Arcane Mage Frequently Asked Questions — Shadowlands 9.0.5

There are no haste caps for Arcane Mages.

However, depending on your chosen talents, and your other stats, Haste will lose some value at higher levels. To make sure you run with optimal stats, it is advised to use Raidbots Stat Weights to actively keep your stats up to date (see our Raidbots guide).

Arcane Mage is looking to be a strong contender on single-target DPS. It does however fall behind significantly on cleave DPS, which makes Arcane less compelling for some bosses and Mythic+ dungeons.

Troll is the best race for Arcane Mage. However, all races are very close in DPS and it generally does not matter which race you pick.

For a full overview of the DPS of every race, check the simulations page.

Rune of Power and Incanter's Flow are very close in overall DPS. Because of this, it is quite hard to figure out when to use which talent. In general, on a fight with very little movement and other fight mechanics, Rune of Power is usually the best choice.

There are some reasons that could stop you from running Rune of Power. Below we have listed the reasons to not run Rune of Power:

• There are raid mechanics which you can not plan for in advance that may cause you to have to move out of your Rune of Power.
• There is a lot of movement required on the fight in general.
• It is also worth noting that Rune of Power is a lot harder to play with than Incanter's Flow, so it should not be used when you are not very comfortable with the spec and fight.

You can enter the Burn Phase whenever you have Arcane Power and Touch of the Magi ready, and you have at least 50% Mana (30% if Overpowered is talented).

What is important to note here, is that there are no requirements in regards to Evocation. A lot of players think Evocation needs to be (almost) ready before you can enter the Burn Phase, but this is not true. If Evocation is not ready, you simply start your Burn phase, and when you run out of Mana, you start your Conserve Phase. Then when Evocation is ready, you use it to generate back to full Mana and continue your Conserve Phase. This also works the other way around; when Evocation is (about to be) ready, you should make sure you are low on Mana, so you can use it right as it becomes available. You do not have to save it for your Burn Phase. It is important to keep both Arcane Power and Evocation on cooldown as much as possible.