In my opinion they should delete the current arcane spec and start again
In my opinion they should delete the current arcane spec and start again
So really? That's it?
The best idea we could come up with was some two-bit concept of "permanent mirror images" or something like that??
/facepalm
No one has any other ideas on how to make Arcane more appealing??
Why help them if they can't even help themselves, eh? *shakeshead*
"There are very few who can claim what he can. There are even fewer who can prove it like he can. There are even less that can match him, but all will no doubt accept what he is, and what he can do. The Highlord is for sure one of a kind. A true Master of the Arcane arts. It would be best for you to listen."
- Lady Nåabi of the Immortalis, former Guild Executor, former Raid Lead.
Have you considered reading the thread starting from the first post? There have been several more various ideas, raging from practical to "this might be a tad bit overboard".
Last edited by Shangalar; 2012-11-08 at 10:07 AM.
Oh come on.
A single target knockback? Casting AM while moving? Those aren't 'practical', they're obvious. People have been suggesting those kinds of changes since the beginning of time. If Blizz wanted to add those, they would have already done so by now.
No. No one has come up with anything that even mildly resembles something worthwhile so far. A point to which I am aghast.
People forget, the time for massive redesign has passed. The time for that was beta, you know, the same time where I was jumping up and down and running back and forth on the forums saying "If we don't do something about this now, it will be too late", to which I got the response "Arcane is fine, Lhivera says so".
No. The time for big redesign is gone, if for nothing else, but for the fact that Blizzard always leaves big redesigns for expansions, never for patches. We are stuck with the version of Arcane we have now. We were given the chance to prevent it coming to this, and we failed to take it.
Arcane is broken, it will continue to be broken for the entirety of MoP. This is not prophesy. This is just fact now. Naturally, there will be a very hamfisted effort by Blizzard to just "tweak the numbers" in Arcane's favor, in order to get people to at least play it since it would just be blatantly OP. But when people will play it, the overwhelming response will be "I am Arcane, but I hate the spec. It is too unfun to play" (In contrast to now, where you hear "I play Fire/Frost and I enjoy it"), all of which will only serve to perpetuate the cycle of the mage community at large hating the Arcane spec, for yet another expansion.
And we all got to this point why?
Because mages cared too much about someone "hurting their feelings on the forums" instead of caring about what was actually being said.
Charlatans abound.
/facepalm
"There are very few who can claim what he can. There are even fewer who can prove it like he can. There are even less that can match him, but all will no doubt accept what he is, and what he can do. The Highlord is for sure one of a kind. A true Master of the Arcane arts. It would be best for you to listen."
- Lady Nåabi of the Immortalis, former Guild Executor, former Raid Lead.
Stopped reading here. Lhivera is a ridiculous Blizzard apologist and relies entirely on sims for her arguments rather than actual raiding experience, as evidenced by her foolish commentary on the crap state of the level 90 talents.
---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 04:30 AM ----------
"Fixing Arcane should be about forcing them to cast out of school spells." How about...no. Ruining the visual appeal and flavor of the spec is not the solution to Arcane's problem.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
As mentioned elsewhere, Lhivera is a guy.
He pretends to be a girl in order to gain support and further his agenda. After all, who wants to argue against a girl on a video game forum, right?
It is quite pathetic. But in all, you are completely correct Didactic. Lhivera is a complete buffoon. Too bad he is the buffoon whose words carry more weight for Blizzard than the people who have actual experience.
"There are very few who can claim what he can. There are even fewer who can prove it like he can. There are even less that can match him, but all will no doubt accept what he is, and what he can do. The Highlord is for sure one of a kind. A true Master of the Arcane arts. It would be best for you to listen."
- Lady Nåabi of the Immortalis, former Guild Executor, former Raid Lead.
And even on those encounters it is a hassle to use.
Resulting in a significant loss of damage owing to the fact that you either have to rely on the passive or gimp your mana regeneration for the active effect.Incanter's Ward is just fine for Arcane on certain fights.
