a little help with arcane.

[Hemanse]

So i have been playing fire for well, ever since i rerolled to mage, i never really picked up on arcane, even last tier when it seemed to be the spec to play, i have read around a bit and there seems to be 2 options, haste or mastery, haste seems to be dependant on trinkets (not sure if thats right) and mastery just seems to be the normal way.

Would love to know what i should go for, killed ra-den er few weeks ago and i went as fire, since we are a bit low on the burst dmg for orbs, i thought i might just try out arcane, but would love some inputs regarding stat weight and so on.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Hemanse/simple, regemmed, reforged etc the best i could, but would love some info, advice etc.

Thanks in advance!

[voltaa]

So if you are just planning to go arcane for raden for orb damage, your reforging isn't all that important (just pick up lots of mastery and keep your crit it's good for burst on orbs) but if you are planning on going all out arcane mastery>haste is the way to go.
The way mastery effects your bombs just makes it too strong to pass up for multitarget, where haste is really only great for single target (nothing this tier).

[Hemanse]

okay, thanks for the quick response, think i might just stick with arcane and see how it is, atleast for a little while now that we have cleared this tier and are mostly just farming gear. Pretty much stuck with fire again, even tho im still hating the rng even with my kind of gear, so who knows, i might come to like arcane.

[Deleted]

Arcane's actually pretty free at the moment. In BiS gear you'll have enough Haste off the gear to not really worry about caps, but if you're in sub-optimal gear honestly I'd try and shoot for a haste cap and then change your play according to which bomb choice you go for and then also change your Armor use accordingly.

However, it's actually mostly going to come down to playstyle and playstyle preference. I, for one, prefer faster casts so I shoot for a higher haste cap than others might, sacrificing a fair bit of mastery to do so, but in my opinion because I'm more comfortable with the playstyle I generally play it better.

[Deleted]

If you just want to test it on ra-den you can do pretty decent job with your crit gems and just reforge to mastery > haste > crit + rune.

[Deleted]

We are progressing on Ra-Den right now. And I went Arcane for it. The Orb damage is high, and we will probably get him down this week. I regemmed and reforged everything for Mastery, and I do think that it is working out really good.

But just to lend the thread, if that´s alright. Is Arcane possible to do as much DPS as Fire's doing, on all the bosses pre Ra-Den? Or should you just Reforge/regem for every week incase you have bad damage on the Orbs?

My Armory:http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Liveet/simple

[Deleted]

Arcane's actually pretty free at the moment. In BiS gear you'll have enough Haste off the gear to not really worry about caps, but if you're in sub-optimal gear honestly I'd try and shoot for a haste cap and then change your play according to which bomb choice you go for and then also change your Armor use accordingly.

However, it's actually mostly going to come down to playstyle and playstyle preference. I, for one, prefer faster casts so I shoot for a higher haste cap than others might, sacrificing a fair bit of mastery to do so, but in my opinion because I'm more comfortable with the playstyle I generally play it better.

What haste caps do Arcane mages go for? I'm a little lost when it comes to how much haste I should have as Arcane. Also, if you have a fair amount of haste, would you be better off with frost armor than mage armor?

[Seior]

What haste caps do Arcane mages go for? I'm a little lost when it comes to how much haste I should have as Arcane. Also, if you have a fair amount of haste, would you be better off with frost armor than mage armor?

I could be incorrect (for I quit a few months back), and hopefully someone with more current knowledge will substantiate my claims, but the haste cap is ~13%. And you should always use Mage Armor. When I played I didn't really bust my balls to get to any "haste caps" or "breakpoints" but just adopted the following, simplified motto that should suffice for most users: maintain hit cap, leave the vast majority of haste unreforged (when over ~13%, reforge to mastery, or whenever extra hit is needed that is not satisfied by reforging crit), and always reforge crit to mastery (unless, as mentioned before, extra hit is needed to maintain the cap. I hope this is valid information and will help you with your gameplay.

[Deleted]

But just to lend the thread, if that´s alright. Is Arcane possible to do as much DPS as Fire's doing, on all the bosses pre Ra-Den?

Not all, but it's not unviable by any means. I've been Arcane since we started progressing on Megaera HC (so 4/13 HC) and I've not looked back yet, nor have I held back my guild's progress whatsoever by playing Arcane instead of Fire.

What haste caps do Arcane mages go for? I'm a little lost when it comes to how much haste I should have as Arcane. Also, if you have a fair amount of haste, would you be better off with frost armor than mage armor?

Honestly, as I mentioned above, comes down to a mixture of personal preference and gear.

