Arcane Mage

[Brista]

I'm working on building an Arcane Mage. Arcane Missiles for single targets with untalented Fire Blast and Cone of Cold and Arcane Explosion for AoE with Frost Nova

My motivation is
- Curse of Shadows. +75% damage when grouping with Warlocks in the mid to late game. Yummy!

- Arcane Subtlety. 40% threat reduction. With gear I could get this even higher. Arcanist set for instance reduces threat 15%. 55% reduction would be lovely - almost wish I'd gone Alliance so a Paladin could push it even lower. I wonder if it's possible to get so low you can spam IAE without the monsters minding :blink:

- PvP. In their respective ways both Arcane spells are very nice for pvp. Arcane Missiles is much more reliable than spells people can go out of range against. And IAE is imba :)

- Arcane Focus. The way resists work in WoW is somewhat counter-intuitive. Mainly they act to reduce damage and only occasionally to prevent it. Now I think people tend to assess resistance reduction on mobs and players by how often they see the word "resist" appear which is only a small part of the story.


Has anyone tried such a build? How did it go? And what do people think I should take once I have spent 31 points in Arcane? Pyroblast or Cold Snap seem the main talents to aim for from other trees

My two main concerns are that Arcane Missiles is just too low in damage to use as my only talented single target attack and that only having two talented offensive options will prove too tactically restrictive. Of course that's the flip side of the attraction. If I can get away with using those two spells for almost all of my damage then I don't have the inefficiency of spending talent points on several different spells - it's always seemed a bit of a waste to boost both Fireball and Scorch to me

[Magicbag]

I'm currently specced at 28arc/23fire, but I'm intruiged by your build. Essentially those are the spells that I use in MC as well as PvP. I re-evaluated what I was doing so heavy in fire, and found that in my current play I don't use scorch enough to justify all the points. Here's my new arcane heavy version with fire adds.

Arcane Talents (36 points)

# Improved Arcane Missiles - 5/5 points
Gives you a 100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while channeling Arcane Missiles.

# Arcane Subtlety - 3/3 points
Reduces the threat generated by your offensive arcane spells by 40%.

# Arcane Focus - 5/5 points
Reduces the chance that the opponent can resist your arcane spells by 10%.

# Arcane Concentration - 5/5 points
Gives you a 10% chance of entering a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

# Evocation - 1/1 point
While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds.

# Improved Arcane Explosion - 5/5 points
Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion by 1.5 seconds.

# Arcane Meditation - 2/5 points
Allows 6% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

# Improved Counterspell - 2/2 points
Gives your Counterspell a 100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.

# Presence of Mind - 1/1 point
When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

# Arcane Mind - 4/4 points
Increases your maximum Mana by 8%.

# Arcane Instability - 3/3 points
Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 3%.



Frost Talents (0 points)

# None


Fire Talents (15 points)

# Impact - 5/5 points
Gives your fire spells a 10% chance to stun the taget for 2 seconds.

# Ignite - 5/5 points
Your critical strikes from fire damage spells cause the target to burn for an additional 40% of your spell's damage over 4 seconds.

# Incinerate - 2/2 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Fire Blast and Scorch spells by 4%.

# Improved Flamestrike - 3/3 points
Increases the critical strike chance of your Flamestrike spell by 15%.


To summarize, the arcane helps to maximize the benefit of your missles and explosion which at least for me are used fairly often. Impact will still sizeably benefit my used fire spells (mostly Fireblast, Flamestrike and the occasional scorch). My only waffling descision is perhaps moving out incinerate points to Arcane Meditation.
Thoughts?
-MB

[Artega]

I can't see getting heavy Arcane without Arcane Power. The idea of 35% stronger magebombing sounds pretty hot, especially since mages generally don't have long lifespans to begin with :)

[Magicbag]

I can't see getting heavy Arcane with Arcane Power.  The idea of 35% stronger magebombing sounds pretty hot, especially since mages generally don't have long lifespans to begin with :)
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I can easily afford the point in the build, but I'm not a huge fan of activated abilities, maybe it's a skill thing :)

It would be handy in the build especially as a way to boost arcane DPS.
-MB

[Quark]

I can easily afford the point in the build, but I'm not a huge fan of activated abilities, maybe it's a skill thing :)
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Activated Abilities may not always be ready, but they save lives when they are. I know on Ramala, there are tons of times where Evasion or Preparation was the difference between a group wiping and a group killing a boss. Skan had a few encounters with me where Arcane Power prevented a wipe just by pure DPS - tank goes down with boss at little life, Arcane Power provides the burst needed to finish the encounter.

