In arenas, every spec (expect tanks) can be categorized in one of the following categories: (i) overall pressure damage dealers, (ii) burst damage dealers, (iii) cc-ers, (iv) healers and (v) supports.
Here are some comments on how arcane perform for each of them.
(i) As a overall pressure damage dealer, arcane can be solid against melee cleaves but generally is bad at fulfill this role (no seriously damaging dots + standard PvE single target rotation’s damage is lower than other alternative specs, such as affliction or melee classes in general)
(ii) As a burst damage dealer, arcane evolves around RNG (clearcasting proc). Most of its damage comes from cast, which is very easily stopped if interrupted.
(iii) As a cc-er, arcane is poor against the other mage spec for the only reason that interrupted while being offensive prevents the player from fulfilling his cc-role.
(v) As a support, mass invisibility and slow are pleasant utilities brought to the team (mass invis + fear or mass invis for rogue’s restealth). While pleasant, they do not have as much impact as a soul link totem, void shift, bubble, smoke bomb or war banner.
Have you thought about the question? Do you have any ideas on how arcane could be made more interesting and powerful in arenas?
Idea: what about the following: “If the mage gets kicked, he gets an undispellable damage buff or next spell he cast in the next 10sec is instant or mage gets a blink charge for free”?
This would be op with polymorph, is why PoM was changed.
Instead give them reduced interrupt duration or an active ability that adds AB/AM interrupt protection (next cast? next 3 sec? whatever)
I’m personally fine with Arcane having this crazy weakness to interrupts, but maybe that’s just me being a crazy lunatic when it comes to how I think the spec should work, based on it’s fantasy.
Because lore-wise, most schools of magic(if not all) originate from Arcane magic and thematically it would make sense if Arcane mages were this spec that can wield the overwhelming powers of Arcane magic to cast powerful spells, but that would require a lot of concentration(weakness to interrupts) and energy(aka mana) from the caster.
I really think that Blizzard should double up on the Mana management playstyle, where Arcane mages can be absolutely devastating, but they are heavily limited by their mana pool(which essentually balances out their damage).
In PvE, Arcane already is a watered down version of this fantasy, but that’s mostly ruined from bad apple talents such as Rune of Power and Overpowered, giving Arcane too large of damage multipliers and mana cost reductions, which essentially forces Blizzard to nerf our base damage to the ground, otherwise our burst becomes ridiculous.
Basically, how I imagine Arcane mage damage should work is:
Keep Burn > Conserve phases, but get away from damage multipliers and increase damage for mana spent.
Change offensive cooldowns to just high damaging abilities(mark of aluneth) or things that quickens your mana expenditure to deal more damage in shorter periods of time(Legion’s Quickening talent for example) or building up Arcane Charges faster.
No mana cost reductions, aside from Clearcasting.
High base damage, every cast feels impactful, but if you spam damage you quickly go OOM.
Rip in peperonis, it was one of the main reasons I started raiding in Nighthold, it was so fun, alongside Gul’dan’s haste trinket.
But then… insert coffin dance meme
Like who? The only arcane mage above 2.8k rn as far as I know is Cartoonz, who’s at 223 ilvl and is playing Arcane/WW/Priest?, in which Windwalker deals almost the entire damage of the team and Arcane just executes with Bombardment legendary, while CC’ing and peeling with poly.
Vultz played at around 2.6kcr, but he went fire lately and instatly went up to 2.8kcr+ and keep in mind he was the highest rated arcane mage in BFA at ~3.4kcr.
This is an interesting idea that can be implemented in an interesting way definitely…
But more simply, I’d like to suggest: Touch of the Magi: instantcast or 0.5s cast Presence of Mind: to give 1 clearcasting proc… An interesting addition I would like to see: an interesting buff for each arcane charge we have…
For example: Move speed buff at 0 charges, mana regen buff at 1 charge, Greater invis proc for 1s at 2 charges, maybe Clearcasting proc at 3 charges, and Arcane Power proc for 5 sec at 4 charges…
This could actually replace Time anomaly talent honestly…
A deeper change:
Clearcasting proc rate increased by at least 30%
Add a spell, off gcd, that consumes 1 clearcasting proc and makes your next arcane blast instant or missiles cast faster…
Basically to unify AB and AM through clearcasting, but to allow us to pile up procs by not consuming them automatically on next cast, but when player decides to…
What if Supernova was baseline and removed off the GCD? And maybe add a mini silence for the duration of the knock-up, if that’s not too much.
That would be so so so helpful, literally everywhere.
In PvP, you could Supernova > Poly, Supernova > Touch of the Magi, Slow/Fireblast > Supernova(to keep enemies in LoS for your GCD)
In M+, it would be extremely useful for AOE interrupts on packs, without losing on DPS like now.
In Raid, maybe not that useful, unless it has the silence to interrupt casts or they add bonus damage to “knock-up” immune targets.
Rip in peperonis, it was one of the main reasons I started raiding in Nighthold, it was so fun, alongside Gul’dan’s haste trinket.