Arcane - How to use Nether Tempest correctly

[Flux 0]

Hi,

Enjoying arcane alot right now. On the guide on the site (thumbs up for the fast update of the stat priority btw!) usage of Nether Tempest is not mentioned in the opening sequence or the burn phase. Do you apply NT in the burn phase so it can profit from Arcane Power and the Rune or before? According to my own testing, on single target, with 4 Stacks, NT does about the same damage as AB but only uses a GCD, so it should be worth using it with Rune/AP right? 

btw: What about Mark of Aluneth? In the guide the opening sequence says you should apply it BEFORE Rune/AP, but i don't see the point here aswell, why not use it WITH Rune/AP?

Maybe NT is worth bcs it can procc Arcane Missiles? The guide says that you can refresh it on 4- seconds left. Why not let it run out? Am I wrong when i say that only the inital cast can procc AM? In this case we should let it run out right?

Edited October 1, 2016 by Flux

[Santrid 0]

If my memories about WotLK/Cata mechanics are still viable, in general at 50% haste you reach 1s GCD. If NT damage == single AB damage, you will get DPS boost up to 50% haste (including raid buffs and QK stacks ofc). Being above 50% haste, you will lose damage including NT into your rotation. But this calculation doesn't count additional AM procs those are very important.

I feel (didn't execute any simulation or testing) that the only moment when you should NOT include NT is ur rotation - boss fight is very close to the end, you have 100%+ haste (gear+BL+QK stacks) and have enough mana to spam AB until the very end of encounter. Yes, you still will miss some AM procs from NT but probably under so much haste simple AB spam would be the best. These kind of situations are very (VERY) rare. Otherwise - if at least one conserve/burn phase is in the horizon - you should include NT even being above 50% (and probably even 100%) haste just for additional AM procs.

About Mark, probably you misread. Mark must be under AP+ROP if available. Even if Mark went off cd a bit earlier than AP+ROP (+95% damage together), you must wait your cds and do not refresh the Mark w/o them. What does "a bit earlier" mean exactly? I don't know (: My maths' forefeeling says me that cause boost coefficient is almost 100%, it's worth to NOT re-apply the Mark up to 10-15 secs while you're waiting AP+ROP. Maybe I'm wrong.

For me, who isn't mad about top positions in DPS charts even amoung arcane mages, AP+ROP is my main landmarks and I just try to combine Mark with them as often as possible.

About 4- sec rule, I don't think it's an iron rule. At first, usually your longest spell is AB but it still has 2.25s cast time with 0% haste and if you have 4 secs before NT fades, you also have time for additional AB (on burn phase) and should refresh NT after it. As for me, if I applied NT on 0-5th second of AP+ROP and I see that AP+ROP come to the end + I have no time to cast additional AB, I just re-applying NT even if it have been lasted only for 5-7 seconds (instead of 8 as recommended in the guide). And regardless of time left I never apply NT at 0-1 stacks of Arcane Charges. I prefer let NT fade off, cast ABx2 (and missiles if available) and then cast NT.

Also I don't use AMs "whenever it procs" on consurve phase as guide suggests - I stack 2 arcane charges and then AMs>Barrage. Of course, there're some exceptional situations that depend on AP+ROP and movement.

And at the end, do not go mad about timings.  As_less_as_possible movement, instant target switching, smart using Blinks, Displacement and Ice Floes are MUCH more important than re-applying NT on 8th second or a second later it fades off.

Sry for Runglish, I've tried my best :D

Edited October 2, 2016 by Santrid

[Rosario 0]

The reason its suggested to apply mark before using one of the abilities is that unlike most dots, your current stats and buffs affect it rather than it being timestamp locked.  so you can get the full benefit from other spells off your buffs while getting the biggest hit (final tick) getting all the boosts from your buffs. since rune is the only one with a cast time and likely to have 2 up at a given time, use Mark, Rune then arcane power. these should only be applied after youve gotten 4 stacks of arcane from blasting, and optimally you will have gotten 1 stack of missiles up at this time.

 

Missiles is a great go to for maintaining Quickening Stacks through spells or abilities that do not apply them when you're at range, and quickening is how you manage to feed as much damage into your burst phase as possible. they capped it at 50 stacks before it auto removes which is fine you should run out of mana at around or before then depending on your mastery or which legendaries you may have.

