Arcane Stat Priority

[Codyksp]

I've been searching around and so far I have not found any solid information on this. Even the great Elitist Jerks does not have these numbers yet.

Personally I have been going for Hit > Mastery > Crit > Haste (Int being a no brainer). My reasoning behind this is as follows: the burn phase which lets you stack 4 AB buffs, gives a total of 52% dmg increase once stacked to 4. And after that you will spend most of your time close to full mana until Evocation is up again and you can burn again. Obviously Mastery would not beat AB spam until you get more than 52% bonus, currently at 1448 mastery rating I have a 24% damage increases o this is most likely never going to happen.

However, I am finding it hard to do anything more than 3x AB > AM/ABr in raids because otherwise I lose my mana faster than I gain it, and even then I sometimes have to resort back to 2x AB > AM/ABr. This is with Mage Armor up & glyphed. If I were to stack haste, I would have to resort to even less AB stacks because I would be casting them faster, meaning I would burn my mana even faster, causing regen issues since Mage Armor is every 5 sec.

So currently I value Crit above Haste, since it increases my damage at no penalty. Once I have more mana I will also regen more, since Mage Armor is a static % and AB mana cost will not change anymore (the idea being 80k mana = 2880 per 5 sec but 100k mana would be 3600 per 5 sec allowing for more AB stacks).

So my idea is to keep stacking Int & Mastery & Crit until I can do 3-4x AB > AM/ABr and then start bringing in some haste so I don't get stuck with too much regen.

Any thoughts on this?

[erimed]

the only issue with this, is u need haste to play arc cause u have no dots, so min haste to get a descent dmge from ur spec/gear will completly screw ur mastery/crit, ill say go fire till u get better gear.

[Yjoda]

I think that is wrong here is why....Haste is now bad for arcane for 2 reasons:-

1. Haste doesnt give any dpm increase only dps, crit / mastery would give better returns after stacking hit / int.

2. Arcane mages have Mana Adept - We do more dmg the more mana we have, casting quickly eats mana so we go into regen phase faster.

I am currently looking at reforging as much haste as i can into mastery ill be looking to hit slow and hard, dont forget you get faster cast times anyhow with each stack of AB so stacking even more haste seems pointless with current gear / itemisation.

Any other mages thoughts ?

[Illunis]

you want hit till cap, int, then mastery, followed closely by crit, then haste, found on elitist jerks earlier

[Arrogant]

Pulling this from EJ:

"Generally, Intellect is our best stat, which goes even above Hit. ... For Arcane, Haste and Mastery are very close. At some point, Mastery gains the upper hand (for explanation, you may refer to this post by Logix: Arcane in Cataclysm: Updated for 4.01 ). It is confirmed by Lhivera's SimulationCraft Output results, which show Haste above Mastery for 346 and 359 iLevel profiles, but the reverse for 372 iLevel profile.
For a more solidly grounded view (I am by no means pretending to be a theorycrafter), you may want to refer to a general compilation on information about mages by Vontre (Mage PvE: Cataclysmic Changes ) and Lhivera's [awesome] SimulationCraft output results: Index of /misc/sc403/mage"

In other words:

Int
Hit (to cap)
Haste (if ilvl ~ <359) = Mastery (if ilvl ~ >359)
Crit

[Codyksp]

Well they can simulate all they want. But in reality the more Haste you get the faster you will go oom and the less AB you can stack. Haste is nowhere near Mastery imo and I personally believe Crit is above Haste until higher itemlevels.

The current threads over at Elitist Jerks have not been updated since 4.0.1 and are based only on level 80 or on the Beta, I wouldn't follow them so much if I was you.

I'm happy to see at least 2 other Mages agree with what I said <3

[Diamondium]

It feels odd being an arcane mage and not putting everything to haste.

[GoldFishofDoom]

It is impossible to go OOM as an Arcane mage right now if you play the class properly.

Impossible.

You can easily maintain a mana neutral rotation or even a regenerative rotation between burn phases. Basically, there is no such thing as a mana problem for Arcane mages.

[Freek]

It is impossible to go OOM as an Arcane mage right now if you play the class properly.

Impossible.

You can easily maintain a mana neutral rotation or even a regenerative rotation between burn phases. Basically, there is no such thing as a mana problem for Arcane mages.

This is very true...but dps does suffer from it

i just tested this out yesterday while chaining normals to raise my gear lvl...if u run a mana neutral rotation i was able to sustain about 5-7k dps

if you use a burn-regen-burn rotation i was able to sustain about 9-11k dps

[Codyksp]

It is impossible to go OOM as an Arcane mage right now if you play the class properly.

Impossible.

You can easily maintain a mana neutral rotation or even a regenerative rotation between burn phases. Basically, there is no such thing as a mana problem for Arcane mages.

However, the more haste you have the less ABs you will be able to stack. I have only 4.19% haste and I can stack 2-3 ABs and keep mana up. If I had more haste I would have to stack less ABs, eventually I would end up spending mana faster than I gain it. This is why I think haste should be our lowest value stat.

IT IS VALUED, just not above Crit & Mastery.

[Drenel]

I've been playing with my mage for about a year now and well I was wondering what are the proper stats i should go because of cata...Ok so let me get this stright it's
Int
Hit (till cap)
Mastery
Crit then Haste right?Btw I am arcane mage.
Just want to get the right information.

