Arcane Mage DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

Welcome to our Gearing Page for Arcane Mage. This section will cover everything you need to know about equipping your character correctly. Note: The Midnight pre-patch came with an item-squish, meaning that all items now have lower stats on them than before, but still hold the same power relative to other items.

If you have a new piece of gear for which you need gems and enchant advice, you can find everything on our dedicated page below.

3.

BiS Gear for Arcane Mage

Overall BiS list Raid BiS List Mythic+ BiS List

4.

Midnight Pre-Patch Overall BiS List for Arcane Mage

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Arcane Mage in Midnight Pre-Patch from all sources, including Raiding, Mythic+, Delves, The Great Vault, and Crafted.

Note that there is no such thing as a singular, all-encompassing "BiS". The best items vary per character and situation, and many items are essentially equivalent in terms of DPS, namely when we are just shuffling secondary stats around. I will list one "BiS" item per slot, but ultimately, BiS lists are not very practically useful and you should be simming your character to find out what gear to equip next. Nonetheless, there is a huge demand for this list, and thus, you can use the list below as a guideline as to what an endgame set of gear looks like.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Weapon	Voidglass Sovereign's Blade (170)	Nexus King Salhadaar in Manaforge Omega
Off-Hand	Vagabond's Torch (167) with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension and Haste + Versatility	Crafted — Inscription
Helm	Augur's Ephemeral Wide-Brim (170)	Forgeweaver Araz/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Neck	Bloodstained Memento (170)	Great Vault
Shoulder	Augur's Ephemeral Orbs of Power (170)	The Soul Hunters/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Critical Strike (170)	Main Story — Socketed with Pure Precise Fiber
Chest	Augur's Ephemeral Habiliments (170)	Fractillus/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Bracers	Consecrated Cuffs with Writhing Armor Banding and Haste + Versatility (167)	Crafted — Tailoring
Gloves	Codebreaker's Cunning Handwraps (170)	Great Vault
Belt	Singularity Cincture (170)	Dimensius The All Devouring in Manaforge Omega
Legs	Augur's Ephemeral Trousers (170)	Loom’ithar/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Interloper's Silken Striders (170)	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Ring #1	Radiant Necromancer's Band (170)	Great Vault
Ring #2	Signet of Collapsing Stars (170)	Great Vault
Trinket #1	Astral Antenna (170)	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #2	Diamantine Voidcore (170)	Fractillus in Manaforge Omega

4.

Midnight Pre-Patch Raid BiS List for Arcane Mage

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Arcane Mage in Midnight Pre-Patch from the Manaforge Omega Raid.

Note that this BiS List is for items from Manaforge Omega. I am separating the BiS lists by gear sources. This is what you send to your Raid Leader/Loot Council when they ask you what your BiS gear is from the Raid.

Note that there is no such thing as a singular, all-encompassing "BiS". The best items vary per character and situation, and many items are essentially equivalent in terms of DPS, namely when we are just shuffling secondary stats around. I will list one "BiS" item per slot, but ultimately, BiS lists are not very practically useful and you should be simming your character to find out what gear to equip next. Nonetheless, there is a huge demand for this list, and thus, you can use the list below as a guideline as to what an endgame set of gear looks like.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Weapon	Voidglass Spire (170)	Soulbinder Naazindhri in Manaforge Omega
Helm	Augur's Ephemeral Wide-Brim (170)	Forgeweaver Araz/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Neck	Chrysalis of Sundered Souls (170)	Soulbinder Naazindhri in Manaforge Omega
Shoulder	Augur's Ephemeral Orbs of Power (170)	The Soul Hunters/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Critical Strike (170)	Main Story — Socketed with Pure Precise Fiber
Chest	Augur's Ephemeral Habiliments (170)	Fractillus/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Bracers	Conjoined Glass Bracers (170)	Fractillus in Manaforge Omega
Gloves	Bloodwrath's Gnarled Claws (170)	Soulbinder Naazindhri in Manaforge Omega
Belt	Singularity Cincture (170)	Dimensius The All Devouring in Manaforge Omega
Legs	Augur's Ephemeral Trousers (170)	Loom’ithar/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Interloper's Silken Striders (170)	The Soul Hunters in Manaforge Omega
Ring #1	Logic Gate: Omega (170)	Forgeweaver Araz in Manaforge Omega
Ring #2	Band of the Shattered Soul (170)	Dimensius The All Devouring in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #1	Astral Antenna (170)	Loom’ithar in Manaforge Omega
Trinket #2	Diamantine Voidcore (170)	Fractillus in Manaforge Omega

4.

Midnight Pre-Patch Mythic+ BiS List for Arcane Mage

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Arcane Mage from Midnight Pre-Patch Mythic+.

Note that this BiS List is for items from Mythic+. I am separating the BiS lists by gear sources. This is the list you can chase when you want to improve your gear by farming Mythic+ dungeons.

