7.1.5 Spell Changes UPDATED 30/11

[seoh]

Are we sure PoM would increase DPS? Instant cast PoM's would just decrease your mastery regen, unless you use them during AP, and it doesn't line up well with AP. Also it seems totally trivial to be testing with PoM if we know for a fact that we are going shimmer in every fight

[Artistry]

PoM IS a dps increase, it's up to you whether or not you can do the encounter without shimmer.

Read a few posts back, where I explain this.

[Blownt]

Ya I dont see why you would take shimmer honestly. Sure you lose some spells and there maybe be a few instances where that is a problem but honestly the damage spike in the AP window without any AP relics is around 1.3-1.5 mil.

[Artistry]

Losing DPS to choose Shimmer over PoM, and with the removal of Ice Floes, I basically get the feeling that to min/max and get our highest numbers, we are going to have to step our game up a lot more. Take shimmer for a safety blanket, take PoM if you got da skillz. Even higher skill ceiling but, hey, if we wanted it easy we would be playing fire.

[seoh]

My point was that PoM is hugely important during AP, but I'm thinking that it doesn't have the same effect outside of AP. This is because you are quickly burning 22% mana, where as casting AB during that time would have generated much more mana due to mastery. As arcane casting a spell "faster" doesn't equate to more damage unless you have the mana to sustain it. You have a limited amount of damage you can do in one mana bar, and there is a sweet spot where you want to lengthen that phase via mastery, ap and legendaries which augment your mana pool. I'm skeptical of PoM in majority because the CD doesn't line up with AP. So there will be time when you have PoM down for 8-17 seconds (with and without 3 AP relics), and added to that, you have less haste with the loss of quickening, no Ice Floes and now no shimmer. I'm also not sure how useful PoM would be during lust + ap since you would be approaching gc'd cap on AB if I am not mistaken. Piggybacking off this point, I'm sure haste will be more valuable without quickening since Temporal Flux only modifies AB, not AM. Finally, PoM has almost no use in AoE at all, where as shimmer grants extra mobility off gcd.

[Sosaria]

I'm excited about the new Arcane changes... Quickening was my biggest gripe for the spec due to the delay in casting and possible dps loss if it ever fell off too early.

Arcane Power looks like the new Combustion.

[a0kalittlema0n]

What you're failing to mention when talking about the lack of effectiveness of PoM and mana is that if you take Overpowered you're mana is free during AP and doing 100% inc dmg. This is ridiculously amazing not to mention if the AB crits. It is a huge DPS increase to save PoM and use only during AP with OP specced. The question is whether or not you lose enough DPS without shimmer to make up for it over the course of the fight.

An example would be a fight like Nythendra, you could easily not have shimmer, you could just blink right as rot is ending and displace back and have your blink charge back quickly and not need to move much, on a fight like Cenarius where you're constantly moving to stack, changing spawn points, kiting brambles, etc you'd probably run shimmer no doubt. Xavius would be another PoM fight, etc.

Not to mention if you have the chest, would be nice to always have that to have 2 chances of an "extra defensive" if you will, and you can blink > displacement and keep the shield from the chest.

[a0kalittlema0n]

Hey guys, lurker here but I figured I would try to give some input. Been playing Arcane since launch.

First, so you guys can understand my strategy, I have +6% increased chance to AM procs total on artifact relic, all 3 relics are +1 bonus. I have legendary bracers, so my playstyle will be targeted at getting as many AM procs as possible to extend burn phase while waiting for Evocation.

So I've been doing some testing on the PTR, mainly 7-10 minute parses on Greater Bulwark Construct training dummy. My conclusion so far, as the changes stand now, is that the changes make the spec feel more stable. It feels as if I have a steady rotation to follow and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY had to break my habit of maintaining quickening stacks and "waiting around". This playstyle and spec I ended up with forced me to just barrage and build my stacks back up, instead of waiting for quickening stacks. Again I'm not even using quickening with this build, but it took some time to adjust to a different style completely...I'm sure you guys will know what I'm talking about when you switch off from the Quickening PTSD.

