I am at 300ms (wifi ftl ) I can not get Arcane Barrage to Clip properly Before the 5th AM tick using the non channeling macro. I am at max range and it still does not work, I get 5th AM tick and a Normal Damage Abarr.

I haven't ever used nochanneling before -- is it my imagination, or does it force you to wait until the actual end of the client-side cast bar, which includes your latency?

Said another way: experimenting for a while in org on test dummies with my normal quartz-reported casting lag (200-450ms) and it seemed that with nochanneling it forced me to wait until the quartz bar was completely finished before it would allow my spammed ABarr to go off.

You understand all of this far more than I do Manly, so I'm asking:

Does this mean that if you're like me and have fairly high casting latency that you will be adding 0.2-0.45 seconds to each cycle because the server forces the client to respond?

(I still could get the buffed ABarr mind you -- but it visually left my hands noticably after the last missile, versus how it looks when I did a manual interrupt, or a frost shatter combo, where the spells seem to leave your hands almost the same time.)


Amusingly I'm now benefiting from the very system that infuriated me as a warlock when they changed it: buffs/debuffs used to be instant, so you could do a different "shatter combo" as a lock with conflag. But when they changed the system, it took so long for the immo debuff to register that you could no longer do that for fast burst in pvp as a lock. (Seduce your target, shadowbolt, while it's flying, immolate->conflag -- all 3 spells land at the same time. Was quite nice in original wow BG's.)

I wonder what the success rate has to be, to gain dps over the 5th clipped method.
Has anyone tried, if a G15 will raise the success rate ?

So it does look like the nochanneling check is done on client side, meaning that the nochanneling Abar comes [latency] milliseconds after the 5th missile. If your latency is under ~50ms, nochannel spam and manual Abar will produce similar results. If your latency is higher than 100ms, then you should hit the Abar manually for best results, in which case Quartz is probably a must have.

PS: Wifi in itself has little impact on ping, unless your router is crappy/overloaded (or your signal is so low that you get packet loss?). What matters the most is that you did the TcpAckFrequency registry hack, and how far you live from your server datacenter.

EDIT: thought wrong that all US servers ran in a CA datacenter.

A couple of things I was wondering about:

A. When would be the best time to use PoM?
B. When should we use AM procs (if ever)?
C. Would it be more DPS to just skip AM and use 3xAB, ABarr rotations?

Can you please research your own class before making posts like this? Improved Scorch and winter's chill do not stack. If you want to apply scorch spec 51/20

A. According to this thread you should use POM to apply the third AB debuff.
B. Do you mean MB procs? Use them in this rotation. ABx3, MB, ABarr
C. Yes that is the best rotation if you don't have an MB proc up, if you have MB up use ABx3, AM, ABarr, if there is no MB proc use ABx3, ABarr

According to Rawr the AB3AMAbar cycle yields higher DPS than AB3ABarC (the rotation you described) so long as your combo reliability is greater than 90%, and it also expends about 27 less mana per second.

Glitch aside, I really wish you could spam channeling spells and the spells after them just like you do with any other spell. Currently you can't spam the spell after a channeling spell at all, forcing you to play like in the old /stopcasting days, and the actual channeling spell also has very little spamming tolerance (spam a tiny bit too much and you cancel your own cast, at least that's what it seems to be doing).

I've tried that, but for some reason my ABarr always ends up last on the log, even if I manage the clip just fine (damage difference makes that obvious). Any idea why my log is acting this way?

What's the consensus on Mbarr usage? Should Mbarr be used regardless of AB stacks, or should it be saved for 3 stacks?

You can examine this yourself in Rawr. AB3AMABar (regardless of procs) is higher DPS than AB32AMABar (using MBAMABar after AB2) but slightly lower DPM (~95 more dps at the cost of 4.5 less DPM for me). Provided you have your fight parameters configured correctly, Rawr will tell you which cycles are optimal to use during each segment of the fight (see the Spell Cycles tooltip under Stats > Solution). Scroll down to the Spell Info section and read the tooltip of a cycle for a description of what it means.

How are mages doing this without frost channeling?

I'm a bit confused as to how you could avoid regularly running oom with this build in general, and had figured that frost channeling would be needed almost as a standard with arcane even now with the reworking that's gone on .

Is this assuming glyph of mage armor and using such, x2 piece t7, or being able to rely on various buffs during raid?

I have x2 T7, and I ran Rawr with glyphed molten armor (mage with glyph giving less dps ), but I am not running in a guild that always supplies the buffs I might need to maintain mana regen properly.

I haven't respec'd yet, so if I can do more dps with 57/3/11 and not have huge mana concerns, that would be excellent.

Could I have clarification?

