Arcane vs Fire

[Smooch]

How much worse is arcane than fire currently? Arcane seems more fun than fire to me, I know, I'm weird. I know I'll probably be made fun of for the "feelycraft" but I wanna know how gimped I would be. Is it within reason to choose arcane over fire or is fire that much better?

[Deleted]

There's currently no reason to go Arcane over Fire. Arcane is more punishing and can only really match DPS over the course of a long fight with amazing procs and burst windows inside high quickening + RoP.

It's usually at this point i'd say "play what you like, you'll do better". But arcane is just bad and its BiS legendaries are almost mandatory.

[Totalzulp]

Basically what Ubberleet said, It's a shame and even though the buff was nice to our mastery etc, the loss of quickening basically made it so we can't keep up with fire in general unless we get some nice procs.

Fire has the advantage of being a lot more mobile and brings passive cleave to a lot of fights which is very helpful, arcane demands focus for you mana pool and in what use to be a high risk / reward playstyle before quickening was changed has now turned into a high risk / small reward and you'll feel like a slug once those stacks drop. Feel kinda anti climactic too, the way things shape up you get 40/45 stacks when you get your CD's back the first time and then you have you quickening drop mid burn which sucks.

However saying that, arcane isn't too bad just outclassed by fire currently.

[Deleted]

arcane demands focus for you mana pool and in what use to be a high risk / reward playstyle before quickening was changed has now turned into a high risk / small

This is probably the biggest hurdle for me. If you just focus on dps in raids it's fine. But if i pick arcane i'd use it more for it's slow and greater invis and exploiting that utility but that will all the more likely distract me from the mana management when it's not my mainspec.

But it's not enough reason to change the spec for it. I wasn't fan of the old RoP but if the crowd that liked the old one and now love Arcane. I'm not going to advocate a change for it. We have 3 dps specs their is room for a spec to cather to a different crowd and hopefully when i dabble more with arcane ill enjoy it as well. But this aspect probably makes it a harder spec to use in mythic+ despite it's dps strenghts.

The NT spam and quickening seems silly though.

[Deleted]

The NT spam and quickening seems silly though.

You're right, it was silly, it was actually downright ridiculous. But it allowed us to have a risk/reward rotation and gave us a reasonable DPS ceiling, allowing us to actually do "good" DPS. It's a shame Fire is such a dull spec, otherwise i'd switch in a heartbeat.

[Deleted]

yeah i understand what you mean. And now that the reward isn't big enough it probably feels annoying right?
To me the risk seemed too extreme where it could result in really weird balancing.

I could imagine quickening being innitially balanced on it often resetting and that was it's design intend, but the best arcane mages would do insane damage because their able to keep it up so long. As a result arcane mages dmg skyrockets in charts and blizzard is forced to balance around that making the difference in skill too extreme.

Sofar i'm enjoying fire, but on accasion i get weird mini lagspikes or fireball didnt crit despite having used combustion just before it finished cast which really disctracts my play. Servers still seem a bit unstable on ocasion but it's also part of the spell system timing and how it que's stuff up.

[Deleted]

The problem is the expansion design that locks us into 1 spec more or less (more). The arcane spec was designed as a niche spec that you would pick on certain bosses when it was slightly better (mainly for single target or priority targets) for expansions we could easily switch specs per boss and for the times they nerfed a lot the other specs (which they do not and can not do now). I haven't had a dev tell me this but it was obvious. You picked arcane when it was slightly better on certain bosses or rarely when all other specs were shit but switching didn't matter as it matters now. Now we are locked to 1 spec. You pick what you think it's more viable than others and stick with it. Judging by the ease of use, keypresses per second, penalties on movement etc, fire is still the best (and it was overwhelmingly the best to the point of being funny before the recent frost/arcane buffs, now it's only better).

I'm not convinced yet the devs didn't fuck up with the AP and legendary gating. They could have class-wide AP (even if the accumulation would be nerfed) or legendaries with multiple spec effects like raid tier items. But I guess somehow they think it's more profitable/successful/good to have people locked/fixated to a single spec.

It might not be clear to all but if people get legendaries that are spec specific, it makes it pretty clear multi-speccing in this game is kill and the only logical action is to pick the spec that looks best in most situations and both frost and arcane seem lacking now and it's unlikely they will be able to change it until 8.0.

[Jerot]

If you are pushing mythic raid content, sure fire might be ahead for most situations. (Still loses in AoE by a mile) But short of that arcane is fine, and its definitely not as far behind as frost is. For normal/heroic raids, mythic 5 mans, even most mythic+. you're fine playing whatever spec you have the most fun with. I personally prefer the survivability of arcane (980k barrier vs 280k, and instant aggro drop) which is highly underrated. Less pressure on the healers can be just as important as DPS in some situations. Just be prepared to drink a lot between pulls and resummon Arcane Familiar regularly (WHY IS THIS NOT PASSIVE? WHERE DOES IT GO?)

