Arcane Mage Macro Help

[heffner]

For the life of me I cannot get my Arcane mage macro to work using a series of /click's

I am trying to do Arcane Blast X3, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage each spell on a different macro (so five macros) activated by a main /click macro.

It seems as if that even though I have three separate macros for each Arcane Blast it behaves as though AB went off on all three and progresses through the castsequence on all three macros.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Fizzler]

post your macro's

[jimbobobb]

/stopmacro [channeling]
/click BT4Button109
/click BT4Button110
/click BT4Button111

#show Icy Veins
/use 14
/castsequence Arcane Power,Icy Veins,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat/10 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Arcane Missiles
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#show Arcane Blast
/cast [target=focustarget] Arcane Blast
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Not mine, these are stolen from a friend. But I use something very similar on my mages that works fine. Also since you are multiboxing, for pretty much anything short of raid encounters, your entire macro should consist of this:

/click <arcane power button>
/click <icy veins button>
/click <trinkets>
/cast <nochanneling> Arcane Blast

This IS the best arcane mage button there is in the game, and is only limited by mana. If you are wearing blues and greens it might not be good for you, but if you're in heroic/badge gear and your mana pool is large enough to get through a boss fight, then this is the only macro you need. I only use anything else when I'm boxing raids and the encounters take longer than 2 minutes.

[Greythan]

I use /click macros for my shaman and warlock.
I use a simple castsequence for my mage and he out dps' all:

arcane blastx3, arcane barrage, arcane missles

I know this sequence is not recommended anywhere, but for the 5 man stuff I do the DPS output is more than sufiicient especially when I pop icy veins, troll racial, and shaman casts bloodlust.

[daviddoran]

I was buying badge gear, and gemming/enchanting all my toons last night, and testing out on the dummys in Ironforge. Currently I'm running a Shadowpriest, 2 Destro Locks and an Arcane mage.

So I decided to dual spec my mage fire and see how that goes. Initially i was dissappointed, but once I bought the right glyphs, and tweaked the macros, i was seeing comprable DPS to my arcane build with the simple sequence of AB,AB,AB,AM,ABarr, with manual Icy Veins/arcane power/trinkets. Once I started to manage the procs for instant pyro, I was seeing a 1000 DPS increase. My mage is very well geared, 4 PC T7, 2 of them T7.5, the T8.5 helm. 1.8k spellpower, and in fire build. 38% base crit. I did notice that I lost my hit cap, arcane/frost gave me 6%, fire only gives me 3% in my current build, and I could feel the difference. I also noticed that its much more mana efficient than arcane, and the scorch debuff made my locks do even more DPS. I should be easily able to pass 4k DPS in a raid with heroism, and all the other raid buffs (I ran with close to full raid buffs just in my own 5 man, and a guildie druid helped a bit too.) I downloaded Proculas so i could better manage the procs in the future. Not sure if I wanna dual spec my other 2 mages, be difficult to manage 3 procs, though i could just customize the notifications to say mage 1 proc press x mage 2 proc press y etc.

[heffner]

Thanks for the suggestions.

My current macro is in fact /castsequence ABX3, AM, ABarr.

I have arcane power, icy veins, POM, mana gem and my trinkets in the macro as well. I have yet to progress to separate macros from my DPS spam (i.e., cast Icy Veins or use my trinkets separately). It's just part of my spam.

I would post the macros I was testing, but I used many combos and most didn't even work.

Basically, I put AB in a /castsequence macro with comma's for timing. I used nochanneling as well. I put the commas before and after and all sorts of combos.

My DPS with the simple single /castsequence macro is not bad and compares to my shammy and boomkin. I just know I can make it better due to my lag. I can see the lag when I am casting (looking at my Quartz cast bars).

I was also trying to work in Mirror Image, but I have yet to do that since they changed castrandom.

Thanks for the macros Jimbobb. I will test those out. I probably should just use the AB spam since I don't really raid atm. I think if I just add the ABarr after the AM in the first macro it will do exactly what I was trying to accomplish. Also, for the icy veins macro, I am pretty sure I can just use

/cast Icy Veins
/cast Arcane Power
/cast POM

since they are instant cast spells.


Cheers!

[Greythan]

I've stayed away from fire as I just can't imagine managing the micro procs necessary to maximize that spec. I'm giving up the perfect arcane rotation of only casting AM on a missle barrage proc, but its a total "no maintenance" spam that seems pretty darn good.

When the changes to arcane go live that I'd read about (AB stacking, what 4 or 5 times now?), I'll probably drop ABarr altogether as the odds are I'll have a missle barrage proc up every time after that many casts of AB.

In five mans mana has NEVER been an issue and its simple enough to have a "no channeling" condition in my DPS macro so I can pop Evocation or a Mana Gem.

[jimbobobb]

It's great that you guys want to utilize all your spells, but you're missing that honestly, the best macro is simply:


/cast Arcane Blast


That's it. Don't bother with other junk unless you have mana problems. Anything short of a raid encounter, you are making a mistake using any other spells. No you can't maintain this for extremely long (My guys can do it for about a minute, and then with a gem and convocation another minute), but it IS the best dps macro. Make it, use it, love it, forget the other stuff until you are raiding with your group.

[Greythan]

Understood on the unsustainable AB spam.

I should probably look for encounters where that makes sense. Probably just too lazy and don't want to wake up oom when I really can't afford it.

[daviddoran]

I haven't had too hard a time of maximizing DPS with hot streak procs, I just used Proculas, set it up to alert in party chat that it proceed, and i have a key to send it (its got /stopcasting so i dont have to wait for it) When it procs a few times, my mage is right up there with my locks, when it doesn't the dps is fair, not quite as good as in arcane spec. BUT for me, since it boosts my groups overall DPS to have scorch, Im going to stay that way.

I think the biggest DPS boost is getting away from a regular castsequence and using /click, I've experienced noticeable lag with sequences, and when i manually do a rotation, its seamless chain casting. /click achieves the same seamless casting because the last spell in the chain is always a straight /cast spell. I can't wait for 3.2.2 for arcane, easier rotation, better mana use, greater chance to proc missile barrage, more chances to proc it, etc. Also, I've become a big fan of popping trinkets and all cooldowns on every pull. I used to save em for boss fights, but its too much of a hassle to cast it, and I often forget anyway.

Edit: I should also note that I got a trinket in a random pug that only procs off of DoT ticks, so it never procced once as arcane, but procs all the time as fire, and on most tests I did contributed 10% to my overall damage done. (thats why I picked that particular mage for fire, others have better trinkets for arcane)