Cough

I personally think that too many PvP nerfs to Arcane come at the cost of PvE power. Granted it was vastly overpowering FFB spec'd mages, but as some state, arcane doesn't provide that raid utility that Frostfire and Fire specs have. I think that the nerf the Arcane Barrage was completely unneccesary. I've done a mixture of PvP and PvE in arcane and Arcane Barrage really didn't need to get nerfed for PvP, and with the changes done to PvE Arcane, they really didn't need to bash Arcane anymore then they already have. I know their goal was to make Arcane "A viable alterative to Frostfire Bolt specs", but now, they are practically equal (That assumption was derived from a Naxxramas raid I had last night, where an arcane mage who normally outdpsed me was now no longer outdpsing me, though this may be caused by him not trying hard or something, but there was definately a noticeable difference). Personally I think Blizzard overdid Arcane originally, then has gone too far in an attempt to equalize it.

I believe proper reflection of whether nerfing the coefficient for ABar yields the desired PvP effect (this was likely not done to affect PvE cycles, or even fully considered before employing) will allow us to return the 10% or so lost in this patch. Specifically, by the time 3.1 comes out, we will have plenty of empirical data in PvE settings (as well as some anecdotal measures in arena) to demonstrate the "unintended consequences" quotient of this quiet nerf outlives its utility.

Don't get ahead of yourselves.It was stated previously that,indeed,following the new optimal cycle once adapted to the new playstyle, the loss in dps is minimal(less than 2%).
However whats interesting is why devs move from official statements like"paying attention to bursty arcane dps in pvp while content in pve" to applying changes suddenly and without previous notice that were not even included in patch notes .
People have to bear in mind that arcane has 2 major setbacks vs the other trees in its current status :
all mages in raid cant be arcane - no 10% spell crit buff
arcane's optimal gearset points mages towards an already crowded group that are after these items - that includes every class except melees.

You'll be in that crowded group in 3.1 regardless -- they're fixing spirit so mages value it (presumably giving it dps impact for us.)

There's some very fundamental issues with caster gear right now when you look at the mindblowingly high competition for pretty much every piece which means, since drop rates weren't changed substantially, casters will lag noticably in terms of reaching their gear potential -- but that's another topic. (So is the fact that melee and caster trinkets have the same percent-chance to proc, the same ICD, but melee's proc about a second later and casters take 10s-25s seconds to proc.)

I'll believe it when I see it. Judging by Shadow Priests/Warlocks/Moonkin, my expectation is that spirit will suck less, but still not be a desirable stat. The current best in slot arcane pieces having spirit is more an artifact of those pieces being the only item level 226 pieces for those slots (sucky itemization) and arcane not needing hit than spirit actually being a great arcane stat.

On the subject of gearing, I noticed when I was gearing for Frost that the competition for these drops can be attributed to the fact that crit is not very valuable to either spec. There are many "Priest" drops with Spirit and Haste on them, many more than Haste and Hit, or Haste and Crit. This has caused me to say "need (but pass to healers)" on many occasions.

I just thought of this randomly, I apologize if it's already been mentioned:

Isn't it better to save your PoM for the third AB, since it'll activate the GCD and give you time to react to MB if it procs?

It has been mentionned.. As of 3.0.9:

• Arcane Potency makes it more valuable on your third (or forth) AB
• ABar is not on most sequences without AP
• AM consumes Arcane Potency on the first tick

The GCD giving you time to react to MB proc is a good side effect.

Not sure if anyone replied to this for ya , but it's
Resets When You Enter Combat
/castsequence reset=combat Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

Resets when you change targets
/castsequence reset=target Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

Resets when you change targets, enter combat, or 15 seconds of not pushing the button.
/castsequence reset=15/combat/target Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

But if you're a button spammer, this is a negative since you'll cancel out the AM.

Is there any obvious solution to our macros as arcane? Before it was a one stop shop for our big macro, but now things are obviously different.

Curious if there's anything that really looks good right now.

If this wasn't changed in 3.0.9 (I didn't see a mention of it), then it works as follows:

• AM proccing clearcast consumes potency at end of missiles, gains bonus.
• AM consumes existing potency on first missile, does not gain bonus for remainder.

