I disagree with this. Elemental Shaman use (to my understanding) Lava Burst in their DPS rotation which has a 100% chance to crit. This means that the 3% crit is wasted on on roughly 20% of their damage. Also, since Lava Burst is a guaranteed crit every 8 seconds, Elemental Oath is a non-issue and can be tossed out of the argument. A crit every 10 seconds is inevitable regardless so that also doesn't need to be considered. Ignite, Living Bomb DoT, and Flameshock DoT do not benefit from spell crit. Hotstreak on the other hand does need to be considered since more crit is means more procs for the FFB Mage.

So the comparison is an Elemental Shaman who gets 3% crit for ~75% of his damage with a 150% crit modifier and a Frostfire Mage who gets 3% crit for ~75% of his damage with a 334% crit modifier.

I think that the FFB Mage clearly wins out in this case. I would even argue that the Elemental Shaman should be one of your last choices for Focus Magic. Boomkin, Arcane Mages, Fire Mages, Frost Mages, and Destruction Warlocks all would benefit equally or more from Focus Magic than an Elemental Shaman.

EDIT: Removed the "sacrifice deserves reward" statement as it detracts away from my main point.

While it may not be the best technical usage, it's nice to give it to the guy taking the time to stack Scorch or Winter's Chill (do frost mages exist?).

This does not seem very clear, but I assure you it is the case.

I'll try and be as non-mathematical as possible in explaining why. The problem with using MBAM as soon as it turns up, is it increases the ratio of no-stack AB to 3-stack AB. So if you cast for a finite period with the suggested AB03C (AB spam, use MBAM/ABarr at 0 or 3 stack) or 3ABABarr03C(AB*3/ABarr, use MBAM/ABarr at 0 or 3 stack) effectively, 1/3 of your AB will be no buff, 1/3 will be 1stack, and 1/3 will be 2 stack. By using MBAM as soon as, you inrease incident DPS, but you'll have much more AB 0 stack than 2 stack. This is because interrupting a ramp-up will not allow you a 2x or 1x AB on the pre-MBAM AB casts, and it'll induce an extra (0x, 1x) AB to get back to where you were before you used the AB buff on the MBAM.

Simulation demonstrated this is a bigger loss than having a higher MBAM/time, while the average MBAM damage did not increase (if you only use MBAM at 0 and 3, it's the same average MBAM damage as if you use it at 0,1,2 and 3 buffs).

It's not overly clear, but it is the case. Think of it this way. If AB was a 4% buff instead of a 8% buff, it'd be the case MBAM ONLY was worth casting at 0x. At 3x you'd want to keep AB spam. As it stands, at 8% buff per AB, MBAM just becomes better than full-stack AB, and is still better than a 0x stack AB. It's just not superior than a 1x or 2x including the lesser DPS it'll induce due to lost AB buff.

I can't argue with your thesis on why an E-shaman is an inferior choice. Lava Burst guaranteeing crit certainly assumes a partially wasted buff and a trivialization of EO, but increased crit on the shaman also includes extra damage from OE's talent. Also, when raiding with an E-shaman, I've not noticed a 100% EO uptime, as you state, though that could be due to mobility and/or ineptitude of the shaman. My lack of knowledge on E-shaman mechanics betrays my position, which I accept as possibly flawed.

I must totally disagree, however, with your thesis on "sacrifice should equal reward". If a raider sacrifices in order for the Raid to benefit, surely it's against the exact same principle to give it to a non-optimal target? This is not to say I consider the FFB mage a sub-optimal target. Indeed, it may be the highest RDPS gain, in which case it's the correct recipient. But absolutely not because he "took a fall for the team" and hence should be rewarded.

I also assume your point of "a crit every 10 sec is inevitable" is referring to the E-shaman. This seems to be correct (now that I read Lava Burst), but it enforces my choice of the Shaman as a better recipient as it'll offer you (the caster of FM) the highest up-time. A crit per 10sec is absolutely not guaranteed in a FFB spec.

You misunderstood the rotation in question. I am not suggesting to use MBAM as soon as it comes up. Look at the first 2 rotations in Kavan's list (these are the 2 highest DPS rotations under unlimited mana). You will notice that they are both the same with 1 exception.

