[Arcane] How could Arcane become more appealing?

[Imnick]

mm.. though coming back on my previous comment, thinking abt it later on.. its hardly going to demolish anything, like sure it will prolly be highest single target dps on fights with near 0 movement, but then again it aint that much infront of fire so sticking fire would still be my choice unless the fight was progress fight and arcane would simply be better..

In this case I feel zomgDPS is probably right that it is definitely not going to make Arcane "highest single target DPS on no movement fights", it sounds like an enormous change without thinking about it too much but his maths checks out.
Besides I wouldn't be satisfied even if Arcane did suddenly become the best spec in the game given ideal conditions.

Can't test it out myself until tomorrow of course but we're working on heroic Elegon some time this week so I'll have a chance to give it a whirl.

[Deleted]

Guys pls to all who thinkg arcane is fine or is viable and stuff. Try do some high end content befor you start speak. Arcane is worst trash spec in this game. i play mage for like 7 years. And i must say mop mage changes to arcane + lvl 90 talents are just completly fail. Arcane was unieq spec with burst andmana managmet phase something really diferent fromfire and frost. Now it is just same as fire adn frost you ahve only diferent animation of spells. I really want old cataclysm arcane back. It was aleats viable build + with lvl 90 talents arcane jsut doesnt work at all. Lvl 90 tales are so boring channell evo every 40 sec and no becous i get buff. You must channel this spell becous you simpli must. It dioesnt feel as buff at all it is part of our rotation not buff. If i compare mage arcane and 90 lvl talens to others clases blizzard fail this on 100%. I was never bored as mage so much like right now in mop.

[Imnick]

If you think Arcane is "identical to Fire or Frost, but with different graphics" I think you need to play some more high level content, some more low level content and maybe actually try playing a mage in general.
They really aren't that similar, and I have actually played all three specs in high level content. My armoury's in my signature, and you can look me up on World of Logs. I'm not rank 3 on Elegon for Arcane any more but I've been sat for our recent attempts on that one, something about the fact that I don't need any loot at all from normal MSV any more

Arcane isn't "fine" and definitely needs some attention with regards to gameplay, but while it's not necessarily to the taste of people who were especially attached to the old rotation, it is still substantially different in feel still to either of the other two specs (which also are different enough in feel that to describe one spec as being like both of them is patently ridiculous...) and there is nothing actually wrong with it in terms of feel, flavour or fun.
You're still of course free to find it less enjoyable but that is an entirely subjective experience and not one Blizzard have to act on, especially as you're not necessarily a majority in that department!
Spec representation in raids has very little to do with how much players enjoy playing a spec and everything to do with what kind of numbers it puts out, if that wasn't true we wouldn't have so many Fire players when Frost is so close to it in potential and people have been clamouring about how much they enjoy playing it for so long

What they do have to act on is the fact that it is underperforming in raids, because it is shackled in a silly way to the level 90 talents and over punished for movement. It also suffers from a general problem that all mages have in that its AOE is not very interesting, dynamic or powerful but that issue is secondary to the first one I mentioned and probably doesn't need to be addressed with anything near the level of urgency.

[DreamSpyre]

Messing around with arcane in LFR, It just feels better. You can stay at AB6 for a long, long time with RoP. I'm out of practice since I've been playing Fire almost religiously, but I wouldn't be hard-pressed to believe that Arcane will be close to Fire on a lot of those fights with lower movement requirements.

[Deleted]

Those changes are really great
also looking forward to patch going live in EU servers
BUT I do see a nerf coming soon ^^

edit: and yes, they could really reduce the max stacks and therefor increase the +dmg +mancost again..... so rampuptime would be better.... but I'm thankfull for everything that brings arcane closer to a viable spec..

[Soulstrike]

It went live?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Looking forward to tomorrow in Europe eh.

so it looks like.

-No cd on ROP

-Arcane blast,missile and barrage damage increase damage by 25% per charge (not 24%)

- mana cost is 75% per charge

oh wow those blizz people just made one heck of OP spec now lol, cant believe they buffed it too much

[Deleted]

so it looks like.

