1) I can’t say I am *that* worried about the mana management while grinding… actually it’s been more the health management… I am used to piles of ashes at my feet not screaming mobs.

I actually tee’d THD up for an innerverate last week… just in case, but found that I was managing my mana fine… sure I might only have 5% in the tank when the boss dropped… but not 100% nor 0% (for the lat 20 seconds of the fight).

2) I will give this strategy a go… I think I have been mistakenly trying 3 ABs… and I must find where I left that FireBlast…

3) Consider yourself humored. I actually did knock up an IWIN Arcane button for my Arcane spec (I only created one for my FFB spec a few weeks ago, and was happy with the result, so was definitely doing the same for Arcane).

Basic strategy is.
- 1-ish rotation of AB/AM/MB + 2-3ABs
- Pop IWIN Arcane
- Go Hard
- Evocate
Then depending on the length of the fight,
- Pop IWIN Arcane 1/2 way through, with whatever is off cooldown.
- Near the end Pop IWIN Arcane to finish off the boss.

Apart from anything else I have my mana gem in there as well, so it’s a means to ensure I am regularly refilling + upping my +damage

1) 2 minute evocation! When solo’ing, you can and should be burning your mana, because every couple minutes you can evocate! On boss fights, you have to switch to thinking of your mana as a refillable resource that should be used aggressively (as opposed to frostfire, where, as you mentioned, mana isn’t really a factor).

2) Two arcane blasts followed immediately by an arcane barrage should be enough to take most normal baddies down. If they have just a little HP left after that initial assault, finish them off with a fire blast. The only thing Slow will do is (fittingly) make your killing slower

3) Just do this for me (humor me!): macro your icy veins, arcane power, mirror image, and any “use” trinkets you have into one button, then on a dungeon boss, hit that button right off the bat and start spamming arcane blast, finishing off with a super-speed arcane missiles. Then evocate all your mana back and start with your normal rotation. Tell me that’s not fun!

Ashes do no damage!

I will have to have a deeper look at the Arcane tree… I am finding I am the only caster in our 10 mans lately, so I am thinking I need to spec for myself rather than specing for the day we find another caster.

Slow is loosing it’s appeal, and I must admit I am now finding all sorts of uses for PoM. Haven’t used it since my dodgy TBC leveling spec. So getting it as a part of a worthwhile spec is great.

Following all your other tips, except I have to find where I left fire blast.

I have a macro with AB then PoM. This 2nd one is instant. Not sure if that is better practice, but can’t see it hurts.

I now have so many mods telling me when things prod, or drop off, that I just find it mind blowing. Search for Gnomeaggedon’s theme song, play that while FFB, feel the fiery love.

Arcane… The jury’s still out…

If you do have it in your raiding spec, it does seem to slow down the casting speed on some bosses and it’s an easy way to get on the threat meter without fear of a crazy crit that pulls aggro off the tank immediately, but you won’t need to keep it up to get the Torment the Weak bonus (DK Icy Touch, warrior Thunderclap… all sorts of goodies will help with that).

For raiding I’d skip the slow and also i find using POM separate to AB useful as POM procs that other ability giving + lots% crit and using that when missile barrage procs, then getting your instant AB as well.

For general play and PVP slow is definitely your best friend. Casting it on elite mobs with 100+k HP and kiting them dead is pretty satisfying too.

Enjoy!