Arcane Mage Compendium of Knowledge

[voltaa]

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Core Mechanics and Gameplay
3. Talents
4. Glyphs
5. Stats
6. Reforging and Gemming
7. Gear
8. Guide to Siege as Arcane
9. Closing
10. Change log

1. Intro

Hello fellow mages, and welcome to my Compendium of Arcane knowledge! First and foremost, I'll give you guys a little background. I am Voltaa and I have been playing a mage since the end of Wrath, currently playing in Refined (14th US 25m) also I am one of the mage moderators over at MMO-Champion. I have recently become very interested in mage theorycrafting, more specifically for Arcane, which is the spec that I play and enjoy the most. The reason behind me referring to this as a compendium rather than a guide (as well as not referring to it as "voltaa's compendium/guide") is to do with issues of me not being able to take credit for a large portion of the information that will be posted in this thread, it is a collection of the work and ideas of many mages over the course of the expansion (including the style I'm doing this post in, I just ripped that formatting straight from Shangalar/Cycobi's thread).

2. Core Mechanics and Gameplay

Note that since this is in reference to 5.4 arcane, it is assumed in this section that the player has the t16 2 piece bonus Profound Magic

2.1 Core Spells

Mage Bomb - Keep up at all times, application can proc missiles, damage does not.

Arcane Blast - Used to build Arcane Charge, main damaging ability.

Arcane Missiles - Used to buid Arcane Charge, this is our proc ability and does not consume any mana.

Arcane Barrage - Used to consume Arcane Charge, this is a low cost, hard hitting instant cast with a short cool down.

Profound Magic - Reduces the cost of Arcane Blast by 25% per stack (stacks up to 4 times)

Mage Armor - This is our primary armor choice for any fight that involves multiple targets.

Frost Armor - This is our armor choice for single target encounters.

2.2 Core Mechanics

Arcane Charges are one half of the duo of mechanics that heavily dictate our playstyle as an arcane mage, this debuff stacks up to 4 times increasing damage done by Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage by 50% each stack (capping at 200%) and mana consumed by Arcane Blast by 150% each stack (capping at 600%) as well as adding 1 additional target to Arcane Barrage for each stack, hitting at 50% value.

Mastery: Mana Adept is the other half of the duo dictating our play style. The more mana you have the more damage your spells do plain and simple, so staying at close to 100% mana at all times is the core of our dps.

2.3 Gameplay

So as you can see from the mechanics section our two main mechanics very much contradict each other, on the one hand building charges makes our spells hit extremely hard but also cause us to lose mana more rapidly which in turn causes our mastery to grant us less of a damage bonus. The arcane "rotation" is a balancing act of trying to stay at maximum charges for as long as possible, while also retaining as much mana as possible.

2.3.1 Single Target Gameplay

For pure single target, you will want to use Frost Armor and Living Bomb. As soon as another target comes into play, you want to use Mage Armor on that encounter.

The goal of single target dps for arcane is to stay at 4 stacks of Arcane Charge as long as possible without dipping below 80% mana, as well as keeping your bomb up as close to 100% of the time as possible. The way to accomplish this is to use Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles to build up to 4 charges then weave Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast one after the other until you no longer get any procs or are going to go below 80% mana. You can refresh your bomb early by up to ~2 seconds in order to "fish" for procs. Once you are out of procs or close to 80% mana use Arcane Barrage to reset your charges and start the rotation again.

2.3.2 Multiple Targets

When dealing with multiple targets, your game play will vary from a modified single target rotaion, to a full on AoE rotation.

2-3 Targets - Continue your single target rotation, but refresh your mage bomb on the secondary and tertiary targets as needed, if possible try to snapshot high procs on your mage bombs, as well as use these bombs to camp at 4 arcane charges longer by fishing for procs, do not go out of your way to stay at maximum charges, if you do not need to refresh a bomb, don't refresh it early in hopes of gaining a missile proc. Your choice of bomb in these situations will depend on the distance of your bomb targets from each other, if two or more of your targets will be in nether tempest cleave range of each other for the majority of the fight, you will want to choose Nether Tempest, if the targets will be spread for a majority of the fight, use Living Bomb.

4 Targets - If your 4 targets are spread, use Nether Tempest and refer to the 2-3 target rotation, if they are grouped up you will want to use a modified single target rotation. Rather than the goal of your rotaion being to stay at 4 charges for as long as possible, you will want to get as much cleave damage out as possible with Nether Tempest and Arcane Barrage. Instead of banking missiles you will want to spend them to build charges, ideally with a rotation consisting of as many missiles as possible.

