Nëlfy's 7.1.5 Arcane Guide - Updated 2/14/17

[a0kalittlema0n]

To poster above me, I think that was a mistake in the previous sim.

Updated again today to reflect some PTR changes, including videos testing the PTR, and updates on trinkets

[tamale]

Hi, quick question concerning trinkets. I haven't found that trinket Brinewater Slime in a Bottle is not included in the trinket spreadsheet, maybe because it has a random secondary stat. So I happened to loot this trinket(865) with 986 mastery stat on it. Could someone tell me how good is this trinket with that mastery stat on it? I'm hestitating between theese three trinkets that I have atm. Bough of Corruption(865), Brinewater Slime in a Bottle(865), Unstable Arcanocrystal(860).

[Vulcani]

Hi, quick question concerning trinkets. I haven't found that trinket Brinewater Slime in a Bottle is not included in the trinket spreadsheet, maybe because it has a random secondary stat. So I happened to loot this trinket(865) with 986 mastery stat on it. Could someone tell me how good is this trinket with that mastery stat on it? I'm hestitating between theese three trinkets that I have atm. Bough of Corruption(865), Brinewater Slime in a Bottle(865), Unstable Arcanocrystal(860).

I would use the Brinewater slime over Bough of Corruption personally. The best way to compare brinewater to other trinkets is to look for the Int+mast trinket that drops from nightbane (the name slips my mind atm) in Kara when looking at the bis trinket lists. The two are basically the exact same trinket. If I were you, I'd sim your character out with different trinket combinations though just to be sure.

[a0kalittlema0n]

The honest correct answer is sim yourself. If you don't know how to do it, head over to my discord that I have listed somewhere up there in the guide and I'll walk you through it.

Personally I'd use the Arcanocrystal over all, then depending on your stats I'd really run either of them. I personally have no experience with Bough of Corruption, so I can't say for that, but I personally don't really value mastery as a huge stat, so I wouldn't use the Brinewater Slime, but I would hold onto it and not shard/sell it until further into 7.1.5 because all and any trinkets might become better for your class after all the changes.

[Alarion]

Hello

I found this forum accidently and I need to say big gratz for this guide. Huge piece of great work for some newbie in arcane mage (so far I was Frost PvP only but i found it is quite difficult to achieve great results with frost mage on pve which I do sometimes).

Only thing which bother me: How should I use barrage rotation with Resonance talent in mythic + ?

I found myself i prefer to spam AE and drink between pulls instead of keeping mana on some low lvl until my next evo.

Also when I watch some your movies I see you often have supernova in some mythic +

How should I deal with some typical aoe pulls 1 by 1? I remember i read somehwere i should try manage 3 x barrage during 1 RoP or something like that. Need some advices.

Also how to deal with some cleave situations with 2 or 3 mobs?

For raiding part most of your guide is 100% clear

[Kythos]

please add or comment,

for live Mythic+

for 1 mob- refresh NT, AB and AMs
for 2 mobs- target back and forth casting NT on the new mob for more AM, AB and AM...
for 3-4 mobs (most trash packs) ~NT MoA RoP AP AE x4 Barrage (with resonance) AE X4 NT Barrage. = they Dead.
or throw in SN and just spam AE... barrages to help out your mana pool if your drinking every pull.
for 6+ AE AE AE...

evo on cooldown.

Hope this helps fellow magi, this site is awesome, glad you found it.

[seoh]

I highly recommend resonance for m+. It supplements our aoe damage immeasurably and doesn't gimp our ST, like arcane orb. With resonance and barrage/explosion traits, you can do insane damage in m+.

[Alarion]

The problem I find with resonance when I use it I believe I try do everything to dont use arcane barrage at all until evo is down and I am around 30% MP. Then I try sit, eat and keep myself to use 4 stacks as long as I can therfore I feel I kinda "waste" resonance talent and using supernova could be more effective (using it on CD).

How often / what situation I should use arcane barrage? I really feel I do something not good.

Ofc we speak all the time about M+

Also Kythos says: "refresh NT" but should I take this talent in M+ ?

[TouchyMcfeel]

I honestly prefer to talent into Erosion over NT. Sure your numbers might be a tad higher with NT, however I feel like if you're going for Resonance you might as well make your AE actually feel impactful. Not to mention if you're lazy as I am you might even forget to apply NT when the tank decides to pull a sizeable mobs. At least that's what I've experienced.

Also do people find it normal to throw a 0 charge NT just to refresh it later with 4 charge NT? Doesn't become a tedious work making sure NT is up instead of just go directly RoP->AE spam and let erosion stack up beautifully? (Maximise RoP window).

