So im trying to figure out the burst for an arcane mage but I’m struggling to put it all together while needing to move or reposition. It feels like by the time I hit all my cooldowns and getting ToTM up I’m either running for my life or my opponent has moved to LOS or out of range.
Every class seems to have an immunity cooldown and I find the back half of my burst never gets to happen. What do you you do to get another go?
If it doesn’t work I feel like I’m running and burning defensives. ToTM and Rune of power really feel awful to me in PVP. Maybe that’s why I almost never see another arcane mage in a random BG?
Arcane stinks in PvP. If you insist on doing it, use slow often and the aoe slow is helpful too in BGs. Your biggest strength is the PvP talent kleptomania, which is essentially a caster killer because it robs all of their buffs.
Don’t run kleptomania as arcane in bgs. If you do that, you are eliminating one of the main strengths of arcane, which is the ability to infinitely spellsteal.
What covenant are you? And, to both setup your burst and prevent enemy from running away, you need a Polymorph. You can also Slow him while he is polymorphed, so when you break it, he has harder time to escape.
If you are Kyrian - use such a combo (should prevent Poly from being just kicked, but some classes like Hunter and DH have stealth reveals, can also be broken by DoTs, watch out): Mass Invis → Presence of Mind → Polymorph (won’t break it) → Touch of the Magi (won’t break Poly, breaks Mass Invis for some reason even though does 0 damage at the cast, Blizzard fix plz) → Arcanosphere (watch enemy very carefully, if he trinkets and you see Alliance / Horde symbol above him - instantly release it at him or he will CC / interrupt it) → Arcane Power (pop immediately when you release Arcanosphere so it is buffed by it) → Radiant Spark (enemy will be hit and knocked back by Arcanosphere, so is not very likely to kick it) → Fire Blast → 3 x instant Arcane Blast → Arcane Barrage (should consume final stack of Radiant). if enemy survived, finish him with (Clearcast) Arcane Missiles or uninterruptible combo of Arcane Orb and 2nd Arcane Barrage (but try not to miss with the orb itself, the more Arcane Charges it will generate, the better). If the enemy still survived, spam Arcane Missiles. If got kicked on Arcane, spam Frostbolt (it does surprisingly decent damage in PVP).
For Venthyr, combo is a bit different. It is Mass Invis → Presence of Mind → Polymorph
→ Mirrors of Torment (won’t break Poly) → Touch of the Magi → Arcanosphere → Arcane Power → 3 x instant Arcane Blast → Arcane Barrage → unleash accumulated Clearcasting procs on him to finish. If you run Arcane Echo, try to use your Missiles earlier than ToTM expires to utilize it (so instant Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage can wait, but beware of kicks), Arcane tier set 4 piece bonus can also help with that as it increases ToTM duration by 4 seconds.
I agree - for BGs Klepto is not very good, your holy trinity should be Mass Invis / Arcanosphere / Temporal Shield. If you have much trouble with melee training you, swap Temporal for Torment the Weak aka Mass Slow.
1 Like
You have to hide in a bush, hope not to be seen and cast arcanosphere and hope your target don’t move. 
2 Likes
Yea I spellsteal alot. Especially to steal hots. Sometimes it’s more effective than my damage outside of arcane power.
Ok so people are sheeping their kill target before killing. Man outside of arena that feels wack. Now I see why people complain of kicks. You’re whole damage window relies on landing a poly so you can get your rocks off.
I’ve basically taken to being too big of a pain in the butt to chase and when someone is distracted killing a teammate attempt my burst.
Honestly arcane feels like the least mobile of the mage specs. Outside of POM or Clearcast we can’t do jack on the move. So it’s one minute cooldown or RNG proc. But everything else is like designed to be slippery and difficult to pin down.
With the amount of mobility for melee I’m afraid to use anything but slow, spellsteal, barrage (chronoshift), and clearcast missiles.