Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[fusionz]

cycobi you make it sound as if arcane mages werent stacking mastery until now

[Deleted]

cycobi whats your opinion on 2p t16 + offset vs. 4p ? specially during progress as the last 2-3 pieces is from thok siege and paragons. immerseus helm / protector shoulder / jugga legs.

Atm our progress is 8/14, so i have access to all the above off pieces as heroic when they drop(already have shoulder hc wf)

[Deleted]

cycobi you make it sound as if arcane mages werent stacking mastery until now

Arguments could be (and were) made that because of the increased mana costs from running T15 4P that Haste had a much stronger weight than it does running T16. I'm not saying we should necessarily stop stacking Mastery at all, nor was I suggesting that we did (sorry if it came off that way), I merely wanted to point out that Mastery is now a lot stronger in comparison to Haste than it was in T15 gear.

cycobi whats your opinion on 2p t16 + offset vs. 4p ? specially during progress as the last 2-3 pieces is from thok siege and paragons. immerseus helm / protector shoulder / jugga legs.

Atm our progress is 8/14, so i have access to all the above off pieces as heroic when they drop(already have shoulder hc wf)

The 4 set bonus is nice but due to 3 out of the 5 pieces not having Mastery on them I think WF off-pieces and 2 set is still best, but I'm not 100% sure on that. It's what I'm currently running but I also have pretty crap off-pieces as things go. I think the 4 piece bonus slightly outweighs the offpieces unless they're optimal and Warforged, and currently the offpieces you'd want to make that happen are Garrosh/Immerseus head, Protector Shoulders and some Gloves. The Gloves I'm intending on using are the ones from Siegecrafter, but if you're 8/14 you won't have access to them, and I'm not currently logged into WoW so I can't check for viable alternatives, although I'm sure there are some. The Tier legs (Heroic, of course) and Tier chest are your two BiS Tier.

[Deleted]

your comparing hc tier vs hc wf off pieces, but during progress it would be hc chest/gloves tier + normal tier leg/shoulder vs hc / hc wf off pieces. Once i kill pagarons hc for the Legs we are facing garrosh. Same thing goes with garrosh head, it might be BiS but it's garrosh and the progress is over once i get it, so id assume the immerseus hc/hc wf helm would be better?

said in another way i dont really care about BiS because so much of it is from the last 2-3 really hard bosses, witch we are properly not gonna kill for a month or two, and cant use their items when we progress on them either. Im more interesting in what's best during our progress. 4p with chest/gloves hc + normal leg/shoulder. Or hc chest/gloves + hc off pieces from immerseus protectors and jugger.
Or would you still say hc tier chest+normal tier legs + hc immerseus helm+hc proctetor shoulder + normal siege gloves?

Also does the int/crit gain from hc items outweigh the loss of haste if you fx take Immerseus hc helm instead of normal garrosh head. It properly is, the reason i ask is because ive lost so much haste lately, coined hc boots from jugga(crit mast) and replaced normal galakras boots + having immerseus helm, as well as losing haste from hydra, i feel really starved for haste, but maybe with the t15 nerf haste aint that important any more?

Any way sorry for the rant =), i am just really confused as how i should gear this tier(post nerf), during progress. Ive lost faith/trust in simC for mages this expac. And dont have time/resources to test my self.

[Ratok]

Made a BiS sheet a few days ago, after T15 nerf.
This is with 2p T16, because I think 4p is not that good and we gain a lot more mastery from off pieces.

docs.google . com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap-8OdXoHxbQdEM2SlkwR21Ec3JwdDZzVUIzLVJQdlE&usp#gid=0

proraiders . com/player/index.php?region=eu&server=Anub'arak&player=Trolltok

[Deleted]

Made a BiS sheet a few days ago, after T15 nerf.
This is with 2p T16, because I think 4p is not that good and we gain a lot more mastery from off pieces.

docs.google . com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ap-8OdXoHxbQdEM2SlkwR21Ec3JwdDZzVUIzLVJQdlE&usp#gid=0

proraiders . com/player/index.php?region=eu&server=Anub'arak&player=Trolltok

My point is not about Bis, I know what that is, the point im trying to make is; a huge part of BiS is from siege/paragon/garrosh so it's useless during progress, and i really don't care much once farm begins.. So is it worth taking those bis slots as normal and just upgrade as you get the last 3 bosses down, or to take hc/hc wf items from the first ~6-7 kills.

[Kendeura]

Arguments could be (and were) made that because of the increased mana costs from running T15 4P that Haste had a much stronger weight than it does running T16. I'm not saying we should necessarily stop stacking Mastery at all, nor was I suggesting that we did (sorry if it came off that way), I merely wanted to point out that Mastery is now a lot stronger in comparison to Haste than it was in T15 gear.

So would you reckon FA+9522 breakpoint is still better?

[Spliff]

Despite the mid-tier nerf on T15 sucking, last night was our first raid night of the week and I went in with 2 set T16 and actually performed really well, as in better than last week when I was using T15. Even with just the 2 set you're able to remain at 4 stacks for a long time with some luck. The only fight I felt weak on was Protectors, though I still did better than previous weeks, it may have just been that our WW Monk did a lot better this week.

