Having some trouble with AoE and arcane

[masteryogurt]

With 4pc, prophecy and tome, arcane sims highest for AoE for me. I find it confusing though for a few reasons, wondering if anyone can correct any errors in my understanding.

For aoe I take out tome and replace it with my Unblinking trinket. I go arcane orb and supernova. Obviously any prophecy of fear proc I get I focus missiles into that.

I use orb when I have a prophecy proc and have no missiles, if I enter burn and have no missiles, or after I barrage or evo.

My largest confusion comes from when I should barrage and if I should even bother burning my mana down. Because, if you have AoE, I believe barrage is a priority over blast. So going into burn mode, sort of doesn't make sense to me...
Particularly if you're barraging...you'd never do that in a burn down.

Can anyone address that for me??

[DyLemma]

You should never be burning to do aoe, nor do I understand how that's possible? lol. Just do your normal rotation and hope for trinket procs when adds are up. Supernova and arcane orb are great for the direct damage and missile generation and more spells = more chances to proc trinket. Otherwise arcane aoe just isn't a thing without the trinket. It's very mediocre

[masteryogurt]

Okay so in that case, I realize 4 charges with missiles on a doom nova proc is absolute priority.

Then I assume if you hit 4 charges, and have missiles without doom nova, just barrage. That correct? For AoE

[Rettep]

If you want to AoE change spec. Use your normal rotation and if you get lucky with trinket proc you do aoe, if you are not lucky you dont do AoE as arcane. Simple as that.

[Chev]

When you said Arcane produced the highest sim was that a 4+ target fight or add wave sim? The reason I ask is because there are no fights in HFC where there are 4+ targets stacked the entire fight and Frost may work better for you in real world situations with Orb and WaterJet for some burst cleave.

Using Iskar as a real world example, you want to go into the add phase with AO off CD and 4 x AC, 2 x SN and pref 0 x AM. ABarr into the adds and then instantly use AO to get back to 4 x AC + any AM procs. (if this is the ghosts on Socretar, then ABarr again and leave the rest for another class to clean up until they get into AE / CoC range) Then continue your single target rotation on what ever add is the priority target. When AO is just about to come off CD, repeat the ABarr + AO combo. As you said, if you get MoD, swap to that target and use any AM that you have but otherwise just your standard single target rotation.

Xhul, is a bit different as there are adds up most of the fight but the imps that stack under the boss come in waves so I would play to the same style.

Mann. The imps come in waves and dont live long so you have time for one or 2 SN's and then finish off with AE when there is 4+ still up.

[DyLemma]

Okay so in that case, I realize 4 charges with missiles on a doom nova proc is absolute priority.

Then I assume if you hit 4 charges, and have missiles without doom nova, just barrage. That correct? For AoE

you don't need 4 arcane charges to missile your doom nova target you just need to put as many missiles into it as possible it's just hitting it with a spell that matters as arcane missiles is 5 hits per missile proc you have. getting all 3 missiles into the target is 15 explosions I think and that's just 1 target multiply it by the amount of targets and GG.
I've gotten 8M doom nova damage just from the first iskar mythic add phase, too bad that pull was a wipe

[masteryogurt]

Can I ask how you arcane mages approach the 3 "aoe" fights in this current raid? While none of them are obviously true aoe because of priority targets.

For Hellfire assault, I'm guessing people aren't burning their mana. I actually asked Rikh (fairly top end mage) about this in his stream and he said he doesn't burn during assault, because of the weird timing of the add waves.

For Iskar, doesn't make sense to burn at all during when all the adds are out. In that case would you try to maybe burn your mana on pull/when it's just the boss alone? Without hitting AP. Because I believe even doing so without Tome trink (not good for aoe fights) and without AP, it's still a dps increase to spam out those blasts. And you would probably have two opportunities to do so and hit evo when the adds aren't up and it's just the boss, not to mention your pre pot intellect buff on opener.

Xhul, considering that the range priority really is on the void adds (since melee can't really go after them), I don't really have time to bother with the imps generally. Though I see some mages going for meters doing that. I suppose whether or not you burn your mana at any point may depend on your uptime on the void adds. (burning mana makes no sense for AoE situation, since you barrage with 4 or 5+ adds, so I've been told)

**and I get what was said previously, the real aoe damage you do with arcane is off doom nova procs. and likely the arcane missile dump into them.

[DyLemma]

You just burn when you can, not like there is a perfect time or something unless you won't be able to use your cooldowns during an important time (mythic iskar, phantasmal guy) on assault just use it when it comes off cooldown and when the crusher comes out. No real secret time to use it. At the start of assault don't use arcane orb right away cause you might get unlucky and proc mark on a different add, do 1 arcane blast and pop all your cooldowns double supernova and use all your missiles on the mark target and arcane blast filler when you have no missiles. The opener is where all your damage is going to come from. Iskar, you just pray to RNG jesus that you get a mark proc when the adds are out. Xhul same thing, pray for procs but your main focus is adds.

[Embers]

For Assault, I burn on the pull then again as soon as I can, and then my next one lines up with the Crusher and our Ring, and then just again whenever I can and there's a Hulking Berserker out to burn down.

For Iskar, I burn on the add phases to specifically kill the priority Phantasmal copy as soon as possible.

For Xhul'horac I wait until the first large add comes out, and I burn on him then by the time its up the second large add is out and I'm handling Unstable Voids and I burn again whenever I can. (note, we haven't done Xhul'horac on Mythic yet, this is just what I did on heroic) and then after this burn the next time is usually up around the final phase and I save it for that.

There aren't really any "AoE" fights. All of the fights that have "adds" most of them are just clutter to distract you from one very important mob that needs to die ASAP and has too much health to just be AoE'd down with the pack as a whole.