Arcane Missles Proc broken?

[Malgor]

I have finally broken down and started using Mecurio's Macros

I got them working corectly on my Warlock and Shadow Priest, but I cannot get my mage for the life of me to cast the Acane Missiles.

With my old macro it casts it every time the proc is available.

Now with this new proc it's never casting Arcane Missles:

Arcane Mage

Arcane Sequence Macro
/stopmacro [channeling]
/assist focus
/castsequence Arcane Blast
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Mirror Image
/use Mana Gem
/use 13
/use 14

Arcane Proc Macro
/stopmacro [channeling]
/assist focus
/castsequence reset=6 Arcane Blast,Arcane Blast,Arcane Missiles

I tested the 2 Step set up with mage armor and molten armor (one in each spot) and the cast the two armors back and forth one after the other, so I know my two step is set up correctly. I also got the procs working correctly on my shadow priest and my warlock, and they appear to be set up the right way, just the mage won't proc Arcane missiles.

Anyone have a clue what I have done wrong?


EDIT: After experimenting a bunch more it seems it works when I keep hitting my toggle 2 step back on and off and on again. Not sure why it isn't always on.

EDIT 2: Yes it appears that once I am fighting if I toggle it on and off it works fine, but not unless I'm already engaged in the fight. So I must have one of my ISBOXER settings not quite right. It was all pretty confusing to me not being a computer guy, so I'll keep tweaking it to figure it out.

[EaTCarbS]

/assist focus
/stopmacro [channeling]
/cast arcane power
/cast presence of mind
/cast mirrior image
/use mana gem
/use 13
/use 14
/castsequence arcane blast, arcane blast
/cast arcane missiles


I think you're making it too complicated :)

[Malgor]

Yeah that is my exact old macro and I may have to go back to that. The new macros were supposed to eek out a bit more DPS, but I can't figure out yet what I have wrong in my ISBoxer configuration of Mecurio's macros. I think they are all correct.

But, you are right, I may have to go back to something that simple (which always did about 6500 dps for me), but some of my 5-boxer guild mates were consistently getting 8k+ dps out of the same geared mage with Mecurio's macros, so I thought I'd make the switch.

[Mercurio]

I have finally broken down and started using Mecurio's Macros


I love how you phrased this. It made me laugh out loud. I hope they aren't THAT painful :p

As for the mage macros, the behavior is a bit odd in terms of when the 2 Step bothers to cast the Proc Macro as opposed to the Sequence Macro. It definitely is worth the pain of trying to get it right though, as if you just have /cast Arcane Missiles in your macro (as EaTCarbS posted) your DPS will drop substantially. The problem is the Arcane Missiles just procs too randomly and too quickly overall. One or two casts of Arcane Blast between each Arcane Missiles means your arcane damage buff never ramps up to what it needs to be.

To optimize your DPS without totally eating through your mana you would cast 4-5 Arcane Blasts before each Arcane Missiles. So that's what we are aiming for. Since we are pounding away on the 2 Step key many more times than it takes to cast Arcane Blast, it should be pretty random whether you end up casting the Sequence or Proc Macro each time. On average, it should alternate, making you cast about 5 Arcane Blasts per Arcane Missiles. If you get really unlucky and get all Proc executions, you'll still cast Arcane Blast at least twice (and you are protected against this somewhat since after only two Arcane Blasts chances are Arcane Missiles will not have procced yet). If you get unlucky the other way, you may end up casting 8+ Arcane Blasts before Arcane Missiles ever goes off.

Pinot was using these macros and even over long executions of the macros on the target dummies it seemed he was actually executing the Sequence Macro more than half the time, meaning he rarely cast Arcane Missiles and ate up his mana very quickly. He removed one of the Arcane Blasts from the Proc Macro so it was /castsequence reset=6 Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and this helped him get to about five Arcane Blasts per one Arcane Missiles (exactly what we are aiming for). I'm not sure why he was getting this behavior of a tendency to cast the Sequence Macro more than the Proc Macro, but this was a very easy workaround that solved his problem.

I hope it is helpful to you as well.

[Malgor]

I love how you phrased this. It made me laugh out loud. I hope they aren't THAT painful.

LOL no not painful. Just I don't know ISBoxer / Innerspace well enough to just breeze through setting something like this up. Luckily I have a good group of boxers in my guild who helped me (Thanks Mike! and Jack). It still took me several hours of tweeking and since I have two teams of five lots of macro re-writing (or copy pasting from here).

I still don't understand why sometimes I can't get it to proc Arcane Missiles when the proc is ready. It seems that it only works if I toggle my 2 step toggle off/on once I begin the fight then it works every time. I set the 2 step up to use the ' key since I don't use that in game for anything else, and then reset button in the key bindings for Right Bar 1 (which is the third bar first button) on all my toons so I have it in the same place on all of them.

So, I may still have something wrong, but as I closely examine it all with what your post has (and THANK YOU FOR IT!) and what I have in ISBoxer it seems right. And, the fact that once I toggle the 2 step toggle button off then on again, it seems to work fine, but just for that fight. Then I have to re-toggle off/on again once I start the next one. For most instances this is no big deal at all, and for boss fights easy to just toggle once the fight has begun, but as a default it seems it should just be on and work all the time or if I have something wrong it shouldn't work at all.

Just confusing, but I'll keep working at it!

Thanks for posting a response!

Malgor

[Lyonheart]

Pinot was using these macros and even over long executions of the macros on the target dummies it seemed he was actually executing the Sequence Macro more than half the time, meaning he rarely cast Arcane Missiles and ate up his mana very quickly. He removed one of the Arcane Blasts from the Proc Macro so it was /castsequence reset=6 Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and this helped him get to about five Arcane Blasts per one Arcane Missiles (exactly what we are aiming for). I'm not sure why he was getting this behavior of a tendency to cast the Sequence Macro more than the Proc Macro, but this was a very easy workaround that solved his problem

My guess would be button spam rate+latency=different results

[HPAVC]

I would tighten that macro up a bit with to possibly allow the flow to fall through cleaner. Especially removing the assist


/cast [@focus, harm, nodead] spellname

[Littleburst]

100% arcane blast spam is the best dps as far as I have experienced. So unless mana is an issue, don't worry to much about the arcane missles.

I just removed arcane missiles from the macro for my 79 mage. Upped his DPS by quite a lot.