Since race changes are up, at this point in time I think its fair to assume that a large number of players will go troll and thus have berserking on top of everything. I am making the mention due to the circulating numbers for haste caps with all procs up with t10/black magic. Although to be fair berserking only lasts 10 seconds so it wouldnt be as much a big deal.

This is likely true for Horde... As Alliance I switched to gnome yesterday, I'm missing the human "trinket", but only fc really requires that, and I can sub a pvp trinket for my Abyssal Rune in that fight.

I was very surprised at how little improvement (62 dps according to rawr) gnome actually provides me, given that it's a 5% int buff, as opposed to a 3% spirit. Am I correct in assuming that the reason the difference is so low is because of my current 2 piece t9 buff which increases crit based on spirit? And that the gap will widen once we get into t10 gear?

Also, regarding the previous post showing better dps with a 68/3/0 build-how are you modeling each fight? Is there a sheet somewhere that specifies, for fight x you have y amount of interrupts, z% chance of being hit with fire, etc, etc? I know I heard rumors of Rawr including the fight selection feature eventually, but I do not see it in 3 currently (the only one I use right now).

Edit: said 4 piece when I meant 2 piece

i would like to know in terms of spell power and/or DPS, which professions are the best actually and for those players that are already studying the professions in the icecrown patch , which will be best ?
PS. if it makes diference, its for an arcane mage blood elf
thanks

I think tailoring and jewelcrafting, but all professions were changed for balancing. Now the differences between them are so tiny that you can use all of them for DDs except Herbalism and Mining.

Alot of arcane mages seem to skip arcane stability. Apparently because pushback is is not a big issue in ToC. But that is only one raid and I guess ICC could turn out to be a lot different and have regular pushbacks (maybe someone did some PTR testing and know something about ICC in this regard?).

So excluding ToC is Arcane stability still a garbage talent? I mean do pushbacks in general occour so rarely that its not woth 3 points? (3 points would be enough when you also have concentration aura).

I always use the pushback reducing talent on my resto sham, but to be honest I havent really tried not to take it.

Alchemy is actually quite good too in my opinion. Besides mixology which gives u more effect from flasks and pots (and let them last longer) u also get to use the crazy alchemy pot which has a random side effect, which is usually a nice haste buff.

I put this in the Frost Mage listing (which is now locked for some reason). For simplicity sake I made spell power = haste, but it may be slightly off for your specific gear. Arcane with BiS T9 puts SP just a hair behind haste. This will slightly lower the value of Tailoring and slightly increase the calue of Enginnering. End result is that all of the crafting professions are about equal well ahead of the gathering professions.


Professions:
Tailoring is a clear win for Mages and is generally useful outside of its profession specific bonus. Beyond that JC, Enchanting, Inscription and Alchemy all have very similar bonuses and are generally useful professions for mages. There is no longer any significant DPS reason to take Blacksmithing or Leather Working over other more mage friendly professions.

* Tailoring: +50.75 spell power equivalent (73.75 spellpower, -23 haste. Assumes 1/4 uptime for lightweave proc, 295 spellpower for 15s out of 60s)
* Jewelcrafting: +48 spellpower (3x 39sp instead of 3x 23sp)
* Alchemy: +47 spellpower (172sp flask w/ mixology vs 125 baseline)
* Blacksmithing: +46 spellpower (2x 23sp epic gems in extra sockets)
* Enchanting: +46 spellpower (23sp x 2 rings)
* Inscription: +46 spellpower (70sp vs 24sp on epic Sons inscription)
* Leatherworking: +46 spellpower (76sp fur lining vs 30sp enchant)
* Engineering: +44 spell power equivalent (+45 haste, -1 spellpower overall [+27sp -23haste on cloak, -28sp +68haste on gloves], also gets a burst of speed basically once per boss fight when using Icewalker instead of runspeed, which could come in handy for raiding)
* Skinning: +20 spell power equivalent (+40 crit)
* Mining: +60 stamina (no effect on DPS)
* Herbalism: +3600 healing over 5 seconds (no effect on DPS)

It doesn't affect the final outcome, but in some very specific circumstances 60 stam is equivalent to up to 30 SP (Twins) with IA (caps SP bonus at 5% max health, 600 additional health from profession bonus).

I was curious, and I haven't seen this posted anywhere, when it would make sense to use Arcane Barrage to wipe the Arcane Blast debuff. If Missile Barrage refused to proc after four Arcane Blasts, should you wipe the debuff? I would imagine that this would depend upon how much mana you currently have, and which mana cooldowns you have available.

Actually it has been discussed. If you have the mana to sustain a short fishing period for the MBAM proc then do so. If not then it is suggested to cast an unproc'ed AM. One reason is the passive mana regen you will get while AM are being channeled. The other is just plain more dps over AB. AB has been pretty much relegated to clear your stacks when you have to move before you can cast MBAM.

What do you do when you're low on mana and Missile Barrage isn't proccing?

*edit* Should have looked back before responding, my bad. I hadn't considered casting Arcane Missiles without Missile Barrage since I assumed it was inferior to Arcane Barrage, I'll have to take a look at the numbers.

