Arcane Mage DPS Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot (Legion 7.2.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 4. Strengths
  • 5. Weaknesses
  • 6. Viability in the Current Patch
  • 7. Contents
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
    • 4.1. "Burn"
    • 4.2. "Conserve"
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Spell Summary
  • 2. Main Resources
  • 3. Basic Abilities
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. DPS Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Talent Cheat Sheets
    • 2.1. Raid Encounters
      • 2.1.1. Heavy Cleave/AOE
    • 2.2. For General Use
  • 3. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents
  • 4. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents
  • 5. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents
  • 6. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents
  • 7. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents
  • 8. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents
  • 9. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression — First 35 Points
    • 1.1. Early Point Investment
    • 1.2. Second Golden Trait
    • 1.3. Third Golden Trait
      • 1.3.1. Mythic Raid Progression/Single Target Focused
      • 1.3.2. Mythic+ Dungeons/AoE Focused
    • 1.4. Final Point Investment
  • 2. Patch 7.2: 35+ Trait Path
  • 3. Relic Choice
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Ability Priority List
    • 1.1. Conserve Phase
    • 1.2. Burn Phase
  • 2. Important Notes
    • 2.1. Arcane Charges: Understanding Your Mana Pool
      • 2.1.1. Aluneth's Avarice
    • 2.2. Spells That Benefit From Arcane Charges
    • 2.3. Truncating Arcane Missiles
    • 2.4. Effectively Handling AoE
    • 2.5. Rune of Power
    • 2.6. Arcane Orb
    • 2.7. Prismatic Barrier
  • 3. Core Concepts
    • 3.1. Mana Management During Conserve Phase
    • 3.2. Executing the Burn Phase Consistently
    • 3.3. Movement Management
      • 3.3.1. Quiet Movement
  • 4. Resonance Opening Sequence
  • 5. Charged Up Opening Sequences
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
    • 2.1. Statistics Explanations
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Addons
    • 1.1. ElvUI
    • 1.2. Weak Auras
    • 1.3. Boss Mods
      • 1.3.1. BigWigs Bossmods
      • 1.3.2. Deadly Boss Mods
    • 1.4. Name Plates
      • 1.4.1. KUI Nameplates
      • 1.4.2. TidyPlates
    • 1.5. Damage Meters
      • 1.5.1. Skada
      • 1.5.2. Details
    • 1.6. Extra AddOns
      • 1.6.1. Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 1.6.2. DeathNote
      • 1.6.3. Doom CooldownPulse
      • 1.6.4. Angry Assignments
  • 2. Macros
    • 2.1. Generic Macros for Mages
      • 2.1.1. Stopcast Blink
      • 2.1.2. 1-Button Block
      • 2.1.3. Block Cancel
    • 2.2. Specific Macros for Arcane Mages
      • 2.2.1. Stopcast Displacement
  • 3. ChangeLog
• ×Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Tier 20 Set Bonus
  • 2. Best in Slot List
    • 2.1. Trinket Notes
  • 3. Evaluating Upgrades Using Stat Weights
  • 4. Racial Bonuses
  • 5. Legendaries
  • 6. Loot Competition
  • 7. ChangeLog

General Information

This page is a gear reference for Arcane Mages. It lists your best items and Legendaries, gives you gearing advice, and shows you how you will be competing for loot with other classes.

The other pages of our Arcane Mage guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author and Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Blixius, a top Arcane Mage who raids in Bird is the Word.

1. Tier 20 Set Bonus

The Arcane set bonus augments Presence of Mind to grant additional utility while making it available more frequently.

• 2-piece bonus: Activating Presence of Mind generates 4 Arcane Charges and increases your damage by 10% for 6 seconds.
• 4-piece bonus: Casting Arcane Missiles reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind by 4.0 seconds.

The 2-piece bonus itself is quite powerful, enabling extra burst damage each time Presence of Mind is available (approximately a 3.5% overall DPS increase). The 4-piece, on the other hand, is somewhat lacklustre, delivering only a small increase over the 2-piece.

Going into Tomb of Sargeras it will be most ideal to use the Tier 19 2-piece bonus (5% additional chance to activate Arcane Missiles) in conjunction with the Tier 20 2-piece bonus, rather than rushing straight for the 4-piece bonus. If you do not have decent item level Tier 19 pieces, it may be more convenient to rush the Tier 20 4-piece bonus. Overall the double 2-piece is about equal to the Tier 20 4-piece, but if you use double 2-piece you will hit your power spike easier and avoid denying more potent Vanquisher token users the opportunity to complete their sets. Once you reach Mythic Tomb of Sargeras you will want to replace your old Tier 19 pieces as the item level disparity eventually becomes too large despite the superior set bonus of the Tier 19 2-piece.

2. Best in Slot List

With the existence of Titanforged and Mythic+ dungeons, there is no such thing as a hard Best in Slot anymore. This is more of a guideline for the best pieces to keep an eye out for in your raid or dungeon (if applicable). Be smart, and if you find higher item level pieces with valuable stat combinations do not hesitate to upgrade to them.

