Arcane mage guide for raiding by Dutchmagoz! [6.2 updated]

[Dutchmagoz]

Would you mind if I translate this and post to Korean wow site?
best arcane guide ever seen, btw

I spoke to Dutchmagoz via IRC for you. He said this is fine but you will need to credit him as the original author and for there to be a link to Altered-Time.com. Not much to ask but I'm sure you would have done this any way since you had the courtesy to ask first.

Speaking of that, do you think you could add a Contributors section to your guide like we discussed?

Yup!

Been very busy, sorry. This weekend.

[Woke]

Yup!

Been very busy, sorry. This weekend.

Awesome! And I can relate to being busy. This time of year is rather crazy the next few weeks with schools starting back up and everything.

[indomitus]

dutch have you(or anyone else <3 ) found an efficient way of tracking mark of doom by chance? I've tried using Tell me when, but it unfortunately won't show when mark is active on a target that I'm not currently targeting, and I'm not very good with weakauras so I'm not aware of how to create a WA for tracking if its active on any target.-- also the target bars integrated into elvui won't display the debuff under them unless I tab target onto that mob so its not very efficient.

[Woke]

dutch have you(or anyone else <3 ) found an efficient way of tracking mark of doom by chance? I've tried using Tell me when, but it unfortunately won't show when mark is active on a target that I'm not currently targeting, and I'm not very good with weakauras so I'm not aware of how to create a WA for tracking if its active on any target.-- also the target bars integrated into elvui won't display the debuff under them unless I tab target onto that mob so its not very efficient.

Personally, I use Kui nameplates, kui nameplates auras, and kui spelllist config which displays the mark of doom on the target it procs on for me to then click their health bar and attack them.

[Wilderness]

There are some WAs in the addon forum here on AT that work well. Shows you when it pops up, names the mob its on, and if you are targeting the mob with it then the WA is highlighted.

I use Elvui as well, I've seen it showing on mobs I have never targeted. That's how I generally know which mob to target when the WA pops up.

[indomitus]

Thanks Dye/Wilderness. I should have checked that board first, My apologies for the laziness.

[Woke]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the reasoning behind 2100 haste before mastery starts to pick back up, and what is that specifically based around? I have 2500 haste, and it still outpaces mastery on single target I am finding unless Supernova talented. Just curious.

[Chev]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the reasoning behind 2100 haste before mastery starts to pick back up, and what is that specifically based around? I have 2500 haste, and it still outpaces mastery on single target I am finding unless Supernova talented. Just curious.

You pretty much answered it your self. It all depends on the talents and gear that you have.

The main reason for the high haste is 4pc because you want your pets to do as well as they can in the time they are up but then you also want to cast more spells giving you more chance to proc the pets. Then because you are stacking haste, UM benefits more from that as you are casting more AB spells and then if you have the Tome giving more priority to AB. Komma did an amazing post on explaining how each talent or gear item affects the stats weights so I would recommend reading that.

[Woke]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the reasoning behind 2100 haste before mastery starts to pick back up, and what is that specifically based around? I have 2500 haste, and it still outpaces mastery on single target I am finding unless Supernova talented. Just curious.

You pretty much answered it your self. It all depends on the talents and gear that you have.

The main reason for the high haste is 4pc because you want your pets to do as well as they can in the time they are up but then you also want to cast more spells giving you more chance to proc the pets. Then because you are stacking haste, UM benefits more from that as you are casting more AB spells and then if you have the Tome giving more priority to AB. Komma did an amazing post on explaining how each talent or gear item affects the stats weights so I would recommend reading that.

I'm well aware of these things. What I am questioning is why the stat priority in the guide states that mastery takes over in terms of priority at 2100 haste such that each point thereafter is more beneficial to mastery than haste.

the guide reads for t18 priority gearing:
Haste 2100>mastery>haste and so on and so forth

My question is why? What is the reasoning behind haste being worse after 2100 than mastery.

[Dutchmagoz]

The reason is simply because haste very slowly "loses" some value (or stops giving more and more) whereas mastery becomes really strong, especially on multi-target the more gear you get.

I realize 2.1k may not be correct for everyone, since it also depends a lot on whether you're using tome or not. (With tome it shifts a bit higher, depending on the rest of your gear) The issue is giving one certain value for every mage in the world, and I felt the 2.1k is a reasonable average. For example in my gear, mastery is already equal to haste at like 1.8k, whereas for your gear it's most likely more around 2.5k.

Many other factors ofcource come in, especially the usage of supernova VS unstable magic.

[Woke]

The reason is simply because haste very slowly "loses" some value (or stops giving more and more) whereas mastery becomes really strong, especially on multi-target the more gear you get.

