Arcane Mage Mythic+ Guide (2024)

Tier Set

• 2-Set: For each Arcane Charge, Arcane Blast critical strike chance is increased by 5% and Arcane Explosion critical strike chance is increased by 3%.
• 4-Set: When Arcane Blast or Arcane Explosion critically strikes at least one target, the critical strike chance of your next Arcane Barrage is increased by 10%, stacking up to 4 times.

During pre-patch, our tier set gets reverted back to S1 Dragonflight's tier set. It is very basic and does not change your rotation in any meaningful way. You can treat it as completely passive and never think about it.

Single Target

Arcane Mage is unique when it comes to rotation as along with a normal rotation priority, it also has mana! Some of the rotation revolves around conserving mana and a different priority when your mana is very low. Other than this, your cooldown progression throughout the fight should look like this.

Opener - Big Burn - Mini Burn - Big Burn - Mini Burn - etc...

Between burns you want to conserve mana to have enough mana to complete a Mini Burn.

Prepull / Opener Rotation

The goal of the opener is to reach 4 arcane charges and then enter your Touch of the Magi window.

• It is important to note that Touch of the Magi is off the GCD. You should time your Touch of the Magi so it is applied slightly before Arcane Barrage hits the target.
• Evocation is casted 5 seconds before the pull happens.
• Arcane Blast is casted 2 seconds before the pull happens.

Priority

1. Cast Shifting Power after your Arcane Surge and Evocation expires.
2. Cast Arcane Orb when you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
3. Cast Arcane Blast into Arcane Barrage with 1 stack of Nether Precision IF you have either, a Clearcasting or an Arcane Orb available to cast.
4. Cast Arcane Blast with 2 stacks of Nether Precision.
5. Cast Arcane Missles with Clearcasting.
6. Cast Arcane Blast.
7. Cast Arcane Barrage.

Multi Target

You enter the Multi Target rotation when 3 or more mobs are present.

Opener Rotation

• It is important to note that Touch of the Magi is off the GCD. You should time your Touch of the Magi so it is applied slightly before Arcane Barrage hits the target.
• Skip the Arcane Orb if you are already at 4 Arcane Charges.
• Evocation is casted 5 seconds before the pull happens.

Priority

1. Cast Shifting Power after your Arcane Surge and Evocation expires.
2. Cast Arcane Blast once during Touch of the Magi to proc Magi's Spark.
3. Cast Arcane Barrage if at 4 arcane charges.
4. Cast Arcane Missles with Clearcasting.
5. Cast Arcane Orb if you have less than 4 arcane charges.
6. Cast Arcane Explosion.

Mana Management

You ideally want to have around 50% mana when entering your mini burn. You can enter your big burn with 0% mana as Arcane Surge gives you all of your mana back. Arcane Barrage is used when you have 0% mana and cannot cast an Arcane Blast or you are trying to conserve mana.

Clipping Arcane Missles vs Not Clipping

• Clipping refers to intentionally canceling your Arcane Missles channel in order to cast another spell.
• It was a very common strategy to clip every Arcane Missles as you mainly wanted the Nether Precision buff you got from consuming Clearcasting. The spell itself did not do very much damage but a lot has changed moving into The War Within. We still do not have a complete understanding of the best builds or rotation but, some involve clipping every Arcane Missles you cast and some clip only in certain circ*mstances. For example, if you play without the talent High Voltage, you clip every Arcane Missles you cast. If you play with High Voltage, you only clip when you are at 4 arcane charges. In Aoe however, you clip every Arcane Missles you cast regardless of having this talent or not.

Orb Barrage Minmaxing

There are several tips you can use to maximize your Orb Barrage efficiency in AoE scenarios. These tricks are referred to as, "Gucci Barrage" and "7-10 Split".

DISCLAIMER: These tricks are highly technical and mechanically taxing. I do not recommend trying these tips unless you are proficient at Arcane Mage already.

Gucci Barrage

The Gucci Barrage refers to not wasting the Orb Barrage proc you could potentially receive when casting your Arcane Barrage and Touch of the Magi combo.

In a normal scenario, you are in melee range and if Orb Barrage procs, you waste the arcane charges from the proc.

To avoid this, stand 20+ yards away (this distance depends on your haste, the higher your haste, the closer you can stand) and do the normal Arcane Barrage and Touch of the Magi combo. If your Orb Barrage procs, send another 4 charge Arcane Barrage before the procced orb reaches the targets.

If the Orb Barrage talent procs, your opener should look like this.

7-10 Split

The 7-10 split refers to casting multiple fully charged Arcane Barrages with a singular Arcane Orb. This is only usable when there are 8 or more targets. The difficulty is dependent on how stacked the mobs present are. The looser the stack, the easier it is to use this trick. You can achieve this when the mobs are almost fully stacked but it is extremely difficult.

