Utolsó módosítás programmer, ekkor: 2014.06.26.
In this article, we list your Arcane Mage (WoW 4.3) core abilities and how they should
be used together (rotation). We also explain when to use your various
cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that playing
an Arcane Mage will face you with.
The other articles of our Arcane Mage guide can be accessed
from the table of contents on the left.
1. Basic Single Target Rotation↑top
The rotation of an Arcane Mage is an alternation of two phases:
- Burn Phase
- Preservation Phase
Also, remember to always casts 
Flame Orb on cooldown (unless you are in the
middle of a Burn Phase, in which case you should wait until the Burn Phase is over).
1.1. Cooldown Usage
The 2-minute cooldown on 
Evocation will dictate your game as this spell
must always be available at the end of a Burn Phase (which is always started by
Arcane Power).
Your last cooldown is 
Presence of Mind, which cannot be cast while
Arcane Power is active. Therefore, we advise you to make it a sort of
passive buff by embedding it in a macro (see our
Presence of Mind macro).
2. Basic Multiple Target Rotation↑top
Arcane Explosion is your main AoE nuke as an Arcane Mage. Ideally, you
will cast it when you have 4 stacks of 
Arcane Blast, which means that you
need to refresh the stacks every now and then, while casting Arcane Explosion.
A limitation of Arcane Explosion is that it can only damage enemies close to
you. If you cannot get in range of your targets, then you will prefer
alternating 
Flamestrike and 
Blizzard.
Cone of Cold can be conveniently used to slow down packs of enemies.
3. Armors↑top
Your only viable choice of armor is 
Mage Armor.
4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Arcane Mage↑top
While the rotations we gave in the previous sections will yield very good
results, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to play
your Arcane Mage to its full potential. In particular, you will need to become
a master at managing your mana.
4.1. Abilities in Details
This section presents a list of the abilities you will need in single target
fights as an Arcane Mage.
Arcane Blast is your main ability. Because of the stacking buff it
gives you, this spell will do most of your damage and will represent most of
your mana consumption, especially since every stack decreases the cast time
of Arcane Blast. Managing the stacks of Arcane Blast is what gives
its complexity to the Arcane specialisation.
Arcane Missiles is an ability that can only be used when it procs.
If you have followed the talent tree we proposed, this channeled spell will
cast 5 waves of missiles every 0.5 second. Arcane Missiles has no mana cost
and removes your stacks of Arcane Blast so it should be used mostly as a
mana management means.
Arcane Barrage is an instant cast spell that should be used either
when you are on the move, or when you want to remove your stacks of Arcane
Blast and Arcane Missiles is not activated.
Flame Orb gives you two benefits. Firstly, it deals a lot of damage and
only requires a global cooldown to cast. Secondly, every second, it deals
damage which gives you a chance to proc Arcane Missiles and ease your mana
management.
Arcane Power is your main DPS cooldown.
Evocation is your only big source of mana regeneration over which you
have some control.
Presence of Mind is a decent DPS cooldown, especially since it triggers
Arcane Potency. It should be noted that Presence of Mind cannot be used
in conjunction with Arcane Power. For this reason, you should use this ability
via a macro (see our
Presence of Mind macro).
Mana Gem is mentioned here because using it is an integral part of
the Arcane Mage rotation. Indeed, it gives a damage boost every time it is
used (thanks to 
Improved Mana Gem). Also, given the importance of mana
management for an Arcane Mage, Mana Gems should not be used randomly, but
at very precise times.
4.2. Intricacies of Mana Regeneration
Mana regeneration plays an important role in how you will play your Arcane
Mage. In the next two sections, we will show you why the amount of mana you
have influences your DPS.
4.2.1. Mana Adept
Mana Adept is a unique proficiency that you gain by choosing the Arcane
talent tree. It increases the damage you deal with Arcane spells according to
the percentage of mana you currently have. Initially, you start with a 12%
increase, and you increase that value by increasing your Mastery Rating.