5+ Targets - If your targets Are spread, refer back to 2-3, if stacked you will want a rotation of Arcane Explosion with Glyphed Cone of Cold on CD, while maintaining your mage bomb on as many targets as possible provided they will live for the duration of the bomb. When you get to 10+ targets (feel free to correct this number cycobi) it becomes more beneficial to use Living Bomb over Nether Tempest for AoE as you can spend more globals on AE and CoC as well as have a large hit from the final explosion of Living Bomb.

3. Talents

Original credit to Shangalar for this talent writeup I have gone through and updated it from the original post on MMOC, updates are in bold.

Level 15 – Mobility Tier

Presence of Mind – great for occasional periods of short movement absolute stadstill patchwerk fights, otherwise a useful DPS cooldown

Blazing Speed – a very nice mobility spell even if it's only a very short burst of speed

Ice Floes – a neat spell for periods of predictable movement and the highest dps option when in the hands of a skilled player.

Beginner tip – Presence of Mind Blazing Speed is your safest bet when learning a fight, allowing for increased survivability at a slight cost to dps, Ice Floes can be wasted if not used properly, and we are not really used to move and cast

Pro tip – mastering Ice Floes can be quite beneficial depending on the encounter, but will require practice even for the experienced Arcane Mages. I personally found Blazing Speed to be optimal for me this raid tier and I use only that. voltaa note: I also used blazing speed for all of progress, but only due to the fact that I didn't bother learning Ice Floes, IF is by far the superior choice.

Level 30 – Defense Tier

Temporal Shield– usable while disabled and doesn’t trigger a global cooldown. Heals after 4 seconds instead of preventively absorbing damage and also reduces incoming damage by 15% for the short duration.

Flameglow - a passive defensive spells which reduces a small amount of damage taken from each hit

Ice Barrier – a powerful absorb, but triggers a global cooldown

Beginner tip – Ice Barrier is a sure thing when your raid leader calls for defensive cooldowns or when you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pro tip – Temporal Shield is the best for maximizing your damage because it's off the global cooldown, but be careful because it’s not an absorb in the classic sense and there are loads of fights which make you frequently take high hits. If you know how and when to use Teamporal Shield, go ahead. voltaa's notes: For progression at low health where you can get one shot by AoE pulses, Ice barrier is a safe bet, once you have the health to avoid one shots, TS is the best option for almost all progression. During Farm I use Flameglow almost exclusively due to there being no GCD as well as no cost, as I know my healers will keep me alive, TS costs as much as an Arcane Blast (0 charges) and I am not one to "waste" mana that can be used for mastery.

Level 45 – Crowd Control Tier

Ring of Frost – only useful for a larger pack of adds and also has a cast time

Ice Ward – a great spell to put on an off-tank kiting adds or any dedicated kiter

Frostjaw – great for silencing adds which need to be interrupted

Tip – if the raid encounter demands it, you take it and use it, doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Level 60 – Survival Tier

Greater Invisibility – a powerful utility spell, can be used as a defensive cooldown or to cheat death mechanics

Cauterize – its greatest advantage is that it works on its own, its only weakness the easily healable damage which can be compensated by a shield spell or Evocation heal and of course, your group’s healers

Cold Snap – not that useful for raiding, but enables extra Ice Blocks and has a heal. The other two abilities are just far more versatile in PvE

Beginner Tip – Cauterize is a no worries talent because it doesn’t require you to actively plan and use it

Pro Tip – not taking unnecessary damage is (or should be) one of the goals of every DPS in the raid and Greater Invisibility allows just that. If timed properly with boss mechanics, you lose damage only for 1 global cooldown. Additionally, with the 5.3 cooldown reduction to Greater Invisibility, it's become one of my favorite Mage spells. voltaa's notes: Ginvis is great for progression, but for maximum DPS cauterize will be the talent of choice, rather than moving out of things, you have a chance to take damage to the face until you "die" and then you will start trying to avoid damage, this allows you to stand still and focus on casting rather than paying attention to mechanics.

