Arcane Mage DPS Guide — The War Within (11.1.5)

Arcane Mage has received no changes in 11.1.5 itself. However, in the weeks leading up to 11.1.5, Arcane received a few buffs:

• April 12th 2025:
  • All damage increased by 4%. Does not apply to PvP.
  • Sunfury: Arcane Phoenix area of effect spell damage increased by 25%.
  • Sunfury: Meteorite damage increased by 10%.
• March 22nd 2025: All damage increased by 8%. Does not apply to PvP.

For the latest mechanical/gameplay changes to Arcane, check out the 11.1 changes.

Arcane Mage received quite a few changes in 11.1, which have a significant impact, especially for its rotation and talents. To see a full overview of all changes to Mage in 11.1, check out our dedicated changes page below.

In 11.1, Arcane Mage has received a significant amount of changes, although many of them purely numerically. There are however a few key changes happening that significantly impact the rotation and optimal builds. Below we list the most important changes when it comes to playstyle or otherwise key changes:

• Aethervision was removed. This removes the "double-dipping" playstyle.
• Intuition which was previously a tier set bonus is now a talent, which only lasts 3 seconds. This shorter duration makes it so that it is generally used right away without too much minmaxing, instead of combined with other damage bonuses. Especially combined with the removal of Aethervision, you now cast Arcane Barrage with a lot less complex conditions than before.
• Leydrinker was reworked making it effectively a bunch of additional damage on Nether Precision buffed Arcane Blasts.
• Resonance now only does increased damage per additional target, instead of also counting your main target. This opens up some additional talent points for single target.
• Burden of Power was changed to now also work for Arcane Barrage, causing it to be able to be consumed in your AoE rotation by Arcane Barrage.
• Many spells had number tweaks, and multiple talents were repositioned in the tree.

In 11.0.5, Arcane is getting a mini rework. The biggest changes of the patch are the removal of double-dipping Nether Precision and the addition of Aethervision. The combination of these 2 changes has various impacts on the rotation. The exact changes are difficult to summarize, so we highly recommend checking out the new Rotation Page.

Additionally, there is some shuffling around of various talents and some minor rebalancing of multiple talents. Due to this, the best talents have changed, which you can find on our Talents Page.

Lastly, due to all of the combined changes, Spellslinger now does a fair bit more AoE damage than Sunfury, while being being closer in single-target than before. This causes Spellslinger to be more viable than before, especially in Mythic+. Many of the pages of the guide have been updated for this, like our Mythic+ Page, Hero Talents Page, and various other pages.

• Double-dipping of Nether Precision was removed.
• The talent tree got 1 new talent, 1 removed talent, and some talents were moved around or changed:
• New Talent: Aethervision. This is a talent further focusing the build around Nether Precision, making it so that consuming Nether Precision with Arcane Blast increases the damage of your next Arcane Barrage by 10% and generate 2 Arcane Charges, stacking up to 2 stacks, for a total of 20% bonus damage and 4 Arcane Charges. The buff lasts 12 seconds.
• Resonant Orbs was removed. Static Cloud was moved to where Resonant Orbs used to be.
• Aethervision was put on the spot of Consortium's Bauble, which in turn was moved to the spot where Static Cloud used to be.
• Leydrinker no longer applies to Arcane Barrage, and casting Touch of the Magi now grants Leydrinker.
• Time Loop also increases the duration of Arcane Debilitation by 2 seconds and the proc chance increased from 15% to 25%.
• Charged Orb now also makes Arcane Orb do 15% more damage.
• Consortium's Bauble has been buffed to make Arcane Blast do 8% more damage (instead of 3%) and cost 5% less mana (instead of 3%).
• Arcane Missiles no longer consumes Ice Floes if talented into Slipstream.
• Spellslinger got various changes:
• New Hero Talent Signature Spell: A choice node with Shifting Shards that causes Magi's Spark to conjure 6 Arcane Splinters when it explodes.
• Splinterstorm now has a 5% chance to proc Clearcasting.
• Arcane Splinter damage increased by 30%.
• Spellfrost Teachings buffed to 5% (from 3%) and has been fixed to increase Arcane Orb damage by 10% for 10 seconds.
• Sunfury got various changes:
• Glorious Incandescence now also makes Arcane Barrage do 30% more damage.
• Memory of Al'ar buffed to increase Arcane Soul by 1 second per exceptional spell. (was 0.5 seconds)
• Ignite the Future now also increases maximum Mana Cascade stacks to 15.
• Burden of Power no longer affects Arcane Barrage.

