PTR Arcane Talent Combinations

[a0kalittlema0n]

I put this post up because I'd like to discuss the talent combo and how potent or weak it might be (keeping in mind that damage tuning is a constant thing in PTR, so lets try to keep that out of the discussion. I made videos talking about what I found to be good about the talent combos.

Temporal Flux / Amplification


Overpowered / Amplification


Arcane Orb / Erosion / Amplification


Overpowered / Erosion / Arcane Familiar


Discuss, I'll update it with my feelings on the talents a bit later

[x1xruex1x]

Nice nice! I'll check out this video once I get home, and I'll jump onto the PTR to test it out. I know with Overpowered I was getting about +160k~ dps peaks higher than my current peaks. I'd like to see how this plays out for me based on what you have selected and done here.

Thank you ^_^ I'll report back later with my results/thoughts.

[a0kalittlema0n]

I haven't made my Overpowered video yet, but I actually pulled 40k more DPS with Overpowered, but I know the numbers tuning game is going to be changed for sure, but that build has a ton of benefits I'll make another post about it once I finish that video ^^

[x1xruex1x]

@Nelfy & All

Ok so here's what my testing brought up.

Please keep in mind the following:

• This is on the PTR 7.1.5 version 23138
• Spell Casting is on "Depressed" versus "Released" which really messes me up since I'm used to banking spells by holding the keys down.
• Optimal rotations are not 100% known yet
• No Food/Flask/Buffs/Major Cooldowns/External Cooldowns were used (ie. no Time Warp)

So this is what I have, and what I'm considering each variant style.

BUILD 1 - Semi-Passive Overpowered

Spoiler:

[Amplification]
[Slipstream]
[Rune of Power]
[Supernova]
[Chrono Shift]
[Erosion]
[Overpowered]

2.5min test
--------------
Avg DPS: 273~
Burn Peak: 320~
This build did pretty good sustained damage over the course of the fight, and had a fair peak very similar to my peaks right now on live. Not a huge amount of maintenance due to the lack of Nether Tempest.

BUILD 2 - Standard Overpowered

Spoiler:

[Amplification]
[Slipstream]
[Rune of Power]
[Supernova]
[Chrono Shift]
[Nether Tempest]
[Overpowered]

2.5min test
--------------
Avg DPS: 253~
Burn Peak 479~
This build had a very high yield on the burn phase, and a moderate success on the overall course of the fight.

BUILD 3 - Amp-Flux

Spoiler:

[Amplification]
[Slipstream]
[Rune of Power]
[Supernova]
[Chrono Shift]
[Nether Tempest]
[Temporal Flux]

2.5min test
--------------
Avg DPS: 227~
Burn Peak: 312~~
I tried this and I felt like it didn't perform as well as I would expect it to. Although I'm certain I probably messed up the rotation or so during it. I think it has potential, but I agree with Nelfy, you're gonna rely on those AM procs to keep the momentum going.

BUILD 4 - Semi-Passive Amp-Flux

Spoiler:

[Amplification]
[Slipstream]
[Rune of Power]
[Supernova]
[Chrono Shift]
[Erosion]
[Temporal Flux]

2.5min test
--------------
Avg DPS: 240~~
Burn Peak: >275~ (missed looking at it)
I feel that this is one of the more weak variants. Now I didn't catch if the burn peak was higher than 275, but I didn't notice it spike up into the 300's. I could have just missed it, but if it did, it was extremely brief, unlike other build variants. I'd honestly prefer build 3 if I were going to use Temporal Flux

BUILD 5 - Full Passive (save ROP)

Spoiler:

[Amplification]
[Slipstream]
[Rune of Power]
[Charged Up]
[Chrono Shift]
[Erosion]
[Overpowered]

2.5min test
--------------
Avg DPS: 266~
Burn Peak: 520~
Honestly, this is one of my favorite variants personally. I like not having to focus on using Supernova or keeping up with Nether Tempest. The interesting thing with this is the utilization of Presence of Mind with Charged Up during the burn phase. What I did was go into the burn phase, and while in the midst of finalizing MoA>RoP>AP>PoM>AM's then AB's. By having them cast instantly in that opener it shoves em into the initial AP burn. As well as wrapping that with an ABarr and charging up to keep the 4 stacks going as you burn down the rest.

