Scorch weaving

[Emek]

So I think after the 9001 threads about rotation, I think it's been generally accepted that scorch weaving is needed. With that being said, has anyone came up with a rock solid way of doing this in terms of how many scorches to fireballs you need pre 35%\TW.

[Squea]

I usually throw FBs and a normal rotation until about 70-65% mana and then start adding in a few scorches, ~ 2-4. Main thing i usually focus on is when the boss is at 35%, I want, in a perfect world, at least 50% mana and maybe have a gem on CD.

[floater6]

Try and maintain fireball spam during any period of the boss fight where there is a damage increase.
This includes but is not limited to;
Molten Fury
Boss Damage Mechanics (Spike on Magmaw, Three Additional Drakes defeated on wyrmbreaker, toxins on Omnitron etc.)
Trinket Procs
Power Infusion
Tricks of the Trade

You want to be scorching for a minimal amount of time without using it for long stretches. You also want to try and have an arcane mage mentality about fire now. If you have mana left over at the end of a fight that is generally speaking damage wasted.

[Nut]

Keep in mind when using the term "scorch weaving" you technically dont want to weave like back in T5 Arcane when you weaved Frostbolt into your rotation while you regen mana.

There is a discussion on EJ about this so I'll just copy it here.

Hypothetical example only: A 5 minute Patchwerk encounter with no adds, no movement, no trinkets worn, no glove/cape enchants, no weakened phases. Do not interpret the table below as anything other than a hypothetical example for what would be an unrealistic set of conditions for an encounter.

1 Start the fight with a "Burn Rotation" until you're 12500 mana short
2 Use the first Mana Gem to go back to 100% mana
3 Continue the "Burn Rotation" until 35% mana (Approxinately 1.5 minutes)
4 Use Evocation to go back to 100% mana
5 Resume the "Burn Rotation" phase until around 35% again. Use the second Mana Gem as soon as off cooldown
6 Use the "Hover Rotation" via heavy Scorch Weaving to keep mana levels constant. Use your 3rd mana gem as soon as it's off cooldown to bring us up to 50% mana. (We're hovering at 50% mana to save up enough mana for the incoming Molten Fury Range, which we expect to last 1 minute).
7 As soon as the boss reaches Molten Fury range (35%) switch back to the "Burn Rotation".
8 Boss dies exactly as we run OOM.

[Swizzle]

Just to add something to the EJ post above: when weaving Scorch into your rotation, do so UNTIL Clearcasting procs. When it does, throw out an additional Fireball then go back to spamming Scorch until you get another CS proc or your mana levels are where they should be.

[Brightspark]

Yup, Swizzle is on the money again as usual, I tend to alternate my CS procs between LB and Fireball. If I use CS for a living bomb it generally won't proc again until after LB expires so i'll use my mana on LB then cast a fireball on the next CS proc

[Plasmon]

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but has it been calculated or determined experimentally that it's better to use molten armor or mage armor in fire?
With mage armor that's much less scorches that you'd need, but certainly the crit from molten armor is valuable in the first tier while crit levels are very low. Molten also provides moving scorch, and the extra crit gives regen from master of elements and more hot streak procs, so if I were to guess I'd assume molten wins. I just wanted to ask the experts to confirm.

Also, what about switching armors mid fight? We could maybe use mana shield during the non-burn phase or "hover rotation" (instead of so many scorches) and switch back to molten for the last 35%?

[Nut]

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but has it been calculated or determined experimentally that it's better to use molten armor or mage armor in fire?
With mage armor that's much less scorches that you'd need, but certainly the crit from molten armor is valuable in the first tier while crit levels are very low. Molten also provides moving scorch, and the extra crit gives regen from master of elements and more hot streak procs, so if I were to guess I'd assume molten wins. I just wanted to ask the experts to confirm.

Also, what about switching armors mid fight? We could maybe use mana shield during the non-burn phase or "hover rotation" (instead of so many scorches) and switch back to molten for the last 35%?