For example, if the tooltip of your Mastery Rating says:
- Increases all spell damage done by up to 20%, based on the amount of mana
the Mage has unspent.
then, for a spell that would otherwise deal 10,000 damage, you will deal:
- at 10% mana, 10,200 damage, which corresponds to the normal damage value
increased by 2% (10% of the 20% increase from Mana Adept).
- at 25% mana, 10,500 damage, which corresponds to the normal damage value
increased by 5% (25% of the 20% increase from Mana Adept).
- at 50% mana, 11,000 damage, which corresponds to the normal damage value
increased by 10% (50% of the 20% increase from Mana Adept).
- at 75% mana, 11,500 damage, which corresponds to the normal damage value
increased by 15% (75% of the 20% increase from Mana Adept).
- at 100% mana, 12,000 damage, which corresponds to the normal damage value
increased by 20% (100% of the 20% increase from Mana Adept).
As you can see, the penalty for casting spells at low mana is not that
extraordinary, especially if you compare it to the stacking buff provided by
successive casts of Arcane Blast. This consideration will be important in
the rest of this article.
4.2.2. Mana Costs and Regeneration
Arcane Blast, the spell that you will use the most, has a fixed cost:
1219 mana for every mage at level 85. Casting this ability gives you a stacking
buff (with a limit of 4 stacks) which increases damage done with Arcane Blast,
but also increases the mana cost of that spell.
Arcane Blast will amount for most of your damage. Your second most used
ability, Arcane Missiles has no mana cast. Arcane Barrage, that you
will use very scarcely, has a fixed mana cost of 1915 for level 85 mages. Actually,
the mana cost of your spells is computed as a percentage of your base mana,
and that value is constant for level 85 mages (17418).
While the mana cost of your spells will not change according to the value
of your stats, your mana regeneration will. Mage Armor (with
Glyph of Mage Armor) and Evocation are your two main sources of
mana regeneration while 
Master of Elements will only account for a fraction
of it. The amount of mana you will regenerate with Mage Armor and Evocation
will depend purely on the total amount of mana you have. This value, in turn,
depends on your total intellect which depends on your gear. To sum it up,
the better your gear is, the more mana you will regenerate. This also applies
to raid-wise mana replenishment buffs such as 
Enduring Winter provided by
Frost Mages.
Often, you will see your mana percentage greatly decrease or increase, and
you will not be able to explain it by the cost of your spells or your
mana regeneration. The answer lies in the Intellect procs from your
trinkets and enchantments. When such a proc occurs, it increases your
Intellect, which, in turn, increases your mana pool, but your current amount
of mana remains the same, explaining why the percentage of mana you have
suddenly drops. The opposite phenomenon occurs when the proc wears off: your
mana pool decreases but your amount of mana remains the same. Be careful not to
waste any mana when these procs wear off (if your current amount of mana is
higher than your mana pool after the decrease).
These facts being stated, we can now conclude that the level of your gear
will greatly influence the way you play as an Arcane Mage. Indeed, as we will
see next, staying close to 100% mana is very important. Having more mana
regeneration (i.e., better gear), makes that management easier, allowing you
to keep more stacks of Arcane Blast which greatly contributes to increasing
your overall damage. This means that the Arcane specialisation is a
lot more dependent on gear than Fire or Frost.
4.3. Subtleties of the Arcane Mage Rotation
With extraordinary mana regeneration, the rotation of an Arcane Mage would
be quite simple and consist only of Arcane Blast. Fortunately, and this is
what makes the specialisation interesting, current gear levels do not yet allow
for this.
So the rotation of an Arcane Mage is an alternation of two phases:
- A Burn Phase which consist in burning your mana with Arcane Blast before
regenerating it with Evocation;
- A Preservation Phase which consists in managing your mana to keep it close
to 100% while waiting for the cooldown of Evocation to enable another Burn
Phase.
