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  1. #1

    Talking They have listen my prayers (Arcane Mage)

    Arcane is getting buffed

    Source: https://www.wowhead.com/news=295352/...er-1st?webhook

    Arcane is probably my favourite spec and they said they are finally going to get buffed in October 1st.

    I feel this is the spec that has been forgotten the most when it comes to balance the specs frost and fire are usually top balanced.

    Really excited to see this. And probably then I will come back to play my mage

  2. #2
    The Lightbringer Lollis's Avatar
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    And it's still going to be total shit in EP simply because of the encounter tactics.
    Speciation Is Gradual

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Lollis View Post
    And it's still going to be total shit in EP simply because of the encounter tactics.
    Ye, agreed, but it's a start tho, i love this spec very much

  4. #4
    Herald of the Titans CptEgo's Avatar
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    I like Arcane too, it's the most unique spec in the game in my opinion and it's just sad to see it not being competitive with other specs. So this is great news.

  5. #5
    This is something to look forward to in October, it seems like a lot of us will have a good time playing WoW.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Lollis View Post
    And it's still going to be total shit in EP simply because of the encounter tactics.
    Are you saying that arcane is always terrible if you can't just sit and turret?

    Then a buff isn't going to do a damned thing; the spec needs redesigned.
    Cheerful lack of self-preservation

  7. #7
    Arcane Mage; The new elemental shaman.

    A complete overhaul is required.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Nefarious Tea View Post
    Are you saying that arcane is always terrible if you can't just sit and turret?

    Then a buff isn't going to do a damned thing; the spec needs redesigned.
    It's not so much not being able to sit still and turret.. it's not being able to sit still and turret during Arcane Power. Movement doesn't inherently wreck the spec, see Imonar in Antorus, but constant unrelenting movement becomes an issue in comparison.

    The issue is that on bosses where Arcane can sit and turret it should pretty much be so far ahead as to make Frost and Fire look puny in comparison, because that's the gimmick. Unfortunately, Arcane has been so ridiculously undertuned this expansion that in it's absolute best case scenario it's very marginally ahead of Fire and Frost. The reason for this is that Fire and Frost have Azerite traits that have a much bigger impact, because their spec mechanics are so much less fragile than Arcane.

    Arcane is a very easy spec to fuck up from a development perspective, because Blizzard has moved further and further away from what the core of the spec should be: mana management via Arcane Blast.

    As much as I'm loathe to admit it, it might not be a terrible idea to tear the spec down and rebuild it from the ground up with that singular mechanic in mind-- build it up entirely around managing mana and manipulating it in various ways, without 15 years of cruft and legacy mechanics behind it. A lot of specs could stand to be tore down and rebuilt from scratch, like Demonology was, really..

  9. #9
    I was so happy to see this buff. My main that I play probably 80% of the time is an Arcane Mage. I don't know if I see any difference but if it evens out the spec, I will be happy. I am glad to see other Arcane Mages, it doesn't seem to be the most popular class/spec.

    Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

  10. #10
    Herald of the Titans Will's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CptEgo View Post
    I like Arcane too, it's the most unique spec in the game in my opinion and it's just sad to see it not being competitive with other specs. So this is great news.
    Just curious what makes it so unique? The mana management thing? Because there are plenty of specs that have a much more unique gimmick like WW (combo strikes) or BrM (stagger), Shadow (insanity mechanic), disc (shields), demo (minion master), or subtlety (shadow dancing).

    Compared to those arcane is mostly 'nuke hard and keep your mana high' which is hardly as unique as the other cool gimmicks some specs have.

  11. #11
    Herald of the Titans CptEgo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    Just curious what makes it so unique? The mana management thing? Because there are plenty of specs that have a much more unique gimmick like WW (combo strikes) or BrM (stagger), Shadow (insanity mechanic), disc (shields), demo (minion master), or subtlety (shadow dancing).

