Hi! This is going to be mainly a PvE perspective feedback since I know nothing about PvP.
A) New (or reworked) Runes
I think the concept of those runes is going in a good direction for mage healing, adding a dispell and a much needed istant cast to our toolkit. Here are a couple of thoughts:
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ADVANCED WARDING seems in a good spot but I’m not keen on Fire ward and Frost ward costing more than Chronostatic Preservation while healing (absorbing) for less - even when buffed by the rune. If you factor in the 30 sec CD and the fact that they are countering only 1 type of element I feel like I’m really better off never casting them in favour of CP, which is more efficient from a mana conservation standpoint (but again, I’m not factoring in pvp where shields are huge).
Also a minor thing is that mana shield tooltip does not show advanced warding rune and improved mana shield talent stacking correctly (bringing mana consumed to 0.8 per point of damage received.) -
ARCANE BARRAGE love it. Instant cast, so finally allowing some movement. Nice spender for AB charges preventing it from becoming too expensive + missile barrage proc. The only issue I have regards having a full arcane rotation (see below)
B) TALENTS
I’m not sure there are enough good option for arcane mages once Arcane Power talent is reached. I was confused in P3 about where to spend the extra 10 talent points and I think I’m gonna be even more confused in P4. We also freed up a couple of talent points thanks to the ring rune… But for what?
While I love the Arcane Blast-Missile Barrage-Arcane Barrage interaction, the problem is that they constitute a fully arcane damage rotation. Thus there is little incentive to grab fire or frost talents. Our hybrid spells (spellfrost bolt and balefire bolt) are always a worse choice in terms of healing and mana consumption compared to Arcane Blast.
But maybe I’m wrong? I can’t see a clear solution but this does not mean there is not one. It just didn’t feel good in P3 to waste 10 talent points and I fear it could be worse in P4.
C) GAMEPLAY
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SPELL PUSHBACK PROTECTION I would love to get this as we are (iirc) the only healer without it. During raid wide damage events, an arcane blast cast can become extremely long and resulting in deaths across the raid. We do have improved arcane missile, but without a MB proc it heals for so little. Moreover, you can’t always afford to bank a MB proc, in my experience.
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ARCANE DPS In P1 I loved switching between healing and dps just changing a couple of runes, but now I have to go Fire/Frost to help with damage. Will arcane dps spec be viable? Or is Arcane a healing only spec? From what I’ve seen in the PTR, the latter may be the answer.
EDIT(S): tried to fix my broken english