Level 75 – Bomb Tier

Nether Tempest – works best against 2-4 clustered targets

Living Bomb – works best against 1-3 spread targets because of the target limitation, currently the strongest single target bomb

Frost Bomb– works best against 5+ targets, but also works best in Frost’s gameplay as it has a 100% chance to proc Brain Freeze

Tip – Living Bomb single target, Nether Tempest on more targets

Level 90 – Superpowers Tier

Invocation – allows something resembling a burn phase
- changes the gameplay to:
1. Evocation.
2. Standard rotation with being extra careful not to cast any more Blasts when reaching 4 Charges
3. When the buff is about to expire, burn mana to 30-35% with Blast, then back to step 1

Rune of Power – increases mana regen which we really like as Arcane

Incanter's Ward – changes the gameplay to allow mini burn phases on fights with regular predictable damage – burn mana to 75-80% in preparation, pop shield to absorb damage and regain mana to full in time to use Missiles and Barrage
- best damage is gained by having 5-6 Charges and Missiles ready when you gain the damage buff
- works best on fights with lots of movement and predictable damage

Tip - Rune of Power is currently the only competitive option for Arcane with Incanter's Ward being possible on some fights, but not really needed.

4. Glyphs

Glyph of Arcane power - is a powerful and useful glyph for any fight that will bloodlust on at the start, or any fight that will end at an interval of 3 minutes + 1 minutes (as in 3 to 4 minutes, 6

to 7 minutes, 9 to 10 minutes and so on).

Glyph of Cone of Cold - is a very useful glyph for AoE as well as for movement when you are within range and have nothing else to use.

Glyph of Arcane Eplosion - is a great glyph for keeping arcane charges refreshed on the move.

Glyph of Ice Block - can be used for extra survival, CC as well as to cheese certain mechanics if needed.

Glyph of Rapid Displacement - Is extremely useful for burst movement at a moment's notice.

Glyph of Armors - Is situationally useful on single target fights to swap from Mage Armor to Frost Armor to avoid GCD capping during bloodlust.

Between these six glyphs, you should have all the tools that you need to excel at the current tier of content, other glyphs just don't have enough use to be used by Arcane at this time.

The only Minor Glyph of note is Loose Mana, which returns your mana over six seconds rather than instantly, which is a must for arcane mages as it is a direct DPS increase. Pairing this glyph with alter time allows you to benefit from the buff twice, meaning you can get more Arcane Blasts off without worrying about your mana dipping and your mastery being affected.

5. Stats

Courtesy of Komma



6. Reforging and Gemming

Note that as of the release of Mists of Pandaria, expertise now grants spell hit at a 1:1 ratio, meaning that you are able to reforge extra hit onto items that already have hit in the form of reforging expertise, as well as gem expertise to assist in reaching hit cap.

6.1 Reforging

For reforging you should focus on getting as high a mastery level as possible while also maintaining hit cap (5100 or 15%) as well as a moderate haste level, preferably above 9762 to hit the 16(+4) tick breakpoint for Nether Tempest. All breakpoints can be found in Kedion's Haste Breakpoints

6.2 Gemming

For gems you also want to max out your mastery, having a mastery gem in every slot.

Yellow Slot - Fractured (320 Mastery)

Blue Slot - Sensei's (160 hit 160 Mastery)

Red slot - Keen (160 Expertise 160 Mastery) or Artful (80 Intellect 160 Mastery)

7. Gear

The priority for gear that you want to pick up is high Mastery gear, preferably with haste as well, crit while not horrible as a stat, is our lowest priority as it has no direct interaction with our spec.

7.1 BiS Gear

There are two theories for best in slot gear right now, being the 4 set route, and the 2 set route. With the 4 set you gain the benefit of having a 15% chance of your arcane missile charges not being consumed, which allows you to camp at 4 Arcane Charges for longer, but the downside is you have poorly itemized pieces, giving you a low level of mastery. The other theory is the two set theory which give the benefit of a very high level of mastery, but you no longer have the benefit of your 4p bonus.

These are my proposed BiS lists

Here is the two set BiS

This is my 4 set BiS list

7.2 Trinkets

List courtesy of Komma.



8. Guide to Siege as Arcane

This is taken directly from Shangalar's MMOC Arcane Mage thread (I have made edits that will appear in bold)

COMPOSED BY CYCOBI

This is the N-Mode version of a per-boss guide for SoO, will add in theH Mode versiononce I've got a bit more used to the encounters!

