Arcane Mage DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.2

Note that these builds are generic recommendations for various content. For more specific recommendations for the Raid and Mythic+, check out the dedicated pages below.

While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes. Keep in mind you can freely change your talents as long as you are out of combat without requiring any consumables, so it is highly suggested to pick talents specifically for the content you are doing.

2.

Best Talents for Arcane Mage

Single Target Talents AoE/Mythic+ Talents Picking Arcane Mage Talents

3.

Best Single-Target Talents for Arcane Mage

The build below is great for pure (or almost pure) single-target content, like a large number of raid bosses. However, a lot of changes can be made, especially in the Mage tree, to tune for specific encounters or damage types, so we strongly suggest reading Talent Choices section for more information.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

3.

Best AoE Talents for Arcane Mage

The tree below is a tree focused more on doing cleave and AoE damage. Although the tree below is a good starting point for doing multi-target damage, there are many small tweaks you can make to further focus on cleave and AoE damage or less, depending on what type of damage you want to do. we strongly suggest reading Talent Choices section for more information.

You can easily import the talent tree below into the game by using the "copy export string" button below.

3.

Picking Mage Class Talents

The general Mage tree is extremely flexible. It is almost entirely personal preference, apart from a couple of key DPS nodes. You have many more points available than you need to get all of the DPS nodes, leaving you with many options in terms of survivability, crowd control, and utility. Below, we will highlight some of the key nodes that are important for DPS and suggest some of the best non-DPS nodes. However, even after that, you can assign a bunch of points as you see fit.

2.1.

Tier 1 (Rows 1-4) Mage Class Talents For Arcane Mage

2.1.1.

Talents for all situations

Talent	Reason for taking
Overflowing Energy	A large DPS boost.
Incanter's Flow	A large DPS boost.
Shifting Power	A large DPS boost.
Ice Block	One of the best defensives in the entire game.
Mirror Image	A great defensive tool useful in all content.
Alter Time	A very strong defensive and mobility tool in one, useful in all content.

2.1.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Spellsteal	A good pick if there are buffs you can steal that are either beneficial to you, or make the content easier by removing it from the target.
Remove Curse	A good pick if there are curses you can dispel.
Winter's Protection	Can be useful if you need the reduced cooldown to be able to solo soak a specific raid mechanic. If combined with Ice Cold and Cryo-Freeze it also becomes a very strong damage reduction tool.
Incantation of Swiftness	Can be useful for skipping content, like trash packs in dungeons, or open-world enemies
Tempest Barrier	A minor defensive tool useful in all content.

2.2.

Tier 2 (Rows 5-7) Mage Class Talents For Arcane Mage

The tier 2 talents contain almost entirely utility/mobility talents.

2.2.1.

Talents for all situations

Talent	Reason for taking
Tome of Rhonin	A straight up DPS boost
Tome of Antonidas	A straight up DPS boost
Shimmer or Ice Floes	Both are extremely strong mobility tools. This choice is largely a personal preference. Ice Floes ultimately allows for more movement without losing DPS, but it comes at the cost of losing out on the burst movement (without having to give up a global cooldown like Blink does) that Shimmer provides. Generally, Shimmer is preferred because you can already cast multiple abilities while moving due to Slipstream.
Diverted Energy	A great survivability tool useful in all content.

2.2.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Master of Time	A decent survivability and mobility tool useful in all content.
Quick Witted	A good pickup in content where you need the reduced interrupt cooldown, like Mythic+ in a low interrupt group.
Slow	A good pickup to assist in kiting, especially when solo. Generally not too much usage in group content, though.
Cryo-Freeze	A very good self-healing tool when playing solo or a very strong defensive in all content when combined with Ice Cold.
Reduplication	Can be useful if it would give you an additional usage of Mirror Image for a specific high-hitting ability, but usually hard to proc this.
Reabsorption	Adds a relatively useful self-heal onto Mirror Image, but usually hard to proc this.
Blast Wave	Great crowd control that can be extremely useful in Mythic+ and open-world content, for its ability to AoE interrupt enemy spellcasts
Volatile Detonation	Used to further increase the ability to kite with Blast Wave, but should be careful in grouped content to not knock enemies into additional enemies and pull more than planned.
Mass Slow	Can be used to kite packs of mobs in Mythic+, in some cases, or good for open-world content.
Ice Nova	For even more crowd control. Also, technically a minor DPS increase when moving as it can be used when on the move if you have no Ice Floes / Shimmer ready and no other instants.
Ring of Frost	For even more crowd control.

2.3.

Tier 3 (Rows 8-10) Mage Class Talents For Arcane Mage

In this tier, we unlock some of the strong final nodes as a priority, whereas the rest is flexible.

2.3.1.

Talents for all situations

Talent	Reason for taking
Time Anomaly / Temporal Warp	The strongest of the final nodes. We usually suggest picking Temporal Warp. However, if you are doing group content where you are unable to use Time Warp (or similar effects) relatively early in the content you are doing, you can consider going Time Anomaly, otherwise Temporal Warp.
Greater Invisibility	One of the best defensive tools in the game.
Mass Barrier / Mass Invisibility	A single-point talent (assuming you took Greater Invisibility) that provides quite a lot of defensive power for your group if you take Mass Barrier. Since the cooldown is not shared with Prismatic Barrier, it is a useful defensive tool even when solo. Mass Invisibility can be a very strong tool for Mythic+ to skip packs.
Temporal Velocity	A decent mobility tool. It is not that great of a talent on its own, but it is on the path to some very strong other nodes, so it's pretty much always taken.

