Arcane Mage Compendium 5.2.
 

This thread is intended as a consolidated resource for arcane mages in Mists of Pandaria, and is a work in progress. If you notice any errors, or if you have any ideas regarding improvements that could be made to the thread, please send me a PM. It should be noted that the details in this post will be expanded in time as more details of the upcoming Arcane changes are known, which means some sections may appear sparse at this time.

This compilation is the combined work of the EJ Mage community, I am simply collating and updating the information as necessary. I will keep Fire Compendium scheme for an easyer navigation and understanding.

 

Contents

1 Acronyms & Abbreviations 2 Key abilities 2.1Mastery 2.2 Spells 2.3 Procs 2.4 CDs 2.5 Passive 2.6 Buffs 2.7 Symbiosis 3 Spec 3.1 Talents 3.1.1 Tier 1 3.1.2 Tier 2 3.1.3 Tier 3 3.1.4 Tier 4 3.1.5 Tier 5 3.1.6 Tier 6 3.2 Glyphs 3.2.1 Major 3.2.2 Minor 3.3 Stats 3.3.1Haste and Ticks Breakpoints 3.3.2 Stat priority 4 Races 4.1 Alliance 4.2 Horde 5 Gearing 5.1 BiS 5.2 Enchants and Enhancements 5.3 Gemming 5.4 Reforging 5.5 Consumables 5.5.1 Food 5.5.2 Flasks 5.5.3 Potions 6 Play 6.1 Buffs 6.2 Rotation 6.2.1 Single target 6.2.2 AOE 6.2.3 Moving 6.3 Mana management 6.4 Professions 6.5 Secondary Professions 6.6 Macros 6.7 Helpful Mage Addons 7 Resources 8 Edit Log

[top] Acronyms & Abbreviations

BiS	Best in slot
CC	Crowd Control
Int	Intellect
CD	Cooldown
AB	Arcane Blast
AM	Arcane Missles
GCD	Global Cooldown
ABr	Arcane Barrage
AC	Arcane Charge
AE	Arcane Explosion
MI	Mirror Image
PoM	Presence of Mind
AP	Arcane Power
AT	Alter Time
RoP	Rune of Power

[top] Key abilities

[top]Mastery

The mastery ability for arcane mages in MoP is Mana Adept, meaning that the arcane mage DPS depends on the amount of mana unspent.

[top] Spells

Arcane Blast	Arcane’s main nuke. Arcane Blast's damage is increased by 50% per Arcane Charge, and its mana cost is increased by 150% per Arcane Charge.
Arcane Missles	Launches five waves of Arcane Missiles at the enemy over 2 sec, causing 231 (+ 22.2% of SpellPower) Arcane damage per wave. Generates an Arcane Charge. Arcane Missiles has a chance to be activated after each of your damaging spell casts. Limit 2 charges. Best to use after 4 AC stacks for maximum damage and mana preservation.
Arcane Barrage	an instant spell that consumes all AC charges.
Mage Bomb	Main DoT. This will be Nether Tempest, Living Bomb, or Frost Bomb, depending on which you take as your tier 5 talent.
Fire Blast	An instant spell that deals 964 - 1142(+78.9 of spell power) fire damage.
Flamestrike	AOE spell for mages, doing damage as well as placing a DoT on the ground. In MoP it now has a 2 sec cast time and a 12 sec CD.
Arcane Explosion	No longer just for arcane mages, Arcane Explosion is an instant AOE that can be cast while moving.
Blizzard	A channeled AOE frost spell, with a channel time that conveniently fits into Flamestrike's CD.
Counterspell	Interrupts an enemy's spell and prevents them from casting from that school for 6 sec.
Remove Curse	Self explanatory.
Spellsteal	Removes a buff from an enemy target and applies it to the mage instead.

[top] Procs

Arcane Missles

Launches five waves of Arcane Missiles at the enemy over 2 sec, causing 231 (+ 22.2% of SpellPower) Arcane damage per wave.

