[7.1.5] Let's Talk Rotation

[Kintoun]

Good edits with 1.1 rotation. I too noticed the DPET was highest on AM with Amplification. That means RoP is best used on AMs not MoA. Both if possible is nice though. MoA DPET is about 1mil, AM is about 1.2mil. However it is much easier to manage RoP and MoA when you don't have to sync them.

In general during RoP or AP you want to use your highest DPET abilities. AM > AB > ABarr. So always AM when possible, else AB, and only if on conserve ABarr if you can't get an AB off in time. Also do not start with ABarr -> CU. AB is higher DPET and has a double chance of proccing AM. Only end RoP/AP with a ABarr -> CU. Also worth noting that even if you delay using CU this is generally worth it. You want that 40%/70% increased damage from the ABarr -> CU combo more than using it on CD.

ABarr -> CU also works really well during conservation phase. e.g. RoP (if about to cap) -> spend AMs til 1 charge -> ABarr -> CU -> AM -> ABarr.

Another suggestion I have is to use CU before combat begins assuming you're less than 4 AC. AC decay takes a bit before it sets in, and you don't actually want CU on your AP macro. So this frees a key push during opener.

Also why do you save PoM for end of AP+RoP? Shouldn't it be used ASAP after dumping current AM stacks to quickly get more AM procs for potential use during AP+RoP?

My last idea which I don't have much data on, is never using MoA and PoM outside of AP+RoP cycle. MoA and PoM are 1min CDs and AP is 1.5min CD. Yes this means we're sitting on 50% of MoA+PoM's CD, but it means 70%+40% damage buff on their every use. That "feels" better than using them on CD. Sort of like what Fire used to do with Flame On. For Fire it was worth never using Flame On (45s CD) outside Combustion (2min CD). Overpowered + AP is the new Combustion, gg Blizz.

[Vhella]

@Kintoun wow great input, thanks a lot for your ideas. Actually I like everything you said.

- Not using CU-Abarrfirst during 3rd ROP: I agree totally with you, however I'm scared that delaying this combo by 8-9 sec will put my next CU-Abarr after my 2nd AP. But I'm definitely gonna try it

- I also like the idea of using CU before the precast of MoA during Opener. But why do you say that I do not want my CU on my AP opener macro?

- About the POM during AP, I agree with you 100%, my point in the rotation was to cast AM before PoM if you have charges available (that's mostly stupid since there is like no way you will have missile charges available during opener). Also I want to always cast my PoM ABx2 during RoP-AP and not at the end (when Rop wears off for the last seconds of AP if you see what i mean)

- About the MoA debate outside of AP, Mythlos made a great example that I will reuse with no shame:

Time(s): --------- 0 ----------- 60 --------- 90 --------- 120 ---------- 180

On CD: ----- MoA + AP ------ MoA -------AP -------- MoA ------- MoA + AP

Burn: ------- MoA + AP --------------- MoA + AP ----------------- MoA + AP

If you can use 2 MoA during a fight (60-90 sec): Use it on CD
If you can use 3 MoA during a fight (90-120 sec): Align with AP
If you can use 4 Moa during a fight (120-180 sec): Use it on CD
If you can use 5 Moa during a fight (180-240 sec): Align with AP
If you can use 6 Moa during a fight (240-300 sec): Use it on CD
Etc...

Basically it all depends on your knowledge of the fight and how well your group/raid will perform
(Math and thread here if anyone is interested https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20752430394" target="_blank)

We can do the same graph with PoM, However I feel that we gain much more value (with Overpower) to always align it with AP (procs, more casts), but I've done no math about it.

Thanks a lot for your feedback and help, I feel like my rotation has improved by a good margin thanks to you

[seoh]

CU before the opener means you lose 4 AB chances to proc AM, your highest dpet.

[Haruichi]

ABarr -> CU also works really well during conservation phase. e.g. RoP (if about to cap) -> spend AMs til 1 charge -> ABarr -> CU -> AM -> ABarr.

Another suggestion I have is to use CU before combat begins assuming you're less than 4 AC.

