7.1.5 - Arcane Mage Guide - Updated: 02-16-2017

[m3nsky]

Regarding Mirror v. RoP v. IF

I personally hate RoP, but it is unquestionably better than the other two options.

Mirrors works well with Fire because it and Combustion have the same CD (assuming no kindling). It works well with Frost because they can keep up Icy Veins 100% of the time, and even if it drops off, it'll often line up. Mirrors however does not have the same CD as AP, which means that other than the first AP and 5th AP, you won't get the +damage. On a 2-minute pull, it does roughly equal damage to RoP. The longer the pull goes, the more RoP takes the lead.

IF is often touted as being movement friendly. I disagree. Most fights allow you to have 10-seconds of uninterrupted damage time, assuming you are familiar with the mechanics of the fight. RoP allows you to utilize those 10 seconds better. IF is weaker than RoP in a perfect environment, and as long as you know the fight and use RoP in safe windows you are better off maximizing damage in those windows. The better argument for IF is that it's nice while *leraning* a fight since you can ignore it.

Oh, and at 877 IF was within 2% of RoP on patchwerk for me. After some nice drops from mythic Odyn/Guarm tonight, it's 6% behind RoP at 884. RoP is scaling better.

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't, regardless if I popped it before using MI or while they were active. They don't get boosted by anything, not RoP, not AP, not trinkets, can you please double check ?

It is funny though as they have their own "arcane charges" takes them 4 hits as well to get to (in my case) an average hit of 70k per image. I'll test on Odyn this Sunday, as I played RoP until now. It is nice to have a click and forget talent though on CD, especially Odyn since the unwritten rule is to use RoP and get shit spawn under you ._.

Also, the MI AI is a bit meh, they hit whatever you are targeting, but they don't stop when you stop, they keep hitting your last target, unless you go out of combat which doesn't work in raids. So when you raid calls for a dps stop and you got MI up, them bitches will keep going

[Letitgo]

hey all. first time posting, but arcane changes made me excited so i have to share. i have 879 mage without any significant legendaries (although i love my prydaz now + sephuz). i'm pulling 360-370k on target dummy without timewarp and other buffs. aluneth is at 38 rank. 41% mastery, 19% haste, 27% critical. every enchant and gem is mastery if possible.
significant talents are ROP and resonance, others are classic.
so what i noticed:
mirror image is not better for me on target dummy, my dps drops down by 10-20k, but i can understand how it's more convenient during boss fight as i screw ROP all the time. but the unbuffed MoA is kind of weird as well.
i have hard time figure out when to charged up, so resonance is just plain simpler for me.
during AP i don't care about missiles and go straight blasts just to make the most of the mana savings. after that i drop second ROP and let the missiles do the job.
conserve phase is two blasts, after that missiles and barrage until 30-35 sec to evo and than burning my mana again with second AP.
good thing is that with slipstream i feel more mobile than before and generaly the rotation is far simpler and more intuitive which suits me.
i honestly think that arcane is in better spot without quickening and stupid familiar or nether tempest. it was just too clunky to play with them.
but seeing arcane at the bottom of charts is a bit frustrating. let's just hope it's just not many people dedicate to arcane so the numbers aren't that much relevant

[TouchyMcfeel]

Hey Rue!

I've been reading in and out of your guides, compared to other people and such. However no one really talks about the m+ rotation. What I mean is, sure the rotation you suggested is viable for m+. However I believe you could get better numbers overall with arcane orb. At least that was the case for PTR discussion.

So far I'm thinking of 2223133 talent build (1 being left 2 being middle and 3 being right in talent tree).Utilizing RoP MrK and Orb in RoP for insane AoE damage for huge trash pack. (Which by the way most people do nowadays. Pull big, CC the pack and pray you have enough damage to kill them in that one pass).

I'd like to hear your opinion on this. Talent choice and rotation. Eventually build it up like a cooking recipie so we could dissect the build and have a better overall understanding of the build.

Thanks for being a part of the arcane community, been interesting reading your thoughts on things.

[jimmyo]

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't, regardless if I popped it before using MI or while they were active. They don't get boosted by anything, not RoP, not AP, not trinkets, can you please double check ?

It is funny though as they have their own "arcane charges" takes them 4 hits as well to get to (in my case) an average hit of 70k per image. I'll test on Odyn this Sunday, as I played RoP until now. It is nice to have a click and forget talent though on CD, especially Odyn since the unwritten rule is to use RoP and get shit spawn under you ._.

