Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[voltaa]

I've always found that real situations are better than "on paper" or even target dummies. That's one of the best things about flex raids. The mechanics are the same as normal mode and you can do them multiple times per week. Try an encounter with FA, then try it with MA and see which works best for your current gear and play style.

theres too much RNG and too small a sample size, the math can tell us what is theoretically best, there will be times when "well I did better with frost armor than mage armor" and the such, but there are too many external factors from pull to pull, and to be honest, your armor choice is going to be the minimal of minimal dps swings, since regardless of which one maths out better, they are so similar in dps gain.

[willemh]

For purely single target the extra tick itself doesn't make any practical difference due to the flexible duration of the dot if I remember correctly, so the comparison would have to be made solely on haste vs. mastery flat values?

This isnt fully true. If you sit right on the 'extra tick breakpoint' the duration of your dot is maxed out, if you sit right before the haste breakpoint the duration of your bomb is significantly lower compared to sitting on the haste breakpoint. This means you free up global cooldowns in the fight because you have to cast your dot less often.

[Deleted]

it's been shown before that you only gain 1gcd over the course of a ~2.5 min fight (i remember something like 150s, but not sure^^)

The GCD argument is definetly not valuable.

What I still need to see (and don't want to do personnaly :-)à is a comparison between (1 additional LB tick + faster AB/AM cast + faster regen) vs (additional mastery on every single tick + cast (while considering you can't be at 100% mana constently)) over the course of an entire fight

[Aquamonkey]

On average, my LB ticks do 88k dmg with Frost Armor. 5 ticks x 10% more dmg with Mage Armor instead of Frost Armor is 44k dmg. An extra tick is double the damage of what you gain from the 10% mastery.

[Foolosophy]

But that's just the bomb.. How about the other spells? They are also affected by Mastery & Haste. Or am I missing something here?

[willemh]

it's been shown before that you only gain 1gcd over the course of a ~2.5 min fight (i remember something like 150s, but not sure^^)

The GCD argument is definetly not valuable.

What I still need to see (and don't want to do personnaly :-)à is a comparison between (1 additional LB tick + faster AB/AM cast + faster regen) vs (additional mastery on every single tick + cast (while considering you can't be at 100% mana constently)) over the course of an entire fight

1 GCD every 150 seconds is still ~0,8% more dps time (depends your haste levels). I can imagine the difference between frost and mage armor being smaller then 1% overall dps so this is very significant if you want to find out which is best. 2 extra GCs can certainly make the difference between the two.

[Deleted]

I read this thread since 1 year... Recently I just can't understand one thing - doesn't Volta and Cycoby tired already to answer the same question over and over again? I, personaly, am sick and tired of reading that question here and even start to think people are stressed till they wait for the answer witch is exactly the same each time, sometimes with some modifications :}

Dont get me wrong. I realize that some people have freshly switched to arcane or are lazy to read 3-4 pages of arcane disscusion.
From my expirience with fellow mages i know this - in most cases they have "brain" under theyr "hats". Also its last tier of this expansion. Unless you are in a guild that race atleast for realm first, i don't see any diffrence if you go with FA+LB or MA+NT. Its all about what you feel you like to use. That's what blizzard tried to do with tallent system this expansion. People should break out of that cookie cutter builds once and for all...
But also i do agree that there are certain cases when switching these bomb/armor combos might be a dps gain and again that's blizzard trying ot kill cookie cutters However what i have learned from MoP with my arcane mage the best thing you can do is - see the fight, learn the fight, look with what tallents/bombs/glyphs you are most comfortable, because most fights differs depending on boss mechanis and raid setup - will it be 10 or 25 man or the classes presented in the group. When you do this you will enjoy the encounter fully and from time to time you will have the happiness to be top dps.
I can't understand why people struggle with a gameplay and tanlent/glyph combos they read about it somewhere. They are tips! Not something you definetly have to do. If you don't use the tips and tricks the world best mages offer you that doesn't mean you will fail bad. If you know what your toon is capable off and what your groups is capable of, that should be more than enough to know what you can do for each diffrent encounter.