2.3.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Ice Cold	Turns Ice Block into a very strong defensive cooldown that does not come at the cost of any DPS but removes the immunity aspect from it. Generally, we suggest taking this if you do not need the immunity aspect of Ice Block, as it lasts 6 seconds, and you are unlikely to sit in Ice Block for that long. Additionally, when combined with Cryo-Freeze, it also becomes a very strong self heal that you do not need to sit in Ice Block for to get the benefit of.
Dragon's Breath	Very good crowd-control ability, especially useful in Mythic+ to interrupt spell casts.
Accumulative Shielding	A minor boost to your survivability that works in all content.
Displacement	A decent mobility and defensive tool. Difficult to take without giving up one of the capstone nodes, but if you are skipping a capstone node, a very useful mobility + defensive tool.
Frigid Winds + Ice Ward	These nodes give you even more kiting power. Not very useful in most group content, but strong when solo and on the way to Ice Cold. If you are not taking Ice Cold, these two talents should be skipped for most group play.
Time Manipulation	Can be useful if you are doing content where you really need the extra crowd control.

3.

Arcane Mage Talents

In this section, we will go over the Arcane Mage Talents. The focus of this section will be PvE content.

3.1.

Tier 1 (Rows 1-3) Arcane Mage Talents

3.1.1.

Talents for all situations

Talent	Reason for taking
Arcane Orb	Required to pick up many of the other nodes and decent DPS increase.
Concentrated Power	Required to pick up many of the other nodes and decent DPS increase.
Arcane Tempo	Required to pick up many of the other nodes and decent DPS increase.
Arcane Surge	Incredibly powerful offensive cooldown for all situations.
Crackling Energy	Very strong DPS boost.
Nether Precision	Very strong DPS boost.

3.1.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Reverberate	Strong DPS boost, but only for multi-target encounters where you can be in melee range. Worth taking if you want to focus heavily on AoE damage.
Improved Arcane Missiles	Good single-target DPS boost. At least 1 point should generally be taken if you want to focus on single-target damage, both if you want to maximize single target damage at the cost of some meaningful cleave.

3.2.

Tier 2 (Rows 4-6) Arcane Mage Talents

3.2.1.

Talents for all situations

Talent	Reason for taking
Arcane Familiar	Better than Rule of Threes and overall good DPS boost.
Resonance	Strong DPS boost in all situations.
Slipstream	Very strong mobility tool. It can be skipped for more DPS talents, but generally, we recommend picking it due to its incredible quality of life.
Amplification	Very large single-target DPS boost. Technically, it can be skipped on pure AoE, but this does not exist, and as long as there is any priority damage needed at any point, this talent is mandatory.
Presence of Mind	Reasonable DPS boost, but also good for mobility. However, the primary reason is to unlock Evocation in the next tier.
Nether Tempest	Strong DPS boost. Primarily taken because every hit procs 2 ticks of Arcane Echo.
Impetus	String DPS boost.
Improved Clearcasting	Strong DPS boost, but also allows you to save Clearcasting for priority targets or movement. (together with Slipstream)
Touch of the Magi	Very strong DPS boost.

3.2.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Charged Orb	Should be taken for cleave/AoE.
Mana Adept	Should be taken for single-target. Although, in theory, it looks like it might be good for AoE as well; you generally cannot go out of mana in AoE, so it does not provide any value for AoE.
Arcing Cleave	Should be taken for cleave/AoE.
Foresight	Very strong mobility tool, but kind of awkward position in the tree, making it's hard to pick up without giving up too much DPS. Not as useful in AoE content as you will mostly be using instants in AoE, but the only path to get it is via the AoE talent Charged Orb.
Supernova	Decent crowd control, especially when used as an AoE interrupt. However, very difficult to reach talent because it requires picking up multiple very low-value talents.
Chrono Shift	Great for solo play to kite enemies.

3.3.

Tier 3 (Rows 7-9) Arcane Mage Talents

The final section is pretty much cookie cutter with one small choice depending on whether you want more single target or more AoE DPS.

3.3.1.

Talents For All Situations

Below, we list the talents you should always take, regardless of whether you go Arcane Harmony or Mana Gem build.

Talent	Reason for taking
Evocation	Very strong DPS boost.
Siphon Storm	Very strong DPS boost.
Arcane Bombardment	Very strong DPS boost.
Arcane Echo	Very strong DPS boost.
Radiant Spark	Very strong DPS boost.
Harmonic Echo	Very strong DPS boost.
Enlightened	Very strong DPS boost.
Prodigious Savant	Very strong DPS boost.

3.3.2.

Optional / flexible talents

Talent	Reason for taking
Orb Barrage	Very strong for AoE / cleave but provides almost no value on a single target.
Conjure Mana Gem	Decent for both single target and AoE / cleave. Taken if you want to focus on single target damage.

Multiple talents require a change to your rotation to use them optimally. You can find more information on how your rotation will look after selecting your talents on our rotation page below.

If you are looking for in-depth explanations of what each talent does, we suggest reading through the spell summary page.

Since Battle for Azeroth, there is the option to enable "War Mode." Enabling War Mode grants the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at max level. However, doing so will enable PvP combat and the possibility of being attacked by members of the opposite faction while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will rank the War Mode talents for leveling and outdoor content.

1. Temporal Shield is off the Global Cooldown, so it can be used without sacrificing any damage and is very strong for when you know damage is incoming. You can simply tank the damage and heal back to full Health when the shield ends.
2. Ring of Fire is a great tool for AoE damage in the open world, especially on high-health targets.
3. Ethereal Blink gives you a lot more Blink or Shimmer uses and also helps with kiting.