    Compared to those arcane is mostly 'nuke hard and keep your mana high' which is hardly as unique as the other cool gimmicks some specs have.
    I disagree. Arcane is a very weird and different spec, Discipline is pretty unique too. Unique doesn't mean better or cool.
    Last edited by CptEgo; 2019-10-03 at 05:50 AM.

  12. #12
    Arcane is one of the best examples of how WoW class design is outdated and clunky. Passive dmg buffs are not tackling the root of the problem where most specs need a fundamental redesign.

    I find BfA content to be quite good, except the missed opportunity islands and warfronts, but the gameplay is worse than any other current MMO or a bigger RPG I've played the last few years.

    Arcane: pop several global cooldowns, including eating each other's duration, stand still and Arcane Blast. Evocate. Repeat but drop charges.

    I've been playing Mage since vanilla and this feels as the most dull iteration of the spec than any expansion. 8% will neither pull it much from the bottom, nor improve its gameplay. Dmg might get comparable to UH DK in realistic settings though, yay.

    HOWEVER: these non-design extremely conservative bandage buffs make me hopeful that the next expansion is bringing massive overhauls to the classes, progresaion and combat systems. So they are understandably not redesigning anything now as they are currently already working on it.
    Well, maybe combat redesign is taking it too far, but I will be happy with class and progression overhaul.
    Last edited by Trumpcat; 2019-10-03 at 10:01 AM.

  13. #13
    I like the cooldown based gameplay Arcane has, but that's about it. Arcane Blast and Arcane Explosion have to go, at least as long as Arcane is a ranged spec. Most encounters have cleave nowdays and Arcane has near 0 cleave as we don't really use Arcane Barrage at all unless we conserve. Granted with the buff Arcane ST burst is so high it may have a use case come next raid much like what we saw on Fetid.

    I wouldn't really shed any tears if Arcane got removed all together and we got something new(still kinda wishing Battle Mage was a thing, but we certainly don't need another melee right now).

  14. #14
    Unfortunately arcane needs an overhaul, not just a buff. They have added so many diablo devs to wow, yet didnt borrow anything from wizards.

    What I would like to see:

    Give Mages Archon and Obliteration orb.
    Arcane power as resource instead of mana and make it a 15-yards "melee" class.
    Archon the giga CD and Obliteration orb something that you powerup and drop with a short cd (10-12s) for massive smash.

    Change arcane barrage to something more exciting visually

    Spectral Blade instead of arcane blast as resource builder which applies magic debuff vulnerability like DH.

    Slow time (the bubble) - all buffs duration increased by 50% for 10s with 3 min cd. puts a debuff on player when u get the buff.

    Energy armor - all allies around 20y and you gain resources faster 10% faster (rage, energy, balance power, focus, fury, etc.)

    mirror image - 20s duration, all dmg taken by you redirected to the images until they die (instead of ice block)

    black hole - copy the dota 2 spell but not channeled

    Talents
    Basically just spice up the above, e.g.

    maybe a talent to make magic missile hit 3 targets always (but only does more dmg if all 3 hit)
    obliteration orb made passive to shoot out every 4 missiles but does less dmg than dumping a huge one
    spectral blade cleave or applying a stacking dot only on 1 target, or maybe allows you to knock target once per 12 s
    black hole instead of dmg just stuns all enemies inside
    supernova change to mass interrupt instead of knockup
    slow time talent to reduce debuffs duration instead of increasing buffs duration

    Raid:
    Melee-type caster, can add cool 2hander INT swords, energy armor having greatest impact on melees (energy/rage/fury/etc), focused mostly on pumping out obliteration orbs or barrage or smth and with cool utility via slow time/black hole

    M+
    Utility above alone will make it pretty fun to play in m+ and aoe will actually be exciting (pumping out orbs, black holes, maybe some cool 3rd spell).

    PvP
    wizard chasing u down with a 2hander and smashing ur face would be fun to watch instead of pillar humping for 10min

    I mean, the one thing diablo 3 does really right is that its FLASHY. so just borrow the flashy stuff and make this spec finally fucking exciting instead of ABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABAB evo.

