Arcane Mage
About the author
This guide is written by Cycobi, a prominent Mage theorycrafter and raider in ScrubBusters. Cycobi has been playing a Mage since Mists of Pandaria launched and has been playing the game since 2010.
Spec Overview
Arcane Mages are currently one of the highest performing single target classes in the game, boasting huge burst potential and strong sustained DPS when played properly. The playstyle revolves around managing your mana correctly so that you gain the maximum benefit from their Mastery: Mana Adept. This is done through managing your Arcane Missiles procs correctly and ensuring that you don’t over-cast Arcane Blast when you’re high on Arcane Charge stacks.
Links
Changelog
• 5/2: A guide is born
Prismatic Crystal Rotation
This section will assume you’re using Supernova and Prismatic Crystal
Opener
1. Place down 2 Runes of Power in areas where you will either be standing (or think you might have to move to) at 6s pre-pull. If you’re not taking Rune of Power, ignore this step.
2. Draenic Intellect Potion 3 seconds before pull, start pre-casting Arcane Blast at 2.5 seconds before the pull.
3. After the boss is engaged, continue casting Arcane Blast until you’re at 4 stacks of Arcane Charge.
4. As soon as you’ve started casting the Arcane Blast that will get you your 4th stack, ready up your Prismatic Crystal targeting reticle.
5. Place your Prismatic Crystal appropriately and pop your Arcane Power and any other on-use trinkets and use both charges of Supernova.
6. Alternate between using Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast into Crystal, but make sure that any Arcane Missiles channels will actually land on the Crystal, so factor in travel time.
7. For the final 1.5 seconds (roughly) of Crystal, activate Presence of Mind and sneak in a final Arcane Blast onto the Crystal.
8. Continue your “Burn” rotation as normal (more below).
Burn Rotation
Your burn rotation lasts from the mana percentage you start at (should be 90%-97% mana, give or take, and 4 stacks of Arcane Charge) until ~50% mana. You should be burning around your Evocation cooldown, but as Evocation and Prismatic Crystal have the same cooldown, as long as you manage your procs properly you can burn off Crystal.
The key thing to remember is that, ideally, you should be able to fit in 2 casts of Supernova and your Presence of Mind Arcane Blast into every Crystal you use. In order to ensure 2 Supernova casts into each Crystal, it’s ok to spend a small amount of time capped at 2 charges, but you will be able to use Supernova twice between each Crystal phase and still get two into each cast of Prismatic Crystal.
After you’ve finished bursting into Crystal, check the cooldown remaining on your Evocation.
If you don’t have Arcane Power up (because you’re using the glyph and it’s an off-sync Crystal) and there’s roughly 10-20 seconds remaining on Evocation, you can start your burn.
If you have Arcane Power up and there’s roughly 15-25 seconds remaining on Evocation, you can start your burn.
During your burn, the priority is as follows:
1. Evocation when you hit 50% mana. Do not continue to cast Arcane Blast beyond 50% mana.
2. Arcane Blast if you’re sub-70% mana.
3. Alternate casting Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast (for example, Blast > Missiles > Blast > Missiles or similar) until you’re ~70% mana or out of Arcane Missiles procs.
Conserve Rotation
Your conserve rotation lasts from when you Evocate back up to 100% (or near) mana until you start your burn again. During your conserve the two major goals are to not over-spend mana and to not mana cap as both are DPS losses. You shouldn’t be casting a 4-stack Arcane Blast if you’re below 93% mana, but you should also make sure you don’t reset your stacks (through the use of Arcane Barrage) if you’re at, or above, 93% mana. During your conserve, you should once again try to alternate Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles casts where you can, whilst still adhering to the 93% mana rules.
As I’ve mentioned, you will be able to use Supernova twice in each Conserve rotation; you should strive to line these up with crit/multistrike/mastery/intellect procs where you can (without capping charges, preferably), and ideally as close to 100% mana as possible WITHOUT risk of capping mana. There’s little point to cast Supernova during Haste procs unless you’re going to cap a charge as haste only lowers the GCD.
AoE (4+ Targets) Rotation
If you’re able to get into Melee range of any add packs in an encounter safely, you can follow your AoE rotation, but you will sacrifice a LOT of single target DPS in doing so, so be aware of this if you are choose you AoE.
