Hi. I’d like to point out 6 especially problematic talents still remaining in the Arcane Spec tree specifically and some long standing issues:
Talents:
- Rule of Threes - in current (and previous) iterration this talent is a DPS loss in every situation because it prevents you from spending mana to generate Clearcasting (which then would be no cost and more damage by itself). It will never by picked in good conscience especially since half of the tree is built around Clearcasting.
Potential Solution: When you gain your third Arcane Charge, the cost of your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Missiles is (reduced by 100%.) refunded 1 second after use.
-
Impetus - Insanely low proc chance, Arcane Blast is generally never used at below 3 Arcane Charges because its damage and cast time is not efficient so you generally use Arcane Orb (2 Charges) and Arcane Explosion or Presence of Mind or straight up waiting for Touch of the Magi. This talent is only ever picked because its the only way to get to Amplification, it’s simply a feel bad must-take. Please reconsider this node entirely
-
Mana Adept - Mana restore on Arcane Barrage is an essential part of your rotation (no mana regen from tier set ToTM and if Mana Gem/Evocation/Arcane Surge tuning are to make your mana easy to maintain then it loses its purpose anyway and should be removed for different reason) and is pretty much a no choice, please move this talent into the first rows (8 points) of the tree or make it baseline for Arcane Barrage and free up a slot for some real choice talent. Most of the specs have their essential spells/passives in their starter.
-
Nether Tempest - Especially with Arcane Bombardment existing as something that you can easily aquire, Nether Tempest loses even more value compared to Reverberate. The current number (19.24% Spellpower) it hits for just slightly more over its whole duration than a single Arcane Explosion (which generates an Arcane Charge, has uncapped target aoe, support Radiant Spark and consumes more mana for more Clearcasting generation, which technically makes it that Tempest is a GCD loss to press even if it was picked for single target). This talent is insanely inferior to Reverberate and it’s not even a case of a “simpler to use new player friendly” spell which you could find is some other classes (ie single minded fury, grimoire of sacrifice). It will keep being a dead talent again if you keep it as is.
-
Improved Prismatic Barrier- This node is not worth the point. I’m saying with 100% confidence that “dropping” two points to go into Nether Precision and Slipstream to get Supernova actually feels better than having to pick this node. Please if you are not planning to revert the prismatic barrier nerf (already comparatively nerfed to other mage specs by them having access to Greater Invis and Master of Time), at least move it into position under Arcane Missiles node, so its actually a potential consideration if you need defense and it’s not actively blocking you from taking something that you might need by picking something that you might not need.
-
Orb Barrage - Extremely problematic node
#1 - Doesn’t make any logical sense in that talent line, Prodigious Savant has no thematic or other connection to Orb Barrage, its actually opposite if you look at it in most situations.
#2 - It’s a proc of a linearly travelling aoe damage spell procced by one of your main abilities. As a missile/clearcasting setup you would have to pretty much not use missiles at all at some point of your damage/burst window if you dont want to shoot out an Arcane Orb and pull something . Especially if you are running Slipstream and cannot interrupt Missiles by movement but have to either have a stopcasting macro or use Arcane Barrage (potentially screwing up your setup) or Arcane Blast (same thing).
Potential Solution: This node could be replaced by something that makes thematic sense with the nodes above and have Mantle of the First Kirin Tor placed somewhere in the capstone row as it’s essentially the same effect just connected to your spender which is way easier to control.
As a side note i’d like to mention that the Arcane tree is heavily pushing you to play Kyrian Arcane playstyle and even though the nodes are good, there is EXTREMELY little choice because all capstones work together to support that style instead of creating different playstyle choices. Especially since arcane burst because of Touch of the Magi is innately tied to their AOE every talent currently contributes to their aoe, which means that there is no choice in the pathing itself besides Supernova / Reverberate and you just pick everything that contributes to your damage output. Realistically there are only 2 real choices in the whole tree which are not personal preference (Foresight vs Slipstream)
- Take Mana Gem and its line or take Evocation and its line (Pure Tuning Choice doing the same thing so is it really a choice?)
- Take Supernova or take Reverberate (AOE stop or more frequent 5 target capped damage with Arcane Barrage -which you might not even want to dump beforehand and the extra Arcane Charges can go to waste)
General/Playstyle Problems:
-
Touch of the Magi - This spell is the core of Arcane Mage, it’s what makes it a funnel spec. However, especially in Mythic +, you often find yourself in a situation where you are trying to funnel single target/cleave damage into it to do AOE damage within your burst window, however if you have too much damage or your team has alot of damage, the target dies before it explodes and half of your damage is LOST completely. This issue is only fixed by running higher keys or actively playing against your design and swapping target to one that does not have Touch and might die to the touch AoE anyway. A great QoL change would be to make it explode its current accumulated damage on death of the target.
-
Radiant Spark - without Effusive Anima Accelerator (Mikanikos) Cooldown Reduction on AOE you always hold its use (30s CD) till you have Touch of the Magi available (45s CD). It’s 15 seconds of forced CD holding or a huge bait. These are the things that make Arcane so unappealing to pick up, having to hold back on using things otherwise you fall behind immensely because a single misplay puts you behind in CD usage or raw damage for more than 1.5 minutes because of how concentrated and high the damage spikes of the spec are. Either adding EAA as a choice node next to Harmonic Echo or making Radiant Spark CD line up with Touch of the Magi would smoothen out some of these problems. You are already playing with 2 resources, multiple CD allignments and buff/debuff stacks and a generally immobile in most of your damage gameplay.
-
Greater Invisibility and Master of Time - with their addition to the general class tree Arcane only lost comparative defensive capabilities (double Ice Block, Cauterize) AND Prismatic Barrier got nerfed. With its already incredibly niche damage profile and output, I feel there is even less non-tuning reasons to bring an Arcane Mage to any content.
-
Incantation of Swiftness - Why is it weaker for Arcane? Its a choice to spend one point to get utility out of a defensive cooldown (rarely worth) and if you are opting into Chrono Shift you wouldn’t take it anyway. Why make it even less worth considering?
Generally the Arcane tree was perceived more positively compared to Fire and Frost previously because it didnt have as many bad individual nodes and Arcane Orb fixed alot of it, however i feel like this perception took away from considering the goal of creating Choice within the trees and helping the specs smoothening out their flaws. With the talent trees announced, I thought Arcane might finally peek out of their extreme niche for a little bit. I think arcane, in opposition, is steered even deeper into their niche and cornered into no choice even though (most of ) their individual points are good. I understand that some of the points might sound biased but please try to consider the problems im trying to bring into the light even if the wording or numbers are not 100% objective in current tuning.
I’m attaching a TalentTreeManager build to visualize: [https://pastebin.com/m3A98niy]
(TalentTreeManager is a UI for building custom DF trees using assets available or modifying some, download through CODE Zip: https://github.com/TobiasM95/WoW-Talent-Tree-Manager
This tool is safe and has been used by Liquid Maximum live on stream multiple times)