[Arcane] 6-charge camping vs clearing stacks at 80-85% with ArcBarr

[munchkin]

One thing I like about Arcane this far is how free flowing it is. However, there seems to be alot of debate concerning the two methods in the topic. If anyone can provide their experience in trying both so we could get a feel for what may be optimal; this assumes the use of RoP.

Thank you!

[Shangalar]

I've posted some of my target dummy tests in the guide thread and I found that camping and resetting at 80-85% showed exactly the same numbers as the standard resetting. But remember that with standard resetting you always reset when you run out of missiles stacks. I haven't really tried combining the two practices, but it feels a bit wonky when I think about it in theory.

[Zavri]

I am finding more dps via normal priorities and staying 6 stacks with normal AM fishing means ( NT and AB ) and dumping when needed.

I don't think using scorch for AM procs to camp 6 stack is worth it tbh.

My spiritbinder log for tonight : 25m H Spiritbinder

[Hasted]

I find that sitting at around 85% mana and fishing for Arcane Missiles procs is fairly effective. While a lot of what I've read supports clearing at 90% religiously I find that I can often times get quite a few Arcane Missiles procs chained together and hover in the 85-95% range.

A few other things I've picked up out of a nights worth of raiding with it are managing 2 stack AM with +90% mana. I find it best to ABlast>AM>Ablast>AM rather than ABlast>AM>AM because while standing in RoP I typically hit ~100% mana when I use both AM procs in succession. Also when using Alter Time in conjunction with AP and a 6 stack of charges and 2 AM procs up I find that the optimal way to handle this cooldown is to go into it casting ABlast and using both AM procs back to back, clearing with ABar at the last second before Alter Time brings you back. This gets you an average of a 300k crit at the cost of one global.

For reference I'm sitting at 8.3% Haste, 15.95% Crit, and 46.86% Mastery self buffed.

[Deleted]

I find that sitting at around 85% mana and fishing for Arcane Missiles procs is fairly effective. While a lot of what I've read supports clearing at 90% religiously I find that I can often times get quite a few Arcane Missiles procs chained together and hover in the 85-95% range.

A few other things I've picked up out of a nights worth of raiding with it are managing 2 stack AM with +90% mana. I find it best to ABlast>AM>Ablast>AM rather than ABlast>AM>AM because while standing in RoP I typically hit ~100% mana when I use both AM procs in succession. Also when using Alter Time in conjunction with AP and a 6 stack of charges and 2 AM procs up I find that the optimal way to handle this cooldown is to go into it casting ABlast and using both AM procs back to back, clearing with ABar at the last second before Alter Time brings you back. This gets you an average of a 300k crit at the cost of one global.

For reference I'm sitting at 8.3% Haste, 15.95% Crit, and 46.86% Mastery self buffed.

This is nearly exactly what i've been doing (sometimes i try ans squeeze an AB between the 2 AM when popping with AT) lately and logic tells me it should yield more dps, but i don't have numbers.

[Nezek]

You need to understand the difference between the two methods of play, first of all you cannot just effectively "switch styles" in the middle of raids, generally if you want to sit at 6 stacks and wait for missile procs trying not to go below 80% mana then you will want to go for pure haste to give you as much through put and mana regen as possible, people seem to think arcane barrage is doing a fuck ton more damage than missiles, this simply isnt the case unless it crits and your missiles doesnt crit the majority. Secondly, if you want to go for a standard rotation of maintaining 95%+ mana and dumping missile procs at 4 or above stacks and using barrage you will want a mastery spec, haste soft cap is recommended for the extra 2 ticks of nethertempest.

My point is, these play styles are considerably different and require different gearing setups, wont someone who is running the fishing for AM at 6 stack method and regular method post clear logs? I'm interested to see the comparisons from the same person with the same gear but just setup differently.

[Shangalar]

I've tested 4 things on a target dummy:

Full mastery with 6-charge camping
Full mastery with standard rotation
Full haste with 6-charge camping
Full haste with standard rotation

And both mastery styles yielded approximately the same results and both haste styles yielded approximately the same results. The difference within Mastery and within Haste were 500 dps max. However, for me personally, the Haste build was generally lower in output than the Mastery build but that may have been due to missing the Spell Haste buff which would have given me an additional tick of Nether Tempest (I forgot about it during testing).

[Khazaad]

generally if you want to sit at 6 stacks and wait for missile procs trying not to go below 80% mana then you will want to go for pure haste to give you as much through put and mana regen as possible

Regarding this,

I have very haste heavy reforges for frost (~33% selfbuffed), but still hefty amount of mastery. I'd like to have arcane for some fights this week to try and compare 2 without reforging (allthough i could still drop 2-3% crit in favor of mastery to make it optimal for haste arcane specc).

Now, question is (and I'm fully aware i might get flamed here ) , going full haste arcane, do we still use mage armor by default, or do we start favoring frost armor for more haste? I read somewhere that even in haste build after ~8.5k mastery pulls ahead, so that would mean Mage Armor, but that would also imply haste softcap with reforges, which I'm over allready.

[Deleted]

I run full haste due my fire gear (crit/haste) and i did much better on Shek'zeer heroic last night then reforging to mastery. Camping at 6 stacks and refreshing with barrage works great. My optimal rotation was something like, Blast x 6 (1-2 Missiles up ) pop cd's Apower, Atime! Missiles, Blast, Missiles, Blast, Barrage/ Reactivate Atime, Missiles, Blast, Missiles, Blast, Blast, (mana gem) Blast, Missiles, Blast, Barrage!

Never go below 85% mana

[schwarzkopf]

If I reset at 80-85% every time, I'd never cast Arcane Missiles with more than a couple of stacks.

I'm finding since the arcane buffs, that sitting on 6 stacks works very well indeed. On trash I ABar cleave, but on single target boss - scorch every so often to fish for AMs doesn't hurt, especially when I do it when I'm forced to move anyway.

---------- Post added 2012-12-05 at 12:22 PM ----------

Never go below 85% mana

Never get AM to proc enough to do that without scorch filler every so often.

[Llyth]

If I reset at 80-85% every time, I'd never cast Arcane Missiles with more than a couple of stacks.

I'm finding since the arcane buffs, that sitting on 6 stacks works very well indeed. On trash I ABar cleave, but on single target boss - scorch every so often to fish for AMs doesn't hurt, especially when I do it when I'm forced to move anyway.

---------- Post added 2012-12-05 at 12:22 PM ----------




Never get AM to proc enough to do that without scorch filler every so often.

He means that you clear when you get that low, then repeat.

I seem to get more reliability with haste too, manly since most of my movement is only for one cast through blink, and losing one cast with mastery stack is more dps lost than one cast with haste.

[voltaa]

Definitely clear at 80-85%, it is the optimal maximum way to do things.

Proof: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-5i...?s=1435&e=1764