ARCANE MAGE FUNDAMENTALS COURSE

ARCANE MAGE PLAYSTYLE

Welcome to our Arcane Mage Damage Course for The War Within, which is custom designed to equip you with all of the essential knowledge that's needed to excel in PvP. In this introductory video, we're going to be exploring what to expect from the Arcane Mage playstyle and what's changed going into The War Within.

Arcane Mage stands out as the most unique Mage specialization in PvP, differing significantly from its counterparts, Fire and Frost.

While the other two specializations prioritize consistent damage and crowd control, Arcane Mage centers its playstyle around being able to outmaneuver opponents and dealing constant damage that they can cast on the move.

Arcane Mage is one of the most extensively reworked Mage specs, undergoing significant changes, especially in The War Within. These updates, along with our new hero talents, not only complement its signature playstyle, but also help to streamline the rotation, making it much simpler to play.

Spellslinger is the only hero tree you're going to see Arcane Mages consistently playing, and for good reason. It passively adds to our damage without any complicated tricks or new spells.

In addition to everything else, Sunfury comes with a handful of PvP-specific modifiers that hold it back even further. While Sunfury has had its moments here and there over the history of WoW, the overall performance usually falls short.

Spellslinger, by contrast, tends to come out ahead as the stronger and more consistent shortstop. It's a good choice, making it the default pick for players who want reliability in PvP.

When you consume your Nether Precision buff, it applies a dot called Arcane Splitter to the target. Once this dot reaches 8 stacks, it detonates, dealing some additional damage.

This makes Spellslinger a great choice for maximizing your damage potential. The main drawback of Arcane is its heavy reliance on a single school of magic.

While there are a few abilities you can cast when Arcane locked, they're unlikely to really help you secure a kill. Living can also be much more challenging, as Arcane mages are noticeably squishier compared to Frost and Fire.

This is due to having only one immunity through Ice Block, whereas Frost has two Ice Block, and Fire both has both Ice Block and Cauterize.

ARCANE MAGE GOALS

Welcome back. In this video, we're going to be outlining some key goals for Arcane Mages that you should aim to follow throughout your games.

Now, these are the objectives that the top players really strive to achieve in every single match. Your first goal is going to be to sink your cooldowns.

When you have Arcane Surge, Siphon Storm from Evocation, and Netherflux all active, your damage spikes into another tier. Those cooldowns aren't just nice to haves.

They create the windows where you actually win the game. Now, before you even start looking at the rotation, though, you need to first understand that if you get the timing right, a single go with all of your cooldowns will be much more valuable than sending your damage randomly.

On top of those big cooldowns, you've also got some random procs that can push your damage even higher. If Impetus procs while you're sitting at max Arcane charges, you're going to get a flat 10% Arcane damage for 10 seconds.

Arcane Harmony is another key buff that slowly stacks up until it turns into a full-scale Arcane damage. So, if you're sitting at max Arcane charges, you're going to get a flat 10% Arcane damage for 10 seconds.

So, if you're sitting at max Arcane charges, you're going to get a full-scale Arcane damage for 10 seconds. So, if you're sitting at max Arcane charges, you're going to get a full-scale Arcane damage for 10 seconds.

So, if you're sitting at max Arcane charges, you're going to get a full-scale Arcane damage for 10 seconds. That turns your next Arcane barrage into a massive hit.

And then there's Intuition, which tacks on another 50% to your barrage. The layering potential here, it's huge, but it also means things can absolutely get chaotic pretty dang quickly.

That's why tracking these procs with a weak aura is highly recommended. Knowing when everything lines up is what lets you unleash the kind of Arcane barrages that one shot.

Our second goal is pretty simple. Keep moving.

Arcane Mage boasts the highest mobility of any mage specialization. Hardcasting Arcane Blast should be reserved for moments when you're confident you won't be interrupted and aren't in any danger of dying.

Otherwise, you should try to capitalize on your instant cast spells like Arcane Orb and Arcane Barrage. Arcane Missiles also allow you to deal damage while moving, ensuring you can maintain pressure on the go.

To help you kite the PvP talent, Chrono Shift is almost always a go-to choice. When you use Arcane Barrage, it not only slows the enemy by 50%, but also boosts your own movement speed by 25%.

