Risto's Guide to Arcane for Beginners


This guide is about how to use arcane spells and arcane talent specs. Why arcane? There are reasons like - amaze with your dps - but maybe you just want to try something new, have problems with pulling aggro or just acquired two pieces of T5 gear and got arcane blast bonus. Or maybe you are just bored of fire and frost. (After fire immune bosses in Molten Core and dps extreme Naxxramas perhaps or doing arena with frost).

First of all only 40 points in arcane tree is needed for the two main nukes of arcane to work. Main single target spell is Arcane Blast and main area of effect spell is Arcane explosion. Third useful spell Arcane missiles demands 43 arcane but in raid boss fights it's only used as "fill up spell" for spell rotation to refresh arcane blast stack.

Arcane missiles is in these builds: full 61 arcane, 43/13/3+2 arcane pyro and 48/0/13 arcane icy veins. Arcane missiles is useful for stacking certain trinket and for spell stolen "machine gun" in Zul'aman. For main nuke arcane missiles spends a lot of mana and is hard to maintain enough mana regen for it. Also it has smaller dps than stacked arcane blast.

Arcane builds for pvp and pve are different and mostly it is more useful for pve with the exception of 40 arcane with 21 frost that includes Shatter: Spell power 2/2 and Shatter 5/5. This build relies on high crits from using spells on frozen targets. Note that this is different from 40/0/21 pve build which doesn't have shatter and has -threat for frost instead.

40/0/21

This spec is currently the highest aoe and single target dmg spec for reasons below:

( http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/mage/talents.html?tal=2500250300030150330125000000000000000000000000535000310030010000000 ) and if you have 10% hit from gear spend extra points to something else like http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/mage/talents.html?tal=2300350310030150330125000000000000000000000000535000310030010000000 )

- after your threat per second/minute hits tank_threat_cap (depends on tank, fight type and hunter's using misdirection) you are gimped with fire spec and sometimes can't use invisibility or it fails to reset aggro. It's spoken only in whispers but some tanks go for coffee in middle of boss fights and just auto attack. It happens more often than you think, deal with it. ;)

- arcane spells have lowest threat per second

- manageable for 10 minute long boss fight with shadow priest and maybe shaman in group. Also note usage of dmg food, flask, elixirs, brilliant wizard oil and mana potions.

- Even the experts (noobs) at elitist jerks site agree it's best arcane spec.

- Need only 6% spell hit from gear for arcane and 10% for frost. (13% for fire) I'm Not explaining...

- Two Icy Veins with Cold Snap! Fire mages can only dream of this kind of burst... Arcane blast spam + icy veins + arcane power + trinket + possible other trinket buff + maybe disc priest buff = Even with my %#!% gear can dish out 3k+ dps burst for long enough to make difference. (In boss fight 1350 avarage normal, 2,1k for limited duration, 2k-5,5k aoe in my mostly kara, ZA, badge & pvp gear with only two tier 5 cloths)

- 2 ice blocks. Ok you die a lot and just can't stand it. nuff said...

It's however good spec only for mages that know what they are doing. Not difficult to use when just know how it works. It can be horrible spec when played wrong. I know casual "fire mages" that have only played with one spec and haven't raided long won't agree but I saw what happened to threat of fire spec after the notorious threat and rolling ignites fix and Naxxramas stat level changing to tbc stat level. TK & SSC had also funny immunities for fire and frost and threat resets that are bad for fire dots.

How to play with this spec?

1. Use arcane blast as main nuke!

Arcane blast is about 80% of my dmg in single target boss fight with current mana regen from all my sources. Rotation is only needed if can't get enough mana from group members/potions/gems/gear/innervates. (don't bother with mana regen gear, go for max dmg/crit gear with spell hit capped. Rotation is used to refresh stack of arcane blast to first low mana cost AB. Try spell haste if your LAG is low - otherwice gear for dmg/crit. I don't get full benefit from haste gear with my lag so I don't use it.

