What to do when stuck in mana no mans land

[Xulgos]

I just swapped from frost to arcane about 2ish weeks ago and after two weeks of raiding I find myself in bad mana situations.

Through a variety of reasons I manage to get down to about 60-75% mana with evocation having more than 30sec left on cd. I have been slowly running the conserve rotation when I am below 93% (usually 4 AB and ABar) but I don't feel like I have a net mana gain while doing this.

Is it better to just sit and wait for my mana to come back or should I continue running my converse phase until evocate comes off cd? Obviously I want to avoid this problem but I would like to figure out a band-aid in the mean time.

[Imnick]

What is your current conserve phase priority list? It seems like you are doing something very wrong.
You should never get to that low mana, it literally just shouldn't happen.

If you have less than 93% mana and no charges of Arcane Missiles, cast Barrage rather than Arcane Blast. You should not cast Arcane Blast at four stacks with less than 93% mana, just clear your stacks immediately and start again, you will regenerate to 100% by the time you reach 4 again.

If you do manage to get there I guess you should just alternate AB and ABarr until it rises again but like... no measure to deal with having low mana will do more for your DPS than removing whatever element is causing you to reach that stage in the first place.
Figuring out why you are getting to low mana and preventing it is far more important than finding a band-aid rotation for when at 70% mana but not burning. The conserve phase is a pretty substantial part of your DPS, even if it's not the most dramatic bit.

[Valounette]

What is your current conserve phase priority list? It seems like you are doing something very wrong.
You should never get to that low mana, it literally just shouldn't happen.

He's clearly asking how to make the best of a bad situation. It's incredibly obvious that working on not getting there in the first place is ideal

If you do manage to get there I guess you should just alternate AB and ABarr until it rises again

It would be interesting if anyone could do sims of the best way to get out of a bad mana fuck-up. It rarely happens to me but still on rare occasion I might do one Arcane Blast too many, or think I arcane barrage'd but didn't. When this does happen, I wonder the same: Conserve as normal and hope for procs to help with regen? Or AB>ABARR>AB>ABARR to prioritise getting to a higher Mastery again at the expense of extremely weak spells. I would do the prior rather than latter.

Unsure how to try sim this x_x

Again: duh we should never be there. But it's nice to know the best way someone can get out of said mistake

[Traumprinz]

I recall talking to Komma and someone else about this.

I mentioned doing ABx3 ABarr and I _think_ Komma suggested ABx2 ABarr. This wasn't any simming though and I assume it would depend on how "deep" you fuck up - for me it's mostly 1-2 AB too many sometimes.

Agree that a "what if this shit happens?"-sim might be interesting, but I assume that would require some work on the APL or something..? *bad at sims*

[Chev]

To my knowledge, this would be extreamly hard to sim as the APL works on a priority basis you would need to tell it to stop using AB at a lower percentage than 93% as it is currently set to do, but then it would do this every time and wouldn't try to get mana levels backup to 93%. I guess you could do something so it only did this during the first 20 seconds of the Evo CD and then used the rest of the evo CD to get back to 93% but how many times are you expecting to see this in a fight? if it is just the once, sims may not show that much of a difference, if you are doing it every 20 -30 seconds then as people said before, more effort should be spent on prevention rather than cure.

It would probably be quicker to do some napkin maths to workout the best way. I'm a little busy over the next few days so if anyone wants to have a crack at this, go for it, but otherwise I will have a go later in the week if I can find time.

[DocileCraig]

I'm not sure that I'm correct with this, but I would just use the conserve phase, you should have enough mana regen that in doing that you're getting more mana rather than burning it. I would also save evocation for a burn phase.

More than anything I would look at what I did wrong and make sure it doesn't happen again.

[Mevlin]

I prefer the AB-AB-dump Missiles-ABarr. But this is just a hunch and don't have the math to back it up. The reason being I do think having high mana is top priority in conserve phase especially at the end (beginning of burn of phase). But AB-ABarr doesn't give me time to process Arcane Missile procs. Again this is just preference and it would be great to see some math behind it.