As for the parses, a 7 minute parse on live, for me, would end around 280-290k, steadily dropping as time goes on. Now, I can hold 305-310k steadily, REGARDLESS OF ENCOUNTER DURATION, it seems. Even on a 10+ minute parse I can end at over 300k dps.

Now, I can only speak to the talent build I was using, my own personal gear, and personal playstyle. I am optimistic about these changes after actually testing them. I rarely had to use barrage, as missile procs seemed plentiful and evocation always seemed up when I needed it. Using Overpowered as a mana-free burn really helped me burn time waiting on Evo cd.

--Not having Ice Floes is devastating, and I hope Bliz changes it. I can't imagine raiding without it.
--Shimmer is probably even more important now but you can PoM instead if you don't give a flying fuck, or you are a god.

Stats as tested: (not optimal but.....eh.)

Crit- 20
Haste- 19
Mastery- 35
Vers- 5

My talent choices so far are:

Temporal Flux (I like haste bonuses without it costing extra mana, combos with Overpowered)
Presence of Mind (combo with Overpowered, picking over shimmer strictly for DPS logs)
Rune of Power (don't ever see this changing)
Supernova (because I rarely used barrage and the Arcane Missile procs off this spell are too good to pass up)
Ice Ward (these all suck, I would almost rather pick nothing out of spite)
Nether Tempest (still seemed to sim much higher than erosion, also AM procs are valuable from this cast)
Overpowered (this is the REAL change here.)

Some notes on overpowered - Interesting concept so far. I believe OP over Quickening is what adds to the "more steady" feel and a more concrete rotation to this spec. It combos well with PoM, Temporal Flux, and RoP. More importantly, spells are ZERO MANA. I have found myself spamming AB for the entire duration, then popping a new RoP and unloading all my AM procs, chaining those with legendary bracer procs. This is all part of the concept of EXTENDING the burn phase while waiting for Evocate to come up.

Please remember these are just my quick, personal conclusions based on a couple hours of dummy sims. There are probably huge, gaping holes in my thoughts here and MANY improvements will be needed, I am sure. I just wanted to share my thoughts with this community because I care so much about this spec, and there is so little research out there. You guys here are doing god's work.

Make Arcane Great Again #artistry2016

Great post however I think that with the Overpowered buff we may see people trying to get arcane power duration relics for that +9 seconds of 100% dmg/mana cost reduction. If you wanna do more testing try that sort of relic build with the same talents. Get 4 arcane charges and burn to 60% mana use AP/RoP and all the rest - by the time you're done maybe youre at 100% mana again, could be hilarious and an insanely long burst phase.

Completely agree that you'd burn down to like 60% mana first and then initiate the burn, which would be sub ideal for perpetuating, but meh. I did this, but found Erosion to sim much higher than NT, which also led to a few more barrages, but they aren't as crippling as it used to be with quickening, this also led Resonance to output more than SN for me, and charged up is just garbo unless pants and even still is meh :/.

I think with the 4 set Arcane is going to be AMAZING. Also I think it was pretty thoroughly tested by a few in the Mage discord that casting AM during OP AP is a DPS loss, which is great since you can just burn AB during AP and then as soon as i comes off, extend your mana region without spending mana by casting 3 AM directly afterwards. I think the AP relics might be bis, but to a point as well as haste scaling, there will be some breakpoint where the relic/haste only barely gets you another vast in AP with heroism type thing. AM relics will still be 2nd best and great for the knighthood set as well.

Someone previously mentioned that we'd be GCD capped with heroism, totally not a thing. 1.8 second cast, reduced by 20% then having haste won't drop it to .75 seconds or w/e the GDC is (doesn't haste decrease it to .75 seconds?).