[top] CDs

Alter Time	Functions like a less powerful, one person version of the hourglass on Murozond in End Time. Upon casting AT, your current position, health, mana, buffs, and debuffs are saved. When AT ends (at most 6 sec later), you are returned to your initial position and those stats and de/buffs are restored to what they were when AT was cast. Be careful not to cast AT before using a cooldown or buff that goes for longer than 6 sec, or you will lose it when AT ends.
Arcane Power	When activated, you deal 20% more spell damage and damaging spells cost 10% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec. 1.5 min cooldown or 3 min cooldown when glyphed.
Evocation	Unless you have taken the Rune of Power talent at level 90, channelling Evocation will restore some of your mana. If you use the Glyph of Evocation, you will regen both health and mana while channelling.
Ice Block	Emergency damage mitigation. Ice Block will make you immune to all damage for 10 sec. 5 min cooldown.
Invisibility	Another aggro dump, although unless you have the Greater Invisibility talent, it takes a few seconds to kick in, during which it can be broken.
Mirror Image	A long time aggro dump and DPS increase for mages, Mirror Image’s damage has been increased to make it one of the highest damage spells for the cost of one GCD, in addition to hiding aggro while the images are up. The three images cast AB (If glyphed) and Frostbolt, and benefit from your spell power, haste and crit.
Polymorph	Our main CC spell. Polymorph will change the target into an animal (sheep is the default) and remove them from the fight for 30 sec or until they receive damage. The Glyph of Polymorph will also remove any DoTs that were on the target prior to Polymorph’s cast.
Time Warp	The mage version of Bloodlust/Heroism.

[top] Passive

Arcane Charge	An arcane charge, generated by Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Explosion, and consumed by Arcane Barrage:. Increases arcane damage by 50% for each stack, stacks to 4.
Shatter	Crit chance against frozen targets is doubled, and then increased by another 50%. The target’s crit chance modifiers (if any) are applied before the doubling.
Nether Attunement	Mana regen from passive ticks, mana gems, and Evocation is increased by your haste.
Wizardry	Intellect (from all sources) increased by 5%.

[top] Buffs

Arcane Brilliance	A raid-wide buff that increases spell power by 10% and critical strike chance by 5% for all party/raid members.
Molten Armor	Now reduces physical damage to you by 6%, and increases your crit strike chance by 5%. It stays on until you remove it – there is no time limit, it’s undispellable, and it persists through death
Frost Armor	slows melee attackers by 30% and provides 7% spell haste.
Mage Armor	reduces duration of harmful magic effects by 25% and increases mastery. For fire mages, neither of these are a better option than Molten Armor. .

[top] Symbiosis

When the target of a druid’s Symbiosis, mages gain the spell Healing Touch, a medium-large sized, mana-intensive heal with a 2.5 sec cast time and 10 sec CD.

[top] Spec

[top] Talents

Talents are now a choice between 3 1-point talents every 15 levels, and most have some degree of utility to all specs. Given how changing talent choice has been made cheaper and simpler, redoing talents for situational benefits between raids, or even encounters, looks to be a viable option for now.

[top] Tier 1

Presence of Mind	Can be used every 90 sec to make one spell insta-cast. Not on the GCD.
Blazing Speed	Suppresses movement slowing effects and increases your movement speed by 150% for 1 sec. This spell may be cast while a cast time spell is in progress and is not on the global cooldown.
Ice Floes	Can be used every 60 sec to make the next two spells with a cast/channel time of less than 4 sec able to be cast/channelled while moving. Can be cast while in the middle of casting another spell, and is not on the GCD.

Scorch is by far our best option. Scorch is excellent for fights involving a lot of movement, as it enable you to keep DPS-ing while moving. Scorch is also an excellent way to keep your mana and AC stacks up.

[top] Tier 2

Temporal Shield	All damage received for the next 4 sec after casting is then returned to you as a HoT over the next 6 sec. There is no limit on the amount of damage it can heal – provided you don’t die during the initial 4 sec, you will get all of that health back. Not on the GCD.
Flameglow	Protects you with fiery energy, absorbing damage from each attack against you (up to a maximum of 30% of the attack).
Ice Barrier	Shields you for 60 sec, or until the shield has received enough damage to break. The damage the shield can take scales with gear. While the shield is active, it also prevents incoming damage from interrupting spellcasting (although it does not prevent knockbacks or fall damage).

All three have their uses, depending on the situation and what other talents you have taken. Temporal Shield + Cauterise makes a strong combination, especially if Ice Block is off CD to ensure you survive the 4 sec if you end up taking more than 200% of your health in damage. Ice Floes will allow casting while moving out. Ice Barrier doesn’t have cute tricks like the other two do, but will be a huge help to your healers during heavy-damage fights, and while being on the GCD has a negative DPS impact, the pushback negation should make up for this on heavy-pushback fights.

[top] Tier 3

Ring of Frost	After a 2 sec cast time, places a 10 yard ring that lasts for 10 sec, and will freeze up to 10 enemies entering the ring for 10 sec. 45 sec CD.
Ice Ward	Places a ward on a friendly target (yourself included), that lasts for 30 sec or until triggered. When the warded target is next hit by an attack, Ice Ward triggers and casts a Frost Nova, which freezes every enemy within 10 yards for 5 sec. 20 sec CD, and can be on two friendly targets at the same time.
Frostjaw	Will freeze and silence one target up to 30 yards away for 8 sec, or until the target receives damage. 20 sec CD.