If they did fix this, I missed mention of it, and would be very happy. It would allow us to (when possible to notice in rotation) use clearcast procs on our most expensive spell and benefit from potency fully.

They did NOT fix it.

/castsequence [nochanneling:Arcane Missiles] reset=15/combat/target Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

You won't clip AM, but you may not be able to "pre cast" AB, like we are used to with Quartz.

I'm dumb, ignore please.

I did some rough calculations on Psamtik's patchwerk run and came up with some interesting numbers.

Glyph of Arcane Missiles Buff
104.3%

Arcane Barrage Coefficient nerf
98.2%

Without Arcane Power Glyph
99.1%

If my calculations are correct it would appear that the arcane missiles buff does a pretty good job of countering the barrage coefficient nerf and might even go so far as to result in a net gain. (Due to stacking the ap glyph loss will be greater than calculated, also the coefficient nerf and lack of ap glyph will mutliply.)

what rot did you use? when are u using Arc barrage?

I was just playing a bit around with the newest version of simcraft, trying to model the questions and suggestions i read in this thread. It looks to me as if we could go something like 53/0/18 in pvp gaining Frost Channeling on behalf of in my example 2 points in student of the mind, Incineration and Arcane Barrage.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Running a simple AB3AM rotation and then bursting pure AB spam when mana allowes it, during IV or towards the end of the fight.

I can't simulate the burst period, but there should be a good chunk of mana to spare and even without the burst i only loose 40-50dps in the rotation compared to 57/3/11.

This would in theory allow you to create a simpel macro with ab and am and then spam that button until you want to change to burst and just spam ab.. easy, boring and perhaps effective.. But i'm not sure the Simcraft numbers are equal to a "reallife" test.. the calculations in this thread points to a larger difference in favor of Abar and i have not tried the build in a real raid situration yet.

Is there consensus yet on how to manage the cooldowns of PoM/AP/IV post 3.0.9?

Use PoM on the last AB whenever it's up?

Should we still be stacking AP with IV/trinket/gem losing about a minute of AP, or should that be used whenever it's up?

I start with ABarr as I move into place, then AB AB AB [MBarr] ABar, the first time I see the MBarr go off, the next AB is powered up with IV/AP/Trinkets(if I have on use ones). I have not been using PoM at all, except on trash where I cam casting Flamestrike. Mainly because it feels like it messes with my timing and waiting for the GCD to come up, or trying to sync with the AP/PoM category and concurrent CD's stuff, it's just a bit of trouble to worry about. I could obviously be wrong, and if so, I will of course try to change thigs up and get it into my cast rotation.

In my opinion, you'll never be able to say "do this all the time" with arcane due to each cooldown having a different timer and each encounter being a bit different as well. It totally depends on the length/style of the fight. Raencloud has a post on pg 41 showing timing and whether or not the new AP comes out ahead or behind depending on the fight length.

If you don't use them whenever they're up, I can't help but think you're losing a lot of DPS. i.e. if you only use AP with IV like you did in 3.0.8 and prior, your DPS is going to drop since you're not using AP any more than you did in 3.0.8 but you're only getting a 20% AP buff instead of 30%, obviously.

I try to use them whenever they're up and the situation allows for it, and try to time it so you stack at least AP with heroism if you know when its going to be blown. Exception being if you know you only have time for one more cooldown before the boss dies and IV is coming up soon enough to where you can stack them, then obviously I'll wait to stack.

My PoM I save for movement, or for things like vortex on Malygos. On a patchwerk style fight, I PoM a 4th AB whenever its off cooldown, so you get the most benefit from the 30% crit chance PoM gives.

I haven't noticed a huge drop in DPS, but as others have stated, i have to work a bit harder at managing cooldowns to get there. Arcane seems to have changed from simple cooldown usage, more complex spell cycles to more complex cooldown usage, simpler spell cycles.

Any word on when Rawr might be updated to reflect these new changes? I realize that this is no simple task and that it takes considerable effort. And I really do appreciate all the effort, in fact I just sent in a little donation.