Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[Hasufer]

Started progression on Garrosh heroic 25 as arcane last night - any small tips and optimisations to help out?
I got phase 1 figured pretty well by now (i'm on engineer, tho trying to change that, but not sure it will be). First intermission and Phase 2 as well, any advice from here on out would be appreciated ^^
Specially interested in phase 4 tip'sn tricks (malice etc) but also previous in the encounter ^^

Thx on forehand

[Kendeura]

For phase 4 it'd be a good idea to have 2 rings out at all times.

[Deleted]

Hey. 535Ilvl Mage here, started to play again like 2 weeks ago, last time I played was in 5.2. I'm starting to raid with my guild soonish and i'm wondering in which spec would I be most helpful with this low gear (Still like month for legendary cloak etc)

I tried fire abit and it seemed okay, but I heard it's not the best spec with this low gear, and so I changed to frost. Frost felt best spec to play with atm (I love fire tho, and it has always been my favourite spec). But after joining into my guilds Paragon and Garrosh normal, I got pretty depressed with the amount of dps I did. This was my first time on normal raid for long time tho, no flask, no prepot, FPS dropped pretty low cause I had others things on the background.

After doing these bosses and getting some gear for me, I decided to try arcane at dummys and see If I can get anything out of it, and so I got like 130-140k max DPS. (Consistent, not burst) which for me feels so disappointing when I see people in my raid doing 3x that dps ( They are 575 Ilvl with cloak ofc)

So i'm looking for help which spec I should stay and for how long? I will preferrably switch so fire asap it's worth it, and I don't play arcane unless have to, feels so clunky in my hands.

[willemh]

Hey. 535Ilvl Mage here, started to play again like 2 weeks ago, last time I played was in 5.2. I'm starting to raid with my guild soonish and i'm wondering in which spec would I be most helpful with this low gear (Still like month for legendary cloak etc)

I tried fire abit and it seemed okay, but I heard it's not the best spec with this low gear, and so I changed to frost. Frost felt best spec to play with atm (I love fire tho, and it has always been my favourite spec). But after joining into my guilds Paragon and Garrosh normal, I got pretty depressed with the amount of dps I did. This was my first time on normal raid for long time tho, no flask, no prepot, FPS dropped pretty low cause I had others things on the background.

After doing these bosses and getting some gear for me, I decided to try arcane at dummys and see If I can get anything out of it, and so I got like 130-140k max DPS. (Consistent, not burst) which for me feels so disappointing when I see people in my raid doing 3x that dps ( They are 575 Ilvl with cloak ofc)

So i'm looking for help which spec I should stay and for how long? I will preferrably switch so fire asap it's worth it, and I don't play arcane unless have to, feels so clunky in my hands.

Trust me when I say this, if you feel you do low dps compared to the rest of your raid on the level you raid at (normal modes) you should:

1) Blame your gear
2) Blame the fact you're not familliar with the fights/movement
3) Blame your playstyle

All specs are fine, and the spec you play is NOT the reason you do low dps. So if you enjoy fire, and feel far more comfortable as fire go for it. You will get far better results.

Dont worry about 'what spec is best' untill you reach top-end heroic raiding, its irrelevant untill you reach that point. Just focus on playing whatever spec you're most familliar with best and try to gather as much gear as you can. Going from 535>565 Ilvl is easily a 50% or more dps increase.

[Deleted]

572 arcane mage here, currently progressing on Thok 10hc.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...yeltsin/simple

I'm wondering if I should go fire now (I have normal tier helm), or if I should wait until I finally get heroic gloves. I also have crit/mastery hc boots from shamans I can use.

Here's tonight's log, to give you some idea of how I perform as arcane (in general and on Thok):

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/60bzh5m70pvya5ff/

Would fire outperform arcane on thok? (even with the huge helm downgrade?)

