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Mod edit: Moved to Q&A.
..without Arcane Missiles that drops mana to <93%. Do you waste the half a second it needs to figure out if it brought up an Arcane Missiles or do you just Arcane Barrage immediately? Some people get twitchy with having the highest activity percentage possible on logs but I suspect it might be a DPS loss if you immediately Arcane Barrage and not wait to see if an Arcane Missiles will come up but I'm not sure.

If no answer comes up I may look into SimCraft later.


Though SimCraft might not be that great for this precisely because it's a robot.


I would guess default SimCraft behavior would be "it's instant and we lose nothing" so this is more about human behavior and the small delay (less than 0.5 seconds I guess) that it would take someone to figure out an AM is up or not.


I wonder if network latency plays a role in this.

It is better to use ABarr if you are at 4stacks, <93% mana, and no AM before cast finishes. If AM does proc on the last cast, it'll still be up by the time you get back to 4 stacks. The only way this becomes a detriment is if you proc AM on every cast of AB trying to get back to 4stack, but this is so rare that I wouldn't really worry about it.

You can actually spam AM on the 4th AB and just as you are able to cast again hit ABr, that way if AM procs you'll AM, and if it doesn't proc your AM button wont do anything and ABr will come out.

You can actually spam AM on the 4th AB and just as you are able to cast again hit ABr, that way if AM procs

That's a good point.

Do you guys find you're using AM as soon as it comes up or waiting until 4 stacks? I've seen things saying to use as soon as it procs regardless of burn/conserve or DM proc and I've seen only use @ 4 stacks unless dm has procd and then use them all back to back regardless of conserve/burn

Do you guys find you're using AM as soon as it comes up or waiting until 4 stacks? I've seen things saying to use as soon as it procs regardless of burn/conserve or DM proc and I've seen only use @ 4 stacks unless dm has procd and then use them all back to back regardless of conserve/burn

You don't want to use AM under 4 stacks unless you have prophecy of doom, then you always use AM when it procs regardless of stacks.

You could use AM under 4 stacks if mana is low but that's a bit unorthodox since that's not supposed to happen on patchwerk simulations. It assumes perfection. But in a real scenario you may choose to burn a target slightly faster etc.

You could use AM under 4 stacks if mana is low but that's a bit unorthodox since that's not supposed to happen on patchwerk simulations. It assumes perfection. But in a real scenario you may choose to burn a target slightly faster etc.

Perfection is what we are aiming for (patch work or otherwise) and if you are burning, then you have Evo off CD so it doesn't matter how low you get as Evo will recover it for you. The issue comes during your conserve phases. If you are lower on mana then you should be (E.g. You cast an AB while < 93% during conserve phase or you are forced to interrupt Evo early), then it has been shown in the past that it is better (on a pure damage per cast situation) to cast AB x 2 and then use ABarr to reset. Rinse and repeat until you are back to normal mana levels. Do not cast AM in this rotation.

This will get you the most mana regen while doing the most possible damage. Using an AM while not on 4 x AC will mean you get back to a normal level of mana a bit faster (which could be useful when you know you need to be ready to burn very soon) but the 'opportunity cost' from the damage you lose due to casting AM when it is not 4 x AC makes using AM early a DPS loss. The buff timer for AM is quite long so you should have more than enough time to get a normal level of mana and 4 x AC before using your AM procs so they do the most damage possible (and helps you stay casting AB at 4 x AC longer which is key to DPS as Arcane).

Assuming not MoD debuff on any targets, if you do get to 3 x AM or the AM buff is about to run out, then use 1 proc at less than 4 x AC to prevent overwriting an AM proc / loosing the buff. Ideally you will be on 2 x AC when you do use AM so you benefit from the mana regen & damage of the first 2 AB casts before using AM. E.g. AB x 0 AC is a mana positive cast. AB x 1 AC is mana neutral (actually a very slight mana negative cast but the extra damage makes it worth it). So using the AM proc at AC x 2 then you will be doing 100% more damage with that AM cast compared to if you had cast AM at 0 x AC while also regenerating the same amount of mana. If you use the AM proc at 0 or 1 x AM then you lose the opportunity to cast an extra AB before needing to reset because casting AB at 2+ AC charges costs significantly more mana than you regenerate while casting.