In addition to Chrono Shift, you can use Blast Wave to knock enemies away, creating even more space between you and the enemy. You can also blink backwards while using Blast Wave to further widen the gap.

These tools give you plenty of options to avoid unnecessary damage, especially from melee. Even though you are technically squishier than Frost and Fire, you do have an easier time avoiding damage.

Our final goal is to make full use of your crowd control. Mages have some of the best CC tools in the whole game, including Polymorph, Ring of Frost, Mass Polymorph, Dragon's Breath, and Frost Nova.

A well-timed Polymorph can be the deciding factor in winning or losing a matchup. Always look for opportunities to CC the enemy healer, especially when playing compositions that heavily rely on CC to secure the win, such as RMP or Mage Lock.

As discussed in our playstyle video, Arcane Mages are mostly limited to dealing damage with a single school of magic. So to minimize the risk of being interrupted during our CC chain, it's going to be a good idea to use one of the other schools of magic, such as Fire, to set up your crowd control.

In this clip, the Mage starts with Dragon's Breath and follows up with Mass Polymorph. By using Dragon's Breath first, they ensure they won't be locked out of their primary school and can set up a go immediately after landing the Polymorph.

ARCANE MAGE DAMAGE PRIORITY

In this video, we are going to go through the Arcane Mage sustained damage priority, which is going to allow you to know which globals to value over the others.

So, kicking it off at the number one position is Arcane Barrage with the new Intuition proc from patch 11.1, which can be generated from any of our damaging spells. What the tooltip doesn't tell you is that Intuition actually comes with built-in bad luck protection.

Even though the proc can happen earlier, the game guarantees one after every 11 cast. That means you're never truly at the mercy of RNG here, so you can at least plan around that fact.

This proc comes so high as it not only makes our barrage hit far harder, but it also gives us four Arcane charges when used, which makes it the best global no matter what situation you're in for damage.

It's also important to note that this proc has a very short window of error, as it only lasts a few seconds, so do make sure you're using it before it disappears. Next, we then have our clear casting, Arcane Missiles when we have no Nether Precision buffs up.

Arcane Missiles doesn't just do a load of damage, but also will allow us to generate two Nether Precision procs, which means that our next Arcane Blast or Barrage will hit harder.

And since we're playing the Spellslinger Hero Talent tree, it becomes even stronger, as consuming Nether Precision is how we generate splinters, which makes good Arcane Missiles usage a must.

And as a final note on Arcane Missiles here, remember that clear casting will only stack three times, so make sure you never overcap. Following this, we then have Arcane Blast with Nether Precision and four stacks of Arcane charges.

Now, although these are hard to come by, and in no way should you feel forced to press these, if you're able to free cast, you should absolutely take opportunities to blast as frequently as possible due to its high damage potential.

Next, we have the alternative to Arcane Blasting with Nether Precision with Arcane Barrage to consume Nether Precision, at four charges.

Realistically, this is what you're going to be dumping your Nether Precisions on the majority of the time throughout your games, as Arcane Barrage is instant and does some pretty strong damage in its own right, while also allowing us to get those all-important splinters very easily.

After this, we then have Arcane Orb, which we'll only use to generate Arcane charges after dumping them on Arcane Barrage. Arcane Orb will generate more charges depending on the amount of targets that we hit, so do make sure to angle it into as many as possible.

And if you're able to do that, you can also use Arcane Barrage to maintain as many pets as possible around your main kill target. Following on from Arcane Orb is Arcane Barrage once again, to maintain our Arcane Tempo haste buff.

When doing this, the amount of Arcane charges we use don't really matter, as we just want to maintain the haste, although obviously four charges is definitely going to be ideal for more damage.

And finally, at the end of it all, we then have Fire Blast, which we'll only really use when we're locked on Arcane, so we can at least put out some pressure instead of being a sitting duck.

ARCANE MAGE HERO TALENTS: SPELLSLINGER

Hey everyone, welcome to the next video in our Arcane Mage Damage Course. Now as you likely know, while talents have mostly stayed the same in The War Within, one major new feature is the introduction of Hero Talents.

