I remember when arcane got very big in naxxaramas there was a post on the intimate details of how pushback worked in reference to arcane missiles and its ticking mechanic. Although I have made several search attempts, I cannot find it. So I guess my question is how do varying levels of pushback protection (varying ranks of arcane instability and imp concentration aura) effect arcane missilies ticks?
Far be it from me to call you a liar, but I suppose I have an advantage in finding something I've posted about before. Perhaps if manly has a few minutes to spare he could add a similar table to the first page as a reference.
Far be it from me to call you a liar, but I suppose I have an advantage in finding something I've posted about before. Perhaps if manly has a few minutes to spare he could add a similar table to the first page as a reference.
Well honestly I think the table is just hard to use. It gives the impression that its meant to be memorized, whereas I would rather understand the principles behind it. The principles have been known for a long time; I never felt like it needed actual explaining.
<Eej> YOU"RE GONNA PULL
<Eej> IF YOU SQUEEZE OFF ANOTHER ARCANE BLAST
<Spectear> You've obviously never played with Manly.
<Spectear> That's hardly a reason to stop DPS. Very Manly Staff
Patch 3.2.2 live today, so I'm planning out a 57/3/11 Arcane spec to respec to this afternoon when I get home.
Would a spec with 2/3 Incanter's Absorption, 1/2 Magic Attunement (range), 1/2 Magic Absorption (resist all) and 0/5 Arcane Stability (pushback) be acceptable? I read somewhere that 3/3 IA isn't necessary because you can hit the limit pretty quickly anyway. Still torn on the Magic Attunement/range/pushback decision though.
Any and all advice welcomed. Thanks!
- I would go 1/3 Sublety, 1/3 Focus, 3/5 Stability across tier 1 of Arcane, keeping in mind that you'll need a holy Paladin to get at least 1/3 Improved Concentration Aura for this to grant 100% pushback reduction (60% + 35% + 5/10/15%).
- Incanter's gives 5/10/15% of all damage absorbed in any given 10 second period as spell power, so you always lose net spell power with less than 3 point investment - however, the only fight this talent could be considered mandatory for is (heroic) Twin Val'kyr. Incanter's Absorption on other fights will resemble random procs of spell power much like trinkets have, which still might merit getting it.
- 1/2 Magic Attunement is probably sufficient but I'm not sure if 2/2 is significantly better or if Clearcasting should be filled in regardless for more than 5 points in tier 2.
- The debate comes down the following talents: finishing Arcane Mind, finishing Clearcasting, Student of the Mind, Incanter's Absorption, and Magic Absorption, assuming none of the core talents (other talents in Arcane, 3 Fire, 11 Frost) have any compromise.
Edit - As for the range talent, I really want 2/2 for 36 yards - I think damage would suffer with 30 or 33 by a larger margin than any of the other talents we discussed.
- Incanter's gives 5/10/15% of all damage absorbed in any given 10 second period as spell power, so you always lose net spell power with less than 3 point investment - however, the only fight this talent could be considered mandatory for is (heroic) Twin Val'kyr. Incanter's Absorption on other fights will resemble random procs of spell power much like trinkets have, which still might merit getting it.
- The debate comes down the following talents: finishing Arcane Mind, finishing Clearcasting, Student of the Mind, Incanter's Absorption, and Magic Absorption
Your assumption about IA is incorrect. The SP bonus caps at 5% of your HP, so as long as you are absorbing enough damage to reach that cap you can reduce points in IA without loss of SP. This is especially notable on the Twins, which as you pointed out is the only fight where it is extremely valuable on; 2/3 IA will put you at that cap on both normal and heroic versions of the fight (note: in normal 25 mode using 1500dmg/2sec and 2/3 IA with 23.4k buffed HP it actually is 20 SP below the cap, but in our last fight parse the average damage per tick was actually 1748 for dark surge and 1851 for light surge, which does cap it).
In choosing what talents to pull from, according to Rawr SotM is by far the worst talent in your list and IMO no arcane build should be picking it up with the other options in the tree.
- I would go 1/3 Sublety, 1/3 Focus, 3/5 Stability across tier 1 of Arcane, keeping in mind that you'll need a holy Paladin to get at least 1/3 Improved Concentration Aura for this to grant 100% pushback reduction (60% + 35% + 5/10/15%).
I'm sorry, but why is there so much focus on Stability? What fights do you get hit while casting? Why is this so important? If you can change your gear to drop hit for better stats elsewhere, why wouldn't you use the points there to do so?
- I would go 1/3 Sublety, 1/3 Focus, 3/5 Stability across tier 1 of Arcane, keeping in mind that you'll need a holy Paladin to get at least 1/3 Improved Concentration Aura for this to grant 100% pushback reduction (60% + 35% + 5/10/15%).
That would come out to 4% hit from talents - That's 264 hit if my math doesn't suck, right? (assuming I'm horde so no Draenei bonus and have a SPriest/Moonkin)
- Incanter's gives 5/10/15% of all damage absorbed in any given 10 second period as spell power, so you always lose net spell power with less than 3 point investment - however, the only fight this talent could be considered mandatory for is (heroic) Twin Val'kyr. Incanter's Absorption on other fights will resemble random procs of spell power much like trinkets have, which still might merit getting it.
