Clearcasted Arcane Missiles now benefit from arcane charges. Arcane missiles may proc clearcasting. (Arcane missiles are no longer confetti.)
Clearcasting may stack 2X.
Arcane orb baseline (neved heard this before) but it no longer grants arcane charges and now grants 1 stack of clearcasting and marks all targets hit for 10 sec. Arcane missiles now hits all marked targets for 60% AM damage. 2 charges. 10-15 second recharge.
Arcane explosion now has 15 yd radius and a 45 sec - 1 min cd. Does as much damage as does now but pushes enemies away and slows. Push distance depends on how close they are to the caster. Obviously no longer part of the aoe rotation.
Arcane blast now has a more visible animation.
Mulligan on all talents. GL next time.
Maybe can keep charged up…
These changes would make arcane unplayable since we would no longer have any sustained AOE.
Arcane Explosion is our only sustained AOE spell. Your changes would give it a 1 minute cooldown without giving us a new sustained AOE spell other than Orb/Arcane Missiles… which sounds fiddly to use.
If your orb misses, or if the group moves beyond the area your orb hits, then AM would not function as an AOE. Result is the mage would have no AOE at all until cooldowns reset. It sounds like a huge downgrade in AOE capability.
With 2 charges that have 15 second recharge that would be very little downtime. As far as missing, i suppose the targeting for arcane orb could change a bit. This is only a very rough draft and nothing here is a definite must-have or gtfo. I just thought it would be a fun concept if applied correctly. Big if though.
The idea was to change how arcane aoe. I changed arcane explosion in order to keep it around as getting rid of it wouldnt feel right so it became cc with cd. Maybe keep it around but attatch it to arcane orb to make it detonate at a range to apply AM mark?
I applaud the creative thinking, but I’m not in favor of it.
This would make arcane AOE entirely dependent on orb. Screw up or lose your orb and no AOE dps for 15 seconds. That’s an entire trash pack pull in a mythic dungeon. Ugh!
Making arcane AOE dependent on Orb would make it feel too similar to frost mage AOE.
I like melee range spammable arcane explosion AOE. It is a signature of arcane spec and is fun to do. Just needs arcane orb baseline and maybe legion shoulder effect.
This would also tremendously weaken mage AOE. Arcane Orb is a relatively small projectile that hits a very narrow area. Result is we would no longer be able to hit a 10 yard radius with spammable AOE. Combine that with being only able to AOE targets the orb actually hit and result is far fewer targets would be affected by our AOE than on live.
Even worse this would make our sustained AOE 100% stationary. Arcane mages are already stationary gun turrets enough with our single-target rotation. I don’t want the AOE rotation to be the same.
A valid concern. My rebuttal sorta fell apart while i was typing it but it would be nice if the dev team could make arcane sorta break out from the current caster mold a bit more by maybe making it play like a melee class but from a range. More of a spellslinger than a hard spellcaster. Might be too close to encroaching on hunter territory there though.
I think your idea for Orb and Arcane Missiles is an interesting one and could work with some changes:
Clearcasting now stacks 3x. Arcane Missiles does an extra 25% damage when cast with Clearcasting.
Orb baseline. When Orb fires all targets hit are affected by “Arcane Induction” for 8 seconds.
“Arcane Induction” - Whenever you cast arcane missiles, the missiles also duplicate to any targets affected by Arcane Induction so long as they are within 45 yards of you.
Arcane Missiles does an extra 25% damage when it hits a target affected by Arcane Induction. This affect stacks with Clearcasting’s damage buff.
In this way, the Orb/Missiles mechanic you proposed is preserved, but it does not replace Arcane Explosion.
Instead it is added into the rotation as a method of providing slightly higher AOE burst, or short periods of ranged AOE, or if clearcasting is banked first … short periods of ranged mobile AOE.
Sustained AOE damage would still mostly come from Arcane Explosion.
Agreed. If these changes go live it would mean arcane would have too much damage, especially for AOE.
Fortunately, that’s what tuning is for. For example: Arcane Explosion’s damage could be reduced to compensate for the increased AOE damage from the new mechanics.