Our only real choice is Spellslinger and this won't drastically change your gameplay, since most talents in the trees are passive and work as is. Let's explore how this tree works.

The core talent of this tree is Splintering Sorcery. This talent is pretty straightforward.

Whenever you consume the Nether Precision buff, you apply two stacks of Nether Splinter to your target. On its own, Nether Splinter functions as a basic damage over time effect, dealing additional damage for each stack applied.

However, the real strength of this talent lies in its interactions with the other talents in the tree. The capstone talent of this tree is Splinter Storm, which offers a simple yet powerful effect.

When a target accumulates eight or more stacks of Nether Splinter, Splinter Storm is automatically cast. This effect is very powerful, and it can be used to kill a target.

Its ability detonates all the stacks at once, dealing the remaining periodic damage instantly, and summons some additional Splinters that deal instant damage to the target. Even better, when this effect triggers, it has a chance to grant you clear casting.

The best part though, this entire talent is passive. By simply following your standard rotation, you're going to naturally trigger Splinter Storm.

Augury Abounds plays a key role in quickly building Nether Splinter stacks during your burst windows. When you cast Arcane Surge, it automatically embeds eight Splinters into your target, instantly triggering a Splinter Storm.

Furthermore, while Arcane Surge is active, any ability that procs Nether Splinter will embed an additional stack. Splintering Orbs is a talent that allows Arcane Orb to embed Nether Splinters into your target when it deals damage.

You won't need to go out of your way to use Arcane Orb slowly for embedding Splinters, but think of it as a nice bonus to help you get those stacks outside of your burst windows. Speaking of Arcane Orb, there are two other talents that you can use to get those stacks out of your burst windows.

There are two other talents that you can use to get those stacks out of your burst windows. First, Spellfrost Teaching enhances your Arcane Splinters by causing their direct damage to reduce the cooldown of Arcane Orb by half a second per hit.

Then there's Controlled Instincts, which adds an additional AoE effect to Arcane Orb. When it deals damage to a target, 20% of the direct damage from your Arcane Splinters are going to hit nearby enemies.

This makes Arcane Orb a little more useful than what it was in the past. So let's dive into the choice notes.

So let's dive into the choice notes. Both options are definitely solid, so you can't go wrong either way.

Slippery Slinging provides a 40% boost to movement speed during Ultra Time. On the other hand, Look Again extends both the duration and range of displacement.

While more mages tend to go Slippery Slinging, the decision ultimately depends on you. Choose the best one that complements your playstyle.

Next, let's take a look at the choice between Phantasmal Image and Reactive Barrier. Reactive Barrier causes your player to go Slippery Slinging, while Reactive Barrier causes your player to go Slippery Slinging.

Both options are very similar, but the difference is that Reactive Barrier is more effective against classes with more damage. This definitely makes it a reliable pick for all matchups.

On the other hand, Phantasmal Image adds an extra clone to your Mirror Images and boosts the damage reduction they provide by an additional 5%. This can be particularly effective against classes with heavy burst damage, as Mirror Image reduces the damage of the next four hits.

Both options have their strengths. If you opt for Phantasmal Image, you can get a higher damage reduction than Reactive Barrier.

If you opt for Phantasmal Image, you can get a higher damage reduction than Reactive Barrier. If you opt for Phantasmal Image, you can get a higher damage reduction than Reactive Barrier.

Don't forget to pick up Reduplication from the Mage Tree. This talent reduces the cooldown of Mirror Images by 40 seconds if all clones are absorbed.

Our third choice node is between Volatile Magic and Unerring Proficiency, but realistically, it's not much of a choice. Unerring Proficiency buffs Supernova, which we simply just don't talent into.

That leaves Volatile Magic as the clear winner, which just adds some passive damage to our rotation. Our final talent and choice node is between Shifting Shot and Unerring Proficiency.

Our final talent and choice node is between Shifting Shot and Unerring Proficiency. In most cases, Signature Spell is the better pick, when Magi Spark explodes and embeds 6 splinters into your target, which adds a bit of damage to your burst window.

On the other hand, Shifting Shards allows Shifting Power to embed some splinters. While this talent can contribute to consistent damage, it is generally better to have more pressure during your cooldowns and burst window.