Which of these three to take primarily depends on personal preference, as well as some situational considerations. Ring of Frost will allow you to CC multiple targets at range, Frostjaw allows you to CC one target at range (and is particularly good for CCing casters), while Ice Ward is useful to pop on a friendly target who needs to either kite something, or keep it in place for a few seconds.

[top] Tier 4

Greater Invisibility	Removes the fade time from Invisibility, removes 2 DoTs, and reduces all AOE and splash damage by 90% for the duration of the spell and for 3 sec after becoming visible again. 2.5 min CD.
Cauterise	A passive effect with a 2 min internal CD. When hit by an attack that would otherwise kill you, Cauterise puts you back to 50% health, and then applies a fire DoT that burns away 40% of your health over 6 sec. Ice Block will negate most (if not all) of the damage, as will Temporal Shield and Incanter’s Ward. Note that it will now only absorb damage that is up to 200% of your maximum health.
Cold Snap	Restores 30% of your health, and resets the CD of Ice Block, Cone of Cold, and Frost Nova. 3 min CD, and off the GCD.

Of these three, Cauterise is best option, being essentially a passive battle rez that can proc every 2 min. As it no longer burns away more health than it gives you, and having several options for negating or restoring the health it does burn away, it’s good for pretty much any situation. Next is Greater Invisibility, with its situational use for reducing AOE damage and removing DoTs and threat.

[top] Tier 5

Nether Tempest	12 sec DoT that scales excellently with haste. Every tick launches a half-damage missile at another target within 10 yards. Primary target damage is based on your stats when the spell is cast, while secondary target damage is based on your stats when the missile launches.
Living Bomb	12 sec fire DoT that can be on up to three targets at any one time. Living Bomb deals 50% of its damage as ticks, then at the end of the 12 sec, it explodes and deals the remaining 50% damage to three targets within 10 yards. Now also explodes if the target dies before the 12 sec is up.
Frost Bomb	A single target, one-tick DoT. The base time is a 6 sec tick and 10 sec CD, both of which are reduced by haste. After one tick, Frost Bomb explodes and deals damage to all targets within 10 yards, and applies a 70% slow for 2 sec.

Which bomb is best depends on how many targets you will be using it on. Nether Tempest is the best single target and up to 5-6 targets bomb, or with spread out targets and Frost Bomb is best against 6+ targets as there is no limit on the number of targets hit by the detonation as long as they are within 10 yards of the primary target.

[top] Tier 6

Invocation	Removes the CD on Evocation and gives +15% spell damage for 60 sec after successfully completing an Evocation. On the downside, reduces your passive mana regeneration by 50%.
Rune of Power	Places up to two runes on the ground, which each last for 60 sec. When standing in one of your own runes, you get +15% spell damage and +75% mana regeneration. You need to get approx. 10 sec use out of a rune to make it worth casting. On the downside, you lose Evocation as a spell, and you won’t get much use out of it on fights requiring a lot of movement. Even so, is the best option for arcane mages.
Incanter’s Ward	Gives you two passive buffs, a +6% to all damage and +65% mana regen. When used as a spell, the passive buffs are removed until the spell is off CD, and you gain a shield that lasts for 8 sec, or until max. damage is absorbed (approx. 23% of what Ice Barrier will absorb), and regens up to 18% of your mana. When the shield breaks or expires, you get up to +30% damage for 15 secs. The mana regen and increased damage both depend on how much damage the shield absorbed – if the shield absorbed half the damage it could, you’ll get 9.5% mana regen and +15% damage. The shield stacks with Ice Barrier, and will absorb damage before Ice Barrier does.

As with previous tiers, each talent is better for different situations. Rune of Power is the best on fights with no movement, or where you have a small amount of movement and can arrange to be moving between two or three particular places. Invocation is good for fights with moderate movement, when you have time to pause to cast an Evocation before moving again. Incanter’s Ward is good on high-movement high-damage fights, as it has no impact on mobility, can’t be interrupted, gives some damage mitigation, and to get the maximum benefit you need to ensure that you’re getting enough damage that the shield breaks rather than expires. However, at this point it’s not able to sustain mana regeneration for arcane mages.

[top] Glyphs

[top] Major

Of the 16 major glyphs for fire mages, only 14 have any use for arcane, and two of those (Polymorph and Spellsteal) are extremely situational. Fire Blast, Evocation, Arcane Power, and Mana Gem appear to be the most consistently useful.

