Arcane Mage Guide | Toegrinder (2024)

This guide will cover everything you need to know about playing Arcane in PvE content. Arcane is a spec that revolves around burst damage and mana management. The spec remains unique in that it’s the only DPS spec left in the game that still cares about mana; however it’s mana functions much closer to slow moving energy than it does to traditional mana like healers.

Mage continues to have a desirable progression spot due to a raid buff & immunity.

Strengths:

Strong burst damage profile.

Good Mobility.

Arcane Barrage talents provide funnel and execute.

Strong defensive kit.

Time Warp, Arcane Intellect, & the class tree provide a wide range of dungeon utility.

Drawbacks:

No spread AOE or cleave.

Competes with the other mage specs for similar strengths.

Main raid utility is Arcane Intellect which does not make stacking the class appealing.

Extremely low passive tankiness. Defensive kit is all proactive which requires spec comfort or encounter knowledge.

Dragonflight

Rune of Power has been removed.
The talent tree rework changes what tools we have access to. However the tools themselves have undergone minimal change.
Arcane Power has been reworked into Arcane Surge.
Dragon's Breath, Blast Wave, Ice Floes, Ice Nova and Greater Invisibility are available to all mage specs.

Shadowlands

Mages once again have Alter Time.
Mirror Image is now a defensive utility cooldown rather than a damage one.

Battle for Azeroth

Spell buffs such as Combustion only affect spell damage. Other sources of damage, such as trinkets, are unaffected.
Mages once again have Remove Curse and Arcane Intellect

Damage Spells:

Arcane Blast - Filler ability. Damage and mana cost are increased per Arcane Charge. Unlike other filler abilities our resources mean this also works as our primary damage source with Arcane Charge.
Arcane Missiles - Medium damage channel with a high mana cost. Ticks an additional time and costs no mana with Clearcasting.
Arcane Barrage - High damage ability that deals additional damage per Arcane Charge and resets our Arcane Charge to 0. With talents, hits an additional target per Arcane Charge . Restores 1.5% mana per Arcane Charge used.
Touch Of The Magi - 10 second debuff that stores a percentage of the damage we do to the target over the duration; at the end the damage is released to deal damage to the target and all nearby enemies.
Arcane Surge - Primary DPS cooldown. Depletes our mana bar and deals damage based on percent mana spent. Drastically increases mana regeneration and spell damage for 12 seconds.
Evocation - Channelled ability that regenerates our mana over the duration.

Defensive Spells:

Prismatic Barrier - Small shield for 60 seconds.
Mirror Image - Creates 3 copies of your character for 40 seconds. While an image is active your damage taken is reduced by 20%, and taking direct damage causes an image to dissipate.
Alter Time - Snapshots your current location and health. The spell can be reactivated again within 10 seconds to return you to said location and health.
Ice Block - Immunity that prevents all damage.
Greater Invisibility - Turns us invisible immediately and provides a 60% damage reduction. Can be used to fizzle several targeted boss abilities.

Other Utility Spells:

Blink - Teleports you 20 yards forwards. Our main mobility tool.
Dragon's Breath - Frontal cone AOE that disorientates all targets hit.
Invisibility - Turns you invisible after a short delay. Can be used to fizzle several targeted boss abilities.
Spellsteal - Steals or purges 1 beneficial magic buff from the target.
Arcane Intellect - Increases your groups Intellect by 5% for 1 hour.
Remove Curse - Dispels all curses from a friendly target.
Blast Wave - Knocks back, slows and damages all nearby enemies.
Cone Of Cold - Slows enemies in a frontal cone by 70%.

Talent Import String: B4DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQCUSzBkEJpIgkQEJRSkAJBJtkAAAAAAAAAAAAikkkEJJJBCA

Spec tree:

Improved Arcane Missiles is a filler talent, drop these points for Arcing Cleave and ChargedOrb with multiple targets.
While Slipstream is not a throughput talent, it's incredibly powerful at protecting our most important spells.
Mana Adept provides a small DPS gain but gives us much more control over our mana. This can be overkill in Mana Gem builds as we also get access to Enlightened but I do recommend this talent as training wheels for players newer to the spec.
Siphon Storm and Radiant Spark are both too powerful to be ignored.
Arcane Harmony is undertuned and not competitive in most situations.
Cascading Power vs Orb Barrage:

I recommend Cascading Power for single target, and cleave with a priority target.
I recommend Orb Barrage on AOE and cleave with no priority target.

