Arcane mechanically isn’t that bad, but it feels very undertuned damage wise and could use some PVP modifier buffs.
Clearcasting damage. The Proc Percentage is super low, to the extent you can burn your entire mana bar and barely get a proc. The proc lasts only 15 sec (instead of the previous 20 sec) and is dispellable. Requires a hardcast to get off. I understand buffing the proc percentage is unrealistic given arcane is doing alright in PVE - but using that proc in PVP needs to feel more impactful.
Arcane Explosion, Arcane Orb, and to some extent arcane blast, need further PVP modifiers. They cost a decent amount of mana (which is a unique resource for Arcane damage) and do very average to below average damage. Arcane barrage, conversely, does not need a buff as it has too many modifiers in the game already.
Time Anomaly. This is our final Row talent. Its Nerfed in pvp for some reason and lacks the ability to proc the RNG 6 sec time warp effectively making this talent dead. Even if this aspect was un-nerfed, I don’t think many arcane mages would run it. Showing just how unnecessary the Nerf is.
Supernova and Nether tempest need PVP modifiers, and seriously, global buffs as they are never used in PVE. Both these talents do VASTLY less damage then the talents they compete with and are some of the unique abilities to arcane.
Arcane needs some love, as its been largely untouched since legion. It has clear downsides: managing mana, need to hardcast spells even though it largely has one school of magic, lack of instant CC. Diversifying the mage specs is good for the game. Hunter is a great example where PVP modifiers led to all 3 specs being viable and seen in arena. At time of this post, Fire mage has a 31% play rate amongst range specs, frost has 2.12% (trending up since PVP modifier buffs), and arcane is the lowest amongst all range specs at only 0.73%.
Yes, please buff arcane so every time I see one in starting room I don’t confirm it’s you from btag and tell the boys ‘it’s gonna be a long one.’ =P =P
I have a better way to fix Arcane, and this is the only way to fix it.
Give Arcane an honor talent.
Make it spammable
Have it reverse all enemy movement commands, IE foward is back, left is right etc etc
Simple yet effective method of confusing all enemies into tilting and doing /reload and then u kill them while they /reload. Super ez barely an inconvenience at all
It feels like more a problem with spec design and builder spender theme. You can dump mana bar and not get a clear cast or you get them and they get purged fast so u cant pool them ontop of low duration on actual proc.
Doesn’t feel great in any case and I don’t think solution is throwing in a button on short cd that gives you x amount on demand either. Thats just a bandaid fix that doesn’t address whats going on
Like the other issues he mentioned 21 talents and 9 honor talents and how many are functional how many more are undertuned or doa.
Hopefully 10.0 they full makeover spec or rework it. I say 10.0 to-do list bc i expect a 0% chance of them doing it at all in 9.2 or during 9.2
Priests/Shamans can literally purge your basic rotation as Arcane/Fire on GCD at literally no cost to them, anytime ur in LOS they can dispell clearcasting/hotstreaks.
Priest has conduit that lets them do it for FREE and gain insanity for it lol.
Shaman is basically free too, I’ve seen eles/enh keep up purge spam overkill for quite long periods of time. Its not like they need to spam it.
Clearcasting is arcanes basic rotation, like fire hotstreak, for w.e reason only frost brainfreeze cant be purged.
I don’t think that makes much sense as far as the flavor of the class goes. Giving them a new school would make more sense, like fire mage and destro lock have. For example in affliction, I’d prob add a nature school of poison-like spells before I took Fear off shadow school.
Well I don’t think adding schools would be a great solution thematically and agree.
I think bringing back burning determination, an honor talent perhaps and just have it reduce the effectiveness of interrupts/silence by 50% and when hit by one reduce further ones by an additional 100% for 8 seconds. So essentially you could CS an arcane mage, and use a windshear following it to stop a spellcast but he wouldn’t be locked. vs chain locking and he can’t press any buttons outside of iceblock.
I think the problem with arcane in particular is mobility like blink, and damage, and crowd control and defensives is tied to arcane. They cant alter/blink/temporal cs’d they also cant kick either
While affliction also suffers from this, they do have a lot of instant dots and are a lot more durable then an arcane mage . While also not relying on purgeable defensive abiltities and having a good amount of self sustain. Pact is 1 minute cd and also usable under any form of cc
Arcane has to hardcast for damage, or channel missle. Missle procs are dispellable
Shield is dispellable
Alter Time is dispellable
Temporal shield if they run it is also purgable.
So you have a spec, with mobility, damage, defensives, crowd control tied to 1 school.
All defensives purgable and basic rotation
When you take a step back and look at it, its a really difficult fix without burning determination passive I mentioned above or a full rework of how kicks work, or the spec itself. If u took away shimmer and reduced arcane to 1 blink they would get rolled over by everything.