Immerseus:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Place two Runes next to each other and move progressively and as little as possible after each puddle spawns
- Don't try saving Charges for the adds, Charges will run out. Get them into the boss if/where possible
- Temporal Shield when the adds are getting close to the boss so you don't create strain for the healers
Shang:
- Ice Barrier is also a good option because when the little adds start doing damage you don't have anything to dps anyway so the GCD save on TS isn't needed
- Heroic: - you can use Glyph of Cone of Cold if the little adds that spawn are grouped and tanked near you, nets you a nice dps boost
- Greater Invisibility is a great choice for damage reduction when returning to your position after killing the adds while Immerseus is down, if there are no healers around for no reason, Cauterize can be dangerous
- Double Blink to get to adds and back is amazing

Fallen Protectors:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility cauterize, Nether Tempest
- Can Greater Invis the Rogue Garrotes and can Temporal Shield the Keg-Toss like ability to give freecast
- Maintain Nether Tempest on all possible targets which will live long enough for it to tick properly unless you're told not to
-If you have 5 or more targets in range of your Arcane Explosion, start AoEing, if you are chain pushing all three bosses as close to one another as possible, you should be able to start AEing as you push Rook until Sun's phase is over

Norushen:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility,Living Bomb Nether Tempest
- Can use Greater Invisibility to soak the Blind Hatred to minimize movement
- While in the Solo Realm, don't bother with Rune of Power, just be careful with the number of spells you're using to manage your mana. Blazing Speed and Double-Blink glyph is great for this boss for the extra movement capability
- Leave (up to 3 total) DoTs up on the adds if you haven't been purified to get maximum damage onto the boss through Foul Link and focus DPS one of these mobs before re-Dotting a new target
-DoT everything, single target the highest target until purified, then focus boss with NTs rolling on everything that will live long enough to be worth the GCD
Shang:
- you can cast a new rune on the opposite side of the giant laser and then just blink to it when the laser is coming your way

Sha of Pride:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb, Glyph of Cone of Cold
- When small adds are about to spawn, hold 4 stacks and burn a little mana to prevent them dropping, instantly CoC them, followed by Barrage onto them and then spam AE for maximum AoE burst potential
- Place your second Rune onto the prison segment you'll be running onto to allow for casting while you're standing there to free people
Shang:
- Double blink and blazing speed is enough to get you to any prison or to any shadow rift on heroic
- Greater Invisibility can be a life saver for one of the more dangerous and higher damage Swelling Prides on Heroic

Galakras:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb (Nether Tempest for padding ONLY, LB better for progress)
- Follow your guild's kill priority
- Help out on Shaman interrupts where needed

Iron Juggernaut:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Place your Rune and position yourself next to a wall or a fence so that during knockback you won't move and can continue freecasting As the knock back goes out, blink as soon as you are in the air and you will end up five yards or so ahead of where you were originally, still in your rune and able to continue DPSing with nearly no downtime.
- Use Temporal Shield to soak the red circles apart from in P2 when there's a barrage of them
Shang:
- Heroic - you can't soak the red circles because they do too much damage, be prepared to blink or move
- 10-man HC - Greater Invisibility if you have to soak the mines - Shockwave defense: Ice Barrier / Healthstone / Ice Barrier, then Ice Barrier / Ice Block / Ice Barrier - you can replace Ice Barrier with Temporal Shield if your healers are good enough to keep you at 100% health between shockwaves
- 25-man HC - Temporal Shield / Greater Invis / Temporal Shield for shockwaves, if you really love cauterize and don't want to use G.I. then do it, we don't dps during the siege phase so the global cooldown isn't important for me

Dark Shaman:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb/Nether Tempest based on strategy (Living Bomb for split, NT for stacked)
- Try chaining Runes together to allow for more movement, but always keep an eye on the Toxic Storm/Toxic Tornados as they will move in set patterns
Shang:
- don't destroy your keyboard from all the Rune of Power recasting, it's dreadfully annoying, but at least it's the only fight like that in SoO
-voltaa's notes: keep a rune of power near the boss to easily blink in to AE the slimes when they spawn

General Nazgrim:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility, Living Bomb or Nether Tempest if you tank the adds on top of Nazgrim, Glyph of Arcane Power
- Save second set of Cooldowns (AT, AP etc) for second Berserker phase, should be popping BL here Lust at the start and pop CDs as they come up
- Glyph of Counterspell if you want to help on interrupts where needed
- I believe you can Invis to drop the aggro from the Assassin - not confirmed though
Shang:
- if you get targeted by an assassin, turn towards it and use Ice Block - he'll spend 8 seconds attacking your ice block while the rest of the raid kills it