Also, the MI AI is a bit meh, they hit whatever you are targeting, but they don't stop when you stop, they keep hitting your last target, unless you go out of combat which doesn't work in raids. So when you raid calls for a dps stop and you got MI up, them bitches will keep going

I know for a fact they gain combustion and Icy Veins, but those are stat buffs not +dmg so AP may not combo. This only furthers the point I was making that mirror images is bad for arcane though.

[Asara]

Heya, first time poster here as well.

Started legion with a fury warrior, but it just didn't feel right, so i swapped to a fire mage some time in, tried arcane mage once and loved it ever since.

7.1.5 feels pretty different for an arcane mage, from the crazy and fast mage to the slow but dependable mage we are now. I read someone say before that the skillfloor was raised, and the ceiling was lowered, and i think that's very accurate. I feel like the damage we do doesn't give much leiway to improve upon, even though our base output is higher than before. Great for mages who could not really get the quickening rotation down, but not as exciting for the pro's. Im pretty much a novice, but im pulling some pretty decent numbers and i really like the new 7.1.5 feel and rotation tbh, but im waiting for the new sims and stuff to come out, so i can finally have an idea what to equip out of my 20 trinkets in the bank.

Got the 2 BIS trinkets from 7.1 (relaxing ruby and spiked tongue) finally after weeks of farming on the day 7.1.5 hit, so that feels pretty bad considering they will probaly be pretty weak compared to others now.

What i am happy about though is that arcane familiar finally is not the best option anymore, since it was a hassle to keep up and it kept bugging out all the time.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/arcane/cJ2z" target="_blank is the talent set up im currently using for raids, really liking slipstream, even though i never thought i would give up shimmer for anything. I feel like this is the best talent set for single target fights.

For dps, im usually pulling something like 340k on not much movement fights, and around 300k for more movement heavy fights.

for rotation, before the fight i pot and use PoM. when the fight starts i use charged up and instant cast 2 AB. then MoA, RoP, AP and generally spam AM over AB, since it just feels so good with the lvl 15 talent. I feel like i can sustain my mana in the burn phase way longer without quickening now, even though my mastery has been lowered to 31% since 7.1.5 hit. I still tend to overspend in the conserve phase though, bad habit of wanting to top dps

Anyway, hope that helps anyone, and cant wait till more test results are out and i get my hands on a good legendary or tier set haha

[x1xruex1x]

Just wondering if I'm reading this right, you don't always abx4 in conserve phase? Only to stay above 70% mana? If it means staying above that then abx2 barrage is fine to do?

@Pkm,

For the rotation I'm working with, and what I'm foreseeing it to be, the Conservation phase AC stacks depend on your mastery regen level. I'm around 46/47% right now, and I've found that 2 AB's, followed up by any available free casts, and closing with an ABarr works well enough to keep my regen in a positive manner, and not a negative.

[x1xruex1x]

So I originally posed AB spam during Overpowered Arcane Power as a question, not a suggestion. However, after a number of tests and actual boss pulls, I do believe that the mana cost reduction is more significant than the damage of Arcane Missiles
.......
After some nice drops from mythic Odyn/Guarm tonight, it's 6% behind RoP at 884. RoP is scaling better.

@Jimmyo,

Thanks for the input ^_^ Yea, you were onto something with that inquiry you originally had about AB Spam w/ AM Counts. It's why I ran with it.

I will be trying to test your methods out when I raid tonight, I've never liked banking to cap and continuing to cast with AM. So having that sweet spot of maybe AM @ 2 stack then back to AB works out well in my mind's book.

Thank you ^_^


As for the Mirror Images v RoP v IF, I know that IF is toted as the movement skill, but in the grander scheme, I think you have more frequent chances to do +20% damage than the others and in turn if you time things just right and master that buff management, you can potentially output more dps in my opinion. However, I dont' see it being logical since it's so much back and forth management.

So Mirror Images, I had heard it was a contender now, but haven't had a long fight to test it on. Do you think it'd be better set for shorter fights then? Like a short boss fight like Ursoc where it's literally only a couple of minutes long at times. Unlike Helya which takes ages. I've never really hated RoP, I think I hated the short 8yd range, but I've learned it's actually a lot greater than the imagery on the ground. It's about an extra radius length outwards of the inner design, from the edge of it. So I've found I can drop it, and lets say on Helya i get the green puddle, I can stand at edge of puddle and typically be fine. Not always but sometimes it works out well.

