Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[Deleted]

Fast question about haste - is it worth it to have more than 13163 haste or i can reforge the overcapped rating into crit, asuming i cant reforge it into mastery?

Im asking this because lately i got a lot of hc wf haste items - boots from protectors, head from galakras, bracers from spoils, neck from shamans. This reset if im lucky enough i might get the ring from Thok or the offhand from him. I have also hc wf wand from Spoils and i wonder should i use them instead of my hc wf sha staff, because well... 2 red sockets instead of one blue.

On top of that i have the hc wf shoulders from protectors and im waiting for the legs from juggernaut and i plan to use them. Overall i think i might even go on the 15k+ haste mark with that gear :}

Any thoughts?

[Shangalar]

If you really can't reforge any of it into Mastery then stay at 13163, that way you get both an extra LB and extra NT tick. With that much haste, you of course use exclusively mage armor, but you seem to have figured that out anyway. From your mage's armory profile, I suggest you don't change anything, looks amazing.

[Delath]

Fast question about haste - is it worth it to have more than 13163 haste or i can reforge the overcapped rating into crit, asuming i cant reforge it into mastery?

Im asking this because lately i got a lot of hc wf haste items - boots from protectors, head from galakras, bracers from spoils, neck from shamans. This reset if im lucky enough i might get the ring from Thok or the offhand from him. I have also hc wf wand from Spoils and i wonder should i use them instead of my hc wf sha staff, because well... 2 red sockets instead of one blue.

On top of that i have the hc wf shoulders from protectors and im waiting for the legs from juggernaut and i plan to use them. Overall i think i might even go on the 15k+ haste mark with that gear :}

Any thoughts?

To the best of my knowledge you are better off just going mastery>haste>crit also after the 13163 breakpoint since I doubt you would get enough for it to seriously be a problem with GCD capping when using mage armor.

[Syzyx]

I'm sorry for asking the question that has been asked a thousand times already.. I cant seem to locate a more recent post about this though..

Question: Is it better at this point to run with 2pc heroic t16 and 3 offpieces of heroic wf'ed gear? Or is the 4pc bonus that valuable? I for one, love the 4pc bonus around heroism/altertime/AP macro time to get my mana back up to 100%.

The reason i ask is because I recently picked up heroic wf'd fusespark gloves and have had heroic wf'ed rime rift shoulders for a while. I'm getting close to being able to use them. Thoughts?

[Deleted]

I have a question about haste. The guide says i should reach about 38 %, so the 38 % should i have raid buffed right ?
or should i stay frost ?
here is my arsenal link: eu.battle.net/wow/de/character/blackhand/T%C3%A9ufl/simple

[Deleted]

@Heisenberg1 - mate i'm not that sure about the what exactly is the % raid buffed but i know what shoudl be your rating and that is 9762 and with that number you dance around LB/FA for single target and NT/MA for multi target fights, or 13163 so you can have both NT and LB break points so you can run full time with MA. However you should be aiming for the 13163 break point ONLY if you can reach it without geming haste gems, meaning all your gems shoudl have mastery will it be 160exp/160mastery-80int/160 mastery for red sockets, 320 mastery for yellow sockets and 160hit/160 mastery for blue.

@Syzyx - i dont know what the big bads around this forum can tell you, but from my expirience in my raid enviorment and raid group both are pretty close. However there was recently discusion about this. So whats the general oppinion about this matter was the following - 4p(asuming all the 4 pieces are heroic) is superior for single target scenarios, while 2p with 3 hc wf is superior for multi target fights where we benefit way more from mastery than from AM spam.
And i actualy expirienced this yesterday because i run with 4p(legs normal tho) and in my raid group there is another arcane mage who run with 2p and 3 hc wf pieces. On Galakras it was hard for me too keep up with him during first phase, while on Iron Juggernaut i did outdps him even slightly ( the basterd have 10% mastery than me) :P

[Shangalar]

I have a question about haste. The guide says i should reach about 38 %, so the 38 % should i have raid buffed right ?
or should i stay frost ?
here is my arsenal link: eu.battle.net/wow/de/character/blackhand/T%C3%A9ufl/simple

Your armory says that you don't have an Arcane spec at all, so are you in the correct thread? As Arcane in SoO normal / some heroic gear you need to get to 9762 Haste unbuffed and you can use Mage Armor with it on most bosses.

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I'm sorry for asking the question that has been asked a thousand times already.. I cant seem to locate a more recent post about this though..

Question: Is it better at this point to run with 2pc heroic t16 and 3 offpieces of heroic wf'ed gear? Or is the 4pc bonus that valuable? I for one, love the 4pc bonus around heroism/altertime/AP macro time to get my mana back up to 100%.

The reason i ask is because I recently picked up heroic wf'd fusespark gloves and have had heroic wf'ed rime rift shoulders for a while. I'm getting close to being able to use them. Thoughts?

Voltaa says that only a handful of Arcane mages use the 2-set + 3 HCWF off-pieces and everyone else runs with the 4-set bonus. You need to have very specific off-set pieces to be able to pull it off, and I can't remember what they are. Garrosh helmet is one of them definitely. The 4-set bonus isn't weak, it can be amazing, but the stat gain from off-piece items can be stronger depending on the encounter and depending on how unlucky you are with procing the 4-set bonus. There is no correct answer, do what you feel is better for you.

[Erolian]

Your armory says that you don't have an Arcane spec at all, so are you in the correct thread? As Arcane in SoO normal / some heroic gear you need to get to 9762 Haste unbuffed and you can use Mage Armor with it on most bosses.

