WoD Arcane Guide *not updated for 6.2*

[trystero]

Could someone offer advice on our arcane mage please? https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...t=22&source=22

I'm unsure how to look at logs for arcane. I can see his prismatic crystal use is poor. Apart from that, when I compare him to other parses of mages with similar gear, his arcane blasts are hitting for an average of 25% less and hes casting less on fights of similar length. Is he sitting on less than 4 charges for too long? How would I even see this? :P

Any advice would be appreciated.

Something to monitor for Arcane is mana usage under resources.

You want a graph like Voltaa's, which reflects an effective burn/conserve phase:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...24true%2412051

Your mage's, on the other hand:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...24true%2412051

The lines in the graphs are evo casts. Your mage is butchering burn/conserve badly.

EDIT: For a mage you also want to look in the event log. For Arrexis, he doesn't seem to understand how to play the spec at all. For example he casts PC without Arcane Power ~10s into the fight AFTER having cast Supernova x2. That's backwards. Then he is casting Arcane Barrage 24s into the fight. What he should be doing is getting to 4 charges, using PC, Supernova into it, and then burn down to ~50% mana and Evocate back up. It's standard to use AP right after Crystal, but some players use it on the pull with much success.

[Deleted]

Hello mage friends, I have been playing mage as my "main alt" only since WoD and I'm hoping to clear up a few things in my mind now that I'm trying to properly push numbers as Arcane. Here goes!

Is there any good or bad way to use presence of mind? I'm currently usually using it to sneak an extra blast in on my crystal when possible.

Just how beneficial is the burn phase? And moreover, is burning down to 50%(or some other number!) mana important?
Mainly I ask this because you would seemingly get more out of the 2set if you evocate early enough that it is stacked with the end of Time Warp.

Do you burn the same (to the same % mana) after every crystal? It seems to me outside of TW my mana just doesn't drop that quickly; at what % mana during burn do you hold onto missiles charges?

And finally one question that is at least partly cynical: what on Draenor do you do on the pull on fights without instant TW? Race change Troll?

[Deleted]

All your questions were discussed/answered in previous posts on this thread... however

"Is there any good or bad way to use presence of mind? I'm currently usually using it to sneak an extra blast in on my crystal when possible." - that is the right way to use it. Not doing so is the wrong way to use it. Reason - the cooldown of PoM allow you to use for the PC regardles if you use the glyph or not. P.S. if you use the glyph make sure you use every 2nd PoM right when it comes off cooldown.

"Just how beneficial is the burn phase? And moreover, is burning down to 50%(or some other number!) mana important?
Mainly I ask this because you would seemingly get more out of the 2set if you evocate early enough that it is stacked with the end of Time Warp." - you can check post #102 of this thread for more detailed information and also this - http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1146

"Do you burn the same (to the same % mana) after every crystal? It seems to me outside of TW my mana just doesn't drop that quickly; at what % mana during burn do you hold onto missiles charges?" - once you reach 70% mana you start spamming AB and ignore AM until you reach 50% so you can do the "burn" properly and not waste time and i think somewhere in altered-time.com there is explanation on the topic in the arcane section (cba to serach it now, sorry)

"And finally one question that is at least partly cynical: what on Draenor do you do on the pull on fights without instant TW? Race change Troll?" - you should be doing what you do regardless of TW used straight on pull or not. You will just do it 30% slower. And race change to troll?!? Are you trollin' mon?!?

[Nikkej]

Just reached 100 -

Got a few questions;

What BoE;s / trinkets is worth to spend the cash on? I am more or less unlimited on gold at this stage, but just spend for the spendings sake.

[denzildk]

once you reach 70% mana you start spamming AB and ignore AM until you reach 50% so you can do the "burn" properly and not waste time and i think somewhere in altered-time.com there is explanation on the topic in the arcane section (cba to serach it now, sorry)

so when getting out of evo, should i then cast AM (if i have 3 stacks) or ABlast (with 2-set), and how many AM stacks is acceptable to have left before i fire off my orb if i have that talent?

[Deleted]

Not sure on the matter. I am not sure how optimal or dps waste is, but this is what i do in the case of having 3 AM charges before evo - i cast 2 more blast to dip around 40% and then i spam all the AM charges and evo. I think, due 2p bonus, its not good to have 2 or 3 stacks of AM when you finish Evocation, because the general idea is to cast as much ABs as possible within those 15 seconds AND if by some RNG you happened to get 3 stacks of AMs during that duration weave in 1 or 2 AMs.

On the question about orb - the answer is "too damn simple" - None.
Of course that depends how (or on what) you use it. If you use it for single target i could say - max one. But if it is for 2 or more targets - none. Just a simple example is Beast lord "Call of the pack" - one orb into the adds and you can get a lot more than 3 AM charges, shame that you can only hold up to 3 at a time

[denzildk]

i onely use orb on blackhand due to no movement coordination in my raid group, so i can't use crystal Q_Q or even rune.

Can a missile proc from casting the orb, or is it onely once per hit? (as you say max 1 stack on 1 target i assume it can proc from the cast itself)
so the "math" would be like |max stacks before casting=2-(1*target's hit)| mathy math, besicly just waht i wrote above in math.

thanks for the quick response XD

[Komman]

AM can indeed proc from the AO cast itself.

[Marolen]

so i start my next cast before procs pop. so lets say i'm casting AB and when it hits it procs a 3rd stack of AM. However I'm already casting another AB before the proc pops so I can potentially waste a proc if a '4th' stack procs on that AB.

