01/24/09: Have you considered looking at my post regarding Arcane DPS in 3.0.8? You may want to check that out instead. In that post, I explain a good spec and rotation for the latest patch.
I’ve been telling myself since Tuesday that I needed to write this blog. Unfortunately, I haven’t had access to WoW until Friday, and my desktop is currently out of commission–which means that I haven’t had a chance to raid in 3.0.2 yet. However, from what I’ve seen so far of the Arcane tree, the changes are largely in our favor.
Of course, there are some things that, although they look cool, will be largely useless in raid situations as far as I can tell. Take, for example, Torment the Weak–alhtough the bonus to snared damage would be nice, it probably won’t be effective on raid bosses.
My current build looks something like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0Vfu0hzeGuGxcbcZ0o. (Missing two talent points – I think I might have put them in Arcane Shielding but I’m honestly not sure.) For some reason I’ve been having some trouble getting my mana pool up to where it used to be (14500 – ish); I think Blizzard either adjusted some stats on my gear or reworked some game mechanics. Either that or I’m just failing because I don’t have raid buffs or something.
EDIT: Due to only getting 4fps on my laptop, combined with my talent mod and chat frames being out of commission, I screwed up my spec, so I don’t have Arcane Barrage. I will talk about it as soon as I get it. =)
The build that I linked there has upped my AB damage enormously; however, the changes to the AB debuff mean that you’re probably gonna be stuck with AB spam to do your damage, as trying to weave spells will kill your debuff.
The spell haste talent – Netherwind Presence – coupled with a bit of spell haste items, is absolutely sexy. There’s really no other way to put it. Add in all the talents that increase spellpower and AB damage, and we’re looking at some phenomenal numbers for Arcane.
The new version of Magic Attunement is a beautiful thing too. +range to Arcane spells? Yes PLEASE! I was getting sick of having to be closer to mobs than any other mage, and actually having to back out of some stuff because 30 yards is just barely too close. Kudos to Blizzard for fixing that!
OMG. We can actually hitcap to 100% now. I was a very happy mage when I saw that. Still a low hitcap for Arcane, and we don’t have to worry about capping for, say, Frostbolt *too*, since there’s no more rotation in Arcane raiding.
Arcane Barrage is a pretty beautiful thing from everything I’ve seen. Now I’ve gotta figure out how that’s gonna work with the AB debuff stacking.
That’s most of the good news–now for what I’ve heard for bad news.
From almost everything that I’ve heard, Arcane will not be really worthwhile in raiding compared to Fire. I’m not sure how true or untrue this is–it’ll require some experimenting–but it’s got me a little worried. I did Fire forever, and I’m still sick of it. Arcane has been so much more fun.
The 2/5 T5 set bonus got nerfed down to 5% – a saddening change, but the T5’s still usable right up to 80 and into Naxx from everything I’ve heard about the gear scaling in Northrend.
I’ll post again as soon as I get a look at both the new DPS and mana longevity I’m getting in raids and how it compares to other specs. Until then…experiment with new things! I’d love to see some of your specs–feel free to post comments with your 3.0.2 talents! (Any and all classes would be welcome for this! I have alts of almost every class, and would like to see what builds are looking good for those classes too!)
Most Recent Comments