Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[Imnick]

Fireball's only .25 seconds longer to cast than AB and Frostbolt but on the Twins (random periodic knockback: the encounter) that feels like far too long

[Zavri]

Fireball's only .25 seconds longer to cast than AB and Frostbolt but on the Twins (random periodic knockback: the encounter) that feels like far too long

Never had an issue on twins, You can see when you are going to be knocked back.

[Imnick]

Moving out of the knockback interrupts your Fireball as much as getting hit by it, is the point >_>

[Deleted]

Thanks for the post, I've been using your rotation now for a week and have been loving it. Good freedom of movement, very competitive DPS (topping most fights) at 522 ilvl and 4 piece bonus. I've gone full haste gem/reforge which gives me close to 12k haste which is still above the GCD during hero. I'm questioning whether I can be bothered spending the cash to try out a full mastery incanter's ward build but I think the regen will just be too slow with the 4 piece tradeoff. Any thoughts on that? I really hate ROP so if I was going to go mastery I would choose Incanter's for a lot of fights.

Interestingly I can get over 41% crit self buffed with my gear but have just been pulling far more consistent numbers with arcane than I did with fire.

I used Incanter's Ward with a full Mastery Reforge on Primordius HC this reset and it worked way better than Invocation did (Had a few wipes where I used Invocation). So I am gonna try to use Incanter's Ward on all fights this reset.

What I love about IW is that you have evocation as backup if you want to burst hard or accidentally cast a few 4 charged ABs to much. And the use is really strong aswell if used correctly.

What I'm not sure of, is if I should go full haste or full mastery on single target fights. Prolly gonna try both out and see what I feel most comfortable with.

[Soulstrike]

I used Incanter's Ward with a full Mastery Reforge on Primordius HC this reset and it worked way better than Invocation did (Had a few wipes where I used Invocation). So I am gonna try to use Incanter's Ward on all fights this reset.

What I love about IW is that you have evocation as backup if you want to burst hard or accidentally cast a few 4 charged ABs to much. And the use is really strong aswell if used correctly.

What I'm not sure of, is if I should go full haste or full mastery on single target fights. Prolly gonna try both out and see what I feel most comfortable with.

totally agree!! that evocation when you screw up your mana can be a real saver!!

btw shang and other arcane mage if i were to go IW will AB spam then evocate back to full mana be better dps or just ABx4refresh be better??

[Shangalar]

totally agree!! that evocation when you screw up your mana can be a real saver!!

btw shang and other arcane mage if i were to go IW will AB spam then evocate back to full mana be better dps or just ABx4refresh be better??

Ever since 5.0, Arcane Blast has only been a combo point building mechanism, not a primary nuke. No matter your choice of secondary stat building, Barrage and Missiles are still stronger spells. Remember 5.1 when we were 6-Charge camping with Blast and Scorch - we weren't doing that to gain more Blast casts, we were doing it to get more Missiles casts at 4 Charges.

Therefore, it is not worth burning mana with Blast and then Evocate because Evocation uses all of your Charges and losing Charges sucks a lot. Using Missiles at low mana is also a huge dps loss. It might be a different story if Evocation didn't use Charges, you'd be able to burn Blast, get back to full and then use Missiles.

And I repeat now for the billionth time - Incanter's Ward is pointless if you never use its active. It's a very powerful spell and combining it with trinket procs and/or Arcane Power should be your primary goal when using it. The whole argument about being able to move and not stuck in a rune is (no offense to anyone) a load of crap because we always have to be stationary to dps.

[audacitymage]

The whole argument about being able to move and not stuck in a rune is (no offense to anyone) a load of crap because we always have to be stationary to dps.

I don't agree with this at all. MANY fights in ToT (namely the ones that have a lot of movement and multidotting) you are casting NT a lot of GCDs (fights like Horridon, Tortos, Council you can imagine NT almost every other global). Since you are casting instants so much, using Incanter's lets you do a lot more preventative/preemptive movement (away from turtles, rolls, charges, Direhorn spirit etc), so that when you actually are in place hardcasting blast/missiles, you won't be interrupted. A lot of those fights have mechanics that permanently leave stuff on the ground too, which targets players and unavoidably makes you recast Rune's quite often depending on your luck. Rune is definitely better if you can use it well and stay relatively stationary though.

