Arcane Mage Guide WoW: Midnight

Updated 1 week ago

6 minutes readmin

About the Class

Arcane Mage is a ranged DPS that can wield either two one-handed weapons (wands, daggers, off-hand items) or a two-handed weapon (staves). The class has tremendous burst damage in both single-target and AoE situations.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
🟩 Excellent damage in both single-target and AoE.	🟥 Heavy reliance on burst cooldowns. Without them, the class's damage is mediocre.
🟩 Simple rotation that lets you quickly grasp the class's mechanics and deliver strong results.	🟥 Requires mana management and timely mana recovery, which significantly impacts damage when mana runs out.
🟩 Provides a raid buff granting 30% haste for 30 seconds (Bloodlust/Heroism), as well as an Intellect buff for all raid/group members.	🟥 Limited crowd control abilities against groups of enemies.

Stat Priority

For Raids

Intellect -> Mastery -> Haste -> Critical Strike -> Versatility

For Mythic Keystones

Intellect -> Mastery -> Haste -> Critical Strike -> Versatility

For Delves

Intellect -> Mastery -> Haste -> Critical Strike -> Versatility

Talents

Here you can see the talent heatmap for the character. We collect data from the top 100 Arcane Mage players and show how many of them choose each talent.

Spellslinger

Class Talents

Specialization

Sunfury

Class Talents

Specialization

You can always find the up-to-date talent trees for each hero spec in the dedicated section for Arcane Mages.

Rotation (Ability Priority)

Single Target

Arcane Surge.
Touch of the Magi.
Arcane Barrage when you have at least 20 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Barrage when you have 25 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Barrage if you have a Clearcasting proc.
Arcane Missiles if you have a Clearcasting proc.
Arcane Orb if you have fewer than two stacks of Arcane Charge.
Arcane Orb.
Arcane Blast if you need to gain a stack of Arcane Charge.
Arcane Blast.
Arcane Barrage if you are out of mana.

AoE

Arcane Blast.
Arcane Orb.
Repeat Arcane Blast until you accumulate 20 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Surge.
Touch of the Magi.
Arcane Barrage.

Best in Slot (BiS)

Slot	Item
Main Hand	Skycallers Blade
Off Hand	Seal of the Restless Heart
Head	Voidbreaker's Cowl
Neck	Amulet of the Void Hymn
Shoulders	Voidbreaker's Ley-Line Knots
Cloak	Adherent's Silk Shroud
Chest	Voidbreaker's Vestment
Wrists	Wristguards of the Blazing Light
Hands	Voidbreaker's Gauntlets
Belt	Sash of Whispering Glyphs
Legs	Faded Commander's Trousers
Boots	Treads of Searing Dreams
Ring	Sin'dorei Ring of Fine Craft
Ring	Eye of Midnight
Trinket	Aln's Seer's Gaze
Trinket	Vaelgor's Last Gaze

You can always find the up-to-date talent trees for each hero spec in the dedicated section for Arcane Mages.

Enchants, Gems, Consumables

Enchants

Item	Name
Weapon	Enchant Weapon - Ren'dorei Insight
Head	Enchant Helm - Reinforced Avoidance Rune
Shoulders	Enchant Pauldrons - Silvermoon Remedy
Chest	Enchant Chest - Soul of the World
Legs	Arcane Spellthread
Boots	Enchant Boots - Roots of Shaladrassil
Rings	Enchant Ring - Mastery of Zul'jin

Gems

Meta gem: Mighty Eversong Diamond
Remaining sockets: Flawless Amethyst of Haste

Consumables

Type	Name
Flask	Flask of Thalassian Resistance
Combat Potion (prepot)	Potential of Light
Healing Potion	Silvermoon Healing Potion
Weapon Blessing	Thalassian Phoenix Oil
Augment Rune	Void-Touched Augment Rune
Food	Silvermoon Parade and Bloodthorn Tea (food buffs stack, so consume both).

Leveling Process

From the very first level you already have abilities to deal damage. Your main abilities at early levels will be Arcane Barrage and Arcane Missiles. As you level up, you will unlock new abilities, gradually building towards the full rotation. We recommend following this ability priority as they become available:

Single Target

Arcane Surge.
Touch of the Magi.
Arcane Barrage when you have at least 20 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Barrage when you have 25 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Barrage if you have a Clearcasting proc.
Arcane Missiles if you have a Clearcasting proc.
Arcane Orb if you have fewer than two stacks of Arcane Charge.
Arcane Orb.
Arcane Blast if you need to gain a stack of Arcane Charge.
Arcane Blast.
Arcane Barrage if you are out of mana.

AoE

Arcane Blast.
Arcane Orb.
Repeat Arcane Blast until you accumulate 20 stacks of Arcane Salvo.
Arcane Surge.
Touch of the Magi.
Arcane Barrage.

Mythic+ Tips

Tip #1

The ability Alter Time allows you to quickly recover after taking large, but not lethal, damage. If you know you are about to take damage, press this ability once before taking the hit and once after.

Tip #2

You can use Shimmer while casting spells if you need to urgently leave the area you are standing in.

Tip #3

Make sure you always have Prismatic Barrier active. This ability significantly increases your survivability by reducing the duration of magical effects applied to you.

Macros

Cast Spellsteal on focus target.

#showtooltip Spellsteal
/cast [@focus,exists] Spellsteal

Cancel Alter Time (for example, if you pressed it but don't want to return to your original position).

#showtooltip Alter Time
/cancelaura Alter Time

Cast Remove Curse on mouseover

#showtooltip Remove Curse
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]Remove Curse

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