Class tree:

Overflowing Energy, Shifting Power, Ice Nova, Tome Of Rhonin and Tome Of Antonidas are all easily accessible throughput traits and should always be taken.
Temporal Warp is slightly stronger than Time Anomaly, but is not always viable as you need to lust quite early on. In situations where you cannot abuse Temporal Warp you can happily take Time Anomaly. Remember that even with a late Bloodlust Temporal Warp can still be useful if DPS at that point is high priority.
Both Shimmer and Ice Floes are powerful and this is a preference. I recommend Shimmer because you can already protect your most important casts with Slipstream.
In dungeons I prioritise more active utility such as Remove Curse, Spellsteal, Blast Wave or Ring Of Frost.
Energized Barriers is very powerful in specific situations as it can remove debuffs that slow, but also do other things, such as DOTs or healing absorbs.
In raid I de-prioritise active utility in favour of defensive and utility talents such as Tempest Barrier or Winters Protection.
I intentionally avoid Volatile Detonation. While having a real knock back can sometimes be useful, I think that it is a downgrade more often than not. Blast Wave is simply best used as an AOE stop.
Remove the point in Ice Cold if you need Ice Block to be an actual immunity to cheese a boss mechanic or to remove debuffs. I recommend also removing the points from Cryo Freeze in this situation as it's very bad with regular Ice Block.
If one of the active utility talents is not needed such as Spellsteal or Remove Curse. Move these points somewhere else such as ArcaneWarding.
Swap MassBarrier for MassInvisibility if you plan to skip specific trash mobs.

4.1 Rotation Overview

As an Arcane mage you always want to cast Touch Of The Magi and Arcane Surge on cooldown. As Arcane Surge has twice the cooldown, you will cast it every second Touch Of The Magi.

Touch Of The Magi casts with Arcane Surge will be referred to as the Arcane Surge burn or big burn, and casts without Arcane Surge will be referred to as the mini burn.

0:00 - Radiant Spark + Arcane Surge + Touch Of The Magi
0:45 - Radiant Spark + Touch Of The Magi
1:30 - Radiant Spark + Arcane Surge + Touch Of The Magi again and repeat

These timings are not exact as you will end up delaying certain spells for a second or two for one reason or another. It should however give you a good idea of the cycles you’re supposed to go through. Note that Shifting Power will change these timers slightly.

Most of the time Arcane Harmony should be treated as a passive increase to Arcane Barrage damage and does not need to be played around.

4.2 Cooldown Phases

4.2.1 Arcane Surge

Enter the burn phase whenever Evocation, Radiant Spark, Arcane Surge and Touch Of The Magi are off cooldown.

Burn Phase Ramp:

Evocation
Arcane Orb (It's ok to miss this if you aren't at 0 Arcane Charge)
Radiant Spark
Nether Tempest (Does not interact with Radiant Spark)
Arcane Surge (+0% increased damage)
Mana Gem
Arcane Barrage (+10% increased damage)
Touch Of The Magi
Arcane Blast (+20% increased damage)
Arcane Blast (+30% increased damage)
Arcane Blast (+40% increased damage)

We cast Nether Tempest at 4 charges before Arcane Surge as the primary use of Nether Tempest is to trigger ArcaneEcho a significant number of times during Touch Of The Magi.

Touch Of The Magi is off the global cooldown. By casting Touch Of The Magi immediately after Arcane Barrage, we immediately regenerate our 4 Arcane Charge and the Arcane Barrage cast prior will land during Touch Of The Magi due to the spell's travel time.

Note that if you have Orb Barrage and it procs from Arcane Barrage during Radiant Spark, it will consume a stack of Radiant Spark and you should therefore enter the Touch Of The Magi rotation one spell sooner.