I realize 2.1k may not be correct for everyone, since it also depends a lot on whether you're using tome or not. (With tome it shifts a bit higher, depending on the rest of your gear) The issue is giving one certain value for every mage in the world, and I felt the 2.1k is a reasonable average. For example in my gear, mastery is already equal to haste at like 1.8k, whereas for your gear it's most likely more around 2.5k.

Many other factors of course come in, especially the usage of supernova VS unstable magic.

So, I simmed your character. Mastery is currently dead equal around 1850 for you with haste, but I think that's because you are utilizing Supernova over Unstable Magic. If you had Unstable Magic, you could easily get more out of haste. I do not have the Tome trinket yet, and Haste still outpaces mastery when I am using unstable magic at 2500.
For me, when I talent supernova, I have a similar situation. Mastery becomes my best stat over haste, but only by .02 over haste.

It makes sense though. They change based upon the talent selection their priority I guess.

[Velerion]

Seems like eating mastery food and maybe even having a second weapon with bleeding hollow would be good on fights where you took SN.

[Breaktheice]

Quick question on AoE for some clarification.

+ Assuming you are fighting 5+ stacked adds (with SN/AO), should you just:
1. Supernova
2. Barrage at 4 charges
3. Arcane Orb after Barrage and/or to build charges
4. Arcane Explosion as filler to build up charges?

^Is that correct?

If no, please let me know.

If yes, then

a. Do you always build charges via AE and not Arcane Blast?
b. Do you Missile @ 4 charges before Barraging?
c. Is glyphed Cone of Cold significant in such a scenario
d. Would you still go for a Burn phase with Blasts if @ 4 charges, > 90% mana, and Evocation ready in <20?

[Dutchmagoz]

Quick question on AoE for some clarification.

+ Assuming you are fighting 5+ stacked adds (with SN/AO), should you just:
1. Supernova
2. Barrage at 4 charges
3. Arcane Orb after Barrage and/or to build charges
4. Arcane Explosion as filler to build up charges?

^Is that correct?

If no, please let me know.

If yes, then

a. Do you always build charges via AE and not Arcane Blast?
b. Do you Missile @ 4 charges before Barraging?
c. Is glyphed Cone of Cold significant in such a scenario
d. Would you still go for a Burn phase with Blasts if @ 4 charges, > 90% mana, and Evocation ready in <20?

First question:
You don't really attempt to build up stacks aside from arcane orb. So yeah, what you wrote is correct, though you don't AE for stacks, you do it simply for damage.

Second:
a. See previous answer
b. Depends how long you will be AoE'ing. Preferably you'll want to AM before the AoE phase. It also depends if there's a certain target with higher priority.
c. Not really. If you can spare the glyph slot it's better than nothing though.
d. Still talking about AoE? Then no.

[Zifnab]

When you get to 4 stacks of arcane charges, and prophecy of fear procced on the boss, place prismatic crystal, then target the boss and cast arcane missiles on the boss.

I thought it was determined that this isn't how doom nova procs on the boss works? Are you sure that doom nova off of the boss will cleave the crystal, and hit the boss again?? That doesn't seem correct, and, though I can't find it at the moment, I thought I saw Komma or Frosted debunk this in a different thread.

[Frosted]

When you get to 4 stacks of arcane charges, and prophecy of fear procced on the boss, place prismatic crystal, then target the boss and cast arcane missiles on the boss.

I thought it was determined that this isn't how doom nova procs on the boss works? Are you sure that doom nova off of the boss will cleave the crystal, and hit the boss again?? That doesn't seem correct, and, though I can't find it at the moment, I thought I saw Komma or Frosted debunk this in a different thread.

? What? Doom nova will hit PC, get amp'd, and then will damage the boss. Doom nova doesn't have any non-standard PC/AoE interactions.

[jessy100]

Currently we're delaying PC+AP to sync with the ring when wearing Tome of Shifting Words.

Thank you, been looking for an answer on this matter for weeks. Do you happen to have any stats on how much of an increase it is?

Tome of Shifting Words is pretty darn bad on multiple targets compared to a stat trinket. I'd even use Darmac's Unstable Talisman or something like that over it on Hellfire Assault.

Is this just for pure aoe fights, or also for fights where there is more than 1 target (Tyrant and archimonde come to mind).

[Rinoa]

I'm not sure how much of an increase it is, sorry. Perhaps someone else does. For the second question, it's not bad for 2-target fights like Tyrant and Archimonde (which admittedly is >2 at certain points). I use Tome for both of them when I'm Arcane there.

[Frosted]

delay syncing to the ring is DPS neutral.

[Rinoa]

And that's only with PC, correct? I'm using AP on cooldown in most cases even with PC in order to maximise usage, though delaying it sometimes for the ring when applicable, such as the second AP on Iron Reaver. Can't imagine it being an increase with Overpowered though since the damage is less concentrated inside of those 15 seconds of Nithramus.