Arcane is so boring on the beta

[Deleted]

Arcane was massive fun when you actually had to manage your mana. The rotation was just a filler, it was cooldown and mana management that made it a fun spec. Now it's just horrible thanks to the near endless mana pools you get with icc gear. Blow cooldowns, 11112, loot.

If they go for the mana juggling thing in cata, I'm definately switching back to arcane.

[Zu]

Was arcane ever fun? EVER? Quit thinking it will ever be fun, unless you think ITS SO FUN TO PRESS 2,2,2,2,3!!!!!!!

[Arashi]

I enjoy arcane, minimum effort for maximum results you cant go wrong with that

[MisterSoup]

I'm pretty sure Mages have always been the "beauty in simplicity" caster class, and that's why my Mage is my PvP toy. If you're looking for a caster that isn't a nuke-spam fest, try playing an Affliction Lock or a Shadow Priest sometime. Either it'll be a lot more enjoyable for you, or managing dot uptimes will give you a spilling headache.

...oh wait, we can't clip dots in Cataclysm anymore. Yeah, try playing one of those two.

[Chaoslux]

Isnt on the beta that Arcane Barrage ALWAYS procs AM? Wouldnt a AB AB AB AB ABr AM be good in that case?

[rabbimojo]

Just wanted to post: The term for "arcane" damage in hybrid type spells is "Spell", and it comes first. E.g., frost+arcane damage = Spellfrost. fire+arcane = Spellfire.

[Valanna]

Isnt on the beta that Arcane Barrage ALWAYS procs AM? Wouldnt a AB AB AB AB ABr AM be good in that case?

Casting Abarr clears AB stacks. No other spells other than AB benefits from the debuff it gives. Which basically means you'll cast x amount of AB, then use AM to clear if available, and Abarr if not.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I also think Arcane really got the shaft in Cataclysm... :/
Two major benefits of Arcane on Live, +Hit and high Aggro reduce - gone.
The rotation gets even more boring and your "special" thing is managing your mana. At least for me, that's not fun.
Ideally ending the fight with close to full mana seems dumb not matter how I look at it.

Meanwhile Fire seems soooo much more fun by now. Spreading your DoTs around, getting Haste the more DoTs you have, actually using Fire Blast again. Cool ass AoE spells. Casting free Scorches while running. And supposedly (some Blue said that a while ago) you'll be using Frostfirebolt once your Mastery is high enough because if benefits more than Fireball.
And uniting all your DoTs into a Super DoT and recasting your DoTs, so you'll have a shit ton of DoTs running on the mob, thanks to that + the new Scorch probably far less DPS loss while moving than now or in other speccs. Oh, and sort-of immortality with Cauterize, provided your healers react fast enough afterwards to counter-heal the DoT.

And your Mastery bonus is ... don't remember, more Crit or stronger DoTs or something, not quite "exciting" but seems better than the Arcane one.

Pretty sure I'll be switching to Fire at 85 (from Frost while levelling, currently Fire on live as well).

Arcane is still fucked in the AoE department. They realized that having Blast Wave originate from the Caster is a bad move for squishy class like us. Yet they didn't change Arcane Explosion, the possible single-worst AoE in the game (the damage isn't that great, you'll have to spam yourself silly and you just might get caught in a Cleave or not have enough time to Invis/Blink if you get aggro because you're right next to the mob).

Was arcane ever fun? EVER? Quit thinking it will ever be fun, unless you think ITS SO FUN TO PRESS 2,2,2,2,3!!!!!!!

It was fun in the sense that it was fun to be topping the meters, doing your job - inflicting damage - well. Other than that... Pretty much only the 2 min Evo is very nice.

[Skarrd]

Arcane did actually have more skill required in tier 9 content. T10 2pc combined with the increased mana made it a lot easier to play with. Even as I acquired a good amount of 258 gear in toc days mana became a bit too easy to manage. In early toc it was actually relatively complicated to kep your mana balanced enough to last between evocations without nuking your dps to shit.

[SensenmanN]

wait-- are you saying arcane was once fun?

qft

Arcane did actually have more skill required in tier 9 content.