[Deleted]

@ Curnivore, what your saying I agree with, but for a slight difference / added perspective:

The first 17 points arn't hard to get. So with locks who have a more defined strenghts weaknesses in their spec its valuable to switch right now.
I'm still curious what will be stronger way for pure dps classes.

I'd be fine if in the first raid tier you can't max out the artifact talents of 2 specs. The issue is that the artifacts also have a talent that increases the flat dmg by a %. This makes maybe extend lvling up your artifact to the 3th raidtier i'd bet. Especially the first 5% is so critical.

note we mostly talk about is fire and Arcane. But right now frost is the spec suffering the most, so don't ignore frost over arcane blizzard!!

[Deleted]

note we mostly talk about is fire and Arcane. But right now frost is the spec suffering the most, so don't ignore frost over arcane blizzard!!

That's true. The only issue I see is that Frost is relatively well built as a spec, it may just need a little tuning here and there and it'll be viable (if not just viable then potentially good). Whereas Arcane suffers from many baseline and mechanical problems such as mana regen and casting speed. The reason I bring up mana regen here is that the only way to "feel" viable it to literally burn through all of your mana to even have semi-viable DPS. Either Blizzard ups AB damage/scaling or changes how mana regen works.

I think one of the biggest issues is that there are problems with our class all over the place, yet it's a tough one to fix. I generally believe Arcane needs a comprehensive rework to meet the fantasy of "Manipulate the arcane, destroying enemies with overwhelming power" as currently it feels clunky and slow (i.e. doing a 2.2s cast for 250k~ which drains 9.5% of your mana is not that fun.). But in the meantime i'll take some scaling buffs.

[Nynax]

That's true. The only issue I see is that Frost is relatively well built as a spec, it may just need a little tuning here and there and it'll be viable (if not just viable then potentially good). Whereas Arcane suffers from many baseline and mechanical problems such as mana regen and casting speed. The reason I bring up mana regen here is that the only way to "feel" viable it to literally burn through all of your mana to even have semi-viable DPS. Either Blizzard ups AB damage/scaling or changes how mana regen works.

I think one of the biggest issues is that there are problems with our class all over the place, yet it's a tough one to fix. I generally believe Arcane needs a comprehensive rework to meet the fantasy of "Manipulate the arcane, destroying enemies with overwhelming power" as currently it feels clunky and slow (i.e. doing a 2.2s cast for 250k~ which drains 9.5% of your mana is not that fun.). But in the meantime i'll take some scaling buffs.

I feel like, in an ideal world, Frost is like 2% better than fire/arcane ST (because their aoe is so mechanically bad atm) and fire/arcane are equal but arcane has more aoe burst and fire has more ST burst. At least that's how i feel they should play.

[Deleted]

I feel like, in an ideal world, Frost is like 2% better than fire/arcane ST (because their aoe is so mechanically bad atm) and fire/arcane are equal but arcane has more aoe burst and fire has more ST burst. At least that's how i feel they should play.

I wouldn't say so. I'd say it's blizzards fault for removing the concept of a specs "niche", because of the Legion mentality technically Fire/Frost/Arcane should all do the same AoE and ST DPS. If they were going to go for the original philosophy for the specs, then a) Fire reigns supreme in mass AoE and in cleave, c) Frost is great for control, burst and cleave and c) Arcane is a true ST glass cannon with the odd AoE (which should be on a cooldown).

As of right now (and the past 3 expansions), if Arcane doesn't do +10% more damage on ST as fire then it's almost not competitively viable, simply because of the nature of ignite and instant pyro. Hopefully mages will get some changes within the next few patches, otherwise we know they'll be continuing with the "one spec is good and we shouldn't change any of the others" mentality.

[Keulenkommando]

Arcane plays weird.

I start with burn => Evo => burn. But then I look at the dmg meter and see that i am just holding up with what the other classes are pulling. And then I need to go into conserve and im dropping to the bottom.

The Quickening buff feels like it is ruining the arcane playstile because it makes you want to avoid using ABarr for as long as possible. Arcan should be about managing Mana, not Quickening stacks. As soon as you dropp the Quickening Stacks with ABarr, you fall into this hole where casting takes forever and building up Arcane charges is slow as fuck.

Id very mutch like to see quickening be removed and rather see a general casttime buff to AB. So we could build up and drop AC stacks more fluid in conserve phase. Would make the spec a lot more fluid I think.

