Altered Time - your #1 World of Warcraft Mage resource!

This is basically the thread where we work on the Arcane APL (so feel free to point out mistakes or make improvements) so we can get accurate Sims for the spec.

Current ST APL

Assumptions:
- Glyph of Arcane Power (Major)
- Glyph of Loose Mana (Minor)
- Running Ice Floes talent.

If you wish to Simulate using PoM, delete the line actions.single_target+=/ice_floes,moving=1
and insert ABOVE the arcane_blast casting line

Known Issues:

- None known just yet

Do note, this is still a WiP, there are still changes to be made so use the APL at your own risk.

Single Target
1) Correct AT usage.
2) 4stack camping
3) Bomb Snapshotting

AoE

1) Improved AoE rotation overall
2) Incorporate abusing multiple targets to stay at 4 stacks (This might be a bit beyond the APL)


According to some notes inside SimC, nether_tempest has not had extra targets implemented (not sure what this means. That's what it says though)

While I work on seeing how to fix Cycobi's APL, I'd like to mention a rather simple enhancement to the default APL: Simple shift living bomb significantly higher in the single_target action list, so that it's prioritized ahead of missiles and blast even during alter_time. That instantly gave me 10K DPS on sims, because the default profile only has a 86% LB uptime, and this puts it back at 99.8%.

There's a number of things that require fixing with Cycobi's APL, but the first thing is to replace "+=" with "=". Also, the stack dropping ABar needs to be executed when mana < 80, not mana > 80, otherwise the mage runs itself to 0 mana and stays there.

EDIT: I just reflected the LB change to some simcraft devs. Arcane mages rejoice!

You should be using = on the first action, then += on the other ones.

When you mean reflected the change, do you mean it's been added to the APL and push->comit already?

When you mean reflected the change, do you mean it's been added to the APL and push->comit already?

Yes.

https://code.google.com/p/simulationcra ... d09c1582b2" target="_blank

And according to the profile sims, Arcane is ahead of Frost again!

did you have push the profile changes you made as well?

did you have push the profile changes you made as well?

Yes.

https://code.google.com/p/simulationcra ... 5de56776b4" target="_blank

Collision also found that the updated fire profile was missing a belt buckle, which he fixed:

https://code.google.com/p/simulationcra ... 08c46c0cac" target="_blank

Also get that glyph of MI out of there, shit's a dps loss

Also get that glyph of MI out of there, shit's a dps loss

I'm working on PBoI snapshotting on pull. I'll ask them to include Glyph of MI removal when I finish and talk to them.

I looked at the syntax on the SimC website, it was saying "=" is "do something" and "+=" is "do something else", or basically:
= do this as priority
+= otherwise do this

which would mean that so long as the first in each priority list (which it isn't and I'll fix) is "=" and not "+=" it should be fine, or am I misunderstanding this?

I looked at the syntax on the SimC website, it was saying "=" is "do something" and "+=" is "do something else", or basically:
= do this as priority
+= otherwise do this

which would mean that so long as the first in each priority list (which it isn't and I'll fix) is "=" and not "+=" it should be fine, or am I misunderstanding this?

You are understanding it correctly. We were saying that the first in each list should be "=".

Ok, I'll make the adjustments at some point. Still ill as anything. Life is such fun.

EDIT: fixed, was only 1 line anyway.

Also get that glyph of MI out of there, shit's a dps loss

Mirror images glyph is a ~730 DPS gain using the default profile, and a DPS gain using yours.

Greetings, friends. I bring updates regarding APL improvements.

After pushing through the LB priority change, we already gained ~13K with the heroic profiles. There is still room to improve though, and here's what I have so far.
The main changes made:
1. Jade Serpent Potion now has "cooldown.alter_time.remains=0" added to it. This makes no change to the current state, because the AP conditional forces the potion to be used right before AT anyway. It's just a safeguard in case we move or change AP later.

2. Alter time now has "&trinket.stat.intellect.cooldown_remains>15" as an additional conditional. This is a actually a two-fold change that takes advantage of some intricacies:
a. "cooldown_remains" specifies ICD trinkets. In our case, this means that it won't affect KTT or BBoY.
b. "cooldown_remains" being non-zero means that the trinket has at least procced once already. On pull, this prevents AT from being used until it procs.
c. "cooldown_remains > 15" also means that if PBoI is about to come back up, most likely on the 4th or 5th proc 6 or 8 minutes into the fight, wait for it to come back up before using AP/AT. I'm not sure on the 15 second window. 30 seconds seems too long and gives a net loss. 10 seconds seems short enough that we'd rather just wait.
This change yielded ~2K DPS increase.

3. "actions+=/cancel_buff,name=alter_time,if=buff.alter_time.remains<trinket.stat.intellect.cooldown_remains-109". This is a safeguard setting that makes the mage cancel AT if PBoI procs during AT. As of right now, with the changes in (2), there is no way we will have PBoI proc during AT, so this line does not do anything. However, in the future, I think it's likely that we'll do some form of AT snapshotting for meta proc + KTT/BBoY procs + misc other procs instead, and take a gamble that PBoI won't proc during the duration.

4. "actions.single_target=arcane_barrage,if=buff.alter_time.up&buff.alter_time.remains<action.arcane_blast.cast_time". This is the arcane barrage used for dumping stacks at the end of AT. The original form was "buff.alter_time.remains<2", which is a hardcoded unhasted AB/AM cast time. This is stupid - under bloodlust and meta, we can easily get off an extra AB or AM with 2 seconds left.
This change yielded ~500 DPS increase on my personal profile.


There is still work to be done to improve Arcane. For example, the gear profile has been upgraded to 588, but has not been regemmed/reforged for hit cap.


One last thing that I'm not sure about: in the precombat actions, int pot is used before MI. In theory, by using int pots at the end of MI, you can get 1.5 seconds extra, and MI doesn't snapshot anyway. It's really minor though, and I haven't noticed any difference in results.

Appreciate this Komma, will edit OP.

I'll make a few adjustments here and there, though. Realistically speaking lines such as casting Counterspell are pointless. It's not on the GCD so the only real loss is mana, and let's be fair it's rare that Mages are actually Counterspelling right now due to melee being better at it. At least it's the case for me, anyway o_O.

EDIT:
OK before I make concrete amendments, can someone tell me what the "Or" coding is? From looking through I'm *guessing* it's "|" but I can't be certain at the moment.

Yes, | is "OR", & is "AND", and ! is "NOT"

Also get that glyph of MI out of there, shit's a dps loss

Mirror images glyph is a ~730 DPS gain using the default profile, and a DPS gain using yours.

I know what the SimC profiles say, in game testing has proven otherwise though.

Also get that glyph of MI out of there, shit's a dps loss

Mirror images glyph is a ~730 DPS gain using the default profile, and a DPS gain using yours.

I know what the SimC profiles say, in game testing has proven otherwise though.

Don't the Arcane MIs cast AB? They also sort of have an arcane charge building system, so movement by the boss is likely to hurt their DPS more than their frost counterparts. I have no idea of your testing conditions though, so we'd probably have to dig a bit deeper to find out what's going on.

I comit and pushed the changes made by Komma above.

Amazing job on improving the Arcane APL!

One thing I noticed that might improve the APL:
At the moment there is no check on the amount of Arcane Charges before entering Alter Time. AFAIK the consensus is to have 4 charges before starting AT.