So, trying to understand this so far

[Shampox]

From what I've been reading Arcane DPS is quite low compared to the others, but does anyone know how "factually" gear dependent all these specs are so far in Beta. Like, Frost seems to be fairly viable (on a dummy mind you) but is there really any margin for that to scale up well?

Just kind of curious where the specs are sitting now since I've only been on the Beta a few times at my friends place.

[chrion]

Raid testing hasnt started as far as I know, so its just shit stats with 333 blues in heroics. If you want to know the math on the scaling I suggest you try elistest jerks mage forums. There have nice threads started on each specc for cata.

[Deleted]

Arcane DPS is not that low on Beta. It's just boring like hell and has a lot of useless talents atm.

[Shampox]

Okay, thanks for the responses!

[Fujisaw]

Arcane DPS is not that low on Beta. It's just boring like hell and has a lot of useless talents atm.

like you still dont have to use Abarr bliz fails

[Swizzle]

like you still dont have to use Abarr bliz fails

Good luck doing DPS for more than 10 seconds without using abarr.

[Nitros14]

Arcane barrage as your clear is more DPS than arcane missiles I think. Just less mana efficient.

I've found the most success with opening with all cooldowns and just casting arcane blast to burn mana. Then evocating back to full and conserving until evocation is back up. Arcane Blast times three or four with arcane barrage as the debuff clear. Arcane missiles if something goes terribly wrong and I can't afford the mana.

Arcane has more to it than Fire to be honest. I find Fire exceedingly dull.

[Deleted]

I find Fire exceedingly dull.

Before Beta, i would laugh at you for that.
But, you're right in a way: Fire on a single target (aka Heroic Bosses) is not that fun.
And you can't always use your fire AoE madness because of the return of massive CC, it's a little weird actually.

[Manstallion]

As others have said, Arcane's dps isn't terrible, it's just not very fun to play and the mastery is awkward to say the least. It strikes me as very "mathy" which is sort of what Blizzard has been trying to move away from in this expansion. I think a better mastery would be something along the lines of increasing crit damage bonus.

[hoosierman5000]

I just took an arcane blast for 20K on the PTR with 33% dmg redcution from resilience, and another 12% from elemental warding. This was from a premade t9 char. That ends up being like 33k dmg from 1 attack. Yeah arcane dmg is just so low. It only 2 shots high resilience targets. I know it's such a pain to press 1, and then press 1 again and win.

[Swizzle]

I just took an arcane blast for 20K on the PTR with 33% dmg redcution from resilience, and another 12% from elemental warding. This was from a premade t9 char. That ends up being like 33k dmg from 1 attack. Yeah arcane dmg is just so low. It only 2 shots high resilience targets. I know it's such a pain to press 1, and then press 1 again and win.

Cause it will matter with arena turned off and no rated BGs, amirite?

[Scifix]

Cause it will matter with arena turned off and no rated BGs, amirite?

^ u r rite

[Agroculture]

I just took an arcane blast for 20K on the PTR with 33% dmg redcution from resilience, and another 12% from elemental warding. This was from a premade t9 char. That ends up being like 33k dmg from 1 attack. Yeah arcane dmg is just so low. It only 2 shots high resilience targets. I know it's such a pain to press 1, and then press 1 again and win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUOFV5TusE

[Unlii]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0&ob=av2n

Fixt

[chrion]

This is only the beginning, You guys ready for the weeks of MASSIVE QQQQQQQQQ about overpowered mages in 4.0 when this hits live? on The PTR the team with the better, or most mages wins right now. And its usually 4-6 mages per team in WSG.

[Agroculture]

Fixt

I'm trying to be classy with my flames.

[DEEPKVTS]

I just took an arcane blast for 20K on the PTR with 33% dmg redcution from resilience, and another 12% from elemental warding. This was from a premade t9 char. That ends up being like 33k dmg from 1 attack. Yeah arcane dmg is just so low. It only 2 shots high resilience targets. I know it's such a pain to press 1, and then press 1 again and win.

this is so super relevant to considering arcane dps at 85.

[chrion]

this is so super relevant to considering arcane dps at 85.

And you think thats gonna stop all the cries of "NERF ARCANE BLAST" during the period of 4.0 to beta?

[hoosierman5000]

you can link this dumbass shit with the cry movies all you want. Plain and simple, nobody is going to play this abortion of a patch as far as pvp goes with retards pressing 1 button twice and gibbing players. Not for 2 months, hell not for 2 hours.

[zephid]

And you think thats gonna stop all the cries of "NERF ARCANE BLAST" during the period of 4.0 to beta?

No of course not, but people will always complain about something. If it isn't arcane blast is gonna be something else.