Quick Questions about Arcane

[Xirrohon]

Came back after a month long break and am looking to tighten up my gameplay. I have a few things that Ive been wondering about.

1. Glyph of Loose Mana. Is this really a small DPS increase and how many of you use it?

2. Rolling Arc Missles at 4 stack. Do you do this until 90% mana, 80% mana? Ive seen different advice on this. Also, is it really better than just using Barrage?

3. 2p vs 4p. Which is really the better way to go?

[Foolosophy]

1. It sure is! Especially with Alter time. You practically get 2 mana gems then.

2. I quit at around 80% mana.

3. I use 2p at the moment and like it so far. It has been stated that 4p is more of a RNG option. Good RNG = better dps. 2p + 3 off pieces HC would be better than 4p normal btw.

[Deleted]

1. This

1. It sure is! Especially with Alter time. You practically get 2 mana gems then.

Also why is good - because you get the 45k mana over 5 seconds(Nether attunement will lower the time in witch you iwll get the amount) + your own mana rege witch should be around 35k+ every 4 seconds - witch will result in higher, in my opinion, amount of mana - like roughly 80k+ over the course of 5 seconds witch might also allow you more AB casts before starting to conserve

2. Arcane missles is your highest dps ability as arcane mage when used on 4 stacks. I personaly use this everytime i got it, but due 2p and 4p sometimes result in camping on max mana, witch i am not sure if its beneficial - on one side you cast max dmg arcane missles due mastery, but on the other side you waste mana regen (something like hunter situation where caped focus is also wasted dps).

3. Its all about gameplay style. 2p ofc is a must. 4p onthe other hand as Follsophy said its very rng based(10% chance for proc), however its very fun when you just stream a wave of missles toward your target and it also help you to regen mana. Example you are on 70% mana, you got 4 stacks and 2 charges of missles - you cast the missles and you get a proc to cast 3rd wave of missles - that is 6 seconds of casting without losing mana so you will generate around 55k mana (witch is not little) and also your next arcane blast is reduced by 75% witch might allow you to cast one more AB (1,4 cast time) so before you discharge witch arcane barrage you might end up on max mana. This will allow you to camp around 80-85% mana witch no problems and even spam some extra ABs and if RNG gods are merciful ... well ... screw that explanation. 4p is the fun element here. If you dont need it that much your your are trying ot minmax go 2p with 3hcwf pieces. Its all about you. Rng can be a bitch or a blessing - thats all i can say about 4p :P

[voltaa]

2. Arcane missles is your highest dps ability as arcane mage when used on 4 stacks. I personaly use this everytime i got it, but due 2p and 4p sometimes result in camping on max mana, witch i am not sure if its beneficial - on one side you cast max dmg arcane missles due mastery, but on the other side you waste mana regen (something like hunter situation where caped focus is also wasted dps).

This isn't the case, I had to explain this to a DK friend of mine who would spam away mana at max stacks to not mana cap on his way back up to 4 charges. We don't lose dps by mana capping, we gain dps from it. Where hunters for example use their filler to build focus and their hard hitters cost focus, it makes sense for them to not focus cap, also due to the fact that whether they have 30 focus or 120 focus, arcane shot hits for the same damage. Our mana is almost the opposite of focus where we want to stay as close to capped as we can, missiles cast at mana cap do 100% of your mastery, so if you had say 100% or so mastery, they are doing double the damage. Also our bombs snapshot our mastery, so being able to dot things up at 100% mana means those bombs will do 100% of our mastery for their duration, regardless of our mana % during.

tl:dr mana capping isn't a thing

[Methusula]

This isn't the case, I had to explain this to a DK friend of mine who would spam away mana at max stacks to not mana cap on his way back up to 4 charges. We don't lose dps by mana capping, we gain dps from it. Where hunters for example use their filler to build focus and their hard hitters cost focus, it makes sense for them to not focus cap, also due to the fact that whether they have 30 focus or 120 focus, arcane shot hits for the same damage. Our mana is almost the opposite of focus where we want to stay as close to capped as we can, missiles cast at mana cap do 100% of your mastery, so if you had say 100% or so mastery, they are doing double the damage. Also our bombs snapshot our mastery, so being able to dot things up at 100% mana means those bombs will do 100% of our mastery for their duration, regardless of our mana % during.

tl:dr mana capping isn't a thing

I was going to say the same thing.

People tend to still have the mentality of Wrath and Cata Arcane where this was he case. Since Arcane Blast has moved way down the DPET and DPM chart, and then further exacerbated by the bomb buff in 5.2, capping mana is not an issue so long as you are following proper priority and rotation.