WotLK Classic Arcane Mage Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (2024)

If you are not already familiar with all the Arcane Mage spells, or simplywant to refresh your memory, you may find interest in theSpell Summary page. Knowing how allyour important spells work helps you understand your classbetter. This will improve your performance, as you will not have to think aboutthese spells any longer, but simply know them and can focus on what happensaround you in PvE and PvP situations.Knowing when to press which defensive button can help your and your raid'ssurvival. In PvP situations, you always have to be ready to notice what yourenemy is doing, and you become better at that if you know all your abilitiesby heart.

This guide assumes you are running one of theArcane Mage PvE builds and that you areplaying a Level 80 character.

Before you begin, it is very important to know what theglobal cooldown is. After that you will learn why this is important.Usually, most of your spells trigger the global cooldown (some spells anditems, such as Counterspell and Saronite Bomb do not triggera GCD). This means that for1.5 seconds no other spell can be cast, in order to prevent you from spamming, say,20 Arcane Explosions per second by hitting the button 20 times persecond. The stat Haste and cooldowns like Icy Veins will reduce theglobal cooldown, up to a minimum of 1 second. However, your spells can stillbe cast faster than 1 second. For example, a Scorch cast can be reducedto 0.8 seconds. But because you have to wait for the GCD with 1 second,you are blocked from doing any type of cast for the remaining 0.2 seconds.In practice this means that whenever you are using cooldowns likeIcy Veins, Bloodlust/Heroism, and Berserking atthe same time, your passive Haste from gear can make your casts faster than 1second if you are using Potion of Speed. Therefore it is useful to haveall your cooldown-stacking macros below once with a Potion of Speed (ifnot below GCD) and once with Potion of Wild Magic (if below GCD). Thededicated Mage Fojji from the top guild <Numen>has made a WeakAura that displays yourGCD. We strongly recommend you to check his other WeakAuras as well.

Another perk of off-GCD spells and items like Counterspell and Saronite Bomb is that you can macro them into other abilities tonot lose cast time. For example:

• /cast Counterspell
• /cast [nochanneling: Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast
• /cqs

Or

• /use Global Thermal Sapper Charge
• /use [@player] Saronite Bomb
• /cast Arcane Explosion
• /cqs

The first macro will start an Arcane Blast after theCounterspell, while the second macrowill use a Global Thermal Sapper Charge or throw a Saronite Bombat the player's position (if any of them are off cooldown) and instantly castan Arcane Explosion after. Both macros will minimize the cast timeyou lose and maximize your damage output between these actions.

There are a few spells you always need to have active if you want to maximizeyour performance:

• Arcane Intellect/Arcane Brilliance — This boosts yourIntellect stat and therefore your Mana pool and Critical Strike chance.
• Molten Armor — Boosts your Critical Strike chance by 35% ofyour total Spirit (55% with Glyph of Molten Armor) and deals damage toenemies that hit you. This is the better choice, unless you faceextreme Mana problems all the time.
• Mage Armor — Boosts your Magic resistance by 40 and allows50% of your Mana regeneration (70% with Glyph of Mage Armor) to continuewhile casting. Only use this armor if you really need the Magicresistance or Mana regeneration.
• Focus Magic — Cast on another caster who does a lotof crits to boost theirs and your Critical Strike chance by 3%.

When the fight is stationary, which means your targets do not move,Arcane Mages use Blizzard as their main AoE spell. Weaving inFlamestrike (Rank 9) and Flamestrike (Rank 8)drastically increases DPS (because the DoTs from both ranks stack), butalso requires mobs to stand in the ground effect of Flamestrike.If you know mobs in your next pull stand still, you can alsoPresence of Mind, into Blizzard, into Flamestrike,into Blizzard for premium AoE damage. This way the first Blizzardbenefits from the Arcane Potency talent, while the Flamestrikewill be an instant cast.

Mirror Image can be used on AoE to disappear from the threatlist while doing heavy burst AoE damage. Simply use them while engaging thenext pack of mobs and enjoy doing no threat until the Mirror Images disappear.

