Help our Arcane Mage out

[Deleted]

I'm actually playing my warlock now, and my overall memory of Tsulong for my mage was madly Symbosis healing (as in the linked log) but let's see...

Personally I prefer a haste reforge, but it's not an exact science which is better. I'm also a normals raider this patch so perhaps my logs are better to compare?

The problem with using RoP is that he's correct; it's completely RNG where you will get the light beams, but he shouldn't panic. I've favoured an Incanter's Ward/Temporal Shield mix on fights with predictable damage; you can macro these to one button and it removes the requirement to stand still on your rune. Evo would be something to consider if he went full haste but personally I would not use it for mastery.

If he trains himself how to charge camp, he can very quickly move through Tsulong whilst using Arcane Explosion to keep his stacks. He Scorches far too infrequently to be a reliable source of Missile procs/mana regen but as the others have said this approach is being killed off so it's probably not worth learning; if you note my Tsuong log for instance, I have 3x as many missile casts. This doesn't really pertain to these logs but he should be using Cauterize; Invis is a waste of a GCD whilst Cauterize procs automatically and if he's smart he will IB once it's up. He should have a macro using Alter Time (normally with Arcane Power and any on-use. Mine also has my troll racial) which will reset his stacks and give him his powerful CDs. The Arcane Power glyph, for my part, shouldn't be used; you will get more predictable and frequent bursts with a 1.5 min cd, esp if dps is a problem.

Edit to add logs - I'm not a particularly good mage (my Tsulong log is especially poor) but I am in similar gear; http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...?s=6805&e=7265 (didn't meter hump by multidot) / http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...s=9650&e=10108

What he could do to help you guys on the adds is cast slow on one add, burn down another, and then switch back (presuming you assign your ranged to quarters)

[Deleted]

Tsulong isnt really friendly to arcane mage.

However, as always when there's a topic like this, the main point to a "good" dps is :

RoP uptime : Depending on the fight, but any arcane mage should maximize the time he is in his RoP (Rune of Power)
NT/Bomb uptime : This, however, should be at least of 85% all the time. There's not excuse to that
Optimal Rotation : Scorch weaving, never use barrage unless just before AT (cause you'll be at 6 stacks again when AT finishes).

Use AE/Glyphed AE to refresh stacks when needed, any good mage will be able to maintain stacks 99.9% of the time on any fights, there's some exception but they are very rare.

If think some mage use glyph of slow on tsu'long, maybe he should get a look at it. (I've never done tsu'long on normal, so.)

[Deleted]

Disclaimer - not reading the entire thread just going of the OP and the last post by the OP

Using RoP on Tsulong is definatly viable just something you need to get used to, instead of moving THRU the sunbeam ... bounce in and out back to your existing RoP.
While being at 100% mana might be ideal, in reality it is impossible. Fully stacked one Arcane blast carries an 8% mana cost, staying above 80%/85%/90% is what is key depending on your timing and incomming movement.

Fights
Tsulong
on both enrage wipes his uptime on Nether Tempest is sub 10%, this is badder than bad, worse than that actually.... NT should be up 99% during night phases and some uptime during day thus average out to > 50% on this fight.
He is using Invocation talent (Invoker's energy) at Tsulong not ROP, iether is viable.... Problem here again is its uptime 50%... instead of 100%.
Plus working with Invocation you maximize your dps by inter-evocate by going down to ~80% mana trying to keep 2 Missile procs, then Evocate for 1 tick to 100% release missiles and repeat... then try and burn down to <50% before the buff drops and evocate back up to refresh the buff.