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Crown of the Arcane Tempest	Demonic Inquisition
Neck	String of Extracted Incisors	Demonic Inquisition
Shoulders	Shoulderpads of Whispering Twilight	Sisters of the Moon
Chest	Robes of the Arcane Tempest	Maiden of Vigilance
Cloak	Drape of the Arcane Tempest	The Desolate Host
Wrists	Oathbreaker's Cuffs	Fallen Avatar
Gloves	Gloves of the Arcane Tempest	Harjatan
Belt	Braided Torture Lash	Demonic Inquisition
Legs	Leggings of Divine Portents	Maiden of Vigilance
Boots	Slippers of Enduring Vigilance	SistersoftheMoon
Ring #1	Seal of the Second Duumvirate	Kil'jaeden
Ring #2	Yathae's Thumb Ring	Sisters of the Moon
Trinket #1	Tarnished Sentinel Medallion	Sisters of the Moon
Trinket #2	Terror From Below	Mistress of Sassz'ine

2.1. Trinket Notes

Due to the prevalence of high item level trinkets and titanforged rewarded from Mythic+ dungeon grinding there are a variety of suitable options when it comes to trinkets. Using the list below you should be able to extrapolate whether or not something is an upgrade for you. Trinkets at equal item level, in order of priority, are as follows:

1. Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish
2. Unstable Arcanocrystal
3. Tarnished Sentinel Medallion
4. Terror From Below
5. Tome of Unraveling Sanity
6. Whispers in the Dark
7. Infernal Writ
8. Charm of the Rising Tide
9. Spectral Thurible
10. Erratic Metronome

3. Evaluating Upgrades Using Stat Weights

You can evaluate upgrades side by side using a simple napkin math formula:

For example, using the stat weights from our Stats page, a pair of boots with 380 Mastery, 1150 Haste, and 976 Intellect, we can calculate a DPS value of:

This does not give an exact DPS value, but can be used to calculate the relative value versus another piece. For example, if we have a second pair of boots with 450 Haste, 970 Versatility, and 976 Intellect, we can compute the DPS value for that second item using the same formula, before comparing the results:

We can clearly see that 2108.3 > 2070.1, and therefore, the first pair of boots are the stronger upgrade. This is the quickest, best, and most reliable way of determining whether or not you should use one upgrade or another, despite the fact that stats weights are very approximate and change with respect to fight type, fight length, and the values of your other stats (synergetic scaling).

4. Racial Bonuses

Sims done in pre-raid gear (840 ilvl).

Racial benefit is pretty minimal for Arcane (currently), so it is recommended you just play whatever makes you happiest.

5. Legendaries

The best combination of legendaries is currently Soul of the Archmage combined with Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master. The second best combination is Shard of the Exodar combined with Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master, which may even surpass the aforementioned pair on certain encounters (particularly extremely short fights where you could potentially double your Bloodlust/ Heroism uptime).

Soul of the Archmage grants you the Temporal Flux talent when you are in the Arcane specalization. Currently this is one of the strongest legendaries available to Arcane mages.

Mystic Kilt of the Rune Master causes Arcane Barrage to grant 3% of max Mana per Arcane Charge spent. Very strong choice.

Cord of Infinity causes Arcane Missiles to increase the damage of your next Mark of Aluneth by 1.0% per stack. Very strong legendary overall.

Mantle of the First Kirin Tor grants Arcane Barrage at 10% chance per Arcane Charge consumed to fire an Arcane Orb in front of you. Decent legendary due to the stats and consistent damage.

Kil'jaeden's Burning Wish is a trinket with an on use effect that launches a meteor dealing a powerful critical strike once every 75 seconds. A strong option for Arcane, due to the passive stats provided, and has very strong potential on cleave and AoE.

Shard of the Exodar causes your Time Warp to not give you Temporal Displacement, and you can also use your Time Warp while affected by Temporal Displacement and benefit from the active effect. Basically, you get an extra Bloodlust/ Heroism once every 5 minutes. Can be extremely strong on fights of specific lengths.

Rhonin's Assaulting Armwraps causes Arcane Missiles to have a 18% chance to make your next Arcane Blast cast within 5 seconds to cost no Mana.

Gravity Spiral grants Evocation an additional charge. Lowest value of all the direct damage and ability contribution legendaries, but it can be useful for pushing damage checks by allowing an extra burn at your convenience.

6. Loot Competition

Regarding the loot you will get from raid or dungeon bosses, you will compete with other classes in the following cases:

Item Type	Competing Classes
Tier Tokens	Death Knights, Druids, Fire/Frost Mages, and Rogues
Cloth Armor	Fire/Frost Mages, Priests, and Warlocks
Amulets Cloaks Rings	Everyone
Trinkets	Balance Druids, Fire/Frost Mages, Shadow Priests, Elemental Shamans, and Warlocks

7. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 20 Jun. 2017: Added Tier 20 section, Tomb of Sargeras best in slot list, and updated trinket list.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Added new 7.2.5 Legendary items and updated ideal combination + descriptions of existing legendaries.
• 30 Mar. 2017: Updated Cord of Infinity tooltip.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 20 Jan. 2017: Fully updated BiS for Nighthold and legendaries.
• 30 Nov. 2016: Added a full trinket priority list to help readers extrapolate whether their titanforged trinket is actually an upgrade. Also updated Legendary item values.
• 12 Nov. 2016: Trinket update.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 19 Jul. 2016: Removed trinket sims and added BiS recommendations.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.