[7.3+] Arcane Guide - Updated: December 3, 2017

[Dikembe]

Can you please link a video that goes over more than just the burn phase and opener? I need clarification on the conserve phase. Are we seeking to stay above 90% mana the entire time? I have seen other guides on this forum that suggests staying above 10%. Any clarification would be great.

Been meaning to do that but work has been busy. I'll try to whip something up that covers the conserve side of things.

Hey thanks a lot of this updated guide, but I have a question for you: How close (or far apart) are the sims for deadly grace vs prolonged power?

Added your question to the FAQ.

Uhm... wouldn't Deadly Grace be better if you have Sentinel trinket, because it should count as another spell hit thus having chance to proc the special effect?

Is it correct to save Tarnished Sentinel Medallion for AP or use it when available with RoP after the first burn phase?

You should save it for AP, unless the boss will die before that happens.

And what about the other way around? Saving AP for Sentinel trinket?

DG is already better because this spec is so burst heavy. The proc is Arcane damage which also helps. Too much of PP's buff is wasted on conserve phase damage which is underwhelming.

Sentinel's effect is RPPM. You don't need to do much else to get it to proc, as long as you're doing something.

[Cobalt314]

How do I use the relic chart to effectively determine which one is better for me? For example, if I currently have a relic with Aegwynn's Wrath, and the relic that's going to replace it will give me +2 ilvl and Blasting Rod, would the combination of the last two cancel out the first?
As a follow up, if instead I'll get +3 ilvl, would the +3 make me better off, even though I lose AW to BR?

[testacular]

First of all, I am gonna say - good job and many thanks for the guide!

Though I'd love to note that this guide is, in my personal opinion heavily oriented on single target raiding scenarios. Don't get me wrong, I would mostly agree with it because that's where arcane stands quite strong.

However, from the the few arcane mages I get to meet in raids and M+, few have trouble with ST.
It's the other situations where they fail. AoE, such as Mistress, or semi-aoe, such as Harjatan, or, perhaps most of all, M+ where you need to adapt every week, Different trinkets/talents will work there.

Hence I'd like to point out that, for instance, Charged Up is NOT a waste, even without Kilt and especially if you aren't a robot and don't know every possible encounter from the top of your head. If you find yourself without charges in crucial "omg kill the add" situation, you are useless. CU can help a lot while allowing you to converse mana longer and then transferring to burn phase at an instant.

Another story is Arcane Orb talent. That one is IMO underestimated a lot. I am using it every second week in M+ with fortified, and I am talking +15 mythics now, where some mobs just don't want to melt that fast. I mean look at total duration of M+ run - most time is spent killing adds, not bosses, so being effective there gets you a lot of extra time. Even if you have Mantle for AoE, you can/should still take Arcane Orb talent for insane numbers on every group. On bosses it help building up the charges on demand if nothing else. But note that even in M+ there are bosses with adds, such as Harbaron (Maw, 2nd boss) where killing fragment asap with aoe helps.

As for (semi) AoE raid bosses, the talents there depend IMO on your agreement with your team. For instance on Mistress HC I am often going full AoE (Resonance, Arcane Orb. Mantle) and take out the adds while other people are mostly ST with some random cleave on top and we are fine that way. By this I want to point out that the AoE capability of Arcane is really good as it keeps scaling with number of targets. Not to mention mana isn't really a problem there.

The only really weak point is constant cleave, 2 target bosses and such. In those cases, we just go back to ST no matter what.

Perhaps the last point I would like to make is about trinkets - don't go all crazy about owl. It is indeed and by far BiS trinket, but that holds true only for ST and it gives Mastery as stat. Remember to swap this trinket for other situations

Again, thanks for the guide, don't take the babbling above as a challenge to your guide, it's merely a pinch of personal experience with arcane mage.

[Dikembe]

First of all, I am gonna say - good job and many thanks for the guide!

Though I'd love to note that this guide is, in my personal opinion heavily oriented on single target raiding scenarios. Don't get me wrong, I would mostly agree with it because that's where arcane stands quite strong.

However, from the the few arcane mages I get to meet in raids and M+, few have trouble with ST.
It's the other situations where they fail. AoE, such as Mistress, or semi-aoe, such as Harjatan, or, perhaps most of all, M+ where you need to adapt every week, Different trinkets/talents will work there.

