I’m genuinely curious why blizzard nerfed arcane mage shields.
Are there any speculations on the reasoning? Meanwhile, fire and frost got some meaty buffs.
They are trying to divide us mages.
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Yea, this is a weird nerf. The shield is borderline meme as it is, and now just does less well against magic attacks? Idk. Seems a little like “whatever” to me. Glad to see some buffs to other specs, no division there.
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Honestly at this point, I’m convinced there’s some smooth-brained dev who has it out for Arcane & simply wants to destroy them. 
3 Likes
40% duration reduction on all magic effects was insane. At high levels Arcane doesn’t die hence why it’s received survivability nerfs the last few months.
Isn’t it 25% dot duration down to 15% and magic damage reduced from 15% to 10%?
Coupled with the nerf to temporal shield (I’m still salty they removed the cancel aura effect of it)!
It’s also the 2nd weakest shield, with fire being weaker in absorb amount.
Just kinda over it I guess.
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Improved Prismatic Barrier is kind of a lock in in PvP because of how tanky it makes Arcane.
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But it isn’t a PvP Talent, just in the arcane tree.
Base Prismatic Barrier:
15% Damage Reduction in magic
25% in Dot duration reduction
Improved Prismatic Barrier brought it up to:
+10% brings it to 25% damage reduction in magic
+15% brings it to 45% in dot duration reduction.
So, with the nerf, baseline barrier means:
10% Magic Damage
15% Magic Damage duration
Effectively meaning that the Improved Prismatic barrier talent makes you whole… lol. Blizz logic.
It was busted compared to nearly every other short cooldown defensive.
It was 40% magic damage duration.
Is it really a surprise that something that almost halved the duration of nearly every magical effect in the game on a 25 second cooldown that could also be applied to your entire team every 2 mins before Shifting Power got nerfed?
The original “mage armour” was like 50%, if I remember correctly. I know times change, but I think a more simple solution would have been to not apply the improved version to Mass Barrier.
The applying improved version to other classes (because when paired with classes that already have an impressive toolkit – rogues, dhs, as an example) can and is problematic.
I do appreciate your feedback, don’t think I am being combative. I just love arcane spec so much, and it feels to me that we are being “re-written” into something I don’t like.
Not a single buff to any of our spells, even joke spells like Nether Tempest (even living bomb got buffed!).
Cheers.
Buffing Arcane’s damage right now would be a dangerous idea.
I just got back after a bit, and logged with the new prismatic barrier changes.
So, the base PvP numbers:
- 10% Magic Damage Reduction
- 15% Magic Damage Duration
With Improved Prismatic Barrier (+10% and 15%, respectfully)
- 16% Magic Damage Reduction
- 24% Magic Damage Duration
So, they aren’t really applying the full talent, despite the nerf. A difference of 4% on damage reduction and 6% on magic damage duration. Unless, I am not understanding how the nerf is meant to be applied…
1 Like