Arcane needs more rotational spells

[Cyanu]

It's truly a unique problem in an expansion that everyone needs more non-damaging buttons to press we need more damaging buttons to press

Supernova is still undertuned just as it was the entire legion, while Arcane Orb is a decent talent that's stuck next to Overpowered which is ofc completely overpowered...

if making them baseline is out of the question at the very least make them viable, both Supernova and Arcane Orb are such cool skills (especially the orb feels so dynamic) but instead we're forced into passives

at least for Supernova the fix is obvious: buff the primary target damage to Ice Nova levels (Ice Nova does so much more dmg and is still worse than both Chilled to the Bone and Lonely Winter)

ps: how did the most obvious and awsome shameless copycat from diablo got lost? why doesn't Arcane have Disintegrate yet? arcane deathbeams anyone?...

[Mahmeya]

Maybe Disintegrate would work badly with WoW PoV. Both D3 and HotS are seen from above which makes it very clear how far it can reach, something that would be problematic in WoW.

As someone who has arcane mage just for low content (alt to have each class at max and do quests, sometimes dungeons, on them) I use both Supernova and Orb. Even have the legendary that sometimes gives free orbs which I really love (it's such Diablo-type power item). Combined with Aethas Sunreaver as bodyguard and his OP flame orbs, it melts regular mobs far too easily when in group.

[Raenac the Underwhelming]

Maybe Disintegrate would work badly with WoW PoV. Both D3 and HotS are seen from above which makes it very clear how far it can reach, something that would be problematic in WoW.

Eye Beam for Demon Hunters has worked just fine so far, and as I understand it, Disintegrate is basically the same thing.

[Mahmeya]

The reach of Eye beam is not as big issue for melee spec as it would be for ranged as all DHs need it it to his the usual cleave clumps. Do you know by a look where is 40yd (the most common range)? Can you be sure people would get the targetting right for something at its edge if it was as thin line as it is in D3/HotS?

[Coconut]

Arcane mages have enough rotational spells, let people enjoy their simple spec and go play something else if you don't like it, thank you very much. It feels so smooth and satisfying. Needlessly button-heavy rotations suck all the balls.

[Ambereldus]

An easy way to design it is to have it auto-target your current target, dealing damage to everything in between (and behind?). Sure it wouldn't give as much freedom as the D3 design, but it would fit WoW's combat style. I imagine it would be similar to Ray of Frost or the old Mind Sear, but with a line-AoE component.

I wholeheartedly support spicing up Arcane's spellbook, particularly after seeing the Beta's current iteration. Hopefully we'll see changes before launch...hopefully...

[Swalload]

It's truly a unique problem in an expansion that everyone needs more non-damaging buttons to press we need more damaging buttons to press

Supernova is still undertuned just as it was the entire legion, while Arcane Orb is a decent talent that's stuck next to Overpowered which is ofc completely overpowered...

if making them baseline is out of the question at the very least make them viable, both Supernova and Arcane Orb are such cool skills (especially the orb feels so dynamic) but instead we're forced into passives

at least for Supernova the fix is obvious: buff the primary target damage to Ice Nova levels (Ice Nova does so much more dmg and is still worse than both Chilled to the Bone and Lonely Winter)

ps: how did the most obvious and awsome shameless copycat from diablo got lost? why doesn't Arcane have Disintegrate yet? arcane deathbeams anyone?...

You need to understand that in this game you can change talents depending on the situation and in many situations the talents that you think are bad are actually very strong. Stop blindly following cookie cutter builds made for target dummies and unreliable braindead sims. Play the game, try shit out.

[Ambereldus]

In a raid setting, those active talents sadly don't compare to the passives they share a row with. This has been simmed and confirmed in many different scenarios over the entire expansion, and isn't news.

They DO have niche uses, this is true. A great Mage knows when to take advantage of this, but the situations are generally few and far between. In PvE, it entirely comes down to damage tuning. I cannot comment on PvP usage.

In BFA, we're (currently) losing a lot of the interactions we have with Arcane Missiles. Combined with the beta tuning, (AM is a dps loss, but we DON'T know if this is intentional) our rotation is becoming increasingly 1-button. This could be fine if Mana Management was front-and-centre to our rotation, but even that's being deemphasized. I'll have to wait until Arcane gets some more attention before I can comment further.

[Nitros14]

Arcane missiles is just a spell to use while moving with slipstream now. 90% of my damage on beta raid tests is arcane blast. It actually doesn't feel that bad but it's a little bare bones yeah. You basically burn down your mana ignoring all missiles procs, then hit missiles once rune of power/evocate are exhausted.