There's a cooldown on ABarr of 4,5 seconds. Depending on haste levels, you might not be able to ABarr>CU>AM>ABarr. Tested it just now. With my current haste levels, there's still 0,8 secs before I can use ABarr again after performing ABarr>CU>AM

Also, aren't any existing AC reduced to one upon boss engage? Meaning, you'd effectively waste CU if you use it pre-combat.

[Cérun]

I agree with Seoh. It seems tempting to some to use it so you don't have the ramp up although I find 2 problems with this... As Seoh already stated you don't get the chance of AM procs.

Additionally, I have been using Barr>CU>burn in my RoP/AP and it seems to net good results. Being instant cast makes up for its less damage from what I can tell. When CU is off cd, I do a mini burn phase within 10sec of it being off cd (so it can be back up for next RoP/AP) with 2+ AM procs (bank them before hand like you stated in your rotation) and your mini burn will look like this, RoP>Abarr>CU>AM>AM>Fill AB and AM when proc>Abarr when rune is bout to fade. If you have 3 AM procs going into this, use AM first then Barr>CU>AM>AM this is to not waste procs as Barrage can proc AM. Also CU is used towards beginning in order to start its cd faster so it can be up for AP.

The only benefit I see to using CU on pull is your CDs are up a few seconds sooner and you might get longer burn while Hero (if Hero on pull) but even that I doubt due to the fact that (at least my burn phase; granted i have no damage legendaries) lasts less than 40seconds with my ramp up, so I don't think this is even a benefit until you get the helm, possibly bracers and/or 4 set.

On another note, I have been saving PoM and MoA for AP/RoP like Kintoun suggested and that also seems to yield good results although I am curious on difference in using them on CD but move them to the mini burn when AP is not up.

I think it's really cool that AP and Evo are completely not tied together anymore. The 4 set even makes this more apparent. Burn phase happens either when Evo is about to come up, AP is up or about to be up, or the Rune you don't need to pair with AP is up and you have 2+ Missles. Basically, it's (burn/conserve) subjective on mana levels and cool downs which feels perfect for arcane!

[Aureliano]

Hi all but this is my first post! First of all thanks for the discussion is super helpful, this is my first WoW xpac and I've been having a blast. As far as the rotation is concerned I wanted to give my 2 cents on delaying the 1 min cds (PoM+MoA) for AP. On another post (was looking for it but can't find it atm) Densor did a great analysis showing that delaying MoA to pair up with AP is better, unless of course the boss is about die at which point like Vhella noted it's better to use it on cd. The same analysis is very simple for PoM (assuming RoP is always paired up with PoM and AP ): if you cast it only during AP you'd get 4 instant ABs / 3 min giving you 4*1.7=6.8 ABs worth of damage, if you cast in on cd you'd get 2 instant ABs during AP and 4 instant ABs outside of it for a total dmg of 2*1.7+4=7.4 ABs / 3min. So you are spending 2 gcds on 0.6 ABs worth of extra dmg but at 0 haste you can cast 1.33 ABs in that time and that's worst case scenario as AMs would yield an even better dmg increase.
On a side note I've been playing with resonance instead of CU but only because it sims better but if ppl think that ST dmg with CU is a bit higher I may wanna give that a shot.

[Kintoun]

@Aureliano Yea I'm switching to Resonance since it's so close to CU but is better for multitarget. NH is all multitarget.

Ran different APL changes for hours while tweaking the APL. Here are my findings:

Holding MoA/PoM/AP vs using them on CD. Negligible difference. Less than 1% difference. I suggest syncing them up until you can tell boss is about to die then use on CD as noted above. Just easier to manage CDs that way.

PoM at start of RoP vs at end. Negligible difference. Less than 1% difference. This one was surprising to me and I still don't have an explanation. I even saw in samples that AB was being used with PoM outside the RoP window when attempting to use at end of RoP. My best guess is it has something to do with highest dmg per mana instead of DPET.

Always using all AM procs when on RoP or AP. Negligible difference. Less than 1% difference. Also surprising to me since AM DPET is highest. Likely has something to do with dmg per mana.

