Last place doesn’t mean garbage, in and off itself. However, had you paid attention to the discussion here, people aren’t upset that arcane is last in 1 raid encounter, people are upset that arcane is not only dead last in nearly every raid encounter, but they are so far behind in the most important encounters that they are a liability to their group.
THAT’S the problem.
Arcane was at the bottom of nearly every raid encounter in the entire last expansion as well! However, at least in Legion arcane was a lot more fun, and arcane was tops at AoE. In BFA arcane isn’t good at anything. Another way to say that is arcane is good for nothing. Another way to say that is it is a broken spec.
I’m more upset with the gameplay than I am the numbers.
I stuck with Arcane in Legion, much to taunts and jabs by pug groups who couldn’t believe I was arcane. Usually the only arcane mage I ran into. I stuck with it though because I liked the gameplay and the theme of it.
Now, the gameplay is boring, all that was good about it (stacking missiles, decent AoE with Explosion) are gone. It’s a one-button spam spec with chaotic mechanics, boring talents, and you are pigeon-holed into a ST build or an AoE build.
Even little things like the duration of arcane power nerfed to an 8 sec burst window and the GCD changes just made the spec feel terrible to play.
^ That’s the biggest issue for me. There is zero reason why ap should be on the gcd; no arcane mage is going to hit 3k elite gladiator or do 10k more dps because a button you hit every 90s doesn’t cost a gcd.
Like I said before: I’m not a violent man but if the dev that made these changes to arcane was walking in a crosswalk I’d have to fight the urge to put my foot to the pedal.
Found out last night that the priest in my guild that I chat with a lot was an arcane mage up till this expansion. After playing it for 2 weeks she rerolled to a new spec entirely.
I can see points others have made, but this statement is fundamentally flawed logically. If all specs were amazing in the game and arcane was the last of a set of amazing specs, then no, last wouldnt mean garbage at all. Now to head off crazy and stupid ppl that can’t/won’t read, i know thats not the case that every spec is amazing, but the statment last must equal garbage just isnt true.
All specs cannot be amazing in game, because some specs must be at the bottom. By definition this makes the specs at the bottom garbage.
Arcane doesn’t just perform like garbage though. The playstyle could use improvement. It was much better in Legion when AM hit harder and could stack more, and where we had the legendary shoulders to give us top-tier AOE.
Right now arcane’s single-target sucks on most fights, and its AOE is merely average. Even worse, the talent and trait choices force arcane mages to choose exclusively AOE or exclusively single-target. Other classes don’t have that problem.
If you spec and trait purely for single-target arcane’s simmed dps can be quite high. But that’s on a Patchwerk fight with no cleave… a boss fight style that pretty much no longer exists.
Maybe wait till you get to max level and try doing end game content … even mythic raiding like Myst.
Then tell us how great arcane is.
When a spec is consistently in last place damage-wise, has boring game play, terrible mechanics, does not excel at either single target or aoe (but is forced into builds that favor one or the other), has terrible talents … what would YOU call it if not garbage?
Lol your “logic” is simply opinion and disagreeing with it doesn’t make others “crazy and stupid ppl.” That’s the height of arrogance to claim such a thing.
Arcane has no cleave making it more than sub-optimal on the vast majority of raid bosses (and bosses in general) over the last several expansion, relatively unsustainable aoe making it sub-optimal for fights with add packs (again quite a few of those in the last several years) and, with very few exceptions, has been hands down almost last or dead last on the bosses that really matter. It uses an out-dated resource mechanic when literally every other dps spec in the game no longer cares about mana and the “stand still and pop all cds” style of game play runs directly counter to Blizzard’s stated goals.
You can express your opinion that all of the above doesn’t make it garbage or bad or whatever else anyone has said and that’s perfectly ok, but please gtho with this “my word is law and if you disagree you’re crazy and stupid” foolishness. Especially coming on here and posting on a level 12 mage…
A. That’s adorable that you think i only have a low lvl mage.
B. Apparently you fit i to that group too since you’re reading comprehension appears to sufffer as well.
C. If you read thoroughly you would have seen where i said i got what some people were saying about the spec itself.
D. For the last time, the statement “if a spec is in last place on dmg boards it’s by definition garbage” is an objectively flawed statement and has nothing to do with my opinion on anything. This statement and this statement ALONE is what im disagreeing with, so you can stop regurgitating all of your problems with the spec itself.
From here if you can’t follow a conversation or understand logic, godspeed and good luck.
A. If you have a 120 mage, why aren’t you posting on it? Show off your uber experience. It might lend some credibility to your argument.
D. When would YOU define a spec as garbage or not garbage? You’ve seen our reasoning. We’ve given lots of reasons why arcane is garbage, including the following:
Last place DPS performance on most fights.
Poor talent and trait choices that force player to choose AOE or single-target
No real cleave
No real mobile single-target dps
Unsustainable AOE
YOU haven’t given a single reason for why arcane is not garbage other than to say “every spec is awesome” and then to accuse anyone who tries to counter your argument of having “reading comprehension” issues.
No i tell ppl like you that yall have reading comprehension problems because that is painfully evident.
You say i haven’t given a single reason why i think arcane isn’t garbage…THAT’S BECAUSE THAT’S NOT MY CONTENTION AS STATED IN THE POST YOU LITERALLY JUST REPLIED TO.
Not sure if shouting helps you but i figured I’d give it a shot. I also separated the important text so you can follow along easier.
