Several people have been asking me about arcane lately so I thought it'd be a good idea to summarize what I know and how I play.
The rotation is pretty easy: Always Arcane Blast until you have four stacks AND the Missile Barrage procs. If Barrage procs early you wait until you have four stacks (the proc lasts a long time, it'll still be there while you're stacking), if it doesn't proc by the fourth stack you keep casting Blast until it does proc. Continuing to stack will be very expensive but will also be very high dps. Be prepared to regen some mana soon if the RNG hates you and doesn't give you a timely proc. Which brings me to...
Mana gems are important and should be used as soon as you've burned enough mana to make them worthwhile. Evocate is also important of course, though it's harder to use since it draws threat and is interruptible, so you have to be situationally aware when planning on using it. On Sarth 3D for example, I have to wait until right after a lava wall and right after a round of void zones are set down.
The second thing I do is automate my cooldowns with a macro like this:
I hit it until I get four stacks and the barrage procs, then I hold ALT and hit it to send the missiles. I have an alternate version which doesn't burn cooldowns which I use if I have to hold cooldowns for later, such as XT hard mode.
That's pretty much it -- everything else is situational such as using Arcane Barrage when having to move, both because it's instant and so can be cast while moving and also to avoid wasting stacks of Blast that you've accumulated (those stacks don't last very long).
I also use Arcane Barrage at the start of most fights in order to get on the threat table so I can see how the tank's threat is going and also when doing low-threat dps. I also always use the Arcane Missile proc when doing this since it's free dps and I'm not stacking Blasts anyhow. Once the fight is in full swing I switch to my normal max dps rotation.
One other thing to remember is that you can scale your dps and mana efficiency by varying the number of Blast stacks you accumulate before you cast missiles. Fewer stacks is lower dps but much higher mana efficiency. If you reach your target stack count and Missiles haven't proc'd yet then it's probably best to use Arcane Barrage to clear the stacks since continuing to stack will be expensive.
I want to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH for this, I've been trying to sort it all out. I'm obviously not doing very well with my current playstyle and I'm having difficulty fixing it. I'm figuring switching specs completely and thus changing up everything might be the kind of shakedown I need to kick me out of whatever rut it is that I'm stuck in.
I had fun with Arcane back in BC, I'm looking forward to trying it out again.
What are your recommendations with gearing up for Arcane? I'm hearing everything from "Frostfire gear should be fine" to "You'll need to redo all your gear" and it's getting confusing.
Bertibby wrote:
What are your recommendations with gearing up for Arcane? I'm hearing everything from "Frostfire gear should be fine" to "You'll need to redo all your gear" and it's getting confusing.
I don't go for anything in particular, but spellpower seems to be the best thing of all and haste is also really good. Crit doesn't seem to be as big a win, I don't know why though. I just know Rawr is always having me gem for spellpower and haste primarily!
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RE: Arcane Mages for Dummies
Posted on Feb 1, 2010 at 3:39 am | Edited by Alamexia on Feb 1, 2010 at 3:39 am
Posts: 2391 Location: Little Rock, AR Joined: 11.09.07
I think all of our regularly raiding mages are arcane now; bumping in case they missed this.
Honestly, our mages are doing a lot better DPS now, I'm not trying to discourage the mages but at one point I thought they were not doing that great. (Sans Gizmodo, who is crazy.) From the recent logs, all of the mages have improved. However, I think this information may be helpful to improve the DPS further.
I'd like to add: AS usual, try to time your Evocates well, and DO use this. Don't hesitate to call out for an innervate too -- that's pretty nice too if the healers don't need it. (And they probably don't.)
I may be posting (or bumping) more theorycrafting threads in the future to hopefully improve our DPS as we are tackling the harder bosses in ICC. (I may PM little notes as well to people if you are the only one of your class/spec for example.)
