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

[Integ]

thanks i'll add that to my rotation, even if the damage is really low it can still proc am. cheers

[x1xruex1x]

the 'new' conserve rotation goes along these lines:
-keep refreshing quickening making sure to do so when it's about to expire
-keep refreshing NT
-nova on cd

the tricky part is the refresh part and i am currently playing sorta safe casting ab when 3 sec left, ae/missiles 1.5 sec left.

No barrage should be used as ur supposed to be at 4 charges all the time.

I was trying this out, it seemed to increase my dps by about 30~k roughly. but I need to be more disciplined with it and change my timers to alert better during that conserve phase honestly.

[x1xruex1x]

Ok, so I've update the guide to reflect this "No Barrage" conservation phase.
Being that I've tried it and had success with no proper notification setup, I feel it has potential. Granted it sucks a bit just dinking around waiting on things, but I'm sure if we can get proper alerts setup it'll be a bit more fleshy feeling...
...maybe that's just a halloweeny term right now... More proper feeling! there we go ^_^

• Evocation Ends - Refresh Quickening w/ AM or AE depending on availability

• Feel free to expend mana down to 75-80%

• True Conservation Begings --> Never let Quickening fall off (no ABarr)

• IF: Quickening has more than 3 seconds left -- Refresh Nether Tempest or Supernova

• IF: Quickening has less than 3 seconds left -- Cast Arcane Missiles, or Arcane Blast/Arcane Explosion

• Repeat until Arcane Power is ready to go, and you have 30 or less seconds on Evocation, at that point, enter the burn phase again

[Vorrum]

Let me expand on this further. I've done testing on no ABarr myself. I would agree with all that you've all written BUT I have the following alterations.

1: Burn till 60% then start watching your quickening decay closely.
2: At 0 SECONDS LEFT USE ARCANE EXPLOSION.

AE costs 66k less mana. You'll Actually regen your mana using this spell every 6 seconds and the occasional arcane missiles from your nether tempest and arcane explosion. The problem? You need to be melee range. My result for this sort of playstyle was 370k dps.

This playstyle is extreme on mana savings, using AE to save mana and going down to 0 seconds on your quickening to shave seconds so you regen more from mastery. I've never linked my armory but here it is, I have 50% mastery (1907k mana), no damage legendary.

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/k ... rum/simple" target="_blank

[seoh]

The strat pre 7.1 was to not burn at all after evo and maintain quickening. This is because you could burn your entire AP and the entirety of the 50 stack quickening, but if you burned to 60 you'd have to evo early. Burning after evo only reduces the effectiveness of AP. Also I think forcing yourself to explosion to gain mana is a pretty bad dps loss. Additionally, blast has a much larger chance to proc missles, which is the most mana/damage/quickening efficient option

[Forminasage]

@Forminasage,

Hey there! I won't be able to check out the logs until later tonight when I'm home, but if you would be so kind as to provide how your rotation looks and feels during conserve that would be fantastic. I second Vorrum in asking for this because it'll help us to better understand exactly what's going through your mind while this is going on.

Much thanks in advance!

Pretty much what other people have summarised:

After your first burn, Evocate up to full and start burning again to around 25-30 stacks of Quickening. Your goal is to get to approximately 40-42 stacks by the time AP is available, so that you can burn for as long as possible at near-maximum stacks.

To do this, we have a Throttle phase, in which there are some essential and non-essential things you need to manage.

ESSENTIAL:
Maintain your Quickening stacks.
There are three spells you can do this with, each of which should be cast at different times.
Arcane Blast - Anywhere between 1.5-3 seconds remaining on Quickening, depending on current number of stacks, as the stack is added at the end of the cast.
Arcane Missiles - Anywhere between 0.5-2 seconds remaining on Quickening, depending on current number of stacks, as the stack is added at the beginning of the cast.
Arcane Explosion - Only during movement / cleave phases, anywhere between 0.5-2 seconds remaining on Quickening, depending on current number of stacks. Make sure you're in range of an enemy otherwise a stack will not be added!
If your stacks are high (approaching 40) and/or you are not close to AP (20 seconds or more), stagger your casts more.
If your stacks are low (approaching 30) and/or you are getting close to AP (10 seconds or less), stagger your casts less.
This is where you need to get a feel for what your Mastery levels will comfortably allow.
Maintain Nether Tempest as this is a huge source of damage at high Haste.
Ensure you have at least 1 charge of Rune of Power ready for the next burn.

NON-ESSENTIAL:
Mark of Aluneth with Rune of Power on CD.
Supernova on CD (ideally with Rune of Power.
(These are both huge sources of AoE so if you know there's a cleave phase or an AoE interrupt needed in the case of Supernova, then it may be worth saving them for these phases. Otherwise, go ham.)


