Missile-Only Playstyle

[Potpourri]

Hi there!

I was curious about the Azerite traits concerning Arcane Missiles (AM) and Amplification.

Arcane Pummeling (AP) enhances every wave of AM by X
Anomalous Impact enhances AM by X depending on charges.

Talents of choice: 1/2or3/1/2/1/3/2

Stats: No mastery (since this is a dead stat), crit should be preferred, and I speculate Haste to be on par with Versatility.

Playstyle:
Charged Up on CD, clear with Barrage when CD is back up. This gives a free AM every 45 sec
Arcane Power on CD, if you play with Rune, use both ad the same time I guess.
Nether Tempest on CD (at 4 charges). This is just to use the talent... Sadly, there is no viable alternative
Spam AM.
No mana? Evocation and you're good.
Mana doesn't run out that fast, so you just use Evo when you run out.

I tried this a bit, and it falls roughly 10% short of a normal Arcane Mage playstyle. Given the fact, that I don't use a third Azerite trait (and I suspect AI to be less impactful than AP, hence you could run 3x AP) and I have roughly 800 Mastery on my gear that I wasn't able to switch out (no spare gear), I believe this discrepancy could be smaller.

Since Simulation programs aren't able to try this one out, I was hoping, that maybe one of you guys has the gear and Azerite Pieces to give this a try (and maybe report back, since I asked so nicely )

Any feedback?

A small thing last: I know that this is no really serious "Theorycrafting", yet I would really love to have some answers and/or feedback

[ertai]

Heh, nice idea.
I´ve tried it little few weeks ago, but my stats was not good enough (no gear to get rid ofmastery no traits). I was oom before evocation cd was up and damage was bad.
You have no issues with mana? It is more mana demanding than normal build and you have little options to save mana.
Even with splitstream this playstyle is very static and it is hard to move, when it is necessary or is needed to move a lot. Have you tried it in raid?

[adatopoulos]

Yes, I am currently running this style and can tell you the results:

You are picking Incanter's Flow + Time Anomaly and 3x Arcane Pummeling / Anomalous Impact, and always keep 4 stacks of Arcane charge. This way, from Time Anomaly, only Arcane Power and Evocation can proc, and both are beneficial.

You spam Missiles and refresh Nether Tempest. You can also use AB every 45 seconds with Charged up cooldown.

Due to the RNG nature of Evocation procs, you sometimes run OOM while there is 30 seconds to go to your Evocation. Sometimes you don't need Evocation for the entire fight... Bloodlust periods are pain to manage (especially if you are running out of mana soon). I'm Blood Elf, so I sometimes even use Arcane Torrent DURING BLOODLUST for mana saving... Kind of meh... Try to coincide BL period with Arcane Power for mana savings... Nether Tempest does little DPS, but is good for mana savings.

The numbers are OK'ish. Sometimes (especially if you get lucky with Time Anomaly procs) your really do good DPS. As a whole, this build is right now comparable to regular Arcane build using right items and 3 azerite traits. You must avoid Mastery (does nothing except giving you some mana) and Haste (you run OOM quicker) like plague. Thus, itemization is very weird. Anomalous Impact is better than Arcane Pummeling. And worst; in the next patch, Blizzard decided to kill this build for some reason by changing Anomalous Impact and Arcane Pummeling. I even complained in Blizzard's forums but nobody cared See:
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t ... -here/8222

As an added bonus, it's infinitely easier to play than regular build (Just spam AM and refresh NT lol) - you only have to manage your mana (and get lucky with Evoc procs). If you take slipstream, you kind of have better mobility (maybe?) but I'm still sticking to shimmer out of habit.

I did mythic Mother/Taloc and 8/8 heroic with this build. Like I said, the numbers are good. Lack of cleave is sad sad sad. Transitioning from AOE periods to single target rotation requires you to be alert (try to have charged up after your AOE rotation is over) - oh and btw AOE periods eat a lot of mana so if you get unlucky with procs, so sad...

[nickseng]

Do you have any logs with you doing this build. Kinda curious how good is "good"

[adatopoulos]

With around 374 ilvl (albeit, some of my pieces are not optimum, they give haste&mastery, only wearing because of high ilevel) - doing around 12k to dummy without buffs. In real raid situations, did around 13-14k to Taloc in last run (if I remember correctly). I don't have any logs, so sorry.

[Chiv]

I tried a missile kinda build on one of my guilds heroic runs

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/M2 ... pe=summary

Ran 1x Anomalous Impact , 1x Arcane Pummeling and 1x Archive of the Titans
Ran 1/2/3/2/1/2/1 talents and did clearcasting bug clipping end of clearcasting to get 2 extra missiles since amplification rolls over to 2nd missile channel. This also stacks arcane pummeling to x7 for that channel for a bit more dmg

Seem to have turned out ok