All damage on the Gruul fight is technically physical damage... so as an arcane mage you can dump your 2 flex points into magic attunement and amp magic the entire raid for that fight. There's a dungeon boss or two that's this way as well. Amp magic has uses, as does dampen magic in certain pvp situations.
Great guide. I have a suggestion a step by step guide on how to min max kara, grull and mag as arcane mage. Also the ins and outs of using destruction pots
Just to clarify stat priority since it could be very misleading. Hit CAP (6% hit) > Int > SP > Spirit > crit > additional hit/haste. Spirit scaling is (5 * (0.001 + SQRT([Intellect]) * ([Spirit]) * 0.009327) * 0.6 = Mana Regeneration per 5) which is roughly 60% of spirit continuing to regen while casting, while crit scaling isnt great(22.1=1% crit). Int and SP are very close to be on par with eachother and shorter fights sim better with SP usually.
Good to have a 3% hit if you have an ele shaman. I have a 3.01% hit set. Feels good man :) Then keep some other hit items for if you don't have an ele shaman
Not a bad guide. I think its worth mentioning the gear if you are not a tailor. Spellfire sims better on fights up to a point. That point may change depending on gear but from my experience its around 3-4 minute mark where non tailored items can catch up a bit due to the extra int and spirit stacking. Not to mention you tend to be a bit chunkier. Boss parsing is not the only metric. We only really feel it in kara atm but ssc and tk it may be more relevant and thats uptime. Mage uptime sucks You blow your mana every pack and basically drinking and chugging mana pots on cd is the only way to compete. Crafted gear provides less uptime than non crafted gear.
Definitely agreed, great point! That's one of the reasons why i'm personally looking forward to the next phase. So I can actually start wearing a lot of tier peices that are loaded on raw stats.
Distilled WIsdom flask (65 Int) is best for progression, cheaper than elixirs also. I'd also spend some time talking about group comp and support given how important it is to Arcane, running it without an Spriest and a Mana Tide etc is an exercise in frustration that's not worth it at this stage.
For wrist i think way better is wrist from Maiden Karazhan , they give 27 stamina 22 intel and 32 spell power , when you sum its a lot bigger then this two
So now that we're in BT/MT and ZA. Would you still recommend to get the spellfire set? Im currently still frost with prebis gear along with some dungeon heroics + glad spellblade. With the gear i now have my stats are. Spellpower: 696 Hit: 180 Crit: 15% total mana: 9.2k I have been curious about arcane to try it out with the current gear i have to see if it really is as impossible to play without specific gear as people say.
Dps increase from your personal increase will beat raid dps increase from improved scorch - ahahahahahahahahahahahah - how yes no!!! For everything else - great guide.
Starting P2 with 2pc T5 it will. Warlock, Mage and SPriest discord theorycrafter have teamed up to sim different raid setups. 1 ArcFrost Mage + Spriest + X shadow locks will result in higher raid dps than your locks playing fire and the mage speccing ArcFire, if you not have at least 6 (!) fire locks in your comp. Therefore ArcFrost is the correct build in P2, otherwise the mage (well actually the locks) will gimp your raid on purpose.
As a mage in p1 this was definately true. It changes in p2 though as mage damage gets a big jump. There are two rather important factors as to why firelocks wont be as good. Spellfire is just better than shadowfrost. The second is flamecaps. Once locks drop their spellfire set, the difference fire has over shadow goes down to about 70dps or less if flamecaps are not used. Arc frost at this point will provide more raid dps on trash and fights where mana is not an issue and you can reap the benefits of icy veins. Longer fights might still see arc fire provide slightly more raid damage.
@@dusanjankovic7229 im not sure there is a reason. Id imagine as long as health stone isnt required thats really their only option. I dont know much about their price though so I wasnt sure if it could be an item some players might be priced out on. I guess for trash some locks may not pop them either so trash damage always has to be taken into account unless your guild only cares about boss parses which I think is silly.
Interesting spec, how has that been working out for you compared to the traditional frostbolt filler spec? Is the extra hit from arcane missles worth the loss of not having a 2nd Icy veins?
