Arcane, good dps but low damage done

[cFortyfive]

I'm going to assume this is all referring to normal modes.

Arcane is a truly horrible specc atm for most of the heroic encounters, there's simply too much movement to make it viable, or too many situations where AoE is a necessity.

At the moment it simply just isn't viable for the majority of the fights, with the exception of Chimaeron which for DPS ultimately boils to standing and nuking, occasionally moving to a designated area - rinse and repeat.

Even after the buffs, this is the ONLY encounter we currently do (7/13 HC atm) where I would consider switching from Fire.

EDIT: To the post above, simply by linking your own experience of a kill (where the DPS is pretty low in general) does not for a second mean it's a viable specc.

I think arcane does a great job on nefarian and sinestra as well. But overall fire is of course the dominant spec in the current tier.

[Eppsinic]

i have arcane os and fire os on my 354 mage, the only fight i do less on overall damage done is atramedes because of the air phase..., other than that arcane (on simulationcraft) does greater numbers over fire in a 1 hr fight in 372 gear.

[Alvito]

i have arcane os and fire os on my 354 mage, the only fight i do less on overall damage done is atramedes because of the air phase..., other than that arcane (on simulationcraft) does greater numbers over fire in a 1 hr fight in 372 gear.

Tons of 1 hour fights in the game so thats pretty helpful. Ppl will do better or worse with specs they understand better, that doesnt make one supperior to the other.

---------- Post added 2011-03-27 at 05:04 AM ----------

When it comes down to it ppl should play what they enjoy the most, thats all that really matters. Putting up all the dmg in the world is for not if you hate the way you have to do it.

[Sinister Knight]

When it comes down to it ppl should play what they enjoy the most, thats all that really matters. Putting up all the dmg in the world is for not if you hate the way you have to do it.

Unless you're serious about raiding, in which case you play what gives the best results on each fight, and your enjoyment comes from getting difficult bosses down and collecting loot, titles and bragging rights. If you're happy playing a spec that consistently does 2-5k less than a different spec, that's your choice. But you hurt yourself and your raid by doing so. And if you really hate a certain class, maybe you should play a different one. I personally wouldn't tolerate someone insisting they play X spec because they hate Y spec, if Y spec does 5k more dps in raids.

[Deleted]

The only fight I find arcane useful was Chimaeron hc due to invisibility shorter cd, that allowed me to avoid massacres, and shorter evocation cd to regain hp. Anyway on other bosses fire have real big advantage, cause there are usually some adds that gives Pyromianiac (10% haste) and (like on halfus hc or maloriak hc) spreading combustion with impact gives giant amount of dmg done and dps. So even if you master arcane to perfection, fire will still be few steps ahead of you. Choose single target fights for arcane - it's perfect for 5man hc since u will not go oom and deal tons of dps n dmg done on burst (34k dps on Rajh hc)

[Karazee]

If they asked you to switch arcane I would start looking for a smarter raid group.

pretty much this

[Alvito]

Unless you're serious about raiding, in which case you play what gives the best results on each fight, and your enjoyment comes from getting difficult bosses down and collecting loot, titles and bragging rights. If you're happy playing a spec that consistently does 2-5k less than a different spec, that's your choice. But you hurt yourself and your raid by doing so. And if you really hate a certain class, maybe you should play a different one. I personally wouldn't tolerate someone insisting they play X spec because they hate Y spec, if Y spec does 5k more dps in raids.

Look at the other posts I made in this thread, clearly arcane isn't the way to go if you want to put up higher dmg and make it easier to dps on the move. This thread and several others like it are packed with die hard arcane mages that will not switch.

If you are looking to prgress and kill bosses as fast as possible fire is better then arcane on every fight save maybe Chimeron. Even with that if you are going to have more then one pve spec I would go single target fire since your gear, gems and enchants should be set up for fire already.

[takolin]

Unless you're serious about raiding, in which case you play what gives the best results on each fight, and your enjoyment comes from getting difficult bosses down and collecting loot, titles and bragging rights. If you're happy playing a spec that consistently does 2-5k less than a different spec, that's your choice. But you hurt yourself and your raid by doing so. And if you really hate a certain class, maybe you should play a different one. I personally wouldn't tolerate someone insisting they play X spec because they hate Y spec, if Y spec does 5k more dps in raids.

What you should have wrote: "I personally wouldn't tolerate someone insisting they play X spec because they hate Y spec, if Y spec does 5k more dps in sims, while playing perfectly in BiS gear player Z will most likely never get his hands on."

Sims != raiding.

[Denaka]

We have an level 85 arcane mage in our guild who can pull 26k dps while staying on top of the Damage Done charts. It's all about practice and knowing the fights so you can position yourself to whereas you won't have to move as much.

[Spleen]

This is a minor rant, so excuse me for a moment.

If you have low damage done but "good dps", you're using the wrong add-on.

By definition, DPS = damage per second. Skada and World of Logs will divide your damage done by the length of the encounter and give you a true look at your DPS.

Recount, on the other hand, gives you your "feel good DPS". As others have mentioned, it only updates during casts, so if you spam 4x AB and die (or stand idle the rest of the fight), you'll have eleventy billion "DPS" and only about 150K damage done while others leave you in the dust.

Truth is, your effective DPS relies 100% on actual damage done. Arcane was my favored spec in ICC and I worked on getting 99.9% uptime on WoL reports (showing that I was delivering my damage during 99.9% of each encounter.) Under that situation, Skada and Recount should theoretically agree on DPS, but the only way to be sure is to use an addon like Skada that will track from moment ZERO of the fight and keep track until the fight ends.

Working on improving THOSE numbers will improve how you're playing your class.