1. Supernova if 2 charges and/or at 5 stacks of Incanter’s Flow (if selected)
2. Arcane Barrage at 4 stacks of Arcane Charge
3. Cone of Cold (if glyphed)
Arcane Orb Rotation
This section will assume you’re using Nether Tempest and Arcane Orb
Opener
1. Place down 2 Runes of Power in areas where you will either be standing or think you might have to move to at 6s pre-pull. If you’re not taking Rune of Power, ignore this step.
2. Draenic Intellect Potion 3 seconds before pull, start pre-casting Arcane Blast at 2.5 seconds before the pull.
3. After the boss is engaged, cast Arcane Orb at the boss and use Presence of Mind to cast an instant Arcane Blast at the boss.
4. Once you’ve hit 4 stacks (from the 2 Arcane Blast casts and the 2 you get from Arcane Orb), pop Arcane Power, apply Nether Tempest to the boss and start your burn rotation (see below).
Burn Rotation
Burning with Arcane Orb is only very slightly different to burning with Prismatic Crystal. The main difference is it’s a lot easier to control when you burn as you don’t have to think about Prismatic Crystal’s cooldown, and as such you can burn solely around Evocation.
As before, if Arcane Power isn’t going to be up (because you’re using the glyph), start your burn with 10-20 seconds left on Evocation, and if it is going to be up, burn with 15-25 seconds left on Evocation.
During your burn, the priority is as follows:
1. Maintain Nether Tempest at 4-stacks, and make sure it won’t fall off during your Evocation.
2. Evocation when you hit 50% mana. Do not continue to cast Arcane Blast beyond 50% mana.
3. Arcane Blast if you’re sub-70% mana.
4. Alternate casting Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast (for example, Blast > Missiles > Blast > Missiles or similar) until you’re ~70% mana or out of Arcane Missiles procs.
Conserve Rotation
The conserve rotation with Arcane Orb is a lot easier to maintain. You should aim to use Arcane Orb as close to on-cooldown as possible, but only in the situation described below.
You should Arcane Orb just after you reset your stacks with Arcane Barrage. You use Arcane Orb to get the first two stacks of Arcane Charge back up instead of the last two because of the damage bonuses which apply to Arcane Blast off the stacks. As this damage bonus doesn’t apply to Arcane Orb you will end up losing DPS, even if it’s an overall mana gain.
However, what makes the conserve rotation easier to maintain with Arcane Orb is that it’s a more regular generator of Arcane Missiles than while you’re using Supernova/Prismatic Crystal, because Arcane Orb and Nether Tempest can generate stacks of Missiles, whereas only Supernova can.
As before, you shouldn’t be casting a 4-stack Arcane Blast if you’re below 93% mana, but you should also make sure you don’t reset your stacks (through the use of Arcane Barrage) if you’re at, or above, 93% mana. During your conserve, you should once again try to alternate Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles casts where you can, whilst still adhering to the 93% mana rules and maintaining as close to 100% uptime on Nether Tempest as possible without over-casting.
AoE (4+ Targets) Rotation
If you’re able to get into Melee range of any add packs in an encounter safely, you can follow your AoE rotation, but you will sacrifice a LOT of single target DPS in doing so, so be aware of this if you are choose you AoE.
1. Maintain 4-stack Nether Tempest
2. Arcane Barrage at 4 stacks of Arcane Charge
3. Arcane Orb at 0 stacks of Arcane Charge
4. Cone of Cold (if glyphed)
5. Arcane Explosion if Arcane Orb is on cooldown.
If you can’t safely get into Melee range, you can just follow steps 1-3, but make sure you’re not Barraging without Arcane Orb off cooldown, otherwise you’re losing a lot of Single Target DPS (and overall DPS) by rebuilding stacks through Arcane Blast.
Talents Cheat Sheet
Level 15: Ice Floes or Evanesce for when you need to soak specific abilities.
Level 30: Flameglow or Alter Time on certain encounters as it can be used for both movement or huge health gains.
Level 45: Ring of Frost. Ice Ward and Frostjaw have niche uses, but not in the current tier.
