Majority are a little outdated. Currently frost pve. Wanting to respec arcane but don't know whats good out here for 5mans hc and on. Never played an arcane mage before.
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Member
Any updated guides?
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Field Medic Moderator
Fire, TTW (Torture the Weak) and Arcane are good specs for raiding. (Basically anything but Frost)
My input;
Spoiler:Show
My friend who plays an Arcane Mage here (I linked his armory above) says that Arcane Mage on here is actually played just as simply as 4x Arcane Blast -> Arcane Missiles, repeat.
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Member
no frost :sad: remember nemmish pasted a dps chart on diffeeent specs ago... Oh well, we still have voa & toc :d
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Member
I've never played arcane! I'll have to try it out and see. I might have to wing it as it seems a little confusing as far as glyphs and and all but I'll give it a try based off this. Thanks for the response.
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Wind of Northrend
Burning your mana until you're close to ooming is about the worst advice you can give.
If your raid is using heroism/bloodlust on pull at a certain boss you want to hold your veins and instead only use mirror image and arcane power along with a prepot if you're going to push yourself to do higher dps (unless you have very low haste I would recommend you use a wild magic potion rather than a potion of speed).
During heroism you'll want to play with the 4x blast 1x missile rotation, reason for this is that with your T10 2pc proc you can "fit" 5 hasted spells into the 5 second uptime of "Pushing the limit".
When you no longer have heroism you'll want to use your veins and continue this 4xAB 1xAM rotation if your mana allows it (proper usage of mana gems is important) and then default to 3xAB 1xAM when you no longer have any major haste steroids.
Disclaimer: To play with 4xAB 1xAM only using veins in a raid will require a lot of haste for it to work, if you know you're on the lower end in terms of gear you'll want to play with 3xAB 1xAM with any 20% haste steroid like power infusion of veins.
Playing with the triple blast rotation isn't just a way to manage your mana like most people will tell you but its also the highest DPS rotation while your veins/hero is down, reason for this is that with 4 spells instead of 5 you'll be able to give your missiles the haste benefit from your 2pc.
Without haste steroids it's impossible to cast 5 spells (4xABs1xAM) during the 5 second haste proc making the missiles incapable of being hasted ever.
It's very important to respect the power your missiles are packing, despite them being #2 on your recount they're the main source of your dps while your blasts buff their damage.
Now about the mana issue, if you've played with the 4 blast rotation during heroism and icy veins you'll most likely be around 30-50% mana but you shouldn't worry about your mana since the 3 blast rotation will usually keep you afloat unless you can't proc missile barrages for a while.
When you drop dangerously low on mana and the boss isn't about to die just yet you want to channel evocation (preferably during any haste buff on top of your T10) for a few ticks depending on how much longer the fight will drag out for, sometimes just one or two ticks are enough to finish the boss off. Use your own judgement in these situations.
Edit: the glyphs you'll want to use are arcane blast, arcane missiles and molten armorEdited: February 20, 2017 Reason: Added glyphs
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Field Medic Moderator
>When Evocation is available.
I assume you know what Evocation does, yes?
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Wind of Northrend
Doesn't matter if it's available or not, you shouldn't be on mana burning mode regardless, you want to maintain high dps while keeping your mana healthy and using evocation as a last resort during phasing and never as a part of your dps rotation.
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Field Medic Moderator
Here, since you're going to taunt me on another thread. I will come back here to reply to you.
There is a reason that these "I'll save this CD just in case" mentalities lead to under-performing DPS and tanks. Nearly every cutting-edge raider will disagree with you for that reason alone.
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Wind of Northrend
Are you a cutting edge raider?
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Banned
yea wtf audioholic just cuz u happen to be on top of charts in dps nearly every raid doesnt mean you know what you doing. you're obviously under-perforing playing like that, who needs to have mana for more than first 2 minutes of the fight anyways.
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Member
I m not sure to totally understand the debate, but as Audioholic, I think using Evocation is a total waste of dps as an arcane mage, except if you do the Lich King fight as arcane mage and even in this case you shall evocate yourself when you are in FM.