Armors	Improves each of the Armor spells. Frost Armor’s snare increases to 40%, Mage Armor decreases harmful magical effects by 45%, and Molten Armor decreases physical damage taken by 16%.
Arcane Power	Increases the duration and cooldown of Arcane Power by 100%.
Cone of Cold	Triples the damage of the Cone of Cold spell, making it a viable AOE for any spec at 6+ targets.
Counterspell	You can cast counterspell while casting another spell, but CD is increased.
Evocation	Evocation will now regen health as well as mana. However, if you’ve taken Invocation at tier 6, glyphed Evocation will only heal you for 40%, and will only heal you if the Evocation is successfully completed. If you’ve taken Rune of Power you lose Evocation, so this glyph means you will regen 1% health per second when standing in your rune.
Mana Gem	Creates a Mana Gem with 10 charges. Great on long fights.
Polymorph	Polymorph now removes all DoTs from the target.
Spellsteal	Each time you successfully steal a spell, you gain 3% health.

[top] Minor

Glyph of Mirror Image will give a DPS increase, the other minor glyphs are fun or cosmetic, and don’t really offer much advantage. Take whichever you like the most. Situationally, Glyph of Momentum will allow you to blink while strafing instead on only blinking in front.

[top] Stats

Intellect	Intellect remains our most important stat. It is what spell power is based off of, and it also increases crit strike chance. As mana pools are now standardised, Int no longer increases mana.
Hit	Your chance of hitting your target. Hit cap is 15%, or 5100 hit rating at level 90. Hit above this is useless, and should be reforged into something else. Some races have racial abilities that effectively lower the hit cap to 14% (4760 hit rating), so keep that in mind if your mage is one of those races.
Expertise	Expertise now increases spell hit in exactly the same way that hit does. While you won’t generally get gear with expertise on it, you can increase spell hit by reforging into expertise if you can’t reforge to hit.
Mastery	Increases the damage of all your spells, based on the ammount of mana the mage has unspent.

Haste | Haste increases the number of ticks on your mage bomb, increases your mana regeneration lowers your cast time and GCD of insta-casts, and increases your rate of mana regen.

Crit Strike | Increases the chance to crit.[/table]

[top]Haste and Ticks Breakpoints

With thanks to Binkenstein, who has great haste breakpoint cards over at Totem Spot.

This table does not take into account the Frost Armor buff, as arcane mages should be using Mage Armor.

				NON-GOBLINS		GOBLINS
Spell	Extra Ticks	Total Ticks	Haste %	With 5% Haste Buff	Without Haste Buff	With 5% Haste Buff	Without Haste Buff
Nether Tempest	1	13	4.22	0	1 794	0	1 356
Living Bomb	1	5	12.51	3 039	5 316	2 588	4 843
Nether Tempest	2	14	12.55	3 056	5 334	2 605	4 860
Nether Tempest	3	15	20.85	6 414	8 860	5 930	8 352
Nether Tempest	4	16	29.12	9 762	12 375	9 244	11 831
Nether Tempest	5	17	37.46	13 138	15 920	12 587	15 341
Living Bomb	2	6	37.52	13 163	15 947	12 612	15 368

[top] Stat priority

Intellect > Hit = Expertise (until 15% spell hit) > Mastery > Haste > Crit

[top] Races

Useful racials for mages.

[top] Alliance

Draenei get Gift of the Naaru, which is a small HoT, Heroic Presence, which gives them +1% hit, and Shadow Resistance, which reduces shadow damage taken by 1%.

Dwarves get Stoneform, which will reduce incoming damage by 10% for 8 sec and remove all poison, disease, and bleed effects.

Gnomes get Arcane Resistance, which reduces arcane damage taken by 1%, Escape Artist, which removes movement impairing effects, Expansive Mind, which increases mana by 5%, and Shortblade Specialisation, which gives them +1% spell hit when using a sword or dagger, and also have an increased mana pool.

Humans get Every Man for Himself, which removes movement impairing or loss of control effects, and Sword Specialisation, which gives them +1% spell hit when using a sword.

Night Elves get Quickness, which reduces the hit chance of incoming attacks by 2%, and Shadowmeld, which can be a useful aggro dump when necessary.

Pandaren get Epicurean, which doubles the stat bonus from food buffs.

Worgen get Aberration, which reduces shadow and nature damage taken by 1%, and Viciousness, which gives them +1% crit, and Darkflight, which is helpful in moving out of crap.

[top] Horde

Blood Elves get Arcane Torrent, which restores 2% mana, silences all enemies within 8 yards for 2 sec, and interrupts enemy spellcasting within 8 yards for 3 sec.

Goblins get Time is Money, which gives +1% haste, Rocket Jump, which is useful when Blink is on CD, and Rocket Barrage, which can be used to keep up a small amount of DPS if you’ve been silenced.

Orcs get Blood Fury, which gives +2257 spell damage for 15 sec, and Hardiness, which reduces the duration of stuns by 15%.