Malkorok:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Greater Invisibility, Living Bomb, Glyph of Rapid Displacement
- Blink to negate the knock-ups or use Ice Floes to continue casting
- Temporal Shield/Greater Invis to soak to prevent losing Miasma shield
- Nuke!
-Timing your Barrage well to cleave the adds is a great way to boost dps on this encounter, hitting three ads with cleave is a lot of damage for one global

Spoils of Pandaria:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Nether Tempest
- Nether Tempest everything to get full benefit but don't lose track of priority targets and maintain DPS on them
- Try and maximize use of Nether Tempest to get as many 4-stack Arcane Missiles out as possible, and also do what you can to maximise Barrage cleave
-Arcane explosion is your best friend on this fight, especially for Mogu side!

Thok:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Run as much haste as you can if your guild is having difficulties killing this;if Arcane Blast/Missiles are sub-1.5s casts you can get them off in between each Deafening Screech, even at maximum Acceleration
-When the bats come out, make sure you have 4 Arcane Charges, use AP/AT and Barrage the bats, CoC (glyphed) and AE until AT resets and repeat. If bats will be up long enough flamestrike will also do a lot of damage.

Siegecrafter Blackfuse:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- Pray.
-The biggest issue with this fight is knowing it well and being proactive with rune placements, the movements you make week to week (outside of getting lasers or saw blades) will be exactly the same, it is a mechanic heavy fight but very predictable with little to no RNG outside of being selected to run lasers.

Klaxxi Paragons:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb
- ST focus main target, cleave off others with Barrage because it's passive but it's also useless
- No other special tips or tricks here Invis if you get aim

Garrosh:
- Blazing Speed Ice Floes, Temporal Shield, Cauterize, Living Bomb, Glyph of Cone of Cold
- Cauterize stops random deaths from shit like MC, etc
- Rune placement is important here as it's crucial to place it in such a way that you can effectively minimise all unnecessary movement, if you're using "stack at X, move to Y, kill weapon at X vice versa etc" tactic, Blink as soon as he's casted Desecrate and Blazing Speed as well to get into position before anyone else so you don't lose time
Shang:
- the stacking tactic works great on 25-man normal - the raid can stay on Garrosh and live through the desecrated weapons (while destroying them of course) all the way to the second entry into the shadow realm when he gets Empowered Desecrated Weapon. After that you have to spread out as always for phase 2

9. Closing

Feel free to tear this apart, THEORYCRAFTERS AWAY! Also note that I am aware that a lot of things on here are wrong, outdated etc. I will be going through with a fine toothed comb over the next few days making sure things get updated.

10. Change log

30/05/14 - Fixed some formatting issues, added a change log, updated BiS as there were changes to the 4 set BiS list.
07/06/14 - Updated Talents section and Boss Tips to reflect the current meta of Arcane, focusing on how to maximize damage. Added Anchors.
23/06/14 - Updated Stats section with proper stat weights

[Nissinn]

I am making a gradual shift to arcane next week getting bored of frost I definitely love the possibility of 4 pc with the +2 living bomb cap... I actually have the stats for that breakpoint right now but I am using Bone Inlaid Sandals and Immersius helm which seems to also work correct me if I am wrong here. The stats you speak of with higher crit are covered with Immersius helm and you make up the lost haste from ebon helm by still using bone inlaid sandals. I am missing a few key pieces (ring/offhand) and 4/4 upgrades but looks promising.

Edit: I did a quick compare on AMR it seems Hood of Swirling Senses + Bone Inlaid Sandals warrants a bit more crit (~300 rating) for marginal mastery loss (~70). Weights I used were Mastery > Haste(to 13163) > Crit.

[Shangalar]

I actually updated the SoO guide with more stuff today, just not on MMOC lol. I'll have to post the revised stuff tomorrow and share it here too.

[Komma]

I mentioned some questions in IRC yesterday, but just so I don't forget, let me list them here again...

1. With 588 itemlevel, is BBoY still recommended over KTT? 588 KTT's percentage scaling due to multistrike puts it at (19.4% * 0.333) = ~6.47% additional damage on average. 588 BBoY's 2715 haste rating converts to 6.39% pre amp, ~7.06% if you have a 588 PBoI. 6.47% raw damage increase is a lot stronger than 7.06% haste, due to the haste we already have from other gear, and GCD capping concerns (especially under hasted conditions). The proc from BBoY needs to significantly outperform the KTT proc, for it to be BiS. I don't have exact numbers, bt I would guess it needs to be at least by a 2% overall player damage margin.

