Arcane Mage - Major rework?

Classes Mage
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Arcane mage feels boring - compared to Legion

READ TIME: 5 min

This is a long topic and probably contains inaccuracies, but I feel like this needs to be addressed. I play Arcane Mage since TBC, in my opinion; Legion was when this spec reached its pinnacle! BFA objectively removed a lot of what the previous expansion had built up.

I feel the current Arcane specialisation is in need of a major structural rework! Especially before 8.2 hits. Here are the reasons why:

1. Playing arcane feels random

  • Procs for "Arcane Missiles" were always random - but in BFA they removed stacking to three - making dumping them feel less special. The moment when you could fire 3 Missile salves in a row, directly into your opponents face was one of the greatest feelings.

  • The procs from Azerite gear feel random, not special and not fitting the "Arcane" class. I will not go into listing them here.

  • Arcane should not rely on random procs - that is the Frost/Fire Mages job. Arcane used to be a spec about control… full control over when to unleash the powers of the Mage, and for a few seconds reign down hell on everything.

2. Playing arcane feels stale

  • The same spells used by low level arcane mages are used at max. level - there is no progression in the rotation. Spells like "Mark of Aluneth" elevated the playstyle and difficulty at max. level in Legion and added life to this spec.

*https://www.wowhead.com/spell=210726/mark-of-aluneth

  • Mana management is no longer an issue - spamming one button: "Arcane Blast" at full charges, without cycling "Arcane Barrage" has become viable. The mana regeneration is simply too forgiving - not much thinking is involved anymore. The only time it was viable to SPAM at full 4 Charges was when using "Arcane Power" to reduce mana cost. It feels boring to spam one spell over and over!

3. Playing arcane feels slow

  • A slow casting "Arcane Blast" was always a problem, but having a 0 Charges "Arcane Blast" at nearly 3 seconds cast time is ridiculous. This used to be solved by the legendary items, specifically "Mark of Aluneth" and procing "Clear casting". The start of the rotation now feels like winding up a really tight spring: tedious and slow at first and after some time it all explodes uncontrollably.

In Legion, we had to adjust the rotation for every encounter, getting the burn phase lined up just right, knowing when to use AOE, when to conserve mana and when to dump everything. It was the most difficult but most rewarding spec in the game. Having to concentrate, strategize and think, felt like being the actual class. It felt like actually being an Arcane Mage!

I used to go into raids - not for my guild or gear, but because I liked playing my class so much. Even in the later phases of the expansion, when Arcane was no longer viable, I kept playing it, because it was an incredible spec. I used to spend hours in the Order Hall with other Mages, optimising each other’s rotations, analysing damage meters and developing scenarios for the different bosses.

Now the Arcane Mage feels stale, like a watered down version of what it used to be. I found myself quitting many times because I just got so bored by the rotation, slow casting and lack of control over what I do.

With 8.2 on the Horizon we need not only content updates but actual class updates to keep us motivated! Adding 120 talents and sourcing them from the legion artefact spells would solve so many problems for the play style.

In hope of rescuing the Arcane Mage,

Duenethil

15 Likes
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Just one thing I want to say before answering: Because of private reasons I haven’t done any BfA content above mythic dungeons (I used to raid heroic in Legion and I think my highest mythic+ dungeon was 19 or something) so I’m only talking about how the spec feels to me compared to Legion not its actual strenght. So take everything I write no with a grain of salt.

I agree. This was better design but also because AM contributed to your damage in a major way whereas now it feels it’s just here to save mana. If you had AM procs during AP you felt strong. Now you don’t even want to use AM procs during that time.

It is - or was- so for the entire mage class. We are proc based and that is good to a certain degree because it keeps classes from being too stale like we are now because AM is so weak.

Yes and no. I didn’t like MoA at the beginning of Legion because it added nothing. You just casted it and used rune after that every minute. After it gave you some mana it was okay but it is telling that the other two artifact abilities for mages were added as talent but not the arcane one.

I kinda like that. I had bad luck and got the mystic kilt of the runemaster at the very end of NH or beginning of ToS. It was taxing to focus that much on my mana and one single mistake could cost you all your dps. This is the reason why I wanted wod arcane back as it was mana neutral to cast 4xAB and Barrage. But then I got the kilt and it was like I was playing a whole new spec. I could actually control my mana. It was awesome! This was the legendary that should have been baked into the spec baseline!

You know, you could always use charged up… which is now on GCD. I think this is the bigger issue. At the beginning of the fight you use charged up, then you cast your rune, then you use AP and then you finaly cast AB. An awful lot of time you just don’t do any damage.

That leeds me to my next point: Arcane is dependent on its burst and standing still for the whole ~12 seconds or ~ 24 if we use the second rune right after.
Then we have to stand still again to channel Evocation. This can be bypassed by slipstream which makes it simply better than the other two talents.
But todays encounters have - at least it feels that way- a lot more movement which makes arcanes only strength more a liability.

