Loss of DPS?

[Crixalis 14]

I realize it's been a few weeks already for my mage, almost a month, but I already downed DS 2 times on my mage, and it's safe to say she's geared properly.

However, I've noticed that my DPS is only good enough whenever I do the burn phase - that is, Arcane Power on, CDs/trinkets on, and spamming Arcane Blast.

But after that, during preservation phase it's a downer - I only manage to do roughly 20k DPS, and that's kind of low for the current tier. I already am ilvl 385, so it should at least put some good dent in DPS.

Here's how I do:

Arcane Blast (1-4x, I usually put a variety on it incase I need to move), Arcane Missile or Arcane Barrage (depending on activation of AM, or whenever I feel that I need to use Arcane Barrage)

I also use Flame Orb, etc. etc. and it only puts me to 20k.

I make sure every of my gear has Mastery and Haste, and since I won't need much Haste, I already have all of my gear reforged into Mastery. You can view my mage's profile on the alt. Don't worry about the pants, I plan to get an upgrade for it but it's not really important at the moment.

Any suggestions and tips that would at least help my DPS maybe slightly or significantly?

[Damien 1,514]

I don't think you can hope for more than that during the Preservation Phase.

When in doubt, always compare yourself to top Arcane Mages and see if you're doing anything wrong. I'll take this player as an example: http://us.battle.net...Afflik/advanced

They are very well ranked on worldoflogs.com on Ultraxion 25HC: http://www.worldoflo...2&e=4957#Afflik

During the preservation phase, DPS is between 30 and 35k. Now, if you compare his character with yours, you can see just how wide the stats gap is, especially when it comes to Intellect. He has 7179 Intellect while you have 6007. In reality, he has a lot more because he is using Will of Unbinding, which equals to a 990 Intellect gain. He also has a tanking trinket equipped for some reason, so you can add another 517 Intellect from the other caster DPS trinket he must usually be using. So we're looking at 2,700 more Intellect for him. His mana pool is much bigger, his mana regeneration is much faster, and his spells hit harder.

Is there any way you can provide a log to your Mage running Dragon Soul?

[Crixalis 14]

Yeah, I never expected for it to be doing more damage, but when I intend it to do more a bit damage, and if doesn't, then I'm doing it wrong.

You're right about these parts though, I realize me having 2.7k Intellect less than him leads to a loss DPS, but it means I shouldn't be pretty far behind in a DS raid DPS. I can only make roughly above tank's DPS, and that's not good. And that reminds me, he has a legendary staff so that bumps his DPS considerably.

As for logs, I can't really provide (nor do I know how to do one :P) since I'm going to be away for a week, but when I come back I'll figure it out and give you details when I can.

[Damien 1,514]

The thing is that the Preservation Phase is not really significant, about 20% or 25% of your overall damage, maybe 30% at your gear level. So if you find that your DPS is low, the problem is most likely in the burning phase.

I don't necessarily need a log, what you can do is hit a training dummy for 10 minutes, doing your rotation without using Heroism. What I will need are your haste, your critical strike chance, the number of times you cast each of your spells and how many of these cast have been critical strikes.

[Crixalis 14]

Started hitting a dummy with 2 first Arcane Blasts, and then started Time Warp so I can actually do the best DPS of the burning phase, and then switched from Preservation Phase to Burning whenever Evocation is off CD, and I also did burning phases while Evocation was on cd and used flame orb to get mana back. As soon as Time Warp debuff ended, I stopped.

Arcane Blast:

Arcane Missiles:

Arcane Barrage:

And for the sake of curiosity, you can see the Flame Orb here, but I'll assume that's not really a necessity.

My first burning phase averaged about 34k DPS, and then eventually decreased to 20k dps and as I continued casting spells, it kept going down until 18k dps.

[Damien 1,514]

I've just done a heroic dummy session with my mage. It has rather low gear, as I haven't played it seriously in quite a while (ilevel 377). I was around 17.5k DPS after 8 minutes 20 seconds (then I had a lag issue and had to stop), but the important thing is the damage breakdown by spell. Mine is:

• Arcane Blast: 243 hits and 81.5% of the damage;
• Arcane Missiles: 230 hits and 15.2% of the damage;
• Flame Orb: 105 hits and 2.9% of the damage;
• Volcanic Destruction (from Darkmoon Card: Volcano): 11 hits and 0.4% of the damage.

From what I can see on your alt's profile, you have less haste than my Mage (because I reforged to Haste, primarily), so using Arcane Blast is more detrimental to my mana management than it is to yours. Yet, I manage to use Arcane Blast a lot more than you do. If you are not doing between 80% and 85% of your damage with Arcane Blast, there is something wrong :P

My guess is that you are too prompt to cast Arcane Missiles or Arcane Barrage to reset your stacks of Arcane Blast. Try to stay at around 90% mana during the preservation phase (even 85% isn't bad).

[Crixalis 14]

Mmm, I see. That helped a lot, thank you! :)

I'll mess around a bit with my gear, and see if I get it right. I'll try adjusting my rotation and get back with news.

[Boradan 17]

drop arcane barrage from your rotation during ANY phase. Its a dps loss compared to Arcane Missiles.

The only time you should be using arcane barrage over arcane missiles is when you are moving... spam icelance and Arcane barrage when its off CD in places like Hagara ice phase.

Reforge all hase out that you can. Preferably to mastery, if the item has mastery then crit. (this is provided you have the 17% hit cap... if not reforget your haste to hit insted until you hit that point. Always remember that any hit over 17% is wasted, so get as close to 17% as you can. Its OK to get to 16.5% or over. 0.5% below hit cap means you will miss 5 out of 1000 spells.... not a great deal tbh, but using something like RAWR and the RAWR addon can help with reforging to get the max potential from your gear,

Also, switch to the burning phase when there are about 35-40 seconds left on the CD for Evocation.... the timing depends on your gear. You wan to hit about 35% mana JUST as evocation becomes available.... any time evocation is just sitting there not on CD is a DPS waste (apart from during the first burn phase at the pull ofc).

During the burn phase, when you are at about 90% mana, pop your mana gem to bring you back to 100% mana - that helps in 2 ways - your mana gem gives you an increase in spellpower when you take it, and you also get more damage the more mana you have.

Dont forget to pop Mage ward on a regular basis. There are sooo many fights in DS where you take damage that will proc off Incanters Absorbtion and give you up to 2k spell power. Nice to use it JUST before a burn phase.... its like a timed power torrent proc. I wouldnt be too generous with popping mana shield though except for places like Spine Heroic JUST before the tendons come up. With Mana shield and mage ward popped, you can get over 3k Spell power for the burst phase on the tendons...

During the mana conserve phase, you want to stay around 90-95% mana. Generally thats 2-3 Arcane blasts, then arcane missiles. You dont want to be any higher than 95% mana as you run the risk of your mana regen bringing you over 100%, which is a dps loss, as you could have cast arcane blast instead of arcane missiles each time it happens. Having your mage armor over-fill your mana bar in itself isnt a dps loss, it just means your rotation was slightly off, so you cast the wrong spell, resulting in a dps loss

Edited July 28, 2012 by Boradan

[Crixalis 14]

Did testing again, also using Boradan's tips.

Managed to:

Arcane Blast - 274 counts, 80.3% of damage

Arcane Missiles - 342 counts, 18.1% of damage

Flame Orb - 75 counts, 1.5% of damage

The good news that Arcane Barrage withdrawl has netted me about 1k dps increase, but not still satisfying. I guess I can actually do better when it comes to being buffed. At least I'm learning a lot through this process!

I'll try balancing Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles whenever I can now. :)