- Pros & Cons of being an Arc Mage
- Race Choosing
- Talent Tree
- Glyphs
- Statistics
- Gear
- Enchants
- Gems
- Professions
- Rotation Explanation
- Tips & Tricks
- Macros & Keybindings
- Addons & UI
- Frequently Asked Questions
Pros & Cons of being an Arc Mage
- Pros
- Increase your party/raid members damage by +3% from Arcane Empowerment (more about it below)
- "Easy" spell rotation (huge damage even without skill)
- Low Hit Cap (good for low geared players)
- Easy switch between Brust (high DMG) and Mana-Saving modes (allows you to manage your mana all time)
- Each gear upgrade will give you awesome DPS upgrade - Cons
- Buggs on Molten: sometimes, with higher latency and haste close to hard cap (cast in 1 sec) your Arcane Missiles launch only 3-4 times instead of 5 (huge DPS lost)
- Some uneducated players will name you "arcane noob"
- Very restricted gearing (you can't depend only on GearScore, but need to re-think every item in inventory three times)
Now, more about raid buff from Arcane Empowerment. Some people says that +3% is nothing special, but lets do some maths.
- What we know for sure:
- Icecrown Citadel 25-mode bosses have - in average - 50'000'000 health (I'm not counting Lower Spire)
- There are usualy 2 tanks, 5 healers and 18 DPSers in 25-man raid - Raid math without Arcane Mage:
- Lets count how much DMG is required
50'000'000 HP : 18 DPSers ~ 2'777'777 DMG on 1 head
- It means each DPS must do around 2'770'000 DMG during the fight to kill boss - Raid with Arcane Mage
- All raid members have +3% of their normal DMG
50'000'000 HP * 3% = 1'500'000 HP
- It means 1'500'000 DMG comes for free without any special activity - Conclusions
- In raid without Arc Mage every DPS must do 2'770'000 DMG
- In raid with Arc Mage 1'500'000 DMG comes for free
(1'500'000 * 100%) / 2'770'000 ~ 54%
- Arcane Empowerment gives you another (hypothetical) DPSer with 54% of normal DPSer damage (so it's like "Twenty-five An Half Man" mode ;) )
Race Choosing
Alliance:
Horde
Talent Tree
This is my recomended Talent Tree for Arcane Mage raiding:
Molten Armory Mage build 57/3/11
I'm not recomending any changes in Frost and Fire tree - those points are 100% worthy to spend. You want to know why? Use your brains - at the end you want to be mage so start think ;)
Now, about Arcane tree. There might be some variations of those 57 talents. Fell free to find your own set. This is some other builds i saw in-game:
Glyphs
Major Glyphs
Minor Glyph
- Glyph of Slow Fall - no more feathers in your bags, life saving spell when Archmages come at Valithria Dreamwalker encounter
- Glyph of Frost Ward - you may use Frost Ward sometimes while moving at Sindragosa and Lich King encounter, it gives healers a bit help. Better than any other Minor Glyph.
- Glyph of Fire Ward - you may use Fire Ward sometimes while moving at Blood Prince Council (Valanar) and Koralon the Flame Watcher encounter, it gives healers a bit help. Better than any other Minor Glyph.
Statistics
You shall read proper sections of this topic:
[3.3.5a] Ultimate Mage Theorycraft - Everything is Here! 3.3.5a
It explains everything about differences between Ratings and Chances, etc.
In short words for Arcane Mages PvE:
Gear
Enchants
This is only enchants without any Prfessions on your character. Bonuses from them will be show in proper section.
Use Icewalker only if you need some Hit Rating to cap. Otherwise i recomend Tuskarr's Vitality - wasting less time on moving means you can start casting faster, what is better than +12 Crit (you don't benefint from Hit after cap). And +15 Stamina isn't bad at all.
Gems
The choice of gems is pretty much dictated by the weights of the stats. Best choice is of course the pure +spellpower gems. Carefully consider how much benefit you get from the socket bonus, and decide if it's worth to discard them and putting just red spellpower gems into the sockets.
Best gems at proper socket color:
In order to activate the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond meta gem, you need two blue gems (2x Purified Dreadstone). Place them ONLY in blue sockets.
Decide which yellow sockets you want to fill with Reckless Ametrine - do it only if the socket bonus is worth it (personaly i place it in +7 Spell Power and +9 Spell Power bonuses).
Fill the rest of the sockets with Runed Cardinal Ruby, regardless of their color.
If you have Eternal Belt Buckle on your belt fill that socket with Runed Cardinal Ruby - it doesn't count for socket bonus anyway.
Professions
Rotation Explanation
This is power of Arcane Mage - easy rotation that allows you to manage your mana all time and decide how much and HOW LONG you need to DPS on boss. When raid is going fine you can do 100% of your abilities, if something went wrong (and half raid is dead) you can maintain DPS mostly forever.
Basic Rotation
Mana-saving Rotation
High Damage Rotation (without Heroism)
High Damage Rotation (with Heroism)
NOTE: most end-game guilds I play use Heroism/Bloodlust after around 10sec from Pull, so:
AoE Damage Rotation (Area-of-Effect)
NOTE: Different ranks of Flamestrike give separate DoT (Damage-over-Time) effects. You may cast as many Ranks as you want, but i recomend only Rank 9 and 8.