[Shangalar]

And then I counter this argument again with a question: What is better - spending 1-2-3 seconds repositioning and recasting Rune and then dotting everything with 15% damage or running around and dotting everything with 6% damage?

However, I agree that activating the 30% spell damage on Ward and then running around and dotting stuff would be far better, but you can't always rely on it.

[Xirrohon]

What kind of stats/gear should one be shooting for to go Arcane? Ive been playing Frost and just got my t15 4p and was thinking of giving it a go.

[Shangalar]

T15 4-set is apparently very powerful. Your main stats are Mastery and Haste, but the 4-set is stronger than the loss of mastery on the set items. I personally chose to use legs as off-set (got them in the first week of ToT). You can also opt for offset shoulders, but there are better mastery legs in ToT than mastery shoulders.

The chest is a must-have, the most BiS item you can have this patch.

[Soulstrike]

probably have leg off piece from jinrok or raden(derp)

but the double socket glove from durumu is tempting :P

[Rinoa]

And then I counter this argument again with a question: What is better - spending 1-2-3 seconds repositioning and recasting Rune and then dotting everything with 15% damage or running around and dotting everything with 6% damage?

Running Invocation and spending 2.5 seconds every minute to get the same damage increase from Rune? =o

[Imnick]

The power of NT for Arcane comes from Mastery and being at full Mana at all times, halving your regen doesn't help much with that

[Shangalar]

Running Invocation and spending 2.5 seconds every minute to get the same damage increase from Rune? =o

Ultimately if you are able to stay in your rune for the full duration, it's worth more damage than Invocation, even for the other two specs. And for Arcane specifically it's a joke because we can only play Mastery.

[Deleted]

Ultimately if you are able to stay in your rune for the full duration, it's worth more damage than Invocation, even for the other two specs. And for Arcane specifically it's a joke because we can only play Mastery.

If you're "just going around dotting everything", I think Rinoa's point is it's better to do that with Invo

[Libretto]

Problem is on most fights you can't "run around and dot everything". You will be spending significant time hardcasting AB and without regen you will slowly drop mana from attrition.

You can get away with it on some fights like council where you can camp a 4-stack for a while by just reapplying NT on every boss to fish for missiles procs, but you will still eventually start dropping mana, and as the fight progresses and the number of bosses drops, you will be evocating more and more often to stay above 90%. In addition, heroic council has a -lot- of movement, as do most of the heroic bosses this tier.

I had decent results playing with IW on various heroic fights including council. I was torn to play arcane on our heroic durumu kill since our boss damage was miles ahead but ice wall damage was mediocre, and since over half my wall damage was NT even as fire, arcane would have been vastly better for the purpose.

[Rinoa]

If you're "just going around dotting everything", I think Rinoa's point is it's better to do that with Invo

Indeedy. If you're running around all the time then your Rune of Power uptime will be rather abbysmal, meaning Invocation wins out quite heavily.

[Deleted]

Hi i need u help, i watchother guide about arcane, read this articule but i have low dps, i have 515ilvl my nick ( Majêran on Burning Legion EU) , i use frost armor on single target, but i can do without BL only 100-110kdps, i have to low haste or what?My rotation it is good (RoP/INV next 1xArcane Blast ,NT,3xArcane Blast, 2xArcane Miss, Mirror Image,Potion, Arcane Power, Alert time, Arcane barrage... I try play with Invocation and RoP. I need u help

[Mastamage]

what's the typical rotation looking like for a mastery built RoP Arc spec? Testing on dummies I'm just building 4 stacks, missiles when at 4, barrage to clear, rinse and repeat...I'm not letting my mana dip below 75% when possible. What's the good mana % to shoot for?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...tamagee/simple

[Deleted]

EDIT: Needing some clarification.

What the hell are all the top Mages doing?

I see Arcane, but I see serious Haste stacking. Is this because of the Legendary Meta?