  15. #15
    Herald of the Titans Kuni Zyrekai's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trumpcat View Post
    HOWEVER: these non-design extremely conservative bandage buffs make me hopeful that the next expansion is bringing massive overhauls to the classes, progresaion and combat systems. So they are understandably not redesigning anything now as they are currently already working on it.
    Well, maybe combat redesign is taking it too far, but I will be happy with class and progression overhaul.
    While I agree and hope that Arcane gets a redesign, the conservative tuning by the tuning knob aura is sadly the end consequence of years upon years of people quitting and noting that they didn't want to relearn their class every patch as the reason. This is also the reason that no-IL Frost won't be fixed until 9.0. You will very likely never see another spec redesign mid-expansion again, like we saw occasionally pre-WoD. Ask Shaman how 8.1's promised rework turned out for them.

    The other half of the issue with Arcane is that it has no real, actionable, identity. It was somewhat unique in that, historically, the rotation changed between burn and conserve. That's not particularly interesting once we work out the theory to "stop at 92.5%", and given the advent of rotation-changing cooldowns, not unique anymore either. Frost's identity is in the Shatter combo, taken to the extreme with BF-Flurry working on the prior cast. Fire's identity is the Combustion burst, Hot Streak, and to a lesser extent, the spreading of Ignite like a fire. What is Arcane's? Extreme burst can't work, because you'll stack them, so your burn/conserve delta has to be roughly on par with most specs out there. Mana management? Maybe if they gave it some actual interesting tools to work with, like we gave them notes on going into Legion that got ignored. Combo point caster? Frost and Destro do it better.

    There's also the fact that most incarnations of Arcane to date have been met with most players not enjoying it. End of WoD was amusing if only for the kill times achievable by stacked Arcane raids, but that just highlights why it can't have extreme multiplicative buff stacking like WoD had. Legion and BfA so far have shown that in the absence of large multipliers like Prismatic Crystal, you can't even add active buttons to the spec in most cases, which continues the "2 button spec" stigma it's had since WotLK. But that doesn't mean it was intrinsically fun, just powerful.

    Double down on mana management, and do it right. Reduce Charges to 3 for less granular control of mana, give a spell that decreases Charges without dropping them entirely, make Missiles not increase or decrease Charge level, and all active talents need to both interact with Charges and be tuned DPCT-wise for replacing that Arcane Blast/Missiles/reduction spell with the talent's bonus damage on top. Yeah, most will turn out to be cosmetic differences, but there will be interesting aesthetic and potential raid mechanic exploiting choices in say, a properly tuned Ray of Frost-style spell vs an instant cast. Or scrap the entire idea and copy XIV's Black Mage burn/regen.

    ETA: I like the above post, but this game does not need another melee spec, especially at the cost of a ranged. Going full D3 Archon Wiz would be interesting, but you have too many group buffs for WoW's combat, and I fear that the fast paced gameplay of D3's Wiz wouldn't transfer over to WoW's "smack this nigh-stationary target for 4-6 minutes". Neat starting point though. Keep working it and there's a usable spec in there. Specifically, work out the details of the baseline rotation. I potentially like this Obliteration Orb every 12ish seconds.

    ETA2: Hell, make the reduction by 1 stage Barrage. Now you have an AoE rotation in Blast/Explosion up, Barrage down. Also adds some interest in the cleave scenarios.
    Last edited by Kuni Zyrekai; 2019-10-03 at 12:53 PM.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by mrgreenthump View Post
    (still kinda wishing Battle Mage was a thing, but we certainly don't need another melee right now).
    Quote Originally Posted by klaps_05 View Post
    ... make it a 15-yards "melee" class.
    Yes. Battle Mage / Spellblade / Spell Breaker. This is my dream class I wish WoW had. I would be glad if a convulsed spec that never founds its place for 15 years finally got scrapped and replaced with a fresh dynamic gameplay iteration inspired by Blizzard's own work.