Any way around this?

[nickseng]

so i start my next cast before procs pop. so lets say i'm casting AB and when it hits it procs a 3rd stack of AM. However I'm already casting another AB before the proc pops so I can potentially waste a proc if a '4th' stack procs on that AB.

Any way around this?

Only way I can think of beside stopcasting (which is bad), is to cast AM at 2 stacks.

[Invrlose]

Im guessing for tier I don't want the legs right? Maiden legs are better im assuming

[Deleted]

Advice - don't assume too much. This game of math (as any other game ofc)
Here is the right algorithm of "assuming" in present WoW:
1. Find the "bad" items - The "bad" items in this tier are the hands, that give give crit/haste, and the legs, that give crit/multistrike. The hc hands give 150 crit and 122 haste and the hc legs give 163 crit and 199 multistrike.
2. Find the "better" items - the arcane offpieces in BRF for the according slots are from Gruul and Iron Maidens. They give as it goes:
- gruul hands - 126 haste and 148 mastery
- maidens legs - 194 crit and 178 mastery
3. Do the math yourself:
- with tier hands and maidens legs you will get 344 crit, 122 haste amd 178 mastery.
- with gruul hands and tier legs you will get 126 haste, 148 mastery, 199 multistrike and 163 crit.
4. Check your stats ranking and see what will be your most beneficial combination.

As you probably know crit is arcane's "worse" stat, so i think you see what combination will be better right?


P.S. see i didn't assumed anything. Just a bit hard cold math :P

[Deleted]

hey shangalar first of all great guide.After the burn phace you have to reset your stacks at 93% mana you sure about that ?i used to know that you have to reset at around 85% just asking..what you think you pull max dps if you reset all time at 93%?

[Wilderness]

Advice - don't assume too much. This game of math (as any other game ofc)
Here is the right algorithm of "assuming" in present WoW:
1. Find the "bad" items - The "bad" items in this tier are the hands, that give give crit/haste, and the legs, that give crit/multistrike. The hc hands give 150 crit and 122 haste and the hc legs give 163 crit and 199 multistrike.
2. Find the "better" items - the arcane offpieces in BRF for the according slots are from Gruul and Iron Maidens. They give as it goes:
- gruul hands - 126 haste and 148 mastery
- maidens legs - 194 crit and 178 mastery
3. Do the math yourself:
- with tier hands and maidens legs you will get 344 crit, 122 haste amd 178 mastery.
- with gruul hands and tier legs you will get 126 haste, 148 mastery, 199 multistrike and 163 crit.
4. Check your stats ranking and see what will be your most beneficial combination.

As you probably know crit is arcane's "worse" stat, so i think you see what combination will be better right?


P.S. see i didn't assumed anything. Just a bit hard cold math :P

Doing the math is always a good idea, although crit (in BiS gear at least) is ahead of haste btw. In a perfect world, the maidens legs are the best off-set piece. But the gloves are rather close, so I’d just go with whatever you have access to first. If the Maidens legs haven’t dropped for you but the gloves have, then use them – especially if you get wf or a gem since that pushes them past the regular Maidens legs.

You should also take into account how available all this gear will be – If you use the Maidens legs then that means you need the tier gloves and the off-set legs from Maidens. Maidens is generally one of the later bosses killed, so during progression you’ll have access to the off-set gloves earlier.

The general idea for gear this tier should be: Get 4-set asap, on whatever level of difficulty you can. Then sort it out based on what tier you have and what other drops you get.

[Komman]

Doing the math is always a good idea, although crit (in BiS gear at least) is ahead of haste btw. In a perfect world, the maidens legs are the best off-set piece. But the gloves are rather close, so I’d just go with whatever you have access to first. If the Maidens legs haven’t dropped for you but the gloves have, then use them – especially if you get wf or a gem since that pushes them past the regular Maidens legs.

I remember being asked this question, regarding whether Oregorger gloves or Maidens legs were better for Arcane. I ran a low target-error sim, and found that they were only ~6.0 DPS apart on an error with ~10.0 DPS error bars. I ran another sim for multitarget with NT-AO, and this time found that they were ~2.0 DPS apart on ~8.0 DPS error bars. I think it's safe to say that they're equal for Arcane!

That said, Maidens legs are better for Fire. You might want to take that into account.

(Default sim profile uses Oregorger gloves since it doesn't matter. I like the gear variety.)

[Deleted]

anyone else feel like arcane is boring as shit without alter time? MoP alter time that is..

[Ozeeel]

While channeling AM, should I wait for it to finish or I can cast another channel when GCD ends? Do they stack or something? I think I saw more ticks on castbar, but I don't know for sure

[Wilderness]

While channeling AM, should I wait for it to finish or I can cast another channel when GCD ends? Do they stack or something? I think I saw more ticks on castbar, but I don't know for sure

No, they don't stack. If you have the T17 4-set bonus you get 10 missiles/ticks instead of 5.

[Deleted]

Following AM with another AM should fall under Pandemic. So you dont loose a Missile. Casting AB after AM could ofc clip a missile if cast to early.
->http://altered-time.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1570
Should you really be worried about clipping u could use a nochanneling macro. But depending on your latency this will be a dps-los

[Not Againnn]

I'm having issues determining what to do on 2-4 targets. I can't always take Arcane Orb and NT so I am often stuck with crystal and supernova. Do I just Barrage at 4 stacks and ignore missile procs?