[Archived] Arcane Mage 5.4

[Tarazet 144]

So you would like to use a healing spell that MIGHT proc a mana-free spell?

Just Nope.

 

You would be wasting a huge amount of DPS.

 

And giving up the chance of a mini-bloodlust at that.

 

Nice thought, but very doubtful it would actually have any benefit.

[Guest Frostyspeed]

Just putting my 2 cents in. A lot better guide compared to what it used to be, but a few niches that i found.

When it comes to the bomb section 'by blatty for ToT fights', people need to know why the talents are chosen, aka, Durumu has Ice Walls on HC where Nether Tempest destroys them, but on normal Living Bomb is the choice, same goes for Primordius/Dark Animus/Tortos. It all depends on your job and what you are actually dotting.

Also, for Armors/Stat prios, this is the optimal stat values:

9762 haste + Mage Armor = Nether Tempest breakpoint

9522 haste + Frost Armor = Living Bomb breakpoint

Knowing to choose which one (Frost Armor vs Mage Armor) is dependant on the fight and ofcourse your bomb choice. Ie, AoE/Multi target fight is Mage Armor with Nether Tempest. Single target fight is Frost Armor with Living bomb.

The way i do it is: Reforge to hit > haste to 9762 (without losing too much mastery) > mastery > crit > excess haste.

Then i use armors/bombs depending on the fight. That way i have both caps, and only around 240 extra haste then optimal for single target situations. More well-rounded reforges.

 

Also, for the glyph section, i dont recommend glyph of Mana Gem as it gives you mana at a steady rate which theoretically is best, however, i like it unglyphed and using it before Alter time in my macro, that way i start bursting at 100% and ensures me having a high burst.

[Guest Epi]

I was wondering when the BiS gear list is going to be updated for the new Teir 16??

[Guest Silay]

I was wondering when the BiS gear list is going to be updated for the new Teir 16??

I'm wondering this aswell, please update!

[Guest Duratus]

Hi,

 

I have just restarted playing my mage after hitting a iLevel glass ceiling on my monk and I was getting a bit down playing my beloved Arcane and the whole RoP stuff.

 

So, I messed about and made a simple Macro

 

#showtooltip Rune of Power

/cast Icy Floes

/cast Rune of Power

 

With the amount of movement based fights through ToT and SoO, I have been running this through LFR and I like the fact that when I have to move, I can re-locate my RoP while moving, not when I have moved. With the 3 IF charges, and a 20s recharge, it seems to reduce the "stop movin, cast RoP" cool-down that I have been wasting.

 

Yes, I loose one Presence of Mind based freebie or a quick run, but the quick dropping of RoP seems to have boosted my DPS.

[Guest Rondo]

In the Tier 6 Talents section, you appear to have two contradictory statements.

 

Tier 6 talents are mana management talents. All of them are viable.

1. 
   
   

Rune of Power is the only viable Tier 6 talent for Arcane Mages.

 

 

I'm by no means an expert, but I assume Rune is better than Invocation (in general) because Rune increases mana regen (and thus our Mana Adept bonus damage) while Invocation lowers regen.  Is that a reasonable assumption? 

[Damien 1,514]

In the Tier 6 Talents section, you appear to have two contradictory statements.

 

 

I'm by no means an expert, but I assume Rune is better than Invocation (in general) because Rune increases mana regen (and thus our Mana Adept bonus damage) while Invocation lowers regen.  Is that a reasonable assumption?

I removed that "all of them are viable" mention. Thanks for notifying me

[Guest Huston]

How can you tell how many arcane charges you have generated?

[Oltier 471]

How can you tell how many arcane charges you have generated?

You can see it where your debuffs are displayed. (Near your map by default)

[Guest Andisten]

Question about this site.  I have one of every class, and the gem recommends for my mage, lock, etc. all say to choose gems for expertise.  But that stat is not needed at all on these DPS characters.  Can you explain please?

[Stoove 347]

Question about this site.  I have one of every class, and the gem recommends for my mage, lock, etc. all say to choose gems for expertise.  But that stat is not needed at all on these DPS characters.  Can you explain please?

 

1 Expertise = 1 Hit on caster specs. It's often better to gem for Expertise just to get a socket bonus.

[Guest Htm]

as i didnt read all of the text I dont know if it was already mentioned or if I missunderstood the following

 

 

Your Mana Gem should be kept for Alter Time, so try not using it in between casts of Alter Time. Glyph of Loose Mana causes your mana to be restored over time (under the form of a 6-second buff). So, use your Mana Gem before casting Alter Time to double the amount of mana it restores.