Molten all the way.

[Deleted]

Molten all the way.

That is until on your way your car runs out of mana and you realise scorching ain't gonna put engine back to work. Dps-wise molten is better, but mana-wise it depends on stats and actuall playstyle/skills/specific encounter. Therefore mage armor might be what you should be using (and from what I heard you have to at starter gear at least).

[DeiVias]

I doubt the raid is gonna keep you around if your planning to use mage armor over molten cause the DPS you'll be pulling will be below the tanks your crit will suck so bad.

I haven't had an issue using Molten with the rotation posted a few posts above.

[Chaoslux]

That is until on your way your car runs out of mana and you realise scorching ain't gonna put engine back to work. Dps-wise molten is better, but mana-wise it depends on stats and actuall playstyle/skills/specific encounter. Therefore mage armor might be what you should be using (and from what I heard you have to at starter gear at least).

From what i've picked up, even while scorch spamming, you want Molten Armor up because it's 5% more crit even for Scorch, Living Bomb, and the occasional mana-free Pyroblast.

[Veroxa]

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but has it been calculated or determined experimentally that it's better to use molten armor or mage armor in fire?

You want to use molent for two reasons.

1) increased crit. This is needed to proc hot streaks and master of elements.
2) mobility, whit fire-starter talented you can cast scorch on the move. At least i find this wry handy now days

So adjust your mana usage Like Nut suggested whit the EJ reference, the math is also done, and if you try you might find it inn one of the old tread's there.

If you just cast Scorch fire is fairly manna neutral (Granted that you have it talented ofc), even whit Pyroblast! and renewing LB.

[Fizzi]

I think the best way to stay at a consistent mana level is 5 scorches per every 2 fireballs. So if you wanted a little more dps(and a higher mana-loss rate) I'd say to use 3 scorches with every two fireballs.

[Plasmon]

I was kinda hoping for specifics (numbers or links to numbers, etc), because I can speculate just as well as everyone else and in my post I already mentioned that I was fairly certain molten would be better. But the other idea that I brought up hasn't been addressed yet:

Also, what about switching armors mid fight? We could maybe use mana shield during the non-burn phase or "hover rotation" (instead of so many scorches) and switch back to molten for the last 35%?

What I'm talking about is using molten armor for the majority of the fight including all the burn phases at the beginning, the end, after evocation, and when high DPS is required to bust through a certain phase of the fight. But instead of staying in molten the whole time and spamming a ton of scorches during the mana efficient phase, what about the option of switching to mage armor during that (if you don't need mobility), which would mean you're able to cast more fireballs again instead of so many scorches, and then obviously back to molten armor for the final 35%.

I haven't had time to play cataclysm yet so I don't know what molten/mage armor mana costs are at 85, or how much damage scorch does but the armor cost alone could make this not practical. I really think they should make our molten/mage/frost armors much more like hunter aspects or DK presences and cost us nothing but a GCD.

[Blitzkrieg Says]

I've been doing 3:1 fireball:scorch and as long as I get a full evocate off and use my gems on CD I've been winding up almost right at zero. Although, in our raid set up I've been getting mana tide so that probably helps me out a lot.

[Mogu]

Haven't been using scorch
Then again all I've run in heroics
And I can survive off my gems+evo
Usually
I'll have to go respec into improv scorch

[Heilige]

I've been Fireballing until all my mana CD's are down, and I hit 20% mana, then scorch spam a bit aside from CC procs, until CD's come up or I hit 50% mana.

Been putting up top parses on each boss that way so far, so it's working.

[Skarrd]

I've been doing 3:1 fireball:scorch and as long as I get a full evocate off and use my gems on CD I've been winding up almost right at zero. Although, in our raid set up I've been getting mana tide so that probably helps me out a lot.

Tide doesn't help dps anymore. It now multiplies your spirit which gives us a whopping 0 regen no matter how much we have.