A Guide to Mages comment thread

[Serendipity]

Sorry to bump this, but I wanted to add a couple of suggestions to your guide (which is pretty damn good as these things go).


Breakdown of the Improved Mana Shield Talent:

Rank 6 of the spell will absorb 570 damage in exchange for 1140 mana plus the 140 mana it costs to cast the shield. Improving it with talents yields 997 damage absorbed in exchange for 1995 mana (+140 again). Because the spell is instant cast with no recast, the real benefit comes from not having to drop 140 mana to recast it. The normal mana/damage ratio when taking into account the cost of casting the spell is 2.25:1 as opposed to the talent improved ratio of 2.14:1. This is not a particularly convincing improvement, I'd rather just refresh mana shield and spend the points elsewhere.

Further notes on Arcane Meditation from a thread on Graffe's Click here to see the whole thread

Everyone says arcane meditation is useless for the same reasons that they say that spirit sucks. mana regeneration is totally undervalued in WOW. suppose that arcane mind - more mana limit - was really 5 points for 10% total in this comparison.

let's suppose 6,000 mana pool at level 60 and a spirit of aquementas. we're comparing:

1. 15% mana rate through fight
2. 10% total extra mana
3. 6,000 total mana
4. level 60 using scorch (125 mana, 1.5s)
5. The model efficiency fight lasts 36 ticks, or 72 seconds (below)
6. I have now 76 mana/tick
-------------------------------

the above 5 are our basic assumptions. furthermore, I suggest that we're going in for a long haul fight where you want to maximize your mana efficiency. This means using 125 mana scorch (reduced by spirit by 25) chained in this fight. You have exactly 48 casts on this bar to deal with, taking 72 seconds, or 36 ticks. Add the mana ruby to it, and you get 13s extra or almost 7 ticks.

7. 600 mana extra can come from int (2,3)
8. 11 mana rate comes from meditation (1,6)
9. 396 mana comes from arcane meditation plus 77 mana from the extra time of the gem: 473 total. (4,5)
10. 4 extra casts of scorch occur on the extra mana taking 6 seconds, or 3 ticks (4,9)
11. The 3 extra ticks give 33 mana, for 506 mana (1, 9, 10)

The end result is 506 mana vs 600 mana. A fight with evocation will see almost twice as much.

So arcane meditation is actually going to return almost as much mana as arcane mind. For that matter, where efficiency matters, it becomes a bit under the 2% damage adds.

So hardly 'insignificant'. It plays a substantial role. For that matter, arcane meditation GIVES mana. The extra mana talent does not.

It's also important to note that when getting arcane specced up to take the end talents, you might be choosing between arcane mind and meditation. My money's on meditation.

Personally I think arcane meditation is only worth it if you've got an abundance of spirit. The good news is you can hold off your decision to get it for quite a while, then decide based on how your gear is shaping up. If you end up having upwards of 250 spirit, I'd say that this talent would be more beneficial than Arcane Focus or Subtlety.


I would also add that you may want to stress the importance of good UI management through the use of mods which are readily available (eg Flexbar). An efficient UI can be the difference between life and death in many situations, as well as generally being more pleasant to play with. Things like cycling through nearby targets are also very handy for easy polymorphing.