Arcane Mage Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

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

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Arcane Mage, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat 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 therotation. 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, althoughneither were picked very often in PvE. Dragon's Breathhas 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 talentsin the tree being significantly different, various new talents, some removedtalents, and some effects being split into multiple talents, or multiple talentshaving their effects merged into other talents. Additionally, there are somemore impactful changes that do significantly alter various parts of the kit.

Overall, Arcane has been reduced in complexity, which in recentyears has arguably become very complex and very scripted. At the highest levelof play, people were using macros and WeakAuras that would interact with thegame's core underlying systems like spellqueueing and server ticks in veryunintuitive 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 completelyremoved. However, various other talents are also being removed or changedto reduce some complexity.

See below a list of the most important changes:

• The entire talent tree has been reworked, with almost all talentsbeing 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 needto 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 moredamage 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 boltsduring Arcane Surge, and also sometimes gives you a smallamount of mana.
• Arcane Surge now also provides you with a stack of Clearcasting.
• Surging Urge is a new talent that makes your Arcane Surge domore 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 consumingClearcasting 3 times.
• Arcane Debilitation is a new talent, which applies a stackingdebuff on your target that increases the damage you do with Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles and Arcane Barragefor 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 applyanother 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'sdamage increase.
• Leydrinker is a new talent that causes Nether Precisiona small chance to cause your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Barrageto 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 Spellslingerand Sunfury Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk moredeeply 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 damageand providing an additional source of Clearcasting procs.

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

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

• Splintering Sorcery causes Nether Precision to conjure2 of them.
• Augury Abounds causes Arcane Surge to generate 8 ofthem, and double your Splinter generation while it is active.
• Splintering Orbs causes Arcane Orb to generate 4 ofthem as long as you hit at least one target. The Orb Barrageand Spellfrost Teachings procs both count for this effect as well.

Defensively, the tree offers Reactive Barrier, increasing the shieldingof Prismatic Barrier or Phantasmal Image giving Mirror Imagean 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 theeffectiveness of our spells, but it also gives us an Arcane Phoenix that shootsboth Arcane and Fire spells at your enemies. You will build up Spellfire Spheres, increasing your damage and providing other benefits, and spawninga powerful Phoenix which does significant damage, while also able to use yourSpellfire 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 phaseduring 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 Blastsor Arcane Barrages. The spheres will both increase your damage andproc Burden of Power providing a powerful boost to your Arcane Blastor Arcane Barrage. Combined with Glorious Incandescence,Arcane Barrage will immediately return you 4 Arcane Charges, allowing youto 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 executedamage by improving the effectiveness of Arcane Bombardment via Sunfury Execution, or have longer Arcane Surgesbased on the amount of Spheres you have when you cast it via Savor the Moment.

Finally, when you cast Arcane Surge you spawn a strongPhoenix, 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 uponthe amount of Spheres your Phoenix consumed, giving you an additional very uniqueburst phase that makes Arcane Barrage return 4 Arcane Charges and provide Clearcasting.

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

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

• Mage Arcane 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion damage increased by 6%.
• Mage Arcane 11.0 Class Set 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 the4-set is an interesting effect, which allows Arcane Barrage to sometimesimmediately return you 4 Arcane Charges, allowing you to immediately continuebursting like normal after it without having to worry about having a method ofgaining 4 Arcane Charges back. This effect is very similar to Glorious Incandescence as both return 4 Arcane Charges, potentiallywasting 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 WarWithin?

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 lookingrelatively weak. Arcane Explosion is not cast as muchin AoE, especially compared to how much Arcane Blast is caston single-target, causing the 2-set to be relatively weak. The4-set, at first glance, seems quite good for AoE, but it does have the riskof munching the Arcane Charges, as both the 4-set and Orb Barragecan proc at the same time, causing the Arcane Charges gained from one of theprocs to effectively go to waste. Overall, it probably ends up not being veryrelevant for AoE, but a great quality of life and dps increase for single-target.