Arcane Mage Raid Guide (2024)

• Spellfire Spheres
  • This is the defining aspect of Sunfury. The entire playstyle revolves around generating as many Spellfire Spheres as possible. The more Spellfire Spheres generated, the more damage in single and AoE.

• Invocation: Arcane Phoenix
  • Your Spellfire Spheres are spent through this talent. The bird popularly known as "Arlo" takes the generated Spellfire Spheres and cast spells such as Arcane Surge and even Flamestrike.

• Burden of Power and Glorious Incandescence
  • These two talents go hand in hand and are the main reason why the playstyle revolves around generating as many Spellfire Spheres as possible.
  • Thanks to Glorious Incandescence, the arcane charges lost from casting Arcane Barrage are regenerated instantly.

• Memory of Al'ar
  • After Arcane Surge ends, the Arcane Soul buff is gained dependent on how many Spellfire Spheres were used. This buff allows the use of multiple fully charged Arcane Barrages in a row without depleting arcane charges and giving a stack of Clearcasting for each cast.

• Splintering Sorcery
  • The entire fantasy of Spellslinger revolves around shooting dozens of spikes at your enemy during combat. Most of the hero tree talents are passive effects and you do not play around anything specific.

• Slippery Slinging and Look Again
  • Generally, default to Slippery Slinging as you would need to drop some utility in the class tree to pick up Displacement. If you ever were to have Displacement however, Look Again is the default pick.

• Phantasmal Image
  • This talent synergizes extremely well with Reduplication potentially making your Mirror Images more potent and a very short cooldown.

• Spellfrost Teachings
  • Be ready to react to all the free extra Arcane Orbs you get while playing Spellslinger. Especially in AoE, you gain tons of free Arcane Barrages.

• Splinterstorm
  • When playing Spellslinger, this trait contributes to changing your rotation in a quirky way. Shifting Power becomes the first button pressed after going into your first big burn!

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.

Spec Tree

• Arcane Surge
  • This is your major cooldown as an Arcane Mage. Granting you massive spell power and mana regeneration.
• Touch of the Magi
  • This is a short cooldown that accumulates 20% of your damage to the target for 12 seconds. Thus, making it one of the most important spells to play around in your rotation.
• Magi's Spark
  • In most cases this talent is completely passive, just remember in AoE situations you need to cast Arcane Blast at least once during your Touch of the Magi window.
• Aether Attunement
  • This talent allows every third cast of Arcane Missiles to deal increased damage and cleave onto other targets. This is your only Arcane Missiles that is fully channeled (more about clipping in deep dive).

Class Tree

• Shifting Power
  • This spell is a channel used after your cooldowns to reduce all your spells by 12 seconds.
• Spellsteal
  • There are a lot of magic mechanics you can Spellsteal to gain their benefit.
• Time Anomaly
  • Be ready to react to the procs acquired get from this talent, they can impact the rotation differently depending on when they proc.
• Mass Barrier
  • Make sure to use Mass Barrier to give your teammates Prismatic Barrier!
• Shimmer
  • This talent node is the main reason Mages in general have such high mobility. Being castable while casting and off the GCD, it is essential you manage your Shimmer well to achieve 100% uptime on DPS during any encounter.

Hero Talents

• Lessons in Debilitation
  • This talent option is more not wanting to limit the CC capabilities of Supernova than the free Spellsteal but it is nice.
• Sunfury Execution
  • Generally, the default pick for all encounters due to its execute benefit. Savor the Moment is about 0.4% better in pure Single Target so that is why it's in the default build. Execute is generally worth more than the Single Target gain.
• Rondurmancy
  • Numerically the best pick as Ignite the Future currently is bugged and does nothing.

When to use this Spec

Use this spec whenever there is more than one target present at any point during the encounter.

Talent Adjustments

Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.

Spec Tree

• Added
  • Arcing Cleave
    • The majority of your AoE damage comes from barrage cleaving onto enemies.
• Removed
  • Consortium's Bauble

Hero Talents

• Added
  • Sunfury Execution
    • Becomes numerically better than Savor the Moment when multiple enemies are present.
• Removed
  • Savor the Moment

Opener

• The goal of the opener is to enter the Touch of the Magi window as fast as possible.

