Is arcane mage trash?

[Nitros14]

Currently the worst spec in the entire game by a significant margin in mythic+ on warcraft logs.

Last or second last down with arms warrior on 75th, 90th, 95th and 99th percentile statistics on warcraft logs for normal and heroic Battle of Dazar'alor. Way behind most specs.

Is gear going to fix it? No mention of arcane on the class tuning notes.

[Nikkaszal]

There's been four days worth of data from BoD in its very first reset, and you're drawing conclusions from that?

[Nitros14]

There's been four days worth of data from BoD in its very first reset, and you're drawing conclusions from that?

Didn't draw any conclusions. Asked if arcane mage was trash. Asked if gear was going to fix what appeared to be a very poor showing.

[Nikkaszal]

Didn't draw any conclusions. Asked if arcane mage was trash. Asked if gear was going to fix what appeared to be a very poor showing.

Your post may have a question mark in it, but you haven't "asked" anything. You've already decided that Arcane is "trash" - from tiny data of the first week of a new raid where Mythic isn't even out yet - and you're just having a whinge because Arcane didn't get mentioned with UDK and Arms in the latest hotfix

[tgrape]

M+ and BoD fights do not favor arcane at all. Fire/Frost get free cleave damage from almost everything which pushes them up. Arcane is fine when all you need to do is stand there and tunnel a target, but M+ and most of the BoD fights are not the place for the spec.

[HCLM]

Arcane is a niche spec. You go Arcane if you need high prio target damage.

[Nitros14]

Your post may have a question mark in it, but you haven't "asked" anything. You've already decided that Arcane is "trash" - from tiny data of the first week of a new raid where Mythic isn't even out yet - and you're just having a whinge because Arcane didn't get mentioned with UDK and Arms in the latest hotfix

Not sure where the random hostility is coming from. It definitely looks so far like arcane is trash, but I was asking if there's compelling arguments like "arcane will benefit more from this gear" or "this is why arcane looks bad but it actually isn't."

[Marrilaife]

M+ and BoD fights do not favor arcane at all. Fire/Frost get free cleave damage from almost everything which pushes them up. Arcane is fine when all you need to do is stand there and tunnel a target, but M+ and most of the BoD fights are not the place for the spec.

Tbh there aren't that many cleave bosses in BOD, probably what hurts arcane more is the fact there's so much crap to dodge / run out of the raid with, if you can't stand still and perform your burst phase, arcane suffers a lot.

Arcane is a niche spec. You go Arcane if you need high prio target damage.

Tbh there's a fair amount of "prio adds" in the raid, like xuen on jadefire masters, robot on grong, raptors on loa, water eles & siren on blockade, etc. However I'm not sure if arcane is the best suited to deal with these, compare that to fetid that was perfect fight for arcane: adds spawn at specific intervals, require a lot of burst to kill, and the fight is mostly stationary bar the knockback.

[lockybalboa]

Yeh pretty trash atm, even worse than fire lol

[MrExcelion]

Arcane should have been reworked in 8.1 but it seems like it wasn't a top priority due to mage having 2 other specs. Same could be said about Demo and MM I guess

[davesignal]

Arcane does very good single target DPS and is also quite good at large AOE, but has little in the way of two-target cleave. This raid is cleave focused, so cleave focused specs like Frost are excelling.

It happens. Blizzard tends to overcorrect, so the next tier will probably have very little cleave and a lot of single target. Everything goes in cycles.

[Nitros14]

The equipose buff seems significant for pulling arcane out of the trash at least.

[Skylarking]

Seeing method use arcane on their mythic race, but that's probably for single target burst.

[Chillside]

arcane mage is one of the strongest single target rdps in the game right now, with lowest possible skill ceiling

[Nitros14]

arcane mage is one of the strongest single target rdps in the game right now, with lowest possible skill ceiling

It wasn't when this thread was made. No one expected the hilarious equipose buff plus arcane pummeling.

[Kalti]

Lots of cleave?

Champions = Single target, unless padding on adds. Even in mythic, you are better off to single target tunnel the boss and ignore/interupt adds.
Jadefire = Single target is useful here to burn monk asap and get living bombs down fast and pyro shield etc.
Grong = Single target is amazing.
Opulence = Single target for phase 1, then aoe for opal buff in phase 2.
Conclave = Single target fight, cleaving is mostly useless padding unless it helps your single target. Raptors shouldn't be near the boss or each other.
King = Single target except adds, but adds are not overly important damage and arcane can just turret focus boss downstairs behind a wall of doors.
Mekka = Pure single target.
Stormwall = Single target is most important for both burning adds and boss.
Jaina = Single target very important for boss damage and arcane explosion is great for ice block phases.

You can certainly padd with cleave alot, but in terms of stuff that helps kill bosses, arcane is quite good for BfDA, no surprise world first guilds have arcane mages in their comps this tier.

[Spiffums]

Wow-Dps has arcane as the 3rd best ST spec under Boomkin and Ele Shammy.

[agentsi]

If you think just adding a few pieces of gear will make a spec less worse, I don't think you understand the game properly. Especially when people tell/show you why Mages would pick the other specs for M+ and the BoD raid. Like they all said, HIGH ST burst, not great at much else. Not every spec should be amazing at all aspects of the game. Maybe read a little first instead of drawing conclusions on very little data, and no real understanding of the class or the spec.

[NPI]

Actually the buffed Equipoise trait makes it very good, you just have to play it Panda style (use AP above 70% mana, then burn/evocate, float above 70% until AP comes back). Pity that only the damage buff stacks, the mana cost decrease don't.

[Deiae]

If it was actually good more people would play it. Like every metric shows it isn't that great.
At the current time there are 15 times more mythic logs as frost than arcane in BoD. For heroic that is factor 13. For mythic+ in season two there are 14 times more frost logs for keys 10 and above and 60 times more for 15 and up.