    I would go further and say make it tank/dps. Yes.

    Why wouldn't the game need another melee class/spec? I think it needs fun options and new niche class fantasies. Maybe ALSO bring a new ranged class like the rumored Necromancer/Tinker.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuni Zyrekai View Post
    ...The other half of the issue with Arcane is that it has no real, actionable, identity.
    Kuni's post is excellent, of course, but I'd say 15 years of trying to make the spec work is enough. They didn't find that identity, all it had were few months periods where it was gimmicky op.
    Last edited by Trumpcat; 2019-10-04 at 07:58 AM.

  17. #17
    Yeah Kuni says what needs to be done with the spec and even he was struggling in most of if to get to where and what it needs to be. So that confirms it for me that the best thing is to go back to Classic route and merge the class again and just make it all about the talents again. You want to be better with Arcane magic then spec into it mostly in the talent tree, but you are still using the other schools of magic like Fireball and such so you actually have a spec that isn't "2 buttons" or is it going to be a major issue.

    You could even just redesign the old classic trees on something based around;

    Fire tree talents are all about dot damage buffs to fire spells as well as pyroblast at the end back to being a big hitting long cast

    Arcane tree talents are all about counter spell, intellect buff, sheep, damage buffing talents as based with the end PoM talent.

    Frost tree talents are obviously based around slows, faster attacking and combos with BF etc with the end of that tree being Frostfire bolt or water elemental but you would have to make it pretty good i guess.

    Just something like this would SURELY make balancing a lot easier for blizzard to not have to balance 36 different specs but just the 12! Makes their jobs easier and should balance the game much better.

  18. #18
    Herald of the Titans Kuni Zyrekai's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trumpcat View Post
    Why wouldn't the game need another melee class/spec? I think it needs fun options and new niche class fantasies. Maybe ALSO bring a new ranged class like the rumored Necromancer/Tinker.
    There are ways to make it work, for sure, but it would require Blizzard to step outside the paradigm they've stuck to over the years.

    The fact is, melee slots in a raid are limited. Especially when Blizz designs fights like Mythic Uu'nat, where they're not technically limited, it's just the easiest if melee don't have to deal with Resonance, thus the slots are limited by making the raid's lives easier. Unless you bring something that displaces another melee's usefulness and DPS, it's going to be an unwanted spec in a raid situation. Now admittedly, if it held onto the default Mage powers like Ice Block, Blink, Time Warp, and Arcane Intellect, it's already better off than most melee are in the raid utility department.

    As to why the game doesn't actually need more melee in general: we've only ever had melee/tank/healer added. We're currently 13 melee to 11 ranged (worse if you look at classes instead of specs), after losing a ranged to melee in Legion, with the current raid paradigm of "melee are a liability". Shifting that to 14/10 without addressing how melee actually interact with raiding sounds like a recipe for more bitching than usual. Granted, ranged Survival was a popular spec where Arcane is decidedly not. If Blizz could figure out how the hell to make melee not a liability, while also not just completely trivializing content by having all mechanics ignore them, then it wouldn't matter.

    Adding that the likely Tinker in 9.0 is most likely at least tank/melee, with a possible ranged third if they're not too lazy in designing it, we're rapidly approaching a point where you just won't get into a raid if you're not tank/healer on certain classes. To say nothing of tank imbalances, leaving certain tank specs also out of the accepted raiding meta. I'd argue we're already there for things like Monk, where Windwalker is ridiculously rare due to performance issues. Adding yet another competitor to the mix, especially one with a ton of utility, is a very dangerous game to play.


    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Costa View Post
    Yeah Kuni says what needs to be done with the spec and even he was struggling in most of if to get to where and what it needs to be.
    To be fair, that's because I'm trying to remember what all Komma and I had discussed back during Legion's alpha at 5:30 in the morning. We did have a pretty well thought out plan, but since Arcane isn't my wheelhouse, I don't recall most of the details other than what I posted.