Hence I'd like to point out that, for instance, Charged Up is NOT a waste, even without Kilt and especially if you aren't a robot and don't know every possible encounter from the top of your head. If you find yourself without charges in crucial "omg kill the add" situation, you are useless. CU can help a lot while allowing you to converse mana longer and then transferring to burn phase at an instant.

Another story is Arcane Orb talent. That one is IMO underestimated a lot. I am using it every second week in M+ with fortified, and I am talking +15 mythics now, where some mobs just don't want to melt that fast. I mean look at total duration of M+ run - most time is spent killing adds, not bosses, so being effective there gets you a lot of extra time. Even if you have Mantle for AoE, you can/should still take Arcane Orb talent for insane numbers on every group. On bosses it help building up the charges on demand if nothing else. But note that even in M+ there are bosses with adds, such as Harbaron (Maw, 2nd boss) where killing fragment asap with aoe helps.

As for (semi) AoE raid bosses, the talents there depend IMO on your agreement with your team. For instance on Mistress HC I am often going full AoE (Resonance, Arcane Orb. Mantle) and take out the adds while other people are mostly ST with some random cleave on top and we are fine that way. By this I want to point out that the AoE capability of Arcane is really good as it keeps scaling with number of targets. Not to mention mana isn't really a problem there.

The only really weak point is constant cleave, 2 target bosses and such. In those cases, we just go back to ST no matter what.

Perhaps the last point I would like to make is about trinkets - don't go all crazy about owl. It is indeed and by far BiS trinket, but that holds true only for ST and it gives Mastery as stat. Remember to swap this trinket for other situations

Again, thanks for the guide, don't take the babbling above as a challenge to your guide, it's merely a pinch of personal experience with arcane mage.

Thanks for your comments. This guide has always had the unfortunate caveat of its author not playing Arcane seriously, so I try not to speak authoritatively on things that I can't prove. With that said, I would like to caution everyone against using anecdotal evidence to support their claims.

My approach to these things is simple: I'll accept anything that makes DPS go up. I can't find a way to do that with your suggestions so far.

Despite numerous attempts to exploit it fully, Charged Up continues to be mediocre at best in what we assume is its most optimal conditions (i.e. with Kilt). The default profile gets a marginal DPS increase with the Kilt on, but for many others' gearsets, CU is a DPS loss even with the Kilt. This is default vs CU+Kilt:
If anyone has suggestions on situations where you think Charged Up is actually beneficial, I can look into those, but I've already done that quite a bit and have mostly given up "optimizing" it further.

I tend to overlook M+ because I don't enjoy it. But for a raid setting, default profile and Arcane Orb scale with additional targets at pretty much the same rate, with AO often being around 8% behind. Even with targets stacked on top of each other and Arcane Orb hitting every single one of them, it's always behind. With 4 targets:


This is what happens with a single target rotation on two target cleave:

[Causese]

I'll just drop this here cause some might find it useful

[tetete]

Actually, u are using ur 60% buff on high mythic+ for trash and bosses, u have it almost every trash pack ready and no class can face arcane mages with mantle atm in mythic+ in terms of aoe damage. And the single target isnt lacking behind like elemental shamans.

So , i registered to get one answer i cant understand at all.

Versatility grants 1% damage for 475points.
Critical Strike grants 1% damage in a 1% chance of 100% extra damage for 400points.
Haste grants 1% damage in 1% faster spells for 375 points.

While haste is obviously bad for arcane mages, because of the faster mana burn, look at the others.
Critical Strike is basically 1% damage for 400points and ALWAYS better than versatility because it scales faster. There is no point where u can say: "i have 50% crit that s enough for crits, 51% crit is less bonus damage than 1% on versatility." For sure it s RNG, but it s calculated RNG and 1% crit means 1% chance of 100% extra damage, which means 1% damage.
So why is versatility good? It scales worse, it grants the same bonus damage per percent.

And btw, just that u know: 1% Mastery for 333 Points grants 2% damage on 4 charges - while still having the benefit of more mana/regeneration. So you definitely need to stack Mastery over all followed by crit for mythic+ because on mythic+ u are never going oom besides 20+ tyrannical bosses. But the profit from it before over all other stats is worth more.

