1- Rotation & Gameplay
1.1 Rotation
Arcane mages have a rotation, the complete opposite of the fire mages who have a priority list.
The Rotation : Cast 3 Arcane Blast then if your Missiles Barrage is up use Arcane Missiles (If you have not proc cast as much as necessery Arcane Blast to proc cast one more Arcane Blast)
During the Bloodlust and all time you are on a 1sec casting time to maximize your DPS you can jump on a 5 Arcane Blast then Arcane Missiles, but it can be really mana hungry. This is why you will have to play the rest of the time at 3 Arcane Blast +Arcane Missiles for more mana saving, especially if you don't have much gear.
Essential Macro:
/cast [nochanneling : Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast(Rank 4)
She allowed you to spam your Arcane Blast without interrupting your Arcane Missiles.
Basically you can use this "nochanneling: Arcane Missiles" tip on every spell you use during the encounter, just to be sure you don't interrupt your Arcane Missile Channeling. (Do not use it on your Ice Block !)
Precision: If you have an high Latency, forget that macro you will lose dps because the macro will not allow you to overpass your latency to start you next cast.
But without that macro you will have to very carefully cast your fist Arcane Blast to do not interrupt the channeling of Arcane Missiles [Special thanks to Sky for this note]
1.1.1 Mana-Saving Rotation
If you have a small mana pool prefer a 3 Arcane Blast then Arcane Missiles if you have already proc Missile Barrage.
Whatever your mana pool, when you are going to be Out of Mana, use Arcane Missiles as soon as you have a Missile Barrage proc.
1.1.2 Burst
Your burst cycle will be: 5 Arcane Blast then Arcane Missiles. 4 Arcane Blast if you already are low at your manapool.
You have to know :
- That your Presence of Mind (and Clearcastion Proc) triggers your Arcane Potency which gives you 30% chance to crit on the next damaging spell.
- The fact that Presence of Mind is only consume by a spell casted such as Arcane Blast, and not by a spell channeled such as Arcane Missiles.
Plus, you have to know that you cannot both be on Presence of Mind and Arcane Power (within 15 seconds from each other).
So the most efficient way to use you Presence of Mind is to use it before your Arcane Missiles and at maximum range from the target in order to have 30% crit on each of your projectiles and on your first Arcane Blast.
If you are not at enough range Presence of Mind will give you Arcane Potency on only a few of your Arcane Missile projectiles and then be consumed when the first missile hits.
So my advice if you are close range, is to use your Presence of Mind on your third Arcane Blast to have a instantly fourth with 30% more crit chance.
For the rest of your Cooldowns (MI, Icy Veins, etc) depending on your current haste, you have to make your own tests in the raid you will be. The aim you will have is to maximize your damage so you must cast as many Arcane Missiles during damage (and haste) buffs as you can.
Best Burst rotation will be : 2 Arcane Blast => blow your Cooldowns except Presence of Mind => 3 Arcane Blast => Missiles => usual burst rotation => when Presence of Mind up wait for your 4th Arcane Blast => Presence of Mind => Channelling => comeback on usual burst rotation.
Lots of people blow their Cooldowns at the 3rd Arcane Blast, I don't do it this way because it allowed me a better timer on my Presence of Mind. It will be up right before my Missiles.
1.1.3 Switching Target
You have no damaging AoE (Area of Effect) on your rotation and not DoT (Damage over Time), so simply switch to the most urgent target. You have a very low casting time and one of the highest bursts, so it's you job to switch as soon as possible, but you do not have to modify your rotation, just continue it on the new target.
Note: A good shut down on very small targets as spikes are your missiles, none will able to kill them as quick as you.
1.2 How to move (and when not to move)
First of all you have no dots and no instant spells which give you a GCD (Global Cooldown) to move on, so you have to not move at all if something non-deadly hits you. Stay on puddles (except on Defile !) if you are on Festergut just place yourself away for you mates and ask them to move if they enter in your area.