- Basic rotation is 3 AB -> 3 Frostbolts and fast AB. Fast AB because you can still get fast cast - spell haste helps if you can't reach it). Only use rotation if you can't maintain arcane blast spam. At some gear level can just ignore rotations. Only 40 talents from arcane is needed for this. Basic rotation for arcane pyro build is 3 AB -> Arcane missiles-> Scorch->fast AB.

2. Manage your mana consumption!

The way you burn your mana should depend on the estimated fight length and your group setup. No shadow priests, druid doesn't give innervates, shaman doesn't use mana tide, dmg or hit/crit totem, you don't use consumables, forgot to drink in between fights-> use rotation and if things get bad - frostbolt spam. (it's actually possible to regen mana with frostbolt spam in really nice group until mana gem and mana potion cool down is over ;) With high crit rate frostbolts with Spell power talent do quite nice dps especially with full frostmage in group but are less dps otherwice. Since you die less with low aggro arcane you can afford mana potions. Drink always when possible.

3. Threat.

Arcane has lowest threat -40% of all specs but it does become a problem again after you go way over the top. Get Subtlety enchant on cloak when it happens and pop invisibility for high burst after it.

4. Tier 5

Get two pieces of T5 for 20% higher AB dmg (and mana usage). Youd dps will increase by 200 dps when you reach that gear and it scales with gear. This spec can be used without those gears..

5. AoE

Your aoe nuke is Arcane explosion. Don't use blizzard unless you don't feel safe with your tanks. Use Cone of Cold if you like and especially if you have more pvp oriented arcane-shatter build. Very important in aoe - get paladin tank to your guild! You can easily beat evenly geared experienced destruction warlocks in aoe heavy fights like in Battle for Mount Hyjal if you don't have to worry about aggro!

6. Warlocks

Make sure warlocks use Curse of shadow/arcane. Curse of elements is not that important for you ;)

7. Shadow priest, resto shaman and dps paladin are your best friends

You will want to give gear to shadow priest who maximises your mana gained. Resto shamans have mana tide totem. If you have loads of shadow priests and not much mages, Get 2 shadow priests to same group! Also destruction warlocks and hunters will want to stay in your group but you won't benefit from other than Curse of shadow. Dps Paladin with JoW on boss helps you also. Also remember that you need tank paladin for max aoe dmg without any cc delays. Tank paladins need mage swords..Notable other buffs: Caster shaman has +3% hit/crit totem and +1% from racial (even less need for hit gear), shaman haste, paladins have kings and blessing of wisdom, discipline priests have nice dmg from spirit. Moonkins with 5% spell crit.

8. Beyond Battle for Mount Hyjal raid

if you get four pieces of tier 6 check if your tanks can handle fire spec but if not just use 2 pieces from t5 and rest from t6 or other gear. With T6 fire is certainly interesting.

9. Best trinkets for Arcane

Lightning capacitor from Karazhan is really nice for arcane even after it's change. Without shadow priest in group (or low dmg spriest) level 62 trinket Mark of Defiance is best trinket for arcane mage followed by Serpent-Coil Braid and The Lightning Capacitor. I complement Serpent with icon of the silver crescent because I like to have a macroed burst opener spell. These are quoted from manoutoftime:

DPS Increase Trinket
68.72 Ashtongue Talisman of Insight
64.72 The Skull of Gul'dan
59.97 The Lightning Capacitor
56.92 Hex Shrunken Head
52.39 Quagmirran's Eye
49.96 Darkmoon Card: Crusade (10-minute restack)
46.65 Darkmoon Card: Crusade (3-minute restack)
46.06 Sextant of Unstable Currents
44.34 Icon of the Silver Crescent
40.48 Sorcerer's Alchemist Stone
39.71 Eye of Magtheridon
39.65 The Restrained Essence of Sapphiron
36.51 Darkmoon Card: Crusade (1-minute restack)
35.50 Shiffar's Nexus-Horn
33.11 Serpent-Coil Braid

DPM Increase Trinket
0.85 Mark of Defiance
0.68 Serpent-Coil Braid
0.53 The Lightning Capacitor

10 Trinket macros for arcane

These are very optional but I don't use normal spell buttons. I don't want to press +dmg/20 second trinkets so I use these that include the /use ability trinkets I change around. First macro uses +dmg trinket with arcane blast (but doesn't use if you are targetting friendly player) Second one launches frostbolt and uses trinket AND uses icy veins. I like to use icy veins when I clear AB stack so I get nice burst after it but it is questionable: icy veins could very well be used in arcane blast only but this way I avoid making too much aggro in beginning.