Its end of expansion guys I don't see any point anymore of discussing what armor/bomb combo to use... We are overflowing with stats already (even more with Amp trink). Even with minimum optimisations with t16 normal gear you will have all the break points you need. Also we have already so much points of stats that we can just keep on our standart stats prio - mastery-haste-crit. For t14 and t15 it had meaning because it was hard to reach given break point wihtout loosing too much main dps stat, but now i really really don't see point discussing this thing over and over again anymore until 6.0 hit.

P.S. for the sake of this i really really hope blizzard remove bombs from our cast bars. It just feel wrong to do be DoT class, especialy in the arcane case where you have to be a single target Nuker (or as people call it torrent). I don't like to be Boomkin/Warlock/Spriest type caster where my dots do huge amount of my total dps. Beeng dotless class was what distinct mages from other casters... Just my toughts :}

[willemh]

I read this thread since 1 year... Recently I just can't understand one thing - doesn't Volta and Cycoby tired already to answer the same question over and over again? I, personaly, am sick and tired of reading that question here and even start to think people are stressed till they wait for the answer witch is exactly the same each time, sometimes with some modifications :}

Dont get me wrong. I realize that some people have freshly switched to arcane or are lazy to read 3-4 pages of arcane disscusion.
From my expirience with fellow mages i know this - in most cases they have "brain" under theyr "hats". Also its last tier of this expansion. Unless you are in a guild that race atleast for realm first, i don't see any diffrence if you go with FA+LB or MA+NT. Its all about what you feel you like to use. That's what blizzard tried to do with tallent system this expansion. People should break out of that cookie cutter builds once and for all...
But also i do agree that there are certain cases when switching these bomb/armor combos might be a dps gain and again that's blizzard trying ot kill cookie cutters However what i have learned from MoP with my arcane mage the best thing you can do is - see the fight, learn the fight, look with what tallents/bombs/glyphs you are most comfortable, because most fights differs depending on boss mechanis and raid setup - will it be 10 or 25 man or the classes presented in the group. When you do this you will enjoy the encounter fully and from time to time you will have the happiness to be top dps.
I can't understand why people struggle with a gameplay and tanlent/glyph combos they read about it somewhere. They are tips! Not something you definetly have to do. If you don't use the tips and tricks the world best mages offer you that doesn't mean you will fail bad. If you know what your toon is capable off and what your groups is capable of, that should be more than enough to know what you can do for each diffrent encounter.

Its end of expansion guys I don't see any point anymore of discussing what armor/bomb combo to use... We are overflowing with stats already (even more with Amp trink). Even with minimum optimisations with t16 normal gear you will have all the break points you need. Also we have already so much points of stats that we can just keep on our standart stats prio - mastery-haste-crit. For t14 and t15 it had meaning because it was hard to reach given break point wihtout loosing too much main dps stat, but now i really really don't see point discussing this thing over and over again anymore until 6.0 hit.

P.S. for the sake of this i really really hope blizzard remove bombs from our cast bars. It just feel wrong to do be DoT class, especialy in the arcane case where you have to be a single target Nuker (or as people call it torrent). I don't like to be Boomkin/Warlock/Spriest type caster where my dots do huge amount of my total dps. Beeng dotless class was what distinct mages from other casters... Just my toughts :}

You're confusing 2 different subjects. Living bomb vs Nether tempest and frost armor vs mage armor. These are two seperate discussions. Also keep in mind many players love min-maxing and theorycrafting. Others just enjoy playing the game. Both are fine but I dont feel there's need to call others out for wanting to min-max their character.

When to use living bomb vs nether tempest is clear cut, nether tempest you can cleave (and if that cleave damage benefits the encounter) and living bomb if you cant.

