Arcane for dummies?

Classes Mage
1

Can someone, in some simple layman’s terms way, explain the ‘burn’ and ‘conserve’ rotation phases of arcane to me? For some reason, even though I’m sure some of the specs I play are plenty more complicated, arcane just confounds me. It doesnt seem to follow your typical builder/spender playstyle, since arcane blast is obviously the builder and arcane barrage is obviously the spender, but barrage does less damage than blast at 4 arcane charges and resets you back to zero charges… seems like you’d never want to use arcane barrage in the first place.

I need a rundown on how this spec plays, because I’m freakin hating fire and frost right now, and while I like arcane thematically I’ve never been able to get a handle on playing it.

2

Arcane blast becomes more mana expensive per charge. Its not possible to sustain pure arc blast spam indefinitely so you must dump them with barrage. Thats conserve.

Now if you have 90% mana and some serious dps is needed in the next 30 seconds you can burn all of your mana as blasts.

Arcanes mana bar=damage. The goal is to not have a boss die and still have 80% mana. Thats wasted damage. You also dont want to oom in first 2 minutes. Its a balance of knowing when to burn and when to conserve.

This is a pretty rough explanation. Im not a mage guru. Just some basic stuff.

3

If you’re conserving mana, unload your arcane charges with arcane barrage so that blasty blast doesn’t cost a ton of Mana. You can unload at four three or two or even one charge if you need Mana bad

When you go hard though spam arcane blasty blast to zero mana then evocate then spam to zero Mana by the end of the fight so you reach your true potential

Lol

4

Fire is going to feel like crap to you because it requires the most concentration to play. With fire you are always fishing for a 1st crit to capitalize on with fire blast (guaranteed crit) and get the combust phase rolling. Boring I know.

And frost is like spam frostbolt and then bigger frostbolt which is why I like using the ice ray. Boring I know.

5

Its used for mana conservation purposes only as mana is your dps. Now if you have ineffable truth you can get lucky and have it so you just spam blast and invocation is up as soon as your mana bar hits 0 so you effectively never need to dump mana

6

Some tips for arcane

Gear

  • Azerite gear - for single-target you want 3 pieces of azerite gear with “Equipoise” on them.

Talents

  • Try the following:
    • Tier 1: Rule of Threes
    • Tier 3: Either Incanter’s Flow or Rune of Power.
      • Rune of Power is the highest dps when played well, but requires careful timing and replacement. When not played well results can be less than with Incanter’s Flow.
      • Incanter’s Flow requires no input. Simply take the talent and ignore it. It’s a good choice for new arcane mages learning the rotation. And for experienced mages on progression fights.
      • Mirror Image is the lowest dps choice and should never be used.
    • Tier 4 and 6: Resonance and Reverberate are AOE talents. For single-target dps swap to Charged Up and Touch of the Magi.
    • If you find yourself losing evocation due to movement, you may wish to replace the talent “Shimmer” with “Slipstream”.

Rotation

  • For Single-target:
    • Burn Phase: At 4-stacks of Arcane Blast (AB), place Rune of Power (if talented), activate trinket, activate arcane power, spam Arcane Blast. Do not cast Arcane Missiles.
      • If you need to move during the burn phase, cast Presence of Mind then continue spamming Arcane Blast
      • If movement is not needed, cast Presence of Mind when you have a few seconds left in your burn phase to try to get an extra AB into the burn.
      • Once Arcane Power is done, continue spamming AB, but now also cast Arcane Missiles (AM) when you get a proc. Continue until mana runs dry then evocate back to full.
    • Conserve Phase:
      • Ideally cast 4x Arcane Blasts and then Arcane Barrage. If you get a missile proc, cast Arcane Missiles.
      • With Equipoise (which you should as it’s by far the best single-target azerite trait), ideally try to keep your mana just above 70% or higher for most of the conserve phase. This may mean casting more or less than 4x Arcane Blasts depending on mana.
      • Continue until Arcane Power is off-cooldown, then reenter burn phase. It is critical to make sure you’re above 70% mana when entering burn phase.
  • For AOE:
    • Spam Arcane Explosion and Barrage at 4 stacks.
    • If time permits, swap to AOE gear (3x echo traits + barrage trait), talents, and corrupted gear.
    • Can use arcane power and rune of power for extra damage if needed.
4 Likes
7

You made the classic mistake of not realizing that blast is our builder and spender and filler spell.

2 Likes
8

Thanks for the explanations guys. Seems weird to use one spell for everything but I think I’m up to the challenge =P

9

Welcome to arcane mage.

10

Do you ever play single target in mythic+ or mainly always run aoe gear and rotation?

11

Actually recently in Mythic+ I’ve been going with Packed Ice Frost build. My DPS isn’t particularly great with it, but at least I can both AOE and single-target with the same spec and gear.

I find Arcane to be a pain in Mythic+ for a number of reasons:

  • I have to pause and drink to replenish mana then run to catch up to everyone.
  • I find it easier to accidentally stand in bad when I’m bouncing around in melee with arcane than when AOEing at a distance with frost.
  • I also don’t like how with arcane in Mythic+ I pretty much have to choose between AOE or single-target. Can’t be good at both at the same time, and can’t swap gearsets between pulls.

In Horrific Visions I go arcane though. I spec talents for AOE and have 2 gearsets hotkeyed… one all AOE, and one all single-target and both of them have lots of Quick Thinking for self-heals. I swap between them depending on what’s in front of me.