[Xulgos]

I was mainly having this issue on Imp. Over about 30 or so attempts I had 3 or 4 times were something happened to mess up my evocate before getting to 100%. There were several instances of bombs, novas, and kiting to drop the dot where I would be in the 70-80% range after getting back to the group.

For the latter instances I wasn't using AM and Abar enough while moving, mainly using my IF to cast AB.

Focusing on maintaining my rotation while moving definitely helped reduce my mana mistakes but I still cant avoid them all.

[Chev]

I was mainly having this issue on Imp. Over about 30 or so attempts I had 3 or 4 times were something happened to mess up my evocate before getting to 100%. There were several instances of bombs, novas, and kiting to drop the dot where I would be in the 70-80% range after getting back to the group.

Did you know you can use Ice Floes to cast Evo on the move?

[Xulgos]

Did you know you can use Ice Floes to cast Evo on the move?

I do. Though I don't usually think to burn a charge before I start Evo.

Does using Blink interrupt a channeling Evo w/ IF?

[Chev]

You can cast Ice Floes mid channel and then start moving, but yes, Blink will interrupt Evo even when using Ice Flows

[Chev]

Ok, I have finally sat down to work this out via napkin math, AKA MS Excel.

TL:DR…
To get back to 85-90% Mana because you accidentally went too low, use 2 x AB --> ABarr and repeat until you are at a Mana level you are comfortable with. Use AM procs only if at 3 AM charges or your AM proc is going to expire before you can get to 4 stacks of AC. Assuming you did 2 extra AB’s to get you around the 70-75% Mana range, you should only need to repeat this process twice before you are back to normal conserve range.

Logic behind this:
These figures are given assuming 0% Haste as having Haste will shorten cast times, but also speed up Mana regen ruling out any effect the logic of this working out. I am also using my personal character stats to calculate the damage and Mana regen values. E.g. 8429 SP, 6.4% Versatility and 16525 MP5.

While Mana regen is given as a value of MP5 (Mana Points per 5 seconds), it is actually given each Millisecond. Therefor I regen 16525/5000 = 3.3 mana per tick while in combat.

On the assumption that you start at 100% Mana and 0 AC stacks, getting to 4 x AC will take you to 93% Mana. Casting AB again will get you to 86% Mana at which time you should use your AM procs, reset and start again (assuming using missile procs did not get you above 93% Mana). However, if you have a brain fart moment and cast 1 extra AB, you will be at 80% Mana and 1 extra AB’s will take you to 74% Mana.

If you have any AM charges, use them now before resetting. Ignoring the effect of Mastery on the damage, you will do 34266 damage and regen 6610 Mana during each channel of AM (2 seconds) giving an efficiency rating of 5.2 damage / Mana point gained. ((34266/2000) / (6610/2000) = 5.18)

The next most efficient method of regaining Mana is to cast AB twice and then use ABarr at 2 x AC. Total cast time is 5.888 seconds (assuming robo mage) and will do 39968 damage and regen 19458 Mana => (39968/5888) / (19458/5888) = 4.4 damage per Mana point gained.

If you get really lucky and proc 2 x AM from your first 2 AB’s, using them before ABarr will allow you to regen your Mana faster (as they have 0 Mana cost) but at less than 4 stacks of AC, the damage to Mana gained will be the same as using AB x 2 & ABarr (4.4). As the AM! buff lasts 20 seconds, you should have enough time to get back to normal Mana levels and to 4 stacks of AC and use them then allowing you to get 5.2 damage per Mana gained.

If anyone wants to check my working out in more detail, below is a copy of the spreadsheet I used: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Just a note when looking at the spreadsheet, I haven't really laid this out in any kind of logical order so you may need to look at the formulas to attempt to see what I am attempting to do.