4.2.1 Mini Burn

Enter the mini burn whenever Radiant Spark, and Touch Of The Magi are off cooldown, and Arcane Surge is on cooldown.

Mini Burn Ramp:

Radiant Spark
Nether Tempest (Does not interact with Radiant Spark)
Arcane Barrage (+0% increased damage)
Touch Of The Magi
Arcane Blast (+10% increased damage)
Arcane Blast (+20% increased damage)
Arcane Blast (+30% increased damage)
Arcane Blast (+40% increased damage)

Spell queueing is a mechanic whereby pressing a spell while casting towards the end of the cast "queues" that spell, casting it immediately after the first cast finishes. Most spells in World of Warcraft calculate the damage the spell will deal on cast completion, not when the spell hits. This has a few implications for arcane concerning Radiant Spark and Harmonic Echo.

First off, if you spell queue an instant spell after a hard cast spell, both will have their damage calculated with the same stack of Radiant Spark. Let's say for example you were at 2 stacks of Radiant Spark and cast Arcane Blast with a spell queued Arcane Barrage

Arcane Blast is cast (20% increased damage from Radiant Spark
Arcane Barrage is spell queued and cast (20% increased damage from Radiant Spark
Arcane Blast hits and increments Radiant Spark to 3 stacks
Arcane Barrage hits and increments Radiant Spark to 4 stacks

Our Arcane Barrage was buffed by stack 2 instead of stack 3. This would be disadvantageous, except if we were to queue an instant after the final stack of Radiant Spark. Both spells would gain the benefit of the 4th stack of Radiant Spark, giving us free damage.

While the damage a spell will do is calculated on cast; effects that care about the damage a spell actually did cannot be triggered until impact (whenever the spell actually deals it's damage). This includes effects such as Touch Of The Magi and Harmonic Echo.

This means that if you spell queued an Arcane Barrage after the final spell into Radiant Spark, the Arcane Barrage would be buffed by Radiant Spark but would not trigger Harmonic Echo.

4.2.3 Touch of the Magi

4.3 Opener

The Arcane opener involves entering the burn phase fairly quickly. Ideally we want to burn mana for a small amount of time first to make use of the extra mana from Arcane Surge. Only do this if fight timers allow you.

Cast Evocation prepull
Precast Arcane Blast into Arcane Orb
Cast Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles until Siphon Storm has 18 seconds left
Enter the burn phase

4.4 Conserve Phase

4.4.1 Filler Rotation

During the conserve phase when everything is on cooldown our goal is to simply efficiently spend mana while ensuring that we have enough mana for our next burn phase.

Conserve Priority:

Cast Arcane Orb with less than 2 Arcane Charge
Cast Shifting Power after Siphon Storm runs out
Cast Arcane Missiles with 3 stacks of Clearcasting
Cast Arcane Blast with Nether Precision
Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting
Cast Arcane Barrage at 4 Arcane Charge
Cast Arcane Blast

If you have Nether Precision but not Arcane Artillery, do not full channel Arcane Missiles. Instead cancel and cast Arcane Blast as soon as the global cooldown allows you. Nether Tempest is an small gain to maintain. I recommend you only use it during Burns, whenever you need to move during the Conserve phase and whenever you want to save mana. While Nether Tempest damage scales with Arcane Charge, it's mana cost does not.

4.4.2 Mana Management

Depending on the situation you may want to burn mana or conserve mana. Arcane Missiles does not scale with Arcane Charge directly. However because Clearcasting converts into Nether Precision, and Arcane Blast does scale with Arcane Charge, Clearcasting indirectly scales with Arcane Charge.

To Burn mana:

Try to spend all your procs at 4 Arcane Charge. This means reaching 4 Arcane Charge, spending each Clearcasting and the associated Nether Precision, THEN casting Arcane Barrage to reset charges.
Cancel Arcane Missiles to cast Arcane Blast with Nether Precision.

To Conserve mana:

Spend procs as they come without worrying about how many Arcane Charge you have.
Once you reach 4 Arcane Charge, cast Arcane Barrage to reset charges.
Do not cancel Arcane Missiles casts.
Cast Nether Tempest more frequently.

