Arcane Brilliance: The brilliance of being arcane
by Amanda Rivera 
Jul 14th 2007 at 11:02AM
Welcome back to Arcane Brilliance, our column celebrating our mageness. The defense of the mage was our first topic, but it's time to move on to talk about mages themselves, specifically the three types of mages. Now I say three types knowing perfectly well that you can consider hybrids (such as me) another type of mage, but since there are three talent trees, we will stick with the notion of three mages.
When looking at the three types of mages, I thought I might as well discuss the type of mage I play (well technically anyway) first. It only makes sense, seeing as how I know her skills best and all. It is really interesting that I don't actually meet that many Arcane mages. You would think that this would be the spec of choice, going only by the name. Mages wield arcane weapons, and being trained in the arcane arts, it just seems natural that Arcane would be our home. I'm sure you're out there, you purists, those that have stepped down to the bottom of the tree and taken no other talents along the way, I just haven't met you yet.
My first experience with the Arcane tree came back in the days when mages had to spec 11 points into the tree to get Evocation. Man, it makes me feel old to realize there are mages playing today that didn't have this choice facing them as they decided their builds. If you are one of the newer members of the fold, it might surprise you to know that this was a talent that we mages had to specialize in up until Patch 1.11. Training down to this ability introduced me to my first favorite Arcane talent (since now Evocation is a trainable skill), Arcane Concentration.
While their more popular cousins are focused on one specific type of gameplay (PvE for Frost and PvP for Fire) the Arcane mage is instead focused on resilience. It is the Arcane tree that gives us our truly powerful defensive spells, Magic Absorption, Arcane Fortitude, and Prismatic Cloak. For the MageTank™ in all of us, these spells can mean the difference between successful pwnage and that smeary mess on the floor of the Blood Furnace that used to be a mage. Beyond all this, the reason to become an Arcane mage can be summed up in one marvelous phrase: the Three-Minute Mage.
The Three-Minute Mage is all about power, and in fact one of the key spells in this phenomenon is Arcane Power, a talent that increases your spell damage by 30% in exchange for increasing mana usage by 30%. This effect lasts 15 seconds, and when combined with Presence of Mind (a spell that allows a channeled spell such a Fireball, Polymorph or Frostbolt to be cast instantly) packs an enormous punch. Essentially it turns you into a cannon for 15 seconds once every three minutes. The Three-Minute Mage combo is something I use every chance I get, and it's largely why I love to call myself Arcane.
Are you an Arcane mage? Which spell do you hold closest to your heart? Does Improved Counterspell really float your boat, or perhaps you prefer Slow as your weapon of choice? Any way you shape it, the Arcane mage is quite a viable all-around alternative to the other trees. Not only do you get the extra fortification-excellent in a PvP setting-but you also get the chance to pew pew your enemies into dust, which is just plain fun. Can this make you a little mad with power? Sure, but who's to say insanity is a bad thing? I say go with it, enjoy the madness, cackle while your enemies smolder at your feet. It will give you some warm memories to thrive on as they haul you away to your little padded cell.
Filed under: Mage, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Cynna Jul 14th 2007 11:12AM
Although I'm not an arcane purist (I use an arcane/frost hybrid) I adore the arcane tree and could never give up the talents I've specced in. Arcane Concentration FTW!!!
Josh Jul 14th 2007 11:44AM
I too am a hybrid (40/21/0), and before TBC I never really considered the Arcane tree. How stupid of me. The argument can be made that pure fire is better for grinding and DPS and whatnot, but I find that my DPS has actually increased by going to the 40/21 build.
The Three-Minute comment is spot on. PoM and Arcane Power are a great combo, and when one of your spells crits when Arcane Power is active /start überfacemelt.
I must say I do miss Dragon's Breath though. ;)
Josh Jul 14th 2007 11:45AM
To answer the question asked, Mind Mastery is my favorite talent in the tree. More damage that scales with more Intellect makes me happy.