So now you're at the magic number of Quickening stack, AP is ready, and it's time to burn. No need to stagger your casts anymore, as you're going to hit 50 stacks no matter what, just get in as many AB/AM casts in that burn window, and your Quickening stacks should automatically drop just after AP does. Welcome back to 0% bonus haste. God everything feels slow. Yuk. Get rid of the rest of your mana and Evocate back to full.

You are now in your Conserve phase. You know what to do here (it's not a strictly No Barrage build, FYI) - just before AP becomes ready again, build up some Quickening, like you did at the start of the fight when you were building charges.

If everything goes smoothly, you should end up on 20-25 stacks again as this slow burn finishes - Evocate back to full and the playstyle's come full circle.


Your overall playstyle should look like this:
Low Burn > Throttle > High Burn > Conserve > (repeat)

[x1xruex1x]

@Forminasage,

Hey there! I won't be able to check out the logs until later tonight when I'm home, but if you would be so kind as to
...................

Pretty much what other people have summarised:

After your first burn, Evocate up to full and start burning again to around 25-30 stacks of Quickening. Your goal is to get to approximately 40-42 stacks by the time AP is available, so that you can burn for as long as possible at near-maximum stacks.

........................

Your overall playstyle should look like this:
Low Burn > Throttle > High Burn > Conserve > (repeat)

@Forminasage,

Thank you VERY much for this more in-depth explanation of how you're working. I'm going to take this, work with it myself over the course of this week and my next raid nights. I want to see if I can improve my damage. I know that personally, I get a bit flustered on heavy AoE/movement fights, but that's a personal flaw, not that of the class-build. So I'm going to try to really push it out on Nythendra and Ursoc when I'm running my tests.

If all goes well, I'll revamp and update my OP guide to reflect this more thoroughly. Also, i LOVE the usage of the term "Throttle Phase" I think it denotes a difference in playstyle versus conserve phase.

Low Burn > Throttle > High Burn > Conserve (with each burn having different quickening stack levels for a low burn and high burn as you stated).


@Vorrum & @Seoh,

I think for the note about 60% mana, personally I was going to stick to my 75-80% range, but since I run with Words of Power, it actually is based on 20% ranges, so 60-79% give the same +% AM as 75-79% basically. So I'll be expanding on that below a bit more. At that, Arcane Explosion I think works in those tight quarters fights, or aoe fights. While it does show use here and there for me, I'm just finding it hard to justify the mana cost versus the chance to proc AM for a completely 100% mana regen segment with no deficit.

I know that my AB right now has a 38% chance to proc AM (as my baseline is 19%). Add to that Words of Power for 1% per 20% mana (if I'm remembering it right), so if I'm at the 60-79% range, that should be +3%, and when I'm at 80-99% it's +4%. With that in mind, I should be aiming to have AB around 41-42% based on the 60-80% mana ranges (more leaning towards 41%)


TL;DR
60-80% mana with Words of Power gives +3-+4% AM chance of proc'ing. Using AB instead of AE has a greater chance to proc AM which in turn gives greater Mana Regen than just using AE in place of AB. There is a place and a time for AE though!

[Vorrum]

@Forminasage,

Hey there! I won't be able to check out the logs until later tonight when I'm home, but if you would be so kind as to
...................

Pretty much what other people have summarised:

After your first burn, Evocate up to full and start burning again to around 25-30 stacks of Quickening. Your goal is to get to approximately 40-42 stacks by the time AP is available, so that you can burn for as long as possible at near-maximum stacks.

........................

Your overall playstyle should look like this:
Low Burn > Throttle > High Burn > Conserve > (repeat)

@Forminasage,

Thank you VERY much for this more in-depth explanation of how you're working. I'm going to take this, work with it myself over the course of this week and my next raid nights. I want to see if I can improve my damage. I know that personally, I get a bit flustered on heavy AoE/movement fights, but that's a personal flaw, not that of the class-build. So I'm going to try to really push it out on Nythendra and Ursoc when I'm running my tests.

If all goes well, I'll revamp and update my OP guide to reflect this more thoroughly. Also, i LOVE the usage of the term "Throttle Phase" I think it denotes a difference in playstyle versus conserve phase.

Low Burn > Throttle > High Burn > Conserve (with each burn having different quickening stack levels for a low burn and high burn as you stated).