I also did some PTR testing with my mage but completely different stats and pulled a bit more DPS i think, its linked in a spoiler in my mage guide on this site (Nelly's Mage Guide) I think it was like 335k or something similar. I didn't even pre-use some mana on the pull either (brain fart), so it could be higher as well.

I ran with something like
30% crit
20% haste
24% mastery
8% vers

The stats are on the video.

And to the original poster I quoted, I love me some arcane and long live the #arcanedream

[Xenost]

I'm so glad the "never ABar to keep quickening stacks" is gone. Switching loot spec to get some arc legendaries .

[Vorrum]

Resonance higher than SN single target? Does resonance give you 25% more damage even if there's only 1 target? Never thought of it.

[Nanogiant]

Imo Ice Floes is kind of critical for Arcane in PvP. It's a big shame they removed it. Why don't they make it a PvP talent instead? Arcane has a lot of useless PvP talents that can be replaced.

[Jhazz]

So... if we run Overpowered in conjunction with three of the relics which each add 3 seconds to the duration of AP, we'll get 19 seconds of free casts at 200% damage. That is broken as hell. Not only in terms of damage, but in terms of mana regen too. You burn to 50%, use 19 seconds worth of AP, and you'll be back up to 90%ish. That's in current gear too, let alone the added mastery we'll get in the Nighthold!

I can't help but feel this would lead to an insanely powerful infinite burn. Especially for those with the legendary wrists.

[Sosaria]

The new fire spec.

The new fire spec OP version lol.

[Laniarty]

So... if we run Overpowered in conjunction with three of the relics which each add 3 seconds to the duration of AP, we'll get 19 seconds of free casts at 200% damage. That is broken as hell. Not only in terms of damage, but in terms of mana regen too. You burn to 50%, use 19 seconds worth of AP, and you'll be back up to 90%ish. That's in current gear too, let alone the added mastery we'll get in the Nighthold!

I can't help but feel this would lead to an insanely powerful infinite burn. Especially for those with the legendary wrists.

Pretty sure that Aegwynn's Imperative only adds 1 second to AP for each point in it, so with 3 AP points + 3 relics it would add 6 seconds in total.

[a0kalittlema0n]

It would be 16 seconds total, correct.

The problem with your statement Jhazz is this:

To maximize damage with OP, you want to burn as much as possible in the AP window, to do this effectively you want a lot of haste (to a point). The infinite burn is more about haste:mastery ratio than anything. There will be a ratio that allows you to burn infinitely assuming minimal AM procs. This ratio will NOT be best for maximizing burst in AP window. I mean sure, at 60% mastery and 8% haste or w/e it might be, you can inifitely burn, but my stats atm on the PTR are as follows

32% crit
26% mastery
8% vers
25% haste

Not only can I get a ton more crits with more vers than you'd probably have with a ton of mastery, but ontop of that I'm hoenstly only barraging like 2 or 3 times during conserve. I'm also getting through that burn/conserve phase casting quicker and this has the completely underestimated benefit of having slightly quicker casts for the entire fight which can sometimes be the difference between even getting some casts off.

Also the more haste you have the more on use trinkets, damage buffs, etc are going to benefit you during the AP window. With Gnawed Ring's 5% buff, RoP buff, OP buff, and heroism will all favor being able to do as much damage as possible in AP window.

[Artistry]

Hey guys, lurker here but I figured I would try to give some input. Been playing Arcane since launch.

First, so you guys can understand my strategy, I have +6% increased chance to AM procs total on artifact relic, all 3 relics are +1 bonus. I have legendary bracers, so my playstyle will be targeted at getting as many AM procs as possible to extend burn phase while waiting for Evocation.

So I've been doing some testing on the PTR, mainly 7-10 minute parses on Greater Bulwark Construct training dummy. My conclusion so far, as the changes stand now, is that the changes make the spec feel more stable. It feels as if I have a steady rotation to follow and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY had to break my habit of maintaining quickening stacks and "waiting around". This playstyle and spec I ended up with forced me to just barrage and build my stacks back up, instead of waiting for quickening stacks. Again I'm not even using quickening with this build, but it took some time to adjust to a different style completely...I'm sure you guys will know what I'm talking about when you switch off from the Quickening PTSD.