Overall, Build 2, 3, & 5 are all very good in my opinion, but none are really too far off of another to declare one as being best. Which I'm all for. I'm certain that as time goes on, and this gets more fine tuned, we'll con sense upon a select couple variants.

Either way, I think this is much more fun and relaxed than worrying about Q stacks the entire time. If you take Temporal Flux, don't fret, you still have to worry about mana and work out a proper conservation so you don't go oom too early. So there's still skill involved with maintaining that as well as your other CD's and procs.

I hope that this helps out, and as I get more time under my belt on the PTR I can give more concise reviews. As well as once this goes live (if it does with the current stats) then I"ll be working on a completely overhauled guide.

[Skuzz]

Could you test out Unstable magic with a TF setup?
With the increased proc rate, and crit being the most valuable stat now (now when haste is not that good anymore when using TF).
I really think UM will take over NT in a low haste high crit setup (UM does 50% of the total damage of the AB,that incldues crit, so lets say your AB crits for 1mil, UM will do 500k)

Nice test so far guys. but remember stat prio's will be diferend than what they are now (depending heavily on T100 talents and legendaries)

[a0kalittlema0n]

That is a good point, I'm going to go back in the video (since I didn't log it or run a few more tests) to see what percentage of total casts were spent on AB to compare the possibility of damage increase vs how many AM NT procced, might be worth it if its low enough

[x1xruex1x]

Thank you skuzz for making that point definitely worth testing ^_^

[Densor]

Hi, first time posting here. I was curious about a few things.

First, why didn't you test Resonance? Supernova is a CC talent, not a DPS talent. While Quickening was around, Barrage was taboo, which made Charged Up and Resonance irrelevant, leaving Arcane mages with only Supernova on that tier. Now that we are testing without Quickening, Resonance will probably be the go-to talent for most raid setups, with Charged Up being used for burst or periodic AoE'ing.

From a math standpoint, Charged Up basically allows the use of an extra Barrage (assume all Barrage casts are at 4 Arcane Charges) while cooldowns are active, plus an extra Barrage once when cooldowns aren't up. Cooldowns (assuming Overpowered talent) currently provide 1.7*1.4=2.38 damage modifier, so using a Barrage during the cooldown window is equivalent to using 2.38 Barrages outside of the cooldown window. This assumes that it is even a DPS gain to use Barrage during the cooldown window, as we have to give up 1.5s worth of DPS from AM or AB. The mana saved from using Barrage instead of an AB might end up being worth it, but if you miss out on using part of an AM during the cooldown window, I doubt you'd make up the damage. Any way, we can estimate the value of Charged Up to be around 3.38 Barrages every 90 seconds if useful during our cooldown window or 2 Barrages if not. Most likely it will not be useful during the cooldown window, so I'll proceed assuming it is worth the damage of 2 Barrages.

On the other side, Resonance increases our Barrages by 25% on a single target, so there's some point where our normal casts of Barrage may begin to overshadow Charged Up's benefit. Using no haste, we are probably casting Barrage no more than once every 15 seconds, so 5 times every 90 seconds (75 seconds for Barrage, plus 15 seconds for cooldowns). In the worst case for Charged Up, we would need 8 normal Barrage casts to exceed it, but we also get 2 extra GCD's. Assuming we just use our conserve rotation, we probably do close to 1 Barrage worth of damage in those 2 GCD's. On the other hand, if we ever run dry on mana so we can't proceed with our conserve rotation, it is likely that Charged Up could be better due to slightly increased mana efficiency.

For multiple target fights, Resonance will win out in most cases. The only one I can think of when Charged Up would be better is when AoE appears for a short burst every 45 seconds or so. During that window, Barrage may only be used two or three times, while Charged Up may give you an extra cast.

I'm also curious where the idea that crit would be our best stat in 7.1.5 came from. Unless Blizzard screws up royally, I don't see how the relatively flat damage modifier from crit would exceed the rotation modifying effects of mastery or haste.

[a0kalittlema0n]

I didn't test Resonance for the reason that I actually had Rhonin's Bracers which benefit from AM significantly more than other legendaries do. Supernova procs AMs, which in turn give me free AB periodically.