Note that there is no such thing as a singular, all-encompassing "BiS". The best items vary per character and situation, and many items are essentially equivalent in terms of DPS, namely when we are just shuffling secondary stats around. I will list one "BiS" item per slot, but ultimately, BiS lists are not very practically useful and you should be simming your character to find out what gear to equip next. Nonetheless, there is a huge demand for this list, and thus, you can use the list below as a guideline as to what an endgame set of gear looks like.

Note that tier pieces are still included. Although technically not farmable in Mythic+, they do appear in the Mythic+ Great Vault (170) options and can be upgraded from Mythic+ pieces with Matrix Catalyst. Due to how important they are to building your character, and still obtainable if you only do Mythic+, I included them here.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Weapon	Staff of Fractured Spacetime (170)	Great Vault (170) or Tazavesh: So'leah's Gambit (141)
Helm	Augur's Ephemeral Wide-Brim (170)	Forgeweaver Araz/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Neck	Bloodstained Memento (170)	Great Vault (170) or Priory of the Sacred Flame (141)
Shoulder	Augur's Ephemeral Orbs of Power (170)	The Soul Hunters/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Reshii Wraps with Critical Strike (170)	Main Story — Socketed with Pure Precise Fiber
Chest	Augur's Ephemeral Habiliments (170)	Fractillus/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Bracers	Ancient Oracle's Caress (170)	Great Vault (170) or Eco-Dome Al'dani (141)
Gloves	Codebreaker's Cunning Handwraps (170)	Great Vault (170) or Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Belt	Burrower's Cinch (170)	Great Vault (170) or Ara-Kara, City of Echoes (141)
Legs	Augur's Ephemeral Trousers (170)	Loom’ithar/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Codebreaker's Cunning Sandals (170)	Great Vault (170) or Tazavesh: So'leah's Gambit (141)
Ring #1	Radiant Necromancer's Band (170)	Great Vault (170) or Priory of the Sacred Flame (141)
Ring #2	Signet of Collapsing Stars (170)	Great Vault (170) or Tazavesh, the Veiled Market (141)
Trinket #1	Azhiccaran Parapodia (170)	Great Vault (170) or Eco-Dome Al'dani (141)
Trinket #2	Signet of the Priory (170)	Great Vault (170) or Priory of the Sacred Flame(141)

Below I list some items that are very useful to have during leveling, especially if you are coming back to the game recently and do not have a lot of the current season high item level gear.

• Vagabond's Bounding Baton with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension. Having a strong weapon will greatly increase your damage while leveling, so if you have a low item level weapon, I highly recommend you craft a staff to get a lot of character power.
• Any crafted item with Writhing Armor Banding to buff the Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension on the weapon. Craft whichever slot you have low item level in.
• Araz's Ritual Forge — Strong on-use trinket which can help quickly kill high health enemies like elites or quest mini bosses.
• There are a couple of strong Delve trinkets that perform well in open world content, like Void-Touched Fragment and Soulbreaker's Sigil.
• Crafed items for any low level slots, if you have the gold for it, can be useful to quickly upgrade some really low level pieces if you have not played in a while.

11.2 Introduced a new Artifact Cloak, the Reshii Wraps. This item is obtained through the main story and upgraded through various activities. It starts out at 694 item level, but when fully upgraded reaches 170 item level. It is the only cloak you can obtain in Midnight Pre-Patch. For a full explanation on how to obtain it, what it does, how to upgrade it, and more, check our Reshii Wraps page.

The cloak provides a passive damage proc and one special Fiber socket, which allows you to pick a single secondary stat.

All of the Fiber sockets are very close in value, and just like with any other Gems or Enchants, the best will heavily depend on what gear you already have equipped. The best way to figure out what is best for you is to sim your own character. Any of Pure Precise Fiber, Pure Chronomantic Fiber or Pure Dexterous Fiber (or the cheaper variants) will be good. Note that you can change the Fiber for very little cost, so swapping around based on your gear is optimal, however, if you just want a single slot and forget option, going for Pure Chronomantic Fiber is a safe choice.

You can get guaranteed items from the the current season from Mythic+ or the Raid through the Puzzling Cartel Chips currency, unlocking 3 weeks after 11.2.5. Note that you can only get three items in total from them, and you can only obtain items from bosses you have already killed at least once. Also not all items are available. (for example, only trinkets from Mythic+) For a full explanation of how it works, check out our Puzzling Cartel Chip guide.

Below we list some of the best items to get with the Puzzling Cartel Chips:

• Astral Antenna - One of our best available trinkets.
• Diamantine Voidcore - The other best available trinket, but only if you already have Voidglass Sovereign's Blade.
• Voidglass Sovereign's Blade - Our best weapon, and needed to make Diamantine Voidcore our best trinket.

