Arcane Mage PVP stats question

[Groznyj]

So I just switched to Arcane from Frost for PVP. I'm still getting used to the spec and I have a few questions about properly manipulating my stats. I've read that ideally Arcane mages want to be stacking haste right now for faster Arcane Explosions, but it seems that if I want to, say, reforge my stats for haste, I'll be sacrificing a lot of crit (and we all know how devastating those AE crits can be).

Basically, I'd like to know what my ideal crit / haste ratings should be. Also, should I even bother with mastery for Arcane? Any and all insights are welcome.

[kharyll]

I assume that you ask this question for level 80.

I would go with crit instead of haste, because arcane has fewer kiting skills than frost. It has the mighty Slow (which will make frostbolt useless) and improved blink. On the other hand you will lose your pet's freeze, more frequent frost novas and freezing cone of cold. In total you will gain some distancing abilities but the number of options for rooting an enemy in place will be reduced to 1, a less frequent frost nova. Therefore don't expect to stand there and keep casting several 2.35 second arcane blasts in a row unless your enemy is busy fighting another ally of yours, even if your cast time was 15% faster. It sounds like it would be logical to stack more haste as you will won't have as much time for casting, but if you crit more often in the fewer chances of cast you have, you will increase your efficiency.

Another argument for not stacking haste would be Presence of Mind. One use of Presence of Mind in combination with a long cast time spell like polymorph or arcane blast will make you gain more time than several very fast casts.

The only spell that you would regret not being able to cast faster will be Polymorph. but again, we have presence of mind which enable you to sheep the enemy even when running.

As for mastery, I am still not sure. I am going to play with it in future when we have more ways of increasing it rather than just reforging.

My philosophy is that if 15% faster casts at the expense of harder hitting spells is making the difference for you, then you don't kite and trick your opponent well enough. I am not an elitist jerk whatsoever, I don't make long calculations. What I just told is my playstyle, but may not be compatible with someone else's. But it may provide an idea.

[rtjason]

So I just switched to Arcane from Frost for PVP. I'm still getting used to the spec and I have a few questions about properly manipulating my stats. I've read that ideally Arcane mages want to be stacking haste right now for faster Arcane Explosions, but it seems that if I want to, say, reforge my stats for haste, I'll be sacrificing a lot of crit (and we all know how devastating those AE crits can be).

Basically, I'd like to know what my ideal crit / haste ratings should be. Also, should I even bother with mastery for Arcane? Any and all insights are welcome.

Haste>crit. Mastery for arcane is really good atm because you never oom. I was assuming you meant arcane blast instead of explosion. Haste benefits a lot of different things vs crit such as gcd, cc cast times. I played arcane occasionally prior to the patch (if we got a lot of rmps with frost mages etc) and it was fun but I stacked around 1k haste, pretty much the same gear as frost at that time. I used full wrathful + haste weapon then and found that to be the most fun. Fire is way more fun than arcane atm tho imo. It's really just playstyle, but with the resilience changes I don't see any reason to bring crit as arcane, especially since you can get your cast times to around 1.5 seconds when stacking arcane blast. Another thing, with those long cast times, you can juke all you want but a good class with an interrupt is going to completely mitigate your damage.

[Junk]

I'm currently struggling with the same question. I'm currently reforged to crit, and unbuffed - I carry 22.8% crit chance. All my gems are intellect, as that gives me the most spell power. I've been debating on reforging to haste recently to combat warriors + DKs + Enh Shamans with their seemingly endless stuns and interrupts. Mind you, if I can get away with hiding in a bush, it's lights out for anyone not aware of my presence. (Talking RBG/BG...I hate arena!)
Without any procs, my standard cast time on Arcane Blast is 1.9 seconds on the first cast. That's a painfully slow cast time if you're in a one on one battle with a closing target. However...the high crit % is super inviting on procs when I've seen it reach just shy of 40%!! When your Arcane Blast is critting for close to 100k every other cast, it's really hard to want to change your crit to haste.
Anyhow, here's my armory link at present... http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...whelmed/simple
And here's a little sampling of the numbers I often see while free casting in both BG/RBGs... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkhY2...el_video_title

I may make a switch to haste late this week and will post my results.

[Slickx]

I'm currently struggling with the same question. I'm currently reforged to crit, and unbuffed - I carry 22.8% crit chance. All my gems are intellect, as that gives me the most spell power. I've been debating on reforging to haste recently to combat warriors + DKs + Enh Shamans with their seemingly endless stuns and interrupts. Mind you, if I can get away with hiding in a bush, it's lights out for anyone not aware of my presence. (Talking RBG/BG...I hate arena!)
Without any procs, my standard cast time on Arcane Blast is 1.9 seconds on the first cast. That's a painfully slow cast time if you're in a one on one battle with a closing target. However...the high crit % is super inviting on procs when I've seen it reach just shy of 40%!! When your Arcane Blast is critting for close to 100k every other cast, it's really hard to want to change your crit to haste.
Anyhow, here's my armory link at present... http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...whelmed/simple
And here's a little sampling of the numbers I often see while free casting in both BG/RBGs... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkhY2...el_video_title

I may make a switch to haste late this week and will post my results.

You're playing arcane with 2500 resil, obviously you are going to get huge numbers when not focused. However any good rbg team will sit on you the whole game and you won't be able to get any casts off.