For example, a strong opening to a boss encounter has you already at 4 stacks with a missile proc in the wings with some time left. you open with Mark, Rune, Power and then depending on Missile existance or proc time left you either spam AB or Use up your missiles. Pre-potting is a great idea on boss fights if youre in this state.

Personally, I also have the Kilt so for my playstyle I prefer doing a double burn phase in a row, blowing all my mana, evocation, missiles at end or just before end of evocation to maintain quickening stacks, then continue from there. Once I Dip through the second batch of mana I barrage, pop charged up, barrage again, then do a rotation that gets to 3 or 4 stacks and barrage to maximize mana by the time arcane power is back online. with high enough mastery you can have almost no downtime between burns,

In all cases if you choose to use Nether Tempest use only at 4 stacks, and just keep it on the primary target, its great in AOE situations though the 8% damage boost from Erosion is a great option if you find yourself forgetting to reapply tempest.

Edited October 5, 2016 by Rosario

[wiwh 1]

Hello,

This topic made me join in on icy veins - this is thus my first post, so bear with me.

As discussed quickly in the IV guide and elsewhere, nether tempest (NT) is great at building up AM procs to help maintain quickening stacks. It was heftily used in the infamous NT-Quickening spam "build", which got nerfed -- which was for the best.

NT is different as other skills in that it snapshots your current damage modifiers and does not dynamically updates its ticks. This is unlike Mark of Aluneth, which updates dynamically.

NT is one of our best Damage-to-TimeCast ratio, as it only costs us 1 GCD. This is true if the following conditions apply: i) NT will tick for at least 8 sec, and ii) the combat is pretty static (so that the "AOE" tic actually hits the target). I assume you are running with RoP. Within timeframe of RoP, we want to put our highest damage-to-timecast spells (this is why fire mages burn all their instant crit casts with ROP+ combustion, as instant pyros are their best damage-to-timecast spells -- ours is NT, as bad as it sounds).

With this in mind, the following regarding NT follows:

• Always keep NT up if conditions i) and ii) above apply, even if this means re-casting it before its full duration, EXCEPT if the previous NT was damage-enhanced. This I believe is the "below 4 sec" rule in the IV guide, as NT has a damage-to-timecast of about 30% more than anything else we have in our rotation arsenal.
• Never cast NT if you are not at 4 arcane charges, except if you are fishing for AM (this should rarely happen now)
• Do not cast NT right before casting RoP, as it is optimal to re-cast NT at the beginning of RoP.
• Cast NT at the beginning of RoP, unless you already have 3 charges of AM, in which case you should begin by casting one of the AM followed by NT, which would allow a further AM proc.
• Cast NT as the last spell under RoP. So effectively in a normal situation, you would have 10 + 12 = 22 sec of ROP-boosted NT.

In AOE packs, these guidelines apply, too. I would sometimes shimmer-cast ROP into NT followed by regular AOE rotation so I can be in the middle of the pack without taking unnecessary damage for the cast time of ROP.

As regards mark of aluneth, it should not be cast inside ROP, as its damage scales dynamically: it should be cast few moments before.

Further note on RoP and AP:

This may be unpopular or even unoptimal, but I have found that I have better results with the following opening (try it yourself):

 Get 4 arcane charges > cast NT > cast ABlast until 2 AM procs > Mark of Aluneth > Rune of Power > AM > AM > Arcane Power > NT > AB until 3 AM proc > Rune of Power > AM > AM > AM > NT

The idea is to use Rune of Power for our most damage-to-timecast spells (AM, explosion of Mark of Aluneth, NT), and use Arcane Power for the mana conserve aspect. So we wan to cast AM in RoP, and ABlast in AP, but if we have RoP and AP simultaneously we are losing either damage by casint ABlast, or mana conservation by not casting it.

With my opening above, I have Arcane Power and Rune of Power both simultaneously up for the explosion of Mark of Aluneth and to snapshot NT. Then,  I cast lots of ABlast during AP, while stacking some more AM to be cast during the next RoP.

I didn't run simulations but it works better for me. It's tough, though.