-No cd on ROP

-Arcane blast,missile and barrage damage increase damage by 25% per charge (not 24%)

- mana cost is 75% per charge

oh wow those blizz people just made one heck of OP spec now lol, cant believe they buffed it too much

How is a puny 3% dmg increase making a spec that did 40% lower dps than Fire/Frost, OP?
Especially in all those excessive movement fights that 90% of the bosses are. Arcane will still stand no chance, even against the 2nd worst class/spec.

[schwarzkopf]

How is a puny 3% dmg increase making a spec that did 40% lower dps than Fire/Frost, OP?

The reason it is lower is because of the AB price surcharge, not the charge stack bonus. Making AB castable more often hunting for AM is where the benefit will (or might) come from.

I still doubt it based upon zomg's numbers - but I will be giving it a burl in LFR and on the dummies (not in real raids yet).

[Zoros]

How is a puny 3% dmg increase making a spec that did 40% lower dps than Fire/Frost, OP?
Especially in all those excessive movement fights that 90% of the bosses are. Arcane will still stand no chance, even against the 2nd worst class/spec.

It's 3% damage per charge, that means 18% more damage at 6 charges, and with cheaper mana costs arcane mages will be able to keep 6 charges longer.

[Elegiac]

It's a nice step in the right direction, but the mobility issue and the synergy with level 90 talents is still a significant problem.

[Deleted]

It's 3% damage per charge, that means 18% more damage at 6 charges, and with cheaper mana costs arcane mages will be able to keep 6 charges longer.

I'm afraid that your math is not correct. Let me explain.

Arcane Charge's damage increase per stack is now 25%. Compared to the previous 22% the dps increase is:

0 stacks 0% more
1 stacks 2.4% more (125% vs 122%)
2 stacks 4.1% more (150% vs 144%)
3 stacks 5.4% more (175% vs 166%)
4 stacks 6.3% more (200% vs 188%)
5 stacks 7.1% more (225% vs 210%)
6 stacks 7.7% more (250% vs 232%)

Without the changes to mana cost that would give about 5%-6% more dps in a Patchwerk fight where you can always get to 6 stacks. Let's say that Arcane Blast's uncharged damage is 100 (thanks Murail). The old damage is in parentheses.

0 stacks - Arcane Blast 100 damage (100 damage)
1 stacks - Arcane Blast 125 damage (122 damage)
2 stacks - Arcane Blast 150 damage (144 damage)
3 stacks - Arcane Blast 175 damage (166 damage)
4 stacks - Arcane Blast 200 damage (188 damage)
5 stacks - Arcane Blast 225 damage (210 damage)
6 stacks - Arcane Blast 250 damage (232 damage)

Total damage: New = 1225 Old = 1162 so now 5.2% more

But because they also changed the mana cost from 125% to 75% you can stay at 6 stacks way longer. And that is where the real damage increase comes.

[Phair]

Post 5.1 I ran arcane last night on some encounters for fun, I did not bother to optimally gem for it but the results were...interesting.

Gara'jal
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4...?s=6940&e=7239

TOES
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/4...?s=9573&e=9909

Competitive dps? You decide.

[Nangz]

The emphasis being on "capable of". Theoretical dps is simulated on a Patchwerk fight. There is no such thing as a Patchwerk fight in Mists of Pandaria. As I said in the Arcane thread - a good Arcane mage will beat an average player of any spec, but when lined up against good players they will perform quite low in a real live in-game raid setting.

Also, let's not turn this into a "the numbers say this, it means you fail if you can't do it" thread, it's not its original intent.
_____

As for improving Arcane, I don't have any ideas. I like Arcane as it is now. I like the fact that I have one rotation modified by Arcane Power and the level 90 talents and then the rotations depending on level 90 talents are further modified by arcane power. We have 6 rotations/priority lists (not debating the viability of Invocation for Arcane at this point in the text) and maximizing our damage output is a matter of watching the tiniest details.

However, for some simple quality of life changes, I would increase the Missiles proc chance to 50% for PvE (that would quite significantly impact our rotations).

As for PvP, Arcane will not be competitive until Arcane damage spells are put on separate silence lockouts from Arcane utility spells.

So this is just my contribution at 06:42 AM. There will be more tomorrow, I suppose.

I don't play a mage specifically, but I do play a hunter and all I know is that arcane is currently simming ~15k higher than our top spec. Ontop of this arcane is a tree that has good target switching, and decent cleave. While you may do less aoe (?) you certainly cleave more and thats for sure something worth bringing an arcane mage to.

