Tier 12 Mage 4-Piece Problem (Arcane)

[Ataxus]

Definitions:
Tier 12 Mage 4-Piece:

Your spells have an increased chance to trigger Brain Freeze or Hot Streak. In addition, Arcane Power decreases the cost of your damaging spells by 10% instead of increasing their cost.

Arcane Power:

When activated, you deal 20% more spell damage but spells cost 10% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec.

Leading to...
Arcane Power with Tier 12 4-Piece:
When activated, you deal 20% more spell damage but spells cost 10% less mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec.

The Problem:
This bonus appears to be a great boon to Arcane Mages' mana pools during Arcane Power. Upon further inspection, however, the math of both Arcane Power and this bonus are misleading. I'd like to shed light on this issue for both Blizzard and the community.

Base Arcane Blast Mana cost: 870
10% savings of 870 = 87 Mana cost reduction

This is 87 Mana cost reduction for every Arcane Blast, regardless of stack number! It is applied after stacking mana cost from Arcane Blast debuff. Arcane Power works the same way, but increases spell costs instead of decreasing them, like the set bonus does. The net effect of the set bonus is two of these mana cost reductions: 1) 10% mana reduction and 2) removal of the 10% mana increase from Arcane Power.

Total Mana savings with set bonus = 87 * 2 = 174 Mana cost reduction

This can also be seen upon inspection of actual mana costs under different conditions in the table below:

AB Stacks    Base Cost      Cost w/ AP     Cost w/ AP and 4pc    Mana Savings
0             870              957              783                     174
1             2175             2262             2088                    174
2             3480             3567             3393                    174
3             4785             4872             4698                    174
4             6090             6177             6003                    174

Suppose 12 Arcane Blasts are cast during the 15 second duration of Arcane Power:

174 Mana * 12 = 2088 Mana saved during each Arcane Power

Let's convert this to MP5 for an easier way to visualize the bonus:

2088 Mana saved every 2 minutes (typical practical cooldown of Arcane Power) =
2088 Mana / 120 seconds * 5 seconds = 87 Mana per 5 seconds

Following the same calcuations but with Shard of Woe equipped, the result is an even lower 67 MP5.

Conclusion:
To put this in perspective, over a 6 minute fight, 87 MP5 yields 6264 mana. This is enough for one extra stacked Arcane Blast, which would correspond to a dps increase below 1%. But since this is obviously a rough estimate, we don’t run out of mana to begin with, and the mana savings is actually spread out over several Arcane Power usages, the actual dps gained is even lower than this.

Another way of looking at it is by comparison to Mage Armor. Glyphed Mage Armor with a mana pool of 100,000 yields 3600 MP5. The 4-piece represents a meager 2.4% of Mage Armor's mana regeneration.

Overall, the tier 12 4-piece bonus is not strong enough and does not provide nearly the dps increase expected from such bonuses or granted by the 4-piece bonuses of other classes, possibly due to oversight in Arcane Blast's Mana cost calculation and Arcane Power interaction.

Suggestions:

• Tweak the numbers of the bonus to make it non-negligible, such as 50% mana cost reduction (yielding 522 Mana savings per Arcane Blast).
• Change the mechanics of the bonus to affect base Arcane Blast mana cost so the mana savings propagates through the Arcane Blast debuff mana cost multiplier to provide intended mana savings.
• Add another aspect of the bonus to make the entire bonus enticing without affecting the underwhelming mana cost reduction.
• Revamp the entire bonus.

[Swizzle]

The best change they could do would be dot two, since it would, you know, actually fix the problem of AP mana scaling with AB which I don't think is intended. Or, if they don't really care about that, just let AM or AB benefit from 4 stack AB before clearing it.

[Chaoslux]

That doesnt seems like working as intended, due to the wording saying "10% less mana" instead of "10% less base mana"

[Molly702]

Were Arcane Mages we don't need no stinking 4 piece were good all the time! On a serious note if this is all correctly done then I will not really be looking forward to my 4 piece like I normally do.

[BuryGnome]

To OP. Why do you think MMO-CHAMP is blizz forums and blizzard reads it?

POST IT ON BLIZZ FORUMS

[Ataxus]

I posted it on damage dealing, PTR, PTR tier 12 feedback thread, EJ, and here.

[Swizzle]

To OP. Why do you think MMO-CHAMP is blizz forums and blizzard reads it?

POST IT ON BLIZZ FORUMS

The wider the reach of information, the higher the likelihood it permeates, the better the chance it gets of being noticed.

[puddles]

Nice post Ataxus!

I'd prefer the 4th dot, as I feel this 4 pc is pretty boring , at least for arcane.

[pyrostorm9001]

I would prefer a revamp.
Something like after evocation is cast the mp5 value of Mage armour is doubled for x seconds or something like that

[Zulkir]

Kind of hope that if they do change it, they don't fix it by going with option 2, because it'll mean that they've fixed the whole mana scaling on AB stacks problem. Which in turn means that when we lose the set bonus going into a higher tier, the spells will cost the proper 20% more mana during AP.

[Soulstrike]

over those 15 seconds of Arcane Power, you would probabily see at least one clearcast proc which doesnt cost mana.
so the post above would actually come out with lower MP5.

[Deleted]

Make AM stack once again with AB Stacks. That would be a friggin DPS increase Bonus. I mean its not that i would be that great deal to iplement since they have the data Oo

YOu could even lower AB DMG by another 15% or so. At least give me the cahnce to push two buttons in a represetative time frame....

[brandox]

When Clearcasting procs, you gain an extra two charges of Arcane Potency.

Each time you cast Arcane Missiles, you have a 10% chance to reduce the cooldown on your Mirror Images by 30 seconds.

[Hyve]

To OP. Why do you think MMO-CHAMP is blizz forums and blizzard reads it?

POST IT ON BLIZZ FORUMS

Blizzard Employees have said many times, they do read & post on Fan Sites such as these. While they can't do it as Blizzard, they can do so on a personal level, and they can take the post to the Design Team.

[Swizzle]

When Clearcasting procs, you gain an extra two charges of Arcane Potency.

Each time you cast Arcane Missiles, you have a 10% chance to reduce the cooldown on your Mirror Images by 30 seconds.

So CC would grant 4 charges of APot? The MI CD reduction would have been great in T10 when they were super awesome, but now...not so sure.

[Hammut]

The clearcasting generating extra stacks sounds good, MI cd reduction seems lackluster for a four set.

[Eschatonin]

I would have thought that the logical choice in a 4P bonus, following the other 2 specs, would be to do something with Arcane Potency.

[Soulstrike]

your slow deals 100% damage over time of your previous arcane blast damage

um so this way we can use that freaking Necromantic Focus trinket XD

[Ieatsouls]

What happens when Blood Lust/Time Warp/Heroism is used? You're going to be spamming AB more with BL up so you would end up saving more mana when BL is used.

[Video Games]

What happens when Blood Lust/Time Warp/Heroism is used? You're going to be spamming AB more with BL up so you would end up saving more mana when BL is used.

You probably aren't because you're probably under the gcd with ab so it's the same.