Protectors
Uptime of NT at 50% which is again way to low, >95% is what he should be having. On this fight a 5k dps loss
RoP uptime at 80% this is again to low, 95+% no excuses... perhaps excluding the last part where you need to run out of the debuff zone, but smart placement and movement should prevent excessive down time
2 Alter Times usages, on a 3 min cd and 8 minute fight should be 3.... not that bad....
2 Arcane power usage, on 1:30 cd... in an 8 minute fight again awfull could be 6-7
1 mana gem usage, 2 minute cd.... yeah 3-4 times at 60k mana each and the importance of mana for arcane....
0 scorch casts, 18 Arcane Barrage casts.... Either you dont use Scorch (and as a rusult use another talent) or Use scorch and talent and not use Barrage (as much)

Feng - If any fight is near Patchwerk it is this one
UPtime of Nether tempest 0% !!!! 0% not used AT ALL
6 scorch 13 Barrage
Rune of Power 60% (90+% should be)
1 usage of Alter time, Arcane Power and Mirror Image in 5 minutes

Spirit kings
NT uptime 10%
0 Scorch casts, for a lot of movement in this fight is UNACCEPTABLE
Rune of Power 65% way to low, probably better use Invocation... But uptime of RoP can and should be better there.
31 procs of Arcane Missiles, 120 casts of missiles vs a max of 155 .... can be a lot better.
1 arcane power, 1 mirror image, 1 alter time

a) yeah using a website or addon for reforging can gain you nice details, however there are much much bigger issues here.
b) He seems to be using Mastery/ROP currently.... Haste builds are more forgiving in general for people with lesser skills or beginning mages like this one I would advice Haste builds personaly. Dummy dps IMHO is useless to compare because you get major buffs in raids 5% haste and 3k mastery just 2 of them.
c) Scorch weaving if you have the scorch talent for sure, or use the Invocation and use that now and in 5.2.
e) major thing missed is the NT uptime and his usage of major cooldowns like Alter time and Arcane power
also the slow is considered and arcane cast, which can proc a Missile proc, THE mana free hardest hitting spell for Arcane (bar a 4+ target full stack Arcane Barrage)

[Deleted]

Well our spriest did the "cheesing" on Protectors and it didn't help his eDPS against the boss out. As he didn't have enough mastery to carry the multidoting for insta cast stuff procs out. Thus I am unsure does the mage who raid with us has the stat budget and gear to carry out the multitargeting in single target fight in a way that would actually benefit his DPS.

I do believe that cheating the meters is oke, as long as you a) know what you are doing b) have the stats needed to use that tac.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 01:17 PM ----------

In general if I understood you guys correctly. He should
a) use an addon or something to get hit spell hit to 15% and no more
b) choose whether he goes for haste or mastery and just reforge into one or the other. Best place probably to try the different ways (mastery or haste out) will be a dummy
c) he should familiarize himself with the Arcane guide in this forum and try the scorchweaving out until 5.2
d) fix his reforges, by adding enchant on weapon. Should be out reforge from crit in most items to either haste or mastery (depending again which stat he will start favoring)
e) on Tsulong he should place down to power circle things so he doesn't have to use the Evowhatever skill. Also use blink from moving beam to beam. Glyph Arcane Blast for a slow.

Anything else I missed?

pretty much everything for tsu long; when fighting adds it's more important to keep his 6 stacks than placing a new rune. dropping stacks is a heavier dmg loss than not standing in the rune. using arcane explosion is the fastest way to refresh the arcane charge buff (which lasts 10 sec), but only if you hit sth. so blinking to an add and using explosion could save your stacks if there's not enough time left for casting another arcane blast. this is also important at other encounters, e.g. lei shi which you will encounter next.

well @ protectors elite you pretty much stand still the whole time, and the less movement, the more dmg an arcane mage will do. with item lvl 490 for example, he should do at least 100k dps on protectors.

for reforging, askmrrobot.com is a very nice site. the stat weight there is focused on mastery. you have to load in your character from armory and it shows you the best solution for your current gear with 1 click.
[in general, you use 320 mastery for prismatic/yellow, hit int for blue, int mastery for red...and reforge all crit/haste/hit into mastery (if you're hitcapped that is)]
there is also the addon ReforgeLite, but i don't have personal expierience with that.

since slow only applies to 1 target at a time, he can also cast slow on one add, and kill another -> more time to dps. i personally use glyph of arcane blast because we don't do the adds solo, we're (3 ppl) running in contrary circles and most of the time 2 dds will dmg the same add.

haste and mastery playstyle dont differ that much. with hc gear mastery is slighly better because e.g. your arcane barrage deals more dmg (in fights where you actually use it^^), and its a bit more aoe dmg in general.
haste focus is more forgiving if you cast 1 or 2 arcane blasts too much and your mana drops too low...since haste affects mana regenaration it compensates for possible "fails" also haste is a bit more fluid because you cast faster (caaaaptain obvious :> ).

