Arcane Mage Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.1.5)

Arcane Mage, is very strong at outdoor content due to having basically infinite mana due to the downtime while doing outdoor content. Due to this, it can effectively 1 shot most outdoor enemies by simply staying at 4 Arcane Charges all the time. Due to this, simply questing is a very effective way of leveling.

Having said that, Arcane is also very strong at dungeon content, doing incredible DPS, especially starting around level 40 when you start getting most of the kit unlocked. If you have some friends (especially a tank or healer) to queue up with, spamming dungeons is very efficient. If you are playing solo, the queue time for dungeons as a DPS makes it impractical.

When leveling up, always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but 2 secondary stats on it instead of 1.

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Below, you can see the suggested levelling talent build and the order in which to pick the talents while levelling. The below build is incredible for both dungeons and outdoor content.

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Frostbolt.

1. Make sure you keep Arcane Intellect up at all times. Keep in mind, if you die, you have to re-cast it. Otherwise just cast it once per hour.
2. Cast Time Warp when you are about to go into a big pull or boss fight. Keep in mind, you can only gain the benefit once every 10 minutes, even though the cooldown is 5 minutes.
3. During Arcane Soul (the buff you get after Arcane Surge ends from Memory of Al'ar) cast Arcane Barrage.
4. Use Fire Blast on cooldown.
5. Cast Arcane Orb when you do not have 4 Arcane Charges.
6. Cast Shifting Power when your other spells are on cooldown. Try to use it outside of combat, while moving to the next enemies.
7. Cast Evocation whenever it is ready to activate the large Intellect bonus. Use this shortly before activating Arcane Surge. Try to use it out of combat, while moving to the next enemies.
8. Cast Arcane Surge whenever it is ready and you have 4 Arcane Charges. Make sure Touch of the Magi is ready before using Arcane Surge.
9. Cast Arcane Barrage whenever Intuition procs.
10. Cast Arcane Barrage when you have Glorious Incandescence. (the proc right after Burden of Power)
11. If Touch of the Magi is ready and you have 4 Arcane Charges, Cast Arcane Barrage, immediately followed by Touch of the Magi. Ensure you cast Touch of the Magi before Arcane Barrage lands.
12. Use Arcane Missiles when you get Clearcasting.
13. Cast Arcane Barrage whenever you have 4 Arcane Charges, and there are 3+ targets to hit with it. Additionally, whenever you are close to running out of Mana, cast Arcane Barrage. Only cast it with 4 Arcane Charges.
14. Cast Arcane Explosion when there are 3 or more targets.
15. Cast Arcane Blast as your filler on single target.

In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content.

1. Chrono Shift is a huge mobility increase and helps a lot with kiting enemies in the open world.
2. Temporal Shield is arguably the best defensive tool in the game, as it is off the global cooldown, and has a relatively short cooldown, allowing you to avoid damage against most enemies you face.
3. Master of Escape and Mass Invisibility are both spells that you can pick to help you skip more mobs when going through crowded areas.