The next thing is the AOE. Binding AE to charges can worked so much better. You just cant sustain AOE anymore in the same way you could with the kilt. I don’t know if this is supposed to be some kind of extra weakness the spec has to deal with but it feels bad. Also AEs damage is just to low for my taste. We already have the big disadvantage of going into melee space to do AOE damage and have to deal with boss abilitys that hit only ranges which can lead to disaster so at least the damage should pay off. The only advantage of our AOE is that our main weakness -movement- just outright disappears because we are only casting instants.

That’s everything I can think off in this moment. Maybe I’ll edit this if I think of something else.
And just to remind you this all feelcraft™. Also I’m not a native speeker so this can be plagued by about one million spelling mistakes :wink:

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I just wish they had taken some of the old Legion artifact traits and implemented them as talents. Maybe not MoA but something else that really changed the playstyle.

Right now it does not feel exciting to play Arcane, and it used to be so much better.

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Oh god i agree with you in every point of your post.
arcane is so weak, so bad right now. i am a hardcore aracne mage fan but i had to switch to frost just becasue arcane is overwhelmingly under performs compair to legion. it dosent teh fealing of teh progression of that class to be honest. What’s wrogn with the class developers honestly? they dont know teh lore behind arcane or what? basicly every magick in WoW is based on arcane. (except ofc the light and teh void related stuffs and teh elements and the nature based stuffs liek healing and so on.) even aluneth said Arcane power knited this world together. Sirirusly Blizz. Bring back the legion fealing of the arcane mages, and make it stronger. Like an actual progression fealing.

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Why rework, when you can literally just swap it back to how it was ?
Legion arcane was perfection, there was no need whatsoever to change anything.

WTS brains for our sweet devs.

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The whole class needs a rework not just arcane.

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Really? That’s not the experience I’ve had? And as for the spec feeling slow, that’s the game not the spec.

I agree about the 3 stacks of missles, it had great synergy with clearcasting cast while moving talent and, for me, was made arcane arcane.

Interesting the point about using the same spells at low level and no progression, I never thought about it. I think it illustates that the talents leading up to the last row are underpowered and uninteresting.

I’ve love to see a talent that makes missles fire at all enemies within x yards of your target at x% dmg. Arcane missles flying everywhere!

While the spec is working and still competitive it won’t get a rework till 9.0 now as blizzard have stated. So either wait it out or reroll till then :neutral_face:

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i will just say removing from scaling of arcane explosion and arcane missiles with arcane charges was really bull***** and leaving just arcane barrage and blast for scaling with charges really is crap also removing stacking of clear casting and also that explosion can use that charge is crap to … also when u are doing aoe there is no more any control u can just spam until u are out of mana and any way u can adjust is by changing stat in legion u had control over it and u was able to think how much charges u will go and how long u will burst and when u will burst and when u will just go to 4 stack and reset it , know there is nothing spec is completely destroyed im playing it just bcs of nostalgia so revert i back legion state bcs this current state is really bad also if u realy want that u can use clear casting for aoe u should not use it on explosion u should place aoe version of arcane missiles , i dont know what to say but the person who was making changes for bfa arcane mage was realy on hard drugs bcs normal person will never do that

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Fun fact, I watched some Xaryu’s and other mages’ PvP videos for arcane and they never CAST arcane blasts… they just use arcane missiles all the time even without procs! Because they deal instant damage and can be interrupted at any convenient moment but the casting time wasn’t wasted as in case of fakecasting with arcane blast or poly.
I actually tried arcane in pvp and it’s not fun at all. Ofc I could spellsteal and kite but my damage was non-existent when compared to fire or frost ;s

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Delete Arcane mage

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With arcane power and PoM you can do some very good burst and missles is a good way to keep up pressure. It’s just not as powerful as fire and hasn’t got the control of frost.

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that’s why it’s inferior and kinda useless. I mean, really, the damage is so bad it’s silly :S maybe my secondary stats weren’t very good for arcane but really it felt like I was doing nothing.

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When I dabbled with it it was good but I think it’s since they nerfed all azerite traits in pvp with most of arcane blasts power tied up in them. I set up with missle traits and overpowered and did good dmg, got loads of killing blows too because of missles. Arcane does have greater invis which is very strong and 2 spammable slows.

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but did you try it in arena or BG?

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Rather disappointed that none of the essences are affected by Arcane Power or Combustion.

I had hoped that we could get rank 3 crucible and then launch the 200% and 300% Concentrated Flames during an Overpowered AP for colossal burst. Or combo Combustion with The Unbound Force. Sadly, this is not the case, which is freakin’ boring.

Just started testing Lucid Dream as Arcane, it’s basically a second Evocation that acts without a channel. Both the minor and major power make mana management even more trivial than it already was when we moved from Legion to BFA :confused:

I am hoping that Vision of Perfection is a bit more fun to play around with for all 3 specs.

Arcane specifically, doesn’t even need a rework, simply reverting it back to Legion’s play-style would solve a good few problems without requiring huge changes. I wouldn’t say no to a rework though, perhaps with some more abilities and further interactions between mana and charges, and less of this crap where we have to choose between being AoE, being ST or a mediocre middle ground.

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First you need to tighten the damage. Since in this supplement to play for a long time. And they do nothing.

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