Arcane Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.1

For Season 2, Sunfury is looking to be the strongest Hero Talent tree, in both AoE and single-target. It simply does more DPS than Spellslinger, and without any downsides.

Additionally, Sunfury has the luxury of being able to spec into AoE while giving up very little single-target DPS, making it much more flexible for encounters where both are important, like most boss encounters in raids, and all Mythic+ dungeons.

• Raid - Sunfury is significantly ahead in terms of DPS on both single-target and cleave DPS, making it the obvious choice for Raiding.
• Mythic+ - In AoE, both hero trees are relatively close, but Sunfury does win out slightly, while doing much more single-target DPS with its AoE build than Spellslinger does, making it the obvious choice.

Since Sunfury does more DPS than Spellslinger in all content without having to give up anything in return, there is no real reason to play anything other than Sunfury, unless you greatly prefer the Spellslinger playstyle.

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

The Omnium Folio is a new system introduced in Midnight's Patch 12.0.7, and offers some minor performance-enhancing customization options. Some of these bonuses affect your damage output, while others are more defensive in nature.

You can change them freely without any penalty, so feel free to experiment with them to your liking! Below I list the default recommendations:

• Point 1: Rune of Void-Touched Orbs
• Point 2: Rune of Void-Tainted Shell for group play, or Rune of Self-Mending for solo play
• Point 3: Rune of Lingering
• Point 4: Rune of Critical Power
• Point 5: Rune of Echoes

Arcane has the following Apex Talent:

• Prismatic Bolt: Arcane Barrage gains a 1% chance per Arcane Salvo stack consumed to replace your next Arcane Blast with a Prismatic Bolt. It damages your target and nearby enemies, with reduced damage beyond 5 targets, and generates 4 Arcane Charges. It does not scale its damage or mana cost with Arcane Charges, and is not affected by anything that modifies Arcane Blast. You can hold the proc for up to a minute.
• Prismatic Bolt: Prismatic Bolt has a 50%/100% chance to grant Clearcasting, and Arcane Missiles damage is increased by 15%/30%.
• Prismatic Bolt: Adds another 1% chance per Arcane Salvo stack consumed, bringing it to 2% per stack in total, and increases Arcane Barrage damage by 15%.

The Apex Talent is very strong for both Hero specs, and is virtually always taken. Prismatic Bolt itself is a very hard-hitting spell, which you play around specifically. Additionally, the 4 Arcane Charges being refunded greatly improves the ability to get back to 4 Arcane Charges after dumping to 0, allowing you to save on other methods of charge generation.

Arcane has access to the Sunfury and Spellslinger Hero Talent trees.

Currently, Sunfury is ahead in DPS in practically all content, and it does this without sacrificing utility or survivability, making it the go-to for all situations.

Sunfury spawns an Arcane Phoenix alongside you during Arcane Surge, throwing out spells of its own providing damage and some utility. Gameplay wise, the primary change is that after Arcane Surge ends, you get the very powerful Arcane Soul buff, which makes Arcane Barrage grant Clearcasting, generate four Arcane Charges, generate five Arcane Salvo charges, and casting it does not consume any Arcane Salvo charges. What this means in practice is that during Arcane Soul, you can simply spam very hard hitting Arcane Barrages.

Spellslinger is all about providing you lots of small passive bonuses to all your spells and applying many Arcane Splinters to your target. Gameplay wise, the tree is fairly passive, however, all of the passive effects together grant you quite a few extra Arcane Salvo stacks, which in turn enables you to cast more Arcane Barrages.

Since Battle for Azeroth, there is the option to enable "War Mode." Enabling War Mode grants the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at max level. However, doing so will enable PvP combat and the possibility of being attacked by members of the opposite faction while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the War Mode talents for leveling and outdoor content.

1. Temporal Shield is off the Global Cooldown, so it can be used without sacrificing any damage and is very strong for when you know damage is incoming. You can simply tank the damage and heal back to full Health when the shield ends.
2. Ring of Fire is a great tool for AoE damage in the open world, especially on high-health targets.
3. Chrono Shift is an incredible open-world kiting and mobility tool.

In The Same Category

Arcane Mage RotationArcane Mage GuideFrost Mage RotationFrost Mage GuideFrost Mage Spell List and GlossaryFire Mage Easy Mode