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Need help how to play arcane mage?
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Post by
293737
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Post by
150866
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Post by
Beetroot
They do pretty good damage if you have a good spec. Moreso than any other class, they need the correct talent tree makeup. I would reccomend
this
.
Post by
Chickensoup
Pre-patch:
PvE-> dont even bother. FFB spec is superior in all ways to an arcane build
PvP->
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0ibzrcdjGzMtedfV0co
something along those lines
post patch:
PvP-> relatively the same build
PvE->
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=of0if00IzeGuMtedZhhcoo
something like that
A few things are changing to make arcane even worthwhile.
AB is changed to increase damage done by your next non-AB arcane spell (i.e. AM or ABarr) by 15% (20% with the new glyph) stacking up to three times (45% or 60% with glyph) but increasing AB mana cost by 200%.
Torment the weak now has AB added to its list and it will work with any combat slow (attack speed via Thunderclap or icy touch or druid/pally versions, cast speed slow via slow, or movement slow via any means). This means it is a strait 15% damage increase to the arcane tree at all times during a raid (your tank always keeps the opponent attack speed slowed right..........right?)
arcane flows decreases the recast timer on evocate by 1/2 minutes AND evocate is on a 4 minute recast timer meaning talented its on a 2 minute timer.
basically what this is saying is: you 100% want ToW, you 100% want arcane flows, you 100% want the AB glyph for an arcane build.
rotations will change depending on the situation and procs. ABx3->AM->ABarr will not be sustainable for two minutes (evocate timer) likely ABx2->AM->ABarr will be sustainable however. missile barrage procs should be used ASAP. clearcasting procs should use AM as long as one AB stack is on the mob
stat allocation will be hit>spellpower>haste>int>crit>spirit. armor used will be glyphed mage armor to eek out whatever mana you can. mana regeneration will be evocate ASAP->mana gem when low enough to use it up.
Thats pretty much it. it's going to be a really fun spec to play i think simply because frostfire bolt can be reaaaaaly boring at times.
Edit: prismatic cloak is on there to make invis instant for another instant aggro sump should you need it. if you ever find you dont change those 3 points and put them into incineration in the fire tree to increase your AB crit chance
Post by
263369
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Post by
Chickensoup
Theres a reason for that tho. judging by the gear you have equipped you are talking about heroics. Which means two things:
1) shorter duration fights. most fights either have gimmick parts of it where you regen mana or are just plain short. Short fights benefit arcane specs greatly. Its the reason dispite a very minor (basically nonexistant) survivability increase, arcane is a better Pvp spec than any fire build. As arcane you can of course lay out a ton of damage on a heroic boss fight. Mostly because you wont run out of mana with an evocate and 3 mana gem shots. On a raid boss fight you will and it basically made arcane useless for raiding
2) you are missing a ton of buffs. with the current way the mage trees are, FFB simply scales better with buffs than arcane does. This is partly getting fixed in the next patch (though not wholely, arcane doesnt scale with crit basically at all in compairison to a FFB build it scales some but not a huge amount)
Arcane was severly lacking because of two things, both of which are fixed with this patch (thus it being viable but more testing defintly needs to be done). It has basically zero mana efficiency (fixed with 2 minute timer on evocate with talents) and had zero synergy between spells when three were required to be cast in an arcane rotation (look at current AB: it's horrific). With the AB change this part is fixed.
mostly what people are talking about when they have these kind of conversations is raid bosses. the old (and kinda new) standard for DPS fight is patchwerk. Arcane simply cannot keep up with FFB in any way shape or form on a patchwerk type fight because it doesnt have the efficiency to do anything past your only evocate usage and 3 mana gems. It's too big of a mana drain and any attempt to conserve mana drops your DPS significantly
to comment on one thing you said, torment the weak will work on nearly every boss in the game because nearly all bosses can be attack speed slowed
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292955
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150866
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150866
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295210
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295210
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296756
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Post by
Chickensoup
At the very least, you are going to want to use a AB->AM rotation next patch. My mage isnt geared very well for arcane ATM (basically been PvPing only) but i can sustain a AB->AM rotation for about 6 minutes on the PTR. I tried a ABx2->AM->ABx1->AM rotation and barely couldnt make it to the second evocate but thats likely more a problem with my gear than anything else
It might (notice i said might) be possible to do a ABx2->AM rotation for the duration of a patchwerk type of fight depending on your gear level. More spirit with arcane meditation and glyphed mage armor could possibly work considering how much spirit is on the mage tiered gear for no reason whatsoever (even though the four piece bonus kinda sucks for arcane). likely the tiered gear wont even be ultimately that useful to an arcane mage in the end. crit isnt a stat to shoot for since the bonus damage is low in compairison to a FFB spec, though the 2 piece bonus might end up being necessary and work out well
It should be fun happenings for Arcane PvE specced mages. lots of stuff to test out
Edit: it's possible that the best spec could end up taking some healer/shadow priest gear which is somewhat itemized perfectly for the arcane playstyle.SP, int, spirit, haste. kind of weird how that works out huh? normally Molten armor is so much better than mage armor for PvE DPSing that it's not even a question, toss in arcane being insanely mana inefficient and that armor and that gear looks a lot better
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