Arcane Mage Mythic+ Guide (2024)

• Spellfire Spheres
  • This is the defining aspect of Sunfury. The entire playstyle revolves around generating as many Spellfire Spheres as possible. The more Spellfire Spheres generated, the more damage in single and AoE.

• Invocation: Arcane Phoenix
  • Your Spellfire Spheres are spent through this talent. The bird popularly known as "Arlo" takes the generated Spellfire Spheres and cast spells such as Arcane Surge and even Flamestrike.

• Burden of Power and Glorious Incandescence
  • These two talents go hand in hand and are the main reason why the playstyle revolves around generating as many Spellfire Spheres as possible. By Double-dipping every single Burden of Power, you gain this benefit on both the Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage that you cast. (Double-dipping is more explained in the deep dive section)
  • Thanks to Glorious Incandescence, the arcane charges lost from casting Arcane Barrage are regenerated instantly.

• Memory of Al'ar
  • After Arcane Surge ends, the Arcane Soul buff is gained dependent on how many Spellfire Spheres were used. This buff allows the use of multiple fully charged Arcane Barrages in a row without depleting arcane charges and giving a stack of Clearcasting for each cast.

• Splintering Sorcery
  • The entire fantasy of Spellslinger revolves around shooting dozens of spikes at your enemy during combat. Most of the hero tree talents are passive effects and you do not play around anything specific.

• Slippery Slinging and Look Again
  • Generally, default to Slippery Slinging as you would need to drop some utility in the class tree to pick up Displacement. If you ever were to have Displacement however, Look Again is the default pick.

• Phantasmal Image
  • This talent synergizes extremely well with Reduplication potentially making your Mirror Images more potent and a very short cooldown.

• Spellfrost Teachings
  • Be ready to react to all the free extra Arcane Orbs you get while playing Spellslinger. Especially in AoE, you gain tons of free Arcane Barrages.

• Splinterstorm
  • When playing Spellslinger, this trait contributes to changing your rotation in a quirky way. Shifting Power becomes the first button pressed after going into your first big burn!

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.

Spec Tree

• Arcane Surge
  • This is your major cooldown as an Arcane Mage. Granting you massive spell power and mana regeneration.
• Touch of the Magi
  • This is a short cooldown that accumulates 20% of your damage to the target for 12 seconds. Thus, making it one of the most important spells to play around in your rotation.
• Magi's Spark
  • In most cases this talent is completely passive, just remember in AoE situations you need to cast Arcane Blast at least once during your Touch of the Magi window.
• Aether Attunement
  • This talent allows every third cast of Arcane Missiles to deal increased damage and cleave onto other targets. This is your only Arcane Missiles that is fully channeled (more about clipping in deep dive).
• Arcing Cleave
  • A majority of the cleave/AoE damage comes from this talent. Be sure to make good use of the Arcane Barrage spell.
• Orb Barrage
  • Reacting and playing around this proc is very important in Cleave and AoE scenarios to not lose potential Arcane Charges as each Arcane Orb should fully regenerate your Arcane Charges.
• High Voltage
  • This talent is an important aspect of building your arcane charges back up with Arcane Missiles especially in AoE.

Class Tree

• Shifting Power
  • This spell is a channel used after your cooldowns to reduce all your spells by 12 seconds.
• Spellsteal
  • There are a lot of magic mechanics you can Spellsteal to gain their benefit.
• Time Anomaly
  • Be ready to react to the procs acquired get from this talent, they can impact the rotation differently depending on when they proc.
• Mass Barrier
  • Make sure to use Mass Barrier to give your teammates Prismatic Barrier!
• Shimmer
  • This talent node is the main reason Mages in general have such high mobility. Being castable while casting and off the GCD, it is essential you manage your Shimmer well to achieve 100% uptime on DPS during any encounter.

Hero Talents

• Lessons in Debilitation
  • This talent option is more not wanting to limit the CC capabilities of Supernova than the free Spellsteal but it is nice.
• Sunfury Execution
  • The default pick for all Mythic+ scenarios.
• Rondurmancy
  • Numerically the best pick as Ignite the Future currently is bugged and does nothing.

Opener

• The goal of the opener is to enter the Touch of the Magi window as fast as possible with 4 Arcane Charges.

• Evocation is casted 4 seconds before the pull happens.
• Arcane Orb is casted 1 second before the pull if you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
• Touch of the Magi is off the GCD.
• The single target opener in Mythic+ builds 4 Arcane Charges to cast an Arcane Barrage before the Touch of the Magi because of the High Voltage talent.
  • Be sure to cast Touch of the Magi before the Arcane Barrage hits the target.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

All Arcane Missiles are clipped except ones empowered by Aether Attunement (more about clipping in deep-dive).