As for the parses, a 7 minute parse on live, for me, would end around 280-290k, steadily dropping as time goes on. Now, I can hold 305-310k steadily, REGARDLESS OF ENCOUNTER DURATION, it seems. Even on a 10+ minute parse I can end at over 300k dps.

Now, I can only speak to the talent build I was using, my own personal gear, and personal playstyle. I am optimistic about these changes after actually testing them. I rarely had to use barrage, as missile procs seemed plentiful and evocation always seemed up when I needed it. Using Overpowered as a mana-free burn really helped me burn time waiting on Evo cd.

--Not having Ice Floes is devastating, and I hope Bliz changes it. I can't imagine raiding without it.
--Shimmer is probably even more important now but you can PoM instead if you don't give a flying fuck, or you are a god.

Stats as tested: (not optimal but.....eh.)

Crit- 20
Haste- 19
Mastery- 35
Vers- 5

My talent choices so far are:

Temporal Flux (I like haste bonuses without it costing extra mana, combos with Overpowered)
Presence of Mind (combo with Overpowered, picking over shimmer strictly for DPS logs)
Rune of Power (don't ever see this changing)
Supernova (because I rarely used barrage and the Arcane Missile procs off this spell are too good to pass up)
Ice Ward (these all suck, I would almost rather pick nothing out of spite)
Nether Tempest (still seemed to sim much higher than erosion, also AM procs are valuable from this cast)
Overpowered (this is the REAL change here.)

Some notes on overpowered - Interesting concept so far. I believe OP over Quickening is what adds to the "more steady" feel and a more concrete rotation to this spec. It combos well with PoM, Temporal Flux, and RoP. More importantly, spells are ZERO MANA. I have found myself spamming AB for the entire duration, then popping a new RoP and unloading all my AM procs, chaining those with legendary bracer procs. This is all part of the concept of EXTENDING the burn phase while waiting for Evocate to come up.

Please remember these are just my quick, personal conclusions based on a couple hours of dummy sims. There are probably huge, gaping holes in my thoughts here and MANY improvements will be needed, I am sure. I just wanted to share my thoughts with this community because I care so much about this spec, and there is so little research out there. You guys here are doing god's work.

Make Arcane Great Again #artistry2016

Great post however I think that with the Overpowered buff we may see people trying to get arcane power duration relics for that +9 seconds of 100% dmg/mana cost reduction. If you wanna do more testing try that sort of relic build with the same talents. Get 4 arcane charges and burn to 60% mana use AP/RoP and all the rest - by the time you're done maybe youre at 100% mana again, could be hilarious and an insanely long burst phase.

Completely agree that you'd burn down to like 60% mana first and then initiate the burn, which would be sub ideal for perpetuating, but meh. I did this, but found Erosion to sim much higher than NT, which also led to a few more barrages, but they aren't as crippling as it used to be with quickening, this also led Resonance to output more than SN for me, and charged up is just garbo unless pants and even still is meh :/.

I think with the 4 set Arcane is going to be AMAZING. Also I think it was pretty thoroughly tested by a few in the Mage discord that casting AM during OP AP is a DPS loss, which is great since you can just burn AB during AP and then as soon as i comes off, extend your mana region without spending mana by casting 3 AM directly afterwards. I think the AP relics might be bis, but to a point as well as haste scaling, there will be some breakpoint where the relic/haste only barely gets you another vast in AP with heroism type thing. AM relics will still be 2nd best and great for the knighthood set as well.

Someone previously mentioned that we'd be GCD capped with heroism, totally not a thing. 1.8 second cast, reduced by 20% then having haste won't drop it to .75 seconds or w/e the GDC is (doesn't haste decrease it to .75 seconds?).

