arcane stuffFollow

If that is the case, then what should go in the other trinket slot? Would the chance to proc Quag's eye be helpful in addition to the Mystical Skyfire Diamond?

I thought only the first spell of the channel can proc clear casting, not any one of the 5.

wwcool...

Sorry if I'm skeptical, but I was using this last night in kara and saw arcane missiles shoot out *amazingly* fast. I do believe it corresponded with the proc of the SFD. I will check this tonight on Dr. Boom (static, easy test to look at). Also, I thought that I procced clearcasting on the 2nd or 3rd missile of arcane missiles a few times. This is also easy to check and I will do so tonight.

You could be quite correct, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic, it's just that what you said disagrees with what I *saw* last night. Now, it is possible that there was some wierd lag thing that was going on with the potentially fast missiles I saw, and it could be that it was the first hit of missiles when clearcasting procs (it's hard to see this in the heat of battle sometimes).

I'll test this out and let y'all know. One reason I thought that arcane missiles could proc clearcasting was due to the behavior of each missile acting as a seperate 'hit' (with it's own crit/hit calculations). This is also what allows the lightning capacitor to charge up to 3 charges so quickly.

Asked this question on the O-boards and got several responses such as:

1) AM will only proc clearcasting on the initial cast of AM (what you said)
2) AM *can* use the proc of the MSD (Mystical Skyfire Diamond) and if you're spamming AM, then the next cast of AM will be a 2.5 second cast of 5 missiles.
3) MSD gets 6 chances to proc the effect off of AM from 1) the initial cast and 2) the 5 subsequent missiles.

I'll be testing this for sure tonight, as it still sounds awesome, esp with the lightning capacitor. (I guess I need to redouble my effort to get mags eye).

Thanks for your time and your assistance on the boards, wwcool!

Edited, Oct 3rd 2007 3:32pm by ktangent

Cite on that, or is it just self testing?

Because it was something I was unaware of, which now makes AM spam MUCH more mana efficient than it used to be. I may need to do the math on this one.

So, wouldn't that make MSD less useful on an AM build considering it's 2% every 5 seconds? Pushing the build in favor of a Relentless Earthstorm Diamond(yay for 3% more crit damage)?

Quag's eye has an internal cooldown of something like 40s, iirc. So does Shiffar's Nexus-Horn.

Alrighty, so what I'm seeing is that it procs and then the bolts continue at normal pace, then you use it on another AM(fine use too, IMO, no matter the spec). But it doesn't proc more often? That's what I'm trying to figure out. If it only procs once out of every 20 Arcane Missile casts(not bolts), then something that procs like that seems wasted on a spell that when spammed only gives you one proc every 1 minute, 40s. Whereas with a fireball spam build, you'd get it once every 1 minute flat. You'd get it even faster with, say, a frostbolt or scorch spam build, but you'd need to be careful to use it on the spell that would benefit most from it, IE, AM.

Unless it's not as the gem says, where it gives you next spell half cast and is instead all spells in 10s are half cast.

Just seems like a build that should focus heavily on crit(for LC procs) would highly benefit from a gem that ups crit damage by 3%.

I didn't say it did have a proc per minute system. I mean it has a 5% proc rate and you're only casting once every 5 seconds. Same 5% proc rate when you're casting every 3 seconds seems like it'd proc more.

Further, I went to Dr. Boom today and chain spammed missiles til OOM 2x. I got no clearcastings except those that procced on the initial cast. Could be bad luck, but I'm not so sure. Will do further testing, but right now I'm not seeing Clearcasting having a chance to proc on each bolt. Which means it's still a bit mana inefficient.

Edited, Oct 4th 2007 9:26am by Poldaran

Now that information changes everything. Instead of MSFD proccing once every 60 seconds on Fireballs, if it procs once every 20 seconds on AM spam, that makes it awesome.

It was that information I really needed.

Well... from actual use, it procs a ton. I cannot stay that arcane build in kara though. No mana battery and AM spam sucks the mana dry at an alarming rate. It is absolutely ungoldy in PvP. Empowered - uninteruptible (except by normal interruptions like kick/counterspell/etc.) AM that hits like a mack truck and every 3rd cast or so is 5 bolts in 2.5 seconds which deals a truck-load of damage. Add to it slow vs casters and hunters (or that pesky warrior that you want to kite but don't have permafrost) and it rocks in PvP. The only bad thing is that your leave a nice long purple trail of bolts that says "Kill ME".

I spec'ed back to 10/48/3 for raiding the other night when I was OOM after way too short of a time on nightbane. Perhaps mages should be stacking mp/5 or something along with the new arcane meditiation talent improvement to make arcane very viable in post 2.3, though fire and frost are going to hold their own without sucking the mana dry vis-a-vis the 10% damage un-nerf.

I am interested in this discussion since I was just working on theorycrafting up an Arcane gear set and build this week. I found this discussion
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2041159279&sid=1
to have a surprisingly good amount of info for an o-board post.

Here's the question I've been thinking about: T4 or Spellstrike/Spellfire for Arcane? Have 3/5 T4 in the bank at the moment (waiting for Prince to drop my hat, and not sure if I want to spend DKP on the legs) and Spellfire/Spellstrike on my person, and I'm really thinking the int and spirit on the T4 is worth the loss of damage stats.

Now, here's a thought that's crossed my mind relating to arcane missile spam and I'm wondering if anyone has tried it.

Mark of Defiance - anyone know if this thing can proc off of each hit of an AM? Seems like it would give you a lot of the longevity you're missing as an arcane mage.

I never bothered to get one, but if it works, it might be useful to have.

Thoughts?