Season of Discovery Arcane Mage DPS Talents and Runes

As the current maximum level in Phase 3 is 50, you will be able to have a fleshed out talent build missing only 10 talents when compared to the end game 60 builds.

While the Arcane tree is very straightforward, as there are not many useful damage-increasing talents, a significant adjustment you can do to our proposed talents above is dropping Magic Attunement and some points of Arcane Focus in order to pick up Improved Arcane Missiles. While this will generally not be needed with the new Missile Barrage Rune, getting even a single pushback and losing Missiles as a result can be extremely punishing in some encounters.

Points into Wand Specialization should no longer be needed now that there are more Mana-conscious options to spend Arcane Blast charges on at high stacks.

Finally, due to the introduction of Balefire Bolt which deals both Arcane and Fire damage, picking up Ignite is not a terrible idea as you will be able to get a little DPS boost out of it.

• Gloves — Arcane Blast
• Pants — Icy Veins (ST) or Living Flame (AoE)
• Chest — Burnout (quick fights) or Enlightenment (long fights)
• Waist — Missile Barrage
• Feet — Spell Power
• Head — Advanced Warding
• Wrist — Balefire Bolt

The great thing about Arcane Mage is that you can swap between healer and DPS by just changing your Runes; going into Regeneration is enough to get a lot of focused healing done on your Temporal Beacon target while still doing a lot of damage!

Icy Veins should be used instead of Living Flame in single-target heavy fights or against moving targets where Living Flame has a hard time dealing damage.

The new Missile Barrage Rune is a great damage increase and, just as important, a way to use Arcane Blast stacks frequently without destroying your Mana pool in the process. Burnout has great synergy with Spell Power, but will also make you run out of Mana quick. Use Enlightenment instead on longer fights.

Advanced Warding improves your emergency defensive shields, and Balefire Bolt deals a lot of damage, and is a great way to spend Arcane Blast stacks, especially if Missile Barrage is refusing to proc.

More Engravings are likely to come out as we reach higher level caps, so make sure to keep a tab on our general Mage Rune guide below to learn what they do, and where to find them:

The Arcane tree is full of utility goodies for Mages, including very powerful damage boosting talents at the end of the tree.

Arcane Focus gives you 10% free Spell Hit for Arcane spells, which is a simple, but powerful, bonus!

Improved Arcane Missiles gives you up to 100% less cast time delay from damage on Arcane Missiles. Strong whenever you are being focused, but also a weak use of points if you are not the main focus target for enemies.

Arcane Concentration allows Clearcasting to happen after 10% of your casts, which saves a ton of Mana over time and allows gameplay such as using weaker, cheaper spells to proc it, followed by your strongest, most expensive spell.

Presence of Mind makes your next spell instant-cast, but only once every 3-minutes. This can be used to deal burst damage with Arcane Blast and other longer cast time spells, or to instantly crowd control an enemy with Polymorph, for example.

Arcane Power increases your damage by 30% but makes them also cost 30% more Mana, and only lasts 15 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. This is a very powerful boost to your damage and converted healing.

The Fire tree is not too interesting, but Ignite is still worth picking for extra DPS with Balefire Bolt.

Ignite allows your critical strikes to create a damage over time effect on the target for 40% extra damage over 4 seconds. This damage over time effect has its duration reset and grows for each additional critical strike landed while it is active.