Hello all! This post contains feedback about Arcane Mage changes and remaining issues and some suggestions for both base and hero trees. This feedback would be split into initially hidden subsections for better readability.
Arcane Mage feedback
Arcane Mage got improved in some areas in TWW, but still has unaddressed issues like AoE positioning / target caps, balance issues between Arcane Blast, Arcane Barrage and Arcane Explosion, removal of Chrono Shift in instanced PVE, some undertuned talents in the tree etc. Assuming its damage output would be brought in line with other Mage and other classes specs, these issues can negatively affect its gameplay and performance and should be looked at too.
1. Arcane Blast vs Arcane Barrage vs Arcane Explosion balancing issues
Currently balance between these 3 abilities is way off in many cases. Arcane Explosion as an AoE ability at 0 Arcane Charges does more dps than both Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage. Arcane Blast as a builder provides more dps than spender Arcane Barrage in most cases excluding specific exceptions like stacking Arcane Harmony and Aethervision to maximum. All that can make their priority skewed and confusing and should be addressed.
Suggestion: Balance base damage and potential Arcane Charges / Mastery scaling of these abilities to have clear base priority list and niches for each ability at both 0 and 4 Arcane Charges. Here is an example of such balancing.
Arcane Blast - single-target hardcasted builder spell. Accordingly should deal more dps at 0 Arcane Charges than both Arcane Barrage (single-target instant cast spell) and Arcane Explosion (AoE instant cast spell) and less dps at 4 Arcane Charges than Arcane Barrage (a spender spell).
Solution: Reduce its base cast time to 1.5 seconds, remove cast time speed scaling from Arcane Charges and tune its base damage at 0 Arcane Charges to be higher than both Arcane Explosion and Arcane Barrage. For example, if currently Arcane Explosion does 57.17% of Spell Power baseline damage and Arcane Barrage at 0 Charges should deal a bit more dps (as it is single-target and Arcane Explosion is AoE), Arcane Blast at 0 Arcane Charges should accordingly deal 75+% of Spell Power base damage with 1.5 sec base cast time that matches their base 1.5 sec GCD and provide highest dps.
Arcane Barrage - single-target instant cast mobility (at 0 Arcane Charges) or spender (with Arcane Charges) spell. Accordingly should deal more dps at 0 Arcane Charges than Arcane Explosion (which is AoE) and less dps than Arcane Blast at 0 Arcane Charges (which is stationary and hardcasted). At 4 Arcane Charges should deal more dps than Arcane Blast to account for both being a spender and dps loss from necessity to rebuild Arcane Charges outside of Glorious Incandescence / tier set / Aethervision effects).
Solution: Increase its base damage to be higher than Arcane Explosion and lower than Arcane Blast. If Arcane Explosion does 57.17% of Spell Power base damage like currently and Arcane Blast does 77.8% of Spell Power base damage currently Arcane Barrage should accordingly have value of 65-70% of Spell Power base damage. As for Arcane Barrage dealing more dps at 4 Arcane Charges than Arcane Blast that can be achieved via Arcane Barrage having higher Arcane Charge and Mastery scaling than Arcane Blast and is already partially implemented (for Arcane Charges, but not for Mastery).
Arcane Explosion - is an instant AoE ability, so even with 0 Arcane Charges should deal less dps than both Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage against 1 enemy and more dps than both of them against 2+ enemies. Suggested above changes to Arcane Blast and Arcane Barrage automatically make that happen and then damage of Arcane Explosion can just be tuned accordingly to always provide more dps against 2+ enemies than 0 Arcane Charged Arcane Blast / Arcane Barrage.
2. AoE issues
When damage of all 3 Mage specs would be brought in line, Arcane Mages would likely face issues that 2 other specs don’t have and might fall behind (issues like target cap, heavy RNG reliance on lucky Orb Barrage procs for AoE output, necessity to frequently stay in melee range that Fire does not have and Frost can bypass, no additional effects like passive cleave of Fire and passive snares / roots of Frost, Touch of the Magi issues etc). As such, their AoE rotation could still use work and they could get their own additional utility / effects that would bring them in line with additional effects of 2 other Mage specs.
