Arcane Legion Megathread

[Shangalar]

Dear everyone,

this time around we did not have dedicated guide writers so I am creating this thread to post links to useful guides for Arcane mages. If someone is interested in writing an Arcane guide for this forum, let me know in a private message and we'll talk about it. I will probably write an Arcane guide soon, but can't give an accurate time frame.

Use this thread to ask Arcane-specific questions and to talk about the spec in general. Use the guides posted to find out the information you need. Ping me if you find another good guide that you think should be linked here too (including good Youtube guides).

Simulation data: https://www.altered-time.com/forum/v...php?f=3&t=2618
Icy Veins guide (by Furty from Serenity): http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/arcane-mage-pve-dps-guide

[Shangalar]

I've run my character through the default profile and the NTspam profile, and for my current gear/artifact/stats set, I got 239k with the default profile (stat prio Vers = Crit > Mastery > Haste), and 271k with the NTspam profile (stat prio Vers > Mastery = Crit > Haste). My item level is only 844 as I was quite slow into the expansion, had to finish college yay. At 28, less yay.

My conclusion is that I might have too much Haste baseline at the moment and should get a bit more of other stats. The difference is at the same time huge and quite interesting. I'll test it again in a few days after I get some more gear with various stats.

For now it seems that the old/new NTspam, even with the fix to Quickening, is still the way to go, it just doesn't go to absurd levels anymore.

The two simcraft profiles have 840 item level and a weapon that's similar to mine, but it has all 3 MissilesProcChance relics. If I put that weapon into the sim, my dps goes up by a few k. I am going to guess that the disparity between the two sims in my personal case is because of how wacky my stats are (and how sub-optimal my trinkets are among other things) so the NTspam is more heavily preferred. I'm not really concluding anything innovative here, just reporting.

The best thing for each individual player, as always, would be to simulate their own characters to see what's best for them.

[Deleted]

When playing normal Arcane rotation (not NTspam) when should I drop the Arcane Charges in conserve phase? Is there some general guideline I can follow or is it just trial and error until I get a good feeling for it?

[Shangalar]

When playing normal Arcane rotation (not NTspam) when should I drop the Arcane Charges in conserve phase? Is there some general guideline I can follow or is it just trial and error until I get a good feeling for it?

The ultimate goal (for both gameplays) is to have enough mana to do a full burn phase (and drop to 0 mana just at the end of it) when Power comes off cooldown and for Evocation to be ready at that time. This is something that will be individual based on Mastery and Haste levels, and luck with Missiles procs (which you should save just before you'll use Power again). There's not much you can do except test it until you figure out a point at which you'll be able to pull it off. Until then, it's usually just get to 4 Charges, use any Missiles you got, use Barrage, repeat until Power comes off cooldown and Evocation is soon to follow. If you feel like you're running too low on mana, then get to 3 Charges only until some mana regenerates, but that's rather suboptimal.

[Deleted]

So I decided to run a sim with stat weights for the "default" t19p profile of an Arcane Mage. The results were this:



Which is quite unsynchronized with what the stats on the actual items are for that profile (high crit/haste/vers, basically no mastery).

Stat weights for my own gear (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...wrf/advanced):



Will continue playing around with this, changing the amount of Mastery and Haste (those are the only ones that really affect each other) around and see where I end up.

[Ponkster]

Ok so blizzard want every spec to be viable now.

Raids are one thing but mythic+ dungeons are a let down. Arcane is no better than fire on trash, has no AoE cc (supernova nerfs aoe big time) and the burst from fire on bosses means if you were specced fire the boss would be dead before you reach 20 quickening stacks.

Not even MENTIONING mana in dungeons. Aeqywnns ascendance is doing pitiful damage, it should be doing 50% of mana returned. This means we can evocate and icyflows/blink into a pack for solid damage. Its doing 350k for me at the moment. That's an arcane explosion with RoP up.

God help frost I hope they get the buffs they need, but ultimately fire; regardless of damage is far more versatile at the moment.

[Antonin]

So, after seeing a random thread on the boards complaining about a nerf to the AM proc rate from NT, I went and tested it myself. Out of 400 casts I got 5 procs...

Did some more testing and it seems that only the initial application (and legitimate refreshes where there is only a second or two on the dot), has a chance to proc now. Constant refreshes no longer can proc AM.

I won't be sure until we have updated sims, but I suspect this may make Erosion the go-to option in that tier for non-cleave fights.

[Skylarking]

I just noticed arcane power is down to 5 seconds. Was this in the hotfix notes?

[Shangalar]

So, after seeing a random thread on the boards complaining about a nerf to the AM proc rate from NT, I went and tested it myself. Out of 400 casts I got 5 procs...

Did some more testing and it seems that only the initial application (and legitimate refreshes where there is only a second or two on the dot), has a chance to proc now. Constant refreshes no longer can proc AM.

I won't be sure until we have updated sims, but I suspect this may make Erosion the go-to option in that tier for non-cleave fights.

