Blog Archive by month: February 2010



T10 Arcane Rotations revisited

by Tachyon on Fri. 12. February 2010, 18:59

Filed under: arcane, t10, rotation, mage, set bonus, featured



Within the mage community, there is still no consens on which arcane rotation to use, now that most raiding mages have the 2xT10 set bonus.
Some mages still use the ABx4AM rotation, others stick with the Mbarr if AB>=4 rotation, and I still see lots of mages spamming AB when they have lots of mana left, or during AP/IV/Bloodlust.

The poor mages seeking help in the official WoW forums are hinted towards the one or the other rotation, without anyone caring to explain why this or that rotation should be used. Arguing about arcane spell rotations is almost a People's Front of Judea vs. Judean People's Front thing.

Now several weeks have passed since the introduction of T10 gear, in which I was able to verify my simulated conclusions on T10 rotations. I cross-checked my results with those of other mages, browsed damage log reports of other guilds, but haven't found anyone using my suggested rotations yet. Good news is: my suggested rotation works, and it works well.

I used the same simulation as before, with the same settings:
  • 3000 Spell Power
  • Hit capped
  • 20% Spell Haste before talents
  • 50% Spell Crit including CSD

The casting strategies I used in the simulation are:
  • AB Spam
    Just chain-cast Arcane Blast, nothing more.
  • ABx4AM
    Cast 4x Arcane Blast, and the Arcane Missiles regardless of whether Missile Barrage procced (the chance that it procced is 87.04%). Using this strategy, you have a fair chance to use MBarr immediately when it procs, with the penalty to cast unhasted Arcane Missiles in 13% of all cases (impacting your mobility).
  • Tachyon A/B
    This is a generic casting strategy, where you cast Arcane Blast, use the Missile Barrage Proc after at least A AB stacks, or clear the stack with Arcane Barrage when Missile Barrage didn't proc after B subsequent Arcane Blasts.
    This time I only used configurations where we always keep casting AB until Missile Barrage procs (B->infinity, so never clear the AB stack with Arcane Barrage)
  • Tachyon A/B, lazy
    The Tachyon A/B rotations have one big flaw: they only work in that form if your reaction time is 0. Or if you can see some seconds in the future, to know if Missile Barrage will proc. Assuming that you don't have those superpowers, you'll notice a Missile Barrage proc only when you're already casting the next Arcane Blast.
    To model this effect, I created a lazy strategy, where you can't use Missile Barrage procs immediately.

Here's the simulated DPS and DPM for each of the casting strategies, evaluated by casting 1'000'000 spells with each strategy:



As the non-lazy Tachyon A/B rotations are only applicable withing a theorycrafting sandbox, and the lazy variants are more realistic, if faded out the non-lazy versions a little to make the chart more clear.

Conclusions from the simulation:
  • The DPS variance is relatively small, less than 4% from the best to the worst
  • AB spam has the worst DPS and atrocious DPM. Never ever use this again.
  • Waiting for 4 stacks of AB before using the MBarr proc yields the highest DPS
  • Using MBarr even before 4 AB stacks yields almost as good DPS, with way higher DPM
  • The Tachyon (A=0-2, B->Infinity, lazy) strategy has higher DPS and higher DPM than the ABx4AM strategy.

If you're below 50% case, you can start 3 spell casts of 2.5 sec base duration within the 5 sec 2xT10 proc uptime. With over 50% haste (and no lag), you can even squeeze a fourth spell start in, making maximum use of the haste buff.
During Bloodlust/Heroism, together with Icy Veins, it is therefore recommended to use the Tachyon A=3, B->Inifinity rotation (3xAB + 1xMBarr = 4 hasted spells if you're lucky with procs).

Detailled results for the simulated strategies:
  • AB SPAM
    11500295017 Damage done in 1984126.98 sec, costing 1719996236 Mana
    ArcaneBlast:
    * casts: 1000000
    * crit: 59%
    * avg hit=7756, crit=14096, cast time=1.98 sec
  • ABx4AM
    11236529338 Damage done in 1925358.18 sec, costing 647990080 Mana
    ABx4, MBarr 86.98%
    ABx4, AM 13.02%

    ArcaneBlast:
    * casts: 800000
    * crit: 59%
    * avg hit=5726, crit=10408, cast time=1.85 sec
    ArcaneMissiles:
    * casts: 200000
    * crit: 53%
    * avg hit=14753, crit=28825, cast time=2.24 sec
  • Tachyon a=0, b->infinite, lazy
    11047912901 Damage done in 1854542.44 sec, costing 620598122 Mana
    ABx2, MBarr 40.0076%
    ABx3, MBarr 24.0845%
    ABx4, MBarr 14.396%
    ABx5, MBarr 8.6189%
    ABx(n>5), MBarr 12.893%

    ArcaneBlast:
    * casts: 777500
    * crit: 59%
    * avg hit=5767, crit=10483, cast time=1.84 sec
    ArcaneMissiles:
    * casts: 222500
    * crit: 53%
    * avg hit=13144, crit=25686, cast time=1.89 sec
  • Tachyon a=4, b->infinite, lazy
    11259815033 Damage done in 1870174.6 sec, costing 729463468 Mana
    ABx4, MBarr 78.4767%
    ABx5, MBarr 8.6218%
    ABx(n>5), MBarr 12.9015%

    ArcaneBlast:
    * casts: 819377
    * crit: 59%
    * avg hit=5967, crit=10843, cast time=1.85 sec
    ArcaneMissiles:
    * casts: 180623
    * crit: 53%
    * avg hit=14753, crit=28825, cast time=1.98 sec


If you give the new rotations a chance, please let me know about your experiences with them. I know it feels weird to use MBarr before the AB stack is full, the numbers are not quite as high as they used to be, but they're way more frequent.
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