    Quote Originally Posted by Costa View Post
    Just something like this would SURELY make balancing a lot easier for blizzard to not have to balance 36 different specs but just the 12! Makes their jobs easier and should balance the game much better.
    The problem there is that you then remove an absolutely absurd amount of choice from the game. And the melee/ranged split becomes even more dire than it is now.

    Also Classic's talent trees were a trap in most scenarios. There was one correct answer and that's it. You're bitch duty Winter's Chill or you're Arcane Power spam Frostbolt. Other variants don't exist. You then have to go back to normalizing spell coefficients to the point that AB/Fireball/Frostbolt simply become a skin for your "I push for damage" button. Given the vastly different damage profiles of the three specs, you would have to completely homogenize them aside from spell colour. Hot Streak, Shatter/BF, Charges, they would all have to go. Or else you're still balancing 36 specs, just with more cross-play.

    There's no "I'm going to play Arcane but I have access to Fireball so it's not just 2 buttons". There's "this is the optimal nuke to use for this given talent build. This talent build is the optimal to play for raw DPS." No deviation, no exceptions. Blizz just now has to check for any cross-spec oddities such as the old Jesusbolt spec of 3.0. This is more work than Live's situation.

    Balance on the whole isn't in a terrible spot. There are a couple outliers, and things like Mages and Rogues who have by and large chosen the best spec and run with it, leaving the other two in poor positions in rankings, but balance itself is pretty damn close.
    Last edited by Kuni Zyrekai; 2019-10-04 at 09:50 AM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by klaps_05 View Post
    Unfortunately arcane needs an overhaul, not just a buff. They have added so many diablo devs to wow, yet didnt borrow anything from wizards.

    What I would like to see:

    Give Mages Archon and Obliteration orb.
    Arcane power as resource instead of mana and make it a 15-yards "melee" class.
    Archon the giga CD and Obliteration orb something that you powerup and drop with a short cd (10-12s) for massive smash.

    Change arcane barrage to something more exciting visually

    Spectral Blade instead of arcane blast as resource builder which applies magic debuff vulnerability like DH.

    Slow time (the bubble) - all buffs duration increased by 50% for 10s with 3 min cd. puts a debuff on player when u get the buff.

    Energy armor - all allies around 20y and you gain resources faster 10% faster (rage, energy, balance power, focus, fury, etc.)

    mirror image - 20s duration, all dmg taken by you redirected to the images until they die (instead of ice block)

    black hole - copy the dota 2 spell but not channeled

    Talents
    Basically just spice up the above, e.g.

    maybe a talent to make magic missile hit 3 targets always (but only does more dmg if all 3 hit)
    obliteration orb made passive to shoot out every 4 missiles but does less dmg than dumping a huge one
    spectral blade cleave or applying a stacking dot only on 1 target, or maybe allows you to knock target once per 12 s
    black hole instead of dmg just stuns all enemies inside
    supernova change to mass interrupt instead of knockup
    slow time talent to reduce debuffs duration instead of increasing buffs duration

    Raid:
    Melee-type caster, can add cool 2hander INT swords, energy armor having greatest impact on melees (energy/rage/fury/etc), focused mostly on pumping out obliteration orbs or barrage or smth and with cool utility via slow time/black hole

    M+
    Utility above alone will make it pretty fun to play in m+ and aoe will actually be exciting (pumping out orbs, black holes, maybe some cool 3rd spell).

    PvP
    wizard chasing u down with a 2hander and smashing ur face would be fun to watch instead of pillar humping for 10min

    I mean, the one thing diablo 3 does really right is that its FLASHY. so just borrow the flashy stuff and make this spec finally fucking exciting instead of ABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABABAB evo.
    just shut the fuck up. seriously.

  20. #20
    I miss Legion Arcane Mage with legendary shoulders

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