In non-stationary AoE situations, such as when you and the mobs move, castArcane Explosion. If you cast it while jumping or moving, therange will be higher (through a mechanic called leeway) and the chances youhit more mobs in chaotic pulls will be higher.In rare situations where tanks cannot generate a lot of AoE threat,Arcane Subtlety gives your Arcane Explosion 40% less threat,making this spell safer to use than Blizzard.

It is noteworthy that in WotLK the AoE cap is defined by 10 mobs. Thismeans if you would attempt to AoE more than 10 enemies, you will always deal as muchdamage as you would deal to 10 mobs. Below 10 mobs, your AoE damage is notcapped.

This WeakAura by Hildigunnur showsyou a list of targets you have threat on and displays your threat relative toyour tank. There are several such modifications on wago.io; just searchthere for 'aoe threat'.

All AoE spells can be combined with the Icy Veins talent andother Haste-increasing abilities, as Haste increases casting speed, lowers theGlobal Cooldown for instant-cast spells (to a minimum of 1s), and increasesthe rate at which Blizzard damage is ticking.If your tank threat allows, stacking as many damage- and Haste-increasingeffects, such as Icy Veins, Bloodlust/Heroism, Potion of Speed (if not Haste capped, else Potion of Wild Magic),Arcane Power, Tricks of the Trade, from Rogues, and trinkets togetherwith AoE spells greatly increases your damage. Further, the macro below allowsyou to macro Saronite Bombs into your Blizzard's and Flamestrike's cursorposition, and Global Thermal Sapper Charge and Saronite Bomb at yourplayer position when casting Arcane Explosion:

Blizzard Macro:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Icy Veins
• /cast Berserking
• /cast Arcane Power
• /use [@cursor] Saronite Bomb
• /cast [@cursor] Blizzard
• /cqs

Arcane Explosion Macro:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Icy Veins
• /cast Berserking
• /cast Arcane Power
• /use Global Thermal Sapper Charge
• /use [@player] Saronite Bomb
• /cast Arcane Explosion
• /cqs

The trinket in the upper trinket slot is accessed via /use 13, while thetrinket in the lower trinket slot via /use 14. You can only use oneactivation trinket at a time. If you wish to not include any trinket, potion,buff, or bomb in your macro, simply leave these lines out. The tag [@cursor]casts the Saronite Bomb and Blizzard at your cursor position,[@player] casts the Saronite Bomb at your player position.If you wish to use another spell, such as Cone of Cold, simply write Coneof Cold instead of Arcane Explosion in the macro.

Be careful when using Frost Nova, you might kill your friends (oryourself). Frozen enemies that cannot reach their highest-threat target, whichis usually the tank, will instead attack the closest target.

Arcane Mages are capable of doing huge amounts of single-target damage,especially in shorter fights with Arcane Power and Icy Veins.The single-target (ST) rotation is a bit more complicated than it was in TBC.In order to make it more readable, we suggest memorizing theseabbreviations:

• Arcane Blast — AB
• Arcane Missiles — AM
• Missile Barrage — Mbar
• Arcane Barrage — Abar

Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the damage of all Arcane spells isincreased by 15% and the Mana cost of Arcane Blast is increased by 175%. Thiseffect stacks up to 4 times and lasts 6 sec or until any Arcane damagespell except Arcane Blast is cast. In other words, you can obtain 4 stacksof the damage debuff and casting Arcane Blast will make you go OoM very fast!Any Arcane spell except for Arcane Blast will remove the debuff and get amassive damage bonus (which is why you stack it 4 times). This is where AMcomes into play. With Mbar, the cast time of your AM is halved (scales withHaste), but you need to standstill while casting. With Abar you can remove the AB stacks while moving, butit deals less damage than AM. Therefore your main rotation will looklike this:

1. Cast 4x Arcane Blast (AB)
2. If Missile Barrage (Mbar) proc, castArcane Missiles (AM). With no Mbar proc, cast AB
3. If Missile Barrage (Mbar) proc, castArcane Missiles (AM). With no Mbar proc, cast AB
4. Arcane Missiles (AM)
5. Start at step 1 whenever you cast Arcane Missiles.

