So I created an Arcane Mage

What I expected/hoped:

  • Permanent fast movement speed coupled with “slow fall” buff, giving the feeling of floating through time and space.
  • Constantly blasting enemies with Arcane Missiles while running.
  • Slicing and slowing enemies in melee with “Spectral Blades”.
  • Grouping enemies up with “Black Hole” spell.

What I got:

  • A static turret that runs out of mana.

I know WoW is a MMORPG and not an ARPG but come on… we could spice up some of the specs quite a bit.
You can argue DH is braindead to play, but it feels damn good to dps with in M+ and Torghast for example. That feeling is what we are after.

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Quite the wild imagination you have there unless you had never seen an arcane mage before (doubt). Anyway, I do agree with the point that arcane is too static and needs some rework.

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You bumped into WoW at a time when Class Design is in the abyss. Last time Arcane was fun was in Legion and before that you go back to atleast MoP or even Wrath times…

Arcane was at it’s best in legion, i have no idea what they had in mind when they downgraded it from good/great to trash.

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Try Kyrian. Mana management is far less punishing.

but isnt that really punishing to play?

It’s far less punishing.

You expected permanent speed; hahahahahahahah; that was genuinely funny. The main design of arcane is the following: “1. you will be great at single target damage 2. it will be harder to do it than other specs 3. prepare for pain if the encounter has a lot of movement or/and you don’t know perfectly the timings yet”.

The worst state of mage was when fire was best at single target; it destroyed arcane; why wouldn’t you play a spec that can be rotated by worse players if arcane is harder to rotate with worse results?

You probably mean the end of Legion because at the launch and before I quit the game at the time it was the absolute worst state of the mage I’ve ever known. Fire was best even at single target. It forced everyone to play fire even if they hated it (if they wanted to be even marginally optimal) because arcane is generally harder to rotate in complex counters so fire becomes the default (unless you really want something even easier so you go frost).

I am talking about general gameplay, performance has nothing to do with it.

Ofc, if the spec sucks in terms of performance you are not gonna use it, but it doesn’t take away from the actual gameplay of the spec.

Legion arcane had, st and aoe burn phase, missiles had a 35% flat chance to proc on blast, you would build up arcane charges with blast and at 4 you would use clear cast missiles and then barrage during conserve, and in burn you would simply cast blast and use missiles until you evocate and return to conserve.

So basically missiles, blast and explosions all scaled with charges, you would use missiles when you had full charges.

Now arcane consists of almost exclusive spam of blast with the occasional missile clearcast of missiles, there is no aoe burn phase, you just use explosion and at 4 charges you use barrage.

What a disappointment. It;s just a downgraded version of legion, but that can be said for a lot of specs.

Try kyrian. It’s probably the most interesting version of arcane since I remember it in Firelands.
It’s so different now that I wouldn’t be surprised if parts of it go on to the next expansions.

I don’t get it, radiant spark is not interesting.

It’s also the legendary, it needs to build 18 stacks from arcane missiles. It can be a bit awkward when you have 0 stacks but the spec gets the most different character I’ve seen it have since forever.

You mean arcane harmony? Gotta be honest, it really does not seem that interesting, it’s just a stacking buff, what exactly makes it so interesting?

The burn phase becomes even more potent. Building stacks is an extra concern. It can be both awkward (because the stacks may be low for some time) but also interesting at the same time (because arcane never had that way to make its burst even more potent).

The problem is that building stacks is just a secondary thing to using something you should already use in the first place.

Legion arcane instead had more depth because it provided more things to use.

No it’s primary. You literally have to use naked arcane missiles (even if there’s no clearcasting). It’s part of why I said it’s awkward (but interesting).

That seems like a mistake, you sure about that?

it’s exactly correct, and you even occasionally cancel missiles mid cast with another missiles cast to build stacks faster and spend mana

Yeah. That awkwardness is the only reason I don’t think it will find itself in the talent tree as-is in the next expansions. But: it’s interesting enough that I won’t be surprised if it influences the future designs (or at least the radiant spark part).

Kyrian harmony is pretty fun and rewarding to play, and it has none of the annoying mana management mini games to deal with.

You just play around syncing up cds with 18 stacks every 45 seconds and blast away!