Arcane Mage PvE Guide

[Foolosophy]

What stat weights do you use for Arcane for AMR?

Hit > haste 9244 (as a goblin) or 9762 as any other > mastery > haste (above soft cap) > crit.

Hello, im a returning arcane mage from being absent for a couple of months (3-4 weeks into HC Progression), and i had some questions.
1: Whats the haste cap people are going for atm?
2: Rules are still the same with LB/NT and FA/MA?
3: What mana do you dump your barrage even if you have left over missile stacks from 4p
4: What fights do you use AP Glyph on? and why?
Thank you

1: See above.
2: Yup. As soon as there will be lots of second targets: MA. I'm experimenting with using LB and then during the course of the fight switching from one armor to another.
3: First I finish my missiles. I see no point in using barrage earlier than I have finished my missiles?
4: Every fight. Part lazy and part so it aligns with my Alter Time. I tend to wait until my trinket procs again, so the argument that without the glyph you could use AP also on the times that your trinket procs without alter time doesn't really work.

[voltaa]

Hello, im a returning arcane mage from being absent for a couple of months (3-4 weeks into HC Progression), and i had some questions.
1: Whats the haste cap people are going for atm?
2: Rules are still the same with LB/NT and FA/MA?
3: What mana do you dump your barrage even if you have left over missile stacks from 4p
4: What fights do you use AP Glyph on? and why?

Thank you

1) 9762 (you should be able to reach that naturally doing all in mastery then haste with current gear)
2) No, there are situations now where you will use MA with LB, such as garrosh (phases 1-3) Shamans, Immersues (heroic), Paragons, Siegecrapper.
3) If I dip to 80 or below, I dump that last set of missiles (why hold on to max stack missiles) then barrage.
4) If you are lusting at the start, take the glyph, if not, it's at your discretion.

[Xiahz]

Hi, wanted to know, is gaining 1000 mastery is worth losing 500 spellpower? I just got the NM Ebon Ritual Hood, however my current head is the warforged from Ordos. Apparently according to askmrrobot, my mastery will go up from 17.3k to 18.3k with the Garrosh hood, but drop from 45.1k spellpower to 44.6k.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: v Thanks for the quick reply voltaa

[voltaa]

Hi, wanted to know, is gaining 1000 mastery is worth losing 500 spellpower?

Yes. Would you use 320 mastery gems over int gems at half the value? It's the exact same concept.

[Frostyspeed]

1) 9762 (you should be able to reach that naturally doing all in mastery then haste with current gear)
2) No, there are situations now where you will use MA with LB, such as garrosh (phases 1-3) Shamans, Immersues (heroic), Paragons, Siegecrapper.
3) If I dip to 80 or below, I dump that last set of missiles (why hold on to max stack missiles) then barrage.
4) If you are lusting at the start, take the glyph, if not, it's at your discretion.

Is that 9762 like a max viable one? or is there one that goes higher? Because I'm 576 ilevel and have a lot of haste gear
Also, what is the reasoning behind the MA + LB? Just for my knowledge ?

[voltaa]

Is that 9762 like a max viable one? or is there one that goes higher? Because I'm 576 ilevel and have a lot of haste gear
Also, what is the reasoning behind the MA + LB? Just for my knowledge ?

You can go for the 13.1k one especially if you are switching from frost and have high haste gear, but unless you are sitting within a few hundered haste of it, don't go out of your way to get it. The reasoning behind MA+LB is the way mastery scales with number of targets, once there is more than one target up for the majority of the fight, the mastery increase to both bombs and all of your other abilities outweighs the extra tick, this becomes more and more apparent the more targets are present. Take Immerseus for example, who cares about an extra bomb tick when your AE and CoC are doing 1mil dps to the adds?

[Rambutan]

Default AMR weights put me at 9383 haste (563 ilvl). Will I get better results shooting for the 9762 breakpoint or should I leave it in mastery (94%)?

[mrgreenthump]

Default AMR weights put me at 9383 haste (563 ilvl). Will I get better results shooting for the 9762 breakpoint or should I leave it in mastery (94%)?

If you can do it then yes, 9762 should increase your results on low AoE/cleave situations.. But on AoE Mastery is still better.

But in the off chance that you are a Goblin, then AMR is indeed right. As the rating needed would be 9244.

[Morpheuspt]

You can go for the 13.1k one especially if you are switching from frost and have high haste gear, but unless you are sitting within a few hundered haste of it, don't go out of your way to get it. The reasoning behind MA+LB is the way mastery scales with number of targets, once there is more than one target up for the majority of the fight, the mastery increase to both bombs and all of your other abilities outweighs the extra tick, this becomes more and more apparent the more targets are present. Take Immerseus for example, who cares about an extra bomb tick when your AE and CoC are doing 1mil dps to the adds?