[Makarena]

I think guy doesn't know that Nether tempest is actually a spell that is supposed to be used (or any other bomb). I really wonder if people ever check websites like http://www.icy-veins.com/arcane-mage...owns-abilities. I honestly feel like the guy put next to 0 effort in trying to master the class. Thats abit saddening coz this is the prime reason blizzard nerf the content so such players can get their purples.

[Erolian]

Phase 1 - Put your rune down burst at the start like you always would/should. Light beam spawns and about the time you're going to want to reset your stacks place a new rune half in the light and half out blink to it. Try to time this to where you're going to refresh NT after the blink but just scorching while you reset your debuff is also fine. Repeat until Day phase.

Phase 2 - Assign the mage a side have him drop his RoP and dps down the adds near his area. Really shouldn't need a slow or anything but he can glyph it to be safe. Hit stuff if you don't have any adds to dps obviously until the phase is over.

[KoolKidKaos]

Some tricks for that fight is night phase to have a spot to blink to with a rune prematurely strategically placed, also use blazing speed.
Tell your mage that he needs to place rune down on one side of the light beam, and one on the other. As long as the raid isn't doing some crazy strat, he should be able to blazing speed through it, drop stacks, and not lose much of any time on the boss. Tell him to use Arcane explosion on a target while moving when in fear of losing stacks while scorching as a filler. Tell him to not ever EVER drop his stacks. Tell him to use a simple Arcane Blast + ?? Rotation, (?? = Bomb, Rune, Scorch, Missles, Mana Gem). Tell him he needs to lose as much hit as he can to be barely under or over the cap. Tell him also to stack more haste, his item level is too low for a mastery build. Also Glyph Arcane Explosion for Tsulong, Arcane Power is a no go, and the third is up to him, evo is nice. He also like stated before, needs much better uptime on NT, it should only be off when he's in day phase waiting for a mob to spawn. Also his damage with missles is almost non existent, at the very least it should be half of his Arcane Blast damage, what that says to me is that he dropped his stacks without using his missle procs a lot, and that's no bueno. Tell him in day phase to stand under the boss, drop two runes side by side, and blast any mob he can that gets near him, tell him to try and keep stacks during this entire phase as well. Tell him I said GL

[Sonnillon]

Netheris said that he should do mastery with mastery gemming, but if haste allows more mistakes, I would really see suggesting more haste oriented refiorges.

If it is said to go either master or haste, not the combination. Then if he would go haste oriented he should reforge mastery/crit -> haste if he is hitcapped and also use haste gems? Or should he have some mastery as well?

Are there any certain stat break points he should aim at for haste and/or mastery?

Thank you very much for the nice advice. I will try to put some short thing together for him.

[Deleted]

mastery is still valuable in haste build too, gems are not that important but gives an overall impression of a person/character....
So if you want to respec properly to a haste build, then yes, Haste/Hit for blue, Int/Haste for red and Haste for yellow.

You can find the haste break points of NT on the fire sticky, the spreadsheet at the bottom of the first post. Also for haste build you want to use Frost armor for the additional haste over Mastery from Mage Armor. Assuming Frost armor and raid haste, haste caps are at 3214 rating and 6343 rating, but they are very soft caps... not really worth (for this mage) to worry about it much.

much much much much bigger issues going on that is a problem for him.

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 06:24 PM ----------

Also, mining is the one and absolute worst proffesion for any caster.... skinning slightly better, herbing is already much better....
but preferably another crafting profession.

[rogoth]

Well he's almost 1% above hitcap.

Then just checking your 2 longest tsulong attempts (8:16 and 8:15) he's almost not scorching at all. In my opinion atleast tsulong is somewhat frustrating as arcane mage due to the amount of movement, but for normal it's not that bad.