Level 60: Greater Invisibility for soaking mechanics or mitigating a huge hit. Cauterize If you are new to an encounter or there is inconsistent spike damage.
Level 75: Supernova for single target or burst aoe, Nether Tempest for cleave or sustained aoe.
Level 90: Rune of Power for encounters with little movement, Incanter’s Flow for encounters with a lot of movement.
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal for single target, Arcane Orb for multiple targets.
Advanced Talents
Level 15: Evanesce, Blazing Speed, Ice Floes
Evanesce
This is a very useful tool for soaking higher-frequency damage spikes, such as Branded on Imperator Mar’Gok (both Heroic and Mythic). If you don’t think you’ll need Ice Floes on an encounter at all (which is rare), you should take Evanesce anyway just for the increased frequency at avoiding damage and cheese potential.
Blazing Speed
Blazing Speed has very niche uses now that we have Ice Floes to continually help us DPS on the move. It’s useful if you need to move somewhere very quickly, and is nice because it’s not on the GCD, but realistically speaking Blink should cover the vast majority of your movement needs.
Ice Floes
This is the go-to talent of the tier. Unless you’re going to take Evanesce for soaking purposes, Ice Floes is an incredibly useful talent. When used optimally, it allows for up to 6 casts in a row whilst on the move. I will cover optimal use of Ice Floes in the advanced play section.
Level 30: Alter Time, Flameglow, Ice Barrier
Alter Time
Very useful as a burst-heal or as a re-positioning tool currently, and as a result has its place on a few encounters, mainly where you’ll need the burst heal to help out healers during big raid-wide AoE phases of incoming damage. The repositioning element can be very nice on encounters featuring knockbacks as well.
Flameglow
Currently the go-to talent of this tier unless you’re going to be taking Alter Time. Provides passive damage reduction and shines particularly on any fight with prolonged raid-wide AoE damage or DoT mechanics. If major encounter mechanics are going to mean that you’d want damage reduction more than every 24 seconds or every minute, Flameglow is superior to Ice Barrier and Alter Time.
Ice Barrier
This talent provides what the other two can’t: the potential to increase your maximum healthpool. However, the issues with Ice Barrier mainly revolve around the fact that it’s on the GCD and the fact that, for the cooldown, it’s not really all that effective. It’s very nice at blocking incoming burst damage, but that’s about it, and Alter Time is better for dealing with those situations unless the ability in question would outright one-shot you, at which point it’s likely we’d look to our other defensive options anyway.
Level 45: Ring of Frost, Ice Ward, Frostjaw
Ring of Frost
Has more PvE uses than the other two talents of the tier (although they can have their uses as well), but actually often goes unused nowadays since there were target caps put on it.
Ice Ward
Whilst Ice Ward does have its uses (and can be very useful for tanks kiting mobs around a room), the uses are pretty limited and realistically there are other abilities than can do the job better. Mainly finds use as a PvP talent.
Frostjaw
Useful for very rare situations where you’d need both a Root and a Silence on a mob, but otherwise has little to no use in PvE as Arcane and is primarily a PvP talent.
Level 60: Greater Invisibility, Cauterize, Cold Snap
Greater Invisibility
In my opinion, one of the strongest defensive abilities in the game currently. Once you’re comfortable on an encounter, this talent offers a lot more than the others does unless there is unpredictable spike damage going out.
Cauterize
Offers a very nice safety net for when you’re new to encounters, and does have the added benefit of not having to be used pre-emptively. It’s a very useful progression tool and there are niche encounters where it will be better than Greater Invisibility.
Cold Snap
Technically this provides a very slight DPS boost when you don’t need the defensive side of Greater Invisibility or Cauterize, but realistically the defensive trade-off isn’t worth the very minor DPS gain, and Greater Invisibility and Cauterize both provide greater defensive benefit than Cold Snap apart from in very special situations where you need to use numerous Ice Blocks to block the application of certain abilities. The introduction of Evanesce also potentially trivialises these situations.
