Arcane Mage DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.2

The Arcane specialization is very singular in the current state of World of Warcraft. The core gameplay revolves around Mana expenditure, presenting the player with two distinct "phases" of the rotation; "Burn" and "Conserve." During the "Conserve" phase, the player aims to remain Mana neutral until the Evocation cooldown is available. During the "Burn" phase, the player expends all their available Mana while their cooldowns are active, restoring their Mana to full with Evocation when they run dry and re-entering the "Conserve" phase. This dichotomy offers the player a unique experience that is both challenging and rewarding.

Strengths

• Very high burst damage.
• Able to move around quickly.
• Good at avoiding or reducing damage taken.
• Gains bonus single target damage from additional targets (funnel)
• Able to do a lot of its damage while on the move

Weaknesses

• Reliant on cooldowns for single-target damage.
• Best builds require good encounter knowledge to be able to be played well.

Arcane Mage did not get any changes in 10.2. However, due to the new season coming with a new tier set, new trinkets, new gear etc, there are various changes. Especially our gearing page has received lots of updates, with a new best-in-slot list, crafting suggestions, and more. Additionally, the new tier set and items also impact the talents and rotation pages, so we highly suggest checking those out as well if you wonder how the new builds impact your playstyle. Lastly, all of these changes are also reflected on the easy page if you just want a less complex version of all the changes.

If you want to play an Arcane Mage but currently do not have one at max level, you can check out our leveling guide for tips on your journey.

Once you reach the max level, it can be somewhat overwhelming to completely change the way you play by suddenly implementing a large number of addons in a short space of time, especially if they have a heavy visual impact on your UI. We recommend using some of the more basic addons recommended on our Addons page below while leveling so that you have more time to get used to them during the easier phases of playing your class.

Arcane Mage is all about maximizing the damage you can do per point of Mana. Most of your damage will be done in a phase we will refer to as the "Burn." phase, during which you will quickly burn through all your Mana, doing very high damage. Outside of this burn phase, you will be in your "Conserve" phase, during which you are doing a bit lower damage, waiting for your cooldowns to become available again.

Most of your time will be spent casting Arcane Blast as this is your main Mana expenditure spell. Additionally, Arcane uses various cooldowns, like Arcane Surge to boost the damage you do while burning through your Mana. The main way for Arcane to regenerate Mana will be via Evocation. Conserve phases are made possible via Arcane Barrage as this allows you to drop your Arcane Charges to reduce the Mana cost of your spells.

If you are a beginner to the spec and would like to learn the basic fundamentals of the class, or would like to learn some of the oddities of some of the Arcane spells, we recommend looking through the Spell Summary first, as well as the Easy Mode page linked below.

If you are already somewhat familiar with Arcane Mages, you can head straight to the Talents and Rotation pages to jump right into the more complex, detailed information.

We have a dedicated page that goes over all the intricacies of gearing an Arcane Mage in the current patch, including the Best in Slot gear from the current tier.

After you have obtained some gear via the gearing guide above, you will want to make sure you are using the correct consumables, gems, enchants, and more. To help you with this process, we have a page on exactly this. Additionally, we have a stats page that goes over the stat priority and necessary changes that might occur from changing stat priorities.

Since the launch of the Dragonflight pre-patch (10.0), all classes have access to the newly revamped Talent system. For the most common and strongest builds, we strongly suggest checking out the talent page.

Starting as an Arcane Mage is very different from end-game progression content. Because of this, we have dedicated pages that guide you on how to play optimally in Mythic+ and PvP. We will also give raiding tips closer to the release of the first raid.

If you feel like you are making mistakes or are not sure what to improve on, you can check out the pages below for tips and answers to questions you might have.

All three Mage specs are very close to each other in the current patch, which allows people to largely play what they are most comfortable with. There are, of course exceptions, which we go into below.

In a Raiding setting, Arcane is a arguably the best Mage specialization. If you want to be fully optimal, there are some small benefits you can get from playing a different spec on some bosses, but overall, Arcane is the go-to Mage spec most bosses, especially the later bosses. As time goes on and gear improves, Arcane is likely to become more dominant as boss kill timers become faster and faster.

In a Mythic+ setting, Arcane is very strong. It is among the top specs to be played across all classes, and can be taken to any key level, including the very highest keys being pushed right now.