You want to burn as much as possible because its the most efficient way to convert mana into damage outside cooldowns, but it's not possible all the time, in general these rules can help:

Spend mana aggressively during Siphon Storm and Arcane Overload.
If you just finished your Arcane Surge burn and your mini burn is next, you want to conserve and float at high mana to ensure you have enough mana for your mini burn.
Once your mini-burn is over and your Arcane Surge burn is up next, you can afford to spend mana more aggressively as you will cast Evocation prior to your Arcane Surge burn.
During Time Warp or Temporal Warp be aware the additional haste will make you cycle through your mana faster.

4.5 Opener & Trinket Usage

Opener:

Precast Evocation to stack Siphon Storm before the encounter begins.
Cast Arcane Orb and Arcane Blast until you reach 4 Arcane Charge.
Cast Radiant Spark and enter the burn phase.

Trinket usage:

You want to use trinkets so that they cover as much of Arcane Surge/Touch Of The Magi as possible
Most trinkets should be used after Arcane Surge
Trinkets that last longer than 15 seconds, such as Time Breaching Talon can be used after Radiant Spark

5.1 AOE Rotation Overview

On AOE a few things change, the main one being Arcane Explosion takes the place of Arcane Blast, however there are a few things to keep in mind:

Arcane Blast is still better than Arcane Explosion during Radiant Spark because of Harmonic Echo.
You will spend mana slower because Arcane Explosion costs less mana than Arcane Blast, and Arcane Barrage is cast at a higher priority.
We still want to enter Radiant Spark phases under the same conditions as single target - however they are not deterministic on AOE due to Orb Barrage.

5.2 AOE Cooldown Phases

5.2.1 AOE Arcane Surge

Sequence:

Evocation
Radiant Spark
Arcane Orb
Nether Tempest
Arcane Surge
Arcane Barrage
Touch Of The Magi
Arcane Barrage
Arcane Barrage if Orb Barrage procced. Otherwise Arcane Orb

5.2.2 AOE Mini Burn

Sequence:

Radiant Spark
Arcane Orb
Nether Tempest
Arcane Barrage
Touch Of The Magi
Arcane Barrage
Arcane Orb
Arcane Barrage

This sequence assumes no Orb Barrage procs. If Orb Barrage procs at step 6, keep pressing Arcane Barrage until it doesn't proc, then continue with this sequence until Radiant Spark is done.

5.2.3 Touch of the Magi

For the remainder of Touch Of The Magi, follow this priority:

Cast Arcane Missiles with Arcane Artillery
Cast Arcane Barrage with 4 Arcane Charge
Cast Arcane Orb with less than 4 Arcane Charge
Cast Arcane Explosion

After the burn, cast Shifting Power.

5.3 AOE Conserve Phase

On AOE as Arcane, our goal is to maximise the number of Arcane Barrage casts at 4 Arcane Charge.

Conserve Priority:

Cast Arcane Missiles with Arcane Artillery
Cast Arcane Orb with less than 4 Arcane Charge.
Cast Shifting Power
Cast Arcane Barrage at 4 Arcane Charge
Cast Arcane Explosion

There is no concept of mana management on AOE, you will never run out of mana in the time it takes Evocation to come off cooldown.

Make sure to react to Orb Barrage procs. With enough targets you will be casting back to back Arcane Barrage.

6.1 Stats

Due to the large Intellect stat budget on items, item level will usually be an upgrade. Stat weights vary depending on your current gear and talents. To produce an accurate stat priority or to accurately compare items you must sim yourself. Remember that haste value increases on AOE due to the AOE rotation spending less mana.

Critical Strike increases the critical strike rate of our abilities.
Haste reduces the cast time of our spells, our global cooldown, and therefore increases the rate at which we spend mana.
Versatility provides a flat damage increase and damage taken reduction.
Mastery - Increases our mana and mana regeneration. Increases the damage bonus provided by Arcane Charge, and provides a flat damage increase to all Arcane damage done.

Generally prioritise stats like so:

Intellect
Critical Strike
Mastery
Haste
Versatility

Haste and Versatility are very close, with Versatility edging out on single target and Haste edging out on AOE.

