WoD Arcane Guide *not updated for 6.2*

[Tennis]

For Kromogg I should get my RL to place me in the middle of the hands for Arcane Explosion?

Wondering if I should unglyph Arcane Power so it is up for the grips.

[Wilderness]

IMO I think it depends on the fight and how long the fight might last.

For instance, if you can get an extra unglyphed AP in, it might be worth it over the glyphed.

Additionally since PC does AoE, it would seem logical that unglyphed AP with PC would be good for add fights assuming they stay up long enough and are tanked at the PC.

You can't get an "extra" AP in with unglpyhed, unless I misunderstood what you meant. Unglpyhed can only match the uptime of glyphed, it can't exceed it. Sims have shown them to be pretty much the same dps either way - with the caveat being that there are kill times where you'll miss out on an AP when its not glyphed, so you have to be careful for that.

As Deithy pointed out, your logic doesn't really work for PC due to how it deals its AoE damage, but if there are going to be adds up regularly in a fight PC wouldn't be the best talent choice anyway.

[Invrlose]

When do I burst and when do I conserve? My cooldowns often fall out of sync.

[Challenge]

Hello friends, new mage main here, few questions i didnt see in the OP

How important is a burn phase? In terms of overall DPS gain
Is there a time every to use overpowered?
Is unstable magic ever worth using? Mirror images?
How much is it a DPS loss to always use incanters flow over rune of power?
When Nether tempest VS supernova, does nether tempest win out when its some cleave with a lot of single target, like imperator, or just constant AoE/cleave like darmac or twins?

[shaft4783]

For Kromogg I should get my RL to place me in the middle of the hands for Arcane Explosion?

Wondering if I should unglyph Arcane Power so it is up for the grips.

Yes. If you're using ae, being in the middle is a great spot. As far as arcane power, I think it's more important to have the cd for dps'ing the boss, rather than the hands. The hands will die with all of the raid aoe and you don't want them to die too fast.

I recommend unglyphing it so it lines up with PC or glyphing it if you're using overpowered.

[Deleted]

Hello friends, new mage main here, few questions i didnt see in the OP

1-How important is a burn phase? In terms of overall DPS gain
2-Is there a time every to use overpowered?
3-Is unstable magic ever worth using? Mirror images?
4-How much is it a DPS loss to always use incanters flow over rune of power?
5-When Nether tempest VS supernova, does nether tempest win out when its some cleave with a lot of single target, like imperator, or just constant AoE/cleave like darmac or twins?

1-Not much because at the moment we cant burn so efficient as we would like it to be due low levels of haste, still it is a thing because we have Evocation - burn to 50ish%, if u are using NT reapply it, and cast Evoaction. It should take you 2 ticks to get back to 100% mana

2-Overpowered is overpowered when used with hero on pull. Still its all about RNG, when you use this tallent, of how many AM will you get during its duration. Best used with glyph of Arcane power and AM weaving(AM->AB->AM->AB->...) Overall it is equal in burst potential as with PC, but still you have to consider fight duration and see how many AP uses you can do. I would also recommend you to not use Overpowered without the glyph. P.S. also it remove one hassle for you - PC placing

3-I don't know what is the idea of Unstable Magic, but it has the worst proc rate ever and it can proc only from AB. I personally tried twice that talent on Butcher, because i read somewhere that UM/RoP/OP is powerful combo for a patchwerk style fight. I cant tell you how wrong this statement was. It was total of 6% damage done, for the both tries. For comparison SN is around 11-12% of my total dps and NT was around 11-13% of it. Maybe because of the short fight or horrible proc rate idk. I tired it even o Kromog. I swear that boss is bugged - it did 1,6% of my total dps. Miror Images is no, no, and NO. HELL NO!... NO! That talent is useful only for frost spec.

4- IF is average 12% dps gain, but unlike RoP you are not "selfrooted" and it have 100% uptime, where with RoP best u can do is 95%. Somewhat an equal choices. IF is basically the talent choice for movement fights.