Zach Jul 14th 2007 12:06PM
I've been an arcane purist in the raid context for a few months now, and I really like it. The best feature in my opinion is the 40% threat reduction, which allows me to go all out all the time, whereas as a fire mage I would have to relax in order not to pull aggro. On mana intensive fights, it can be a little rough (i.e., the Prince fight), but I can usually make it until the end without ever having to stand idle if I have mana pots on me. As for raid damage--I can do as much damage, and on some fights more, than an equivalently geared fire mage. It is really beautiful when my arcane missiles crit on all five ticks--for a total of ~9500 damage (1900 each tick). (Granted--I have really good gear with 1048 bonus spell damage, and that's with self-buffs only, and lots of items that give me a chance of extra spell damage on hit/crit.) This arcane missle crit phenomenon happens quite often, especially with the talent under clearcasting that drastically increases the crit chance of all spellscast while clearcasting. Rawr.
bill gates Jul 14th 2007 12:19PM
PoM/AP/Pyro is great when it crits but alot of the time it doesn't then you gotta wait 3 mins
Kamehamaha Jul 14th 2007 12:42PM
u forget to mention about how you had to use talent points for insta cast AE too
Sherp of Ahrotahntee Jul 14th 2007 1:43PM
Frost is for PvE and Fire is for PvP? Are you kidding? I always thought that Frost spec was practically required for the arenas. Which is somewhat disappointing as a mostly-Fire mage.
piks Jul 14th 2007 1:49PM
@7 frost is a complete pvp spec. Some people do raid with it but in reality, fire does more dmg in raids.
@2,3 Mind mastery is a complete crutch.
Josh Jul 14th 2007 1:50PM
Yeah I forgot about the old AE talent points. I take if for granted in Shad Labs with the skeletons. As much griping as we mages do sometimes...Blizzard has taken care of us over the years. (But of course we want more!!!)
@4 I've get 3 out of 5 pretty regularly, but 5 of 5 would be sooo sweeeeet.
Josh Jul 14th 2007 1:52PM
@8
Perhaps its a crutch, but it works for me. Is there another option I should look at? I'm always open to suggestions on how to maximize my mageness
Halicante Jul 14th 2007 3:25PM
The thing about mind mastery is that it increases your base +dam, but you lose all the multipliers that come from being deep in the fire or frost trees that boost your base damage. In essence, it's a false increase in damage when compared with the other trees. These 40/0/21 and 40/21/0 builds are popular with new raiders because it boosts their base +dam, often from something pretty low to something that appears respectable on paper.
It has been shown time and time again that for raid damage, deep fire > deep frost > arcane hybrids. Do a google search on Lhivera if you want to see the numbers. The exception to this that is starting to show up is deep arcane with the 2 piece tier 5 set bonus, however these situations require some serious group support to be viable - I think the guy with the movies up on the wow mage forums runs with 2 shadow priests all the time and gets shamans for tide, etc.
POM pyro iceblock is a pretty cool arena spec, but I don't think I would even contemplate being raid viable deep arcane until I get another piece of tier 5, and even then it doesnt overly appeal to me. I might try it for kicks though.../shrug
Theserene Jul 14th 2007 3:44PM
My alt is at current a fire mage, but I am seriously thinking of respeccing to arcane now.
ellessar Jul 14th 2007 3:52PM
Arcane!!!!!! serioulsy. It doesnt give you survivability of frost(PVP). It doesnt give you the damage of fire(PVE/Raids). there is only 3 or 4 talents in the tree that are worth anything but in order to get to them you have to waste precious points on useless talents. the tree needs a total revamp imo. and Magic Absorption, Arcane Fortitude, and Prismatic Cloak are not the talents i would put points in. and with the latest changes to imp counter spell even that talent has lost most of its appeal to me
Josh Jul 14th 2007 4:51PM
@11 Thanks for the info. That kind of post actually helps things along. I will google Lhivera to see if I can find a more respectable build. Thanks again!
