In 2v2s, Arcane is arguably the 2nd worst spec in the game after Frost mage.
In 3v3s, it’s easily bottom 5 with fury warrior, frost mage, etc.
In M+ dungeons, it hovers somewhere in the botton 7-8 specs, only not last due to Arcane Bombardment legendary being crazy good.
In Raids, again hovers in the bottom 7-8 specs, even if most fights are single target and Temporal Warp legendary is insanely good.
In Torghast, Arcane is the best mage spec to solo, but compared to other classes, it’s still about average.
So why is it underperforming?
Lacking damage
Generally undertuned.
Nerfed offensive CDs in PvP.
Clearcasting proc chance is abysmal and the proc is dispelable.
Requires lots of casting, whilst having a single spell school, but also no longer has the extra mobility or CC to enable frequent casting.
Extremely vulnerable to getting purged.
Lacking CC and Utility
Utility = Spellsteal, Remove Curse, Mass Invis and Arcane Intellect, that’s it.
CC = Slows(like 90% of other specs), a kick(like every other spec, except SP), 1 root and Polymorph(which you can rarely land without help, due to lack of other CC or mobility), yup that’s it.
Has no stun, unlike every other class in the game.
Lacking Mobility
Has only 1 Blink + potential extra one from Master of Time and Chrono Shift.
Or has 2 Shimmers on nearly double cooldown and Chrono Shift.
Has not received anything from “The Unpruning”
Alter Time added, instead Displacement removed and Shimmer CD increased by 5seconds.
Fire Blast added, only used to remove Spell Reflect and kill Totems, otherwise useless.
Frostbolt added, completely useless, just a waste of a keybind.
Mana Gem added, practically doesn’t change anything, just shifts the mana management game to a more active approach, instead of passive regen.
Touch of the Magi added, replacent of Charged Up and the extra added 30sec cooldown to Arcane Power.
Mirror Image added, minor defensive for PvP and a pretty decent one for PvE, but we already don’t lack defensives, so it doesn’t change much.
And now…THE SOLUTIONS(the very minimum ones):
Normal Blink removed off GCD.
Shimmer nerf reverted.
Blazing Speed or Deep Freeze or Displacement, made baseline.
Frostbolt removed, replaced with Cone of Cold, that also does damage.
Fireblast damage buffed to be worth pressing or extra CC functionality added.
Arcane Power PvP and CD nerf reverted.
Clearcasting having better proc chance(similar to Legion) and being undispelable.
Buff overall damage.
PvP/Talent added that either makes Touch of the Magi instant or instantly grants Clearcasting procs for on-demand burst in PvP.
Unlike demo lock, pre-rework SP and frost mage, Arcane doesn’t have some crazy design issues that prevent it from working in certain types of content.
It mostly needs tuning and few reverts of old functionalities and it will work perfectly, with very minor effort from the Dev team.
Just do something about it, even the bare minimum, like those 9 simple solutions I suggested, will go such a long way.
JUST. DO. SOMETHING.
Here’s couple of my old topics, if you want more/better suggestions for fixes:
Thumbs up for the nice post again.
However, I fear nothing will be done because Arcane is among the least played specs in the game and thus not “enough” feedback is sent unlike Frost.
So we will end up bottom for another expansion.
I’d love if we got the Torghast Power that kicks enemies on the air.
Ofc it’s gonna be one of the least played, whenever the Legion to BFA transition + couple of dumb changes, completely removed most fun aspects of arcane.
So not only did they made it less fun, but worse in general.
That’d be really similar to Supernova, but it’s not bad.
I had a similar suggestion in another thread:
It really does feel underwhelming at times, but out of all the mage specs it’s still the one I play. I’ve been trying to work out a setup that gives me good enough output.
Very well put together summary of current arcane mage’s performance or rather lack of it. The proposed solutions are feasible and I’d like to see some of them implemented. I hope this thread gets enough traffic and upvotes so we arcane mages can get some love.
Yeah I’ve seen it and I like it, just I suggested this as it already exists in the game. Two of our legendaries are already copied from there. Knowing the history of adding borrowed power from the past maybe it comes next expansion? xD
Does any other spec have them nerfed in PvP? Rogue’s Shadow Dance and Symbols of Death also give %Damage done without being reduced in PvP environments and have much lower cooldown.
