Arcane Blast

Arcane Blast
Arcane Blast (1 rank) Mage ability 30 s. yd range 195 Mana 2.5 sec cast Blasts the target with energy, dealing X Arcane damage. Each time you cast Arcane Blast, the casting time is reduced while mana cost is increased. Effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 8 sec.
Properties
Class	Mage
School	Arcane
Cooldown	None
Improvements	[Arcane Subtlety], [Arcane Focus], [Arcane Impact], [Arcane Instability], Spell Power, [Playing with Fire],  [Molten Fury], [Shatter]
Related buff
Arcane Blast Arcane Blast casting time reduced by X sec and mana cost increased by Y% Duration: 8 seconds

[[Category:mage abilities]][[Category:mage abilities]]

Each blast of arcane power strikes its target more quickly than the last.

Arcane Blast is a mage spell that deals direct arcane damage, with decreasing cast times and increasing mana costs when cast in succession. With careful management, the mage can use this spell to trade off damage per mana versus damage per second.

Rank	Mana Cost	Damage	Level	Cost
1	195	648-752	64	6 30

The base cast time is 2.5 seconds, however, each cast will apply a debuff "Arcane Blast" to the mage that lowers cast time but increases mana cost. This debuff will stack up to three times, and lasts 8 seconds. Discrepancies between the debuff's reported effects and the effects reported by the spell's tooltip are listed below, though the cast times reported in the spell's tooltip appear to be more accurate.

# of Buffs	Reported in Buff Tooltip		Reported in Spell Tooltip
	Cast Time	Mana Cost	Cast Time	Mana Cost
0	-	-	2.5 seconds	195
1	Base time - 0.3 seconds	Base cost + 75%	2.17 seconds	341
2	Base time - 0.7 seconds	Base cost + 150%	1.83 seconds	487
3	Base time - 1.0 seconds	Base cost + 225%	1.5 seconds	633

Notes

This spell is available at level 64 (and therefore, only available to players with the Burning Crusade expansion). Rank 1 is the only known rank available.

It appears likely that the times in the buff tooltip are rounded to the first decimal point, and the times in the spell tooltip are rounded to the second decimal point. The numbers suggest that each Arcane Blast buff reduces its casting time by 1/3rd of a second.

For characters level 70, arcane blast's base damage increases to an average of 720, up from the 700 it was when you first learned it. This happens with other mage spells as well.

It had been reported that mana increasing modifiers such as arcane power or 2/5 mage T5 set bonus add to the % listed in the table above rather than multiply the mana cost listed in the last column, meaning they get more "relatively effective" as you stack the AB debuff higher. The practical result means that if you're going to spam AB with 3 debuffs stacked for some parts of the fight due to excessive mana supply, it's best to do it during arcane power uptime, as the relative increase in mana cost is, at that time, lower than the relative damage increase, compared to what you would get if you used arcane power and arcane blast spamming at different timeframes.

Talents improvement

[Arcane Subtlety] will reduce the threat caused by Arcane blast. [Arcane Focus] will reduce the chance that it is resisted. [Arcane Impact] will increase the critical strike chance by up to 6% at max rank.

As with all mage spells capable of critical hits [Arcane Instability], Spell Power,  [Molten Fury], [Playing with Fire] and [Shatter] can increase the effective damage output of this spell.

Tips and tactics

Any mage should consider the Arcane Blast spell a useful addition to his standard attack rotation. Without points in Frost, this spell is faster and more damaging than Frostbolt (Rank 12); without points in Fire, it has damage comparable to Fireball (Rank 12), but with a full second less casting time. In addition, if not spammed, its base mana cost is very small compared to either Fireball or Frostbolt.

One-buff Arcane Blast is still fairly efficient in terms of DPM, but you should only repeat three-buff casts in emergencies where DPS must be prioritized, or when mana conservation isn't an issue.

Arcane Blast is like Scorch (and unlike Fireball, Frost Bolt, and Arcane Missiles) in that it doesn't have a projectile animation. This makes the mage a bit less obvious in PvP combat as Arcane Blast won't leave a brilliant pointer back to the caster.

Past changes

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