When does arcane damage pick up in keys?

I’ve been doing rather smallish keys (4 or less on my new mage alt) and I seem to be the bottom of the pile each dungeon.

I’ve noticed that CD’s don’t really line up that great a lot of times and I’m assuming it’s because of how quickly packs seem to go down. Evo-surge-missiles-barrage-touch-and off to the races seems to do really well on boss fights but my overall is much lower compared to all the melee.

Would I just be better served playing frost for a while? I accept that I might not be pulling the spec off as well as I could be, but I don’t think mechanically I’m too far off the mark.

It’s just about CD management. Also 4pc helps arcane a lot in m+ IMO it gives you more barrage casts. But yes if the packs die quickly it can be hard to utilize CD. Just make sure you are shifting power as much as possible to make sure they are up as much as possible.

1 Like

The espoused AOE rotation and talents in guides arent great when you end up in AOE situations with mobs dying incredibly quickly. I’d advice you to drop energized familiars for charged orb, and then make use of your orb charges to barrage a lot more frequently in AOE. You can change to the more restricted barraging with heavy arcane blasting at higher keys.

3 Likes

Pretty much what Manather said, arcane still needs to hardcast and use cds to really get damage flowing. On bosses arcane is nuts, on trash its a good idea to know when you can barrage and how much. Is orb on cd? is BoP up? Do you have a clearcast proc? all of these generate arcane charges for barrages and at 4, also splitting with arcing cleave and resonance it hurts. Now take all this and look at talents that enhance touch of the magi and you are an AoE powerhouse. Keep at it!

Edit: Make sure you can swap into High Voltage for cleave also.

Arcane Echo and Magi’s Spark both make your touch of the Magi awesome for aoe. Just have your TotM on a big health target and make sure to hit it with all three spells

1 Like

Arcane will never be a high overall damage spec in most M+ keys because it lives and dies by 1.5 minute burst windows, hard casts, and it is a hard capped spec.

You’re there to nuke bosses and give arcane intellect to the broken OP DK’s instead.

You’re still way better than many casters if not most, if it’s any consolation.