Tips & Tricks
- "Heeee 500 mana here XD" - MAJOR RULE FOR ARCANE MAGE. When boss is dead you shall have only several percent of mana. If you have more it means you didn't make 100% od possible DPS. Try re-think High Damage Rotation and add more Arcane Blast casts.
- "Keep castin yo @#$!%#!" - you shall casting spell 99,99% time of encounter, any second non-casting = waste of DPS
- "Police! Dont Move!" - realy, you shall reduce your moving to minimum. Move only if your (or raid mambers) life is in danger
- "Drinkin, drinkin..." - use first Mana Sapphire after you have 4'000 mana lack in your mana pool (around second Basic Rotation) and another as soon as possible. Also use Runic Mana Potion and/or Runic Mana Injector when needed.
- "<DND> Meditating" - if you are runing out of mana in long fight use Evocation while you will be able to use Icy Veins again (after High Damage Rotation). NEVER Evocate in fight without Icy Veins!
- "So cold here, folks..." - your Ice Block is miracle from Heaven. You can use it if healers stoped healing you for some reason or raid (or only you!) is going to take heavy damage from boss abilities
- "Keep the distance... dude... dude!" - stay in range. Simply. Dont go closer to boss than 20-30 yard range. There is no need to go closer and it may cost you life. In several encounters you shall watch range between raid members too.
- "Klickin, klickin..." - use Keybindings. I still see players who obviously use mouse to cast spells etc. It's pitiful waste of time.
Macros & Keybindings
This is all my Keybindings and Macros I use at the moment. Specially for this guide i re-wrote all of them and set easier keybindings. You can place all those macros in a single action bar.
Missing things: Arcane Brilliance, Focus Magic, Potions.
"W","A","S","D" - Moving
"Space" - Jump
KEY "1" - Spell Mirror Image
KEY "2" - Macro "AB Normal":
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl] Presence of mind
/cast [mod:shift, nochanneling] Arcane Missiles;
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=2 Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast
KEY "3" - Macro "AB Power":
Quote:
#showtooltip Arcane Blast
/use 14
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Arcane Power
/cast [mod:shift, nochanneling] Arcane Missiles;
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=2 Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast
KEY "4" - Macro "AoE Eye"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Arcane Explosion
/cast Frost Nova
KEY "5" - Macro "FireB/Cone"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Cone of cold
/cast Fire Blast
KEY "Q" - Macro "AoE Zone"
Quote:
#showtooltip Flamestrike
/cast Presence of Mind
/castsequence Flamestrike(Rank 9), Flamestrike(Rank 8), Blizzard
KEY "F" - Macro "Counter/Slow"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [mod:shift] Slow
/cast Counterspell
KEY "T" - Macro "Morph/SSteal"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Spellsteal
/cast Polymorph
KEY "G" - Macro "Escape"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Blink
/cast [mod:ctrl] Invisibility
/cast Escape Artist
KEY "E" - Macro "Defense"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [mod:shift] Ice block
/cancelaura [mod:shift] Ice block
/cast Mana Shield
KEY "R" - Macro "Regen"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift] Evocation
/use Mana Sapphire
KEY "Z" - Macro "PvE Buff"
Quote:
#showtooltip
/castsequence [mod:shift,@player] reset=3 Dampen Magic, Molten Armor, Arcane Intellect
/cast [@mouseover, exists][@player] Slow Fall
Addons & UI
Frequently Asked Questions
From this topic and PM's.
- What slowing effects which works in bosses activates torment the weak?
Look over here: List of Snare effects, List of Slow effects. - Can i win a frostfire mage with this spec and the correct rotation?
Depends on fire mage you will compare. Arcane Missiles problem makes your dps lower than skilled fire mage with same gear but don't forget about raid buff - none fire mage can bring that to raid. - Potion of speed (500 haste in 15 seconds [30 seconds if you are alchemist]) is better than the Runic Mana potion?
Well, good question. personaly i dont like haste potions and always use mana instead (more brust AB). but i think its every mage decision. probably haste potion give you more dps... - Any method or haste cap to prevent fire less missiles with missil barrage in latency moments? Or a "latency cap" to use this spec?
No. simply. just tested some new macros on Dummies in IF and with 150ms and 1.2 sec AB cast i had some (minimum but still) bugged missiles... I think it's about luck... - Whats the priority in brust damage rotation ? Arcane Blast or T10 2 piece bonus?
If you still can benefit from Bloodmage's Regalia 2 pieces haste buff (your cast is longer than 1sec) it is majority in spell casting. Try to rebuff it every 4 Arcane Blasts. But if you reached 1sec casting, cast Arcane Blast until you can (watch mana pool here!). - Is 3/3 Arcane Stability really necessary? Can I move some point from it?
There are plenty encounters where whole raid, not only tanks, get damage. ANY pushback you will suffer means HUGE dps lost! If you have Paladin with Concentration Aura you can move 1 point from Arcane Stability. Otherwise better don't.
*Constructive criticism is always welcome. Feel free do send me PM about any improvements in this topic.
**Please, remember that I am a living person who has real life and can't be here 24/7.