1. Cast Shifting Power after your Arcane Soul expires.
2. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
3. Cast Arcane Orb when you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
4. Cast Arcane Blast queued into Arcane Barrage if you have 4 Arcane Charges and if one of the following is true:
   1. You have 1 stack of Nether Precision and Glorious Incandescence (this is from consuming Burden of Power).
   2. You have 1 stack of Nether Precision and Intuition (this is from your tier set).
   3. You don't have Nether Precision or Clearcasting procs but have Glorious Incandescence or Intuition.
5. Cast Arcane Blast with Nether Precision.
6. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting.
7. Cast Arcane Blast.
8. Cast Arcane Barrage if you are out of mana.

Arcane Soul Priority List

During Arcane Soul, ignore the above priority list and follow the priority below.

1. Cast Arcane Barrage as your last GCD in Arcane Soul.
2. End Arcane Soul with 3 Clearcastings.
3. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
4. Cast Arcane Barrage with Nether Precision.
5. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting.
6. Cast Arcane Barrage.

Opener

• The goal of the opener is to enter the Touch of the Magi window as fast as possible with 4 Arcane Charges.

• Evocation is casted 4 seconds before the pull happens.
• Arcane Orb is casted 1 second before the pull if you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
• Touch of the Magi is off the GCD.
• Every Touch of the Magi has an Arcane Barrage casted before.
  • Be sure to cast Touch of the Magi before the Arcane Barrage hits the target.

Priority List

This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.

All Arcane Missiles are clipped except ones empowered by Aether Attunement (more about clipping in deep-dive).

1. Cast Shifting Power after your Arcane Soul expires.
2. Cast Arcane Blast once during Touch of the Magi to proc Magi's Spark.
3. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
4. Cast Arcane Blast queued into Arcane Barrage if you have 4 Arcane Charges, 1 Nether Precision stack and if one of the following is true:
   1. You have Glorious Incandescence (this is from consuming Burden of Power).
   2. You have Intuition (this is from your tier set).
   3. You have an Arcane Orb charge.
   4. You have Clearcasting.
5. Cast Arcane Barrage if you have either Intuition or Glorious Incandescence and no Clearcasting or Nether Precision.
6. Cast Arcane Barrage if you have both Aether Attunement and Clearcasting.
7. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting if you either do not have Nether Precision or have less than 4 Arcane Charges.
8. Cast Arcane Orb when you have less than 2 Arcane Charges.
9. Cast Arcane Blast with Nether Precision.
10. Cast Arcane Explosion if you have less than 1 Arcane Charge.
11. Cast Arcane Blast.
12. Cast Arcane Barrage if you are out of mana.

Arcane Soul Priority List

During Arcane Soul, ignore the above priority list and follow the priority below.

1. Cast Arcane Barrage as your last GCD in Arcane Soul.
2. End Arcane Soul with 3 Clearcastings.
3. Cast Arcane Missiles if you have 3 Clearcastings.
4. Cast Arcane Barrage with Nether Precision.
5. Cast Arcane Missiles with Clearcasting.
6. Cast Arcane Barrage.

Boss Tips

Avanoxx

• Use defensives on Alerting Shrill.
• Avoid kiting Starved Crawlers into the boss else the boss receives Insatiable.
  • Use your crowd control to keep them stacked.
  • AoE them down as soon as possible.
    • Send Arcane Surge immediately on pull to have Arcane Soul up for the adds.
• Plan movement well because of Vile Webbing

Anub'zekt

• Be ready to react with Shimmer when targeted by Burrow Charge.
• Kill Bloodstained Webmages fast and interrupt Silken Restraints.
  • Generally they will be passively cleaved down.
• Movement on this fight can becoming annoying because of the restricted area. Plan your movement accordingly to the fight.

Ki'katal the Harvester

• Use defensive while you're affected by Cultivated Poisons since this is the main damaging ability of the fight.
• When you're affected by Grasping Blood you can use any form of crowd control instead of killing it to cancel your root.
• You can Shimmer while still being affected by the root. This allows free movement if in danger from the Cultivated Poisons waves. Be careful, the Grasping Blood MOB will stay at the initial location.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Resonant Barrage from Trilling Attendant.
  • Horrifying Shrill from Ixin.
  • Revolting Volley from Bloodstained Webmage.
  • Venom Volley from Blood Overseer.

• Pay extra attention to these casts:
  • Alarm Shrill from Sentry Stagshell
    • A really long cast that needs to get disrupted.
  • Massive Slam from Nerubian Hauler and Hulking Bloodguard
    • A short stun that ramps in damage done per cast.

