Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[Neoxx]

2 quick questions I'm not sure about:

my armory

1)
I finally got new boots and now I'm at 12420 haste. You guys think it's worth to switch Hood of Swirling Senses (hc wf) for Ebon Ritual Hood (hc) to reach the 13163 haste cap for LB/NT? I lose 145 intellect and 23 mastery rating, but I think it's worth it ... or isn't it?

2)
Assuming that I'm at 13163+ haste ... do I still switch to frost armor for pure single target dps? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but I just want see if I'm right

Thanks

[Deleted]

1.8M burst....

Btw Need some improvements for Garrosh hc. Mostly phase 4, so far I got used pretty much all phases if everything goes allright I will be top 5 overall and smt like that on garrosh dmg also. But when we reach phase 4 I drop to 10 position last kill or even more. How do u use cd's there ? Because I was poping what ever was first ready.

Depending on your timings, this is how I roll Garrosh H:

- P1 Save second Arcane Power (not glyphing it) for First transition.
-> P1 transition use AP for adds
- P2 start pop MI straight away, wait for PBoI to come back up before popping second AT with all other CDs -> this is a pretty big delay on Alter Time but due to the fact that you save 3M CDs for P3 burst (or, at least we do) it's fine to delay as you won't get an "extra" use out of it.
-> P2 transition once again pop AP for add burst, it's safe to use 1 or 1.5M cds in this phase on boss if you're still gonna save them for P3 burst.
- P2.5 (or w/e, before P3), just use Ice Floes and whatever you can to limit DPS damage on the move, otherwise stick to usual rotation
- P3 burst as normal, movement for EWCs or Desecrates or w/e as before; using IF to limit DPS loss

-> P4, again depending on timings and everything, for the first stack-up (in your groups, if you do it that way) you *should* have AP back up, and if your timings are similar to ours, you'll also have PBoI coming up as well, so pop them and burn burn burn. During Bombardment phases use IF to move, don't really bother with RoPs during this phase as you'll constantly be moving. As soon as Bombardment cast finishes up your RL should be calling for a stack-up again and Blink into position, continue nuking. I personally wait for AP to come back up before I Alter Time again, and this typically doesn't happen until just before the 5th Malice goes out.

- - - Updated - - -

2 quick questions I'm not sure about:

my armory

1)
I finally got new boots and now I'm at 12420 haste. You guys think it's worth to switch Hood of Swirling Senses (hc wf) for Ebon Ritual Hood (hc) to reach the 13163 haste cap for LB/NT? I lose 145 intellect and 23 mastery rating, but I think it's worth it ... or isn't it?

2)
Assuming that I'm at 13163+ haste ... do I still switch to frost armor for pure single target dps? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but I just want see if I'm right

Thanks

1) Personally I would say no, purely because for your gear level your Mastery is actually quite low and your Haste is actually quite high. That's partially down to itemization and I'm guessing, looking at your gear, you've made the switch from Fire. Right now I guess it would be fine to hit the breakpoint, so long as when the right pieces of gear drop you replace the relevant pieces and drop back below it, eventually :P

2) Realistically you'd want to use Frost Armour, but in practice no :P use Mage Armour.

[Neoxx]

Yes you are right, I switched from fire to arcane, so my weapon and 1 ring are not optimal. Sadly the chance of getting the wf wand or thok ring is close to non-existent in my raid, so I think I have to stay around these mastery/haste numbers for a while. First world problems, I know

But anyway, thanks Cycobi.

[ZwaY]

Hey all, I've been away from WoW for a few months and have started playing again, I was looking to get my character back up to scratch and needed some advice.

I plugged myself into AMR and it puts me at 11892 haste and just over 20k mastery. At this point do I use FA+LB for single target and MA+NT for multi-target? Is it worth going for the next haste break-point for perma-MA?

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...llberry/simple

AMR results: http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/u...rne/chillberry

[Shangalar]

You can use Mage Armor all the time as soon as you pass 11k Haste, no need for any additional breakpoints.

[voltaa]

You can use Mage Armor all the time as soon as you pass 11k Haste, no need for any additional breakpoints.