So like this then:

Immersus: MA+LB
Protectors: MA+NT
Norushen: MA+LB (not made my mind about this one)
Sha: FA+LB
Galakras: MA+NT
Iron: FA+LB
Shamans: MA+LB
Nazgrim: FA+LB (depending on role)
Malkorok: FA+LB
Spoils: MA+NT
Thok: FA+LB
Siege: MA+LB
Paragons: MA+LB
Garrosh: MA+LB (1-3) FA after.

Is this accurate? I should post this on my wall.

[Rambutan]

The only one I want to check in that list is Paragons. If the number you guys gave for LB is accurate (17% DPS increase, single-target) then I think NT might actually be better since it does 50% cleave. DoT other targets to fish for procs, and as long as half of those cleave ticks hit the main target you gain effective DPS.

[voltaa]

Norushen MA+NT
Nazgrim MA+LB

Other than that yes I agree with your list

As for NT and pair o goons, it's a touchy debate, for much of the fight your main kill target will not be in range of the others, you are generally getting your targets as far from hisek as possible so that melee don't die to the dance. While after he dies you could benefit from NT, two of the most important burns in the fight happen before this (skeer and korven). To top this off, when the three targets are all within ten yards, whether this is an effective dps increase is decided by RNG, "where will my cleaves land today?"

[Saegno]

Norushen MA+NT
Nazgrim MA+LB

Other than that yes I agree with your list

As for NT and pair o goons, it's a touchy debate, for much of the fight your main kill target will not be in range of the others, you are generally getting your targets as far from hisek as possible so that melee don't die to the dance. While after he dies you could benefit from NT, two of the most important burns in the fight happen before this (skeer and korven). To top this off, when the three targets are all within ten yards, whether this is an effective dps increase is decided by RNG, "where will my cleaves land today?"

To clarify for those who might be confused by this, he is talking about Heroic Pad-a-gons, where LB is better since your hopes of cleaving are gone.
On normal feel free to use NT and pad, ahem, I mean "cleave" as much as you can get.
Edit- Speaking of Pad-A-Gons, Extended the lockout this week so we get 3 days of progression time on them, hopefully just one day is needed and we can muscle through Garrosh.

[Phig]

Hello, I'm looking to try Arcane out this week been frost for awhile. I'm at Ilvl 563 (can't post links yet but toon Is Phígment on US-KT) I have not reforged/changed anything yet in game for arcane. I've been playing with AMR and these are the stats I can get with the same gear I have as frost and using mage armor. Just wanted to know if this seems right for arcane fully raid buffed. I'm also somewhat confused on which armor is the correct one to use MA or FA? Was not sure is you use FA if you can't get over 13.1k haste or if it's more due to certain fights. I also have a 561 Ktt. Thanks Phíg

Mastery: 81.77% (13,505)
Haste: 37.71% (13,241)
Hit: 15.01% (4,143)
Crit: 22.75% (5,236)
SP: 45,099

[tubawizard]

My focus has mainly been on playing fire during SoO. I would like to play a bit with arcane now, but I am trying to maximize my rotation on multiple bosses like Protectors and Galakras. If you put NT on all targets, it is basically possible to never use a Arcane Barrage, with all the 4set procs. I saw several mages actually doing this tactics on Protectors. Does anyone think that this is the best way, or do you drop the Barrages on high trinket procs + Arcane Power?

[Deleted]

My focus has mainly been on playing fire during SoO. I would like to play a bit with arcane now, but I am trying to maximize my rotation on multiple bosses like Protectors and Galakras. If you put NT on all targets, it is basically possible to never use a Arcane Barrage, with all the 4set procs. I saw several mages actually doing this tactics on Protectors. Does anyone think that this is the best way, or do you drop the Barrages on high trinket procs + Arcane Power?

