(Written by Karch) (Write for us!)
Well, patch 3.2 is here, and all mages should be familiar with the significant changes that have been made. Depending on what you believe, Arcane now theorycrafts equal or better than deep fire, and you’ll be seeing a whole lot more arcane mages in raid groups.
As evidenced by many, many prior posts in the blog, I’m a longtime Arcane mage and someone who made it work even when it was ‘inferior’ to deep fire. Now that the spec has come back into vogue, I’ve got mixed feelings – but I’ll spare you those and get right to the good stuff.
This is my Arcane Mage Guide, updated for Patch 3.2.2.
Motto: “Now more dangerous to bosses, and less dangerous to your mana pool!”
It’s rare that you see a spec get its biggest weakness so unequivocally fixed, but that’s exactly what patch 3.2.2 did for arcane mages. The trick to the spec has always been mana management, and one ill-timed broken evocation could ruin an entire fight. But no longer! Now, with only average luck you can last even medium-length fights without a single evocation, and oh by the way you’ll be putting up ridiculous DPS the entire time. Here’s quick summary of the changes that make this so:
-Arcane Blast now stacks to 4 instead of 3, with each stack increasing its cost 175% as opposed to 225%.
-Using Missile Barrage’d Arcane Missiles no longer costs any mana and does not consume clearcasting.
Other than the obvious mana-saving implications, this also means that you will be hitting harder. Each arcane blast stack still increases the damage of your next arcane spell by 18% (with the glyph), so with four stacks you’ll be working with a massive 72% damage increase. This further increases the spec’s already-prodigious short-term burn ability (in just a couple nights of raiding I’m seeing 30k crits during burn phases), as well as overall DPS.
Spec/Talents
57/3/11 is your only option, though you have a tiny bit of flexibility within the “57″ part.
First, let’s just square away the fire and frost points, for anyone who wants to try to get tricky. You need 3 points in Incineration (6% crit to your main nuke) and you need Icy Veins (essentially, 20% more damage when you pop your cooldowns). These aren’t up for debate if you’re actually trying to put up the best numbers you can.
Second, there are some fights that Incanter’s Absorption is ridiculously good for (Twin Val’kyrs in particular) – but there are some fights where it doesn’t help at all. Therefore, if you want an Incanter’s Absorption spec, I suggest devoting your dual spec to it. Having it in your main arcane spec will hurt your DPS on many fights because you’re pulling points away from important talents.
So with that said, the most basic possible 57/3/11 Arcane Spec would look like this:
This hits all the vital talents, and stays as safe as possible with the discretionary choices. With this basic spec, you will get yourself the most possible threat reduction, highest possible hit chance bonus, and nearly-full pushback protection even if for some reason you aren’t near a pally with Concentration Aura.
Now, you’re certainly not locked into the above choices, and you can (and arguably, should) move some points around at your discretion. The three “flexible” talents you can pull points from are:
–Arcane Subtlety: If you feel comfortable in managing your threat, you can drop a point. Dropping both is very dangerous but still possible.
–Arcane Focus: If you’ve got excess hit rating, you can drop points from here.
–Arcane Concentration: Pushback is not a serious issue in a lot of fights, so if you can live with it from time to time you can drop some or even all points from here.
Points would be moved into Student of the Mind (a flat spirit increase per point), Magic Attunement (3 yard range increase per point – some people swear by this and it does tend to make your life easier), or the aforementioned Incanter’s Absorption,
Armor/Glyphs/Focus Magic
-Armor: Thanks to the increase of spirit on our gear, the T9 2-piece set bonus, and the glyph, Molten Armor is the only choice for any raiding mage.
-Glyphs – Pretty simple here as well: Glyph of Arcane Blast, Glyph of Arcane Missiles, and Glyph of Molten Armor. The minor glyphs don’t really matter.
-Focus Magic – Place it on another mage, and have another mage place it on you. There’s no real reason for anyone to be Frostfire anymore, so every mage in your raid should have Focus Magic and you should all be able to buff each other.
