Arcane Mage Healer and Damage Feedback | Updated 06/27/24 - Megapost of P3+P4PTR discussion and feedback

[Veulvras-emerald-dream]

@Timewarden-lone-wolf

These are all easy to implement ideas and very actionable and have been for 3 phases now. We arent seeing them because either they dont have the time or they dont think theres enough interest from player base

Fully share this sentiment, I remember seeing almost every mage was prepared ready and eager to play a healer role in phase one. It’s anecdotal but I believe the other mage roles are just far too superior in damage by a massive margin and other healing classes offer more group benefits so people fill their expected superior roles.

@Timewarden-lone-wolf

If they want mage healers just using mass regen then so be it. But the class has the potential to be so much more.

It would be kind of crazy to see it’s never changed over four phases.

@Timewarden-lone-wolf

(1) Arcane Blast extend temporal beacon by 1 second

I’d imagine that only your own beacons are affected in the way they function for healing. This is a very cosy extra 5-ish seconds that would stack very well with the potential healer mage set bonus on mass regen.

@Timewarden-lone-wolf

The arcane missiles talent also applies to Arcane Blast (preventing casting pushback) and allows missiles to be cast while moving.

Most of the talent changes you suggest are great honestly. It sounds like you would know more than me but is there any channeled ability in classic that functions while moving? It stuck out to me since I don’t think I’ve seen one.

@Rhannmah-crusader-strike

Which is why you, or anyone else who doesn’t work at Blizz, don’t know how hard it is to change x or y. Endlessly suggesting changes is pretty counterproductive in this context

I’ll hard disagree. If anyone is collecting feedback data this includes suggestion even if they’re not possible, it at best aids designing similar solutions within a toolkit, or simply narrows down the perceived issue and at worst has no effect as they’re aware of functional impossibilities. There’s no harm in it.

@Timewarden-lone-wolf

We are here to find solutions…not just complain about the problem.

I did try to provoke it in the initial post but I did also want to see if there were opinions on what it does well so far and in the PTR compared to other healers. I know it seems silly since the cons list where more than twice the size but I suppose that’s where we the state of things are haha.

[Starrocket-wild-growth]

A wizard casting multiple bolts of magical destruction is iconic in every high fantasy game or story, which is why being able to fire off Missile Barrages and more varieties of strength of Arcane Missiles should actually be in SoD WoW!

While I understand the desire to make Classic Arcane talent tree a “Healer” focus, I feel that completely takes away from the esthetic of what a mage actually is! An intellectual powerhouse of arcanic manipulation and destruction! By making ways for Arcane DPS to be more entertaining and viable, it allows for the Arcane Healer to perform better as well.

Simply put: If you’re doing more arcane damage (or at least have access to burst with it) it allow for burst and bigger healing! The ability for arcane mage to keep up the tanks is practically on par with if not more powerful than a Holy Paladin’s style of heals with Beacon of Light, via doing Arcane Damage.

Many times I’ve been able to full heal a raid by using Arcane Blast > Mass Regen > Arcane Blast > Mass Regen > Presence of Mind > Arcane Blast > Arcane Missile Barrage.

I’ve also been able to keep the tanks alive through awful pulls or too many stacks of bad de-buffs by having the single target Regeneration then casting Arcane Blast > Presence of Mind > Arcane Blast > Arcane Missile Barrage. The AB > PoM > AB is a ridiculously massive heal on the tanks inside of 2.5 sec especially if it crits along with the Missile Barrage. The balance comes in when you’re having to interrupt chain casting for the channeled heals and managing your mana, which is the main theme of Arcane Mage!

Rather than the semantics of whether it should be discussed at all, lets focus on ways to improve Arcane Mage’s Arcane dps, which will in turn improve Arcane Mage healing

So far we have:

Improved Wanding (new)

• A rune to improve the damage or healing generated through Arcane Wand damage. Perhaps the Rune actively changes all Wand damage to Arcane damage!

–

Arcane Barrage

• Update Rune to: Can only be cast 1 time after a full channel of Arcane Missiles (Either with the Arcane Missiles Barrage or Hard Cast), or after reaching 9 stacks of Baelfire. Fires multiple missiles all at once! (Damage is equal to 3-4 fully channeled Arcane Missiles)

–

Arcane Surge

• Update Rune to: Still dumps entire mana pool and does extra arcane damage based on % of pool dumped, but forces Spirit Mana regeneration immediately and increases Mana Regeneration by 1500% for 10 sec.