I really want Mirror Images to be viable though, it's been eons since I've used it happily. Quite possibly, we may be learning to love those tome of clear mind or whatever books, and just switch up our talents based on the fight expectations really.

[x1xruex1x]

Great posts all around here, personally I have a question after reading all your contributions.

How are we using RoP after the first evocation? I'd guess we are doing mini burns for this, syncing it with MoA and saving up 2 or more missiles procs?

@Tadeqt,

I'm using RoP during my conservation phase whenever it hits near a 2-stack. I don't want it to be capped typically because it's a general dps loss when you do, the only circumstance where I think it's ok, is if AP is about to come off cooldown, you have enough mana to do a burn, and things are lining up right. Then let it get to 2 stack so you can have both during the incoming burn phase.

[x1xruex1x]

Regarding Mirror v. RoP v. IF
.....
Oh, and at 877 IF was within 2% of RoP on patchwerk for me. After some nice drops from mythic Odyn/Guarm tonight, it's 6% behind RoP at 884. RoP is scaling better.

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't, regardless if I popped it before using MI or while they were active. They don't get
......
your last target, unless you go out of combat which doesn't work in raids. So when you raid calls for a dps stop and you got MI up, them bitches will keep going

@M3nsky,

So a couple inquiries I have here (since I haven't used MI in eons...i like the word eons ^_^),..

You mention that you've

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't

, I'm not sure what you mean by this since MI can't be combo'd with RoP as they're on the same talent tier. Am I misunderstanding this statement perhaps?

That aside, I did notice last night while I was doing a gathering event with my guild, that my Images were casting some of my other abilities I had, nothing talented it seems, but just in general. I had thought they only casted AB and that was it. So I now have to keep an eye on them and see how they work. I wasn't aware they had their own AC stacks and such. If that's the case, it could create odd number output if they're not focusing on a singular target.

Thank you for enlightening me to this though ^_^

[x1xruex1x]

hey all. first time posting, but arcane changes made me excited so i have to share. i have 879 mage without any significant legendaries (although i love my prydaz now + sephuz). i'm pulling 360-370k on target dummy without timewarp and other buffs. aluneth is at 38 rank. 41% mastery, 19% haste, 27% critical. every enchant
.....
but seeing arcane at the bottom of charts is a bit frustrating. let's just hope it's just not many people dedicate to arcane so the numbers aren't that much relevant

@Letitgo,

Hey there! I enjoyed your post, and I have a question and a note for ya.
So, I'm curious how you're incorporating the revamped Sephuz's ring into your playstyle. It's one of those things that I have and shelved since it felt like a PvP ring honestly. If there's a meaningful way of incorporating it into your playstyle though, I would love to know. The haste buff alone is very nice. I've thought about tossing it on for something like Helya where I typically dps the tentatcles in phase 2, but I cast Slow on the minions along the way, so that'd give me a +haste? Not sure though how it works now honestly... Let me know though.

As for Arcane being at the bottom of the charts, I think it's subjective and based on who's running the charts. In my experience they're still up there, Noxxic (as unreliable as they can be) has Arcane within the top 5 in a real check for 865 ilvl on single target. I haven't had an opportunity to investigate Warcraft Logs though.

I think Arcane is a real contender with some of the other high tiered DPS'ers out there. So I wouldn't be quick to say they're near bottom. I do know that a lot of my Marksmanship Hunter buddies are bugging out because they're not doing anymore damage than before and feel like they've lost damage. So, when compared to that feeling, I think we're doing darned good for ourselves as I haven't yet seen anyone feel that way about Arcane.

[x1xruex1x]

Hey Rue!

I've been reading in and out of your guides, compared to other people and such. However no one really talks about the m+ rotation. What I mean is, sure the rotation you suggested is viable for m+. However I believe you could get better numbers overall with arcane orb. At least that was the case for PTR discussion.

So far I'm thinking of 2223133 talent build (1 being left 2 being middle and 3 being right in talent tree).Utilizing RoP MrK and Orb in RoP for insane AoE damage for huge trash pack. (Which by the way most people do nowadays. Pull big, CC the pack and pray you have enough damage to kill them in that one pass).

I'd like to hear your opinion on this. Talent choice and rotation. Eventually build it up like a cooking recipie so we could dissect the build and have a better overall understanding of the build.

Thanks for being a part of the arcane community, been interesting reading your thoughts on things.