@Vorrum & @Seoh,

I think for the note about 60% mana, personally I was going to stick to my 75-80% range, but since I run with Words of Power, it actually is based on 20% ranges, so 60-79% give the same +% AM as 75-79% basically. So I'll be expanding on that below a bit more. At that, Arcane Explosion I think works in those tight quarters fights, or aoe fights. While it does show use here and there for me, I'm just finding it hard to justify the mana cost versus the chance to proc AM for a completely 100% mana regen segment with no deficit.

I know that my AB right now has a 38% chance to proc AM (as my baseline is 19%). Add to that Words of Power for 1% per 20% mana (if I'm remembering it right), so if I'm at the 60-79% range, that should be +3%, and when I'm at 80-99% it's +4%. With that in mind, I should be aiming to have AB around 41-42% based on the 60-80% mana ranges (more leaning towards 41%)


TL;DR
60-80% mana with Words of Power gives +3-+4% AM chance of proc'ing. Using AB instead of AE has a greater chance to proc AM which in turn gives greater Mana Regen than just using AE in place of AB. There is a place and a time for AE though!

I use the arcane familiar. I'm simply apprehensive that even with AM procs, lets just say 192k mana every other 3 - 2 second interval will be either mana neutral or mana negative. Will test later.

[x1xruex1x]

I use the arcane familiar. I'm simply apprehensive that even with AM procs, lets just say 192k mana every other 3 - 2 second interval will be either mana neutral or mana negative. Will test later.

@Vorrum,

Yes, definitely check this out and send back your results ^_^ I'd like to see how that jives against my testing. I'm all in favor if there's 2 different playstyles (albeit very similar), that we can choose between.

[Integ]

dont forget the familiar provides some dmg by itself other than more mana for longer burn. and am guessing with the more haste the more dmg familiar does.. ?

[seoh]

I wanted to mention that I find it nearly impossible to sweet spot 40-42 quickening without insane procs/legendaries post 7.1. Even if you push your quickening very hard, I haven't found any pulls where I get to 40 quickening before AP is up. I do not think it is ever worth it to delay AP unless you are going to hit 0% before evo is up.


Also maybe what I read was wrong, but I read a post that if you did a super optimized rotation where you stayed at 80% mana the entire time, you'd get 1 more AM proc than a normal rotation over 5 minutes with WoP. Doesn't seem worth it. That and I've never seen that the math makes it better than familiar.

[Integ]

does anybody happen to know the right amount of mastery needed to regen enough to cast one AE before losing quickening buff? or the amount needed for AB?

in case u overburn (mistake or necessity) and were to go oom but stil needed to refresh quickening conistenty.

[x1xruex1x]

does anybody happen to know the right amount of mastery needed to regen enough to cast one AE before losing quickening buff? or the amount needed for AB?

in case u overburn (mistake or necessity) and were to go oom but stil needed to refresh quickening conistenty.

@Integ,

I'm sitting around 58% and I get plenty of mana regen. Meanwhile, I've spoken with people around 41% and they seem to be having regen issues during the Throttling phase. I'm half tempted to say that around 50%~ is the key area to get to. It's just hard for me to say right now since I haven't tried removing gear to get to different mastery levels.

Also, as for the Arcane Familiar, I think it comes down to preference. The way I'm looking at it is this:
-Words of Power = Mana Regen via AM procs which = +Dam
-Arcane Familiar = Mana Pool +Dam via pet & via MoA pop/Evo pop

Personally, I'm inclined to go WoP for the regen factor, since I get more AM's overall and thusly far more regen so I don't have to be on edge worrying about my percentiles. I know that AM does more damage than MoA overall in the length of a fight, and more than the Evo burst as well. It also alleviates the need to hard cast AB or AE to refresh quickening since and then in turn that means more damage and mana regen.

But i'm not looking at Familiar and saying "Oh Hell No!", but rather, it doesn't fit my playstyle that I've chosen to go with. Familiar is definitely going to be a damage boost, but not in commonplace ways. The familiar doesn't do a huge amount of damage imo, and from what I've seen. While the passive boost to MoA and Evo pop are far more desireable since they're both mana pool based. Large pool = large MoA pop // Large pool = more mana to restore which means greater Evo pop as it restored more tentatively.

Again, that's just my opinion on it, and others will certainly find different preferences for their style and what fits them best

[Forminasage]

I'm currently sat at 42% buffed, and I'm having practically no issues while Throttling. Remember that we're not necessarily aiming to be mana neutral/positive during that phase, we're just looking to minimise how mana negative we are without sacrificing Quickening. If you're having issues, you need to stagger your casts more. I usually end up on 50% mana or so by the time the high burn comes around, which is more than enough to burn down to 0% just after the 50-stacked Quickening drops off.