Only using AM while on RoP or AP if about to cap. Negligible difference. Less than 1% difference. Also surprising to me since AM DPET is highest. Likely has something to do with dmg per mana.

Never casting AM while AP is on. 2% DPS loss.

Pooling AM and delaying CU to use ABarr -> CU -> AM -> ABarr. DPS loss. Forget exact amount. Basically don't delay CU. The sims did ABarr -> CU -> AB -> AB sometimes during conservation which destroys your mana. But I couldn't find a DPS increase which fixed that "problem".

All sims were run with 100k iterations. AMP, RoP, CU, Erosion, OP. No legendaries, my gear Kintoun on Tich (35.95% crit, 13.01% haste, 6.49% vers, 25.44% mastery). I'm willing to sim anything core related (no legendaries), just ask.

NH will make simming much easier and improve our QoL with the set bonuses. The more mana regen/savings we have, the easier the class is to predict, sim, and play.

[Frosted]

I think your "infinite mana" burn is misusing spell recharge logic. Charges recharge sequentially, not independently. Your logic is assuming if you use charge 1 at x, it recharges at x+recharge, and if you use charge 2 at y you get it back at y+recharge. if this were true you could use 1 and 2 at the same time and they both come back at the same time, "recharge"-time. In reality, you'd get 1 back at recharge, and 2 back at recharge*2. The end result is you are assuming you have too many evocation charges after your initial 2 evo uses.

Even still, I have pretty heavy reservations about any sort of infinite burn come nighthold. Outside of OP+AP uptime use, the Guldan and metronome trinket procs make arcane spells swing very heavily away from DPM and into DPS territory. When I was trying to work on the Arcane APL recently, a single RoP+Guldan proc could consume 80% of your mana pool - no amount of mastery or missile procs is going to let you recover from this kind of a deficit occurring in ~10seconds. I do think the idea of using CU+Kilt to extend burns is clever though, and would be interested in seeing if I could get it working in the sim.

[Deckzor]

I am only speaking out of experience and i believe AM during AP is a dps+.

Amplification+RoP is just too big during AP. We are talking about 2-3 AMs during AP most of the time and the idk 10-15% Mana reg u loosing because of that wont make up for it.

What i experienced through PTR and in the first ID is that Mana is almost no issue in 7.1.5 considering that most of our dmg comes from AP and Burn Phase. I have kilt went down to 25% Mastery and would go even further down if my Gear would allow it(too many high Ilev pieces with Mastery).

I start with 4xAB -> PoM - MoA - RoP - AP - AM/InstaAbs depends on Procs(trying to fish for Artifact Proc without capping AM) and than AM >AB. In the end i squeeze in a Barrage -> CU -> 2-3 ABs - RoP - AM>AB and than Evo up and Conserve

But thats only from testing rather from theorycrafting.

[Antondias]

Hi guys! Antondias here. (7/7m, 2/3m).
I appriciate all of the work you are putting into this. Together we shall conqueor the meters! Like Alodi once said in a famous movie: None can stand against the darkness alone. (Majority of darkness comes from rets atm and enhance shams coming hotfix this reset)


Opener: MoA -> RoP -> CU -> AP -> (Missile if any to apply Erosion 8 stack) -> PoM -> AB spam & using AM procs. When AP end, you want to immidiately cast RoP since you at this point most likely are under longer effects such as pots, hero etc.
MoA: Realisticly you wanna use this with your next RoP, not only because 40% increase, but 7.1.5 is still new, and if the info about less than 1% difference is accurate, it contributes to a more "logical" rotation whilst being the most beneficial choice for AoE.

- CU: To be used on CD. You want to squeeze the most dmg from it. You really want this to quickly set your burn. If you start holding it for AoE or w/e, it desynces with AP, and we don't want that

- Something I'd like to see is if prolonged now is our goto pot. I guess that depends if Deadly grace still benefits from RoP and more importantly OP.