Arcane barrage does more damage per execute time than an unprocc'd arcane missiles. I'm not quite sure about the mana part, though. Arcane barrage has lower DPM, but I'm not 100% sure about how being outside of the 5sr for a short period of time would affect mana gains.

I would argue that Arcane Barrage would do a better job at wiping stacks than unproc'd Arcane Missiles.

Can anyone quote a post that proved Arcane Missiles did a better job?

Edit: Is the reason to cast AM instead of ABarr that we get more damage out of the 60% damage increase from the Arcane Blast debuff?

I'm pretty certain the reasoning behind always clearing AB stacks with AM boils down to two important facts. First like Purify say you still have the 40% chance to proc and instantly consume MB. Second is that if you cannot sustain AB spam until a proc then mana is a concern. Since unprocced AM is alot more mana efficient compared to ABarr it will be the correct choise since it will sustain your mana better and allowing more dps to be done. If mana wasn't a concern, then fishing for procs with more AB's would be the thing to do.

Yes, that's exactly the reason. (Well, along with another handful of things.)

Arcane Barrage gets the 60% bonus for 1.5s (instant GCD), while Arcane Missiles get the bonus for 5 seconds. Both of these damage values have to be compared with the DPS of what you'd be casting otherwise, of the whole cycle actually. So, if for example Arcane Barrage was a 20% DPS increase for 1.5s and Arcane Missiles a 10% DPS increase for 5s, the Missiles would be better to use even though their DPS is lower.

This is just a simplstic example for the phenomenon of better DPS being worse DPS. In addition, Arcane Cycles also have to consider different cycles, proc chances and also mana considerations.

Is there a best cast sequence during AP? Rawr uses averaged cycle to model AP, so is it possible to use a better than average cycle to gain more dps?

I am 57/3/11 spec and I am very curious as to why the trend seems to be to spec 2/5 into Imp Frostbolt over 2/3 in Frostbite. I believe it may be a personal preference call or very trivial mathematically at best, but was very curious indeed as to why this is the common choice.

I did like the idea of having a shorter frostbolt cast but not for any real raiding reason unless I'm missing something. I know the arc tree has several variations depending on playstyle, math, and preference.

Frostbite can be harmful in certain situations. For instance, consider the Swarm Scarabs in the Anub'arakh encounter. Frostbite procs can cause the scarabs to attack those in melee range, generating at least one stack of the debuff that could have easily been avoided. The same situation applies to fights in Ulduar like Thorim or Freya. If someone in melee range dies because the mob was momentarily rooted, that's on you.

remove please

Any talents at all up to IV, which is the only reason the points go into frost in the first place, could be considered as optional talents that you take to best suit your personal/raid needs or requirements.

Given the above statement, is it useful to spend a talent point in ABarr at all? For what I read in this thread, you shouldn't use it in any situation but when you're forced to move AND you know that when you stop you won't have the time to renew your AB stack with a new AB or a POM+AB or clear the AB stack with a procced MBARR / full AM. That would be a very rare case in most fights, and you could spend better that point in Arcane Stability for pushback or Magic Attunement for range...


On an unrelated note, does anyone know if Magic Absorption triggers IA? AFAIK resistances mitigate damage, while IA requests it to be absorbed to proc, so IA shouldn't proc from MA. I'm not totally sure about it tho. And if MA triggered IA, would it be profitable to spend 2 points there (considering that I use 3/3 IA and wards whenever I can, for the awesome SP buff and honestly for the fun of it too), or would it be only a slight dps increase?


--
Ivlivs of Blade's Edge
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...+Edge&n=Ivlivs

I think the jury is out on whether you're better off just removing ABarr altogether. As you mentioned, the only time you should ust it, in terms of max DPS, is when you are moving and you don't believe that you'll be able to refresh Arc Blast. You can get away with not using it altogether, but there are still times when having an instant nuke (with the same arcane range) could be beneficial, i.e. Icehowl stun and you need to run him down, being chased by multiple mobs in faction champs, landing one last nuke before wurm burrow, or running from fire for more than a few seconds.

Ultimately, it seems to still be a judgment call based on your play style. If you're fine with using fire blast and judicious use of the blink spell, then the lack of Abarr shouldn't be a big deal.

As for IA and MA, IA requires that the damage be "absorbed," there is a difference, in terms of the IA proc, between "absorb" and "resisted." So no, if the spell is resisted, you won't see an increase in spellpower.

Edit: In response to Chubby below, "mana dumping" is the same as what you referred to as fishing for an MBAM proc, i.e. continuing to cast arc blast after stacking it four times.

What's a simple definition of the term "mana dumping"? I just switched to Arcane from fire and saw an incredible increase in DPS. After trolling the forums here I agree that Abarr after stacking AB is not a good idea but I'm not sure what is meant by "mana dumping". My rotation is currently AB till 4 then Mbarr. I'll fish for the proc while stacked usually and it seems to work out fine. Any mana issues are solved with an icy veins pop for the last of my mana then a last minute evocate as stated many times here before. I'm not sure I'm clear on what "mana dumping" is though. Thanks guys

Mana dumping would refer to using a heavy mana consumption, heavy dps rotation in a situation where you have an abundance of mana and want to burn some. This may be less applicable with patch 3.2.2 where you are getting much more frequent MBarr procs, but in 3.0.8 spamming AB could be considered a mana dump.