Yes Arcane Blast was always and still is super underwhelming when it comes to visuals.
I remember at some Blizzcon they made a side panel on effects and showed how Arcane Blast impact was created and drawn, which was pretty cool because it's pretty complex actually with gradual drawing and multiple sets merging there into final "rune" impact thing.
But what they totally forgot there is that travel animation thing. I guess they have a hard time deciding on something that's instant and spammmable when it comes to that (I'd imagine the suggested beam would be annoying as fuck in raids).
But all in all they should still have done something there. Probably not beam, but maybe some sort of dissipating trail effect or sort of like briken sonic resonance effect.
But then, I'm a scumbag Destrolock with the best looking nuke ingame, so whatever.
But it felt amazing. Missile machinegunning with Bloodlust and Icy Veins was so much fun, 5 missiles flying out in 1 second with sound effects on was peak satisfaction gameplay.
Honestly the gameplay of Arcane hasn't changed one bit since Wrath; Burn all mana during CDs with Arcane Blast and free procs, enter conservative phase until evocation is up.
That was before the whole "more missiles are fired when X" talents. They can build on that and have Arcane be a cannon that actually shoots stuff once in a while and is visually pleasing. If you need the instant impact which honestly only has some relevance in PvP and then, not too much, we can keep AB spam by having Arcane Power increase the damage of just Blast.
I really am dissapointed with Blizzard on Arcane. Playing Arcane since Wotlk myself, I always wanted the spec to shine and not be the spec that everyone hates because of its reputation as a two button spec. If its visuals were better, Arcane wouldn't be shunned as much and blizzard could actually have another good spec in the arcane mage. But, no, gotta stick with a TBC spell that has no visual impact whatsoever.
Last edited by Well; 2020-05-12 at 08:06 AM.
yeah arcane mage is going to rock now in shadowlands. I was fire and frost already been staying away from arcane ,, but now I think I'm really going to like it .
Legion Arcane mage was the best iteration of that spec. High skill ceiling and fun rotation with mini burst windows and mana management.
Even mop rewarded unspent mana vs burn and once mastered I enjoyed it. Then we got wods aoe prism and that was just tooo good to have.
Fate is one you forge with your own two hands.
Of all the changes going from Legion to BfA, making Arcane Missiles only castable on the move with the Clearcast proc and making Clearcast have only one charge were among the dumbest. They completely removed any thought from Arcane's rotation, and there's no upside from those changes that I can see.
- - - Updated - - -
I liked it when the Mastery meant more damage at high mana levels, so during the sustain phase you had to play around keeping your mana above 90% without capping out, and how often you could do that and still run up to a 4-stack was dependent on gear, etc. It was a lot more interesting than the Legion/BfA Mastery where your current mana level doesn't matter too much as long as you go into a burn phase with enough to last through the burn.
To be fair, the older Mastery didn't play well with high-speed dungeon runs and AoEing chain-pulls of trash, so it probably isn't viable in the modern game.
I really enjoyed WoD Arcane but that's probably partly due to how strong it was.
But Arcane blast is such a blast to press.
Can you tell me how Shadowlands has changes for Arcane? It looks worse. You're just spamming AB and AP now has a 3 min cooldown. You're no longer the burst ST dmg spec. And AoE has been playing badly since forever. There is absolutely nothing to it. It saddens me that Arcane has been so bad since it's inception. I can't remember a time where it wasn't AB or AE spam.
- - - Updated - - -
why???? What is so good.
Night Elves NEED long hair to the ground and more elegant/regal beautiful options to show their Highbourne heritage
I like Arcane Blast 'spam' as long as it's powerful and planned around limited mana.
Arcane has always been about resource management not hitting procs.