2.1 Target caps
Biggest outlier here is Arcane Barrage - it is capped at 5 targets, so the more enemies are in the pack the more Arcane Mages would fall behind other Mage and other classes specs in AoE output. It could get a solution in form of additional talent to address this cap (so would have a talent point cost as a trade-off).
Suggestion: Create an additional third gate talent to address Arcane Barrage’s target cap issue. That could be for example either a talent that would increase number of additional targets affected by Arcane Barrage per Arcane Charge from 1 to 2 (with Resonance bonus getting a hardcap if needed) or return of Arcane Rebound from Legion artifact traits (Arcane Barrage dealing an additional uncapped / higher capped AoE hit if it hits 3+ enemies) or even a choice node between such upgrades to let people pick the preferred option.
2.2 RNG reliance
Orb Barrage and new addition of Leydrinker are both very RNG reliant and bad RNG window can make Arcane Mage’s AoE dps drop significally without any player’s fault. As such, both these effects should receive some form of bad RNG protection, for example be guaranteed to trigger after spending X Arcane Charges / Y Nether Precision stacks without getting a proc. Such mechanism would not affect good and average RNG windows much and would just help with bad RNG windows.
2.3 Melee range for AoE rotation and removal of Chrono Shift in instanced PVE
These issues are quite connected - Arcane Mages still have to stay in melee range to use Arcane Explosion and earlier could at least use Chrono Shift to maintain needed distance, but no longer can since Chrono Shift is now a PVP talent that is not available in instanced PVE. As a result post-rework these issues for Arcane Mages got worse instead of better and should be still addressed.
Suggestions:
- Create a separate optional talent in Arcane tree that would make Arcane Explosion usable on an enemy from up to 40 yards range and deal damage to target and other enemies within its area. Such talent is a decent compromise, since while it gives access to ranged Arcane Explosion it has a 1 talent point cost as a trade-off and is in line with talents like Splitting Ice for Frost Mages that also turns Ice Lance into semi-AoE ability at the cost of talent point. If that would be needed for balance distant Arcane Explosion talent could also have a drawback like reducing radius of Arcane Explosion to 8 yards (which is standard for most ranged AoE abilities) and if this talent would still be not competitive enough with throughput talents it could also increase damage of Arcane Explosion by X% (like you did for Consortium’s Bauble to make it competitive enough with other talents).
- Return Chrono Shift to Arcane tree and to make it more accessible and pickable - consider making one current talent baseline and Chrono Shift replacing its position. Most fitting candidate could be Arcing Cleave - as a core component of Arcane’s AoE it likely should be baseline (just like Flamestrike / Fuel the Fire / Hot Streak already is for Fire and Blizzard already is for Frost) and it would be located in an optional position, so people who don’t want Chrono Shift can easily skip it if needed.
2.4 Touch of the Magi issues in AoE situations
Touch of the Magi has an additional issue in AoE situations - since it has long duration and cannot be controlled after being applied, affected enemy in pack often can die before it would detonate and have big part of its stored damage wasted. Such issue is especially actual in Mythic+ and could be addressed.
Suggestion: Give Touch of the Magi a Cloudburst Totem like mechanism where pressing its ability input while it is active can end it early and release stored damage. Such mechanism could also have 1 second delay before activation to prevent players from accidentally double clicking ToTM and ending it instantly and could be a good solution - it allows to address mentioned issue without necessity to tweak ToTM’s duration or stored value and it keeps room for skill expression since players still have to find suitable window for detonation to stack as much damage as possible, but detonate it earlier than target would die.
2.5 Utility difference
Arcane Mages still don’t provide any additional effects compared to Fire’s passive cleave and Frost’s passive snares and roots, so even with issues above addressed might be underpicked compared to 2 other specs. As such, they could get their own unique form of utility or additional effect to both be in line with 2 other specs and have a reason to be brought over them.