[Abhorsen]

Despite the T15H nerf would Arcane still be considered the best spec for Heroic Spoils? Currently Fire is doing quite well however I'm always looking to squeeze just that little bit of extra damage out to make clearing the rooms faster, I know Arcane would have much much better results on the AoE side of things but I'm unsure about how it would fare with the movement + single target damage to get the mini-bosses down.

[Sakku]

Without 4t15, and with 2t16, do we still use frost armor (9522 haste) for single target?

I saw a lot of top WoL mage using mage armor vs malkorok HC.

Thoughts?

[Kenbud]

Without 4t15, and with 2t16, do we still use frost armor (9522 haste) for single target?

I saw a lot of top WoL mage using mage armor vs malkorok HC.

Thoughts?

More mastery = more cleave damage probably why. also i do believe the difference is small between Mage and Frost armors

[Sym]

Despite the T15H nerf would Arcane still be considered the best spec for Heroic Spoils? Currently Fire is doing quite well however I'm always looking to squeeze just that little bit of extra damage out to make clearing the rooms faster, I know Arcane would have much much better results on the AoE side of things but I'm unsure about how it would fare with the movement + single target damage to get the mini-bosses down.

I personally go with Arcane. NT + Abarr cleave is really nice to have, plus the easy swap with basically no downtime is extremely useful. I never really found a time where AE was worth using, outside of maybe a few seconds.

[Sweetdeaths]

I'm a little confused on the haste break points. Is that number factored before adding in FA? What about the spell haste buff we get from raids? I just want to make sure that I am running with optimal numbers and not losing any more mastery than I have to in order to hit the break point. The main reason I am asking is that when I looked at AMR, it showed the breakpoint for LB to be at 9555. Thanks.

[Aquamonkey]

I'm a little confused on the haste break points. Is that number factored before adding in FA? What about the spell haste buff we get from raids? I just want to make sure that I am running with optimal numbers and not losing any more mastery than I have to in order to hit the break point. The main reason I am asking is that when I looked at AMR, it showed the breakpoint for LB to be at 9555. Thanks.

The haste breakpoint of 9762 is for NT with 5% raid buff and without Frost Armor (since this is for multidotting should be using Mage Armor). When using LB, we switch to Frost Armor to make the 9522 breakpoint for LB.

[Abhorsen]

I personally go with Arcane. NT + Abarr cleave is really nice to have, plus the easy swap with basically no downtime is extremely useful. I never really found a time where AE was worth using, outside of maybe a few seconds.

Got the kill, was Arcane for it but really regretted swapping. Probably wasn't worth it so close to a kill especially when me swapping meant I was then put on Spark duty, lol. Though perhaps me being on Sparks helped (when I wasn't failing at them).

[foxkoby]

One silly question but I want to make sure I do have enough samples/answers to have it correctly. Once we reach 9762 haste rating, can we stop stacking haste and reforging into Mastery or not reforging out of Crit, on Crit/Mastery gear? I simmed my stat weights and AskMrR is doing this, I was wondering if its a pretty good assumption by the tool or is it just crazy?

[Aquamonkey]

One silly question but I want to make sure I do have enough samples/answers to have it correctly. Once we reach 9762 haste rating, can we stop stacking haste and reforging into Mastery or not reforging out of Crit, on Crit/Mastery gear? I simmed my stat weights and AskMrR is doing this, I was wondering if its a pretty good assumption by the tool or is it just crazy?

After 9762 haste, you want to go for mastery. Haste after 9762 is still better than crit.

[Sym]

Got the kill, was Arcane for it but really regretted swapping. Probably wasn't worth it so close to a kill especially when me swapping meant I was then put on Spark duty, lol. Though perhaps me being on Sparks helped (when I wasn't failing at them).

Haha, we didn't really assign anyone outside of the healers doing it. It was generally just "if there's a spark up, kill it" sort of mentality. Gratz on the kill though

[Skyefire]

I've got a question re: Bindings of Immerseus trinket. On my pulls I seem to get horrible horrible luck with it and 75% of the time it procs inside Alter Time, which means if I just let Alter Time run out I lose the remaining duration of the proc. :'( On Method's forums Vykina mentioned that he just uses a /cancelaura macro to end Alter Time in order to keep the duration of the proc - what do people think about this? Is it worth doing and forgoing the extended duration of your other procs + pre-pot + hero (if used at the start) + not being able to barrage and having to rebuild stacks to keep the trinket proc or do I just have to accept that crappy proc of the trinket and let it run out after AT ends?

[Kenbud]

I've got a question re: Bindings of Immerseus trinket. On my pulls I seem to get horrible horrible luck with it and 75% of the time it procs inside Alter Time, which means if I just let Alter Time run out I lose the remaining duration of the proc. :'( On Method's forums Vykina mentioned that he just uses a /cancelaura macro to end Alter Time in order to keep the duration of the proc - what do people think about this? Is it worth doing and forgoing the extended duration of your other procs + pre-pot + hero (if used at the start) + not being able to barrage and having to rebuild stacks to keep the trinket proc or do I just have to accept that crappy proc of the trinket and let it run out after AT ends?

Don't AT until it pocs.... Not sure why its a question.