The Arcane thread - Page 38

Light4 · 01/28/09, 5:29 AM

I tend to cast one AB if AB(3) procs MB, because I use the spellqueue system and that would mean loosing at least the lag (about 300ms) and cancelling the cast by the time I notice the proc. Manawise I had no problems so far and I guess it's better dps than to cancel the ongoing AB. After ABar proccing MB I immediately cast MBAM, because I have a gcd to react there anyway.

I'm at work atm, can someone check if Rawr has an option to have ABMBAM cast after proccing?

smulch · 01/28/09, 5:42 AM

Considering that you start a fight with all your cooldowns, wouldn't it be better to blow all your mana (arcane blast spam until oom) and then start the normal rotation after your first evocate?

Xmasman · 01/28/09, 6:07 AM

Originally Posted by smulch

Considering that you start a fight with all your cooldowns, wouldn't it be better to blow all your mana (arcane blast spam until oom) and then start the normal rotation after your first evocate?

if you need to evocate only 1 time even if you make the normal rotation, yes that would be better. But in fights, where you have to evocate more times than in normal rotation, it will be dmg loss.
You have to balance it every fight.

Heator · 01/28/09, 6:08 AM

Originally Posted by smulch

Considering that you start a fight with all your cooldowns, wouldn't it be better to blow all your mana (arcane blast spam until oom) and then start the normal rotation after your first evocate?

I guess that is all fight-specific. Each figth has it's own characteristics. How long is the fight? Do you have to move, if so when? Is there a phase requiring massive burst? Is there a phase where you can't dps? Do you need to AE? These are all pretty important things to consider.

What I do is, I look at every fight and "script" everything beforehand. Rawr is a tremdendous help, but it doesn't cover everything.

galzohar · 01/28/09, 9:02 AM

Let's first see what we actually need to know from a rotation's name:

1. How to stack AB: Stack to 1? 2? 3? Or stop stacking on a proc?

2. Clearing AB debuff when not AB spamming: Some kind of a priority system, such as MBAM>ABarr (the 3rd option, in this case AM, never gets casted to clear AB debuff).

3. What to cast when AB debuff is down: What situation to restack, what situation to ABarr, what situation to MBAM

Therefore the rotation should get described as something of the sort:

<#3><#1><#2>

ABX could stand for the amount you stack AB to, and AB(X) could be the max amount you stack AB to but clear earlier if MBAM procs.

So, for example, in case of a rotation that does ABX3 then ABarr and when AB is down uses MBAM if possible and ABarr if possible, I'd name it:

MBAM,ABarr,AB3,ABarr

For a rotation that spams AB and only clears it when MB procs, casts an ABarr and restacks AB:

Abarr,ABspam,MBAM

For a rotation that stacks AB to 3 and clears it with ABarr, and when AB debuff is down will cast ABarr and MBAM whenever possible:

ABarr,MBAM,AB3,ABarr

For a rotation that only casts AB and clears it every time MBAM procs, and if it didn't proc by 3 stacks you cast ABarr and then MBAM if it procced:

MBAM,AB(3),MBAM,ABarr (could also be MBAB/ABarr to be more clear that ABarr doesn't get casted if MBAM procced, although that should be obvious as the "AB debuff is down" priority says to only use MBAM and if it's not up go to AB stacking)

I think in this manner you can cover all possible rotations. I hope this at least gives you an idea of how rotations could be named in a more intuitive way. This can most likely get some improvements but I think it's a good step in the direction of making the rotation names more clear.

Choh · 01/28/09, 9:11 AM

There is a blue message (seen on mmo-champion at work this morning) saying that developpers have patched the arc-combo. Blast debuff fade now at the beginning of AM. Now impossible to "clip" the AM with an ABar before the end of AM (according to blue message), and impossible for both AM and ABar to have the 60% buff.

There is also a nerf of AB glyph.

I don't have tested how it works now, but it seems to explain your problem.

(sorry for my poor english)

Praest · 01/28/09, 9:46 AM

Originally Posted by Veovis_

Could anyone please confirm that the effect with Abarr before the 5th AM still is using the 3 X AB debuff stack ? Becaue I realy dont get it running, even if I use ABarr after the 3rd AM ... no using of this 3 x AB debuff stack.

The post above yours tells the tale of why it doesn't, and it has been said like 15 times in the last 5 pages. Reading them through before posting is in general a good idea.

Personally, I like that they fixed it, and even if the post above this one says arcane is losing lots of it's heavy hitting power, it's still the top spec after these nerfs in terms of pure damage. So I don't really see how that can be an issue. It was an obvious misuse of the mechanics and for those of us that played around in the battlegrounds with arcane it was expected. I'm actually surprised it wasn't a bigger nerf.

shianux · 01/28/09, 9:51 AM

Originally Posted by Veovis_

28.01.09 - Did something changed today ? I try since few hours to get a good timed Abarr after AM but no way. There are two reasons, my connection isnt simply to bad or blizzard changed something. If anyone could confirm that clipping isnt fixed would be awsome.

greetz

Originally Posted by Veovis_

Could anyone please confirm that the effect with Abarr before the 5th AM still is using the 3 X AB debuff stack ? Becaue I realy dont get it running, even if I use ABarr after the 3rd AM ... no using of this 3 x AB debuff stack.

why are you cluttering up this thread with these pointless questions when you can easily find your answers if you bothered looking through the preceding 2-3 pages?

Parissa · 01/28/09, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Pintofbrew

Christ on a bicycle, gentlemen. 3am the Hotfix is discovered, 6h later there's all flavours of badly-thought, panic posts inquiring "So is arcane dead?"