ARCANE MAGE SPELLSLINGER BURST SEQUENCE

So now we're going to look at how the Spellslinger Hero Tree affects our burst sequence. Let's dive in.

Just like before, we're going to start by channeling Evocation into Arcane Surge. These will provide a massive boost to our damage.

Next, you'll then use Presence of Mind into Netherflux. We'll then use Arcane Blast with our Netherflux buff into another Arcane Blast.

You'll then close out your burst with Missiles into a Barrage.

ARCANE MAGE SUNFURY BURST SEQUENCE

This is the video that you have been waiting for as in this next section of our Arcane Mage course we're going to be breaking down the exact sequence that you want to be following in order to set up the highest burst damage possible. Now we're going to start by showing you the Sunfury burst sequence.

So to begin this rotation we're going to make sure that we have five Arcane Tempo procs from using Barrage five times. Now this doesn't only give us 10% haste but will also push us towards getting Intuition when we need it.

Now if you're really cooking though you're going to want to make sure to do this six times to gain that Intuition bad luck protection to get the biggest damage possible. So to further push this along you'll also need to use an Arcane Orb.

Just remember to proc Intuition first in the starting room with Arcane Explosion so you don't get hit by bad RNG. Now after this has been achieved we're going to start popping our cooldowns to increase our burst damage and generate clear castings.

So go ahead and use Evocation and Arcane. Now we're going to start off with a little bit of Arcane Surge.

Just make sure that when you use Arcane Surge that your target will be in line of your Phoenix otherwise it does tend to bug out and not deal any damage at all. We don't want that.

Now after this we'll then use two clear casting Arcane Missiles and we'll do this for three major buffs. The first being Arcane Debilitation which increases all our follow-up damage by a ton.

The second being that it stacks our Arcane Harmony further buffing our Arcane Barrage. And lastly it'll generate Nether Perseverance which will increase our Arcane Barrage's precision amplifying our next two cast of either Blast or Barrage.

Next up comes our big damage so we're going to use Presence of Mind and Arcane Blast once as this is going to push us into our glorious Incandescence window buffing our Arcane Barrage even more and sending our Meteors. Now it's very important to only blast once here as we need the Nether Precision on our next Barrage.

After this we'll be ready to send out our very buffed Arcane Barrage. So use Nether Flux and follow it up with Arcane Barrage.

If you follow the burst rotation properly this Barrage is also going to have an Intuition proc. Next up we'll then send out our second POM Arcane Blast to try and burst our target as quick as possible.

From here you should have some Arcane Missiles in the tank so send them as soon as possible and spend the Precisions on Arcane Blast. Following this you can then use an Arcane Barrage once again as you're going to have glorious back up meaning you will have a lot of damage.

Finally after all of this your Arcane Surge window will end and you're going to enter your Arcane Soulburst phase which is going to carry out by alternating between Missiles and Barrage as to buff each Barrage with Debilitation and Arcane Harmony.

And if you timed all of this right and with a little RNG you can get yet another Flux Intuition Barrage for yet another massive hit.

ARCANE MAGE OPENER

Openers as Arcane are incredibly important as most of our damage revolves around our cooldowns, so let's jump into some real games to see how the pros deal with the start of each match. First, we're going to be covering a defensive opener.

This opener is going to be used when we're not looking for crowd control as we're going to be playing ice flows and hanging in the back. When we do this, it depends on the composition that we're facing.

Oftentimes, it's better to just deal damage if you're facing a comp that's very disruptive or that can punish you in stuns. Here, you can see Gelu playing ice flows because he wants to be able to escape the rogue's kidney shots as otherwise he's going to die very quickly in stun locks to the marksman hunter.

To begin this defensive opener, Gelu uses evocation to buff his intellect. Because of the nature of shuffle, the enemy team is unlikely to wait this out, so he just sends it for more opening damage.

Next, he gets sapped, but knowing the range of sap, he immediately trinkets and frocks. He's going to be able to get a lot of damage from the enemy team, so he's going to the rogue.

This play is great, as since Gelu is running blink, he doesn't really need his trinket to remove stuns. Rooting the rogue here stops him getting opening pressure.

