5.4 Arcane bomb question (theory crafters let me know)

[ZombiexCat]

For arcane in 5.4... I realize the magic number for mage bombs is 9762 haste. Use mage armor for NT and frost armor for LB. BUT!!!!!!!! Is the loss of mastery (due to switching to frost armor) really worth the gain from getting the second tick of LB for single target? Or would it actually be better to keep mage armor at all times, and just run LB on single target without the extra tick? Which way would give me more overall dps for single target? (this question is irrelevant for multi target, seeing as we'd be using NT anyway)

[Mastamage]

For arcane in 5.4... I realize the magic number for mage bombs is 9762 haste. Use mage armor for NT and frost armor for LB. BUT!!!!!!!! Is the loss of mastery (due to switching to frost armor) really worth the gain from getting the second tick of LB for single target? Or would it actually be better to keep mage armor at all times, and just run LB on single target without the extra tick? Which way would give me more overall dps for single target? (this question is irrelevant for multi target, seeing as we'd be using NT anyway)

The thing to keep in mind is that Frost Armor isn't just giving you extra ticks, it's increasing your cast times, mana regen and lowers your GCD. 9762 was practiced back in 5.3 as well. If you're going to keep Mage Armor on at all times, go to the 13163 breakpoint which will get you both a LB and NT tick.

[ZombiexCat]

With that being said, would I have higher overall dps by going for the 13163 haste point and keeping mage armor, than keeping the 9762 haste point and switching to frost armor for LB? Sorry for so many questions, but I appreciate the help.

[Arold]

No, you would have more stats if you stayed at 9762 haste.

[Mastamage]

^this

/10char

[Henzington]

The extra tick results in many missle procs over a fight. Also haste is multiplicative and mastery isn't so haste will scale better.

[ZombiexCat]

I appreciate the help. Thanks guys!

[Libretto]

The extra tick results in many missle procs over a fight. Also haste is multiplicative and mastery isn't so haste will scale better.

Bomb ticks don't proc missiles, only application does.

[maizensh]

TBH I never understood why as pure arcane you need haste breakpoints.
If you're off specing to frost now and then, sure, but then only breakpoints with frost armor make sense. However, what's the benefit for arcane?

[Libretto]

The benefit for arcane is gaining an additional tick of living bomb (or NT), which is a significant enough DPS increase on most fights. Especially ones where NT is 50% or more of your damage, such as Protectors.

[maizensh]

If you were near a breakpoint and just passed it, it's only a very minor (completely negligible) dps increase on the bomb. Although it's a significant dpet increase.
To make use of the extra freed up ~0.7 gcd and translate it into an overall dps gain, you need to up your game. All the same time you could've just remained somewhere midway between breakpoints and keep dumping points into mastery, thus increasing your dps without the extra effort.

[ZombiexCat]

So wait... Are we saying ignore haste breakpoints +4 NT to just stack mastery, use mage armor no matter what, and use LB on single target anyway?

[Libretto]

You could do that and do fine. Reaching breakpoints isn't the end all for arcane the way they can be for frost or used to be for fire.

The actual breakpoint is 9522 for LB + frost armor, for what it's worth, 9762 is the NT + mage armor breakpoint and is commonly used to avoid needing to reforge or regem when switching bombs.

Playing at 9762 changes the playstyle, as you have faster / more casts which don't hit quite as hard, but better passive mana regen. Ignoring haste and spam stacking mastery + mage armor does work fine, but lowers your regen slightly and makes you less mobile, as your casts are longer and being forced to move is more penalizing. There are high arcane parses using both strategies. If the number of targets you need to be hitting at a time increases beyond 1, playing with mage armor becomes better and at that point spam stacking mastery will result in higher damage.

[Andli241]

The actual effect of having more ticks are more trinket proc chance for Arcane mage as it does not trigger any spell proc (E.g. Arcane Missile). Unlike Frost, which FFB can proc from ticks.
People misconception is always that by having more ticks, you have more dmg from the bomb.
This needs to be clarified again and again that the overall dmg of the bomb when it ends is ultimately the same (5 ticks, 6 ticks, 7 ticks, etc equals to the same total dmg), but it is divided by more ticks dmg versus viewer when you have less haste.

With that being said, the question remains if using Frost bomb really is worth the loss mastery from mage bomb, which at high ilvl (Approx. 570 or above with the immerseus trinket) can yield about 11% more dmg from mana adept.