Frost armor or mage armor isnt clear cut, better gear doesnt make this discussion easier. Currently I have 571 Ilvl, I sit at 10k haste without sacrificing a single point of mastery. But even with this breakpoint obtained its still not clear cut if I use frost or mage armor.

However some practical experience from my gameplay. As said I currently sit at 10k haste and I play with mage armor only. I am using 2p t16. What I noticed is that at 4 stacks my missile>blast>missile>blast>missile is still quite mana negative and draining my mana. If I have no metaproc/heroism and I do a long missile>blast>missile>blast>missile>blast sequence I can easily end up around 75% mana. Which is a bit too low for my liking. But I also hate hitting ABar when I still have a mana reduction missile buff up. Most of the time I choose to just stay at 4 stacks untill I'm out of missile procs, even if that means I drop to ~75% mana.

Keeping this in mind I believe it could be benificial to go frost armor instead, because the added haste could make my missile>blast>missile>blast rotation at 4 stacks more mana neutral (altho I have no idea, since obviously you will cast your missile>blast sequence faster aswell). I will try this out in practice tonight.

[Deleted]

Okay, I´m totally desperate for the first time. I don´t get used to the T16 rotation resp. I don´t find the right way to play with it. On fights like protectors it´s pretty easy with dot tab dot ect. but on fights like juggernaut or dark shamans, I don´t get the right timing for ABrr (mana 95,90,85 or 80% mana). Any understandable and/or sophisticated thoughts?

[Zavri]

Pretty sure mage armor is the way to go with T16. My sims are higher with it and it performs better on most fight mechanics like dumping a wave of missiles into a crawler mine, etc.

But on a pure single target burn the difference between the two armors is pretty small. On my sims i'm looking at a 1.9k difference in favor of mage armor.

[Libretto]

Okay, I´m totally desperate for the first time. I don´t get used to the T16 rotation resp. I don´t find the right way to play with it. On fights like protectors it´s pretty easy with dot tab dot ect. but on fights like juggernaut or dark shamans, I don´t get the right timing for ABrr (mana 95,90,85 or 80% mana). Any understandable and/or sophisticated thoughts?

I tend to allow myself to go as low as 80 before barraging, because rebuilding to a 4-stack is mana neutral, then you have missiles procs + reduced mana AB + 4pc proc chance, so you're back at 90+% mana by the time you'd be considering barraging again.

I hardly used barrage at all on spoils this week, was able to keep myself above 90% mana with a 4 stack for almost the entire mogu side I was on without having to barrage once. Was even using AE and fire blast to fish for missiles because barraging one target is such a waste.

[Zatetic]

I'm no longer too trusting of simcraft results. I got two new pieces tonight (heroic purified bindings 1/2 up from flex 0/2; heroic hit/mast neck 1/2 up from warforged 2/2) and I lost 2k dps in my sim.

[voltaa]

On average, my LB ticks do 88k dmg with Frost Armor. 5 ticks x 10% more dmg with Mage Armor instead of Frost Armor is 44k dmg. An extra tick is double the damage of what you gain from the 10% mastery.

Because of the way mastery works the actual math is a little more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea.

[Skyefire]

Because of the way mastery works the actual math is a little more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea.

So with T16 should we still be running LB/Frost Armour and NT/Mage Armour?

[Zavri]

Hmm swapped between the armors tonight on siegecrafter blackfuse and I seemed to get better results with frost armor.

Could just be RNG though since on simcraft the differences between the 2 are pretty small.

[voltaa]

So with T16 should we still be running LB/Frost Armour and NT/Mage Armour?

My quick scratch-pad math suggests frost armor but I will be doing multiple calculations at different spell power levels and levels of mana to see if that affects the outcome. I doubt it will but who knows.

[Zatetic]

1 shot galakras hm. what a shitty fight.