@@nicb6869 yes because the second icy veins doesn't have a second arcane power to back it up. Also with haste like drums/bloodlust the 3 frostbolt rotations could mess you up easily, boss mechanics can easily mess it up as well. whereas not only do missiles proc more with a pallys seal of wisdom but also a lightning capacitator, and your 4 piece tier 5 more often. If drums/PI/Icyveins have 1 sec left i use that last second to arcane missiles and get more out of it. (this is a phase 2 tier 5 spec) i've been using frostbolt filler all phase 1 and the resist didn't feel so great at times from some mobs but with this spec I never get resisted. (curator is the only issue)
@@gian8699 there is also another good point for this spec, at least while you dont have spellhaste on your gear. Arcane Missiles resets the 5-second-rule only on cast, not on every missile. Arcane Missiles channeling lasts 5 seconds what means, that you will have a 100% mana reg tick in your mana reg phase. Another point is that you dont have to worry about getting your frost spell hit cap (you need 7% additional spellhit to be capped). It also allows you to get improved blizzard + permafrost without damage loss
@@TheMielcarz I believe, it would be something similar to this : tbc.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/2550050310030150333125--0500023013 Gian can correct me if i'm wrong regarding the spec.
Great guide man. Thank you so much! I'm surprised Pendant of the Violet Eye got no mention. Is Lightning Capacitor really that much better? Seems like the 40 in and extra mana from Pendant is made for arcane?
Appreciate the kind words, as for the trinket, the lightning cap is typically around a 40 dps trinket, which is definitely one of the better ones you can get. In terms of the pendant, it can be situational (if you have very little or no mana support) and out perform some of the other trinkets mentioned, depending on group comp. However in typical raid setups with a spriest /shaman + potentially an innervate, the value of pendant just diminishes very quickly over other dps trinkets
Hey man nice guide! I just started playing arcane and during conserve rotation I do the 3 arcane blast, 3 frost bolt rotation my mana still seem to be going down, do you have any suggestion what I should be doing? Cheers
Hi, this can happen if you either don't have a shadow priest, or maybe your shadow priest is just not doing enough damage. If that's the case, unfortunatley the only thing you can do is start your conserve rotation a little bit earlier then you normally would to hopefully end the fight with 0% mana
Hi thanks for the comment, in terms of what is BIS in phase 2, the only items that will move forward would be: Ring of Reoccurence from the chess event, the wand off of mag, and arguably you will be using the spellfir belt for a while (pretty much until your guild can craft your belt of blasting).
@@nicb6869 Thanks for the reply! Sounds good. So, the wowhead phase 2 recommendations are accurate? I liked your points about the spellstrike hood and pants for phase 1, hence why I'm double clarifying
@@Centail Yes, this time around they seem to have gotten their BIS list correct haha. There will be some debate on whether the Sea witch vestments are bis, but I'll go over that on an upcoming video. With that said, I would suggest to simply follow wowhead's bis list for p2
It can be, but only on fights where you would need the stam (high king tanking / Lady Vashj). On other fights where stam isn't an issue then the Talisan of Kalecgos will always outweigh the Nightbane one
@@nicb6869 thanks man. How about sunfire weapon enchant vs major int? Major int is simming a lil higher but I find it hard to believe. Especially on shorter fights.
@@hkronin883 No worries, It really depends how you're simming your fights, but I would say for most standard phase 2 fights right now, with a normal gorup comp (a shaman + spriest) sunfire will win out almost everytime.
@@nicb6869 Dang, lol i see it now. call me a bat cos i must be blind. or maybe i just wanted the hunter main plot twist lmao. keep up the vids, i like them!
Thanks for the guide! Had a quest, atm I only have 11.1k mana and have to drink up alot just running through the many trash mobs. On trash do you still spam arcane blast or is it better to do 3 blast 3 frostbolts?
Hi, I will still be spamming arcane blast on trash mobs since it's still significantly more dps. If your guild is pulling trash too quickly for you, you can adopt the 3 blast 3 frostbolt rotation like you mentioned. However I typically will keep drinking further back while my team starts the next set of trash, and then when im half or 3/4 i'll join in and arcane blast again. Best of luck!
I’m sitting at about 12.5k mana right now with arcane int on, I spam arcane explode on trash pulls with 3+ mobs. Obviously you need to be sure your tanks can handle the threat so you don’t pull off the tank(s) and get smacked by mobs, but you should also be aware and watching your threat so that doesn’t happen. Once you get whatever instance/raid down to a timing you can figure out which of these trash pulls would be a good time to pop cds etc. and still have them up for the next boss. Just my personal play style.
You can use a battle elixir, and a Guardian Elixir at the same time. A flask counts as both a battle elixir and Guardian Elixir, so you can only use 1 flask.
