Arcane Mage Best Legendaries in Shadowlands — Shadowlands 9.0.5
Legendary Powers are targetable, unique effects that you can imbue certain base items with through the Runecarving system. In Shadowlands, these enable you to customize your Arcane Mage, drastically improving your performance, and are arguably the most important aspect of your gear.
The purpose of this page is to help you pick the right legendary powers (and item slots for them) for your character, depending on the content you are interested in.
Introduction: Legendaries in Shadowlands
By doing Torghast, you can craft legendary items through the new Runecarving system. Many of these powers are large DPS boosts, or contain strong defensive effects. However, you are only able to wear one of these at a time, and you are gated in how many you can craft over time, so it is important to know which legendary to use in which situation. Below, we go over the best legendary effects for each situation.
Best Legendaries for Arcane Mage
Focus | Legendary | Slots | Source |
---|---|---|---|
Raiding | ![]() |
Chest or Ring | Torghast (The Upper Reaches, Layer 3+) |
Mythic+ | ![]() |
Feet or Back | Torghast (Skoldus Halls, Layer 3+) |
Torghast | ![]() |
Shoulder or Head | Honor PvP Vendor |
For more information regarding the best legendary for each situation, see below. If a legendary effect is not listed, you can assume it is worse than all other options that are listed.
Best Overall Legendary for Arcane Mage
There is no Legendary for Arcane which is best or almost best in all
situations. The closest option to this is Arcane Bombardment, which is
a couple of % (1-3%) behind the best single target option, but has no
restrictions (like
Temporal Warp), and is the best Legendary for any
cleave/AoE situation.
Best Raiding Legendaries for Arcane Mage
Raiding usually has tight DPS checks, usually single target
focused. The best option for this is generally Temporal Warp. However,
Arcane Bombardment is suggested on fights with cleave or where execute DPS is
important.
Worth noting when using Temporal Warp:
Time Warp can be used
during
Bloodlust (or similar effects) to stack both effects at the same time.
Triune Ward is a defensive alternative, which can boost your
survivability significantly. This is only an option when DPS is not a relevant
requirement but you feel you really need more survivability.
Best Mythic+ Legendaries for Arcane Mage
Mythic+ tends to have more AoE damage requirements than
raiding, which Arcane Bombardment is the best option for, while
remaining relatively competitive on single target.
The only real DPS alternative is Temporal Warp, which can be useful
if you need high burst damage on a specific pack or boss that comes after or when
your group uses
Time Warp.
The final alternative legendary option is Triune Ward, which can
boost your survivability significantly. This is only an option when DPS is not
a relevant requirement, but you feel you really need more survivability.
Especially in very high keys, you can get 1-shot by some mechanics, where
Triune Ward can help you survive these 1-shots.
Best Torghast Legendaries for Arcane Mage
Grisly Icicle is a great option when soloing Torghast, as
the enemies will remain frozen for the entire duration of
Frost Nova
even when you are DPSing them, making it very easy to kite enemies and still do
damage to them. When doing Torghast as a group, this effect is mostly useless
because your group will break your freezes instantly, in which case
Arcane Bombardment is the best overall option.
If you need extra survivability against ranged/caster enemies,
Triune Ward is a great choice.
What Slot Should Legendaries by Crafted For?
Generally speaking, you will want to craft legendaries for slots with the highest "stat budget", to maximize the stats you get from legendaries reaching the highest item level available. Below we have listed the items in order of stat budget:
- Helm, Chest, Legs
- Gloves, Belt, Boots, Shoulders
- Cloak, Bracers
- Neck, Rings
For people that actively clear Raiding, there are some situations where you might not want to do this. Since the last 2 bosses in Raiding drop higher item level loot, you will want to avoid crafting items for the slots dropped by these bosses. These slots are:
- Back
- Chest
- Shoulder
The last 2 bosses also drop a Ring and Trinkets, but this is not relevant for legendary crafting, as you have 2 ring slots, and there are no legendaries for the Trinket slots.
This leads us to the following list of legendaries and what slot to craft them in:
Arcane Bombardment: Boots
Temporal Warp: Ring
Grisly Icicle: Head
Triune Ward: Neck
Changelog
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 16 Jan. 2021: Updated Temporal Warp suggestions and descriptions to also be included even when Time Warp is not used early on a fight.
- 21 Nov. 2020: Updated some phrasing on Temporal Warp to be more informative.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Page added.
More Mage Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Dutchmagoz. Dutchmagoz is a Mythic raider in one of the top raiding guilds, Angered, owner of the Mage theorycrafting website Altered Time, and the owner of the Mage Discord server, Altered Time.
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