Gone arcane - many questions

[leethaxor]

during the proc I burn mana a little more to help boost the affect of it, for example going AB5 or 6 with my larger mana pool I can easily recover when it falls off.

[Bigbad]

So to increase the effect of the trinket you do like a small miniburn with a few AB5-6s but you don't want to use it during an actual burnphase where you can stack it with other cds like AP and managem. Doesn't sound logical to me.

Lets assume the trinket use is a 10% damage buff nice round number.
70k dps burn (assume 67% efficiency on the trinket cause of the manalevel) + 4,7k from the trinket
32k dps during small miniburn (assume 100% efficiency which is a bit too optimistic) +3,2k from the trinket
but now you also loose some dps recovering your mana again

It just doesn't add up for me.

[Jenkat]

This moonwell chalice debate is very fascinating. For the time being I'm going to try using it for my conserve phase. That seems to make most sense to me. I'm not so good at math and such so it is difficult for me to follow your in depth discussion.

I have another question, however: How do you use clearcasting? To me, it makes most sense to always use it to get an extra AB in. But do you guys ever use it for a free Abarr to wipe your stacks? And if so, why?

Also I'm curious about Arcane Potency. It would seem best to do AB when you get that. But is it more important to keep the 4xAB and clear with AM or ABrr rotation. Cause I tried doing a AB everytime I had Arcane Potency up and it messed up the AB stacks and depleted my mana. Tell me please, how you understand Arcane Potency in relation to your rotation.

[Jenkat]

Here is the combat log of one of our tries on Ragnaros last night. We ended up downing him for the very first time - but I do not have a log of that. I'd be very interested in hearing any constructive criticism that you may have. I found myself mostly focusing on the tactics and not so much on my rotation. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1322&e=1974

And here is my armory link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...enkat/advanced
I'd also love to hear on that as well.

Thanks again for the help guys! =)

[leethaxor]

On longer fights you can end your burn about 10% higher mana and remake your mana gem. I don't know if the missed gem was on purpose but I just saw the 4 burn phases and 3 gem uses.

[Jenkat]

I did not think about remaking the mana gem. So thanks for that tip! <3 I really appreciate you taking the time to look at that log. =)

I did burst at the beginning, during both transition phases for fear of not getting my add down quick enough and towards the end of the encounter. Do you think that these are good times or do you do Ragnaros differently?

Do you have any comments to these questions mentioned above: How do you react to clearcasting? To me, it makes most sense to always use it to get an extra AB in. But do you guys ever use it for a free Abarr to wipe your stacks? And if so, why?

Also I'm curious about Arcane Potency. It would seem best to do AB when you get that. But is it more important to keep the 4xAB and clear with AM or ABrr rotation. Cause I tried doing a AB everytime I had Arcane Potency up and it messed up the AB stacks and depleted my mana. Tell me please, how you understand Arcane Potency in relation to your rotation. Should I just be ignoring Arcane Potency and do my normal rotation 4xAB-AM?

[leethaxor]

Typically how I use CD's for rag, just for a reference.

I burn initial, if group dps is low (form some odd reason), I will burn again as the phase ends and evocate as the adds spawn.

You can then (if spec'd nethervortex) arcane blast into a PoM AB and that gets you close to 50% and slowed, then you can mop up the adds a little bit. Burning in the transition is a decent dps loss because you are switching targets moving around a lot.

Burn as p2 starts, burn before the first seed, and you can normally evocate as the first seeds explode which helps a little with healing, and gets your mana back for AE spam as the adds cluster up on your group.

Again if p2 dps is slow then you can burn again but the best time to burn will at the p2.5 transition when most guilds pop heroism to kill adds and or rag.

[Jenkat]

This is very very helpful. Thanks! I will try it this way on Monday. =)

[leethaxor]

I didn't mention but when you remake your mana gem the best time to do it is as you end your burn, so you can just evocate back up. Also PoM mana gem, really cuts down time.

[mielikinna]

PoM is better used at the start of a burn for the 15% crit on a ABx4.

[leethaxor]

PoM is better used at the start of a burn for the 15% crit on a ABx4.

I think PoM would be better used to prevent the 3 second down time of conjuring your mana gem. A single PoM during your burn phase MIGHT be worth 1.5 Arcane Blasts, while PoM'ing mana gem will be worth AT LEAST 2 AB's.

[mielikinna]

Call it a difference of opinion then.

Also, the number of fights where you need to reconjure your mana gem is Alysrazor if you are arcane and not flying fire (which you should be flying fire) and Ragnaros. In the case of Ragnaros, its just a matter of summoning it when your raid calls DPS off due to timing on seeds in p2, or rather than chasing an add at 20% health that's across the room during a transition.