TL:DR. Do NOT cast AM on less than 4 x AC unless you have to because you have 3 x AM or the AM buff is about to drop off or the MoD debuff is up. Save them for 4 x AC.

I don't think you get what I said. It was about special targets that must be killed for the tradeoff of lower overall DPS. It wasn't about optimal total DPS.

Another scenario is the Boss might jump off and have a forced downtime. In that case it's preferable to "waste" AMs on <4 stacks rather than reset.

I don't think you get what I said. It was about special targets that must be killed for the tradeoff of lower overall DPS. It wasn't about optimal total DPS.

How is this different? If you have a priority target that needs to be burned down ASAP but you are in your conserve phase then that is your reason for going below the 93% threshold, not why you are choosing to use AM to recover mana after the burn so what I said still applies, save your AM for when you get back to 4 x AC. Another thing you could do is if you know this required burn is coming, you could save your main burn phase for this point so you are not forced in to the recovery procedure in the first place.

Another scenario is the Boss might jump off and have a forced downtime. In that case it's preferable to "waste" AMs on <4 stacks rather than reset.

Why is this preferable?

There is only one fight that I can think of in this tier where this logic might come into play. That is Iron Reaver. If he is out of range during Blitz your AB cast time would have been wasted (but it also wouldn't have cost you any mana) where as if you started to channel AM while he was in range, the rest of the cast should finish and follow the boss. You could just wait for the boss to come back into range so that you can get to 4 x AC and get maximum damage out of your AM or you could so something else like use an instant (SN for example) or ABarr as this will help you keep that 100% active time which you must be chaising. ABarr will also follow the boss and if like you said originally, you are low on mana then you should be using ABarr any way. Another situation where you have nothing to switch to is if the boss jumps up between phases at which time the boss is taking 90% less damage so anything you cast at that point is a waste so you may as well just hold out until the bombs drop. You should have enough time between the boss jumping and the first bombs dropping to keep your AC charges up and depending on when your last AM proc was, also keep the AM proc up.

All other fights have another target you can swap to if you think the target will jump away / die before you have time to get in another cast of AB. You are better to move your focus to the next target slightly early and keep hitting as hard as you can while letting someone else with instants finish off the priority target rather than hitting like a wet fish (as you may only get in 1-2 AM waves before the target dies / becomes immune) for the sake of 100% uptime on the priority target. This is exactly the same principle when using PC. If you dont have enough time to get another AB cast in or a full AM channel and there are no instants to use (SN / AB + PoM) then switch targets away from the Crystal and just let it despawn when it is ready.

Have you played Arcane in Kormrok?

If he is out of range during Blitz your AB cast time would have been wasted (but it also wouldn't have cost you any mana) where as if you started to channel AM while he was in range, the rest of the cast should finish and follow the boss.

I was about to say that but you seem to try to include every conceivable case in a negative answer, but it's not a negative in this case. If a target is about to take off for a few seconds, mana is going to be replenished by the delay anyway, AB is not going to hit because there is no time, but you also need to burn very soon, why use Arcane Barrage and not AMs? That's a good example where an AM below 4x Charge is a pretty smart move.

How is this different? If you have a priority target that needs to be burned down ASAP but you are in your conserve phase then that is your reason for going below the 93% threshold, not why you are choosing to use AM to recover mana after the burn so what I said still applies, save your AM for when you get back to 4 x AC. Another thing you could do is if you know this required burn is coming, you could save your main burn phase for this point so you are not forced in to the recovery procedure in the first place.

AM has a higher DPET than AB, so technically you could use AM as they came up while building charges if you had an add that just needed to die that quickly. In that scenario you are trading your overall dps for slightly better damage to that add. But it would have to be something that died rather quickly, because if you had time for a few casts then you'd have had time to build up charges and then use AM. And if its dying that fast already, do you really need to do that anyway? Its a very specific niche scenario but I suppose its possible. I'm having trouble thinking of an actual time in-game where I'd have wanted to do that though.

Have you played Arcane in Kormrok?