Even at 9762+ you're going to want to use MA the majority of the time. There is only one fight this tier that you are going to use frost armor on.

[Deleted]

Even at 9762+ you're going to want to use MA the majority of the time. There is only one fight this tier that you are going to use frost armor on.

Depends if you're looking to pad meters or optimise performance for Progression.

[Shangalar]

So during my raid on Sunday, my game suddenly crashed and forced a pc restart and suddenly kaboom went all addon data, macros and keybinds... fixed it partially with some juggling of game files, but long story short I decided that my time would be better spent deleting the game and reinstalling all fun fun 23 gigabytes of it.

So I'm using this opportunity to learn to use Ice Floes and my biggest problem is which button to bind it on. Thought about "1" which has so far been my potion keybind or possibly Q because it's also near and usable. Anything else is too far for practical purposes since Floes are meant to be used very close to a rotation spell and if I put it somewhere else, well, frankly, my arms and hands don't bend that way.

Other than that, I've been thinking about a list of fights to use Blazing Speed or Ice Floes and this is what I came up with:
Blazing Speed: Immerseus, Juggernaut, Siegecrafter, Garrosh, Galakras, Thok
Ice Floes: Norushen, Sha of Pride, Nazgrim, Malkorok, Dark Shaman
Fights that really only require a single or double blink: Fallen Protectors, Spoils, Klaxxi

Now that's not a definitive list, but just what I came up with off the top of my head. Now all that's left is to practice using IF. It seems like a really cool spell if I can just make it work.

[Deleted]

So during my raid on Sunday, my game suddenly crashed and forced a pc restart and suddenly kaboom went all addon data, macros and keybinds... fixed it partially with some juggling of game files, but long story short I decided that my time would be better spent deleting the game and reinstalling all fun fun 23 gigabytes of it.

So I'm using this opportunity to learn to use Ice Floes and my biggest problem is which button to bind it on. Thought about "1" which has so far been my potion keybind or possibly Q because it's also near and usable. Anything else is too far for practical purposes since Floes are meant to be used very close to a rotation spell and if I put it somewhere else, well, frankly, my arms and hands don't bend that way.

Other than that, I've been thinking about a list of fights to use Blazing Speed or Ice Floes and this is what I came up with:
Blazing Speed: Immerseus, Juggernaut, Siegecrafter, Garrosh, Galakras, Thok
Ice Floes: Norushen, Sha of Pride, Nazgrim, Malkorok, Dark Shaman
Fights that really only require a single or double blink: Fallen Protectors, Spoils, Klaxxi

Now that's not a definitive list, but just what I came up with off the top of my head. Now all that's left is to practice using IF. It seems like a really cool spell if I can just make it work.

I bound it to F1 but yea, maybe not the best keybind.. Just freeing up some space for all the other maybe more mandatory spells.

I'm not quite sure if I agree with all your Blazing Speed fights. Immerseus, you want to have IF here to sidestep the puddles effectively. I guess that if you are assigned to adds far away, BS could be better, but DPS wise, never. Juggernaut, why BS here? Even if you do the knock back tactic you would have Rocket Boots up for that which means that BS becomes useless. Can't really say about Siegecrafter since it's so depending on what tactic you use. I would go with Ice Floes there too though, since you want to be able to maximize DPS whilst the magnet is up. Thok, Blazing Speed surely sounds like a valid option here. Garrosh? Atleast heroic I can't really see why you would want to use Blazing Speed, you lose to much DPS whilst in the running phases of the fight.

BS vs IF is a very tricky question though, since it is based so much on personal preference. But I can't really see any fight where BS would be a DPS gain over IF. Feel free to correct me though!

[DeathDefier]

Try binding it to mouse scroll wheel, I found that to be the most comfortable.

[Shangalar]

I bound it to F1 but yea, maybe not the best keybind.. Just freeing up some space for all the other maybe more mandatory spells.