Now that the rogue is out of stealth, Gelu throws a barrage on them to snare them and pops magi for damage. Meanwhile, he also uses alter time at high health, allowing him to play a bit more aggressively.

He then uses arcane missiles as the hunter is still in stealth and knows that if he casts surge here, it's likely to get kicked, so he enters his burst rotation without it, including committing his presence of mind cooldown, as he always wants to line up with touch of the magi.

Once the hunter pops out and Gelu knows he can freely surge because he's out of range, he casts it on the rogue, and then continues bursting by using clear castings and consuming his nether precisions for splinters with barrages over and over again.

While doing this, you can notice that Gelu is always close to a pillar to allow himself to line up sight the enemy hunter while still dealing damage. And as soon as that hunter gets in range, he barriers preemptively, making himself an impossible target.

At this point, the hunter has fully swapped positions, so Gelu then sheeps them and continues dealing damage, forcing the enemy hunter's trinket. And with a quick ring of frost on the priest off his partner's trap, he's able to force the rogue's trinket and cloak.

The key takeaways from this opener is that Gelu minimized risk into a comp that can instantly kill him by using line of sight, which in turn allowed him to deal the top damage in the game while forcing cooldowns without even needing to really crowd control.

You don't always need to play this defensive though, as when playing with a melee, you can be more aggressive with your crowd control into classes that can't avoid it. Here Gelu's facing a mistweaver monk, which is particularly susceptible to CC.

Now because of this, he opts to play shimmer and wind through control. He begins this opener the same as the defensive one, by using his evocation for intellect and the clear casting proc.

Following this, he looks to arcane surge the closest target. In this case, it's the monk's statue as it allows him to line the enemy shaman's kick.

The stat buff from surge far outweighs the damage. From here, he enters his burst rotation on the windwalker with his touch of the magi window and hammers out his missiles and palms.

This allows Gelu to drop the monk low and get karma, at which point he pushes in for CC on the healer. He does this by tanking windshear and then mass polymorphing the shaman, which allows him to cross CC the healer and avoid grounding total.

Next up Gelu continues dealing damage with an arcane blast and missiles as he's uncontested, he then gets put into a lasso which he promptly trinkets to continue his CC chain on the healer.

And with this, he successfully wins the game. with a little bit of help from his partner and some damage of his own, Gelu's team are able to force every cooldown in the game very early on from playing aggressive. The most important takeaway here is that even though Gelu went for CC, he landed it after his burst window.

By sheeping the healer when the target was already low, he dealt far more pressure. Want to see how we can close out games?

Then join us in the next video, all about win conditions.

ARCANE MAGE WIN CONDITION

Now, let's go over the win condition to tie everything that we've talked about together. With the opener, there's two different win conditions with Arcane.

The first and easiest is to win with pure unhealable damage. To do this, you're going to need to reach your second Arcane Surge window of the game.

As Dampening racks up so high in Shuffle that when combined with all your cooldowns, you can burst just about anything regardless of CC. You can see Gelu do this here, where in between his Magi window, he focuses on peeling until his Surge is closer to being off cooldown.

Then, once his team is stabilized, he forces cooldowns by landing CC just before his burst window to try and bait out their defensives.

And then, as soon as all his cooldowns align, his damage is so overwhelming the enemy team just panics they flop around like freshly caught fish, and they die to his major cooldown window.

Although you can also win on tempo, if you also want to play more aggressive by layering crowd control chains over and over while making your damage a bit less synced up.

Here, you can see just that as Gelu begins his win condition by chugging through all the enemy's kicks and landing a Sheep on the healer, all while backing up his damage with a touch of the Magi. This small setup allows his team to force the enemy healer to get the healer's trinket while barely committing any cooldowns.

Following this, Gelu then just looks to keep up the pressure until the next polymorph diminishing return falls off and his cooldowns come back up.

As soon as his evocation comes off cooldown, he then looks to get a precognition by faking high value spells like Arcane Missiles, casts the evocation for the increased damage, lands an invisible Ring of Frost on the healer to utilize dual schooling, and then gets his Arcane Surge off for even more damage.

Before he starts hammering out all those clear castings he just generated while the healer's CC. And after a quick polymorph and an application of touch of the Magi as it comes off cooldown, the monk easily falls over to this tempo win con.