I don't understand that macro either. From what I've read here t10 procs as soon as the MB channel ends, regardless of whether it's clipped. A [channeling:Arcane Missiles] macro would be awesome, but I've had no luck as well.

The 2p T10 buff will be applied as soon as you press your AM hotkey after MB procs, even if you move, or interrupt it right away, and never get an actual single missile off. You "consume" the MB simply by pressing your AM hotkey. It doesn't matter if you clip a missile or not, or clip all of them, you'll still get the "Pushing the Limit" haste buff.

nochanneling macros are a DPS loss. This has already been discussed and proven. To add something that I guess no one realizes yet to the thread, Pushing The Limit is applied as soon as you finish the AM, regardless of if it ends on its own, or you end it. It is applied to your next spell cast without any fancy macroing, or timing your casts.

To prove this, using Quartz, I started chain casting on festergut, a very stand-and-burn fight. After MB proc'd, I casted AM, and cut it off after one missile with a cast of AB (no macro, just started casting it). My standard cast time without procs as shown on Quartz is 1.8 seconds. With the Pushing the Limits buff, that drops to 1.6 seconds, also according to Quartz. The AB I used to cut off AM was cast in 1.6 seconds.

You guys are making it way more complicated than it needs to be. You don't need any fancy macros, and at current haste levels (I assume I'm on the low side compared to most mages in ICC, from what I've read) you don't even have to change your priority system. you can still fit in 4 AB's during the haste buff, provided your latency is low enough. At 1064 haste and ~100ms latency, I squeeze it in with about a half second left on the buff. Haste isn't recalculated mid-cast, so it doesn't matter if the buff ends mid-cast. Infact, it's ideal to have it end just after you start casting the spell, if you will not be able to cast another spell with said buff.

No, the buff applies after the MB ends.

No, your info is completely incorrect. I just did the exact same test and clipping Arcane Missiles at all results in the first AB not getting the benefit of Pushing the Limit. That's why some people are turning to a nochanneling macro, which in this case may result in a dps gain.

I'm really not sure what's happening to you. My guess is that you're confused with a rolling PtL. Maybe you could capture your test and post it on youtube?

Some simple testing I have done supports this. Below are some lines extracted from my combat log against the Ironforge dummy (I've removed extraneous information such as the damage lines and the hexadecimal codes). I'm not using any macros on my casts, and I took off my weapon (which has the Black Magic enchant) to prevent unwanted extra haste effects. My lag was sitting at about 25 ms.

2/7 10:03:47.212 SPELL_CAST_START "Vukae" "Arcane Blast" (B0)

2/7 10:03:49.460 SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS "Vukae" "Arcane Missiles" (M1)
2/7 10:03:49.850 SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS "Vukae" "Arcane Missiles" (M2)
2/7 10:03:50.216 SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS "Vukae" "Arcane Missiles" (M3)
2/7 10:03:50.472 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED "Vukae" "Vukae" "Pushing the Limit",BUFF (PtL)

2/7 10:03:50.473 SPELL_CAST_START "Vukae" "Arcane Blast" (B1)
2/7 10:03:52.359 SPELL_CAST_START "Vukae" "Arcane Blast" (B2)
2/7 10:03:54.035 SPELL_CAST_START "Vukae" "Arcane Blast" (B3)

I gained MBarr before blast B0 and I have clipped the AM channel after 3 missiles (M1-3) with the next AB (B1), and chain casted AB after that. Nominally I gain the PtL buff 1ms before the start of casting B1, however if you look at timing between the post-buff blasts: B2-B1 = 1.886s; B3-B2 = 1.676s. This is consistent with what Quartz was showing (1.9 and 1.7). So, I can only interpret this as B1 not benefitting from PtL.

I personnally had results similar to Korey, as have had most mages who posted on the issue on this board. Unless 3.2.2 changed something... but it didn't, I just tested again to make sure.

Also, the gain from a nochanneling macro isn't only to make sure your first AB gains PtL, however, it's also to make sure you get all five missiles. Losing the last missile is definitively a DPS loss; hence, even without PtL, depending on your clipping rate, the nochanneling macro might be an overall DPS gain (it's my case, especially if I use mousewheel casting or a "turbo" programmable button to minimize the impact of lag on the nochannelign macro).

Also, you don't need to wait until Festergut to test it. A training dummy works perfectly well.

This is not necessarily correct given that the major issue with AM (at least in my setup) is high latency. At high latency (300ms+) and/or highly variable latency Quartz doesn't seem to be that accurate. You can easily clip a AM missile with AB despite hitting the key directly in the red zone of the Quartz bar. This has something to do with how Quartz samples your latency.

I am almost certain this is incorrect. I just went to check at the dummies with the birthday suit+2xT10 and the first AB,with a clipped AM, casts at 2.3s and one after goes to 2.1.

By almost certain I mean something greater 95% but less than 100%. I am not willing to eliminate the possibility the server side cast time is 2.1s with the buff applied and the client simply doesn't know it. I doubt it though.

remove please

The upshot of this clipping discussion, to me, is that it's best to wait briefly after the ABAM channel before casting an AB, ensuring that that first AB will benefit from 2t10. This would also have the benefit of negating any missile clipping. How long to wait, though, is what I what I'm wondering. I play with 100-200ms raid latency, and a nochanneling macro wouldn't really be feasible as it would delay all ABs by that amount.

2t10 speeds up our AB cast by roughly 215ms (with a 1.65s raid-hasted cast 1.65-1.65/1.15), so it would be beneficial to wait up to 215ms for the 2t10 buff to take effect. I wait to cast AB until I figure I'm about 50-100ms into the Quartz red zone, and I rarely clip missiles in raid. However, with that timing I also rarely find my first AB hasted.

I'd like to find out how long it takes 2t10 to take effect, and how/whether it relates to latency. More on this when I beat up the test dummy.

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that [nochanneling] will only delay the cast directly following AM. D'oh. But again, the macro is still more useful for players with low lag relative to player cast-sniping accuracy.

In regards to whether the first AB gets PtL after clipping AM. I've been reading the back and forth and I think you guys are thinking way too much into this. It's pretty simple to me.

PtL is a buff we get that is applied after MBAM is finished. Finished whether it's complete or if we cut it short. Right?

Well if we complete it, the game knows when it will be finished and is ready to proc that buff for us. However when we clip it and start casting an AB, the game was not ready for that. Therefore that AB is unhasted and the PtL will be on the next one.

It's impossible for programming to be a mind reader and expect you to clip the missiles. The whole reason you are clipping is because you are jumping the gun. Jumping the gun means you aren't going to have the PtL proc because you're casting your AB before the proc even starts.

I dunno. To me this is fairly straightforward.