I also did some PTR testing with my mage but completely different stats and pulled a bit more DPS i think, its linked in a spoiler in my mage guide on this site (Nelly's Mage Guide) I think it was like 335k or something similar. I didn't even pre-use some mana on the pull either (brain fart), so it could be higher as well.

I ran with something like
30% crit
20% haste
24% mastery
8% vers

The stats are on the video.

And to the original poster I quoted, I love me some arcane and long live the #arcanedream

I see your point, but losing NT and SN is taking away a LOT of potential AM procs, and that's just not viable with legendary bracers to factor in. IMO.

[x1xruex1x]

I will be getting onto the PTR sometime this weekend, but as far as what I've read and have seen so far, I don't know why people are getting bent out of shape over "NT NERF!!", "ICE FLOWS IS WHY I PLAYED MAGE", "QUICKENING NERF?!?"

Did anyone sit back and look at the fact that you have a choice of play style now?

Not everyone liked Ice Flows. I know I didnt, but quit frankly, if you're able to utilize Shimmer properly, as well as procs with positioning, you don't need to rely on it. Would it have been nice in some fights? yea, but is it necessary? NO.

Stop acting like it's the end of the world because they changes something you like.

Look at it this way:

Quickening may be getting a larger nerf, but at the same time, it's getting a buff too. If you're skilled at management, and lets say you have the legendary headpiece, then quickening will be viable still.

Overpowered seems just that, a bit overpowered, i totally expect some changes to it, but if not, no big deal.

Ice Flows going away, and being replaced with something that's not necessarily "raid" content? I beg to differ. You may not have Ice Flows, but having ABarr trigger a speed boost is fine too. Maybe you can't cast and move outside of shimmer, but if you're not rolling a strict quickening build, I don't see the real downside to this. Chances are it'd be used during a valley phase and not during a peak phase. Peaks you usually save Shimmer for so you can keep the ebb and flow going properly. During that valley tho, you can use ABarr more regularly anyways, and popping one off earlier than intended won't be Game Over.

For those feeling Overpowered keeps you feeling slow, take the AB talent in rank 15.
For those feeling Quickening needs the Mana or the AM procs to be viable, hey those options are still there in rank 15, with WoP slightly altered to have larger segments, but 1% lower overall.

I really want to get onto the PTR very soon to do some testing myself, but I really don't think this is all bad or anything.

There's a bunch of "In My Own Opinion" within this thread over it, and elsewhere at that. One I saw that really sank my heart is the statement that a person ONLY played a mage for Ice Flows. If that's the only reason you're a mage, then I ask that you reconsider why you're playing a mage really. You should be playing a BM hunter if you have issues with standing still for even a sparse moment.


and thats my rant for the day.

LOOK FORWARD AND UP WITH 7.1.5, THINGS ARE LOOKING GOOD, EVEN WITH NERFS, THINGS ARE LEVELING OUT! WE HAVE CHOICE AGAIN ^_^

[a0kalittlema0n]

The reason people are upset over Ice Floes is that minimizing movement as a ranged DPS is the ultimate skill cap and most difficult thing to do, and biggest DPS loss for ranged. SO losing Icy Floes requires that we play much better and plan out really well how and when we do things.

I think people are also a bit salty about frost mage keeping it, we are the least mobile mage class and they get to keep it? All of our casts are 2 seconds, and we use Evo and if that gets interrupted our DPS is garbage for the rest of the fight.

You are also one of the very few people I've heard of that doesn't use Icy Floes.

Also when you test quickening on PTR you'll quickly see that you'll need pants and possibly helm to make it viable, it burns mana SO quicikly its almost wrong...

[Mage]

I have a hard time seeing how this spec combined with ring and 3x AP relics will not get nerfed.

[Icthas]

I don't have PTR access yet. Can someone check and see if Everywhere at Once is reducing the displacement cooldown yet? I'd like to get the bug report rolling early on this build if it isn't.