@TouchyMcfeel,

Well well well, it's a great notice and point. Personally, I'm not a fan of Mythic+, but not because I think they're bad, I just grew up with Nintendo in the 80's and 90's where timer's are the bane of my existence and cause me high anxiety. Sooooooo,.. yea, it makes me feel like I'm against a clock that's unbeatable and it just drives me bonkers. I've done a good few, but Im not hunting people down to do them.

As for the M+ builds, I know that Nelfy has a playlist for them (should be a link to that list or his youtube on the original post I made), I'd definitely check those out as he's a great chap and knows his stuff.

With regards to things like Arcane Orb, I think it's great for on the move damage now. I was doing a gathering event with my guild last night and I spec'd with mobility in mind, so things like Supernova & Resonance were flipped back and forth between to test (went SN since I needed to tag things first, but Res had higher output when group killing). I chose Arcane Orb over TF and OP since I knew that a tag from afar, having AC charges gen'd and good damage output was going to be needed, and I'll say, with the increase from 80%~ to near 500%~ for it's baseline damage with this patch, IT FEELS NICE, it doesn't feel like a faux Charged Up skill.

I really think that as long as you have the mobs to work with, it can do a great deal of damage all around, has a short cooldown, allows you to dump into ABarr and get the charges back asap, and keeps you moving. ... just gotta watch aiming so you dont overpull.

However, I will try and put my due diligence into getting into more M+ and try to be a more well versed mage. I tend to pride myself on just being the ST - Raid DPS'er for my guild. It's what I do best, well that and I lead the raid too, so it can be a bit overwhelming to be trying to handle multiple things w/ AoE while leading.

Either way, Thank you for the post.

[x1xruex1x]

Heya, first time poster here as well.

Started legion with a fury warrior, but it just didn't feel right, so i swapped to a fire mage some time in, tried arcane mage once and loved it ever since.

7.1.5 feels pretty different for an arcane mage, from the crazy and fast mage to the slow but dependable mage we
.....
Anyway, hope that helps anyone, and cant wait till more test results are out and i get my hands on a good legendary or tier set haha

@Asara,

Hey there! So yea, I agree with you mostly on that. I think the general barrier to entry for Arcane is lower, so more can try it, I do feel the skill cap is a bit lower than it was as we're not hassling over perfect Quickening stacks any longer, however, we're staying engaged in the fight. Quickening was having us throttle and slow-cast to ensure mana regen for the blow out and buff management. There's definitely a lot of variant styles for Arcane right now, so I wouldn't state that pro's can't find something that'll work for them just yet, until each variant has been fully explored. I think it'll take a couple of weeks for that at the minimum.

Regardless of that though, I think for the core builds right now that we're seeing, Aran's Ruby and Arcanocrystal are some good choices for trinkets, one is a general damage output that's not speed dependent, and the other is a flat stat boost round the board. I still haven't obtained a stinking Naraxxas tongue yet! which bugs me to no extent, but as with one of my previous mentions, I don't do M+ very often, so the chance of me getting a good quality one is slimmer than most. I've got a Shock Baton and a Plaguehive, but I'm feeling them being a bit lackluster now that haste isn't what we're all about (not necessarily true for the TF build though). So I need to explore a few other trinket options, but I'm not going to go insane looking since Nighthold is only a few days away, and they've got some really nice choices in there. I think almost half if not more of the bosses actually drop trinkets of varying qualities. So we have a plethora incoming that'll stir up the meta I think.

Time will tell ^_^

[Vhella]

My dps varies depending of my missiles procs. Sometime I can do an ENTIRE burn phase with only 1 or 2 missiles procs. At this moment I know this is over, everything is off (Charged up-Barrage combo, 2nd & 3rd Rop) and my dps is horrible. In those cases i go down to ~460k dps on a 5 min fight. When things are better an I get enough procs I go up to 510k on a 5 min fight. (888 ilvl)

I changed my rotation by quite a lot now and I'm putting more values into my RoP & missiles, which seems like a dps increase to me.

5min fight with 1 Timewarp - no pots/food - Legendary Bracers & Shard (not used)


3min30 fight with 1 Timewarp - no pots/food- Legendary Bracers & Shard (not used)


About stuff and stats, to be completely honest I don't see much of a difference. I tried many variations, Main stat crit, main stat Mastery, between 800 & 2000+ vers, I tried different trinkets, Chronoshard, Stat sticks etc.. It doesn't seem to matter a ton. What matter is my missile procs and this variable seems huge. Hopefully this will be more consistent with the 2pc from NH.