Level 75: Nether Tempest, Unstable Magic, Supernova
Nether Tempest
Whilst it’s been changed from the Mists of Pandaria version, which was awesome, Nether Tempest still maintains a niche within Arcane play. The change to have it snapshot stacks on-application means your goal should be to maintain maximum possible uptime (whilst still following standard priority) at maximum stacks. It’s very good for 2-target consistent cleave fights, or sustained AoE requirements.
Unstable Magic
Doesn’t change your bog-standard rotation and as a talent is actually very boring overall. Doesn’t currently match up to either Nether Tempest or Supernova in terms of damage, and there’s little reason to pick this talent unless you dislike having extra buttons to worry about.
Supernova
The best single target talent in the tier as it does 100% increased damage to the primary target. It has incredible synergy with Prismatic Crystal and is one of the reasons why Arcane bursts so high on single target encounters. It’s also very good when burst AoE is required as you won’t get the maximum benefit out of Nether Tempest.
Level 90: Mirror Image, Rune of Power, Incanter’s Flow
Mirror Image
As all 3 copies gain 100% of your Spellpower as well as gaining your Haste, Crit and Multistrike ratings, they are very nice as a burst cooldown when you need high levels of burst sporadically. However, they don’t benefit from Arcane’s Mastery, meaning that they fall behind the other two talents in the tier for overall damage.
Rune of Power
Ideally you’d take Rune of Power as often as possible, but if you aren’t going to be able to get decent uptimes or you’re going to be re-casting it a lot due to heavy movement, Incanter’s Flow is probably a better choice. As a general rule, if you’re not going to be able to maintain at least 85% uptime on your Rune, Incanter’s Flow is likely a better choice for the encounter.
Incanter’s Flow
Averages out at an overall 12% damage boost, but it goes deeper as you could hit 4 stacks of Arcane Charge at a good or a bad time and will therefore lose more or gain more dps than the average depending on where you are in your cycle; and whilst you can control your cycle to an extent you’ll still be mercy to Missiles RNG at there will be times where you can’t maximise your damage output. It’s a solid option if you won’t get good benefits out of Rune of Power, though.
Level 100: Overpowered, Prismatic Crystal, Arcane Orb
Overpowered
Similar to Unstable Magic, doesn’t change your rotation at all and is purely passive. As it plays heavily into Missiles RNG, it mathematically can work out well, but in a raid setting you’re better off with the control over your DPS that Crystal and Arcane Orb both provide.
Prismatic Crystal
Currently the core to playing Arcane correctly on Single Target, largely thanks to the fact it’s yet another percentage damage boost, as well as the synergy with Supernova. Playing optimally with Crystal is crucial as to whether the talent works out or not, and if you feel that there will be too much boss movement involved to get a decent Crystal out, you’re probably better off with Arcane Orb.
Arcane Orb
A strong talent for both AoE and Single target, largely thanks to the fact that it’s very useful during your conserve phase. The 2 stacks guaranteed (as long as you send it off in the right direction) is very nice after a reset and it also provides another source of Missiles generation as well. Has strong synergy with Nether Tempest and, as such, it’s likely that if you’re taking Arcane Orb you should probably be taking Nether Tempest as well.
Glyphs
Major
Glyph of Arcane Power
The glyph you will take the vast majority of the time. I will cover more advanced usage and min/maxing in the Advanced Play section.
Glyph of Rapid Displacement
Incredibly useful glyph if there are no mechanics which will stun you in the encounter in question. Allows for a lot more mobility.
Glyph of Cone of Cold
If you’re going to be able to get into melee range, this glyph makes Cone of Cold a very useful burst AoE cooldown. It’s only to be used on 4+ targets, though.
Glyph of Regenerative Ice
Pretty underrated glyph, but also very niche.
Minor
There are no minor glyphs that will provide a benefit to playstyle or DPS, so feel free to pick whichever minor glyphs you want.
Situational
Glyph of Polymorph
Useful for when you’re going to need to use Polymorph during an encounter to ensure the CC sticks.
Glyph of Arcane Explosion
Increasing the range on Arcane Explosion can sometimes be necessary and a DPS increase.
Glyph of Spellsteal
A nice glyph if you know you’re going to be dispelling a target and you have the glyph-slot otherwise free.
Glyph of Remove Curse
Nice for when you have a free glyph slot and are going to be de-cursing raid members.