Pandaren get Epicurean, which doubles the stat bonus from food buffs.
Trolls get Beserking, which gives +20% haste for 10 sec, Da Voodoo Shuffle, which reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 15%, and Regeneration, which increases health regen by 10% and allows 10% health regen while in combat.

Undead get Cannibalise, a channelled effect which genes 7% health and mana every 2 sec for 10 sec if there are human or undead corpses within 5 yards, Shadow Resistance, which reduces shadow damage taken by 1%, Touch of the Grave, which gives damaging spells a chance to further deal 13,413 to 15,589 damage and heal you for the same amount, and Will of the Forsaken, which removes charm, fear, and sleep effects.

[top] Gearing

[top] BiS

Back	Cloak of Overwhelming Corruption
Belt	Belt of Malleable Armor
Chest	Robes of the Unknown Fear
Wrist	Attenuating Bracers
Feet	Sandals of the Blackest Night
Fingers	Seal of the Profane
	Fragment of Fear Made Flesh
Hands	Gloves of the Burning Soul
Head	Hood of the Burning Scroll
Legs	Leggings of the Burning Scroll
Neck	Amulet of Seven Curses
Off-hand	Tornado-Summoning Censor
Shoulder	Mantle of the Burning Scroll
Trinket	Relic of Yulon
	Essence of Terror
Weapon	Loshan, Terror Incarnate

[top] Enchants and Enhancements

	Profession specific
Back	Lightweave Embroidery (for tailors)	Superior Intellect
Belt	Socket Belt	[Living Steel Belt Buckle]
Chest		Glorious Stats
Feet		Greater Haste	Pandaren’s Step	Greater Precision
Fingers	Greater Intellect
Hands	Socket Gloves	Superior Mastery	Greater Haste
	Synapse Springs
Legs	Master’s Spellthread	Greater Cerulean Spellthread
Off-hand		Major Intellect
Shoulder	[Secret Crane Wing Inscription]	[Greater Crane Wing Inscription]
Weapon		Jade Spirit	Elemental Force	Windsong
Wrists	Fur Lining - Intellect	Superior Intellect

[top] Gemming

Until epic gems are available, your best options are either rare gems or the blue-quality ‘Perfect’ cuts of regular gems.

Unlike previous expansions, in MoP it appears that the best DPS outcome is to gem with hybrids in all sockets, as the secondary stats on gems are now double that of primary stats. Another option is to gem straight secondary stats, especially as your gear gets better, given that the value of mastery increases as gear gets better. It is strongly recommended that you run your own sims to determine the best gemming options for your gear.

The stats you want to gem for are Int, Hit (until hit cap), and Mastery.

			Optional alternatives	JC only
Meta	Burning Primal Diamond
Blue	Veiled Imperial Amethyst / Perfect Veiled Roguestone	Rigid River’s Heart / Perfect Rigid Lapis Lazuli	Piercing Wild Jade / Perfect Piercing Alexandrite	Rigid Serpent’s Eye
			Accurate Imperial Amethyst / Perfect Accurate Roguestone
Red	Artful Vermilion Onyx / Perfect Artful Tiger Opal		Keen Vermilion Onyx / Perfect Keen Tiger Opal	Brilliant Serpent’s Eye
Yellow	Fractured Sun’s Radiance / Perfect Fractured Sunstone	Keen Vermilion Onyx/ Perfect Keen Tiger Opal		Smooth Serpent's Eye
	Sensei's Wild Jade / Perfect Sensei's Alexandrite			Fractured Serpent's Eye
Cogwheel	Fractured Tinker’s Gear	Rigid Tinker's Gear	Smooth Tinker's Gear

[top] Reforging

Generally, you can’t reforge into a stat that is already on an item. However, with expertise now adding the same amount of spell hit that hit does, you can get around this by reforging into expertise if an item already has hit on it.

Reforge into hit/expertise until hit cap (15%, or 5100, unless you’re a draenei, or a human or gnome using a sword), then reforge into Mastery.

Reforge out of hit/expertise above the hit cap first, then out of crit, then haste. Avoid reforging out of mastery as much as possible.

[top] Consumables

[top] Food

Note that buffs are doubled for Pandaren.

Mogu Fish Stew gives +300 Int.
Braised Turtle, Great Pandaren Banquet, & Banquet of the Pot gives +275 Int.
Swirling Mist Soup & all other Banquets gives +250 Int.

[top] Flasks

Flask of the Warm Sun gives +1k Int (+1320 for alchemists)

[top] Potions

Potion of the Jade Serpent gives +4k Int for 25 sec. Best used just before combat starts, as this way it can be used again during combat.
Master Healing Potion heals 60k health.
Master Mana Potion restores 30k mana.

[top] Play

[top] Buffs

Use Mage Armor, keep Arcane Brilliance up, and refresh your mana gem back to three uses before each raid boss encounter.

