Mage Arcane Talent Builds

Ah, the Arcane tree. Not only is it home to one of the most frequently-complained about talents in the game, but it’s also the bread and butter of most mages. The Arcane tree doesn’t provide the mage with the raw firepower of the Fire tree, nor the increased survivability of the Frost tree. However, the versatility and options it grants are solid reasons why it is considered by many—if not all—mages to be an essential part of any build.

Tier 1: (0 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Subtlety (0/3) – Reduces the threat generated by your offensive Arcane spells by 20%/30%/40%.
Arcane Focus (0/5) – Reduces the chance that your opponent can resist your Arcane spells by 2/4/6/8/10%
Improved Arcane Missiles (0/5) – Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage when channeling Arcane Missiles.

The first tier of the Arcane Tree offers several options straight off the bat. There are three talents in the tree: Arcane Subtlety (3 points), Arcane Focus (5 points), and Improved Arcane Missiles (5 points). Any of these can be fairly useful and effective (though the effectiveness of Subtlety is very limited and situational). However, at the moment, you’re just looking for 5 points to put into this tier to get to tier 2. If you consider yourself more of a PVP mage, Arcane Focus at max rank will reduce the chance for your enemy to resist your Arcane spells by 10%. That means a 10% increased chance for spells like Polymorph and Counterspell to land, which can sometimes mean the difference between a living mage and a mage with an axe in his face.

IAM, too, can be nice in PVP. As a channeled spell, it will cast instantly and continue to cast for a while. It’s nice for finishing off runners (when a longer cast like Frostbolt or Fireball will fail due to range by the end). Being able to deliver consistent damage even when a rogue, warrior, or hunter pet is chewing you up, is handy to have in PVP. Arcane Subtlety, again, has limited usefulness. Unless you’re a raiding mage, and a Horde one at that, I’d recommend passing this talent by. However, when a Horde guild is first learning the encounters in Blackwing Lair, it’s almost invaluable to have. Since the Horde doesn’t have the advantage of Blessing of Salvation, in the aggro-sensitive fights that are ever present in BWL, any reduction of aggro can be a lifesaver. However, if you don’t plan to be raiding BWL (or further) anytime soon, or are Alliance, you can safely ignore this talent.

Tier 2: (5 Talent Points Required)
Wand Specialization (0/5): Increases your damage with wands by 5/10/15/20/25%
Arcane Concentration (0/5): Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance to enter a Clearcasting state after any damage spell hits a target. The Clearcasting state reduces the mana cost of your next damage spell by 100%.

Tier 2 is less open-ended than tier 1 for mages. Though wands can be nice when you’re A: out of mana, or B: trying to do damage without generating much aggro in an instance, 25% is really not worth wasting 5 talent points on. By comparison, having a 10% chance for a nice free spellcast is great, especially in longer fights that you’ll find on raids. A mage without mana is a practically useless mage (ironically, except for wands), but this talent will increase the staying power of your mana pool by a considerable amount.

Tier 3: (10 Talent Points Required)
Improved Dampen Magic (0/2): Increases the effect of your Dampen Magic spell by 25/50%.
Improved Arcane Explosion (0/5): Reduces the casting time of your Arcane Explosion spell by 0.3/0.6/0.9/1.2/1.5 seconds.
Evocation (0/1): While channeling this spell, your mana regeneration is active and increased by 1500%. Lasts 8 seconds. Instant, 10 minute cooldown.

Tier 3 is where the fun truly begins for mages. Again, to be brutally honest, Imp. Dampen Magic is a waste of talent points. Dampen Magic by itself is a nice afterthought buff to have for PVP, but is fairly useless otherwise, and the talent doesn’t make it that much better. The other two talents in this tier, however, are absolutely golden. Imp. Arcane Explosion is absolutely crucial for almost every mage build. We are the best class for AoE solely because of this talented spell. This will make your Arcane Explosion instant-cast, allowing you to move while casting and giving you a direct damage AoE to anyone around you. This is absolutely essential.

Almost as essential is the 11-point ability, Evocation. If you’ve burned your mana through AoE on a tough pull already, but there are still enemies to kill, Evocating will restore a good 60-80% of your mana, allowing you to do your mage thing for much longer. This effectively doubles your mana pool once every 10 minutes. Its applications in PVP exist (in a long fight, no opportunity to drink, you can get your mana back to still be useful in combat) but are much less manifold than its wondrous PVE potential.