–

Arcane Focus (new)

• A buff that the mage applies to themselves that increases the party’s Spell Crit chance by 1%, and Spell Damage done by 1%. Crit and Spell Damage buff increases to 2% for 10 seconds whenever an Arcane spell does a critical strike. Arcane Focus buff lasts for 30 min on the Mage (same duration as Arcane Intellect).

[Rhannmah-crusader-strike]

These suggestions aren’t bad, but any attempt to improve Arcane dps must look at how much value Arcane spec gets for the crit chance it has, otherwise it’s always going to get outscaled because +crit damage is a multiplier, and right now Arcane has no multiplier of its own, which prevents it from scaling like Fire or Frost (or like most other specs in the game really).

So we could have a rune that adds even more +crit damage% to Arcane to put it on the same level as Frost or Fire, but I think that would be boring.

I’d like to see something wild like converting all crit% to a certain amount of spell haste, or when you land a crit you spawn a temporal clone of yourself that recasts the same spell that just crit.

Regardless of the solution though, a mechanism for Arcane that increases DPS from crit is essential.

[Starrocket-wild-growth]

Class Updates, World Buffs, and Season of Discovery Phase 4 Preview Video...

ooooo FINGERS CROSSED!!!

[Gathran-wild-growth]

I’ am not going to deep into the problems arcane has, we all know what they are, so I’ll go straight to my suggestions on what the direction of Arcane Healing/DPS should go, changes necessary to reach them and my quick thoughts on why.

Arcane Healing - Blizzard has not really decided on what kind of healer we are other then “mage does damage to heal”. Mage heals has a high skill requirement The damage is lackluster and mana cost are crippling. We are not in the same league with Pally, Druid, Priest when it comes mana efficiency or healing. Shaman, Pally bring stronger utility buff’s and crazy mana regen. So why bring a mage Healer over another healer, from my experience from Phase 1 to 3 is “we cant find another healer can you heal”.

Arcane DPS - From my and other view, Blizzard does not want buff arcane dps, because they don’t want to deal with balancing it with arcane healing.

The Direction they should go

Summary

• Arcane healing niche, does damage to heal, and have “the strongest raid utility of the healers.”

1. so my aim is to better defined mage healing role in a raid team, buff are mana efficiency, buff synergy in are tool kit, small buff to are damage, large buff to are raid utility, and try to keep are healing output relatively the same.

• Arcane dps base line should have fastest spells cast, increasing are dps through mana dumping, good mana regen, a strong execution phase, and two style of play

1. my aim is to give arcane a distinct play style separating it from fire and frost. In that their is two variations I will present.

2. First is the pure arcane which we are already familiar. The pure arcane style will have strong consistent dmg, having arcane surge in are rotation, dumping your mana to increase your spell power, and having increase dmg during an execute phase.

3. The second is inspired by Bale Fie Bolt, the idea of recklessly casting powerful spells trying to kill your enemy while endangering yourself and maybe others. multi school spell casting like Spell Frost Bolt, Bale Fire Bolt will amplifying the target magic dmg taken, BFB & SFB combined with arcane power will further increase are dmg during the execute phase even more so the the pure arcane build.

1.Conlusion
My aim with presenting two way to play Arcane dps is to give player’s a choice. play a familiar pure arcane dps with a high ceiling, or explore the idea’s given to us by SOD and play a high risk high reward arcane dps with the potential of killing yourself try to get those “BIG NUMBERS”.

• “Regen /Mass Regen” - Huge mana cost and little value in a full cast.

Summary

1. Mana
   Are biggest mana sink as healers - “Solution” Regen/Mass Regen tick three time, so “break up the mana cost for each tick”.

2. Value
   Their is little value in full channeling Regen/Mass Regen - “Solution” for each tick after the first one increase “Temporal Beacon duration by 5 seconds” for a max duration increase of 10 second.

3. Conclusion
   with these two changes to Regen/Mass Regen will give healing mage mana flexibility, greater value generation per mana cost.

• “Rewind Time” - Your oh I need to heal now button. It’s a Super strong ability on paper in practice, requires expensive knowledge of encounter, addons and weak auras to use effectively.

