Fixing Belf racial for casters: it's underwhelming

Community General Discussion
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So, something I noticed with Arcane Torrent is how poor it is for spellcasting DPS.

It can restore energy for rogues, chi for monks, rage for warriors, focus for hunters, holy power for paladins.

However, for DPS spellcasters, it still restores 3% mana, which seems to be a hangover from when mana was a primary resource used by spellcasters.

Sure, it’s great for healers, but surely it would be possible to do something for casters like:

  • Warlocks: Gives a Soul Shard (or contributes a fair bit to a soul shard at the very least)

  • Mages: Give a Brain Freeze/Clearcast/Hot Streak proc

  • Shadow priest (if it doesn’t already): Generate some insanity.

Because simply, it feels incredibly underwhelming for those specs, and as much as I like being a Belf mage, I feel gimped by the racial being pretty weak for me, in comparison to things like the DPS increase of Blood Fury/Berserking, or utility of Shadowmeld/Haymaker/War Stomp.

Not to mention, the dispel component can be performed easily by shadow priests and mages, and to some extent by warlocks, so a lot of that utility is duplicated. And given the lore and thematic of blood elves being some of the most powerful magic using races, surely this should be reflected in their racial?

I mean, the whole theme of arcane torrent is it generates a spec resource, but given a lot of casters don’t use mana as a real resource, surely it makes sense to generate an actually useful spec resource for those specialisations?

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It’s an AoE purge, no need to make it any stronger. It’s already borderline OP for mythic+.

Sincerely, a fellow caster.

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An AoE purge for a class that gets a useful resource from it, and an AoE purge that doesn’t get a useful resource from it isn’t balanced. My issue isn’t with the AoE purge, it’s with the secondary resource generation seeming like an oversight, being extremely inconsistent between specs.

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If that’s your issue then I’d rather the resource generation got compltely removed. And AoE purge that is also a DPS gain sounds a bit much.

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Then without the resource generation, it’s poor for raiding and a lot of specs in PvP

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So are most other racials.

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That’s not an argument, you literally just acknowledged it’s a problem, and racials across the board need looking at, and Arcane Torrent should be part of that?

If people are hardlocking into a race it’s a problem

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All racial abilities should be purely cosmetic and have 0 meaningful gameplay impact tbh

3 Likes
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I mean, I’d take that too

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The benefits from racials are minor right now. What you’re asking for is to make them stronger. Your suggestion would make Arcane Torrent far too strong. The exact opposite of what your goal is.

Racials should have either niche uses, which they mostly do now, or not offer any power benefits. For example I’d rather not be an Orc, but for my class, 122 intellect on a 2 minute CD is a bit too good to pass on. That’s basically a free potion at about half the effectiveness and less than half the cooldown. Sure, it’s not a massive power gain, but to me it’s good enough to be an Orc.

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Would that really be OP? We already have it give relevant resources to melees, and it doesn’t make them hard-lock into blood elf right away. The option would just make blood elf… less useless for casters. A proc once every two minutes or some sanity won’t suddenly force everyone to be a blood elf.

Half of the casters out there already have a purge. Since this one would also require them to be in melee and situations that require specifically an AoE purge are incredibly niche, this racial really is not all that useful for a caster. Balancing the power of Arcane Torrent between melee and ranged DPS won’t suddenly make it OP.

I know that’s just a detail that is not all that relevant, but a fireblast or part of a fireblast charge would make more sense on fire mage. Fire blasts are what we get back every time an effect is meant to give resources back, so that would be more consistent with how it usually works.

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I’m asking for them to either:

Make them more consistent. If we are going to stick with the model of racials, their power should be more or less consistent between specs. Your example of Blood Fury is where my point lies: it’s consistently useful across any spec, as are things like Berserking.

Or remove them

I think first option is more likely given communication from Blizzard often favouring pushing “the fantasy”

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If it had the AoE purge and at the same time a power gain comparable to orc racial, which even 1 shard would be, I’d no longer have a reason not to be a Blood Elf. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be a Blood Elf, but not because of it’s racial. I just like Blood Elves.

Shaman, aff/destro warlock, and mage with spellsteal. That’s it, and they are all single target purges. Currently there’s more use for AoE purge in dungeons compared to single target purges. In Mists alone, you can belf the first pack, the heal from the tenders inside the maze, and then the shield from the staghorns in the last part of the dungeon. Single target purges are all useless for those. Then you have the little ghosts in DoS in Hakkar wing where belf is just very convenient. In Plaguefall it’s the several blob packs where belf is super useful, in Spires there’s several purgable buffs, in ToP there’s the bone shields, and I’m probably forgetting some.

The point it, you can’t have an AoE purge AND a power gain in one racial. If your point is that the power gain is negligible, which it arguably is, then there isn’t even a point in asking for it. I don’t even want to imagine what a nightmare it would be to balance. If it gave warlock a shard, then it would be incredibly strong in PvP and not just there, and what would mages get out of it? They’d have to tailor it to each spec individually and then keep it in mind for any further changes to specs. Just no.

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Most of casters are playing troll anyways. A reduced personal heroism is quite strong.

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It amazes me how much people care about racials. I just play whatever class/race I like.

But then I am from a RP server so maybe I shouldn’t talk :rofl: but even if I was a mythic raider I still would play whatever I like.

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Bruv belves have amazing racials compared to some races they don’t need anymore love than what they’ve had.

S tier racial for pve and god tier customisation they don’t need anymore for the moment

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Agreed on the shard and insanity boost.

For mages, getting any of those procs are a strong boost in DPS and would be a little bit OP, especially on Fire, but even Frost gains an instant Flurry and double shatter Ice Lance. Arcane could be given an Arcane Charge however.

I don’t know what to give to Frost and Fire since they run on procs and don’t really use a resource other than that.

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He acknowledged its different, not that its problem.

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