- As of 7.1.5 you require less than 20% mana to execute burn, whilst what you do outside burn is of less importance. That is why Chrono Shard, New Gul'Dan trinket will be so OP for Arcane. On a sidenote, I'm currently at 35% mastery, I have no legos that impacts mana, and I do not have trouble with running OOM unless I fuck up rotation.

- Stats, (scale factors). If you are like me, and saw the sims and became confused, let me soothen you with my findings.
Prios: Int -> SP -> Mastery -> Vers -> Crit -> Haste.
NB! If you have legos that benefits your mana pool, mastery automatically becomes your low prio. Mastery keeps your mana pool healthy and buffs your major spells.
At 910 ilvl (from sims), as you see crit shines through. You wanna crit that PoM combo, together with all spells inside AP. Arcane will be in a beautiful place with tier. Reasoning behind this is that it takes into consideration that you have a healthy mana pool already. This is accomplished by a certain % of mastery, also legendaries and tier-set bonuses.

- How do you know when to leave mastery behind? You'll have to sim a lot. I advise using Pawn, that simplifies things.


- Quick tip from me: Try to enter RoP & AP with missiles, seeing as using AM instead of AB inside burn window produces the most damage.

- Final thing: Arcane depends heavy on timing, so we need a timetable for NH bosses, set timers for adds etc. After brushing dust of the rotation, timing is ultimately what will be the highest dps increase.

I hope you found my intel helpful! Although most of it has been posted already, I thought some context would be helpful.

- Good luck in NH, mages! Together we shall defeat the darkness (aka other dps specs)

[kiraqt]

btw is there a reason to not CU before pull and therefore get it earlier again + dont waste a keyboard click (unless macroed somehwere) in the opener?

[loonatiq]

Hi guys! Antondias here. (7/7m, 2/3m).
I appriciate all of the work you are putting into this. Together we shall conqueor the meters! Like Alodi once said in a famous movie: None can stand against the darkness alone. (Majority of darkness comes from rets atm and enhance shams coming hotfix this reset)


Opener: MoA -> RoP -> CU -> AP - PoM -> (Missile if any to apply Erosion 8 stack) AB spam & using AM procs. When AP end, you want to immidiately cast RoP since you at this point most likely are under longer effects such as pots, hero etc.
MoA: Realisticly you wanna use this with your next RoP, not only because 40% increase, but 7.1.5 is still new, and if the info about less than 1% difference is accurate, it contributes to a more "logical" rotation whilst being the most beneficial choice for AoE.

- CU: To be used on CD. You want to squeeze the most dmg from it. You really want this to quickly set your burn. If you start holding it for AoE or w/e, it desynces with AP, and we don't want that

- Something I'd like to see is if prolonged now is our goto pot. I guess that depends if Deadly grace still benefits from RoP and more importantly OP.

- As of 7.1.5 you require less than 20% mana to execute burn, whilst what you do outside burn is of less importance. That is why Chrono Shard, New Gul'Dan trinket will be so OP for Arcane. On a sidenote, I'm currently at 35% mastery, I have no legos that impacts mana, and I do not have trouble with running OOM unless I fuck up rotation.

- Stats, (scale factors). If you are like me, and saw the sims and became confused, let me soothen you with my findings.
Prios: Int -> SP -> Mastery -> Vers -> Crit -> Haste.
NB! If you have legos that benefits your mana pool, mastery automatically becomes your low prio. Mastery keeps your mana pool healthy and buffs your major spells.
At 910 ilvl (from sims), as you see crit shines through. You wanna crit that PoM combo, together with all spells inside AP. Arcane will be in a beautiful place with tier.

- How do you know when to leave mastery behind? You'll have to sim a lot. I advise using Pawn, that simplifies things.


- Quick tip from me: Try to enter RoP & AP with missiles, seeing as using AM instead of AB inside burn window produces the most damage.

- Final thing: Arcane depends heavy on timing, so we need a timetable for NH bosses, set timers for adds etc. After brushing dust of the rotation, timing is ultimately what will be the highest dps increase.

I hope you found my intel helpful! Although most of it has been posted already, I thought some context would be helpful.

