Is arcane undertuned?

Classes Mage
1

I did a +14 earlier today, mists and i felt like i did really good, better than usual but on my team, was a UH DK and a MM hunter…

But… After doing like 5 or 6 pulls i felt, hopelessly outclassed… on single target and AoE damage… They could pull like 12k + dps throughout mosts of the fights whilst i occasionally could do a max of 12k dps… (overall for a fight)

note, i use Arcane Harmony.

When i do an opener with arcane mage i have 2 rotations that i thought was Really strong.

At full charges
Arcane Barrage, Touch of the Magi, Barrage, orb, Barrage, explosions till i can barrage again… Stragglers gets Arcane missiled to death, to recharge harmony.

With no Charges.
Touch of the Magi, Barrage, orb, Barrage, explosions till i can barrage again…

I useually thought, that Arcane mage was really strong at AoE damage but this week my world got flipped upside down and i realized that we’re actually not capable to doing these big +20k dps on AoE fights.

I mean we have the highest raw damage on our explosions, we can power up with rune every now and then but… It’s not enough?? We’re too inconsistent to actually keep up at higher keys…

I mean, dont forget your mirror images on start pull of trash packs or your definitely not doing any kind of dps lol. (Ez ded.)

Is this an Arcane Problem… Or a player problem?

If it is a Player problem, what should i consider thinking about when going into a pull? Note - I know about barrage legenday but for me it’s not doing any wonders, Up front dps on high health targets seems to have a bigger impact for me.

2

12k dps is a lot for overall in a 14 :open_mouth:

3

Arcane isn’t amazing, but it’s still playable. I can’t really give you any arcane tips, but generally in the pug world people are doing 2k less overall dps than what they could be doing. You’re probably not an exception, and if you are, so would the people you played with be (unlikely).

So while arcane isn’t amazing (fire is definitely better), there are most likely aspects of your gameplay you could improve, and usually tremendously as well. Hope that gives you a little motivation.

4

Having switched back and forth between fire and arcane quite a lot of times this expansion, I find myself returned to arcane once again without noticing much of a performance loss compared to fire, if any.
I’ve got no problem keeping up with my teammates in overall-dmg and find myself topping the meters especially in 5+ target situations.

To be fair, I’m not a high-end player but my group is well enough organized to not depend on the dragon’s breath and the chrono shift is well enough kiting support when ring isn’t required for the dungeon.

I’m using somewhat of a different setup for m+ however, both in gear as well as conduits.
I can’t really talk about the Arcane Harmony, as I’ve never played it (didn’t even craft it), but it’s always seemed a little rough in the m+ scenario for me, as imho the arcane mage’s biggest strength is his short notice burst, not requiring much of a ‘warm up’, or in this case set up, to get going.
Playing with the Barrage leggo gives you a good burst, once you’re in execute range, especially on fortified weeks where the aoe stays alive a lot longer after 35%. But even on tyrannical it’s worth the aoe you can pull off even without cds.

I’ve also been playing Korayn for a couple weeks now, and the above-70%-trait has some beautiful synergy with the Barrage-Lego. It is absolutely worth sacrificing the free death you get from Dreamweaver. Niya is… fine, I guess, I just never found it quite as fun as Wild Hunt and First strike to pull big numbers.

For AOE I open as follows:
ToM -> AP -> Barrage -> Orb -> Barrage -> Shifting Powers -> Orb -> Barrage
after spamming AE 4 times you’ll have to decide whether or not to drop your next Barrage depending on whether you can spam 4 more times before the first target hits 35%. It takes some practice, but eventually you can easily gauge the enemies’ hp and the amount of dps your group does.
ToM and Rune give a nice mini-burst as well - especially if you’re playing with 2 activate trinkets.

Single target is a bit lackluster - to delay the burst for the clearcasting stacks doesn’t feel well rounded - but arcane can do a lot with the Pride buff and its unlimited mana.

Overall, until the pulls get bigger and arcane is only somewhat limited in aoe compared to fire, it should really be a viable option until you’re pushing for high end.

Also… I don’t get your comment about mirror images - arcane has the best barrier for m+ scenarios and in conjunction with Invis and Images, I feel nearly immortal compared to fire, where my biggest survivability is having to die.

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5

Thinking of going back to niya for the shifting power haste buff?

Also Asuna has an Arcane dungeon walkthrough up on his youtube channel. His walkthroughs are full of amazing tips.

6

Recommend to use arcane bombardment for m+, even for tyrannical.

1 Like
7

You should also check Brofessor hemlock.

He gives very thorough tips and guides for arcane m+.

I’m trying his build lately works really well for me.
But yeah arcane bombardment leggo is insane.