It's not, unless you resort to ridiculous Scorch heavy rotations or like evocating 50% of the time.Invocation is not that usable by Arcane, however I haven't tested it yet on any fight so I'll see probably in LFR or something.
---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 04:48 AM ----------
Here are a couple of suggestions concerning how to fix the Arcane spec.
1. Untie the level 90 talents from mana regeneration.
This is probably one of the things making Arcane so unfun at the moment, the fact that the level 90 talents synergize very poorly with it. Rune of Power is the obviously choice since it theoretically benefits our mastery the most, but it absolutely kills mobility in an already immobile spec. Incanter's Ward suffers from low passive damage and poor active synergy with mastery, while Invocation makes mastery worthless and is unable to compensate for the mana loss invoked (hurr hurr) by our standard rotation. This is entirely opposed to Fire and Frost, to whom the 90 talents are simply different types of damage bonus since mana has no impact on their play.
So again, the simplest solution that I can think of is just to remove the mana aspect from the level 90 talents and focus them more on varying styles of damage increase.
2) Increase the visual flavor of the spec.
Arcane's spells are old in terms of their animation. Arcane Missiles, Arcane Blast, Arcane Power have not been updated since vanilla; Arcane Barrage is our only 'modern' spell so to speak. A good way of making Arcane somewhat more appealing would be to give its spells a bit of a polish. The paradigm I would like to see is the Wizard's arcane spells from Diablo 3.
3) Give Arcane an oh-shit mobility cooldown in the same vein as Spiritwalker's Grace.
Because quite frankly, Ice Floes doesn't cut it in an already immobile spec.
4) Give Arcane back its burn phase
This can be accomplished by making Arcane Power reduce the mana cost of spells or put a cap on how much Arcane Blast can cost for its duration.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
and what is your suggestiong oh mighty zomgDPS??
oh wait you are here to bitch about arcane being shit and we went through this like billion times -_-
srsly have you even played mop?? i dont get your hatred of arcane?? i really dont get it lol, might as well qq about frost since its not better than fire eh??
http://oce.op.gg/summoner/userName=dw+soul+roc in oceanic now Lol
5172-1206-0622 pokemon FC Lets Battle!!
@Didactic - I agree with your second and third points. Haven't decided anything about your first point. I would agree with it because the mana regen doesn't affect fire and frost and not because it affects arcane - I actually like that our rotation changes because of our mastery depending on our talent choice. As for the burn phase, I see no need for it other than for nostalgic reasons. Our gameplay in Cata consisted of burn phase + dps drop phase until the next burn is ready. I prefer the current more consistent style.
Also, mod mode on: let's keep the discussion in a positive tone please./mod
Last edited by Shangalar; 2012-11-08 at 03:46 PM.
zomgDPS, I have supported many of the things you've said in the past (for example the time concept etc). I was enraged too by most ppl during the beta phase that simply believed on BS and let these changes pass. I am also positive that they won't reconstruct the whole arcane specc at this period. So what? Just because it came down to it should people stop wanting or suggesting things? I am sorry but as I said I didn't make this thread in order to whine or see people whine. I made so I can see what other mages would want for this specc. So if you want to join by giving us your ideas your welcome, if not stay silent and don't turn this into a warzone.
In an ideal world Blizzard could implement a choice of three talents that create interesting rotational changes for all three specs.
As it is, you have three talents that create no rotational changes for two specs (while still fulfilling their intended purpose by limiting movement and adding complexity with a maintenance buff, they have not completely failed in their design) and dubious rotational changes for one spec (Rune of Power is still the absolute ideal talent for Arcane, Invocation penalises regeneration too much (a bizarre choice considering that the other two never need to use it for mana anyway) and Incanter's Ward is useful even less of the time for Arcane than it is for the other two specs).