First rotation (highest DPS) says: AB 3 times, if no MB has proc'd, continue casting AB until you see a MB proc, then MBAM-ABarr. If the ABarr proc's MB, then MBAM-ABarr again. Continue this process until ABarr does not proc MB, then restart.

Second rotation (slightly less DPS) says: AB 3 times, if no MB has proc'd, continue casting AB until you see a MB, then MBAM-ABarr. If ABarr proc's MB, ignore it and restart.


The rotations are identical with the exception of casting MBAM on MB procs after ABarr is cast (which is only cast after a MBAM, and thus when the AB debuff has already been consumed). It stands to reason, then, that MBAM-ABarr repeat should be the highest DPS rotation if ABarr always proc'd MB.

The problem is that this relationship does not hold for the more mana optimal rotations:

First rotation (highest optimal DPS) says: AB 3 times, if MB has proc'd, then MBAM-ABarr. if no MB has proc'd ABarr. If ABarr proc's MB, ignore it and restart.

Second rotation (slightly less DPS) says: AB 3 times, if MB has proc'd then MBAM-ABarr. if no MB has proc'd ABarr. If ABarr proc's MB, then MBAM-ABarr until ABarr does not proc MB, and then restart.


You will notice that here that casting MBAM-ABarr after a MB proc from a proceeding ABarr results in a DPS loss to always stacking to 3 first, and that is what I have a problem with (because the reverse is true above). In no rotation do I suggest using MBAM-ABarr when AB is at 1 or 2 stacks, and in all 4 rotations the proportions of AB0s, AB1s, and AB2s will be equal. AB3 will never be cast in the 2nd set of rotations because at the 3rd stack you will always either MBAM or ABarr.

Personally I make that call an encounter-specific one, on fights with high healing throughput (Sarth3D is a classic example) I put FM on a tank-spamming Paladin rather than a dps caster.

All my attempts of understanding this pretty much failed.

1) An Elemental Shaman will give you 100% uptime. Any other caster will give you around 97% uptime, Wrath Druids and Shadow Priests higher than that.
Affliction Warlocks are a bad choice because they spam Drain Soul below 20%, which won't produce any crits.

Since you have around 97% Focus Magic uptime, it is nearly irrelevant which class you put it on.

2) Check SampleOutput - simulationcraft - Google Code to find out what 3% crit gives your partner.
In particular, find the DPS Scale Factors table in the list and check for crit scaling.

You'll see what everyone has always said.
Frost Mages and Demo Warlocks are at the bottom.
Elemental Shaman have really bad scaling, just above them.
Destro Warlocks are next, followed by Druids and Arcane Mages.
Then Shadow Priests, then Fire Mages, and finally Frostfire Mages.

A Frostfire Mage benefits 2.6 times as much as a Frost Mage, and 1.9 times as much as a Shaman.
Also, there might be occasions where it's better on a healer. Maybe not now, but in the future.

If you focus purely on AoE zergs, you should probably stick it to your best Hurricane, Mind Sear or Blizzard spammer.
(Keep in mind that Shatter will crit-cap Blizzard in certain specs.)


3) The best ordering overall should be Frostfire>Fire>Priest.
You could stick it to your Shaman, but that means losing 25 RDPS to gain 4 DPS for yourself, which is pretty silly.

I don't understand why you're so quick to throw out AB2ABar3C.

It seems to fit nicely in between AB3ABar3C and ABABar3C in DPS, MPS and DPM.

(THANK YOU Kavan! Your contributions here are spectacular.)

I do believe the same as well. I think "AB AB [AB mbarr] abarr" is a very solid middle-of-the-pack choice. I do like a lot that it avoids casting AM when possible (no extra cost due to casting channelled spell), and that it leaves somewhat your mana open for cooldowns.

If you do 36% AB3ABar3C and 64% ABABar3C it is same mps but 4716.583 dps (8 more dps). Therefore AB2ABar3C is suboptimal (with this gear set).

(It's actually 36.0089% and 63.9911% if you want to check my math.)

Edit to agree with Manly: 8 dps is really a <0.2% difference, so it's probably not a big deal.

That was only optimal for a very short time when AB glyph didn't work on AM.

Quick WWS/Recount question - has anyone found a good way to log how much mana they had at the end of a fight? It's one of those quick tests I could do to spot sub-optimal arcane mage play, but I can't think of any good way to get it from mods/programs that are based on combat log parsing.