Critique is right that for single target, haste is beneficial because you cast faster & you regen mana faster.
But, again with the 9522 NT breakpoint, the tradeoff is (Frost Armor ~ +9% Haste) versus (Mage armor ~ +11% mastery).
I think the real reason why you take this approach is what Arold said in previous post that it is more for the +++stats. You gain more int from the gemming depending on your gears (no exp gemming), mastery>crit (more mastery and crit) from reforging if you go the 9522 haste breakpoint route. Back to Frost versus Mage Armor...
It might be that for single target Frost armor is good, but as you have more targets, might be beneficial to go mage armor. This means on multi-target like the protector without the stacking strat... I think the mage armor is still better even if you are using LB and you don't get the extra tick from mage armor?
Is there any other angles or point of view that others want to add to this? Or if this could be confirmed?

[Saegno]

No, you would have more stats if you stayed at 9762 haste.

Not entirely true. If you have, lets say, 10k haste then yes sticking to 9762 should be a net gain of stats for you over gemming for haste to hit 13.1k. However if you are in a situation like I am where you have well over 9762, in my case I was sitting at 13.9K haste following the mastery > haste > crit reforging plot then dropping down to 9762 is a loss of important stats overall.
Basically until you can hit 13.1K haste from gear alone, using no haste gems and not reforging out of mastery, then 9762 haste is the breakpoint you want. Also in full BiS gear 9762 is where you want to sit at. I have a lot of haste heavy items so my situation is far from BiS, but is the best possible outcome for my gear.

Here is the breakdown I posted today in the Arcane sticky.

Now I am running into some conflicting numbers here.
I decided to see how lowering my haste down to 9762 and using frost armor would be compared to running the 13.1K haste and mage armor.

In my current gear, raid buffed and running mage armor I have...
29601 Int
90.86% Mastery
48491 SP
25.72% Crit (paperdoll stats, not counting crit suppression)
39.38% Haste

and if I change my setup to use 9762 haste and frost armor+LB/mage armor+NT I have...(The numbers presented are using frost armor)
30571 Int
82.21% Mastery
49558 SP
28.79% Crit
38.31% Haste

So by lowering my build down to 9762 haste I end up with the following changes...
+970 Int
-8.65% Mastery
+1067 SP
+3.07% Crit
-1.07% Haste
I can change a few items to lower the Crit and raise my Haste by 830 but chose to just go off this setup for example purposes.

I can not fathom how a gain of 970 int and 3% crit outweighs the loss of that much mastery(most of which is gained via mage armor) and even haste(with the 830 the loss of haste is small but still.). If the thought is about bomb ticks, I still get +2 LB ticks and actually get +5 NT ticks compared to the +4 NT ticks of the 9762 build.

I'm not trying to discredit the 9762 build, I think it's great if you only have like 10/11/12K haste or so, but once you can reach the 13.1K breakpoint without losing mastery for it(gemming haste) I do not see any logical reason to not swap to it.
If my math is wrong or anyone has any solid reasoning why I am wrong I am open to criticism.

Edit- Once again, the ONLY reason I am going for the 13.1K haste breakpoint and using mage armor full time is because with my gear I am already AT that breakpoint and it would be a large loss of mastery to dial my haste back down to 9762 and use frost armor+LB/mage armor+NT. If you are in the same boat then it is a DPS gain to do the same.

Double Edit- 1000th Post!!!

[Mastamage]

-snip-

This is the exact same boat I was in and I liked it. I did some gear switching recently and tooled around with AMR and had to drop back down to 9762 haste for the time being but I should be able to get back to the 13163 breakpoint soon and not have to armor switch.

[MisterMine]

People misconception is always that by having more ticks, you have more dmg from the bomb.
This needs to be clarified again and again that the overall dmg of the bomb when it ends is ultimately the same (5 ticks, 6 ticks, 7 ticks, etc equals to the same total dmg), but it is divided by more ticks dmg versus viewer when you have less haste.

sorry but you are way way off.

if lets say you bomb ticks 5 times for 1k each time, getting the next haste breakpoint will make it tick 6 times, still for 1k dmg each. it wont tick 6 times for 800 (how retarded would that be?)

[Arold]

Yeah, Living Bomb also gets extra explosion damage for each tick.

[Rialto]

sorry but you are way way off.

if lets say you bomb ticks 5 times for 1k each time, getting the next haste breakpoint will make it tick 6 times, still for 1k dmg each. it wont tick 6 times for 800 (how retarded would that be?)

Well... for arcane it would tick for less if you had 3.5k extra haste, right? I mean you'd be reforging out of mastery or using a different armor lowering your mastery by 3k. And since mastery increases your damage by x amount compared to your mana, if you're applying near 90% and have 70% mastery instead of 80% mastery, your bombs are going to tick for 9% less.

It won't be equal out to the same damage like the post you quoted, but each tick will be for slightly less.