Arcane mage, its problems and how to fix it

Classes Mage
1

I main arcane mage, love that spec. We have a good rotations and so on. But arcane has one big issue: its dmg is unstable.

Before you reply, hear me out.

I can say from my personal experience (+15 all M+ dungs) that AOE for arcane is one of the best in the game, as i got hardly ever got outdpsed at 5+ trash mobs pull. The problem lies in ST. We have incredible burst, but requires lengthy setup, which can fail easily, as clearcasting procs are too random.

If we compare, when Fire and Arcane can burst, there is large difference. Fire just needs to have comb ready and all of charges of PF and FB.
For Arcane, we have to get 3 clearcastings 1st to do good damage. The problem is in they must be fished for, beforehand, you dont know if you get them or not and you have no guaranteed proc like Fire + you can have mana issues.

I came with an several ideas of how to fix this:

  1. Give Arcane blast higher chance to proc clearcast while at 4 stacks of Arcane charge.

Arcane blast would have same mana cost, but its mana spent would be counted as double of ammount of mana spent on that spell. (That means 4 AC AB costs 6 750 mana, but clearcast would profit from 13 500).

  1. Remake Pressence of mind.

POM feels to me as outdated, its only use now is to fit into ToTM 1 extra AB, or to cast AB during moving. I suggest making it something like Fire blast of arcane mage.It would have 20 sec CD, 2 charges, makes your next Arcane Blast instant and generating 1 clearcasting when the AB is cast.

3)ToTM generates Clearcasts

This is the one i like the least, it would make ToTM generate 1 clearcast when casted.

I would like to see your opinion, what would you do differently? What would you suggest?
Send you ideas, maybe we make up something interesting.

2

I like the more strategic gameplay of arcane and the anticipation you need to burst. I don’t want instant burst. With that being said, yeah, stacking clearcasts should be less random.

Mirrors of Torment fixed that for me. Even with several bugs in PvP, it fills the arcane needs. It’s far from being a polished spell, but seems the right start: a debuff that procs clearcasts. Maybe it could be turned into an arcane spell in the future?

Presence of Mind could be more meaningful then. Imagine sonething like:

Resonating crystals: summon 3 arcane crystal around the target; each time you cast Arcane Blast to the target one crystal is consumed you gain clearcast and the target is slowed. When the third crystal is consumed the target is imprisoned for 4 sec.

So we keep the preparation in arcane burst and Presence of Mind to speed it up.

3

Or just make % chance to proc Clearcasting static like it was in Legion instead of being based on mana spent. Our own DPS cooldown - Arcane Power has bad synergy with our proc by reducing our mana costs but also our Clearcasting chance. Overpowered talent which is very best in it’s tier makes it even worse as it reduces our mana costs even further.

I think it would be nice if Presence of Mind also worked on something else other than Arcane Blast. Imagine if Arcane had access to instant Polymorph every now and then. Not only would it make the spec more unique but also it would stop being so trash in PVP as we wouldn’t have to risk so much just trying to cast Poly on arenas.

I don’t think it would be such a bad idea to give Arcane a spell which generated Clearcasting procs. Both Fire and Frost got multiple spells and options to force their own procs so it makes sense for Arcane to also have that possibility.
However I don’t think that ToTM should be doing it. It would make the spell overloaded and OP, it already generated 4 Arcane Charges, if it also gave us guaranteed procs, it could be too strong so perhaps one of our other spells could fill that role? Nether Tempest or Supernova possibly?

While it’s nice that they buffed Mirrors of Torment to be more useful for Arcane, losing Shifting Power from Night Fae and reduced cooldowns on AP, RoP, Evocation, ToTM, PoM and Arcane Orb feels bad. Also covenant abilities will be gone next expansion so I would LOVE it if they fixed Arcane’s problems by fixing the spec instead of us being forced to use borrowed covenant powers as a bandaid.

4

In a future it could be cool to have a talent tier with 3 different ways to generate clearcasts. Maybe it could replace the current Arcane Orb tier and finally make orb a core spell.

Also I have to agree with Aerhaen, Supernova and Nether Tenpest need a rework and maybe could interact with clearcasts.

I’m surprised to read that Overpower is that far from the other options on the tier. I played with Time Anomaly a lot, and I saw minimal difference in DPS compared to Overpower. But the sound effect is painful, even my guild mates asked me to stop making that sound effect.

