Hello everyone. Long time lurker, long time reader here. After reading most of the posts since the recent patch, I was just wondering about some clarification. With everyone posting there own rotations, opinions, and everything else that the changes affect, I was just wondering what our actual rotation is in laymens terms. There is a lot of AB3[MBAR] ABAR type stuff being thrown around, and to relieve my current headache(lol) I was just hoping someone could type it for those of us who are a little confused. Thanks everyone.

There are examples of the rotation notation on the first post.

It's actually fairly simple.

AB AB AB or ABx3: Cast Arcane Blast three times (I was going to try and be funny with a Monty Python joke here but my brains fried from cold medicine)

[MBarr] Missle Barrage, or zomg fast Arcane Missiles. You should only be casting this when you have already stacked AB, as the missiles get the full benefit of AB's buff/debuff. The brackjets implies that this is where you cast the Arcane Missiles...if the MBarr proc goes off

ABar: Arcane Barrage, the standard ending of the rotation, seeing as it has a 3 second CD, it should always be up at the end of your AB AB AB portion.

Sample: AB AB (say MBarr procs here) [IV/AP/Trinkets] AB [MBarr] ABar > Lather > Rinse Sort of repeat. I don't use PoM in this area, but you could probably add it in after the 3rd AB, before rolling into the [MBarr]. I would think that waiting the 1.5 seconds to be able to then cast IV/AP/Trinkets might be better spent casting.

AB AB (MBarr procs) AB (PoM) wait 1.5 seconds (AP/IV/Tinkets) [MBarr] Abar

Depending on the length of the fight you can adjust the number of Arcane Blasts, and when your getting to the end of the fight or in burn range you might be able to "fish" for a MBarr proc with extra AB's, if youre mana pool can handle it.

So you're always ending your main rotation with Arcane Barrage, even if MBar procs and you use up the 3 charges from AB for that?

It's a good spell, we should be casting it often

Oh my have you read these threads lately? Saying to abarr all the time is not the way to go. Since things are fluid rather than constant as my man Manley states, it "appears" that abarr is no longer a staple of a good rotation if you have the AM glyph unless you are doing a mana dump. Dump being on heroism, AP, end of fight etc. Even fully loading the missile barrage is questionable now due to mana efficiency.

It would be a good idea to backtrack and read say the last weeks posts to get a real handle on things. Trust me, its confusing if you just jump in mid stream and you probably dont have the perspective to understand what peeps are saying.

Have a great day and thx much posters here, this is my first post and I can't say enough about this fantastic site.

Lindee - Aerie Peak proud Arcane Mage

The cooldown is only applied to AP (and vice versa) to prevent using POM during AP. Outside of this restriction, nothing with POM was changed. You can still freely make POM macros and instant nukes all day long, so long as AP is not active.

@Guintoff: What? The change was that once you cast POM, you can't cast Arcane Power until the POM buff is consumed. This prevents you from being able to POM-AP-Pyro for gigantic crits, but you can still POM-Pyro without the extra damage.

I have some trouble understanding the new rotations. Let's say I got enough mana regen up to cast any rotation exept AB spam, with would be the best to do?

Using the highest single target dos build posted on page 1:

1. Open with Arcane Barrage
2. If Missiles Barrage procs, Arcane Missiles and then Arcane Barrage again (let's consider it will not be on cooldown)
3. If Missiles Barrage didn't proc: 3xArcane Blast and then Arcane Missils (even if Missile Barrage didn't proc) followed by a Arcana Barrage (this is where I'm unsure)
4. Back to 1

So basically since the 3.0.9 patch: (not looking at mana)

- Arcane Missile will always be used after a 3 x Arcane Blast (even if Missile Barrage didn't proc) and after Arcane Barrage (only if Missile Barrage procced).

Thank you for confirming and I'm sorry if it's clear to you guys but I'm very confused atm.

No. You dont Abarr on 0stacks any more. You don't open with Abarr (asuming you are already standing on the spot you got to be at, like in patchwerk.)

