[Arcane] Hotfix bugged - Or misunderstanding?

[nickseng]

- It should feel "uncontrolled". Ignite's wild and uncontrolled spreading, along with the binary nature of crits, should be promoting this feeling.

FWIW, it does absolutely feel this way doing WQ as ignite will spread to every freaking thing in range .... neutrals, pets, some birds flyng overhead .... I'm perpetually in combat as fire. :/

[Pandacally]

From a design perspective, I think Fire is weakly defined because as players we are unable to feel where it is lacking. This isn't for a lack of trying from devs, or lack of theme (or if you prefer the word, "fantasy"). The mechanical design makes it clear where Fire is supposed to feel weak:

- It should feel "uncontrolled". Ignite's wild and uncontrolled spreading, along with the binary nature of crits, should be promoting this feeling. Right now, this doesn't work because of the deterministic and predictable combo of 100% Crit Combustion + Flame On + Phoenix Flames combination. Ignite also spreads too frequently for us to ask questions about whether it will reach something. In a weird way, it has become very dependable.

- It should feel "delayed". What I mean by this is that Fire's damage is backloaded (in Ignite), so you should feel less powerful when dealing with mechanics such as short lived priority adds. This was very noticeable in encounters such as Spoils of Pandaria in MoP. Right now, this is compromised by two issues. The first of them is tuning - when you deal so much damage with direct impact spells, losing half of your 10 second ignite doesn't seem to matter anymore. The second is Pyroblast's high frequency - when you look at past expansions, Fire often had trouble getting Pyroblasts to proc at the right time for adds. With Fire Blast no longer requiring cast time and us casting Pyroblast almost twice at frequent, it is now really hard to catch Fire with its "pants off".

It's not just our class that feels this way about Fire. Ask most of the other ranged classes what they feel about Fire Mages in raiding, and they'll tell you the same thing with a different words: "They're just so good at everything". This to me is the bigger problem that needs fixing, instead of Arcane needing to be "brought up" to Fire's level.

Exactly my point, but all butthurt fire mages don't see that fire is the outlier specc that is in need of a nerf.

[Keulenkommando]

IMO Quickening is still sutch a strong talent, that it makes "Overpowered" and "Arcane Orb" wothless in comparisson.
Going into the conservation phase feels twice as bad, not only because you loose the Arcan Charges but also because you lose the Quickening stacks.
The screaming for more Manareg comes from the need to keep using AB/AM to keep the Quickening stacks going at all cost.

I think Quickening is doing more harm than good to the arcane playstile.

I like to see the other two talents get buffed so they are viable alternatives to Quickening or remove Quickening and replace it with someting more in line with the other two talants and give us a other general buff to bring our DPS back to where is was with Quickening.

I like to see out of fight Mana regeneration increased by a lot to make Arcanmages not slowing down dungeon groups.

[Nitros14]

I think out of combat regen going way up might be pretty overpowered in mythic+. Every trash pull being a burn phase would be a bit strong.

[Puri]

kinda off but on topic, i was thinking bout leveling my mage as arcane, as for dungeons, isnt clearing on trash with barrage kinda decent damage wise and to save mana? or would ae spam still outweigh it even with the AB talent and trait?

Leveling as arcane is so much more relaxing than leveling fire, I can only recommend that. With slow you can easily solo rares and elites, combined with high on-demand burst.
For normal dungeons where you don't chainpull mobs and get out of fight after most trash packs arcane is also great, but for m+ where you literally want to chainpull from start to end arcane really is a bad choice, even using invis you won't be able to drink sometimes and AE spam with barrage clearing is just mediocre dps, while boss dps highly depends on the fight duration - all things you don't have to consider when playing fire.

[The Archmage]

Leveling as arcane is so much more relaxing than leveling fire, I can only recommend that. With slow you can easily solo rares and elites, combined with high on-demand burst.
For normal dungeons where you don't chainpull mobs and get out of fight after most trash packs arcane is also great, but for m+ where you literally want to chainpull from start to end arcane really is a bad choice, even using invis you won't be able to drink sometimes and AE spam with barrage clearing is just mediocre dps, while boss dps highly depends on the fight duration - all things you don't have to consider when playing fire.

It's really not when you take Resonance, properly timed with some Rune of Power.

Resonance, to me, is a no brainer for Mythic+ content. Yes, it's a dps loss on boss fights (although arguably a marginal one at that), but it provides SO much on trash that in my opinion it LARGELY outshines Supernova.