Rule of Threes I'm not sure I like, it makes ABx4 Abar mana positive.

[Tikishock]

I actually like Arcane rotation--at least on live. I haven't tested it out much in beta other than to see how many Arcane Explosions we can get before out of mana compared to live. I think if it's too complex it would be very hard to maintain because another aspect of Arcane is mana management and right now if you screw that up on Live than the rest of the fight is basically lost. You might as well just auto-attack.

With my very limited testing on the dummy target here is what I found about AoE so far:

LIVE:
15 Arcane Explosions with no Barrage resets
40 Arcane Explosions with Barrage resets

BETA:
22 Arcane Explosions with no Barrage resets
27 Arcane Explosions with Barrage resets

I understand the Barrage resets do nothing but still included it. Difference is due to Clearcasting procs--if I had time to do more and average them that would be best.

All I did was use a single target dummy and press Arcane Explosion as much as I could and the first time I ran out of mana I stopped counting. When using Barrage, I simply AE until 4 stacks and then barraged and repeated this process again until out of mana.

I'm just experimenting with what our AOE is going to look like in dungeons because to me that was the most fun about playing an arcane mage. I really liked it's AOE in mythics--even if it wasn't cutting edge.

[Parhelion]

Arcane is in line with other classes when it comes to rotational abilities.
Having two buttons what 1 button does doesn't solve anything except add clutter.

As for rotational abilities with cooldowns, you already have plenty, if you decide to talent into them (Rune of Power etc.)

[Deleted]

Arcane is in line with other classes when it comes to rotational abilities.
Having two buttons what 1 button does doesn't solve anything except add clutter.

As for rotational abilities with cooldowns, you already have plenty, if you decide to talent into them (Rune of Power etc.)

Have you played arcane on beta yet?

[BlueRemedy]

Players: more spells, please

Ion: less spells it is

Players: no, no, more

Ion: less

Players: M-o

Ion: L-e

[Charge me Doctor]

Why?
It's both unique and fun that arcane mages filler spell is also their nuke spell depending on conditions met. I personally don't like this whole "press X every time when its off CD" rotation, it stinks of melee to me.

[BlueRemedy]

Why?
It's both unique and fun that arcane mages filler spell is also their nuke spell depending on conditions met. I personally don't like this whole "press X every time when its off CD" rotation, it stinks of melee to me.

News flash, there are many, many other styles of designs and options to employ here. If you think that is the limit, then you've been playing this game far too long. This is a very shallow, very dated game.

[Tokas]

this makes no sense... you should have played warlock early cata then... many spells for no reason... stupid gameplay.

[Charge me Doctor]

News flash, there are many, many other styles of designs and options to employ here. If you think that is the limit, then you've been playing this game far too long. This is a very shallow, very dated game.

News flash, neither of these other styles of designs and options were presented by OP - it's just arcane orb and nova

[Ambereldus]

At its core, Arcane should be about mana management and giving us the tools to make mana our plaything. As of now, it seems like mana management is becoming rather 1-dimensional. You Burn with AB until you run out of mana, then you Conserve with AB4-ABar until you can Burn again, using Clearcasting rarely if ever. AoE is even more cumbersome, AE4-ABar until oom in 5-6 cycles without any reasonable way to Conserve. (Sure, AB2-AE2-ABar is ok for mana, but hardcasting in melee? Too much of a liability.)

IMO, many of the problems could be solved simply by giving AM a significant damage boost relative to our other abilities. Now you make Clearcasting a valuble proc we want to use. Now we have a hard-burn and a soft-burn to utilize based on our mana situation (think Temporal Flux and being able to burn ALL of that excess mana). Now we have another way to manage how fast/slow we go through our mana bar so we can sync AP and Evo correctly.

If given AOrb baseline, we'd now also have a way to conserve mana more efficiently. It lets us cast fewer high-stack AB's while still getting a reasonable amount of damage in. It also helps for AoE because you have that extra GCD where you aren't hard-burning your mana, and the ability to burst some AoE from range via ABar-AOrb-ABar.

I don't think it would be a bad thing allowing us to have more control over our mana.

[Nitros14]

I'm completely fine with ignoring clearclasting during burns being ideal. There's less RNG that way. Arcane missiles is now a mobility spell like scorch.

The thing that sucks is you can't control mana usage on aoe. You either are full burning or ceasing to aoe entirely. This all comes from making explosion unaffected by charges. I wish supernova or nether tempest were retuned to be on the charge system as a lower mana cost alternative to explosion when you don't want to full burn.

[nickseng]

Arcane missiles is now a mobility spell like scorch.

It's really not. You can't cast AM while moving unless you have the proc and talent slipstream.