Using Arcane Explosion while moving to keep 6 stacks up if he's close enough to tsulong (glyph helps), then keeping in mind that alter time resets your stacks wich allows you to stand outside for quite some time while using cds without moving.

you can ignore most of this info, in fact, ignore everybody who is sayign to "camp 6 stacks" the playstyle is being removed in 5.2 so the sooner he learns the proper rotation, and u can get a feel for what he will likely be pulling post patch the better as it will be redundant in approximately 3 weeks, not only that, but for an arcane mage on tsulong, it is very hard to compete on overall numbers as A) u can't stand still to cast for long enough which essentially invalidates rune of power which is currently the only real viable lvl 90 talent option for arcane, coupled with the stupidly long ramp up time for arcane atm, and B) things not staying alive long enough, even if u are haste stacking as arcane, ur AB spell will still take ~1.6s to cast, and u can only start doing decent damage with it at 4+ stacks ideally 6 but yeah, sometimes doesn't happen, and the time u have taken to get those 4-6 stacks built up, the thing is dead, and chances are that stacks will have dropped off before new adds come in so the whole bollox thing starts again ad infinitum.


with regards to gear, he is better using the pvp 483 legs or the LFR tier legs over those things, they were useful back in october when MSV just released, but now, he/she should have long since upgraded from LFR, and worste case scenario is still using pvp gear to fill the gap, the only spirit item a mage should be legitimately looking at is the ring off protectors elite, as it is the only other option above 489 quest/VP rewards unless u get super lucky off galleon etc, some of the gear is very mismatched, and very poorly balanced stats wise, i would suggest that u look at seeing what gear is available to this player, and see where u could help out as a guild to get him in a good spot, if all fails, look to replace in the long term, but give him the time to improve, just hacking away players because they don't "seem" to pull what u thought they should, doesn't solve anything either for u or the player involved.

[Sonnillon]

How good or accurate is ask mr robot in choosing the proper gear for mages. As I read here it good fore reforges/gems. Is it for gear as well? So I can check where we could get him some better items.

If there would be plans to get rid of him, I wouldn't have started this thread ^^. Keeping a good and decent roster which keeps 10-man raid team up in a small guild is hard. So every player is valuabel...

[Deleted]

The sites like Mr Robot and MaxDPS are relying on the stat weights you put into them, if you put in the proper stat weights you will get the proper information for gems/enchants and gear.

In general any iLevel upgrade is good, more intellect is more intellect is always good. Any loss of stats from Haste to Crit even is usually negligable compared to the gain in Intellect. Only thing to keep in mind when considering side grades are the secondary stats which when you have a Haste/Mastery item and can pickup a Haste/Crit item the choice seems obvious.
Comparing Hit/Crit to Haste/mastery items gets more confoluted.

Then again.... gear, gems, stats, this mage has so much to gain in other area's that is it not really worth discussing details like that.... gemming stats, reforging will gain you 2k dps... Just on NT uptime he is missing 10-15k dps, missing yet more on uptime and usage of other stuff....

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 07:34 PM ----------

Also 170 intellect on the bracers, again not great but yeah

---------- Post added 2013-02-15 at 07:36 PM ----------

Not sure if there is such a thing, but probably using a Haste or Mastery cogwheel insetad of the Expertise/hit ones in his head could very well be worth it so he can reforge more liberaly

[Deleted]

you can ignore most of this info, in fact, ignore everybody who is sayign to "camp 6 stacks" the playstyle is being removed in 5.2 so the sooner he learns the proper rotation, a

We don't even know the proper rotation is gonna be when 5.2 hits because arcane has been changed a lot and isnt finished. We don't even know if it'll be haste or mast, or RoP or Invo. It doesnt take days to learn to scorch weave.

So this is a bad advice.

[dementor]

Its amazing how much mis-information there is in this one thread

It's no wonder so many mages are bad

[Deleted]

Fire mage is good !

