Arcane Blast spam

[matrix123mko]

They should honestly just make Missiles the finisher and have it fire 1 extra missile per arcane charge with a proc for barrage while blasting to make your next missiles fire 2 more missiles.

I think that on Arcane, blizzard has constantly missed the mark, honestly.

They should make it a finisher. In Legion, you stacked procs until you got full arcane charges and then you spent them.

[Gaidax]

Yes Arcane Blast was always and still is super underwhelming when it comes to visuals.

I remember at some Blizzcon they made a side panel on effects and showed how Arcane Blast impact was created and drawn, which was pretty cool because it's pretty complex actually with gradual drawing and multiple sets merging there into final "rune" impact thing.

But what they totally forgot there is that travel animation thing. I guess they have a hard time deciding on something that's instant and spammmable when it comes to that (I'd imagine the suggested beam would be annoying as fuck in raids).

But all in all they should still have done something there. Probably not beam, but maybe some sort of dissipating trail effect or sort of like briken sonic resonance effect.

But then, I'm a scumbag Destrolock with the best looking nuke ingame, so whatever.

[Nitros14]

They should honestly just make Missiles the finisher and have it fire 1 extra missile per arcane charge with a proc for barrage while blasting to make your next missiles fire 2 more missiles.

I think that on Arcane, blizzard has constantly missed the mark, honestly.

Arcane missiles was the finisher in WOTLK and arcane barrage was kind of there to cast something while moving.

It was pretty underwhelming.

[Tehterokkar]

Arcane missiles was the finisher in WOTLK and arcane barrage was kind of there to cast something while moving.

It was pretty underwhelming.

But it felt amazing. Missile machinegunning with Bloodlust and Icy Veins was so much fun, 5 missiles flying out in 1 second with sound effects on was peak satisfaction gameplay.

Honestly the gameplay of Arcane hasn't changed one bit since Wrath; Burn all mana during CDs with Arcane Blast and free procs, enter conservative phase until evocation is up.

[Well]

Arcane missiles was the finisher in WOTLK and arcane barrage was kind of there to cast something while moving.

It was pretty underwhelming.

That was before the whole "more missiles are fired when X" talents. They can build on that and have Arcane be a cannon that actually shoots stuff once in a while and is visually pleasing. If you need the instant impact which honestly only has some relevance in PvP and then, not too much, we can keep AB spam by having Arcane Power increase the damage of just Blast.

I really am dissapointed with Blizzard on Arcane. Playing Arcane since Wotlk myself, I always wanted the spec to shine and not be the spec that everyone hates because of its reputation as a two button spec. If its visuals were better, Arcane wouldn't be shunned as much and blizzard could actually have another good spec in the arcane mage. But, no, gotta stick with a TBC spell that has no visual impact whatsoever.

[Nitros14]

But it felt amazing. Missile machinegunning with Bloodlust and Icy Veins was so much fun, 5 missiles flying out in 1 second with sound effects on was peak satisfaction gameplay.

Honestly the gameplay of Arcane hasn't changed one bit since Wrath; Burn all mana during CDs with Arcane Blast and free procs, enter conservative phase until evocation is up.

Burning mana feels good. Cataclysm was good for that because arcane burst was so strong.

I confess I did like the WOD set bonus where arcane missiles sometimes fired double the missiles.

[shadowlandsx]

yeah arcane mage is going to rock now in shadowlands. I was fire and frost already been staying away from arcane ,, but now I think I'm really going to like it .

[HCLM]

Legion Arcane mage was the best iteration of that spec. High skill ceiling and fun rotation with mini burst windows and mana management.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Legion Arcane mage was the best iteration of that spec. High skill ceiling and fun rotation with mini burst windows and mana management.

I think that was pretty much the case for most specs tbh.

[matrix123mko]

Legion Arcane mage was the best iteration of that spec. High skill ceiling and fun rotation with mini burst windows and mana management.

I loved it. Too bad they wanted to change it in BfA.

[Chromeshellking]

Even mop rewarded unspent mana vs burn and once mastered I enjoyed it. Then we got wods aoe prism and that was just tooo good to have.