Glyph of Regenerative Ice
Pretty underrated and seen more as a PvP Glyph, but can definitely be useful within a PvE setting and has nice synergy with Evanesce as well.
Glyph of Ice Block
Has niche uses within raiding which allow you to cheese mechanics.
Stats
Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike > Crit > Versatility
Intellect is a primary stat that provides 1 Spell Power (SP) per point. A majority of our abilities use a percentage of spell power to the damage they deal.
Mastery: Mana Adept Increases all spell damage done by up to _%, based on the amount of mana the Mage has unspent.
1% = 55 Mastery Rating, but you gain another .05% from your attunement Arcane Mind
Haste increases cast speed and mana regeneration rate.
1% = 90 Haste Rating
Multistrike causes abilities to have a chance to hit a second and a third time, each dealing 30% of the initial damage.
1% = 66 Multistrike Rating
Critical Strike increases the chance to critically hit with abilities.
1% = 110 Critical Strike Rating
Versatility increases all damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.
1% Damage/Healing/Absorbs = 130 Versatility Rating
1% Damage Reduction = 260 Versatility Rating
Enchants
Rings: Enchant Ring – Gift of Mastery
Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Gift of Mastery
Neck: Enchant Neck – Gift of Mastery
Weapon: Enchant Weapon – Mark of Bleeding Hollow
Gems: Greater Mastery Taladite
Consumables
Food: Sleeper Sushi
Potion: Draenic Intellect Potion
Flask: Greater Draenic Intellect Flask
Gear
| Slot | Item | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Helmet | Arcanoshatter Mantle | Kromog |
| Necklace | Gruul’s Lip Ring | Gruul |
| Shoulder | Arcanoshatter Mantle | Operator |
| Cloak | Runefrenzy Greatcloak | Kromog |
| Chest | Arcanoshatter Robes | Flamebender |
| Bracer | Bracers of Darkened Skies | Trash |
| Gloves | Arcanoshatter Gloves | Iron Maidens |
| Waist | Seeking Ember Girdle | Beastlord |
| Legs | Turret Mechanic’s Legwraps | Iron Maidens |
| Boots | Cavedweller’s Climbers | Gruul |
| Ring | Uk’urogg’s Corrupted Seal | Iron Maidens |
| *Weapon | Inferno-Flame Staff | Gruul |
| Trinket | Darmac’s Unstable Talisman | Beastlord |
| Trinket | Blackiron MicroCrucible | Blackhand |
* = Flamebender’s Dagger + Oregorger’s Offhand can be better than Gruul’s staff with correct WF/Socketed rolls.
Blackrock Foundry
Oregorger
Talents
Level 30: Personal Choice
Level 75: Supernova
Level 90: Personal Choice
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Regenerative Ice
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
Depending on which strategy you use, you can take either Rune of Power or Incanter’s Flow. You should base this decision on how much you will move in the non-rolling phase as that is when you will be bursting. You can choose to take either Alter Time or Flameglow here as there aren’t a lot of DoT mechanics to allow Flameglow to shine properly. Alter Time is also very useful for re-positioning yourself during the rolling phase and provides a nice heal from the roll impact as long as you use it correctly.
Aside from the above, you should play the fight as a standard Single Target fight. You should time Ice Floes so that you don’t lose casts as you’re moving in Phase 1, and when Ice Floes isn’t available you should try and pre-plan so (aside from good RNG on Missiles) you’ll be able to reset your stacks with an Arcane Barrage on the move to minimize the DPS loss.
During Phase 2 stick to your assigned boxes (if you have them) and avoid the boss using double blink. When the boss is in range, assuming you’ve finished your assigned boxes off, maximise your DPS by casting at the boss whenever you’re sure you’re in a safe position and in range. Rinse and repeat when Phase 1 comes around again.
Hans’gar & Franzok
Talents
Level 75: Nether Tempest
Level 100: Arcane Orb
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
Delay Arcane Orb very slightly on pull so that you ensure it hits both bosses (for Missiles procs rather than for stacks), other than that play the fight as a standard single target fight because your cleave is entirely passive with Nether Tempest and you won’t sacrifice a lot of Single Target either. You can stand on the thin slats between the conveyors to allow freecasting and to save your Ice Floes procs for the Stampers phases. During the Fire Conveyor phases, you can shuffle to one side of the slat you’re standing on to avoid the Fire as long as it’s only on one side of your slat, if it’s on both sides you’ll have to blink away.