I am sorry, but I disagree completely. I played arcane as a fresh 80 mage in ToC with 0 raiding experience on mage. I read elitist jerks for 30 min or so to find my spec and optimal rotation. After than you spam a few buttons and use smart cooldowns / procs.

[Baabinator]

You're concerned about arcane mages survivability and pvp and give them an instant spell?

That doesn't make sense tbh.

[mugutu]

If you guys are really going to be doing a 11112 rotation in Cata as arcane, you'll be doing it wrong. Mana Adept changes everything.

[Seikilos]

If you guys are really going to be doing a 11112 rotation in Cata as arcane, you'll be doing it wrong. Mana Adept changes everything.

yeah.

in burn periods its 111112.

with arcane blast only applying to arcane blast, the only way to get the benefit of the fourth arcane blast stack is to cast a fifth.

which is dumb, btw. i can see them doing it because they dont want us to think we HAVE to stack up arcane blast every time we want to use arcane missiles, but we already dont have to. 1 or 2 stacks of the buff during non-burst periods would be fantastic. either way, we should be using arcane missiles EVERY time its up during these times, why not let the buff apply?


on topic, i always thought it would be cool to add something similar to the Amber Drakes from the Oculus. i always liked having the idea of putting a stacking debuff on the target that didn't do damage, but increased the damage of a spell. your focus magic idea is very similar.

i thought it would be cool to change nether vortex. i think its very interesting and useful right now, even though a lot of people disagree and call it "pvp only". the reason i think it should change is because it could be TOO good in pvp. POM + arcane blast = instant 10k crit (at least) plus a slow. thats a bit crazy. maybe it could keep that if people really want it, but i think that nether vortex should also cast something similar to the temporal rift from the amber drakes (although something that just stays on the target, and not something that's channeled obviously).

this temporal rift could increase the damage taken on the target by X%, but thats not really the point. the real idea is that as long as this temporal rift is on the target, every time you hit the target with an arcane missile, you get charges. these charges increase the damage done by arcane barrage by Y%, stacking up to 10 times. this adds a proc within a proc. a rotation within a rotation. you're blasting until you can use missiles, and you're missile-ing until you can barrage.

alternatively, the temporal rift or nether vortex or whatever could simply be an instant cast that lasts X seconds rather than being applied by arcane blast. also, the "increases damage taken" could be 3-5%, but i think we'd have to remove arcane tactics for this. you should be keeping up the rift at all times on a boss, but you shouldn't be missing the 3% extra damage on trash. besides, ret paladins already give the 3% damage buff. how cool would it be if this stacked with that? similar to how theres a 5% crit GIVEN with moonkin form/elemental oath, and a 5% crit TAKEN with improved scorch/improved shadowbolt that stack.


also, just a side note, i think arcane power should be part of our rotation a bit more than it is now. it doesn't feel like a big part of our spec when its an 84 (soon to be longer) second cooldown. i dont have any ideas for that, but i just wanted to bring it up.

[Potato Bus]

With the above idea, we would need to steal Soul Swap from Aff locks to not completely suck on fights involving add-switching. Which I'm confident will be numerous. Bad idea. If Blizz decides arcane isn't doing enough damage, they'll change coeffs or masteries, not introduce a new mechanic that completely changes the intended playstyle of a spec.

[Seikilos]

With the above idea, we would need to steal Soul Swap from Aff locks to not completely suck on fights involving add-switching. Which I'm confident will be numerous. Bad idea. If Blizz decides arcane isn't doing enough damage, they'll change coeffs or masteries, not introduce a new mechanic that completely changes the intended playstyle of a spec.

its a bad idea because the class and spec that is supposed to do the most single target direct damage wont do well on fights with multiple targets?

they're giving soul swap to locks and redirect to rogues. are rogues and locks failing at multi-target fights now? no. they're conveniences. cats aren't getting anything like redirect. boomkins and shadowpriests aren't getting anything like soul swap. fire and frost are going to be able to spread the dots and chill effects, but is that really necessary?

think of it this way. if, for whatever reason, no one is applying a slowing effect to the boss (i've seen paladins without judgements of the just and bears without infected wounds...), would you apply slow yourself? of course. its a bigger dps loss to miss out on that 12% extra damage than the 1 global cooldown you're wasting. but would you apply Slow on trash? or would you apply slow on adds? probably not.