Use Potion of the Jade Serpent just before combat starts so that potions will be available to use during the fight.

[top] Rotation

[top] Single target

Single target is a mana based rotation:

1. Evocation 1 - 2 sec before buff expires, Incanter’s Ward when guaranteed incoming damage (either raidwide or deliberate running into bad), or Rune of Power 1 - 2 sec before the rune expires.
2. AP when weapon enchant or /and trinket proccs.
3. Mirror Image on CD (unless the fight is not likely to last another 30 sec, or unless you're keeping it in reserve for aggro dumping)
4. Combat starts:
   Apply Mage Bomb.
   Use major cooldowns like MI, AP and spam AB for 6 stacks of AC. At that point you shoud have at least 1 charge of AM ready to use.
   Keep bursting with AB and AM proccs untill 70% mana.
   Use Mana Gem then enter conservation phase by keeping mana above 90%!
5. Any extra mana can be burned with AB. If you go bellow 90% mana, once you reach 4 AC stacks, reset them by using AM. Rinse and repeat.
6. Living Bomb/Nether Tempest on or just before expiry, or Frost Bomb on CD
7. AM when it procs*

Alter Time complicates things a little, depending on how it’s best used for a particular fight. For straight DPS, Alter Time is best used with personal DPS cooldowns while Time Warp/Bloodlust/Heroism is running, or with powerful trinket procs. When using it with Time Warp/Bloodlust/Heroism/trinket procs, it's best to use it when there is approx. 6 sec remaining on the buffs. Alternatively, it can be used to bypass/defuse encounter mechanics such as cobalt mines on Stone Guard.Make sure you cast AB right before AT ends so you will get the 4 AC stacks back.

[top] AOE

2 – 4 targets:

1. Evocation 1 - 2 sec before buff expires, Incanter’s Ward when guaranteed incoming damage (either raidwide or deliberate running into bad), or Rune of Power 1 - 2 sec before the rune expires.
2. AP when weapon enchant or /and trinket proccs.
3. Mirror Image on CD (unless the fight is not likely to last another 30 sec, or unless you're keeping it in reserve for aggro dumping)
4. Use major cooldowns like MI, AP and spam AB for 6 stacks of AC (unless the fight is not likely to last another 30 sec, or unless you're keeping it in reserve for Boss / Main target burst phase).
   Mage Bomb if about to expire / off CD.
   Flamestrike on CD.
   ABr when the number of AC stacks equals the number of mobs -1.
5. Living Bomb/Nether Tempest on or just before expiry, or Frost Bomb on CD
6. | G91 Landshark can be very usefull on AoE

5+ targets

1. Evocation 1 - 2 sec before buff expires, Incanter’s Ward when guaranteed incoming damage (either raidwide or deliberate running into bad), or Rune of Power 1 - 2 sec before the rune expires.
2. AP when weapon enchant or /and trinket proccs.
3. Mirror Image on CD (unless the fight is not likely to last another 30 sec, or unless you're keeping it in reserve for aggro dumping)
4. Use major cooldowns like MI, AP and spam AB for 6 stacks of AC.
   Mage Bomb if about to expire / off CD.
   Flamestrike.
   Arcane Explosion
5. Living Bomb/Nether Tempest on or just before expiry, or Frost Bomb on CD
6. | G91 Landshark can be very usefull on AoE
7. Refresh Flamestrike*
8. Arcane Explosion spam to keep the AC stacks up(make sure you are on a RoP)
9. ABr to dump your AC stacks, then rebuild with AE.

[top] Moving

1. Living Bomb/Nether Tempest/Frost Bomb
2. AM when it procs and you can be static for at least 2 sec.
3. PoM/Ice Floes + AB

Also note that if you have Windsong on your weapon and are using Invocation pre-pull, it's a good idea to unequip your weapon before casting your Evocation, then reequip it as you pull, to prevent a Windsong proc from being wasted.

[top] Mana management

Arcane mages appear to have problems with mana management, despite mana pools being standardised as long as a proper rotation is respected you can still manage mana but some DPS will be sacrificed during the process. Mages can either go for longer burst phases that will result in a longer recovery, or choose to sacrifice the long burst for a more constant damage during the entire fight.

For mana regen on longer encounters, several options are available:

• Your tier 6 talent will have some form of mana regen built in.
• Evocation (unless your tier 6 talent is RoP).
• [Mana Gem].
• [Master Mana Potion].
• Arcane Torrent (for blood elves)

[top] Professions

Most profession bonuses have now been standardised. With the exception of gathering professions, each will give you approx. the same bonus.