[Blinkenz]

Haste goes from good to great, depending on sim setting and your current value.
Versa does well because it guarantees damage increase inside of burst, and outside of it.
Crit however is rng, sure more crit gives more crits. But critting outside of burst compared to within is big difference.
Versa is from my simming and experience very reliable and steady overall stat.

Also to previous poster what makes you believe mastery stacking is good for +? Especially when running kilt/shoulders, shoulders/sephuz for trash and st set for bosses. Might just be me but i can go ham almost constantky on trash and i never oom and i avoid mastery like the plague. Also never seen any sims yielding more damage from mastery.

[Blinkenz]

Also for mythic +, always run owerpowered no matter affixes. Especially higher keys. I'd say arcane might have the highest controlled damage for keystones.

You can AP atleast every second pull, always get an AP per boss atleast . Also way more effective to have the group rotating cds for trash pulls than you running round doing constant damage.

Arcane is bae in + just need to be comfortable in all aspects of the specc and the dungeons.
For + and aoe id say arcano, whispers and tide are better than owl and terror. For trash that is in dungeons.

[tetete]

mastery always grants more bonus spell power as long as u play on 4 charges. And on mythics u rarely go oom. You can sit down after every trash pack and regain

edit:
You get 1% mastery for 333points on arcane.
1% mastery grants 0,5% damage on charge -> 1.5% on 3 charges and 2% on 4 charges.
While crit or versatility give 1% damage for 400 or 475 points, mastery grants 2% on 333points.
And the managain isnt calculated in there

Mastery is only bad in stat weights because it s not good if u want to have steady raid damage and do more in the conservative phase. Otherwise it s Mastery >> all

imo kilt is only useful in raid because as i already mentioned, u can regain mana in mythics and up to 2 mana bars are on high mastery more than enough. I would always run mantle and head or belt for competitive mythic+. For the situations where u cant pause anytime the second charge of mana regain is really worth. Both have crit/mastery,

[Blinkenz]

So shoulders is just an accessory for you outside of pom? Or you got 100% procc chance? Othewise you wont be at 4chqrges all the time^^

[tetete]

well, if u arent getting the orb u have to use pom for the next shot while spamming arcane explosion on the 4 stacks. t20p4 helps. If u arent getting orbs for a few shots u need to go for arcane explosion 4 times for 4 charges, followed by 1 more till u reset with barrage and get the chance on 40%. This was the most effective way to be conservative on AoE mana while having the highest damage output on all simulations. Beyond 45% Mastery u can go for 2 more explosions(followed by the 4 building ones) before reset.

simulate it yourself. Maybe u can even find a better algorithm with other stats

[Waddell]

I'll just drop this here cause some might find it useful

Sorry if not at the right place to ask, but, could someone help me get that UI he is using ???

[Blinkenz]

Do you have weights from any sim run like that? And what settings did u run?

[Blinkenz]

And wouldnt 4pc be quite underwhelming in most dungeon situations? Or does that theory/build prio missiles on 3 or more targets? Afaik u rarely have less targets in m+ which normally devalues the bonus heavily

Optimizing shoulder usage as u stated devalues mastery everytime it doesnt procc w/o pom rdy. Id happily see logs or a sim and see what u got out from it.

[Eshelon]

mastery always grants more bonus spell power as long as u play on 4 charges. And on mythics u rarely go oom. You can sit down after every trash pack and regain

edit:
You get 1% mastery for 333points on arcane.
1% mastery grants 0,5% damage on charge -> 1.5% on 3 charges and 2% on 4 charges.
While crit or versatility give 1% damage for 400 or 475 points, mastery grants 2% on 333points.
And the managain isnt calculated in there

Mastery is only bad in stat weights because it s not good if u want to have steady raid damage and do more in the conservative phase. Otherwise it s Mastery >> all

imo kilt is only useful in raid because as i already mentioned, u can regain mana in mythics and up to 2 mana bars are on high mastery more than enough. I would always run mantle and head or belt for competitive mythic+. For the situations where u cant pause anytime the second charge of mana regain is really worth. Both have crit/mastery.

This is not how mastery works. It's easy to misunderstand because it is worded confusingly on the tool-tips.