Summary

1. Usability
   In the base game no addons exceedingly difficult to use effectively - “Solution” does not require Temporal Beacon to use

2. Healing
   Healing all damaged taken in the last five second would be to strong when the ability is more usable - “Solution” Have a low based healing amount plus a total% missing health heal.

3. Value & Synergy Trade off
   With a 30 second cd, no mana cost, greater usability, but no synergy - “Solution” Rewind Time “applies 10 Second Temporal Beacon on target” if they didn’t have “Temporal Beacon” on. If the Target has “Temporal Beacon active refresh Temporal Beacon” duration to base amount" 30.0 seconds for Regen 15.0 seconds for Mass Regen

4. Conclusion
   With these changes I aimed to make Rewind Time more useable and interactive for mage healing. Giving the player a choice of having a strong situation heal or a mana saving cooldown.

• “Arcane Blast” - short range, cast are to long

Summary

1. Cast Speed
   long cast time limits are movement and slows down are damage rotation - “Solution” Have a have a stacking cast speed buff that reduces the cast time by 0.15 seconds to a max of 0.6 seconds, this buff apply to Arcane Blast, Spell Frost Bolt, and Bale Fire Bolt.

2. Range
   The short range hurt are uptime in encounter with mechanics that force movement - “Solution” Increase the range to between 36 - 40 either through talent or increase the base line

3. Conclusion
   These changes will give arcane increase dmg with greater up time on target’s and allowing us to cycle through are dps rotation faster the other spec adding to are unique play style

• “Enlightenment” - meant for arcane dps, weak dps when compared to other chest runes, almost never taken over Burnout for dps.

Summary

1. Damage
   The damage increase is low - “Solution” increase the damage bonus by addition 5% or 10% up making it more enticing for arcane mages to take over Burnout.

2. Synergy
   Enlightenment does play into arcane mage play style but need to synergies more with the arcane tree - “solution” When arcane power is used you do not lose Enlightenment damage buff when you fall below 70% mana when arcane power it active.

3. Conclusion
   these changes are meant to boost arcane damage and rune synergy with the talent tree.

• “Living Flame” - I think Blizzard regrets this one being to hard for them to balance. So I look to buff Arcane dps in other areas. other then that it’s an still an ok rune not bad but far from good.

• “Arcane Surge” - To put into are dps rotation and have it function a little differently from retail

Summary

1. Damage/Cool Down/Mana Regen
   All of these factor will be determined by how many Arcane Blast stack you have when casting Arcane Surge.
   –Base line damage will be the same as live.
   –The Increased damage and mane use is based will depend on your Arcane Blast stack. base line use 20% for your total mana pool and of that of that 20% convert 60% of it into damage.
   –For each stack of Arcane Blast increased the mana use by another 20% of your total mana pool and the conversion by another 60%
   For a total of of 100% of your total mana pool and the conversion 300% at four stack of Arcane Blast
   –Base Cool Down is now 0.15 seconds and for each stack of Arcane blast it increase the cool down of Arcane Surge by another 0.15 seconds to a max of 1.15 min
   –Base your normal mana regeneration is activated and increased by 150% for 0.8 sec. For each stack of Arcane Blast increased the mana regeneration by an addition 150%
   to a max of 750%
   –During the 8 sec of the mana regeneration is active increase your spell power by 50.
   For each stack of Arcane Blast increase the spell power gained by addition 50 spell power to a max of 250 spell power.

2. Conclusion
   These changes are aimed to make Arcane Surge give more damage over all and synergies with are rotation. As well as giving flexible in using it. I’ am open to suggestion on the numbers I give here, my are based on napkin math.

• “Arcane Missile” - Increase the range to between 36 - 40 either through talent or increase the base line range

• “Arcane spell push back protection” - Add it into talent tree or implement it into mage armor.

• “Missile Barrage” - Being able to move while casting or let us stack two charge of Missile Barrage. One or the other would be great. Both would be to strong

• "Advanced Warding" - PTR changes are in the right direction, giving arcane healing utility and strong defensive cool down to use on allies.
  –Only suggestions would be to give Frost/Fire ward spell coefficient so they can scale with are gear.
  – Buff Improved Mana Shield talent from 20% to 30%

• “Temporal Anomaly” - with the change’s to Advanced warding coming I don’t see any reason for Arcane healer to take this and even less for Arcane dps. So they can ether retool “Temporal Anomaly” for Arcane dps or just replace it with Arcane Orb from retail so Arcane dps has a head rune to use. I’ am leaning toward replacing it with Arcane Orb, for the easier solution.