I'm not quite sure if I agree with all your Blazing Speed fights. Immerseus, you want to have IF here to sidestep the puddles effectively. I guess that if you are assigned to adds far away, BS could be better, but DPS wise, never. Juggernaut, why BS here? Even if you do the knock back tactic you would have Rocket Boots up for that which means that BS becomes useless. Can't really say about Siegecrafter since it's so depending on what tactic you use. I would go with Ice Floes there too though, since you want to be able to maximize DPS whilst the magnet is up. Thok, Blazing Speed surely sounds like a valid option here. Garrosh? Atleast heroic I can't really see why you would want to use Blazing Speed, you lose to much DPS whilst in the running phases of the fight.

BS vs IF is a very tricky question though, since it is based so much on personal preference. But I can't really see any fight where BS would be a DPS gain over IF. Feel free to correct me though!

I'm not the type of player to do just about anything for a little bit more dps, I feel degraded to a statistic when I stray too far into min-maxing, especially on this level that's pretty much totally irrelevant. My dilemma BS vs IF is purely on "which one will let me execute tactics more easily" or to be more precise, my exact question was "on which fights can I safely use IF without missing the movement speed from BS?" That's how I composed my list.

[Hasufer]

BS vs IF is a very tricky question though, since it is based so much on personal preference. But I can't really see any fight where BS would be a DPS gain over IF. Feel free to correct me though!

Agree to this, BS can on the other hand save your life more than IF can, BUT you can basicly plan most movement in SoO, so why bother using it - maybe to avoid stuff early progress on the bosses (I tried that a bit on siege/thok, but changed again shorly after), but as soon as your "gameplan" is ready, IF is the sole winner for the purpose of letting all the fights feeling more "fluent" and you will rarely need to stop practicing the first rule there is for casters like us - the abc
To me it's the general feeling of doing nothing (but moving), vs basicly always be going potential max dmg - I feel suboptimal using BS, knowing that it's not needed for any fight - rocket boots, double blink, great tools and allows for the use of IF and being able to move fast (other on set timers anyways, like on Garrosh or Thok).

I'm not the type of player to do just about anything for a little bit more dps, I feel degraded to a statistic when I stray too far into min-maxing, especially on this level that's pretty much totally irrelevant. My dilemma BS vs IF is purely on "which one will let me execute tactics more easily" or to be more precise, my exact question was "on which fights can I safely use IF without missing the movement speed from BS?" That's how I composed my list.

Would love to add my thoughts to the list u made of bosses u currently use IF/BS on in SoO

BS potential fights:
Thok (However double blink + staying close to Thok before fixates as well as gr invis for "oh crap fixates" do the job remarkably well - dont forgot that u waste loads of dps running away from thok with BS, whereas you can stay closer before fixates, while doing dps in this phase with IF)

According to tactics on the encounter then Siegecrafter could be viable for BS use. But then again, as Liveet states, IF lets you do dmg doing magnet phases which with BS, makes u feel completely useless throughout these seconds of push/knock, especially as arcane. While moving from stuff like blades/running with a lazer (if u are close enough to pew meanwhile) and stuff like that IF helps u keep stacks etc, which can be quite some dmg u miss out on
- I dont really see where you use BS for this encounter, I guess it's for running faster away with the lazer or moving from a blade or in rare ocations to run from a tiny mine that hasn't been finished.

Jugg should be more than fine with double blink + if u have rocket boots, IF lets u move from blades/mortar blasts etc, while often remaining in your rune, as well as keeping the dps to a maximum - BS will make u run more than needed and will only really work for anything during p2, in which case, double blink can be used for 1-3 knockback and IB for the second thus completely eliminating the need for BS unless u get 2x phase and I dont think many do that by now.

BS has potential uses on Garrosh, such as getting to a far end in trans1 to interupt or moving from stuff in general like meteors in p4 or an emp whirl, according to which strategy u use here. Might also be neat for engineer duty, but so is double blink (double blink also gets you through p2 room fast - combine this with speedroars and images, and u will be able to wreck havoc on the adds, topping eveything, locks/warriors and the like )
IF makes u able to dps while fishing for weapons (if u are on wep/bating duty) and while moving from positions with your group - also while running during emp whirl and throughout p4 (again according to malice tacts - it's nice to have if u get malice and need to move to the middle of your raid and back out some secs later).