Well, we do have a resto Druid with a Val'anyr and a Holy Priest who's not far from getting his, also, so there should be a bunch of bubbles flying around soon. Plus they changed the bubble procs to stack instead of refresh so more damage will be absorbed meaning more spellpower (if I read that right). I'm thinking it's just useful to pass up, especially when there are fights like Northrend Beasts or Jaraxxus where I can stand in fire with Fire Ward up for a second if needed. I hate that mechanic making me want to do something like that, but if it works, it works.
- 1/2 Magic Attunement is probably sufficient but I'm not sure if 2/2 is significantly better or if Clearcasting should be filled in regardless for more than 5 points in tier 2.
I would think as our mana pools get bigger and bigger, we can make do with less Clearcasting for the mana, although that's some crits on Clearcasting procs we'd be losing.
- The debate comes down the following talents: finishing Arcane Mind, finishing Clearcasting, Student of the Mind, Incanter's Absorption, and Magic Absorption, assuming none of the core talents (other talents in Arcane, 3 Fire, 11 Frost) have any compromise.
Edit - As for the range talent, I really want 2/2 for 36 yards - I think damage would suffer with 30 or 33 by a larger margin than any of the other talents we discussed.
Personally, I hate giving up the free built-in 6% spell hit, but I could probably go with 20% threat reduction instead of 40%.
I'm noticing Missile Barrage can be consumed slightly before an Arcane Blast lands on the target, leading to Missile Barrage re-procing while you're channeling Arcane Missiles. Has anyone else observed this behavior?
I just finished testing on the heroic training dummy and found some shocking differences. Utilizing the 2 piece T9 set bonus and casting continuously until oom using a 4AB spam, AM(if proc) rotation. This is what i came up with.
The only time I'd *personally* break from that is if I somehow haven't procced MBAM after 5-7 consecutive ABs and I'm running low on mana. I'd save PoM+AB for that in order to use the GCD to see if I finally get a proc. If not, ABarr and start over.
Is this the only time to use ABarr (or while forced to be moving)?
I'm noticing Missile Barrage can be consumed slightly before an Arcane Blast lands on the target, leading to Missile Barrage re-procing while you're channeling Arcane Missiles. Has anyone else observed this behavior?
This behavior would be related to what I've found below.
There seems to be a new issue with Missile Barrage where if you gain Missile Barrage on the cast before you cast Arcane Missiles and you didn't previously have the buff, you won't consume the Missile Barrage buff, or gain any benefit from it. This is easily tested by chain casting Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage back to back.
Basically, there is currently a delay in gaining the Missile Barrage proc as though there was a missile speed on the arcane blast. I checked to see if there was a delay on the bonus from the Arcane Blast adding damage, but I got that to apply just fine with chain-casting.
I'm noticing Missile Barrage can be consumed slightly before an Arcane Blast lands on the target, leading to Missile Barrage re-procing while you're channeling Arcane Missiles. Has anyone else observed this behavior?
I noticed this as well as something else (that I have yet to confirm, as I had to leave my dummy rather quickly). If you get a proc on your last arcane blast while you do not currently possess the missile barrage buff, it doesnt consume the buff nor does it haste your AM. I'm gonna hop back and test some more later (as well as during tonight's raid) as I only produced this situation one time with the new high proc rate of Mbarrage.
I just finished testing on the heroic training dummy and found some shocking differences. Utilizing the 2 piece T9 set bonus and casting continuously until oom using a 4AB spam, AM(if proc) rotation. This is what i came up with.
So my question is, during longer encounters would Mage armor be a viable buff to use?
I think the only time I'd swap to Mage Armor is if I was low on mana, had few outs, and Evocation failed for whatever reason. I'd basically just be using it to stall until the next Evocation or until I could get an Innervate, if possible. After respeccing this afternoon, I ran the Heroic Daily in a group with a pally and two Shamans (one resto one elemental). I had 27,000 mana and approx 740 haste with Kings and Intellect, and the mana tides often left me wondering how I was at full mana after trash pulls where I was spamming AB. Should have found a druid to see how high I could get with Gift of the Wild, but after finishing the regearing I'll have to do I'd be surprised if I wasn't pushing 28,000 mana. I'd hope that would be enough to last for quite some time without needing Mage Armor.
Just like I experienced on the PTR, there are random times where Missile Barrage won't proc until 8 casts or so. It's the RNG that Arcane has to deal with. Just make good decisions on the fly about when to stack drop, I suppose with Arcane Barrage, and when not to depending on the mana regen you have available to you.
Originally Posted by Nock
This behavior would be related to what I've found below.
There seems to be a new issue with Missile Barrage where if you gain Missile Barrage on the cast before you cast Arcane Missiles and you didn't previously have the buff, you won't consume the Missile Barrage buff, or gain any benefit from it. This is easily tested by chain casting Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage back to back.