#show Arcane Blast(Rank 1)
/stopMacro [noharm]
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use Icon of the Silver Crescent
/use Scryer's Bloodgem
/use Xi'ri's Gift
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Arcane Blast(Rank 1)

#show Frostbolt(Rank 13)
/stopMacro [noharm]
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use Icon of the Silver Crescent
/use Scryer's Bloodgem
/use Xi'ri's Gift
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Frostbolt(Rank 13)

Just remember you are pro mage only if you are fun to play with, nothing else matters ;)

Arnadons guide to Arcane for Noobs

DON'T SPECC IT!!!

no just kidding it's great whit the rigth gear and party.

Sticky please

Noob does not equal Newbie. If you've been a noob, good for you. Most of the players haven't. However, we've all been newbies, so feel free to change "noob" to newbie. Or beginner, which sounds even better.

nice one

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Q u o t e:
Noob does not equal Newbie. If you've been a noob, good for you. Most of the players haven't. However, we've all been newbies, so feel free to change "noob" to newbie. Or beginner, which sounds even better.

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Alrighty ;)

Ooo :-o

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Q u o t e:

- Need only 6% spell hit from gear for arcane and 10% for frost. (13% for fire) I'm Not explaining...

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how much hit rating is that? why is it like that? I raid with 17-0-44 and it does good dps.

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Q u o t e:
how much hit rating is that? why is it like that? I raid with 17-0-44 and it does good dps.

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As 40/0/21 your main nuke is AB, with frostbolt "fillers" when you need to slow your mana burn.
As such, you need to be hit capped for frost as thats a higher hit cap than needed for arcane.

Spell hit caps (99%) vs +3 level raid bosses:

No talents : 202
Arcane with Arcane Focus 5/5 : 76
Fire with Elemental Precision 3/3 : 164
Frost with Elemental Precision 3/3 : 126*

* Currently bugged +6% ghost hit for frost spells from Elemental Precision 3/3.

You only want hit cap arcane and use the 50 item points to buy more spell damage instead. As Risto mentioned 80% of your damage comes from Arcane Blast.

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Q u o t e:
As Risto mentioned 80% of your damage comes from Arcane Blast.

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Depends on the encounter mechanics - some fights (Leo/Morogrim for example) it's 100% arcane.
But, dependant on the encounter and what group synergies you have, 100% AB spam may not be viable, hence frostbolt fillers. But the more frostbolts you use the lower your dps drops and given the binary resists, you just gimp yourself even further. And if you are at 2xT5 level at least, 126 +hit is easy to come by even without gems.

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Q u o t e:
DPS Increase Trinket
68.72 Ashtongue Talisman of Insight
64.72 The Skull of Gul'dan
59.97 The Lightning Capacitor
56.92 Hex Shrunken Head

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If I use the same site with my gear (I got 5xtier5 and 7xtier6 to play around with) I get some different numbers. Fully raidbuffed with both 2xtier5 bonus and 4xtier6 bonus gear on in an arcane+IV spec I get:
77.76 Ashtongue Talisman of Insight
65.83 The Lightning Capacitor
63.28 The Skull of Gul'dan
51.29 Hex Shrunken Head

The choice of trinket depend on the encounter and your other gear (and ofc spec).

