An Idea for Arcane!

[Deleted]

In general the idea wouldn't really work due to the mana-management side of Arcane; but as Imnick suggested a proc from a Tier set bonus would be nice, esp. during Alter Time or something like that XD.

Or they could make it consume only 3 stacks (similar to how paladins spend holy power - yes, I know there are people in this forum who dislike comparing classes lol)

Or add an additional effect - casting arcane barrage increases you casting speed byx% per y secs.

First suggestion straight out no; Arcane would then basically become a 5th paladin spec (4th being current Shadow w/ Orbs and DP), and personally that completely ruined Shadow for me. I don't mind the idea of having to build a resource and then consuming it, but Blizzard needs to try and keep uniqueness among classes as it'll just get boring after a while. Could argue that Arcane already has resource management built into the playstyle anyway.

Second suggestion is decent, would possibly promote a playstyle away from trying to camp at 6 stacks as long as possible; especially if it only affects casting speed, instead of Haste (would become easier to balance due to not factoring in mana regen).

Im pretty sure when everyone in the mage comunity chooses to not use a spell because of its function. That means the spell is broken. Whether its working as intended or not.

If Blizzard changed Barrage to be more rewarding to cast so dropping stacks wasn't as punishing (something similar to Fenixx's casting speed (not haste) suggestion or perhaps buffing the damage slightly, it would probably be added to the rotation. Instead, they just give us another way to 6-stack camp which apparently isn't what they even want us doing, so it's not really Barrage that's broken.

Dumping Six charges might be what blizzard intends for Arcane to do but,that is not the case. 6 stack camping is by far a better damage out put then dumping stacks. And if you cant maintain over 90% mana at 6 stacks then you failed. For example choosing to cast Arcane Blast at 90% mana with 6 stacks is a failure in rotation.

If people think that changing the mana cost on Scorch is gonna prevent 6 stack camping they are wrong. You can glyph for ice lance and weave it the same as scorch and get almost the exact same results as scorch weaving.

6 stack camping wasn't intended and therefore is broken just by the concept. Also, Blasting at 90% mana isn't failing depending on what CDs you have up. Difference between using Ice Lance and Scorch is that Ice Lance will be nothing more than a GCD to use, Scorch is (more often than not) above the GCD and allows more regen time. Considering we'll VERY likely switch to Haste/Invo build come 5.2 6 stack camping will come from Evocation not having a cooldown, not from Ice Lance spam. Ice Lance also hits very little compared to Scorch even with Arcane's Mastery.

[Meillassoux]

I have read many posts about arcane these last weeks. Yeah scorch weaving was an accident and I understand Blizz has to fix it but I believe the main reason most don't like the change (including myself) is that it gave us the abillity to control our specc "abit". Scorch is a spell that should not be used in the arcane specc in order to work I agree but Blizz has to introduce new spells in the specc in order for it to become interesting and proud of its mana-stack managing identity (which right has faded away). A spell that gives more than one stack and a spell that reduces less than all the stacks would do the trick. Imagine the combos that would create if implimented properly. Arcane would at last be an interesting specc. (But ofc thats a conversation for next expansion)

[spaace]

Barrage is boring...
slowest moving spell ever

if scorch weaving was SO terrible, thought.. they would have hotfixed it.


Problem is.. blizzard doesn't play mages.

[Imnick]

I don't know why they didn't hotfix it but they've said multiple times that it was unintended and they don't want people to do it
Hence why it is being made impossible in 5.2

[Logix]

...casting a Abarr at this point seems counter productive giving the fact it will produce less damage than my next AB would have (given that its a single target)...

Unfortunately, this is inaccurate.

Under all circumstances, scenarios, and conditions, an Arcane Barrage will always do more damage than an Arcane Blast. This is not only true for raw damage output, but also for its damage per execute time (DPET) as well as its damage per mana (DPM). For all intents and purposes, Arcane Barrage is the single hardest hitting non-proc spell in the Arcanist's arsenal. The cleave is just the icing on the cake.

No matter what the state of the Arcane stack or what mana percentage you may be at, as far as damage is concerned Arcane Barrage will win out over Arcane Blast at any given specific moment in time. Furthermore, this relation will hold true at any gear level as well, since ABr scales better than AB too (~1.19 coefficient for ABr vs a ~1.00 coefficient for AB), and note, this is on top of the fact that ABr has a higher base damage.


Tangentially, ABr's role has most certainly changed in MoP, and some have opined that this pseudo role-reversal of the Arcane spells (with respect to the version of Arcane from Cataclysm) is still something many have not quite grasped yet. In Cata, Arcane Blast was the core damage delivery mechanism for the Arcane spec. The spec was built around attempting to push the limits of how many ABs you could pump out in a row.
In MoP, AB serves as the 'engine' of the spec while ABr (and AM) take on the role(s) of being Arcane's real damage delivery mechanic. Many other things also changed in MoP, especially concerning mana. Things which would make Cata Arcane just not work.

One of the issues that could perhaps be influencing the somewhat pervasive misunderstanding about MoP Arcane is the fact that MoP Arcane doesn't give away its secrets so readily. For example, a shining strength for MoP Arcane is rarely discussed. That strength being MoP Arcane's unmatched ability to 'shape' damage. By this I mean, its ability to have an unprecedented level of control over exactly where and how much damage is delivered in a single moment in time. No other spec has the ability to alter its damage curve on demand as well as the Arcane spec. Now true, to some, this may not seem like a worthwhile 'strength' to have, however, it starts to make sense when you look at where MoP Arcane's mana management gameplay comes into effect.

