Arcane and why this weeks nerfs were unwarranted & Mage/Class PvP hotfix feedback

PVP Arenas
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Background on me:

Played on and off since 2007/8 - TLDR: I know a lot about Mage in PvP and how it functions.

Used to be a PvP moviemaker before I became a boomer Dad.

Onto the important parts.

Moving on from the past

Since I started playing WoW more regularly in Legion, (after quitting Early MoP) I have always lamented those previous versions of Mage and what no longer is. For example-

  • Deep Freeze Frost (shout out to waste-snapping x2 Deeps on the enemy team - a complete waste of a massive CD yet when masterfully done could impress)

  • Pre-DoT Combustion Fire Mage with RNG Disarm, Blazing Speed, Reflects, Low HP fast Pyro’s etc

  • DoT AoE Fire Mage

Some of these even earlier hilarious functions never made it into the game (Living Bomb was something you put on yourself and used to throw people into the air waaaay back).

Most of these playstyles and ‘fun’ ways of playing PvP were largely non-optimal yet extremely gratifying. They were often high skill-cap or just plain silly ways of customising your character to play the way you want to play.

So after the Mage rework in Legion and Chrono Shift, Fast Missiles etc came for Arcane - low and behold the Dev team created an extremely high skill-cap, fun, squishy way to play the game for Mages again.

Honestly, if Arcane didn’t exist in that way, at that point in time, I’d probably have bounced off the game again. It was too rigid, too strict.

Numbers can fluctuate, but don’t break the DNA

My message to the Devs, is to be VERY careful when you take away integral parts of the Mage, or in fact any Class tree that has been almost baseline for many, many years.

Chrono Shift is insanely fun and yes, very effective. If the reasoning behind this change was due to Mages taking Master Shephard, then change Master Shephard. If it is because we double dip with Temporal Velocity then change Temporal Velocity. That wouldn’t feel as bad as it is a new talent.

This isn’t even taking into account that I’ve been lucky enough to be a consistently top 5% arcane player the last 3 seasons and not heard a whisper from anyone moaning or groaning about Arcane being too OP.

Arcane is OP, in the hands of a select few (way better players than me) that can masterfully pace around the field, and such a way of playing should be rewarded. Not punished.

Homogeneous design is a failure

Arcane and pretty much Mage in general - can get farted on by anything from WW to DK to another caster if Defensives aren’t properly managed, you don’t trinket in time, and so on (this goes for most classes however I’ve seen Mages get trapped on GCD to Ice Block a million times throughout the years).

This is where I could talk about the further unwarranted nerf to a PvP Talent - Temporal Shield - that they have to spec into to survive just about most other classes. Let’s remind ourselves it’s a worse version of Renewing Blaze, and is dispellable, on a 45 sec cooldown.

Arcane’s speciality was anti-melee mobility and anti-caster utility.

You have already nerfed Kleptomania, albeit this is one of the better changes.

This did however take away some identity from the spec. Exacerbated by giving all Mages access to Mass Invis (this spell is not reduced by Shifting Power FYI), and Displacement, iconic Arcane abilities.

There are so many things taken from Arcane’s past that will slowly edge it into a shadow where it will no longer be fun, unique and have the gigantic skill ceiling it’s known for.

Chrono Shift is becoming dangerously close to the new Ret Talent Judgement of Justice. At this point I’d probably just make it a PvP talent we have to settle in. If everyone is going at +20% movespeed and snaring by -20% movespeed, just what’s the point?

Arcane’s whole identity is ‘flow of time’ and you want to slow us down? Why? Catch me if you can, and if you can - you’ll be rewarded!

There are so many fantastic changes that have come back to the olde ways of Mage, Blackwave knockback for one - this spell has changed how many times?

Now look at where we are for Blastwave - back where we started pretty much (ironic the snare on this was nerfed too although that isn’t a bad call).

There is nothing out there like WoW PvP, I’ve tried them all.

And with it there is so much potential and responsibility for class design and its effect of PvP in this game it genuinely frustrates me with obvious bias when I see a change so poorly thought out! (I see no reasoning behind this? Want to give one?).

Thanks for coming to my TED TALK and I hope someone on the team takes this onboard.

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You are absolutely lucky that those were the only nerfs because what mages ACTUALLY deserve on nerfs is unable to put into a straight up list.

And these were literal so minor small slaps on the wrist you cannot even consider that nerfed.

Also funny story about your “get rewarded” logic how are you ever getting rewarded when no melee in that game even like you said “dk, ww” can even come close to connect to a mage and that mage doesn’t even have to be arcane in the first place. The mage being arcane instead Frost or Fire actually just makes things straight up worse and makes the game even more unplayable for melees

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No ww or dk struggle in reaching mage unless they play without a keyboard

Current mage gameplay is very unfun in extreme burst meta. It’s also not manageable most of the time in rotating defensives. For instance, you see any class popping bigger damage cds you pop alter time or temporal but it’s dispelled or purged in no time. When you are robbed off from those things, you become extremely squishy.

Plus blizz decided nerfing temporal further for no reason at all. It could be ok to be nerfed but it should not be dispellable.

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I’ve quit mage as soon as they even mentioned reducing Chrono Shift movement speed.

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You are a clueless fool. Go play mage, get gladiator then come and talk.

