Arcane Mages finally get some love!

Bugz_Toon

Bugz_Toon

New Member
So... some thoughts from one of those rare oddities, an arcane mage.

(not sure how to create linkable build... but mine's not too hard to duplicate right now- 51/0/0, ignoring Wand Specialization, Magic Absorption, Magic Attunement, and Arcane Potency)

First off... I am really liking the new talent tree. The new toys for Arcane Mages are great, and really level the playing field... especially now that you can simply get Arcane Missiles VIII from the trainer, rather than having to hunt for it.

So- of the new toys (namely the ones I've actually tried)...

Prismatic Cloak: 4% damage reduction. Pretty self explanatory, although I can't say I noticed THAT much difference... there was definitely some, but I didn't notice anything huge... although, a lot of the time, it's that tiny bit that will make the difference.

Arcane Potency: Didn't try that one, but it's essentially a ~3% boost in crit chance. Not necessarily worth the 3 talent points. I may change my mind later, dunno.

Empowered Arcane Missiles: Finally, Arcane Mages have something to compete with Fireball and Icebolt; I'm doing roughly 338 damage a tick with mine (that's with +265 spelldamage, if I'm reading it right).

Spell Power: Increases Crit damage by 50%; truly nasty. I can see where this is a good combo with Arcane Potency, thus my hesitation...

Mind Mastery: Increases all spelldamage by 25% of your total intellect. Just as an example, with Arcane Intellect turned on, I've got +47 spelldamage TOTALLY NAKED. Gotta say... I like.

Slow: Like a lot of you, I took one look at this and went... "Pfft... maybe okay for PvP..." However, I picked it up (more or less by accident), and, being too cheap to change it, decided to just go with it... and I'm finding I like it. It increases casting time, shooting time, and (although it doesn't say so, I'm 90% certain it does... EDIT- Hmm... upon closer inspection, it doesn't appear to slow melee time) melee time by 50%, and slows the target's movement by 50%.

Lasts 15 seconds, and has no cooldown time whatsoever; the only real drawbacks are the casting cost (424 mana) and the fact that only one target at a time can be slowed... and with Arcane Mind (increase your total intellect by 15%), the sting of the casting cost is... erm, significantly... reduced.

So... that's my (preliminary) take on the new Arcane Mage tree. Anybody wants to dispute me... c'mon in, the dueling's fine :D
 
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pretty much destroys ranged attack vs arcane mages.....

I'd duel him, but I *know* he's got imp CS...taking another mage out of a duel for 6 seconds is huge. I can't overcome that kind of a deficit.

Good thing I'm built for PvE, not PvP.
 
Hmm... I'd actually be willing to try a duel without Counterspell (despite, ah, considerable temptation to the contrary, hehe), just to see if the field has been levelled on damage as much as I think it has.

Oh- and this is Dave/Peregrino- the 'Bugz_Toon' handle is habit more than anything.
 
i might be willing to take you up on that.... and try to not spam my CS, either (although, my CS wouldn't hurt you as bad as your CS would crush me)
 
With my raiding mage, I actually took this route: 40/0/11

Basically, max DPS & mana efficiency. Due to my schedule, I've only been able to test this in AQ20, so no MC/BWL data yet.

Before the patch (when I was a 0/30/21 elementalist), my average frostbolt hit for 975. (I have +507 dmg). After the patch, and with this new spec, it hits for 1100 or more. With Arcane Power and Curse of Elements, it goes to 1500 and easily crits for 3000+.

Also, before the patch, raid buffed (AB, GotW, Kings, etc), I only had 6000 mana or so. After the patch, with this spec, I went past 8000. Couple that with the other DPM efficiency talents I picked up, that's a lot of staying power!

I can spam frostbolts the entire Kurinaxx fight and not run out of mana OR use Evocate. It's a non-issue for General Rajaxx. And if I go OOM? Evocate and 4 gems are still available.

Drawbacks: Prior to the patch, I had both Burning Soul and Frost Channeling (when they were both 30% threat reducers). Now, I have neither, though I plan to build towards Frost Channeling as I level to 70 with this build. This means I pulled agro off an uber-tank on Kurinaxx...not good. Dead mage = 0 DPS.

