Arcane AoE Improvement?

[Deleted]

Something random just occurred to me, and most likely it has been mentioned at some point.

Do you think Arcane Charges should affect Arcane Explosion damage? - Is my question, short and sweet . Please no flaming each other etc.

I think it'd be a decent idea, but we'd need probably need to change the numbers on %'s on damage + mana cost

[TwentyNine]

Juicy; but AE's damage would be lessened to the point where it's worse than already negligible damage for the purposes of keeping charges up. Mana cost of AE in non-AOE situations would also be trickier.

(Speaking from haste/invo perspective, not sure how it'd pan for sustained RoP but it'd probably be ridiculous with the right setup then.)

[Shangalar]

We don't need Explosion to do more damage, we need it to have a higher chance to proc a Charge so we can Barrage cleave more often. That should esentially be our AoE:

Apply Bomb
Flamestrike
Explosion until happy
Barrage

[Imnick]

It feels really unnatural to AE a pack of 15 mobs and have the same proc chance on Arcane Charge as if I was only hitting 3

[Elegiac]

I...actually really don't like Arcane Explosion. Point-blank AoE effects never really made sense to me for a ranged class. If we're sticking with it, however, I'd much prefer that a charge be guaranteed if a minimum number of targets were hit; 3, or perhaps 4.

[Zoros]

Arcane explosion always generating 1 charge would be great. Another option is some kind of cooldown that increases its chance to generate a charge, like frozen orb generates fingers of frost.

I dislike the idea of arcane charges increasing the damage done by arcane explosion, I want to use arcane barrage at the end, not keep the charges and continue spamming explosion.

Probably with 4 charges, arcane explosion chance to generate a charge will be more meaningful.

[Imnick]

Perhaps have Arcane Barrage give an "Arcane Echoes" debuff on every target hit causing them to duplicate your next cast of Arcane Explosion
I'm just throwing random ideas out here

[Deleted]

Perhaps have Arcane Barrage give an "Arcane Echoes" debuff on every target hit causing them to duplicate your next cast of Arcane Explosion
I'm just throwing random ideas out here

Ideas are good! Personally, I was thinking something along the lines of Increasing ABarr's damage, but lower the number of cleave attacks (Too make a 2-3 Mob cleave which we WANT to use even single target [As what Blizz seems to want us to do]) And with Charges affecting our AE damage, it allows us then to have better AOE. Like nick said, just throwing ideas out and things that spring to mind.

Or maybe like previously mentioned, AE has more chance to grant charges so we can ABarr more often would also be somewhat welcome personally

[Elegiac]

Perhaps have Arcane Barrage give an "Arcane Echoes" debuff on every target hit causing them to duplicate your next cast of Arcane Explosion
I'm just throwing random ideas out here

Again, that still faces the problem of AE being a relic-mechanic; point blank AoE is really counterintuitive for a class that is supposed to be a glass cannon. Ideally, this is what I would like to see for the three mage specs in terms of AoE, simply based on spec identity.

Arcane: Being a quintessential nuke spec, I would say that Arcane Barrage's cleave is a step in the right direction in terms of favoring more direct damage, rotationally based AoE. Perhaps Arcane Explosion should be target castable, and rather than generating Arcane Charges it generates Arcane Surges, which allows ABarr to cleave to a much greater number of targets but at individually less damage.

Fire: Quite obviously, Fire's AoE should revolve around multi-dotting, with perhaps additional benefits based off crit or something in that nature.

Frost: Perhaps giving Water Elemental a Freeze-like ability that increases damage taken from Blizzard, or simply making the debuff baseline to Frozen Orb to make it synergize better with Blizzard.

[Zoros]

I love the current mechanic of Arcane Barrage, it's my favorite spell. What seems contradictory with arcane gameplay is Arcane Explosion. Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Dragon's Breath are good reasons to take the risk of going at mele range, but arcane explosion has to be spammed several times to be worth it. Blizzard and Cone of Cold are better options, that's the reason why I rarely use Arcane Explosion for something more than refresh charges after cc, or try to get out a target from stealth. Arcane Explosion should be a ranged spell.

About Frost... I dislike the weird interaction between Blizzard, Frozen Orb and Fingers of Frost. Imo, we should be able to cast Ice Lance while channeling Blizzard.

And fire... I would prefer to have a bigger source of direct aoe damage, it's ok of spread the dots, but i really miss the extra Blast Wave or instant Flamestrike damage.

[yurano]

Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Dragon's Breath are good reasons to take the risk of going at mele range, but arcane explosion has to be spammed several times to be worth it.

Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Dragon's Breath are all PvP defensive abilities against melee. They are not true PvE AoE abilities.

[Alphamage]

Frost Nova, Cone of Cold and Dragon's Breath are all PvP defensive abilities against melee. They are not true PvE AoE abilities.

You are completely wrong here. All the three abilities you mentioned are not PVP oriented spells and they are all used very good in PVE environment not so much for aoe damage although the damage is not insignificant but mostly for crowd control/slow pack of mobs and lower the damage on the raid/group.

[Elegiac]

You are completely wrong here. All the three abilities you mentioned are not PVP oriented spells and they are all used very good in PVE environment not so much for aoe damage although the damage is not insignificant but mostly for crowd control/slow pack of mobs and lower the damage on the raid/group.

In which case they aren't AoE damage abilities, making your point moot.

[Saegno]

I would be against it scaling with Arcane Charges. It already costs a good chunk to AoE with AE as it is, if it scaled we would be sub 30% mana/oom before mobs get to half HP. I would rather see it have it's chance to proc a charge be upped a lot or have it be 100%. As stated, this would be a huge help in AE+Abarr cleaving/aoe.

[zomgDPS]

I was speaking with Logix last night and he brought up an interesting point.

The 4 stack Arcane change inadvertently buffs Arcane Explosion.

Previously, AE gives a 30% chance to increase the arcane max stack by 14.2%. (1 out of 7)
Since the stack is being changed to 4, the exact same AE will now give a 30% chance to increase the max stack by 20%! Which means, even though AE's proc chance hasn't increased, the significance of the proc has.

Couple this with the point I and a few others were making in the main ptr thread about how ABr cleave will actually end up doing MORE damage for packs where you can use > 1 cycles, and the entire 4 stack change is a big buff to Arcane AoE. With AE's giving more proportional damage per charge and ABrs hitting harder and more often, Arcane AoE just got teh buffz.