Thus, the new highest dps rotation (short of ab spam) is:

AB3 [mbarr] Abarr.

When you do AB3 MBarr, you do not follow it with an ABarr, since it'd be at 0stacks and it's now a dps loss compared to stacking 3 ABs all over again.

I don't understand why I get so many tells about this. I think the rotations are fairly unambiguous. Heres a repeat from page 1

Why are people interpreting "AB AB AB ([mbarr] or abarr)" into "AB AB AB [mbarr] abarr" is simply beyond my understanding. Its either "AB AB AB mbarr" or "AB AB AB abarr".

Been lurking here a bit. I'm not entirely sure if this hasn't been asked before (can't see this question popping up recently), but i was wondering what the impact is of changing molten armor glyph to mage armor glyph, and therefore using mage armor in fights instead.

In 10 mans, i've noticed that i can go oom very fast. For 25 mans, this is less the case, but still if i use mana dump my mana goes down insanely fast. Would it not be a good option to go maximum dps rotation shown in the above schematic but using mage armor so you can keep it going long enough for gems + evocation to get ready again.

I see a lot of people coming up with a results like 5k dps and even up to 7k dps.
What im wondering about is how on earth are you able to pull that off?

At the moment, if i go full out, i can do around 4k - 4,5k on Patchwerk.
Ii'm a bit overcapped on hit, got 300 haste, i got 2002 SP self buffed.
I follow the cycles posted in this thread, but obviously there must be something im missing out on.

Are you guys stacking haste or is it something in your rotation that makes it possible to reach these numbers?
My Mage is Mithrandir on Silvermoon - EU. ANY pointers would be very much appreciated.

Your WWS link shows a pretty long Patchwerk kill. Most likely, these "7k dps parses" are going to be closer to 1.5-2mins.

The best you can do pre-Ulduar is about 650 haste and 2550 sp self-buffed (without food/flask), so maybe it's just a gear issue.

You are way over hit cap, if you check out the post on the first page you only need 209 hit to be capped as arcane with a moonkin/shadowpriest in the raid, drop that dying curse for embrace of the spider or the healer badge trinket(as it procs off of arcane missiles).

I'd also suggest replacing those boots with the Wyrmrest exalted boots as they are better since you don't need the hit.

Currently, yes, Egg will proc off of AM. This is clearly a bug, however, so I wouldn't count on it being around for too long. For now it can suit you well, though.

How does the Egg compare DPS wise to the Sundial of the Exiled? Ive tried using it in Rawr as well as looking for this answer here, but didnt have any luck getting an answer.

Well im wearing both, because i switched it with Dyring Curse. And i certainly had a small boost dps-wise.
505 extra haste every now and then is definitely worthy

Short story: It is the third best in slot trinket for 57/3/11 Arcane mages.

1) Illustration
2) Embrace
3) Egg
4) Sundial

Long story: It is basically a poor man's (slightly worse) Embrace of the Spider. Because of the internal cooldowns on both, they are essentially the same trinket, except the "actual cooldown" on Egg is slightly longer due to it proccing off of one spell. Still, it's better dps than Sundial. Also, the two trinkets (Embrace + Egg) stack.

More on this: The Arcane thread

Somewhat related - is there an addon that tracks the internal cooldown of procs?

Given that AB AB AB ([mbarr] or Abarr) and AB AB AB AM are so close in terms of DPS (with the first having the edge), I suspect that it might be optimal if using the egg to use AB AB AB AM until the egg procs, then AB AB AB ([mbarr] or Abarr) while the trinket's on ICD, switching back to AB AB AB AM when the proc's off cooldown.

Obviously this is a fairly special case, taking advantage of/exploiting a bug with a trinket that only procs on one spell, but if anyone does know of an addon that tracks proc ICD I'd appreciate it.

I'd recommend Procodile. It records ICDs based on how far apart in time a given trinket procs, so you'll want to cast on a training dummy until each trinket has procced as soon as its ICD has expired.