That has been one of my best investments by far. The price can seem intimidating, but it is well worth not having to worry about bag space as much anymore haha
This was for Phase 1, Points in arcane fortitude or even magic attunement are arguably a lot better for phase 2. Elixir over Distilled wisdom still sims much better for most scenarios. Crit being overvalued, well I mean again depends on your setup and gear, but i'd say it was a pretty fair assesment
That's a hot take haha, I would argue that while Imp blizz is nice to have, in a raid setting it's far from required. We may see it come in more play with longer raids + speed run meta, which would make it easier doing bigger pulls, but I guess that's yet to be seen
Yeah not required in raids with hunter traps and paladins. In dungeons yeah it can be nice but mages have sheep and t2 mages are going to melt single targets. Heroics will be a joke.
All damage on the Gruul fight is technically physical damage... so as an arcane mage you can dump your 2 flex points into magic attunement and amp magic the entire raid for that fight. There's a dungeon boss or two that's this way as well. Amp magic has uses, as does dampen magic in certain pvp situations.
Great suggestion! I never thought about using it on Gruul, will definitely use it going forward, cheers
Great guide. I have a suggestion a step by step guide on how to min max kara, grull and mag as arcane mage. Also the ins and outs of using destruction pots
Hi, thanks for the suggestion, i'll definitely consider making those types of videos if there's enough interest. Cheers :)
Just to clarify stat priority since it could be very misleading. Hit CAP (6% hit) > Int > SP > Spirit > crit > additional hit/haste. Spirit scaling is (5 * (0.001 + SQRT([Intellect]) * ([Spirit]) * 0.009327) * 0.6 = Mana Regeneration per 5) which is roughly 60% of spirit continuing to regen while casting, while crit scaling isnt great(22.1=1% crit). Int and SP are very close to be on par with eachother and shorter fights sim better with SP usually.
Good to have a 3% hit if you have an ele shaman. I have a 3.01% hit set. Feels good man :)
Then keep some other hit items for if you don't have an ele shaman
All of the info on those Sims devalue spirit by 70%
The talisman from shade is a great trinket for longer fights.
Use it with some haste buffs on CD for a lot of mana back. And 40 int is great
nope
Not a bad guide. I think its worth mentioning the gear if you are not a tailor. Spellfire sims better on fights up to a point. That point may change depending on gear but from my experience its around 3-4 minute mark where non tailored items can catch up a bit due to the extra int and spirit stacking. Not to mention you tend to be a bit chunkier.
Boss parsing is not the only metric. We only really feel it in kara atm but ssc and tk it may be more relevant and thats uptime. Mage uptime sucks
You blow your mana every pack and basically drinking and chugging mana pots on cd is the only way to compete. Crafted gear provides less uptime than non crafted gear.
Definitely agreed, great point! That's one of the reasons why i'm personally looking forward to the next phase. So I can actually start wearing a lot of tier peices that are loaded on raw stats.
Comes down to whether the guild wants to parse on bosses or speedrun through the trash mobs.
Distilled WIsdom flask (65 Int) is best for progression, cheaper than elixirs also. I'd also spend some time talking about group comp and support given how important it is to Arcane, running it without an Spriest and a Mana Tide etc is an exercise in frustration that's not worth it at this stage.
Agreed, thanks for the suggestion. I'll make sure to add that in a future video. Thanks for watching
im not sure but i think ive read somewhere that arcane int doesnt stack with distilled wisdom flask
@@gian8699 That would be interesting to check. Any informations?
They do stack, can def confirm
For wrist i think way better is wrist from Maiden Karazhan , they give 27 stamina 22 intel and 32 spell power , when you sum its a lot bigger then this two
Arcane middle build will be doing more dps coming p2
So now that we're in BT/MT and ZA.
Would you still recommend to get the spellfire set?
Im currently still frost with prebis gear along with some dungeon heroics + glad spellblade.
With the gear i now have my stats are.
Spellpower: 696
Hit: 180
Crit: 15%
total mana: 9.2k
I have been curious about arcane to try it out with the current gear i have to see if it really is as impossible to play without specific gear as people say.
Regarding rotation, is it max rank frostbolt or a downranked version?
Should be Max Ranked all the time
Dps increase from your personal increase will beat raid dps increase from improved scorch - ahahahahahahahahahahahah - how yes no!!!