I was assigned to the grunts with a disc priest and hunter (so no padding :< ). It probably wasnt a bad idea to put an arc mage on the grunts. Bit of lost cleave on the waves but the pack was dying as the next one came out anyway so it didnt matter.

[Aoeina]

Has anybody managed to figure out if 2 piece T16 +WF off pieces is better than 4 piece?

[Hasufer]

After playing with 4set t16 (2hm pieces) for a few weeks now, I am gettin' rather fond of it (as in a lot). It just brings a lot of ekstra opportunities/versatility, than the old t15hc set had - sure it was an inzane bonus, hence the nerf.
Ofc it was a bit of a blow, for some ppl, to get struck by the t15 "nerf" (but again, you would be quite naive if you havn't anticipated the "nerf" eventually occuring, thus, it would only be a matter of time before it would happen.), but it was merely on paper, that it's actually a nerf, in my experience.
- it's very few encounters, if any at all, that actually favours t15 according to my current experience - been pushing better numbers on basicly everything, since the replacement of t15hc and I'm certain others can confirm/agree upon this?. It's actually only on ArB's, that u get to feel some real difference (and it's not really much either - and will become less and less viewable, the better your gear gets, due to int/mast), which is like 10% of overall dmg on an encounter where u actually use it for more than just eventually resetting stacks. (perhaps herioc spoils/galakras would make exceptions - you can really abuse barrage-cleave on these two, just as u can maximize and "abuse" nt)
So overall it's not really a nerf imo - it's just new and better posibilities and ways to optimise. And in return for the loss of 20% dmg on ab/arb's, we now get loads of stats/int to make bombs/aoe etc stronger as well - especially bombs and arc exp+glyphed coc gets mental^^

You can quit reading this piece of text, if you wanna read reflections over arcane gameplay etc, and not about general attitude etc, on the forums nowadays.
I'm getting fairly frustrated by ppl that sees every freaking thing in this game, the mage class, or just changes in general as negative, subjectively aimed to piss you off and being unwanted. This attitude sadly often reflects upon how ppl are in the real life as well. Get a grip, and get a positive view on life, you only have this one, make the best of it! - and in addition, this is a game, it's meant to be fun.
Can't adapt and learn? Not really anyones problem, but yourselves - get better. and stop fucking filling these forums with how sad you are, and how much blizzard sucks for "nerfing us" and all the other shit, that's brought to mine, and everyones eyes, just to be facepalmed at.
Mages are in a sweet condition when it comes to output as arc/fire and frost (basicly always has been in the time iv'e played - since early tbc, cept frost ofc) and we have overall great survivability, movement, cc, cleave, dotting, aoe etc - many ppl envy us; our overall condition in raids, our cd's, survivability etc etc, and for a good reason.
I love playing a mage, and never really had any real issues, (if you hate the class so much, then reroll?) - if something doesn't work, then something else does, that's for certain, and it's up to yaselves to fix it. - (hence why we have forums, and why we can really get better from reading them)
Is there any point in history, that we have actually been bad? I can't speak for Vanilla, as I didn't play there, but ever since that time - not in my book. I, as well as thousands of others, have always overcome whatever blizz/encounters throw at us, and if you give up, u gain nothing. These kinda ppl just makes me sad and want to look for other places where stuff can actually be discussed, instead of 50% of a threat, being attacks on ppl, fucking "captain obvious" statements, or whining over mages and our abilities/spec etc. Plz guys, let's be creative, positive and help each other out - aint that why we have thse forums all together?
I gain NOTHING (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) from digging into a threat that by the name "haste cap's and you" (just an exacmple) illustrates that this is about hastecaps etc. What it really is, is 50% good info, and 50% bullshit/attacks on ppl like Akraen (really has been accused of a lot of things for one). Sure in this case his theories is controvesial and perhaps not true, and on the other hand it's inspiring and constructive - I go and test it out, rather than just send hate towards a guy, who puts hours and hours into the mage class, even tho he's not even raiding on a top-lvl worldwide. If we had loads of ppl like that around here, it' would be a world in diffrence, what you find on these forums, but sadly atm, we dont. Of cause theres still people who really provides a lot of constructive, good information and elaborations to the forums, and love goes out to those! But yer, theres 10x as many people that just provides the above mentioned crap, or straight out misinform people - it's sickening.