[mrgreenthump]

I don't play a mage specifically, but I do play a hunter and all I know is that arcane is currently simming ~15k higher than our top spec. Ontop of this arcane is a tree that has good target switching, and decent cleave. While you may do less aoe (?) you certainly cleave more and thats for sure something worth bringing an arcane mage to.

At least the 510-2 sim, doesnt even count the arcane buffs, so basicly that is what sims think arcane should have done before the patch hit, did any arcane do that.. not even close. So make your conclusions out of that..


And ye coming to the real performance atm.. I went arcane for jokes this week after our progress on a boss was done, and in ToES(which werent super serious) I topped dps on each boss, And I had the worst gear, so either people were slacking, or arcane is serious contender with other specs atm, given fire is just nuts atm..

[Imnick]

I don't play a mage specifically, but I do play a hunter and all I know is that arcane is currently simming ~15k higher than our top spec. Ontop of this arcane is a tree that has good target switching, and decent cleave. While you may do less aoe (?) you certainly cleave more and thats for sure something worth bringing an arcane mage to.

It doesn't cleave better than the other two specs.
Mages just have good cleave regardless of which specialisation they are using, but for Arcane it's on a spell you only use because you have to rather than because you want to.

[schwarzkopf]

Competitive dps? You decide.

If I could get a 60%+ proc rate on Arcane Missiles, I might just do as much.

I have to live with my 10-15% proc rate.

PS: Phair is in iLvl 496 gear, so maybe arcane improves dramatically up there ?

[Deleted]

Orange marmalade best mage ever

arcane power one shoting am !!!!!

[jaakkeli]

If I could get a 60%+ proc rate on Arcane Missiles, I might just do as much.

I have to live with my 10-15% proc rate.

PS: Phair is in iLvl 496 gear, so maybe arcane improves dramatically up there ?

I'm not raiding actively and I got much lower gear than that. Here's my armory:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...alomato/simple

Here's how my reforging to arcane and going to LFR to try it out worked. Oh, BTW, I quit playing in early Cataclysm and the last time I played arcane was in WotLK, so I have no experience on arcane with the mana management mastery besides a while at the target dummy and this LFR:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...L/Arcane_Mage/

I didn't actually have all the gear I have now for that, tempted to go back in just to try how the elegon 489 trinket helps me...

Arcane + RoP is great single target DPS now and it's extremely easy to produce the same DPS I would do as fire on a Garajal fight (where I happily ignored all totems), considering I have no practice at all with it it's probably ahead of fire now. But when I tried it in an actual (normal mode) raid where I could not derp ignore everything and had to actually move my DPS tanked totally. There are very few fights this tier where you can really use RoP without gimping yourself badly and with arcane you really have to stand in that rune as you're not just losing the damage buff when you step out, the mana regen buff is even more important.

I'm going to try arcane + invocation + haste reforging next as I know a few people got surprisingly good results with that.

Also, arcane has *extremely* good 2/3 target cleave. It won't beat a fire mage getting a super lucky combustion and topping logs with that but on average performance it should be very competitive with fire. That is because fire has nothing to buff living bomb damage while arcane mastery works with it. Take living bomb and glyph of fire blast and simply put it up after each explosion and spread. Stay at high mana. Works nicely on trash as well.

[schwarzkopf]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/...L/Arcane_Mage/

I didn't actually have all the gear I have now for that, tempted to go back in just to try how the elegon 489 trinket helps me...

#1 Arcane = #142 Fire really sells the point for me, and your AM proc rate is also amazingly high.

Is there some sort of buff or trinket I'm missing that gives one so much opportunity to cast AM ?

Also - fully buffed, invocated and AB spamming for 20 seconds I can't get over 60kdps...

[Phair]

I'm going to try arcane + invocation + haste reforging next as I know a few people got surprisingly good results with that.

I'd be very interested to see logs of these successful magi using an Invo build, it's my understanding that you'd want your mana to be around 35-40% as invokers energy wears off which I've been unsuccessful at optimally accomplishing in an actual raid setting.

I have observed that since the patch, it's much easier to bank and maintain a full six stack (With Am procs), which makes arcane a fairly good spec for low health target swaps and it's one of the reasons why I obliterated everyone in my raids damage on Lei Shi's protector adds.