Arcane Mage Guide for The War Within

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Arcane Mage. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Arcane Mage spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion, including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Arcane Mage, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Arcane Mage has received a pretty large amount of changes, with various talent removals and changes that significantly change the rotation. Below we will first go into the changes in the Mage talent tree, before diving deeper into the changes in the Arcane tree.

Ring of Frost and Ice Nova have been turned into a choice node, reducing the total amount of crowd-control available by a little bit, although neither were picked very often in PvE. Dragon's Breath has been moved to a higher location in the tree, making it easier to pick up. Temporal Warp has been removed, which was a highly devise node, with some players loving it and some hating it. It was replaced for a passive 3% Intellect choice node against Time Anomaly.

On the Arcane side of the tree, there are a lot of changes. The entire tree has received a bit of an overhaul, with the position of the talents in the tree being significantly different, various new talents, some removed talents, and some effects being split into multiple talents, or multiple talents having their effects merged into other talents. Additionally, there are some more impactful changes that do significantly alter various parts of the kit.

Overall, Arcane has been reduced in complexity, which in recent years has arguably become very complex and very scripted. At the highest level of play, people were using macros and WeakAuras that would interact with the game's core underlying systems like spellqueueing and server ticks in very unintuitive ways, or even intentionally causing the game client to freeze, to squeeze out the most amount of damage. A large factor for this was Radiant Spark, which is being completely removed. However, various other talents are also being removed or changed to reduce some complexity.

See below a list of the most important changes:

• The entire talent tree has been reworked, with almost all talents being in a different position.
• Radiant Spark and its related Harmonic Echo have been removed. Due to how core this was to the rotation, this significantly alters the playstyle, making the rotation less scripted and generally considered less complex.
• Conjure Mana Gem and its related Cascading Power have been removed.
• Foresight was removed.
• A new choice node, with Magi's Spark and Improved Touch of the Magi has been added:
  • Magi's Spark at first glance is a node similar to Radiant Spark, but in practice is quite different. Unlike Radiant Spark, it is less strict in the order of spells you need to cast, just that you need to cast specific spells in the Touch of the Magi window, for an additional explosion at the end.
  • Improved Touch of the Magi is simply a direct buff to Touch of the Magi.
• Nether Munitions is a new talent which causes all enemies hit by Magi's Spark or Improved Touch of the Magi to take more damage from you.
• Arcane Familiar has been changed to no longer be a separate spell, but instead it will be summoned upon casting Arcane Intellect.
• Energized Familiar buffs your Arcane Familiar to fire more bolts during Arcane Surge, and also sometimes gives you a small amount of mana.
• Arcane Surge now also provides you with a stack of Clearcasting.
• Surging Urge is a new talent that makes your Arcane Surge do more damage based on the amount of Arcane Charges you have.
• Eureka is a new talent that makes Arcane Missiles or Arcane Explosion do more damage when they consume Clearcasting.
• Aether Attunement is a new talent that significantly increases Arcane Missiles and turns it into an AoE ability, after consuming Clearcasting 3 times.
• Arcane Debilitation is a new talent, which applies a stacking debuff on your target that increases the damage you do with Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barrage for each time you have hit the target with Arcane Missiles. This lasts a couple of seconds and each stack expires independently, meaning you cannot indefinitely keep increasing the stacks.
• Time Loop gives Arcane Debilitation a 10% chance to apply another stack. This effect, in turn, can proc itself, meaning that theoretically, a single application could cause a chain of procs.
• Leysight is a new talent that increases Nether Precision's damage increase.
• Leydrinker is a new talent that causes Nether Precision a small chance to cause your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage to echo for a portion of its damage.

On top of the relatively large changes in the Arcane tree, the Hero Talent Tree system also has a significant impact on the spec.

Arcane Mage gets to choose between the Spellslinger and Sunfury Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk more deeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec.

Spellslingers are all about conjuring up a barrage of Arcane Splinters, dealing damage and providing various buffs to the rest of your spells. When you overwhelm your enemies with large amount of Arcane Splinters, you will further unleash Splinterstorm, doing significant damage and providing an additional source of Clearcasting procs.

Playstyle-wise, the tree is relatively passive. Most of the effects happen automatically when you cast other parts of your rotation that you already normally cast. Spellfrost Teachings will automatically launch Arcane Orbs for you, and then buffing the damage of additional Arcane Orbs, potentially making you play around the proc. Combined with Orb Barrage and Splintering Orbs, this can give you an immense amount of Arcane Orbs. Better be careful where you face at all times to avoid accidentally pulling unwanted enemies!

