With the latest announcements re: updates to Fire mages’ Ignite in the Shadowlands Alpha, now seems to be as good a time as any to advocate for Arcane mages to keep Displacement in the next expansion. In a lot of ways, Arcane feels like the forgotten middle child of the three mage specs - I don’t believe many people would argue otherwise. In fact, this has already been addressed by Blizzard in earlier posts as something they’re hoping to fix. With that said, I believe removing Displacement is a grave mistake and is counter-intuitive to making Arcane a viable spec.
Things I’ve considered:
- Alter Time is making a return in SL
- Shimmer will no longer have a second charge (as of the time I’m writing this)
- Arcane is being reworked in SL, and I can’t have a fully-educated opinion until new builds are officially released
First, I understand Alter Time is making a return, and many could argue that it can be used similarly to Displacement; however, I think it’s important to consider Alter Time is being given to ALL specs - not just Arcane - while Displacement is a spec-specific ability. Because Alter Time will be available to all specs, Frost and Fire are receiving a Net Positive change while (at best) Arcane is receiving a Net Neutral change (Add AT, remove Displacement), which creates even less incentive for players to select Arcane over Fire/Frost.
The expected nerf to Shimmer increases my concern for the spec because, with Displacement also removed, Arcane mages will go from a potential four Blinks (ie - Shimmer, Displacement, Shimmer, Shimmer) in BfA to one in SL in exchange for one defensive CD. When combined, the change to Shimmer and the Net Neutral change I mentioned earlier negatively impact Arcane mages specifically. An argument could be made that a player could use AT in the same way they would use Displacement (ie - Blink/Shimmer, AT); however, doing so at full health, or near full health is a HUGE waste of a defensive CD for the sake of mobility - and even still, the player would only have two potential Blinks instead of four.
Finally, I fully understand that we’re only in Alpha, and that changes should be expected all the way up to (and through) launch; however, I think it’s important to voice concerns now in case they haven’t yet been considered to hopefully influence positive change to the spec in the future.
Any and all thoughts/feedback are welcome. I know I started to ramble quite a bit, but I hope this was a concise enough read that my concerns are easily digestible! Looking forward to hearing from fellow Mages 