 

If I use my gem at sec 0 with 80% mana, gain the mana restore buff and push Alter Time directly afterwards I will gain mana during Alter Time but this gained mana will be reset to the 80% mana of the beginning when Alter Time ends and although I will still have a 6 s buff of the mana gem I will not gain "the double amount of mana"

 

Am I wrong?

[Damien 1,514]

as i didnt read all of the text I dont know if it was already mentioned or if I missunderstood the following

 

 

Your Mana Gem should be kept for Alter Time, so try not using it in between casts of Alter Time. Glyph of Loose Mana causes your mana to be restored over time (under the form of a 6-second buff). So, use your Mana Gem before casting Alter Time to double the amount of mana it restores.

 

If I use my gem at sec 0 with 80% mana, gain the mana restore buff and push Alter Time directly afterwards I will gain mana during Alter Time but this gained mana will be reset to the 80% mana of the beginning when Alter Time ends and although I will still have a 6 s buff of the mana gem I will not gain "the double amount of mana"

 

Am I wrong?

I wouldn't say that you are wrong, but you are ignoring the benefits of regaining mana during Alter Time, thanks to the glyph. The idea is that it helps you stay at a high amount of mana, which is beneficial since your spells deal more damage the more mana you have. I'll agree that it's a small damage gain, but it is a gain none the less.

And to be technically, correct, you will get double the amount of mana.

[Tarazet 144]

as i didnt read all of the text I dont know if it was already mentioned or if I missunderstood the following

 

 

Your Mana Gem should be kept for Alter Time, so try not using it in between casts of Alter Time. Glyph of Loose Mana causes your mana to be restored over time (under the form of a 6-second buff). So, use your Mana Gem before casting Alter Time to double the amount of mana it restores.

 

If I use my gem at sec 0 with 80% mana, gain the mana restore buff and push Alter Time directly afterwards I will gain mana during Alter Time but this gained mana will be reset to the 80% mana of the beginning when Alter Time ends and although I will still have a 6 s buff of the mana gem I will not gain "the double amount of mana"

 

Am I wrong?

 

You are correct that you will be reset to the amount of mana you had before. And since your Alter Time rotation is basically to use Arcane Missiles x2 and Arcane Barrage, neither of which cost mana, before any Blast casts, it's entirely possible to cap out and make it a moot point. But chances are, you will be somewhere below 100% mana if you have 4 Arcane Charges and 2 stacks of Missiles. So when you hit your Alter Time macro and go through the sequence, you will recover mana from your Mana Gem and normal combat regen, your Barrage will be more powerful as a result, and then you get reset with Alter Time and get to enjoy the same mega Barrage again.

[Guest Wirefire]

•  Arcane Blast's damage is increased by 50% per charge and its mana cost by 50% per charge;

 

The tooltip in game says each stack of AC increases the cost of this spells mana by 150%

 

[Damien 1,514]

•  Arcane Blast[/size]'s damage is increased by 50% per charge and its mana cost by 50% per charge;

The tooltip in game says each stack of AC increases the cost of this spells mana by 150%

Thanks, I fixed it

[voltaa 16]

So I don't know how often this guide gets looked over or updated but from the looks of things it has been quite a while, and some of the theorycrafting from the beginning of this tier has been revised and/or changed.

Firstly in the gear/BiS section it says to go for BBoY and PBoI as trinkets, the value of KTT (dark shamans trinket) is much higher than that of BBoY, with the normal warforged version of Toxic Totem simming equal/above the heroic non warforged version of BBoY. BBoY gives higher potential maximum output but averaged out will do less.

My second issue with the gearing section is that it says to forgo the 4 set in favor of high ilvl pieces and while this is true, it's also only certain pieces. The case where it is true is when using legs and chest as your 2 set of tier and using Fusespark gloves, Ebon Ritual Hood and Dou Dou Chong shoulders and they must all be warforged, if this is not the combination and ilvl of gear you are using then the 4 set will do equal or more damage compared to using three offpieces.

For the recommended armor it just says mage armor is best. While this is true for a good portion of fights this tier, in purely single target situations frost armor is your go to (provided 9522 haste or above).

My final issue is with the rotation section which doesn't bother to explain the change to the rotation that occurs once you have 2 pc t16 equipped.

Don't mean to be "that guy" but people really trust and respect these guides and to see little bits of over looked information here and there knowing that people will take it as fact isn't something that sits right with me.

Any ways, Damien I hope you can look into the things that I've pointed out here and look into them.

Edited January 7, 2014 by voltaa

[Guest Arkell]

I don't get the fact that you deem the set boni to be terrible for the arcane mage. The set bonus for having 4 t16 items proccs so often that I have 4-5 arcane missiles on nearly every second arcane charges build. Furthermore I can put out an additional Arcane Blast even when the 4-set-bonus doesnt procc due to the 2-set-bonus. Please explain yourselves with this odd choice.

