[Archived] Arcane Mage 5.4

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Arcane Mage guide.

[heath1056 0]

I like seeing that they basically went back to the old rotation for arcane this go-around. I never liked the all-out Arcane Blast spam burn etc.

[Damien 1,514]

It was a very small change that made it impossible to spam Arcane Blast. For a long time during the beta, Arcane Charge would only stack up to 4, so you could still do a lot of Arcane Blast spamming (especially with Invocation). Ever since they increased the number of maximum charges to 6, it has become unrealistic to rely only on Arcane Blast.

[MichaelTheys 10]

y with 6stacks you have a 750% mana increase if i counted correctly that's at lvl 85 11.2k mana per cast of AB you do then (if i counted correctly again ) that's like 11% of your mana at that point means you can only cast AB a 10times (6 to get to 6stakcs that's around 29k mana you burned allrdy) 100-29k= 71k left 71-35= 36k that's 3ab you can spam more + some regain of mana you'll get back (or if your a gnome without) you can come to a max of 10-11ab until you have to use evocation (that's at lvl 85 ofc). I got no idea what the mana cost for an AB is at lvl 90 if someone can say me this we can do the maths again

Edited August 25, 2012 by MichaelTheys

[Damien 1,514]

At level 90, it's 38,350 mana if I remember right. It's almost 13% of your maximum mana.

[Langland 0]

So does arcane just become compleatly unuseable for the next month(as in it does considerably less dammage than it does now) or just preforems poorly compaired to fire and frost?

Edited August 27, 2012 by Langland

[Damien 1,514]

So does arcane just become compleatly unuseable for the next month(as in it does considerably less dammage than it does now) or just preforems poorly compaired to fire and frost?

I wouldn't say unusable, but it will really be below Fire and Frost.

[Ati123 0]

I disagree on saying that using Rune of Power is the best way to go for Arcane. While i agree that this is the one which gives the best damage output, it cannot be used effectively in almost any boss as this requires you to stand on the rune.

Several boss mechanics make it impossible to get the full use of RoP, making Incanter much better and maybe invo in some fights.

Probably, this post will explain better my point:

http://us.battle.net...069?page=17#325

Even though he is testing with frost, i think it can be applied to any spec.

Edited August 29, 2012 by Ati123

[CsabeeVs 4]

Question on Greater invisibility: By looking at the tooltip it says 90% dmg reduction. I think this may be a good spell to survive mecanics like HOT on ultraxx HC ( Shadowpriest dispersion / iceblock /AMS) Greater Invisibility

What do you guys think?

[Damien 1,514]

I disagree on saying that using Rune of Power is the best way to go for Arcane. While i agree that this is the one which gives the best damage output, it cannot be used effectively in almost any boss as this requires you to stand on the rune.

Several boss mechanics make it impossible to get the full use of RoP, making Incanter much better and maybe invo in some fights.

Probably, this post will explain better my point:

http://us.battle.net...069?page=17#325

Even though he is testing with frost, i think it can be applied to any spec.

You are correct. My description was too simple. I think that you will find the new talent descriptions and their presentation on the rotation page to be more appropriate. Let me know what you think :)

Question on Greater invisibility: By looking at the tooltip it says 90% dmg reduction. I think this may be a good spell to survive mecanics like HOT on ultraxx HC ( Shadowpriest dispersion / iceblock /AMS) Greater Invisibility

What do you guys think?

Indeed, it can and should be used the way you describe. The talent description has been improved accordingly :)

[Flesh 1]

Hi

I just signed up to discuss a little bit and give my point of view. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

First a few punctualizations. Maybe they can help someone:

-As you say, the main stat after intellect and hit cap is still Mastery. As long as you keep your mana over 70% your DPS will be higher than with haste.

-Haste increases the mana regeneration so that everything remains the same way but faster, I mean, if you can cast AB 15 times in 30 seconds in which mana has regenerated arround 50%, when your haste level allows you to cast the same 15 AB in 20 seconds, mana will have regenerated also 50%.

And now the discussion. Rotation for me goes like this:

-Keep Nether tempest / Living bomb / Frost bomb alive

-AB spam: Spam Arcane Blast until you have 6 arcane charges. Use 1 arcane missiles during AB spam only if you have acumulated two of them, and have three or more arcane charges.

-Use all the arcane missiles you have when you reach 6 arcane charges.

-Use arcane barrage.

-If mana is under 85% when starting a rotation, use the former steps with 5 or 4 arcane charges instead of 6 or use a mana gem to mantain mastery bonus high.

Let me explain:

During the AB 1, 2, and 3 mana regenerates up to 100% (or almost). It's a waste to use the missiles here, as damage is still to low and they won't help regenerating mana. after No.3 mana won't reach 100%, so you can use arcane missiles to let it regenerate, but keep at least 1 for the end, because AM damage is bigger than AB, and will increase your DPS, and also will regenerate mana for the final strike. If you have two of them in this moment, and mana reaches 100% you'll achieve maximum rotation damage.

