[Arcane] Land of the Lost.

[Frostyspeed]

eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/terokkar/Frostyspeed/advanced

Right, so after the Blizzard Nerfbat Massacre to the 4 set of T15, i was forced to switch to the few T16 items i had. Been trying to sus out the rotation and gameplay, and on Iron Juggernaut on LFR i only managed to do 260k? Where as previously i could do about 300k.
What im basically doing is getting 4 stacks of arcane charges. then doing AM AB AM AB and then AM AB as much as i can depending on procs. What i noticed though is sometimes im standing in the 80-90% mana zone for a fucking long time, cant imagine that being beneficial considering mastery levels now a days. Is there a certain % of mana where you just barrage and reset the whole rotation kinda thing?
Should i go Frost or Fire? My gear was based around arcane BiS so idk how good it will be.
Should i just stick with arcane and hope for improvements when i get my 4 set?
Or is arcane just gonna be this level of dps now.

Any constructive criticism is welcome (Sorry i cant provide logs)

[Akraen]

Frost is crazy good and only requires 2pc t16. Any combination of stats works. Very easy to settle into if you enjoy it.

[D3athsting]

Frost is very nice but...
4PC bonus is just terrible for frost!!! i'm talking about 1.2% of total dmg, LOL!!!!

[Akraen]

Yeah that's why frost is great. Able to use items from early heroics.

[Frostyspeed]

Yeah ive gone into frost right now, and im seeing an instant dps increase, and im in the same reforges as arcane. 9762 haste > mastery > haste > crit. Same trinkets as arcane, no idea what im doing except im smashing lit up buttons and using FFB -> Ice Lance if they both proc.

[xiaozhi40]

acutally， i think they slightly buffed frost 4 peice.
When I was testing on dummy it did 2.8% of my total dmg and I can tell it's proc-ing more than before.
What about you guys?

[buffmageslol]

Especially for single target, frost is really good. Ive tried switching over from arcane (have 4pc t16) with exact same stats + mage armor and frost performs really really good. usually better than arcane, actually. water ele and icicles usually is the majority of my damage. the burst isnt as high for the opener, but definitely maintains the top end of your dps consistent throughout the fight without the drastic peaks and valleys of burst.

for your question though, ive been hovering between 85-95% mana with procs and weaving AM/AB and use mana gem when available to spam 4-5 AB's in a row at 90%+, then a few more to drop mana to 75% before clearing and starting over again. if u can fish for procs w/ magebomb its pretty much best to not even clear stacks though IMO if u can stay above 80% mana.

[Mastamage]

Especially for single target, frost is really good. Ive tried switching over from arcane (have 4pc t16) with exact same stats + mage armor and frost performs really really good.

Frost Armor (7% Haste) is better than Mage Armor (3k Mastery rating) for Frost.

[Mejn]

Idk yet. Gona go for tier 16 4 set and then see difference. But tonight after raids it's gona be more clear anyway.

[Abhorsen]

So I just swapped from Arcane to Fire (got T16 4P) and was wondering, is Frost actually better? I know it's simming higher currently but how does that translate into actual damage?

[Henzington]

If you go by what people are doing in public raid logs no frost is not better then fire or arcane.

[Pyromelter]

If you go by what people are doing in public raid logs no frost is not better then fire or arcane.

This is an issue I've never seen discussed. I would have had a top 20 rank on Siegecrafter the first week SoO came out, but our guild logs were not public, so no ranking for me. I know at that time comparing my own logs with my gear level at the time, I was certainly competitive with higher geared arcane mages that were publicly logged.

I wouldn't be surprised if frost and fire were in reality higher than that what is being posted publicly.

[voltaa]

I wouldn't be surprised if frost and fire were in reality higher than that what is being posted publicly.

Fire, maybe, frost, not so much, not a lot of guilds outside of the top 100/guilds going for server firsts will log privately, along with this, not a lot of mages in the top 100 are playing frost, it is mostly arcane and fire.

I would guess that frost would be the most accurate when it comes to public logs.

[Libretto]

Over a night of heroic blackfuse pulls and various tests, the 4pc is giving me between 1.6-1.8% damage averaged out. This is acceptable for a 4pc bonus and makes it worth using over WF offpieces IMO. Primarily, the issue with WF offpieces as frost is that many of the ones off earlier easier bosses are loaded with hit. This hit is worthless because there's so much of it on most gear that you can't get rid of enough of it. There are only two haste+mastery offpieces - Immerseus helm and Juggernaut legs. Both are sought after by warlocks/priests. All the rest have either crit, or hit, both of which are incredibly awful compared to their tier counterparts.