Suggestion: Create a new talent in Arcane tree that would let them have some additional utility effect (just like Fire can pick Master of Flame for better passive cleave and Frost can pick Frostbite for additional root procs). That could be for example Arcane Singularity - an active ability with N seconds cooldown that would pull enemies within selected area to its center and slow them by X% for Y seconds. Such utility is relatively unique (it is usually accessible only for some tank specs), can be competitive with Arcane’s throughput nodes (since it also can indirectly help Arcane’s throughput via stacking enemies for Arcane Orbs and Arcane Barrages) and can even help non-Demon Hunter and non-Death Knight tanks to become more competitive with them, since there would be a dps spec that could provide missing AoE pull effect for them and enable more comps.
3. Undertuned / too niche / not competitive enough / improvable talents
Arcane Mages still have several talents that are too niche or too undertuned or have issues that affect gameplay and could be addressed. Aside from mentioned above, these include:
Presence of Mind - provides no throughput value in PVE making it often not competitive enough with throughput talents and desynchronizes with other 45 second cooldowns, since its cooldown starts only when all stacks are consumed. It could be improved with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it also increase damage of affected Arcane Blasts by X% (to provide some throughput value) and make its stacks have 30 seconds duration (to prevent abuses including with Shifting Power) and its cooldown start when ability itself is used (to better align with other cooldowns like Touch of the Magi).
Surging Urge - provides very low value, especially since it also does not progress down the tree. Needs a buff for competitiveness.
Static Cloud - as an AoE boosting talent it is now located deep within single-target part of tree and is heavily disconnected from other Arcane Explosion boosting talents. Could swith positions with some talent in right part of tree to address these issues.
Concentration - is unreliable, does not provide any direct throughput value and despite being located in AoE / cleave part of tree is also badly compatible with AoE situations where Arcane Blast is not used much, so is not competitive enough with other talents. Could use a boost with all that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Concentration also affect Arcane Explosion (to become compatible with AoE situations) and additionally increase damage of affected spell by X% (to provide some throughput value).
Nether Munitions - provides too low value compared to Magi’s Spark and provides its bonus after Touch of the Magi expires making it both not contribute to it and not very compatible with Arcane’s bursty profile. Could be boosted with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it provide its bonus while Touch of the Magi is active and if needed for competitiveness increase its damage bonus.
High Voltage - is very unreliable and despite having stacking proc chance can still provide 0 Arcane Charges and no value. Consider changing it to just provide 2 Arcane Charges per cast of Arcane Missiles (close to current average value) with increased number from Aether Attunement (to preserve their synergy).
Arcane Harmony - both lost value after all the nerfs to Arcane Barrage and is not very compatible with new design of Arcane Missiles (only proc based and only 8 missiles per proc, so 2 casts of Arcane Missiles provide not full number of stacks and 3 casts provide excess stacks). It could be tweaked and boosted with that in mind.
Suggestion: Reduce it to 16 stacks maximum with 6-7% value per stack. Such change would make it much more compatible with both new Arcane Missiles (allowing to get full number of stacks from 2 casts) and High Voltage (allowing to also get 4 Arcane Charges from 2 casts of Arcane Missiles and send fully charged and empowered Arcane Barrage after that).
Master of Escape PVP talent - does not provide enough value to be competitive enough with other PVP talents and even if it did its niche can overlap with Improved Mass Invisibility. Could be improved and tweaked with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it also cause Greater Invisibility to remove X damage over time effects from Mage when cast and if needed reduce its cooldown reduction bonus to compensate. Such change would give it a niche (as a tool against damage over time based specs and comps to replace removed Dampened Magic) and can make it more useful and competitive.
Kleptomania PVP talent - is too punishing after the changes as it can be disrupted and locks major Arcane school when interrupted, additionally self snares and prevent usage of regular Spellsteal on top of that. First part is fair and provides counterplay measures against it, but self-snare and blocking of normal Spellsteal make it too punishing and could be removed. That would still keep it counterable and punishable (as a channeled spell that can be disrupted and cannot be fakecasted without breaking its effect and putting it on cooldown), but to less extent. It also likely does not need to replace regular Spellsteal just like Mass Dispel does not replace regular Dispel Magic for Priests.
Arcane Sunfury feedback
This hero tree is still in the process of tuning, but when its damage is tuned would still have gameplay issues that should be addressed. General Sunfury issues were mentioned in Fire Mage feedback post linked in this thread, so this part would focus on Arcane Sunfury specific issues.