2. The list of recommended talents by Cycobi suggests that he used Blazing Speed exclusively. I remember hearing on a FinalBoss.tv interview that he might have changed his mind, and prefers Ice Floes now. While this isn't a "mistake" or "inaccuracy" strictly speaking, do we want to confirm with him regarding the list?

[Cycobi]

1.

BBoY has a higher top-end than KTT, meaning that RNG swings favour it more, but bad RNG streaks make it worse. I've addressed the issue on MMO-C, whereupon I basically stated that realistically speaking KTT will out-perform most of the time due to the fact that half of the BBoY proc is "weaker" and we can't always make "good" use out of the stronger half of the proc due to the way our rotation works around mana.

2.
Yes, Ice Floes > BS atm.

[Komma]

BBoY has a higher top-end than KTT, meaning that RNG swings favour it more, but bad RNG streaks make it worse. I've addressed the issue on MMO-C, whereupon I basically stated that realistically speaking KTT will out-perform most of the time due to the fact that half of the BBoY proc is "weaker" and we can't always make "good" use out of the stronger half of the proc due to the way our rotation works around mana.

I think this was already the case at 574 and 580, and my point was that the gap has only widened due to the increased multistrike providing ridiculous percentage scaling. I think that at this point, KTT might even have a higher top end.

BBoY 580 -> 588: 196 static haste, 234 int proc per stack (max 10 stacks)
KTT 580 -> 588: 1.4% multistrike, 1171 int proc

1.4% multistrike is 0.47% overall damage increase. That's a huge increase, even if you don't consider how the trinket increases in power multiplicatively just from the rest of our gear improving. Comparing this to the roughly 0.5% haste given by BBoY, which has greatly diminished value since we already have ~40-45%ish haste with raid buffs, and also considering GCD caps.

[voltaa]

I'm going to be updating the 4p BiS list to include Gal boots as well as KTT, after talking it over with some of you guys I'm feeling like trying to push to make up for poor itemization on tier pieces wasn't the right choice. Also I will update the Siege guide section when I get a chance since IF IF IF IF IF all day.

[Kver]

If you include Gal boots then we swap to Immerseus head as well? Assuming you believe in capping haste.

[voltaa]

If you include Gal boots then we swap to Immerseus head as well? Assuming you believe in capping haste.

I don't see what you mean by this, I moved away from the crit items and just went for full haste after mastery.

I am confused though, as for some reason this list has less mastery than people are running now and I can't seem to figure out why.

[Kver]

If you include Gal boots then we swap to Immerseus head as well? Assuming you believe in capping haste.

I don't see what you mean by this, I moved away from the crit items and just went for full haste after mastery.

I am confused though, as for some reason this list has less mastery than people are running now and I can't seem to figure out why.

I basically wanted an answer to Nissinn's post

I am making a gradual shift to arcane next week getting bored of frost I definitely love the possibility of 4 pc with the +2 living bomb cap... I actually have the stats for that breakpoint right now but I am using Bone Inlaid Sandals and Immersius helm which seems to also work correct me if I am wrong here. The stats you speak of with higher crit are covered with Immersius helm and you make up the lost haste from ebon helm by still using bone inlaid sandals. I am missing a few key pieces (ring/offhand) and 4/4 upgrades but looks promising.

Edit: I did a quick compare on AMR it seems Hood of Swirling Senses + Bone Inlaid Sandals warrants a bit more crit (~300 rating) for marginal mastery loss (~70). Weights I used were Mastery > Haste(to 13163) > Crit.

Spoiler:

[voltaa]

Well I'm trying to get an accurate idea of stat weights using simcraft so I can throw that into the stats section and what I end up with is haste being clearly over valued (sim is based off 2 set BiS). So I tried changing to a 3 target patchwerk fight and got this monstrosity.

[Cycobi]

That is quite possibly the most hilarious mage-related Sim I've seen, ever.

[durrtygoodz]

HAHAHAHAA that signature voltaa omg

[Komma]

So I guess Voltaa needs to borrow one Akraen's many "TOO MUCH HASTE? NEVER!" images now.

