Mastery or Haste for Arcane Mages?

[Andefico 1]

Hello again icy Veins!

I noticed that the forums are getting more and more active so I thought I'd ask this: What do you guys think about disregarding haste and stacking mastery instead of first reaching the soft haste cap as an arcane mage?

Hoping to see a lot of interesting replies

[LCSscallywag 57]

Mastery has always been our weakest stat as mages. No matter what spec we play.

I suppose going mastery>haste could work but I feel it would be like that Masterfrost spec for DKs and it just wouldn't be too ideal.

[meukow 15]

If you're speaking PvE wise I assume mastery is bad... PvP on the other hand... ,)

[LCSscallywag 57]

If you're speaking PvE wise I assume mastery is bad... PvP on the other hand... ,)

yeah, i'm speaking strictly from a PVE point of view. I'm a window licker when it comes to PVP so I have no clue...

[meukow 15]

Honestly I'm not sure but just check out some guides they're probably right :P

[Damien 1,514]

Now that I'm finally done with adding new features on the forums, I can reply to you.

Many people will tell you to stack Mastery Rating. There are two reasons for this: 1) it increases the damage you do when you are at full mana, and 2) if you stack Haste Rating, it makes you spend your mana faster, and you find yourself not benefiting from your Mastery.

I have a different opinion. Point for point, Haste Rating is a better stat than Mastery Rating (in my experiments, this remains true between 65% and 100% mana). It does not really matter if Haste Rating makes you spend your mana faster, you just need to adjust the number of stacks of Arcane Blast that you are keeping. Also, people often forget that Arcane Mages do most of their damage during burn phases, so having more mana means that you will fit more Arcane Blast while Arcane Power is active.

So, in our guides, we advise people to stack Haste Rating.

At some point, Haste Rating becomes less valuable than Mastery Rating. This is hard to determine, as it depends on several factors. The idea is that when you start casting Arcane Blast in less than 1 second under the effect of Bloodlust/Heroism, then some Haste Rating is wasted. At the same time, you need to keep in mind that even though you wasted a bit of Haste Rating during Bloodlust/Heroism, you will still benefit from it during the rest of the fight. The more Haste Rating you have past this point, the more it gets wasted during Bloodlust/Heroism, until you reach a point where Mastery Rating becomes more valuable.

Since this specific point is hard to determine, we simply advise people to stack Haste Rating until they cast Arcane Blast in 1 second exactly under the effect of Bloodlust/Heroism and then we advise them to go for Mastery Rating.