I would like to learn arcane, been frost forever. I have been looking at rotation and such, I assume you do burn rotation when you get to the boss, do you just do the conserve while on trash and hold the burn spells for boss ? Any suggestions will be appreciated .
I would check out Preheat and Phosphorus’s guides.
Phosphorus has a cheat sheet for the three rotations phases (burn with lust, burn without lust and conserve)
Phosphorus does a bunch of high keys as well. I watched a lot of his videos good info.
I also grew tired of frost and it’s doing balls dps, so I decided to switch over to arcane. I am dumb as a box of rocks, so I went through a week or so of playing arcane everyday while questing, running dungeons and LFR and by the end of the week, I sort of had a grasp on it. Fast forward another week and I have it down fairly well now and actually once you learn the different phases it’s fairly easy to do, at least I think so and remember, I’m not exaggerating, I’m pretty dumb especially when it comes to video games.
My advice is go check out Manather on youtube, his arcane mage rotation guide was the one I learned it from and I had to watch and spend a few hours in front of dummies to finally get it down, but its doable.
Briefly, there are three phases, two of which are burn phases, the difference between the two have to do with certain cooldowns. The main burn which is also your opener, tends to rely on Evocation and Arcane surge being on cooldown, those are the two spells that are used in the main burn vs the mini burn. In the mini burn, you just need radiant spark and touch of the magi on cooldown.
The conserve phase is when all the spells for your burns on are cooldown, then you basically arcane missile on clear casts and squeeze in two arcane barrages inbetween, throwing in arcane barrage can also help with conserve and spends harmony.
As confusing as all of this might sound, if you spend time with the build and play it, it will eventually just click. Good luck.
You do 2 burn phases. Main burst with RoP, RS, Surge on 3rd RS and Barrage on 4th while casting Totm while Barrage is in flight. I use NT after Totm. Mini burn is same except use Arcane Blast on 3rd spark since Surge is on cd. You use it on trash as well. Trash has some variants though and you can get 2 Barrages during RS. Use Shifting Power immediately after each burn phase. And yeah you should be aware of when the boss fight is coming and have your main burst ready for it. You also need to cast Evocation pre main burn phase to get max Siphon. It sounds complicated but it’s really not when you get the hang of it.
Perhaps off meta, but i would suggest learning the rotation without the mid air barrage, then adding it in later. You lose a ton of damage if your empowered barrage is not in the TOTM Window.
You can use a weak aura to help you identify if it landed in the TOTM window.
Personally, i am finding (with the set) its more consistant to just fit everything in like in shadowlands and TOTM right from the start, the crits on AB makeup tons of damage.
The only issue with is is it can cause a bad habit that’s harder to break later. This is something that each individual player will have to make a decision on.
The only difference is on lust pulls where you surge on the first RS.
This may be outdated but it’s what was posted on Phosphorus’s guide.
Sure, I guess every one learns differently, but i can say regardless of the content, Arcane will often find themselves in situations that they will not be able to extend the burst, understanding what you can do in a short period is just as important as the extended version (often used as an opener.) And then to be able to mix and match them. Without the weak aura, i would guess most players don’t even know they are doing anything wrong, i didn’t!
I agree weakauras are always a good thing to have.
Thank you so much, great read for me.