Tested now on 200 casts, got Missiles 27/200 times, which is 13.5%. I have a 19% chance for Missiles (15% + 3% base weapon trait + 1% weapon relic). Statistically, the sample size is way too small, but since I usually have crappy RNG, let's call it ok for now. Hotfixes hit Europe in 2 hours so I'll test it again in the morning.

- - - Updated - - -

I just noticed arcane power is down to 5 seconds. Was this in the hotfix notes?

The duration is down to only 5 seconds? That doesn't make any sense from any standpoint. Since the in-game tooltips won't match the actual state of things until patch 7.1, can you make a video or something? Haven't read anything about it in other sources.

[Skylarking]

My bad... was looking at it in the pvp zones... honor talents meddle with everything! ><

[Nitros14]

Rumours of arcane's demise are greatly exaggerated. I actually did better on elerethe this week. Not as hilarious on Ursoc. Can still do 300k.

More relaxed to play now too.

[Gavran]

Is NT-spam playstyle still way to go? And how much is better compare to ''classic'' playstyle?

[Shangalar]

Is NT-spam playstyle still way to go? And how much is better compare to ''classic'' playstyle?

Still too early to tell unfortunately. We should get updated simulations (in terms of their action-priority lists, not only the final numbers) over the course of the next week. If NT didn't take an invisible hit to its chance to proc Missiles (and that's just a rumour that only a few people are talking about at this point), it's likely that it will still remain a good choice for raiding when possible.

After the Quickening fix, it seems (also not yet confirmed) that you can now do a burn phase, a conserve phase and another burn phase before you lose Quickening. Then you'll have a slower time moving on further in the encounter. So the essentials of the NT-spam gameplay haven't changed, just the fact that it resets after about 2 minutes because you reach the cap and have to start over. But let's be patient for a couple of more days and see. In the meantime, I suppose we'll also be seeing some raiding logs for both gameplays.

- - - Updated - - -

Rumours of arcane's demise are greatly exaggerated. I actually did better on elerethe this week. Not as hilarious on Ursoc. Can still do 300k.

More relaxed to play now too.

Mastery got buffed, along with Missiles and Blast. It would have been weird if you didn't do better in the raid in general, no matter the Quickening fix. :P

[Franktank]

Based on a post from Altered Time, are we back to stacking Crit/Mastery and ignoring Versa?

Just help yourself, Komma already posted the burst rotation. Here are some logs of arcane burst at pulls

600-800k burst is what a well geared fire mage gets, arcane is just a late bloomer because of the AC building and thats why it may seem as if his burst is low.

Post: https://www.altered-time.com/forum/v...tart=80#p25515

Log 1: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=9

Log 2: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

EDIT: Added quote and re-adjusted links

EDIT2: I don't know if it's forbidden to link to external forums, please correct if I'm wrong

[Antonin]

I mean, you can simply test NT yourself on a dummy. Spam NT on a single target and count procs and then alternate it between two targets and count procs. The difference is clear as day. Tested again this morning and got the same results.

[Skylarking]

Should i wait for the experienced mages to do their testing before dumping AP into my arcane artifact? Talking from a raiding PoV and all... and maybe mythic+.

[Ponkster]

As it stands with NT not giving procs unless in epidemic refresh. I see no reason to prioritize over fire.

[classic username]

Someone be so nice and tell me how low you wanna go on Mana before using Barrage ? in WoD if i remember it was like 93% ? im kinda confused atm

[Komman]

Someone be so nice and tell me how low you wanna go on Mana before using Barrage ? in WoD if i remember it was like 93% ? im kinda confused atm

There isn't a specific mana value you go for. You budget it against how much time is remaining on Evocation (or until the end of the fight).

[RyuuSaber]

I'm reading both Altered Time forums and MMO forums. I also simulate my own character profile and come to a conclusion that nether-spam still yields me the highest damage over the classic burn and conserve build. My question though is about the amount of stacks of quickening. While I understand that you can fit two burn phases within quickening, and that you should aim to second burn at around 30-35 stacks of quickening. Should you ABrr asap your RoP/AP is over to then start over with the new stack?

I also find myself extremley mana starved if evocation is not off CDs after 2nd burn phase. (Because im hibbi gibbi mini game maintain quickening stacks before 2nd burn at 30-35 quickening stacks). However there is also talk about this magic number of reaching 42% mastery to easen the mana regen when evocation is down? This is simply because despite I spam NT I hardly ever see AM proc, compared to pre-nerf.

---

I also read the wow forums and found a post by Uberleet regarding NT as a spell, which caught my attention.

We technically got nerfed. Although we got a +20% scaling buff to mastery it's still behind crit ST. A 10% increase to AB and 9% to AM and we still can't burst over mid-table. There was also stealth nerfs so that Nether tempest now has an internal cooldown and doesn't proc AM when it is already ticking.

Basically, Arcane was in a niche but poor place (due to NT-Q), so they buffed us slightly and nerfed us back to being worse than we were before.

We're in a really sorry state, and nothing will be done about it.

Source: http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/t...3563115#detail

This can also explain why I hardly see anymore AM proc'ing when spamming my fingers numb for AM proc.