The one thing that did change in MoP was the size of the Arcane spec's cycle toolbox. As the erudite amongst us will remember, Arcane has always had a close relationship with the idea of 'cycles', these being, a collection of spells that have a specific DPM-DPS-MPS tradeoff.
For the longest time, Arcane was a spec that performed its 'mana management' through the manipulation of these 'cycles'. E.g. you would 'shift' cycles in accordance to mana availability and DPS requirement. The 'burn' phase for arcane was, essentially, just another 'cycle' with a high DPS and MPS but low DPM. In this way, Arcane was unique in the method of its 'management', i.e. unlike other classes or specs who had a rather binary way to manage resources (e.g. Lifetap or 'pooling rage'), Arcane was unique in that it had a very fine grain level of control over exactly what it did with its mana pool.
However, in Cata Arcane, due to scaled mana pools, this gameplay for Arcane devolved by the end to a selection space where the number of cycles that were still relevant reduced to just one or two. This was suboptimal.
With MoP, however, this is no longer the case and now we have an opportunity to fully realize this idea of 'mana management through cycle manipulation'. I believe the intention is to get back to this core concept of management, that being, the management of mana through manipulation, throttling and 'shifting' of cycles. If this hypothesis is correct, then MoP Arcane cannot work under a model where you maintain a 6 stack indefinitely. In fact, I would go as far as saying that under this idea, it would sometimes be better to use cycles that weren't even at 6 charges.


Basically, what I am trying to say, is that we need to evolve our definitions of what we consider "mana management" in order to come into line with what, I think, Blizzard's vision for the Arcane spec is in MoP.
Blizzard, as they have stated, do not consider 'scorch weaving' or any other such gameplay (invocation weaving, ice lance weaving, frostfire bolt weaving etc) as being indicators of Arcane's mana management gameplay, and if we consider the concept of "mana management through cycle manipulation", then Blizzard's position starts making sense. Perhaps they consider Arcane's mana management gameplay as being one which involves the manipulation of cycles instead of 'weaving' and, again perhaps, they are working towards realizing that goal. Under that model, Arcane Barrage serves a critical role (being the only spell that can break stacks), and so, changing it to reduce stack size by 1 would not be prudent.

Where I believe the real complication is stemming from is the level 90 talents. Not that I think they are bad design (I realize that I could potentially be in the minority here), but just that they are serving to be quite troublesome with respect to optimizing the Arcane spec, even in theory. Each talent is demanding a different flavor of mana management, however, the numbers are just no there yet to fully realize this concept of management through cycle throttling. However, if the PTR is any indication, Blizzard seem to be iterating the numbers, so I guess we can see where the story ends up.

[Logix]

--delete--
Apologies for the double post. Not sure how that happened.

Sorry, still getting used to these forums you guys have here

[Qixant]

I haven't seen it posted but what if they did something like reduce the charge damage bonus to 15% per stack (from 25%) and raised the base damage of the arcane abilities by 10% so you net the same damage overall but less of a penalty for dropping your stacks. Also add a bonus/damage boost to ABar to make people WANT to drop stacks.

[Zoros]

I haven't seen it posted but what if they did something like reduce the charge damage bonus to 15% per stack (from 25%) and raised the base damage of the arcane abilities by 10% so you net the same damage overall but less of a penalty for dropping your stacks. Also add a bonus/damage boost to ABar to make people WANT to drop stacks.

We want to drop stacks if there are several targets close enough. Arcane Barrage design it's really fun in aoe situations. So maybe we need a different spell that consumes charges for single target situations.

[Imnick]

There's not really much I can add to Logix's post except that I think it's pretty much hit the nail on the head with what Blizzard are trying to do and haven't managed to achieve
It's my personal belief that they'd be best served to pick one of the L90 methods of mana regeneration and bake it into the Arcane spec, removing the effect on mana from those talents entirely, as they've already got a tough enough job on their plate getting it to work as is (and GC seems to believe tying them to mana might have been a mistake as well, or so he implied on Twitter) but where they're actually going to go with this I have no idea

[Elegiac]

There's not really much I can add to Logix's post except that I think it's pretty much hit the nail on the head with what Blizzard are trying to do and haven't managed to achieve
It's my personal belief that they'd be best served to pick one of the L90 methods of mana regeneration and bake it into the Arcane spec, removing the effect on mana from those talents entirely, as they've already got a tough enough job on their plate getting it to work as is (and GC seems to believe tying them to mana might have been a mistake as well, or so he implied on Twitter) but where they're actually going to go with this I have no idea

This could be achieved by making Rune of Power a passive effect for the Arcane spec. Like Sniper Training. If it took this long for GC to realise that tying mana into the level 90 talents was a mistake, I pity him. At least he recognises the error now, however.

Serene has a point, although to be fair we had the equivalent of Arcane Charges long before Holy Power. Mana Adept is honestly what makes the spec semi-unique at this juncture, and more focus on that aspect would be beneficial.

---------- Post added 2013-01-23 at 03:29 PM ----------

Reposting from the other thread since Nick made an error:

Considering that the 90 talents would still exist it wouldn't even need to be Sniper Training, just give Arcane the increased mana regen rate at all times.

In which case they become simply boring-ass damage buffs. There are some cases in which it is better to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

The fact of the matter is that Evocation is an obsolete spell, period. The few remaining forms of active resource regeneration for DPS classes are either rotationally tied (Steady/Cobra Shot) or instant-cast (Life Tap). Mana itself is pretty much obsolete as a resource for anyone but healers, as a matter of fact.

As I said before, Mana Adept is Arcane's thing. But as it stands, Mastery loses value the moment you cast a spell, and the spec favors playstyles that keep mana 'management' restricted to keeping it above 80 - 90 percent. At least back in Cataclysm, there was incentive to dip below the conservation line during Arcane Power.