Rotation
Now we’re to the good stuff – although the arcane rotation is a lot simpler now and the spec plays more like Fire. In my last Arcane Guide, I wrote that the spec was like a car, where you’d constantly have to shift gears to make it to the end of the fight. Now, it’s like a really fast car with an automatic transmission.
You can probably guess the ideal rotation based on the patch changes, but here it is:
-Always start with FOUR Arcane Blasts (this stacks the damage buff to full.
-IF Missile Barrage DOES proc, cast Arcane Missiles.
-IF Missile Barrage DOES NOT proc, continue casting Arcane Blast until it does, THEN cast Arcane Missiles.
Now…
A few things here. First, Missile Barrage now has a 40% chance to proc on any arcane cast, meaning 9 out of 10 times you’ll be able to do the simple Arcane Blast x 4 -> Arcane Missiles rotation. When you get unlucky and it doesn’t proc, your mana should be flexible enough to continue casting Arcane Blast until it does. If you are concerned about your mana pool, however, you should just pop Arcane Barrage and start the rotation over. You should not cast Arcane Missiles without the Missile Barrage buff.
-Evocation: No longer an integral part of an arcane mage’s life. On longer fights you should still use it, of course, if you’re below 40% mana and there is still plenty of fight left. But the days of getting off six evocations during Mimiron Hard Mode (which I swear I did) are long gone.
-Burn Phases: Spam arcane blast. A lot of people, especially those new to the spec, wonder why you would ever spam arcane blast at the ridiculous mana cost when a fully-charged arcane missiles does just about as much (if not more) than a fully-charged arcane blast. The key is that arcane missiles clears the arcane blast buff, meaning your next four arcane blasts will be considerably weaker than they would have been had you kept the buff. Make sure you understand this concept – over the course of a 30-45 second burn, just hammering arcane blast will do way, way more total damage than sticking to the standard rotation.
-Mana Gems: Use early and often, same as always.
-Cooldowns: If you’re Arcane, you have the following: Icy Veins, Arcane Power, Mirror Image, any on-use trinkets, and Presence of Mind. I recommend macro’ing everything except Presence of Mind together and using them at the start of fights:
/cast arcane power
/cast icy veins
/use 13
/use 14
/cast mirror image
Then, create a separate macro for your POM’d arcane blast:
/cast presence of mind
/cast arcane blast
And use that as the fourth arcane blast in any rotation. Arcane is still about burst damage (though not as much as before), so you want to time your cooldowns with heroism and use them as often as possible during the fight.
And that’s about it! Good luck to all the arcane mages out there, new and old, who should very much enjoy leading the charts again for the short time until Blizzard nerfs us!
In my opinion you should get frost warding instead of +66% frost damage,extra mana might be useful
Anyone know what the minimum haste cap for arcane mages is? I know the soft cap is 850rating but there used to be a rating below that Arcane mages would use to raid back in naxx days.
I read the following on elitistjerks.com:
If you aren't OOM after the end of the fight, your haste is too low,
LOL regarding post about bad mages…im a baddie but i like all the pretty colors in the game:) Thanks for the post, as i can now hit 7.5k dps single target. This mage being my second toon next to a prot war has become way more fun after reading your guide.
Great help. I am only 73 (sadly) but i still use this spec. If Arcane Missiles Procs before u get 4 stacks do u still use it or no?
If it procs, you should still stack to 4 Arcane Blasts ( or 3 if your looking to make your mana pool last ) then use, so it's at full power and still costs no mana
So many things wrong with this guide. In no particular order:
1. Every mage raiding totc should have Incanter's Absorption. With bubbles going around, and fire/frost damage on almost every single fight, using your wards will keep it up almost all of the time. Heck, use fire ward and step into a fire on jaraxxus or beasts. Here is a list of all the fights that proc incanter's from ward. Beasts – fire from fire bombs and frost from frost breath, Jaraxxus – fire on the ground, fire from infernals, Twins – fire from white orbs, Anub – frost from pen cold. That brings me to…
2. There is no point in totc when an arcane mage would use blizzard, ever. Take the warding talents.
3. Saying you shouldn't need to evocate is stupid. Evocate wisely. Use it when IV or BL/Hero has a second or two left on it.
