This is an introduction to the Arcane Mage Healing in WoW Classic Season of Discovery. In Phase one, I’m going to start out by explaining Mage talents. We’re going to move on to the runes and then finish it off with the raid rotation that you’ll be expected to be using for healing. If you have a sufficient amount of WoW SOD Gold, then please join me to explore this interesting part of the Mage class in Season of Discovery.
Talents
For talents, 10 points are locked in. 2 points in Arcane Subtlety, 3 points into Arcane Focus, and 5 points into Arcane Concentration. The reason you only need 3 points in Arcane Focus is that in Season of Discovery, the max spell hit needed for bosses is 6%. From here, there are a few common talent trees you could go. This one takes Arcane Explosion and Wand Specialization, super straightforward. Takes 5 points in Magic Absorption, possibly recommended if you’re having difficulties on colossus.
This one maxes our Arcane Missiles if you feel like you’re just spamming Arcane Missiles when you’re doing solo content. All the talents I’ve shown off take one point in Arcane Meditation. It’s really low in terms of mana regen, but it’s better than anything else.
Runes
For runes on most fights, you’re going to be going Arcane Blast, Living Flame, and Regeneration. How Mage healing works is your cast Regeneration on somebody. Then applies the Temporal Beacon to them and heals them over the next 3 seconds. The Beacon lasts 30 seconds, and any Arcane damage you do over that duration will apply as healing to that target. You can have multiple Beacons up at once, so if you cast Regeneration on three people and then start using Arcane damage, it will heal all three people in your raid.
Most of your Arcane damage is going to be coming from Arcane Blast. It has a special mechanic that increases its mana cost every time it’s used. We’ll get more into that in the rotation part of the guide , but this is going to be your core ability while raiding for damage and turning that damage into healing.
The last rune that I recommend for raid healing is actually Living Flame. It does a bunch of damage, and that damage counts as Arcane for healing. So, in any AOE situation, it’s going to be insane damage, insane healing. In single Target, it’s still a good amount of damage and healing. It gives you a heal over time. What it is replacing is a rune called Mass Regeneration. This rune is an alternative to Living Flame.
If your raid group is having difficulty taking raid-wide damage, it applies Temporal Beacon to five members of your raid as well as heals them over time while you’re channeling it. It is fairly good, but in BFD, it’s not needed. I would recommend only running this if you really think you need to. Otherwise, Living Flame is the go-to.
Rotation
Moving on to the rotation, you’re going to want to regen on your tank and then cast Arcane Blast twice. The next step in this chain is up to you. If you’re low on Mana, you might actually want to wand twice until the Arcane blast debuff falls off and then go back to Arcane blasting.
If you’re fine on Mana, you can just cast Arcane Missiles for more damage. This will also clear the Arcane Blast debuff, allowing you to instantly cast Arcane Blast again. If your Temporal Beacon on the tank is going to fall off or if somebody else needs healing, now is a good time to cast Regeneration on them, clearing your Arcane Blast debuff and allowing you to then swap back into Arcane blasting again.
Once you’re done with any of these three paths, it’s going to repeat repeatedly. You’re going to go back to Arcane blasting twice. You can go up to three times or four times if you have a ton of Mana, but it honestly doesn’t matter. You can use Living Flame at any point in this rotation. You can also use it at the start of the fight to get as many off in the duration of a fight as possible. You can save it for an AOE portion of a fight or you can save it when the tank is taking a ton of damage and you need extra healing.