[Kalisandra]

Not a fan of assuming but this post feels like u havent been playing arcane that much throughout the expansions, lets take a recent example, Legion, there was nothing more satisfying than the effect of blasting 8 arcane missiles from the procc into a target, and the rotation was way beyond just pressing arcane blast, but if your experience is based of BFA, yeah its been pretty shit but shadowlands has some promising changes to the rotation in general, major issues still beeing arcane power and other cds beeing on global cd so you feel like your loading up your damage for 4 seconds straight

Of all the changes going from Legion to BfA, making Arcane Missiles only castable on the move with the Clearcast proc and making Clearcast have only one charge were among the dumbest. They completely removed any thought from Arcane's rotation, and there's no upside from those changes that I can see.

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The theme of the spec is essentially medium-range (90 second window) resource management and that should stay. That's the biggest thing that sets it apart from other specs - almost every spec has some big combo of cooldowns they blow for burst damage, so ROP + arcane power is not really 'different' there, but outside of those big cooldown line-ups, Arcane is currently the only DPS spec that is trying to look a full 90 seconds ahead instead of the next proc or next few seconds of resources. I would say this is probably underdeveloped presently, but it's definitely the theme of the spec and should be expanded on when possible.

I liked it when the Mastery meant more damage at high mana levels, so during the sustain phase you had to play around keeping your mana above 90% without capping out, and how often you could do that and still run up to a 4-stack was dependent on gear, etc. It was a lot more interesting than the Legion/BfA Mastery where your current mana level doesn't matter too much as long as you go into a burn phase with enough to last through the burn.

To be fair, the older Mastery didn't play well with high-speed dungeon runs and AoEing chain-pulls of trash, so it probably isn't viable in the modern game.

[Woobels]

I really enjoyed WoD Arcane but that's probably partly due to how strong it was.

[Meillassoux]

Of all the changes going from Legion to BfA, making Arcane Missiles only castable on the move with the Clearcast proc and making Clearcast have only one charge were among the dumbest. They completely removed any thought from Arcane's rotation, and there's no upside from those changes that I can see.

But now we will be able to stack 3 Clearcast procs, so it will be kinda better. Combine this with Barrage giving mana back, Touch of Magi as an active spell and 3 stacks of PoM and it becomes a bit more interesting. We will have to see in practice though.

[valtriore]

But Arcane blast is such a blast to press.

[Sharnie786]

Not a fan of assuming but this post feels like u havent been playing arcane that much throughout the expansions, lets take a recent example, Legion, there was nothing more satisfying than the effect of blasting 8 arcane missiles from the procc into a target, and the rotation was way beyond just pressing arcane blast, but if your experience is based of BFA, yeah its been pretty shit but shadowlands has some promising changes to the rotation in general, major issues still beeing arcane power and other cds beeing on global cd so you feel like your loading up your damage for 4 seconds straight

Can you tell me how Shadowlands has changes for Arcane? It looks worse. You're just spamming AB and AP now has a 3 min cooldown. You're no longer the burst ST dmg spec. And AoE has been playing badly since forever. There is absolutely nothing to it. It saddens me that Arcane has been so bad since it's inception. I can't remember a time where it wasn't AB or AE spam.

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yeah arcane mage is going to rock now in shadowlands. I was fire and frost already been staying away from arcane ,, but now I think I'm really going to like it .

why???? What is so good.

[Nitros14]

I like Arcane Blast 'spam' as long as it's powerful and planned around limited mana.

Arcane has always been about resource management not hitting procs.

[Chonar]

I have often thought of reversing the roles of Blast and Missiles but I feel the pvpers would qq too much.

I was suggesting an instant hit beam so there would be no added travel time.

Kamehameha Wave for Arcane Mages 2020-2021.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Kamehameha Wave for Arcane Mages 2020-2021.

Yeah, tbh I wish they had copied the rest of diablo 3 wizard as well tbh. Gimme Archon .

[Chonar]

Yeah, tbh I wish they had copied the rest of diablo 3 wizard as well tbh. Gimme Archon .

TBH, once Azerite Powers are a thing of the past, it feels like an arcane version of Focused Azerite Beam (from Lens of the Focusing Iris) an arcane mage class fantasy pretty well.