[kaskadereno]

Watching encounter specific video guides is, in my opinion, the number one most helpful thing a player can do to improve. In the example I'm providing, your mage can see Blatty's spell usage and CDs, movement, positioning.... etc. However everyone who has mentioned that in some weeks this information will all be near worthless, well, they are right. Arcane Mages may probably be, in fact, dead as of 5.2. Anyway, here is the video, hope it helps your mage.

http://www.twitch.tv/blatty/c/1803505

the Tsulong encounter is right about 4hr 8min mark. =)

[announced]

mages gain the most outta the first part of tsulong.. have him prepot and go nuts blowing all cds at the start.. nt AB ab ab ab ab ab (save 2 am procs) ( AT arcane power, AM, AM, Abarrage) AM AM

he should be using rune of power for tsulong imo.. he'll need a bit more healing at the start but it shouldnt be hard to keep him alive and its a massive dps increase vs him losing stacks and derping around trying to replace his runes of power. jus make sure he knows which sha hes killing in day phase

also i noticed hes using arcane power glyph.. thats not always a good thing as the timing for tsulong going into night phase can be very diff. if hes able to drop the 600 hit on the tinker's gear for a mastery tinker's gear that would help as well. although it is a big gap. i spose he could take 200-300 points outta haste for that.

[dementor]

Ill put everything in one nice little post for everyone to read, even though it's a huge waste of time since the information will probably be invalid in the next patch.

You should believe me because I consistently rank while still also doing boss mechanics. I have progressed through 15/16 heroics and have 9/9 gold challenge modes completed.

Mastery vs Haste Build
Playing arcane mage like a god comes from micro managing your weapon/trinket procs with your cooldowns. In my extended experience mastery allows you to benefit more from these short windows of opportunity where you are stacking you cooldowns with your procs. You can also see my comparison of haste vs mastery in a different thread on the forum. Haste was coming out ahead by a very very small margin on 12+ minute fights, which doesn't correctly model current boss fights. Stack mastery and use mage armor.

Talent Choices
Talent choices are pretty cookie cutter atm. Scorch, ice barrier, ring of frost, cauterize, nether tempest, rune of power. Some might say temporal shield is better than ice barrier because it isn't on the gcd, but 90% of the time your healers will negate most of temporal shields healing. A well timed ice barrier to smooth off spike damage>temporal shield.

There are 3 exceptions. The first is Windlord. Windlord you should use fire bomb and spread it with fire blast instead of using nether tempest. The second is heroic elegon. You should pick up greater invisibility if you are soaking the add explosion. The third is amber shaper. It might be beneficial to be able to use ice block twice to block off the debuff if your paladins are bad at using hand of purity during the last 6 seconds or you don't have a paladin.

Gemming
Red- Int/mastery, in rare circumstances exp/mastery
Yellow- mastery
Blue- hit/mastery
Primastic- mastery
meta- int/crit

Reforging
Strongly urge using reforgelite addon. Set the stat weights as follows and it will do it perfectly for you.
Spirit= 0
Dodge= 0
Parry= 0
Hit= 180
crit= 30
Haste= 140
Expertise= 0
Mastery= 160

Trinket Choices
Relic and Light of the cosmos until you can get Heroic Essence.
Why? There are two main reasons.
The ICD of Essence of terror is light years, as such Relic and LoC proc together far more often. Them procing together has the benefit of using cooldowns/potions during this time for larger gains. The second reason is that LoC almost always procs second. The bad thing about alter time is that any trinket proc that happens during alter time is lost when alter time ends. Relic, in the 100's of pulls I have done, has always procced before I have built my 6 stack of arcane charges, while LoC doesn't. The beauty is LoC only procs off nether tempest, and nether tempest falls off the boss just after you have built you 6 stack of arcane charges. Should LoC not proc while building your initial 6 arcane charges, you can ignore reapplying nether tempest and go into alter time with absolutely no worries of LoC procing and immediately losing it after alter time ends. The main attraction to heroic essence, is the static intellect it has. I know this goes against the sticky trinket selection guide, but that guide is based on sims, and sims aren't real fights.