4.3.1. Burn Phase
The Burn Phase will consist in burning your mana from 100% to just under
30% by only using Arcane Blast. During that phase, your offensive
cooldowns should be used. Typically, you will start by casting Arcane Blast
until you have spent 12,000 mana. At that point you should use a macro to:
Then simply spam Arcane Blast until you are slightly below 30% mana. Using
Evocation, combined with your ticks of Mage Armor, will get
you back to almost 100% mana. At this point, you need to try and preserve your
mana (Preservation Phase) until you can enter the Burn Phase again.
You can enter the Burn Phase when one of these two conditions is satisfied:
- You are at 100% mana and you know Evocation will be up when you will reach 30%
mana (this takes some practice).
- You know the boss will have died by the time you reach 0% mana.
Obviously, you want to make sure that you will be able to enter a Burn Phase
when your raid will ask for 
Time Warp/
Heroism/
Bloodlust. Do not
use 
Berserking during such a time, it will make you cast Arcane Blast
too fast and you will hit the global cooldown.
4.3.2. Preservation Phase
The duration of the Preservation Phase and the number of stacks of
Arcane Blast you will allow yourself during it will depend on your
mana regeneration which can be enhanced by raid buffs such as
Mana Spring Totem or Enduring Winter.
The Preservation Phase will last until you can enter the Burn Phase
Again. This cycle (Burn Phase + Preservation Phase) lasts two minutes which
corresponds to the cooldown of Evocation. Therefore, the duration of the
Preservation Phase depends on how long it takes you to go from 100% mana
to 30% mana in the Burn Phase. If it takes you 1 minute, then the
Preservation Phase will last 1 minute. If it takes you 45 seconds, then the
Preservation Phase will last 1 minute and 15 seconds. It is important that you
know how long your Preservation Phase should last, so that you can precisely
time your next Burn Phase (according to the remaining time on Evocation
cooldown). You should practice on dummy targets to get an idea and adjust your
findings according to the buffs your raid will provide you with.
During the Preservation Phase, you will need to control your stacks of
Arcane Blast. Anyone in gear from heroic dungeons should be able to go as
far as 3 stacks before having to drop them with Arcane Missiles, if
activated, or Arcane Barrage. Everyone needs to practice that on dummy
targets to see how many stacks their gear level allows them to build.
Flame Orb can be used during the Preservation Phase to force procs
of Arcane Missiles and quickly regenerate your mana back to 100%.
Typically, this can be used to alternate sub-phases of higher damage (more
stacks of Arcane Blast) with sub-phases of lower damage (very frequent removal
of stacks of Arcane Blast through the Arcane Missiles procs from Flame Orb)
during the Preservation Phase.
4.4. Tier 13 4-piece Set Bonus
With 4 pieces of the Mage Tier 13 set, each time you cast Arcane Blast,
you gain a stack of 
Stolen Time (up to 10 stacks). Whenever you use
Arcane Power, these stacks are removed. In addition, each stack of
Stolen Time reduces the cooldown of Arcane Power by 7 seconds.
Note that stacks of Stolen Time do not reduce the remaining cooldown
of Arcane Power, so if you cast Arcane Power with no stacks of Stolen Time,
you will have to wait for its full 2-minute cooldown. Therefore, you should
always try to cast Arcane Power with 10 stacks of Stolen Time. The only
exception is on the pull, where you want to cast Arcane Power as soon as you
get 4 stacks of Arcane Blast, in order to benefit from the procs of your
trinkets and Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent. This way,
you will get a 50-second cooldown on Arcane Power, meaning that you will have
to wait 35 seconds, after Arcane Power expires, before being able to cast it again.
You will want to use Arcane Power on cooldown. While Arcane Power is up,
what you can do will depend on your gear. The higher your gear is, the more
mana you regenerate and the more casts of Arcane Blast you can afford.
Your aim should be to always have close to 100% mana when casting Arcane Power.
During Arcane Power, cast Arcane Blast as many times as possible. Weave in
a few Arcane Missiles, if your mana regeneration does not allow you to spam
Arcane Blast.
While Arcane Power is on cooldown, adopt a mana efficient rotation so that
you can regenerate mana before Arcane Power becomes available again.