5-NT is a bit clunky spell to use. You always have to watch the remaining duration, make sure you are on 4 charges before you apply it. Depending on the fight and how much "love" the boss give you (if you know what i mean) you might have a bit hard time maintaining it. However NT scales with haste. Meaning the more haste you have the more effective it is. At some point, unless they "buff" Supernova, NT will be the better choice.
As for SN - that talent is a bit simpler to use. If you have selected it, by default you should be using IF with it too, the only thing you have to watch is to cast it on 5 stacks of IF and (optional) highest mana possible. The clunky part is, again by default you should be using PC, to have 2 charges for the PC usage. Also do not delay PC usage, because you don't have 2 charges of SN.
About the fight types
- on Imperator - SN/PC is somewhat good and bad - you can boost SN with PC for the adds, but that's it. Then the dps is wasted, because of how PC work. NT might be the better choice. I haven't really been on Emperor since the haste buff for arcane, but i got a lot of haste/mastery gear in BRF, so i personaly will use NT when i go next time on him.
- On Twins type fight - the targets stay up till the end of the fight, so NT should be the better choice. Exception - Hanz and Franz - go SN, cuz the bosses rarely stay toghether (one is always jumping aroun dlike mad man, which they are)
- On Darmak/Togar type fights - everybody goes "bananas" on the adds, so as arcane, if you even wanna try to get some dps out of them - SN is the choice, if you really wanna play arcane on those fight types.

When do I burst and when do I conserve? My cooldowns often fall out of sync.

Maybe you ment burn?!? Idk. However You burst/burn when you use AP and Evocation about to come off cooldown. So you can regain mana back fast. Your cooldowns maybe fall off sync because you use glyph of Arcane power? Idk. However as im saying a lot in the forum - you cant burn properly because of AP draenor perk and how the Arcane Prio list goes. If you really feel yyour cooldowns fall off sync the deeper you go in the fight, then dont burst/burn so much. Give youself around 20 seconds tops of burn phase, before you use Evocation, no matter that you have not reached 50% mana

[Invrlose]

Maybe you ment burn?!? Idk. However You burst/burn when you use AP and Evocation about to come off cooldown. So you can regain mana back fast. Your cooldowns maybe fall off sync because you use glyph of Arcane power? Idk. However as im saying a lot in the forum - you cant burn properly because of AP draenor perk and how the Arcane Prio list goes. If you really feel yyour cooldowns fall off sync the deeper you go in the fight, then dont burst/burn so much. Give youself around 20 seconds tops of burn phase, before you use Evocation, no matter that you have not reached 50% mana

Yeah I meant burn. Let's say your arcane power just finished its cooldown but you still have like 1 minute on evo. Do you j ust maintain then?

[Challenge]

Ayo thanks deithy for the response and well written explainations I really appreciate that.

On the topic of nether tempest, I actually prefer it. I know its clunky but I've really grown used to it and am comfortable with it. How viable is it single target compared to super nova? Is it all dependant on the amount of haste you have?

[Deleted]

@Invrlose - if you have 1 min to Evocation when AP is off cooldown, no matter if it is glyphed or not, then you have messed up somewhere. However - ignore that fact and use AP regardless. With draenor perk you won't burn so much mana for 15 seconds, if glyphed you will need to discharge with baraage once, or twice if u have bad luck with AM procs.

@Challenge - im talking a bit random here about this. I haven't happened to come across any calculation about the topic, but here is my logic about it (my theorycraft if you wish).
Two 4 charged NTs should be ~ damage of 1 SN assuming 0 crit and 0 MS.
Now as we know WoD dots have fixed duration no matter how much haste we have and haste only add a particial additional tick at the end of the duration. So that particial tick grows the more haste you have meaning that at one point 2 NTs will deal more damage than 1 SN.
But now when we add crit and MS in the equation will happend the next - SN crit and/or MS proc>2NTs not matter the haste level, because NT can't crit or/and MS with all its ticks and that fact again puts them on somewhat pair with each other.
Also SN goes in pair with IF - so SN cast on 5 stacks should be nice damage and NT goes in pair with RoP - so NT will deal consistent damage and will not to fluctuate its damage. That's why noone plays SN+RoP or NT+IF.
Overall to a degree it depends on your gear - if you have a lot of crit/ms gear(like in the case of HM) SN will yield higher results, but when you convert that gear to more haste and less crit/MS NT should yield higher results. To another degree is personal choice tbh. They are well balanced talents in my opinion all tho it sound stupid that NT is affected by Haste and SN is not.

