I love the mop mage the most but it seems to be pretty different memories. I remember my mage be fully playable without rune, it did only 15%dmg buff, had 2 charges and last for 1 minute. Mana shield and evocation also gave you the same 15%buff but in another way. Mage wasn’t balanced around rune like now and still was fun and challenging. All my spells did good dmg without 10 temporary modificators on top of that😅
SMB featuring Ner’zhul.
Timewarp - Lets Goooo
Cast Rune - QUAKING - Stopcasting - OK fine
Cast Rune - “PURGED BY LIGHTNING!!” - Stopcasting - OK I’m on the other side of the room best go find the tank, clear thundering. (Unless I am the unluckiest person it seems to put the opposing charge on the furthest player who is usually on the moon) Alter Time to get back to baiting position.
Cast Rune - Boss Casts Omen of Death on me - OK Rune is now dead
Start Burn anyway - PoM AB1,AB2 ,AB3, Arcane Suuuurgee - QUAKING - Stopcasting (15 seconds since last) . Radiant Spark Expires on target.
Boss cast Ritual of Bones, white damage it down
Go through gap while casting Ice Floes + Shifting Power QUAKING Interrupted at 50% cast - OK Fine
Start Burn AB1,AB2 ,AB3, Arcane Suuuurgee at last, Arcane Blast, Boss Casts Omen of Death on me. Well that was fun I got a full 8ish seconds of playing class before having to call it off.
Boss cast Ritual of Bones, white damage it down,
Blink to other side start mini burn, Rune AB1, AB2 “PURGED BY LIGHTNING!!” / Boss cast Malevolence AOE Radiant Spark Expires on target.
Dance around a bit, drain my mana for my next main burn.
Cast Evocation QUAKING Stopcasting at 20% mana restored.
Boss cast Ritual of Bones go OOM 15 seconds on next Arcane Surge
Wipe, group complains.*
Goes to Target Dummy 200k single target burst.
I don’t understand, I have a rotation that has the ability to adapt and change throughout the fiercest boss encounters mixed with random elements that are literally in no way taken into account in conjunction with a 9 year old dungeon mechanics and timings with an insanely time limited combo point accumulation mechanism, mana management, spell queueing / travel time as a core mechanic, a dependence on not being chosen for any mechanic and a talent tree that suggests you have a choice but once again don’t really…oh wait.
I have been Arcane since WoD. I don’t even dislike rotation in principle but it literally accounts for nothing in terms of playing the game and has replaced old problems with new ones while demanding consistently flawless play and clairvoyance.
5 Likes
I swapped to Frost…
I learned Arcane for a full month off gameplay…
Frost not only does more damage then Arcane, it also legit has near zero downside from movement in M+ keys 
Just run while spamming Blizzard, Orb, Lances and Flurries 
They couldn’t even let the reworked Arcane be good for a full season…
2 Likes
Same. Spend so much time learning arcane and stacking crit and now they made arcane the weakest of three specs lol. Screw you Blizztards!
1 Like
Yea, this is basically what happens, quaking has always been bad for arcane, but this is just crazy.
The spec is honestly not well designed, too much setup for damage and if something happens you’re screwed.
It’s too static and rigid, a single mistake destroys your dps.
Id just rather play frost and fire, at least they are more versatile.
1 Like
Things that would simplify
- Remove %dmg bonus from evocation/managem, they should be more like “oops, i run out of mana or support some arcane blast spam”.
- Arcane Barrage/Touch of Magi should apply nether tempest (all or main target), hard to track it with all other rotations, or increase duration.
- +5/10s duration to Harmonic Echo… there is no need to make it so tight
- Foresight should be in better position, would rather have it than presence of mind
- Mana cost away from arcane missiles (maybe as talent) something useful to spam when conserving mana/oom.
1 Like
yep, I keep saying arcane is too convoluted. IT’s worse than playing a piano - that’s why I went frost and I don’t care if it’s lower dps - I just didn’t have fun - any random mechanic and your dps was dipping too hard as arcane. big no no
@Feinio - why is arcane bad now?
It is not bad but considering the play style complexity and learning curve the spec should reward with much higher dps compared with two other specs. What we see now is the easiest of three specs outputs more dps. Frost mages are now in the top of M+ ladder and above arcane in raid logs.