[Alarion]

Well I understand you might look from comfortable perspective however I would like to have best solution no matter how hard it is to achieve (everything is matter of practise). So I feel my questions are still up:

1) how excatly should I use most effective resonance in M+. How often should I arcane barrage vs typicial pull and "sit to drink" playstyle?

2) is NT better for M+ than Erosion?

[Blownt]

After some texting with helm/bracers - temp flux is pretty good.

Not sure if that combo is best or helm/hero ring with overpowered.

[Densor]

Well I understand you might look from comfortable perspective however I would like to have best solution no matter how hard it is to achieve (everything is matter of practise). So I feel my questions are still up:

1) how excatly should I use most effective resonance in M+. How often should I arcane barrage vs typicial pull and "sit to drink" playstyle?

2) is NT better for M+ than Erosion?

1) If it is 3+ mobs, 4xAE Barrage, all the time, unless you use AP. Ignore AM procs un tool you need to focus a target down. Try to always have the highest health mob targeted when you Barrage.

For 1-2 mobs, it is up to you, but I would recommend Barrage at 4 charges, too, but use AB to build and spend AM procs as normal.

For bosses or minibosses, use your normal ST rotation.

Keep in mind that if your group is light on AoE CC, Supernova should be taken for the CC in many dungeons at higher levels of M+. If you take it, you probably want to cast 5 or 6 AE's per Barrage.

2) NT is better if you are fighting 3+ mobs, while Erosion is better if you are fighting 1-2 mobs.

In the end, it comes down to what affixes and dungeon you are going to be doing. For tyrannical, you probably want Erosion. For NL or CoS, probably want Erosion. For fortifying Maw, you probably want Erosion. For fortifying DHT, you might want Erosion. For everything else, NT is probably fine.

[Alarion]

That's the asnwer I was looking for.

So to sum up typical M+ trash pull with 3+ mobs outside of AP:

4x AE, refresh NT (if taken), barrage

How to utilize RoP except sometimes I save it for boss fights? put it before first barage and contiune as before?

And as i understand during AP just spam AE (possible in RoP), right?

Thx for answer!

[Kythos]

for Live, NT or Erosion is personal preference...

NT at full charges when you can... throwing it up at 0 charges is not going to do much, but its better than nothing...

Use RoP directly after every MoA, and the other one, if you have the mana to spend or have full AM charges...
use it at your digression. you can most likely use one on each trash pack, then save it on the last pull before the next boss.

for example. if its a AOE trash pull... (with resonance) you can shimmer in while casting MoA, then RoP, AEx4, (NT), Barrage, AEx4 (NT) Barrage... then I typically would target the last guys left and AB/AM them down.

*IF i do this above I almost never have to stop to drink*

hope that is more clear.

[Alarion]

Yes, I believe you helped me much! Thank you

I just wonder about last thing:

Perhaps (I might be wrong) whenever I have RoP ready I should try be around 80% mana (it means dont go too low right after evocation) and spam as much Arcane explosion (including MoA if rdy) as it is possible? Or it will be DPS lose because even under RoP i should still keep doing 4 x AE, NT, barrage?

[Calaim]

So I'm understanding the rotation for the most part and keeping Quickening stacks up, but one thing I've seen that I don't understand is the wild sway of mastery from one post to another. I've seen some stat priorities that just say mast>crit>vers>haste but not giving any breakpoints to aim for, and others say mastery to a very low percentage, such as 15%, then crit>vers>haste win out in that order, and others still I see at somewhere like 50%+ mastery. For an Arcane mage with 0 Arcane legendaries, can anyone tell me what stats I'm ideally looking to hit? The best I can seem to manage hovering around in any given fight ~5 minutes or so long is somewhere around 300k dps, give or take, which isn't very good for a single target fight on technically THE single target spec

[Grazer]

So I'm understanding the rotation for the most part and keeping Quickening stacks up, but one thing I've seen that I don't understand is the wild sway of mastery from one post to another. I've seen some stat priorities that just say mast>crit>vers>haste but not giving any breakpoints to aim for, and others say mastery to a very low percentage, such as 15%, then crit>vers>haste win out in that order, and others still I see at somewhere like 50%+ mastery. For an Arcane mage with 0 Arcane legendaries, can anyone tell me what stats I'm ideally looking to hit? The best I can seem to manage hovering around in any given fight ~5 minutes or so long is somewhere around 300k dps, give or take, which isn't very good for a single target fight on technically THE single target spec

My experience is the following: Some mages (including myself before I got the legendary kilt) play(ed) a barrageless rotation where you aimed to do your second AP Burn at 42 Q-Stacks. That playstyle was very punishing for mistakes and left little room for error in your mana management. So it was convenient to have high mastery values there (I was sitting at >50%) because it allowed a bit more flexibility and some room for mistakes.
Important note: It was possible to play that way with less mastery, but it was more difficult.
2nd important note: If you don't know what the "barrageless rotation" is, just forget about that part of my post, it will be dead with 7.15 as Quickening is going to be removed.