[NPI]

My question is why you burn only to 50% mana? "Evo point" (where burn rotation is equal dps to our conserve rotation) is depends on our current mastery level. At 60-70% mastery its at 19-25% mana. When we have 180% mastery, will be the evo point at 50%.

[Shangalar]

Basically because the sims have shown that 50% is optimal at any mana level.

What does this include?
- mastery bonus
- time you'll have to spend Evocating
- not wanting to delay evocation too much so you can use it again for the next burn phase (which you should do even without Power)

[NPI]

Shangalar, this is not a good answer, especially, that reality showed that simulations are not reliable (since some logsites store ilvl data, you can compare it with the sim results -- e.g. dps of the arcane mages in 630 ilvl vs sim result, etc).

Math says different. The only difference can come from the difference in conserve phase rotation and conserve phase average mana level. I calculated things using the 5:2 rule (2 AMs, 5 non-AM spells) so i assume 5xAB(4) + 2xAM(4) as burn rotation and AB(0)+AB(1)+AB(2)+AB(3)+AB(4)+2xAM(4)+Abarr as conserve rotation averaged at 90% mana. The dps of the burn cycle (w/o mastery, every other stat is transparent) is roughly 1,69*AB(0)'s dmg, while the conserve rotation's is roughly 1,22. From there, you can compose a nice table which shows you at which mastery and mana levels, how much is the burn rotation's advantage over the conserve. You should use Evocation, where it turns to negative. You should not evocate until you are in the positive territory. You can imagine your burn phase as a CD itself - the longer the better.

[Deleted]

One fellow mage dude had similar question few post above. Might try to read the latests posts before you post. Anyway...

I personaly think that using glyph of AP and PC is stupid to a huge degree, because due RNG and AP draenor perk you cant burn shit in 15 seconds window and the deeper you go into the fight the more your cooldowns goes out of sync and your dps suffer even more.
As i wrote few posts above - ignore the fact that you will not have Evo to recover after ther the 2nd glyphed AP use. Just discharge once or twice during the AP and when Evo is around (idk talking random numbers here) 15 seconds off cooldown burn again even tho you dont have AP anymore



Now i wanna ask something the theory "geeks" and the more "hardcore" arcane mages (if they are still around) - i got into fight with a guildie yesterday who recently started playing arcane.
He is claiming that a patchwerk fight like Gruul and Butcher that last no more than 4 minutes you should use the glyph of AP with PC. His claim is that for 4 mins i can use 3 unglyphed AP with total duration of 45 seconds and with glyph u can you 2 APs with total duration of 60 seconds and that is the highest dps for such kind of fights.
My claim is that this is bullshit, because you will have one 15 second period in the middle of the two AP usages (2nd cast of PC) where instead of 50% increased damage you will do only 30%, which makes it even.
I am sure that using or not using the glyph is still the same dps with little difference here and there, but as i am writing a lot here in this forum i still claim that not using the glyph when using PC is dps gain, because of the cooldown alignment and the pooling of SN charges.

Would like to get a bit more (or a lot more) insight on the topic please.

[willemh]

One fellow mage dude had similar question few post above. Might try to read the latests posts before you post. Anyway...

I personaly think that using glyph of AP and PC is stupid to a huge degree, because due RNG and AP draenor perk you cant burn shit in 15 seconds window and the deeper you go into the fight the more your cooldowns goes out of sync and your dps suffer even more.
As i wrote few posts above - ignore the fact that you will not have Evo to recover after ther the 2nd glyphed AP use. Just discharge once or twice during the AP and when Evo is around (idk talking random numbers here) 15 seconds off cooldown burn again even tho you dont have AP anymore



Now i wanna ask something the theory "geeks" and the more "hardcore" arcane mages (if they are still around) - i got into fight with a guildie yesterday who recently started playing arcane.
He is claiming that a patchwerk fight like Gruul and Butcher that last no more than 4 minutes you should use the glyph of AP with PC. His claim is that for 4 mins i can use 3 unglyphed AP with total duration of 45 seconds and with glyph u can you 2 APs with total duration of 60 seconds and that is the highest dps for such kind of fights.
My claim is that this is bullshit, because you will have one 15 second period in the middle of the two AP usages (2nd cast of PC) where instead of 50% increased damage you will do only 30%, which makes it even.
I am sure that using or not using the glyph is still the same dps with little difference here and there, but as i am writing a lot here in this forum i still claim that not using the glyph when using PC is dps gain, because of the cooldown alignment and the pooling of SN charges.

