Low Parsing Antorus - Arcane Mage

[Tiki]

I'm a very new arcane mage and I also have a few questions in regard to the spec...

I've been playing Arcane on my alt mage. I mostly do mythics and LFR/Normal right now since I raid on my main. I have a few questions for all of you on talent selection if that's ok?

FYI--The only leggos I have right now are Gravity Spiral and Rhonins.

1. I find that I don't really Arcane Barrage that much because I don't really have to with double Evo right now. However, for most talent selections people are saying to take Resonance which basically buffs Arcane Barrage. Should I be using it more or is it because the other talents are dogshit and this is just the default choice? Should I be barraging more while doing trash in mythic+?

2. Same with Chrono Shift. I don't really use Barrage that much so this is worthless to me right now. Again, am I running too low on mana between packs? What mana level do you all usually run to from pack to pack?

Basically my question is, I don't really Barrage a lot to take two specific talents that buff Barrage. Is this because I'm playing wrong or because of the content I do (bosses don't last that long)? I plan on switching talents to something that may be beneficial but wanted to check in here with more expert Arcane players first.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

[wannalink]

under perfect conditions double ring probably is more damage, but how often do you get perfect conditions?

I've been following the arcane community for the whole expansion, and feel like its really hard concept to grasp. Double ring and (to a much lesser extend tho) RoP are essentially "win more" strategies. Good for simc/boosting numbers on trivialized encounters, but hardly a wise choice when it comes for early progression and challenging content, when lots of mistakes are inevitable.

Sure, i do believe some top players are able to effectively utilize harder-to-execute builds with little to no preparation, but making it a guideline to follow for the whole player base? I don't think its a good idea.

[gurudox]

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Considering the legos that you have, Resonance possibly isn't the best talent available to you and Charged Up is probably better, as it will give you better burn phases. That will change drastically once you have Kilt + Mantle, which are the preferred legos for running M+, at least in terms of clearing trash packs. That being said, I think you'll still do better damage on trash packs by using the standard AoE rotation (4x AE -> ABarr), even with the legos that you currently have. In that case, Resonance is the way to go. Double evo will just allow you to keep your mana up in between pulls. For raiding, you'll probably be better off with Charged Up, though.

Chrono Shift is the default choice because Ring of Frost and Ice Ward are dogshit talents that only serve marginal purpose in PvP.

[timmywitt]

Has anybody simmed alternate AoE rotations? Like, say:

Burn: AE spam
Conserve: AEx4 -> ABarr

or

AEx2 -> ABarr (with Resonance and the artifact explosion for at least 3 targets hit)

or

AEx2 -> ABarr (3 targets)
AEx3 -> ABarr (4 targets)
AEx4 -> ABarr (5+ targets)

?

[wannalink]

Simmed something like this a while ago for my toon, everything you listed was a dps loss against 3+ targets compared to regular "barrage at max stacks every time". And against 2 targets AE spam with missiles was an optimal choice.

[Cames]

Plus, I think that one thing that goes unnoticed is that both T21 bonuses are tailor made for Kilt setups. The biggest downside is that you don't get 2+4 piece. My sims show me within 0.5% ST between Double Ring and Kilt/Shard. Given that, I will stick with Kilt. It is just too flexible to not want to keep it.