Tier 4: (15 Talent Points Required)
Improved Mana Shield (0/2): Decreases the mana lost per point of damage taken when Mana Shield is active by 10/20%.
Improved Counterspell (0/2): Gives your Counterspell a 50/100% chance to silence the target for 4 seconds.
Arcane Meditation (0/5): Allows 3/6/9/12/15% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting. Requires 1 point in Evocation.

Tier 4 isn’t as staggeringly useful as its predecessor, yet still has some nice abilities. Imp Counterspell is also considered an essential staple by most of the mage community – locking down that druid’s healing for just 4 more seconds might give you the needed time to burn him down fast before he’s back in the game. Improved Mana Shield isn’t quite as nice as it’s earlier version, which increased the damage absorbed by Mana Shield, but is still a passable talent and something to put points into if you don’t have enough to reach talents further down in the tree.

Arcane Meditation is fairly useless, to be honest. If you’re not an endgame raiding mage, don’t bother—and even then, it’s only really useful in long, chain nuking fights that you’ll find in Molten Core. In Blackwing Lair, many of the fights require mages to duck in and out of Line of Sight, which means we’ll get natural mana regeneration. This does stack with Mage Armor for a total of 30% regeneration while casting, but, you have much better options.

Tier 5: (20 Talent Points Required)
Presence of Mind (0/1): When activated, your next mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell. Instant cast, 3 minute cooldown.
Arcane Mind (0/4): Increases your maximum mana by 2/4/6/8%.

Tier 5 is another great row for mages. Presence of Mind, the 21-point talent, can be extremely effective both in PVE and PVP. If the enemy warlock’s next cast will kill you, but your next cast will do the same, it’s a great instant desperation attack, or for instantly polymorphing an ambushing foe or additional monster. Using PoM on flame strike gives you an instant-cast, targetable AoE—for a desperate prevention of a flag cap in AV/AB. It’s very useful, even though using Arcane Explosion with PoM active will consume it (even though Arcane Explosion can be talented to instant cast, the game still sees it as a casting time spell).

Arcane Mind is a much more direct application than Arcane Meditation. If you’re going to put more than 21 points into the Arcane tree, you really ought to have this. More mana is never a bad thing.

Tier 6: (25 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Instability (0/3): Increases your spell damage and critical strike chance by 1/2/3%. Requires 1 point in Presence of Mind.

The lone talent in the 6th tier is also a very nice one. While not the massive damage increase granted by its counterpart in the Fire tree, it boosts both your damage and your crit percentage. A solid talent and one that really should not be passed up, even if you could.

Tier 7: (30 Talent Points Required)
Arcane Power (0/1): When activated, your spells deal 35% more damage while costing 35% more mana to cast. This effect lasts 15 sec. Instant cast, requires 3 points in Arcane Instability and 1 point in Presence of Mind.

Here you go, one of the most complained-about abilities by other classes in the game. Combined with the Berserking buff found in Battlegrounds (or the Fury of the Frostwolf/Stormpike Salvation equivalent in Alterac Valley), your damage output is temporarily increased by 65%, which is more than an untalented critical strike. Combined with the spell increase granted by the Zandalarian Hero Charm or the Talisman of Ephemeral Power, this is the ability that leads to those nifty 3000+ crits that people whine about on the forums. Best used in PVP, as any usage of this in PVE combined with chain-casting will likely get the monster pissed off at the mage beyond the tank’s ability to hold aggro. However, it can be nice for “full burn” type events (i.e. Main Tank down, Chromaggus at 1%, burn this SOB to the ground before he kills all of us).

For 15 seconds, you are a damage god. After that, well, you’re less divine for another 3 minutes. Is it worth the trade off? Well, that one’s up to you.

As far as the Arcane tree as a whole goes, there are 18 points that are considered essential by almost every mage. 5 Points in a combination of Arcane Focus/Imp Arcane Missiles, 5 points in Arcane Concentration, 1 point in Evocation, 5 points in Improved Arcane Explosion, and 2 points into Improved Counterspell. You will rarely see a mage build without these at the bare minimum.

If you’re going Frost, you can get by with just these 18 points. Ice Barrier can be nice, and there are other talents in Frost to dump 33 points into. However, if you’re going Fire, Combustion isn’t nearly as good as the versatile Presence of Mind, so you might as well go at least 21 into Arcane.