4. You can't use two use trinkets at the same time. Using 1 puts the other on a 20 sec cd.
5. Using POM/AB as the fourth AB in your rotation is just wrong. You should use it as the 3rd in the rotation before you use your IV/AP macro. Which leads me to…
6. You shouldn't have Mirror Image in your IV/AP macro since it triggers the GCD. You lose 1 second of Arcane Power by doing that. Switch out MI for AB in that macro and use MI before your first AB for your burn when you know it's coming.
7. Spamming AB is not the best rotation for a burn phase. Arcane Missiles is an OP spell so using it on the 4th AB is optimal b/c your spell casting is going to be so hasted that it doesn't take much time to restack AB.
I'm sure there's more, but my point is that there is enough terrible mages already and posting a guide to make more bad mages isn't helping.
@lol – short answer is to only use MBarr at four stacks, long answer is if it procs on an ABarr that you just happen to cast, use it on 0 stacks then restack AB.
Hey i was just wondering if you could answer does the torment the weak talent work on bosses. (i.e. do snares work on bosses)?
thx
Torment the weak *does* work on bosses, however not with the snares that first come to mind: root, slow, etc., since bosses are immune to those kinds of snares. Abilities that slow attack speed on a boss, however, like a warrior’s Thunder Clap, will trigger Torment the Weak. So if you raid with a warrior, have him keep that debuff up on the boss at all times and you’ll get a nice boost in dps. (If you have no Protection Warrior, you might have a hard time convincing a dps warrior to add Thunder Clap into his rotation, but if he’s conscientious about total raid damage he’ll know a 12% dmg boost for you is worth it)
First, your input was valuable; I applied most of your advice. However, I must say it was unfair to say “and posting a guide to make more bad mages..”. This guide provided a sound foundation from which to build upon in learning how to become a better mage. I found it most helpful and reccomend it as a jump off point for any newish mage.
tribat is there any chance to see your talent spec
Tribat – I respect your opinion, so let me say this before I get to your points. This is not a guide for mages who are already doing outstanding DPS and trying to squeeze the last bit out of what they can do. This is more for mages who are new to arcane, or who are doing really sub-standard DPS (“terrible mages,” as you would call them).
Now to answer your points…
1 – Whether or not to take Incanter’s Absorption is your opinion, not a fact as you seem to believe. It’s not only fight-dependent, but depends on you knowing when you are shielded and in many cases intentionally taking damage. I would argue that the DPS increase is both marginal and temporary and if you spend any amount of time fishing for the buff (such as running to nearby fire in Northrend Beasts), the damage you gain is being off-set by the damage you lose from not continuing your rotation.
Look, I’m sure a world-class mage such as yourself can befriend discipline priests to get constant shields and benefit from Incanter’s Absorption, but given the intended audience for this guide, I don’t see it as being worth the hassle, and in my opinion you are not “terrible” if you don’t have IA.
2. Fair point on the Blizzard/Warding talents in the frost tree – but I don’t see that as being a huge deal?
3. Your criticism of my point about evocation is against something I never said. Prior to this patch, it was SUPER important to arcane mages – now it is not nearly as important. That’s all I’m saying. But on fights that are around 3 minutes (Jaraxxus, Twin Valkyrs) I find myself not having any mana issues, so I don’t evocate. That’s all.
4 + 5 + 6. The trinket point is well-taken; I only ever have one on-use trinket so I just use this macro, but you are correct. The other two are also fair points on peripheral issues.
7. It depends on the length of the burn phase. The “it doesn’t take long to re-stack AB” argument is wrong if you’re talking about a short burn like when Icehowl hits the wall during Northrend beasts, or during the heart phase in XT Hard Mode. The time you spend re-stacking AB is very significant when you’re talking about that time frame.
I am sure you are an outstanding mage, and I am sure you read Elitist Jerks and maybe even post there. I have no doubt that some of your points are correct.