Arcane relies much on CDs to land a kill on an already hard-casting spec with one school.
Yeah, and it’s bs. Zero evidence, just “feelings”.
No proof for this, but several streamers enjoyed playing arcane in 2s afaik which contradicts his statement.
Zero proof again.
Well another “toplist” which is only known to the poster. Wonder how he measured.
Again an imaginary toplist. According to warcraftlogs, on mythic with 95% arcane is in the exact middle of the pack, taking the 13th place. (From 24 dps specs )
Damage seems fine, maybe 5% buff would be great, but there are way more underpowered classes atm.
All classes have that.
Just like hot streak and fingers of frost. Idk why arcane should be different. Clearcasting could get an increased proc chance tho.
Non issue in PvE (at least the interrupt part), will be better in PvP with the 25% reduced interrupt duration soulbind. We still have shimmer, never run into any mobility issue in raids / dungeoms yet.
Every class is vulnerable, why arcane is different than fire for example?
Spellsteal is quite cool, remove curse is golden in some dungeons, arcane intellect is a really nice buff. Arcane never had a stun (or at least I don’t remember it). Also you can break stuns with Blink ~10s cooldown.
And 50% bonus movement speed from barrage (+50% slow on the enemy). Yeah one of the best mobility in the game.
For Raid Statistics you HAVE to look at the logs over a range of 1 Week and not 2 weeks since 2 weeks ago Arcane could outdps anyone on altimor due to the TotM interaction with the dmg taken increased addsz whoch Blizzard hotfixed. For Mythic then Arcane is the 5th worst specc @95% but that ONLY includes the first 4 Bosses. To get a proper understanding of where Arcane sits, look at heroic logs over a range of 1 week, again due to TotM on Altimor, and Arcane is the 7th worst specc at 95%.
To be fair 7th worst spec is still 18th which is only a bit worse than your average spec. Also we lack gear and soulbinds, if you check this sim for example: https://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/T26_Raid.html arcane seems to scale with gear / binds quite nicely.
Arcane never preforms as well as it sims due to its dps loss during movement. In bfa it got a buff while it was around the top in the sims due to low raid dmg.
Also mythic 1 week 75% Arcane is only above frost on raidlogs.
Usually no class performs the same as sims. (Player mistakes, movement, etc…). Arcane simmed quite high in bfa for ST but there weren’t any real single target fights and it lacked cleave so much. We got some better cleave now, so I’m hopefull it will be totally fine.
Look at leaderboards. There’s your proof, every mage is fire.
No.
Thing is, it shouldn’t. We rely on procs for damage, we finally get that proc, and then it gets dispelled? Good luck killing something.
All classes have access to it and we shouldn’t depend on borrowed power only limited mages will be able to choose (Venthyr is weak for Arcane).
Also since the removal of Displacement now we lose even more DPs from movement. Arcane must stand still for a long time to do damage. (RoP, ToTM, AP) imagine moving while these are active in ST.
10 seconds with fully upgraded conduit which nobody has access atm. Shimmer is mandatory to land a polymorph.
Has no use when the enemy is locked on you though. You have to kite eternally to be able to do something.
Yeah those players min-max. Is fire better for pvp? Yes it is. Does it mean arcane is really bad for pvp? Nop. Also one big reason is the Cauterize, not the damage alone. A cheap death is pretty op.
Yes? Crit does reduced damage in pvp afaik, so there’s fire for you, mm hunter double tap deals only 50% damage for second aimed shot instead 100% like in pve, etc… Also rune deals reduced damage, and there are some hidden damage modifiers as well. (Like mm hunters deal 10% less with aimed shot overall)
So does fire on instant pyros, and lance for frost mages. Imagine paladins crying about dispelling freedom, or locks backdraft. Also if the enemy purges nonstop, he won’t deal too much damage nor heal.
We got poly, interrupt, nova, instant 60% slow, ring of frost, spellsteal, 50% bonus movement speed. Plenty of utility…
You mean for 15s. Plan ahead, use your cooldowns according to the downtime in boss abilities. (Also with PoM you can move freely for 3s in that 15s)
You can kite nearly any melee if you want with that. I wouldn’t call that useless.