I was about to say that but you seem to try to include every conceivable case in a negative answer, but it's not a negative in this case. If a target is about to take off for a few seconds, mana is going to be replenished by the delay anyway, AB is not going to hit because there is no time, but you also need to burn very soon, why use Arcane Barrage and not AMs? That's a good example where an AM below 4x Charge is a pretty smart move.

Kormrok isn't a good example. He's not out of range very long, so you'd have to already have the timer on your AM running down so that it would expire before he comes back for it to be worthwhile to cast AM and waste part of it while he's out of range rather than waiting for him to return and just doing your rotation normally.

Arcane Barrage's DPET is not that far behind that of AM, so if you're not going to be hitting with all missiles, it's probably more damage to use barrage instead. And if you are hitting with all your missiles, you likely could've cast another AB. You're talking about a very tight window where you could channel AM as a boss goes away, get all the missiles to still hit, and not have had enough time to get an AB in. A small enough window that I don't think anyone could accurately judge if that was the exact window of time that makes that the optimal move in the middle of a fight.

It just seems like you're talking about some very infrequent and rare occurrences where you may want to use AM while building charges but because its only in these types of specific conditions there's really no reason to even discuss or think about it. Optimizing your rotation in those situations is going to have a tiny, tiny impact on your damage if that does happen to occur so why bother with it?

if its dying that fast already, do you really need to do that anyway?

Yeah that's a good point because I recently figured out a situation that it might be best for a group to assign part of the raid to do other jobs if targets are dying faster than needed.

Kormrok isn't a good example. He's not out of range very long

If you have the furthest soak puddle it might be a few seconds extra.

Optimizing your rotation in those situations is going to have a tiny, tiny impact on your damage if that does happen to occur so why bother with it?

Ask Chev to be honest because I didn't mean to open a whole discussion about it, just to mention those rare occurrences.

Yes, I have done Kormrok and assuming your guild does the Green > Red > Purple strat there is a position you can stand on for the pull which will mean that the boss is in range when he first jumps into the green pool and with double blink you can still get to just about any where in the room in time to soak. When he jumps into red pool, you have a tank to bust out of a hand so they can then get to their assigned soaking spot giving you a second target to switch to when the boss is out of range and if your raid is getting to the point where the boss jumps to the purple pool, then you are busy spreading out to survive the mechanic overlaps to be worried about getting 1/2 a cast of AM into the boss while he jumps out of range.

Here is the spot. You stand right on the edge of max range for AB and then use Icy Veins to take a few steps towards the edge after the pull ready for when he jumps.

Ask Chev to be honest because I didn't mean to open a whole discussion about it, just to mention those rare occurrences.

You didn't mention rare occasions. Your original comment reads as wasting an AM proc is viable is most situations and you then go on to specify when ever the target is about to die or jump out of range rather than a very rare set of situations where there is absolutely nothing else to switch to or the boss is going out of range for a very long time (with nothing else to switch to) causing buffs to drop off. The reason why I made such a big deal out of this is because one of the ethoses of this site is to prevent the spread of miss-information and because your comments made it sound like a general recommendation, I felt I had to add my 20 cents worth of information to help clarify the situation for anyone else reading the thread. I apologise if you felt I was having a go at you personally, that was not my intention. My intention was to make sure everyone reading had all the information they need to make decisions during their game play.

Slightly related but what % is optimum to burn to? I've been told 50% and I've been told 30%

50 without arcane power, to the abyss with arcane power.


AOE is a different matter.

It depends on your haste. Assuming that you're burning past AP, you essentially want to burn a bit more than 2 ticks of evo will give you. That means that you burn lower during time warp or other haste procs; under tw I can typically burn 30% and still evo back to full within a GCD.

It depends on your haste. Assuming that you're burning past AP, you essentially want to burn a bit more than 2 ticks of evo will give you. That means that you burn lower during time warp or other haste procs; under tw I can typically burn 30% and still evo back to full within a GCD.

AM on proc with AP active? Or more of a only when at x3 type deal?

Given that AB has a higher GCD during tome burn and that AM procs T18 bonuses, you want to weave AM as normal even during AP burn. This does mean you'll stop weaving around the 70% mana mark as normal.