I should add that two of my relics are +1% chance to proc Arcane Missiles, which helps a huge amount with this. When T19 2pc arrives, we're laughing.

[x1xruex1x]

I'm currently sat at 42% buffed, and I'm having practically no issues while Throttling. Remember that we're not necessarily aiming to be mana neutral/positive during that phase, we're just looking to minimise how mana negative we are without sacrificing Quickening. If you're having issues, you need to stagger your casts more. I usually end up on 50% mana or so by the time the high burn comes around, which is more than enough to burn down to 0% just after the 50-stacked Quickening drops off.

I should add that two of my relics are +1% chance to proc Arcane Missiles, which helps a huge amount with this. When T19 2pc arrives, we're laughing.

#ArcaneSuperiority

Joking aside, I do find it nice that you can get the proper set bonus from LFR Nighthold, and then go into Normal/Heroic/Mythic and get the rest of the set still. Albeit LFR is slower release, but it's that chance of getting it that matters. I'd honestly take that set bonus over general stats in most scenarios honestly. It's far too valuable.

[Vorrum]

I'm currently sat at 42% buffed, and I'm having practically no issues while Throttling. Remember that we're not necessarily aiming to be mana neutral/positive during that phase, we're just looking to minimise how mana negative we are without sacrificing Quickening. If you're having issues, you need to stagger your casts more. I usually end up on 50% mana or so by the time the high burn comes around, which is more than enough to burn down to 0% just after the 50-stacked Quickening drops off.

I should add that two of my relics are +1% chance to proc Arcane Missiles, which helps a huge amount with this. When T19 2pc arrives, we're laughing.

#ArcaneSuperiority

Joking aside, I do find it nice that you can get the proper set bonus from LFR Nighthold, and then go into Normal/Heroic/Mythic and get the rest of the set still. Albeit LFR is slower release, but it's that chance of getting it that matters. I'd honestly take that set bonus over general stats in most scenarios honestly. It's far too valuable.

I have 0 arcane missile proc chance relics, off the top of my head without looking, I have an 860 8% arcane missiles damage, 865 1% more crit, 865 6% arcane blast damage. It was mana negative for me, even at 50% mastery. I don't like going into the high burn phase with 50% mana to be frank and I'll explain why. Like it was mentioned earlier, you will likely have your arcane power come off cooldown around 35-40 stacks of quickening. With a mana bar around 80% you can burn with both runes of power and have a more effective high burn phase. From what I tried last night, this phase is critical as you know - preaching to the choir I'm sure - but we should optimize this phase above all else.

As for my experience last night, I did moderately well when I did NOT die. I'm getting used to mechanics and watching quickening and my procs and if supernova is up, and nether tempest uptime - etc. Top 3 in my guild usually, however my real test will be this weekend for the heroic/mythic runs - where I'll likely be humbled by faceroll dps classes with two legendaries.

Can't wait for nighthold and tier 19, will make the rotation much easier and arcane will likely pull ahead then all the fire mages are going to have to overcome this STEEP learning curve.

[Eknower]

Any math behind the throttle rotation?
I love the 'flavour', but if we can sim it in some way it'll be better.
There are some issues i can't fully understand as a dps gain.
I mean we basically shift some low haste AB/AM into a high haste AP phase.
But how many AB casts and AM casts/procs we loose in the throttle phase? And is that dps loss overcompensated by the dps gain under the hard burn phase?
Moreover we delay AP 'till evocation end cast, that may be 30 secs or even a full AP cd (1:30 min); so on a 3:30 mins fight it is a dps loss, on a 4:00 mins fight nope.
Last but not least sometime we loose the multiplicative effect of AP+RoP if too high on quickening and RoP on cd.

[x1xruex1x]

Any math behind the throttle rotation?
I love the 'flavour', but if we can sim it in some way it'll be better.
There are some issues i can't fully understand as a dps gain.
I mean we basically shift some low haste AB/AM into a high haste AP phase.
But how many AB casts and AM casts/procs we loose in the throttle phase? And is that dps loss overcompensated by the dps gain under the hard burn phase?
Moreover we delay AP 'till evocation end cast, that may be 30 secs or even a full AP cd (1:30 min); so on a 3:30 mins fight it is a dps loss, on a 4:00 mins fight nope.
Last but not least sometime we loose the multiplicative effect of AP+RoP if too high on quickening and RoP on cd.

@Eknower,

Sadly, I won't be able to provide sim numbers. I've strayed away from simcrafting since it's all theoretical scenarios, and not a true reflection of actual player combat encounters. I've also seen it cause misguidance. I would just play cautiously with simcrafting.