1% Mastery does not give 2% bonus damage at 4 charges, it modifies the modifier from arcane charge, which is baseline 60%

So essentially, you already get 60% extra damage per arcane charge with no mastery. So that's 240% at 4 charges. If you add 1% mastery, that 240% bonus becomes 242% for an increase of 0.8333% damage. Add another 1% mastery, you're at 244%, an increase of 0.826% over the previous. So you can see mastery increases your damage at a decreasing rate as you add more mastery. This is why mastery is such a poor stat for raw damage output. By the time you're at 30% mastery, your damage bonus is 75% per charge or 300% at 4 charges, your next point of mastery gets you to 302% and increase of 0.666%. 333 points for 0.666% is a bad deal when I can put that into Crit for 0.8325% or Verse for .701% (and you get DR from Verse, which is always undervalued IMO). Haste is good as long as you don't OOM yourself during burn phases (including mini-burns).

[Blinkenz]

Yes that is what I thought aswell. Was sitting at work earlier and didnt have exact figures in my head.

A positive and negative side of arcane, is the never ending changes to stat weights, apart from mastery which always stays bog standared in any kind of sim ive ever ran.

Also only tier bonus I personally see any use of in dungeons is the t20 2piece, on trash that is. obviously one would always change gear for big ST trash or bosses.And then t19 2pc becomes good for that.

[tetete]

Mod edit: Removed insults

u cant just argue that the relative increase of mastery damage on stacks is the extra damage done... 0.83% is the relative increase of mastery damage on stacks u get from 1 point at 60 to 60.5 or 120 to 121 or 180 to 181.5 or 240 to 242, but it s still 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% damage.... wow. It s the same for crit, on 50% to 51% crit u have an relative increase of 2% ! But it s 1% damage...
In your opinion, if a stat is bad, for example 2% on haste, it grants 50% damage if it goes on 3% because the 1% difference there on haste is 50%....

I hope u are enlightened and setting up your own sim algorithms now in a different way...

edit: And it s additive for every charge. Means for 1% Mastery the 2% on 4 charges are 2% because it s calculating the percentage from baseline damage times 4. It would be pretty op if the charges would use the last followed charge to determine their new percentage.

[maynord]

tetete that is exactly how gearing and stat weights work, when you are seeking to increase your DPS via stat changes you look at which stats give you the highest DPS increase relative to your current stats. I think its totally valid to argue that Mastery's relative increase is a lot lower than other stats in almost all situations, because that's the only thing we care about.

[tetete]

yeah u are saying it. The highest dps increase to your current stats. So mastery always gives 2% dps increase on my current stats. The increasement of 0,83% the others are talking about isnt the dps increasement. It is just the mastery increasement. So simple to understand. If u program ur sims like that, it wont show u the right dps and stat weights.

[Norrinir]

You're misunderstanding the point Eshelon and others are making. Maybe an example will help clear it out.

Suppose you have no crit, haste, mastery or versatility rating, that is, your stats are: 5% crit, 0% haste, 9.6% mastery and 0% versatility. Intellect doesn't really matter (since the relative difference will be the same), but let's just say it's 50 000. Now let's take a look at how much DPS does 4 AC Arcane Blast give (also known as DPET - damage per execute time).

Average damage of 4 AC Arcane Blast = 50000 (intellect) * 2.32804 (sp coefficient of AB) * (1 + (0.6 + 0.096 / 2) * 4) (mastery) * 1.05 (crit, on average) * 1.0 (versatility) ~= 439021

Arcane Blast has 2.25 sec cast time, so we can just divide out and get the DPET: 439021 / 2.25 = 195120

Let's look at what happens when we add more stats.

Extra 1% crit (400 rating) increases the DPET to 196979, which is 0.95% higher than with 5% crit.
Extra 1.066% haste (400 rating) increases the DPET to 197200, which is 1.066% higher than with 0% haste.
Extra 1.2% mastery (400 rating) increases the DPET to 196424, which is only 0.66% higher than with with 9.6% mastery.
Extra 0.842% versatility (400 rating) increases the DPET to 196736, which is 0.842% higher than with 0% versatility.

The mastery damage component is pretty weak compared to the other stats. Hopefully you can now see where the number 0.66% comes from.