[voltaa 16]

I don't get the fact that you deem the set boni to be terrible for the arcane mage. The set bonus for having 4 t16 items proccs so often that I have 4-5 arcane missiles on nearly every second arcane charges build. Furthermore I can put out an additional Arcane Blast even when the 4-set-bonus doesnt procc due to the 2-set-bonus. Please explain yourselves with this odd choice.

It isn't terrible, and I didn't say it was, I said that if you have specific warforged offpieces, being Dou Dou Chong, Ebon Ritual and Fusespark, it outweighs the 4 set.  It's a 7% mastery and 300 int gain to do so.  It's very close, and for the average player 4 set will just be the option to go with, but for those striving to go for absolute BiS, the stats outweigh the bonus.

[Damien 1,514]

I just deployed a major update to the guide. Hopefully, it will answer the questions that have been asked on this thread.

[Whatwasthat 0]

Hey all ive a dumb question since I play a frost mage but seen a post about this and it confused me. Why does a arcane mage use frost armor for single target dps? I thought that arcane mages stacked mastery first due to the increased dmg with mana being full so I cant see why an arcane mage would ever use frost mage over arcane and how would frost armor make an arcane mage do more damage than mage armor? Er any answers would be helpful if yall don't mind. I might not prefer arcane but I like to at least know and understand the other specs so that if I feel froggy to try the others out again I have some understanding of them.

[Oltier 471]

Hey all ive a dumb question since I play a frost mage but seen a post about this and it confused me. Why does a arcane mage use frost armor for single target dps? I thought that arcane mages stacked mastery first due to the increased dmg with mana being full so I cant see why an arcane mage would ever use frost mage over arcane and how would frost armor make an arcane mage do more damage than mage armor? Er any answers would be helpful if yall don't mind. I might not prefer arcane but I like to at least know and understand the other specs so that if I feel froggy to try the others out again I have some understanding of them.

This is because of one single passive: Nether Attunement.

 

They can stay on high mana for longer, and cast more ABs. Mastery however is better multidot stat.

[SwadriAndman 1]

I haven't played arcane since Cata and I noticed that Blizz seemed to go back to the old LK rotation with a talented mana regen twist.  In Cata it was important to keep your mana around 90% to maximize mana adept in the conserve phase.  I looked in your rotation guide for something like that with the MoP rotation but I didn't see a discussion about maintaining a consistent mana pool percentage (just a discussion on how mana adept increases your damage).  I know mana adept is still important but is in not important for arcane to maintain a mana pool at a certain percentage anymore?  If arcane should still maintain a mana pool percentage, what is that percentage?  Where would I find that discussion in your guide?

 

 

[Oltier 471]

I haven't played arcane since Cata and I noticed that Blizz seemed to go back to the old LK rotation with a talented mana regen twist.  In Cata it was important to keep your mana around 90% to maximize mana adept in the conserve phase.  I looked in your rotation guide for something like that with the MoP rotation but I didn't see a discussion about maintaining a consistent mana pool percentage (just a discussion on how mana adept increases your damage).  I know mana adept is still important but is in not important for arcane to maintain a mana pool at a certain percentage anymore?  If arcane should still maintain a mana pool percentage, what is that percentage?  Where would I find that discussion in your guide?

I don't think we have such discussion. However, the rule didn't change. Stay as close to 100% mana as possible. If you stand in rune of power and follow our rotation you shouldn't have any difficulties to keep up this mana level.

[SwadriAndman 1]

@Oltier 

 

Sorry, I don't see how to reply directly to your post so this is just a regular post.

 

Yeah I was thinking kind of the same thing and noticed that my regeneration increases when I'm under a haste buff.  I've been target dummy practicing for a while now to get the hang of the rotation before I jump into an LFR to see I how I do there.  I find myself getting down to about ~82-88% range, starting from 100 and after a 4 stack, and then I get back up to around ~90-97%, depending on trinket procs, range before another 4 stack (sometimes I hit 100 but I try not to, I avoid it like a full bar of energy for a rogue).  I then bounce between those ranges from 4 stack to 4 stack.  I'm talking about straight casting with rune of power, no gem, no AP, just spell rotation.  In your experience, have you seen a similar 4 stack to 4 stack separation or do you see a more narrow separation?  I know gear can take an affect and you may not be able to answer this question since it has so many relative factors but I'm trying to gage my performance in the rotation; assuming that if done right most people would have similar separations (give or take procs), not necessarily the same mana percentage.  Do you have a target mana % floor where you try to stay above at all times?  Mine right now is 80%.  I'm not trying to min-max here, I'm just looking for something to shoot for.

Edited February 15, 2014 by SwadriAndman