Arcane

    1. Pros & Cons of being an Arc Mage
    2. Race Choosing
    3. Talent Tree
    4. Glyphs
    5. Statistics
    6. Gear
    7. Enchants
    8. Gems
    9. Professions
    10. Rotation Explanation
    11. Tips & Tricks
    12. Macros & Keybindings
    13. Addons & UI
    14. Frequently Asked Questions
      Pros & Cons of being an Arc Mage
    • Pros
      – Increase your party/raid members damage by +3% from Arcane Empowerment (more about it below)
      – „Easy“ spell rotation (huge damage even without skill)
      – Low Hit Cap (good for low geared players)
      – Easy switch between Brust (high DMG) and Mana-Saving modes (allows you to manage your mana all time)
      – Each gear upgrade will give you awesome DPS upgrade
    • Cons
      – Buggs on Molten: sometimes, with higher latency and haste close to hard cap (cast in 1 sec) your Arcane Missiles launch only 3-4 times instead of 5 (huge DPS lost)
      – Some uneducated players will name you „arcane noob“
      – Very restricted gearing (you can’t depend only on GearScore, but need to re-think every item in inventory three times)Now, more about raid buff from Arcane Empowerment. Some people says that +3% is nothing special, but lets do some maths.
    • What we know for sure:
      – Icecrown Citadel 25-mode bosses have – in average – 50’000’000 health (I’m not counting Lower Spire)
      – There are usualy 2 tanks, 5 healers and 18 DPSers in 25-man raid
    • Raid math without Arcane Mage:
      – Lets count how much DMG is required
      50’000’000 HP : 18 DPSers ~ 2’777’777 DMG on 1 head
      – It means each DPS must do around 2’770’000 DMG during the fight to kill boss
    • Raid with Arcane Mage
      – All raid members have +3% of their normal DMG
      50’000’000 HP * 3% = 1’500’000 HP
      – It means 1’500’000 DMG comes for free without any special activity
    • Conclusions
      – In raid without Arc Mage every DPS must do 2’770’000 DMG
      – In raid with Arc Mage 1’500’000 DMG comes for free
      (1’500’000 * 100%) / 2’770’000 ~ 54%
      – Arcane Empowerment gives you another (hypothetical) DPSer with 54% of normal DPSer damage (so it’s like „Twenty-five An Half Man“ mode 😉 )Race Choosing
      Alliance:
    • Troll
      – In my opinion best Horde race for mage PvE
      – Berserking – Haste brust!
      – Regeneration – some free health in combat
      – Da Voodoo Shuffle may be usefull in PvE
      – Beast Slaying – 5% more damage on beast type mobs…
      – Bow Specialization, Throwing Specialization – useless
    • Blood Elf
      – Not a bad choice for PvE too
      – Arcane Torrent – free 6% mana restore
      – Magic Resistance – minor upgrade
      – Arcane Affinity – easier Enchanting leveling, not a bad proffesion for mage
    • Undead
      – In my opinion best Hurde race for mage PvP, not so good for PvE
      – Will of the Forsaken may have some use in PvE, but mostly PvP skill
      – Cannibalize – like above
      – Shadow Resistance – mionr upgrade
      – Underwater Breathing – useless in combatTalent Tree
      This is my recomended Talent Tree for Arcane Mage raiding:Molten Armory Mage build 57/3/11I’m not recomending any changes in Frost and Fire tree – those points are 100% worthy to spend. You want to know why? Use your brains – at the end you want to be mage so start think ;)Now, about Arcane tree. There might be some variations of those 57 talents. Fell free to find your own set. This is some other builds i saw in-game:
    • Glyph of Slow Fall – no more feathers in your bags, life saving spell when Archmages come at Valithria Dreamwalker encounter
    • Glyph of Frost Ward – you may use Frost Ward sometimes while moving at Sindragosa and Lich King encounter, it gives healers a bit help. Better than any other Minor Glyph.
    • Glyph of Fire Ward – you may use Fire Ward sometimes while moving at Blood Prince Council (Valanar) and Koralon the Flame Watcher encounter, it gives healers a bit help. Better than any other Minor Glyph.Statistics
      You shall read proper sections of this topic:[3.3.5a] Ultimate Mage Theorycraft – Everything is Here! 3.3.5aIt explains everything about differences between Ratings and Chances, etc.
      In short words for Arcane Mages PvE:
    • Statistics priority:
      Hit > Spell Power = Haste > Critical > Spirit
    • Hit Cap (never miss on boss) = 17% Hit Chance (446 Hit Rating)
    • With Arcane Focus and Precision you need 289 Hit Rating to cap (11% Hit Chance)
    • Every point less in Arcane Focus means that you need 26.232 Hit Rating more to cap
    • Spell Power – around 3’000-3’500 is good
    • Haste – as much as you can get, until you reach Arcane Blast casting time = 1 sec (count all haste buffs like Icy Veins, Heroism, etc.)
    • Critical strike – you shall focus on it when you reach good amount of Haste
    • Spirit – well, better don’t go for it, let Priests, Warlock and Fire Mages have items with +Spirit. Equip such items ONLY if you don’t have any replacment. Contribution from Molten Armor shall not be reason to waste item slot for +Spirit. If you have weaker item with stats other than Spirit better use it instead – your DPS will be higher.Gear
    • Comming soon.Enchants
      This is only enchants without any Prfessions on your character. Bonuses from them will be show in proper section.