and if you wanna talk about introducing a new mechanic that completely changes the intended playstyle of a spec, lets talk about this:

live, arcane is spend more mana = do more damage.

thats not changing.

but on top of it, its going to be spend more mana = do less damage.

they're combining two opposing ideas to make the spec deep. i think thats cool, but its a completely new mechanic, and it changes the current playstyle in that you can't just spend more mana to do more damage constantly.

my idea doesnt CHANGE anything. you'll still have the current mechanics. all it does is add a new idea into the mix (that doesn't contradict any of the current ideas) to add more than two buttons to the rotation.

the big complaint about arcane is that under 100% ideal circumstances (no movement and missile barrage procs every time you need them), we only need to press two buttons. arcane barrage is currently only there for sub-optimal fights like when we have to move or when missile barrage doesn't proc. to my (somewhat limited) knowledge, its the only damaging spell in the game that you have to spec into that we only use when we have bad RNG. its the bastard child of the arcane tree. i like its current usage in the respect that its good to have in those sub-optimal times, but i want to be able to use it in my actual rotation.



besides, i think you misunderstand me. i want the damage to be the same. if they have to nerf arcane barrage's base damage so that the buffed damage isn't too high, i dont mind. i like the damage i do now and i wouldn't even care if i did a bit less. i just want to use arcane barrage in my normal rotation. the animation is so cool...

the way i'd like this mechanic to be implemented would be if it would maybe add a bit of damage to the rotation (i.e., you want to be taking advantage of it whenever you can), but ignoring it on trash or on adds wouldn't make you like an affliction lock where you're suddenly doing half your normal damage.



i think they're making a mistake in trying to make all three specs of the pure dps classes equal in pve, pvp and utility. to go off-topic, i think it would be better if they refined each role.
best pve: fire, assassination, marksmanship, destruction
best pvp: frost, subtlety, survival, affliction
most utility: arcane, combat, beast mastery, demonology

(sorry this post was so long)

[Skarrd]

I am sorry, but I disagree completely. I played arcane as a fresh 80 mage in ToC with 0 raiding experience on mage. I read elitist jerks for 30 min or so to find my spec and optimal rotation. After than you spam a few buttons and use smart cooldowns / procs.

And I doubt you did it correctly, which is my point. Mana was the constraint, not the rotation or the cooldowns. Sure, I can "never run oom" and do piss poor dps, or I can do it perfectly and not run oom and do great dps. Both feel "right" to the user, but one is a good player and one is a regular player. I have my doubts that you were dpsing "optimally" if you don't acknowledge mana as being relevant earlier on in the arcane changes patch during toc. You could fuck up and have a lot less time in your higher dps rotations very, very easily.

[PlatedPriest]

i think they're making a mistake in trying to make all three specs of the pure dps classes equal in pve, pvp and utility. to go off-topic, i think it would be better if they refined each role.
best pve: fire, assassination, marksmanship, destruction
best pvp: frost, subtlety, survival, affliction
most utility: arcane, combat, beast mastery, demonology

(sorry this post was so long)

i disagree i like the idea of playing whatever spec i want and not just the high dps pve spec... i rather be set apart from all the other mages out there rather than us all be the same

[Sellitto]

Arcane in Cataclysm is going to be completely different than what it is now. Rather than make a skilled player learn a rotation that will maximize his/her DPS, they want to CHANGE the "HOW" in the question "How do I maximize my DPS?"

Arcane is going to be 99% cooldown management.

The same way messing up your rotation in fire hurts your DPS, using a cooldown at the wrong time in arcane will hurt your DPS. (Mana Gem, Evocation, Arcane Power, etc)

IMHO, arcane is going to be the most dynamic of all the mage specs.

[Phovos]

Arcane does get a little slow, but it will be exciting in raid content I think (better than the other two specs that is).

[Imnick]

Arcane does get a little slow, but it will be exciting in raid content I think (better than the other two specs that is).

Why? Why would a boring, two button spec suddenly become more exciting than ones that require actual thought just because there are nine other people about?