TL;DR: Recount makes you feel good even when you are under-performing, Skada will show where you really are and permit you to improve.

/2 cents
/YMMV SPSFD

[mephosis]

I have been using arcane spec for 2 years now for both pvp and pve, and i wud say succeeding in this spec depends alot on knowing the fight well, when u blow your cds, and when heroism is used in the fight
Whether frost is the best spec for pvp or fire is the best for pve, i will still stick to arcane, i have gotten 2.2k rating for arena before and always the top 5 dps in raiding (25man), now they are buffing arcane, i believe i can do even better.
Why blend in with all those frost/fire mages when u can stand out as arcane?

[mystria]

Arcane in patchwerk style fights (no movement) is competitive.

Current raid fights that require movement (depending on strat):

1. Magmaw (if you kite the adds)
2. Omnitron
3. Maloriak
4. Atramedes
5. Chim
6. Neffy
7. Halfus
8. Val and Ther
9. Elementium
10. Cho Gall

Oh wait that is pretty much all of them. 10 man you just wouldn't run Arcane, 25 it has a place solely for the buff, the damage you lose the other 20 raid members more than pickup.

Ignore trash as Arcane you just cannot compete, Fire mages will destroy you at AOE, so will warlocks and DK's.

The only stat that really matters is Damage done on boss fights. Arcane I believe is currently about 8% behind Fire, if you have a Fire mage of roughly equal gear/skill raiding with you and you are finishing 8-10% behind them on damage done for a boss fight then you have done well.

[cachemaster]

Definitely not. Most of those fights you listed can be played with arcane very competitively.

Case and point Nefarian.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...N/Arcane_Mage/

I pulled 20.9k which would have been 7th world parse for fire. I'd call that competing.

[pallyballz]

other than that arcane (on simulationcraft) does greater numbers over fire in a 1 hr fight in 372 gear.

That has got to be one of the stupidest statements I have ever heard. I mean really....did you even read what you typed?

[Zrow]

Okay, cache since you seem to be good at arcane, im just asking since you gotta stay at high mana all the time and arcane blast is 85% of your damage what rotation are you using then? i guess you are spamming AB during burst phase untill 40% ish mana but otherwice, thought missiles would do more damage.

[Deleted]

Arcane in patchwerk style fights (no movement) is competitive.

Current raid fights that require movement (depending on strat):

1. Magmaw (if you kite the adds)
2. Omnitron
3. Maloriak
4. Atramedes
5. Chim
6. Neffy
7. Halfus
8. Val and Ther
9. Elementium
10. Cho Gall

Oh wait that is pretty much all of them. 10 man you just wouldn't run Arcane, 25 it has a place solely for the buff, the damage you lose the other 20 raid members more than pickup.

Ignore trash as Arcane you just cannot compete, Fire mages will destroy you at AOE, so will warlocks and DK's.

The only stat that really matters is Damage done on boss fights. Arcane I believe is currently about 8% behind Fire, if you have a Fire mage of roughly equal gear/skill raiding with you and you are finishing 8-10% behind them on damage done for a boss fight then you have done well.

Did you just list Chim as a movement-encounter?

[Spleen]

Did you just list Chim as a movement-encounter?

To be fair, he did say "depending on strat".

While the only movement in the strat that I'm aware of which really needs to be done by mages is blink-in and blink out, that's still technically "movement"

[Deleted]

...And while blinking in and out in Arcane specc might be a DPS gain I'm pretty sure it is a loss in Fire specc.
Wasting 2 GCD per Feud when you could've been casting Pyro!/LB/Scorch.

OK, he said depending on strat... mine is to strafe around Chim all the time to make him dizzy and eventually get his necks entangled while trying to follow my movement to find out what I'm up to...

[velde046]

Unless you're serious about raiding, in which case you play what gives the best results on each fight, and your enjoyment comes from getting difficult bosses down and collecting loot, titles and bragging rights. If you're happy playing a spec that consistently does 2-5k less than a different spec, that's your choice. But you hurt yourself and your raid by doing so. And if you really hate a certain class, maybe you should play a different one. I personally wouldn't tolerate someone insisting they play X spec because they hate Y spec, if Y spec does 5k more dps in raids.

In the end it doesn't matter what spec you play, as long as you bring the required DPS/damage done to the table. You have to look at the whole picture, being the the entire raid group. If total DPS is more than adequate then play the spec you like. Also consider the fact that arcane mages indirectly have influence on overall DPS because of the 3% Arcane Tactics, 3% extra crit for another player through Focus Magic (hello Boomkins). That plus the fact that slow is useful on many fights has earned arcane mages a spot in raids really.

I am glad that arcane gets buffed because it could use one, especially for AOE. Oh and as for the mobility part, there is one other option besides Arcane Barrage for casting on the move, well two really. THe first one is of course Presence of Mind with an arcane blast, but since it has a 1-minute CD not really useful, but let's not forget a favorite from the Frost tree, Ice Lance, it may not be a bosskiller in damage but still it beats casting nothing. So while ABarr is on CD pop an ICe Lance or 2, won't cause mana issues anyway so why not...

[Skarrd]

Stop using Recount. Damage done and DPS are the exact same thing. Active DPS, meaning your DPS is only factoring in the time when you are actually dealing damage and dividing damage done by that number, is what Recount tracks and it is all but meaningless. Effective DPS, meaning damage done over the ENTIRE fight duration, is the only thing that will ever matter. I don't know why Recount hasn't started using edps like Skada. This DPS vs damage done thing bothers me when people talk about it this way. You didn't do more DPS, you didn't do more damage done. I feel like Recount's version of DPS confuses people into thinking it's actually an indicator of something useful, and it isn't.