When you account for everything u can see why the spec has to be insanely s++ tier just to perform and when its not it rly struggles for representation/viability
Yeah, I don’t think the specs are comparable. Affliction is also viable, so I think that says enough. I was just comparing to another spec with largely 1 school of magic. Arcane needs something.
Arcane just needs a full rework going into 10.0 top to bottom. If were being honest
You can’t just rework kicks and how they work, or band-aid make everything unpurgable.
The entire spec is tied to 1 school, defensives, offensives, mobility, CC ontop of all of it being purgable. There really isn’t just a quick fix without creating new talents to compensate for its failings which is ultimately just band-aid fixing and setting it up for overnerfs later. OR making it disgusting S+ with overbuffs which set it up for failure and were back here again
With mobility and interrupts and dispells hitting pretty epic levels of abundance the whole 1 spell school system u can see how it fails horribly for a spec like arcane. Imagine queing into unholy dk/DH/Rsham as arcane and trying to play the game, or an spriest/lock, double sham turbo, etc etc props to anyone like numbing who plays it on ladder, im sure there are quite a few miserable games
Its not like they are BFA destros or something so when they actually do get to cast its not very impressive
I understand the desire to have an entire “rework” for arcane, but thats not realistic for the remainder of shadowlands which most likely will be up to a year. Currently, the spec isn’t bad mechanically - and I truly think its undertuned damage wise when compared to its weaknesses. The point of this thread is to come up with realistic solutions that can be hotfixed in for shadowlands.
IMO - a freecasting arcane mage (something that actually has to cast, interuptable, goes OOM, lack of instant CC) should be as scary as a freecasting MM hunter (Which received heavy PVP modifier buffs If i remember correctly this expansion).
Nah I dig that, I just don’t have much hope for number tunings for the talents and abilities. If they were willing too though I’d like see the ones you mentioned, arcanosphere being put on CD when kicked/interrupted. Clearcasting being made unpurgable. If im not mistaken Overpowered is also reduced in PVP isn’t it? Maybe disabling its PVP tuning for majority of expansion so the spec is atleast enjoyable in the hands of a few willing to play it.
Nether tempest should just have 1 damage and not scale off charges imo, we can argue the semantics of skill with charges but I don’t really see any other class but feral/rogue with bleed per damage points, not really a mage thing thematically and more of a nuisance in PVE/PVP department.
Its not the worst mechanically and kit wise but the ability to play it for the majority of playerbase that doesn’t know how to play a caster above 2k i think tho makes it very bad though. You shouldn’t have to have an amazing understand of game, abilities, tracking and juking just to play the spec at a basic level and not get obliterated.
Also to comment on Polymorph being on the same school as our damage. This is OK. Its a weakness for arcane. All classes / specs should have some sort of weakness. For example, some specs should have great mobility, but less powerful defensives, etc. Arcane, in its current state, only advantage seems to be plentiful dispells. It needs some damage tuning and then It becomes much more threatening despite its weakness. The buffs i mentioned increase its damage without it becoming “one shotty”
Overpowered is a boring talent, its OK that its nerfed in PVP. Only because the spec becomes “one shot” with direct modifiers like that, because it can buff abilities like barrage that have so many modifiers. Our other abilities are undertuned currently.
Agreed but triple passive lvl 50 row is also sort of boring imo.
Anomaly is pretty cool though I’ve always liked it. I think its tougher to utilize its windows of stuff popping up tho and with time warp not proccing its very DOA.
Ya i’ve mentioned it numerous times daily lol.
Nether Tempest, Arcane Orb, Super nova. Enlightened, and Overpowered, all need adjustments
Pyromanic, Living Bomb, Blastwave, Conflagration , Flame patch, from the ashes
Glacial insulation, Ice nova, Ebonbolt, comet storm, glacial spike.
Honor talents: World in flames/Controlled burn/Chilled to the bone/Burst of cold
All of them are pretty awful lmao and undertuned or DOA.
Arcane has the unique issue of having too many choices and not enough choices at same time. Arcane could do better with most of them being baseline or baked in and given a better line up of impact choices. Like master of escape should be baseline along with torment the weak. You could also get away with temporal baseline for spec,
I think this is a terrific idea and if you miss a kick it should have you swinging and falling over and self knockdowned for 3-6 seconds depending on duration of kick.
Give it a crying orc face debuff icon and call it WHOOPS!! Have it last for 1 minute, and each kick missed while under WHOOPS increases ur slip and fall duration up to infinite,
So if u keep getting juked its gonna be so bad u take it off ur bars or risk being stunned for 9 seconds str8. That way melee actually get punished and can’t follow a whiff with a micro.