Arcane opener with Crucible

[smartys]

Hi There,

I was wondering about the following:

I stumbled upon loggs of a ilvl 690 arcane mage which was constantly hitting 200k dps+ in the opener ath Gruul so I was wondering how he does it. Since it was on several loggs i excluded crit luck etc.
His Loggs showed the following opener:

Precast,Pot--> go to 3 Charges --> Put down crystal + all CD's --> release Supernovas on crystal --> POM + AB on crystal --> standard burning...

after looking at it it seems that by putting the crytsal down earlier he garantees that his 2 supernovas (not affected by AC's) hit the crystal at maximum Stacks of his Crucible trinket. So gains some dmg there but also loses some by having to cast a 3 stack AB on the crystal.

Nevertheless he does ~2 million crystal dmg consistently which is really impressive at ilvl 690 if you ask me oO.

So I can't do it myself but could someone simulate what i just described ? Maybe there is really some potential .. or he was just lucky on several occasions.

Thanks in advance
Smartys

[Komma]

You should probably link a log for these kinds of things.

That said, your suggestion doesn't make much sense because Crucible takes 10 seconds to stack, and during Bloodlust it takes less than 10 seconds to build up to 4 Arcane Charges, PC and SNx2.

[Trustbucket]

Doing this is wasting mana being capped, higher chance at overwriting a proc, and wouldn't be using the proc at it's max stacks. If you trinkets proc off your first AB, which they usually do, you only need to cast 3 AB and PC which for me with lust and haste trinket is just barely over 5 seconds and without lust and just under 6 seconds without lust meaning that even without lust you can SN->AM (almost always with 4pc proc)->AB->SN all within the trinket window on PC and you get your second supernova at max stacks of Crucible proc. This way you barely cap mana during PC and it just ensures a very consistent and reliable PC and burn after crystal imo.

With Crucible over the crit trinket I use it may be an increase to do AM->AB->SN x2 to get supernova at max stacks but doing that may mean you would have to delay your second crystal so that you can get two supernovas in the crystal. I haven't looked into which one would be better as I don't have Crucible mythic and the difference would probably be very negligible.

Edit: I would link the timings of when my trinkets proc and timing of these procs for when I use SN but our logs are private so you'll just have to trust the timings I gave but obviously it would be slightly different for someone with different gear or possibly that isn't running the haste trinket for whatever reason.

[smartys]

Sorry here are the loggs, should have posted them right away

1. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/JP ... &source=19" target="_blank
2. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/Aq ... source=301" target="_blank
3. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/6C ... &source=17" target="_blank

first two are with ilvl 690 and th third was ilvl 681

So I am talking only about the opening sequence until his crystal despawns.

[Trustbucket]

His two supernovas were at 7 and 9 stacks for the first one, which isn't efficiently using the trinket's proc, and from what I can see he is minimally capping mana in his openers (especially on the third one from what I can see) which can affect burst damage and/or consistency depending on procs. Depending on what time frame you are looking at he could be doing more burst, but I can't see a reason to why he would do more overall damage in his opener than if he were to use 4 ABs before PC and use his SN as quick as possible without capping mana and not delaying the second until after the proc ends.

[Valounette]

I remember watching Methods stream and their Arcane mage (only checked one log) casted Prismatic crystal at 3AC then supernova>PoM AB. Wasn't sure why.

[Komma]

The only reasoning I can think of, is that the two Supernovas are casted at a very slightly higher level of mana, instead of the reduced mana level after casting the expensive 4th Arcane Blast (AB3). There's also starting Supernova's recharge one cast earlier.

I don't see a reason to consider this as optimal. On the other hand, openers have minimal effect on DPS, so it hardly matters.

[Bashlow]

This is for pull without bloodlust:
When you pull with: 4ab then cristall then 2 novas your trinkets are running out 1-2s later after novas, so you Hit both novas into the cristall for Max trinket benefit. At this point my incanters flow stacks are going from 3-2 -1 when novas Hit the kristall.Maybe he (method Mage) tries to be "earlier" to make more use if the higher IF stacks ? btw I yet dont habve a haste trinket rrunning (crucible and oregorger). But fruit basket abuse and haste trinket/ bloodlust change everything

[smartys]

tested it yesterday on my own. I agree to your arguments that it should not be a gain with ROP and Lust opener. And I also saw that in my logs ...

on the other hand I am still not certain how the situation changes with Incanters Flow. If you start your crystal with 3 Charges, you get those two supernovas out at 4 and 3 stacks of IF with full trinkets. If you wait till 4 arcane charges you hit them with 2 and 1 or maybe 3 and 2. So you could say ok I wait with supernovs for high stacks of IF but then your trinkets have run out. So I have the feeling that this 3 AC --> crystal opener might be a valid alternative when you use Incanters flow. Can't really prove it though ... Defnitely didnt hurt my dps

[beatle]

Without raid haste / bl, using pom, haste trinket and berserk i hit 4 arcane stacks at 3.6sec fight time. Crystal down and Nova at 5 and 4 incanter's flow stacks.
So i guess they use crystal at 3 arcane stacks to easialy hit both novas on 5 incanter's flow stacks.
Ontopic: Still this is not optimal for crucible because u are close to half crucicble stacks, not max.

[Trustbucket]

Using 2 SN right away with using berserking before crystal to get incanter's flow at 4-5 stacks instead of 2-3 with max stacks of crucible just doesn't seem worth it. 4-5 stacks is just over 7% increased SP using the SN, but you lose the higher stack of the trinket, potentially fitting one less spell in the trinket window inside crystal, capping mana, and having a decently higher chance to overwrite a proc (especially if you AB after the 2 SN to get off 100% mana). Do that strategy if you want but no chance you'll see me doing that even if I was troll.