Sure, you're not better all the time. But you're better when it matters most.

[Xame]

I agree with you Brista that the Arcane line as a damage line is great. I've always had a problem going to it just because of mana consumption in instance raids. The "mage is down drinking again", line bugs people enough that I've really just gone to fire except when things are going really bad or a boss fight.

I would suggest that if you go 31 in Arcane that you also consider the Frost line. Critical Mass is the real killer in the fire line and you cann't get it with only 20 pts left. Since you mentioned PvP you can get the "area sheep" with Improved Blizzard. Also most of the frost line at the lower points play very well together and have low mana costs to compenstate for the high output arcane line.

Consider:

Permafrost rank 5/5 +3secs to chill
Ice Shards rank 3/5 +60% dmg bonus to crits in frost
Winter's Chill rank 1/3 -4% to mob movement from chill
Improved Frost Nova rank 2/2 PvP talent for Shatter
Cold Snap rank 1/1 Reset all of your frost timers
Improved Blizzard rank 3/3 -65% to mob movement on Blizzard (see winter's chill above)
Shatter rank 5/5 PvP talent, 50% crit chance to frozen target

Thus you get a PvP -69% to enemy speed with a 4.5sec duration and a faster Frost Nova (who cares)
with 50% chance to crit with +60% dmg bonus to the frost crit when they get close.

Really just basic Mage stuff. Mow them down at a distance and don't let them touch you. My personal fire build is a crit/proc'ing build going for Critical Mass in fire w/ Arcane Instability (2pts) to up the critical chances while picking up many fun fire talents:

Impact rank 5/5 10% chance to stun
Ignite rank 5/5 crits burn the target for +40%/4sec damage
Incinerate rank 2/2 +4% to crit on scorch and fireblast
Improved Flamestrike rank 3/3 Needed for Blast Wave (not a bad AoE opener if you don't have
Improved Blizzard)
Blast Wave rank 1/1 AoE with 6sec daze (Flamestrike -> Blast Wave -> AE)

Note that the first 12pts in my fire build are really good fire points but you really get a lot of junk for the next 8pts compared to frost. The 6 second cast time on PyroBlast makes it nearly useless in group play/PvP and makes it only interesting in combination with Presence of Mind and Arcane Power for a super nuke (if you remember to pull it out when it is needed).

As with all these decisions, play style dictates what really works best.

[Skandranon]

- Curse of Shadows. +75% damage when grouping with Warlocks in the mid to late game. Yummy!

-75 resist is closer to +25% damage, but it's true that arcane overlaps with CoS in a positive manner.

Now I think people tend to assess resistance reduction on mobs and players by how often they see the word "resist" appear which is only a small part of the story.

Compounding this problem is the fact that both full-resists and spell misses display the word "resist", when full-resists are due to resistances and spell misses aren't.

Regarding the main question, yes, primarily Arcane mages are strong throughout the early game and midgame, and only weaken very slightly in the endgame. For certain Blackwing Lair encounters, Arcane mages are definitely the most useful mages.

For a lot of Molten Core, however, and some early endgame instance stuff, Arcane Missiles isn't a good choice because it's the most mana-inefficient of the three standard single-target nukes. Arcane mages run dry on every non-cursing boss mob in MC, whereas frost mages and even fire mages, to an extent, have enough juice to get through the whole thing.

Arcane Missiles also has a couple of other problems. First, it's channeled, and takes its cost at the beginning of the spell rather than at its completion. This means that if you start casting and you get knocked down, disoriented, or stunned, you're out the whole mana cost for only a few missiles. In contrast, if you get knocked out of any other spell, you lose time, but no mana.

