According to icyveins, wowhead and pretty much every guide about arcane mage, regardless of being in the burn phase or conserve phase you should only cast arcane missiles when you have the clearcasting proc, otherwise it’s always spam of arcane blast.
I just reached level 78 on my arcane mage alt, which means I got my mastery which increases the damage of m arcane blast by a given percentage, but is it actually better than arcane missiles?
At the moment (level 78) I deal 1610 damage with AM at the cost of 1404 mana. Arcane blast (at 4 charges) deals 1271 damage and costs 1285 mana.
It is clear that at this stage, in terms of mana/damage ratio AM is the better choice to spam as it is more mana efficient AND deals more damage.
I know guides are meant for lvl 120 with full gear, so will arcane blast scale better compared to arcane missiles? I just don’t see a mathematical reason to use blast over missiles at this stage, unless we take into consideration Touch of the Magi. But it procs only 10% of the time.
Looking at your gear you do not own a singular Mastery item which boosts Arcane Blast and is irrelevant for Arcane Missiles.
As a sidenote Mastery also boosts Arcane Barrage damage which you will be unable to use with only Arcane Missiles since they do not gain Arcane Charges.
Don’t forget to consider the cast time of the two spells.
Arcane Missiles base speed is 2.5 seconds meanwhile Arcane Blast is 2.25.
Which means you will be able to do more Arcane Blasts.
Another thing to consider is long term mana efficiency, which is less relevant while leveling.
Arcane Blast for instance at Level 120 with 4 Charges costs 13.750 Mana meanwhile Arcane Missiles cost 15.000 Mana.
So Arcane Blast is always cheaper to cast even at max ranks (However pretty much comparable in Manacost when considering Arcane Blast is quicker to cast).
But the first 3 Arcane Blasts are cheaper by a long shot and as prior mentioned you get access to Arcane Barrage to reset stacks/do damage.
Long term you would go oom way quicker spamming Arcane Missiles.
And at some point and time you have to start using Arcane Blasts and Arcane Barrage as you are unable to cast anymore Arcane Missiles. (Do so before you are completely oom)
Numbers from leveling can be quite different from endgame and it might make short term more sense to cast Arcane Missiles while leveling especially without Mastery gear.
Thanks for the reply.
I noticed that you mention the mana cost and cast time, but not the actual damage.
IF (I’m not at max lvl yet so I can’t know for sure) the mana cost of AB is inferior to that of AM, but the damage of AB is WAY less than that of AM, then you can see that in terms of mana efficiency, AM is better. You may not be able to spam it as long as AB, but the overall dps per mana spent will be higher. Again, not taking into consideration TotM.
Is the point to deal the highest damage possible or to last the longest but less efficiently?
Don’t cast [Arcane Missiles] when [Arcane Power] is active (The mana cost on [Arcane Blast] is reduced and there is no benefit with clear casting at the same time) you should save the missle proc for when arcane power is no longer active and you are below 70% to 80%.
I treat [Arcane Missiles) in BFA purely as a regen break to extend my burn to 0% mana or during my conserve phase to maintain 80% mana for as long as possible before having to [Arcane Barrage]
Also sometime I actively avoid using [Arcane Missiles] if my burn is lasting to long. (If it lasts to long my [Evocation] CD may not be back up by the end of my next burn)
On my last raid pull:
[Arcane Blast] accounted for 57.5% of my damage,
[Arcane Missiles] Accounted for 11.6%
[Arcane Barrage] Accounted for 5.3%
(Also just for perspective on how bad missiles are on DPS, [Arcane Missiles] was my 3rd most damaging ability, not my second which was a [Twisted Appendage] @ 12.3% -_-)
The last time I used [Arcane Missiles] as a DPS increase was WoD, even if you spec into [Amplification] it’s still a DPS loss when you cast it during arcane power. (Both in terms of damage done and mana coefficient on burn)
In summary, they are not as cool / damaging as they should be, only for mana conservation, and mobilty if you speced [Slipstream]
Yh or just AB soon overtakes it with some mastery, missle spam is actually better before max level usually as you rarely have chance to get 4 charge AB casts off.
Missilies are better even if you are 120 lvl until you get ~20% mastery and some azerite traits that boost AB dmg… And while you leveling use missiles even when Arcane Power is active. For leveling you can just delete blast from your spells bar. Trust me i’m leveling 3rd mage right now.
I see many of you guys recommend AB over missiles in the endgame, including icyveins and wowhead guides. But then if AB gets better with mastery, why these guides recommend stacking crit and haste over mastery? Haste reduces the cast time and crit always helps, but wouldn’t mastery be even more useful ?
Crit, Haste, Versatility and Mastery all of them increase the DPS you do with Arcane Blast.
Just in different ways. Crit allows you to hit harder sometimes, Haste allows you to hit more often, Versatility allows you to hit harder and Mastery allows you to hit harder and have a bit more Mana/manareg.
It’s just simply Mastery being slightly undertuned.
Also Mastery doesn’t increase the damage you do from Arcane Explosions in AoE situations, only slightly more damage to Arcane Barrage for AoE.
Thus in AoE situations Mastery is somewhat of a dead stat (outside of a tad bit more mana and manareg).
Mastery is more useful? I’m confused. Mastery and Crit are best for arcane are they not? Then vers, with haste bottom of the list. I played Arcane on maut prog and my sims was all crit mastery im sure.
Why does icy-viens have it different? Can’t imagine there’s another build, too many dead talents for that.
Crit is most important stat for arcane. Especially in AoE and single target. My arcane spec, crits, up to 300k dmg on elites in the visions, and around 280k in raids, with all cd used ofc. Mastery is the King when you leveling up, it makes spec almost unkillable while leveling - infinite mana shield without cd + rule of three = endless absorb. But at level cap you probably better with crit.
It is depends on your goals. You see, fire and arcane spec in raids and mythics is all about the “10 seconds of glory”, when you use combust or Arcane Power, and under those specific circumstances, when you need to fit as many AP blasts in your 10 secs window of glory, crit and versatility/haste for Arcane spec, will generate more damage. Especially since talented Arcane Power reducing mana usage so much so you don’t need to even care about it while buff is on.