DPS Help

[Stadtfeld]

Greetings! I just recently got my mage alt to 85 this past Sunday, and got it decently geared thus far. I have a few questions on my mind, so please feel free to answer any that you can. (Jabeski - Mal'Ganis US)

• Should I aim towards 1505 haste rating? For instance, should I reforge all my haste into crit/hit? Or should I leave haste alone and just reforge every other stat to crit/hit? (I have 2 piece t13.) Also, if I did aim for the 1505 haste rating, would this hurt my DPS as arcane?
  
• If a Hot Streak procs during mid-cast of a Fireball, should I cancel the current cast to cast Pyroblast?
  
• Is channeling Arcane Missiles after 4 stacks of Arcane Blast better DPS than just instant casting Arcane Barrage?
  
• What classes/specs benefit the most from Focus Magic?
  
• What two professions for a mage provide the most DPS boost? (Please exclude JC & Alchemy, since I already have it on my main)

[Deleted]

I felt sorry no one has answered your simple questions so felt compelled to do so:

1. You're Arcane, 1505 haste is for the extra tick in Combustion, a Fire talent. For Arcane, well I don't play it, but there was a nice little paragraph I noticed reading a guide not too long ago that might answer it (sort of) for you:

In order to perform optimally, you need to figure out the soft haste cap, after which Mastery Rating becomes more beneficial. Unfortunately, this will depend on the encounter, the speed at which your raid will execute it (ratio Time Warp off / Time Warp on), and your gear. If you want to precisely know what your soft haste cap is, then you have to study precisely each encounter and indulge in theorycrafting.

Taken from: http://www.icy-veins.com/arcane-mage-pve-guide - Not the best guide, but I found that explained the haste cap perfectly. There is also a nice table for haste soft-caps on there and an explanation (roughly 3/4 way down, 5.3.2) http://milamber.ch/spellhastecap.html is a good site to use for haste caps.

TL;DR If you're Fire, 1505 haste, minimum. Arcane, see 5.3.2 on the guide I linked.

2. No, do not cancel your Fireball cast. Chain cast the pyro at the end of your FB cast (otherwise, if you cast 1s of FB, and deicde to stop, use your pyro, that 1s was spent doing, well, nothing).

3. Burn phase > Conserve > Burn phase. Pop CD's when at full mana, spam AB to 30% ish, then Evo back to full mana. During conserve you want to keep your mana as near full as possible. Quoted from Swizzle in the compendium:

Try not to fish for Arcane Missile procs past four Arcane Blasts, you'll lose too much mana that way. Arcane Barrage can be shuffled in if no AM procs are available.

So use AM at 4 AB's during conserve phase, but use AB if you don't have an AM proc.

4. Debatable. In my opinion, Fire Mages as they rely heavily on Crit and RNG for HS and Ignites. After that would maybe be Shadow Priests and/or Boomkins. Though, for personal gain, it might be best swapping with another Arcane Mage. Not sure if there is a difinitive answer on this, but I'd put my money on Fire Mages at the moment.

5. Professions - well, there isn't much difference between any of them anymore (apart from gathering ones ofcourse). They're not really put up in guides and what not anymore either. So long as you're not Mining/Herbing and have 2 crafting professions, the DPS and stat differences are minimal. It's more about what you want/need now than what's the best DPS increase. I've been Tailoring + Enchanting since well, the start of TBC. I almost went Engineering as Arcane for the glove Haste tinker but didn't bother as the theoretical overall DPS gain was tiny.

[Aktec]

[*]What two professions for a mage provide the most DPS boost? (Please exclude JC & Alchemy, since I already have it on my main)[/LIST]

Think its BS at 100 intellect because of the epic gems and all the other crafting professions equal out to 80 intellect except for JC which is a bit lower atm