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With my gear in a Brutallus fight as arcane I would pick Ashtongue Talisman of Insight and The Lightning Capacitor, spam AB with AP+IV+drums/heroism 2 times, AP as much as I could and AM for the rest of the fight (no deep frost mages in the raid, but a retri paladin keeping crusader and wisdom judge up). With 25000-30000 mana from a shadow priest, 10000-15000 mana from Judge of wisdom, around 3700 from mana spring, 2500-5000 from mana tide (got a resto-shaman in the group as well), 362 mp5 = 26000 mana from passive regen while casting with mage armor, plus 80% evocation (around 12k) and 3 mana gems (7200 mana), and 3 super mana pots (7200 mana too) (loss of destro-pots though). That is above 100.000 mana including the original mana pool - let us just say I got 100.000 mana to play with to make it easy. And still I haven't even included 10% clearcasting :) Some extra stuff like Innervates, Blessing of Wisdom, Judgement of the Crusader, destro-pots during AB, drums and so on will boost the dps more (I'm doing above 2200 dps on him after 6 minuts as 2-48-11, even though the calculator say I should be around 1800).

Let us say I can keep:
AP+AB+IV spam for 30 sec at 3000 dps for (731/1,5x30 = 14620mana) (487 mps)
AB spam for 2 minute at 2300 dps mana 53760 (448 mps)
AM spam for 3½ minute at 1350 dps 32970 mana (157 mps)
That would give me a total overall dps of 1800 at a total of 101350 mana.

I haven't tested this yet, but I'm fairly sure I would be able to keep up this 1800 overall for 6 minutes like this on Brutallus as deep arcane with pure am and AB spam rotations. This is still more than 400 dps lower than what I do as fire, though, but this boss is also 100% fire minded. The trash before Brutallus and both Kalecgos and Felmyst both favor arcane mages by a huge margin to fire, so in an overall raid I think I will do most damage as arcane - assuming the raid got enough dps to kill Brutallus with me as only 1800 dps on him. Using other rotations (e.g. with a deep frost mage in the raid), leeching innervates, clever use of clearcasting, more drums, boomkin in group, having an elemental shaman instead of a resto and so on all can boost it further.

Nice post, can only agree with what you wrote as a fellow 40/0/21 specced mage :-)

Also thanks Gediablo for the calculations on trinkets. I've been putting my TLC after a long use in my bags to use an 'on use' trinket because I thought it could have been better in combination with AP/IV, but seems like I'm wrong. /equip TLC again.

Some more info about arcane:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=3642095932&postId=37042773036&sid=1#6

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Q u o t e:
AM spam for 3½ minute at 1350 dps 32970 mana (157 mps)

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I am still not convinced that AM is that good even with Emp AM - plugging my gear into the calculator and comparing my 40/0/21 with the 43/0/11+7 then AM and frostbolt have about the same DPS but the DPM from frostbolt is way better. Maybe it's simply like which trinkets to use, to an extent it's gear dependant.

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Q u o t e:
I am still not convinced that AM is that good even with Emp AM - plugging my gear into the calculator and comparing my 40/0/21 with the 43/0/11+7 then AM and frostbolt have about the same DPS but the DPM from frostbolt is way better. Maybe it's simply like which trinkets to use, to an extent it's gear dependant.

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True got better dpm, and if you got a deep frostmage in the raid you should. Not so sure it is worth gimping yourself with all that hit-gear though. Also I don't intend to test it until I'm in a 1 mage raid, and by then I most certainly won't have CoE - hence I will go for 50/0/11. The spec, trinkets and rotations I picked here allowed me to ignore hitgear and is pretty simple to explain. I never claimed my description above to be the best, just an estimate of what you could do as pure arcane in an arcane unfriendly fight in a standard raid.

Interesting post,

but the crafted Epics so many mages use until quite late game content (certainly T5 and above) doesn't really support the use of an arcane / frost spec since neither crafted set supports both spell schools.

The solution is obviously an arcane /fire build but then the issue is the +hit requirement for the fire spells eating drastically into the amount of bonus damage that arcane potentailly frees up.

Do you simply hit the arcane cap and cross fingers that the scorch filler spells don't get resisted or accept they will get resisted more than you would like and so waste time, DPS and mana. Or do you increase the +hit to the point where you are "over" hit capped for arcane and move towards the hit cap for fire and cry about the lost damage bonus that you could have had.

One of the tempting arguments for me looking at arcane mainly for ZA and t5 content, is the reduction in the +hit cap which really frees up some gem options for more damage and crit.