I like your math on Abarrage and how they will be useful. I agree that in an AoE bursts that Barrage will be good to use, but I would then argue that having mana and spamming AE would be a higher DPET, once again thats feelycrafting and I wouldn't bet the farm on it yet. I mostly was interested in the effect one talent has and how it synergizes.

Resonance would definitely win out on Il'gynoth, Helya, and Elerethe though as you pointed out.

I'm pretty sure that most sims have put crit highest since the beginning of Arcane. With Overpowered if you crit with AB its like a 2 mil hit, not to mention if UM procs and crits as well. Our mastery was decreased (if you didn't notice on PTR) and each point of Mastery has an increasing diminishing return, and at some point it becomes even less important than vers. ***

edit:*** AoE almost always has mastery as highest

If I simmed my current stats all stats would be relatively equal and that is having so much crit, haste, and vers. (remembing that haste is absolutely undervalued in sims through the way it sims, it is including quickening atm, and even more so that we won't run Icy Floes)

I'll sim myself next time I'm in game.

[Skuzz]

With Mastery devalued, till how low would you want to drop it?
I feel curently on live, i'd always want to be around 40%, few % over prefurred. but going higher seems i'm just losing out on alot of crit/vers.

Also, for some reason my haste stat weight is very high.. atm its haste > vers > crit > mastery, pretty weird (sitting at 14% haste alrdy).
Thinking about swapping my pawn values around (taking the haste value and put that in crit, and vice-versa).

Its also ahrd to see how good or bad haste will be with TF. I have the kilt, so something can be said about dropping almost all haste and get more mastery/crit. especially for the kilt, haste does so little when AM cast times are already affected by 5/10/15/20% reductions, so its worth more to have more mana to get % back from with Kilt.
Not sure how it would be for non-kilt setup though...

Still in general i think with TF haste will be the lowest stat around, and its all about mastery(upto a certain point) > crit > vers > haste.
Lastly (talking about TF build, its all i'm interested about rly), with the removal of Quickening, the less value on haste NT might be a thing of the past and UM or Erosion making their apearance.
Simple math makes you get 1 additional AB every 10 ABs, with erosion 10 ABs deal 80% more dmg over 10 ABs, but here comes the thing, where UM is better for pure AB spam, it does nothing for your AMs, so for that i think Erosion might pull ahead (also considering Amp talent).

[Densor]

I did some (mostly napkin) math. It seems you're correct about the relative values of crit versus mastery/haste. I was seeing crit being slightly better than mastery, and haste was about 10-15% worse than either mastery or crit.

I did the calculations only for sustain DPS. Due to cooldowns, both may be slightly better. Haste has one or more breakpoints that might help it out. Mastery is a graduated DPS increase, with the better damage coming at 4 Arcane Charges; if more of our overall damage is done at 4 Arcane Changes due to cooldowns, then mastery would provide more benefit.

There are some additional benefits to haste as well, such as faster use of RoP and reduced Evocation channel time, which I didn't account for. Nether Tempest also benefits more from haste, though I'm not sure how it will compare to Erosion or Unstable Magic.

And just for reference, vers is approximately equal to crit. There is an ideal balance between them, but being off in either direction by like 7500 rating will only be about 0.5% damage loss. In 7.1.5, the ideal balance would be 4300 more crit rating than vers rating.

[a0kalittlema0n]

where UM is better for pure AB spam, it does nothing for your AMs, so for that i think Erosion might pull ahead (also considering Amp talent).

Completely agree here and I think this is why Erosion will be best for most builds TBH, after recording those videos I thought "Man the AM Proc chance from NT isn't really worth it in any build"

[hasublade]

where UM is better for pure AB spam, it does nothing for your AMs, so for that i think Erosion might pull ahead (also considering Amp talent).

Completely agree here and I think this is why Erosion will be best for most builds TBH, after recording those videos I thought "Man the AM Proc chance from NT isn't really worth it in any build"

Since when? Am proc chance is still > ALL

[Skuzz]

where UM is better for pure AB spam, it does nothing for your AMs, so for that i think Erosion might pull ahead (also considering Amp talent).