My top arcane needs right now are:
-Individual clearcasts alerts
-Purge protection for clearcasts
-3s more duration on clearcasts
-Hotfixes for Mirrors endless bugs
-A more subtle Time Anomaly sound effect

Changes I would like to see on a deeper rework:
-Supernova and Nether Tempest reworked.
-A non-covenant way to generate clearcasts.
-Instant Polymorph or Mass Polymorph just for arcane mages.
-A new spell effect for Temporal Shield.

1 Like
5

Time Anomaly is indeed very close in DPS but Overpowered is just much easier to control and is perfect with Arcane’s bursty playstyle allowing you to do more damage in short amount of time.

6

Increase CC duration by 10 seconds (so from 15 to 25). Will do wonders. And a CD for being able to move while casting, like shamans do.

7

We had Ice Floes to cast while moving back in Pandaria. Also at some point we had a PvP tier bonus that gave Arcane Power the same.

But imo, slipstream is the most polished version. It feels almost the right amount of movility. We just need a few more clearcasts procs or purge protection.

8

So there’s some things here i don’t understand why you want. First, the clearcast protection and the clearcast time and clearcast proc. Said nicely we don’t need it. In pve it’s bad for us and in pvp you don’t want to channel. Your only more likely to get interrupted.

Clearcasts are nice as a stopgap where you get like 2 seconds of “Mana regen” but honestly. We got Evocation to get our mana back and we’re all about the cycle mana. I mean, barrage gives you mana back in return and you don’t want to go below 70% mana unless your bursting in a raid. So it’s literally just 3 - 4 blasts + an orb - Arcane barrage and repeat untill you enter burst…

Clearcast changes are a useless thing to talk about if you want arcane to perform better. We should talk about the haste buff at 4 charges instead, the survivability of the spec and the mana cycle, how to optimize it. Clearcast could be interesting to talk about, maybe proc something else than a channel, but you don’t want to channel (Reeee!).

On the topic of clearcasts tho maybe combining Presence of mind and clearcasting? I don’t know how but maybe when presence of mind is on your clearcasts can be used as arcane blasts, meaning that Presence of mind would be a passive that does not give you 3 shots but instead over a 30 sec or 1 min period your clearcasts are funneled into your arcane blasts? You mentioned a change would this suit you? This would also remove the rule of three’s from our talent tree.

We need a baseline CC. As someone trying to push 19’s atm i get punished EXTREMELY hard for not having a CC that’s useful i have no utility for my team else than a interrupt every now and then that someone does not coordinate so i rarely get to interrupt. I could really use, some support talents for my team.

What the talents are i don’t know, i’ve long been flirting with the thought of maybe arcane mage could be the solemnly and only spec ig that can give “Spell damage Reduction” as a defendsive trait to tanks?

9

I just wanna say that without clearcasts on burst phase you have a lot less dmg when going with clearcast arcane missiles. Try it on target dummy. 3 clearcasts ToTM (just the ToTM) does 35k to primary target. whereas spamming arcane blasts deal around 20k.

You already have that. Barrrier decreases ammount of magic damage by 20%, + you have a strong deffensive CD in Mirror images with 20% DR for 45 sec if you dont het melee hit and with greater invis that gives 60% DR for 2 sec, both on 2 minute CD.

Quick note, I dont play PvP as arcane so i dont consider PvP situations.

1 Like
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I am fully aware of my defensives i’m pushing 18 / 19’s in M+ atm, i don’t raid so single target stuff is not my strong point. I woulden’t even dare to que with arcane for PVP

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Annigosa… “in PvP you don’t want to channel”, really? Just talk about your thoughts in mythics is that the only thing you play. Because your assumptions on the rest are kinda trol.

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If that’s the only thing that your finding i troll about then i’m delighted to inform you that there’s alot of reasoning behind why i say this. Arcane is the most vulnerable spec to interrupts when you look at the main rotation, given the spec don’t have a single dot that’s insta cast. So i want lessen the vulnerability to interrupts because all specs / classes have an interrupt. I can’t mention 1 spec ontop of my head when they have a clearcast they have to channel a spell for it to work else than disc priest penance.

13

Delete your spec,you cannot play it,anyways

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