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Voltaa says that only a handful of Arcane mages use the 2-set + 3 HCWF off-pieces and everyone else runs with the 4-set bonus. You need to have very specific off-set pieces to be able to pull it off, and I can't remember what they are. Garrosh helmet is one of them definitely. The 4-set bonus isn't weak, it can be amazing, but the stat gain from off-piece items can be stronger depending on the encounter and depending on how unlucky you are with procing the 4-set bonus. There is no correct answer, do what you feel is better for you.

I could be wrong but I believe those 3 off pieces were the helm from garrosh the hands from blackfuse and the shoulders from protectors. In general though just using the 4 set until you're on 100% complete scumbag farm mode is probably the best course of action unless you somehow pick up all kinds of heroic/heroic wf gear when most of your tier is normal mode

[Deleted]

Well im not quite sure, but i think somewhere in the older posts here was stated that if you use 2p with 3 hc wf offpices (chests+gloves and head from immersius, shoulders from protectors and legs from juggernault) it will be better for progressing on last 4 bosses than stucking with normal tier pieces.
As i said in my raid group there is another arcane mage who is wearing that setup and he is pulling better numbers than me and he is only 1 ilvl higher than me, but as i said he has 10% or even 11% more mastery than me.
I also tend to believe im not incompetent fool and i know how to play the arcane spec, as he is. I actualy teached him how to play arcane and believe we are at the same level :}

[Hasufer]

He most likely do more dps do to padding with offset-pieces whenever possible (I dont know him tho^^), naturally that pumps your dps (however often on the wrong stuff) by a lot - arb/bombs/coc/ae etc, all but am's are a fair bit stronger, with the offpieces > 4set
Think you are right about the offpieces + Garrosh head with 13/13hm ofc.

[voltaa]

Alright so as for the 4 piece, pretty much when in doubt, use 4 set. The 4 piece will be more beneficial during progress than offset pieces, also taking into account that the optimal setup for offpieces requires everything to already be farm content. Remember that offpieces are more about overall damage than effective damage, so while the mage in your group may be pulling more dps than you, look at what he is doing it to, chances are that if he's only slightly beating you then on fights like garrosh you are doing more effective damage than him, as in doing more to garrosh and less to adds.

All in all, playstyle is more important than whether you have 2 piece or 4 piece, they are so close in single target that the better player (or the better rng) will win.

[Foolosophy]

About play style... What are the best tips one can give? To make a list.. But then for Arcane only.

[Shangalar]

Check the guide please, that's why it's here. After that ask anything that's unclear or something that you think we missed.

[durrtygoodz]

Is it bad to reach 100% mana or actually okay? because I'm hearing 2 different things atm. Im trying arcane for the first time on a dummy and when doing ABx4 AMx2 ABx1, on the missiles I find myself reaching 100 quite a bit until the extra AB cast brings me down 5%. So am I trying to avoid 100 or is it a dps increase when at 100?

With that in mind, how should I go about a fight like protectors? In my head Id NT everything and spam as many missiles and half-cost arcane blasts at 4stacks as possible without worrying about camping at 100% mana. But, idk if wasting mana regen is good or bad.

Also slightly OT does anyone know any arcane streamers with saved VoDs? I've looked at like 7 so far and not one of them has past broadcasts enabled -.-

[voltaa]

100% mana just means 100% mastery, and the more mastery the better. Don't worry about mana capping it's actually a good thing.

[durrtygoodz]

100% mana just means 100% mastery, and the more mastery the better. Don't worry about mana capping it's actually a good thing.

Alright great. So on a multi dot fight it's actually beneficial to be at 100% for a few globals whilst applying dots to mobs?

[Deleted]

I was wondering, are there any fights in SoO where Glyph of Armors + Mage Armor can be beneficial?
-Does it reduce the laser duration on Siege?
-Does it reduce the laser duration on Iron Juggernaut?
-Does it reduce dots on you when you're MCed on Garrosh?
-Does it reduce the Thok Poison and Frost debuff duration?

Can it be negative to use it on some fights, like reducing the debuff time on Dark Shamans?

[Shangalar]

Well considering that on most fights you should be using Mage Armor anyway, for some of it you might get the benefit

It reduces by 30% the duration of any and all effects on you that have the 'Magic' tag. You can check this on wowhead or wowdb which ones they are if you want to be completely sure. So: laser duration on Siege no, laser duration on Juggy no, dots while MC-ed on Garrosh yes, Thok poison yes, Thok frost no, Dark Shaman debuff no.

@durrtygoodz - yes, because damage is calculated at the moment of casting.

[Foolosophy]

Check the guide please, that's why it's here. After that ask anything that's unclear or something that you think we missed.

If the guide was all we ever needed, everybody would get very high numbers. What I am talking about, are the little niche things. What makes you stand out of the crowd?
Is it a good idea to barrage when you have 1 second on your trinkets left, your bombs are refreshed, you have no missiles procs left, but are above 90% mana?
When to refresh your dots when you get buffs?

There must be lots of tricks out there and I do want to find them.

http://askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/eu/ta...ill/foolosophy
for a gear reference, but I don't think I have made a mistake there.

And for a reference: I'm in a 10m guild 7/14 HC with every buff available. The warlock does very well on nearly every fight. The hunter is also really good, better than I am on single target (Iron Juggernaut). With Protectors I'm always first, on Galakras, it's close.

[voltaa]

snip

I've never actually tested these out to see, I know last tier on Jinrokh it reduced the ionization time (found that out the hard way) so maybe. The only thing is that with the lasers, while there is a debuff associated it's also a set animation which I think may make a major difference.

@Durrty ya it's great to apply dots at 100%, having living bomb ticks critting for 500-600k feels really good, I'm gonna miss that with the item squish lol