[Hasufer]

If you play arcane right, it's straight out amazing for Thok heroic - both during stack phases, kite phases, and u can rape the bats in a matter og seconds, helping your healers/tanks as well (usually fits with second time 3min cd's too, for sick burst).
Most of the time, you should be able to stack somewhere around the middle of the room, in range for Thok, with the 2 RoP's (which u should have up to blink between em, or so (if/bs), for max output).

You can lower your haste around 400 btw (to gain mastery if possible) - if u go for +1 tick lb/nt with fa/ma. (9762)
You should also think about the possibility of regemming your red gems to Keen Vermillion Onyx'es, gives u a lot of haste/mast, which in term of loosing 80int for 160 in a BIS stat, are worth it.
Overall I think your logs looks decent for your gear-lvl etc

[onemanaleft]

for heroic thok i went up to ~13k haste so i could swap to glyphed molten armor

84% dmg intake was night and day differance for survivability, and you dont want to attempt to play arcane thok in low haste during the spam interupt phase

my best advice, if the kill is in the bag start padding on the yeti with a living bomb

[voltaa]

my best advice, if the kill is in the bag start padding on the yeti with a living bomb

Thok can go south very quickly for many reasons, people doing things like this is one of them. My advice is to save things like this for farm, regardless of whether or not you think you have it in the bag. Don't be that guy.

[Deleted]

for heroic thok i went up to ~13k haste so i could swap to glyphed molten armor

84% dmg intake was night and day differance for survivability, and you dont want to attempt to play arcane thok in low haste during the spam interupt phase

my best advice, if the kill is in the bag start padding on the yeti with a living bomb

Damn, I never realized the glyph of armors bonus was additive. That's very nice for Thok! Ah well, I'm gonna test fire out on him this Sunday!

[Deleted]

Hello guys!
I have a question about 2p t16 vs 4p t16, and I would like some insight from you guys aswell before I decide what to go with.
Here is my armory: eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/frostmane/Grimzie/simple (Sorry, I can't post links yet)
I have the option to run with the gear set on my armory, but I could also swap the t16 normal shoulders and head with HC Rime-Rift Shoulders and HC Hood of Swirling Senses.
This means swapping my two normal tier pieces with two HC items instead, I personally think it's very close, and I would assume using 2p would be the best option for cleave fights (due to missile fishing), but I am more interested in the single target difference.
So, do you guys think using this combination with 2p would be better than using the 4p for single target?

Cheers!

[Hasufer]

For cleave fights, use those 2 heroic pieces. For single target fights, I would hold on to the 4set
I have very good experience with it overall. It's rng, but it's not really target for bad rng as with fire crit-streaks on lower gearlvl. It's reliable, and it's up to yourself to control that u dont waste am procs - master that, and the benefit is even greater, since u can linger on full mana most of the time + fa on single target adds more value in terms of more frequent procs due to higher overall number of spellcasts of say a 6min fight!

[Deleted]

Hey guys,

So I've been running with frost and I decided I wanted to try arcane to reach some higher numbers, I've done well with frost so there is no real need for me to switch but I really eanted to give it a shot. Thing is I am kinda lost at what haste caps I should be aiming for, in my frost spec I went for a mixture build with 14242 haste and rest in mastery. Right now I have 14242 haste and 17,7k mastery. Should I give up some haste for mastery or what's the deal here?

Thank you in advance

[voltaa]

Give up as much haste as you can for mastery (without going below 9762 haste). There really isn't much point in going past this breakpoint as arcane unless you are specially going for a higher NT breakpoint for a certain fight (there's no fight this tier that really warrants it either).

[Deleted]

Thanks for voltaa!

[Deleted]

How much does Haste differ from Mastery for Arcane?

[Delath]

Damn, I never realized the glyph of armors bonus was additive. That's very nice for Thok! Ah well, I'm gonna test fire out on him this Sunday!