• “Bale Fire Bolt/Spell Frost Bolt”- I’m doing these both at the same time because they will be working in tandem for the second Arcane dps play style.

Summary

1.normalize and extend cast range 36-40 yard have range talent increase in the arcane tree.
2. “BFB & SFB debuff/buff”
both function in the same way with each cast reducing your spirt by 10% and increasing your dmg by 10%. their dmg buff are separate, but debuff are shared go off your spirit. so once your reach 0 spirt you die. In a explosion of fire, and ice dmg. enemy, allies are both dmg and cc in a 5 yard radios of you.
–example you 5 stack of SFB giving it 50% increased dmg, with 4 stack of BFB giving it 40% increased dmg, so combined you are at 90% decreased spirit the next cast of either of BFB/SFB will kill you.

1.BFB & SFB interaction with Arcane Power NEW (Arcane Overload) -buff/debuff
-If you have the Arcane Power talent you can turn your BFB & SFB buff/debuff into a Arcane Overload buff/debuff.
-This will act as a mean to buff both BFB & SFB as if you were just casting casting one or the other. Sharing the damage buff.
-When you cast 1 BFB and then 1 SFB it convert both into two stacks of “Arcane Overload”
-Now once you reach 8th stack of “Arcane Overload” you cast Arcane Power allowing to cast BFB & SFB for a 10th stack of “Arcane Overload”, but once you reach 10 stacks of “Arcane Overload” each cast after the 10th and while Arcane Power is still active, will reduce the your stacks of “Arcane Overload” . If you are still at 10 stacks when Arcane Power ends you die in a arcane explosion damaging everybody in a ten yard range of you.

1. conclusion
   These changes are aimed to give Arcane dps a viable second play style in line with the experimentation of SOD. With a full spec arcane tree Increasing the of BFB & SFB in a way different from fire or frost.

• “Arcane Barrage” - PTR buffed it’s damage , would like to the proc chance for Missile Barrage increased from 20% to 25%. If you don’t have the Missile Barrage rune increase Arcane Barrage damage by 20% to 25%, still giving you strong value if your are going with BFB & SFB build instead of Missile Barrage.

• " NEW BACK RUNE - Arcane Familiar" - Giving arcane healer a solid choice for back rune instead of arcane barrage which does not fill much of a niche for them.

Summary

1. Arcane Familiar when active gives a 10% mana buff to you and your group. Attacks your target doing arcane damage scaling with your wand, and spell power. Allows any fire or frost spell you cast to refresh the duration of Scorch and winters chill.

2. Mana
   added another tool for arcane healer to help with your mana problem.

3. Healing
   Arcane Familiar attack will proc Temporal Beacon healing. This is to help with smoothing out are chunky healing.

4. Damage
   That damage output it meant to be slightly better then wanding.

5. Utility
   The healing that Arcane Familiar healing provide would give you a chance to cast a fire or frost spells to refresh other mage’s debuff’s. Combined with the 10% mana buff to your group further increase Arcane Healing utility.

6. Conclusion
   Arcane Familiar role is to give Arcane Healing more utility, damage, and healing. Showing raid groups a clear understanding on what a Mage Healer brings.

Closing thoughts
I Really don’t have much to say. Blizzard has given use some cool idea but has not build on them much, be it time constraints, lack of man power, or initiative I cant say only share my thoughts on the direction we should go.

Let me know your thoughts on my proposed changes and directions for Arcane Mage.

[Fixmages-gurubashi]

Wish they removed the heals and just made mages what theyre supposed to be, like you wrote its a nightmare to balance given its interaction with healing runes.

Or changing the healing philosophy by 180degrees to not be based on dealing damage to heal, just have regular healing spells on runes the way other classes do.