In a perfect world you could get the helm / legs, and nazgrim shoulders, leaving you the tier chest and gloves which are fairly easy to get. If you somehow manage to get lucky enough to get these five heroic pieces, three being warforged, then you may see a tiny DPS increase, but I don't really think so - and consider that these offpieces all have -blue- sockets requiring more worthless hit gems to get their desireable socket bonuses.

Ironically, the 2pc and 4pc bonuses favor haste stacking frost over mastery, the 4pc more so as its damage doesn't scale with mastery whereas the 2pc's proc generally does if used on icicle generating abilities.

I'm having little difficulty stomping meters this tier as frost in a top 30ish environment, so outside of spoils, sha and protectors I've stuck to it for progression. Fire will outscale it dramatically in better gear, but by the time I have that gear progression will be over so who cares.

[Akraen]

Fire, maybe, frost, not so much, not a lot of guilds outside of the top 100/guilds going for server firsts will log privately, along with this, not a lot of mages in the top 100 are playing frost, it is mostly arcane and fire.

I would guess that frost would be the most accurate when it comes to public logs.

As long as you allow for the possibility that the benefits of frost are potentially unseen. Analyze crawler mines, tidal shaman, other target switching, add DPS. Check what damage is in on what targets at what times. Frost is doing amazing at that sort of thing.

And if the top mages are not playing frost, leaving all the work to Dewgong, Pete, Kuni, and I, then of course frost is going to be lower. Have them switch to frost.

[Deleted]

As long as you allow for the possibility that the benefits of frost are potentially unseen. Analyze crawler mines, tidal shaman, other target switching, add DPS. Check what damage is in on what targets at what times. Frost is doing amazing at that sort of thing.

And if the top mages are not playing frost, leaving all the work to Dewgong, Pete, Kuni, and I, then of course frost is going to be lower. Have them switch to frost.

Agreed. In my opinion, frost is much better than expected or accepted from the majority, but nobody wants to try it. But I don't know the reason behind this. Can't even explain why I did not try it yet. Maybe I'm too lazy to regem and get "frosT"gear as a fire mage with much crit.

[Negishi1979]

I think I read somewhere that Arcane > Fire > Frost atm.

[Akraen]

I think I read somewhere that Arcane > Fire > Frost atm.

OMG then it must be true!!! Let's just have one spec already, I'm tired of this.

[Deleted]

There are only two haste+mastery offpieces - Immerseus helm and Juggernaut legs. Both are sought after by warlocks/priests. All the rest have either crit, or hit, both of which are incredibly awful compared to their tier counterparts.

Immerseus is crit+mastery. Garrosh got the mastery/haste helm, kind of useless progression wise i guess, unless the normal wf garrosh helm is still better than hc wf immerseus helm cause of stat weights?

[Libretto]

Oh, I got the helms mixed up in the list because they both have the same model. Normal WF won't ever be better than heroic WF via stat weights due to the rather large int difference alone.

In the first eight you have:

Immerseus: Crit mastery helm w/blue socket (tier helm is loaded with tons of haste, even at 561 it has loads)
Protectors: Hit mastery shoulders w/double blue socket (tier also has haste and red sockets)
Protectors: Hit haste robes with skittles sockets, this piece is arguably better than the tier, but the heroic tier is off a relatively easy boss and you definitely want the 2pc at least
Norushen: Crit hit gloves - terrible especially with them balanced towards hit, red blue sockets. Tier gloves again have haste, double red sockets, and are off heroic Nazgrim which is usually killed in under 10 progression pulls.
Norushen: Crit mastery shoulders with red blue sockets - this piece is not horrific but again, crit.
Galakras: Hit haste helm yellow socket - if you can use the hit this is a good offpiece. If coming from ToT gear it's unlikely you can use all of the hit, and tier is also loaded with haste.
Juggernaut: Haste mastery legs double blue socket. This offpiece is definitely better than the tier despite the crappy socket colors especially since heroic tier is unavailable till paragons.
Nazgrim: Hit haste shoulders, blue yellow sockets. Weighted towards haste, so a decent offpiece.

So there's only two really decently itemized pieces in the first eight bosses. Certainly using heroic WF offpieces will trump normal tier in those slots, but not heroic tier, once you can fill the slots with heroic tier the 4pc is worth getting, though it's not amazing. Given the rarity of WF drops in 10-man (or even 25, our 25 has only seen a couple total through progression) I think the difference between tier and WF in all but the legs/chest slots is a wash.