Arcane Mage 101

There are several different variations of this spec, depending on gear and raid composition. The base spec that I will discuss is a cookie cutter spec for beginners. This is especially good for a Mage who has just hit 80, and as such is not hit capped. The talent tree can be found *here. This talent tree maximizes your chances to hit with Precision and Arcane Focus. The 3 points in Arcane Stability bank mainly on a Paladin in your raid having up Concentration Aura. If you know for a fact that there will not be Conc Aura, you should move 2 points from Arcane Concentration to Arcane Stability. If you have a well geared tank who knows what they are doing, you can move one point from Arcane Subtlety to Arcane Concentration. If you have a Shadow Priest or a Balance Druid specced into Imp. Faery Fire, that will remove 3% of the hit rating you need, and if you also have a Draenae in your group, that will give you another 1%. The chance to hit on a Level 80 Raid Boss for a level 80 caster is 83%. So, with this spec, our chance to MISS is 11%. With a Shadow Priest or Balance Druid, it becomes 9%, and with a Draenae in our group, it becomes a 8% chance to miss. 26.2 hit rating gives us 1% chance to hit, so with optimal raid composition and the base spec listed here, we need at least 210 hit rating. If you are far enough over that, I HIGHLY suggest moving points from Arcane Focus to Incanter's Absorbtion, as this can greatly increase your DPS. If you have points in Incanter's Absorbtion, you will also want to move 2 points in the Frost tree from Ice Shards to Frost Warding. Make sure that you are using your Wards during raids, and make sure to use the right one. Don't use a Flame Ward on Sindragosa, who deals mainly Frost damage.

Rotation

The rotation for this, and indeed for all Arcane Specs, is as follows. Arcane BlastX4, Arcane Missiles. Note that if you have low mana, or low mp5, you should reduce it to Arcane BlastX3, Arcane Missiles. The reason that an Arcane Mage uses this rotation is because of the Talent Missile Barrage. This gives a 40% chance for your Arcane Blast to proc a buff that will cut the casting time (but not the overall damage) in half. In order to calculate the odds of reaching a full stack of Arcane Blast (the damage buff that it gives can't go over 4 stacks) without a Missile Barrage proc, we take 60%, the chance for the proc to NOT occur, and X, the number of times we cast Arcane Blast.

Now these are Figures i came up with they may be wrong but they are very close.

• 0.6^4 = 12.96%
• 0.6^3 = 21.6%
• 0.6^2 = 36%
• 0.6^1 = 60%

So, in all likelyhood, every seventh or eighth rotation you will get to a full stack of Arcane Blast without a Missile Barrage proc. If you are using this spec, you most likely don't have much mana, so I would highly suggest that if this occurs, you simply terminate the stacks with an Arcane Barrage. Note: DO NOT allow the stack to simply fall off. This will lose you about 50% of your DPS.

Glyphs

The best Glyphs to use for this spec are Molten Armor, Arcane Missiles, and Arcane Blast in the Major slots, and Frost/Fire ward in 2 of your minor slots. For the 3rd minor, you should probably use Glyph of Slowfall.