The same thing can be done with the Stampers, but it’s risky and you can end up dying; it’s better to play it safe and save your Ice Floes stacks all for this part and use the Ice Floes outside of any Aspects of the Fox your raid might use (as they’ll usually be popped either at the start of the phase or in the middle, so play around this). You should try and use the Ice Floes trick to get 5-6 back-to-back casts off into a Fox to allow for maximum casting uptime. As you’re taking both Arcane Orb and Nether Tempest you technically have 3 instant casts to use as well (Arcane Barrage being the third) if you absolutely need it.
It’s important to remember that if both bosses are down and you manage to hit both with Arcane Orb, you’ll get 3 stacks of Charges, and you should try and hit them when you can. Don’t worry if you can’t as they move around a lot.
Beastlord Darmac
Talents
Level 60: Greater Invisibility
Level 75: Nether Tempest
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Arcane Orb
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
You should play this as your standard NT/AO combo. The major thing you should try and accomplish is to direct and time your Arcane Orb so that it hits both the boss and the pack beasts. On occasions where you can’t, you should try and hit multiple spears for extra stacks of Charges and for Missiles procs. Doing both of these allows for both ridiculous uptime at 4 stacks of Arcane Charge and insane Arcane Missiles generation, meaning that managing your mana and Nether Tempest becomes very easy. You should try and save your Greater Invisibility for when you either get too many stacks of Rend and Tear (2 stacks, you can use on 1 stack as well if you want) or when you get caught out of position by Inferno Breath/Superheated Shrapnel.
The combo of having Greater Invisibility and Ice Block to remove debuffs on this fight is incredible, and even if you can’t use either Flameglow will reduce a lot of the damage you take regardless, which is why you should try and save GI/Block for when you have multiple stacks.
Gruul
Talents
Level 60: Greater Invisibility
Level 75: Supernova
Level 90: Rune of Power
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Ice Block
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
Gruul is (almost) your textbook Single Target fight in terms of how you approach it with your DPS. You should use your Ice Floes stacks to ensure you never stop casting apart from when you’re petrified. Unless you’re being assigned to soak the Inferno Slices as part of an immunity group, you can use Greater Invis to help out healers for the slices or if you screw up and get hit by a Flare. You can use the Ice Block glyph to immune a Slice or a Flare without losing casting time (as Ice Block is off the GCD and you can use a /cancelaura macro). Both Greater Invisibility and Ice Block will remove the DoT portion of Inferno Slice, so if your healers are having a hard time you can do this to help them as well.
Flamebender Ka’graz
Talents
Level 15: Evanesce
Level 60: Greater Invisibility
Level 75: Supernova
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
Arcane’s main strength on this fight is boss damage and aiding dogs which need to be killed off individually after all of the AoE has chunked them down, so that should be your focus. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard single target fight. You can use both Greater Invisibility and Evanesce to dodge/avoid the damage from Molten Torrent and you should definitely to do that to help out your raid. If you’re fixated by one of the dogs you can go into melee and start spamming Arcane Explosion a bit, but make sure you don’t burn too much mana doing this.
Operator Thogar
Talents
Level 75: Nether Tempest
Level 100: Arcane Orb
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Rapid Displacement
Strategy
The main thing you should do on Thogar is make sure you always have a blink up for each Deforester and make sure that you dump all stacks before each add pack for the free Arcane Barrage as your Arcane Orb will get you straight back to maximum stacks. The fight is pretty movement intensive so you’ll need to use Ice Floes properly and manage your stacks well to maximise your overall output.