But my main point is that you’re doing the whole “THE SKY IS FALLING” routine over relatively minor issues. The only two major/fundamental issues (Incanter’s Absorption and AB spam during burn phases) I just flat-out disagree with you on. The bottom line is that if you were new to the class and followed this guide verbatim I cannot imagine how it would make you a “terrible” mage. I’m trying to keep things simple and just explain the basics to help players who are new to the class or doing really sub-standard DPS. I’m sorry if it offends your sensibilities.
Nitpick: the root verb of evocation is “to evoke” not “to evocate”. When you cast “Evocation” you are magically evoking mana from out of the Arcane realm.
It helps maintain the illusion that we’re the smartest class out there if we sound like it. It’s what separates us from the warlocks.
I’m glad we can all conversate on this thread in the friendly fashion that we do.
Hear Hear.
@the wanderer
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dr…
@karch
I'm sorry if I came off as a little harsh, but I believe that arcane is a complex spec with many subtleties, and to not discuss the intricacies of it wouldn't be doing it justice. Your guide would of been fine if you were discussing say ttw/fb or ffb, but if you are going to help people with arcane you need to be a little more in depth. On our two points of main contention….
Incanter's Absorption. You can use fire/frost ward every 30 seconds and for the sake of argument, let's say that a mage has 2500 sp. That plus fire ward is ~4500 dmg absorbed. So 2 point in IA can give and extra 450 sp every 30 secs on many fights if used properly. And with priest bubbles that you'll probably get even without having a "priest friend" b/c of lots of dmg going around (which can give you upwards of 1200sp) it ends up being a very worthwhile talent. On the same note, for an offspec having a second arcane spec sounds like a waste. How about a fire spec for scorch if you don't have a demo lock, or a pvp spec if that's your fancy.
AB spam. A really handy program for mages is Rawr (google it). It will help you with your gear, gemming, and rotation. It goes through all the possibilities of a rotation you could have and comes back with a solution. The maximum burn rotation it has is Heroism/BL+AP+IV+Trinket+Speed Pot+ABspam04Mbarr (which means use an Mbarr on 0 or 4 stacks). My findings on target dummies (w/ and w/o BL back up these results.
I love RAWR. I have not been able to figure out how RAWR will help with spell rotations. Where is that part of the program?
There may be another way to do it but what i do is…
Tools>Copy Character Stats to Clipboard
then paste into word. Toward the bottom it has the different combinations of cd's and the dps that each will do.
I rly dont know your eq… but if I can look on my character in Rawr, then I see that rotation:
1) ABspam04MBAM deal -> 8396 DPS
2) AB4(full debuff stack) deal -> 8494 DPS
numbers are with raid buffs, without CDs / consums buffs.
If is problem in max zerg rotation with CD buffs, than I have top rotation similiar as you… but… in the count of rotation i cant anywhere see nothing like:
(
Horoism / BL + AP + IV + dmg trinket + speed pot + AB(4)-full debuff stack
This rotation is in my rawr missing… co i cant count with it.
But … if is the best DPS (not DPM!!!) rotation without buffs AB(4), I suppose that it will be best with same buffs neither.
Woulus <Black Division>
I am a high powered destro lock but I have a decent geared mage and this guide was helpful. Thank you Karch for writing this.
Nice guide am gonna use it on my alt mage, now just one question, the spellhit cap is 11% now right? (17% – 6% talented) and with Shadowpriest or Boomkin that gets only 8% cap? sorry for stupid question just dont play my mage alot
For horde, it's 210 with spriest/boomkin and 289 w/o.
Was a semi-adequate thread, but this guy doesn't understand how IA works. Drop your points out of AS. Put 1 in SotM and max out IA. Now have a competent priest, usually disc, keep you bubbled, and watch your dps jump. He also has his frost points screwed up. You don't put 2 pts. in Ice Shards. That's absurd. Put those 2 pts. in warding, since you will pop the appropriate ward right before each fight, and whenever appropriate during the fight(while moving, before certain boss abilities on a timer etc). Because of both pts. in wards, and the bubble any competent disc priest has on you, AS is pretty much useless, The dps increase from your superior spec with competent play outweighs the gimp spec he suggested, by w wide margin.