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as a mage enthusiast reading just your starting i could tell u knew what u were talking about

then again, i LOVED fire aoe in cataclysm

but yeah, wotlk rng reflect, rng disarm, rng blazing speed, and we even had antiinterrupt, man, wotlk fire was absolutely insane.

yet, ppl think NOW mage is bsuted, thats absolutely mental, wotlk firemage was a menace.
ud counter yo ur own counters, like, spellreflect chain of ice on dks trying to slow you
or become immune to interrupts vs shamans
it was just on another level

nowdays, u can run, support your team, and pray enemies leave youi alone long enough so that you can cast arcane surge or smth

and its funny af, how warriors still try to reflect arcane surge lmao.

most warriors i see from 0 to 2.1 will leap, charge, bolt, reflect bladestorm in literal 2 seconds
You counterspell the spell reflect, you are immune to stormbolt because of precog, and you shimmer 2 of their mobility spells, then, they are stuck chasing you,. and even then, they facetank your whole burst, without spellreflect, don’t have bladestorm for frost nova, and still put up a decent fight
 like, idk what else people want at this point, you ppl make it sound like warrior vs mage nowdays is not even close, when if you picked any ofther expansion, you had it 2-5 times worse.
arcane nerfs are not that big, the issue is, arcane is already B tier in dmg and has other issues, not to mention that F bug with managem/slipstream, it was even mentioned that it was getting hotfixed in the bluepost, and its still bugged 2 months later, like, the f?

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I’m a wheelchair and I approve of the nerfs

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yeah, retri and maybe ww, the only 2 classes that we can kite, legit, try it yourself, u will see that “omg insane mobility” wont work vs all others, specially if paired in duos in arena, or with rshaman, priest healer, anything that is not hpala tbh

we traded tankiness and dmg for mobility, people find it annoying, i find annoying that i deal 0 dmg, and that i die with a fart in my face

“but but but, alter time”
u play with no priest shaman or dh or hunter thats just gonna dispell? dw u sitll gonna 100-0 me in the next go

how many mages do u even see in arena ? yesterday i played like, 30 soloshuffles, ive seen 0. literal ZERO, i even saw 1 augment and 1 devastation, still 0 mages
 u make it sound like every arena you are chasing mages, when u find mages maybe 1 arena every 10
 and how many of these are arcane ? maybe 1 every 50 arenas, wake the f up.

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just open up checkpvp and look at stats rapresentation above 1.8 in soloshuffle, there is 90 arcane mages, and there is, 2000+ demonhunters

there is 500+ retri, more than fire frost and arcane all together, so you tell me, what class is doing the best
but everytime people “blizzard only care about mages, blizz dev play mages and love mages”

or
“raiku always win”
first of all, raiku is ONE player, that has perfected his gameplay over the years to play, he plays extrremely well
second
 he made a demonhunter, and his dh, is above his own mage, if that is not telling you something, i think nothing will.

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He didn’t just “make a demon hunter”. DH has been his main alt since at least BfA S1, and he has been good enough on it to get multiple R1s and compete as a DH multiple times in tournaments.

It’s not like he is a new DH and beat his Mage. He actually is a really good DH.

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i wasn’t stating that he “just made” or that he “picked it up quickly” as much as, why nobody says “hey, raiku demonhunter is also high in the ladder”

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Nice, now wait until season end, then u will see his mage at place 1 like always.

most of the peoples just doing cap, and r1 will be 3k again i think

and we will see atleast 2-3 More class changes, so chill

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yea history will repeat it self, and just like the last 5 years, mage will be at the bottom 3 class played :wink:

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Why should we care in the first place ?

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Reported for trolling

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The nerfs to Arcane were because of the high-end players. Popularity doesn’t always equal class balance. Balancing is often done based on the maximum potential of a class.

Arcane has the highest skillcap of all 3 Mage specs.

In 3v3 last season, if you were any kind of a melee and faced a good (keyword GOOD) Arcane mage, there was literally 0 chance and point to chase the guy. Permanent sprint with Chrono shift and infinite blinks and CC made it a meme to even try. A lot of high-rated teams preferred to triple hug a pillar and hit his teammate rogue / feral druid instead.

So yes, Arcane doesn’t need to be the most played spec to receive nerfs. Some specs are meant only for the people who are good at them and can’t be as popular as more-easier specs. But the lack of counterplay for melees against Arcane was overwhelming last season. This is an instance of such balancing, nobody cares if Nakamura dies on cd to melees because of his x99 zoomed player camera and 0 awareness, but people do care if melees are pressing alt + f4 after pointlessly chasing a good arcane mage player for 5min+, especially on a big map

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Wot? Infinite blinks? Do you even know what you are talking man?

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u have no idea what ur talking about. Look at solo shuffles, and see that arms is at least 200-300cr above the top arcane. Arms is a disease together with Dh and unholy this season. Constant pressure on a mage and can’t cast anything. If ur that bad, and lose, that’s ur problem.

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Alter time > Shimmer > alter time back (shimmer resets) > shimmer > shimmer > displacement blink back to previous location > shifting power > shimmer again

how many blinks do you count here, cause it sure as hell isn’t close to the mobility of any other caster or any other class in general

theres only one thing arcane, and every mage consistently can die to, and that’s hunters

now it’s a completely different question if somebody doesn’t know how to use all those blinks, then he will die randomly and call whatever he died to broken

essentially good arcane mages are immortal gods but bad mage players are just food for zugzugs

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unholy dk has non stop gribble. Dh very low cd fel rush. Arms moves like a Cinderella duing ballet all the time and reaches you in a sec.

We are not talking about 1v1 kid. It’s about 3v3 and solo shuffles.

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