TotalBiscuit Jul 15th 2007 9:57AM
As a mage from Day-1 launch I have a few issues with this article.
Firstly "Presence of Mind (a spell that allows a channeled spell such a Fireball, Polymorph or Frostbolt to be cast instantly)" - that's misleading. None of those spells are channeled spells, they're simply spells with casting times. A channeled spell is something like arcane missiles, or blizzard, none of which can be cast 'instantly' using PoM. Correct terminology is essential.
Secondly. Arcane resilience is terrible, fact. Gaining 50% of your intellect as armour (maybe 250 extra armour?) is worthless, it really really is. In a pure pvp environment where you're fighting nothing but rogues, warriors and feral druids? Maybe it is has a minor use to that extra 250 armour is not going to save you. Prismatic cloak is slightly more useful but again only in a pure pvp environment combined with high hp and a huge stack of resilience where it's effects can be maximised.
Contrary to the first glance, magic absorption is not a defensive ability at all, it's a mana-regeneration talent. Note a full resist will give you 5% of your mana pool back. For a raiding mage that's close to 500 mana, not to be sniffed at , especially when you're dealing with bosses such as Netherspite that spam out AOE damage to everyone in the raid periodically. That's it's beauty right there, the +10 resist is a throwaway bonus with very little use at all.
Put simply, arcane is a support tree gone wrong. They completely missed the point of what it was supposed to do. Even with arcane blast and slow it is not a viable tree on it's own, I know, I tried. I've raided with heavy and full arcane specs, they suck. They go out of mana way too easily even with a solid arcane missiles / arcane blast rotation. Slow has some awesome pvp and pve raid utility but it's huge cost is prohibitive in anything other than the shortest fights making it nigh on worthless in any meaningful content. The 3 minute mage (aka the lol-spec) has some arena viability but I can't say I enjoy leaving things to chance in PvP. That pyroblast may or may not crit. If it doesn't, well all you're gonna have is your target turning around to you and saying 'that was it? that's all you've got?' at which point you giggle nervously and proceed to hit them with your gimped as all hell spells while they tear 7-shades of fail out of your badly specced hide.
It's a tree that positively begs for a less linear design that would allow players to choose 'packages' of useful abilities.
Here's an example of what it should be like.
Take your generically useful abilities. So what have we got, arcane focus? imp arcane missiles? wand spec (lol), magic attunement etc, and put them on the first couple of tiers of the tree. That allows you to pick and choose to some degree, of some of the more useful abilities. One of the problems the tree has right now is that the useful abilities are clumped in specific tiers. For a raiding mage for example, there's nothing on Tier's 1 and 3 of the tree that you'd ever bother to take, and only 3 points on Tier 4. That needs to be remedied. Far too many wasted talents in order to get down to the truly useful ones. Fire and frost do not suffer this.
Now, you've got your first couple of tiers, now split Tier 3 onwards with a series of 'prerequisite' talents. See how they're done on there already? You need clearcasting in order to get the clearcasting crit talent further down. Expand on that, create entire sub-trees based on specific spec ideals. Want a PVE sub-tree? Ok, take the PVE talents. Open up with clear-casting, everyone wants that in raiding. Now cascade down to meditation, then mind, instability, but ensure to group them up together sufficiently so as to avoid 'wasted points'. PVP? Well, combine your 'resilience' talents such as prismatic cloak and arcane resilience, stick em at the top of the PVP sub-tree. Now cascade down imp counterspell, imp mana-shield etc etc, PoM, Arcane Power.
End both sub-trees with Slow, if you really feel the need to force people to push that much into arcane. I suppose the problem lies in the '41 point' talent ideal that this is the reward for speccing so far into this tree. Well while slow is awesome, it gimps the rest of your spec going that far to get it. Too many wasted talents, too little mana-effeciency, you become a useful mage.
