Arcane Mage DPS Easy Mode — Midnight (12.0.1)

This build is currently the best performing pure single-target build. This works great for encounters where you will only fight a single enemy throughout the entire encounter. If there are additional targets during the fight, even if only for a relatively small portion, I recommend the Cleave / Raid build.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

This build is very similar to the single-target build, making only a few minor changes to ensure optimal DPS when there are additional targets during an encounter. This is generally the go-to build for most raid encounters, as almost none of them are pure single-target.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

The Mythic+ / Dungeon build is practically identical to the Cleave / Raid build. It focuses on swapping into more utility spells in the Mage tree, but otherwise running the same actual DPS talents.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

This build is focused on making Delves as smooth of an experience as possible. It focuses on maximizing your survival and kiting capabilities, by speccing into more mobility and crowd-control, while giving up very minimal DPS. This build is also excellent for outdoor content.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

Arcane is largely focused around a couple of key concepts:

• Use cooldowns quickly. This is important for almost all specs in the game, but Arcane really suffers when you sit on your cooldowns for a long time. Not only are you losing damage from not gaining the damage benefits from your cooldowns like Arcane Surge, but your mana generation is directly tied to your cooldowns, further lowering your damage and making it much harder to remain at 4 Arcane Charges.
• Not wasting Arcane Salvo stacks. Arcane Salvo provides a massive damage increase to Arcane Barrage, so we want to make sure we do not overcap Arcane Salvo stacks while also making sure we have 4 Arcane Charges ready when we cap Arcane Salvo so we can immediately use Arcane Barrage.
• Minimizing casts while on low Arcane Charges. Since our primary abilities both scale their damage with Arcane Charges, it is important we try to avoid casting these ( Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage) while on low charges as much as possible. The main methods we avoid this is by using Arcane Orb. Since Arcane is very mana hungry, this is not always avoidable, but it is still important to keep in mind.

This leads us to the following basic rotation:

• Cast Arcane Surge into Touch of the Magi when both are ready. Also activate any on-use trinkets or racials that provide damage bonuses or stat increases.
• If only Touch of the Magi is ready, but not Arcane Surge, cast Touch of the Magi. You can do this once in-between each Arcane Surge usage.
• Cast Arcane Orb right after Arcane Barrage (see line below), if you have Clearcasting, .
• Cast Arcane Barrage when you have 4 Arcane Charges and 20 Arcane Salvo stacks.
• Cast Arcane Pulse as your filler on 3 targets or more.
• Cast Arcane Blast as your filler.
• Cast Arcane Barrage when unable to cast Arcane Blast due to being out of mana.

Keep in mind that this is a simplified rotation. If you want to learn how to get the most out of your character, check out our full rotation page below.

Arcane has the following Apex Talent:

• Touch of the Archmage: Touch of the Magi increases the damage your target receives from you by 15%.
• Touch of the Archmage: Arcane Charges further increase the damage of Arcane Blast, Arcane Pulse, and Arcane Barrage. Also increases Arcane Missiles damage. Has 2 ranks. Note: This always counts, not just during Touch of the Magi.
• Touch of the Archmage: When Touch of the Magi explodes, it leaves behind a pulsing rune on its target, dealing 75% of its damage over 6 seconds to nearby enemies. This damage is increased by 50% on the initial Touch of the Magi target.

The Apex Talent is very strong for both Hero specs, and is virtually always taken. It has no meaningful rotational impact, but it does put even more emphasis on Touch of the Magi, making it very important that you use Touch of the Magi on targets that will live the entire duration, as you will lose a lot of damage if the target dies halfway through the duration.

Patch 11.1.7 introduced two new combat related functionalities, the Assisted Highlight, and the Single-Button Assistant. For a full overview on how to enable these features and all of their details, check out our Combat Assistant page.

The Assisted Highlight rotation is a relatively decent rotation, so following it can be a good way to learn the rotation, however, you are giving up around 20-25% damage to do so depending on your talents and hero talents.

The Single-Button assistant is more punishing, giving up an additional 5% damage compared to the Assisted Highlight, for a total of around 25-30%. However, it allows you to focus entirely on the dungeon / boss mechanics, which is very valuable.

Note that neither the Single-Button rotation nor the Assisted Highlight rotation will cast/highlight Arcane Surge, racial cooldowns, or items, like trinkets, so you will have to use these manually.

• Make sure to use Arcane Surge as close to on-cooldown as possible, while making sure Touch of the Magi is ready or nearly ready when you use it.
• Use your trinkets, potions, racial cooldowns (like Berserking) or other on-use cooldowns during Arcane Surge.
• The Single-Button rotation will cast Arcane Explosion when you are fighting 3 or more targets, so make sure you are positioning yourself correctly to hit all targets with it.
• It will also cast Arcane Orb as part of its rotation, so make sure that you are facing in a way that will hit all targets, and not accidentally pull other targets with it.