g you should use your knowledge of the fight to know when there is potential downtime and hence you can aim to burn your mana so as to sync up with the point where the downtime occurs, hence having 'DPS loss free' regeneration.

2. Aggressive:
- It is advisable to 'frontload' a lot of damage with this playstyle. Since you are effectively looking to go oom at the 2 min mark, you are better off frontloading a lot of damage and being forced to use a mana preserve rotation in order to wait out the the remaining time till your cooldowns come up rather than reaching the 2 min mark and having a lot of mana to spare. This idea lives and dies by maximizing the use of the theoretical mana available to the mage. Having lots of mana left and your evocation, AP, IV, POM, trinkets being off CD is a bad place to be.
- It is imperative to sync yourself with external effects such as bloodlust using the aggressive playstyle. Ideally, you would want to have enough mana left to make use of bloodlust and still have at least 1 tick of bloodlust left on you to use for evocation. Hence it is imperative that at least 1 of your evocation 'regen' phases is executed right at the end of a bloodlust + IV + gloves combo. This will bring evocation to around a 3-4 second channel.

Conclusions:
It is apparent that the power of Arcane lies in short fights and burst DPS. I believe the school of thought behind the "Aggressive use of evocation" are attempting to leverage this fact by shifting the way the Arcanist fights to 2 min intervals. Hence, the Arcanist is essentially DPSing through encounters in 'phases of burst'. With the new cooldowns, this is now possible since many of the cooldowns sync up. The only real offender to this is IV. Though there is still some debate as to whether or not a 2 min IV would be ideal anyway since it is a duration based effect. Ideally, IV would be at a sub-2 min CD (something akin to 1min 50 seconds).
In contrast, the school of thought behind the more conventional use of evocation is of the belief that the use of cooldowns for regeneration as well as the more consistent use of evocation is not maximizing DPS uptime.

It is important to note, that for fights that are short enough (eg some of the 2min something parses that we are seeing of patchwerk) both schools of thought converge to the same playstyle. I.e on short enough fights, there is no difference.

 

Maledict

Would be great if you had some maths to explain why wasting time evocating (and cooldown usage) is useful. You appear to be just trying to make up terms for something you don't have the numbers for, and passing it off as fact?

 

Kel S'jet

There was some pretty intense conversation (with numbers) about this very topic in the other thread "Upcoming mage changes". When I get some time I can port them over here too.
The discussion in that thread ended with no conclusive winner, which is the reason that I specifically stated at the beginning of the post 'the two ideas', and not 'this one idea is the only use of evocation'. After all, I think my post is pretty impartial to either, so I do not understand what I am 'trying to pass off as fact". If you are referring to whether or not the discussion existed in the first place, then yes, that is a fact. I am not making that up.

But I do understand your deeper point quite clearly.

edit: formatting

 

DaDeigo

I was able to pull 7.1 dps on patch ( got a innervate ) and 8.4 on thaddius no innervate and i forgot to cast mana gems before the fight (GG) for thaddius. We also had to stop dps on feugen for the stallag side to catch up. I was crushed by a warrior who did 10k dps who cried all night about how they were nurfed until that fight. I was looking forward all night to loatheb but only pulled 6.9 there to my suprise. I only got a innervate on patch and my gear is by no means the best but its pretty good.

Few things i am unsure about is the following:

1. Is it really that beneficial to be using mage armour glyphed full time over molten glyphed and swaping when needing to.

2. Can i avoid mana issues with glyphing mana gem plus my set bonus from teir gear. Is it worth it even?

3. I found timing all evocates on the last ticks of IV and bloodlust to be extremly important.

4. I went oom a few times in the start but without managing my mana properly but in time i found it to be a non issue i had just become a lazy spammer for FFB. Do you guys have any key insight?

5. I never had a fight where my dps was sub 5500, even when i was getting use to the spec and going oom.

6. How are people dealing with AM mb proc's. I found even with a good rig and a good video card that it was a pain to time and i did miss the timing occasionally, and yes i do use quartz. Sometimes i blew my wad too early and sometimes i was a second too late.

 

DaDeigo

For point 2 do you feel avoiding am having the buff for four missle subpar dps to more ab/abr's?

 

Swindley

Well, we're doing some various fights atm. I'm stuck fire/arc to provice scorch, and the lesser geared mages which have allways been lower than me on DPS are now devasting the meters, far above what I can produce with my current spec. If I wasnt stuck to provide the debuff I'd respec too.

But seriously, this can't be intended from arcane. They have superior survivability, threat management, mobile DPS and burst DPS. And the worst part, I'm stuck at way lower DPS because scorch needs to be up.

They need to bring arcane inline with the other specs. If they could also add the 10% crit to arcane, that would be perfect and it would truly be a choice, based on preferance, not force.

 

Lgs

The question is whether or not they will fix this (or want to fix this) discrepancy with arcane's dps in time for us to use this in Ulduar. At the moment everything is so easy it's pointless anyway. But since it's pure speculation, we should just do as Manly is and focus on maximizing our DPS with what we have in the moment.

Gnomes are creatures of destruction.

 

manapaws

Perhaps look at it via a raid damage vs personal damage pov? You'd do (say) 400 more dps as arcane, but all the other casters in the raid would do (say) 400 dps less, each. To each his own, but personally I'm more interested in faster zone clears than topping meters.

 

thescreensavers

My guild runs with 5 mages most of the time ( go grp 5!) so at this time I am the only mage trying Arcane to see how it fares tonight in naxx full clear.

Only thing I am unclear is

People say AB AB AB AM Abarr

Do you cast AM regardless of procs? or only when MBAM procs?

What is this thing about Evo and Icy vains?




PS:Great job Manly.

 

Querk

POM AB for the third AB of the stack actually seems like a better bet to me.

The POM brings an extra 30% crit chance with it, so it would seem best to use it on the biggest AB to leverage the extra crit damage as much as possible.

Plus, assuming POM is probably macroed with AP and IV (you probably do want to use the POM during AP, for the same rationale - if you can force a crit, force the biggest one you can right?), it also works well to start the AP and IV on the third stack to give it the highest probability of overlapping the most damage in the cycle possible. (assuming here that the number of casts overlapped by the AP/IV will not always be constant due to uncertain MBAM procs, lag, pushback, etc.)

A third reason would be that assuming all that stuff is macroed together for a large burst, your tank may prefer that you burst on your third cast rather than your first. Granted the flip side here is that the cooldowns refresh 4ish seconds later - but that seems unlikely to be a determining factor whether or not you get the second use in.

 

manapaws

Lucky you, you can tell one to keep improved scorch :P

Basically they're referring to popping Icy Veins, going nuts on DPS then using Evo at the very last second of Icy Veins before it disappears. This allows it to be a much shorter cast, thereby maximizing your dps time and minimizing your regen time.