Arcane Mage: the Wet Noodle of Progression DPS

Community General Discussion
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whaddup boy, it’s me, your boy Auramaru here

Today, we need to talk about the spaghetti spill under the table - the dead frog in the cellar - the dumpster fire of a dps spec: Arcane Mage

Oh Arcane. You hold a special place in my heart, killing enemies with the graphical equivalent of glitter bombs and throwing pink glossy bricks at enemies.

Here’s the problem: Arcane is worthless for progression. I’d rather drag a 380 shadow priest through a heroic clear than a 420 Arcane Mage. I would rather run 15 feral Druids and only 1 tank then bring 1 Arcane Mage into a farm fight. Plain and simple: Arcane Mage is the worst dps spec in the game.

Arcane is reserved for that alt night when your raid lead didn’t show up and no one is logging the fights. The lackluster dps throughout progression is a theme of Arcane every tier, which is why I’d like to light the fire here:

Arcane needs help.

Blizzard has been ignoring a long running problem with this spec’s inability to cast while moving. Arcane Mage is an artillery spec - a sniper with one target that it can nuke every minute and a half. That doesn’t work for progression, you need steady and constant dps like boomkins and shadow priests.

It’s not so much about mobility as it is about APM and Arcane flounders compared to everything else.

“BuT aUrA, jUsT uSe ShImMeR tO cAsT aNd MoVe!”

Your idea is great, except for one thing: it sucks. Shimmer works for one cast and then you’re back at square one. For fights like Radiance of Azshara, you will find your inability to cast to be worse than sitting in the back of a McDonald’s without air conditioning next to a screaming baby that wrecked diaper.

Shimmer should be baseline, arcane missiles should have 3 stacks again and castable while moving - otherwise SCRAP THE DESIGN.

This spec needs an intervention or a renaissance, and nothing short of either of those options will fix the problems it faces. This isn’t just a “buff damage by 7% and call it a day” kind of fix. There are clearly fundamental problems with the specialization design.

As great as an Arcane turret might be, it’s still just a turret.

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What if they increased its damage by 10,000%

That’d fix it right up.

Blizzard, hire me.

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Yes you are correct!

I believe an extra zero would be better though!

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I found arcane better at lower gear levels. I like it in questing or where there are gaps between fights. I guess they may need to work on bonus damage percent increase per certain stats.

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Agreed, I wasn’t just memeing when I said Arcane has a place in my heart - it’s a very fun spec in every kind of content. But the damage is pitiful when you have to size up against any other spec

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Come on…

100,000% is a bit excessive, don’t you think?

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Definitely not :wink:

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I hate the fact that you have to be in melee range to do any damage with arcane explosion for it to be useful.

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I like playing my arcane mage. They do need a way to regenerate mana though because I can see how long fights it would be annoying to play the way it is.

The good imo out weighs the bad though for that one. I love to farm on my mage because of how arcane explosion works. If they made it ranged, they would end up putting restrictions on it and that would make it just like every other ranged aoe.

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It wouldn’t hurt to have a ranged aoe option. A frost mage can blizzard at 30yards or on top of itself, but Arcane doesn’t get that choice. It’s not that arcane should be a clone of any other spec or class - it has no choice to play any other way than it was designed: ranged single target, melee for aoe.

If itemization and fight design don’t lend to those requirements (IE a mechanic that targets ranged dps on a cleave fight forcing an arcane Mage out of melee), then the class isn’t viable by definition of the game’s own design.

A simple fix would be to make arcane orb baseline and have its cooldown reduced by 25% for each target hit with arcane barrage. That would allow arcane to aoe from ranged while keeping abilities the same. Arcane Orb —> Barrage on 4 targets, repeat.

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You have talents that give ranged aoe damage

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to me arcane is just meant for early game beginners and frost and fire are better for endgame. in low levels arcanes do dominate pvp tho

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Make Arcane Explosion targeted like Blizzard or Flamestrike.

Add in a no-cool down instant-cast low damage spell to do DPS while needing to move. Arcane Spike or something. Or make Arcane Missiles work while moving.

Rune of Power - Baseline.
Mirror Image - Baseline.

Change up Arcane Charges. At 4 stacks, using Arcane Barrage refunds a certain amount of mana.

Using Arcane Barrage adds a buff that increases the damage of the next two Arcane damaging spells by a percent.

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I don’t know squat about arcane and I even feel that it needs something more to make it even tolerable.

The class designers are very inept these few expansions so c’est la vie .

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It could use more spells that for sure…

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Increase there crit by 15%. Its frustrating how long blizzard has let arcane mage stay crap. Meanwhile they buff other classes that already out dps us.