There are multiple ways in which you can build Arcane Splinters:

• Splintering Sorcery causes Nether Precision to conjure 2 of them.
• Augury Abounds causes Arcane Surge to generate 8 of them, and double your Splinter generation while it is active.
• Splintering Orbs causes Arcane Orb to generate 4 of them as long as you hit at least one target. The Orb Barrage and Spellfrost Teachings procs both count for this effect as well.

Defensively, the tree offers Reactive Barrier, increasing the shielding of Prismatic Barrier or Phantasmal Image giving Mirror Image an additional clone, and more importantly, decreasing damage taken by 5%. The tree also provides some utility in the form of more movement speed during Alter Time or a longer range and duration Displacement.

Sunfury provides Arcane with a lot different ways to significantly increase the effectiveness of our spells, but it also gives us an Arcane Phoenix that shoots both Arcane and Fire spells at your enemies. You will build up Spellfire Spheres, increasing your damage and providing other benefits, and spawning a powerful Phoenix which does significant damage, while also able to use your Spellfire Spheres to destroy your enemies.

Playstyle-wise, the Sunfury tree goes through two different phases, a builder phase, into a unique burst phase via Arcane Soul and Memory of Al'ar, allowing a short phase during which Arcane Barrage immediately returns Arcane Charges and provides Clearcasting. It also provides both a significant amount of passive Haste via Mana Addiction, and granting you a way to reliably get 4 Arcane Charges after using Arcane Barrage, via Glorious Incandescence, both speeding up your rotation further.

You will build up Spellfire Spheres by casting multiple Arcane Blasts or Arcane Barrages. The spheres will both increase your damage and proc Burden of Power providing a powerful boost to your Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage. Combined with Glorious Incandescence, Arcane Barrage will immediately return you 4 Arcane Charges, allowing you to fire off a hard-hitting Arcane Barrage without the need to build back Arcane Charges, while recovering mana via Mana Adept if talented.

Additionally, the tree can either give you more execute damage by improving the effectiveness of Arcane Bombardment via Sunfury Execution, or have longer Arcane Surges based on the amount of Spheres you have when you cast it via Savor the Moment.

Finally, when you cast Arcane Surge you spawn a strong Phoenix, which will passively attack your enemies with both Arcane and Fire spells. The Phoenix will consume your Spheres, doing significant extra damage and granting you Lingering Embers, buffing your damage. Then, when your Arcane Surge ends, you will get Arcane Soul based upon the amount of Spheres your Phoenix consumed, giving you an additional very unique burst phase that makes Arcane Barrage return 4 Arcane Charges and provide Clearcasting.

Defensively, the Sunfury tree offers minimal benefits. It proves some avoidance and leech around your Prismatic Barrier. It does offer some additional crowd-control and utility via your Phoenix casting Spellsteal / Supernova / Gravity Lapse, or replacing your own Supernova for Gravity Lapse.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Arcane Mage in The War Within. After their description, some opinions on their pros and cons.

• Mage Arcane Season 1 2pc — Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion damage increased by 6%.
• Mage Arcane Season 1 4pc — Casting Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrage has a chance to make your next Arcane Barrage deal increased damage and generate 4 Arcane Charges.

The 2-set bonus is a simple damage increase to your filler spells, but the 4-set is an interesting effect, which allows Arcane Barrage to sometimes immediately return you 4 Arcane Charges, allowing you to immediately continue bursting like normal after it without having to worry about having a method of gaining 4 Arcane Charges back. This effect is very similar to Glorious Incandescence as both return 4 Arcane Charges, potentially wasting one of the effects if both proc on the same Arcane Blast. Spellslingers do not really interact with the effects in any specific way.

How Good is the Arcane Mage Tier Bonus in The War Within?

Both the 2 and 4-set are looking to be strong single-target bonuses, especially for Sunfury Arcane Mages. However, in AoE, this set is looking relatively weak. Arcane Explosion is not cast as much in AoE, especially compared to how much Arcane Blast is cast on single-target, causing the 2-set to be relatively weak. The 4-set, at first glance, seems quite good for AoE, but it does have the risk of munching the Arcane Charges, as both the 4-set and Orb Barrage can proc at the same time, causing the Arcane Charges gained from one of the procs to effectively go to waste. Overall, it probably ends up not being very relevant for AoE, but a great quality of life and dps increase for single-target.

Strengths

• Gains bonus single target damage from additional targets (funnel)
• No longer eating a huge DPS loss if a fight does not want Time Warp on pull.
• High burst damage.
• Able to do a lot of its damage while on the move (if talented)

Weaknesses

• No spread AoE/Cleave capabilities, can only hit closely lumped together enemies.
• Largely reliant on being in melee for AoE damage.
• A lot of utility, like Slipstream and Chrono Shift, can only be taken by giving up DPS.
• Talents that provide a form of quality of life and minor damage, can only be taken by giving up DPS.