BS can be great for Galakras if u are on tower duty and need some movement, but I dont think many arc mages are in the tower group due to our potential aoe dmg on the adds + st and the need for being more stationary than other classes - once again IF lets u move from fire/poison cloud/away from the pull that the mini-boss does and whiel runnin a bit behind your raid with a fireball from Galakras and back to position.

Immerseus - IF is vital for continous dps in the normal phases - BS might be decent to move in submerged phase if u need to go far, but u will miss IF for the normal phases as well as double blink + rocket boots, let you cover a great distance if needed - BS could also be used to quickly dodge the sprout-thingy, but that one should be avoidable without needing a talent for it ^^

I could see the use for BS on stuff like klaxxi heroic if u soak aims and need to move death from above or the like, but so many places doing this fight, IF will lets u optimise a lot (during fire-lines, rapid fire etc)-

For the keybinding matter, I believe it's all up to what works for you - I got mine on 3 and RoP on shift 3, as they are often used in continuation of one another, other than that I have AB on 4, thus making 3-4 a swift combo, and the common spell if u need to cast and move
As you also mention yourself, IF is a cool (very cool ) spell, and with the required practice, you will likely come to enjoy it more and more - I only use BS for farm and fun stuff nowadays, and I believe a lot of mages can relate to that - but many will also be using BS and if that's what u are comfortable with, then do use it in terms of overall better gameplay, just beware of the potential on which you are missing out on based on your own choise (which might be a good choise, if u tend to be directly saved from death, though use of BS)

sry for wall :P

[Akraen]

Are glyphs seriously as open for arcane as they seem or do you guys just log out of armories to confuse us poor frost mages who want to try arcane for a week.

[voltaa]

Are glyphs seriously as open for arcane as they seem or do you guys just log out of armories to confuse us poor frost mages who want to try arcane for a week.

Ish, I find a standard variation of CoC, AP, Rapid Dis and AE will work for most situations.

I personally use AP, CoC and AE for the first 12 bosses, then switch AP in favor of double blink for the last two.

[Jinru]

Hello All,

I've been reading most of what you're all saying, and I was wondering for arcane are we trying to get to 13 163 haste? or just stay at 9762. i was at 9762 for a bit testing it out and the ramp time for AB seems like forever. Would it be possible to maybe dumb down some info for me lols. I'm just coming back to arcane from playing frost. Thanks!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...inrru/advanced

[Hasufer]

I personally use AP, CoC and AE for the first 12 bosses, then switch AP in favor of double blink for the last two.

seconded (tho only using double blink on Garrosh, if I'm on bating/engi duty)

[Shangalar]

@Akraen and others - I use AP, CoC and double blink all the time. Or well, I only started to take AP recently, before that had Glyph of Evocation for the RoP heal.

@Jinru - 9762 Haste is the minimum you need to have in Siege of Orgrimmar. After that your main focus is Mastery and more Haste. The reason you have so much haste now is because you have Black Blood of Y'Shaarj. Kardris' Toxic Totem is better for Arcane, but with it you lose 2k secondary stats. If you can get to the 13k haste breakpoint that's great, but you never go for it if it makes you sacrifice mastery.

[voltaa]

seconded (tho only using double blink on Garrosh, if I'm on bating/engi duty)

I pretty much use double blink as a "I have nothing else to use so I may as well" type glyph.

[Deleted]

Ish, I find a standard variation of CoC, AP, Rapid Dis and AE will work for most situations.

I personally use AP, CoC and AE for the first 12 bosses, then switch AP in favor of double blink for the last two.

Don't forget Mana gem for the longer bosses as well. No real "downtime" periods to re-cast Mana Gems in this tier :<

[voltaa]

Don't forget Mana gem for the longer bosses as well. No real "downtime" periods to re-cast Mana Gems in this tier :<

I've actually not run into an issue with needing more than 3 mana gems save for Garrosh, but I just pair mine with AT, if you are using it on CD then you would need it at times I guess.