Oh well, think I'm a bit on a sidetrack right now, but as a person who has learned and drawn a lot of good experiences from these forums through time, I'm so sad to see and witness the decay of so many, possible good threats, just because people wanna flash their epeens, and crush others, while doing so. Fucking pathetic and unessesary. (sry for the harsh tone, but it's nothing compared to what you see nowadays on pages around here, and it's not the tone I would usually degrade to using, but it's needs to be clean and simple, for everyone to understant it, sadly.)

Anyways, back on track.
Personal experiences and fun with t16 so far:
I recall someone mentioning that you could litteraly stay at 4 stacks for minutes with the new 2-4set bonusses. That's of cause not entirely true, but due to the nature of many SoO fights, your able to keep stacks going for around 30secs or more, at times, and rarely less than 10 on 4stacks. Multidotting opportunities for proccing more AM's on max stacks - the possibility to fill in fireblasts and glyphed ffb's (try it out before u disprove of it, it's quite fun and giving tbh :P ) to stay at max mana, while fishing for procs to go AM-AB actually makes it possible never to loose stacks (but you woudn't wanna ffb too much). FFB is ofc not better dmg than ab's and am's on 4 stacks, but during meta/lust, with FA + decent haste (10k) u get close to 1sec casts, and with all the mastery benefits of arc, I get crits for 6-700k (3-400k noncrit) on a ffb crit. Not bad for around a gcd worth of dmg. - and due to the mana cost of ffb, u regen more mana during meta procs, thus giving you ekstra AM's without the less mana cost, yet staying on around or above 90% mana. This kinda play, is only adviceable to try out on single target fights - on multitargets, u ofc go with MA (unless it's mostly st minded), nt and the previous mentioned dot-fishing method for AM's on 4 stacks + eventual barrage cleaves.
4 piece helps actually making this strategy and gameplay work. 2 set as well. It's sad that all the tier gear has crit, but still, arc scales well with most stats (try out MA + reforging to 33% crit, and compare to the usual forge/armor strategy, you'll be amazed^^ Did just around the same dmg on Thok heroic where I'm with MA/few reforges for 33%crit and the 16% psyc dmg reduct).
I dont think I would prefer getting 2x hc WF gear actually. Those ekstra AM's u will get over the course of a 6min fight or so, is just tons of dmg. say u got around 5-600k pr 4stacked AM (up to a LOT more depending of trinkets/etc), in avarage u will meet a 4piece proc 3/4times a minute (or more with good rng) .. You will need a lot of stats to make up for that dps loss, and ofc this way of playing, would also be damaged by removing 4set for WF pieces. Again remember that on multitarget fights, the value of 4set is greatly increased as well, since more AM procs from multidotting = more ekstra AM's from 4set = win :P

I havn't done simcrafts on this, since frankly I don't do simcracft, and often see them as unreliable anyways as they aren't calculated in actual in-game situations and lacks loads of aspects.. I work my way ingame and well, usually yielding very good results; as you would see if u check my guilds heroic logs etc. I would advice ppl to try out the suggestions I wrote if/when you feel like it. You will need a bit of time to toy around a bit, but in the process, you might discover some cool and fun things, apart from those I mentioned here in this post!

My 2cents for now, sorry for the wall of text. I needed to twist my heart out, as I havn't posted here for a bit of time, and in the meantime, iv'e seen some bad stuff/tendencies around here, and it makes me sad

[Deleted]

Did anyone complete Proving Ground endless 30+ as arcane? any tips are welcome, especially gear and frost/mage armor choice.