Thanks for the clarification Nog. Edited my post.

Are you just doing 10 mans or something? The mana does get tight in anything over like a 2:30 minute fight assuming your not getting mana tide/innervate, if you know the fight will be long using an ABx2 instead of ABx3 rotation is probably your best bet. However if you are running into mana problems on naxx 25 fights, most all of which are fairly short (a few notable exceptions) then there is something seriously wrong with your raid comps, all the regular mana regen buffs should be easily covered.

Yes as I eluded in another post doing a nochanneling macro will implicitely cause your rotation to be delayed by an extra lag_time. But again, you need to consider a few factors in play here.

As a player, you have 3 choices:

1- You attempt to clip immediately after the 4th tick because you don't think you can safely get an abarr post-AM5. The theorical cost of doing this is reaction_time appended to all your casts. There is also the implicit cost of a lost 5th AM tick, but that can be good or bad depending on what you need.

2- You attempt to clip immediate after the 5th tick because you believe in your uber skills. The outcomes of such a technique is either:

2.1 -> You clip the 5th tick and abarr hits +60%. The lost dps is now '1 AM tick' + (1 - reaction_time) (ie: far more severe, were talking anywhere between 0.01 and 0.99s of no dps time).
2.2 -> Success. Both the 5th AM tick and abarr gets +60%.
2.3 -> Failure. You clip after AM is done casting. The 5 AM ticks get 60% more damage, but your abarr did not. The cost here is obvious and is a lost +60% abarr damage.

3- You realize the above scenarios and opt to go for a nochanneling macro instead. The macro replaces the reaction_time cost to be instead lag_time (assuming here you press the macro a million times per second). Unfortunately, there is additionally a possibility that if the lag is too variable your abarr will not gain the benefit.


Its not like the optimum answer is easy to tell. I am still unsure about whether or not the 'reaction_time' cost is somewhat bull since I will always pay that cost when attempting to cast after a channelled spell, so I could argue in a way that it, in fact, applies to every scenario I listed above. I am unsure on that one.

I rarely use mage armor and in 25 mans with a couple of replenishments in the raids, I'm fine as 57/3/11 with molten armor. I do have 2x t7 bonus though.
I'd definitely switch to mage armor in 10 mans or very sub optimal raids.. 2 minute evocation is great!

Edit: Though I have over 23k mana buffed, which helps alot.

Are you using proper specs to get your mana back? Ideally with this spec you want to get low on mana, not OOM but low.

Use a mana gem at 70ish% so you get full returns from it, make sure you are evocating at the last second of icy veins every time.

Hello all, first time posters here so thanks for all the amazing work you all do here.

I was wondering if it would be worthwhile for players with 300+ ms (who can't get 5 AM ticks+60%Abarr with any regularity) should maybe consider dropping missle barrage (GASP) & dropping AM all together (arcane subtlty as well) & stick to AB3+Abarr rotations. with a ABspam near the evocation CD. I don't know if the freed up talent points can be put to good use (or just to get some of the "fun" talents, though that doesn't usually help raid situations), but its just a thought for those that under most raid situations will have a problem with trying to clip the fifth AM tick.

example starting build (SotM free point), with 20 points left over.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft



Also question #2 (related) would be should my guild need a scorch bitch would it be worthwhile to then (same as before) skill out on AM totally & work with the above mentioned rotation & scorch as needed.

Bottem line:
Is there any viable situation (especially for high MS players) that removing AM+talents is the right thing to do?


Thanks

Not sure if it's been asked before (amount of seatch results is a bit high haha) but how does missile barrage procs works?

I don't mean the condition for the proc itself, but rather, the speed increase.

Is it a 100% hasted spell or is it a cast time reduction (like improved fireball). And how does it works with haste? If you can reach 100% haste during a missile barrage, what will be the channeled lenght?

There is not yet a definitive answer either way. I would suggest that you go with what you personally like/enjoy more in the meantime. Arcane is still a viable, powerful spec regardless of your choice.

Regardless of what conclusion talented theorycrafters come to for 'the ideal scenario', there is likely to be a few assumptions tacked on that will influence the degree their results will affect you. The most obvious one is your raid composition and whether you have access to replenishment sources.

Missile Barrage cast time = 5*(100 / 100+ Haste%) - 2.5 or in other words
Missile Barrage cast time = Arcane Blast cast time

Replenishment sources such as buffs? pots? gems?

I'm still wondering if I should replace my gear for +haste one? For example the emblems off hand. I bought the +hit +crit one because I was lacking hit and I also needed the +crit, but now im sitting on 290~ hit with Haunting Call so im trying to think what kind of improvents I can do to maximze my dps.