So i left frost for arcane and this guide was extremly useful. Thanks
Thanks for the guide. I may tweak things a bit but as a lifelong frosty, it was a fantastic starting point to move into arcane. Thanks as well to all the posters of constructive criticism, I will check with the priest who will be bubbling me if they can spare the time
I don't see much use of Arcane Barrage, so is it not an important role in the rotation
Thanks for post Karch, and thanks for the inputs Tribat.
Very good thread for unexperienced mages i'd say.
Made me think.
Lol Karch u weren't kidding!
Oh and btw, 6 evocations and probably 3-4 innervates from me on Mim hard.
PoM+AB should be cast as your FIFTH in a sequence of ABs. With 4 stacks going for max damage and the increased critical effect from PoM, this is your best choice for a single heavy nuke critical.
Incanter's Absorbtion is far too powerful to ignore in a raid environment, it isn't optional – it's a must have – if DPS is what you're after.
I'm sorry can somone tell me ` Arcane Barrage ` yes or no in rotation ?
If yes when .. since if its not worth casting = saving one point in talents.
help
drop it – the odd times you might use it are better used to gain a little mana tbh.
In a raid it's AB04MBAM all the way and ask for shields from priests at all times until they get used to spamming you every CD.
about the 2 points in frost, if either frost warding or frost warding, u got to consider that if you are new to mage and still dont have any exp, ul stil prob do other raids in witch blizzard aoe can be a boost to your dps
About the Arcane Barrage question.
Just my opinion maybe I’m crazy but… Arcane barrage is the spell of choice to wipe Arcane Blast stacks at 3 if you are trying to be more mana eficient.
I have a question of my own to add… I’ve been in Iraq since the patches made arcane viable for raiding and haven’t actually been able to play it yet, not to mention I’m still wearing item lvl 219 gear. I’m getting home this week and I was wondering if I need to stick with deep fire until I get better gear or is this spec a better choice since I’ve missed all of the new content and will be playing catch up for a few weeks. ::crosses fingers:: I really hope this spec isn’t gear dependent! Any advice will be greatly appreciated!!
Arcane spec needs haste as opposed to the crit-dependence of fire. Depending on your gear, you would at least need to re-gem it for haste instead of crit, moving from fire to arcane, to make it viable in the least bit. You will probably get better dps as deep fire out of your current gear, however, than you would with the same gear in Arcane, so just run heroics and weeklies as deep fire to get badges for your Arcane set, in my opinion.
/cry No one responded to my post, this isn’t a dead thread is it? /shake fist at sky
Change now, it will boost your dps right away
From what I've seen, No it's not 'heavy' gear dependant. As in all specs gear will make it better. That being said you will want to change the focus of your gear to including Haste as about the 3rd in line. Hit Rating (289 with Arcane Focus & Precision) > Spell Power > Haste > Critical Strike Rating. Some people will say switch Haste & CSR, either way you'll want the best you can get in both.
My only critisism is please don't use abbreviations if you really intend this to be used by new players. Even experienced players but new to mage and or arcane mage will benefit by using full words or at least first time usage like Arcane Blast (AB) … or Icy Veins (IV) … etc.
Thanks for taking the time to write this though. I got a few good pointers. Good Luck.
ty karch! great guide for me! i just get to 80 and i was fire with 2900-3k dps but with this guide i have more than 3500-3700! i still need to gear up!
prolly a dumb question but if your using arcane missles, whats the point of putting a point in arcane barrage?