Blast Furnace
Talents
Level 75: Nether Tempest
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Arcane Orb
Glyphs
Rapid Displacement
Arcane Power (optional depending on strategy)
Polymorph (if you’re CC’ing)
Spellsteal (if you’re assigned to dispelling Elementalists)
Strategy
Arcane’s very strong on Blast Furnace for their Single Target burst potential on the Bellowers and Primal Elementalists. You can use Greater Invisibility to get rid of Fixates if you know you’re going to take a lot of incoming damage (double Volatile Fire + Blast damage), and GI is better for dealing with bomb damage in Phase 1, and can be used to drop Ruptures and Melts on top of existing ones in Phases 1 and 3 respectively for more space.
Aside from that, play standard Nether Tempest/Arcane Orb, but try to ensure you hit as many targets as possible throughout each phase with Arcane Orb for extra procs on Arcane Missiles.
Kromog
Talents
Level 75: Supernova
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal
Glyphs
Rapid Displacement
Arcane Explosion
Cone of Cold
Strategy
Don’t take glyph of Arcane Power and ensure you’re towards the middle for the Rune of Grasping Earth phase as Arcane’s AoE burst is good. Make sure you use your Arcane Power and Prismatic Crystal on cooldown so that they’re up for each Pillar phase. Make sure you save your Ice Floes stacks for the Pillar phase and interlace them with any Foxes your group might use so that you can always cast. For the Rune of Grasping Earth Phase, try to save up 2 stacks of Supernova beforehand, or alternatively try and time it so your second stack comes up during the phase itself. Make sure you use your Supernovas at 5 stacks of Incanter’s Flow, otherwise just use your normal AoE and Single target priorities for their respective phases.
Iron Maidens
Talents
Level 60: Greater Invisibility
Level 75: Nether Tempest
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Arcane Orb
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Ice Block
Strategy
You can use Greater Invisibility to deal with a lot of the mechanics in the encounter. Rapid Fire, Penetrating Shot, Convulsive Shadows, Blood Ritual, Dark Hunt are all cheesable, although I would strongly recommend not using it for Rapid Fire as it will begin to follow someone else without marking them and on Mythic can wipe the raid very quickly.
Blackhand
Talents
Level 60: Greater Invisibility
Level 75: Supernova
Level 90: Incanter’s Flow
Level 100: Prismatic Crystal
Glyphs
Arcane Power
Rapid Displacement
Ice Block
Strategy
For Mythic, you should be able to get two Prismatic Crystals out in Phase 1 unless your raid’s DPS is super high, so prioritise how you manage your mana and your Arcane Charge stacks so that you can use the second Crystal on cooldown. If you need to you can pop Greater Invisibility in Phase 1 to survive the damage from the Massive Demolitions, but you should try and save it and position yourself properly so that you can use it to soak Burning Cinders in Phase 2.
You can also use Ice Block to soak Burning Cinders in Phase 2, so on your first soak you should block as you see the cinder falling and cancel after a second or so, the glyph will prevent you getting the debuff and fire won’t spawn, additionally you’ll have Ice Block back for soaking in Phase 3. You can soak 2 Cinders in Phase 2, 3 if you’re a Dwarf with Stoneform, so you should prioritise doing this when you first drop down.
For the Explosive Siegemaker in Phase 2 you can Greater Invisibility the damage to help your healers.
In Phase 3, assuming you Ice Blocked early enough in Phase 2 you’ll be able to soak 2 waves of Falling Debris for your raid, so if you’re assigned to it you can use Greater Invisibility to soak the first wave and Ice Block to soak the second.
If you’re using a kiting Siegemaker strategy for Phase 2, don’t bother trying to place a 3rd or 4th Crystal down, as it’s likely the boss will be moving far too much for it to be worth the GCD. If you’re using a facetanking strategy for the Siegemakers, you should be fine.
AddOns
Some people don’t think addons help them play at all. That’s fine and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but in my opinion here are two addons that I don’t think I could play without and help my play immensely.
Weakauras
The best addon around for tracking cooldowns, buffs/debuffs, mana/power, trinket cooldowns, and so much more. WeakAuras can do just about anything if you have some lua coding knowledge, and even if you don’t it’s very easy to custom-fit a few auras to help you notice things faster and improve your efficiency and play.
Gnosis
Castbar addons are often underrated. Having a castbar addon that is extremely customisable helps a lot more than you might think, and I’d recommend Gnosis. Takes a bit of time to set up but is very complete.
Macros
Soon tm