I am happy to see that my Mastery investment since the very beginning payed off, although i am pretty surprised to see it scale SO high as to be even before Intellect. It has never happened and i fear now for potential tonedowns.

I guess we'll see.

[Puri]

Resonance, to me, is a no brainer for Mythic+ content. Yes, it's a dps loss on boss fights (although arguably a marginal one at that), but it provides SO much on trash that in my opinion it LARGELY outshines Supernova.

Well, you with resonance instead of supernova you also lose a major combat cc that serves both as a swing reset and aoe interrupt which is nice to have depending on your group's composition.

[Deleted]

I am happy to see that my Mastery investment since the very beginning payed off, although i am pretty surprised to see it scale SO high as to be even before Intellect. It has never happened and i fear now for potential tonedowns.

I guess we'll see.

It's the same for Fire, so why tone it down? Haste needs to be buffed to be higher than versa though, by giving back Nether Attunement on top of Mastery's mana regen. It would also fix the constant "sitting down and drinking" issue.

[pies1]

I Destruction is nukes

I guess you haven't played legion dest then.

[Shangalar]

It's the same for Fire, so why tone it down? Haste needs to be buffed to be higher than versa though, by giving back Nether Attunement on top of Mastery's mana regen. It would also fix the constant "sitting down and drinking" issue.

That would also make mana regen potentially too powerful. I'd prefer if it was something more along the lines of having a passive ability that increases out-of-combat mana regeneration by 3-4-5 times. That way we don't get any significant in-combat benefits, but have an easier time with moving through content. It could even be integrated as a lore thing for patch 7.1, like Wisdom of the Tirisgarde or Legacy of the Nightborne or whatever.

I do agree that our in-combat mana regeneration should be increased a bit more than it was with this Mastery buff, but not to make it too powerful that we're able to Blast so much that other classes/specs complain about our damage.

[Deleted]

Chiming in on the conversation, I love Arcane in Legion for a lot of reasons but I would say it is flawed up until you get the Mystic Kilt Legendary, which I was extremely fortunate to get.

With the kilt, manage becomes a pretty big non issue since not only can you regenerate your mana quickly, it takes less time to regenerate your mana. As such, you can aggressively extend your burst phase well beyond the normal limitations without fear of having no mana available for when your next burn phase comes around. As I said, and will emphasis again, I don't think that it's right for a legendary to be required for the spec to function, but all I can say is that when you do get that Legendary, the only glaring weakness of Arcane just disappears.

I agree that the base mana regen, either in or out of combat should be increased since drinking between packs, particularly in mythic+, weakens the spec but from a damage point of view, I am happy with what I am capable of right now.

[Pandacally]

It's really not when you take Resonance, properly timed with some Rune of Power.

Resonance, to me, is a no brainer for Mythic+ content. Yes, it's a dps loss on boss fights (although arguably a marginal one at that), but it provides SO much on trash that in my opinion it LARGELY outshines Supernova.

I am happy to see that my Mastery investment since the very beginning payed off, although i am pretty surprised to see it scale SO high as to be even before Intellect. It has never happened and i fear now for potential tonedowns.

I guess we'll see.

How much dps do you usually make with resonance + AEx5 + ABar rotation (with and without RoP) in a dungeon scenario considering 3 and 5 targets?

In higher mythic +, pulls with more than 1 pack seem extremely undoable consistently (might change with gear), so it will mostly come down to how well you perform an 2-3 targets.

[The Archmage]

How much dps do you usually make with resonance + AEx5 + ABar rotation (with and without RoP) in a dungeon scenario considering 3 and 5 targets?

In higher mythic +, pulls with more than 1 pack seem extremely undoable consistently (might change with gear), so it will mostly come down to how well you perform an 2-3 targets.

I will try after the current buffs (which are huge) and then tell you, but i always manage to be VERY high. You have to consider that we also have Mark of Aluneth that, again, adds a crap ton of damage with the proper usage of RoP.

I always felt like AoE is definetly a strong suit of Arcane. Akwardly enough, so far (pre buffs) i have always been performing way better in AoE scenarios than in pure ST.

[Jessicka]

Not so bad, but a more pertinent question then maybe, why spec Arcane when Fire appears to be more flexible in terms of when and where you can use it? What does Arcane bring to the table that Fire does not?

Does Arcane now only exist for that small group of players that have always liked it?

