I don't know about everyone else, but I miss Arcane. It's always been my favorite mage spec, even in bad times like 5.2. I strongly dislike Frost now, and Fire is sooo RNG dependent that I can't handle it, even with 35% crit.
I am not saying that the Arcane of 5.1 was any better of a design than the current design - 6 stack camping and Scorch weaving should have been foreseen and eliminated, it took away from the spec and caused the 5.2 super nerf. I just want to see the spec come back into practical viability in Throne of Thunder raiding. I use the phrase "practical viability" because Arcane's numbers are actually not in a terrible spot - it scales well and can put out some good damage. It's just not practical for many fights in ToT due to one big problem....
Rune of Power.
If we HAVE to have 90 talents how they are rather than balancing mages without them and changing them altogether, then some serious changes need to be made to RoP in order for arcane to be viable again. And don't tell me Invocation/haste arcane is viable because it's just not. I don't want to make Arcane the clear winner like in 5.3, just make it practical to use. I have a few proposed changes to accomplish this, and they're not even huuuge changes.
1) Make Rune of Power instant cast. The fact that I have to stand still for 1.5 seconds just to make something to stand still in for even longer is just ridiculous. If you're going to force us to turret to even be CLOSE to competitive on the charts, at LEAST let us cast RoP while we're running toward the spot on which we're casting it. Since mobility is the weakest aspect of Arcane, this would help at least a little bit from what I have experienced.
2) Double or even triple the size of Rune of Power. For reals, current RoP is TINY. Many encounter mechanics only require that players sidestep a little bit rather than move really far, so just making RoP bigger could have a huge impact on practicality of using the talent in ToT. For example, oh noes Kazra'jin is charging at me! Current RoP = crap move over here, recast, resume dps. Bigger RoP = sidestep a few yards to the edge of it and continue dps! SO much better. Now consider putting two bigger Runes of Power next to each other!! zomg so much space for movement without recasting/losing dps! All because of a small change.
3) Finally, revert the RoP nerf to mana regen. Bring it back to 100% instead of 75%. This is the only hard number change I'd like to see. In 5.2 live, Arcane needs to stay above 80% mana. Starting at 100% mana and assuming you get 0 missile procs, which happens somewhat often, that means when you get to 4 Arcane Charges, you generally have 92% mana or so (at least my mage at ilvl 508 with like 14% haste does), assuming you stood in RoP the whole time. That means you can cast only ONE, MAYBE two if you're lucky, Arcane Blasts before you dip under 80%. That's just depressing, i can only sustain my top dps stack count for like 3 seconds? Maybe like 6 seconds if I get a couple Missile procs? I understand and enjoy that Arcane is a mana game, but I really miss the bursty feel of Cata Arcane where I could go crazy Blast spam for a bit and I would like just a liiiittle bit more of that. 25% more mana regen would definitely help out, even if only 1 or 2 more Blasts' worth. I know 5.1 Arcane mana regen was infinite, but that was solely because of Scorch weaving/fishing for missile procs that allowed mana regen to go crazy. The removal of Scorch from Arcane was enough of a nerf to mana regen without the RoP nerf. Bring it back to 100%. Especially considering how difficult it can be to maintain RoP uptime, it needs to be a little more rewarding.
Those are the 3 minor but extremely helpful changes to RoP that I can think of, now I have one or two general Arcane fixes.
1) Remove the cooldown on Arcane Barrage. Scorch is gone. Not only can we not maintain RoP uptime while moving, we no longer have a cheap spell to spam while moving. Currently our movement priority rotation is Barrage>Fire Blast>Ice Lance, also factoring in Ice Floes/PoM if you use those. Does that sound clunky to anyone else? Because believe me, in practice it is EXTREMELY annoying. Come on, Fire can maintain Invocation buff while moving AND spam Scorch all day. Frost can also maintain Invocation and has Ice lance to spam, as well as 2 procs that help out a lot with movement (insta FFB and super crit Ice Lances), as well as Ice Floes talent (even though it's the poor mage's Kil'Jaeden's Cunning or whatever the 90 lock talent is that lets you move and cast always) to help out a little bit if you have no procs. Anyways, the point is Arcane's mobility sucks, at least let us spam Barrage while we desperately run to our next Rune of Power.
2) I thought I had another one come to me here, but I seem to have forgotten it....let me think a sec. I think it had something to do with bombs and aoe. I responded in the mage thread called "All specs - How Do Bombs Make You Feel?" with a rather lengthy post with potential bomb/aoe changes to each mage spec that I think would be much better than the current set up. Go check that out
So that's pretty much the extent of my thoughts here, I'd love to hear some feedback/comments/ideas about my thoughts here. Let's see it!