Mage Arcane Rotation & Opener

First ~12 casts of actual top-ranked kills. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Arcane Surge 2 Time WarpOff-GCD 3 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 4 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 5 Arcane Missiles 6 Arcane Barrage 7 Touch of the MagiOff-GCD 8 Arcane Missiles 9 Prismatic Bolt 10 Arcane Barrage 11 Arcane Missiles 12 Prismatic Bolt 13 Arcane Barrage 14 Arcane Missiles 15 Arcane Barrage

1 Arcane Surge 2 Time WarpOff-GCD 3 Arcane Missiles 4 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 5 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 6 Arcane Barrage 7 Touch of the MagiOff-GCD 8 Arcane Missiles 9 Arcane Missiles 10 Arcane Barrage 11 Arcane Orb 12 Arcane Orb 13 Arcane Blast 14 Arcane Missiles 15 Arcane Blast

1 Arcane Surge 2 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 3 Arcane Missiles 4 Arcane Barrage 5 Touch of the MagiOff-GCD 6 Arcane Missiles 7 Arcane Missiles 8 Arcane Blast 9 Arcane Barrage 10 Prismatic Bolt 11 Arcane Barrage 12 Arcane Missiles 13 Arcane Blast 14 Arcane Blast 15 Arcane Blast

#showtooltip Arcane Surge
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Touch of the Magi
/cast Arcane Surge

Ability	Top-player CPM
Arcane Missiles	14.4
Arcane Barrage	13.4
Prismatic Bolt	5.5
Arcane Blast	4.4
Touch of the MagiOff-GCD	1.3
ShimmerOff-GCD	1.3
Prismatic Barrier	1.2
Arcane Surge	0.7
Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD	0.7

CPM = median casts per minute across the sampled top kills. If you're far below on a core ability, that's usually the first thing to fix.

First ~12 casts after the pull starts, taken from actual top key runs: the AoE opener is the first pack of the run, the single-target opener is the first boss. Trinkets and racials vary by setup; the skill order is what to copy.

1 Prismatic Bolt 2 Arcane Orb 3 ShimmerOff-GCD 4 Arcane Explosion 5 Arcane Missiles 6 Arcane Explosion 7 Arcane Explosion 8 Arcane Explosion 9 Arcane Blast 10 ShimmerOff-GCD 11 Arcane Blast 12 Arcane Blast 13 Mirror Image 14 Arcane Blast 15 Arcane Blast

1 Prismatic Bolt 2 ShimmerOff-GCD 3 Greater Invisibility 4 Greater Invisibility 5 Arcane Missiles 6 Arcane Missiles 7 Mirror Image 8 Time WarpOff-GCD 9 Arcane Surge 10 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 11 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 12 Arcane Barrage 13 Touch of the MagiOff-GCD 14 Arcane Missiles 15 Arcane Missiles

1 Mirror Image 2 Arcane Missiles 3 Prismatic Barrier 4 Time WarpOff-GCD 5 Arcane Surge 6 Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD 7 Prismatic Bolt 8 Arcane Barrage 9 Touch of the MagiOff-GCD 10 Arcane Missiles 11 Arcane Barrage 12 Arcane Missiles 13 Light's PotentialOff-GCD 14 Arcane Missiles 15 Prismatic Bolt

#showtooltip Prismatic Bolt
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Prismatic Bolt

Collected from public Patch 12.1 guides and checked for this patch. Spell names follow the language you selected on this site and must match your game client. If a macro does not work on your client, report it with the button on the card.

#showtooltip Arcane Surge
/cast Ancestral Call
/cast Berserking
/cast Blood Fury
/cast Arcane Surge
/use 13
/use 14

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Blink

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

/cancelaura Ice Block

/cancelaura Alter Time

#showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Remove Curse; Remove Curse

Keybinds are personal — this is not a layout to copy wholesale. What it does say is which abilities you press most, measured from the same top parses above: the more often an ability is cast, the less effort its key should take. Interrupts, defensives and movement are deliberately left out; they barely register in cast data yet must always be within reach, so choose those yourself.

Rows marked Passive are not pressed at all — they fire on their own (auto-attacks, procs) and get no key, even though they top the casts-per-minute table.

Key	Ability	Top-player CPM
1	Arcane Missiles	14.4
2	Arcane Barrage	13.4
3	Prismatic Bolt	5.5
4	Arcane Blast	4.4
5	Prismatic Barrier	1.4
Z	Touch of the MagiOff-GCD	1.3
X	ShimmerOff-GCD	1.3
C	Arcane Surge	0.7
V	Freightrunner's FlaskOff-GCD	0.7
R	Arcane Explosion	0.7
F	Arcane Orb	0.5
T	Mirror Image	0.4