Because, bursting your mana (as you say just in order to be oom) means put more then 4 AB before AM, and so loose your 2T10 buff for your AM (as Audioholic said before) and your AM (buff with 4 AB debuff) hit enough harder to compense the waste of dps you will have to comeback at 3-4 AB Stacks. So to my mind spam AB and loose 12% haste, will decrease your DPS, so for me the rotation 4AB + AM (each of these spells under 12% haste) is the most powerfull rotation a BIS geared arcane mage can do. At this point, assuming this fact, just do your tests of fights with a constant 4AB + AM (play as static as you can, stay on puddles which will not kill you (assuming you have good healers), use your 2 mana gems then a Mana Injector (be engineer is a must have as mage pve) then your 3d mana gem). You will see that even in this way of doing the encounter which cost you clearly the maximum of your mana possible (because you maximize the number of rotations you do by don't moving on boss attacks which will not kill you), you will have enough mana to do all icc and rs bosses, except LK, without evocation.
To sum up : 4AB + AM => Most powerfull rotation whatever.
Playing 4AB + AM even in the extreme case of taking a lot of damages to do not moove will not oom you (If you use correctly your 3 mana gems and your Mana Injector)
So you will more dpsing then a mage who use a 6 sec canalisation to evocate himself.
Only exception LK encounter, but on LK you will evocate whatever you play arcane or fire and you will try to do it when you are in the FM, so you will not loose any dps with it (except like 4 ice javelin ^^)
Tiny.
PS : Sorry if i'm not totally clear, my english suck, if someone don't got me i can clarify all points.
PPS : Another little tips to earn a little bit of mana during your fights without evocate, get the PI of the disco, you are the most legitimate dps for having it, because more then the fact this buff give you 25% haste, he will reduce your spell cost by 20%, so with a good disco you can really spare a huge amount of mana if he coordinate his PI with your cds !Edited: March 4, 2017 Reason: Orthography
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Wind of Northrend
Arcane Mage in 2min:
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#odhVfz0czxGuMxebcZMhf0o
Chose w/e u want to get with those 5 talents.
Safe build:
http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#ofxVfz0czxGuMxedcZMhf0o
This one is great for Dungeonmaster Mages with no BIS gear i guess...
U need arround 1455 haste for Arcane Mage.
After that: Crit > Haste.
Arcane Misiles is the thing that actualy boosts ur DPS so spaming AB like a mad man is not something u would like to do.
3AB > 1AM is the best rotation for Arcane Mage
(without Haste Cooldowns or Bloodlust/Heroism).
U should always try to fit Arcane Misiles in that Pushing the Limit, aka 12% haste buff from T10.
4AB > 1AM should be used only if u can fit that 1AM during ur 2/5 T10 proc
(thats with Bloodlust/Heroism or Icy Veins and Engineering: Hyperspeed Accelerators while fully raid buffed).
If u still cant do it, duo to high MS or low FPS, or something else that wont allow u to do so, go for 3AB > 1AM again.
On short Fights u should Evocation only if needed (if u think u will go OOM before fight ends)
Try using it when u dont have any procs up.
AB > AB > AB > Evocation > Arcane Misiles is the best way to do it without losing almost any DPS.
This will fit Evocation in that 2/5 12% haste bonus and let u get ur mana faster.
Considering that Missile Barrage proced from 1 out of those 3 ABs u did.
In long Fights, if u think u will need more than 2 Evocations so u dont go OOM, u should Evocation whenever u are on less than 40% Mana.
Considering that u used ur Mana Gem alrdy...
For Lich King that should be after p1/p2 ends, right before transition p1/p2 begins, and during FM chamber.
Just try using it when u are not going to take any Damage.
If u just started Gearing ur mage, get Haste as much as posible and pew pew. I think its still better than Fire when it comes to no gear Mage.
Main reason is cos RNG doesnt like me, and even if i have 90% crit, my chars like to normal hit a lot.
If Fire or FFB mage works for u better when u have no gear, go for it.
If u dont have 2/5 T10 u should still probably use 3AB > 1AM at any point and with/without any kind of buffs or cooldowns.
Im not 100% sure about this so try out doing 2AB > 1AM and see what gives u better DPS overall i guess...
p.s. S M D A U D I O H O L I C
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Field Medic Moderator
Thank you Gnimo for giving detailed info.
Depends. Do you define "cutting edge raider" as doing top DPS in a singular group on a private server with 7 year old content?
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Member
Gnimo nice guide as always.