Decoupling mana regeneration from the talents (may also require turning Invocate into its own spell so that Invocation doesn't automatically become best) would actually allow some choice because the large damage boost from keeping the buff up is enough of an incentive on its own to use the talents (we are balanced around it!) and would no longer dictate Arcane's rotation to the point that one is mathed out as the best purely because it is the only one that allows you to execute that rotation properly.
It doesn't need an additional carrot for Arcane because Arcane are already the most movement challenged spec.
I guess I'm weird. Because I like it. I'm always neck and neck with our fire mage. He pulls ahead most of the time but the difference is marginal. I also end up beating most mages regardless of spec in LFR. Now I understand that LFR is not a good measurement because arcane shines in non movement fights and there's a lot of standing around in LFR.
At the end of the day, I have to ask myself if my damage is acceptable and do i enjoy playing it. The answer to both of those questions is yes.
How could Arcane become more appealing?
for better comfort in pvp also ... :
- back to 4 stack
- better dammage with am and arcane barrage(for movement dps) when there is less stack ( less difference damage between 1 and 4 stack)
- keep the hight consumption for arcane blast with 4 stack (remaining reasonable all the same)
- speed bonus or imun for 3 sec after blink and auto apply the slow when cast arcane blast (has put in arcane talents in passive only)
- change the glyphe of slow; slow reduced movement speed by 60 %( or 70%) and increase cast time by 30% (instead of 25%)
- Increase the visual flavor of the spec
- immune to all kick and silence when arcane power is activated and extra proc of am
Sorry all for ma bad english, peace...
Arcane is fine, and by the way you really think having less abilities will make the class more appealing?
I just like the playstyle of my mage and could not care less if another spec is 'better'....
---------- Post added 2012-11-08 at 06:27 PM ----------
One arcane mage here that dares to disagree. I still think it's fun. Would love the AM on the move but manage with scorch for now.... not that bad.
As long as I can carry my weight in raids I'm fine. At the moment I'm still at top of the charts but even if I were 5th and we'd still get bosses down in a timely manner, I don't care. I blieve more in the team effort than the narcistic dps meters...
I tried to argue this in beta but it seemed to get lost in the noise. The issue in my view isn't with Arcane - the microscope is trained on arcane because it's under-performing right now, but rather with the choices for talents and how they essentially remove any semblance of spec identity.
Mages are a pure-DPS class - the only reason for me to switch specs to a different spec that does exactly the same role, is if that spec brought something different. In Cata, you switched to Arcane when you needed single target burst damage, you went Fire if you wanted mobility and AoE, and you went Frost for control and survival in PvP. During Beta, Lhivera argued that the developers view was that all the specs should be balanced roughly and you should be able to play whatever you liked and you needn't have to switch specs for utility. Fundamentally, I think that makes the class as a whole more boring. I preferred the design where the specs were distinct and you switched as was dictated by the encounter.
I think the entire point of Arcane was a glass cannon that had to have excellent mana management for good play but suffered poor mobility.
If we have to make the spec more interesting, I'd start with that design. None of this is going to happen - it's far too late - and none of these changes can purely happen to Arcane in isolation; Fire and Frost will also change and here's how I think they should:
The thing I like most about Arcane right now is the Abarr cleave and AM causing stacks with only Abarr resetting - I'd keep that.
I don't think Arcane needs to have a DoT at all - I don't think Frost needs a DoT at all for that matter but since Frost bomb isn't exactly a DoT and works so well with it, I'd say Frost bomb should be Frost only - Fire should be the multi-dot spec and the target cap on Combustion needs to go.
I also think Cauterize should be Fire only and Cold Snap Frost only - there is place for both in PvE. That'd mean Arcane would have lower survivability, but I think we can address that with RoP below.
Something that enchances the mana management and the lack of mobility aspect is RoP. I'd make that Arcane only. The price of RoP right now is losing Evocation, and that is too steep because Evocation is the one tool that you can use to top yourself off quickly after an AP burn - there is essentially no burn phase with RoP. So I'd tone down the mana return from RoP (making it comparable to what Mage Armor would return in Cata) but let Arcane keep Evocation. Without access to either Cauterize or Cold Snap, Arcane would have lower survivability and I'd address that by increasing RoP's healing. That'd make it interesting in PvP because we'd essentially want to stand in and take the hits in the face because we'd be getting healed.