thanks
@Andrew
Because during movement intensive fights Arcane Barrage can be used while running. Also when you need a quick burst, such as taking down orbs or scarabs on Anub in Trial. I will typically use it on Ony to start building damage while the tank is moving her to the wall since all DPS is trailing behind her; just make sure the tank has aggro
just changing over to arcane. two questions about post that i havent heard before what is heroism and what is burn phase. please answer in english thx for any responses
Heroism is the alliances version of Bloodlust .. and the burn phase is the last part of a fight when you are burning down their hp’s
I enjoyed the guide and the many comments. I will look into this myself to see what helps. One thought though is to gear and set up the points considering the fact you may not have the class present. Discipline priests are not very common, so to set up points to consider one for a DPS increase does not make sense. Also even if a disc priest were present you may or not be bubbled being they would focus more on keeping the tank up and themselves rather than raid healing. A disc priest can help with raid, but that role would more likely fall on a druid, shaman, or holy priest. For some of those intense fights as a Disc priest who was assigned to heal the tank, it is far better to ignore the raid and keep all your efforts on the tank since the tank should be taking the lion share of the damage. I just don’t see a priest following around the mage and throwing out the shields just so that mage can do more dps.
Second I was concerned being I play a healer often that there was an idea to intentionally take damage, “Step in the fire,”. When healing you do not want raid members to encourage more damage on themselves. A dead DPS does no damage.
after playing a warrior and dk the old need no brains run in and hit characters. A mage was a break from the norm.
i leveled using frost spec and after hitting 80 changed to arcane.
I found this info very useful and it did help my dps a great deal.
some great points i didnt know
Thanks mate
.-= dominatrixx´s last blog ..Goodbye =-.
why not change points from Ice Shards -> Frost Warding?
you mainly not be giving frost dmg…
and u will eventually use frost/fire wards.
I am very happy about this rotations! Much better dps. right now 4k on heroic dummy unbuffen before 3,5k dps.. Thanks for posting this very usefull!
Casting arbarr instead of AM if your mbarr doesnt proc is wrong, even without the proc, AM does significally more dmg than arbarr does.
noo it won’t. We are after dps not just damage. arcane missiles is like a 3.5 second cast with decent haste and does maybe 40% more dmg whereas barrage is a 1 seconds cast when you consider the gcd. Better to keep spamming AB till it procs missile barrage tho but it is all dependent on your mana.
If Missle Barrage doesn’t proc i would still rather cast a quick Arcane Barrage so i can get back to casting Arcane Blasts as quickly as possible.
Not that i would want to cast an Arcane barrage tho. Just stick to Arcane Blasts if Missle Barrage doesn’t proc.
Very helpful . Used it last night for the first time and topped the DD chart for the first time since I rolled my Mage . Anyways thanks for this .
Really like your work Karch. Thank-you. Has really helped get my Arcane Mage off the ground. Well… Readying myself for 5-man HCs. Just about do ok in PoS, FoS Norm so all good
Just a little point.
“–Arcane Concentration: Pushback is not a serious issue in a lot of fights, so if you can live with it from time to time you can drop some or even all points from here.”
Do you not mean -Arcane Stability here?
I personally don’t have any points here and opted for 1 point in Magic Attunement (maybe the want for extra distance coming from my Frost Levelling) and 3 points in Student Of The Mind – thinking what little I can do with Mana Regen (and some small dps) is better than removing knockback.
Is this thread old or am I missing something? Incanter’s Absorption states:
“When your Mana Shield, Frost Ward, Fire Ward or Ice Barrier absorbs damage your spell damage is increased by 5/10/15% of the amount absorbed for 10 sec.”
Why is everyone talking about Priest shields? Was this pre a certain patch?
Xxarak.
Yes, prior to patch 3.3 it was beneficial to have a Discipline priest keep you bubbled as the absorbs counted for 500-1000 (your mileage may have varied) free spell power, keeping the talent on cool down almost continually. The was very true of any fight with persistent aoe damage. The latest patch removed Power Word: Shield from having this affect on Incanter’s Absorption and many arcane mages have since relocated the talent point(s) used there.
Great stuff
thanks for confirming.
Xxarak.
thanks for the guide. im gonna use this info to tweak my toon.
Even if you put it in bold, “You should not cast Arcane Missiles without the Missile Barrage buff” isn’t true. It is certainly better, and has been proven with some heavy simulation and plenty of game experience, that it’s better to clear the AB buff with an unhastened Arcane Missiles, than to use an Arcane Barrage.