If this rotation is confusing to you, cast 4AB -> AM and repeat. In anycase you should use a Nochanneling macro for whenever you castArcane Blast, in order to not clip your Arcane Missiles cast:

• #showtooltip
• /cast [nochanneling: Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast

Regardless of which rotation you feel comfortable with, castEvocation when you are OOM (out of Mana) and make sure to use your Mana Sapphire on cooldown. A good macro for using Mana Sapphire is thefollowing (this macro can also be used with potions, simply replaceMana Sapphire with the potion name):

• #showtooltip Arcane Blast
• /use Mana Sapphire
• /cast [nochanneling: Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast
• /cqs

A good way to pump your DPS from stacking cooldowns is to use yourMirror Image on cooldown and to stack the Arcane Blastdebuff to 4 stacks and then use the following macro when you have an Mbarproc:

• /use 13
• /use Potion of Speed
• /cast Icy Veins
• /cast Berserking
• /cast Arcane Power
• /use [@cursor] Saronite Bomb
• /cast Arcane Missiles
• /cqs

This way you will use your top trinket (13 is the top trinket slot, 14is the bottom trinket slot), a Potion of Speed, Icy Veins,Berserking (only relevant for trolls), Arcane Power, throw a Saronite Bomb at your cursor position, and cast Arcane Missileson your target.

Mirror Image — Should be used for additional damage, as the MirrorImages attack your enemy and do additional damage, or to disappear from the threatlist while doing heavy burst (AoE) damage. Mirror Images benefit fromBloodlust/Heroism if cast beforehand and only attack if an enemy isnearby and you are already in combat with them.

Arcane Barrage (Abar) and Fire Blast — Will be castwhilemoving or to finish off an enemy with a last cast. Fire Blast has no traveltime. Abar has a 3-second cooldown, so when moving or finishing mobs, theoptimal rotation to use these spells would be Arcane Barrage ->Fire Blast -> Arcane Barrage.

Presence of Mind (Pom or PoM) — Makes your next damage spellwith a cast time less than 10 seconds an instant-cast, and can also be used as afinisher like Arcane Barrage and Fire Blast:

• /cast Presence of Mind
• /cast [nochanneling: Arcane Missiles] Arcane Blast
• /cqs

Further, Pom also triggers Arcane Potency, increasingthe Critical Strike chance of the next instant-cast spell by 30%. However, thistalent is a little bit tricky, as only the first missile ofArcane Missiles benefits from the crit bonus, while a wholeBlizzard benefits from it. Channeled spells do not consume the instant-cast effect of this spell, so you can use the Critical Strike chance for, say,Blizzard and follow it up with an instant-cast Flamestrike.

Remove Curse — While this is no damage spell, itis of high importance to decurse on some fights, and doing so is part of beinga good Mage.

Spellsteal — In some fights youeither help your team to survive or you gain a massive buff when spell stealingfrom enemies.

Polymorph — Turning your enemies into a sheep for 50 secondsis sometimes required in PvE encounters and you should always be ready touse this spell.

Blink — This can either be used to travel a large distancewithin one GCD and continue casting or to move out of dangerous boss mechanics.Blink can be seen as a passive DPS increase, as you travel forward 20 yards andthen have 1.5s global cooldown to position before you can cast again. Movingthe same distance would take significantly longer and would reduce your overallcasting time. If you are a good Mage, using this spell to avoid movement is asign of quality.

Ice Block — Makes you immune to most kinds of damage. If youpulled aggro from a mob, they return to the 2nd-highest threat target (whichusually is the tank). It can also be used to remove deadly debuffs from you.

Mana Shield, Frost Ward, and Fire Ward — absorbdamage and can be useful in some PvE situations.

Playing a Mage does not only mean to press the Arcane Blast andArcane Missiles buttons, but also managing your Mana, usingcrowd control spells, and making sure you survive.

Please consider taking a look at the ArcaneMage spells if you want to refresh your memory.