Personally (on 25man though) I didn't feel like I was in much danger of going splat without molten armor, so I just went straight up 9762 haste and frost armor (cauterize just in case), which gives u a 1,45sec cast time and allows you to fit spells into the 1,5sec cast window. It's a bit awkward when the window is at 2sec or so but once it drops down to the cap its pretty ok when cast time pretty much equals the cast window.

I was keeping up fine with our fire mages, all of us doing around 330-340k or so dps on the fight.

[Deleted]

ye arcane is fine on thok, just make sure your standing in the bat group(usually melee) should not be a problem to fit you in any way.

I also did not feel i was dying splat out, unless there was 5+ deaths any way because of healer fail, so i would not bother.
though instead of caut as delath suggested i went with Ginvis so i could dispell poison(get first poison dispelled>run after boss>Ginvis next poison>run after boss>poison>run back to aoe healing>dispell>run after boss etc), This enables are bit more running after boss, to keep 4 stacks, during kite phase.
Try to build up to 4stacks in kite as little as possible, stay on 4stacks unless it's early slow kites, run /blink/blaze to boss to keep 4stack alive, if your within 20-30y of boss there is a really low chance of getting the fixate. With glyphed AE you can also keep stacks alive as the boss runs past you in later kite phases while you run/blink/blaze to keep up. Also dont try and cast from RoP all the time in later kite, have 2 runes at max range from each other and try and stay in them as long as possible, but run after boss to fire 1-2 AB or AM's to keep 4 stack.
(not saying invis is better than caut, just explaining my reasoning, both are good choices)
we do 12-13 fixates btw.

[Hasufer]

And in addition to stX3's post - Glyphed coc when the boss runs past ya + in stack phase when u are in the melee grp is just win. Addin to that, is ofc the evil coc burst on adds/boss, when those are up. I can usually squeeze 2x coc in on adds before they die, thus adding more than just using AE

Glyphs for Thok (when in melee stack grp): CoC, AP, Rapid displace.
Talents should be TS, Ginvis (for purposes mentioned in the above post + removeing dmg from squech if need be) and IF - u wont need bs, if u got double blink, and this adds to overall more dmg due to higher uptime. ofc LB for boms choise
Always stay close to the boss during kite pase, as well as possible (I never get targeted on Thok, and anyone should be able to copy that with proper planning/rop's/movement/IF use etc)

[willemh]

I also did not feel i was dying splat out, unless there was 5+ deaths any way because of healer fail, so i would not bother.

Remember that most aoe heals target the lowest hp players. You taking less damage means those heals will go to others instead. No aoe heals heal 25 people, the only exception is priests last tier talent. In the end every point of damage you avoid goes towards extra healing on other players (and possible avoid those other deaths). So your argument is a bit flawed. Less damage taken is always a good thing, and depending on the strenght of your raid group (do you have trouble with the dps or with the healing on thok) its certainly a good option to go for molten armor (or to spec fire).

I had a question about the arcane opening btw.

Normally I pre-cast rune>arcane blast>mage bomb. Then I continue to blast untill I have 2 procs and my trinkets are up. However, sometimes both my trinkets proc very shortly after I apply my first mage bomb. Is it viable to refresh your bomb instantly during your opening? Or do you guys just do your opening (aka build 4 stacks, hit 2x arcane missile>arcane blastx3>arcane barrage) and refresh after? You kinda want to go into your opening asap so half your procs dont fade, but having a suboptimal living bomb up for your whole opening seems to be a bit of a waste aswell. Any thoughts about this?

[Hasufer]

I have this rule:

If Immersues trinkets have procced after the initial lb and 4x ab I dont refresh the bomb, since u are better off refreshing it, right after AT expires - I'm not sure that this is 100% optimal, but it works nicely for me.

If Immerseus trinket does not proc, however, I refresh lb, cast fb and possibly 1x ab or use 1x AM to get the trinket procced. This usually never fails, however it sucks hard, compared to getting your trinket proc within the first 5 sec

It's amazing how much the starting dps can differ, due to 1 needed proc, wish Immerseus trinket had 30% proc chance instead of 15 :S