Arcane Mage PvP Talents and Builds (Dragonflight 10.0.7)
Choosing the right talents is a prerequisite to proper performance in PvP. This guide goes through the various talent choices available to you as an Arcane Mage and gives you the best combinations you can take.
This page is part of our Arcane Mage PvP Guide.
Talent Choices for Arcane Mages
While the above table provides a generally accurate overview of the viability of talents, some finer points are discussed in the sections that follow, and we recommend you read those for a deeper understanding.
Talents Summary
Mage Tree Talent Highlights
Dragon's Breath. One of the strongest offensive Crowd Control abilities in the game, with all specializations of Mage being able to have access to this talent, you can easily chain
Dragon's Breath to
Polymorph.
Slow. This talent is returning for Dragonflight, being very helpful with the mobility creep. With this talent, you can instantly apply Slow, and with the
Mass Slow talent, it applies as an AoE slow as well.
Blast Wave. A favorite from previous expansions, Blast Wave, returns in Dragonflight acting as it once did, giving an explosion effect around the caster and slowing enemies after. This is extremely strong to use when enemies are using heavy offensive cooldowns.
Mass Polymorph. This talent has been highly speculated upon, and it has yet to see much value, Arcane Mages often like to Crowd Control only one target with Polymorph, and there is also the ability to chain
Dragon's Breath into
Ring of Frost if needed.
Greater Invisibility often breaks quite rapidly however provides a 60% damage reduction for 3 seconds after Invisibility; use this before heavy incoming damage to negate the effect.
Time Anomaly is another new talent, allowing for either
Time Warp for 6 seconds,
Icy Veins for 8 seconds, or a
Fingers of Frost proc. This talent is quite strong due to how much Mage benefits from Haste.
Arcane Mage Tree Talent Highlights
Arcane Surge. This is the replacement for
Arcane Power which changes the way Arcane deals damage. This ability has a long cooldown and is a heavy burst spell based on mana spent. After the cast, you spend all mana but regenerate it rapidly and have increased Spell Damage.
Touch of the Magi. A strong 10-second bomb effect that accumulates all damage dealt during the time and explodes for 20% of total damage.
Arcane Bombardment. A strong execute effect, making
Arcane Barrage deal significantly higher damage to targets below 35% health.
Orb Barrage. This talent allows for more
Arcane Orbs to be cast, and with each target orb hits, more Arcane Charges are granted.
Arcane Harmony. A previous Legendary that is a stacking buff to your next
Arcane Barrage, based on how many times
Arcane Missiles hits an enemy.
Mandatory PvP Talents
Precognition is a new PvP talent introduced in Dragonflight. This
allows
for outplay potential from the caster when the enemy misses interrupts on you.
This is especially strong for Arcane Mage, as often you are only casting from
one
school, giving you kick and crowd control immunities for 4 seconds.
Mass Invisibility makes you and your allies within 40 yards invisible
for 5 seconds. Dealing damage will cancel this effect. This is a very strong
PvP talent against every team. Using this talent guarantees crowd control on
enemy healers before using your burst damage. It can also help your teammates
if they are being focused or avoid incoming crowd control.
Arcane Empowerment allows
Clearcasting to stack 2
additional times. This increases your sustained and burst damage and works very
well with
Amplification.
Situational PvP Talents
If you want to have more peels for your teammates or need help getting
crowd control, Master of Escape is an excellent talent to take. This should
be used versus teams that have multiple ways to stop your
Polymorphs
or to help peel for your teammates/healer.
The new talent for Arcane Mages in Shadowlands, Arcanosphere
is a compelling talent that requires a lot of setup but will pay off if the
4-second channel fully finishes. This ability goes through all walls and
barriers and can seriously damage unsuspecting players. Replace
Arcane Empowerment or
Mass Invisibility for Arcanosphere. This
talent likely should be a talent to keep on almost always, with the
insane burst it provides being so powerful.
Ring of Fire is a new PvP Talent for all specializations of Mages.
It can provide serious, sustained damage if enemies are stuck in it. Typically, pairing
this ability with a stun to get maximum value is where this ability shines.
Ice Wall is a talent added in Shadowlands that allows you
to place a wall of ice in a specific area for 15 seconds with 40% of your
maximum health. This wall obstructs the line of sight and can be used to
block enemies from running away or block a line of sight from a healer to a
damage class. This could be good in arena or Rated Battlegrounds.
This ability has a lot of creativity, and you can use it in many
different ways.
Temporal Shield is one of the classic Arcane Mage abilities, which
allows the caster to take significant amounts of damage and heal it back within
4 seconds. The potent side to this talent is that even though it can be purged,
you will still receive the damage taken up to the point it was
purged.
Alter Time if purged, receives no value.
Changelog
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 30 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-patch.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 28 Feb. 2022: Paged reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 17 Nov. 2021: Page updated for Patch 9.1.5.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 12 Dec. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands release.
- 17 Oct. 2020: Updated Talent Table.
- Updated Tiers 4, 6, and 7 Regular Talents.
- Updated PvP Talents.
- 20 Jan. 2020: This page was checked for Patch 8.3 and no update was deemed necessary.
- 26 Dec. 2019: Page added.
Pherix is a Multi Rank 1 Mage who has achieved 3500 rating. He streams high end arena and coaching with viewers on Twitch and also creates guides and informational content on Youtube.
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