I used to never worry about agro and always worry about mana. Now, it's the other way around. :p

Couple this with my newfound increased DPS, and you have a very happy mage. :)

EDIT: Oh yeah, I tend not to PvP much nowadays, so that's why I chose not to take many of the more "PvP-skewed" (raid bosses are generally immune to it) talents like ICS and Slow. :p
 
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Hmm... that's an interesting build... one curiousity question- why'd you pick up Arcane Focus rather than, say Improved Arcane Missiles, or Improved Counterspell, Prismatic Cloak and Arcane Fortitude? I'm actually thinking about dropping Arcane Focus completely in favour of grabbing Magic Absoprtion.
 
Hmm, well, here are my thoughts (please keep in mind, I generally only play my mage in context of raiding):

Arcane Focus: Any talent that reduces resistances is a Good Thing. As far as in the Arcane tree, for fights like Majordomo, and you're on sheep duty, you want the peace of mind that your polymorph is pretty much guaranteed to land and not break early...or you're dead...along with other members of your raid.
Improved Arcane Missiles: AM has worse DPM and DPS than Frostbolt, so I generally stay away from it unless in agro-sensitive fights, such as the Broodlord-Firemaw-Ebonroc-Flamegor stretch of BWL. That's why I have Arcane Subtlety. With Frostbolt, I have fast, sustained, long-lasting damage. Also, in raids, you generally have have a tank taking the beating, so you don't have to.
Improved Counterspell: Nearly all raid bosses are immune to the silence effect of Counterspell. Regular Counterspell can already interrupt some bosses' heals, so I don't find it necessary to spend 2 points on. I will say that ICS is huge for PvP against casters and healers.
Prismatic Cloak: Again, in raid/group contexts, I've got a tank to take the beating for me. Also, if I do pull agro, 2-4% of damage reduction off a 2k hit...well, it won't help much. I'm dead either way.
Arcane Fortitude: Same deal. 400 Int, raid buffed, means I get...200 armor...not worth it, IMHO.
Magic Absorption: Anything that saves/returns/generates mana is a Good Thing for raid logevity.

You'll notice I went down the route of More Damage and Longevity at the expense of Survivability. My play style and talent spec allows me to put out as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible, and for as long as necessary; YET requires me to not pull agro from the tank. It's a very fine line to toe, and requires a lot of discipline.

Again, dead mage = 0 DPS. OOM mage = ~0 DPS (and therefore not worth healing :p).

These are just my thoughts on how I like to play my toon and not gospel. :)
 
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Hmm...

So, having played a bit more with this tree... some further thoughts.

Arcane Missiles are now mad damage; there's no way around it. Much to my considerable surprise, I'm more often than not finding myself at the top of the damage chart after a raid... even with the mega-boost that hunters have received (prior to the patch, I tended to hold steady in the 5th-to-7th range, after most the other mages, some of the rogues, and some of the better-equipped hunters). About the only time I'm not at the top is when we've got Lynus along, our other (and far better equipped :p) pure Arcane Mage. Mana efficiency is still somewhat of an issue, but judiciously timed slamming back of Crystal Water can alleviate that a bit.

Improved Counterspell: Just a quick comment- one thing that this is a thing of beauty for in raid/endgame instances is delicate pulls involving caster mobs (particularly in patrolled areas); it will force them to close with you, and the tank can intercept (and then you can dismantle them, since caster mobs tend to have lousy HP, hehe...)

Prismatic Cloak and Arcane Fortitude: These have saved my bacon more than a few times when a stray mob manages to get loose and decide they don't like me... it's actually rather funny the number of times I've been left standing there with a sliver of HP left as the mob drops (or gets pulled off me by the tank)...