Arcane Mage has received a rework in The War Within, with a complete spec talent tree rework and some changes to the base talent tree. Below, we will first go into the changes in the Mage talent tree before diving deeper into the changes in the Arcane tree.

The Mage tree did not receive a lot of changes, but it did receive some important ones to hotly debated talents. Below, we list the most important changes:

• Temporal Warp has been removed, which was a highly divisive node, with some players loving it and some hating it. It was replaced for a passive 3% Intellect choice node against Time Anomaly.
• Ring of Frost and Ice Nova have been turned into a choice node, reducing the total amount of crowd-control available by a little bit, although neither were picked very often in PvE.
• Supernova has been moved from the Arcane tree to the class tree, and put into a choice node with Dragon's Breath. This new choice node is in a very central place in the tree, so it is easy to pick up.

In contrast to the Mage tree, the Arcane tree got completely reworked. Many nodes have been replaced, changed, combined, or split into multiple, and the location of almost every single node is different. Although many of these changes did not significantly change the playstyle, a few of these changes have a large impact on how you play.

Overall, Arcane has been reduced in complexity, which in recent years has arguably become both very complex and very scripted. At the highest level of play, people were using macros and WeakAuras that would interact with the game's core underlying systems like spellqueueing and server ticks in very unintuitive ways, or even intentionally causing the game client to freeze, to squeeze out the most damage. A large factor for this was Radiant Spark, which is being completely removed. However, various other talents are also being removed or changed to reduce some complexity.

See below a list of the most important changes. The full, exhaustive list of changes can be found on the Class Changes page, which is linked further below.

• The entire talent tree has been reworked, with almost all talents being in a different position.
• Radiant Spark and its related Harmonic Echo have been removed. Due to how core this was to the rotation, this significantly altered the playstyle, making the rotation less scripted and generally considered less complex.
• Conjure Mana Gem and its related Cascading Power have been removed.
• Foresight was removed.
• A new choice node, with Magi's Spark and Improved Touch of the Magi has been added:
  • Magi's Spark at first glance, is a node similar to Radiant Spark, but in practice is quite different. Unlike Radiant Spark, it is less strict in the order of spells you need to cast, just that you need to cast specific spells in the Touch of the Magi window for an additional explosion at the end.
  • Improved Touch of the Magi is simply a direct buff to Touch of the Magi.
• Nether Munitions is a new talent that causes all enemies hit by Magi's Spark or Improved Touch of the Magi to take more damage from you.
• Arcane Familiar has been changed to no longer be a separate spell, but instead, it will be summoned upon casting Arcane Intellect.
• Energized Familiar buffs your Arcane Familiar to fire more bolts during Arcane Surge, and also sometimes gives you a small amount of Mana.
• Arcane Surge now also provides you with a stack of Clearcasting.
• Surging Urge is a new talent that makes your Arcane Surge do more damage based on the amount of Arcane Charges you have.
• Eureka is a new talent that makes Arcane Missiles or Arcane Explosion do more damage when they consume Clearcasting.
• Aether Attunement is a new talent that significantly increases Arcane Missiles and turns it into an AoE ability after consuming Clearcasting 3 times.
• Arcane Debilitation is a new talent that applies a stacking debuff on your target that increases the damage you do with Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage for each time you have hit the target with Arcane Missiles. This lasts a couple of seconds and each stack expires independently, meaning you cannot indefinitely keep increasing the stacks.
• Time Loop gives Arcane Debilitation a 10% chance to apply another stack. This effect, in turn, can proc itself, meaning that, theoretically, a single application could cause a chain of procs.
• Leysight is a new talent that increases Nether Precision's damage increase.
• Leydrinker is a new talent that causes Nether Precision a small chance to cause your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage to echo for a portion of its damage.

On top of the relatively large changes in the Arcane tree, the Hero Talent Tree system was added. See our dedicated Arcane Hero Talent Tree page below for more information on Arcane's Hero Trees.