The Arcane thread - Page 70

Raencloud · 02/10/09, 9:12 PM

Side note: noting a bug with Mirror Image in macros. If MI is OFF cooldown, using a macro for ap, iv, etc + MI + [insert spell here] works. If MI is ON cooldown, however, the macro will not cast the spell, it seems to die at the "/cast Mirror Image." Very annoying.

manly · 02/10/09, 9:13 PM

Thats not new, its been that way for months now.

Raencloud · 02/10/09, 9:20 PM

Not true, if I had MI right before my spell (used to be AB) the macro always worked, regardless of MI's cooldown status. Now nothing after MI will cast while MI is on cooldown. When MI is off of cooldown, it will work again.

Korey · 02/10/09, 9:25 PM

Originally Posted by manly

Thats not new, its been that way for months now.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong. This worked perfectly for me before the patch:

#showtooltip Icy Veins
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Arcane Power
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/cast Mirror Image
/cast Arcane Blast

Now the macro doesn't work at all if Mirror Image is on cooldown (it refuses to cast Arcane Blast). If I remove the Mirror Image line, it works perfectly again.

Junlex · 02/10/09, 9:35 PM

That never worked for me before the patch, hence me always having seperate IV + everything and MI + IV + everything macroes.

Physicist · 02/10/09, 9:37 PM

The nerf to Abarr will have the interesting effect of making the different rotations slightly more spread out in their dps. I always thought the mana-cost of stacking 3-AB to be ridiculous for the paltry 7% dps bonus it gave over the lesser 2-AB rotations. With Abarr nerfered, rotations that get more of their damage from AB (and proportionally less of their damage from Abarr) will feel the nerf comparatively less. Which will make being able to have the mana to sustain this top-end rotation even more important.

Korey · 02/10/09, 9:43 PM

Originally Posted by Junlex

That never worked for me before the patch, hence me always having seperate IV + everything and MI + IV + everything macroes.

MI has (had) to be at the end, because it triggers a cooldown on a set number of similar spells. Now it just doesn't work at all (if it's on cooldown).

Gleeful · 02/10/09, 10:17 PM

Abarr nerf confirmed.

A last minute change was made to the mage Arcane Barrage spell which reduced its spell power coefficient. This change did not make it into the 3.0.9 patch notes. We will be carefully evaluating this change and its effects on game balance in both PvE and PvP. If you have constructive feedback to provide, please do so in this thread.

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Arcane Barrage Change

Junlex · 02/10/09, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by Korey

MI has (had) to be at the end, because it triggers a cooldown on a set number of similar spells. Now it just doesn't work at all (if it's on cooldown).

The last two lines of my MI macro were

/cast Mirror Image
/cast Arcane Blast

Pre-patch, as now, if MI was on cooldown the macro would stop and AB wouldn't be cast. I don't know how to explain this discrepancy in behaviour between what I experienced and what others seemingly experienced pre-patch, but this is definitely how it has been for me since 3.08 at least, which is why I had to create an everything + MI macro and an everything without MI macro.

Xentropy · 02/10/09, 10:54 PM

The confusion here is that there was always an MI bug that forced it to be the last cooldown used in a macro.

Now it has to be the last spell altogether. You can't MI and cast a normal nuke in one macro reliably. Even non-cooldowns won't trigger after MI in a macro if MI is on cooldown.

I can also confirm based on target dummy testing that ABar's coefficient appears to now be at least close to 2.5/3.5 instead of 3.0/3.5. Putting PoM on a macro before ABar is even worse than it was before. For best use of potency, it has to be manually used for 3rd or 4th AB.

xres · 02/10/09, 11:06 PM

I believe it does change your rotation. Since Abr is weaker, and AM is stronger with this patch, it makes sense to try to increase the casting frequency of AM and lower it for Abr.

one could try to hold out longer on the AB spam to try to fetch for a MBAM at the cost of DPM more. Before the patch, Abx3 to Abr is the standard none proc rotation. Now with Abr nerfed, one could do something like hold AB spam more, to say ABx5 before having to drop the stack with Abr, hoping for a MBAM proc.

This would increase the rate of a buffed MBAM being cast and lower the rate at which Abr is cast.

xres · 02/10/09, 11:14 PM

I am also wondering about the dps between AM vs ABr (both ABx3 buffed).

Does anyone have this information? If you were able to spam Abr vs spam AM (with new glyph) at full ABx3 buff.

Pasture · 02/10/09, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by xres

I believe it does change your rotation. Since Abr is weaker, and AM is stronger with this patch, it makes sense to try to increase the casting frequency of AM and lower it for Abr.

one could try to hold out longer on the AB spam to try to fetch for a MBAM at the cost of DPM more. Before the patch, Abx3 to Abr is the standard none proc rotation. Now with Abr nerfed, one could do something like hold AB spam more, to say ABx5 before having to drop the stack with Abr, hoping for a MBAM proc.

This would increase the rate of a buffed MBAM being cast and lower the rate at which Abr is cast.

The only reason for casting ABar after ABx3 is to sustain mana. We still need to sustain mana. ABar being nerfed doesn't change that.

I'm irritated at the ABar nerf it has to be said. We were promised the pvp nerfs wouldn't affect us in pve. Nerfing ABar obviously will have this effect. It seems like arcane pve dps is constantly being chipped away at each week.

I hope 3.1 brings some good news. With ABar nerfed, and Arcane Power along with it, let's boost arcane crit damage up from 50%. The reasons not to are no longer so compelling.

deadlyice · 02/10/09, 11:25 PM

Pretty furious atm, when looking at the numbers from wowmeteronline.com, all of the competitive mages are currently arcane. Just finished running our raids to clear the 25 content for the week and in each fight, sarth, maly and naxx I was around 500-1000dps less on each fight from the previous week.

From beta until now, I've had faith that Blizzard wouldn't repeat Sunwell, but Im amazed.

That being said, the people beating me were the big 3, warlocks, DKs and warriors. I was doing very comparable dmg to survival hunters equally geared.

Tezcatlipoca · 02/10/09, 11:30 PM

Why dont they make spells act differently against a human player... As, for example, Polymorph?!

That way, PvE would never again to suffer with PvP problems... They did a great job with Arcane... Now they are destroing it again, nerf after nerf.

And i wonder, did we really needed this nerfs when compared to other classes, like for example... I dont know... Dk's?