If someone else here wants to go ahead and provide numbers, by all means. I'd just be hesitant of accepting them as factual because of all the variables we need to factor in on our phases.

As for the issues you're not fully understanding, the throttle phase is meant to maintain damage output and increasing your quickening stacks, while preparing you for your new AP burn phase. If you go into that phase and just burn mana down low, it's extremely difficult if near impossible to get your mana back up to a sufficient level so you can properly burn to the best of your advantage. Elsewise you end up with low mana, and unable to cast the most of your abilities during the time you can really put forth the damage.

Arcane is really about bursting high, and then maintaining a moderate damage output until you can burst again. Peaks and Valleys gameplay basically.

As for myself, I run with Words of Power, so during my throttle phase, im sitting between 60-80% mana give or take, so I tend to have a +3% to +4% increased chance to proc AM, so I'm getting them more frequently because I'm maintaining higher mana levels. At that, I'm wanting to avoid casting AB or AE as they're mana deficits and not ideal for this phase.

As for counts, I will be running a warcraft logs pilot test this upcoming raid weekend, so I should be able to provide more counts of what I'm doing during which phase and how it looks to a regular player who's not in a heroic running guild.

When you start looking at times for fights and numbers, you're going to see that in a long haul, it's varied and can be difficult for an arcane mage to keep up. The reason is that there are more chances to mess up your rotation and prirorities, but also, some fights just don't sync up with what you're doing. Il'gynoth is a huge example of not syncing properly half the time with AP. Yea you can go ahead and save the AP til the heart phase, but then you risk not getting the horror down in ample time. These are things that simming can't accommodate for, your own decisions based on what's going on in a fight.

I do have questions regarding your below statement:

Last but not least sometime we loose the multiplicative effect of AP+RoP if too high on quickening and RoP on cd

• How are you not syncing up RoP and AP together with high quickening?

• If the throttle and conserve phases have you using RoP enough to never cap charges, then why would you not have one banked just before AP comes off cooldown to be able to utilize them together?

• Can you explain how the quickening is affecting your ability to play RoP with AP together, as neither's cooldown is affected by haste?

Thank you in advance ^_^

[Vorrum]

Any math behind the throttle rotation?
I love the 'flavour', but if we can sim it in some way it'll be better.
There are some issues i can't fully understand as a dps gain.
I mean we basically shift some low haste AB/AM into a high haste AP phase.
But how many AB casts and AM casts/procs we loose in the throttle phase? And is that dps loss overcompensated by the dps gain under the hard burn phase?
Moreover we delay AP 'till evocation end cast, that may be 30 secs or even a full AP cd (1:30 min); so on a 3:30 mins fight it is a dps loss, on a 4:00 mins fight nope.
Last but not least sometime we loose the multiplicative effect of AP+RoP if too high on quickening and RoP on cd.

No math here, just my experience playing it. During your throttle phase you'll dip down in dps but during your high burn phase you'll just pull ahead on the charts significantly. The DPS gain comes from having 80% (assuming you start your 2nd burst phase with 40 quickening) increasing to 100% haste as you gain more stacks of quickening during the burst. On top of that haste you're doing 80% more dmg and casting for 30% less mana. You're going to be hitting for 800k-1.3mil arcane blasts if your gear is good, and with that haste AB should be an insanely quick cast.

The throttle phase does not fit the arcane fantasy but the feeling of unlimited power for your 2nd "high burst" is definitely the class fantasy.

[x1xruex1x]

No math here, just my experience playing it. During your throttle phase you'll dip down in dps but during your high burn phase you'll just pull ahead on the charts significantly. The DPS gain comes from having 80% (assuming you start your 2nd burst phase with 40 quickening) increasing to 100% haste as you gain more stacks of quickening during the burst. On top of that haste you're doing 80% more dmg and casting for 30% less mana. You're going to be hitting for 800k-1.3mil arcane blasts if your gear is good, and with that haste AB should be an insanely quick cast.

The throttle phase does not fit the arcane fantasy but the feeling of unlimited power for your 2nd "high burst" is definitely the class fantasy.

@Vorrum,

Couldn't agree with you more ^_^
I'm really looking forward to testing this out fully on Nythendra and Ursoc this upcoming Friday. I'll be able to run my Warcraft Logs as well so I can showcase how I'm doing and at that, how I'm screwing up and can improve.

I think the joy of the Arcane is knowing that no matter what you do, no matter what math or guidance you have, you're inevitably going to have something not go according to plan, or just miss an opportunity or mess up something simplistic. It's knowing that you're not perfect,...

...but when you are ....