Slow: I couldn't swear to it, but I'm fairly certain that it works on at least a few of the bosses... I have fuzzy memories of it working against... I think it was the Snake boss in ZG, and it's worked on Drakkisath... and a handful of others (golem boss in BRD, stuff like that). Handy for bosses that have a habit of wandering around (and makes it rather easier for the tanks to pick up aggro again). Oh, and another bit of random weirdness... again, I couldn't swear to it, but Slow appears to noticeably lower accuracy for ranged attackers- a large portion of the time, I'll drop slow on a mob, and their next shot will miss (this is most noticeable with Twilight Geolords in Silithus, since their 'shot' is so bulky), and then they'll miss what seems to me to be rather more often than usual.

Heh... we'll have to see if we can hold a DPS-off to see which of us is right, 'cos I think we're pretty close... although your mana efficiency might win it for you in the end.

Edit: Oh- and my build is kind of intended as a dual-use build... good functionality in both raids and PvP, which will of course make for some differences.
 
I have an idea:

Let's find a priest/druid to duel. S/he will only heal him/herself and we take turns unloading until we run out of mana. Then, we check the damage meter. :)

I might have an unfair advantage with gear, so I'll probably have to switch out a number of pieces. I still have my Necropile set...and Twill j/k. :p
 
you could always do it sans the equipment..so it's purely a spec vs spec as you'll both have the same int, spirit, crit%, passive regen, etc.
 
One of my primary characters during original WoW alpha/beta testing was a troll mage, at the time one of very few.They had just opened up the shaman class and mage already was an established class in previous test periods.

I really loved the class then and have always leaned towards frost in my play.

Fast forward to TBC, and I find myself liking the mage draenei I have made. My first knee-jerk reaction was to immediately spec frost, I know it so well. In beta, we had free respecs and I tried fire on more than one occasion and never liked it and don't think I ever will. However, the arcane tree is now looking interesting.

So at the tender level of 15, I paid for my first of many respecs to come I'm sure :), and started down the arcane tree.

My intent is to make my mage, Zosk, my next 70. Kagnus may come out to mess around with ramparts, but I am just not feeling the pally love I had for the class right now.

So, do we have any current TBC arcane mages in the guild?
 
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Peregrino is arcane. Er...is it Peridan? I can't remember which one is which... but I know Dave's mage is Arcane.
 
Speaking of the Arcane tree, I respecced Reasonable last night to a 40/0/21 build. Coming from the 10/0/51 build, this new build is horrible. You constently hear about how the Arance Tree got buffed and it's so good now, blah blah blah. Pass. The only bright side is that I can grind so many mobs in a row because I now have 9200 mana. Other than that, not so much. The crits aren't there from frozen mobs so Ice Lance is almost useless. The 30% increase to crit when clearcasting I thought would be awesome, yeah not so much. You have to wait until clearcasting procs, and then 'hope' for a crit. Out of 5 times I gained clear casting, I had 1 crit shot. Ice Barrier is gone, Frost Bite gone, Shatter gone. All of this gone for what....Presence of Mind and more mana? No thank you. 10/0/51 F...T...W!
 
Lynus is 51 Arcane but I doubt I will be playing him all that much. Laura really prefers a Hunter and I really prefer a Druid, so that is what we are sticking with (for now). As for the damage, there is a huge separation between 41 and 51. You don't need the crutch of other trees until you take all the best of Arcane so it can play off of itself the very best that it can. For leveling up to the 50's I would go with all fire for the glass cannon factor. Lots of downtime but it balances out with the rapid kill rate. Switch to frost if you are into the AoE thing after you can get all the proper talents to do it.
 
after leveling 1-60 fire and 60-70 frost, I would defiantly say that I preferred going frost. Nearly the same DPS as fire, increased mana efficiency, better survivability...

I haven't seriously tried Arcane for the reasons that Reason listed. I tried it in Beta and just couldn't get the flow going. I know that you can do a lot of damage with AM, AE, and Arc Blast, but it just wasn't my thing.

When everything lines up correctly, I can kill a mob in 700 mana. When I get 0 crits and have to use all my abilities to keep a mob off of me, I can do it in under 2k. I couldn't do that with fire.
 
Yeah, frost is a great tree, and I have always loved it. Sounds like arcane is either still a weaker tree or it requires a certain playstyle that may not be enjoyable for most.

Fire is certainly a tree that does not match my playstyle, but I have yet to give arcane a good try. :)
 
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