Are you oom people using Mage or Molten armor? If you are having mana issues Mage armor is the better choice. Also since you're not using molten armor you can scrap that glyph and get glyph of mana gem to help you're mana further.

I believe a lot of math has proven this to be untrue. Molten Armor was a DPS gain at 5% even when you were going OOM. An arcane mage will likely get 6-7% raid buffed spell crit from Molten Armor now that it works off of spirit, making the gap between Molten and Mage Armors even larger.

Molten Armor is always the better choice from the previous discussions, is this now incorrect?

No, nothing has changed to make molten armor comparatively worse, as with lower mana rotations you will always be able to continue DPS. That is to say, longer fights do not seriously impact molten armor's advantage.

Someone should really do the maths with Spark of Hope.
Unfortunately my Macbook prevents any Rawrage

If indeed, as mentioned, it reduces the mana cost of stacked AB by such a huge amount, then respeccing out of Missile Barrage and into Frost Channeling, and then going for TBC-esque blast spam with intersparced Barrages for mana conservation may prove to be best.

The Rawr thread has some numbers already (calculated by hand), and it shows that this trinket is similar/inferior to Embrace of the Spider. Spark of Hope is now implemented in Rawr, and confirms these results.

Has any mage done the general vezax encounter as arcane? We took a couple shots at him on 10-man. I don't see how an arcane mage could possibly survive that fight. I'm frostfire, but I'm wondering for the sake of all the other mages in my guild who are arcane.

I see no reason for them to do so, or for you to complain for that matter. Have you noticed how non-mage casters struggle to handle mana on that fight ? The reason is quite simple -- mages were built using a system where basically it is assumed we cant go oom (since we have no spammable mana regen); as a result our spells are a cheaper than other classes. The end result for vezax is that this is quite to our advantage as a whole. If anything, use a far lower mps cycle, and you should be not much worse off than every other caster.

I will be sure to use a lower mps cycle next week to see how it goes. I was using a mix of ABx2 and ABx3 -> ABarr (didn't seem to make sense to use am without mbarr given no mana regen) and was nearly oom by 50%.

Is it me, or is there an inconsistancy in mana rates in game? It seems that I'm going OOM on bosses who I don't go OOM on the next time, using pretty much the same group. It's a big difference in rates when it happens.

It's not hard if you know the fight. I'm arcane, tried that fireball nonsense, don't like it. If you play your class correctly, and do the fight how it's supposed to be done. Don't waste your mana, only fire on the boss if you are standing in the shadow crashes debuff. Your mana cost on spells is reduced by like 70% or so I believe. You run oom way slower, and do a ton more damage, making arcane perfect for that fight.

You're using a rotation that isn't on the first post. Rotations that aren't on the first post are never optimal from a DPS vs MPS perspective. It's very well-proven, that aside for special cooldowns, on any fight there are only 2 good rotations, out of which you balance in a way that will use all your mana. The rotations on the main page are ones that you should actually pick 2 adjacent rotations from, no other rotations are useful (obviously except wanding).

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AM was never a better choice because of 5 second rule ever since 2.4. It's in the cycles on its own right.

The 5sr regen timer resets with every tick of AM, and so you cannot use this to regen mana any faster than simply casting ABarr. The reason the AM rotation is better MPS is that AM is a longer cast than ABarr, meaning that you are *not* casting AB for that much longer during your rotation. Decreasing the number of AB casts per minute decreases the MPS. This is why AM is better mps than un-glyphed ABarr.

The FSR ends five seconds after you spend mana or after you stop channeling, whichever is longer. This is true for all channeled spells for all classes except those which inherently cost no mana (like Evocation).

Ah that seems to make more sense actually given the nerfs to out of five second rule mana regen in 3.1, thanks for the clarification.

I think it was tested back in BC in patch 2.4 or so that AM channeling interracts differently with out of casting mana regen in the sense that it does regen a little more mana than IFSR but not fully as out of casting. As Kavan pointed AM is in the cycle because it's has lower dps but better dpm whereas ABr has higher dps but lower dpm.

I done Vezax in 10man and I was pushing 9k dps and finished the fight with 1k mana and used a runic mana potion. From the looks of it Arcane is better than fire or frostfire for this specific fight if everything goes right, you dps only in the shadow crash patches and maximize it with your CDs all the time. And yea threat cap is a real problem there and I love the arcane 2min invisibilities. I used ABx3->AM cycle, 0 ABr casts, 0 casts outside of black patch. The thing that hurt the most my mana was CSing while not being in the black patch .

Now if you look it from the hardmode PoV (don't take any green vapors) that might be a problem but then again if rdps is high enough fight will end fast enough so that you won't need any of those vapors regen.

You have Used a Runic Mana Potion on Vezzax ? Are we talking from the same Fight ? Oo

I did a search and haven't found anything on how good Arcane Stabililty is in Ulduar. I know it was only situationally useful pre-Ulduar (although still useful enough to put points into it). I also noticed people leaving points out of it now.

Personally I've only done the siege portion of Ulduar, so for those of you who have done most of Ulduar...is pushback prevention as important now if at all?

I've found out that sometimes it's useful, sometimes it isn't. You still may get hit by random damage, and for fights like Iron Council it's definitely a must with the damage aura. I'm keeping 3 points into it.

Pushback talents are difficult to put a numerical value on but they are almost always worth it. Pushback not only extends your casts but also prevents you from finishing casts when you must move and can disrupt your rotations. I believe that Concentration Aura and Improved Concentration Aura are additive to the pushback talents so anything other than 50% (or 65% w/ no Imp Conc Aura) is a waste. Can anyone confirm this?

It is known to stack (so additive) with regular pushback prevention talents. So if you have access to Concentration Aura, you need 4 points to reach 100%, or 3 if you have access to Improved Concentration Aura. Note that 1 pushback, as little as it can be, makes you lose 20% damage on your Arcane Missiles (the last missile doesn't get fired).