Would like to get a bit more (or a lot more) insight on the topic please.

Your guildie is 100% correct. Unglyped AP is a dps loss if you cannot use both of them. This means any fight that ends between:
- 3min30 and 4min45
- 6min30 and 7min45
- 9min30 and 10min45
etc...

There is no way cooldown alignment will outweight 15 seconds of arcane power. Also remember, while you mention prismatic crystal as a cooldown that alligns well with unglyped AP, there are plenty of cooldowns at align better with glyped AP (heroism being the best example).

Unless there are specific fight mechanics that call for unglyped AP I would really suggest just using the glyped version. Just quickly scroll through all the top rankings on warcraftlogs for arcane mages will show you they all use the glyped version.

[Wilderness]

You don't have to have "messed up" to get 1min more evo cd than ap/pc. I had the case yesterday where I finished my very first cd phase with pc and glyphed ap with ~79% mana and thanks to even more procs it took quite some time to get down to 50%.
While 1 minute might be an outlier case, with hero on the pull it can happen that it takes over 30 seconds to burn down and therefore evo is heavily delayed for the second pc and then even more for the second ap/ third pc.
Even more fun when you then barely get any procs during that phase. ^^

A little while back it was shown in sims that once you reach 70% mana during your burn phase, you stop using your AM procs unless you get to 3 (so you don't munch anything). That helps keep your CDs in line together and avoid the situations that you're talking about. Good RNG can still impact your burn phase length, but if you follow the 70% rule it should keep that to a minimum.

- - - Updated - - -

How important is a burn phase? In terms of overall DPS gain

Its important. Its about a 5% gain in dps according to Chev’s sims here.

Is there a time every to use overpowered?

OP isn’t bad, but generally I’ve found that either you want the single-target power of PC, or you’re using AO b/c there are adds.

Is unstable magic ever worth using? Mirror images?

MI is pretty bad for Arcane. It doesn’t benefit from our mastery and there’s really little reason to use it. UM isn’t bad, similar to OP, but the other options are generally better. If someone is having trouble with uptime on NT or not using their charges of SN for some reason then it might be a better choice for that person, but then again if that person just worked on utilizing NT/SN more effectively then that would be best for them.

How much is it a DPS loss to always use incanters flow over rune of power?

Depends on your uptime on RoP. IF averages out to a 12% gain. RoP is 15% - with 100% uptime. So that means that 80% uptime on RoP will be the same as IF, although you also have to account for the extra GCDs of casting multiple RoPs if you have a lot of movement so generally you take IF if there’s a bunch of movement, RoP when you can be relatively stationary. On fights where you use RoP you should easily be able to achieve at least 95% uptime, and really on most of them there’s no reason you can’t be 98-100%.

When Nether tempest VS supernova, does nether tempest win out when its some cleave with a lot of single target, like imperator, or just constant AoE/cleave like darmac or twins?

Depends on how many adds and how long they are up, but generally NT is better than SN when adds are part of a fight, and part of that is because of how well NT works with AO, and you want to use AO with adds to get more damage from 4 stack Abarrs into them, and to be able to jump your stacks/AM procs right back up. If you really need burst damage to adds that die quickly, then SN would be the better option, or if single-target dps is really what matters, then you’d use PC/SN. Like on Ko’Ragh, I used PC/SN, but Imp I used NT/AO.

On the topic of nether tempest, I actually prefer it. I know its clunky but I've really grown used to it and am comfortable with it. How viable is it single target compared to super nova? Is it all dependant on the amount of haste you have?

On the sims run with BiS gear, I believe NT/PC was the 2nd best single-target option, and like 200-300 dps behind SN/PC. Its definitely viable, although I’m sure your specific ilvl/haste has an impact on that.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know what is the idea of Unstable Magic, but it has the worst proc rate ever and it can proc only from AB. I personally tried twice that talent on Butcher, because i read somewhere that UM/RoP/OP is powerful combo for a patchwerk style fight. I cant tell you how wrong this statement was. It was total of 6% damage done, for the both tries. For comparison SN is around 11-12% of my total dps and NT was around 11-13% of it.