[x1xruex1x]

My dps varies depending of my missiles procs. Sometime I can do an ENTIRE burn phase with only 1 or 2 missiles procs. At this moment I know this is over, everything is off (Charged up-Barrage combo, 2nd & 3rd Rop) and my dps is horrible. In those cases i go down to ~460k dps on a 5 min fight. When things are better an I get enough procs I go up to 510k on a 5 min fight. (888 ilvl)

I changed my rotation by quite a lot now and I'm putting more values into my RoP & missiles, which seems like a dps increase to me.
.......
About stuff and stats, to be completely honest I don't see much of a difference. I tried many variations, Main stat crit, main stat Mastery, between 800 & 2000+ vers, I tried different trinkets, Chronoshard, Stat sticks etc.. It doesn't seem to matter a ton. What matter is my missile procs and this variable seems huge. Hopefully this will be more consistent with the 2pc from NH.

@Vhella,

So essentially what you're getting at is that for your trials, it would seem that the amount of AM procs you get, really decides the amount of damage output you do. Not a matter of having high crit, haste, mastery, etc, just all about the proc chances.

That is, if I'm reading this right.

If that is the case though, then would it be much more preferrable to have relics in your Artifact that increase your % chance to proc AM? I used to stack those, but lately (with all the changes that were pending) I had switched over to +AB damage relics and stacked 3 of them.

Let me know what you think, I'd like to explore this more in discussion.

[Asara]

My dps varies depending of my missiles procs. Sometime I can do an ENTIRE burn phase with only 1 or 2 missiles procs. At this moment I know this is over, everything is off (Charged up-Barrage combo, 2nd & 3rd Rop) and my dps is horrible. In those cases i go down to ~460k dps on a 5 min fight. When things are better an I get enough procs I go up to 510k on a 5 min fight. (888 ilvl)

I changed my rotation by quite a lot now and I'm putting more values into my RoP & missiles, which seems like a dps increase to me.
.......
About stuff and stats, to be completely honest I don't see much of a difference. I tried many variations, Main stat crit, main stat Mastery, between 800 & 2000+ vers, I tried different trinkets, Chronoshard, Stat sticks etc.. It doesn't seem to matter a ton. What matter is my missile procs and this variable seems huge. Hopefully this will be more consistent with the 2pc from NH.

@Vhella,

So essentially what you're getting at is that for your trials, it would seem that the amount of AM procs you get, really decides the amount of damage output you do. Not a matter of having high crit, haste, mastery, etc, just all about the proc chances.

That is, if I'm reading this right.

If that is the case though, then would it be much more preferrable to have relics in your Artifact that increase your % chance to proc AM? I used to stack those, but lately (with all the changes that were pending) I had switched over to +AB damage relics and stacked 3 of them.

Let me know what you think, I'd like to explore this more in discussion.

i think its primarily because of the lvl 15 talent that increases AM dmg by 60% if you have 4 charges, thats huge. so far, askmrrobot has the increase arcane power duration as the most valuable relics, but thats only when you have overpowered talented, otherwise i think the AM proc rate one is going to be top

[Letitgo]

hey all. first time posting, but arcane changes made me excited so i have to share. i have 879 mage without any significant legendaries (although i love my prydaz now + sephuz). i'm pulling 360-370k on target dummy without timewarp and other buffs. aluneth is at 38 rank. 41% mastery, 19% haste, 27% critical. every enchant
.....
but seeing arcane at the bottom of charts is a bit frustrating. let's just hope it's just not many people dedicate to arcane so the numbers aren't that much relevant

@Letitgo,

Hey there! I enjoyed your post, and I have a question and a note for ya.
So, I'm curious how you're incorporating the revamped Sephuz's ring into your playstyle. It's one of those things that I have and shelved since it felt like a PvP ring honestly. If there's a meaningful way of incorporating it into your playstyle though, I would love to know. The haste buff alone is very nice. I've thought about tossing it on for something like Helya where I typically dps the tentatcles in phase 2, but I cast Slow on the minions along the way, so that'd give me a +haste? Not sure though how it works now honestly... Let me know though.

so the reason i have sephuz is just because i don't have another legendary or better ring. once i get third more relevant legendary i won't wear it. i don't think that the ring helps much since there are many classes with counterstrike abilities that "steal" your sephuz buff and at the same time there aren't many fights where you can use it optimaly. maybe interrupting some trash mobs in m+ would help clean it faster. slowing down mobs is something i didn't think about but maybe using it in fights like illgynoth, xavius and helya could have some potential (and again in m+). but obviously bracers, kilt or head pieces and others are better choices.

