Welcome to our PVE Arcane Mage guide for WoW TBC. This guide will show you what you need to know to DPS as an Arcane Mage in dungeons and raids. This guide covers everything from talents to consumables.
Talents
Arcane requires you to min/max your gear. It requires a ton of mana management but you are left with crazy burst damage. Arcane has lower gear requirements than fire due to Arcane Focus providing 10% hit.
This build takes Cold Snap from the frost tree giving you two Ice Block‘s to stay alive as well as Icy Veins to increase your damage output.
Pre-Raid Gear
Gems
Gems can change based on your build, equipment and caps. You may need to adjust your gems to account for your gear.
- Meta: Chaotic Skyfire Diamond
- Red: Runed Crimson Spinel
- Blue: Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst
- Yellow: Veiled Pyrestone or Reckless Pyrestone
Blue gems are only worth it to activate your meta gem. After your meta gem requirement has been met fill blue sockets with red gems.
Enchants
You may need to adjust your enchants to your gear.
- Head: Glyph of Power
- Shoulder: Greater Inscription of the Orb or Greater Inscription of Discipline
- Back: Subtlety
- Chest: Exceptional Stats
- Bracers: Spellpower or Major Intellect
- Gloves: Major Spellpower, Spell Strike
- Legs: Runic Spellthread or Mystic Spellthread
- Boots: Boar’s Speed
- Weapon: Major Spellpower
If you pick up enchanting you can benefit from Enchant Ring – Spellpower on both rings.
Stat Priority
- Hit (76)
- Spell Damage
- Intellect
- Spell Critical Strike
- Spell Haste
Hit cap is only 76 due to Arcane Focus providing 10% hit.
Rotation
Use Mage Armor to increase your mana regeneration.
Arcane Blast is your primary damage spell but it uses a lot of mana. As you cast Arcane Blast it leaves a mana consumption debuff which prevents you from just chain casting Arcane Blast. (You will run out of mana)
Frostbolt is your filler when the Arcane Blast debuff has maxed out and you need to let the debuff fall off. The balance of Arcane Blast to Frostbolt is something you will have to feel out due to it being based on your mana pool and the length of each boss encounter.
Fire Blast is a filler spell that can be used when you are moving around to get some extra damage in.
Don’t forget to activate Arcane Power and then chain cast Arcane Blast to perform insane burst damage.
Consumables
Below is a list of consumables which help in any raid.
- Potion: Super Mana Potion, Destruction Potion
- Flask: Flask of Supreme Power
- Oil: Brilliant Wizard Oil and Superior Wizard Oil
- Food: Blackened Basilisk or Crunchy Serpent or Poached Bluefish
- Misc: Mana Emerald
- Drums: Drums of Battle, Drums of Restoration
Professions
- Tailoring – Tailoring is great for fresh level 70’s because you can make the Spellfire and Spellstrike sets which will only be replaced by T4 or T5.
- Enchanting – Enchanting both of your rings with Spellpower will give you 24 extra spell power! You can also save money by enchanting your own gear.
- Leatherworking – This gives your raid the best bonus by crafting Drums of Battle. This is mainly for late game and not t4 raids.
- Alchemy – Alchemy allows you to make Sorcerer’s Alchemist Stone which is pretty strong. You can also create your own consumables.
- Jewelcrafting – Great gold making choice and you can make your own gems early on.