    • Comming soon.Rotation Explanation
      This is power of Arcane Mage – easy rotation that allows you to manage your mana all time and decide how much and HOW LONG you need to DPS on boss. When raid is going fine you can do 100% of your abilities, if something went wrong (and half raid is dead) you can maintain DPS mostly forever.Basic Rotation
    • „Heeee 500 mana here XD“ – MAJOR RULE FOR ARCANE MAGE. When boss is dead you shall have only several percent of mana. If you have more it means you didn’t make 100% od possible DPS. Try re-think High Damage Rotation and add more Arcane Blast casts.
    • „Keep castin yo @#$!%#!“ – you shall casting spell 99,99% time of encounter, any second non-casting = waste of DPS
    • „Police! Dont Move!“ – realy, you shall reduce your moving to minimum. Move only if your (or raid mambers) life is in danger
    • „Drinkin, drinkin…“ – use first Mana Sapphire after you have 4’000 mana lack in your mana pool (around second Basic Rotation) and another as soon as possible. Also use Runic Mana Potion and/or Runic Mana Injector when needed.
    • „<DND> Meditating“ – if you are runing out of mana in long fight use Evocation while you will be able to use Icy Veins again (after High Damage Rotation). NEVER Evocate in fight without Icy Veins!
    • „So cold here, folks…“ – your Ice Block is miracle from Heaven. You can use it if healers stoped healing you for some reason or raid (or only you!) is going to take heavy damage from boss abilities
    • „Keep the distance… dude… dude!“ – stay in range. Simply. Dont go closer to boss than 20-30 yard range. There is no need to go closer and it may cost you life. In several encounters you shall watch range between raid members too.
    • „Klickin, klickin…“ – use Keybindings. I still see players who obviously use mouse to cast spells etc. It’s pitiful waste of time.Macros & Keybindings
      This is all my Keybindings and Macros I use at the moment. Specially for this guide i re-wrote all of them and set easier keybindings. You can place all those macros in a single action bar.
      Missing things: Arcane Brilliance, Focus Magic, Potions.“W“,“A“,“S“,“D“ – Moving
      „Space“ – JumpKEY „1“ – Spell Mirror ImageKEY „2“ – Macro „AB Normal“:
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:ctrl] Presence of mind
      /cast [mod:shift, nochanneling] Arcane Missiles;
      /castsequence [nochanneling] reset=2 Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast KEY „3“ – Macro „AB Power“:
      #showtooltip Arcane Blast
      /use 14
      /cast Icy Veins
      /cast Arcane Power
      /cast [mod:shift, nochanneling] Arcane Missiles;
      /castsequence [nochanneling] reset=2 Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast KEY „4“ – Macro „AoE Eye“
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:shift] Arcane Explosion
      /cast Frost Nova KEY „5“ – Macro „FireB/Cone“
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:shift] Cone of cold
      /cast Fire Blast KEY „Q“ – Macro „AoE Zone“
      #showtooltip Flamestrike
      /cast Presence of Mind
      /castsequence Flamestrike(Rank 9), Flamestrike(Rank 8), Blizzard KEY „F“ – Macro „Counter/Slow“
      #showtooltip
      /stopcasting
      /cast [mod:shift] Slow
      /cast Counterspell KEY „T“ – Macro „Morph/SSteal“
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:shift] Spellsteal
      /cast Polymorph KEY „G“ – Macro „Escape“
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:shift] Blink
      /cast [mod:ctrl] Invisibility
      /cast Escape Artist KEY „E“ – Macro „Defense“
      #showtooltip
      /stopcasting
      /cast [mod:shift] Ice block
      /cancelaura [mod:shift] Ice block
      /cast Mana Shield KEY „R“ – Macro „Regen“
      #showtooltip
      /cast [mod:shift] Evocation
      /use Mana Sapphire KEY „Z“ – Macro „PvE Buff“
      #showtooltip
      /castsequence [mod:shift,@player] reset=3 Dampen Magic, Molten Armor, Arcane Intellect
      /cast [@mouseover, exists][@player] Slow Fall Addons & UI
    • Comming soon.Frequently Asked Questions
      From this topic and PM’s.
    1. What slowing effects which works in bosses activates torment the weak?
      Look over here: List of Snare effects, List of Slow effects.
    2. Can i win a frostfire mage with this spec and the correct rotation?
      Depends on fire mage you will compare. Arcane Missiles problem makes your dps lower than skilled fire mage with same gear but don’t forget about raid buff – none fire mage can bring that to raid.
    3. Potion of speed (500 haste in 15 seconds [30 seconds if you are alchemist]) is better than the Runic Mana potion?
      Well, good question. personaly i dont like haste potions and always use mana instead (more brust AB). but i think its every mage decision. probably haste potion give you more dps…
    4. Any method or haste cap to prevent fire less missiles with missil barrage in latency moments? Or a „latency cap“ to use this spec?
      No. simply. just tested some new macros on Dummies in IF and with 150ms and 1.2 sec AB cast i had some (minimum but still) bugged missiles… I think it’s about luck…
    5. Whats the priority in brust damage rotation ? Arcane Blast or T10 2 piece bonus?
      If you still can benefit from Bloodmage’s Regalia 2 pieces haste buff (your cast is longer than 1sec) it is majority in spell casting. Try to rebuff it every 4 Arcane Blasts. But if you reached 1sec casting, cast Arcane Blast until you can (watch mana pool here!).
    6. Is 3/3 Arcane Stability really necessary? Can I move some point from it?
      There are plenty encounters where whole raid, not only tanks, get damage. ANY pushback you will suffer means HUGE dps lost! If you have Paladin with Concentration Aura you can move 1 point from Arcane Stability. Otherwise better don’t.