Alchemy	Approx. +320 Int from Mixology.
Blacksmithing	Socket Bracer + Socket Gloves will give +320 Int (or other chosen stat) or +160 Int and +320 secondary stat or +640 secondary stat.
Enchanting	Enchant Ring: Greater Intellect gives +320 Int (+160 per ring).
Engineering	Synapse Springs average out to approx. +320 Int.
Herbalism	Lifebloom gives a small heal and +2880 haste for 20 sec. 2 min CD.
Inscription	Secret Crane Wing Inscription gives +320 Int.
Jewelcrafting	Serpent’s Eye gems will give +320 Int (or other chosen stat).
Leatherworking	Net gain of +320 Int.
Mining	+480 Stamina, so probably the weakest profession bonus for us.
Skinning	+480 crit.
Tailoring	Lightweave Embroidery and Master’s Spellthread average out to approx. +320 Int, and +165 crit.

[top] Secondary Professions

Archaeology – is again mostly toys and items better for levelling toons. It does, however, give us Umbrella of Chi-Ji (a Pandaren artefact), which is one of the better pre-raid caster off-hands.

Cooking – Once you get up to Banquets at 575 skill level, all Banquets will provide each person with their best stat (so Int for us), with Banquet of the Pot providing and Great Pandaren Banquet providing +25 over the other Banquets. From 525 to 575, or for single-person food, Way of the Pot is the Int food. If you’re only going to work on one Way, Pot should be it. If you plan to level multiple Ways, Pot should be first.

First Aid – The same as it’s always been. Useful to help your healers out in a pinch, especially when it’s a choice between stopping DPS to get a bit of bandaging in and then back to casting, or stopping DPS for the entire fight by dying.

Fishing – As always, the cheapest way to get some of your cooking mats.

Farming – Not a secondary profession per se, but may as well be. Farming in Halfhill is where you get the rest of your cooking mats. The higher rep you are with the Tillers, the more you’re able to grow. At higher rep levels you can also plant seeds which will grow into mats for other professions.

[top] Macros

Stops casting your current spell in order to immediately cast Ice Block. Clicking again removes Ice Block.
#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cast Ice Block
/cancelaura Ice Block

Stops casting your current spell in order to immediately cast Counterspell.
#showtooltip Counterspell
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell
(if you use the [Glyph of Counterspell], the /stopcasting line in the macro becomes unnecessary).

Casts Remove Curse on your mouseover target.
#showtooltip Remove Curse
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Remove Curse
/cast Remove Curse

Casts your Mage Bomb (whichever you have chosen).
#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,harm,nodead,exists]Mage Bomb

[top] Helpful Mage Addons

• Mage Nuggets
• OmniCC
• ReforgeSaver
• NeedToKnow
  

[top] Resources

• Icy Veins
• Rawr
• SimulationCraft
• Wowhead
• EJ Forums
• Curse
  

[top] Edit Log

• Arcane Torrent from 6% to 2% since 5.1.
• NeedToKnow added to addon list
• 5.2 changes, (BiS list to be updated soon).

Are there some artifacts left over from copying from the Fire compendium? e.g. this priority seems more appropriate for fire than arcane.
Also, I find that in every single arcane simulation I've ran this tier, as I've geared up, frost armor is superior to mage armor for my character (I simply simmed with each every time and verified). Could you elaborate on your suggestion to run mage?

Hey there and thank you for your feedback.

I edited the mistake, thank you for pointing that out. As stated in the post, using Fire compendium as a matrix for an easyer navigation.

You say Frost armour works better for your character and that may be true since you are more haste oriented, however the guide is made keeping in mind a mastery based gear selection and a mana passive rotation. If you could provide some more information I'd gladly update the post with a new rotation and new stat priority.

5.2?
 

Hy lads,

Since there isn't any thread regarding the next patch, I would post it here.

What is there to expect from the next changes?
Regarding arcane, this patch, in my opinion, will quite change arcane viability overall.

The stacks beeing reduced to 4, but the mana cost beeing hugely increased (150% instead of 75%), and the damage increase to 50% lead to a more "burst" spec. Basically, faster to maxumum dps, but cost lots of mana.
My question is, not knowing arcane really well, how are you gonna fill the cycle in without having scrotch? [yes I keep in mind that Invocations cooldown is reduced]

I'm having a hard time to see arcane beeing as good as it is now in the next patch.

As for fire, the light seems to be a bit brighter, scrotch can be replaced by POM. The other talents seemingly affecting more PvP than PvE.

Well any opinion on the subject would be appreciated.

At this point, things are till changing but once devs will release the final version, I'll do my best to update with the necesary information.

Sometimes there is no 2 sec to cast AM. But if you start cast and immediately stop it (e.g. by moving) AB stacks will be refreshed. Isn't it better to do so if there is no time for full AM cast? I use this "trick" to refresh stacks on Zor'Lok during Attenuation on the second platform. Another way to refresh stacks is Arcane Explosion.