If there's 2-3 targets up constantly, you're better off doing a standard single target rotation priority; meaning you camp stacks as much as possible.
If there's 4+ Targets up, you prioritise Barrage over camping 4 stacks (talking about maximum DPS potential; effective DPS is a different matter)
If there's 5+ Targets up, you Arcane Explosion to build stacks instead of Arcane Blast/Missiles, and you dump stacks at 4 (again, talking about maximum DPS potential)
If there's 11+ Targets up, you ignore Arcane Barrage and spam Arcane Explosion/Cone of Cold

[Saegno]

Hello, I'm looking to try Arcane out this week been frost for awhile. I'm at Ilvl 563 (can't post links yet but toon Is Phígment on US-KT) I have not reforged/changed anything yet in game for arcane. I've been playing with AMR and these are the stats I can get with the same gear I have as frost and using mage armor. Just wanted to know if this seems right for arcane fully raid buffed. I'm also somewhat confused on which armor is the correct one to use MA or FA? Was not sure is you use FA if you can't get over 13.1k haste or if it's more due to certain fights. I also have a 561 Ktt. Thanks Phíg

Mastery: 81.77% (13,505)
Haste: 37.71% (13,241)
Hit: 15.01% (4,143)
Crit: 22.75% (5,236)
SP: 45,099

When I run you through AMR I'm getting 14484 Mastery and 13241 Haste. With that amount of haste you will be using MA full time, single target or multi target doesn't matter, nor does which bomb you use(Still go NT for multi and LB for single.). At the 13.1K break point you no longer need FA to hit the +5 tick on LB(I think it's +5, not sure offhand.), so MA is better in every situation.

[Escapist]

So just switching to Arcane and have a question regarding pulls where you get bad luck in the opener. If I open with a precast of Blast, followed by my mage bomb, then blast until I have 4 stacks, but after all that I still have zero missile procs, what would the optimal course of action be?
Alter time to extend my trinket buffs before they fall off, barrage, and rebuild my stacks back up, using any procs I get before alter time runs out?
Or Barrage to clear stacks and rebuild them, saving alter time for when I do get missile procs, but now my trinket buffs have probably fallen off?

What about if I have missile procs but no trinkets yet? Most of the time you'll get at least one trinket to proc, but occasionally you won't have both. Would it be better to wait until you have both, hoping the first doesn't fall off before the second finally does proc? Use alter time with the one proc, and either cancel alter time if the second procs while it's active or lose that second trinket after 1-5 seconds?

[Deleted]

Hi guys !

So basically, tonight, we just did the 3 first bosses of SoO in Heroic mode (We are going a bit slowly),I rolled on all of them, and I'm feeling a bit unlucky because it gaves me the Chest on the Fallen protectors (Haste and Hit) and the Shoulders on Norushen (Mastery and Crit), even if last week, I already had the Boots on the Fallen protectors (Haste and Hit), and of course, none of them are Warforged.

So, what do think I should do ?

The stuff that I'm wearing right now is :
-T16 Chest (Mastery and Crit)
-Warforged shoulders from Ordos (Hit and Mastery)
-Warforged boots from Galakras (Haste and Mastery)

Also, if I change the chest, I'll lose my 2T16 bonus but I also have the T16 head in bank (Crit and Haste) just in the case I should replace my Garrosh head (Mastery and Haste) to take the bonus again.

So I kinda don't know if losing all this mastery is worth the iLvl gain (and all the free Int coming with that) or if I should just destroy those ones and just cry all alone ^^

If you want to see my complete stuff in order to compare, here it is : eu.battle.net/wow/fr/character/la-croisade-ecarlate/Lucialuna/simple
(I already equiped the Heroïc boots instead of the Warforged Galakras boots right here)

Thanks

[Foolosophy]

So just switching to Arcane and have a question regarding pulls where you get bad luck in the opener. If I open with a precast of Blast, followed by my mage bomb, then blast until I have 4 stacks, but after all that I still have zero missile procs, what would the optimal course of action be?
Alter time to extend my trinket buffs before they fall off, barrage, and rebuild my stacks back up, using any procs I get before alter time runs out?
Or Barrage to clear stacks and rebuild them, saving alter time for when I do get missile procs, but now my trinket buffs have probably fallen off?

What about if I have missile procs but no trinkets yet? Most of the time you'll get at least one trinket to proc, but occasionally you won't have both. Would it be better to wait until you have both, hoping the first doesn't fall off before the second finally does proc? Use alter time with the one proc, and either cancel alter time if the second procs while it's active or lose that second trinket after 1-5 seconds?

When I have bad luck on my opener (PBoI won't proc), I go into Alter Time and would cancel the Alter Time spell (so no back to the past), so I could keep my trinket proc. However, last night I had this a few times and I ended up way lower than the warlock and hunters on Protectors. I am going to experiment with just using Alter Time normally. I'm starting to think that the whole 'Alter Time' thing with 6 seconds more of the other buffs, is worth more than one big trinket.

In short:
- I go into Alter Time when everything procs
- I go as low as 70% (or a bit lower) to make everything proc.
- When I don't have any missiles to proc, I still use Alter Time and hope there will be a proc there. (waste of every other buff otherwise)

[azzastar]

hi guys, just recent switched to arcane. Are there any macros that would be useful for arcane?