Well, UM is based on RNG, and its not going to be better than SN or NT. However you can’t straight compare its damage to what you get out of SN/NT, because that ignores the extra GCDs you have to use with SN/NT where UM just procs and you don’t have to do anything.

where with RoP best u can do is 95%

Why would someone be limited to 95%?

-On Darmak/Togar type fights - everybody goes "bananas" on the adds, so as arcane, if you even wanna try to get some dps out of them - SN is the choice, if you really wanna play arcane on those fight types.

You can’t consider NT and SN in a vacuum for fights, because the other talents you take matter too. And on each of those fights, using NT/AO will be better than PC/AO or PC/SN. You want to have AO on both of those fights because it allows you to do more damage with Abarr into the adds, and because of how many stacks of charges and AM throwing it into packs of adds gives you. Addtionally, NT is better than SN on Darmak because of the better cleave during the parts of the fight where the boss and his mount are both up.

Shangalar, this is not a good answer, especially, that reality showed that simulations are not reliable (since some logsites store ilvl data, you can compare it with the sim results -- e.g. dps of the arcane mages in 630 ilvl vs sim result, etc).

Someone at 630 ilvl not being able to meet their sim results does not mean anything about the accuracy of the simulation itself. It may mean there is a skill difference between the player and the robomage. It may be that the simulation wasn’t set up to mimic fight conditions well enough, which is likely once you get outside of patchwork conditions.

Math says different. The only difference can come from the difference in conserve phase rotation and conserve phase average mana level. I calculated things using the 5:2 rule (2 AMs, 5 non-AM spells) so i assume 5xAB(4) + 2xAM(4) as burn rotation and AB(0)+AB(1)+AB(2)+AB(3)+AB(4)+2xAM(4)+Abarr as conserve rotation averaged at 90% mana. The dps of the burn cycle (w/o mastery, every other stat is transparent) is roughly 1,69*AB(0)'s dmg, while the conserve rotation's is roughly 1,22. From there, you can compose a nice table which shows you at which mastery and mana levels, how much is the burn rotation's advantage over the conserve. You should use Evocation, where it turns to negative. You should not evocate until you are in the positive territory. You can imagine your burn phase as a CD itself - the longer the better.

Well, technically that is math because you used numbers, but that doesn’t make it correct. What is this 5:2 rule? And if it’s a real thing (30% chance to proc AM would mean you’d only average out to 1.5 AMs per 5 casts if I did my napkin math right), then why would your conserve phase feature 4 ABs with 2 AMs again? Nothing in your math takes into account anything else, specifically the CDs on Evocation, AP, possibly PC if you take that talent, etc. All of those factor into the optimal burn length and when to Evo.

Simulations are not perfect, particularly with estimating specific dps outside of patchwerk conditions. However, if they are set up well, they are very useful in comparing talents, gear, optimal rotations, etc. If you think that there is something incorrect in the mage portion of SimC that is giving false results, by all means let them know so it can be examined and adjusted. But if you think that your very basic napkin math and assumptions are more accurate, then I’m afraid to say that you are incorrect.

[Torian kel]

I just finished my arcane UI

http://imgur.com/EhZXb6q

And I would like feedback on it, if you have time. This UI (and the weak auras associated) where mostly made by the awesome skill of my guildmate Lyni (Credit where credit is due)

[Deleted]

Well listen Djoron - what is worse according to you in the case of Evo having 1 min to get off cooldown when your next AP is ready?
You dont use Barrage during AP and you dip very low on mana and standing 30 seconds with no means to regenerate mana
or
You use Barrage once (or twice, again depending on your AM RNG) and u get out with relatevly high % mana out of AP

What do you think?

Second - noone nowhere said that you have to burn to 50% or you suck... or i missed it somewhere... idk. Unless with hero on pull i dont see reason why after AP end, no matter of your mana level, you would not evo to 100% mana and start conserve phase. I really dont see a reason to try to burn to 50% mana after AP is over. If im not wrong it was said in the guides that diping to 50% is optimal only when AP is active. If you followe atleast that rule i dont think your Evo will be that much off cooldown when u are about to use 2nd glyphed AP.