Secondly, the way it's built ensures that it gets weaker as equipment improves. +damage equipment gives a percentage of the bonus to every spell, and for channeled spells like AM, the bonus is divided among every second.

Fireball: 100% of the bonus, 3.0s casting time with talents.
Frostbolt: 81% of the bonus, 2.5s casting time with talents.
Arcane Missiles: 100% of the bonus, 5.0s channel time.

Fireball gets 33% of equipment damage bonus per second. Frostbolt gets 32.4%. Missiles gets 20%. As your damage equipment grows, Missiles' relative strength continues to decrease. Even the resistance bonus of CoS doesn't help since vulnerability bonuses scale off the base damage off the spell. Using Arcane Missiles as a primary attack spell guarantees that you will be on the wrong side of Blizzard's item based progression basically forever. You must pick either Fireball or Frostbolt and Improve them to get decent single target damage at decent efficiency.

With 31+ arcane builds, what you're basically looking for out of either of the other trees is the best Fireball or Frostbolt you can build.

Fire builds generally go 5 Improved Fireball, 5 Ignite, 5 Impact and Pyroblast (to combo with PoM). Flame Throwing is a very popular choice as well since it offers several PvE and PvP advantages. Incinerate is also a pretty good deal for two points.

Frost builds generally pick 5 Improved Frostbolt and 5 Ice Shards. Cold Snap is not the objective in builds complementing 31 arcane, since you can only reset short cooldowns (frost nova, cone of cold). Cold Snap's real power is in resetting Ice Barrier and Ice Block, and you don't have either of those. The reason you get Cold Snap in such builds is because you want to pump points into Frost Channeling, a talent which is basically useless on the way up to 60 and very valuable thereafter. To get to Frost Channeling, primarily Arcane mages generally scatter four points between Piercing Ice and Imp Blizz as they desire and then pick up Arctic Reach and Channeling for a powerful and efficient Frostbolt.

Obviously, each of these builds can be adapted depending on how much you want out of your Arcane tree and your playing style. For example, you can pick up points in Improved Flamestrike or Burning Soul if you like either of those talents, or you could simply not take points in Cold Snap/Frost Channeling and get some more Focus or Subtlety.

One last point, though: the reason why you might want to boost Fireball and Scorch is because they're different spells and occupy different roles. Trying to use one like the other isn't going to work, though it will take quite a lot of experience to fully understand why.

[Skandranon]

My only waffling descision is perhaps moving out incinerate points to Arcane Meditation.
Thoughts?
-MB
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Arcane Meditation and Mage Armor don't stack. Rather, they do for the first casting of Mage Armor, but thereafter you're going to have to relog in order to get them to stack again, and even that doesn't work for certain. For that reason, I currently don't recommend any points in Meditation.

[Skandranon]

Activated Abilities may not always be ready, but they save lives when they are.  I know on Ramala, there are tons of times where Evasion or Preparation was the difference between a group wiping and a group killing a boss.  Skan had a few encounters with me where Arcane Power prevented a wipe just by pure DPS - tank goes down with boss at little life, Arcane Power provides the burst needed to finish the encounter.

Sure, you're not better all the time.  But you're better when it matters most.
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Well, in those cases it would tend to be the conjunction of two activated abilities, since you'd be Evasion-tanking (or Prep-double-Evasion tanking) the boss while I wound up Arcane Powered Fireballs until I got aggro. Once I got aggro, I immediately popped off PoM-Pyro, Fireblast and CoC. But it's true that it saved wipes in both those situations.

One other one in my experience was in a 5-man Scholo where Flyn was our priest. He lagged into Lord Alexei's room and body pulled two guards while getting eaten. Tal, Darian, Cat and myself had to take two guards without a great deal of healing, and I saved Tal from death (and saved our res) by Arcane Powering and burning down the last guard when he and Darian were both at slivers of health. Of course, we got wtfpwned by Alexei once we ressed up, but at least we survived to get there :P

[Quark]

Arcane Meditation and Mage Armor don't stack.  Rather, they do for the first casting of Mage Armor, but thereafter you're going to have to relog in order to get them to stack again, and even that doesn't work for certain.  For that reason, I currently don't recommend any points in Meditation.
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If only Blizzard would actually fix that bug. Last post they made on it, they were "working on reproducing it." Fools.