Basically, there is currently a delay in gaining the Missile Barrage proc as though there was a missile speed on the arcane blast. I checked to see if there was a delay on the bonus from the Arcane Blast adding damage, but I got that to apply just fine with chain-casting.
I definitely noticed something along those lines during my Heroic Gundrak trip. I'd use a Missile Barrage proc and by the time I was done casting it, I'd have another one waiting to go. I didn't notice the issue with Missiles not gaining "proc benefit" but I can't say I was looking for it. I wasn't casting Missiles until I had a proc, anyway, and since I'd start the cast before the pervious one was done (using quartz, taking latency into account), there were times where I was likely casting another Blast instead of the Missiles that had procced, because on my screen it actually hadn't procced yet).
Interesting. If this behavior is not yet modeled in sims or Rawr, then the static rotations like AB4 (non-spam) AM are slightly overvalued right now (or rather, it's even more reason to just stick to AB4+ MBAM).
I just finished testing on the heroic training dummy and found some shocking differences. Utilizing the 2 piece T9 set bonus and casting continuously until oom using a 4AB spam, AM(if proc) rotation. This is what i came up with.
So my question is, during longer encounters would Mage armor be a viable buff to use?
Don't forget you're getting a lot more spirit through buffing in a raid environment, which means you'll see a greater difference from using Molten Armour when you factor in Kings, Gift of the Wild and Divine Spirit. Aside from that regardless of how small the dps difference (and I would imagine it's bigger than that - I get over 11% crit from Molten Armour raid buffed) it's still prefered to Mage armour which you shouldn't need to ever use.
I'm noticing Missile Barrage can be consumed slightly before an Arcane Blast lands on the target, leading to Missile Barrage re-procing while you're channeling Arcane Missiles. Has anyone else observed this behavior?
They're talking about this on the WoW mage forum as well. It seems to be a bug, as AM isn't supposed to proc MBar. I assume there will be a hotfix in the near future.
Interesting. If this behavior is not yet modeled in sims or Rawr, then the static rotations like AB4 (non-spam) AM are slightly overvalued right now (or rather, it's even more reason to just stick to AB4+ MBAM).
This is not currently modeled in Rawr. I'm gonna rerun the math on optimal cycles and try to get them in for next release.
They're talking about this on the WoW mage forum as well. It seems to be a bug, as AM isn't supposed to proc MBar. I assume there will be a hotfix in the near future.
It's not the missile that procs the mbarr, the last AB does but the buff just doesnt register until after your AM has begun. It's the same problem that somebody and myself mentioned above, where you can proc the mbarr but not get the haste on the AM immediately after the last AB. I ran a VoA25 and i noticed my mana to last much longer, which could make the "fishing" rotation more optimal while still being sutainable to an extent. I've got toc25 norm+heroic later tonight and I'm gonna give this a go for the normal mode and see how it turns out.
I think it'll be beneficial to abuse these free procs by casting MBAM without any Blast buffs. Simcraft and Rawr numbers suggest that MBAM (at 0 stacks) is higher DPS than a full Blast-MBarr cycle, and since Mbarr's proc rate has been pumped so high, the risk of being forced to cast an unbuffed Missiles is pretty small.
Last edited by Aramezzet : 09/22/09 at 7:50 PM.
Reason: diction
I have results for optimal cycles under the new conditions (that is AM is not benefitting from MB until registered and also does not consume it unless registered):
Note: I artificially lowered the haste by about 9% to reduce the state space complexity, so the dps numbers are not representative, but the optimal cycles should remain the same.
Cycle Code Legend: 0 = AB, 1 = ABar, 2 = AM
State Descriptions: ABx,ABary,MBz+-
x = number of AB stacks
y = remaining cooldown on Arcane Barrage
z = remaining time on Missile Barrage
+ = Missile Barrage proc visible
- = Missile Barrage proc not visible
They're talking about this on the WoW mage forum as well. It seems to be a bug, as AM isn't supposed to proc MBar. I assume there will be a hotfix in the near future.
The same thing was happening while playing on the PTR's. I'm not sure if it is a bug or not. I did read on wow.com today and noticed during testing today, that there is no mana consumption when this happens! I was amazed. I do agree this does seem a bit unusual.
Like most of the mages in there, i was trying to figure out what would be the best arcane spec-s after todays buffs.What i come up is, for normal fight, in other words, for everything but the Valkyrs:
In other words; only 1 talent point in Magic Absorption, 4 points in Arcane Mind and 2 points in Netherwind Presence.
Things you could/want to change:
A) Drop 1 talent point from Magic Attunement or Magic Absorption and get back 1 talent point in either AM or NP.
B) Drop 1 talent point from Magic Attunement and from Magic Absorption, so you could get back 5/5 Arcane Mind + 3/3 Netherwind presence
Thoughts? I can even understand dropping 1 talent point in MA since you should be able to reach everything in the coliseum but for now i will keep both of them.
I've fixed a problem I had in the state transitions (I didn't account for the case when AB before MBAM procs when MB is already procced). I've updated my post with the correct cycles. Main change is that if AB before MBAM procs you should use it right away after MBAM (that is two AM in a row).
09/22/09, 1:01 PM
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