3.09. More changes, more testing to be done. *harrumph*

Just caught some info on patch 3.09 which is due to go live this week, and as a result:

More theory crafting and rotation tests.

/facepalm

Why do you do this to me blizz? All I wanna do is provide good DPS for my comrades!!!

Ok, let’s get into it.

Here’s the changes:

Spells:

1. Arcane power damage bonus halved, and cooldown halved. (10% bonus damage, 1min CD -Needs confirmation. This could be painful on the mana bar, since Arcane Power causes your spells to cost more mana… if it’s the same mana consumption, you now have this triggered every minute eating through your mana faster…)
2. Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power = 15s cooldown, POM = 1.5s cooldown. (Means you cant POM something within 15s of using an AP, and I’m not sure, but does this mean POM activates the global cooldown? … That doesn’t sound like it’s a very useful spell any more, except for Pom pyro PVP players. (Say that 10x as fast as ya can!))
3. POM cooldown reduced from 3Min to 2Min – nice for PVP mages!

Glyphs:

1. Glyph of Arcane Missiles = +25% crit damage to arcane missiles (old glyph added 5 yards to the cast range)
2. Glyph of Mana gem = 40% bonus mana when chomping on a gem, was 10% (Nice!)
3. Glyph of Arcane Blast – Damage bonus reduced from 5% to 3%. (Has this not already been implemented??)

Looking at the above, I think I would be a fool not to take the Arcane Missiles glyph, this has 2 effects:

1. I lose my Glyph of Mage Armour, or my Glyph of Evocation. Both fantastic glyphs. *pouts*
2. If the experimentations with shot rotation prove that Ill be using Arcane Missiles more, then I will most likely need to talent into Arcane Missiles. Dang! I only used that on a missile barrage proc previously

Currently rotation:

Arcane Blast x3 (54% damage bonus (45% on arcane missiles with the current bug that stops the Arcane Blast Glyph affecting Arcane Missiles.)
Arcane Barrage (consumes the damage bonus, hits hard.)
Arcane Missiles any time that arcane barrage procs, followed with a Barrage tap.

I predict that with the change:

New rotation:

Arcane blast x3 (39% bonus damage with glyph instead of 54% L )
Arcane Missiles (consumes the buff, hopefully the glyph bug will be fixed or its only 30% bonus damage from the buff.)
Arcane barrage tap, then repeat.

What do I expect to see?

Overall I expect to see a drop to my DPS – this is expected, Arcane is overpowered in comparison to the other specs, and this is Blizzards attempt to bring it down to size. The drop in DPS will come from less damage bonus from stacking Arcane Blast, and the cast time for Arcane Missiles when we don’t have a Missile Barrage proc. On the other hand, I think this will be a bit more mana efficient since less spells are being spammed out.

One thing I would try to pay particular attention to: Clearcasting procs…

+50% crit chance on a clearcast spell, and the spell costing no mana. If you are very very lucky your 3rd Arcane Blast will trigger this. In that event, your Arcane missiles costs 0 mana, has (in my case) an 80% crit chance, a 39% damage bonus and when it crits: it crits for 275% damage instead of 250% - which could prove vurry nice… (I may be off with the % here, but I think talented arcane does 250% crit damage instead of the usual 200% talented damage, and 150% untalented crit damage.)

If after testing, the Arcane Blast glyph is still not working for arcane missiles, and this rotation proves the best: I’m going to drop the Arcane Blast glyph. That 9% bonus damage is never going to get seen unless I keep my current shot rotation. Keep the mana regen or heal-ocation glyphs as they are fantastic utility. Unfortunately this will be un-testable until the patch goes live.

I have read that some opinions are that this is a PVP nerf without affecting PVE – but as far as I can see it, the effect on PVP is not that huge. (Little less burst damage, but more availability of it) an Arcane Powered POM PYRO is still more than feasible – you just have a 1.5s cooldown on the POM before you can activate AP (lob an Arcane barrage at the target maybe between activations? Assuming AP is not on the GCD)