1. Spellfire Spheres generation issues with Clearcasting and AoE situations
Currently Spellfire Spheres generation is heavily diminished in AoE situations (since Arcane Blast is not used much there and neither Arcane Orb nor Arcane Explosion contribute to it) and countersynergizes with Clearcasting procs and can make people more tempted to cancel them early or delay them (since neither Arcane Missiles nor Arcane Explosion contribute to the generation). These issues should be addressed.
Suggestion: Add Arcane Orb and Arcane Explosion (to provide decent pace of sphere generation in AoE situations) and Arcane Missiles (to remove countersynergy with Clearcasting) to list of spells that contribute to generation of Spellfire Sphere for Arcane Sunfury.
2. Lack of Arcane theme and visuals
Sunfury is still very Fire themed and can make you feel as if you play a semi-Fire Mage even for Arcane Sunfury. Since spec identity was preserved for Frost and Arcane Spellslingers with different themes and visuals, same could be done for Arcane Sunfury too.
Suggestion: Make Spellfire Spheres and Arcane Phoenix of Sunfury more purple and make Arcane Sunfury’s Phoenix cast more Arcane spells like more Arcane Barrages instead of Flamestrikes and Arcane Blasts instead of Pyroblasts.
Arcane Spellslinger feedback
This hero tree is better after the fixes, but still undertuned compared to Sunfury and has remaining issues and not competitive talents to be addressed. Some of them are listed below.
1. Minimal interactivity and undertuned proc chance of Clearcasting from Splinterstorm
While return of Clearcasting procs to Splinterstorm was a good change, its proc chance is too low and unreliable to matter much and should be buffed. This tree in general is also almost entirely passive which can be good for some players and bad for other players and could be looked at. Good compromise could be adding or tuning more active options as choice nodes with passive ones, so that players that want more interactivity can have such options and players who prefer passive boosts can have fitting options too. Several such choices will be mentioned in next part.
2. Undertuned / not competitive enough / improvable talents
Arcane Spellslinger’s tree contains several talents that are not competitive enough with their alternatives or potentially could use a more interactive choice node alternative for players that would want a more active gameplay loop with this tree. These include:
Unerring Proficiency - provides lower boost than Volatile Magic, does reduced damage to secondary targets and is attached to a utility spell and can harm or be harmed by its utility usages (like holding it to use for dps instead of disruption). Could be improved with all that in mind.
Suggestion: Buff Arcane Spellslinger’s Unerring Proficiency to provide more value against low target count and less value against high target count than Volatile Magic (to give both options pros / cons and a niche) and make Unerring Proficiency additionally reset cooldown of Supernova when reaching 30 stacks (so that it would not harm utility usages of Supernova). Such changes can provide a viable more active playstyle alternative to entirely passive Volatile Magic with different pros (more damage against low target count, small increase in average number of Supernova casts) and cons (requires management and does less damage against high target count since Supernova does reduced damage to secondary targets).
Signature Spell - while interesting addition it should also support Nether Munitions (like be attached to Touch of the Magi detonation instead if Nether Munitions is taken).
Force of Will - its bonus is not very synergizing with Arcane Spellslinger who has neither crit synergies nor access to guaranteed crits or shatters. Consider tweaking bonus from Force of Will for Arcane Spellslinger to provide more synergizing bonuses with its playstyle like Mastery instead of crit chance and Intellect or maximum mana increase instead of crit damage.
Spellfrost Teachings - while can be decent, it being entirely passive can also have cons like aggroing unintended enemies with launched Arcane Orbs or overcapping of Arcane Charges. Some people still like passive launches, so they could be kept, but consider making passive launch version a choice node with more active version akin to Frost’s (where it would reset cooldown / provide 1 charge of Arcane Orb instead of passively launching it) for players who prefer more interactivity and control over their rotation.
If you have additional suggestions, you can add them in the comments below. Thank you for reading!
Links to other Mage specializations feedback posts:
Fire Mage - 11.0.5 Fire Mage Feedback And Suggestions
Frost Mage - 11.0.5 Frost Mage Feedback And Suggestions