6.2 Trinkets

Because active trinkets share a cooldown, we generally want to pick up one active trinket and one passive trinket. For up to date trinket data please refer to the sims page of the site.

Recommended trinkets for Raiding:

Irideus Fragment
Belor'relos

Recommended trinkets for Mythic+:

Irideus Fragment
Belor'relos

6.3 Crafting & Embellishments

Recommended Embellishments:

Blue Silken Lining is currently the most powerful embellishment if you can maintain uptime, however this is not always possible. The best slots to craft in are Bracers, Belt, and Feet.
Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch is the safer option. The best slots to craft in are Bracers, Belt, and Feet.

Good dinar items (in no particular order)

Weapon - Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle
Cloak - Voice of the Silent Star
Trinket - Belor'relos
Trinket - Whispering Incarnate Icon
Ring - Seal of Diurna's Chosen
Ring - Seal of Filial Duty

Phial: Phial of Tepid Versatility
Potion: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
Rune: Hissing Rune

Chest: Waking Stats
Weapon: Sophic Devotion
Legs: Temporal Spellthread
Ring: Devotion of Critical Strike

Bracers: Devotion of Avoidance
Cloak: Writ of Avoidance
Waist: Shadowed Belt Clasp

Gems: Sensei's Neltharite

8.1 Horde

Troll - Berserking makes Troll the best race for Arcane.
Goblin - Rocket Jump is one of the few useful utility racials while Time is Money keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.

8.2 Alliance

Void Elf - Spatial Rift is one of the few useful utility racials while Entropic Embrace keeps the race somewhat competitive for DPS.

This macro makes it easier to sequence Arcane Barrage and Touch Of The Magi. You can spam this macro and Touch Of The Magi will never be cast before Arcane Barrage.

#showtooltip/castsequence reset=10 Arcane Barrage, Touch of the Magi

The macro below can be used to automatically cancel Ice Block if you try to cast a spell while blocked; and automatically targets something if you try to cast a spell with no target. [nochanneling] will also allow you to spam the key without cancelling Shifting Power:

#showtooltip/cancelaura Ice Block/cast [nochanneling:Shifting Power] Arcane Blast/targetenemy [noexists][dead]

Can be used to cancel Ice Block and immediately Blink. Useful when Ice Blocked in a void zone as you'll Blink out and take no damage. Also works with Shimmer:

#showtooltip/cancelaura Ice Block/cast Blink

Counterspell. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:

#showtooltip Counterspell/cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Counterspell

Spellsteal. Prioritizes Mouseover > Focus > Target:

#showtooltip Spellsteal/cast [@mouseover,harm][@focus,harm][harm] Spellsteal

Mouseover Remove Curse:

#showtooltip Remove Curse/cast [@mouseover]Remove Curse

10.1 Ice Floes Usage

Ice Floes makes our next cast castable while moving. This effect stacks. This means we can press Ice Floes twice without casting a spell, and have our next 2 spells be castable while moving.

Ice Floes can also be cast while casting, in case you decide you need to move while in the middle of a cast. However, this effect has a small grace window. If Ice Floes is activated within the last 0.5 seconds of a cast, it will NOT consume a stack of the buff.

This means that we can abuse Ice Floes to gain multiple consecutive casts while casting without consuming any stacks of the buff, as long as we refresh the buff in the last 0.5 seconds of the cast.

For example:

You activate Ice Floes.
You cast a Frostbolt while moving, with a single stack of Ice Floes, and with 0.5 seconds left on the cast you activate Ice Floes again.
You still have 2 stacks of Ice Floes.
Optionally repeat step 2 again.

This means you can cast 3 spells while moving with 2 charges, or 5 spells while moving with 3 charges.

10.2 Cancelling Alter Time

Alter Time snapshots our current location and health. The spell can then be reactivated within 10 seconds to return us to said location and health. However if the buff expires we will be returned regardless, which sometimes we may not want to do.

If we cancel the Alter Time buff, it will not automatically be activated at the end of the duration, allowing us to stay where we are.

/cancelaura Alter Time