A couple of things that aren’t usually mentioned in guides: Once you have your 4pc T10, you still want to keep at least some T9 gear with you, and you should gem and enchant that gear *for spirit*. Your routine for buffing should be to wait until all buffs are applied that can increase your spirit (put down a campfire too), then put on your T9 set, then cast Molten Armor, then put your T10 gear back on. Basically, maximize spirit for the T9 set bonus to MA, and you keep the buff when you change.
Also, once you have 4pc T10 and an ICC weapon, you will be so far over hit cap that you could spec out of both Precision and Arcane Focus, if only there were really a better place to put the points.
You’ll only be “so far over” the hit cap if you have both the T10 legs and hands equipped. If you go with Head, Shoulders, Chest and either Hands or Legs, there are some very nice crafted legs (Leggings of Woven Death) or the Gloves of False Gestures that don’t have hit on them but are otherwise extremely good for you given how much crit and haste they have on them.
But I agree, if by luck of the draw the gear you get has a lot of hit on it, (Ether-Soaked Bracers or Gunship Captain Mittens both have lots of hit) you can move points out of precision or and into
WOW… I just read this entire post, and I have to say that of the sites I’ve researched for ARCANE based mages, this has hands down been the most helpful. I tried going to ElitestJerks.com and I’d swear they were speaking a foreign language with their abbreviations and references to other abbreviations… it was most frustrating for someone trying to understand what a ‘spell rotation’ was, not to mention improving their character. KUDOS to you!
DISCLAIMER: I am VERY new to the understanding that playing a mage is not just pressing buttons and praying not to die. When I witnessed a mage kite and wipe out a mob that had been aggro’d by the healer, I realized that there was a definite science to the mage. I have no concept of playing a mage that doesn’t just stand there and blizzard until out of mana, hack and slash. When attacked by opposing faction, I die after getting 1, maybe 2 spells off. I confess that I suck, and am trying to improve that through research. I don’t know where people learn how to PVP, and I am scoffed and made fun of when I inquire other players about it. I like WOW, but frankly, I’m getting frustrated constantly being the one running back from the graveyard.
BASE: Leveled 100% Frost, at Level 80 went 100% Arcane.
?#1: I’ve noticed that nobody spoke of Arcane Power. Is this because of it’s long cooldown time, it’s mana-intensiveness, or is it considered only useful for PVP?
?#2: I normally place Magic Focus on the party healer, as a healer that crits more seems to me like a good idea, and procs for me quite often… Since placing it on the healer wasn’t spoken of, I’m guessing I am misunderstanding it?
?#3: How do you learn to PVP?
I very much appreciate all thoughts and opinions, and thank you for taking the time to read this. As there are no dates on the postings, I’m hoping this thread isn’t dead… (06/23/10)
Kaly
Always spec into Arcane Power. It is mana intensive, but the dmg boost is totally worth it. If you use the 57/3/11 Arcane spec, you can make a macro and pair your Arcane Power with Icy Veins for really intense burst dps. If you have a “Use” SP trinket like the Talisman of Resurgence, you can do all 3 together for some really insane damage for 15-20 seconds. It also pairs really nicely with the 4 piece tier 10 set bonus for mirror image (18 percent increased damage for 30 seconds). Use an arcane power/icy veins macro followed by mirror image (with set bonus) and watch your dps go through the roof.
So the short answer is, Yes, always spec into Arcane Power as an Arcane mage. There are always going to be boss fights where there are moments when your group will need lots of burst dps for some reason or another: downing an add really fast, or beating an enrage timer. Your mana shouldn’t be that much of a problem what with your mana gem and evocation having short cooldowns, if you manage them correctly.
This was very helpful for a new mage, a bit redundant for an old mage but still a point of interest. I am fairly new to mage, as i am used to playing my rogue. i like how u leave open ends i personally prefer to find out for myself what works best for me. No one can tell me how to play a class, they may give pointers but in the end its my fingers hitting the buttons. The biggest pick up i got from your guide was using certain spell combinations in macros. Ty for the help and hopefully soon my mage like my rogue will dominate the charts.