- Good luck in NH, mages! Together we shall defeat the darkness (aka other dps specs)

There are 2 ways or approaching CU - some advise to build 4 AC by casting AB then barrage during AP +RoP then use CU to continue the burn. You seem to use CU to start the fight with rather than utilize it as damage during AP + RoP. What is the better way? I do have the kilt so I am more leaning toward building AC and then using barrage + CU during AP + RoP.

[Antondias]

I get that some uses it that way, for multitarget it is consierable. Then again, if the fight is multi-target you'll run Resonance instead. So, I guess there is no dps gain from using it inside AP.
As for Single target
1. The seconds while AP is active are very precious, you want to prioritize spells that deal top dmg = AB & AM
2. AB procs Touch of the Magi, having this proc during AP is a very nice dps boost. Hence you want to prio AB above CU.
3. You want to use CU to start rotation quickly in order to use burst as many times as possible during a fight. AP window is where we deal dmg, the more windows the more overall damage.

It's mainly about not saving CD's unless there is a dps gain. CU-Barr combo doesn't do more damage than what 1 Arcane Blast would do.

- The only reasoning for not using CU (In my opinion) before opening burst is to use ABx4 to aquire higher Erosion stacks before you use PoM and all that good stuff.
-

[Antondias]

btw is there a reason to not CU before pull and therefore get it earlier again + dont waste a keyboard click (unless macroed somehwere) in the opener?

- If you CU before combat, once you enter combat your charges drop to 1, that's 76% x3 = 218% less dmg on PoM combo, that sucks.

[loonatiq]

I get that some uses it that way, for multitarget it is consierable. As for Single target
1. The seconds while AP is active are very precious, you want to prioritize spells that deal top dmg = AB & AM
2. AB procs Touch of the Magi, having this proc during AP is a very nice dps boost. Hence you want to prio AB above CU.
3. You want to use CU to start rotation quickly in order to use burst as many times as possible during a fight. AP window is where we deal dmg, the more windows the more overall damage.

It's mainly about not saving CD's unless there is a dps gain. CU-Barr combo doesn't do more damage than what 1 Arcane Blast would do.

- The only reasoning for not using CU (In my opinion) before opening burst is to use ABx4 to aquire higher Erosion stacks before you use PoM and all that good stuff.
-

The arguments for using barrage and CU during AP RoP windows is that by building 4 AC with AB before using cooldowns give you high chance of starting burst with AM procs therefore its more damage, also using barrage and CU might be less damage but you get 12% mana from kilt allowing you to use aprox one more AB before Evo. Do you think that those benefits are not enough to justify such use and still should I go CU at start?

[Antondias]

I get that some uses it that way, for multitarget it is consierable. As for Single target
1. The seconds while AP is active are very precious, you want to prioritize spells that deal top dmg = AB & AM
2. AB procs Touch of the Magi, having this proc during AP is a very nice dps boost. Hence you want to prio AB above CU.
3. You want to use CU to start rotation quickly in order to use burst as many times as possible during a fight. AP window is where we deal dmg, the more windows the more overall damage.

It's mainly about not saving CD's unless there is a dps gain. CU-Barr combo doesn't do more damage than what 1 Arcane Blast would do.

- The only reasoning for not using CU (In my opinion) before opening burst is to use ABx4 to aquire higher Erosion stacks before you use PoM and all that good stuff.
-

The arguments for using barrage and CU during AP RoP windows is that by building 4 AC with AB before using cooldowns give you high chance of starting burst with AM procs therefore its more damage, also using barrage and CU might be less damage but you get 12% mana from kilt allowing you to use aprox one more AB before Evo. Do you think that those benefits are not enough to justify such use and still should I go CU at start?