Please, try and tell me what you think.

EDIT:

Note that Nether tempest / Living bomb / Frost bomb also procs arcane missiles, so if possible, try to use it just before Arcane barrage and if it procs AM, use them and then release Arcane barrage.

EDIT 2:

Corrected a mistake

Edited September 3, 2012 by Flesh

[Vaelkder 6]

Having a wild ride of it, what with a custom-built super computer (thanks to my brother the computer genius!), learning Windows (Mac boy here! lol ), WoW on Windows, MoP, how to use a gaming mouse (Razer Naga) and Nostromo keypad....

All in all, without Icy-Veins.com to give me such incredible help, as well as the experts who contribute with their posts, I'd be lost.

Thank you everyone and have fun with MoP!!

[Damien 1,514]

Having a wild ride of it, what with a custom-built super computer (thanks to my brother the computer genius!), learning Windows (Mac boy here! lol ), WoW on Windows, MoP, how to use a gaming mouse (Razer Naga) and Nostromo keypad....

All in all, without Icy-Veins.com to give me such incredible help, as well as the experts who contribute with their posts, I'd be lost.

Thank you everyone and have fun with MoP!!

Thanks for the nice comment! Stay tuned for the encounter and dungeon guides ;)

Hi

I just signed up to discuss a little bit and give my point of view. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

First a few punctualizations. Maybe they can help someone:

-As you say, the main stat after intellect and hit cap is still Mastery. As long as you keep your mana over 70% your DPS will be higher than with haste.

-Haste increases the mana regeneration so that everything remains the same way but faster, I mean, if you can cast AB 15 times in 30 seconds in which mana has regenerated arround 50%, when your haste level allows you to cast the same 15 AB in 20 seconds, mana will have regenerated also 50%.

-Spirit increases mana regeneration in combat, about 40-50% more than haste. Not a main stat but, keeping in mind that intellect does not increase mana pool anymore, perhaps it might be helpful for purple gemming when you have reached your hit cap.

And now the discussion. Rotation for me goes like this:

-Keep Nether tempest / Living bomb / Frost bomb alive

-AB spam: Spam Arcane Blast until you have 6 arcane charges. Use 1 arcane missiles during AB spam only if you have acumulated two of them, and have three or more arcane charges.

-Use all the arcane missiles you have when you reach 6 arcane charges.

-Use arcane barrage.

-If mana is under 85% when starting a rotation, use the former steps with 5 or 4 arcane charges instead of 6 or use a mana gem to mantain mastery bonus high.

Let me explain:

During the AB 1, 2, and 3 mana regenerates up to 100% (or almost). It's a waste to use the missiles here, as damage is still to low and they won't help regenerating mana. after No.3 mana won't reach 100%, so you can use arcane missiles to let it regenerate, but keep at least 1 for the end, because AM damage is bigger than AB, and will increase your DPS, and also will regenerate mana for the final strike. If you have two of them in this moment, and mana reaches 100% you'll achieve maximum rotation damage.

Please, try and tell me what you think.

EDIT:

Note that Nether tempest / Living bomb / Frost bomb also procs arcane missiles, so if possible, try to use it just before Arcane barrage and if it procs AM, use them and then release Arcane barrage.

Are you sure that Spirit increases Combat mana regeneration? I think it does not.

This is an interesting comment you posted. When I wrote the guide, the mana regeneration on the beta was 5,000 at level 85 and 15,000 at level 90. Now, I notice that it is 10,000 at level 85 and 30,000 at level 90. So I agree with you that it is perfectly viable to go to higher stacks of Arcane Blast than what I advise in the guide, as you suggest here with 6 stacks of Arcane Blast. The guide has been updated accordingly.

To reflect what you said on Arcane Missiles, I added a section in the guide to explain why people should delay casting them until they are about to drop their charges with Arcane Barrage. That said, I think that when you have two procs of Arcane Missiles, you should use one of them, so that the next proc does not go to waste (this is basically the only thing on which I'm slightly disagreeing with you here :P)

[MichaelTheys 10]

They boosted the mana regen in combat up by dubble it but still that's not enough to get spamming AB in my PoV. The only thing you can do is try it with the trinket from sinestra (the one that reduces base mana cost by a little bit) but i don't have it on my mage so can't test it out badly enough :)

[Damien 1,514]

They boosted the mana regen in combat up by dubble it but still that's not enough to get spamming AB in my PoV. The only thing you can do is try it with the trinket from sinestra (the one that reduces base mana cost by a little bit) but i don't have it on my mage so can't test it out badly enough :)

I think it's normal that we cannot spam Arcane Blast :P

[Flesh 1]

To reflect what you said on Arcane Missiles, I added a section in the guide to explain why people should delay casting them until they are about to drop their charges with Arcane Barrage. That said, I think that when you have two procs of Arcane Missiles, you should use one of them, so that the next proc does not go to waste (this is basically the only thing on which I'm slightly disagreeing with you here )

Right, that's what I tried to say, but perhaps I didn't express myself correctly. If you have 2 procs, you should use one, but I think that it is more profitable to use when having 3 or more arcane charges, so that it helps to regenerate mana (mana in AB 1, 2 & 3 regenerates up to 100% or almost) and also damage is higher.