Conclusions? The tree needs a huge rework. It needs gimp talents combined or removed completely and a seriously hardcore focus on mana-reclaimation and regeneration. Even with the 11-12k manapools you can get with raiding-level gear as arcane spec, you'll still eat through it in no time, far faster than even deep-fire. That kills the spec completely
And that is why, arcane sucks.
TB.
Arturis Jul 15th 2007 12:07PM
@TotalBiscuit
A well written comment that brought up several valid points. I'm sure this is the kind of comment that this column is designed for, point and counterpoint being exchanged to discuss the Mage class and all things pertaining to it. I do, however, want to take a moment to point out two issues with a particular sentence you stated.
"Arcane resilience is terrible, fact."
I love it when someone states an opinion and follows it with the word "fact" as if somehow that magically transforms their view on a subject into an all encompassing set-in-stone rule that everyone must adhere to. Whether they have a valid point or not, I have a hard time taking them seriously when they lead with a line like that. Please refrain from declaring opinions as fact in the future. If you have trouble determining whether something is opinion or fact, use the following guideline: Can the antithesis of your statement be claimed by someone else? If thats the case, then its not a fact, but an opinion. Someone make come along and claim how awesome it is to have that extra 250ish armor, perhaps when they are out farming primals or accidentally pull aggro in a 5 man instance. The game isnt all about Raids and Arenas, you know.
Completely aside from that, I also want to point out that its named "Arcane Fortitude" and not "Arcane resilience". Mistakes can be easily made and/or overlooked, especially in written form, but as you stated, correct terminology is essential.
Thanos Jul 15th 2007 7:23PM
Get a new mage columnist. This person tell people NOTHING about the class you can not find in the book or blizz website
TotalBiscuit Jul 15th 2007 2:46PM
@17 - seems somewhat pedantic to me. 'X is X, Fact' is simply a nice turn-of-phrase. My justification for it was pretty solid. 250 won't save you when you're out grinding either. You're looking at maybe a couple of % max increase in melee damage reduction. It's utterly irrelevant while grinding, even less so than a competitive PvP environment. Sadly the game IS all about raiding and PvP. After all, what is that player grinding those primals for exactly? Everything is a means to one of two ends, raiding or PvP. That's the 'meat', everything else is simply the garnish and usually, I like to eat my burger, and not simply a bun with gherkins in it.
As regards to Arcane Resilience many apologies, that's what it used to be called when the talent was first introduced in the mage revamp. I see for some reason they've changed the name. Shows how little I care about that talent ;)
TB.
Arturis Jul 15th 2007 3:34PM
@TotalBiscuit
I have to disagree once again. World of Warcraft is not entirely about Raiding or PVP. Perhaps that is all you chose to focus on, but we once again fall into the realm of you claiming your personal opinion as global and universal fact. There are players (such as myself) that barely if ever engage in either Raiding or PvP (Arena, Battleground, or otherwise), yet I still enjoy playing the game. Most of my game play on my level 70 character revolves around solo farming materials for my blacksmithing skill and running 5 man instance with my guild mates. With all the 5 man instances and their heroic versions, I could easily spend the next half year without setting foot in a 10 main "raid" and be just as happy as the new content from whatever the next pending expansion hits.
Again, your arguments (and ability to communicate them) are excellent, but you need to remember that there is more then one way to skin a cat, or in this case, view the game.
Levi Jul 16th 2007 12:09PM
I think what 15 is getting at is really, the Arcane tree for mages is like a lot of trees other classes have to deal with--you have to use filler points in talents you don't really want or need to get to the meat of the tree. In fire and frost, mages can easily put nearly all of their points into the tree and it will be a very powerful spec--you're spoiled for choice. Arcane requires that you put a lot of filler points into so-so talents to get to good talents, instead of putting filler points into good talents to get to great talents.