- Well, I haven't been lucky enough to get kilt, so if you wanna experiment on your own I suggest you do so.
- To answer your question:
1. If you aren't gonna use CU to quickly initiate burst, you're better of going with Resonance, increasing it's damage by 25%. That is because (in my opinion), it is a definite dps loss to use any spells during AP other than AB and AM.
2. The way arcane mage is right now, frees us from using evo too much. Burst doesn't require much mana, MoA, missiles doesn't either. And with tier sets, use of missiles will increase a lot. If you're using AB as filler to fish for procs, and waiting for CD's you'll need mana. Outside that, there isn't much need to be conservative regarding mana. This applies even more to you who have kilt.
3. You value AM above AB during AP. If you were to value AB above AM (Saving proccs for after AP), that will also save you a lot of mana, but you'll do less dps. So the reason for using AM instead of AB kind of disappear if you rather wanna be conservative with mana. Spamming AB would in that case be higher damage, and resulting with more than "Approx one more AB before Evo"

So what you're basically asking me is, should I prio mana over damage? Of course not.

[Frosted]

Hi guys! Antondias here. (7/7m, 2/3m).
I appriciate all of the work you are putting into this. Together we shall conqueor the meters! Like Alodi once said in a famous movie: None can stand against the darkness alone. (Majority of darkness comes from rets atm and enhance shams coming hotfix this reset)

Are you even going to attempt to support this with data or sims or math? Or just say things you want to say.

[Antondias]

Hi guys! Antondias here. (7/7m, 2/3m).
I appriciate all of the work you are putting into this. Together we shall conqueor the meters! Like Alodi once said in a famous movie: None can stand against the darkness alone. (Majority of darkness comes from rets atm and enhance shams coming hotfix this reset)

Are you even going to attempt to support this with data or sims or math? Or just say things you want to say.

Well, you can devalue my findings all you like. I suppose you at this point haven't even tried my recommendations. I'm not telling anyone what to do here, just what I'm doing and what is working great for me.
- Besise, the thread is called "Let's TALK rotation" So I'm sharing what I'm doing. Nothing more

[Frosted]

Hi guys! Antondias here. (7/7m, 2/3m).
I appriciate all of the work you are putting into this. Together we shall conqueor the meters! Like Alodi once said in a famous movie: None can stand against the darkness alone. (Majority of darkness comes from rets atm and enhance shams coming hotfix this reset)

Are you even going to attempt to support this with data or sims or math? Or just say things you want to say.

Well, you can devalue my findings all you like. I suppose you at this point haven't even tried my recommendations. I'm not telling anyone what to do here, just what I'm doing and what is working great for me.
- Besise, the thread is called "Let's TALK rotation" So I'm sharing what I'm doing. Nothing more

This isn't MMOc. Statements like:

"Prios: Int -> SP -> Mastery -> Vers -> Crit -> Haste."

followed by an explanation of "Mastery keeps your mana pool healthy and buffs your major spells." is garbage. So mastery is strong because...you read the tooltip and says it does what the tooltip says it does? This is nonsense.

"- Quick tip from me: Try to enter RoP & AP with missiles, seeing as using AM instead of AB inside burn window produces the most damage. "

Where is your support/evidence for this?

"At 910 ilvl (from sims), as you see crit shines through. You wanna crit that PoM combo, together with all spells inside AP. Arcane will be in a beautiful place with tier. Reasoning behind this is that it takes into consideration that you have a healthy mana pool already."

So crit is good because spells crit. Great. What the fuck does arcane will be in a beautiful place have to do with crit value? What is a "healthy mana pool"? Why do I care about that above crit? This is more fluffy, there is nothing concrete here to support what you said.

"- As of 7.1.5 you require less than 20% mana to execute burn, whilst what you do outside burn is of less importance. That is why Chrono Shard, New Gul'Dan trinket will be so OP for Arcane."

Why do you need 20% less mana? Mastery is more expesive in 7.1.5, spell costs were not adjusted down, NH is full of large haste procs - so we need *less* mana? Why? Where is the evidence for this? Where does the 20% come from? Why is the conserve phase (time outside burn) less important? Why does the presence of haste proc trinkets mean I need less mana, and care about the conserve phase more? I need LESS mana therefore HASTE procs are worth more?? Why? Where is the evidence for this? Where is the logic to link these two ideas. These are two statements, there is no reasoning here.

[DeathDefier]

While disagreeing with sims is fine, and even encouraged to improve them, please provide some sort of data or math to back up your claims.