To be concrete, you should use AM with 3 or 4 charges if you have enough mana but not 5, so that proc 2 may still recharge (try playing arround with magic bomb also to trigger procs), but this is only my opinion and the way I like it.

If you need to regenerate mana then you may want to use both procs on charge 4 & 5 so you can fire Arcane Barrage with 6 (or perhaps earlier). Rotations like this end with a little more mana than they started.

About Spirit, sorry, It does NOT regenerate mana in combat. Perhaps I was looking at the non combat statistic when I checked it the other day. I'll edit the former post so that no one confuses. Thanks!

[Damien 1,514]

Right, that's what I tried to say, but perhaps I didn't express myself correctly. If you have 2 procs, you should use one, but I think that it is more profitable to use when having 3 or more arcane charges, so that it helps to regenerate mana (mana in AB 1, 2 & 3 regenerates up to 100% or almost) and also damage is higher.

To be concrete, you should use AM with 3 or 4 charges if you have enough mana but not 5, so that proc 2 may still recharge (try playing arround with magic bomb also to trigger procs), but this is only my opinion and the way I like it.

If you need to regenerate mana then you may want to use both procs on charge 4 & 5 so you can fire Arcane Barrage with 6 (or perhaps earlier). Rotations like this end with a little more mana than they started.

About Spirit, sorry, It does NOT regenerate mana in combat. Perhaps I was looking at the non combat statistic when I checked it the other day. I'll edit the former post so that no one confuses. Thanks!

I understand what you say, and that it is more complex than it looks. I think that my role is not to give players instructions regarding what they should be doing at 4 Arcane Charges, what they should be doing at 5 Arcane Charges. Rather, I have to make them understand how things work and give them the clues they need to get to conclusions similar to those you have reached :)

All in all, everyone likes to have their own variations, so I can't tell them to play the way I would configure Simulation Craft, for instance :P

[Langland 0]

Given the bump in manna regen would you no longer recomend avoiding arcane until lvl 90? I hope this would be the case, as it seems hard to imagin how arcane will be doing much better at lvl 90 than it is now (relative to fire and frost i mean). This is because, in manna regen terms, the 100% buff to regen that we get now (which will scale down by 20% every level over 85 to and return to the normal rate at lvl 90) is equivelent to having continious uptime in the lvl 90 talant rune of power. Please correct me if I am mistaking, but unless another lvl 90 talant ends up being better for arcane's manna regen (than the verry hard to achive 100% uptime in RoP) it would seem that our manna regen is the best it will ever be (particularly because atm we retain evocate, while also getting RoP's regen)

Edited September 4, 2012 by Langland

[Damien 1,514]

Given the bump in manna regen would you no longer recomend avoiding arcane until lvl 90? I hope this would be the case, as it seems hard to imagin how arcane will be doing much better at lvl 90 than it is now (relative to fire and frost i mean). This is because, in manna regen terms, the 100% buff to regen that we get now (which will scale down by 20% every level over 85 to and return to the normal rate at lvl 90) is equivelent to having continious uptime in the lvl 90 talant rune of power. Please correct me if I am mistaking, but unless another lvl 90 talant ends up being better for arcane's manna regen (than the verry hard to achive 100% uptime in RoP) it would seem that our manna regen is the best it will ever be (particularly because atm we retain evocate, while also getting RoP's regen)

What do you mean by "100% buff to regen"?

According to Simulation Craft, Arcane is still far behind Frost and Fire.

[Langland 0]

In a bluepost from GC: -- Finally, we were worried about mage mana regeneration at level 85. Arcane in particular works better when it has the advantage of the level 90 talents. Once Mists is released, Arcane will be able to perform fine while leveling up and running the occasional dungeon. However, we're in this rare "lame duck" period where players are still actively running what will very soon be lower level content (i.e. Dragon Soul and the 4.3 dungeons). As a temporary measure, we've doubled mage mana regen across the board to 2% per sec up until level 85. This bonus will start scaling down by 20% per level between 85 and 90.