I also liked having Incanter's as Arcane in Cata, so I'd also make that absorb giving us a damage bonus. Arcane would therefore get 2 of the level 90 talents at the same time, while keeping plain old Evocation, while Fire and Frost would have to manage solely with Incanter's. Blizzard would have to give us a new set of level 90 talents. Arcane also needs Clearcasting procs with the Master of Element talent and Arcane Potency stacks to make the mana game less dull. I'm not suggesting that they reduce the AB mana cost like some posters - giving us that many sources of mana return would be broken with the fixed mana pools of MoP so the mana cost of AB per Arcane Charge needs to be high - it's just a question of tuning it to the right number accounting for the right amount of fixed mana return (from RoP), proc based return (from free AMs and Clearcasting/MoE) and CD based return (from Evocate)
Finally, I'd reduce the max number of AC charges back to 4, and ramp up the damage per charge - a bursty spec needs to feel bursty. 4 charge ABs need to feel as good if not bigger than a big pyro. Losing a DoT, also means Arcane loses some visual flair in lacking Nether Tempest, so I'd rework missles to have a random chance to hit other targets with the NT animation. That'd also give Arcane some more ranged AoE apart from just Abarr cleave, but I do feel the best AoE arcane should do needs to be AE - it's risky in that it requires melee, but coupled with Rune and Incanter's it should hit hard.
Also, I'd like Improved Blink back.
This would be more an evolution from the Cata design with RoP filling Mage Armor's role, except now with mobility restrictions, while keeping the good bits from MoP - the Abarr cleave, and stack reset and integrating the visual flair of NT into AM with some cleave added for good measure. You'd still have Evocate, AP, Incanter's and you'd get Clearcasting, Master of Elements and Arcane Potency back. This won't increase Arcane's PvP mobility at all, of course but that isn't my intent - it'd be viable in specific scenarios in PvP but the bulk of mages ought to feel like they should be forced back into Frost or Fire for PvP, because again I think that this "swiss-knife-every-spec-can-do-everything" class design philosophy is bollocks.
Last edited by Fim; 2012-11-08 at 06:13 PM.
Oh worry not my friend, my suggestions are coming. I am taking a much more disciplined approach than most here. You will see soon enough though. Just don't change the channel.
It is clear that your indifference towards Arcane is less about whether or not the spec works or is viable, and more about the fact that you are one of those people who who does not care about your performance "so long as the boss dies".
Take note, you are an extreme minority here as far as the issues with Arcane are concerned.
Just because a boss dies and you have a 0/0/0 spec and you are ok with that, doesn't mean that that is an ok way to play the game.
Its like me coming in here and saying "yea... I didn't bother to select a spec at level 10 and now I raid (and get carried) by the rest of my raid as I stand there spamming FFB like a noob. But I think its fun and so should you!!" and expecting anyone to take heed of your words.
No. The rest of the mages who want to play Arcane but still be viable (and not get carried), do care about the spec. To them it is neither fun nor has adequate performance. Saying that their opinions don't matter (which is what Lhivera says) is nothing short of rude.
This is a fundamental error which really gets on my nerves.
Removing the burn phase from Arcane is like removing Ignite from Fire or Shatterplay from Frost. These are the key defining qualities that make the specs unique.
How do you think Lhivera would feel if people started saying "yea.. this whole freezing and shattering thing with frost, I don't like it. Its just nostalgia. I want it removed". He would throw a sh!tfit of epic proportions.
No. Burn is not "nostalgia". It has been a core, fundamental element of Arcane gameplay ever since vanilla. Evocation (the arcane talent in vanilla) was conceived as a method to let vanilla arcane mages burn down their mana then scoop it back up again. In BC, the entire concept of AB and burning mana was introduced. Through Wrath this gameplay was only built upon with adages like "a good Arcane mage ends the fight with 0 mana". With Cata, this concept was congealed and solidified with the burn and conserve phases.
