Check the buffs tab, scroll down to the bottom where it shows set bonuses (they are greyed-out). If you see a checkmark next to Bloodmage's Regalia 2 piece then Rawr is taking Push the Limit into consideration.

What I think is the problem is that you and Zedicuss are having and perhaps others as well, is the idea that you need to maintain the Push the Limit buff as much as possible. Sure it's a nice buff, but it's only +12% haste, whereas casting another AB is +15% damage. In your mind, you are valuing Push the Limit higher than another AB stack, so you are expecting Rawr to tell you some new complex rotation based on this proc. Forget that idea now, because it's very simple: ABspam4MBAM is still the highest dps rotation.

It's new and exciting, so of course I want it to change my rotation. =)

2-piece bonus is checked. The inclusion of Mirror Image in the Spell Cycles was throwing me off, making me think that it was being covered instead of Push the Limit.

Normal rotation it is, and I'll think of Push the Limit as gravy, thank you!

Could you point me to the section of Rawr that you looked at to conclude your normal rotation was optimal? I had the same question (and excitement). I wonder if the answer to your question changes with any other variables (raid buffs, fight duration, etc.), but don't know where to look in Rawr to make that determination.

ABSpam04MBAM may be the highest dps optimal rotation, but for a 5 minute fight Rawr suggests ABSpam0234MBAM for most of the fight for me (and for you, and for most people in 2T10 I'd expect). In my gear it's ~60 mps less for only ~100 less dps. Using ABSpam04MBAM instead of ABSpam0234MBAM is not worth it if you need to use Evocation to make up the difference in mana. Rawr says Evocation is 3636.91 mps, so one second of Evocation is 60 extra seconds of ABSpam04MBAM over ABSpam0234MBAM. However this is only 6000 extra damage, and ABSpam0234MBAM is more than 6000 dps. This is why Rawr will tell you to use ABSpam0234MBAM for most of the fight.

If you are reaching exactly the dps that Rawr is suggesting you reach, you have filled in all the settings regarding latency, movement and idle regen correctly, and you are ending the fight on exactly 0 mana, then you might be correct. In practice however, the standard Rawr settings are not going to accurately predict any current fight. Granted, on a 5-minute Patchwerk fight it may well be optimal to switch down to using the proc on 234 in order to minimise the number of evocations. But those standard settings seriously underestimate idle time present in most fights, or natural breaks when you can evocate without dps loss.

What I suggest is that you try a longer fight (say Festergut) with ABspam4MBAM, and then count the number of evocation ticks. Next week, try with ABspam234MBAM and count the number of evocation ticks. Check your logs for idle time and mana regen sources. Now fill in your fight values into Rawr and see if the suggested rotation still bears out.

Also, as I understand it, Rawr doesn't take into account a hasted evocation from Pushing the Limit. I wonder what difference that would make to the calculations.

Fiddling with the numbers a little more, you'd have to manage a fairly well hasted evocation (6000 mps or so) for it to be worth using the 04 rotation over 0234. With 32000 mana, you'd want to have Heroism+Icy Veins or a similar level of haste. The math does point out that there is unlikely to be a large difference between the 2 cycles.

If this has been asked before, I couldn't find it using the search function.
At what point does the game decide which buffs apply to missiles? To be more clear, if I begin casting Arcane Missiles with Arcane Power at ~0.5 seconds left, so that AP is expired by the time the missiles impact my target, do the missiles get the bonus 20% damage? Same question for spellpower procs like lightweave. Also, what if I "fire" all of the missiles before the buff ends, but not all of them impact before the buff ends?

This would be very helpful information, as it will dictate how I time my Mbarr and ABarr uses.
Thanks in advance

I believe the rule of thumb is always if you have the buff when you start casting it applies to the whole duration of the spell even if it expires. In reference to your question directly, all of your missiles will have the buff despite it running out while missiles are queued to be cast.

This isn't true of Arcane Missiles, since each missile is individually cast by the client. The only thing that will apply to the whole spell is your haste, since the duration of the channelling and the frequency of the missiles is determined at the start of the cast.

What about ABspam34MBAM? In the cycle analyzer it's second highest dps and at sufficient haste levels it allows for 4 casts during the 2T10 proc, the last one barely fitting in (at 940 haste it end up at ~100ms time window). This you reach maximum 2T10 uptime, while at ABspam234MBAM you overwrite the proc if you use the MBAM at 2-stack. Also, ABspam34 is easily sustainable compared to ABspam4MBAM, which usually requires some evocation. I still wondered why Rawr is suggesting to use ABspam234MBAM, but idle regeneration or movement breaks might tip the balance there.

The reason why it doesn't suggest ABspam34MBAM is because it's not available as a predefined cycle. I've added it for next release.

If you reread Wizeowel's post you'll see both parts of Arcane Missiles pointed out. When you start casting the channeling effect calculates how long the channeling will take to complete based on your current buffs and debuffs. Then during the channeling, five missiles will cast individually. At the time each missile starts it's travel time current buffs and debuffs are used to calculate damage.

I was reading through this thread and couldn't see where it had been discussed before so I thought I would ask. In the (57/3/11) spec, the frost talents are all over the board for as many mages as I can think to armory. I did notice that so many are taking 2/2 Frost Warding and i'm curious because it seems counterproductive to IA.