There are 2 moments in your rotation where you can move without loosing dps: First when you use you MI you have a 1sec GCD and you can/must move on (and you're going to say "nice dude, I can move 1 second out of 3 minutes", and I will answer "No, 2 seconds"). The second moment you can move is during your instant Arcane Blast (which occurs after using you Presence of Mind).
Finally, if you use the build I'll give you below you will have an alternative way to move with a minimum dps loss: your Arcane Barrage.
But you will need to use it very carefully, it consume your Arcane Blast stacks, and that's bad so you will only use it after channeling your Missiles. If you have a long way to do in a large period of time, just use Arcane Barrage every time after your missiles until you reach your new spot.
If you have to move faster, wait a Missile Barrage proc and use your Arcane Missiles and then your Arcane Barrage to move.
If you have to move quicker or on a very long range very fast, you are fucked up, just Blink.
1.3 How to use your Mana Cooldowns
You need to always start your fight with 3 Mana Gems. Use your first as soon as it will bring your mana back to 99%. Use your second one as soon as it is available. Same for your third but most of time you will be close to Out of Mana before the 3rd one is available. In this case use a Mana Potion to fill the gap and use your 3rd when ready.
My advices:
Do not use other potions than Mana.
Evocate only if it's you last option, prefer a Mana-Saving Cycle to the evocation. If you have to Evocate do it on the very end of a haste Cooldowns.
If healer don't need Innervate you are the next on the list to get it ! Claim it.
1.4 Your placement
For your placement 3 rules :
As a squishy mage you will place yourself since the start of the encounter as far as you can from your mates and from the boss. That will allowed you both an overview of the situation and it will decrease you chance to be hit by a randomly lauch boss' attack.
You have to chose the place before the beginning of the fight where you will have the less as possible movements to to during the encounter assuming the whole tactic (from the beginning to the end).
As an arcane mage (and a well known sedentary man ^^) do not hesitate to keep taking acceptable damages in order to not move
1.5 Notes, Infos & Quoting
"Yo,
I'm arcane mage playing with MEMORIES since Ulduar, and since you guys are arguing I'll share my math.
I assume the following stats in raid: 70% crit for AB (which means around 61% for AM from inceneration and clearcasting+potency).
1100 haste, namely 1.2 casting time in raid with full buffs.
I removed all my proccing gear to have damage values of unbuffed by Arcane Blast spells on dummies, I obtained:
AB=4545 (non crit) and 8000 (crit). Which means on average AB=0.7*8000+4545*0.3=6964 damage
AM=1714 (non crit) and 3348 (crit). Which means on average AM=13472.
Those value were taking with low gear (I removed ring/cloak/trinket), alone on dummies. Which means I will have way higher spell in raid. AM benefits more from the spell than AB, so I will assume that AB=7000 and AM=14000 for the sake of simplicity. Note that you could change those base number depending on your gear, and then complete my post by using the same formula with in raid values, would be awesome. But I think this 2/1 ration isn't far from reality.
2 last points before the math: each AB debuff gives 18% increase damage (glyph), so for example damage from 3AB+AM will be: 7000*(1+1.18.1.36)+14000*1.54.
casting time will be 1.2s when under T10 buff, and 1.2s*1.12= 1.344s when not under this buff. Because it is a 12% haste buff.
First part: rotation with no CDs
AM=14000/1.2=11667 dps
AB+AM=(7000+14000*1.18)/(1.2*2)=9800 dps
2AB+AM=(7000(1+1.18)+14000*1.36)/(1.2*3)=9528 dps
3AB+AM=(7000(1+1.18+1.36)+14000*1.54)/(1.2*4)=9654 dps
4AB+AM=(7000(1+1.18+1.36+1.54)+14000*1.72)/(1.2*4+1.344)=9684 dps Pls note that one spell is taking longer to cast
5AB+AM=(7000(1+1.18+1.36+1.54+1.72)+14000*1.72)/(1.2*4+1.344*2)=10406 dps
6AB+AM=(7000(1+1.18+1.36+1.54+1.72*2)+14000*1.72)/(1.2*4+1.344*3)=9479 dps
Ofc the smaller rotation are impossible in practice because of the missile barrage proc. But look at how constant the dps is, my conclusion is that it doesn't matter much which rotation you choose during this out of CD phase. However 4AB+AM is better than 3AB+AM. 5AB+AM is even better, but cost more mana. All higher on AB rotation will cost more mana for less dps, so avoid that out of CDs.