2 Likes
Arcane no longer has a place in this game.
Fire does more sustained AOE damage if the mobs/bosses survive long enough and requires alot less setup time then Arcane. You can prety much move during 80% off your damage rotation so nothing really stops you.
Frost does more ST damage eventhough it has less burst, it has near ZERO chance off getting interrupted (unless you mess up [Edited by Blizzard - no swearing please, not even masked] rlly rlly badly) and the AOE rotation in M+ is completely filled with insta casts.
Concensus:
Fire for Fortified high M+ keys and raid bosses like Council (maybe Kurog). Even here Frost is completely playable.
Frost for any M+ key and raid bosses with ST damage like Terros, Sennarth…
The only (very tiny) use Arcane still has is Raszageth MYTHIC, to burst down the shield. But if you get Burst trinkets and phials on Frost it can work miracles aswell…
Arcane bieing convoluted or not isn’t even the problem.
It’s the developers making (one off) the hardest specs in game, the weakest tuned compared to one off the simplest specs in the game.
Completely making it obsolute.
really, I mean all you do is mash arcane blast and then regenerate your mana bar every 45 seconds, that doesn’t seem like the pinnacle of complexity
Lmao.
Sure you do…
1 Like
of course, arcane blast spam, surge mana regen, arcane blast spam, evocation mana regen, repeat.
you literally just fit clearcasting in whenever you can buff arcane blast with it and thats about as complicated as mage gets, i mean what are you doing building up arcane harmony when you’re never gonna use arcane barrage anyway right?
But that’s just not how balance works.
You cannot have a spec that does considerably more damage simply because it’s more difficult to play.
Why not?
You can totally do that…
Before Frost and Fire got their buffs the three specs were all playable in their respective niches.
Arcane for burst fights, hybrid between AOE and ST.
Frost for ST fights with movement.
Fire for prolongued AOE situations.
Right now Arcane is easily the hardest off the three and it falls behind in all aspects except that little bit more burst it does…
It effectivily got deleted because it is too complex for most, and too easily messed up for the remaining ppl…
Why risk it all if you can press 1 2 3 3 on Frost and outdps it?
2 Likes
No you can’t, that’s not how balance works, otherwise everyone would be playing the harder spec if it was doing significantly more damage in every situation simply because it’s harder to play.
Not an Arcane player really but have tried. I feel like its close to a fun spec.
I agree with most of this but I think they should just remove the interaction between nether tempest and Arcane Echo, it feels like cheating anyway. That would make the rotation easier for a start, Nether Tempest would be a nice aoe filler and mana preserver.
Maybe if we have to keep radiant spark (not a fan of counting spells), rework it a bit. Make the initial hit do more dmg, make it the next 3 spells instead of 4 and make it give you 3 charges of ice floes so you can move while casting.
Hopefully that would make you use it inside of the AS/TotM window. You’d still have your regular burst windows however the setup would be sooo much faster.
Look at Frost mages before the buffs.
Frost was still the most played spec, eventhough Arcane was destroying it number wise.
It showed so in Heroic raiding numbers for the entire first month.
Why?
Because Arcane was too difficult compared to a three button spec.
It didn’t matter if Frost did no damage.
1 Like
Arcane was fun but too difficult yes. After a long day of work i couldnt play it. It actually felt more difficult than my work I do to make a living.
I played frost. Icy veins make my hair fall out especially in m+ where the cd just getting wasted here and there.
I tried fire mage. It looked good. Damage wise … nothing extraordinary. Sun king blessing in m+ ? Getting wasted most of the time. It s just too irritating.
I used to be good with this class … back in time. I tried and tried, untill i realised i can t get the class anymore, and I lost my passion.
Playing mage most of the time feels like, that everything is against me.
Finally rolled to warlock. Much happier now. At least i can do things properly.
I totally get this.
Warlock feels like there’s always something working with you.
Mage sometimes feels like they add extra nonsense just too make you do weird mechanics to ensure dps.
I’ve brought the exact same criticism on forums already in Shadowlands with Arcane not being intuitive. It’s annoying how blizzard ignores the most obvious feedback