Arcane Mage DPS Stat Priority — The War Within (11.0.5)
On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Arcane Mage. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5).
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Arcane Mage stat priority.
The Basics of Stats for Arcane Mage
The following is a good guideline for stats for Arcane Mages:
- Intellect;
- Haste;
- Mastery;
- Versatility;
- Critical Strike.
All of the secondary (non-Intellect) stats are very close in value despite the way they are ordered on our list. We encourage players to sim themselves, if possible, to determine what stats you should aim for according to your current distribution, as this may change depending on your current values. This is because a deficiency of one stat will often cause it to become high in value relative to the others until you reach a "normalized" value. Due to this, we strongly recommend using Raidbots Top Gear instead to handle your gearing needs (see our Raidbots guide).
Using purely stat weights is never the best way to go about gearing your character. On the gear page, we go in-depth into how to best gear your character for varying types of content.
Diminishing returns on secondary stats
Secondary stats have diminishing returns. This means as you get more points into one stat, it will take increasingly more rating to get 1% more stats. This reduction goes as follows:
- From 0 to 30%, there is no penalty.
- From 30% to 39%, there is a 10% penalty.
- From 39% to 47%, there is a 20% penalty.
- From 47% to 54%, there is a 30% penalty.
- From 54% to 66%, there is a 40% penalty.
- From 66% to 126%, there is a 50% penalty.
- You can not get more than 126% from gear rating.
Generally, you can ignore most of this, but it does again emphasize using simulations to determine what stats to use. We strongly advice you to use Raidbots Top Gear to determine what gear to equip, as it automatically handles all of these complexities for you.
Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority, and you can find our advice on this topic in our dedicated page.
These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.
Arcane Mage: Getting a Better Understanding
Statistics Explanations
Intellect is your primary stat. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the damage of your spells.
Mastery, thanks to Mastery: Savant, increases your Mana pool and Mana regeneration, allowing you to cast more spells at maximum Arcane Charges between Evocations. Savant also increases the damage buff of Arcane Charges, and additionally increases the damage of all other spells as well.
Haste increases the cast speed of your spells.
Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and abilities. Crits deal double damage by default, but several effects can increase your crit damage, and make crits even stronger.
Versatility is a flat-out damage done increase and damage taken reduction.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 21 Sep. 2024: Updated stat weights description to more clearly explain that using top gear is better.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated stats to favour haste over mastery due to better gear unlocking in Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for the Arcane rework of 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated stat priotiy due to 10.1 changes.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Mage Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Dutchmagoz. Dutchmagoz is a Mythic raider in one of the top raiding guilds, Turtles and the owner of the Mage Discord server, Altered Time, where he is involved in all things Mage, and you can reach out to him directly for feedback or questions about the guide.
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