P.S. i never said every spec was awesome. I was using it in context as a hypothetical situation to illustrate a point. Starting to see why you might have reading comprehension issues?
What are opinions of Slipstream makings Arcane Blast castable while moving? I know it seems kind of drastic but I really don’t think it would make the spec broken and would help us not be garbage at any fight requiring movement.
A. Then don’t hide behind a low level toon like so many other trolls here.
B. No, there is nothing wrong with my reading comprehension: you presented your opinion as fact and then stated that anyone who disagreed was crazy and stupid.
C. Whether or not you “got what some people were saying” or not, you still present opinion as fact.
D. You can regurgitate your community college definitions all you want, you’re still wrong and a troll to boot. If people discussing their feelings about a spec in the forums bothers you so much, you’re under no obligation to be here.
TLDR Being a wannabe know-it-all who gets off on insulting others and hiding behind a low level alt doesn’t make your points any more correct nor you more knowledgeable than the rest of us. If you disagree, so be it. But being a douche is completely unnecessary.
I’m trying to figure out your point Paradoxia. Your last few posts don’t appear to shed light on what you’re trying to say.
Is your point the one you made in your post 2 days ago?:
So let me get this straight:
You have no opinion on whether arcane is garbage or not.
You are not interested in knowing whether arcane is garbage or not.
But you DO have a problem with the “last place” spec being automatically defined as “garbage”. If all specs are great, then even the poorest performing spec cannot be garbage.
Fair point.
But note even under your test, the bottom-most performing spec might or might not be garbage.
The first question under your test is not: “is arcane the bottom-most spec?”, but rather “Is arcane spec awesome?” If the answer to that first question is: “arcane is not awesome”, then a second question should be asked: “Is arcane garbage?”
But how does one determine whether a spec is “awesome” or not? Here are some factors that players typically consider when rating specs:
How fun is the spec to play?
Is the rotation engaging?
Are the talent and trait choices interesting?
How well does the spec fulfill its role? If that role is DPS, then: How well does it do in Mythic+? Raids? single-target? typical boss fights? Cleave? AOE? solo questing? PVP?
Unfortunately, when you take arcane spec and run it by those factors the only reasonable conclusion is arcane is “not awesome”.
The talent and trait choices are lousy - it’s all about choosing AOE or single-target. Once you choose the role there is a clear right and wrong answer for every talent and trait.
The spec is fairly boring to play with few buttons to push. It was a lot more interesting last expansion in Legion where arcane had top-tier AOE.
It is lousy at fulfilling its role: It performs awful in PVE raids with lousy single-target, unsustainable mediocre AOE, crap mobile dps, and non-existent cleave. In Mythic+ it isn’t particularly effective due to the need to spec into single-target or AOE, and its frequent need to stop between pulls to drink to recover mana.
It isn’t particularly effective in PVP.
Based on the above, it is reasonable to conclude that arcane is “not awesome”. But is it “garbage?” Consider the following:
In progression raiding, DPS output matters a lot. There are certain fights that are DPS checks. For example: Lady Ashvane in TEP requires all DPS in the raid to average around 32k over an 8-minute fight, while still doing mechanics that involve moving out of bad or out of range of the boss. This threshold is harder to reach if you are playing a subpar spec like Arcane.
In progression PVE content, Arcane performs MUCH worse than EVERY other DPS spec in the game including both the other mage specs. It’s not just “slightly” worse performance than other specs… it’s a LOT worse than EVERY other spec. By a HUGE margin. Even the second-worst performing spec is doing vastly better than arcane. Source: www .warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/23
the top performing arcane mage still only has 75% of the output of the top shadow priest.
the median arcane mage is approximately 20% lower in output than the top shadow priest.
Honestly the spec is crazy and even counter intuitive at times to the point that stats you would expect to do worse don’t always. I was shocked when adding 5% haste increased my dps by around 2k, but for some reason going beyond that increase hurt me. The answer why is complicated it has both to do with proc scaling (as i like to use damage
procs) as well as the fact that barrage is extra free damage, but running yourself out of mana past a certain point is useless.
Also it’s insanely azerite trait dependent (or even trinket dependent). I got a 30 ilvl chest upgrade and because it didn’t have pumelling it did worse damage. In fact there’s plenty of overgeared characters in LFR for the essences and I outdpsed arcane mages in higher gear because they weren’t using equipoise or pummeling 3x. (Can we just delete the evo int buff trait?)
Contrast this with specs where it’s obvious all traits benefit damage in some way and the gaps in azerite traits are no where near that bad. Even icy veins suggests taking a 15 ilvl upgrade is worth it. It’s seriously a forgotten and undertuned spec.
It really is the most undertuned spec. It works very well in very specific circumstances and gear setups otherwise it just doesn’t and is just a joke. Honestly all mage specs have issues. Fire is the only one that scales evenly with all traits which is a huge deal, but its base numbers are garbage, hence it didn’t really do well until now with all these new items propping it up. Mastery for arcane is a dubious upgrade as it doesn’t benefit all our spells, same for frost. Haste can actually hurt your damage depending on your setup in arcane too. I don’t play everything, but i don’t know of many specs that have scaling issues this bad.
(The issue being good scaling on each secondary stat is multiplicative for most classes so being forced to take certain ones is a pretty huge hit in damage, as each point is additive as opposed to multiplicative against the other stats).
