Arcane Mage 8.3

[Valks 2,375]

This thread is for comments about our Arcane Mage guide.

[Guest Geoffgore]

Why is Incanter's Flow to be taken over Rune of Power now? Is Rune of Power on the GCD?
And why use Arcane Familiar over Rule of Threes when using the Kilt+Archmage ring?

[Dutchmagoz 30]

4 hours ago, Guest Geoffgore said:

Why is Incanter's Flow to be taken over Rune of Power now? Is Rune of Power on the GCD?
And why use Arcane Familiar over Rule of Threes when using the Kilt+Archmage ring?

Hi Geoffgore,

The reason for using Incanter's Flow over Rune of Power is mostly because the Conserve Phase is a lot more aggressive in the pre-patch than it was in Legion, due to Arcane having more Mana regeneration. So having the constant extra damage during the Conseve Phase slightly outweighs the extra burst DPS during the Burn Phase.

Regarding Arcane Familiar & the legendaries: This is due to Kilt Mana return being based on your maximum Mana (which Arcane Familiar increases), just like the Evocation procs from getting Time Anomaly scaling with maximum Mana.

[Guest Presto]

Why do you recommend using Ancient Healing Potion instead of Ancient Rejuvenation Potion?

[Valks 2,375]

4 hours ago, Guest Presto said:

Why do you recommend using Ancient Healing Potion instead of Ancient Rejuvenation Potion?

Rejuv potion shares a cooldown with your DPS potions.

[Brutalis 165]

I seem to be regenerating mana at a ridiculous pace. It's actually quite hard to not enter the burn phase with a really high mana pool. Is the tuning off or is this the design of the new spec - to make the conserve phase far more forgiving?

[Dutchmagoz 30]

11 minutes ago, Brutalis said:

I seem to be regenerating mana at a ridiculous pace. It's actually quite hard to not enter the burn phase with a really high mana pool. Is the tuning off or is this the design of the new spec - to make the conserve phase far more forgiving?

Yes, Mana regeneration, especially when using Time Anomaly combined with Overpowered (due to archmage legendary), is extremely forgiving. Without legendaries it is less forgiving, but still a lot more forgiving than it was in Legion. As far as I know, this is intended. 

Because of this though, I've suggested in the guide to not even bother using arcane barrage until you drop below 50% Mana (even lower with Overpowered ) outside of having charged up ready. 

[Brutalis 165]

4 hours ago, Dutchmagoz said:

Yes, Mana regeneration, especially when using Time Anomaly combined with Overpowered (due to archmage legendary), is extremely forgiving. Without legendaries it is less forgiving, but still a lot more forgiving than it was in Legion. As far as I know, this is intended. 

Because of this though, I've suggested in the guide to not even bother using arcane barrage until you drop below 50% Mana (even lower with Overpowered ) outside of having charged up ready. 

Thanks. Gonna be a while until I'm used to the idea of rocking 35% of my manapool as standard during the conserve phase. Just getting down to that number takes forever.

[meltz 1]

  hi

 

    i am wonder why crit is being prioritized over haste.   has haste been changed to not reduce the cool down of the spells anymore?  

i have always been told versatility is a garbage stat for any mage . what has changed to make this better than haste?

[Guest Alexi]

Soul of the Archmage grants Amplification, not Time Anomaly

[Guest Mekhis]

Ah Archmage ring doesn't give Time anomaly anymore it give amplification.. Is the ring still best in slot?

[Guest Andromedae]

Since the talent change granted by Archmage ring has changed, I would also like to know this...there's no way it's best in slot still. Maybe Kilt/shoulders? or the other ring?

[Valks 2,375]

13 hours ago, meltz said:

have always been told versatility is a garbage stat for any mage . what has changed to make this better than haste?

Versatility has been the top stat for Frost for the whole expansion and a very solid one for Arcane too, so it's definitely not that strange to see it here.

13 hours ago, meltz said:

i am wonder why crit is being prioritized over haste.   has haste been changed to not reduce the cool down of the spells anymore?  

Removed my discussion about stats, check Dutch's comment below for explanation.

[Valks 2,375]

4 hours ago, Guest Alexi said:

Soul of the Archmage grants Amplification, not Time Anomaly

To you and all others mentioning the ring, there was a hotfix that changed this. Dutch will update this once he is awake and we'll deploy a fix for it. Until then, I would recommend using Shard if you can fit the extra TWs into your fight length.

[Dutchmagoz 30]

The guide has been updated for the latest round of hotfixes.

To answer all the questions above, the change ot Archmage resulted in:

• Either Shard of Exodar or Mantle of the Kirin Tor will be used alongside Kilt now, depending on your gear.
• The talents have had a couple of small changes in priority due to this. It's hard to quickly sum up, so you are best off reading the talent page for full info, but it basically comes down to Arcane Familiar always being best now, and Overpowered also being best, which makes our burn a bit more important again (or more specifically, conserve less important) which pushes Rune of Power to equal / slightly better DPS than Incanter's Flow

Regarding stat priority: It is always best to sim your own character. The listed stats are purely as a rough guideline. Versatility has always been pretty good for Arcane. Haste is close to crit in value, but the reason why it is not better is mostly because more haste means you lose your mana at a quicker pace. Though depending on your mastery levels, haste may again be better.... Tldr: Just sim your stats often, as they change constantly based on gear.