For everything else - great guide.
Starting P2 with 2pc T5 it will. Warlock, Mage and SPriest discord theorycrafter have teamed up to sim different raid setups.
1 ArcFrost Mage + Spriest + X shadow locks will result in higher raid dps than your locks playing fire and the mage speccing ArcFire, if you not have at least 6 (!) fire locks in your comp.
Therefore ArcFrost is the correct build in P2, otherwise the mage (well actually the locks) will gimp your raid on purpose.
As a mage in p1 this was definately true. It changes in p2 though as mage damage gets a big jump. There are two rather important factors as to why firelocks wont be as good. Spellfire is just better than shadowfrost. The second is flamecaps.
Once locks drop their spellfire set, the difference fire has over shadow goes down to about 70dps or less if flamecaps are not used. Arc frost at this point will provide more raid dps on trash and fights where mana is not an issue and you can reap the benefits of icy veins. Longer fights might still see arc fire provide slightly more raid damage.
@@PretentiousD Y, but why shouldn't fire locks use flamecaps? :)
@@dusanjankovic7229 im not sure there is a reason. Id imagine as long as health stone isnt required thats really their only option. I dont know much about their price though so I wasnt sure if it could be an item some players might be priced out on.
I guess for trash some locks may not pop them either so trash damage always has to be taken into account unless your guild only cares about boss parses which I think is silly.
I run a new 47-0-14 spec where i dont spec into frostbolt and my filler spell is an arcane missiles because you lack hit for frostbolt
Interesting spec, how has that been working out for you compared to the traditional frostbolt filler spec? Is the extra hit from arcane missles worth the loss of not having a 2nd Icy veins?
@@nicb6869 yes because the second icy veins doesn't have a second arcane power to back it up. Also with haste like drums/bloodlust the 3 frostbolt rotations could mess you up easily, boss mechanics can easily mess it up as well. whereas not only do missiles proc more with a pallys seal of wisdom but also a lightning capacitator, and your 4 piece tier 5 more often. If drums/PI/Icyveins have 1 sec left i use that last second to arcane missiles and get more out of it. (this is a phase 2 tier 5 spec) i've been using frostbolt filler all phase 1 and the resist didn't feel so great at times from some mobs but with this spec I never get resisted. (curator is the only issue)
@@gian8699 there is also another good point for this spec, at least while you dont have spellhaste on your gear. Arcane Missiles resets the 5-second-rule only on cast, not on every missile. Arcane Missiles channeling lasts 5 seconds what means, that you will have a 100% mana reg tick in your mana reg phase. Another point is that you dont have to worry about getting your frost spell hit cap (you need 7% additional spellhit to be capped). It also allows you to get improved blizzard + permafrost without damage loss
@Gian can you link spec :D
@@TheMielcarz I believe, it would be something similar to this : tbc.wowhead.com/talent-calc/mage/2550050310030150333125--0500023013
Gian can correct me if i'm wrong regarding the spec.
Great guide man. Thank you so much! I'm surprised Pendant of the Violet Eye got no mention. Is Lightning Capacitor really that much better? Seems like the 40 in and extra mana from Pendant is made for arcane?
Appreciate the kind words, as for the trinket, the lightning cap is typically around a 40 dps trinket, which is definitely one of the better ones you can get. In terms of the pendant, it can be situational (if you have very little or no mana support) and out perform some of the other trinkets mentioned, depending on group comp. However in typical raid setups with a spriest /shaman + potentially an innervate, the value of pendant just diminishes very quickly over other dps trinkets
Lightning capacitor is great for arcane mages, because it also procs for AOE damage (its insane)
Hey man nice guide! I just started playing arcane and during conserve rotation I do the 3 arcane blast, 3 frost bolt rotation my mana still seem to be going down, do you have any suggestion what I should be doing? Cheers
Hi, this can happen if you either don't have a shadow priest, or maybe your shadow priest is just not doing enough damage. If that's the case, unfortunatley the only thing you can do is start your conserve rotation a little bit earlier then you normally would to hopefully end the fight with 0% mana
Thanks for your video 🤝
Nice guide!
Anything you suggest for BiS in Phase 2 that's different than on wowhead? Or ones to aim for first?
Hi thanks for the comment, in terms of what is BIS in phase 2, the only items that will move forward would be: Ring of Reoccurence from the chess event, the wand off of mag, and arguably you will be using the spellfir belt for a while (pretty much until your guild can craft your belt of blasting).
