Proposed changes to make Arcane better

Classes Mage
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Hey, I’ve seen a lot of discussion about how Blizzard can improve Arcane and since I love the spec, I decided to think about some changes I would love to see myself. I did it mostly for fun but thought I would share it here and see what other mage players think. Here are the changes I was thinking about:

BASE

  • Arcane Orb is now baseline

Arcane Orb is very fun to use ability and it just sucks to not have it, it makes Arcane’s gameplay feel better, gives us another button to press and another way to gain Arcane Charges quickly

  • Supernova is nowe baseline

Just like Arcane Orb, Supernova is another pretty fun to use ability but currently it’s just too weak to be used and what’s worse, it competes for a talent slot with Arcane Orb. Making it baseline gives Arcane another button to press in some situations, making the overall gameplay less Arcane Blast centered. We also finally have some CC to compete with Fire’s Dragon’s Breath on M+ and PVP scenarios

  • Presence of Mind now causes your next 2 (down from 3) Arcane Blasts to be instant and works on a charge system. You can have up to 3 charges of Presence of Mind and each has 45 sec recharge CD.

This should help us a bit whenever we need to move without losing so much dps. If Presence of Mind had charges we could still use it at the end of Touch of the Magi/Arcane Power like we do now and then still be able to use another charge if we needed to move a bit later. It also adds another button we would cast pretty often making our gameplay less stale and Arcane Blast centered

  • Clearcasting procs around 10% more often (for example if Clearcasting had like 20% proc rate it doesn’t go up to 30% but to 22% which is 10% more than it does now)

The goal of this change is to make Clearcasting proc a bit less RNG than it is right now. Arcane can’t force it’s proc like Fire can with Fire Blast or even Frost with some of it’s spells.

  • Displacement is back for Arcane

Displacement was kinda iconic to Arcane and made it’s gameplay feel more dynamic. It gave us much needed mobility to avoid mechanics and we really needed it since our spec is much less mobile compared to Frost of Fire

  • In addition to 30% mana cost reduction, Arcane Power also reduces the mana needed to proc Clearcasting by the same amount (Overpowered talent reduces it by 50%)

This should make the spec synergize a bit better with itself. Having our DPS cooldown make Clearcasting proc less often simply feels bad.

TALENTS
Level 15
Rule of Threes
When you gain your third Arcane Charge, the cost of your next Arcane Blast or Arcane Missiles is reduced by 100% => Arcane Blast or Arcane Missiles cast for free still can still proc Clearcasting like they would normally do

Since Clearcasting proc is based on mana spent instead of fixed value, any talents reducing our mana cost synergize less with the rest of our skillset

Level 25
Master of Time
Reduces the cooldown of Alter Time by 30 sec.
Alter Time resets the cooldown of Blink when you return to your original location. => Alter Time causes your next Blink to not consume it’s charge and be usable while Blink is on cooldown when you return to your original location

This change should make Master of Time talent a bit less clunky to use since right now if we had Blink on like 5 sec CD left, Alter Time would reset it’s cooldown, reducing it by only 5 sec. To make full use of this talent right now, we would have to be sure to use Alter Time right after blinking to get the most value out of it’s CD reduction. This change makes Blink’s CD unaffected by Alter Time and instead give us a free use of it

Slipstream
Clearcasting allows Arcane Missiles to be channeled while moving.
Evocation can be channeled while moving. => Clearcasting proc now lasts 10 seconds longer

This change makes Slipstream a bit better to use since we can hold our Clearcasting procs slightly longer and save it for movement when we need it

Level 30
No changes for now

Level 35
Nether Tempest can now be placed on up to 2 targets (up from 1)

Level 40
No changes for now

Level 45
Reverberate => Explosive Echo
If Arcane Explosion hits at least 3 targets, it has a 50% chance to generate an extra Arcane Charge. => You recast Arcane Explosion, for 20% of its damage, at the location of your last Explosion, when you cast the spell again within six seconds

Some people may disagree but I think that Reverberate is dull and boring talent. It’s also RNG and I think that Touch of the Magi and Arcane Orb both do far better job at generating us Arcane Charges. What I replaced it with is another way of buffing our Arcane Explosion, but this one is not RNG and we have control over it. It’s based on Arcane’s artifact trait from Legion.