Burst
Doing amazing damage as an arcane mage means you plan and execute your burst phases correctly. Make sure your tanks are using some sort of countdown so you can do the necessary actions pre-pull. Start the rotation RP>MirrorImage>Prepot+ArcaneBlast>NT>ABx5 5 seconds before the pull (or 4 if your tanks don't pull exactly on PULL). This is where you need an add-on to track your weapon/trinket procs, or watch your buffs very closely. In an ideal world, when you get to 6 stacks, you will have 2 AM procs, both of your trinkets proced, and jade spirit proced. This is where I would mana gem>arcane power(w/troll beserk macro)>alter time>AM>AB>AM>ABar>NT... at this time alter time would reset and you would go back to the normal rotation. During alter time, I believe you can get 4 casts off if you are lusted, or 3 with no lust. Either way use arcane barrage after the last cast because when alter time ends, you get your arcane charges back.

Static Rotation
Stand in your rune at all times. Make sure you plan ahead about where you're standing as to avoid placing unnecessary runes from extra movement.
NT>AM>AB>Scorch
Here comes the scorch weaving part. The Idea is to stay between 85% and 95% mana. It is rather simple. If you are at 92-95% mana, arcane blast. That will drop you to around 87% mana. If AM is up, AM. This will bring you back to 92-95% mana. If AM is not up, scorch 1 or 2 times which will get you back to 92-95% mana. Then rinse and repeat. Save mana gems for unlucky streaks where you aren't getting AM procs, but ideally for when your trinkets are procced. If you are moving, obiviously be casting scorch constantly while maintaining NT on the boss. If you are moving so much and it isn't possible to keep your arcane charge stacks, alternate arcane barrage with scorch.

Maintaining 6 stacks.
Almost every boss it is possible to maintain a 6 stack through the entire fight, save maybe heroic blade lord because of his get away mechanic in phase 1 and dodging tornadoes in phase 2. Use Arcane explosion to maintain stacks, or even arcane missiles. You do not have to finish casting AM for the charges to reset, you only need one tick. This goes the same for Feng if your tanks are unable to shield/stun his earthquake.

Losing a 6 stack is detrimental to your dps and should be avoided at all costs.


Since the thread was particularly about Tsulong, lets go over some of those mechanics. Arcane mages are no bad at Tsulong, despite the movement. I don't think I have ever been below They drop off considerably on heroic if the majority of the burden of killing night of fears falls on their shoulders.

Start out using the burst guide that I mentioned. Keep in mind that after alter time ends, the damaging debuff on you also resets so you are save to stand and nuke for a good 20 seconds. Keep a portal close to the sun beam and when nightmare isn't about to go out, and you are using scorch to get mana back, quickly run into the portal and run back to your run as you are scorching to get mana back. When a sun beam moves to a different location, port over to it and rinse and repeat. The day phase is where you dps goes down, especially if your raid dps is high and there is nothing to kill to keep your arcane charges up. It is very possible to do 80k+ dps on this fight with good execution.

But like I said, I would rather talk to this member in game than write a bunch of shit out so offer still stands Dementor#1413

[Deleted]

Dementor summed it up well (so thanks)

I have one little question, why :

w/troll beserk macro)>alter time>AM>AB>AM>ABar>NT

Its been know for a while now that every mage should refresh NT before going into burst macro, so you dont end up losing one GCD during your burst, did you find better results do it like this ?

[dementor]

2 reason.

LoC procs only off nether tempest. Sometimes LoC doesn't proc going into alter time and if you refresh it just before you alter time you gamble on it procing during alter time and losing it.

During alter time with berserker you have time for a couple different situations, most normally 2 AM, 1 AB, and 1 arcane barrage. If you do that you still have like half a second before alter time wears off, so you can cast an unstacked arcane blast, or you could refresh nether tempest.

Same goes with alter time with berserker + lust, but this time you can do 2 AM, 2 AB, 1 arcane barrage and refresh NT.

If during alter time you get an additional AM proc, instead of refreshing NT at the end, I usually channel half the AM, jump, then Abarr.

Maybe I am doing it wrong. My numbers look good though.

Can you explain with refresh NT before alter time is better?

Edit: Reason 3, you waste 1.5 seconds of all your procs if you do it before alter time, where as you aren't really wasting the "dead time" at the end of an alter time.