Your thoughts

Having read this and seen some oversights, I thought I'd give my opinion on arcane:

There several builds that you can use, the afore mentioned ones by Risto, and these:
N.B. I will not be mentioning any hybrid builds like 30/0/31 10/48/3 etc.

40/0/21
40/21/0
50/0/11
50/11/0
61/0/0

40/0/21 is the haste rating build imo, gemming wise, most often +dmg and +crit are used, as the user only has ~10k mana in raid buffs so relies on the frost tree.
40/21/0 is a pre resilence pvp build (or low resilence), or a mid range pve build
50/0/11 is a high int and spirit build, usually with gems that are +8 or 10 int
50/11/0 is a massive crit pvp spec, not really useful in pve apart from heroics, when your iwinbutton is known as the '#%**off' button.
61/0/0 is a pure arcane mage, needs extremely high int and spirit, and is often considered the support class of arcane mages, due to prismatic cloak, imp dampen/amplify magic etc. ends up needing less from the raid, and gives more than a standard mage.
This spec is comparable to 'spirit mages' pre tbc. Down sides of this tree are that, if you get CS'd your arcane tree, is out for 8 seconds. and thats your only damaging tree, much like shadow priest and their shadow tree. Another down side is it requires a tremondous amount of mana to use only arcane spells. ~20k+ is needed for this.

40/0/21 (or devations of it) rely on gemming +hit, and +crit, as there is little scope for continiously using Arcane Blast (from this point forth, will be called AB)
out of all the arcane trees this one suffer least from mana issues, because you mainly use frost and AB spell rotations based around removing the debuff.
For this reason this spec has to gem to get 126 hit, not the 76 normally needed by arcane. without the use of epic gems, this often leads to lower +dmg, but with decent gems and gear standards this gets high spelldamage. Haste rating does not affect this build negatively, and improves its performance.
however should the ghost hit rating ever be fixed, this build will suffer.



50/11/0
this build makes the most use with spellfire + 2 bits of T5. haste rating does not help it, as it is most useful in heroics, and 10 man raids. having said that however. pyro blast has exceedingly limited uses in pve once the packs have been pulled.
it is (semi) useful in pvp when you've poly'd your apponent, or when you have your 'iwinbutton' ready. you can still top the damage metres in heroics, and 10 mans, but you wont hold up much in 25 mans. where you're 11 points in fire make it all but useless unless you have gemmed +hit, to get the 164 that fire needs, where upon there is little point having 50 points spent in arcane.

50/0/11
This spec can be played 2 ways.
1) the way i dont approve of
2) the way i do.

way number 1) is to gem +dmg and +crit gems. as our OP Risto has.
Let me make this clear i am not bashing risto's explination or character, i am mearly using his gemming as an example, and that is to gem hit/crit/dmg.
This way gives you much the same benifits of 40/0/21 but IMO there is 0 point of going that spec if you are going to gem hit/crit/dmg gems. you dont have the mana to play with high mana cost spells.

Then there is way number 2)
Gem +int, +int/dmg +dmg/spirit.
An example of this is me. yes i have a healing gem in my spellfire belt, that is simply because the epic +6 dmg and +4 spirit gem is not a guarentted drop, and as im not short on stamina, i have no need for a +6dmg and 5 stamia gem, when spirit is more useful.
This build is a high int build.

since 2.4 int factors into mp/5
Elitest jerks would have us belive that : (0.001 + 0.009327 * S * sqrt(I) ) * 5 = mp/5 i personally think these numbers are a great approximate, but that they are off by a tiny bit. only i cba to check where.

This high int build, basically puts the int factor of mp/5 to 1.5 i.e. your mp/5 = 1.5* your spirit. due to all your int stacking.

Many of you theroy crafters will argue 'dude your not maxed our your dps' 'dude your gemming wrong'
I will say this to you,
leave.
what is the point of being able to do 8000 dps if you can only do it for 1 second.?