Arcane Orb (now baseline) => Torrential Barrage
When Arcane Barrage hits more than two targets, it explodes and damages all enemies within 10 yards of the primary target

Another trait from Arcane’s artifact, Aluneth and also another AOE option for us but this one doesn’t require us to stand in melee range for Arcane Explosion, it will make a good combo if we play the Resonance talent

Supernova (now baseline) => Arcane Pummeling
Each wave of a Clearcast Arcane Missiles deals 5% more damage than the previous

BFA azerite trait is back to give us an option for more single target damage in this talent tier

Level 50
Time Anomaly
Arcane Power gained from this talent once again spawns Rune of Power on the ground (but only for half the duration of Arcane Power buff, so 4 seconds) if you have Rune of Power talent selected.

I REALLY loved that Time Anomaly could spawn Rune of Power in Beta whenever Arcane Power proced. I would love to see it back but understand that it could be pretty OP if we had Rune of Power with nearly 100% uptime so I reduced it’s duration to compensate. It also makes this talent more unique and creates fun synergy between it and Rune of Power talent

Enlightened
Arcane damage dealt while above 70% mana is increased by 8%, Mana Regen while below 70% is increased by 20% => Now also grants 6% increased movement speed while above 70% mana, increased to 12% while below 70%

A small buff to make the talent a bit more attractive over Overpowered (lol) in some situations

1 Like
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I am fairly convinced Blizzard do not read these forums, been 3 months now and arcane is mostly untouched while almost all classes have received buffs in one way or another.

About your ideas: They seem very well thought-out, however:
Level 15
Rule of Threes
Third arcane charge gives a free AB + one clearcasting proc.

Level 25
Slipstream should be baseline in the sense that it lets you move around when CC is up. The talent could give the arcane pressure effect from BFA.

Level 35:
I don’t think this dot style fits in mythic’s for arcane to be honest. Maybe: Every 10 seconds it spreads to a new target, or once its duration is over. This must be used with care though as to not to break CC. But since the only mythic+ legendaries are centered around Arcane Barrage, i dont think this is gonna worth it.

Level 45 : This can lead to some un-needed ninja pulls. I think a clear-cast AE should just simply do more damage or refund it’s base mana cost

But at this point even a 10% mastery buff and a 7% AB would be too much to even hope for.

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That’s propably true. I wrote out these changes mostly for fun anyway.

I think making it guarantee Clearcasting proc would just make it the go to talent most of the time so instead I just thought about making it so our spells and talents which reduce our mana costs (Rule of Threes, Arcane Power, Overpowered etc) should simply NOT affect our chances of generating Clearcasting. I always thought it was weird how our DPS cooldown (Arcane Power) is working against our spec in a way that it makes us generate less Clearcasting procs cause of reduced mana costs (same with BiS Equipoise azerite in BFA which reduced our AB mana cost)

I’m not sure if Slipstream baseline wouldn’t make Arcane too strong. I’m not expert at the game, it would definitely be nice if it was baseline (or just make Shimmer baseline so finally all Mage specs can have an actual talent choice at this tier)

I didn’t mean to push Arcane towards dot based playstyle, this change was simply to make Nether Tempest a bit more attractive choice since right now it’s extremaly underpowered.
The other change to the talent I was thinking about was making it tick faster to make it more fitting into Arcane’s bursty playstyle. For example:
Nether Tempest deals it’s damage every 0.25 sec instead of every 1 sec. Total duration reduced to 3 sec from 12 sec. Total damage unchanged.

I don’t remember any ninja pulls happening to me in Legion with it but it could be solved by making recast Arcane Explosion only damage enemies you’re already in combat with.

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I main arcane and I love some of the changes here

5

I’d make Arcane missiles cast duration 50% less longer, but same amount of missile output. It would make raiding and M+ easier to keep up the output of dmg.

7

Clearcasting procs are way too low i have to burn 50% of my mana spamming arcane blasts to get one proc mostly and the orther 50% to get another 2/3 procs. If you’re night fae like i am its nice to have shifting power to reduce to cooldown on evocation (and orther spells) but that still is 10 sec of not doing damage every time you are oom and use these 2 spells.

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Thats a definite no, have you seen arcane in fights such as Sire Denatrhius? All that movement makes you useless.

Also please make yourself heard here:

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