Joking aside, I've been checking out Chinese mage forums, since they've been working with 588 ilvl for a while now, and now potentially 596. As far as I can tell, they dominantly recommend using Frost Armor over Mage Armor in all situations. There's also some talk about going for 14242 haste like mixture frost. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any of their math supporting this though, and many of them heavily rely on Simc as well.

[Celerity]

For the fight specific stuff though it's not really arcane specific: on Iron Jug if you blink immediately after clicking on a mine it completely negates the damage and knock up. I like using Cauterize in case I screw it up so they won't kill me. Also, you can blink during the knock back phase to completely negate it, the trick is to time your blink so that you end up back in your Rune of Power rather than under the boss or elsewhere.

[Frosted]

-snip-

I replied this over on MMOc, although I guess I should have done it here first.

"are you simming with haste right before a breakpoint (within 1000 or so rating)?

EDIT: looking at your toon in armory, you're like 40 rating before the LB +2 tick BP when using mage armor. SimC is probably seeing a large jump in DPS from haste due to that. However, when I sim you I don't get values anywhere near as high as you are getting. Mine are:

[Cycobi]

Right, I've had a go at re-doing the Arcane APL (or rather, fixing it for the most part) for SINGLE TARGET only.

If people could give it a look and check out any mistakes I might've made or something obvious I might've missed, would be appreciated before I start Sim runs. Bound to be a few mistakes there as I've got the flu atm so can't properly concentrate. Ignore the Frost Armor choice - I'll sim both Frost and Mage Armor when I get to it, just wanting to make sure that the actual APL is correct.

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# Executed before combat begins. Accepts non-harmful actions only. actions.precombat=flask,type=warm_sun actions.precombat+=/food,type=mogu_fish_stew actions.precombat+=/arcane_brilliance actions.precombat+=/frost_armor actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats actions.precombat+=/rune_of_power actions.precombat+=/jade_serpent_potion actions.precombat+=/mirror_image # Executed every time the actor is available. actions+=/time_warp,if=target.health.pct<100|time>5 actions+=/rune_of_power,if=buff.rune_of_power.remains<cast_time actions+=/mirror_image actions+=/arcane_power,sync=alter_time_activate,if=buff.alter_time.down actions+=/berserking,sync=alter_time_activate,if=buff.alter_time.down actions+=/jade_serpent_potion,sync=alter_time_activate,if=buff.alter_time.down actions+=/use_item,slot=hands,sync=alter_time_activate,if=buff.alter_time.down actions+=/use_item,slot=hands,if=cooldown.alter_time_activate.remains>45|target.time_to_die<25)&buff.rune_of_power.remains>20 actions+=/run_action_list,name=single_target,if=active_enemies<6 actions.single_target=arcane_barrage,if=buff.alter_time.up&buff.alter_time.remains<1 actions.single_target+=/arcane_missiles,if=buff.alter_time.up actions.single_target+=/arcane_blast,if=buff.alter_time.up actions.single_target+=/living_bomb,cycle_targets=1,if=(!ticking|remains<tick_time)&target.time_to_die>tick_time*3 actions.single_target+=/arcane_blast,if=buff.profound_magic.up&buff.arcane_charge.stack>3&mana.pct>90 actions.single_target+=/arcane_missiles actions.single_target+=/arcane_barrage,if=buff.arcane_charge.stack>=4&mana.pct>80 actions.single_target+=/arcane_missiles,if=buff.arcane_missiles.stack=2&buff.arcane_charge.stack<3 actions.single_target+=/arcane_blast actions.single_target+=/ice_floes,moving=1 actions.single_target+=/arcane_barrage,moving=1 actions.single_target+=/fire_blast,moving=1 actions.single_target+=/ice_lance,moving=1

[Frosted]

I had been changing

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actions+=/time_warp,if=target.health.pct<100|time>5

to

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actions+=/time_warp,if=target.health.pct<100|time=0

In order to begin combat and immediately use TW, which is how people do pulls like that. Prevents any issues where your first bomb is used before TW is up.

[Cycobi]

Thanks, I had no idea what the time syntax was tbh so yeah

[Frosted]

Im not sure what it is, but copy/pasting your first section (just the general actions) returns errors on every line you tried to sync something to Alter_time_activate. But if I copy/paste the lines one by one it works fine. No clue why.

EDIT: I figured it out. You don't have Alter_time used anywhere in your APL!