Hold on to your horses, being a Hotfix it's not clear what's exactly happened. The tooltip may not display any change irrespective of glyph, but this means only one thing for certain: That the tooltip does not display any change irrespective of glyph. There are hundreds of instances in the past and present where tooltips miss-display information.

From research which has been carried out (very quickly) up to now, it seems that it's still working as it was before, just at a cumulative 3% rather than a cumulative 5%. Personally I was expecting a hot-fix to the tune of "increases AB damage by 5%" and no buff change at all, so all in all we're not too bad.

What's the optimal cycle? Kavan just spent half a dozen posts explaining it. It never was clear-cut and it's clearly not obvious. It's looking quite a bit more logical, however. Priorities (as I understand) being:
(1) MBAM over anything
(2) ABarr provided MBAM isn't waiting to be used and AB isn't being stacked
(3) ABarr if AB Buff = 0, or AB stacked to 3, and mana restraints don't allow AB spam
(4) AB if none of the above

This reactive play-style makes much more sense than "Ignore procs of anything, just shatter combo", and I for one am very happier that the spec can now be balanced around a logical sequence of priorities/reactions rather than a mechanic-abuse that by coincidence butt-prawned any possible reaction a player may have exhibited.

And without attempting to prophesy, Kyth nailed the question on the head pretty well; it's extremely likely Arcane gains the ability to debuff 10% raid crit in the next major patch. Or at least, iScorch will show-up a lot higher in the Fire tree (it's unlikely WC will, otherwise sub-20 point frost will massively increase Blizzard DPS to the extent of eclipsing all other AoE)

I'd like to highlight Pint's comments again here - people need to look back and read the thread.

Using the suggested rotation/priority tree, I still pulled 6k dps in a 2:38 Patchwerk (before getting TT on KT, finally...). Arcane isn't broken and we're still looking quite good here, it's just not coma-inducing. That's good.

I can confirm missiles only sees a 45% buff, instead of 54% on blast, barrage, and explosion - but I don't have this combat log data (hard drive problems.....)

Tangent: Illustration of the Dragon Soul + blizzard isn't working - no +spell power stacks are generated.

Xmasman · 01/28/09, 9:56 AM

Arcane being such heavy before the nerf was ok in my eyes.
Arcane needs much more Mana and in long fights 5Min+ it won't be such strong. The nerf will make it weaker and more difficult to play. If now Fire will be stronger over 5min+ fights it will be very boring in ulduar.
I hope there will be another tuning that arcane is also on the same lvl on long fights. I hope blizzard will tune the different builds in dps like the difficulty in playing them.

Raencloud · 01/28/09, 10:08 AM

While it's true arcane loses DPS as fights get longer, it is not nearly as significant are some of you are making it out to be. 2 minute evocation has fixed lots of the problems with arcane's sustainability. Even when I run 5 minute simulations on Rawr, I can still get it to pull 5900+ DPS. Under best case scenarios (shorter fights) the most I've seen is roughly 6600, so we're looking at 600-700 dps drop. If I'm not mistaken though, TTW Fireball is only able to reach roughly 6k, so this is far from the "weak" label you are throwing onto the arcane spec. I believe it will be fine in ulduar.

Raencloud · 01/28/09, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Parissa

I can confirm missiles only sees a 45% buff, instead of 54% on blast, barrage, and explosion - but I don't have this combat log data (hard drive problems.....)

Tangent: Illustration of the Dragon Soul + blizzard isn't working - no +spell power stacks are generated.

The AM not receiving bonus from the AB glyph has been fixed already.

It appears that Illustration doesn't stack with any (channeled?) AOE anymore. We had a boomkin mention this when using hurricane last night as well. I'm not sure about Flamestrike or AE.

Carnivean · 01/28/09, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Xmasman

Arcane being such heavy before the nerf was ok in my eyes.
Arcane needs much more Mana and in long fights 5Min+ it won't be such strong. The nerf will make it weaker and more difficult to play. If now Fire will be stronger over 5min+ fights it will be very boring in ulduar.
I hope there will be another tuning that arcane is also on the same lvl on long fights. I hope blizzard will tune the different builds in dps like the difficulty in playing them.

The idiocy in this thread is astounding.

Arcane pre-nerf was ahead on short, on medium fights and on long fights. It was and is substainable indefinitely.

Post-Nerf it still is the highest dps spec on a PW fight, and it is far ahead in a fight where you have to move a lot (Heigan comes to mind). It may scale worse than FFb but for the start of Ulduar the highest spec will be Arcane. We have no idea what kind of fights are waiting for us in Ulduar, so maybe Arcane will be the best choice regardless of a maybe minimum less max DPS.

Parissa · 01/28/09, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Raencloud

The AM not receiving bonus from the AB glyph has been fixed already.

It appears that Illustration doesn't stack with any (channeled?) AOE anymore. We had a boomkin mention this when using hurricane last night as well. I'm not sure about Flamestrike or AE.

Oh it has since I raided? Excellent, thanks for this information.

Segoinkins · 01/28/09, 10:18 AM

In our guild we have started to use a disc priest to shield the mages every 15 seconds on fights with raid damage in conjunction with incanter's absorbtion. The bonus spell damage on these fights is significant as on a fight like faerlina I was sitting with a bonus of about 800 spell damage the whole fight due to the ticking of the poison. Since power word shield prevents pushback and in our case can absorbs about 8k damage every 15 second this frees up the points in pushback reduction and allows you to put them into Absorbtion and whatever else you want to. This brings a bonus to the same fight push back protection does, but it is a bigger bonus if you can get a priest to help by using a couple of GCDs every 15 seconds.