PvE Arcane Mage Talents & Builds - (TBC) Burning Crusade Classic

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1. Talent Builds
   1. Standard Arcane Build
   2. Improved Blizzard Arcane Version
   3. Arcane/Fire Hybrid
2. Key Talents
3. Arcane/Frost vs Arcane/Fire Builds

Arcane Mages have multiple build variations that they can use in The Burning Crusade. Most builds are Arcane/Frost hybrids, but there also exists a build that takes advantage of the tailoring sets and is a hybrid between Arcane and Fire. In this guide, we’ll showcase the builds and explain how they work.

Arcane Mage Overview

Best Races

Best Professions

Talents & Builds

Rotation & Abilities

Stat Priority & Caps

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Pre-Raid Best in Slot Gear

Phase 1 Best In Slot Gear

Talent Builds

• Standard Arcane/Frost Raiding Build – The standard variation for raiding, which goes deep into the Frost tree for Icy Veins/Cold Snap and focuses on improving Frostbolt damage.
• Arcane/Frost Improved Blizzard AoE Build – The AoE variation that takes Improved Blizzard and Permafrost to provide utility and increase performance in raids with a lot of mobs.
• Arcane/Fire Scorch/FB – This build is an Arcane/Fire variation of the build that dips into the powerful burn phase and a steady damage output with Scorch/Fireball in the first phases.

Standard Arcane Build

This is the most used version of the Arcane build, outputting the best damage in most raid scenarios. This build is also somewhat customizable. From the Arcane tree, you have 2 points from talents such as Arcane Fortitude, Magic Absorption, Magic Attunement, and Improved Counterspell that are interchangeable. You’ll want to go deep in the Frost talent tree to reach Cold Snap to use Icy Veins twice in important fights. You’ll pick up Piercing Ice and Ice Shards to increase Frostbolt’s damage as much as possible.

For encounters where you must be as far as possible, you may also change points from the Frost tree and swap 2 points from Ice Shards in favor of Arctic Reach.

Arcane Mage Standard Raiding Build (40/0/21)

Improved Blizzard Arcane Version

This build is almost identical to the standard raiding build, but is mostly oriented for AoE encounters featuring many mobs. You’ll mostly want this build for the utility provided by the Permafrost and Improved Blizzard combination. Ideally, you’ll use Frost Channeling to ensure you don’t mess up your mana pool, but you may also spec into 5/5 Ice Shards if you know you won’t be spamming the spell too much. You’ll also want to dual spec this variant of the build and swap between the two for Single-Target and AoE encounters.

Arcane Improved Blizzard Variation (40/0/21)

Arcane/Fire Hybrid

This build is a hybrid between Arcane and Fire, being especially strong at the beginning of the expansion. It has all the talents in the Arcane talent tree from the standard version, but dips heavily into the Fire tree while still getting Elemental Precision. This build is viable and quite successful due to the early Tailoring items that double-dip in both Arcane and Fire Spell Damage. However, it has both weaker and shorter burn phases because it lacks Icy Veins and Cold Snap.

Arcane/Fire Build Version (40/18/3)

Key Talents

• Arcane Focus – Mandatory. Increases Arcane Hit Chance by 10%.
• Arcane Concentration – Mandatory. Allows you to cast a spell without consuming mana whenever it procs.
• Arcane Impact – Mandatory. 6% increased Spell Critical Strike Chance for Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion.
• Arcane Meditation – Must-have. This talent breaks or makes the build. Allows for 30% of your mana to regenerate in-combat while casting.
• Arcane Mind – Mandatory. Increase Intellect by 15%.
• Presence of Mind – Mandatory pre-requisite. Versatile talent that allows you to instantly cast most spells.
• Arcane Instability – Mandatory. 3% Spell Damage & Spell Critical Strike Chance increase.
• Arcane Power – Huge DPS cooldown. The bread and butter of your “burn” phases, increasing all Spell Damage by 30%, but all Mana Cost as well by 30%.
• Spell Power – Mandatory. 50% increase in Spell Critical Strike Bonus Damage.
• Mind Mastery – Must-have. 25% increase Spell Damage based on Intellect.
• Elemental Precision – Mandatory. 3% Spell Hit Chance increase for Fire and Frost spells.
• Icy Veins – Powerful DPS cooldown. Increases Casting Speed by 20% and provides immunity to spell interruptions.
• Cold Snap – Optional versatile cooldown. Immediately resets the cooldown of all of your Frost spells. Generally used to extend Icy Veins’ duration for increased DPS.
• Ignite – Mandatory for all Fire hybrid builds. Burns the target for 40% of any critical strike you deal with a spell over 4 seconds.
• Improved Scorch – Mandatory for all Fire hybrid builds. Debuffs the target with Fire Vulnerability, increasing all Fire damage done to it by 3%. Stacks up to 5 times.

Arcane/Frost vs Arcane/Fire Builds

Choosing whether to play Arcane/Frost or Arcane/Fire highly depends on your team comp and the items you can acquire. Due to Spellfire Tailoring, Arcane/Fire has more merit early on, but falls short quite fast as the expansion progresses from a pure equipment perspective. As for the comp, you’ll also be able to help Fire Mages with Scorch stacking while also empowering any Fire Warlocks in your group.

The Fire variation will be the better overall option if your group chooses to stack Warlocks over Mages.

Depending on how long it takes for your raid group to clear encounters, you may also heavily prefer Arcane/Frost for the empowered burst sequence if your group can kill bosses quickly. Overall, Arcane/Frost is the superior choice, especially if you have a large mana pool that can sustain the burn phase without being forced quickly to swap to filler spells. However, the Frost variation doesn’t empower any group members, leaving them without a powerful utility tool in case there is no other Mage in the group.

The Improved Blizzard version is situational in raids, but it’s quite powerful in dungeons. We recommend using it for the early gearing process or dual-spec it with any of the other two build versions.

Author

Nevermore

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