Boss Tips

Orator Krix'vizk

• Use your defensives during Vociferous Indoctrination.
• Movement on this fight is highly technical as an Arcane Mage. Shimmer is what enables Mage to have such high mobility and this spell has little value on this fight. Be more aware of spells that are castable while moving as they are the only chance a Mage gets to move on this fight.
  • Using Shimmer away is a last resort as the grip does a lot of damage.

Fangs of the Queen

• Watch out for Knife Throw. Use defensives if you're targeted by this ability.
• Another movement centric fight as the two bosses dash around the boss arena constantly. This time, you can use Shimmer as much as you want!

The Coaglamation

• Use your defensives for Dark Pulse. This happens at 100 boss energy.
• Save big defensives such as Greater Invisibility and Ice Cold to stand in puddles in order to save encounter space when soaking orbs.
• Try to save instant cast spells for the knockback to not lose any damage. You can also utilize Shimmer cast immunity as explained in the Deep Dive section.

Izo, the Grand Splicer

• Use your defensives for Splice since it's the highest damage event during this fight.
• Line up your Touch of the Magi windows with the Umbral Weave mechanic. This allows for a quick elimination of the webs.
• Try not to Shimmer too far ahead of the group as Splice can move the orbs to your location.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Web Bolt from Sureki Silkbinder.
  • Grimweave Blast from Covert Webmancer.
  • Mending Web from Covert Webmancer.
  • Twist Thoughts from Herald of Anurek.
  • Void Wave from Sureki Unnaturaler.

Boss Tips

E.D.N.A.

• Always stack up to spawn Volatile Spikes close together to ensure you can detonate them all with 1 Refracting Beam.
• Use defensives for Earth Shatterer.

Skarmorak

• Use your defensive before Unstable Crash happens or while you have multiple stacks of Unstable Energy.
• Generally crystal shards die to passive cleave but, swap to them if they are not dying.
• Save your Touch of the Magi for each absorb shield.

Master Machinists Brokk and Dorlita

• It is important as an Arcane Mage to save Counterspell as it is easy to Shimmer and kick the boss after the boss jumps away.
• Use your defensive during Exhaust Vents and Blazing Crescendo.

Void Speaker Eirich

• Use your defensives on Entropic Reckoning.
• Make sure to utilize Shimmer and place Entropy away from the group. Following this logic, the farthest Void Rift should be consumed first so the group members with less mobility can reach the closer ones.

Trash Tips

• Focus down Earth Burst Totem from Cursedforge Stoneshaper. They have a low amount of health but are not affected by AoE abilities.
• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Howling Fear from Ghastly Voidsoul.
  • Censoring Gear from Turned Speaker.
  • Piercing Wail from Void Bound Howler.
  • Restoring Metals from Forgebound Mender and Cursedforge Mender.
  • Arcing Void from Cursedheart Invader.

Boss Tips

Speaker Shadowcrown

• This ship is the bane of an Arcane Mage. Shimmer works half the time and Arcane Orb constantly gets stuck within the ship. Be prepared to not get any value from Arcane Orb and move much more than usual.
• Consider using a defensive if you're affected by Collapsing Night. Getting out of this quickly is important since it deals a lot of damage every 0.5 seconds.
• Do not try to Shimmer Obsidian Beam as it does not work (I have tried).

Anub'ikkaj

• Be prepared to shoot the Dark Orb into a desirable path.
• Use defensives for the Dark Orb and Shadowy Decay.

Rasha'nan

• Be ready to deliver Arathi Bombs as Mage's have very high mobility and it is easy for us.
• Be aware of Erosive Spray. It applies Lingering Erosion which is dangerous when combined with other damage events.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Night Bolt from Nightfall Shadowmage.
  • Ensnaring Shadows from Nightfall Shadowmage.
  • Tormenting Beam from Nightfall Darkcaster.
  • Umbral Barrier from Nightfall Darkcaster.

Boss Tips

Ingra Maloch

• Interrupt Spirit Bolt every time a non-tank player is targeted.
• Try to line up your cooldowns with Droman Oulfarran's Droman's Wrath to gain a huge DPS boost. This happens when Droman Oulfarran reaches 20% health.
  • This usually results in sending a mini burn Touch of the Magi at the start of the fight, allowing you to have Arcane Surge big burn for the damage amp.

Mistcaller

• Help CC the Illusionary Vulpins to prevent them from reaching their target.
  • If your group is not crowd-controlling the Illusionary Vulpins be sure to kill it quickly.
• Use your defensives during the Guessing Game as your party is figuring out which is the right illusion.

