Arcane w/ t18

[luftfolie]

Hey guys,
Got a few quick questions ect.

first question -
My guild are running two mages (both arcane) but his damage is significantly higher then mine, we are talking im sitting at 45k and hes sitting at 60+. He does have class trinket and ring but no 4 set. Ive looked around, asked him about his rotation and there doesnt seem to be a difference between our burn phases and conserve ect. Any help or tips on what im missing or doing wrong?
My burn phase is always 4 stacks, AP (Lust if its needed ect), PoM, (pot aswell), both SN (providing below 97% and IF lines up, if not lining up ill generally still use it ) AB till 50%, evo.
My conserve is always hit 4 stacks, dump AM (providing below 97%), Abarrage, line up SN with IF 5 or 4 stacks..
Logs here - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vK3qVyQBDXHgmwj6" target="_blank
Armory - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/f ... ora/simple" target="_blank
edit - is there any WA on procs for t18 4 set?
Luft

[Dutchmagoz]

- You quite often seem to use supernova very close to placing down prismatic crystal, meaning you only have one or no SN for your crystal. For example, on Iron Reaver, you placed 3 prismatic crystals and only hit 3 supernova's on them. This should've been 6.
- You don't seem to finish your initial burn phase. You never evocated after the first PC, eventhough you dropped to like 70% mana.
- You're using arcane missiles on prismatic crystal and not having all of them land. When you use missiles on PC with less than like 2 seconds left, they won't hit due to travel time.
- Downtime: There's a lot of moments where you're not hitting anything. I don't just mean on iron reaver, because there are times when there's nothing to hit there.. but also other bosses. Just nothing happening for 2 seconds sometimes. This even happened during your burn phase on iron reaver. (https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/vK ... nd=2782936" target="_blank) There's like 4 seconds of nothing in this 16 second window. I understand sometimes mechanics stop you casting, but this is way too much downtime. There's no blinking or anything here either, just doing nothing casting wise.

This most likely is the biggest thing. You can optimize your opener a bit, your conserve probably as well, but none of that matters if you're not always casting something. This is the biggest issue for a lot of people for their dps, and it's the same for you.

There's a couple things that can help you with this
- Familiraty with the fight. If you don't have to think about boss mechanics, you don't have to look around thinking "where do I go now?" and not cast anything.
- Anticipate what's going to happen next, and plan for it. For example on iron reaver, anticipate barrage on you, and plan ahead of what you would do. "If barrage spawns on me, I will blink to x direction to dodge it". This way, when it does happen, you don't first have to think what you need to do.
- Think to yourself: Every single second I don't cast anything, is a huge damage loss. Don't start ignoring mechanics obviously, but really keep telling yourself that not doing any damage is the same as being dead from a dps perspective.
- Preplan movement. There's not a lot of fights where you can't preplan your movement. Preplanning your movement will not only help your dps, it will also help you take less damage. On a fight like archimonde, you can basically preplan your movement for the entire fight. Obviously things can change, but having a rough idea of when you can save time blinking and when to ice floes, will help a lot.

[luftfolie]

Thanks for the info,
I think that Evo was an accident or misstap.

Only fill 1 supernova within conserve phase then also?
Thanks for the constructive criticism!

[Dutchmagoz]

Depends a bit on fight mechanics and stuff, but you want your second supernova to come up right before or during PC.

Assuming a patchwerk fight, this means 2 supernovas inbetween each PC.

[luftfolie]

Had raid last night and included SN within the crystals, saw differences within the burn phase but still not a massive increase.
Ive been trying to get into the habbit of using Blink more often ect. Sometimes on cases i dont have any blinks or ice floes and im kind of stuck in a rut of having to move, is there solutions to that? stop and cast or keep running till something is off cooldown?

[Narsha]

Plan ahead. It might sounds easy/hard/self-explainatory but remember your tactic and know where you have to be when and plan for it. Save up a Ice Floes-charge, as frost bank a proc or two, and personally I only use blink as a "oh shit"-button since I lose a little bit of deeps using it but go with the glyph that gives you two charges if still a problem.

But your best bet really is to just plan a head. Always Be Casting.

[Chev]

There are a few options for this. If you are in range, you can use Arcane Explosion as this is instant cast and can be used every GCD. Another benefit of this if it hits something, it refreshes the timer on your Arcane Charges so they won't drop off while you are moving.

Another option if you are in range is Glyphed Cone of Cold but if you don't have Glyph then just use Arcane Explosion as it hits harder and you dont have to worry about which direction you are facing.

If you are out of Arcane Explosion range (10 yards / 15 with glyph) then you need to look at your other instants. E.g. Arcane Barrage, but this has a 3 sec CD so can't be used repeatedly. Also will reset your Arcane Charges so you will need to build them up again when you finish moving.

You could use PoM to turn AB into an instant cast but if you are already at 4 x AC you need to watch your mana.

You could use SN as this is also instant cast but keep in mind you may be wanting to save these for an add wave that is due soon or for your Crystal that you may be about to use.

If you are using Arcane Orb, you can use Arcane Barrage and then Orb to start building your charges again.

Finally, depending on the movement required, you could use Alter Time to get back to your position instantly. E.g. If you need to drop a pool of bad on the edge of the room. Use Alter Time, Blink to the edge of the room, drop the pool and then use Alter Time again to get back to your original position.

[Breaktheice]

Just to elaborate on what Dutch said, you should use 2 x Supernova per Prismatic Crystal. This however doesn't mean that you need to always bank 2 Supernovas prior to going into a Crystal. You need to bank the third Nova that comes off cooldown after your first Prismatic Crystal has expired.

From my Frost mage guide:



Since the cooldown on both Supernova and Ice Nova is the same, this applies to Arcane mages too. You will always bank the third Supernova that comes off cooldown after a Prismatic Crystal ends. Then, before you start your next Prismatic Crystal, just make sure your next Supernova has <12 seconds to its second charge coming off cool down. This way, you always have charges rolling, but always get 2 x Supernovas into a Prismatic Crystal as well. Keeping novas banked outside your pull PC is always a waste since they don't have more than 2 charges. You always want charges rolling.

[luftfolie]

Thanks for the info guys.

I believe the logs from Reaver were terrible due to having bad net connection through the fight, think i was sitting at bout 300-600ms (you can see from how much i got hit by orb ect), still even from other fights its evident im doing things wrong regardless.

Yeah, ive been banking one and making use ive got another one coming off of cooldown during the burn phase.
However, even when im running both SN and using blink/floes as much as i can i still cant seem to slap as much damage is the other Mage, is it also due to them having their ring/trinkets too?
I usually dont have much of an issue planning ahead with blink and floes now, im getting a bit more used to it. Ive mained a disc priest for years so learning Mage is fun but a bit more difficult to get used to.

edit - should i swap to UM and Overpowered now or wait for my trinket/trinkets or is it more situational for boss if it moves ect?
edit x2 - I have two haste trinkets currently running from HM/BRF, however i do have the trinket off of Iskar, is it worth me changing one of the haste trinkets out for it? I have looked at BIS and Iskar trinket is better but using it time to time hasnt shown much of an increase at all
Also, is it better to AB to accommodate the mana % for all your AM or just AB then AM, then AB then AM ect?
Sorry for all the questions, just quick things i want to clear up and that i cant seem to find on the forum
Thanks in advance