Am i wrong in thinking that this doubling of mana regen is equivelent to the 100% boost ot regen that mages get from standing in a RoP? If i am misunderstanding this please let me know

Edited September 4, 2012 by Langland

[Damien 1,514]

In a bluepost from GC: -- Finally, we were worried about mage mana regeneration at level 85. Arcane in particular works better when it has the advantage of the level 90 talents. Once Mists is released, Arcane will be able to perform fine while leveling up and running the occasional dungeon. However, we're in this rare "lame duck" period where players are still actively running what will very soon be lower level content (i.e. Dragon Soul and the 4.3 dungeons). As a temporary measure, we've doubled mage mana regen across the board to 2% per sec up until level 85. This bonus will start scaling down by 20% per level between 85 and 90.

Am i wrong in thinking that this doubling of mana regen is equivelent to the 100% boost ot regen that mages get from standing in a RoP? If i am misunderstanding this please let me know

It's equivalent, but their buff doesn't scale down on the beta. That would explain why I'm sitting at 30k mp5, when I should have only 15k on my level 90 Mage. I'll remove my mention that Arcane is not viable at level 85. I guess that their trick will do for now, although it is going to be really annoying at level 88 and 89 :P

Thank you for sharing this. With all the work we still have to do, it is quite hard to keep track of the blue posts on the official forums :)

[Siniwelho 13]

So far I have seen several different rotation theories for Arcane in patch 5.0.4, for example:

- go to 4-6 stacks with Arcane Blast and then spam all proc'ed Arcane Missiles you have left before casting Arcane Barrage

- go to 6 stacks and stay there (cast something else like Frostfire bolt or Scorch to proc Arcane Missiles)

Odd enough but according to my tests the key spell is neither Arcane Blast nor Arcane Missiles. At 6 stacks Arcane Barrage can crit insane numbers - and it will also hit up to 7 targets at the same time.

At the moment my rotation is:

- keep Nether Tempest on

- get 6 stacks as fast as possible and then cast Arcane Barrage

- if I get Arcane Missiles procs I will start using them immediately after 2 stacks

What I don't know yet is how to use Arcane Power. Every time I cast Arcane Power there seems to be VERY few Aracane Missiles proc's while Aracane Power buff is on. So I just cast Arcane Power whenever it is off cooldown but still keep the above rotation.

Edited September 5, 2012 by Siniwelho

[Guest Tom]

I have noticed that the statistics priorities in the guild are different from the the priorities listed in Mr. Robot's optimization calculator. Which one is currently correct.

Thanks

[Damien 1,514]

So far I have seen several different rotation theories for Arcane in patch 5.0.4, for example:

- go to 4-6 stacks with Arcane Blast and then spam all proc'ed Arcane Missiles you have left before casting Arcane Barrage

- go to 6 stacks and stay there (cast something else like Frostfire bolt or Scorch to proc Arcane Missiles)

Odd enough but according to my tests the key spell is neither Arcane Blast nor Arcane Missiles. At 6 stacks Arcane Barrage can crit insane numbers - and it will also hit up to 7 targets at the same time.

At the moment my rotation is:

- keep Nether Tempest on

- get 6 stacks as fast as possible and then cast Arcane Barrage

- if I get Arcane Missiles procs I will start using them immediately after 2 stacks

What I don't know yet is how to use Arcane Power. Every time I cast Arcane Power there seems to be VERY few Aracane Missiles proc's while Aracane Power buff is on. So I just cast Arcane Power whenever it is off cooldown but still keep the above rotation.

Thank you for sharing this. It is true that there seems to be several ways of playing Arcane at level 85. I believe that this comes from the fact that the spec is currently not performing as well as Frost or Fire, so people (including us) aren't exactly trying hard to come up with the best possible strategy to use your Arcane Charges. Also, at level 90, you get the new mana regen abilities, so the priority is currently in figuring out what things will be like in 3 weeks when playing an Arcane Mage will be competitive again :)

I have noticed that the statistics priorities in the guild are different from the the priorities listed in Mr. Robot's optimization calculator. Which one is currently correct.

Thanks

Ask Mr. Robot is currently transitioning to level 90 stats, so inconsistencies are normal between our guides (which give statistic priorities for level 85) and their tool which is in a transitional state.

For level 85, you should trust our guide for the moment.

For level 90, we will be working with the development team from Ask Mr. Robot in order to make both our websites consistent when it comes to statisitics, gems, enchants, and best in slot gear.

There will be an announcement today on Facebook.

[Batar 0]

Think the paragraph describing arcane as the easiest to play could be amended. Damage is roughly divided into thirds, which is the same for fire. Frost damage could be divided into fifths, and could be more difficult to play if you consider having your pet out difficult.

Also, would recommend something along the lines of this for a priority list.

Cast bomb if CD is up or at 6 stacks with no missile proc and less than 2 secs remaining on CD

Cast missiles if proc is >1 or if at 6 charges and mana < 93%

Cast AB if mana > 93%

Cast Abarr if mana< = 85%

Edited September 8, 2012 by Batar