Completely agree here and I think this is why Erosion will be best for most builds TBH, after recording those videos I thought "Man the AM Proc chance from NT isn't really worth it in any build"

Since when? Am proc chance is still > ALL

Not sure what you are trying to say other than what we are saying here. With the new Amp talent , the nerf to NT (both nerfs, its base damage and the removal of quickening) makes Erosion that much better than NT.
UM is good aswell, but the reason why Erosion outpreforms UM is because your AMs benefit from Erosion where they dont get anything from UM

[Yugi Mutou]

Forgiving my poor English.
I must say that when you spell an AB you may gain double AM Proc chance than NT. But AB can do more damage .So when you have enough mana to use more AB,errosion could be the best choice.
By the way,I think the IQ of the Mage designers in LEG must be less than 20.Especially the Arcane designer.

[a0kalittlema0n]

I understand what you mean by having AM procs and how valued they are, but I feel that a flat 8% damage increase is better than a potential 4-12 AM procs over a 5 minute fight. I mean when you sim using NT you can see how many AM procs it generates and use that to determine, but my feelycraft says even with the 4 set it won't be worth it to go NT over Erosion.

Poster above me makes a great point, this definitely doesn't weigh in the globals lost on using NT, could be used on casting more AB which DOES have double the chance to proc AM and does more damage.

[seoh]

I think one of the big flaws being missed out on Erosion is up time problems and its ineffectiveness in swapping. Erosion requires consistent globals to maintain, meaning heavy movement and constant swapping could be problematic.

[x1xruex1x]

I think one of the big flaws being missed out on Erosion is up time problems and its ineffectiveness in swapping. Erosion requires consistent globals to maintain, meaning heavy movement and constant swapping could be problematic.

I can definitely agree that Erosion will require maintenance. It's a smidge less demanding than that of quickening though. Wherein it degrades as you let it fall off, as opposed to instantly disappearing. I still need to do testing (time permitting since life is super busy right now), with Unstable Magic. I would assume, if it's a fight where mobility is a key factor or multiple mobs are at hand, then UM might be better suited.

However, that's not to declare that Erosion is strictly for single targets. You can use it in an AoE environment, but I think it'll struggle more when it's a cleave based scenario with 2-3 mobs.

Mainly because you will be using AE with 4+ mobs, or you'd be single target. Since cleaving only really comes from ABarr, and it's a cooldown spell, not to mention cleaves only when you have AC stacks of 1+,..I couldn't see the reality of Erosion being best for cleave fights.

Either way, time will tell on this and we will need more testing once this goes live. I'm really hoping for sometime within the next 2 weeks.

[Ronark]

Chances are if it was a strict 2-3 target/Council fight, you'd be better off going Frost o maybe Fire. If you were to stick to strictly Arcane, you might end up in a scenario where you could combo Orb and SN, and use them once stacks are falling off. Mark works as well as TotM, but those have longer/random CDs.

[x1xruex1x]

Chances are if it was a strict 2-3 target/Council fight, you'd be better off going Frost o maybe Fire. If you were to stick to strictly Arcane, you might end up in a scenario where you could combo Orb and SN, and use them once stacks are falling off. Mark works as well as TotM, but those have longer/random CDs.

Ronark, I think you're missing the point though. We're looking into and trying to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the Arcane Mage. It's a class-spec combination that we're all very fond of and care very much for. So saying to just switch to another spec for a singular fight defeats what we're aiming for.

To some people that may be an option, but to most of us, I doubt it would be. I know I can only speak for myself, but even though I do keep up with my Frost and Fire artifacts and gear, I don't put the time or care into them that I do the Arcane.

If you are really passionate about something, then you'll make it work.

Plus, you're just pointing out a "Council" scenario or 2-3 target fight. In those instances, it'd be more likely that an Arcane Mage would be handled in the same style that a Melee would be handled. To focus on one mob and only change on the mechanic that necessitates it.

Seemingly people are appalled at the thought of a ranged character acting like that of a Melee. There are plenty of scenarios where this is a perk that is overlooked.

....but that's just my tidbit rant on it. I think the Arcane Mage will front itself just fine when it comes to Solo and Aoe, and moderate successes with 2-3 target/council style fights. Not every spec needs to be the best suited to every possible scenario.

*Note* if this comes off mean or anything, it's not intended. Just a bit sensitive over the arcane mage right now. Have had a lot of people giving me junk about it and how it's not the right spec to be playing as. So please don't mind the defensiveness