If a mage plays the "normal" playstyle including Arcane Barrage, he doesn't really need that much mastery. In that case lower mastery values often simmed higher.

Going into 7.15 you probably don't want to take too much mastery if you take Overpowered, which looks to be the strongest 100-Talent right now. So I wouldn't worry about my mastery too much, because it will probably be fine next week.

[m3nsky]

So I'm understanding the rotation for the most part and keeping Quickening stacks up, but one thing I've seen that I don't understand is the wild sway of mastery from one post to another. I've seen some stat priorities that just say mast>crit>vers>haste but not giving any breakpoints to aim for, and others say mastery to a very low percentage, such as 15%, then crit>vers>haste win out in that order, and others still I see at somewhere like 50%+ mastery. For an Arcane mage with 0 Arcane legendaries, can anyone tell me what stats I'm ideally looking to hit? The best I can seem to manage hovering around in any given fight ~5 minutes or so long is somewhere around 300k dps, give or take, which isn't very good for a single target fight on technically THE single target spec

So for one, this might be not worth discussing as come 17th, or 18th EU, quickening will be removed.

However, currently this largely depends on 3 things: Which legendaries you got, which playstyle, fightlength.

If you are on the sunny side, with BiS kilt/bracers etc. you can go lower on mastery since the legendaries make up for it.
If you are like me and run the god combo of norgannon and sephuz then your mastery should hover around 50%, but only if you play barrageless. Should u play "normal" you can again drop mastery values.

Fight length overall comes into play when you consider how often you can burst, we all have been there, boss dies when you pop the holy burst at 40+ stacks and then you get criticized for low dps even though you were about to shit on all of them :p

[jacobsmage]

Is NT and Erosion similar dps for aoe?
On a lot of the Nighthold fights they switch from single target, to add phases, fairly often. I'm having trouble with some choices.

Like on Scorpion Bro and Tich, it switches from Single target to 4+ adds. I've been using Erosion but just switching from Arcane Blast to AE. Wondering how strong NT is.

Another fight that had me testing different specs was High Gardener (Botanist) Tel'arn. I was swapping a lot, and rarely ever had more than 1-2 mobs near each other. I was thinking of going Unstable magic. But if we AE at 3 targets, I'll likely be exploding in with the bosses sub 33% (as there will be 3 of them) and won't be proc'ing it.

[x1xruex1x]

@Nelfy,

Hey guy! Just gonna post my Youtube comment here for ya, just in case anyone here doesn't read comments

Hey Nelfy, awesome video guide for the 7.1.5 Arcane Mage. ^_^
I think you've hit the nail on the head with most items, and I must say it's well done.

I know that this isn't the be-all/end-all for the Arcane Mage, but it's a solid guide, and produces consistent results based on luck and skill combined. We all know the luck of getting low amounts of AM's during our burn, versus getting an overwhelming amount of them.

Either way, great stuff!

I am curious, the Haste break-point sheet you previewed in there, I don't see a link to it in your description. I would love to review that as I'm currently testing out neck enchants and reworking my stats to be Crit>Haste>Mastery>Vers since I have near no versatility, it'd be harder to remove the mastery in it's favor as I'd need completely new gear from the ground up basically.

As to the neck enchants I just mentioned,.. I know that EVERYONE and their mother state to go with no other than the Mark of the Hidden Satyr. However, I've been playing with Mark of the Claw. the one that gives +1000/+1000 Crit/Haste. It's a 6 second duration when it procs, and it pops about as often as Satyr does imo. So yea, I'd love to see an analysis on this to see if the stat increase regularly overshadows, matches, or falls behind Satyr's straight damage. In most cases for me, Satyr is never more than 3% of my overall damage, usually only a couple million's worth.

Outside of that, I think this is a great guide for anyone who's curious about why they're not consistent or unable to get high streaks.

Keep up the good work man! Always enjoy hearing your opinions and advice on these topics.

Oh and I gotta get that Binkenstein's list of trinkets from ya. Effia hasn't updated at all in over a month so not sure what's going on there. Unless they're two in the same, in which case, I didn't know!


:: shifty eyes :: "mind if I snag a few of your pointers for my guide!" lol


~Rue~

But yea, I really am curious about Haste, Mark of the Claw, and finding out more about those Trinkets. I just got that one that's essentially a high-grade Swarming Plaguehive from NH instead. I think it's even getting a +40% damage increase come today's hotfix.

Oh, and I'm stoked that the +5% is now a +8% overall increase to our spells with the hotfix. That'll offset a lot of the concern ongoing where people felt it was either a nerf, a buff, or a wash. I think this edges it more towards buff territory honestly.