Disclaimer: Just like any other gear, your best trinkets heavily depend on the gear you already have, and which level of content you are doing. We strongly recommend you simulate your own character to ensure you equip what is best for yourself, instead of the general recommendations below.

There are various trinkets that are good for Arcane in Midnight Pre-Patch. Below we list the most important options:

• Astral Antenna — Our best passive trinket tied with Diamantine Voidcore.
• Diamantine Voidcore — Our best passive trinket, tied with Astral Antenna if you have Voidglass Sovereign's Blade equipped. Without any of the weapon combos from Manaforge Omega, it is worse than the other options below, but still pretty strong.

Additionally, if you are unable to obtain those best trinkets above, or want more flexibility, there are various other options:

• Araz's Ritual Forge — Strong on-use trinket, granting you an incredibly large amount of Intellect for 30 seconds. Best on-use trinket for Arcane, and greatly increases your burst damage. It is slightly worse than the best passive trinkets on longer fights, like raid bosses. Use this immediately after you cast Arcane Surge. Be careful using it on low life, as it does some damage to yourself.
• Azhiccaran Parapodia — A strong passive trinket that is simply equip and forget. Slightly worse than the best trinkets above.
• Screams of a Forgotten Sky — A strong passive trinket, slightly worse than the best options above, but great to use if you loot it.
• Ara-Kara Sacbrood — A strong passive trinket. Slightly weaker than the best options above, but a strong alternative.
• Empowering Crystal of Anub'ikkaj — A strong passive trinket. Slightly weaker than the best options above, but a strong alternative.
• Funhouse Lens — A strong passive trinket. Slightly weaker than the best options above, but a strong alternative.
• Signet of the Priory — A strong on-use trinket. Slightly worse than Araz's Ritual Forge, but still a very good option. Use immediately after you cast Arcane Surge.

Disclaimer: What to craft is highly dependent on your own personal goals, what content you are doing, and what items you have looted so far. We strongly suggest you run your own simulations on raidbots by using droptimizer to figure out your personal best crafting options.

The best crafted Embellishments are Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension + Writhing Armor Banding.

Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension can only go on a weapon or off-hand, and due to crafted items being slightly lower item level, we want to avoid crafting a weapon. Due to this, off-hand is our best option for the Darkmoon Embellishment. The best stats to craft heavily depend on your current gear. In the best-in-slot setup we craft with Haste + Versatility, but this is highly specific to that set of gear, as all stats are incredibly close.

Writhing Armor Banding can go on any armor piece, so there is a lot more freedom. However, due to the lower item level of crafted pieces, we want to craft this on an item slot with lower stats, like Bracers or Belt. For the best-in-slot setup we craft it on Consecrated Cuffs, again with Haste + Versatility, but you can craft it with any stats of your choosing.

However, based on your current gear, the best option for you might be different. Especially the secondary stats are highly situational, as they shift around constantly for Arcane based on your gear.

Keep in mind you can craft lower item level items that do not cost a Spark, and apply an embellishment to those. For example, you can craft Bracers or Belt with Writhing Armor Banding without needing a Spark, so you can craft this to get the benefit of the Embellishment without having to wait for an additional spark.

1. Vagabond's Torch with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension with Haste + Versatility.
2. Consecrated Cuffs with Writhing Armor Banding, with Haste + Versatility. Wrists is best in slot, but you can craft any other non tier slot which would be a large item level upgrade, if you need more immediate power.
3. Next, chase Item Level where needed. None of the crafted options aside from your first 2 will be best-in-slot, so just go for whichever slot gives you the biggest item level bump.
4. At this point, you are mostly done crafting. You can spend future Sparks on off-spec items, alternatively statted crafts for different situations, and so on.

The Tier Set is comprised of 5 items of the Augur's Ephemeral Plumage set. Wearing 2 and 4 pieces from the set gives you DPS bonuses.

In the Midnight Pre-Patch, all classes and specs have a simplified tier set to account for the large amount of class changes conflicting with pre-existing tier bonuses.

• Mage - Midnight PrePatch - 11.2 Class Set 4pc — Damage done increased by 6%.
• Mage - Midnight PrePatch - 11.2 Class Set 4pc — Damage done increased by 10%.

You only need 4 pieces out of 5 to get both set bonuses. Which 4 pieces you get is not that important, as all secondary stats are very close in value. For the best-in-slot setup, we skip Gloves, but this just happens to be the optimal setup combined with all other pieces. You can get any 4 pieces, and it will be very close in value. Check out the BiS List for more information.

Since the bonuses simply give a damage increase to all damage you do, it has no impact on your talent choices or rotation.

The easiest way, and also the method we suggest, to compare multiple items is to use Raidbots' Top Gear. Here, you can input an export from the Simcraft AddOn, select the items to compare, and it will find out which of the items are best. See below for a guide on how to sim yourself.