I don't think we're going to see >33% haste without cooldowns for a while yet (I have about 24%, including Swift Retribution/Improved Moonkin Aura, and the spell haste totem). I'm pretty sure that under cooldowns you want to be using one of the AB spam rotations or at least doing AB3*. I don't want to set the new Rawr up at work, but I believe it was suggesting AB3ABar3C or ABSpam3MBAM during cooldowns for me and a combination of ABABar3C and AB3ABar3C while not under cooldowns, depending on fight length.

Although, as I mentioned above, the difference between a ABABar3C/AB3ABar3C combo and AB2ABar3C is very small. I may end up using AB2ABar3C since I tend to get Power Infusion randomly and that way I won't be clipping the ABar cooldown.

True about not being passively over 33%, but most arcane mages will be using (or seeking to use) the Embrace of the Spider. When it proc's I would be over that barrier, so it would be better to use a rotation that doesn't run into a clipping problem.

My understanding is that "AB-spam time" is when you have a damage boost like AP, and not only a haste boost. I doubt we should use an unsustainable rotation for the whole 40 seconds of Bloodlust/Heroism, which is a huge chunk of the fight. But during that time, you would hit Abar-cooldown issues with ABAbar* rotations.

Edit: plus Embrace of the Spider / Egg of Mortal Essence outside of cooldowns, right. But let's not call that clipping, people get confused :-)

I think I finally managed to come up with a decent reason for this:

In AB3ABar3C, there are often 4 spells that can proc an ABAM that you'd be able to use for the next three stack AB. (AB, ABar, AB, AB)
In AB3ABar03C, there are only 3 spells that can proc an ABAM that you'd be able to use for the next three stack AB. (ABar, AB, AB)

The chances of 3 spells proccing an ABAM is 47.2% while the chance of 4 is 52.6%. This 5% difference means that you cast fewer 3 stacked ABAMs and more 0 stacked ABAMs.

In the highest burn regime, you're *always* waiting for a three stack ABAM, so there are always three chances to proc by your third AB for both AB*3C and AB*03C.

With regards to "AB3ABar3C", I understand what it means (blast, blast, blast, barrage), except the 3C part. What does the 3 and the C mean in this case?

Is there a bug with Egg of Mortal Essence that I am not aware of?

The tooltip on the items states that it only works on healing spells.

The new Rawr rotation format is X#Y, where X is the normal rotation to use until missile barrage procs, and #Y means "when Missile Barrage procs, do Y at # stacks of AB". C is shorthand for Arcane Missiles Arcane Barrage Combo. Which really isn't a combo, just cast AM then ABar.

For example, ABSpam03C means spam AB, when missile barrage procs, cast Arcane Missiles then Arcane Barrage at either 0 or 3 stacks of the Arcane Barrage debuff.

I was just looking into something similar with regards to casting 0 stack MBAMs. When using an AB spam rotation, the only time you would cast a 0 stack MBAM is when ABarr procs it, which is only cast after a MBAM. In the other rotation, it could be done after AB2, ABarr3, or ABarr0, which triples the amount of MBAM0's being cast. I'm starting to get somewhat a grasp on it, but I keep ending back up with "Why then, wouldn't it be more dps/efficient to simply always cast MBAM at 3 stacks, even in the AB spam scenario?" At first I thought, well maybe that wastes too many proc's, but that would be equivalent in both cases so I'm still somewhat concerned there.

In any case, it may be irrelevant for the following reason: The only time we will probably make use of either of the 2 top DPS rotations would be when under cooldowns. Since we're normally under some sort of haste buff when we pop cooldowns, we won't even be able to cast ABarr-MBAM-ABarr because of the ABarr cooldown. So bottom line is, we end up always stacking to AB3 before using a MBAM.

I am also curious... not that I would even bother picking this item up knowing that it probably is a bug.

Omnia, are you sure you aren't thinking of [Embrace of the Spider]?

Egg of Mortal Essence procs off Arcane Missiles (and select Warlock spells), unless they hotfixed it this week. I just got Illustration of the Dragon Soul, but before then 2x505 haste + IV + Bloodlust made for really fast Evocations :-)

Manly,

Nice table. Can we get a column indicating DPM? If I am low on mana, I would rather use the max DPM rotation and then Wand if OOM then using some great MPS rotation and end up delivering less total damage.

Thank you!