My question is this, if Frost Warding is "negating" damage and causing you to restore mana, are you still getting credit for "absorbing" the damage? I assumed that the negated damage doesn't get absorbed and would not proc IA, but I don't have an easy way to test it out.

Does anyone know?

Thanks Cerylon. Even after careful reading it wasn't very clear to me, I believe the best way to word the answer is:
Each missile calculates its damage buffs separately, at the time they are fired.
The haste buff applies to the whole spell at the beginning of the cast(the haste part I was never confused on, it's pretty obvious in raids).

Seeing as my previous post was removed due to an inconsistency, here is the revised post.

Mm: From what I remember, the basis is that any damage that is negated is added.

Frost Warding is absorbing (negating) the damage, hence why it works hand in hand with IA.

So the rough scale is:
Pop Fire/Frost Ward
Frost Ward absorbs 1950 Frost damage (Fire takes in the same)
You gain a 30% chance to absorb that 1950 damage
Should this proc, you will get the same absorbed damage as mana along with 10% of that (if all 1950 was taken then you get an additional 195 SP for 10 seconds thanks to IA)

If I'm wrong, then please correct me but I do believe this is correct as I've seen the stats go up myself while raiding when the above happened.

- On another note, I've seen resistances add to it for ME, but others say otherwise.

Frost/Fire ward says it absorbs 1950 dmg. I was under the impression that this number scales with your own SP and that you in fact absorb about 4000 dmg. Am I incorrect in thinking this?

Similarly, when using dampen magic and a frost ward - is the absorbed damage calculated before the reduced damage from dampen?

Nevertheless, frost warding is an almost mandatory talent - when you consider the alternatives are not any good for raid boss dps. Frost warding has a 100% chance to proc incanter's absorption as well as a 30% chance to gain vital mana.

As far as ICC goes - wards can be used on Marrowgar, Lady death and blood council
With ToGC - it can and should be used on every encounter

I'm fully aware of my 2 questions being extremely noobish but after reading this thread for a good long time, I still don't get it. I went Arcane for the first time ever a few weeks ago and have been going with this rotation, as recommended in the first post in this thread:

AB AB AB ([mbarr] or abarr

The only thing I changed was doing ABx4 instead of x3 since later posts in the thread suggested it and then MBAM if it procced, otherwise using ABarr to clear the stack. Thing is, these last pages you ain't talking about ABarr at all. What if you have 4 stacks of AB and still no MB has procced? Do you go for a non hasted AM or ABarr to clear the stack?
I have also been using MBAM whenever it procced, guess that's the ABspam0234MBAM thing you're talking about? And ABspam4MBAM would mean only using the procc after 4 AB, no matter when MB procced?

So sorry for being a noob but like I said, only been playing with Arcane for 3 weeks.

Madolyn, I only do AB x 4 and then AM. Even if AM does not proc, (wich is not often cuz it usually does) it will give good damage because you have been building up the AM-damage by using AB x 4. I only use ABarr when I have to move around and still want to do some damage while moving.

Also, depends on the fase of the fight, you can just nuke nuke AB untill your mana is done... Make sure you do that at end of a fight if you know what I mean. It's an art to be completely empty with mana at end of bossifight. ^^

I have not seen an updated discussion regarding Focus Magic. The obvious choice is to trade Focus with another Mage (Fire/Arcane);
but what happen when you are on a 10 man raid set up and the following classes are available?

-Shadow Priest
-Elemental Shaman
-Destruction/ Affliction Lock

Consider the "recent" changes to haste and the ability for DOT spells to Crit. Also take into consideration that some of the ICC fights require some sort of constant movement.

I'm leaning towards the Elemental Shaman but the other 2 classes seem to Crit as often and provide a reasonable uptime to the buff.

Thank you for your input.

Reference Roywyn's original post here.
Updated below and shamelessly stolen from our guild forums (thanks Timitz):

I did some testing of 4piece tier10 with blizzard to see how the buffs interacted with other damage buffs. It looks like the T10 bonus doesn't just calculate off of your base damage - it scales geometrically with other damage effects.

Here are the numbers I was seeing:

Blizzard with no buffs: 944 per tick
Blizzard with only quad core (4PT10 buff): 1114 per tick (118% damage)
Blizzard with quad core + arcane power: 1336 per tick (141.6% damage = 120%*118%)

This was contrary to the static bonus that I was expecting to see (i.e. 100%+20%+18% = 138% with both up)

So basically, this means that, whenever possible, you should stack arcane power and mirror images to squeeze out an extra 3.6% damage bonus.

I'm slightly curious as to why you'd have expected it to be an additive bonus given that such damage modifiers are almost always multiplicative (for mages at least). This behavior is consistent with Arcane Power's interaction with the Icehowl charge effect, the Twins' Empowered effects, Jaraxxus' buff, and Queen's vampiric effect to name but a few.

What would be more interesting to know is if given a window of sufficiently powerful multipliers, say MI + AP + any of the above encounters, is there a point at which it's better to not consume the AB debuff. I'm fairly sure this has been touched on before, but from what I remember only 'full fight duration' modifiers were discussed. The difference here would be that the window is small enough that the time it takes to ramp up the AB would be significant relative to the window; or, in other words, the "extra" damage from keeping the AB debuff would not have a chance to normalize. With napkin math I see, for example, casting a fifth AB before MBAM seems to do more damage if you can only cast two spells before multipliers start falling off (since casting MBAM and then AB(0) wouldn't give you any "bonus" damage).