Arcane Mage DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Dragonflight 10.0.7

Welcome to our Gearing Page for Arcane Mage. This section will cover everything you need to know about equipping your character correctly.

If you have a new piece of gear for which you need gems and enchant advice, you can find everything on our dedicated page below.

At this stage in the game, and despite the stat priority, there are so many variables and so many layers of optimization that you can apply to your character that there is no way for a guide or anything else to tell you exactly what gear you should wear. This is why we always recommend simulating your own character using Raidbots. The website can help you choose set bonuses, Conduits, Legendaries, trinkets, and combinations thereof in a way tailored completely to your specific character. Learning to use this tool is essential to maximizing your potential, as there is simply no other way to consider all the variables.

While we heavily recommend simming yourself, you can find some of our general simulations on the dedicated page below.

The easiest way, and also the method we suggest, to compare multiple items is to use Raidbots' Top Gear. Here you can input an export from the Simcraft AddOn, select the items to compare, and it will find out which of the items are best. See below for a guide on how to sim yourself.

You can use Valor to upgrade the item level of any gear that drops from Mythic+ dungeons or the dungeon reward from the weekly chest up to 415. (based on rating, caps at 2400 rating) This is especially useful for certain trinkets, as often there are dungeon trinkets that are better than raid trinkets when upgraded to a similar item level.

Patch 10.0.7 Added the new Primordial Gems system. You can obtain the new ring Onyx Annulet, which fits 3 of the new Primordial Gems.

For more information regarding the Onyx Annulet, the Primordial Gemstones, and how to obtain them, check out our dedicated guide below.

The Onyx Annulet Ring is currently the best-in-slot ring on single target, but falls slightly behind other 421+ socketed rings in AoE situations.

For a list of what Primordial Gems are the best for Arcane Mage, see our Enchants and Gems page.

Via crafting professions or using the work order system, you can craft some powerful gear, on par or even better than Mythic raid items. There are many options available for crafting, further complicated by the different types of embellishments available. You can at most have 2 embellishments on your gear, but you can have an unlimited amount of crafted items equipped; however, this is gated by Spark of Ingenuity.

The most important part to realize is that for all the best crafted items, you need a Spark of Ingenuity. You can only get one of these every 2 weeks, so at the start of the patch, it is important to craft the correct items, as crafting a different item will have to wait 2 weeks.

At the start of the tier, you will be able to craft 2 items. (1 from the initial quest chain and a second from the first bi-weekly reward) Which items you want to craft will heavily depend on the type of content you do and what items you loot. Below we will list some guidelines on what you want to craft. However, using sims to figure out the best crafts for your character is the best approach. Ultimately, what you want to craft heavily depends on your goals and how much power you want now versus later. We do not suggest crafting a 2-handed staff as you can only put 1 embellishment into it, unlike 2 if you craft 1-handed + off-hand.

• A 1-handed weapon with Potion Absorption Inhibitor in it. It does not matter if you get a dagger, wand, or sword since you can customize its stats. You should always do this if you expect not to get a 421 or higher weapon from the content you are doing. We suggest you do not craft weapons if you expect to (quickly) get a 421+ weapon. Weapons are also substantial upgrades right away, so if you want quick power, weapons will give the biggest available upgrade.
• Amice of the Blue is a powerful item on its own, making it one of the strongest to craft. However, it conflicts with a tier slot, making it potentially a difficult item to craft early, as it might delay your 4-set bonus. Suppose you do not expect to get 4-set early (for example, due to not raiding or not being a high loot priority for tier items). In that case, this is a powerful item to use.
• Elemental Lariat is also very good to craft because the neck slot has no primary stat. Hence, item level is not that important, meaning you are not at risk of looting an upgrade for it and having "wasted" the craft. Due to this, it is a very safe option to craft with no risk of wasting a craft. It is usually a smaller DPS gain early on than a weapon or Amice of the Blue, but still a great week 1 craft. It is part of any "best-in-slot" set, meaning you will use it forever. However, this does not mean you automatically need to craft it first, as other items might be a bigger upgrade early on.
• Craft items for your lowest item level slots, and add Blue Silken Lining to them. Try to avoid tier slots in case you loot tier items.
• After applying 2 embellishments to your gear (the cap), you should focus on crafting whatever crafted item without an embellishment sims best for you.