@@nicb6869 Thanks for the reply!
Sounds good. So, the wowhead phase 2 recommendations are accurate?
I liked your points about the spellstrike hood and pants for phase 1, hence why I'm double clarifying
@@Centail Yes, this time around they seem to have gotten their BIS list correct haha. There will be some debate on whether the Sea witch vestments are bis, but I'll go over that on an upcoming video. With that said, I would suggest to simply follow wowhead's bis list for p2
@@nicb6869 I look forward to watching it!
Do you think Talisman if Nightbane is better than Talisman if Kalecgos?
It can be, but only on fights where you would need the stam (high king tanking / Lady Vashj). On other fights where stam isn't an issue then the Talisan of Kalecgos will always outweigh the Nightbane one
@@nicb6869 thanks man. How about sunfire weapon enchant vs major int? Major int is simming a lil higher but I find it hard to believe. Especially on shorter fights.
@@hkronin883 No worries, It really depends how you're simming your fights, but I would say for most standard phase 2 fights right now, with a normal gorup comp (a shaman + spriest) sunfire will win out almost everytime.
@@nicb6869 that’s how my group is setup. Thanks again man. Keep pumpin
Bro, I don't see ice block on your bars but I see a turtle
_retail hunter main exposed_
Haha it's there, just probably hidden by the macro name :P
@@nicb6869 Dang, lol i see it now. call me a bat cos i must be blind. or maybe i just wanted the hunter main plot twist lmao. keep up the vids, i like them!
Thanks for the guide! Had a quest, atm I only have 11.1k mana and have to drink up alot just running through the many trash mobs. On trash do you still spam arcane blast or is it better to do 3 blast 3 frostbolts?
Hi, I will still be spamming arcane blast on trash mobs since it's still significantly more dps. If your guild is pulling trash too quickly for you, you can adopt the 3 blast 3 frostbolt rotation like you mentioned. However I typically will keep drinking further back while my team starts the next set of trash, and then when im half or 3/4 i'll join in and arcane blast again. Best of luck!
I’m sitting at about 12.5k mana right now with arcane int on, I spam arcane explode on trash pulls with 3+ mobs. Obviously you need to be sure your tanks can handle the threat so you don’t pull off the tank(s) and get smacked by mobs, but you should also be aware and watching your threat so that doesn’t happen. Once you get whatever instance/raid down to a timing you can figure out which of these trash pulls would be a good time to pop cds etc. and still have them up for the next boss. Just my personal play style.
I want to see more. A lot more
I think distilled wisdom is bis
Distilled wisdom is good in it's own right, but in most cases adepts + Draenic wisdom will outperform distilled wisdom
How come you can use 2 elixirs in the same time?
You can use a battle elixir, and a Guardian Elixir at the same time. A flask counts as both a battle elixir and Guardian Elixir, so you can only use 1 flask.
are you the xboxadictions fan that got trolled by him?
This guy has 4 Gigantique bags! My god man!
That has been one of my best investments by far. The price can seem intimidating, but it is well worth not having to worry about bag space as much anymore haha
lots of clicking happening lolol
yea big yikes clicking PoM
yeah i aint trusting a clicker when it comes to dps
in order to get even more dps , dont be a clicker in 2021 lol :D
yepp, i've changed those keybinds around
This guide is so wrong. Wand points. Elixir over Distilled wisdom. Crit being over valued.
This was for Phase 1, Points in arcane fortitude or even magic attunement are arguably a lot better for phase 2. Elixir over Distilled wisdom still sims much better for most scenarios. Crit being overvalued, well I mean again depends on your setup and gear, but i'd say it was a pretty fair assesment
Sweet clicking bro.
Haha thank you, definitely macro all your abilities if you can, don't be a pleb like me :P
how can someone who is filthy clicker make guides?
Right?! Completely unforgivable!
Nah ur kinda doing it wrong ur a mage and if u dont have improved blizz as a mage ur useless
That's a hot take haha, I would argue that while Imp blizz is nice to have, in a raid setting it's far from required. We may see it come in more play with longer raids + speed run meta, which would make it easier doing bigger pulls, but I guess that's yet to be seen
Yeah not required in raids with hunter traps and paladins. In dungeons yeah it can be nice but mages have sheep and t2 mages are going to melt single targets. Heroics will be a joke.
What talents would you take in frost if you took improved blizzard?