Shard of Woe

[Fireballz157]

With the patch finally here im trying to decide which direction to go for my single target spec. Ive heard that if you don't have Shard of Woe for Arcane then Frost is the better spec. Is it true that Frost is on par now with Arcane for single target w/out the trinket?

[Sangheiili]

Frost without Shard. Arcane with. Fire for AoE fights.

[Deleted]

Well, in my current gear arcane seems to be slightly better than frost on single target Patchwerk style fights, with fire about 10% below that (Simcraft). With Helterskelter enabled, frost is better than fire and arcane falls behind. For AoE, I'm not quite sure but I imagine frost would be worst there, as you don't have moving AoE + blizzard is quite mana intensive, but the change to Arcane Explosion seems rather decent, however it probably doesn't have the potential of fire AoE.

Edit: interesting, new sims show that fire < arcane < frost, on helterskelter (my gear).

[Sangheiili]

Well, in my current gear arcane seems to be slightly better than frost on single target Patchwerk style fights, with fire about 10% below that (Simcraft). With Helterskelter enabled, frost is better than fire and arcane falls behind. For AoE, I'm not quite sure but I imagine frost would be worst there, as you don't have moving AoE + blizzard is quite mana intensive, but the change to Arcane Explosion seems rather decent, however it probably doesn't have the potential of fire AoE.

Edit: interesting, new sims show that fire < arcane < frost, on helterskelter (my gear).

Ya, Arcane will show up as better on 100% Patchwerk fights, you know, like... like...

...

See the problem?

[Deleted]

I wasn't saying arcane is the new fotm, just stating results from simc. I was quite surprised however, to see arcane is better than fire even on fights with movement. Personally I'm considering to have frost/arcane as specs but I'm unsure about arcane's aoe compared to that of fire.

[Sangheiili]

I haven't run arcane as AoE this week, but I can tell you that frosts is at least semi-decent for Halfus.

[klaps_05]

arcane is pretty sick right now with shard, but you still lose tons of dps if you have to move

[Deleted]

I was playing Arcane on just about every fight yesterday. It was vastly superior to any other raid spec. Patchwerk-style? Top. Mobility? Top. Multi-target? Top.

[Deleted]

Yeah, on every other Scalet Monastery encounter.

I'm not sure how to interpret your post. I was refering to heroic raid content.

[Deleted]

I was playing Arcane on just about every fight yesterday. It was vastly superior to any other raid spec. Patchwerk-style? Top. Mobility? Top. Multi-target? Top.

Mobility to what extent? I mean, I find it hard to believe arcane is actually top on fights like Atramedes... Do you have the trinket? Are the other mages at the same skill level?

[Deleted]

Mobility to what extent? I mean, I find it hard to believe arcane is actually top on fights like Atramedes... Do you have the trinket? Are the other mages at the same skill level?

I'm talking about both Atramedes and Council HC. And yes, I have the trinket.

[Seefourdc]

Mobility to what extent? I mean, I find it hard to believe arcane is actually top on fights like Atramedes... Do you have the trinket? Are the other mages at the same skill level?

You should probably check the top mage logs for Atramedes. The top mage holds the #3 overall place as arcane.

[Cebel]

Frost without Shard. Arcane with. Fire for AoE fights.

this comment is so misinformed its funny.

[Fireballz157]

this comment is so misinformed its funny.

So are you saying that Arcane still beats out Frost on single target without Shard of Woe?

[Mattsvaliant]

this comment is so misinformed its funny.

This post is lacking so much information its funny.

[shaft4783]

The problem with arcane before 4.1 was that if you had to move often you lost your arcane blast stacks. With the new haste buff, you can still move and keep your stacks up. Lavawalker is a must as well for arcane.

For those that think movement kills arcane, not so much anymore. Also, you don't have to have the Shard to be a decent arcane mage. Just keep your stacks up and keep flinging the blasts.