[Calaim]

Any particular reason we're looking to do ABx2 > ABarr while fishing for AM procs and not ABx3 or x4? We aren't at risk of running OOM during AP any more so I feel like we could be a bit more cavalier with our mana. And once I get up to 3 AM procs, am I looking to AB up to 4 charges to dump stronger 3-string missiles or am I dropping AM procs at 2 charges until RoP/AP come up again?

[m3nsky]

Regarding Mirror v. RoP v. IF
.....
Oh, and at 877 IF was within 2% of RoP on patchwerk for me. After some nice drops from mythic Odyn/Guarm tonight, it's 6% behind RoP at 884. RoP is scaling better.

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't, regardless if I popped it before using MI or while they were active. They don't get
......
your last target, unless you go out of combat which doesn't work in raids. So when you raid calls for a dps stop and you got MI up, them bitches will keep going

@M3nsky,

So a couple inquiries I have here (since I haven't used MI in eons...i like the word eons ^_^),..

You mention that you've

I tested MI every possible way on target dummy and nothing boosts their damage, are you sure your RoP increased their damage cuz mine sure didn't

, I'm not sure what you mean by this since MI can't be combo'd with RoP as they're on the same talent tier. Am I misunderstanding this statement perhaps?

That aside, I did notice last night while I was doing a gathering event with my guild, that my Images were casting some of my other abilities I had, nothing talented it seems, but just in general. I had thought they only casted AB and that was it. So I now have to keep an eye on them and see how they work. I wasn't aware they had their own AC stacks and such. If that's the case, it could create odd number output if they're not focusing on a singular target.

Thank you for enlightening me to this though ^_^

Typo I meant AP

Just did HC Guarm in a pug to check MI, well feels super underwhelming cuz the burn phase without RoP is really low. Overall the MI did 12% of my total damage, was 4min17sec, so i just used the third one (popped the first one when I had Erosion ready.

[m3nsky]

hey all. first time posting, but arcane changes made me excited so i have to share. i have 879 mage without any significant legendaries (although i love my prydaz now + sephuz). i'm pulling 360-370k on target dummy without timewarp and other buffs. aluneth is at 38 rank. 41% mastery, 19% haste, 27% critical. every enchant
.....
but seeing arcane at the bottom of charts is a bit frustrating. let's just hope it's just not many people dedicate to arcane so the numbers aren't that much relevant

@Letitgo,

Hey there! I enjoyed your post, and I have a question and a note for ya.
So, I'm curious how you're incorporating the revamped Sephuz's ring into your playstyle. It's one of those things that I have and shelved since it felt like a PvP ring honestly. If there's a meaningful way of incorporating it into your playstyle though, I would love to know. The haste buff alone is very nice. I've thought about tossing it on for something like Helya where I typically dps the tentatcles in phase 2, but I cast Slow on the minions along the way, so that'd give me a +haste? Not sure though how it works now honestly... Let me know though.

As for Arcane being at the bottom of the charts, I think it's subjective and based on who's running the charts. In my experience they're still up there, Noxxic (as unreliable as they can be) has Arcane within the top 5 in a real check for 865 ilvl on single target. I haven't had an opportunity to investigate Warcraft Logs though.

I think Arcane is a real contender with some of the other high tiered DPS'ers out there. So I wouldn't be quick to say they're near bottom. I do know that a lot of my Marksmanship Hunter buddies are bugging out because they're not doing anymore damage than before and feel like they've lost damage. So, when compared to that feeling, I think we're doing darned good for ourselves as I haven't yet seen anyone feel that way about Arcane.

It's not really subjective anymore, across the board in all percentiles it's bad, even worse if you don't have at least 1 dps legendary cuz logs don't lie, unfortunately.
The following links show this pretty nicely, and wether you put in 1day or a week (even though 715 hasnt been out that long yet), it makes no difference, we are on the bottom.

Burn Phase with RoP cool high dps and then you drop atrociously, might change with 2set, but as of now, ...

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/12#sample=7" target="_blank (ToV)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#sample=7" target="_blank (EN)

And hunters are rightfully pissed too, especially since MM was the only way 2 go, people have legendaries and all if not most AP in there and now they are gutted.

[Asara]

oh well, soon the logs for EN and ToV wont matter anymore, lets just hope we do well in Nighthold

and besides, logs are subjective and all logs differ a lot, in this one arcane and frost is top and fire is bottom, so yeah

http://www.noxxic.com/wow/dps-rankings/ ... ight-real/" target="_blank