[leethaxor]

Also, the number of fights where you need to reconjure your mana gem is Alysrazor if you are arcane and not flying fire (which you should be flying fire) and Ragnaros. In the case of Ragnaros, its just a matter of summoning it when your raid calls DPS off due to timing on seeds in p2, or rather than chasing an add at 20% health that's across the room during a transition.

Agreed. I haven't found many fights that require me to re-conjure other then rag (and lately not as of late since raid dps has gone up) and H domo.

[Jenkat]

My dps was much better on Raggy doing the burst like you said to, Leethaxor. Thanks a lot! <3
I still enjoy playing fire more. I'm not sure why. But I'm going arcane when asked to by my raid leader. He lets me do fire on our farm material.

[leethaxor]

Because once you have arcane down you can almost play it with your eyes closed. Its not as easy as it gets a rap for being; Sadly, once you get the hang of it you can just watch a movie on your second monitor for farm content.

The only reason I would suggest you stay arcane for your farm content is just to get in the little and little more practice as arcane. As your rotation gets more and more down pat, you can start working more on movement, mechanic avoidance, etc. Sorta stop paying attention to one thing and focus more attention on other things. Then when you do progress you will able to move better, more aware of timers, and find your dps increasing because of the tiny improvements you made.

Its odd to think that shannox or rhyolith can teach us things to improve us on domo but if you don't open yourself to the experience you can never gain it.

[mielikinna]

Because once you have arcane down you can almost play it with your eyes closed ... get in ... more practice as arcane. As your rotation gets more and more down pat, you can start working more on movement, mechanic avoidance, etc. Sorta stop paying attention to one thing and focus more attention on other things. Then when you do progress you will able to move better, more aware of timers, and find your dps increasing because of the tiny improvements you made.

QFT

This becomes essential if you are going to do hardmodes.

[Jenkat]

Hmmm . . . well, I know that my guild will be doing hardmodes after a couple of weeks of farming the normal content. I basically think of myself as good enough to clear the content on normal but not good enough for hardmodes. But they may have to take me along for lack of better players online so I do want to always be improving my game.

And I totally agree with you that practice is very important - so I do want to do that.

My problem with arcane is that I find it both boring and frustrating. For example, I get really frustrated when Hand of Ragnaros (I think that it what is knocking me back) interrupts my evocation. Or when I begin my burst at the wrong time and end of wasting it cause I had to move right after blowing all my cds to dentonate a magma trap. It just seems like the entire rotation is totally dependent on the timing of the encounter and sometimes you can just get unlucky or mess up your timing. I also hate the feeling that I always have to count to four. And I both love and hate the speed buff after blink: It is lovely to move out so fast after Molten Seed - but I lose a bit of control of my char with all that speed and have twice run into Engulfing Flames - making me feel like a total idiot!

Perhaps it is just me misunderstanding the playstyle of arcane. But I find myself tense and miserable while playing arcane and happy while playing fire.

But at the end of the day, I'm a team player and want to do what is best for my guild and our progression. So . . . if you guys have any tips as to how to play arcane better, then I am all ears. I'd love to hear more on how you avoid the frustrating things described above on the Ragnaros encounter. And I guess I will play arcane on our farm content next week.

[leethaxor]

I'd love to hear more on how you avoid the frustrating things described above on the Ragnaros encounter. And I guess I will play arcane on our farm content next week.

Do you have DBM or bigwigs installed?

That's how. Get a boss timer and watch it. But even more so its experience. Knowing that you delay evocation until after a leaping jump on domo so he won't leap on you during an evocate channel. New bosses are frustrating. Last night I got to spend the last 20 seconds of majordomo oom because I screwed up. Shit happens, and all you can do is learn not to do it next time.

Why I told you to stay arcane is a big part of this. Every time you do the fight you will learn when to, and when not to use cooldowns. And then doing it on heroic when 90% of the fight is the same, you already have that foreknowledge.

Arcane is constant work but constant improvement.

[Jenkat]

Yes, I do have dbm. I couldn't imagine raiding without it - but I could get better at watching the bar timers. I'll keep working on it. Thanks again for all your help and encouragement, Leethaxor. <3 You're the sweetest!

[leethaxor]

Its honestly no problem. Honestly, its nice to have somebody to listen to me. I get between 2-3 tells a day just from random people asking for help to improve their mage, guild mage, etc. 90% end up with me being told I'm wrong, and horrible at my class.


@mielikinna
I tested your theory on chalice. And apart from simplifying my cooldown usage, it yielded better dps. So I concede on that opinion.