8

haste buff is dreamweaver, niya gives mastery

yes unless you do ToP+20 on tyrannical always go with bombardment

hes a nice dude but take his videos with a grain of salt, hes saying some stuff thats not supported by facts. theres nothing wrong with feelcrafting your way through the game and taking inspiration/ getting some advice to get started is great but dont blindly follow everything

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9

He does a really critical mistake at 18:00 Touch of the magi + Presence of mind is a really poor combo even when you have no haste, because at full charge with arcane charges your faster than what you can cast outside of presence of mind :stuck_out_tongue:

My only tip of the day :smiley:

10

Actually i think you should switch a legendary but yeah you played with 1 meta class which is UH and mm is also really good for AoE

11

Also if you play only arcane you should try necro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4AaTCLidn4 Since the Deathborne ability is insane for AoE

12

True I improved a lot by looking at my mistakes and comparing what i usually do to other arcane players.

13

So i tried the build that Peachjam showed us and i immediately improved by 2k dps overall sitting at a fairly stable 7.2k dps per dungeon run now. I highly reccommend the build shown in the video linked above. Combine this with Emphyral ordinance for a “DoT” you can use whilst relocating to keep “Uptime” + not doing the error at 18:00 don’t use Presence of Mind ontop of Touch of Magi. Your presence of mind is meant for when you relocate not a dps boost, because it will give you none of that…

14

if you are talking m+ see if you can get your hands on some other trinkets, EO is not amplifying arcanes m+ strengths and shouldnt be used in dungeons

good alternatives for mythics:
changeling
both pvp trinkets
cabalist
flame of battle
possibly satchel/ ooze but i havent played with those so im not sure (i think one of them scales poorly)

best combination is changeling/pvp proc/cabalist and pvp on use (even ilvl 200 versions will work great)

15

Meh changling sucks, truths is most trinkets are really bad this patch. Simmed my vault a few weeks back and a 26ilvl upgrade on a changling wasn’t as good as a 10ilvl upgrade on a ring or something like that.

16

Can you explain a bit more regarding Totm and PoM? I believe the thought behind it is to pump x3 instant AB’s with First strike (5 seconds increase 25% crit) + Totm dmg later. Then you can refresh First strike hitting with Arcane Barrage (rest of the pack) and go on orb barrage for more Barrage crits in the second 5sec 25% crit window. (like if you crit all 3 AB’s thats like 30k dmg in 3secs + the totm dmg after that)

In general I’m not a good player. But I try. And If i can pull +16’s with Arcane mage. I think anyone can.
And tbh I really think a lot of builds are viable for arcane. (in relation to covenants, conduits,leggos etc). If Blizzard could tweak a bit the mana (overall pool) or ABlast mana. And mabye slipstrim base? or some other small change. It could really really shine.

This is a +16 SD i tried with the new build. Lots of mistakes (some fat fingers, some Arcane explosions hitting air :D, bad mana management (keeping it more than 70%) tied together with some failed blinks and bad cd management). I was a bit drunk in my defence ;p
But i managed to pull decent dps and didnt die once.
Some dungeons later I improved a lot with the new build.

Regarding trinkets EO is not great for m+ but you can make it work if you dont have the pvp trinket. (I’ll try and get one of them and test it out)
Soulletting Ruby is fing awesome! And you can make some really great plays in m+. Together with 1st strike you can go in the fight with 50-70% crit(15secs-5secs). Or finish the fight it with 40-50% crit on execute damage. It’s really versitile.

Anyway Arcane is really fun and intersting even as it is.
Maybe not very viable for super high end content like m+20-25s or Mythic raiding and high pvp.

Seeing arcane barrage hitting 25-30k is satisfying a* :smiley:

17

Very true. That’s the reason I was so incredibly happy to get the Living Flame from timewalk Razorscale. Having a 2min on-use trinket that gives you 242 int and has a socket slot is amazing.

That is correct. However even with my 7% haste I can still do that entire rotation into Totm with no instant ABs. Just cast them normally and you will actually do the same damage and still have PoM ready for movement or so.

1 Like
18

Seems to be true yeah. I’m also sitting on 7%haste. Guess we keep PoM paired with AP to squeez some more blasts.

19

Regarding the Emphyral Ordinance, no it’s not good for M+ that’s very true but having a dot for when you move is actually really nice, it’s just “Something” to keep uptime on your dps because when doing m+18’s that i’m doing right now. (Note ive only timed one so far) You always want to be active. that’s also why i said at 4 charges you cast faster than when you use Presence of mind.

Use Presence of mind when you move or stack 3 clearcasts. It’s so wonderful. i have 10% haste right now and with my start pull i can do, Touch of the Magi, Barrage, orb, barrage. That’s how much i can do and personally it’s fine maybe one or 2 Arcane explosions if i’m lucky.

Ordinance is really great if you delay your bust untill it have expired, on bosses given the intellect buff. Sometimes i go into a boss fight with No CD’s up so the ordinance is really good to have some passive dps whilst i recharge and prepare my burst.

Now, some of you would be a bit shocked when i say i go into boss fights without cd’s but lets be honest here, it’s not boss damage that matters this week, it’s the trash packs you have to overcome, bosses are a joke :smiley:

20

Emphyral Ordinance I found useful as an opener, by the time you get int buff, youre in a burn phase most likely. Also with another use trinket such as IQD you can have youre entire burn phase with a + trinket buff.