Arcane for mythic+

[xmx]

Did anyone try to do mythic+ as arcane mage? are they good for them?

[stevenho]

No. They have to sit down and drink a lot, which sucks ass in M+.

[Skylarking]

No. They have to sit down and drink a lot, which sucks ass in M+.

I know mythic+ has timers and all, but doesn't arcanes huge aoe damage make up for the couple of seconds of drinking?

[Ceale]

I know mythic+ has timers and all, but doesn't arcanes huge aoe damage make up for the couple of seconds of drinking?

As long as you're not super close to a boss, you can also ice floes+ evocate to get your mana back without falling behind, and with shimmer you can even blink while you're doing it. Mastery buff should also help, what with having larger mana pools and more regen.

[Komman]

Did a few, but it did not feel very good with the time pressure and constantly being in combat.

[Nitros14]

It's alright. Arcane had good aoe. It does suck when you have to do 2-3 target cleave. Evocate on cooldown and conserve mana with a boss coming.

[The Archmage]

It's fine. Mastery helps and you can easily sustain 500k dps on 4/5 targets without burning mana like a madman, by managing your Mark of Aluneth and your AE/Barrage cycle.

[Deleted]

It's generally an inconvenient spec for complex content of that sort. It has to be in melee, it can't auto-aoe, it has to be careful when to use mana. Fire right now is a very easy to play spec on content of that sort, and it even has arcane-like burst so it still seems wrong to replace an existing fire with arcane.

I'm not 100% sure though about the choice one should make right now about a spec if he starts a mage now. It's very unclear mainly because of the spec gating mechanics of the expansion and the stated intentions of the devs. They did say repeatedly they want to keep fire good.

If I try to be objective about it, I would reject frost because of low aoe and burst and probably still go fire. If devs are to be believed fire will never be bad this expansion and it's much easier to play optimally, at least in complex content like 5mans and aoe and it can also burst.

[xStevooo]

I don't play a mage but wouldn't the ancient mana basin toy be good? Increases the regen of conjured food, returning health and mana at a much faster rate.

[Lothrik]

I don't play a mage but wouldn't the ancient mana basin toy be good? Increases the regen of conjured food, returning health and mana at a much faster rate.

If I remember correctly that toy only works outdoors in Broken Isles, it's pretty much completely useless. I haven't tested getting the buff and then running into a M+ dungeon with it already active.

[Deleted]

It's fine. Mastery helps and you can easily sustain 500k dps on 4/5 targets without burning mana like a madman, by managing your Mark of Aluneth and your AE/Barrage cycle.

This.
The dps previous reset(before buffs) was on par with fire AoE when I did mythic+runs, but the boss damage was lacking, but due the short nature of dungeon boss fights was not issue at all. Now with the buffs I bet my head that it might be even better than fire in every aspect of Mythic+. All you need to do is manage your mana. Blink can help you catch up to your mates, after you sit to drink for water. Also you don't really need more than 15 seconds(even that is a lot) of drinking to get enough mana for the boss, assuming you are not using Evocation for thrash(and you shouldn't, because you need all the mana u can get to last the 2-3 min boss fights).

P.S.
Utilize Inviz to get out of combat earlier to drink for the next huge pack pull
Utilize Shimer and Displacement to go out and in of packs, if the tank lose aggro.

[Deleted]

assuming you are not using Evocation for thrash(and you shouldn't, because you need all the mana u can get to last the 2-3 min boss fights).

That nerfs the spec. 5mans aren't boss meter padding races. They are often about trash speed, especially with trash-specific affixes now.

[milkGONEbad]

It's really fine. While the points brought up in this thread are so far all valid, it really isn't all that bad. You *will* find yourself holding back on trash before a boss for example, as you just want to start with full mana for the fight and/or with Evo close to being up.

But I can honestly only speak for M+5, since that is the farthest I've cleared on time. I imagine things will be better with better gear, although M+ will be more demanding as well.

[Deleted]

You *will* find yourself holding back on trash before a boss for example, as you just want to start with full mana for the fight and/or with Evo close to being up.

Fire has the same issue, you have to hold back on Fire Blast, Flame On and Phoenixes as early as 2 packs before a boss. Other classes (hunters and melee in particular) are just overpowered in that regard.

[milkGONEbad]

Fire has the same issue, you have to hold back on Fire Blast, Flame On and Phoenixes as early as 2 packs before a boss. Other classes (hunters and melee in particular) are just overpowered in that regard.

Yes, very good point.
@xmx: If it's something you want to try for yourself, go ahead. I went Arcane and it wasn't the end of my mage.

[HTowN]

Fire has the same issue, you have to hold back on Fire Blast, Flame On and Phoenixes as early as 2 packs before a boss. Other classes (hunters and melee in particular) are just overpowered in that regard.

Fire doesn't have to hold back Fire Blast and Phoenix. Where do you get that from?

Fire Blast CD is only 10 secs, and Phoenix Reborn recharges PF extremely fast on AoE.

In mythic+, boss is trivial. I even Combust on the trash pack right before boss sometimes if the pack is hard (the Scorpions in NL come to mind). Saving your CDs to circlejerk dps on boss is definitely not the way to go in mythic+.

[Atherius]

No...In most situations you get combustion back up during the boss fight even without kindling, so saving cds before a boss fight isn't really needed. Mythic+ is all about optimizing cd usage while still having the dps to kill the harder bosses. The only time I save up PF and combustion is for heroism..

[NPI]

Actually arcane is one of the best classes in mythic+, both aoe and single target.

[RyuuSaber]

I did mythic+2 Arcway on my 854 arcane mage, and managed to get 3 chest. My group contained of Pala tank, mistweaver, MM hunter, beast hunter and me as arcane. Despite them always pulling ahead and always being in combat I often found myself dealing good enough AoE (only when I dropped RoP). I also found my mana being starved a little bit during the run, but I always tried to consever mana and burst where it was needed. During the bosses I did semi-ok.

Overall I believe arcane mage does very good on trash pull. Drop a RoP do 5x AE followed by ABrr and your mana should be fine.

I don't know how it fares on 7+ but I did attempt a 6+ DT and found arcane to do ok again, but with the raging affix it can be risking being in melee range when the mobs are being enraged and probably two shot you if the tank can't hold the aggro for some reason.

[yarafx1]

I found that I was playing arcane just solely for the fact that you don't have a dot that auto spreads to neutral targets. It also appears to have much better AOE then fire itts just bad on the boss fights.