[ARCANE] Legion Beta Megathread

[whisperingsage]

I'm not in the alpha myself, it's something I found. If I happen upon something better or hopefully even a video I'll post it as soon as I find it.

[Adeivus]

Celestalon just updated the build notes. Mark of Aluneth is now attached to the target, rather than the ground.

Also to the earlier post, here's an image of me siphoning energy:

http://i.imgur.com/OlkWfJF.jpg

[Imnick]

I don't think this was really a necessary change, but I guess it is going to make several people pretty happy.

[Adeivus]

I don't think this was really a necessary change, but I guess it is going to make several people pretty happy.

Can only speak for myself, but I really did not like using MoA much in alpha because of how easily it was to have it whiff. Cast it on a mob, they pull out quickly before the climax of it. Cast it while they're in my face, well...they're in my face. Cast it on that casting enemy, surely he's not going to move, right? Wrong, he just moved toward me.

It wasn't fun. And the feedback thread's been fairly unanimous about it.

[whisperingsage]

Attaching to the target wasn't necessary, being able to place it would've been perfectly fine. The slow never seemed that useful either, so taking that out and adding something to improve the usability would've been fine as well.

However, attaching to the target is the best case scenario, even if it does take away any skill to using it. Of course, using an awkward ability and succeeding could be said to count as skill, but that never makes people happy except the people that get lucky.

Either way, having our artifact ability be useful solo is really nice.

[Adeivus]

I wasn't one of those pushing for it to be attached, mind (I did suggest it at some point, though, but said probably better not to be), so yeah, I agree, but eh, I'll take it over how it was.

[Sarm]

I can't imagine Mark of Aluneth ever being all that fun to begin with no matter how it's applied, but at least with it being on the target it's more user-friendly right out of the box. Manually placing it wouldn't be much better than spawning it under your target if you still have to twist yourself into making the spell work, instead of just having the spell work with you.

I can't imagine initial impressions of it would have been great, where arcane mages would get a new toy to experiment with while they level to 110 just to find out that it kinda sucks to use until you're in an understanding group.

[Adeivus]

In my brief testing tonight it definitely felt better now, at least. It did lose the slow component but that seems a fair trade-off.

[Araitik]

I definitely was pushing for MoA to be attached to target, so obivously I'm really glad they did.

In other news :

Arcane Barrage baseline damage was reduced by ~20%, but the damage is increased by 60% per Arcane Charge
Same for Arcane Blast, with a slightly increased mana cost
Arcane Missiles got a ~25% base damage nerf, but scaling increased to 60% per charge
Arcane Explosion and Nether Tempest scaling also increased to 60% per charge

If my math is correct, the net change is a ~5% buff for Blast, Barrage and Missiles, and a 30% buff to Explosion and Nether Tempest. Edit : nvm, see below.

We'll see how that translates in futur raid tests.

[whisperingsage]

Math at four charges to give the charge buff the most benefit it can have.

Arcane Barrage
Old (187.5)(1+2.0)=562.5
New (150.0)(1+2.4)=510.0
510/562=0.906 9.4% nerf

Arcane Blast
Old (200)(1+2.0)=600
New (165)(1+2.4)=561
561/600=0.935 6.5% nerf

Arcane Missiles
Old (275)(1+2.0)=825
New (210)(1+2.4)=714
714/825=0.865 13.5% nerf

Unless I messed up on the math, all of those are a nerf. Not saying it wasn't warranted, because who knows. But nerfing the bases and buffing charges makes it even worse when we aren't at max charges. Not sure if that'll be a buff for Arcane Orb, or just an additional incentive to stay at max charges when possible (as if that wasn't already the goal).

[Northem]

Attaching [Mark of Aluneth] to the target was absolutely necessary. In fact, that was the least they could have done considering how useless that spell was.

Obviously the ideal would have been to get rid once and for all of that horrible spell and replace it with something more exciting and more innovative, but hey, at least now it's usable.

Today, the Arcane Mages have won a battle. Our feedback has done its job, but there are still many aspects to improve and correct.

Our next fight will be to teach Blizzard that we're a ranged class, not melee, and therefore skills as [Arcane Explosion] or [Aegwynn's Ascendance] must be corrected ASAP.

[Verraxia]

Hey guys, I really appreciate all the awesome feedback you're giving and I know you need to be as critical as possible to try and put together enough for Blizz Dev's to hopefully bring the spec in the direction the Arcane community feels it deserves to go in.

All in all, how do you feel the spec is looking? Obviously tuning is yet to be complete, but I've been looking for a class/spec to run alongside my DH and I always loved the story of Aegwyn so Arcane always was drawing me closer, just worried about the seeming dislike every spec seems to be getting.

