Arcane Mage DPS Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Raid Guide — Season 4

In this section, you will find information and guidance for each boss individually in Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible as a Arcane Mage. These are not complete encounter guides but provide specific tips for any Arcane Mage on each boss.

We suggest the standard single target talents.

When the boss casts Hellsteel Carnage, make sure to activate a defensive cooldown. Unless you are low health before Hellsteal Carnage goes out, using Alter Time right before the damage goes out, and re-activating it right after, should be all you need. However, using any other defensives for this instead of Alter Time, and then using Alter Time for mobility (e.g. if you get Dread Rift or Rays of Anguish) is also a good choice.

If you opt into using other defensives for Hellsteel Carnage (or no defensives), you should use Alter Time whenever you get Dread Rift or Rays of Anguish and then Shimmer out of the raid to the designated area for the mechanics, before re-activating Alter Time to get back into a proper position.

Regarding using your DPS cooldowns, you can simply use them on cooldown, but do keep an eye out on your boss mods that you do not start your cooldowns right before Dread Rift, Rays of Anguish or Hellbeam as you might be forced to move.

For more information, please refer to our Kazzara guide.

We suggest the standard single target talents.

When you get Umbral Detonation (phase 1, or Blistering Twilight in phase 2), activate Alter Time before moving out and then re-activate it when you have dropped off the pool.

For more information, please refer to our Amalgamation Chamber guide.

We suggest the standard single target talents.

If you get Unstable Essence, try to save your cooldowns for as high stacks as possible, first using Alter Time and after that has healed you, Greater Invisibility and finally Ice Cold. What is considered high stacks will depend a lot on your group size, difficulty, and the amount of healers used.

For more information, please refer to our Forgotten Experiments guide.

We suggest going the signle target with cleave build.

Ensure you use your cooldowns on high health targets, as a lot of the adds will die relatively quickly, which will have you waste a lot of damage, if for example Touch of the Magi still has half the duration left. Especially on normal mode difficulty, most of the adds will probably die too quickly for you to get a proper cooldown rotation off on them, which means that you should generally save your cooldowns for whenever the boss is on your platform.

You can soak a significant amount of Devastating Slams by rotating your cooldowns.

For more information, please refer to our Assault of the Zaqali guide.

We suggest the standard single target talents.

Whenever you get Searing Slam, activate Alter Time before moving to the edge of the room, and re-activate it after dropping the pool.

Ensure you use defensive cooldowns while the boss is in the middle of the room. It is usually good to start with Alter Time followed by Greater Invisibility and eventually Ice Cold if you drop low.

For more information, please refer to our Rashok the Elder guide.

Although the boss has adds, since they will almost never be in cleave range we still suggest the standard Arcane talents for all difficulties except Mythic. On Mythic, we suggest the standard single target with cleave build. Depending on how much your guild struggles with killing the Golems, you can remove some defensive talents from the Mage tree and opt into Blast Wave, Dragon's Breath and/or Ring of Frost to crowd-control them.

Almost all crowd-control works on the Golems spawned from Animate Golems, so make sure to use Ice Nova on them if they are getting too close to their targetted traps. Additionally you can use any of the other crowd-control you may have specced into.

Alter Time is incredibly good for dealing with Blast Wave. Use it right before the cast goes out, and immediately re-active it after the knockback effect started. This will negate the knockback and immediately heal you to full again, as if the mechanic never happened.

For more information, please refer to our Zskarn guide.

We suggest the standard single target talents.

Activate Alter Time right before Overpowering Stomp and then re-activate it immediately after the knockback starts. This will negate the knockback and immediately heal you to full again.

For more information, please refer to our Magmorax guide.

We suggest the standard single target with cleave build.

When targeted by Rushing Darkness, we suggest activating Alter Time when you get it, before moving next to a wall and getting hit by it. Then immediately re-activate Alter Time to negate the knockback and heal back to full health. You can handle Volcanic Heart in a similar manner if you get that debuff instead.

During phase 2 when Corruption does out, ensure you do not use Radiant Spark, Touch of the Magi, Arcane Surge or Arcane Barrage until the mind control is over, both when you are mind-controlled or other people are. Your unintentional cleave can very quickly kill other players here.

During phase 3, ensure you only use Arcane Barrage when adds are near the boss to increase boss damage via Resonance.

For more information, please refer to our Neltharion guide.

We suggest the standard single target with cleave build.

Ice Cold the two Glittering Surge casts.

Embrace of Nothingness can be soloed without Ice Block, but it will require stacking Ice Cold, Greater Invisibility, and Mirror Image all at once to survive. This is usually not advised, however, if your strategy normally sacrifices the person targeted, you can do the above instead.

For more information, please refer to our Scalecommander Sarkareth guide.