[Magicbag]

If only Blizzard would actually fix that bug.  Last post they made on it, they were "working on reproducing it."  Fools.
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Yes, that's awful. Thanks for the heads up Skan.

I decided to try the arcane build out. So far I've seen good use of the threat reduction for Arcane Explosion in High Level Instance raids. My guild tends to AE most of strath, scholo, or BRS/UBRS anyhow, and with the threat reduction, I'm not peeling agro from tanks or even pseudo tanks. If other mages are bombing with me, I'm confident that I'm not grabbing agro off them either, so healers have a better idea who to target.

I did do with the Arcane Instability, and I'm glad I did, it's been pretty cool. I do have to drink a bunch, but I always have enough to recover. In full int gear, I have over 8000 mana (431 int) unbuffed. I also have over 3000 health which can get me to 4500/10000 buffed. Excellent for all areas.

I'll keep you guys updated.
-MB

[Artega]

4500/10000 is damn hot :)

I've seen what Arcane Powered mages can do in Warsong and AV, and it's downright frightening. MS Warriors with TUFs are nothing compared to what they do :blink:

[Magicbag]

4500/10000 is damn hot :)

I've seen what Arcane Powered mages can do in Warsong and AV, and it's downright frightening.  MS Warriors with TUFs are nothing compared to what they do  :blink:
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The actual numbers came to 4754/9656 on our MC run last night. Through food/drink buffs, I think I could have put the health over 5k. Ooh and the hat buff for another 20 stam.. yummy.
-MB

[kandrathe]

I've been looking at more of a balance spec taking advantage of some parts of three trees, thus;

Arcane Talents - 18 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Improved Arcane Explosion - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1
# Improved Counterspell - rank 2/2

Fire Talents - 20 points
# Improved Fireball - rank 5/5
# Impact - rank 5/5
# Ignite - rank 5/5
# Flame Throwing - rank 2/2
# Incinerate - rank 2/2
# Pyroblast - rank 1/1

Frost Talents - 13 points
# Permafrost - rank 5/5
# Ice Shards - rank 2/5
# Winter's Chill - rank 3/3
# Improved Blizzard - rank 3/3

But, I'm afraid this build will lack firepower at the top end.

Or, going with a Fire/Arcane oriented build;

Arcane Talents - 18 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Improved Arcane Explosion - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1
# Improved Counterspell - rank 2/2

Fire Talents - 33 points
# Improved Fireball - rank 5/5
# Impact - rank 4/5
# Ignite - rank 5/5
# Flame Throwing - rank 2/2
# Incinerate - rank 2/2
# Pyroblast - rank 1/1
# Improved Flamestrike - rank 3/3
# Burning Soul - rank 1/3
# Critical Mass - rank 3/3
# Blast Wave - rank 1/1
# Fire Power - rank 5/5
# Combustion - rank 1/1

Edit: 9/15 Made changes as suggested below.

[Bob the Beholder]

I've been looking at more of a balance spec taking advantage of some parts of three trees, thus;

Arcane Talents -  18 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Improved Arcane Explosion - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1
# Improved Counterspell - rank 2/2

Fire Talents -  20 points
# Improved Fireball - rank 5/5
# Impact - rank 5/5
# Ignite - rank 5/5
# Flame Throwing - rank 2/2
# Incinerate - rank 2/2
# Pyroblast - rank 1/1

Frost Talents -  13 points
# Permafrost - rank 5/5
# Ice Shards - rank 5/5
# Winter's Chill - rank 3/3

But, I'm afraid this build will lack firepower at the top end.