• Evocation is casted 4 seconds before the pull happens.
• Arcane Missiles is casted 1 second before the pull happens.
• Touch of the Magi is off the GCD.
• Every Touch of the Magi besides the opening Touch of the Magi has an Arcane Barrage casted before. The only exception is if you do not have 4 Arcane Charges. This could be due to casting Arcane Barrage with no refunds to arcane charges because you are out of mana.
  • Be sure to cast Touch of the Magi before the Arcane Barrage hits the target.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

All Arcane Missiles are clipped except ones empowered by Aether Attunement (more about clipping in deep-dive).

1. Cast Shifting Power after your Arcane Soul expires.
2. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
3. Cast Arcane Orb when you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
4. Cast Arcane Blast queued into Arcane Barrage if you have 4 Arcane Charges and if one of the following is true:
   1. You have 1 stack of Nether Precision and Glorious Incandescence (this is from consuming Burden of Power).
   2. You have 1 stack of Nether Precision and Intuition (this is from your tier set).
   3. You don't have Nether Precision or Clearcasting procs but have Glorious Incandescence or Intuition.
5. Cast Arcane Blast with Nether Precision.
6. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting.
7. Cast Arcane Blast.
8. Cast Arcane Barrage if you are out of mana.

Arcane Soul Priority List

During Arcane Soul, ignore the above priority list and follow the priority below.

1. Cast Arcane Barrage as your last GCD in Arcane Soul.
2. End Arcane Soul with 3 Clearcastings.
3. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
4. Cast Arcane Barrage with Nether Precision.
5. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting.
6. Cast Arcane Barrage.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

Boss Tips

• Be aware of all the movement that is needed on this fight. Use Shimmer well to not lose uptime throughout the entire fight.
• Additionally, during Ready to Feed utilize Alter Time to quickly feed the boss multiple times

Offensive Cooldown Usage

• Cooldown usage in this fight depends heavily on which group you are assigned to go down on. The general rule is to have Arcane Surge ready for whichever group you are in.

Boss Tips

• You can Shimmer and even Alter Time over Spewing Hemorrhage.
• You can damage the adds with Arcane Barrage if you face your camera towards the adds and the boss thanks to Arcing Cleaves.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

Boss Tips

• Use defensives whenever you are targeted by Decimate or Decimates are about to hit Cosmic Simulacrums.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

Boss Tips

• Help control the Infested Spawn if needed.
• You are generally in one Shimmer range for all mechanics during this fight. If targeted with Spinneret's Strands for example, simply Shimmer away instantly and Shimmer back after the mechanic.
• Save Shimmer charges to quickly follow and inturrupt the boss.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

• Offensive cooldowns can vary dependending on the strategy your guild uses. Some add sets that spawn are harder than others and you can potentially save Arcane Surge for those specific adds. Generally, you can send Arcane Surge on cooldown or slightly delay it and it is going to help with certain add sets either way.

Boss Tips

• Use Prismatic Barrier to quickly cleanse yourself from Unstable Web. This is doable because of the Energized Barriers talent.
• As a Mage you are an excellent interrupter as you can travel great distances and instantly Counterspell enemies.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

Defensive Cooldown Usage

• Try to save Mirror Image for each intermission phase.
• Try to have a Prismatic Barrier for each Assassination[/wow-spell.

Boss Tips

• Use [wow-spell id=414658]Ice Cold as an emergency button. For example, if you get hit by multiple Twilight Massacres.
• The main thing to keep an eye out for on this boss is the position of each Nether Rift. Their placement dictates how much you get pulled towards them. Try to position yourself in a way that each Nether Rift is at a similar distance to you.
• It can be very difficult as a Mage during the pull ins because your first instinct is to Shimmer away. I found it is best to trust the pull and go whenever it drags you and only Shimmer if it is absolutely necessary.

Offensive Cooldown Usage

• The bosses gain damage amps multiple times throughout the fight but, they also have shields you need to break too. Your cooldown usage can be different dependending on these two factors and which strategy your guild ends up using.

Boss Tips

• Use Mirror Image before the pull to cover the first Venomous Rain as you can take lots of damage early on in the fight and it saves you an entire global!
• Use Alter Time and teleport back instantly after getting pulled in by Web Vortex to save yourself some movement.
  • Alternatively, use Demonic Gateway if available to negate the pull in effect.
• Try to get some good distance from the adds that spawn from Call of the Swarm since they fixate the closest target.
  • Alternatively, if you are feeling nice, you can bait them on you intentionally and use your movement to get away from them.

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.