Either way its still a bad design given our talents dont play into healing at all

[Zifnab-living-flame]

@Veulvras-emerald-dream

I actually really enjoy where your heads at for the intended outcome of the effects.
Few mechanical things to note, MP5 regeneration for mages is largely multiplied by your spirit statistic and begins regeneration after five seconds of not casting. Most regeneration during combat that is passive or set effects are based on this number such as the arcane meditation talent. It is exceptionally complicated to figure that out around BFB’s spirit mechanic but I wish you luck with it.
The idea of SFB applying the debuff sounds incredible honestly, such a simple addition to aid in usefulness and provide class utility. Also TIL that druids have a frost spell.

Had another approach to buffing BFB. Trying to mimic mana regen offered by other classes does seem a bit boring. And trying to figure out and balance spirit or mp5 regen feels like it could get complicated. So what if we leaned into the stacking aspect BFB provides. As you gain stacks that decreases your spirit you also gain a stacking 10% reduction in mana cost to your spells. When your target hits 20% health and you have this debuff (or buff, not sure what it would be at this point) your spell cast will be reduced by your accumulated stack reduction. This could give up to 90% reduction in mana cost for spells for the execute phase of the fight. This would take a little bit of skill to master as you would have to know how to stack the buff just right to arrive at 9 stacks at 20% boss health. As after 30 seconds you lose the buff if you can’t keep it going. And your passive mana regen will be gone due to spirit loss. And by the time you are at the end of the fight you could be running on fumes in a dps role and healing role anyways. So the reduced mana cost would really help. I think this approach lives up to being very mage like and different from other classes. And who doesn’t like a good ability for execute phase.

Oh and buff SFB could provide up to 20% like the nature buff shaman provide with storm strike…

[Timewarden-lone-wolf]

Lmao - PTR patch notes came out. They gave us nothing. Absolutely nothing. RIP.

[Zifnab-living-flame]

Well they did look at changing BFB…Not what I was hoping though.

[Fixmages-gurubashi]

We got a nerf

[Gathran-wild-growth]

Ugh, why does Blizzard not want to put any work into Mage’s.

• “Brain Freeze”
  I still doubt anybody will take Brain Freeze, when we have so much “Crit Chance”, It does not give enough value, with this buff to compete with the Spell Power Rune. Not to mention Brain Freeze is still buggy - interrupting your cast when it pros

• “Fireblast”
  Confusion, was “Hot Steak Mage” just crushing it in the PTR IDK . They only thing I’m can say is it was really strong in 1v1 duels, other then that you would run out of mana by the 5th or 6th pyro blast.

• “BaleFire Bolt”
  Ok, they gave Arcane dps a less spammable Frostfire Bolt. Arcane dps can’t even put more then 8 point into the arcane tree to get the most BaleFire Bolt.

[Fixmages-gurubashi]

They wasted time with these “changes” they adress nothing, we didnt ask for any of them. Theyre useless

Feels like just “stuff” they put down soo that theres something to release in the mage section.

Seriously whoever is responsible for mages has no clue about them. Despite the plethora of posts made here. If they had even a quick look at the forums and the mage threads they would know what must be done

[Gathran-wild-growth]

I would half disagree with you here. The changes shown today I would expect from someone who “plays mage but is bad at it”. They don’t understand Mage’s strengths, weakness’s, glaring problem’s, or what makes them fun to play.

@Fixmages-gurubashi

Seriously whoever is responsible for mages has no clue about them. Despite the plethora of posts made here. If they had even a quick look at the forums and the mage threads they would know what must be done

[Oldtomatoes-area-52]

When does the PTR server come back to try Balefire?

Oh well. As long as you can’t use Balefire for half the fight, arcane will be heavily penalized from investing down other trees like ice shards or fire stuff. Arcane tree being underwhelming is why the spec lacks.

[Starrocket-wild-growth]

I won’t mince words with this PTR build: I’m disappointed.

Arcane badly needs recognition and tools. It’s still PTR though so there’s time for change and bringing recognition to the spec and class is what the forms are for

More comment, more ideas!

[Fixmages-gurubashi]

@Starrocket-wild-growth

More comment, more ideas!

They dont read them anyways, they have them all on the forums already. They just need to search the countless mage threads.

@Starrocket-wild-growth

I won’t mince words with this PTR build: I’m disappointed.

Thats a very politically correct answer, id use stronger words, like most people on mage discord

[Gathran-wild-growth]

That Arcane tree functions as strong sustainably, strong burst DPS cd. Managing your mana to put in the best position “mana wise” to burst down your target during the execute phase of a fight with “Arcane Power & Presence of Mind”.