Also I think that [Glyph of Loose Mana] is a dps increase for Arcane. You can use almost at full mana and stay there rather than lower mana (dps loss) before using it. Also using gem with this glyph applies buff which restores mana and can be re-applied with Alter Time (and so doubling the effect).

I'm sorry, but I don't understand, why is it best to use AT when there is about 6 seconds left on the buffs?

Scenario: 30 second buff:

Say I use it at 20 seconds, total buff uptime: 20 seconds (pre-AT) + 6 seconds (during AT) + 10 seconds (after AT)=36 seconds

Say I use it at 24 seconds, total buff uptime: 24 seconds (pre-AT) + 6 seconds (during AT) + 6 seconds (after AT) = 36 seconds

Usually you wait until all major trinket procs are up before hitting AP/AT so that you don't waste an entire trinket proc (if you AT and a trinket procs in the 6 sec window, the buff is removed when AT finishes).

So hitting AT towards the end of buffs is generally better as there's no chance new procs will occur due to everything being on ICD.

This behavior may change with the T15 2pc and some of the RealPPM procs which have no ICD.

In your 30 sec buff scenario: 24sec+ 6sec during AT + 6 sec after AT is still 36 sec but with greater chances to have all proccs in that frame.

Noticed that Yu'lon trinket takes few casts to procc. Considering a prepot and Jade spirit procc, best way to use at the last 6 seconds of the first proc (usually Yu'lon if you use it). You will never have a perfect lineup on internal proccs and even if you do, I'd go safemode.

I'm also using AT to dodge stuff / reset stacks like Tsulong hc: Burst in my RoP, pop AT before Nightmare, blink in the sunbeam, use ABr just before AT ends and get ported back on my rune thus dodging nightmare and resetting my stacks in 2 GCD's. but that's a matter of playstyle.

Take Garalon Pheromone Trail for example: you can afford to stop for 2 sec and do an AM cast if it procs risking to take 30-40k extra damage from the pool but healers should be focusing you anyway. Didn't tried AE there but I doubt it works since you kite on the very edge.

I was talking only about the case when you haven't 2sec. Obviously if you have enough time you should cast full AM.

You do not need to blink in a beam, AT resets all stacks on Tsulong after it ends rather than returns it to pre-cast value (works for some other stacking debuffs too).

This is wrong. It doesn't benefit from AC stacks in 5.0-5.1. Anf if you meant after 5.2 goes live this is still wrong: Scorch will be moved from talents to base Fire spec in 5.2 (though earlier it was planned to increase its mana cost and add dependence from AC).

I'd like to add the mod NeedToKnow to the helpful mage addons list. You can set it up to show the internal cool down of your trinket procs so that you know exactly when to cast alter time. Here is a screen shot of how it looks.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ps87492cb0.png

Added to addon list. Thank you for pointing it out :)

I'd like to understand better why you say "Mastery>Haste" - Through different sims of different gear sets and different fight types, I have found a varied weights for these stats. In select cases, Mastery can be greater than haste, but in other cases I find that Haste>mastery or Mastery = haste (when the numbers are within .05 of each other) - On top of this I've been quoted weights, normalized to int, routinely under .5 of int. Only in Heavy movement fights has Mastery and Haste scored above .5 of int, suggesting that gemming pure int is slightly better over all.

Now, as I understand it, the weights show the gain from the "Next point of a given stat" and doesn't show the possibly exponential gain from stacking over time - That said, Simcraft only plots out the next 1000 points, and even at that, in my current gear, haste comes out the winner there (not by much, but it does).

Is there any data out there showing the long range benefits of favoring one stat over the other (say, 5K to 10K worth of points in the future)?

Typically I have manually adjusted stat weights in mr.robot to get an extremely biased reforging (e.g. weights with Mastery >> Haste or Haste >> Mastery) with any current gearset I had, plugged the reforge/gemming into SimC, with the appropriate armor for the experiment, and looked at what I got. According to the majority of the information I've read, these are appropriate gearing strategies.

Every time I did this (every new upgrade), I always got a lower result than a balanced haste/mastery approach with the same gear set. I follow the code changes in SimC and I believe its fairly accurate for the arcane mage model, so I trust the sim experiments as well.

As far as armor goes, its easy to try your own character, just import and change the "actions.precombat+=/mage_armor" string to "actions.precombat+=/frost_armor" after importing and see if its better for you as well.

I end up trying to shoot for an extra NT tick (Raid haste+Frost armor) at 6343 rating (source) and balancing mastery afterwards, always running frost armor. Please let me know what you think.

(too bad all this seems moot in 5.2 anyways...)