Or, going with a Fire/Arcane oriented build;

Arcane Talents -  20 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Improved Arcane Explosion - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1
# Improved Counterspell - rank 2/2
# Arcane Meditation - rank 2/5

Fire Talents -  31 points
# Improved Fireball - rank 5/5
# Impact - rank 5/5
# Ignite - rank 5/5
# Flame Throwing - rank 2/2
# Incinerate - rank 2/2
# Pyroblast - rank 1/1
# Improved Scorch - rank 2/5
# Critical Mass - rank 3/3
# Fire Power - rank 5/5
# Combustion - rank 1/1
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First build is pretty solid, although I'd avoid using it in a PvP setting. It lacks a lot of the useful PvP talents that are deeper in the frost and fire trees (critical mass, fire power, ice block, frostbite, etc.).

Also, it is my opinion that you ought to re-think skipping Improved Frostbolt in the frost tree. Because, if you are using your beefed up frost spells for any form of single target damage, frostbolt is probably gonna be your best bet. Given that, I'd rather give up a few extra seconds of chill time to increase its speed. Permafrost would mesh quite nicely with Improved Blizzard, but then, the build in question doesn't have Improved Blizzard.

As to the second build, it is my opinion that if you're going past 18 points in Arcane, then there is not a reason in the world to stop at 20. For one, the couple points in Arcane Meditation you chose does not stack with Mage Armor, except for certain really annoying to reproduce settings (only the first casting of Mage Armor... and not again unless you re-log, right?). And past that, there isn't much desirable between 18 and 20. So the logical choice would either be to stop at 18 and throw another couple of points in fire, or move on past 20.

Given that, the build comes down to choosing between Combustion and Presence of Mind. Which is any easy victory to PoM in most cases. With fire talents and a modicum of equipment, your fire spells are already gonna have a decent chance to crit. So using, for example, two fireballs (normal + PoMfireball), which could both crit, is going to be better than using one fireball that is guaranteed to crit.

The only situation I can come up with in which Combustion comes out on top is in AoE. Blast Wave in particular, since Flamestrike can be talented to crit pretty often already. If the Blast Wave hits several enemies, and all hits crit, then it's a pretty big damage bonus. Especially useful if you're one for going into AV with a mind to do some suicide runs.

Also, in the second build, I would like to suggest removing the two points in Improved Scorch. Improved Scorch is a negligible bonus (unless for some reason most of your damage is dealt after five scorches and inside a window of 15 seconds)--especially when you only have two points in there. As a better home for those two points I would like to suggest Burning Soul, which I have found some use for. Casting while under fire happens (mostly in PvP, admittedly), and it really helps that out. Or perhaps Improved Flamestrike, for use as an opener before AoE pulls.

[Skandranon]

I've been looking at more of a balance spec taking advantage of some parts of three trees, thus;

Frost Talents -  13 points
# Permafrost - rank 5/5
# Ice Shards - rank 5/5
# Winter's Chill - rank 3/3

The idea of a viable tri-spec has been something that's been kicking around in my head for a while. But I'm not sure what you intend with these frost points. Permafrost and Winter's Chill are useful almost solely as enhancements to Improved Blizzard, but this build doesn't include Improved Blizzard. They don't help frostbolt much even if you had improved frostbolt; with an unimproved frostbolt they are simply minor enhancements to a spell you will end up not using anyway.

Arcane Talents -  20 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Improved Arcane Explosion - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1
# Improved Counterspell - rank 2/2
# Arcane Meditation - rank 2/5

This is a solid Arcane build, except for the two points in Meditation which are certainly guaranteed to stop working at some point.

Fire Talents -  31 points
# Improved Fireball - rank 5/5
# Impact - rank 5/5
# Ignite - rank 5/5
# Flame Throwing - rank 2/2
# Incinerate - rank 2/2
# Pyroblast - rank 1/1
# Improved Scorch - rank 2/5
# Critical Mass - rank 3/3
# Fire Power - rank 5/5
# Combustion - rank 1/1
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An interesting set of choices. Combustion, as Bob the Beholder pointed out, loses out frequently to Presence of Mind when you compare the two. Combustion guarantees you +50% damage and +40% burn damage from ignite: PoM gives you a whole other spell for virtually +100% damage on a cooldown two minutes shorter. Combustion-Blast Wave is fun, but this build doesn't include Blast Wave.