[yarafx1]

I wouldn't say so. I'd say it's blizzards fault for removing the concept of a specs "niche", because of the Legion mentality technically Fire/Frost/Arcane should all do the same AoE and ST DPS. If they were going to go for the original philosophy for the specs, then a) Fire reigns supreme in mass AoE and in cleave, c) Frost is great for control, burst and cleave and c) Arcane is a true ST glass cannon with the odd AoE (which should be on a cooldown).

As of right now (and the past 3 expansions), if Arcane doesn't do +10% more damage on ST as fire then it's almost not competitively viable, simply because of the nature of ignite and instant pyro. Hopefully mages will get some changes within the next few patches, otherwise we know they'll be continuing with the "one spec is good and we shouldn't change any of the others" mentality.

Except now, arcane does much damage on trash mobs and is pretty awful at single target unless you have a lust up.

[Deleted]

@ Curnivore, what your saying I agree with, but for a slight difference / added perspective:

The first 17 points arn't hard to get. So with locks who have a more defined strenghts weaknesses in their spec its valuable to switch right now.
I'm still curious what will be stronger way for pure dps classes.

I'd be fine if in the first raid tier you can't max out the artifact talents of 2 specs. The issue is that the artifacts also have a talent that increases the flat dmg by a %. This makes maybe extend lvling up your artifact to the 3th raidtier i'd bet. Especially the first 5% is so critical.

note we mostly talk about is fire and Arcane. But right now frost is the spec suffering the most, so don't ignore frost over arcane blizzard!!

In addition to the last trait which will be an enormous contribution to dps (up to +15%), the main issue is the spec-specific legendaries. You have to look at the long term of the character. Which spec do you want to have as primary? If you start getting 1 or 2 DPS-oriented and spec-specific legendaries it will be probably not worth at all to switch ever. So the choice of what is the primary spec locks the player to that spec.

[Deleted]

Except now, arcane does much damage on trash mobs and is pretty awful at single target unless you have a lust up.

Except that it's not a niche it's a fuck-up of balancing. Fire can do similar numbers on AoE (mostly mass low hp mobs) and much more on ST.

[yarafx1]

Except that it's not a niche it's a fuck-up of balancing. Fire can do similar numbers on AoE (mostly mass low hp mobs) and much more on ST.

Point being, arcane can be in melee and Rune/Spam Explosion 5-6 times and arcane barrage with the second trait and do insane amounts of damage. I've only really saw that fire pulls ahead (now this is speaking of mythic + dungeons) in Maw of Souls during the last big trash pull up to the second to last boss you get ignite rolling on everything and a single bomb does crazy numbers then again So does Fully charged explosion a set damage amount not counting NT up on a random adds.

[Deleted]

Point being, arcane can be in melee and Rune/Spam Explosion 5-6 times and arcane barrage with the second trait and do insane amounts of damage.

For how long? We have simulations on sustained prolonged damage. "Insane amounts of damage" is not what it does. It does well. It does not do "insane".

[Antermosiph]

I feel like the sims/logs aren't entirely accurate. I've largely been pulling very near or beating most fire mages as arcane (I've actually mainspecced it). I don't go nether temptest but have a good set of crit/mastery gear. I've finally reached a point without legendaries that I don't run oom on larger raid fights between evocates. Big thing I see that helps me over fire (fire was mainspec until buffs, use both at same time but primarily arcane now) is displacement and sheer burst AoE + easily managed burst phases let me control when I burst better than with fire. Another benefit is that I've gotten good at timing my evocates in a way to use them to re position myself in raid fights, this was extremely useful in mythic nythendra.



I believe at this point its largely up to personal preference. Fire is much easier than arcane, but I feel arcane has many more tools than fire in both mobility, durability, and controlled burst without sacrificing sustained.



To add, with sufficient mastery (I'm at about 855 with itemized gear) and second dragon I can pull the highest burst AOE numbers in guild with ease. Notable fights I did well in were in Il'gynoth (Burst for bloods and the proper tentacles), Xavius (resetting mana bar due to dream + high mobility and displacement), Dragons (although was beaten by havok locks in DPS), and Spider (Burst for adds combined with high mobility and greater invis safety net). I had notable trouble on Cernarius keeping up but this was mostly I feel due to the fact I didn't attack cenarius when aura of thorns was up unlike others in my guild, I found I did have signifigantly better add damage than cenarius damage.

On nythendra I pull a steady good amount of DPS despite not using legion pots, usually only beaten by outlaw rogues who got good rolls and the guild's DK who got lucky as hell on his legendaries/gear.

[Deleted]

Without proof your words against simcraft results are meaningless. I can counter a much more logical possibility. Most arcane users only look at their burst damage and don't realize it might be much lower on sustained damage.