Tred'ova

• Tred'ova uses their brain when casting Acid Expulsion. As such, the boss tries to predict the movement of the players from the previous Acid Expulsion. Try not to use movement abilities such as Shimmer because it makes the next round of dodging more difficult.
• Save Alter Time and Shimmer to quickly break Mind Link.
• Try to break the Consumption shield as quick as possible.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Spirit Bolt from Drust Harvester.
  • Harvest Essence from Drust Harvester.
  • Nourish the Forest from Mistveil Tender.
  • Bramblethorn Coat from Mistveil Shaper.
  • Stimulate Regeneration from Spinemaw Staghorn.
  • Stimulate Resistance from Spinemaw Staghorn.

Boss Tips

Blightbone

• Use defensives if you're targeted by Heaving Retch.
• Try to stay far away from the adds that spawn throughout the fight.

Amarth, The Harvester

• Make sure to kick or control either the Reanimated Crossbowman or Reanimated Mage if you're not planning on killing them quickly.
• Try to save Touch of the Magi for Land of the Dead so that the adds die quickly after spawning

Surgeon Stitchflesh

• Be prepared to Shimmer into place when targeted by Meat Hooks throughout the fight.

Nalthor the Rimebinder

• Be prepared to Shimmer into a corner when targeted by Frozen Binds.
• If you get sent down, Mirror Image allows you to take zero damage while killing the add downstairs.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Drain Fluids from Corpse Harvester and Corpse Collector.
  • Necrotic Bolt from Zolramus Sorceror & Zolarmus Necromancer.
  • Rasping Scream from Skeletal Marauder.
  • Frostbolt Volley from Reanimted Mage.
  • Goresplatter from Corpse Collector.
  • Repair Flesh from Flesh Crafter.
• There are a bunch of mobs that create armies. Generally, killing the main mob that summoned them instantly kills the entire pack so it is beneficial to single target down the summoning mob.
• There are several weapons throughout the dungeon that can be used to clear trash more efficiently.

Boss Tips

Chopper Redhook

• Line up your cooldowns with the boss walking over Bombs which afflict him with Heavy Ordnance.
• The boss moves very slow so do not over move when running away from him.
• You can use Greater Invisibility just before the end of the fixate on your if you can not get to a bomb in time. This makes the boss skip its grip and damage done to the group.

Dread Captain Lockwood

• Focus down the Ashvane Cannoneer during the phase change to quickly use Unstable Ordnance to get the boss down from the ship.
• Try not to send damage right before Dread Captain Lockwood runs away into their ship. She phases at 66% and 33%.
• Be careful to not over move with Sighted Artillery as the spell comes out several seconds after the ground visual is shown.

Hadal Darkfathom

• If you can't find a safe spot for Tidal Surge, pop a defensive such as Ice Cold and hope for the best.
• Be careful not to bait Crashing Tide near the pillar in the middle as it makes dodging Tidal Surge very difficult if you must stand in it to dodge.

Viq'Goth

• Save instant cast spells and Alter Time for whenever the knockback is incoming.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Brackish Bolt from Irontide Waveshaper.
  • Watertight Shell from Irontide Waveshaper.
  • Water Bolt from Bilge Rat Tempest.
  • Choking Waters from Bilge Rat Tempest.
  • Bolstering Shout from Ashvane Commander

Boss Tips

General Umbriss

• This fight is very simple due to Shimmer. Happily blink anywhere you want to dodge the bosses mechanics.
• Make sure to drop Rumbling Earth towards the edge of the boss encounter to make it easier on the group.
• Use defensives before the Commanding Roar cast.

Forgemaster Throngus

• Use defensives during Blistering Heat.
• When targeted with Molten Spark, be sure to drop this pool on the outside perimeter of the boss encounter.

Drahga Shadowburner

• Use defensives during Twilight Buffet.
• Do not let the adds reach you when targeted by the Flaming Fixate mechanic.
• The orc is not the main boss of the encounter. After he dies, he does some RP and jumps on the back of a dragon! The encounter ends when the dragon reaches 50%.

Erudax, the Duke of Below

• Use defensives during Abyssal Corruption and Void Surge.
• You can use Mutated Hatchlings as a funnel for more boss damage!
• Be sure to spread in the tiny space provided when targeted by the Abyssal Corruption mechanic.

Trash Tips

• Important abilities to interrupt in this dungeon are:
  • Earth Bolt from Twilight Earthcaller.
  • Mass Tremor from Twilight Earthcaller.
  • Shadowflame Bolt from Twilight Beguiler.
  • Sear Mind from Twilight Beguiler.
• There are several abilities you can Remove Curse throughout the dungeon so help decurse whenever possible.

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.

#showtooltip/cast [@mouseover] Remove Curse

#showtooltip/cast [@mouseover] Polymorph