Arcane Missiles > Frostbolt on Clearcasting

[mackz]

Hey, first post on this forum.

I was looking through some stuff and was wondering if there was anyway to perhaps up dps without having to spam frostbolt with the arcane/frost build: http://www.wowprovider.com/Old.aspx?tal ... 535d30013f

Basically I looked at the top ranks for arcane missiles and frostbolt. It shows that frostbolt's lower bound is around 429 damage and for arcane missiles it is 192 damage each tick. Frostbolt would be a 2.5 sec cast and arcane missiles is 192 each second for 5.

The net damage equates to 858 for frostbolt over 5 seconds and 960 for arcane missiles. Theoretically there is an even greater chance for a damage increase as there are 5 opportunities for arcane missiles to crit, versus two for frost over those 5 seconds.

Obviously arcane missiles is far more expensive but with clear casting that can easily be tracked with powerauras ( http://gyazo.com/ae7270f9fdb18e0240a35833af42b49e ), it should be worth it. I just haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else.

[Glacial]

But you're forgetting about the 100% dmg on crit increase for frostbolt from Ice Shards, as well as the damage increase from the 6% increase to frost spells from Piercing Ice. Also the fact that you didn't take any points in arcane focus in that build, so you're losing out on 6% chance to hit.

[auk]

using your clearcasts on arcane missiles is a good way to conserve mana (if gives you one tick outside the 5 second rule too) but it's less DPS.

[Youfie]

Theoretically there is an even greater chance for a damage increase as there are 5 opportunities for arcane missiles to crit, versus two for frost over those 5 seconds.

Unless I'm mistaken, this isn't true mathematically speaking, as the two opportunities of the Frostbolt to be a crit are "worth" a lot more damage. Just like there are more "opportunities" for AM to be resisted but the resisted FB end up losing more damage.

Statistically, in the long run, it should be exactly the same. I'm not talking about the crit. bonus difference between the two spells, or base damage, but just theoretically about this "more opportunities" thing.