The way slipstream and clear casting worked in legion didn’t make arcane mages over powered. We need slip stream to allow AM to be channeled while moving, not just AM clear casting procs.
If that means non-am procs are nerfed a little for damage it will be still be better than not having mobility while casting right now. Or if we revert slip stream and clear casting to work as it did in legion that’s another option as well.
Please blizzard, help arcane. I’m really bored of playing fire.
Could you please explain how the interaction between Slipstream and Arcane Missiles did change since Legion?
Legion: You get an Arcane Missile proc, now you can cast Arcane Missiles while moving.
Shadowlands: You get a Clearcast proc, now you can cast Arcane Missiles while moving.
Things that DID change is that you can cast Arcane Missile without proc. Which was a stupid change, but eh. Doesn’t change anything about slipstream.
The difference between Legion Missles and Missles now is the proc rate is based on Mana instead of a flat 24% for everything and 48% for blast to activate Missles. The chance now is highest on a max Arcane blast at around 27.5% which is actually further reduced when we have Arcane Power’s mana reduction affect active, I talk about this a lot more in my personal post “The chance of Arcane Missiles” but that’s the tldr verion.
Taking our movement proc rate and cutting the rate at which we get in by more than half is what changed. It hurt. It really really hurt.
I’m not saying this to go after you specifically Hottz, I just really want to beat this point in.
We didn’t just lose half of our old proc rate. The old proc rate of 48% didn’t care how much Mana was spent or how Mana charges you had. A 1 charge blast would give you missiles procs at the same rate a 4 charge would (granted old arcane missiles still did damage based on charges… I hate how that isn’t a thing anymore, and is frankly part of the problem with arcane rn). Clear casting has a max proc chance of 27.5% at MAX charges. And seeing as Mana pools are about 60k-65k right now, and a full blast is 6875 Mana, that’s nearly a 10th of our mana pool we have to spend on a Gambit to not only allow us something to do when we need to move, but also give us our strongest ability that we have access to without dropping our charges. Period. If you wanted to get just 2 procs of Clear casting before entering a burn phase, you can reasonably expect to burn off 80~% of your Mana pool. And that’s being generous to proc chance and Mana Regen.
Not to mention, and I’m pressing blizzard to realize this so I’m saying it again, that you are encouraged to fish for procs before activating Arcane Power because of the Mana reduction aspect cutting your proc rate in HALF! That brings it down from 27.5% to something more in the realm of 13.75%. Arcane power is only a 15 second window. Even with being able to cram a few extra blasts in with POM there are plenty of burn phases where procs don’t happen. So we’re locked out of our strongest tool for damage when we are at our strongest.
But I’m soooo glad we can use AM whenever we want now! Which is again never outside of Clear casting…
But more on the topic at hand. I actually disagree with Slipstream being applied to all casts and not just clear casts. The problem is more deeply rooted in AM being taken off the charge system. Back when procs were basically 50/50 but also cared about how many charges you had, you had to decide if it was worth it to cast a bad AM at 1-2 charges just to move, or you had to plan your movement around having charges when that mechanic came up. Now that AM damage is flat, being punished for movement hurts less than it used to sure, but it wouldn’t have the same decision making that this spec used to thrive on if you let all missiles be cast able while moving. At the end of the day we were a turret spec blessed with blink and the ability to dance around our RoP with consistent procs, reduced to a no proc no movement spec with even less decision making when we are forced to clearcast to move.
I have no doubt that’s exactly how Blizzard see it because they don’t play the spec. They gave us the ability to cast Arcane Missiles on demand but the price we had to pay for that minor QoL change was an unnecessary and totally obnoxious reduction in the proc chance for Clearcast AM which is the only time it’s worth casting anyway.
The entire BfA rework was terrible and nothing since Legion has made up for the enormous lost of Aluneth. But Arcane is not exactly unique in that regard. Many other specs are in the same boat although Arcane is in a far worse spot than most.
Blizzard bailed on all of us when they decided to substitute the detailed systems of Legion tailored individually for every spec with the generic and underwhelming BfA Azerite Traits and the Soulbind/Conduit nonsense of SL. Instead of wasting all that time on these new systems that no one asked for or wanted and that only last one expansion they should have doubled down on the Artifacts, but no they had to go and reinvent the the wheel.
I was only replying to the person who commented on the proc rate change. You should have replied to their post.
But since we are on the topic of fishing for procs. The fact that AE can create clear casting procs without actually hitting any target, bothers me, even as a mage. This is a PVP strategy used to build multiple procs before engaging an opponent. And I think this is part of the reason blizzard is refusing to give arcane mobility.
You can’t build multiple stacks of clear casting through Arcane Explosion spam. Arcane Explosion is affected by Clear Casting, so you’d generate a clear casting with one, then immediately spend it with the next Explosion.
well i still use slipstream because normal blink with the finesse conduit only has a 12 second cd. but that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable for a movement ability to be tied to such heavy RNG.
I’ve felt this talent was idiotic since its inception and I still think it is. Maybe if CC lasted long enough for it to actually be possible to save charges for movement/burst phases…
Yeah, that’s true: We talent into a proc-based (tied to the proc with the lowest proc-rate of the three specs…) movement ability. Lol. Movement is ON DEMAND. But I mean Arcane is so thirsty for damage after Barrage that CC was probably never looked at as a “wait for the right moment” kind of spell, anyways.
I assume you don’t PVP and I think you’re missing the point. You can build multiple procs with arcane empowerment.
The fact hat AE can create a proc without hitting anything, w/ or without the arcane empowerment PVP talent, then the mage uses that proc for AM in PVP on their target, then AE creates another proc, etc etc. doesn’t require much skill.
This seems like more of a bug than anything (that it can create procs without hitting anything). And if it got fixed, perhaps then we could open up more mobility without arcane mages being broken.
I think arcane has a pvp talent that AE no longer benefits from clearcasting so theoretically they can build all 3-5 charges. Correct me if I’m wrong please I don’t pvp so I don’t know.
yes, it’s called arcane empowerment. And if arcane got its mobility back, this build would be broken in PVP. So, perhaps the solution is for AE to only contribute to procs if it hits a target or cap it earlier.
Let’s not jump the gun now. It would be decent to good but hardly broken. It’s still a channel that can easily be interrupted. Not to mention that, unlike mages, every other class has stuns which can shut down even Fire’s truly broken Combustion.