Arcane Mage Frequently Asked Questions — Season 4

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).

All 3 Mage specs are looking relatively close to each other in strength for Season 4, based on limited PTR and simulation data. Arcane still has its incredibly relevant kit for raid bosses, where it has very high burst, with not just free AoE damage, but increased single target damage.

However, since there was limited balancing going on for the Season 4 PTR, it is likely that there will be class tuning happening early on in the Season, so keep that in mind.

In a Raiding setting, Arcane is a looking to be a strong Mage specialization. If you want to be fully optimal, you will want to play all 3 specs, especially with 3 different raids and thus many different bosses. Compared to other classes, Arcane is looking to be somewhere in the middle of the pack, however, the top specs are looking to significantly outperform any of the Mage specs. Having said that, it is likely that there will be class tuning early on in the Season.

In a Mythic+ setting, Arcane is quite strong; however, it "suffers" from the fact that Fire is even better, generally making it less sought after as Fire is arguably the best pure ranged DPS in the game. However, Arcane can still complete practically any key level, and, on lower keys, is actually better than the other Mage specs due to its extremely high burst lasting the entirety of encounters.

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.

You can enter the Burn Phase whenever you have Arcane Surge, Touch of the Magi, Radiant Spark and Evocation ready.