If you're ~medium on gear I'd say shoot for 6413 (I think it's around there) Haste rating, and run Mage Armor 100% of the time.
At slightly higher levels of gear you can either go for 8086 and run Mage Armor 100% or go for 9762 (what I'm doing) and run Frost Armor with Living Bomb and Mage Armor with Nether Tempest.
At highest levels of gear, it's completely up to you how to itemise your own BiS gear and it'll largely depends on playstyle. Personally what I'll be doing when I get there is probably sticking with something akin to what I'm doing now, but I might change my Armor choices, it'll depend.

[Deleted]

Not all, but it's not unviable by any means. I've been Arcane since we started progressing on Megaera HC (so 4/13 HC) and I've not looked back yet, nor have I held back my guild's progress whatsoever by playing Arcane instead of Fire.

What bosses are there that you lack behind on? I could just guess, Tortos,Council,Ji-Kun and maybe Durumu. But is there actually a boss that you´d rather pick Arcane over Fire? Ra-Den is the only boss that comes to my mind tbh :/

[Hemanse]

Tried out arcane today on ra-den, we got the kill but i kinda borked it up, ran too low on mana and my dps was pretty pittyful, think im just gonna stick with fire, can't say i like the whole mana management part of arcane and being bound to stand in a circle

[Deleted]

What bosses are there that you lack behind on? I could just guess, Tortos,Council,Ji-Kun and maybe Durumu. But is there actually a boss that you´d rather pick Arcane over Fire? Ra-Den is the only boss that comes to my mind tbh :/

Tortos depends. Can go higher than Fire if you pad off adds. Movement hurts.
Council, idk. It bursts a lot less than Fire, but unless you get a very, very strong Combustion off I think Arcane does OK.
Ji-Kun Arcane wins (just, it's another close one)
Durumu - Arcane's strong, only a good combust spread will pull Fire ahead.

Uhm. Jin'rokh, and Tortos are fire-favourable, but played well Arcane is either equal or pulls ahead.

[Deleted]

Tortos depends. Can go higher than Fire if you pad off adds. Movement hurts.
Council, idk. It bursts a lot less than Fire, but unless you get a very, very strong Combustion off I think Arcane does OK.
Ji-Kun Arcane wins (just, it's another close one)
Durumu - Arcane's strong, only a good combust spread will pull Fire ahead.

Uhm. Jin'rokh, and Tortos are fire-favourable, but played well Arcane is either equal or pulls ahead.

Thank you! We just downed Ra-Den and I did really good DPS. Both to the orbs and the boss himself.

I will actually try out Arcane this week. Since we have pretty much everthing on farm. I can compare how I did last week as Fire. I´ll come back then and tell you what I struggled with and what went perfect

[Deleted]

Thank you! We just downed Ra-Den and I did really good DPS. Both to the orbs and the boss himself.

I will actually try out Arcane this week. Since we have pretty much everthing on farm. I can compare how I did last week as Fire. I´ll come back then and tell you what I struggled with and what went perfect

I can probably already tell you the rough results

Jin'rokh is similar to Fire, you need good RNG, but instead of trinket RNG you need good RNG in the storm phases so you're allowed to stay inside your Rune and nuke the boss. Would suggest placing two Runes next to each other to give you some wiggle room.
Horridon is RoP again and run NT. NT the adds and always keep NT on the boss. If you really want to pad meters, build up Charges on the boss with AB, funnel Missiles into the boss and then Barrage the ADDS if there are a lot of them up. If not, or if at later gates (again, this is for padding), Barrage onto boss. Can pad much better than Fire.
Council is keep NT up on everything, otherwise normal rotation w/ RoP. Falls behind Fire though.
Tortos - Blergh. Ask to be on Bats or just /afk.
Megaera - Much, much stronger than Fire.
Ji-Kun - potentially stronger than Fire, depends on procs lining up w/ the buff.
Durumu - Fire wins hands down, Combustion spreading too strong, plus DPS on the move.
Primordius - Tough, relies on good buff RNG. With good buffs beats Fire.
Dark Animus - Depends how you tank the Massives. If you tank them close to the boss it's close between the two specs.
Iron Qon - Personally I think Arcane wins here, but relies on good RNG on Deadzones to limit overall movement.
Twins - Arcane
Lei Shen - Arcane more consistently high, but Fire's good too.
Ra-den - ARCANE.

[Deleted]

So which key is it better to bound my cast sequence macro to? 1? 2?, or should i bind it to all my key binds just to make sure face rolling has optimal uptime? <3 All jokes aside I personally prefer arcane, even though my mage is only my alt, master Cycobi taught me everything. STRONK MAGE.