Just mt cents.

[Slykz]

On blackhand, im using IF, and obviously we're not lusting at the pull. This means i'll have 5 IF stacks when my Arcane charge hits 4. What is the biggest dps increase? Using supernova instantly to get it off at 5 stacks, or instantly using a 4p arcane missile proc at 5 IF stacks.

[Wilderness]

If im not wrong it was said in the guides that diping to 50% is optimal only when AP is active. If you followe atleast that rule i dont think your Evo will be that much off cooldown when u are about to use 2nd glyphed AP.

I don't think that's correct - 50% is just the best mana percentage to burn to, with or without AP. However, the same sims that showed 50% was the best also showed that being around it but not right at it wasn't a big difference either, and its probably worthwhile to use it a little early if its going to throw your CDs out of sync too much.

[Shangalar]

I just finished my arcane UI

http://imgur.com/EhZXb6q

And I would like feedback on it, if you have time. This UI (and the weak auras associated) where mostly made by the awesome skill of my guildmate Lyni (Credit where credit is due)

I like the design, but more my play style and raid leader duties having anything clogging the middle of my screen is dreadfully annoying. If you can manage to see all the information and not have it interfere with what's going on during the fight, good work and carry on.

- - - Updated - - -

On blackhand, im using IF, and obviously we're not lusting at the pull. This means i'll have 5 IF stacks when my Arcane charge hits 4. What is the biggest dps increase? Using supernova instantly to get it off at 5 stacks, or instantly using a 4p arcane missile proc at 5 IF stacks.

Supernova at 5 stacks of IF is a far greater boost than Missiles at 5 stacks.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think that's correct - 50% is just the best mana percentage to burn to, with or without AP. However, the same sims that showed 50% was the best also showed that being around it but not right at it wasn't a big difference either, and its probably worthwhile to use it a little early if its going to throw your CDs out of sync too much.

(Replying to your text as it's the latest in the chain)

One of the goals for Arcane mages now is to successfully utilize 1.5 minute cooldowns whenever they are available and as often as possible. This means that we want to have the 2-set bonus up as often as possible. The 2-set bonus is stronger than a longer burn phase. We use the burn phase only as a tool to cast 4-Charge Missiles and 4-Charge Blasts because they do a lot of damage, not because it's our primary source of damage like it was in Cataclysm.

In Cataclysm we used Missiles to cast as many Blasts as possible. In MoP we didn't burn, but we used various tools to cast as many max-charge Missiles as possible. Currently Missiles are still our strongest spell, but not by such a huge margin. Our goal, however, is still to cast as many max-Charge Missiles as possible at as high a mana as possible.

What does that mean for the burn phase?

The burn phase is a tool to cast as many Missiles as possible. So why do we end our burn phase early and stop casting new missiles we get under 75-70% mana? Because we want to cast as many high mana Missiles as possible too. But, with the reduced difference between Blast and Missiles, we also want to cast Blast as much as possible. That's why in MoP it was higher damage to chain Missiles at 100% mana and now it's more efficient to alternate Missiles-Blast as long as we're above the mana regen cap of the next cycle (93%)

This again plays into the 2-set bonus which is a nice boost to Blast which means it's also a nice boost to Missiles if we're lucky with procs.

So the optimal gameplay isn't necessarily based on "current mana during a burn phase", but also on "when will my next Evocation be ready?"

Start of the fight:
- get to 4 Charges
- Glyphed Power
- if you're extremely lucky with Missiles (but really extremely) then your burn phase has a chance to last for the entire 30 seconds of Power. This means that when you use Evocation, you already create a potential 30-second difference between the next Power and Evocation and it is unlikely that you'll be able to have a second extremely lucky burn phase

This is not a problem if you know based on the duration of the fight that the next Power will also be your last. If that's the case, then of course you can delay it to wait a bit for Evocation. But if it isn't, you need to think ahead because Power is the strongest buff, far stronger than a burn phase and far stronger than the 2-set bonus.

That being said, while the key might be planning ahead, it's also unnecessarily complicated. It's better to just practice forcing yourself to use a tick or two of Evocation halfway through Power or a bit later. That will give you the 2-set bonus in the last third of Power and it will also allow you to do a Powerless (lol) burn phase between Powers.