[Deleted]

Math at four charges to give the charge buff the most benefit it can have.

Arcane Barrage
Old (187.5)(1+2.0)=562.5
New (150.0)(1+2.4)=510.0
510/562=0.906 9.4% nerf

Arcane Blast
Old (200)(1+2.0)=600
New (165)(1+2.4)=561
561/600=0.935 6.5% nerf

Arcane Missiles
Old (275)(1+2.0)=825
New (210)(1+2.4)=714
714/825=0.865 13.5% nerf

Unless I messed up on the math, all of those are a nerf. Not saying it wasn't warranted, because who knows. But nerfing the bases and buffing charges makes it even worse when we aren't at max charges. Not sure if that'll be a buff for Arcane Orb, or just an additional incentive to stay at max charges when possible (as if that wasn't already the goal).

u forget the arcane charge buff 60% . x 4 AC =240% + 150% A Barrage =390% x4(240%) AC + 165% AB = 405% and x4(240%) AC + 210% AM =450% so AM take 25% nerf if im right .... ty for ur time

[Erolian]

I'm really happy with the change. I feel like if they had more time that ability could have been much more interesting and have more of an impact rotation wise but I'll take fire and forget or save for adds over annoying any day of the week. The spec is more fun for me now personally. I wouldn't mind MoA being left behind if its intended target dies before the duration finishes but I feel like it disappearing is an acceptable weakness in light of the spell sticking to the target with no other way to make a mistake in its use and since its target is up to no one but yourself.

[Deleted]

It's a wise decision. Blizzard was absolutely wrong creating mechanics that depend so much on the stability of the raid team. It can theoretically work but it doesn't always work in practice.

In real practice what we usually have is people from high end raiding teams that almost never move the raid or their targets unless absolutely necessary saying "it works".

But looking at the big picture, any mechanics that mess up when the target moves or the raid moves, are impossible to balance because not all teams are high end.

[Obelisk Kai]

I am also pleased at the change to Mark of Aluneth. Can anyone in beta tell me any reasons NOT to play Arcane now?
It looks like a very attractive spec, but I've not had any experience of how it plays in Legion and I am assuming there are massive downsides I am oblivious to.

[Araitik]

I just realized that I did my maths considering Arcane Charge as multiplicative instead of additive

So yeah Arcane took quite a nerf, not surprising honestly, the spec was dominating even with subpar 680 gear.

[Deleted]

I am also pleased at the change to Mark of Aluneth. Can anyone in beta tell me any reasons NOT to play Arcane now?
It looks like a very attractive spec, but I've not had any experience of how it plays in Legion and I am assuming there are massive downsides I am oblivious to.

From my perspective Arcane will always be the least convenient to play spec. It has to stay put and burn. Even the tools that make it move during burning aren't the easiest to use, or they aren't all-powerful. For that reason it's often weak to level with, weak on regular pugs and weak on easy or pug raids. People often say Arcane needs gear but that's not the true reason almost everyone starts with other specs because simulations always show it strong enough. The other specs are easier to use into the mess of pugs and often faster on levelling. During Legion I expect that the utility of burst will still make it useful as always but that caveat will always still be there because you can't have that utility and no downsides. I estimate that for a very high end team Arcane will still be valuable but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the spec will be avoided by everyone else again for a while until they get into more serious instances. Other specs also have better utility sometimes, e.g. 5mans can use more consistent AOE and on the first days of Legion 5mans are serious business, and fire appears to become viable now for any kind of target situation and I would not be surprised at all even if we see high end raiders going fire.

[Erolian]

Balancing aside from a mechanical standpoint arcane is a very powerful spec in most regards right now as far as raiding goes. I can also see it being strong but probably not the best for dungeon burst AoE as well if Abarr is tuned to do significant damage since you can talent around doing a large amount of that. It may not be as easy to manage for newer players but I expect it to be strong in all types of PvE as long as Blizzard gives it competitive numbers mostly because the damage comes fast without a lot of ramp up.

[Deleted]

Balancing aside from a mechanical standpoint arcane is a very powerful spec in most regards right now as far as raiding goes. I can also see it being strong but probably not the best for dungeon burst AoE as well if Abarr is tuned to do significant damage since you can talent around doing a large amount of that. It may not be as easy to manage for newer players but I expect it to be strong in all types of PvE as long as Blizzard gives it competitive numbers mostly because the damage comes fast without a lot of ramp up.

That is sound reasoning but it has to be compared with fire and frost now. The tuning is still going on and fire people appear to be reporting good buffs on them. For example if fire becomes viable for all types of targets (and it seems the design aims towards that way), with the exception of the burn utility of Arcane, and if we get a lot of AOE requirements, it might not be a absurd to go fire (still an example).