The same can be said of most ranged-casters; I think only Fire and Frost are actually built pretty well for handling dungeons; while Destruction is okayish. Shadow, Arcane, Demonology, and Affliction are all clearly built for 6 minute raid encounters; not 'the rest of the game'. Honestly, that's been a bit of a problem for a while but no one really noticed or cared until Mythic+ and the disincentives to respeccing through Artifacts, as previously you'd just respec and handle it.

[Deleted]

My iLvl is around 820, I've been leveling with Arcane and love it. Yesterday we did a normal 7/7 EN and I don't know what I did wrong but I only managed 100-120k dps. It was pitiful and I felt ashamed. *It was my first time in the raid as well* While our Rogues/Warriors/Ench Shamy/Monk did 300k dps, though they were well equipped (ilvl 840-850).

Sadly I was the only mage so I couldn't compare and I couldn't get any info on my rotation. Because of the constant movement, my "burn" phase was actually pretty long and the DPS pretty low. And no, I don't use NT-Spam because I find it awful.

[nickseng]

... Yesterday we did a normal 7/7 EN a....


And no, I don't use NT-Spam because I find it awful.

NT spam no longer works as of the last reset.

[Deleted]

NT spam no longer works as of the last reset.

Glad that that is so, but how do I successfully get my dps up? At the moment my rotation is around 5-6 AB then Barrage, missile / mark / NT when possible. Maybe my talents are off ?

[Deleted]

Northem was right all those months ago when he was complaining and that this spec IS just hideously flawed.

Looking at a big picture, because of the mechanics of mana management and burns you have to delete the current design of arcane from the game - including how it was in old expansions (similar) - to "fix" it in situations like that. Fire has become a very convenient to use spec in almost all content. On top of that, and most importantly since it's rarely mentioned, is that it has arcane-like burst now so it seems like a stupid idea to not pick it up.

Looking at an even bigger picture, this expansion gated the specs behind AP grind but most importantly spec-specific legendaries and the devs promised - because they cornered themselves with their gating design - that fire will never be bad this expansion, so it seems like a stupid idea to not use that spec.

Frost is the weakest since it can not burst at all, and when fire can do what it does better while having burst on top, frost might as well not exist, like arcane.

[Obelisk Kai]

Looking at a big picture, because of the mechanics of mana management and burns you have to delete the current design of arcane from the game - including how it was in old expansions (similar) - to "fix" it in situations like that. Fire has become a very convenient to use spec in almost all content. On top of that, and most importantly since it's rarely mentioned, is that it has arcane-like burst now so it seems like a stupid idea to not pick it up.

Looking at an even bigger picture, this expansion gated the specs behind AP grind but most importantly spec-specific legendaries and the devs promised - because they cornered themselves with their gating design - that fire will never be bad this expansion, so it seems like a stupid idea to not use that spec.

Frost is the weakest since it can not burst at all, and when fire can do what it does better while having burst on top, frost might as well not exist, like arcane.

And that's why I am going to maintain Fire as my main spec throughout the expansion. I have noticed that Fire has now acquired Arcane's burst phase, a design decision I do not agree with as it compromises what would otherwise be a free flowing and reactive rotation (which would make Arcane a little bit more unique as it would cover a pre-planning, careful use niche). Even if Arcane pulls ahead in certain scenarios over Fire, overall the downsides of not being primarily fire and gearing for as much crit as possible so fire functions is too great.

Arcane and Frost are likely to end up as niche specs this expansion, played by those who enjoy them and those top end raiders who find they eek out a smidge more dps on certain targets than Fire does.

But the overall problem, of them being so much worse than Fire, is something pures have to live with. Whereas hybrids get genuine choice based on role (even ranged dps vs melee dps is a choice of role), we are given the illusion of choice in picking what is best or picking what is wrong. That is the cross pures bear and will continue to bear.

[Deleted]

Looking at an even bigger picture, this expansion gated the specs behind AP grind but most importantly spec-specific legendaries and the devs promised - because they cornered themselves with their gating design - that fire will never be bad this expansion, so it seems like a stupid idea to not use that spec.

Is it too far fetched to think that the current situation is intentional? People in beta told that at some point devs stopped answering to Arcane and Frost threads so all went Fire because it was the only functional spec. And I didn't understand why we had to wait balancing for two months (9 weeks). So mages were herded to Fire?

Nah, I don't believe that. But I admit that this situation is very convenient for Blizzard.