Below we will go over various options regarding your "best in slot." set. It is important to realize that best in slot is not something obtainable anymore due to the vast pool of available items due to Raids and Mythic+. Even more importantly, a best-in-slot list can be very misleading because many items might only be an upgrade once you gather the entire set. So instead, below, we go over various parts of your gear and discuss available options. All of this is to say it is much more reliable to sim yourself using Raidbots Top Gearinstead of trying to follow a predetermined best-in-slot list.

Below, we go over some strong trinket options available. Keep in mind, as always, depending on your available gear, and your best trinkets might be different from the ones listed below.

For Arcane, you generally want one on-use item to align with your DPS cooldowns, and one passive trinket for the stats. This is however not required, as double passive trinkets can be good as well if you got the best passive trinkets but no great on-use trinkets. Remember, the list below assumes you have the trinkets at the highest item level available.

1. Time-Breaching Talon: Dropped by Chrono-Lord Deios in Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr. Since Uldaman is not in the Season 1 Mythic+ rotation, you can only obtain this at an item level of 372 at the highest. However, it is the best available on-use trinket, even at that low item level. Even at heroic item level, it is one of the best trinkets. You can farm it easily by doing Heroic Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr.
2. Voidmender's Shadowgem: Dropped from Shadowmoon Burial Grounds Mythic+ (or the weekly vault), is the second best trinket at the valor maximum item level of 415. If you manage to get it at 421 from the weekly vault, it is slightly better than Time-Breaching Talon, but all other item levels it is a bit worse than Time Breaching Talon.
3. Whispering Incarnate Icon: Dropped by the Primal Council in Vault of the Incarnates is the best passive trinket available.
4. Furious Ragefeather, is the second best passive trinket, and you can farm it by doing The Nokhud Offensive Mythic+ and then upgrading it via Valor.
5. Eye of Skovald, dropped by God-King Skovald in Halls of Valor is the third best passive trinket, and you can farm it by doing Halls of Valor Mythic+ and then upgrading it via Valor.
6. A special note on Desperate Invoker's Codex: This trinket might sim well, but in practice the trinket is not worth using, as it is very easy to die to the negative effect. It can easily do more than 50% of your health, even going as far as 1-shotting you from full health if hatred stacks are high.

With the release of season 1 of Dragonflight, Arcane Mage gets a new set bonus:

• Arcane Mage 2pc: For each Arcane Charge, Arcane Blast critical strike chance is increased by 5%, and Arcane Explosion critical strike chance is increased by 3%
• Arcane Mage 4pc: When Arcane Blast or Arcane Explosion critically strikes at least one target, the critical strike chance of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by 10%, stacking up to 4 times.

Both the 2 and 4 sets are a decent DPS increase on single target and a smaller increase in AoE, around 5% for 2 set and another 5% for 4 set on single target, with around half that on AoE. Although you could think about changing the rotation to only use Arcane Barrage with the maximum amount of stacks, the set bonus is not strong enough to warrant a rotational change.

Since the whole set is around a 10% DPS increase, it is worth getting the set bonus. The best 4 set items are all except hands, but if you get the hands piece, it is worth using if it gets you to 2 or 4 sets. Generally, you will want Eggtender's Safety Mitts from Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates as your non-tier slot, but this is not a strict requirement. If you are crafting Amice of the Blue, then shoulders are the tier slot you skip.

There are no special weapons that you are looking after for Arcane Mage. Your main goal should be the highest possible item level available amongst the content you are clearing, as weapons have a very high amount of intellect compared to other items.

The highest item level available weapon for Arcane Mage is Stormlash's Last Resort, dropped from Raszageth the Storm-Eater in Vault of the Incarnates. For off-hand, you can go with any 421 item level off-hand, preferably with critical strike, like Vexamus' Expulsion Rod, from Vexamus in Vault of the Incarnates.

However, since the best weapon is only available until after you killed the last raid boss on the highest difficulty, you are generally better off using a crafted weapon with the Bronzed Grip Wrappings embellishment on it if you have the Spark of Ingenuity to spare.

• Onyx Annulet is currently the best single-target ring available, but falls slightly behind other 415+ socketed rings in AoE scenarios. A 421+ ring with socket and having critical strike on it will be better in AoE scenarios.