[Kevin]

I've been wondering how well a 40 frost/11 arcane build could do. Can Blizzard, with a heavy enough investment in the support talents, be good enough to not have to use Arcane explosion?

If you do something like this:

Arcane Talents - 11 points
# Improved Arcane Missiles - rank 5/5
# Arcane Concentration - rank 5/5
# Evocation - rank 1/1

Frost Talents - 40 points
# Improved Frostbolt - rank 5/5
# Permafrost - rank 4/5
# Ice Shards - rank 5/5
# Winter's Chill - rank 3/3
# Improved Frost Nova - rank 2/2
# Piercing Ice - rank 3/3
# Cold Snap - rank 1/1
# Improved Blizzard - rank 3/3
# Arctic Reach - rank 2/2
# Shatter - rank 5/5
# Ice Block - rank 1/1
# Frostbite - rank 5/5
# Ice Barrier - rank 1/1

You'll end up with a 4 second chill that drops movement to 25% with a 15% freeze chance on Blizzard for 1263.52 damage.

Can you do something like that for your AoE and not completely screw yourself? Othwise it would seem that you would want to just not take permafrost or winter's chill, at least not beyond one point each, which would give you enough to get Improved Arcane Explosion and allow you to slap some points in improved Cone of Cold. Just a thought, I'm not sure that going that heavy and losing the versatility of improved arcane explosion or 2 more for improved counterspell, really, is worth it just wonder if a fully supported Blizzard is viable is all.

[Quark]

Othwise it would seem that you would want to just not take permafrost or winter's chill, at least not beyond one point each, which would give you enough to get Improved Arcane Explosion and allow you to slap some points in improved Cone of Cold.[right][snapback]89185[/snapback][/right]

Honestly, Permafrost is probably a less effective talent for Frost mages than it is for Arcane or Fire mages. Reason being, you spend alot of time recasting Frost spells and Permafrost gets wasted.

[Kevin]

Honestly, Permafrost is probably a less effective talent for Frost mages than it is for Arcane or Fire mages.  Reason being, you spend alot of time recasting Frost spells and Permafrost gets wasted.
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That was kinda my thought as well. Frost mages only get use out of it for Blizzard, but that was just a speculation build that didn't have improved arcane explosion. The whole point was to check viability without that wonderful skill. :) Not the route I'm taking with my little frost mage but just something that crossed my mind.


I've also speculated on an "improve the 3 trees AoE build" just for pure theorycraft sake.

[Skandranon]

Can you do something like that for your AoE and not completely screw yourself?  Othwise it would seem that you would want to just not take permafrost or winter's chill, at least not beyond one point each, which would give you enough to get Improved Arcane Explosion and allow you to slap some points in improved Cone of Cold.  Just a thought, I'm not sure that going that heavy and losing the versatility of improved arcane explosion or 2 more for improved counterspell, really, is worth it just wonder if a fully supported Blizzard is viable is all.
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It's difficult to match the flexibility of IAE. Even with a fully improved Blizzard, that's 11 points versus 5 for IAE.

That said, against melee mobs that can be snared, a fully improved Blizzard is probably better than IAE. Less DPS, but greater efficiency, and properly executed you'll never take a hit. Easier on the healers, as well, who aren't forced to spam-heal you as you charge headlong into masses of things which would just love to beat on you.

However, AoE engagements are rarely that simple. If they don't start at a distance, the effectiveness of Imp Blizz is greatly reduced, since they reach you that much quicker. If there's a single ranged attacker in the AoE, you can count on getting hit and losing a chunk of time off the channelling bar. If even one of the targets resists, you have to shift the entire AoE and get all the mobs grouped again, or the resisting mob will hit you and eat channelling time.

Essentially, Imp Blizz offers the chance not to get hit in exchange for the fact that if you do get hit, it turns out to be worse than IAE in any way. I prefer not to count on not getting hit.