@Oldtomatoes-area-52

Arcane tree being underwhelming is why the spec lacks.

Their where bigger problems in Classic era that Arcane had not just their talent tree but that they had only 2 damaging ability Arcane Explosion’s and Arcane Missiles. neither of which could be used as at staple dps abilities like fireball, or frost bolt. As well as having nothing to do outside the execute burst window with their strong sustainably. Later expansions would address this by giving Arcane mage’s abilities and talents, having Arcane Mages trade sustainably to increase their damage with the risk of going oom. Running the risk of losing out on having a strong execute burst window.

“SOD DEVS should know this” that’s why them giving Mage’s Arcane Blast & Enlightenment “phase1” was such a big deal. It showed that the they would bring the idea of trading your sustainably for better damage for Arcane was going to be a thing in Season of Discovery.

1. Phase 2 comes around we get a Spell Power rune “talent from tbc”, Missile Barrage “talent from wotlk” and a heavy handed nerf to Living Flame with no buff to any other area of Arcane.

2. Phase 3 come Arcane Mage’s get “Advanced Warding” boosting general survivability, “Temporal Anomaly” a hilarious bad rune for Arcane Healing, and 1 dps rune Balefire Bolt a descent rune designed for Arcane execute burst window.

3. Phase 4 PTR by the light they just have no idea what they are doing for mage. Like come on a change to “BaleFire Bolt to boost all Arcane damage” would of shown that devs know what Arcane needs. Having “Brain Freeze” increase your damage when proc would of shown that devs know what frost needs. Showing they know how strong the “Spell Power” rune is and are try to give frost mages a viable rune to take. Buffing the talent “Master of Elements” would show the devs know what fire needs.

What I’m trying to say is the “SOD DEVS” don’t know or care to know what Mage wants or needs they only care if it effects classes they care about for example nerfing “Living Flame” or buffing "Conjure Food & Water.

[Veulvras-emerald-dream]

Seeing there was the specific mention of mage class changes I parked my response to most of these until they were out on the chance this thread was no longer relevant for feedback. Personally I wanted to test them out before writing anything down.

Brain freeze change - Doesn’t effect us and I don’t believe it will actually effect anybody due to how the Spell Power rune scales with frost talents and ice shards.
Overheat change - Although a debuff this has now been secured as the best rune for arcane mages as I’ll break down in describing the new balefire bolt experience.

Balefire bolt changes

@Aggrend-1483

The Balefire Bolt ability now counts as Frost damage in addition to Arcane and Fire.

• Developer’s Note: Balefire Bolt hasn’t seen too much usage so far, with most mages favoring the passive of Molten Armor. Making Balefire Bolt now have synergies with Frost Talents opens it up to all Specs as an interesting option. We’re comfortable with increasing the power on Balefire Bolt as it’s unlikely to act as a full replacement for the other abilities in your rotation… unless you want to cast it 10 times within 30 seconds at which time your rotation will most certainly end. We don’t recommend that, however.

Feedback
This has now completely invalidated the arcane tree for healing mages. The first thing I did was a typical arcane PvE build that took ignite and ice shards, did a few rotation checks and realized there was no reason to go into the arcane tree at all and used the full elementalist frostfire bolt build. I think we all know what happened next.

So the critical hits of balefire bolt hit for a great amount and climb with stacks of arcane blast charges. It’s almost on par with frostfire bolt spam (I won’t get into the nuances of why it’s not as good here) with it dealing more damage with arcane blast charges. It benefits from all relevant fire talents, fingers of frost charges and applies winters chill as expected.
The rotation applies almost perfectly so most group fights look like this.
Mass Regeneration (+fireblast) > Balefire Bolt (BFB) > BFB > BFB > BFB > BFB > Line 2
Mass Regeneration (+fireblast) > Arcane Blast (AB) > AB > AB > AB > BFB > Mass Regeneration (+fireblast)
Note: The reason you never use mass regeneration/regeneration after arcane blast charges have developed is because those castings cost %60 consuming the charges at the end of channelling. The temporal beacons are unaffected it’s only the channelling that benefits from arcane blast charges. This behavious will OOM yourself in an insanely quick fashion.