Also, as stated above, my working out has ignored the effected of Mastery and Haste because haste cancels it's self out by decreasing cast time but also increasing Mana regen. I left Mastery out because all it does it make damage calculations really difficult and an Arcane Missile cast at 70% Mana will suffer from a reduction in damage just as much as an Arcane Blast at 70%. I have also ignored the effect of the set bonuses to keep things simple.

[Chev]

I have just realised the values I have given above assume 0% Haste for the cast times, but the Mana regen values are effected by 16.67% Haste (raid buffed). I have just put my non-haste effected combat MP5 into the spreadsheet and while the Damage to Mana Point values do go up. E.g. AB x 2 & ABarr is now 5.1. It does not change the rotation priority in order to maximise damage while also gaining mana.

[Babsy]

Chev, you are a scholar and a gentleman. Thanks for doing this, I think it's really important to recognize that nobody is perfect and being able to recover from your mistakes is just as important as understanding you messed up. I have gotten way better with my mana management as of late but sometimes I start my burn to early, this will help loads thank you.

[RoseyNZ]

I also appreciate this discussion, I've found myself in 70% ish mana land as well, as I'm relatively new to the Arcane way of life. Sometimes I get several procs and find myself loosing 8% mana on AB's and before you know it, i'm down mana in an unintentional burn phase.

So thanks for the responses everyone.

[Boomop]

Just want to point out this technique (AB X 2 > Abarr) isn't only a "shit happens" thing.

It allows you to CHOOSE to burn outside of your normal CD rotation while still maintaining the timing of your CDs. Basically, dump mana for DPS when your raid needs it or the encounter calls for it. Like pushing a phase transition or killing something that needs to die NOW.

Just some thoughts on WoD Arcane:

--The ideal SIM rotation is just that. Ideal. Under ideal circumstances. Very few fights match the ideal. Arcane is one of the few specs that can trade DPS now at a cost later. Sometimes, it's very much worth making this trade.

--When you need to burn. Burn. Do it.

A lot of BRF fights have mechanics where things need to die ASAP. And also have phase transition mechanics that buy your mana regen time. Play these to your benefit rather than detriment as Arcane. Use your mana as a resource.

--When you're not burning, you always want to be @ that 93% mana rotation. If you're not, you aren't stuck in no man's land. Adopt a very, very mana positive rotation. Like, AB X 2 > Abarr. And using Abarr on movement to drop stacks as well until you can get back up to that ideal mana position. (A lot of older Mages will remember this from Wrath).

--Basically. Think of Arcane as having 3 rotations. 1) Burn. 2) Conserve (which is the mana neutral 93% rotation), and 3) ULTRA Conserve which is mana positive when you need it to be.

And yes, this type of play won't give optimal tip top ranking DPS. But it will generally give you more meaningful DPS. Your Burst and large DPS will be where the raid and mechanics need it, rather than stuck on the arbitrary schedule of your CDs. This is one of the things I've loved most about Arcane.

Think of Spine of Deathwing and how important it was to kill a Tendon in one lift (Primal Elementalist is the same deal).

This is a somewhat new concept for Mages that only played MoP Arcane, where your rotation was really just the Conserve Mana Neutral rotation.

[Berlinia]

Chev I fail to see how haste would make a difference. The only thing you need to do is translate the absolute values into a mana % gain per cast of AB (or GCD) and work from there

[Chev]

This is what I was saying when I said the effect of Haste cancels its self out. The issue I had when working out the mana gain was caused by using non-haste effected cast times but haste effected mana regen values so spells looked more efficient at regenerating mana than they actually were.

[Berlinia]

Yea sorry I didn;'t read everything replied to the (first?) post

[FlirtyFreak]

Did you know you can use Ice Floes to cast Evo on the move?

I do. Though I don't usually think to burn a charge before I start Evo.

Does using Blink interrupt a channeling Evo w/ IF?

You do realize that you can cast Ice Floes mid Evo and then move...only downfall is you have to cast something to stop the channel. Or have a stop cast macro.