[meltz 1]

13 hours ago, Dutchmagoz said:

 Haste is close to crit in value, but the reason why it is not better is mostly because more haste means you lose your mana at a quicker pace. Though depending on your mastery levels, haste may again be better.... Tldr: Just sim your stats often, as they change constantly based on gear.

   i played arcane for draneor and with the artifact weapon ability going away the rotation seems to be as it was then .  stats then were haste/ mastery or mastery /haste depending on if you had the tier set..      

   thank you for the clarification and i will check out the sim thing.  i do not consider myself to be an elitist , i do however try to get the best dps i can muster.  

[Guest Deus]

It might be worth writing in a guide. When you have "rule of threes" and get 3rd stack of arcan power, you should not use proc of clearcasting on arcane missiles (if you have it), cos you ll waste 2 mana-save procs on 1 cast, you should always cast 4th arcane blast before it. Maybe I`m wrong and the game doesnt consume both effects, just cant check it right now.

[Dutchmagoz 30]

4 hours ago, Guest Deus said:

It might be worth writing in a guide. When you have "rule of threes" and get 3rd stack of arcan power, you should not use proc of clearcasting on arcane missiles (if you have it), cos you ll waste 2 mana-save procs on 1 cast, you should always cast 4th arcane blast before it. Maybe I`m wrong and the game doesnt consume both effects, just cant check it right now.

If you have rule of threes and clearcasting active, and you use Arcane Missiles, it will not consume rule of threes, so this is not an issue.

[Feida 0]

Wouldn't it be better to open with a max range Barrage opposed to Blast when running Charged Up?  The charge gained from Blast doesn't matter, you will be capped on mana before burn phase either way, and Barrage does more damage than Blast with 0 charges.  You also have the benefit of projectile travel time.  It's minimal, but better imo.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Feida

[Dutchmagoz 30]

3 hours ago, Feida said:

Wouldn't it be better to open with a max range Barrage opposed to Blast when running Charged Up?  The charge gained from Blast doesn't matter, you will be capped on mana before burn phase either way, and Barrage does more damage than Blast with 0 charges.  You also have the benefit of projectile travel time.  It's minimal, but better imo.

In theory you can do this. It is quite easy to accidently ninja pull however, and the DPS increase is practically zero. (it's literally 50 more damage in total)

If you absolutely want to minmax you'd want to cast Arcane Missiles from max range when there is like 1 second left. Due to travel time it will hit on 0 seconds, and does more damage than Arcane Barrage.

[Guest Dpsproject]

Hello i have some questions!

-I dont understand reverberation talent, deflag can is a mono target spell so i have to switch on 3 mobs different to proc it?

-I really cant understand why arcanic orb is better than overpower talent? Overpower seems so fucking strong?

-If i take resonance which seems better indeed, instead of charged up im afraid that my opening will now suck , i'll have to cast 3 long deflag?

 

Thanks a lot for the guid, really good job

[Guest SomeMage]

The change to conserve at 60% mana instead of 30% seems pretty random to me. Care to explain what changed?

[Guest yalla]

In the Rotation Priority list, i was kinda confused and did not understand correctly if you're supposed to use clearcasting  proccs during AP, also i think this is different in the "burn phase" section and the "opening sequence", which should be the same ? maybe you could clear that up in your next optimization? Thanks.

[Dutchmagoz 30]

On 8/23/2018 at 7:40 PM, Guest Dpsproject said:

Hello i have some questions!

-I dont understand reverberation talent, deflag can is a mono target spell so i have to switch on 3 mobs different to proc it?

-I really cant understand why arcanic orb is better than overpower talent? Overpower seems so fucking strong?

-If i take resonance which seems better indeed, instead of charged up im afraid that my opening will now suck , i'll have to cast 3 long deflag?

 

Thanks a lot for the guid, really good job

Reverberate only works on 3+ targets, and only with the spell Arcane Explosion. Arcane Blast does not proc it in any way. So you should only use this talent on 3+ targets.

Arcane Orb is only better in AoE situations, you should pick Overpowered on single-target.

Charged Up is better on single-target, so you should use it on single-target. Without it you indeed have to cast Arcane Blast 4 times before being able to enter your burn phase.

[Dutchmagoz 30]

12 hours ago, Guest SomeMage said:

The change to conserve at 60% mana instead of 30% seems pretty random to me. Care to explain what changed?

It does seem a bit random, I agree. It's mainly changed because the old percentage was more focused around level 110, but at level 120 mana goes down quicker, which means we want to stay at a higher mana level to ensure we got enough mana for the burn phase.

The reason it only recently changed, is because while I was optimizing the Arcane rotation in simcraft I tested a lot of different things to make sure everything was optimal, and it turned out conserving around 60% is a DPS increase now.

It's not a big deal to drop a bit lower though, especially not if you run Overpowered.