This so far appears to be the best short term mage DPS spec in the PTR if using combustion and removing mass regeneration from the rotation for about thirty seconds and less. I want to do more group activities with this probably for a full afternoon to refine this to be a bit more clear as longer fights will benefit from molten armor more. However it’s reinforced the healing mage role as a short term, speedrun tech only, perfect play healer.

Then I realized if I’m not going to ever use missile barrage or barrage that I might as well just slap on frostfire bolt and do some damage in downtime that doesn’t require your healing or if there’s a more efficient to mana responsive healer in the party. Your mana cost is still extremely unsustainable. You can also aid in applying scorch stacks (potentially winters chill in a stranger group dynamic)

There is a world where you do use both barrage runes and perhaps throw one or two while moving or in weird out of the usual circumstance. Alternatively using missile barrage in dungeons or low challenge while temporal beacon is up for the free healing. You can sacrifice piercing ice and get full clearcasting instead of two points into it but that doesn’t effect your heavy mana cost abilities of regeneration and mass regeneration.

So because you reap far more benefits from not touching the arcane tree you don’t get either mana bonuses in total or combat regeneration. Balefire bolt is %44-45 more costly to use than frostfire bolt and arcane mages lose sustainability as it’s always better to cast use an arcane barrage and arcane missiles with your arcane blast charges, causing it to cost far more mana.

Conclusively I’ll have to say this is a potential significant short term DPS increase for the exact same silly perfect play niche that already existed for it and homogenized mage builds. Changing hot streak to the head slot has made the head slot a role definer for mages exclusively as healers will use temporal anomoly/advanced warding, frost will use deep freeze and perhaps fire mages will use hot streak but I doubt it. This means the only flavorful difference in mages exists almost entirely out of which runes they use to support frostfire bolt or balefire bolt.

In challenging play other Mage DPS have more sustainability and better numbers, other healers have better sustainability, reactivity and utility, in pvp you won’t see changes to desired healers for the same reasons. This was objectively and improvement to arcane DPS roles but leaves the swathe of arcane healer problems unaddressed.

I’ll condense this and edit the top post to make it more focused on this phase of PTR feedback.

EDIT: Slight grammar and spelling adjustments. Also isn’t it weird the post refers to balefire bolt and not casting it ten times in thirty seconds when the minimum time for a tenth safe casts would be just after 52 seconds? I’m sure it’s just a quick joke I suppose.
EDIT2: I will respond to every meaningful post in this thread as I have previously, I just wanted to focus on this PTR change to make sure I understood and tested it as a priority.

[Doktorfil-wild-growth]

My biggest issue with Balefire Bolt at the moment is less to do with the actual tuning, but the current design in total. I simply don’t think that a spell that turns off your normal rotation and replaces it with 9 casts of one button for half of every minute of a fight is fun. The recent PTR change addresses the fact that there is no reason to use it in a world where FFB exists by making it scale to the same degree as that spell does. However, it doesn’t address the rotational issues.

Here is my idea for a full rework. With the rune equipped your other spells have a change to generate a stack, or perhaps a variable number of stacks. These increase the damage of Balefire Bolt and perhaps provide some other passive benefit. However, any stacks generated above the max of 10 are converted into a debuff instead that works similarly to the current Balefire Bolt debuff where it provides a small downside per stack and does something bad at 10 stacks. Maybe not “kill you” levels of bad, but something you want to avoid. I think designing it this way gives it some interesting gameplay interactions for Arcane and Frost who have to decide between keeping it at dangerously high stacks while they either build up Arcane Blast stacks or wait for Fingers of Frost to maximise damage or spending the stacks early to avoid generating debuffs and getting closer to blowing themselves up. A redesign like this fits the spell in as a supplement to your rotation rather than a complete replacement of it while maintaining or even enhancing the risk/reward flavor that was clearly intended by the original design of the spell. It would at the very least be more engaging than testing if you can count to 9 correctly every 50 seconds or so.

[Scuzzy-crusader-strike]

I think Arcane Barrage should still receive the 20% chance to proc Missle Barrage regardless if Missile Barrage is equipped or not. This would free up the options to use Spellfrost bolt as an alternative to Arcane blast and free up some new and innovative dual spec possibilities.

Sure, you’d only have a 20% chance, but now you can take other abilities as well such as Ice Lance and go deep frost/arcane. Opens up a ton of different ways to play if that’s the case. I honestly think it would solve a ton of issues.