The Burn Phase is a core part of Arcane gameplay, saying its "just nostalgia" does nothing more than illuminate a giant fundamental ignorance you have about the core spirit of the spec.
There are things that make specs unique. For fire, its ignite and burning things. For frost, its shatter and freezing things. For Arcane, its burning and mana.
Taking those away, you leave Arcane with nothing. Which is exactly what Lhivera and his retarded cronies managed to do in MoP beta.
The burn phase is at the very heart of the Arcane spec. It is what has made it unique and stand out from all other casting specs in the game. Don't you dare come in here and say its just nostalgia.
Last edited by zomgDPS; 2012-11-08 at 11:55 PM.
"There are very few who can claim what he can. There are even fewer who can prove it like he can. There are even less that can match him, but all will no doubt accept what he is, and what he can do. The Highlord is for sure one of a kind. A true Master of the Arcane arts. It would be best for you to listen."
- Lady Nåabi of the Immortalis, former Guild Executor, former Raid Lead.
You are posting your opinions so please be a little less belligerent about them. I don't miss the burn phase, I don't need the burn phase. If they kept it, I would use it. Since they removed it, I don't miss it. I liked Arcane before, I like Arcane now.
We are looking here for quality changes to tweek some of the issues with the spec. There's no turning back for at least over a year, even if we wanted to. Try to constructively post about possible changes that can be done right now. And what you posted up there is nostalgia
agreed i believe arcane is getting a buff in patch 5.1, but currently arcane mages seem to be fine in pve but if you decide to ever pvp stay far from arcane.
The arcane's burst from it's burn phase is what I miss the most in mages and was the very first thing I noticed was missing when I played the beta. Alter time does offer burst in other specs but it's just not the same.
Giving all the specs cleave certainly make the loss of arcane's single target feel even worse. It's just one of the things that was done to mages overall to make the specs more similar which has had bad results in my opinion.
I agree there won't be any major changes soon and we'll likely be with the current mage specs in something close to their current form until the next expansion. Combining the specs so much has certainly limited the options of changing the specs up too much individually.
Fire isn't as rng as it used to be or at least it feels that way because of heating up. Frost still has a fair amount of rng since it relies on procs and we're still well below the crit cap in average gear.
Not everyone feels the same though. The amount of spells used by a class doesn't define how much fun it is or how much dps it will do. There needs to be a compromise between the spec feeling fun and offering competitive dps against the other specs. This is very dependant on the individual's opinion of course.
Like myself and other people have suggested changing one of the specs to a healing or tanking spec would help as blizz would only have to balance two dps specs instead of three.
From a PVP perspective - I don't know if arcane is bad, it's just that frost and fire are so much better. I haven't seen any arcane mages in arena, RBGs or even regular bgs for that matter and I do all 3 quite a bit. I liked arcane, I still do, but with the blink speed boost gone and the insta poly stun gone, there is nothing fun about the spec. And quite frankly it could be the least represented spec in pvp, heck I've seen more combat rogues than I've seen arcane mages. The spec is void in pvp because of the lack of cc and void in pve because the mastery is counter productive in very long fights. So what to do - well here are a few ideas.
- double poly morph, put a 20 second cd on poly and give arcane something unique and interesting. Give them the CC they lack (that is the reason ppl don't play arcane).
- give them a speed boost, maybe a little less than what it used to be, after they blink that they used to have.
- let their polys if broken stun the target.
- change their mastery into something more useful and fun for long fights, maybe give them a 2nd resource to manage like locks with shards/burning embers/demonic power. Arcane charges could be that resource. they receive 4 arcane charges, 5 with a glyph. Arcane blast and arcane missiles generate a charge. They can use all their charges for increased dmg with arcane barrage or they use 2 charges for either speed boost, a protective shield or a double poly.