The advantages of this build are, you can (with a spriest) spam AB.
you can use the frost spells once you get low on mana, and you can use iceyviens + AB + BL to become a monster and nuke anything you see until your 18.5k mana disappears.
Then you can switch to using frost till you have enough mana to go back to using arcane.
Another advantage of this gemming method is that in raid buffs, you get your int factor in the mp/5 to equal nearly 2.
so 1 spirit = 2mp/5
and you have 60% while casting.
reaching numbers like 700 mp/5 (not while casting) and 420 while casting.

This spec goes best with 2 t5, and then a switch from spellfire, to 4xt5 once you have it.
your crit rate is significantly higher than gemming +hit/+crit/+dmg gems.
your mp/5 is greater
your damage is slightly lower, but increases drastically in standard raid buffs to be the same, (BoK, spirit buff, AI, food, gotw + flask)

with 50/0/11 haste rating is one of your worst enemies.
Haste rating is bad for you when your oom you do little damage, haste rating makes you go oom quicker. you rarely should have a problem in this build with converting mana into damage.,



Then we come to 61/0/0 this is the purebreed arcane mage, and frankely, should not be tried till you have exceptional gear.
This build is compareble to pre tbc spirit mages. you need good spirit, and good int. and then you have 2 options.
1) approximately 20k mana raid buffed, upon getting this you can spam AB.
constantly.
2) Haste rating with good spirit, and low int.
you can spam Arcane missles with 4xt6 and good haste rating to do alot of damage, but it needs the good gear, this benifits most from haste rating as its a 5 second channel. 10% haste isnt hard to get. but thats 0.25s on a frost bolt 0.3s on a frieball. and 0.5s off the AM channel. with 20-40% haste ( still attainable with the right gear, i dont know what will happen to the rest of your stats however) you can knock 2 seconds or so off the cast time and be a machinegun.

This 61/0/0 is theoritcal, i have not got this gear yet, and it is what i think will be viable. i have done no 'theory'crafting on maximum dps possbile with this build. or any build for that matter, i have just tired them.


Having said all this, arcane does have something going for it that few other class/spec do.
Intellect gives you 4 stats.
it gives you:
spell damage
spell crit
mana
mana per 5

the 5 tier tree talent [Arcane Mind] increases all these bonuses. but as previously said, it is only suitable for some builds.

with any arcane build, skill is important

newbies should try to learn how to play the arcane tree
and noobs should stay the hell away from it.


Having said all this, i will click post and prepare to be bashed by noobs.

Krakan


edits: typo corrections.

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Q u o t e:
50/0/11
[...]
Then you can switch to using frost till you have enough mana to go back to using arcane.

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So you hit cap for arcane and use frostbolt fillers for regen even with binary resists ?
That's similar to 40/0/21 (hit capped for frost) but your dps in non-arcane mode will drop by more (by comparison) within a raid environment, would it not ?

Or is it the case that the dps drop is "acceptable" given the arcane dps cycle ?

Edit: Clarifications.

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Q u o t e:
way number 1) is to gem +dmg and +crit gems. as our OP Risto has.

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I have done that because I have got those gems cheap or I have wanted socket bonus. :) Also:

I have seen exact values but approximates from memory: For me 1 crit was about 0,71 dmg and 1 haste 1,4 dmg. Value for hit is usually 1,5 if lower than hit cap. (when closing to hit cap value of hit goes to 0) Ok I don't even know the dps value of 1 intellect point since it's so low.

I don't recommend stacking intellect since it's poor increase to dmg done. It only gives very small increase to crit and allows to do longer your gimped low ab spam dmg. High spell dmg and crit are the way to increase the value of your mana wich means DMG/MANA. If you have high mana pool but low spell dmg your dps will be bad. You couldn't top dmg in my raid group with that gear since they have 120+ days played and don't do beginner mistakes. At level 60 there were no mages that chose spirit or intellect over dmg in the hard core guilds that reached Naxxramas- atleast if the mages wanted to top dmg meter.

Your mana pattery is not only your own mana pool. It's the shadow priest dps and mana tide totem of resto shaman. The higher dps the shadow priest has the less problems with mana you have. Poorly geared priest means you will get less mana. Also druids should give innervates to the shadow priest if he goes oom.