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Arcane Mage DPS Easy Mode in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Last updated on Aug 19, 2018 at 07:04 by Dutchmagoz 61 comments

Table of Contents

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Dutchmagoz. Dutchmagoz is a Mythic raider in UnknownError, owner of the Mage theorycrafting website Altered Time, and an admin of the Mage Discord server, Halls of the Guardian.

This section is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous priorities and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

1. The Basics for Arcane Mage

Arcane is a great Swiss Army Knife that has a complete toolkit to approach any situation. It provides great burst as well as impressive cleave and AoE. It is also hyper mobile and comes equipped with a variety of defensive spells and cooldowns. In this section we will be focusing on a setup that minimizes the amount of buttons and reactivity necessary without unduly compromising overall damage output.

2. Talent Choice for Arcane Mage

These choices are optimized for ease of use. Although some talents might offer marginally higher gains when played perfectly, these same talents often result in damage losses when utilized by many players. These talents aim to present the best setup that has very little punishment for unfamiliarity or mistakes.

3. Stat Choice for Arcane Mage

You will want to prioritize secondary stats as follows:

  1. Intellect;
  2. Critical Strike;
  3. Haste;
  4. Mastery;
  5. Versatility.

We recommend you prioritize item levels over specific stats, as they are all extremely close in value.

If you want more information about how to properly gear yourself we highly recommend you read the gear page.

4. Basic Rotation for Arcane Mage

The Arcane rotation consists of 2 priority lists, the Burn Phase and the Conserve Phase. The concept is to maintain a high and stable Mana pool during your "Conserve" phase, biding time until your cooldowns are available. As soon as your cooldowns are ready, you enter the "Burn" phase where you siphon all your Mana into damage. Then when you run out of Mana, you use Evocation Icon Evocation to return back to full Mana.

4.1. The Burn Phase

You can enter the Burn Phase when the following is true:

  • Arcane Power Icon Arcane Power is ready;
  • you have 4 charges of Arcane Charges;

Below we have listed the order in which you should perform your spells during the Burn Phase.

  1. Cast Arcane Power Icon Arcane Power.
  2. Cast Presence of Mind Icon Presence of Mind.
  3. Cast Arcane Missiles Icon Arcane Missiles if you have Clearcasting Icon Clearcasting.
  4. Cast Arcane Blast Icon Arcane Blast.
  5. Cast Evocation Icon Evocation when out of Mana.

4.2. The Conserve Phase

You should enter the Conserve Phase any time you are not in the Burn Phase. The goal of the Conserve Phase is to get as many high Arcane Charges casts of Arcane Blast Icon Arcane Blast off, while keeping your Mana at a high level. Below we have listed the order in which you should perform your spells during the Conserve Phase.

  1. Cast Arcane Missiles Icon Arcane Missiles if you have Clearcasting Icon Clearcasting and have less than 95% Mana.
  2. Cast Arcane Barrage Icon Arcane Barrage if you have 4 Arcane Charges and you have less than 50% Mana.
  3. Cast Arcane Blast Icon Arcane Blast.
⋘Introduction
Spell Summary⋙

5. Changelog

  • 19 Aug. 2018: Updated with latest expected stat weights for a pre-raid geared player.
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