- Author: Amery
- Date: July 19, 2022
- Updated: July 19, 2022
- Expansion: WotLK Classic
Arcane Mages have essentially 1 primary talent build and one more build that can possibly see use in extremely quick encounters.
Notable Talents
Focus Magic: Increases the target’s chance to critically hit with spells by 3%. When the target critically hits the casters chance to critically hit with spells by 3% for 10 sec. This talent is incredibly strong when two mages trade it back and forth giving each other a total of 6% critical chance.
Torment the Weak: Frostbolt, Fireball, Frostfirebolt, Pyroblast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Barrage deal 12% more damage to snared or slowed targets. In raids Frost Death Knights will apply a constant slow to bosses making our spells do 12% more damage.
Icy Veins: Increases casting speed by 20% and prevents spell pushback.
Arcane Power: This is our big “nuke” cooldown. For the next 15 seconds, our spells deal 20% more damage, but also cost 20% more mana — this is when you really use all of your other cooldowns and do as much damage as possible. The 3 minute cooldown means that for most fights, you only get to use this once or twice.
Missile Barrage: Reduces channel time of Missiles by 2.5s and reduces mana cost by 100% when it procs from casting Arcane Blast.
Talent Builds
This is the “core” of the Arcane specialization, leaving you with 5 points to put into a talent of your choosing. Some noteworthy options include:
- Magic Attunement for extra range
- Student of the Mind for 10% extra spirit at 3/3
- Arcane Meditation for mana regen while casting, helpful in longer fights
- Incanter’s Absorption — this talent can offer a large DPS increase when combined with Fire Ward or Frost Ward. However, it relies on taking Fire or Frost damage in order to activate, which will not happen very often
- Last but not least, Arcane Barrage for fights that have a lot of movement or if mana is a problem
Glyphs
Major Glyphs
Minor Glyphs
You can use any Glyph in the last minor glyph slot — they’re not really that impactful.
Glyph of Fire Ward and Glyph of Frost Ward aren’t as useful if you run an Incanter’s Absorption build as the reflect doesn’t trigger the talent
About the Author
Thank you for this guide = )
this guide has the wrong stat prio. 0 spirit?
Spirit is a low priority stat for all mage specs
spirit= crit with molten armor
crit = more crit regardless of molten armor
Doesn’t torment the weak NOT work on bosses? If it does, how? Id personally take 3/3 Arcane meditation over it
Due to Frost Death Knights with Icy touch and Warriors with Thunderclap making Torment the Weak works on bosses as abilities that also slow attack speed also affect it
Is Arcane Stability needed? in P1 raids, are there a lot of fights that would cause spell pushback?
Not really, it’s mostly get further in the tree – its not wasted however there are some bosses still.
So this guide starts out by explaining how wonderful Arcane Barrage is, and then proceeds to suggest two specs without Arcane Barrage.
KEKW.
With the first spec 5 points are left out that could be put into a number of different talents, one of which is arcane barrage