[Codyksp]

I've been playing with my mage for about a year now and well I was wondering what are the proper stats i should go because of cata...Ok so let me get this stright it's
Int
Hit (till cap)
Mastery
Crit then Haste right?Btw I am arcane mage.
Just want to get the right information.

This is what I have come to understand, and at least 2 other mages are backing me up on this. But don't take it as a holy rule because the number crunchers are still working on a definitive answer.

[Arrogant]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss EJ simulations; if they were sufficient in the past, why are they not sufficient now? The simulations were run with a level 85 caster and equivalent stats.

I'm not blindly pointing in the direction of EJ and saying "See? See? They said so!" EJ is a reference precisely because of the care and attention to detail they give to the information they provide; it's not always flawless, but it's always fact-checked.

Right now, Intellect is our best stat by far, the hit cap is a necessity, followed by either Haste or Mastery (depending upon certain gear-quality factors. i.e., at about 20% haste, Mastery becomes better), with Crit trailing last.

[Codyksp]

Well I prefer to wait until the Arcane thread on EJ gets updated to live, currently it says and I quote:

The investigation of Arcane stat equivalences, optimal gems and consumables is, as of yet, incomplete. The next version of MMS is slated to contain stat equivalence calculations given a specific set of gear. Stay tuned for the results. I will update this thread when the investigation is complete.

Last updated for 4.0.1 in the thread title. But also besides that, I am currently topping the DPS in my guild on raid bosses (and I'm not even hit capped yet, but beating out hit capped melee & hunters). So I guess my Priority isn't so crazy, unless you're saying I could be topping even more and make them eat dust :P

[Sanji]

Codyksp, how are you intending to balance your stats? do you just go pure for that stat order or are you adjusting in order to keep your stats balanced.

for example you have the following stats;
3% Haste
15% Crit
17% Mastery
70k mana
17% hit

If you had a choice to upgrade one of these stats, which one will you prefer? because i was thinking there should be a minimum amount of haste needed in order to get balanced mana used&gained. I was thinking this way you can get best out of your DPS.

What im basically trying to ask is, how low do you think we can go with haste untill we suffer from it?
Not neccercarly pointing this question out to Cody but if you have an idea or thought feel free to reply

[Codyksp]

That is definitely something I was hoping the number crunchers over at EJ would figure out, I think that when you get more Intellect (= more Mage Armor regen). Then you will be able to bring in more haste to avoid having too much regen.

My question mainly is... what is the best way to do your Conservation Phase?

Currently at 4.18% Haste I cast 2-3 ABs followed by AM or ABr, this all depends on Clearcasting procs & Missile procs along with raid buffs. But I feel that if I get even more Haste (a bit can't hurt) then I would have to reduce my ABs to 1-2 instead of 2-3. And while this makes my damage come out faster, an extra AB stack also increases damage in it's own way. It's all very confusing.

So basically I think you have to scale your Haste with your Mana Pool and slowly build it up, but it still stays our lowest priority stat.

EDIT: here is my Armory link http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lames/advanced however it is outdated since this new website is much slower with everything...

[Potatoofdoom]

You should be able to manage your mana pretty well, 2-3 stack AB clear with missiles if it is there. So yes mastery is pretty important, but crit goes hand in hand with mastery because Master of Elements benefits to your mastery/DPS in crazy ways.

[xDarkaix]

On my mage, I prefer to go;
Int
Hit
Crit
Mastery
Haste

You really can't do good dps or hit very hard with out a crit, so your crit needs to be high.

[ShatteredPeace]

So I reforged most of my gear to go in this order for 5 man dungeon last night - granted this is a heroic and not a raid but it still says a lot.

Int
Mastery
Haste
Crit

Before I did this I was doing the whole Int>Mastery>Crit and due to my AB taking so long to cast the DPS WENT DOWN A LOTTTTTTTT

Every piece that has crit on it goes to either haste or mastery (depending on the other stat) and there is a huge difference.

There is no way crit>haste right now its just not possible. Maybe towards the end of wrath where we had so much haste and are AB was taking 1.8 second to cast. But if you take all your haste and put it to other stats your cast time goes to like 2.2 and that is just not viable.

[Challengethis]

Don't forget that our Set 4 bonus is 10% less casting time on Arcane Blast. So once you have that, you'll be gemming/reforging out of haste.

As far as I'm concerned this is pretty straightforward, you get more benefit from mastery than you do out of haste or crit; even at 50% mana, you still get more dps per point of rating from mastery than you do from crit/haste, so that should be always be a first.

Crit gives more dps without affecting dpm so, unless haste gives a higher percentage dps per rating than crit (which just so happens to be the case), and enough of a difference to offset mastery (highly doubtful), then crit should go first. Though on heroics this might not be optimal, since there is more down time between pulls and bosses don't last as long.

And since Mastery does not beat AB spam, mana regeneration is our top priority, apart from all the aforementioned.

Until Mastery >AB x infinity, those saying that haste is more beneficial are stuck in pre-Cataclysm mechanics, as far as I'm concerned.


Think about this: at 3% haste, you get... 3% increased dps, and burn mana 3% faster. Considering each point of mastery increases damage by 2.5% based on the amount of mana we have unspent, (and Mastery ''costs'' about 30% more per point than haste) I fail to see how getting 3% extra dps, from 3% haste, could outweigh 5% dps based on the amount of mana we have unspent, provided you are not casting below 60% during regen phase.

It's not clear, I know, but it makes sense.

Summary:
Hit, Int, Mastery, Crit, Haste.

/done