Arcane Questions.

[Deleted]

Hi there, I have a few questions about arcane mage:

1) What is the stat weight for arcane?

2) Is there a haste-cap and where is it?


thanks =)

[Deleted]

1) haste
2) yes

[Deleted]

anyone with informations with a little more content...?

[Slaytanicus]

There's not much good data about arcane because everyone seems to be playing fire. Most arguments I've seen say:

Int > hit to cap > haste = Mastery > Crit

I am still leveling my mage so by no means should be considered an expert, but if I get unlucky and miss twice in a row, I lose my ABx4 stacks, so I'd say hit to cap should be 1st. With int, you get mana, spell power, and spell crit so that would be my second stat. I think that haste, mastery, and crit are going to depend on your play style. I personally think that as long as our mastery doesn't change, it would gain value as to how much int you have. In my mind, again untested, the ranking would be:

Hit to cap > Int > Mastery > Crit > Haste

There will surely be alot of pushback on this because I don't use math or sims to back up my hypothesis and haven't even had a chance yet to try it myself and because alot of people are still under the WOTLK mindset that the entire rotation for arcane is: Arcane Blast until the boss is dead, where yeah, haste makes sense there.

[Deleted]

Hit to cap > Int > Mastery > Crit > Haste

This seems logical, like you I haven't seen a definate stat priority for arcane, but as arcane is about saving mana I think haste is the least of your worries. I would focus on getting hit capped, then gem for intellect and reforge all haste into either crit or mastery.

Edit: Just want to add: Arcane? Really? Reaaally? :/

[Tirsten]

I am still leveling my mage

I don't use math or sims to back up my hypothesis and haven't even had a chance yet to try it myself

These credentials are appropriate, maybe even above average, for this forum.

[Deleted]

I went for a trawl through the EJ forums and found this:

"The exact order for arcane depends on your specific gear. But for example with BiS Preraid blue gear and BiS ilvl 359 epic gear, here are the scaling factors as given by the latest version of simcraft:

Mage_Arcane_PreRaid
Int=2.6264
SP=1.7866
Hit=1.7285
Haste=1.1002
Mastery=0.9731
Crit=0.7354

Mage_Arcane_T11_359
Int=3.3041
Hit=2.3307
SP=2.0266
Mastery=1.0926
Haste=1.0355
Crit=0.9130"

Even with haste being bad for mana conservation, it's strange to see it being better than the other secondaries (for the most part) by so much still.

As for the haste cap, it's not exactly a cap, per-say; it was predicted very early on in the same thread that mastery would start to over-take haste at ~20%, however, that was before the changes that were made to Arcane Blast, so this may not be true to a precise number.

There's very little to go on after that on the theory crafting side of it; it appears most people have just given up on it because of it being the 'lame horse' of the three mage specs for raiding. Fire has superb mobility, average single target DPS, superb AoE dps; Frost has average mobility, good single-target DPS, and good burst; Arcane has very poor mobility, average single-target DPS, however superb burst.

I'd really advise against pursuing Arcane at this stage if you're looking for competitive DPS; that 3% damage increase isn't worth it in a 10man raid for the amount of damage the raid as a whole will be losing from your damage, and in a 25man raid, you're more likely to have a retribution paladin or a BM hunter on-hand, which provide the same damage increase, with less of an impact on overall damage.

[Seefourdc]

The best thing to do with arcane spec right now is select a different spec until they fix arcane spec.

[Deleted]

after thinking a little about it, I considerhaste being the worst stat to accumulate. As somle said, it's because of 'blowing too much little blobs out in x time' while arcane should be 'blowing a good amount of big blobs out in given time'

also the more mastery you have, the less haste you want, right?

after all, reforging haste into crit and leaving mastery as it is on the gear would be wise no? (assuming that hitcap is reached already)

[Toasted]

Arcane is in pretty poor shape at the moment, but haste is bottom of your prioritys for the moment for sure.
I was arcane through Wrath until ICC hardmodes when I turned fire, you still have to watch your mana as fire, almost as much as arcane but it doesnt gimp your dps if it falls low.

As many people will suggest, I would say to at least attempt another spec til blizz give arcane a look over

[whisperingsage]

Haste is far above crit for Arcane. Int > hit to cap > Mastery~Haste > Crit is probably the best rough guide. There is no "softcap" for haste, as Arcane has no dots to add an additional tick to, and hitting the hardcap is impossible at this point in time.

In Pre-Raid Blues (~346), Haste comes ahead of Mastery, as fights are shorter in heroics, and as such more of the fight ends up being burn phase, where haste is more beneficial. As well, in Pre-Raid gear, you aren't likely to get to a haste level that will push you above the "conserve rotation" of ABX2-AM/ABarr (mana neutral), causing haste to be valued a little higher.

In Tier 11 (~359), Haste drops to just below Mastery, because of longer fights, meaning more time spent in the conserve phase, where the higher mana level and mana neutral rotation benefit more from Mastery. Note that Haste is still a good stat, as it adds dps to the burn rotation.

Crit is always the bottom stat, and the stat you should reforge away.

Sources:
http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t106141-...pdated_4_01_a/
http://manoutoftime.org/misc/sc403/m...346/basic.html
http://manoutoftime.org/misc/sc403/m...359/basic.html