You can achieve this majestic feat by first having an Arcane Orb headed towards 8 or more targets. When the Arcane Orb hits 4 enemies, send a Arcane Barrage before the Arcane Orb damages the rest of the enemies. You should stand around 20+ yards from the mobs (this distance depends on your haste, the higher your haste, the closer you can stand) in order to not lose globals waiting for the Arcane Orb to hit the targets.

Here is a clip from S2 Dragonflight showcasing this very well. Even though it is a previous patch, the concept is the same as Orb Barrages has not changed.

As you can see, the mobs are fairly stacked and every global during Touch of the Magi is filled with fully charged Arcane Barrages even when getting average procs.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Dungeons →

Affixes

Learn how to effectively handle various Mythic+ Affixes as a Destruction Warlock. Depending on the level of the Mythic+ Dungeon you face up to two additional Affixes alongside Fortified and Tyrannical.

• Entangling
  • Energized Barriers lets you remove Entangling completely by casting Prismatic Barrier.
  • Both Ice Floes & Shimmer are great mobility tools to get out of Entangling.
• Incorporeal
  • Polymorph
• Afflicted
  • Remove Curse
• Volcanic
  • Ice Floes is a great tool to handle this affix.
• Spiteful
  • Slow them with Blast Wave & Cone of Cold.
  • Talent into Ring of Frost if this affix is a big problem for your group.
• Sanguine
  • Volatile Detonation is a great tool to knock mobs out of Sanguine.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Mythic+ dungeons as an Arcane Mage. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to the recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Belor'relos, the Suncaller
  • Does Damage On-use that scales with enemies
• Ashes of the Embersoul
  • Grants you decaying Intellect over 20 seconds
• Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows
  • Grants your highest secondary stat for 20 seconds and spawns an image that does single-target damage.
• Nymue's Unraveling Spindle
  • Deals some damage and gives you mastery for 18 seconds.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Umbrelskul's Fractured Heart
  • Strong single target damage and also executes mobs at 5% health.
• Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Better or worse depending on how many people in your group are using it.
• Ominous Chromatic Essence
  • Better or worse depending on how many people in your group are using it.
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
  • Decent single-target damage.
  • Very good single target boost when you play without Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch, this trinket gives you max amount of Seal of Diurna's Chosen procs.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• 2x Blue Silken Lining
  • Reliant on being 90%+ health for the majority of the time.
  • Craft on Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Remaining Sparks

• Make sure to apply Alchemical Flavor Pocket if you have an additional crafted item equipped to keep your food buff even if you died.
• Crafted items are 525 item level and regular items are 528 on max item level therefore it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Phials

• Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage -- For maximum DPS.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility -- For less DPS but more survivability.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kalu'ak
• Deviously Deviled Eggs

Combat Potion

• Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
• Residual Neural Channeling Agent
  • Can be used while being dead if your potion is ready.

Health Potion

• Potion of Withering Dreams -- For a big burst of healing
• Dreamwalker's Healing Potion -- For less healing upfront but an additional small heal over time.

Weapon Rune

• Buzzing Rune --- Default
• Hissing Rune

Augment Rune

• Dreambound Augment Rune -- Requires Reputation
• Draconic Augment Rune

Sockets

• Inscribed Illimited Diamond --- Unique, made by work order
• Radiant Alexstraszite

For min-maxing a Arcane Mage in Mythic+, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Stoneform -- Dwarf
  • One of the most potent racials in Mythic+ currently and historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Bursting stacks.
    • Splinterbark on Overgrown Ancient (Algeth'ar Academy).
    • Deep Chill from Glacial Proto-Dragons (Halls of Infusion).
    • Withering from Fetid Rotsingers and Brackenhide Shapers (Brackenhide Hollow).
    • Earthen Shards from Sentinel Talondras (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Stolen Time from Infinite Timereavers (Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr).
    • Dragon Strike from Chargath (Neltharus).
    • Bold Ambush from Qalashi Hunters (Neltharus).
• Shadowmeld -- Night Elf
  • Also one of the most potent racials in Mythic+ historically.
  • Use-cases:
    • Cast Shadowmeld when Forgemaster Gorek (Neltharus) targets you with Blazing Aegis, this completely negate the mechanic for you and the rest of the group.
    • Run past basically any mob and then cast Shadowmeld to make them reset. Even works on mobs that have stealth detection if you get enough distance before you Shadowmeld.
• Escape Artist -- Gnome
  • Free yourself from roots.
• Rocket Jump -- Goblin
  • Do a small jump in the direction your character is facing.
  • While you're in the Rocket Jump animation you are placed on a global cooldown until your character lands.

Recommendation

Even if Dwarf and Night Elf aren't the overall best racials in terms of DPS but their abilities have such a big impact on your Mythic+ experience that you need to use either of them if you're serious about pushing keys with your Arcane Mage.

Discover recommended macros for Arcane Mages during Mythic+ dungeons and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

#showtooltip/cast [@mouseover] Remove Curse

#showtooltip/cast [@mouseover] Polymorph

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Arcane Mage, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ dungeons to make your life easier.

Credits

Written By: Hopeful, Wolfdisco

Reviewed By: Xerwo, Wexi