Part2: burst time baby !
Let's assume that I used AP, and got my AB stack up to 4. I am haste capped during all my arcane power like a good mage should be. This means that I have 11s left to dps under AP, and have my 4 stacks and missile ready. Pls note that this of course applies to mirror image buff/trinket buff.
If I spam AB, I get withing those 11s: 10AB+AM=(10*7000*1.72+14000*1.72)/11=13135dps.
If I do AM then 2 extra 4AB+AM cycle: (3*14000*1.72+2*7000*(1+1.18+1.36+1.54))/11=13033dps
So I did the same dps spamming than with my normal cycle basicly. But with trinket procs that you have during those burst phase (you should use CDs on trinket procs), it means that AM is even more powerful, and that the normal cycle is more dps than the spamming AB cycle. And I'm not talking about the fact that you are burning your mana like a ******, and that if you use normal cycle you get the haste from T10 and need to use less haste CDs to keep this 1s cap that I assumed.
Conclusion
Not a big impact on the cycle you use out of CDs. 3AB+AM or 4AB+AM are nice because you get missile barrage procs more constantly. But note that spamming missile as soon as it's up is not a dps loss ! Just do as you feel confortable and preserve your mana.
For burst phase, use a normal cycle, no doubt about this one." *Directly quote from the post here by Jinkho
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"So my question is if you don't use this only for burst, why actually you need this talent? I perfectly know that Arcane Mage really suffer by mana loosing and here we can speak about throughput vs longevity. I know arcane mage is not healer spec and hardly we can speak about longevity for dps but the mana management is really important for Arcane Mage. I had to watch some streams of Arcane Mages and I was really surprised when I saw some Arcanes on 4k mana on 50% of LDW 25hc after spended Evocation.
Second my question is: Is it better on longer fight like Lich King and lower geared Mage with not so much haste the use of 3AB (instead of 4) then AM? Cause:
1 AB = 214 mana
2 AB = 588 mana + 15% more spell damage
3 AB = 963 mana + 30% more spell damage
4 AB = 1337 mana + 45% more spell damage
AM = no mana cost cause of Missile Barrage + 60% more spell damage
1. Thoughput
The choice here is between one more AB with 45% more spell damage + AM with 60% more spell damage VS AM with 45% more spell damage but reducing each cycle with 1 additional AB => casting AM more offten
Personally I tested several times using rotation with 3 ABs and with 4 ABs and the difference between dps values was not so big. In both cases I tested with such value of haste raiting where I can be able to cast 4 ABs with 4pT10 proc.
2. Longevity
Calculating all mana required for these spells we have 3102 (with 4AB) VS 1765 mana (with 3AB) which is ~43% mana saving.
All this is because it's one to go with full BiS group raping most of the bosses for 3 minutes and completely different going with no so well geared group." by vsetoq
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"Short answer is yes. But that doesn't only apply to lower-geared mages.
There's 2 things to keep in mind here and you correctly assessed them yourself. :)
First off, when you are under the effect of a haste steroid that lets you fit 4 AB + AM during your 2p bonus, then that is the rotation you should be going for. There is little point in not casting another hasted AB before AM, if you can have both of them hasted.
The second point is related to Longevity, as you mentioned. So, once Bloodlust/Heroism, Berserking (if you're troll), Power Infusion, Icy veins, Potion of Speed wear off, you won't be able to fit 5 spells in your 2p bonus anymore. At that point, you should revert to a 3 AB + AM rotation, as it is much more mana efficient.
So to sum it up: The default arcane rotation of any arcane mage (with 2p t10) should be 3AB + AM. When under the effect of major haste steroids you should swap to a 4AB+AM rotation, but revert back to the default one once they're expired. You always want to cast Arcane Missiles under the 2p bonus, they pack quite a punch!" by Sky
Both on this post.